A Desert Called Peace Part 8

With the song of birds in the air, Linda and Patricio sat on a blanket spread on the side of a small hillock. To the northeast gurgled the creek in which she had swum as a girl. Between the hill and the creek, on gra.s.s weeded and kept smooth by family retainers, Julio, Lambie and Milagro played a game of ball, Milagro, in particular, giggling madly as her two older siblings tossed the ball to and fro over her head.

It was contentment; it was happiness. His love was with him and the results of that love were with them.

Hennessey heard Linda say, "It's hot, Patricio. Here, why don't you have a beer?"

While keeping one eye on the children, he held out a hand for the bottle she offered. As he took it, his nose was a.s.sailed by the stench of rotting flesh. He closed his eyes and whispered, "Oh, no."

When he could bring himself to open them again, he looked at his wife. She knelt motionless by his side, flesh turned black with decomposition and bones beginning to show through as the flesh fell away in long rotten strips and irregular pieces. She made no sound.

Pained, frightful cries came from the children. "Daddy! Help us!"

Almost too frightened to look, still Hennessey turned his gaze toward the creek. The children's game had stopped; the ball sitting still on the smooth gra.s.s. They stretched blackening arms out toward him, pleading, imploring. Even as he watched, little Milagro exploded in a cloud of bone and rancid meat. Lambie and Julio shook and s.h.i.+vered, screamed and begged, as their bodies fell to ruin.

Hennessey looked back to Linda. She was no longer there. In her place lay a neat pile of disconnected bone. The children's screaming stopped. He looked back for them.

In their places, too, were little piles of joints and ribs.

"Martina? This is Patricio. Would it be all right if I stayed with you and Suegro Suegro for a little while?" for a little while?"

Finca Carrera, Cochea, 29/7/459 AC Poor Patricio, thought Linda's mother, Martina. She looked out to where her son-in-law sat unmoving on her front porch, the picture of human misery. Some food she had brought to him lay untouched, except by the flies, on the porch railing. thought Linda's mother, Martina. She looked out to where her son-in-law sat unmoving on her front porch, the picture of human misery. Some food she had brought to him lay untouched, except by the flies, on the porch railing.

It's like he's died inside.

He had told them he had no remaining relatives barring one cousin that he wished to see in the Federated States. And even with Annie he found it difficult to talk.

When he had called a few nights back, his voice choking with misery and horror, and asked if he might stay for a while, the family had naturally taken him in. Though it seems to have done little good. Still, it can't have been good for him to stay in that house. Though it seems to have done little good. Still, it can't have been good for him to stay in that house.

Nothing worked. Hennessey took no interest in anything. He just sat there on the porch, day after day. What pa.s.sed through his mind no one knew. The only interruptions to his vigil came when he took the short walk to Linda's and the children's "grave." Sometimes, too, he slept in the bedroom the family had provided. Just as often, however, he would fall asleep in the chair on the porch. He hardly spoke to anyone. He drank far, far too much.

Arranging some flowers on a table beneath the window, Martina thought, Poor broken man; he's got nothing left. I don't think I've ever seen a sadder sight than the way he just sits there, day after day, no hope or purpose. Poor broken man; he's got nothing left. I don't think I've ever seen a sadder sight than the way he just sits there, day after day, no hope or purpose.

She resolved to demand that her husband find something to interest Hennessey, something to give him even a little interest in life. Maybe cousin Raul can think of something to help. He's mentioned that he thought very well of Patricio. Maybe cousin Raul can think of something to help. He's mentioned that he thought very well of Patricio.

Linda's father shook Hennessey's shoulder."Patricio, there is someone who wishes to see you."

At the insistence of his wife, the father had invited distant cousin and old family friend, Raul Parilla, to come to talk with Hennessey. He'd been there when it happened. happened. And Patricio had always spoken of Raul with respect. Perhaps it might do some little good for his son-in-law to talk with the retired general. And Patricio had always spoken of Raul with respect. Perhaps it might do some little good for his son-in-law to talk with the retired general.

Parilla remained one of a very few influential Balboans interested in giving the country an army again. Linda's father was not one of them, though the more politically minded Martina was. was. The fact that there was such a group was an open secret. As Parilla had told The fact that there was such a group was an open secret. As Parilla had told Senor Senor Carrera, they did little more than debate about it. The group had accomplished precisely nothing yet...and it had been years. Carrera, they did little more than debate about it. The group had accomplished precisely nothing yet...and it had been years.

Hennessey didn't even look up. Twirling the ice filled gla.s.s in one hand, he said, "I don't want to see anyone, Suegro Suegro. Please ask whoever it is to go away."

"You will want to see this one, Patricio. It's General Parilla. He wants to ask you for some advice. Talk to him, won't you? For me, if nothing else."

Shrugging, Hennessey agreed. Parilla had been with him that day, that counted, as did their long standing friends.h.i.+p. "Okay, Suegro Suegro. I'll see him."

Linda's father led Parilla out onto the porch. Hennessey stood up; though he knew the general well, and though neither was any longer in service, old habits die hard. The two shook hands and sat down. Linda's father left them there.

Parilla lit a cigarette before beginning. At his first exhalation, he said, "How have you been, Patricio...you know....since...?"

"I don't know how to answer that, Raul. Not well? Yes, that. I have not been well."

Giving a quick fraternal squeeze on the shoulder, Parilla said, "Well, man, I can understand that that. I wish...but there weren't any words that day. And I have none now. Except I am so sorry."

"Yes. Me, too, Raul. But sorrow doesn't help. Nothing helps. Only that one time have I felt any better, and shooting strangers on the street is not something I can make a hobby of."

Parilla nodded understanding. Jimenez had told him the story. In the same shoes, he could not imagine feeling or acting any differently.

"I came here to ask advice, Patricio."

"Yes, so said my father-in-law. I don't know what help I could be, but if I can can help..." He let the words trail off. help..." He let the words trail off.

Parilla's mind groped back over fifteen years, to the day he had first met a much younger Hennessey, then a lieutenant leading a joint Federated States-Balboan small unit exercise at the Jungle Warfare School at Fort Tec.u.mseh, on the southern side of Balboa. Despite having his recon party compromised, Hennessey had managed to win through in the problem, a company raid. Since Parilla had only a very basic idea of how to conduct a raid at all, he had been impressed.

"I think you can. But tell me...you never have, you know...why aren't you still with the Federated States Army? And...too...why don't you go back now? I remember; you were good. good."

Hennessey nodded quietly, then paused to think about his answer.

"Well," he began, "I can't go back. They don't want me."

"Why not? It makes no sense to me, your leaving. It never has."

Hennessey sighed with pain, an old remembered ache to go along with the fresh agony. "There's nothing I can tell you that won't sound like sniveling, Raul."

"I know you are not a crybaby, Patricio."

Muscles rarely used stretched Hennessey's mouth into something like a grimace. "No. No, I'm not. You really want to know?"

Seeing that Parilla did, he continued. "Raul...you know that in the Army, nearly any organization I suppose, you will often be forgiven for being wrong. What they never tell anyone is that you are very unlikely to be forgiven for being right."

Parilla looked honestly perplexed and said so.

Another deep sigh from Hennessey. "It had to do with training; my approach to it. I'm not the only one it ever happened to. You remember General Abogado? He got bounced for much the same thing, though he had some other issues, as well. In any case, let me ask a question of you, Raul. In the old Guardia Guardia who trained the privates on a day to day basis?" who trained the privates on a day to day basis?"

"Their sergeants and corporals mostly. Is there a better way?"

"No. None. At least given good sergeants and corporals. But that isn't the way it worked most places in the F.S. Army. There, oh, since time immemorial, most of the day to day training has been closely supervised by officers. Mostly, it doesn't work very well, either."

"No. I can't see how it could," Parilla agreed.

"Well...I did something a little different. I had been watching and experimenting with the training of individual soldiers very closely for nearly two decades. In all that time, every time someone mentioned "individual training," the stock solution was: "tighten up the training schedule," "waste not a minute"...you know, all that rot."

"I decided to try something a little different. I made my subordinates loosen the training schedule, to leave a lot of gaps and holes for the sergeants to use. Then I made them put on the schedule certain things that had to be done by Thursday night...or else. Told them I would test for it, too."

"Well, they didn't believe I was serious. It was too different a concept. The first week I tested-had my sergeant major test, actually-the whole d.a.m.ned battalion failed and so I held them over the next night until nearly midnight retesting. Next week it was about five-sixths of the battalion to just after eleven PM. Then about three-fourths until ten or so. By the time six weeks rolled around I had privates going to their squad leaders and saying, "Forsooth, sergeant, I am in desperate need of getting laid. The only time to do that is Friday night. The only way to have Friday night off is to pa.s.s the m.u.t.h.af.u.c.kin m.u.t.h.af.u.c.kin colonel's test. So colonel's test. So teach teach me this s.h.i.+t, please."" me this s.h.i.+t, please.""

"About that time my my boss got wind of it; tubby little fart of a dumb-a.s.sed tanker. "Tuffy" was his nickname." Hennessey sneered with contempt. "Don't ask me how he got or why he deserved the nickname "Tuffy;" the evidence was pretty thin on the ground. He was so fat he couldn't squeeze through the hatch of an armored personnel carrier without greasing his ponderous gut. Anyway, he was a clueless, stupid s.h.i.+t. I explained what I was doing and he told me to stop. I answered, "No, sir. Relieve me if you want but this is starting to work pretty d.a.m.ned well." Well, he wouldn't do that. But he hated it. He hated me, too, for defying him." boss got wind of it; tubby little fart of a dumb-a.s.sed tanker. "Tuffy" was his nickname." Hennessey sneered with contempt. "Don't ask me how he got or why he deserved the nickname "Tuffy;" the evidence was pretty thin on the ground. He was so fat he couldn't squeeze through the hatch of an armored personnel carrier without greasing his ponderous gut. Anyway, he was a clueless, stupid s.h.i.+t. I explained what I was doing and he told me to stop. I answered, "No, sir. Relieve me if you want but this is starting to work pretty d.a.m.ned well." Well, he wouldn't do that. But he hated it. He hated me, too, for defying him."

Parilla likewise didn't understand why Hennessey had done this, and said so.

"The trick," Hennessey answered, "was that the sergeants had for decades been conditioned to being told what to do and had had driven out of them any native initiative they might have had. They were...over-supervised, if you will. Worse, they'd grown to like like not having to think or use initiative." not having to think or use initiative."

"But weren't you you over-supervising doing it your way?" over-supervising doing it your way?"

"At first, yes," Hennessey admitted. "Clearly. But the difference between legitimate and illegitimate oversupervision is in the end game. Once I had them in the habit of finding and using time, I let them run with it. It worked...oh, quite well. We had an individual training test a few months later. They call it the MIB Master Infantry Badge test. The rest of the brigade shut down for three weeks to prepare for it. My battalion rolled to the field, doing any number of things that had nothing to do with the test.

"We came in the day before we had to take it. I told the boys to get a good night's sleep. We'd take the test in the morning and clean equipment the day after.

"When the smoke cleared I had something over seventy percent of my battalion max the test. This had never been done before. Normally it's just a couple of percent of any given unit that maxes. p.i.s.sed off my boss to no end."

"I do not understand," Parilla interjected. "You do something that well...surely it makes your boss look good."

Listening through an open window Martina heard Patricio laugh and felt a sudden relief that her son in law was still at least capable capable of mirth. of mirth.

Hennessey answered, "Uh...no. Surely it does not. The rest of the brigade failed miserably by comparison. Made him look bad, in fact."

Parilla's eyes widened. "Ohhh..."

"'Ohhh,' indeed. A commander can stand having nothing but mediocre units under his command. What he can't stand is having mostly mediocrity and one very superior unit. Makes him look bad, by comparison, you see.

"But that wasn't the worst of it. A couple of months later the brigade had an organization day. Lots of athletic compet.i.tions and trophies, things like that. Well, my boss volunteered my battalion at the last minute to be the duty battalion picking up trash and such for the division, for that day. So I went out with about one-sixth as many men as the other battalions, a fair number of mine being people who had been hurt in training."

"Jesus, he really did did hate you, didn't he?" hate you, didn't he?"

"That was my my guess," Hennessey muttered. Then he added, "We beat the rest like we owned them too, cripples and all. Why, for one compet.i.tion I didn't even have enough people to field a complete team and we won anyway. My brigade commander was so p.i.s.sed about it he stormed off the parade field just before awards presentation." guess," Hennessey muttered. Then he added, "We beat the rest like we owned them too, cripples and all. Why, for one compet.i.tion I didn't even have enough people to field a complete team and we won anyway. My brigade commander was so p.i.s.sed about it he stormed off the parade field just before awards presentation."

Parilla snickered. "Surely he couldn't relieve you over that?"

"No. That came later. And, in a sense, tubby little t.u.r.d or not, he was right.

"You've got to remember, this was in the most intensely leftist and pacifist years of the Gage Administration in the FSC. Peacekeeping and Operations Other Than War were the big thing. Everybody had to play along. Not that I think Gage ever really believed in any of it...or even cared. But he was beholden to his base and they did did believe in it. believe in it.

"Raul, I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. I looked at my boys, thought about the way the world really really was...and I could not, not, was...and I could not, not, not not train them to pa.s.s out multiculturally sensitive, vegetarian rations to starving refugees in the hinterlands in a multiculturally sensitive manner. I kept training them to fight, orders to the contrary or not. train them to pa.s.s out multiculturally sensitive, vegetarian rations to starving refugees in the hinterlands in a multiculturally sensitive manner. I kept training them to fight, orders to the contrary or not.

"That was the last straw. The brigade commander fired me. I resigned my commission. And so, here I am. And so, my wife and kids were in First Landing on 11/7." Hennessey's voice broke at that last and it was a long moment before he could look up.

"What a d.a.m.ned waste," Parilla said. "I've known you had real talent for this sort of thing since I first met you. What a waste you can't do it anymore."

Parilla leaned forward with an almost conspiratorial air. Speaking softly, he said, "Patricio, you know I am part of a group we probably don't deserve the name "conspiracy," more like a debating club for now that would like to see Balboa fully sovereign again, which means rearmed. But we haven't the faintest idea of how to go about such a thing, you see. I thought, since you're about the only man in the country outside of the F.S. Marines who guard the Emba.s.sy, who has ever even been in a real army, that you might be able to tell us."

Recovered, Hennessey answered, "Go ahead and ask. I may be able to help a little."

The direct approach? Parilla wondered. Parilla wondered. Yes. Yes. "How could we rearm ourselves?" "How could we rearm ourselves?"

Hennessey thought about it for just a few seconds. Looking from the same window though which she had seen him before, Linda's mother saw the first sign of any interest in anything since he had returned to Balboa.

Hennessey gripped the lower half of his face in his right hand, thinking hard. "Much would depend on the att.i.tude of the Federated States. If they were hostile, then you're likely screwed...although there are a number of techniques you can use to hide an armed force if the legal government will help. For one thing, you can use front organizations: boys' and girls' youth groups, civilian labor groups...unions, fraternal organizations, police and fire departments. I'm a.s.suming here that the Morales government wants nothing to do with that."

A sneer crossed Parilla's face. "That is unfortunately correct. The traitors traitors actually had the gall to legislate away our ability to defend ourselves; like San Jose did." Parilla spat with contempt. actually had the gall to legislate away our ability to defend ourselves; like San Jose did." Parilla spat with contempt.

Parilla paused then admitted, "Well, that's not entirely true. The new Civil Force is in most respects a blurry mirror of the old Balboa Defense Corps. But it is a singularly ball-less version of the BDC."

Hennessey nodded. "Then it will be almost impossible unless you can either change the government or change its mind....or fool it."

"I see. Well, what can be done without a change of government?"

Hennessey leaned into his left hand and rubbed his temple. After a moment he answered, "Staff work. You can prepare Tables of Organization and Equipment. If you have money, you can buy some equipment and hide it, possibly at sea. You can send people to work with other countries that have armies. You can prepare programs of instruction and plan to set up training facilities even if you can't actually set them up. Perhaps a military high school another one, I mean might help."

"How would you you prepare for something like that?" prepare for something like that?"

"Me, Raul? I couldn't. Not any more."

Parilla cut him off. "Oh, horse s.h.i.+t, Patricio. You live here. Your roots new ones to be sure, not as deep as they might be are still here. Here is where your blood rests. And we need need you. We've got "Progressivist" Santandern guerillas from FARS and the SEL pressing our western border. We'll have the homegrown variety soon enough, too, if we don't do something. We are the trade route for the world. And the same people who killed your family will eventually figure that out and come for us, too. That is, they will if they aren't already here and waiting. I suspect they're just waiting." you. We've got "Progressivist" Santandern guerillas from FARS and the SEL pressing our western border. We'll have the homegrown variety soon enough, too, if we don't do something. We are the trade route for the world. And the same people who killed your family will eventually figure that out and come for us, too. That is, they will if they aren't already here and waiting. I suspect they're just waiting."

Hennessey's eyes were pained. There had been a time when...ah, but it was too late now. "I still can't. Look...Raul. I'm just...broken. I'm not good for anything anymore. I just don't have it. And even if I did, without Linda I am...not to be trusted. I don't really trust myself."

Parilla muttered, "Bulls.h.i.+t," then stood as if to leave. He turned, paused, and then turned back. "You know, Patricio, we need you. I told you; no one in Balboa has ever even been been in a real army. The nearest to one we ever had your country crushed and in a real army. The nearest to one we ever had your country crushed and you you helped them do it. We could offer you much no one else can: a new home, a life worth living, useful work to do. We would not be ungrateful for the help; you know that." helped them do it. We could offer you much no one else can: a new home, a life worth living, useful work to do. We would not be ungrateful for the help; you know that."

"I still can't. I'm not the man I was." Without Linda to control me I am afraid of what I am capable of. Without Linda to control me I am afraid of what I am capable of.

"Well...think it over some, at least."

Hennessey shrugged. After Parilla left, Hennessey went back to twirling the ice in his drink, occasionally glancing toward Linda's grave.

His blank look was suddenly replaced by a deep and lasting frown. Could it be possible Could it be possible? There is a framework here, the Civil Force. There are some good people, men like Xavier, in it. There is a framework here, the Civil Force. There are some good people, men like Xavier, in it.

He debated within himself. But, no. Twelve years have gone by since they thought of themselves as infantry. Riddled with corruption, Xavier has told me. No recent training in heavier weapons. No experience in combined arms or higher staff work. But, no. Twelve years have gone by since they thought of themselves as infantry. Riddled with corruption, Xavier has told me. No recent training in heavier weapons. No experience in combined arms or higher staff work.

But...couldn't I give them some of that? Surely I could. And I have friends still, good soldiers, who could help.

Money? It always comes down to money. And even if Uncle Bob's estate does end up in my hands, it's a pittance compared to what's actually needed. I am no Cra.s.sus and I'm not going to be, either.

Not enough to maintain an army. Enough for a staff? Yes...at least enough for a staff. And then...maybe someone else could pay to maintain an army if one were raised.

Ah, no. Forget it. It was true what I told Parilla. My heart and soul are gone from me. They died with Linda and the kids. I just can't.

Can't? Why not? I was a good soldier before I met Linda.

Good? Yes. But she made me a human one. Before I met her? I was near to being a monster.

So be a monster. This is the time for monsters again; monsters have already arisen.

Hennessey's frown cleared. He remembered how very d.a.m.ned good it had felt to shoot men who'd cheered the murder of his family. He wondered, How good might it feel to kill the men How good might it feel to kill the men actually actually behind killing my family? Might the nightmares stop then? behind killing my family? Might the nightmares stop then?