The Lotus Eaters

the door was open. They'd had and studied the floor plans exhaustively, but assumed, not unreasonably, that at this time of night Parilla would most likely be in bed with his wife. Two men remained on the door, after pulling the guards' bodies inside. The other four raced upstairs, soft soled, high grip shoes making little more noise than would a cat on the marble steps.

Parilla's door was open as well. As silently as possible, the chief of the kidnappers turned the knob and gave it a slight push, letting it continue to swing open on its own.

Then came the rush, the sudden throwing on of the lights, and a piercing scream from Parilla's wife.

One of the attackers cuffed her into silence, while another stroked the folding metal but of his submachine gun across the president's chin. Parilla, stunned into silence, was quickly turned over and cuffed. The chief of the team then said, 'Presidente Parilla, you are under arrest, by order of the legitimate President of the Republic, for election fraud, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and narcotrafficking.' The man then spoke a code word into a small radio.

'Get him to the helicopter pad.'

Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova

Nine policemen sufficed to take down the President. It was thought, not without reason, that Carrera would make a harder target. More than twice as many men, and three vans, plus the only other helicopter still under Rocaberti's control, were assigned to his capture and evacuation.

Of course, the casa was considerably less hard a target that it once had been, what with Hamilcar's Pashtun Guards gone, and security the responsibility of rotating sections from the Mechanized Legion at Lago Sombrero. Moreover, most of the original staff had moved out and moved on as they'd found wives or better housing elsewhere. Perhaps worst of all, with Sergeant Major McNamara living elsewhere with his young bride and growing brood of children, there was no one single person charged with security and paranoid enough to see it done properly.

Though McNamara and Artemisia were still very frequent guests at the place.

* * *

The children, Lourdes' and Artemisia's, both, were playing upstairs, minus only Lourdes' youngest, Little Linda, who was not only too young to really be willfully difficult but also on the 'Lourdes Diet,' and would be for some time yet. The others had been impossible at dinner—they always were when they got together—and had been sent away early. In theory, this meant they hadn't eaten much. In practice, it meant the cook smuggled dinner in to them.

Mac leaned back in his chair, stretched, and belched. 'Damned fine feed, Miss Lourdes. My compliments to t'e chef.' As if to punctuate that, the sergeant major broke of a piece of chorley bread, dipped it in some 'Joan of Arc' sauce, and popped it into his mouth, chewing gustily. 'Could use a little more 'Satan Triumphant,' though,' Mac said. 'Just a tad, not enough to take the skin off the tongue.'

Artemisia shot him a dirty look, not over the belch, but over the sheer volume of food he'd managed to tuck away. 'It just isn't right. I have to diet, exercise, and practically kill myself after I have a baby, and this tall bastard can eat enough for ten men and stay slim. It's not fair.'

'High metabolism,' the sergeant major answered, in Spanish. 'And you must admit, love, that this has its advantages in an old man.'

'Some advantage,' Arti agreed, 'though I end up paying the price for that in the form of a distended abdomen, and eventual rigid dieting.'

'Good wit' t'e bad; good wit' t'e bad. It's pretty good, still, ain't it?'

'As a matter of fact . . .'

Lourdes sighed. 'If you two are going back to teenage games, I've had a metal plate installed between the headboard and the wall in the number one guest room, so you can pound away. Alternatively, we can move a mattress down to the concrete floor in the basement, though I shudder to think of the damage to the foundations of the house.'

'I'm getting a little old for t'at, high metabolism or no,' Mac said.

'Not so old,' Arti corrected. 'Not yet, anyway.'

* * *

'Time,' announced Moises Rocaberti, nephew to the soon to be full president and younger brother to that Rocaberti who had been shot for cowardice years before, in Sumer.

Moises was, his uncle thought, a happy choice. He was, indeed all the Rocabertis were, effectively barred from higher office in the Legion by Carrera. Given that, and given a military bent, the younger Rocaberti had joined his uncle's police force. He was bright, handsome, ruthless, loyal to his blood, and had—best of all—an abiding hatred of Carrera and Parilla, which hatred had festered in the long years since his older brother's execution.

'What are you going to do after we take down the prick?' his driver asked of Moises as he started the first of three vans parked in the nearby town of Bejuco, Balboa.

'Fuck his wife in all three holes and then turn her over to you bastards.'

'Works for me. Especially if the rest of us get to fuck the former Miss Balboa.' He started the car.

'Nah. She's off limits, Mrs. Artemisia Calderon-Jimenez de McNamara. Too many people care about her. And neither she nor her husband have ever harmed anybody. But Carrera's tall, skinny whore? She's getting stuffed. To punish her bastard gringo husband. Those were my uncle's orders.'

* * *

Though it really wasn't needed, indeed it was wasteful competition with the air conditioning, there was a fire blazing in the fireplace. The light from that reflected of the living room's mirrors, and then again from the ancient sword hung over the mantle.

'So this fucker,' Carrera told Lourdes and Arti, pointing at McNamara with the glass of scotch in his hand,