The Lotus Eaters

commander gave the preparatory command 'Into the assault'. Ustinov echoed it. The commander then shouted, 'Forward!' With a tremendous cry of 'Urrah!' the Volgans began to run toward the house, spraying fire from the hip.

* * *

The sound coming from their assailants was terror incarnate. Bombs and bullets might kill, but that 'Urrah!' was the sound of cold steel and shrieking death.

'Surrender, Senor. We must surrender!' shouted Estevez' deputy, Ernesto, over the firing.

Estevez risked a glance out of a shattered window. He saw a scene from Hell, if Hell were lit by tracers and flares. There was a line of—What? Soldiers? They look like no police I've ever seen— running forward. Some paused briefly to use their bayonets on any live bodies or corpses lying on the ground. A burst of fire, probably unaimed, drove Estevez back down behind the cover of the solid wall.

He told his deputy 'About a hundred men, big and white. Gringo's.' I should have told that young fool to stay away from the Columbians. Oh, well, a gringo jail is better than dead.

Still, he hung his head in indecision. After a minute's thought, Estevez spoke again. 'Ernesto, tie that doily to the end of your rifle. Here give it to me.' Estevez then pushed the end of the rifle out the window shouting, in English, 'We give up. Don't shoot.' From down stairs came the blast of grenades. The house shook.

My God; what if they're not very interested in prisoners? Then Estevez remembered a small gift sent to him from Balboa and realized, My God, what if they are interested in prisoners?

Buenaventura, Santander, Terra Nova

Rabble. Just damned rabble, thought Shershavin. He stood on an open patio outside the target house. From inside the house came the sounds of grenades and automatic weapons fire. At each blast and burst the growing crowd of prisoners shuddered. Shershavin looked them over. There were about twenty-five men, two women, one old, one quite young and pretty, as well as a couple of children. The women and children, along with some of the men, cried unceasingly. They never noticed when the firing stopped.

The movement up the hill from the beach had been easy. It was made easier still by the fact that all of the drug lord's 'soldiers'—Shershavin sneered at the misuse of the word—had taken shelter against the rain. Most of these had never known what had killed them. His unit was in position for an assault a full twelve minutes before the Finch assigned to support him was to begin its dive. Shershavin had called on the radio to tell the bomber to hold off until further notice. Then Shershavin had sent two teams of two men to take out the guards. This they had done, silenced sub machine guns coughing. So, when the airstrike on the target on the other side of town had begun, and the rest of this Hacienda's guards had spilled out, they had been met by a scythe of fire from 13th Company's men, already in position around all the exits. The unused Finch had been sent off to support the other half of the company. The mortars by the beach had also been directed to give their support to the other men attacking the other target.

A knot of Volgans pushed three men out onto the patio for Shershavin's inspection. The squad leader reported, 'This is the last of them, sir. Found them hiding out in a shelter. Quite fancy it was, too, sir. Like the Red Tsar's own winter palace.'

Shershavin consulted his target folder. Yes, there was the picture. 'Senor Cortez, I presume?'

When the drug lord attempted to deny, Shershavin simply said, 'Don't bother. Now, tell me, who is important to you in this group?'

Cortez just glared.

'I see. Well, everyone you don't identify as important dies anyway. It's up to you.' Shershavin shrugged, 'All the same to me, really.'

Not losing his hate filled expression, Cortez pointed and answered, 'These two are my deputy and accountant. None of the others . . . you bastard.'

Shershavin ordered the guards squad to take Cortez and the other two to the boat. As they were pushed ahead at bayonet point, some other of the Volgans began to push the male adults still left back toward the house.

Shershavin walked to the remainder, the two women and the children. Leaning down and taking firm control of the older woman's chin, he pointed south and said, 'Go. Take other woman and children with you. Now.'

* * *

At the beach, Cortez asked, 'What will happen to the others? My wife and my two mistresses.'

Shershavin didn't answer, but simply looked at his watch, counting, 'Five . . . four . . . three . . .'

His counting was interrupted by the half-muffled sound of massed automatic weapons fire and screaming. Some of the screaming sounded distinctly feminine.

'Must have a word with that platoon's commander about the importance of precise timing,' said Shershavin, to no one in particular.

Cortez gulped. 'You bastards!'

'The price of acts of war which fail to follow the laws of war is reprisal,' the Volgan answered. 'You should have thought of that.'

Later, bound and in a rubber boat heading out to a near rendezvous at sea, Cortez looked back and saw a red glow from the hill which his former residence had dominated. The glow soon became a tower of flames, shooting high into the sky.

Florencia, Santander, Terra Nova

The Nabakov NA-23, along with several of its siblings, circled high above and out of convenient earshot of the town. The town, itself, if one could call a place a 'town' that had a population of nearly one hundred and forty