As if reading the young pilot’s thoughts, McNair added, “Do not expect there to be any trace of the towns. The Posleen are in the habit of obliterating any trace that remains of the peoples they overrun and using the materials for their own building. Maybe they’ll have been lazy and erected their pyramids on the same sites. No way to tell until you get there.”
Diaz nodded. “I know that, sir. I am counting on the roads. They seem to leave those alone, mostly.”
“Right. You and your wingman should have good updrafts to the north, all along your route. If you need altitude, just break off your spotting, head north, and take advantage of that. We’ll zigzag in and out of range.
“The objective is simply to kill Posleen and destroy any industry they may have set up or be setting up. Don’t forget that. We are not trying to save any humans they may have captured and be holding over for rations. In fact, any humans are as much targets as the Posleen are.”
Diaz cringed. He knew he might be called on to direct fire on his countrymen. The knowledge made him more ill than even the uncontrolled ascent by balloon was going to.
McNair went silent for a moment. Damned terrible thing to ask a young man to do; engage his own people. But there’s no help for it, if he spots any.
Daisy spoke for herself. “Julio, I know it’s an awful thing we’re asking of you. But, I want you to think of what those people must be feeling, just waiting for the moment that a Posleen points to them and indicates they are next on the menu. Imagine children seeing their parents butchered before their eyes, and parents watching their children turned into steaks and chops. Believe me, Julio, it will be a mercy for you to kill them.”
Julio looked ill as he answered, “I know that, Miss Daisy… intellectually. The problem is it won’t be an intellectual exercise.”
“Are you able to do it, though, Lieutenant Diaz?” McNair asked.
“I won’t like it, sir,” the young man answered, “but, yes, I can do it… since I must.”
But it will still hurt because any one of them might be like my Paloma… well, the Paloma who used to be mine. And it will hurt me to think of her, or someone like her, under the fire of the guns.
Paloma Mercedes usually knocked before entering her father’s home office. She was about to when she heard voices inside. Instead of knocking, then, she simply waited outside, listening through the door.
Four men stood in the president’s office: Mercedes, the European Union representative for the International Criminal Court, the inspector, and Cortez.
Cortez stood quietly behind the president. He had good reason to be quiet. He had, after all, failed his uncle and failed his family. Unstated but understood, his job had been to see to the destruction of his division and the loss of the war. While his division had been very badly damaged, it had — miraculously — survived, at least in cadre. Moreover, the war was far from lost. Indeed, nothing had fallen to the aliens except Chiriqui and the western corner of Veraguas. Why his uncle wanted the war lost, Cortez didn’t know. But he was the head of the clan, and doubtless knew what was best for them.
Mercedes’ reaction when a salt-soaked Cortez had shown up in his office had not been precisely unrestrained joy. Indeed, if the president had felt any joy that his nephew had survived it was tolerably hard for Cortez to tell, what with the repeated blows with a riding crop the president had rained upon his head and shoulders.
Those bruises and welts were very nearly healed now.
“Do you understand your orders, Inspector?” the president asked.
“Frankly, no, Mr. President, I do not understand them at all. I can see no sense in arresting half the heroes and decent military leaders of the country, especially at a time like this.”
“It is very simple. These people,” and the president’s riding crop pointed at a stack of warrants, “have violated the law. Do you believe in the law or not, Inspector?”
The inspector was not, had never been, what anyone would call “a nice man.” He knew it and was not bothered by it. He also knew that, technical skills aside, he had one great virtue, one supreme idea around which his life had evolved and revolved since late boyhood. This idea was the law, its support, its advancement, its upholding, come what may.
Sensing that he had won, the president offered some small balm to heal the inspector’s sensibilities.
“My nephew, here,” he said, pointing his crop at Cortez now, “will take a detachment of soldiers to back you up as you arrest these criminals.”
The inspector glanced at Cortez, hiding his disgust. The rumors had flown, sure enough, when the escaped commander of a wrecked division had returned, seemingly from the dead.
Sighing, the inspector agreed. He took the warrants and wordlessly, departed the president’s office.
On his way out he passed the president’s daughter, Paloma, sitting quietly in a chair, her face turned white.
I wonder what she heard, the inspector thought. Well, not my place to suggest anything.
Not by coincidence, not one of Cortez’s troopers were from his semi-defunct division. These would have been as likely as not to shoot their former commander as to follow his orders. Truth be told, they would have been more likely to shoot.
Fortunately, the 1st Mechanized Division, what was left of it under Suarez’s command, was currently engaged in holding a portion of the line running along the San Pedro River from Punta Mutis to just west of Montijo. North of that, the 6th Mech had responsibility all the way to the Cordillera Central. Behind those, four infantry divisions were digging in frantically.
In any case, none of Cortez’s former soldiers could be spared to help him enforce the ICC’s warrants. Instead, the guardhouses and the Carcel Modelo had been scraped for soldiers, most often bad ones, who could still be counted on to face down unarmed, unwarned people for a good price. For some, the price included a pardon for any crimes committed.
Some were going to be tougher than others, Cortez and the inspector both knew. These had to be taken by stealth.
The post had once had a golf course. This had been allowed to revert to jungle after some decades, a point the 10th Infantry’s sergeant major had once noted and dismissed as irrelevant. It had now again been cleared for the two thousand odd tents that housed the people Digna had brought out with her from Chiriqui, along with several thousand refugees from farther south who had come in by sea. It wasn’t much of a life, surely, but it was arguably better than being turned into snacks. The former golf course, itself, was relatively flat and had good drainage, to include a roughly ten foot deep, concrete lined drainage ditch more or less down the center.
In the dim, filtered glow of the early morning twilight, thousands of those people turned out of their hot, stuffy and mildewy tents to watch the Russian-built MI-17 helicopter descend upon the landing pad near the post headquarters. Not that there was anything unusual about the helicopter; gringo helicopters came and went all the time. It was, if anything, the non-gringoness of the chopper that attracted attention.
Once down, the helicopter reduced its power to an idle. The rear clamshell door opened up to permit Cortez and the inspector to debark. There was no vehicle for them. One could have been arranged with the gringos, of course, but that might have led to the gringos — nosey sorts — asking too many questions. Cortez and the inspector walked the half mile or so from the helipad to the refugees’ tent city.