small details.
Mangesh was not strange to Carrera; he'd been there before. That was part of the reason he had chosen it for his staging area. Still, the place looked rather worn down, even more so than when he had left.
After a seemingly interminable flight, followed by a long drive from Hewler International, Carrera and Parilla finally arrived at the legion's staging base in the Yezidistan Mountains. Kennison, McNamara, and the rest of the advanced party were on hand to greet them.
A smiling Kennison was the first to speak. ' Duce, Pat, welcome to outer Hell… or maybe, since it's so frigging cold, Niflheim.'
Carrera smiled back and spread his arms wide. 'It's almost good to be here, Carl. Why don't you and the sergeant major show the Duce and myself around?'
Kennison signaled for a driver to bring up his vehicle. 'Right. We planned a little show and tell after the sightseeing tour.'
Siegel, standing nearby, piped in, in Italian, ' Un' espetaculo de cani e cavellini. ' A dog and pony show. At Kennison's dirty look Siegel made himself scarce.
'Good, but make it brief, will you? I'm about ready to hit the sack now.'
The four-Parilla, Carrera, Kennison, and McNamara, climbed back into the vehicle. Kennison gave the driver directions to take them around the camp. As the vehicle drove around the perimeter, Kennison pointed out the main features.
It soon became obvious to Carrera that the camp consisted of six sub-camps, a large central one and five more at a distance of about two and a half kilometers from the center.
Kennison explained, pointing at the layout, 'We've put the Mechanized, Artillery, Combat Support, Service Support and Headquarters in the center. The four line cohorts and most of the Cazadors are out on the perimeter. Air is back at the airport, along with a century of Cazadors. Security of the perimeter is the responsibility of the Cazadors and the infantry. Each has about one fifth of the total area; grunts a bit more; Cazadors a bit less.'
'Have you had any infiltrators?' asked Carrera.
Kennison shrugged indifferently. 'Not exactly. Truth? It doesn't matter. The Yezidi did most of the work. I'd be really surprised if at least one of them, anyway, isn't reporting to Saleh, in Babel.'
Carrera shrugged, as well. Nothing much to be done about that. Besides, except for local artillery, the only weapons the Sumeris had that could range to the camps were some crudely modified Volgan missiles. Even the unmodified versions were so inaccurate they had been known to miss entire countries before. The dictator, Saleh, would be more likely to hit the base around Mangesh if he hired a bunch of witch doctors from Uhuru and had them try to entice meteors down from space.
And even then, Carrera thought it more than likely that the UE Peace Fleet would interfere.
While the two men spoke, the vehicle continued on its way until it reached the center of the main camp. Kennison pointed out to Carrera the doublewide mobile home, air-conditioned, heated and with running water that he had set up for Carrera and Parilla's living quarters.
'Harrington sent it, along with another one to serve as the Operations, Intel and Logistics Center.'
'Oh, he did, did he?' Carrera objected, glaring at the second doublewide. 'There'll be no goddamned Headquarters Regency Hotel. Move it and turn it over to the medical century.
'As for the other one, the Duce can have that to himself. Get me a tent set up nearby, will you, Mac?'
The sergeant major didn't object. He just turned to Kennison and made a rubbing motion with his thumb across his fingers. Kennison, equally wordlessly, took out his wallet and paid McNamara a fifty drachma note. McNamara had been sure that Carrera wouldn't take quarters much more comfortable than what the troops had.
Folding the note and stuffing it in his pocket with a grin, McNamara asked, 'Do you mind bunking wit' me, sir? We're kind of cramped for tent space.'
Pretending not to notice the wager, Carrera simply answered that a shared tent would be fine.
While Parilla and Carrera were being shown the base, out in one of the outlying camps, Mendoza, his friend Stefano del Rio, and the tank commander, Sergeant Perez, worked over their newly issued White Eagle, though they called it a Jaguar II, tank, breaking down and checking the auxiliary weapons, checking fluid levels, and inventorying tools.
'Sergeant Perez?'
Perez looked over to where a kneeling Mendoza was unpacking a heavy machine gun from its crate. 'Yeah, what is it, Jorge?'
Mendoza stood erect. In his right hand was a piece of paper. In his left was a labeled bottle full of clear liquid. He held them out for his sergeant's inspection.
A curious del Rio hopped down from the turret to join them.
Perez took the paper and read aloud:
Boys:
We want you to know that this tank is good tank, the best. No effort was spared. We didn't tolerate no shoddy work. She should see you well through coming fight.
Bottle? Well, all of us here have idea of what you going to go through soon. We thought it help. Is all.
Vaya con Dios,
Josef Raikin
Stefan Malayev
And the crew of Overseer Team 21
'That was pretty thoughtful of them, wasn't it, Sergeant?'
Perez just nodded. Damn, that was thoughtful, he thought. He said, 'Mendoza, pad it with something and lock it up with the tools. We may need it come a rainy day.'
Royal Jahari Land Forces Building, al Jahara, 19/1/461 AC
The Coalition commander didn't need to worry about rain. He would barely have needed to be concerned about the near detonation of a nuclear weapon.
Underground and very safe, deep in the bowels of the Royal Jahari Land Forces Building, Carrera and Parilla waited patiently for their meeting with the commanding general of the FSC-led Coalition. Concealing his distaste at a headquarters buried so far underground, Carrera muttered something about 'Fredendall' and 'Kasarine Pass.'
Parilla looked at him questioningly. 'Never mind, Raul,' he answered. 'Old Earth history… which just goes to show that some things are eternal.'
A well meaning FS Army brigadier general sat down beside the two. 'Are you all ready for your meeting with the Bulldozer?' he asked.
Parilla, having limited English, looked to Carrera. Carrera shrugged and didn't bother to translate except to mutter in Spanish about people who created their own nicknames or had their public relations departments do it for them.
'Is that the name his PR folks came up with for him now?' he asked the brigadier.
The brigadier gave Carrera a quizzical look. 'It's what he's always been called.'
Carrera snorted, shook his head, and put on a shallow smile. 'No, that's not true. When he was a mere division commander he was known to most of his division as 'Fat Normy.''
The brigadier's face looked as if Carrera had suddenly shown signs of a career destroying disease. He hastily left. Carrera smiled wickedly, then translated for Parilla.
'Did you know General Thomas back when you were in the FS Army?' Parilla asked.
'Know him? Not well. We had one of those cases of instantaneous dislike, really, and a few unpleasant run- ins after that.' Carrera suddenly laughed. 'You want to hear my best story about Fat Norman?'
'Tell me.'
Carrera, still smiling wickedly, said, 'It was silly, really. There was this captain in the battalion I was the operations officer for that had a little run in with Norman. The division was having its annual organization day. 'Conquest Day,' they called it. Some military intelligence wimp who was running one of the competitions fucked up his station. The puke put the man from our battalion in fourth place for that particular competition when the troop
