The Lotus Eaters (23 page)

"Well enough equipped for
my
complete satisfaction," Carrera replied. "Though my preferences have to take second place for now, since she's the baby and she wants to be fed."

He leaned down, kissed his wife atop her head, and passed to her her newborn. Lourdes took the baby and began to undo her top to present her breast. "What are we going to call her?"

Carrera rocked his head from side to side. "Even though
I
did all the really important work, I think you get to choose. Mother's privilege, let's say."

"Hmmm."
Hamilcar's position is secure. Julia has her father more or less wrapped around her finger. This one will need a little something extra to compete, I think.

"Then we'll call her 'Linda,' " Lourdes said.

For just a moment before affixing herself to her mother, the baby made a gurgling, happy sound.

Carrera sighed. "Linda, it is then, by popular acclaim. I suppose—"

He never quite finished the thought, as the skyline outside Lourdes' hospital room was suddenly lit with fireworks.

"What the—?"

"Mac passed on that you had dropped another one," he said. "The troops are celebrating. Noisily."

The facility was soundless but for the roar of a powerful engine and the cries of the antaniae. Under a moonless, overcast sky, beneath a long metal shed that blocked out all overhead view, and surrounded by earthen walls that covered the bunker entrance from ground observation, one uniformed man guided another in driving a blacked out, unnumbered Ocelot infantry fighting vehicle
cum
armored gun system down a ramp and through wide spread bunker doors. Only when the doors were sealed tight did the first man turn on a light to guide the vehicle to park in its proper place. Under the light, the bunker walls seemed moist, with mold growing in the corners.

"Jesus Christ, Centurion! What is all this?" asked the driver after he'd dismounted.

"Officially, its bunker number 17,
Lago Sombrero
Ammunition Supply Point," answered the centurion.

"No, no. I mean 'what is
all
this.' " The driver spread his arms wide to take in the dozen armored vehicles, two of them tanks, that the bunker held.

"Oh . . . that." The centurion gave a friendly smile. "This is a hide for equipment, one of many here at
Lago Sombrero
and some other places. What does is look like?"

"Like a hide, I suppose. Let me rephrase. Why are we hiding equipment here."

The centurion his head. "Because one never knows when a
tercio
's worth of armor no one knows about may come in handy."

"Who knows about this?"

"Me, the First Legion Commander, the Penonome Military Academy Commander,
Duque
Carrera and a few of the staff, and . . . now . . . you."

"I don't think I want to know anything about any of this, Centurion."

"Too late, son. I needed help moving all this shit. Fernandez's group came up with your name as the most closed mouthed man in the First Legion. So here you are. We'll be filling up the rest of the non-ammunition bunkers a vehicle or two at a time for the next couple of years. We also have to come in from time to time to check the vehicles out. Then, too, we have a list of supplies that need storing here. I suppose it goes almost without saying that this has to be our little secret, right?"

"How do I get into these things?"

"Just lucky, son," the centurion answered, "just lucky.

"Look, don't sweat it," the centurion added. "It's all really simple. Every month or so, just before a time when the weather and light conditions are going to be just right, and we know there are no recon satellites or UEPF ships overhead, a new track or two, sometimes maybe three or four, will be delivered to the First Legion. They'll duly issue it and pull in an older track to go in to the depot for rebuild. Except that about fifty percent of the time the 'old' track will have just come out of rebuild, in which case it comes here. And then we prep it for long term storage. Speaking of which, go over to that cabinet and pull out the plastic wrap inside. Then get us a tank of nitrogen from the cabinet next to the first one."

"Nitrogen? Why nitrogen?" The soldier sounded nervous.

"Didn't you ever have any chemistry in school? I said nitrogen, not nitroglycerin. It's not dangerous. We just use it to replace the air around the tracks—after we seal them in the plastic—so they don't rust away."

"Where did you learn to do this, Centurion?"

"Out of a book, boy. Well . . . that and a course run out on the
Isla Real.
"

Despite the high wall surrounded the complex, the sounds of traffic could be heard even within the President's office. Parilla was pretty much deaf to those; what attention he had to spare was focused on listening for the sound of a Cricket, bringing Carrera in for a meeting.

The subject of which is not going to please friend Patricio
, Parilla thought.
But when he gave up control of most of the money to the Senate he also assigned responsibility to the Senate. And they're taking their responsibilities seriously, seriously enough to say, "Halt, we're going broke!
"

The rest of his attention span Parilla gave over to reading a book, his reading glasses perched between the bridge and the end of his nose, while he waited for Carrera to show at his office. The government comptroller,
Señor
Dorado, was already seated.

* * *

One side effect of the Federated States' mandated repartition of the country was that the old executive offices had fallen inside the border of the enclave granted to the old government. Thus, while Parilla's government had physical control of the Legislative Assembly complex, there had actually been no place for the president to sit.

For a short while, during the time Carrera had first convalesced on the
Isla Real,
Parilla had made do with the Casa Linda and its outbuildings. That was, however, pretty damned suboptimal what with most of the population of the country being on the other side of the Tauran Union-controlled Transitway.

For another half a year, near enough, the president, cabinet and executive department had sat in various rented office spaces. This, too, had been something less than ideal, as getting the cabinet together for face to face communication was, given
Ciudad
Balboa's appalling traffic, always a time consuming and problematic activity.

Thus, in the time since Parilla had taken office, much effort and no little amount of cash had gone into creating a new executive complex, containing mansions for Parilla and his two vice presidents, plus the cabinet officials, along with executive office buildings for all the major agencies, and barracks space for a cohort of guards. There was even a set of quarters for Carrera, as de facto chief of defense, though he and Lourdes had never moved in and had no intention of ever moving in.

* * *

When Carrera arrived at the receptionist area fronting Parilla's office he was greeted by a statuesque, slightly olive skinned, and intensely attractive brunette in her late-twenties—Parilla's secretary and, so it was rumored, one of the old dictator, Piña's, many former mistresses. That the woman would have been a mere girl in her early teens at that time only made the rumor the more credible. The receptionist, Lucilla, stood and announced Carrera's arrival into an intercom, then walked—or, rather, swayed while moving forward—to open the door to Parilla's office. Turning the knob, she bent down just enough for Carrera to get an eyeful of most enchanting cleavage. She smiled at him as she straightened back up. It was a smile of interest and a statement of availability.

"I'm starting to get on in years, Luci," Carrera said. "Someday you are going to give me a heart attack doing that."

The woman answered, one eyebrow lifting for emphasis "From that or from something else,
Duque
." Her smile grew into an invitation.

Carrera just shook his head, a regretful grin on his face. Thinking of Lourdes, now seven Old Earth months pregnant, he said "I don't mind dying, dear, but I do have my preferences as to how. A knife in the back while I sleep is very low on that list."

Inclining her head and shrugging her shoulders, and incidentally jiggling her breasts, the woman just gave Carrera a look of something very like sympathy
. You don't know what you're missing.

Power corrupts. Luci had been around power since her mid teens, about the time her breasts reached their full development. She was, in many ways, as corrupt as a human being could possibly be . . . and she liked corruption, too. Unnoticed by Carrera, Luci returned to her desk, picked up a phone and began to dial a number.

Parilla was already walking from his desk to the door to greet Carrera. He, too, took in a good eyeful of some of Balboa's loveliest scenery before closing the door behind Carrera and leading him to the small conference table that graced the office. The comptroller was already seated. He stood for the President and Carrera.

After a very brief period of small talk the accountant opened his briefcase and extracted a series of thick folders.

With a dramatic, even melodramatic, air, Dorado, "Without either a substantial drop in expenditures—or some large increase in revenues—the government will be bankrupt within five years."

Carrera stared at the accountant as if he were quite mad. Unfazed, he continued.

"Numbers do not lie. With current defense expenditures hovering above two and a half billion per year, and expenditures growing as they are, we simply cannot meet the defense plan past that time. We will actually begin to feel shortages well before that. And if there is an economic downturn, globally, even the admittedly huge sum you've turned over to senatorial control will drain away like dirty dishwater."

Parilla raised an eyebrow in Carrera's general direction.

Carrera shrugged. "It doesn't matter. We'll be at war with the Tauran Union within five years. After that, a little thing like bankruptcy hardly matters."

"Sure," Parilla agreed. "But what if we're
not
at war with the Taurans within that time? What if they can delay things for ten years?"

"Then we have a problem," Carrera admitted. "But, Raul,
now
is the time to be buying equipment.
Now
is the time to be buying shipping, or getting it under long term lease, anyway.
Now
is the time to be bringing young boys and even girls into the legions, before the population bubble disappears. Our women used to be the most fertile on the planet. That's changed and I don't know if it's ever going back to the way it was."

Staring Carrera directly in the face, Dorado said, "Of all your programs only those run by Professor Ruiz are not ruinously expensive. Even then, his radio, television, films, music, and translations of military works don't quite break even, even with foreign sales. Of course, since you directed that the Military Museum, which falls under Ruiz's department, not charge more than a quarter drachma for entrance, that's a loser. I have given the money from the anti-crime campaign over to the Professor to keep his department running."

Carrera perked with interest. "Money from the anti-crime campaign?"

"Yes,
Duque
," Dorado said. "We've had to sell seized property at distress sale prices, but still there was cash, some gold, seized bank accounts, a couple of yachts, one small merchant vessel, some residential property. It made us about two million last month. Of course, if the campaign is ultimately successful, you can expect that source of funds to dry up too."

Carrera leaned back in his chair, covering his eyes and rubbing his eyebrows with his fingertips.
Victims of our own success. I suppose I am pushing expansion faster than I should. But I've only so much time. Where do I get more money? A lot more.

To Parilla he said, "I'll look into finding some other sources of funds. Or maybe let Esterhazy"—the Legion's comptroller and investment officer—"run a little wild."

Carrera had come out of his post-Hajar funk with a base suitable for a small corps of about fifty thousand. That amount of barracks space, recreation facilities, housing areas, hospitals and the like was more than adequate for the number of new trainees the Legion had to take on annually, roughly thirty-six thousand. Indeed, it was about three or four times more than was actually required, since thirty-six thousand annually meant about twelve to fourteen thousand at any given time, plus a few thousand regulars in professional development courses. That excess didn't even include the dependent housing areas, most of which were unneeded now that only a small percentage of the population, the regular cadre, was even allowed to have families on the island. Centurions and optios were living in spacious quarters formerly reserved for tribunes and legates.

There were still several myriad jobs to be done before the
Isla Real
and the other islands of the chain could serve to guard the northern approaches to the capital and the Transitway. There was, for example, already one dual pier for offloading supply ships. For an island fortress with a good expectation of being bombed viciously in the not too distant future, one double pier could not be enough.

There was already an all-weather, hard surfaced, asphalt ring road that roughly paralleled the island's coast, connecting
tercio
casernes with ranges, training areas, and the more complete facilities of the main post, to the north, by the tadpole's tail. That asphalt could be expected to be turned into craters interspersed with boulders under a sustained, intensive aerial attack. Thus, both a parallel system of easily repaired dirt roads, and a half-subterranean, narrow gauge railway were under construction.

During Balboa's long wet season, roughly eight thousand tons of water fell on every square kilometer of the island . . .
every
 . . .
day
. The drainage system they had was adequate for peacetime purposes. It would crumble under sustained aerial assault, making defensive positions untenable, providing vastly expanded breeding grounds for insects, and potentially opening up any defenders to the triple scourges of malaria and yellow and dengue fever.