"Understand, Legate," Khalid said, shaking his head doubtfully, "I merely want to understand the mission perfectly so that I can execute it perfectly. Okay, so you do that. All it does it shut them up. It does not make them report on us favorably."
"We don't need favorable reporting," Fernandez explained. "That would be overreach. The danger with these people is that they are not a neutral asset. They're with the enemy, even if they don't know it. It would be, oh . . . too much to expect them to change one hundred and eighty degrees. It is sufficient that they merely stop harming us and helping the other side; no need to help us and harm the other side. Indeed, if they did that, they'd be in as much danger from the Ikhwan as they are from us and they likely know it. In that case, they'd probably take their chances and continue to support the Ikhwan."
"So . . . we are going for the minimal but achievable goal?" Khalid asked.
"Yes. Moreover, if two years goes by without ever a negative comment from one of them on either us or the enemy, then you may assume they have taken the hint and shut up. In that case, put them on the inactive target list."
"Cle-ver," Khalid said.
"If you are captured, of course . . . "
Khalid snorted. "Allahu akbar! Long live the Salafi jihad."
"Quite. The Kosmos down there will insist on superior treatment for you as long as you can credibly claim to be on the side of the Ikhwan. Just remember, Khalid, they must be made to feel the hard hand of the war they support."
Interlude
25/7/47 AC, UN Compound, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa Colony, Terra Nova
"These bandits must be made to feel the hard hand of the war they have brought upon themselves," insisted Bernard Chanet, with the pounding of his fist upon his desk.
Major Dhan Singh Pandey, seconded to the UN Peacekeeping Force for Terra Nova (UNPFTN), from the Army of India's 11th Gurkha Rifles, said nothing. His colleague and discrete lover, Amita Kaur Bhago, 32nd Battalion (Pioneer), the Sikh Regiment, scowled and unconsciously reached for the kirpan, or sword, she wore at her side.
She was not so even tempered as Pandey. And the sneering look this UN swine had given the work her troops had put into rebuilding the compound already had her tomcat-ready for a fight. Pandey reached out with his own hand to place it atop her lighter one. "Not yet, lioness," he whispered.
"I don't like this greasy bastard," she whispered back. "What does such as he know of the hard hand of war?"
"We'll discuss it later. Now take your hand off of your kirpan."
Chanet noticed the byplay, though he couldn't hear what was said. Especially did he notice Amita looking him over as someone the world would be a better place without. He'd noticed, too, what a damnably handsome woman she was. But seeing the white knuckled hand gripping the hilt of the long dagger she wore killed any lust before it could quite form.
Chanet had shuttled in earlier in the day from the main base at Atlantis, bringing with him the Deputy Special Representative for the Secretary General, Tariq Lakhdar, age twenty-four. It was Lakhdar who would see to the local efforts, under Chanet's overall direction. And why not? Chanet had owed a favor to Lakhdar's uncle, after all.
"I don't like the look of the other greasy bastard, either," whispered Amita.
"Later."
The small assembly held the leadership for the entire peacekeeping force for Balboa. Besides Chanet and Lakhdar, the civilian leaders, and Pandey and Bhago, from the Army of India, there were four captains from the Organization of African Unity, one German, seconded from 5th Panzer Division, a Belgian Commando, a Ukrainian aviator major, and David Duff-McQueeg, a British Royal Marine artilleryman, in overall command.
Amita liked none of them, finding the Africans undisciplined, the German arrogant, the Belgian grotesquely beery, the Ukrainian incomprehensible, and Duff-McQueeg, who . . . "Stupid, rude, limey bastard. No wonder they couldn't hold on to India. I never really understood the American Revolution, or our own resistance, until I met that piece of shit."
"Amita, later!"
Duff-McQueeg stood up and announced, "We've driven off the main guerilla band. But we'll never get full control until we can cut off their food. The first thing we're going to do is to establish ration controls, tight ration controls, here in the city. That means no, you bloody Sikhs will not be giving out food at the temple I am sure you intend to establish . . . "
Chapter Fifteen
They imagine they're the wave of the future, but it's only sewage flowing downhill.
—Lois McMasters Bujold, Shards of Honor
29/4/468 AC, Building 59, Fort Muddville, Balboa
"Magnificent, mon General," Malcoeur toadied. He was not talking about architecture.
"Quoi?" Janier asked, in a tone that meant, shut up, fool.
General Janier never really thought the old headquarters for the FS Army in Balboa was quite grand enough for his own, indisputable, magnificence. Oh, yes, the arched gate underneath his office was all well enough, even if not quite the triumphal arch the general would have preferred. And the building was solid; you have to give the Columbian pigs that. But it was such a utilitarian structure, no marble, few mirrors . . . no quarters for a mistress. How could a people even think of themselves as civilized who could build a headquarters for a senior general and not provide quarters for his mistress?
"Ah, well," said Janier aloud, "we'll soon have that fixed."
"Sir?" asked Malcoeur, cupping one hand to his ear to ward off the sound of hammers and saws coming from the just down the hall where Janier had evicted much of his staff to create an apartment.
"Nothing for your ears, Malcoeur, you rotund little swine," Janier sneered. He pointed at the aide with his marshal's stick with its thirty-two gold and silk embroidered eagles and ordered, "Bring me my topper." The top of the baton was engraved, "Terror Belli, Decus Pacis."
While the toady scurried off to Janier's desk to fetch the general's headgear, Janier admired himself in the mirror. It was understandable; he did cut quite a fine figure in the blue velvet and gold-embroidered informal dress uniform of a marshal of Napoleonic France. Hundreds of golden oak leaves covered the facings, the collar, the shoulders, and ran down each sleeve.
Janier fingered one of the eight gold buttons on the coat, adjusting it minutely. He then tugged and twisted at the stiff, high collar. It was beastly uncomfortable. By the time Janier was satisfied with the collar Malcoeur, the "rotund little swine," had returned with the headdress.
It would be unseemly for the general to bow his noble head to a fat little wretch like Major Malcoeur. Instead, as Janier admired himself in the mirror, the major pulled up a chair, stood upon it, and gently lowered a replica of the golden laurel wreath worn by Janier's hero, Napoleon I, for his coronation.