The Lotus Eaters

Someone had let a fly in through an open door. It was an unavoidable incident of life in the tropics, and as annoying as it was unavoidable. Screens on the windows could only keep down the numbers, even as they ensured that those flies that got in couldn't leave. This was what flypaper was for.

Janier sneered at the fly. He then picked up his telephone and punched in the number for his chief medical officer. 'Kouchner, you filthy swine! The flypaper report you showed me said we had the fly problem under control! Why, then, is there a fly in my office?'

Janier slammed the phone down, apparently without waiting for an answer, and shouted out, 'Malcoeur, you toad, get in here.'

When the short, tubby, frog-faced major made his appearance, Janier said, 'You are a toad, descended from toads.' His finger lanced out at the buzz. 'Follow your genes and catch that fly.'

As Malcoeur scurried off to find a flyswatter, Janier said to de Villepin, 'Continue.'

The intel officer sighed. 'As I was saying, no, mon general, I don't think we can use the drug trade to entice the Federated States into invading Balboa again, joining us in invading, or in supporting our invading Balboa. The ties are too close for that. Worse, the Federated States under its current regime is almost as casualty averse as our political 'masters.' And, if nothing else, the Balboans would make them bleed a great deal. Just as they will make us bleed unless we are very, very clever.

'We can, however, use the allegations of drug trafficking to confuse the Federated States, to make them ambivalent about both Balboa and the partition they inflicted on us some years ago in the interests of peace.'

The conference room, though large, was empty but for Janier and Villepin . . . and the fly. Air conditioners hummed at two of the windows. It was as well they were working, since Janier was wearing his favorite uniform, the reproduction blue velvet and gold-embroidered informal dress uniform of a marshal of Napoleonic France. Hundreds of golden oak leaves covered the facings, the collar, the shoulders, and ran down each sleeve. But for the air conditioning, the combination of velvet and beastly-uncomfortable, stiff, high collar would have made the thing life threatening in Balboa's tropical clime.

Idly, Janier tapped his, likewise reproduction, marshal's baton, with its thirty-two gold eagles, on the broad, wooden conference table.

'Do you think that will work?' Janier asked, 'Do you really think it will work when, if anyone is trafficking in drugs, it is our allies in the old government, cowering in fear in their little quarter and desperate for money?'

Villepin nodded. 'Mon general, it is precisely because the rump government is involved in the trade that I am most confident that they can arrange to make it look as if it is Parilla and his government, aided in every particular by the Legion del Cid, that is running the whole enterprise.'

Janier stopped tapping the table with his baton, raising the thing to rest against his shoulder and cheek. 'It is elegant, I admit.'

The baton began to tap again, this time against the Gallic general's cheek. He chewed on his lower lip while slowly nodding. Plainly he was weighing the pros and cons of Villepin's plan.

'All we really need,' the general finally said, 'is to get the Federated States or one of the TU's high courts to take out drug trafficking charges against either Parilla or Carrera. Both would be nice but either will do. At that point, the FSC's hands are tied while ours will be left free.' Tap. Tap. Chew. Chew. Tap. Chew. Mull. Ponder . . .

'Do it. Set it up. As quickly as possible.' Janier mused a bit more. 'It would really be a help, you know, if somehow we could split the enemy's ranks, so that it looked as if he were falling apart and we, and our clients of the old government, would have to step in for the sake of law and order.'

Villepin answered, 'Well, it's still a bit uncertain but now that you mention it . . .'

BdL Dos Lindas, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

The ship was moving fast enough to cause spray to rise and wet the bronze figurehead that graced the bow under the flight deck. There was a popular theory that the ship's name, 'Dos Lindas,' came from the figurehead's two perfect breasts. The setting sun, reflected from the waves, danced and played over the bronze of the figurehead, making it seem a thing not merely alive but divine. That an artificial rainbow from the spray framed the bronze only added to the illusion of divinity.

Higher than the figurehead, and much further back, on and around the rear elevator that connected the hangar deck with the flight deck, a well-rehearsed deck crew worked under an awning preparing an auxiliary-powered glider for flight. Above the deck, on the fenced open space atop the conning tower, Legate Fosa and Warrant Officer Montoya watched final preparations.

'Remember,' Fosa cautioned Montoya, though his eyes remained fixed on the glider, 'you're job isn't really to map a bloody thing. If this works, we'll be sending more missions out to recon the place. You have only to get there, overfly the island, and see if they notice you.'

'I'll know that they'll have noticed me when they blast me out of the sky, right?' Montoya chided. He, too, had eyes only for his aircraft.

'We'd prefer that didn't happen,' Fosa answered, still serious as cancer. 'Now what do you do if they do notice you and happen to shoot your ass down? Assuming you live, of course.'

'I push the button on my global locating system that will change its settings to make it appear to have malfunctioned,' Montoya answered without hesitation. 'I try to ditch at sea, and swim ashore. Thereafter, I try to avoid capture. If captured, I insist I was on a counter drug reconnaissance mission, suffered a malfunction and was blown off my patrol route. The prevailing winds will support that story. I tell them I tried to avoid capture because people who shoot down an aircraft engaged in legitimate law enforcement mission are unlikely to treat the pilot of that aircraft too very well.'

'Very good,' Fosa answered. 'Now go do it.'

The two turned to face each other, Montoya tossing off a typically ragged Air Ala salute, which salute Fosa returned with the comment, 'Fucking aviator slobs. Git!'