Read Come and Take Them-eARC Online
Authors: Tom Kratman
Tags: #Military, #Science Fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure, #Fiction
The three sat down to chat.
“It just isn’t working, none of it,” admitted Feist. She was not one of those fooled into believing there was any real progress in Balboa. “You may as well call off the missionaries. It’s just good money after bad.”
“Don’t be silly, my dear,” answered Britain. “Why, we’ve hardly started. Attendance at our rallies in Balboa is up by an appreciable fraction. Our surveys show an increase in the number of Balboan men who want to reenfranchise the women. It isn’t all bad.”
“Any of the men in those surveys have the vote themselves?” asked Luci.
“Some. A few.” At Luci’s raised eyebrow, Britain admitted, “Okay, two. But that’s two more than we had last month.”
After a moment’s hesitation Britain blurted out, “Let me try one more thing before we give up. Let me go to Balboa with a few select women. Maybe we can raise their consciousness.”
“Do you think,” asked Feist, “that you should take someone from the government with you?”
“Like who?”
Feist thought for a moment, then answered, “I think the Safety Minister, Marine R.E.S. Mors du Char the Fourth would be willing.”
Hamilton FD, Federated States of Columbia, Terra Nova
Belisario Endara-Rocaberti and Luci sat staring at the TV. Patricia Britain was making an announcement. Feist stood discreetly nearby on the screen, applauding where appropriate.
Rocaberti waited until the news was over, then looked down in deep thought, weighing probabilities.
I have the itinerary from Luci. I have the personnel from the cast-off
Policia
I’ve been supporting. Arms and other necessities are not hard to come by, back home. It can be done.
After a moment a smile lit his features. “Luci, bring me the telephone, would you?”
Herrera International Airport,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Four men, each bearing a seemingly valid Balboan passport, processed through customs without speaking to one another. The passports had been stolen, but not yet reported as such, from the Balboan consulate in Hamilton. It had been no great feat for two former policemen, and two former criminals, to break the security of the office.
The leader of the four—his name was Arias—carried a briefcase containing many thousands of drachmas he had received from Endara-Rocaberti the day prior. A portion of the money had been passed out for expenses to the other three. Still without speaking, they parted near the rental car area at the airport’s street level.
* * *
In a dimly lit back street of a fairly well-to-do neighborhood, a former car thief scanned windows for any sign of light. It had taken several passes through the area before he found what he was looking for—a van that was of the same model as those used by the some portions of Fernandez’s sister organization, the National Department of Investigations.
The car thief parked his rental car in another neighborhood about a mile away and walked to his target. To open the door, then the engine cover, and hot-wire the van took about ninety seconds. The car thief then drove to where he had rented private garage space.
I’ll take it to Enrique’s day after tomorrow,
thought the thief.
* * *
The other former policeman, and the second in command of the expedition, had been a police sergeant. He walked nonchalantly into the military surplus store on
Avenida Central
. He wore the thinnest of disguises; no more than that was necessary. He had a list of sizes and types of uniforms and equipment. In half an hour he walked out of the store with complete police uniforms for four, along with handcuffs, an electric stun gun, and some few other items.
There were to be two more stops before the day could be called complete. One was to pick up the remaining uniforms and equipment. The other was at a medical supply house.
Pedregal, Balboa, Terra Nova
Arias, the senior of the two former policemen, wore mufti. Still, his air of authority convinced the real estate agent trying to rent the small and isolated cinder block walled and metal roofed warehouse that this was official business. This was precisely what Arias wanted.
Further, Arias wanted the real estate agent to think he was a policeman of a particular bent. For this reason, he had a hired prostitute in his rental car, which prostitute he verbally abused endlessly, with special mention of “feminist cunts,” “stupid foreign twats,” and “international lesbian whores.” He’d had to pay an extra two hundred drachma to get the whore to let him slap her a few times but, what the hell, it wasn’t like it was his money, after all, nor that she wasn’t used to taking money from a certain kind of client who liked slapping around women.
The realtor blanched. He was as macho a sort as anyone else in Balboa but believed in treating ladies as ladies. Still,
none of my business.
“
Si, señor
,” said the former cop, “I think this will do nicely. Do you mind if I repaint and redecorate a bit?”
“Oh, not at all, sir,” said the realtor.
I’m just glad to get this baby white elephant off my back.
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Firearms were generally legal in Balboa, even for noncitizens. This was something Carrera and Parilla had never had a wish to change. Weapons were, however, more expensive there, which served to keep them out of the hands of the poor except insofar as the poor were members of the legion and entitled to a legion-issue weapon.
Legal though firearms may have been, there were certain registration requirements to include presenting a picture ID, passing a minor background check, and enduring a short waiting period while the guns were test fired to obtain a ballistic sample. For these reasons, therefore, Arias’s expedition could not use any legal system for obtaining the weapons they needed. Fortunately for their purpose, however, there was an illegal “system” of sorts.
The last of the party, himself another criminal, knew the people to see for such an illegal purchase. With the handing over of forty-five hundred drachma the team became the proud owners of four .40 caliber pistols of the type used by the National Department of Investigations, along with a case of ammunition and three magazines per pistol.
Enrique’s Body Shop, two hundred meters west of Balboa City Train Station,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
The government had been pretty good about paying for the damage done to Enrique’s place during the fighting with the Tauran Union. He appreciated it. He appreciated, too, that they hadn’t looked too closely at some of the claimed damage. Enrique was in the business of covering up injuries to physical property. It took only a minor change of mental attitude to make damage seem much worse than it was.
Enrique, himself, was a very tall and frightfully thin dark-skinned Balboan. Almost completely nonpolitical, he minded his own business and, frankly, did some damned fine body work in this, fender-bender central of the planet. He wasn’t above taking a few extra bucks for repainting a vehicle he suspected might be stolen, but he also insisted on seeing plausible paperwork to cover himself just in case.
Of course, if plausible paperwork wasn’t available that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do the job requested; it just meant he had to be paid a lot more for his risks. Arias knew this from his days as a real policeman, which was why he’d sent his car thief to Enrique.
“We want you to do a little job for us, Enrique,” said the car thief, in the body man’s cluttered and greasy office. “Arias said you were the best.”
Enrique shook his head. “I don’t do that kind of work anymore,
amigo
. It’s gotten to be too dangerous.”
“My friend,” said the thief, reaching a hand between the buttons of his dark
guayabera
, “you don’t know what dangerous is. Now get your fucking paints and spray guns, and whatever else you need, put them in your truck, and follow me. My partner will ride with you.”
Sensing that there was little point, and possibly much harm, in not complying, the painter asked, “What colors do you need the job to be?”
Pedregal, Balboa, Terra Nova
With obvious satisfaction Arias admired the work he and the others had completed. The interior walls of the warehouse were painted in the drab motifs of the NDI. Although he had never seen any of NDI’s real torture chambers, which existed, as did those of Fernandez’s organization, the color scheme was so uniformly recognizable as governmental and legionary that it was decided to simulate it for the effect. A reasonably soundproof chamber had been built on one end. Inside the chamber was a metal table with restraining straps. A video camera stood on a tripod, elevated above but facing the table.
There was a sound of an engine from outside of the warehouse. Shortly thereafter a knock came from the garage door. The junior policeman looked through a small security window and pushed the button for the door. After the briefest of intervals a brown, green, and black van entered the warehouse to join a white-painted rental van that already stood there.
“And now all we have to do is wait a few days…and collect a little information.”
Arias, impersonating what he used to be with perfect authority and authenticity, picked up the warehouse phone and began to call all the hotels and airlines that served the City.
Herrera International Airport,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
“Ms. Britain?” Arias asked of the eldest of the five female supremacists who emerged from the
Aduana,
or customs. There was one better, or at least more expensively dressed, whom he knew to be Marine R.E.S. Mors du Char the Fourth. But Britain was in change so it was to her that he addressed himself.
The Balboan seemed cheerful, and much friendlier than Britain had expected.
“Yes. Is there anything wrong?” asked Britain.
“Not wrong, precisely, ma’am,” answered Arias, “but there is a counter demonstration scheduled for the front of the hotel you have booked. We were sent here as your security.”
“I’ve heard nothing about any such demonstration,” said Mors du Char.
“It would be a surprise, ma’am, if you had,” answered Arias. “We only know about it because we have infiltrated a semi-secret society that doesn’t want women to be allowed to serve in the legion or to become citizens at all. A very dangerous group, potentially,” added the false cop.
“Now if you would join me? Please? Besides, I’ve already taken the liberty of changing the pickup point for your rental car reservations from here to the hotel. You can pick up your sedan there.”
“But I ordered a van not a sedan.”
Arias chuckled, amiably. “Yes, ma’am, but you would certainly, in that case, have been given a sedan. As I’ve ordered you a sedan, you will equally certainly get a van. There are some areas where Balboa is, perhaps, a bit backward.” The officer gave a good simulacrum of a rueful shrug.
Britain and her companions, two of them fairly young and rather pretty, followed the false police officer out to where the NDI van awaited. A police-type radio had been installed while the team waited for Britain to arrive. It was turned off, however.
The five English speaking people in the van chatted amiably while it was being driven. With an apology for being an inconsiderate host, the senior of the two police turned on the vehicle’s air conditioning.
The van proceeded with the traffic slowly but without incident. When the driver turned south-southwest instead of northeast towards the main part of the city, the other officer explained that he was taking a short cut around the heaviest traffic.
None of the women made the slightest objection until the van turned down a narrow road with few buildings. Arias then drew his pistol and said, quite without rancor, “Shut up, bitch!”
Chapter Thirty-four
If anything, my characters are toned down—the truth is much more bizarre.
Casa
Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova
Courage, Pililak,
thought Ant in her own language as she slipped out the side door, the one without a security light. On her back she had a pack, stuffed with whatever she would need to get herself to her lord. The sling of Hamilcar’s rifle was attached at the small of the stock and behind the sight, on the barrel. It ran over her left shoulder and down her back, letting the rifle hang in front of her. The grips of the rifle were a little larger than Pililak was comfortable with. She’d had new ones carved to suit Ham’s larger hands. The rifle had a full magazine she’d stolen personally. Another two rested in her pack. Hiding her body she had a set of battle dress, sewn herself from legionary castoffs. A hand-sewn, wide-brimmed floppy hat of the same material topped her ensemble. The girl had even put on grease paint to cover the shine of her light-skinned face and break up the outline.
Ant heard what she had hoped to avoid. “Stop, child!” It was Alena, the witch, waiting outside the door and behind some of the bushes there. The witch emerged, the wan light of three of Terra Nova’s moons shining down, but with two of those in their final quarters.
“I’ve been waiting,” said Alena, quite unnecessarily.
“I have to go to our lord,” Pililak pleaded. “I must. Alena…please…”
“I quite agree,” said Alena, cutting Ant off. “You must. It is written. But there is something else, something I wanted to tell you should your heart grow faint.
“Our lord, Iskandr, needs you now, as he has never needed anyone before. This I know, though I do not know how I know. Go to him. Waste no time. Let no obstacle hinder you. Bring our lord his own weapon. And child?”
“Yes, Alena?”
“Get yourself well fucked, repeatedly, as often as possible, and give our lord his first son.”
“Oh, yes,
yes, YES,
witch-mother!”
“Now go.”
“You have been preparing me for this,” accused Pililak, with sudden understanding.
“They don’t call me ‘Alena the Witch’ for nothing, child. I’ve kept track enough to know you have what you need. Now, need I say it again? Go to our Iskandr.”
Estado Mayor,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
The same moons, two of them fractional, shone down on the blocky
Estado Mayor
as they had on Alena and Ant. Inside, in the office deep in the bowels of the place where few were allowed, and fewer still since a traitor had tried to kill Carrera’s intel chief, Carrera and that chief conversed.
“What do you mean the silly sluts just disappeared?” Carrera’s look was more puzzlement than fear.
Fernandez, hands resting on the wheels of his chair, answered his chief with a policeman’s lack of emotion, even though he was far more soldier than cop, and more intelligence officer than either. “The head of the Tauran National Organization for Upper Middle Class White Women, and her four companions, one of whom was the Tauran Union Minister of Safety, Marine Mors du Char, if I have the twat’s name right, were apparently picked up, at approximately twelve-thirty, yesterday afternoon, by two uniformed policeman, driving an NDI van. They were then whisked to places unknown. My people are trying to interview and investigate witnesses but…you know how it is. No one wants to look too closely at an NDI man lest they come under some suspicion themselves. I have very little hope of getting a composite sketch but I will try.”
“And your people didn’t have anything to do with it?”
“To the best of my knowledge and belief, sir, no.”
“And the van? Are we missing one?”
“No, sir. All are accounted for.”
“Fuck!… You keep trying. I want them found. I want the people who took them found. And I’d better go talk to Parilla.”
Parilla’s Office,
Palacio de las
Trixies,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Again the palace was quiet, but for street noises from outside. The trixies were out hunting and clever
antaniae
hid for their lives.
Carrera related the story, or rather the lack of a story, to Parilla with a fatalistic air.
“What does it mean, Patricio? What can we do?”
“We can whip Fernandez into a frenzy looking for the bimbos. But I doubt he’ll find them in time. What it means? Do you remember the excuse the FSC used for invading us the last time?”
Parilla searched his memory. “It was two part, as I recall. First the naval commandos that were spying got shot up. Then that naval officer was beaten and his wife molested and threatened with rape.”
“Fair memory, Raul, but your analysis isn’t quite right. The Federated States made little or no fuss about the Marines. I’m not sure they were actually commandos. That lack of fuss has always made me suspect they were, indeed, spying. But the emotional appeal of avenging one of their women who had been sexually assaulted and threatened with rape? That was what did it. We’d do the same, I think.”
Carrera continued. “I don’t think we’ll find those women alive. I do think we have to go on the assumption that we won’t find them at all. Which means…”
“War. The Taurans will invade us,” Parilla summed up. “I thought we had eliminated that possibility when Second Tercio fought them.”
“We both hoped it would. It could have. It should have.” Carrera put his face in his hands. “There is one last chance, perhaps. Let me phone General Janier. We’re not precisely friends, but we have a sort of shared outlook on a few matters. Perhaps he will intercede for us.”
“Why not the ambassador?” asked Parilla. “She has the advantage to us that she’s here.”
“Because I don’t think she’d understand the gravity of this, or care to preserve us from war if she did. She’s not a big fan, you know.”
“True,” Parilla conceded, then asked, “You have Janier’s number in Taurus?”
Carrera smiled. “Fernandez didn’t lose anything but the ability to get around without a wheelchair when he lost the use of his legs.”
“
We’ll
call him, from here.”
Tauran Defense Agency, Lumière, Gaul, Terra Nova
Nighttime in Balboa was early morning in the capital of the Gallic Republic. Janier was in his office already, with his toady of an aide de camp, Malcoeur, waiting in the anteroom.
Janier missed Balboa, as it turned out. The knowledge had come as a surprise. At first he’d thought it was his Balboan mistress, Isabel, that he felt the absence of. There was some of that; she’d refused to go with him. He understood; she was now mistress for his replacement, much like the furniture he’d left in the section of Fort Muddville’s Building 59.
Odd that she wouldn’t leave,
he thought.
I thought she’d truly cared for me.
The intercom buzzed to life. On the other end, Malcoeur announced, incredulously, “
Mon General,
the president of the Republic of Balboa and his military commander,
Duque
Carrera, wish to speak with you.”
“There’s been an incident involving Ms. Britain and her party from the NOFUMCWW, General,” Carrera told the Gaul. “We’re not sure who’s behind it, but we expect a very unfortunate result. Her party included your own Minister of Safety, Marine Mors du Char.”
“If that pussy disappears,” said Janier, “it would go to show that every cloud has a silver lining.”
Carrera had never found the Gaul to be especially funny, but that one struck home. “Even so, General, we—the president and I—are calling to ask you to use your influence to dissuade the Tauran Union Security Council from anything rash while we try to sort this out.”
“I can’t make any promises,” said Janier. “Certainly not until the facts are in. I can say that I will not let them delude themselves about the basic toughness of your armed forces. Will that do, for now?”
“Yes, General,” said Parilla, “and thank you.”
Malcoeur was waiting with a message when Janier and the Balboans broke their connection. “Sir, the president pro tem of the TUSC is on the line. Sir, it seems that the Minister of Safety was a close personal friend of his wife.”
Rolling his eyes, Janier punched a finger at a flashing light on his phone. The handset was already nestled between his ear and his shoulder.
“Janier… Yes, monsieur, I know she is a close personal friend of your wife’s, sir… Yes, sir, I’m sure she is terribly upset…” Janier lied, “No, sir, I haven’t spoken to the Balboans yet. I will contact the Balboan authorities as soon as we have concluded, sir.”
“Mr. President, the problem is this. Right about now, I would suspect, the Balboan government and military are probably having fits. They will, they must, suspect we will use this as an excuse to attack them. So they’ll mobilize. And when they’re mobilized we will have to prepare to attack them, or defend ourselves, just in case. They’ll see that; they keep eyes on a number of our bases here and there both. And, Mr. President, whether our preparations are offensive or defensive they’ll look much the same to an observer. Then they’ll have to consider: let us get in the first licks or take their initial advantage in numbers and kick us out of the country. I know what
my
choice under those circumstances would be.”
Malcoeur placed a message on Janier’s desk where he could see it. “Sir, let me get back to you directly. The President of Balboa is on another line.”
Post Exchange,
Calle
MacKinley, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova
A white van pulled into a parking lot near the Main Exchange for Tauran forces stationed in Balboa. A nondescript sedan followed. The living occupants of the van exited. By the light turned on by the opening of the door one could see five bodies, stacked like cordwood, naked, the skin of the corpses unnaturally pale except where leakage from slashed throats had stained it red. A closer examination would show other damage: to skin, to sexual organs, to teeth, nails, tongues, and eyes. Indeed, the list of horrors inflicted on the women read like an inventory from every snuff and horror film ever made. Teeth drilled. Check. Skin partially flayed? Check. Nipples removed? Some by slicing, some by burning, check. Blinded? Check. Vaginas and anuses, hot pokers applied to? Check. Broken bones in hands and feet? Check, too many to list.
In three of the five the shoulders were totally dislocated, probably from application of the strappado.
One of the men threw on the passenger chair a bundle of digital recordings covering the vicious treatment the women had received.
The two men from the van climbed into the back seat of the sedan. The next stop was to drop off a copy of the recordings on the doorstep of a local office of a major international news organization. Then a few more to the Tauran embassy. After that, they could see to getting out of the country. Once out they’d download a copy to the global net.
Estado Mayor
,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
“You’ve got to give me more to go with than this,” demanded Fernandez of his assistant. The assistant was a replacement for the late and unlamented executive who had shot and paralyzed Fernandez. The new man was more trustworthy, but not so effective an intelligence officer. Not that his predecessor had been much. It was one of the weaknesses of Fernandez’s organization that it was so dependent upon him, personally.
“I’m sorry, Legate,” said the assistant. “That is it. We have a report of a stolen van which just might possibly have been repainted and used to take the women. We have no eyewitnesses who can help us make a composite sketch. We are still checking out the whereabouts of anybody who might have access to police uniforms.”
“How about the uniform stores?”
“We’re checking into that as well.”
“Have we tried the criminal photo albums on any of the witnesses?”
“Yes, sir. But we’ve drawn a blank there as well.”
“
Chingada!
”
Hospital,
Cerro Mina
, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova
As soon as they’d been found, and the finder had stopped vomiting, he’d called the military police. The location was close enough to their barracks, atop
Cerro Mina,
that the MPs had barely beaten the ambulance to the van.
Hauptmann
Lang, accompanied by
Gefreiter
Czauderna and Private Brickley took one look each and joined the original finder in decorating the pavement in bright Technicolor.
Even the ambulance crews, a bit more hardened than the MPs, found that accidental death and dismemberment was not so upsetting as the willful and deliberate infliction of horror.
The first ambulance driver pretty much summed up the feelings of all the Taurans present, as well as those still to learn of the atrocity: “Somebody’s got to pay for this.”
The stiffened and stinking bodies of the women were then taken to the
Cerro Mina
Hospital. Not that there was anything to be done for them, but medical and administrative formalities had to be followed. The tapes found with the van were impounded by the military police who made the initial investigation of the murders.
The first viewing commenced at about nine in the morning. Six hours later, the viewing was still not complete, as nobody was able to take what the recording showed for more than a few minutes at a time.
The tapes were copied then, and the copies sent to everyone with both an interest and a clearance. The clearance was needed because Janier, trying to keep a lid on things, had declared them Ultra Plus Top Secret. This was not actually a level of classification. What it was, was a statement from Janier that if anyone military leaked one of the tapes that person was soon going to be counting vanishing megafauna at the worst embassy in Uhuru that the Tauran diplomatic corps had to offer.
Janier, himself, watched the tape with a degree of detachment even he found unnatural. The scenes were disjointed. The men in the camera’s view wore Balboan police uniforms but with doctors’ masks and light green aprons. They said nothing. Janier studied whatever of the men’s faces could be seen around the masks.
I wonder if a competent policeman could identify those bastards from the partial view?