The War Department gave Carrera the willies. He had always hated the place, from his first guided tour as an officer cadet to the last time he had set foot in it to tender his resignation. Everything about the comlex irked him, from the bloated staffs to the arrogant civilians to the military retirees who had sold their souls to defense contractors and made the place dangerous to walk with the slime trails they left behind them.
He loathed the decor. He loathed the special corridors set aside to pander to allies, most of whom had transformed themselves into albatrosses. He loathed the coffee shops and the pizza stands, the fast food malls and the shopping mall.
It was to him everything a military ought not be; an oversized, overstuffed monument to corporate bureaucracy.
'Secretary Campos will see you now, Mr. Hennessey.'
As Pat stood to walk into the sanctum sanctorum, the holy of holies, he thought, Hennessey… Carrera… shitbird and motherfucker. I have so many names now.
Campos was polite, at least. He stood, walked around his desk and offered his hand in welcome to the man he thought of as Patrick Hennessey, and more importantly thought of as the heir to the Chatham, Hennessey, and Schmied empire.
Hennessey took it while, at the same time, taking the measure of Campos. Tall man. Old but not worn. Good bearing and good health. I wish he didn't have the face of a technocrat.
Campos began the chat. 'Mr. Hennessey, how can I help you? Senator Rodman thought it imperative that we speak and, since she is on the Defense Appropriation Committee, I thought it wise to listen.'
'Mr. Secretary, it's more a question of how we can help each other,' Hennessey replied, in what had to be the oldest intro to a confidence game ever played. Campos took it as such but, in his line of work, expected no less.
'Please call me Ron.'
'Pat, then… Ron. Look, I know that sounded like bullshit. But it's the truth. I have something you need. You have something I need.'
'And those would be?' Campos enquired, innocently.
'I have an ally for you. I have an infantry brigade to assist you. I have people who will bleed and die so that fewer kids from the Federated States need to. I have people who will do so for less, much less, than it would cost you to have your own do it.
'But I need money, a lot of money, though less money than you would need for you own forces.'
'Oh, really.' Campos sounded, at best, skeptical.
'Yes, really. Shall I tell you?'
Campos consulted the watch on his wrist. Oh, what the hell? I cleared my slate for two hours at that twat, Harriet's, insistence. I can at least hear the man out.
'All right,' he said. 'You have my undivided attention for the next thirty minutes. If you can engage my genuine interest in that time you can have more.'
'Fair enough,' Hennessey answered. Then he began to explain what he had on offer, and a portion of why he had it. Thirty minutes stretched to an hour, to an hour and a half, to two hours, to… 'Mildred, clear my calendar for this afternoon. I'll be busy until this evening.'
That led to, 'And how much is this going to cost me?'
Hennessey inhaled deeply, then sighed. 'As I said, a lot. But less than it might.
'We believe, my people and I, that the cost for you to use one brigade in full up combat for one month is approximately twelve billion drachma. To have that brigade in action over a longer term requires you to maintain a full division. That costs an additional four hundred million per month, base. That, you'll agree, is chickenfeed compared to the cost for actual combat.'
'Whenever someone talks about that kind of money,' Campos corrected, 'it's never chickenfeed.'
'All right,' Hennessey conceded, smiling. 'It's not chickenfeed. That also means that it wouldn't be chickenfeed if you could save that much, doesn't it.'
Quick bastard, isn't he? Campos mused.
'Further,' Carrera said, 'I will deploy my legion to al Jahara in time for the upcoming campaign. I will participate in that campaign. I will undertake any mission you or your commander in the field should care to assign us that does not involve going up against masses of heavy armor or which requires that we operate more than one hundred miles from a logistics base. We're not equipped for that and frankly you don't need us for that; you need us for clearing fortifications and built-up areas. I will do so for sixty percent of the cost to you, per month, of using FS troops. That is to say, it will cost you seven point two billion FSD per month of active operations. Neither my staff nor, might I add, yours expects active operations to last past six weeks. Later on, if there needs to be a pacification and stabilization phase, we can also be hired. I estimate the cost to you of that to be on the order of six billion, per year, for our one brigade… or legion, as we call it. Since that saves you billions, you'll agree that you will not be saving 'chickenfeed,' yes?'
Campos sighed. The leathery face grew a tad weary. 'And there you had me going for a while. We can't afford that. I'd have to hide it and frankly I couldn't hide that much.'
'You can't afford not to… Ron. And you can hide enough of it.'
Campos pointed out, 'We've already been helping you, you know. Harriet saw to that. Can't you come down on the price a little?'
Hennessey smiled, thinking, We've already established what you are, young lady. Now we are merely negotiating your price.
The next morning Campos sent for an officer stationed there in the War Department who knew Patrick Hennessey from long years' service together.
'Is this guy Hennessey on the level, Virg?'
The officer addressed, one Colonel Virgil Rivers, shrugged, sighed, looked up and finally answered, 'Pat Hennessey? Well, Mr. Secretary, the first thing you have to understand about Pat is… well… he's insane. I don't mean a little odd; I mean clinically insane. Great guy, actually, but nuttier than a fruitcake.'
'You mean this was all bullshit from a lunatic, this 'legion' he claims to have?'
Rivers laughed, white teeth shining in a cafe au lait face. 'Oh, no, Mr. Secretary. If he says something is so, bet your last drachma that it is so. He's not crazy that way. He sees reality perfectly well and is annoyingly honest and irritatingly precise to boot. But he interprets it differently. It means something different than it does to the rest of us.' Rivers' face grew contemplative for a moment. 'That; or the rest of us are just idiots. I've sometimes wondered about that.'
Campos, who was quite certain that he was the most intelligent man who ever lived, bridled a bit at the thought that anyone could see him as an idiot. 'So how is he insane?' he asked.
'He's uncontrollable,' Rivers answered without hesitation. 'By that I mean there is nothing, nothing, you can do to him to deter him from something he decides is right and proper to do. Worse, his version of right and wrong come straight out of ancient history. I've never been entirely sure if it's a case of the civilized man holding the barbarian in check or if the barbarian puts the civilized man out as a cover and controls even that from behind the scenes. Of course, it could be a case of symbiosis, too.
'I have also heard him say to his own commander, and this is exactly what he said, 'You fat-fucking-pig-eyed toad, you incarnate insult to the military profession, you can't make me do anything. You just don't have the balls for it.' I treasured that, actually. And Pat pegged the piece of shit pretty well, too.' Rivers tsked. 'It was a shame about the relief for cause.'
'Insubordinate then, is he?'
Rivers shook his head, more or less ruefully. 'Oh, Mr. Secretary, you have no idea. Pat Hennessey hasn't the tiniest inkling of a clue about subordination. Mind you, he'll take any mission you give him and perform it superbly, even artistically. Any mission. But he will never let anyone else have a say in how he goes about performing it. He'll tell you to your face that it's none of your business. And he doesn't care what your rank is.
'By the way, if I can ask, Mr. Secretary, just what is the deal he's offering?'
'A large brigade, roughly equivalent to four Army or two and a half Marine battalions, for five point three billion drachma a month for a mid-intensity campaign and five point five to six billion a year for counterinsurgency. For that price we have to provide all medical support to include long-term care and medical evacuation, to the same standards we provide our own. We also must provide a suitable log base at no greater distance from the front than
