The paratrooper answered, "Sir, to attack the Santandern drug cartels, butcher their followers, then take them, their wives and children back to Balboa for crucifixion."
"Will you follow those orders?"
"To the letter, sir."
To the shaking Santandern, who understood English perfectly well, Carrera said, "Perhaps it would not be such a good idea to kill me after all."
Ochoa leaned against a cross briefly, then recoiled in disgust, unconsciously wiping a blood stained hand on his trouser leg. He risked a sally. "How is it you are better than us? We both kill innocents; we both use torture. What makes you so moral."
"I never claimed to be more moral than you. As far as the drug trade goes, I really don't care one way or the other, as long as it stays out of Balboa. The only difference is that you failed to understand me; to understand that I would never give in, that no measure could deter me. So all the evil you did was wasted. But I did understand you, and I knew, as I know now, that you would give in. So the lives I took and the pain I inflicted were not wasted. That's the difference. That . . . and that I won, and you lost."
The Santandern took a last look at the writhing bodies of his former compatriots. One of them, Señor Escobedo, soundlessly mouthed a cry for help. The emissary turned away. "Duque Carrera, I will tell my associates that I believe your offer is fair. My counsel carries weight. I think we can agree to your terms."
"There is one more set of terms," Carrera said.
Ochoa raised an eyebrow.
"Nothing too onerous," Carrera continued, reaching into a pocket to pull out a small typewritten note. "These names popped up on some of the computers we captured. I want them and their families dead."
Ochoa took the note and read alone only the first name before going silent. "Piedad Andalusia, eh? Why her?"
"Because she sides now with the Marxists in Santander, likewise the Progressives in the Federated States, and so can be predicted to side with the Marxists of the Tauran Union at some future and inconvenient time," Carrera answered.
"We can do this," the Santandern agreed.
"I was certain you could."
Ochoa took a last look at the crosses and suppressed the urge to vomit.
Carrera said, "I was sure we could come to an amicable understanding. Now, back to the tent for a drink before your flight?"
As Carrera and the other turned to leave, Menshikov asked what to do about the poor people hanging on their crosses.
Carrera considered, then said, "Kill the women and the accountants, silently. I'd let them go but . . . no, too risky. Still, there's no further reason for them to suffer. Let the others die naturally. Bomb my people, will they?"
* * *
The fact that Balboa was behind the raid did not become widely known for some years, at which point it was far too late to matter. The ACCS crew, if they had ever entertained doubts, had those doubts dispelled when they were individually interrogated by civilian clad security agents who then swore the crew to secrecy. Shortly after the President of the Federated States' television address, strong young men with good bearing and very little hair began using hints that they had been in Santander for recent bloody missions as devices to attract women in places like Oglethorpe and Wilkes' Folly. Some were believed. Occasionally, so it was reported in various barracks, the technique worked. A few of the Volgans tried the same thing in Balboa, but were not believed.
In the Federated States' counter-drug operational funds for the next three years were severely curtailed as acquisitions from seized assets took a sharp downturn. (Fernandez' methods were much faster if lower tech.) For years to come, rarely would a Drug Interdiction Task Force accountant or computer hacker say the name of Balboa without a snarl. This was one reason why, when Balboa turned over extensive evidence that the old government, in Old Balboa, was deeply involved in the drug trade, that evidence was suppressed.
The fifteen children found at the various targets, such as had not been killed by the attack or released, were brought back to Balboa. Lourdes arranged to place the youngest in good homes. The older ones were to be supported by Carrera himself in a foster home until they were old enough to join the army.
In Santander one voice insisted that the Federated States was not responsible for the attack. This was young Santandern Air Force Captain Hartmann. True to his word, in as sincere a voice and expression as he could muster, Hartmann insisted to one and all that it had been Balboa which had raided Santander.
Excursus
Criminal Justice in the Timocratic Republic of Balboa: Barbarism at the Bar, Bianca Meister, from University of Starvation Cove Law Review, Spring, AC 488
Largely the product of people untrained in the nuances of the law, the saving graces, the implicit mercies, and the law's civilizing influences, criminal justice in the Central Columbian nation of Balboa is itself the greatest crime in the country. Indeed, it is a blight upon the Family of Man and an insult to the evolution of the law on two planets over more than four millennia . . .
* * *
In reviewing the Balboan Code of Criminal Justice one is struck immediately by its almost unremitting harshness. The least penalty for anything we in the more enlightened parts of the world would think of as a common law felony is death by hanging. The maximum punishments increase in severity from there. Counterfeiters are hanged, arsonists are burned, rapists impaled, premeditated murderers and traitors are crucified. Even the lightest of felonies, robbery and burglary, or lesser forms of non-justifiable homicide, for example, receive the rope as their reward. And conspiracy law carries this unremitting bloodthirstiness and sadism over to group crimes as well . . .
* * *
In the case of crimes against the person, as opposed to against the state, executions are in preference carried out by either the victims or the victims' nearest kin. They may be, and often are, delegated to the state to perform on behalf of the aggrieved. The law, such as it is, requires that executions be public, and performed in a prominent and accessible spot. This, too, seems to drive the choice of state as executioner.
One of the few instances of mercy permissible within the code is that the victim, if alive, may choose a lesser penalty, for example, hanging for rape, rather than impalement. Even there, hangings come in several varieties and it is the rare criminal who receives the more merciful long drop as opposed to the slow strangle . . .
* * *
The philosophy, if such it may be called, behind this ultra draconian code is nowhere made explicit within that code. Instead, one must delve into the legislative history. This makes it plain that, for example, Balboa—rather, the dictatorship of those who have sold themselves to state's military—believes that deadly force is authorized to any potential immediate victim, or a third party acting in their behalf, to deter or prevent any of the common law felonies. This value judgment being made, they further hold that what the victim, or someone acting on the victim's behalf, may do to prevent a crime, the state may do or permit to deter or avenge.
Also express, within the legislative history, is the value judgment that man has no natural rights, but rather only those rights which arise within the social compact. Logically enough, given that Balboa does not require but only permits its residents to take on the "burdens" of citizenship, the state also holds that anyone may voluntarily withdraw from the social compact, thereby giving up all rights and losing all protections. Committing a common law felony is considered to be such a renunciation of rights and duties. That this is simply barbaric bothers the Balboan timocrats not a whit . . .