“Before we continue,” the XO of Des Moines began, looking from face to face, “let’s be clear about what we are proposing. Father,” he looked directly at Dwyer, “how would you phrase it?”
“Gentlemen… oh, and you ladies, too,” the chaplain made a gesture that swept in everyone in CIC, including the avatars, “we are proposing to quickly assemble as much aid as possible from the local community, raid a prison, free a number of captives, overthrow a government, and quite possibly commit an act or acts of war against the Galactic Federation.”
The priest smiled wickedly. “Would you all like general absolution now, or would you prefer to wait until we’ve actually killed someone?”
Paloma Mercedes whispered softly but furiously, “Oh, I could kill my father.”
She’d tried hard to ignore what her own ears told her, the plotting with the aliens, the reports of arrests her father had taken with undisguised glee. But when she’d heard that Julio’s father had been taken, too? She’d had a great liking for General Diaz, not least because when he had once caught the two of them making love in the gardener’s cabin he had simply turned around without a word and left, closing the door gently behind him.
What he might have said to Julio later she didn’t know about and didn’t want to know about.
So, what to do? What to do?
She’d spent more than a day, alternately pacing her room and crying in her bed, before she’d decided. She couldn’t go and browbeat anyone at headquarters into telling her what was going on. That would just alert her father and he would surely have her arrested and brought home. And then she’d never get to Julio or get the word out.
So, instead, she’d stolen her father’s private automobile, the Benz. In this she had set out westward, looking for one man of whom the president had previously spoken of disparagingly, Colonel Suarez.
It was lonely in the Benz, driving by herself. She wished her Julio, yes her Julio if he’d have her back after the way she had treated him, were there with her.
It was lonely for Diaz, alone and aloft in his glider at night. The City, Panama City, glowed behind him but the countryside below was mostly darkened with the war. The glow of the City was only of the most minimal help in navigating to where the reports placed the headquarters of the remnants of the 1st Mechanized Division and, so it was hoped, help.
Radio silence was the order of the day. The government of Mercedes must not learn what was afoot. This did not prevent Diaz from having his tactical radio on, nor even the small personal AM radio he had taped to the glider’s narrow dash.
The radio station, Estereo Bahia, played a mix of Spanish and gringo tunes. Most told of love, or — perhaps slightly more often — losing same. He wished that somehow Paloma would come back to him. None of the songs addressed the present war, none addressed the future.
I still want to spend my future, if I have one, with that girl.
Diaz always tried to push back thoughts of the future. He had no real expectation of surviving the war. For that matter, he had no real expectation of surviving the next few days. His was a family by no means unfamiliar with the concept of a coup, a golpe de estado. His father, in particular, had vast experience both in their planning and their execution. His father, however, was currently unavailable for consultation. Indeed, he was, in part at least, a major objective of the coup.
But I’d sure feel more confident if the old man had had a say in this.
The boy flicked on his red-filtered flashlight and pointed it at the map board strapped to his left leg. Clipped to the board was a map of the Republic of Panama, marked with his planned route and carefully folded so that the pilot could, with a few simple motions, expose other portions of the map and the plot.
The glider had no airspeed indicator. Nor was the Global Positioning System any longer functioning; the Posleen had long since blown its satellites out of space. Diaz’s navigational aids were limited to a compass, mounted on the instrument panel above where he had taped the radio, the map on his thigh, and a fairly useless watch.
Sighing, the lieutenant glanced out the cockpit, first right, then left. Ah… that would be… mmmm… Capira. It must be Capira. Diaz pulled his stick left until the compass told him he was heading almost due south. The road he followed quickly dropped away as it ran down to the sea. Diaz, sinking only slowly, found himself with eight or nine hundred more meters of altitude.
He tossed his head to bring his night vision goggles down over his face, then dropped the glider’s nose slightly. Faintly, well off in the distance, the town of Chame glowed in the goggles’ intensified image. Satisfied that he was on the correct bearing, he nudged the nose back up. This part of the route was treacherous; he would need all the altitude he could keep if he was to avoid cracking up on some darkened slope or cliff.
How strange it is, Diaz thought. A year ago the thought of dying in some lonely place would have had me trembling in my boots. But I am not trembling now. Is this because I have grown used to it? Because I have grown up? The boy laughed at himself. Or is it because I have just grown stupid?
“I am not stupid, AID,” the Rinn Fain half snarled from behind the huge human desk he had come to like and to enjoy the symbolism of.
The artificial intelligence answered imperturbably, “It is not a question of stupid, Lord Fain. I myself have just recently put the disparate pieces together.
“Item: Inspector Serasin, a key person in the arrests that we designed to undermine the defense of this place, has disappeared. Item: So have his wife and children. Item: armed guards are stationed at the entranceways to both of the warships from the United States. Item: the AIDs aboard those vessels have cut off all communication, which, by the way, ought not be possible. Item: one of the local shamans appeared at the place where our key prisoners are being held. Item: except for dress this shaman matches descriptions of one of those aboard the two warships to perfection. Item: the local populace, to the extent they have become aware of the arrests, is extremely unhappy with them, especially the arrest of the woman…”
“I had no real choice about that, you know.” The Rinn Fain wiggled his fingers dismissively, a gesture he had picked up from the humans. “While the humans are, in general, quite tractable — and those of the continent they call Europe even more so — they sometimes set conditions to their assistance. In this case, while the prosecutor at their International Criminal Court was willing to prosecute, she wanted to make something of a name for herself by prosecuting someone who violated their laws against juvenile soldiers. The woman was the only one who had.”
“Choice or not, Lord Fain, the discontent from this woman’s disappearance has spread out like light from a sun, originating in the place from which she was taken. And, as long as I am on the subject: Item…”
“Enough, AID. You overreach yourself.”
“Well, one of us has, milord.”
“So what do you suggest?” the Rinn Fain asked, ignoring the AID’s jibe.
“Move up the arrival of the Himmet ship and get those people out of the country as soon as possible.”
“That, sadly, is not possible,” the Darhel sighed.