The Lotus Eaters (35 page)

"Thank God," Quijana whispered.

One factor that tends to bring this mutual looting about more quickly is the presence of an enfranchised, more or less large, but distinct minority within a generally pluralistic society. This happens quite without reference to race or culture; it is the minority status that drives the event. Perhaps better said, the minority status, because all minorities are or feel they are under threat in one way or another, tends to drive those members to vote as fairly cohesive blocks to defend their perceived interests, even as elites move to exploit those fears for their own ends.
Even where the minorities are relatively wealthy and influential themselves, often governments find they must buy off, rather,
seem
to be buying off, the population at large to distract attention from programs designed for the benefit of those minorities.
Moreover, we see in the Tauran Union a sincere attempt to create a state composed of nothing but minorities, even as we see a blizzard of currency fly from place to place, interest group to interest group, with the government taking, as usual, its enormous cut.

—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,
Historia y Filosofia Moral
,
Legionary Press, Balboa,
Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468

The restaurant was small, clean, and perhaps a little quaint. Moreover, it looked out over the sea to the north. Over the mud flats exposed by the receded tide, seagulls whirled and dived in the warm wet air. Past the seagulls, an airship soared majestically just below the clouds, carrying passengers and cargo from Colombia del Norte to the Federated States to the south. On the open air veranda, the proprietors had cleared away all the customers, seating them inside.

Alone but for his guards, Carrera waited for a man self-described as an "Emissary of Peace" from a group that claimed to wish nothing but prosperity for and cordial relations with Parilla, Carrera, and Balboa. Carrera had chosen the MarBella as the meeting place because it served, as far as he was concerned, the very best corvina—a particularly savory type of fish—in the Republic.

Soult and Sergeant Major McNamara entered the veranda, followed by a quite light skinned Santandern wearing an expensive looking Tuscan suit. Mitchell followed the Santandern. The Sergeant Major pointed out Carrera, then gathered up Soult and Mitchell and sat a table nearer the entrance.

Carrera watched the Santandern approach.
Odd, really; he doesn't look like a particularly bad sort. Just a regular working stiff, seems like. Maybe a little better fed and better dressed than most. Hmmm . . . who was that Old Earth philosopher who talked about "the banality of evil?" Maybe this one's a good husband and father? Oh, well; no matter.

The Santandern was a lawyer by the name of Guzman. Guzman officially worked for the former law firm of the rump President of Balboa, Rocaberti. Unofficially he thought of himself as the Counsel General of the Huánuco Processors, Shippers, and Vendors Free State. Guzman didn't much like what he did. He didn't even much like himself. But he had a family to support and debts to pay.

The lawyer looked Carrera over carefully as he approached his table.
Another brainless soldier?
he wondered.
Corrupt? Somehow I think . . . not.
Wordlessly, Carrera motioned for Guzman to sit. As the lawyer sat, he thought,
Too dainty a hand to go with his reputation. A Napoleon, making up for a physical defect with aggression? Possibly.

Carrera brusquely asked, "Why are you here and what do you, or the people you represent, want?"

None of my contacts informed me that the bastard was rude
, Guzman thought.
Or maybe he doesn't think he is being rude. Be flexible.

Guzman decided to go directly to the point. "I am here to offer you . . . you and General Parilla, a substantial amount of money for you to stop hindering the people I represent."

"Indeed?" Carrera lifted an eyebrow. "Santander, Atzlan, or both?"

"Both, actually, although I normally answer to someone in Santander."

"And your offer . . . your
principal's
offer?"

A waitress approached. Guzman shut up and pretended to peruse his menu. "What's good?" he asked.

"Most anything, really," Carrera answered. "I'm having the
corvina al ajillo
."

Guzman closed his menu and said to the waitress, "That sounds fine."

The lawyer had come prepared to bargain. He began low. "Three million drachma per month, each, to you and General Parilla, for you to stop interfering with our business."

Carrera just laughed, surprisingly mildly. "You insult me, señor."

Well
, thought the Santandern,
that's a nice start. No screaming rage; just staking out a bargaining position.

"Very well, then. I'll double it to six million."

"I don't think so."

"Well what
do
you want?" Guzman asked.

"I want the shit kept out of Balboa and its territorial waters. Where it goes I couldn't care less about, as long as it doesn't come through here or to here. Moreover, I want you to get control of any, shall we say, 'random elements,' and force them to the same rule."

Guzman snorted. "You want us to take on the guerillas? That would be even more expensive than bribes. How about ten million? One hundred and twenty million a year."

The waitress returned, bearing their plates. These she set down in front of each man, the garlicky smell rising into their nostrils.

It's
almost
tempting
, thought Carrera.
Even Parilla might want go for it. We could buy a lot of training, a lot of equipment, and a lot of caring for our people with that much. But the cost is far too high. How many low level bureaucrats will be corrupted with bribes if we took them, even if we didn't keep them? How many soldiers and policemen will start getting in the habit of looking the other way? It isn't that I care a shit what happens to drug addicts in the Tauran Union or the Federated States, except insofar as I think the planet would be better off without them. I didn't care about them even before I came here. But this would be just a sort of moral disease in Balboa. Besides, even if I were whore, we'd still have to haggle over my price.

The lawyer tried hard to read Carrera's face. It was, after all, a good part of his job to read what people were thinking from their expressions.
If I up it by another million or two now, he'll go for it
.

Guzman decided on two. "
Duque
Carrera, for your cooperation I am prepared to offer you twelve million . . . each . . . every month . . . to both yourself and
Presidente
Parilla. Of course, for that amount, we would require a certain degree of active assistance."

Carrera frowned, shook his head, and answered, "Eat. Your food's getting cold."

Something in the tone suggested to Guzman the phrase, "And the condemned ate a hearty last meal." He suddenly lost his appetite, placing his knife and fork down on the plate with finality.

"Not hungry?" Carrera enquired, his voice full of false concern. "What a pity." Carrera beckoned to McNamara. The tall, slender, well aged black sergeant major took long strides to the table."

"Sergeant Major, Mr. Guzman seems to have lost his appetite. Arrest him, please, and deliver him to Legate Fernandez for questioning."

The Santandern immediately blanched.

McNamara hesitated, thinking,
We just got him back. We've got him nicely cocooned in . . . well, for lack of a better term, "righteousness." It isn't worth throwing that away for whatever little advantage we might get from destroying this Santandern
.

The sergeant major's expression must have told. Carrera asked, "You disapprove?"

"Sir . . . I t'ink t'at's a really bad idea. Sir, whet'er he represents an official country or not, he's still a diplomat. Wrong not to let him go, sir. Bad precedent. Even if he is a scum-sucking lawyer."

Carrera took in a half breath, then bit off a retort.
If Mac says it's wrong
, he thought,
then there's a good chance that it's wrong.
He rocked his head from side to side a few times in indecision. Finally he admitted, "I suppose you're right, Sergeant Major. Please escort Mr. Guzman to the airport; he has an airship to catch. And Mr. Guzman? Don't come back to Balboa uninvited; I won't be responsible for your safety. And tell your people to keep their shit out of my country."

On a whim, Carrera reached up and took from around his neck a golden crucifix on a chain. "Give this to your masters," he said, handing it to Guzman.

Even in an organization as egalitarian and non-traditional as the unofficially named "Huánuco Processors, Shippers, and Vendors Free State" there were some members who were a little more equal than others. Jorge Joven was one among them. Indeed, his only true peer in the organization was Pedro Estevez. It was Estevez whom Belisario Endara had dealt with in preparing a team to get rid of Parilla and Carrera. All three sat now, along with Guzman, in a secure room, heavily and not too tastefully decorated, in the basement of Joven's palatial, isolated mansion, in the hills overlooking the city.

"Son of a bitch," cursed Estevez. "Offer him money . . . a decent offer you said it was, right, Guzman?"

"
Si, patron
," the lawyer confirmed. "A huge amount, twelve million FSD monthly."

"And he won't take
that
? He's a mad dog, then, and mad dogs need shooting."

Endara sighed, conscious that he'd been doing a lot of that lately. "A mad dog he may be, Pedro, but he is more of a rabid mad dog. Very dangerous, too dangerous to fuck with lightly, as I have tried to explain to my uncle."

"That was my impression,
Padron
," Guzman confirmed to Estevez. "If his assistant hadn't talked him out of it, I'd be in prison now."

"Oh, no," Endara said. "I assure you, you would never have made it to prison." Endara's look grew contemplative. "You know, it's odd that he let you go. It's really not his style at all."

"So I gathered," the lawyer agreed. "Indeed, I am so sure I was within inches of doom that I've paid to have a special mass said for his tall black."

"Was that Jimenez or McNamara?" Endara asked.

"I don't know. He called the man 'sergeant major.' "

"Ah. That would be Sergeant Major General McNamara. Tough old man who manages to keep a very young and very beautiful wife very happy. He's one of the four or five people who actually have any personal control over Carrera."

"Well no one is going to need to control the son of a bitch once he's dead," Estevez said.

"I was rather hoping you would talk my uncle out of this," Endara said, shaking his head, "since he won't listen to me on the subject."

Estevez nodded, seriously, even judicially. "And so I would have if this man had not insulted me and mine," Escobedo's head tilted toward Joven, "by refusing our very generous offer."

At the word, "generous," Guzman remembered something. He bent over and reached into his briefcase and withdrew from it a golden crucifix on a chain. This he handed to Escobedo with the words, "Carrera said to give this to you."

"What?" Escobedo raged. "Is he trying to tell me to make my peace with God?"

"No . . . no," said Endara, who knew a great deal about Carrera. "I think Carrera meant something rather different."

Once Estevez and Joven had heard just what Endara thought Carrera had meant by sending a crucifix, both their anger and their intentions expanded radically.

Ambassador Tom Wallis came around from behind his desk to shake Carrera's and Fernandez's hands, then McNamara's. He then gestured to introduce them to another man, this one with a plainly cultured tan, heavily muscled, blue eyed, blond, tall, and gringo. Sunglasses hung suavely from the gringo's pocket; and—to blend in with the locals—he wore a guayabera which successfully failed to hide a Bertinelli high-fashion holster.

"This is Mr. Keith, gentlemen," Wallis said.

"Gavin Keith," the gringo added.

Carrera disliked Keith instinctively. He thought of a piece of advice once given by a Federated States Marine Corps acquaintance on how to find a "Sea Lion," the FS Navy's underwater recon and demolitions commandos:
"Go to the nearest high water mark and follow it until you come to the bodybuilder, laying in a lawn chair, catching rays, wearing sunglasses, and stylin' with an PM-6 submachine gun."

"You used to be a Sea Lion, didn't you?" Carrera asked, suppressing a smile.

"Team Six out of Big River," Keith answered. "How'd you know?"

"Just a lucky guess," Carrera answered.

If Keith suspected that he was somehow the butt of a private joke, his self image couldn't permit further inquiry.

Wallis also suspected that some sort of criticism had been passed. He decided to change the subject. "Mr. Keith's organization has some information that might be useful to you. In fact, it might be critical."

"What's that?" Carrera asked. "And what organization?"
Who knows; maybe the muscles haven't cut off the blood supply to the brain in this case.

"I'm with DITF," Keith answered, "the Drug Interdiction Task Force. We've got people inside the
Belalcázar organization. We think you're going to get hit, soon and hard.
"

Carrera raised an eyebrow. "Do you mean me, personally, or do you mean my family and friends? Or Balboa, generally?"

"All of the above," Keith answered. "We've got no details, not yet, anyway. We're working on it. There is one thing, though . . ."

"Yes?"

"They've got shoulder fired surface to air missiles available. If I were you I wouldn't take any aircraft anywhere anytime soon."

Fernandez frowned, nodded, and then admitted, "I've got nothing, no sources whatsoever, among the narcotraffickers, Patricio. Only when we grab one . . . and this report of light SAMs sounds . . . plausible, certainly.