The Lotus Eaters

fuse, about six feet in length, into the cap. He then turned the cap, fuse inserted, until the cap's opening was pointed away from him. Lastly, he crimped the cap to hold the fuse in place.

In French, Siegal said 'Ok, Tranh. Set the igniter and prepare to pull.' The little Cochinese inserted the other length of fuse into a pull igniter and turned a knob to screw the fuse in tight. He looked up at Siegal for the word to go. Siegal looked at his watch and nodded. The Vietnamese shouted a warning, three times, and pulled the small metal ring at the end of the igniter opposite the fuse. Smoke began to curl upward. Then the two retired to a bunker nearby where Han already waited. Siegal consulted his watch once they were safe inside.

It had not proven possible yet for Sig to obtain anywhere near enough caltrops for even a single test. Oh, he could have had ten thousand made by hand. But they'd have been non-standard, of variable strength, size, and weight, and thus useless for testing purposes. Arrangements for some limited manufacture of enough caltrops to run several more tests were still being made. Sig was also working with a local sewage treatment plant to process shit into a kind of plastic for mass manufacture of the scatterable obstacles. A few bribes to the commander of a local combat engineer battalion who had given Sig the use of Sapper Tranh had provided several tons of both high and low explosive.

The test 'caltrop projector,' therefore, had only a loose packing of gravel in place of the caltrops. For this test Siegal only wished to find out whether or not a linear shaped charge could be used to cut the top off of the barrel just prior to the main bursting charge, a plasticized ammonium nitrate mix, sending the payload up and out. Siegal didn't have the physics to predetermine how much explosive was required to spread eight or ten thousand very light and un-aerodynamic caltrops around an area several hundred meters in radius. He intended to experiment until he found out. He mused, from time to time, on the question of whether a clever sergeant—or rather a bunch of clever sergeants—weren't more cost effective than a high brow scientist . . . or even a number of them.

As the second hand on Siegel's watch swung round, he hunched himself lower into the bunker, Tranh following suit. The sapper reached out one hand to push Han's head lower.

It's hardly the first time a man ever pushed my head down, the girl thought. This one, at least, means me well by it.

Then a half-pound of RDX based linear shaped charge and twenty-eight pounds of ammonium nitrate-based explosive rocked the earth. A pattering of silver painted gravel flew up and then fell on and around Siegel's bunker.

Headquarters, 4th Corps, Cristobal, Balboa

A silver-draped Christmas tree from uplands in the eastern part of the country could be seen from the street. James Soult glanced at it only briefly before he parked the staff car at the curb to let Carrera disembark. That human fireplug, Mitchell, bearing a submachine gun, was already on the sidewalk with his eyes searching for trouble before Carrera's feet touched the pavement.

A sentry called the building to attention as Carrera walked through the main doors. Carrera wished the man a merry Christmas and continued on to Jimenez' office. He found Jimenez hunched over his desk, a sheaf of paper spread out before him.

Jimenez stood to attention when he realized Carrera was present. 'How can I help you, sir?'

That, in itself, was odd. Normally Carrera and Jimenez were on a first name basis on any occasion that didn't absolutely require formality.

'Nothing, Xavier,' Carrera shook his head. 'I just had nothing better to do for the morning and thought I'd stop by and see how your troops are doing.'

'The corps grows, Patricio,' the lean black answered. 'I, on the other hand, am not doing so well.'

Carrera had started to ask the problem when he glanced down at the papers scattered across Jimenez' desk. He picked one up, scanned it, glanced at the return address 'The Estado Major's Ib wants to know how many of your machine guns are functional? Why? It's too trivial a concern for national level staff.'

'I don't know,' Jimenez answered, shrugging. 'I just answer the mail. And, frankly, I and my staff have fallen behind. We've been in the field training. Sorry.'

Carrera fingers continued sorting through the mess on Jimenez's desk, looking over the paperwork. 'What? The II shop wants to know what percentage of potential recruits pass their physical. The Provost wants a list of crime statistics from the 4th Corps?' He read another: 'They want to know how many people attend Sunday services in the regimental chapels?! That's absurd!'

Carrera replaced the papers on Jimenez' desk and thought, And I've a sneaking hunch it's my fault for not being there to prevent this sort of nonsense. It wasn't enough, apparently, just to keep staffs small so that people couldn't create the demand for this kind of crap. It has to be killed at the source.

Jimenez shrugged once more. 'It's been getting worse lately, too. Ah, Patricio; it's not like it was when we were getting ready for the war. Those were good days, damned good. Just train, train, train and to hell with paperwork.'

Carrera nodded, then asked, 'Got anything to drink, Xavier?'

'Rum and coke? Wouldn't mind one myself.'

'It'll do.' Carrera took a seat as Jimenez rang for an orderly. A couple of flies buzzed above the top of Jimenez' desk. Carrera glanced at the flies with a certain interest.

As he waited for the drinks to arrive, a muttering Carrera looked over each demand for information littering Jimenez's desk. He looked back at the flies, now buzzing near a window. Finally he spoke. 'Xavier, don't answer any of this shit. Still, I want you to do one more report. Nobody's asked for it, and I really don't want the information. But make up a flypaper report.'

'A flypaper report?' Jimenez looked incredulous.

'Oh, yes,' Carrera grinned. 'A flypaper report. Direct it to the attention of the acting chief of the Estado Major. Put down the number of rolls of flypaper used, where they were placed, how high, how many flies were caught by placement. Throw in anything you can think of that might conceivably have a bearing on that critically important question: the efficacy of flypaper. Then send it up with an letter of apology for being late.'