The Lotus Eaters

'Are you okay, corporal?' asked the third man from the car.

'Sure,' answered Corporal Enrique Velasquez, of the 10th Infantry Tercio. 'The cocksuckers didn't have time to hurt me badly.' He dabbed a handkerchief at some blood dripping from his face even so.

One of the two men from the car who still guarded the thugs said 'You were bait this time. So you get to finish the job, except for the two that higher needs. Those are the rules.' He handed a silenced pistol to Velasquez, who thanked him, politely.

Then Velasquez walked up to where the muggers lay parallel on the ground. He shot the first two, once each, in the back of the head. The pistol made a soft pffft, quieter even than the working of the pistol's steel slide as it leapt back and forth to strip, catch and feed a new cartridge. The expended cartridge flew up and to the right before hitting the ground with a soft ring. Blood and brains splattered the sidewalk, even as the smell of shit, not all of it from the dead, wafted up.

The same automobile that had brought the three rescuers to the scene returned, the driver stopping his vehicle and opening the trunk. Velasquez and another lifted the two corpses one at a time and dumped them in the trunk, even as the remaining two legionaries taped the still living thugs securely. These, too, were then dumped in the trunk atop the bodies.

'Ok,' said the sergeant. 'Let's drop off the garbage at the city dump. After that, we'll turn the survivors over to our contact.'

An old woman peeped out from her window. 'Chico,' she asked Velasquez, 'is it safe to come outside?'

'Only for a little while, Abuela. But soon it will be safe all the time.'

Estado Major, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova

One had to give Fernandez his due. Given a new mission, he moved faster than anyone had a real right to expect, starting with giving the operation a name, Nube Oscura or Dark Cloud, to arranging funding, to recruiting a few score reliable troops for the effort.

He didn't entirely trust the Civil Police for work like this; they were still too close to the old ways and the old government. Moreover, there was more than sufficient reason to believe they were, in too many parts, corrupt.

Starting from scratch, Fernandez mused in his windowless basement office, and given orders to move quickly . . . well, we've had a good beginning. Fifty-seven criminals killed, half of them saved for interrogation before being executed. Illegal? So what? They volunteered to be outside the law when they broke the law. And, moreover, when they caused my country to be threatened with another gringo invasion they become my personal enemies as well as the enemies of all right-thinking Balboans. In short, fuck 'em.

A good beginning, he repeated the thought. That's given us the next tier up, the gang leaders. From there . . .

Aduana, Herrera International Airport, Balboa, Terra Nova

They waited until the crowd from the last airship to land had dispersed before walking forward.

Corporal Velasquez, like his senior, Sargento Lopez, wore civilian clothes, slacks and guayaberas, embroidered shirts that took the place of suits for much of Balboa's population most of the time.

'Senor Donati?' asked Lopez.

'Yes,' the aduana chief answered, impatiently, 'I'm Donati.'

'Then you must come with us.'

Sub-basement, Estado Major, Ciudad Balboa, 471 AC

The entire facility had the smell of disinfectant, much like a hospital. Like a hospital, too, the whole place was rather quiet, all subdued voices and muffled mechanical sounds. Under the artificial lighting, and with that pungent stink in his nostrils, a bound and gagged Donati, shuffled down the corridor under the direction of his guards. He thought he had caught a glimpse of his wife being led off down a corridor crossing the one he followed. That was worrying enough to cause his heart to sink. Who knew what she might divulge?

One guard put a hand on Donati's shoulder, stopping him in front of a metal door unmarked save for a room number. The other guard opened the door and said, 'Enter.'

The room inside was lit, with one desk and a hardback chair in front of it. At the desk sat a swarthy, somewhat overweight sort, in the uniform of the Legion, making an entry into a page in a file folder. Without looking up, the swarthy one made a motion that the guards should seat Donati, which they did, roughly.

Donati thought there was something about the man at the desk to mark him as foreign, but couldn't quite put his finger on it. That man continued to write for several minutes before closing the folder and looking up.

'My name is Mahamda,' the man said, in accented Spanish, 'Warrant Officer Achmed al Mahamda. I am a recent immigrant to Balboa. From Sumer. You are going to tell me everything I want to know about the drug trade, how it works, who are the players, where are the facilities, what are the routes, how much money is involved, where it is, and how to confiscate it.

'You're going to want to lie to me. Don't.'

Excursus