The Ramal Extraction (22 page)

“Thank you. Our cha-master is most adept.”

Cutter nodded.

“How may I help you, Colonel?”

“If your son-in-law-to-be invades your next-door neighbor and cranks up a shooting war with the Thakore, what will you do?”

The Rajah sipped at his tea, paused to enjoy the flavor a moment. “I would have little choice, I am afraid. New Mumbai and Pahal are allies, we have a long-standing mutual defense pact. My enemies are theirs; their enemies, mine. And he is to be my son-in-law. I could do nothing else but support him.”

“So if one of you decides to go to war, the other has no say in the matter?”

“Not precisely. This is one of the reasons that Rama has not yet stormed into Balaji. I can hold him off for a time on the pretext of preparing my forces, but since his stated purpose is to recover my daughter, it would be unwise of me to refuse to honor our pact—on many levels.”

Cutter was careful how he phrased his next question: “What of Rama’s father?”

There was another pause as Ramal sipped his tea. “Rajah Jadak, who is a distant cousin, is a likable man. He smiles a lot, he is beloved, but his mind is not the sharpest, nor most nimble, and his ambition long banked and essentially cold. He is not a strong ruler. Rama does as he will, and Jadak does not stand in his way.”

Cutter thought about following that up, but waited a moment, since it seemed the Rajah was not finished. He was right:

“Rama is well aware that I could not allow my daughter to wed, nor remain married to, a patricide, so Jadak’s life is safe enough. Should he die prematurely, I would see to it that the cause should be found, and if not natural, such would greatly stress Rama’s and our own relations. So I expect that Jadak will live out his normal span, waving at his subjects, attending dress functions, blessing babies, and
so on. Rama is already the power in Pahal, he does not need the title to make it so. He is ambitious but pragmatic.

“At least he has been so far.”

“Noted. I have another question, the nature of which you might find offensive.”

“I engaged you to recover my kidnapped daughter. Any question that will aid in that is acceptable.”

“All right. Who will benefit most from a war with Balaji?”

“Other than munitions makers and funeral-pyre builders?”

Cutter offered a small, wry smile, to acknowledge what they both knew about combat.

“It would depend on how the war went. Pahal and New Mumbai’s armies combined outnumber Balaji’s by more than three to one. The Thakore has the home advantage, but we are equally well equipped and trained. It would be a matter of time before our victory. Afterward, there are always reparations. War is expensive, but more so for the loser. Eventually, both Pahal and my country would make a profit.”

Cutter knew that the loser paid the majority of a war’s cost, assuming there was anything left of him to generate revenue.

The Rajah zeroed in on Cutter’s drift: “Have you valid reason to suspect Rama’s motives are anything less than honorable?”

“No, sir, I can’t say that. But the question has been raised as to whether or not the Thakore of Balaji is in fact responsible for your daughter’s absence. And going to war on that suspicion alone without evidence seems, well—”

“Foolish?”

Cutter shrugged. “At the very least, it seems precipitous. If the Thakore has her, and if he doesn’t kill her the second the first Pahali soldier steps across his border, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of troops from all three countries are apt to be wounded or killed, based on Rama’s
belief
that
she’s there. If she dies as a result of Rama’s action, or if she isn’t even there…?”

“Either would be a tragedy,” the Rajah said. “More so if we were wrong.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Rajah waved away a server come to refresh his tea. “What you are really asking here about who benefits from this potential war is whether my son-in-law-to-be would benefit from it, isn’t it?”

It was, but his protestations about his daughter aside, Cutter was leery of saying so out loud. He’d never been that much of a diplomat, but he had learned enough along the way to know if you didn’t watch your ass, there were ways of losing it other than having it shot off.

He let that one lie.

The Rajah did, too. Finally, he said, “What would you have me do, Colonel?”

“Tell Rama that before you can commit your troops to an invasion, you need proof that your daughter is being held by the Balaji.”

The Rajah nodded. “I had already considered such a condition. Yes. I will do that. And if the proof is provided?”

“It will give us more information we can use. Maybe in time to prevent a war.”

At the afternoon intel meeting, the group presented their new information.

The weather had turned stormy. The lightning arresters were getting a workout, and the rain came down amidst loud thunderclaps and hard winds. They were snug enough inside, but if you had to leave shelter, you’d be soaked before you got ten meters.

Tropical worlds tended to provide some fierce downpours.

Not much had changed, insofar as the substance of their knowledge.

Gunny allowed that Rama was not known for his patience, nor his kind nature, but outside of rumors, there was little to indicate he was particularly despotic. No dungeons full of political or personal enemies, though there were some of both who had apparently disappeared mysteriously.

Wink allowed that local doctors did not seem to have any indications that other Rel were being augmented.

Formentara’s search along those lines had thus far been fruitless.

Gramps had found that money was being shifted in the city. The rumors of impending war had caused military-armament stocks to rise, along with emergency supplies. Fuel costs had also begun centimetering up. Local gun stores were having runs on ammunition.

Kay was out in the rain somewhere, seeking something.

Cutter told them about the Rajah, they batted that around for a couple minutes, then he officially closed the meeting. Nobody was in a hurry to leave. There was little they could do outside that they couldn’t do under a roof, and they all had slogged through enough mud and bad weather so they didn’t need more practice.

Gramps had the thousand-meter stare, and Gunny roused him from it: “Hey, fossil-man, your brain short out?”

He looked at her. “Not yet, Chocolatte. Just thinking about another rainy day, long ago and far away, when I was young.”

“They had
rain
when you were young?”

Deadpan, he said, “My uncle invented it. I was also remembering that story you told the kid after we got back, about your first kill.”

She looked at him. “How could know about that? You weren’t around when Singh and me were talkin’.”

“The walls have eyes and ears, remember?”

She shook her head. “That’s right, Ah forgot, you ain’t got nothing better to do with what little time you have left than run the surveillance gear to spy on folks.”

“Rust never sleeps.”

“Your uncle invent rust, too?”

“Nah, my aunt did that.”

The sound of the rain sheeting against the roof was loud.

“So what about Gunny’s story?” Wink asked. “Why were you remembering it?”

Gramps shrugged. “Reminded me that I have that story, too.”

Gunny said, “Rainin’ pretty good out there. I don’t have anyplace I need to be for a while. Ah don’t mind listenin’ to an old man ramble.”

Gramps nodded.

“Before the Army figured out I was a better desk-commando-photon-pusher than a field soldier, I did my first tour as a cricket-crusher. I was stationed at Fort Kharanji, whose crappy climate was a lot like New Mumbai’s—hot, except when it was wet.

“One evening, there came a torrential rainstorm, fifteen centimeters in a couple hours, and the transmitter-generator that fed the fence juice somehow overloaded a circuit and shorted the wire out, so I was on fence patrol. Cheaper to send a pair of boots out into the storm than to install sufficient backup.

“It was still raining, getting dark, and the ops helmet I wore was old and crappy, the motion sensors, spookeyes, and Doppler were all going in and out every time the lightning crackled, the com mostly static, so it was slog through the puddles and shine a flashlight, looking for trouble.

“Not that we expected trouble. The base was in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere, and we’d never had any problems from the locals, so I wasn’t looking to catch anything but more rain.

“Half an hour before my relief was due, I was in the northwest corner of the base. The trees had been trimmed back a few meters short of the wire, but the post-mounted lights were out, and it was dark, the downpour keeping the camp glow pretty dim.

“My com crackled, and I thought I heard somebody, but I couldn’t make out the words, and when I toggled a repeat-request, I got nothing—it didn’t seem to be working from my end at all.

“Then I saw a darker blob in the darkness right at the fence, and it was moving.

“I did just like I’d been taught in basic: brought my weapon from sling-ready to off-hand, and hollered out, ‘Who goes there? Identify yourself!’

“For which trouble I got three sidearm rounds fired in my direction.

“My weapon was an RK-32 carbine, and I indexed the pistol flashes and unloaded a magazine at the shooter.”

Gunny said, “RK-32? What, is that a flintlock?”

“Yeah. A thirty-round magazine flintlock,” Gramps said. He smiled. “And I used every one of those cartridges, full auto.”

Gunny shook her head. “Wasting the Army’s ammo.”

“SOP—never use one when thirty will do. Hey, I was eighteen. Shooting and all the while yelling into my dead com for help.

“When nobody shot back anymore, I changed magazines and lit a lantern.

“Once I got more light, I saw there were two men on the ground, one inside the fence, the other just outside, and both hit multiple times.

“The outside guy died before the medics got there, the other survived, and lived to be court-martialed.

“The dead guy was a local, he was the one who shot at me. The one who survived was an assistant quartermaster, an old lifer sergeant about to retire. They decided that a big rainstorm with the fence’s power down would be the perfect time to do a little redistribution of the Army’s wealth.

“The sergeant loaded up some stuff—mostly electronics, viral-molecular chips, visual-purple control switches, some timers, and like that, probably eighty, ninety grand worth on the local black market. He met the guy at the fence, they cut a hole, and were making the switch when I happened upon them.

“I wasn’t supposed to be there. The sarge had arranged
for the broadcast power to the fence to be interrupted, and he’d somehow managed to get a fake report-to-quarters call out to the sentries, only my com wasn’t working, and I didn’t hear it.”

“Their bad luck,” Gunny said.

“Yep. And my cherry.”

“War is hell,” Wink said. He looked around. “What about you, Jo? You got a story?”

“Not one that is particularly interesting,” she said.

“Aw, c’mon,” Gunny said, “it’s not like you have an appointment you need to keep, is it?”

Jo shrugged. “Okay…”

“My first military action was at the Zamadani Riot that led to the Second Holy War.

“What happened, it was a summer day, a hot and arid wind off the desert, a crowd milling around a local shrine, chanting prayers. Maybe five hundred of the Zamadani faithful. Rain was a once-every-other-year event, and when it happened, you couldn’t walk for the mud that caked your boots, or so they told me. Didn’t rain while I was there.

“Our platoon had been dispatched as backup for the local police, but nobody was expecting any real trouble. They were pilgrims come to see the shrine, make offerings, whatever.

“Nobody ever figured out exactly what set it off. One second, nothing; the next, the loons went loose on us, and we had to dodge and cook.

“They didn’t have guns, though every adult in the faith carried a short, heavy, convex-curved-inside-edged sword. It had a shape something like a Gurkha
kukri
, and the length of the blade was supposed to be from the tip of the owner’s middle finger to the crook of the elbow.