Carnifex

him. Eventually . . . fell to me but in worst of times. When your man, Kuralski, found us we were reduced to raising corn and pigs to eat. That would be fine for some non-entity motorized rifle regiment but we . . .  paratroopers. Even at that, government going to close us out. They begrudged us . . . cost of our uniforms . . . and of heating oil for winter.'

The Volgan colonel spat.

Reluctantly, Carrera released the battle streamers. 'How many of your men are veterans of the war in Pashtia?' he asked.

'About three in ten, or perhaps bit more,' the Volgan answered. 'Why?'

'I'm not just operating off faith, here,' Carrera said, 'and I am reasonably certain that we'll be rehired soon to go to Pashtia. It's a different environment from Sumer, one my men aren't used to. We're capable of doing the mountain training and such ourselves—'

'And better than we could,' Samsonov interjected.

'—but I don't know how the Pashtun act and think and neither do my men.'

'We can help there. Quite lot; truth. But have you considered Pashtun? They're . . . first class . . . mercenaries and, if well treated, loyal to salt.'

Carrera nodded. 'I've got someone over there looking to do just that. But it's hard, he told me, to sort out the worthwhile ones from the infiltrators. Actually, he said it's impossible and I told him to forget it and concentrate on buying up land and pack animals, while collecting intelligence.'

Samsonov rubbed his nose. 'I can help with that. Some tribes trustworthy; some not. And I know mullah, name Hassim, who is very learned, very scholarly, and—fortunately— utterly corrupt atheist.'

'Can you send a recruiting team over to help my man and to round up this Mullah Hassim?'

'Sure . . . what else you want?'

'I want you to restructure to prepare us for Pashtia. Abogado knows.'

7/7/467 AC, War Department, Hamilton, FD

Kenneth O'Meara- Temeroso squirmed in his chair in Malcolm's plush office. He couldn't, he just couldn't, do what the secretary was demanding of him. Besides, it was Malcolm who had sent him to Sumer expressly to fire, hurt, and humiliate Carrera. How could he go back and beg for help now?

'It won't even work,' O'Meara-Temeroso objected. 'It's a waste of time. That bastard will never forgive us for trying to stiff him. And he won't take the pain he caused us by pulling out so abruptly as sufficient payback, either.'

Malcolm smiled warmly. His tan seemed particularly orange today, to match. 'I don't care if you have to suck his dick. I want troops for Pashtia and I want them fast.'

Whatever his failings, and they were many, ranging from obesity to a remarkable arrogance coupled with stupidity, O'Meara-Temeroso was still, at least arguably, a man. This was too much. 'You suck his dick. I'm resigning.'

And with that he stood, abruptly turned, and walked out.

One worthless, arrogant bureaucrat gone, mused Malcolm. Hmmmm; who might this Carrera person listen to? Hmmmm . . . 

'Suzy,' Malcolm said pleasantly into the intercom, 'get me General Rivers, would you?'

* * *

'I remember his last words on the subject very distinctly, Mr. Secretary. He said, 'We'll keep track and when you come looking to hire us again everything you've cost us will be added to our fee, with interest from today.' Are you prepared to pay that, Mr. Secretary? The bill is going to be enormous. And since we tried to send funds Carrera considered due to his organization to another, the national government of Balboa, he's not going to give us credit.'

'What do you think he'll charge us?'

'As much as he can squeeze. In fact, as much as he thinks it takes to hurt us. We pissed him off pretty badly and he is not the . . . forgiving type.'

'But he needs money,' Malcolm objected. 'He doesn't have a national tax base to pay for his war machine.'

'Someone—we think the Yamatans —are funneling a great deal of money to him right now. And he already had quite a lot. I don't think he's hurting.'

Malcolm sighed, bleakly. It was so . . . frankly inconceivable, that a mere mercenary should be so difficult. Ah, well. Needs must . . . 

'General Rivers, I want you to go see him and see what he'll take. Don't commit us to anything yet. See what he might take that isn't in the form of dollars. The President doesn't want to go to congress over this. Maybe we have something he wants . . . weapons . . . gold . . . I dunno. But the President wants him and what the President wants—'

'I'll leave day after tomorrow, Mr. Secretary. But I can't promise anything.'

9/7/467 AC, Motor Yacht Suzy Q, Xamar Coast

The storm trick wouldn't work more than once. At least, it wouldn't work twice in a row. The classis needed something else, rather, several somethings else.

The Suzy Q was one of those things. Oh, she was a real yacht, all right, one hundred and ten feet worth of outrageous luxury. Even the girls aboard were luxury models, hookers taken from the Wappen von Bremen and paid a hefty bonus for sunning themselves topless on the forward deck. Everyone had been surprised that so many of the girls had volunteered when asked. Six had been needed, thirty-two had volunteered, and that was even before the danger bonus was mentioned. Who knew; perhaps they had begun to think of themselves as legionettes.

Whatever the motivation, they did a very impressive job, sunning and stretching, nonchalantly showing off their assets to the fishing boats they passed. The classis assumed, not unreasonably, that at least some of those boats reporting directly to Pirates-R-Us.

In anticipation of that, the boat was not quite so yacht-like under the surface. Both sides and the stern had been heavily reinforced with resinated aramid-fiber armor plates. Three .41-caliber machine guns were positioned, each side, to fire outward, as was a seventh to fire astern. The machine guns had been modified with a special jacket for water cooling. They could fire for half an hour or more before the barrels overheated. As a matter of fact, the half hour was about as much as the testing committee had cared to check. No one really knew how long they could fire without a let up. Besides the .41s, under the forward deck a single front-shielded 20mm was poised to be raised by hydraulics. An additional seven Cazadors and an equal number of sailors posed as crew in civilian dress, over and above the hidden seventeen slotted to man the machine guns and 20mm.

The Cazadors didn't get the girls' danger bonus, though they drew normal combat pay.

Centurion Rodriguez, admiring the girls from the wheel house, thought, Screw the bonus; watching the girls is bonus enough. Standing next to him the Suzy Q's skipper, Warrant Officer Chu, had much the same thought.

Both were making plans for their next scheduled visit to the von Bremen.

'Sweet duty,' mused Rodriguez.

'That it is,' agreed Chu. He pointed at the boat's radar screen. 'But it's about to get a lot less sweet.'

'Suzy Q this is Ironsides; company coming.'

Chu picked up the microphone and answered, 'We see 'em coming, Ironsides. No problem, just the one boat.'

'Shall I have the girls start their routine?' asked Rodriguez.

Chu noted the distance on the screen by eye. He shook his head slightly. 'No . . . wait a bit. They won't be here for half an hour. But why don't you have the Santisima Trinidad close it up some?'

* * *

The pirate vessel was crammed to the gills with mujahadin. At least, they liked to style themselves as holy warriors; it gave them a warm and fuzzy feeling to be doing the work of God while filling their pockets.

'And aren't those some bits of divine workmanship?' asked the boat's chief, rhetorically, looking over the exceptionally well-breasted and tanned girls standing by the target's bow and gesturing frantically. 'And won't they bring a good price at market.'

He'd asked rhetorically but his assistant had been listening even so. 'The boat itself will bring a better one,' he said, 'and anyone who can afford that boat and those girls will probably bring a better ransom still.'

'Oh, look,' tsked the pirate chief. 'We've