The same automobile that had brought the three rescuers to the scene returned, the driver stopping his vehicle and opening the trunk. Velasquez and another lifted the two corpses one at a time and dumped them in the trunk, even as the remaining two legionaries taped the still living thugs securely. These, too, were then dumped in the trunk atop the bodies.
"Ok," said the sergeant. "Let's drop off the garbage at the city dump. After that, we'll turn the survivors over to our contact."
An old woman peeped out from her window. "Chico," she asked Velasquez, "is it safe to come outside?"
"Only for a little while, Abuela. But soon it will be safe all the time."
Estado Major, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
One had to give Fernandez his due. Given a new mission, he moved faster than anyone had a real right to expect, starting with giving the operation a name, Nube Oscura or Dark Cloud, to arranging funding, to recruiting a few score reliable troops for the effort.
He didn't entirely trust the Civil Police for work like this; they were still too close to the old ways and the old government. Moreover, there was more than sufficient reason to believe they were, in too many parts, corrupt.
Starting from scratch, Fernandez mused in his windowless basement office, and given orders to move quickly . . . well, we've had a good beginning. Fifty-seven criminals killed, half of them saved for interrogation before being executed. Illegal? So what? They volunteered to be outside the law when they broke the law. And, moreover, when they caused my country to be threatened with another gringo invasion they become my personal enemies as well as the enemies of all right-thinking Balboans. In short, fuck 'em.
A good beginning, he repeated the thought. That's given us the next tier up, the gang leaders. From there . . .
Aduana, Herrera International Airport, Balboa, Terra Nova
They waited until the crowd from the last airship to land had dispersed before walking forward.
Corporal Velasquez, like his senior, Sargento Lopez, wore civilian clothes, slacks and guayaberas, embroidered shirts that took the place of suits for much of Balboa's population most of the time.
"Señor Donati?" asked Lopez.
"Yes," the aduana chief answered, impatiently, "I'm Donati."
"Then you must come with us."
Sub-basement, Estado Major, Ciudad Balboa, 471 AC
The entire facility had the smell of disinfectant, much like a hospital. Like a hospital, too, the whole place was rather quiet, all subdued voices and muffled mechanical sounds. Under the artificial lighting, and with that pungent stink in his nostrils, a bound and gagged Donati, shuffled down the corridor under the direction of his guards. He thought he had caught a glimpse of his wife being led off down a corridor crossing the one he followed. That was worrying enough to cause his heart to sink. Who knew what she might divulge?
One guard put a hand on Donati's shoulder, stopping him in front of a metal door unmarked save for a room number. The other guard opened the door and said, "Enter."
The room inside was lit, with one desk and a hardback chair in front of it. At the desk sat a swarthy, somewhat overweight sort, in the uniform of the Legion, making an entry into a page in a file folder. Without looking up, the swarthy one made a motion that the guards should seat Donati, which they did, roughly.
Donati thought there was something about the man at the desk to mark him as foreign, but couldn't quite put his finger on it. That man continued to write for several minutes before closing the folder and looking up.
"My name is Mahamda," the man said, in accented Spanish, "Warrant Officer Achmed al Mahamda. I am a recent immigrant to Balboa. From Sumer. You are going to tell me everything I want to know about the drug trade, how it works, who are the players, where are the facilities, what are the routes, how much money is involved, where it is, and how to confiscate it.
"You're going to want to lie to me. Don't."
Excursus
Government of Balboa, from Global Affairs Magazine, Volume 121, Issue of 10/473 AC
Each tercio, or regiment, of the Legion del Cid, the armed force of the Republic of Balboa, sends to the Senate one senator who serves for an eight year term, with one quarter of all senators being reelected—or not, as the case may be—every two years. Senators are elected by their regimental centuriate assembly, composed of the discharged veterans of the regiment.
Upon graduation from initial entry training, all newly minted soldiers are assigned to a political century, an arbitrary grouping of exactly one hundred. (That is to say, officially it is arbitrary. In practice, wealthier and better educated people appear to be deliberately scattered among the centuries not only to reduce their political influence but to force those wealthier and more influential types to watch out for their century-brothers.) Soldiers killed in initial entry training are also counted, and their names enrolled in the other centuries being filled at the time of graduation.
That is one type, one might call it the "post-revolutionary" type, of century. The other type consists of those who were soldiers prior to the "revolution," which is to say prior to the election of Raul Parilla as President of the Republic and prior to the establishment of the Senate. These, plus their dead comrades, of which there were very many, were formed into political centuries shortly after the Parilla assumed power.
No one is ever added to or dropped from a century's rolls. No one votes within his century until formally discharged from the Legion. No century ceases to exist, or loses its voting power, until the last member has died. This has not yet happened.
Biennially, all the centuries of a tercio meet, together, at the tercio's main cantonment area or on the grounds of the regimental club, whichever is most convenient. There, six classes of decision are made by the voting members of a century. The first of these is for the political centurion, a position of some local honor and thus avidly sought. The political centurion directs the century in its voting, runs administration for the next two years, oversees the century's Health, Welfare and Mutual Aid Fund (managed by Banco de la Legion, S.A.), tallies the vote and, in the ultimate extremity, leads the century in combat.
The second decision is whom the century shall support in the political campaign for the National Legislative Assembly, before which campaign the centuriate assembly is invariably set to meet. The second decision is only the century's preference, as the final decision of support is determined by the full regiment's centuriate assembly. Support in this case means two things: A) Members of the regiment are honor bound to vote for the candidate selected, as a group, even though votes for election to the National Assembly are individually tallied by secret ballot and B) the members of the regiment, indeed the entire regimental organization, will canvas aggressively for that candidate. In practice this has meant that not only do the veterans of the nation's armed forces absolutely control the Senate, but that they also exercise de facto control of the legislative assembly, given that the purely civilian populace tends to scatter its own vote. Nothing requires that the civilians do this, of course. It should go without saying, but we'll say it anyway, that no regimental centuriate assembly has ever yet endorsed a non-veteran for public office. Note that the veterans never win every seat in the Legislative assembly. They have never yet failed to take over half.