Not For Glory (6 page)

Alon sighed. "Amazing that he was so effective, then."

Levine shook his head. "Not really. Most good fighting generals have their peccadilloes. I'd be tempted to say 'all,' but there's an exception or two."

You can dispute, if you want, whether or not Shimon should hold a grudge against modern humans of German ancestry, most of them as innocent as any other randomly-selected set of humans—which isn't much, really—all of them people whose grandparents' grandparents weren't even born until well after the First Holocaust . . .

. . . but argue it with
him.

He did hold a grudge.

Shimon had always figured that Operation Theda Bara and the events surrounding David's Gift had closed the books on the Second Holocaust and the Sunny Musselmen—they took Eretz Yisrael away from us, for now; David Bar-El took their Ka'aba and their religion away from them
forever
—but the First Holocaust never had been appropriately balanced.

Alon shrugged. It was evident who wasn't going to be sent to Nueva Terra if Metzada decided to hire on with the Freiheim side in the coming bloodletting.

Rivka caught my eye, looked at Ari, then looked at the door. Levine nodded.

It was an order. I'm not bad at obeying orders.

"Ari," I said, "you've got two wives and a bunch of children sitting around their apartment, wondering why their husband and father would rather spend time with others than with them. I'll see you at dinner."

He made no motion to rise. "If there's going to be an expedition to get Shimon out, I want in on it," he said.

"Request denied," Rivka Effron snapped. There was steel in her voice. "It will be a small team going to Thellonee, under cover of the negotiators. You're not qualified to lead, and I'm not going to let you play private. The closest you have to small-unit background is running company-sized assault teams."

Ari clenched his jaw.

"Ari." Alon held up a placating hand. "I'll be talking to DCSPERS tonight about your next assignment. And I'll see you at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow to talk about how we handle this FFL thing. That's got to be a high priority, all things considered."

"General—"

"Go home, Ari."

Generals, before they're ever generals, learn to settle for winning what battles they can: wordless, Ari rose and left.

When the door shut behind him, Zev snickered. "Pretty majestic, isn't he? Just what we need on an easy little snatch-and-run, a fucking hero."

"Shut up," Levine said flatly. "Tetsuo, our latest intelligence on Shimon is sketchy; we don't have any operatives in New Portsmouth. All I can tell you for sure is that he's living near the port, in a fairly rundown section of New Portsmouth. He may be doing a bit of consulting on the side, but there are rumors that he's somehow involved in local criminal activity."

Rivka raised an eyebrow. "You don't seem surprised."

"True. And I'm not bothered, either." I wasn't surprised, and even if I was, I know better than to let it show. "I don't mind dealing with established criminals—the richer, the more powerful, the better. They have an address. So, say he's made himself too valuable to some underworld bigshot. If you give me enough support, I can probably get him out of that kind of situation, but what do we do then?"

"Can you?" Rivka Effron raised an eyebrow. "I don't trust this uncle of yours, and I'm not about to risk a team of expensively trained and highly valuable young soldiers on getting him out of whatever mess he's in. You can have a half dozen semi-retired veterans. Or retired ones, if you want They'll be going in as career noncoms accompanying a negotiating team. I don't want a bunch of eighteen-year-old elite strikers trying to play clerk. Nobody's going to believe that."

It made sense. Most of what the old woman decides makes sense. "As long as I get my pick—"

"Volunteers, only."

I repressed a smile. The old woman is devious, wise, and subtle, but she doesn't understand quite everything. "And when I get him out?"

"
If
you get him out." Rivka Effron looked me in the eye. "How can you be sure you'll even find him?"

"Not a problem," Zev put in. "Assuming he wants to be found." He looked over at me. "What say we just make our presence known to every criminal type we can, and see what happens?"

I nodded. "Trick is to make sure we stay alive while we're bumping around, but it should work. He'll be findable." She was underestimating my uncle. As long as we kept it straightforward, we'd find him. "But when we do find him? What then?"

She seemed not to hear the question. "If he isn't lying, then he's got some sort of fix on some contract. Like he had on Indess."

"Almost certainly," Levine agreed. "If he isn't lying."

"Why?" Alon asked. "How can you be so sure? Couldn't he just be angling for another try at a command?"

Zev snorted. My partner never had a high opinion of generals. "You really eager to give him a command? Particularly after he outsmarted Rivka's favorite killer last time?" he went on, indicating me with a jerk of his thumb.

"No, but—"

"Of course not. And he knows it. And he also knows that it's going to be one of us headhunters coming out for him. Section isn't trained in complicated military planning. So it's going to be something simple, elegant."

I picked up the train of thought. "It's going to take more than twenty words to describe, but it's going to be something that he
knows
he can convince a Section killer is a good plan, even with some lesser mortal leading it. But he's not going to tell us until we've got him out of his predicament, if then. He might hold out until we're on the scene, wherever the scene is."

Zev nodded. "We find him; he tells us—assuming that he
will
tell us. We either refer it to you, or go ahead and implement it. What then?"

"I have had about enough of this Shimon Bar-El," Rivka said. "Find out what he knows, then fix it so that he isn't a problem for us anymore."

Alon nodded. "It's clearly necessary. He's a loose cannon."

"Pinhas?" I turned to Levine.

He sat silent for a long moment.

"There has long been," Pinhas Levine said, with a deep sigh, "a lot more knowledge locked up in his head than I like to think about. He's always known too much. He's managed to keep himself out of the wrong hands, so far, but . . ."

He shook his head. "Make it look like an accident."

CHAPTER FOUR

Salutes

Metzada, Central Warrens

Military Educational Wing, Indoor Combat Section

12/20/43, 1613 local time

The one-way glass at the front of the classroom looked out on both rooms: the smaller one that was labeled hallway, with the directions of the entirely theoretical continuation of the hall chalked in on the far wall; and the larger one that contained a table, around which sat ten men. This one was labeled general staff room.

Men, not boys: while they were all wearing the elegant black and silver uniforms that Freiheimer field-grade general staff officers used a war and a half ago—real uniforms, by the way; war prizes—the men gathered around the table in the room were in their fifties, one well into his sixties.

That's not unusual for us. There are countries, there are worlds, where good, albeit old soldiers are sent out to pasture, to sit uselessly and watch the days go by.

Good men die too early in those countries, on those worlds, both young soldiers and old ones. We still don't do enough for our old ones, granted, but we do have them teach our young how to not get killed unnecessarily. That's something.

In the hallway, just outside the door, a twenty-year-old private in Metzadan khakis waited, a pair of goggles high on his forehead, in his hands a Barak assault rifle, its muzzle hooded by the orange cylinder of the fire simulator. His back was to the wall adjacent to the general staff room; at his feet lay a dummy wearing a Freiheimer uniform and private's stripes.

At the top of the glass wall separating the classroom from the two other rooms beyond, a timer stood, poised at 1503.

The Sergeant stood at the front of the room, a pointer in his hand. He was pushing sixty and his khakis were cut amply to allow for his expanded belly.

But, underneath the honorable retirement pin on his chest, there were six rows of campaign ribbons.

We don't give out medals for bravery on Metzada, not to ourselves. Just campaign ribbons. The Sergeant had six rows of campaign ribbons, under the little gold Star of David pin that means a man is now retired, has completed all military obligations to Metzada.

The pin is intended to be an honorable award; the notion behind it is that we wouldn't make such jewelry if it could fall into enemy hands.

We, those of us who haven't gotten one yet, call it an honorable retirement pin.

The men who wear it call it something else entirely.

"Okay, now we're fifteen minutes into the assault, and he's taken out the guard. Next step?" He didn't pause in his questioning to greet me; he just gave me a quick nod and smile.

A skinny fourteen-year-old waved his hand frantically; the Sergeant ignored him and pointed to the round-faced, bored-looking boy sitting behind him. "Aaron?"

"I dunno." Aaron shrugged. "He should just kick open the door and throw in a grenade, then run like hell."

The Sergeant grinned. "Not a bad answer."

Aaron's face broke into a smile.

"Just a wrong one," the Sergeant said.

The boy's face fell.

"Still, let's give it a try," the Sergeant said. He picked up the microphone and announced, "Grenade assault, please. One grenade only—oh, and you kick the door down. Beginning timing in five seconds. Five. Four. Three. Two.
One
."

The private pulled the goggles down. As he moved, the Sergeant slapped his hand down on the big red button on his desk; the timer started.

Transferring his rifle to his left hand, the private pulled a dummy grenade from his web belt, caught the pin on his belt hook, and pulled the grenade away from the pin, not letting go of the spoon. He kicked at the door—it took him two tries to get it to swing away—then threw in the grenade and ran the couple of feet down the hall until he reached the wall, where he ran in place, miming running along further.

The general staff room suddenly went dark; the speaker or. the wall announced,
"Moderate explosion behind soldier. He escapes down the hall uninjured, for at least the next ten seconds."

"Freeze," the Sergeant said into his microphone, slapping at the red switch and stopping the timer at 1513. The private stopped running in place, slung his rifle, and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes.

"Wait a minute—" Aaron raised his hand to protest. "How many did he kill?"

The Sergeant shrugged. "I don't know. Do you?"

"No. Somebody coulda thrown himself on the grenade."

Another boy laughed. "Yeah, yeah, you'd do that."

"Maybe," another boy said, "maybe he only got one or two of them. Maybe even none. They could have turned the table over and hidden behind it."

Another boy didn't like the whole thing. "I thought you said we usually can't get at a general staff."

The Sergeant nodded. "We're lucky if we ever get this kind of shot at even, say, a regimental staff."

"Then he should be sure that they're dead. I mean, it sounds like maybe I think I'm brave or something without anything to show it, but even if he gets killed, if he's killed off a regimental staff, it should be worth it to Metzada. And more so for a general staff, no?"

"Right. And very good, Levi. You're thinking in exactly the right terms." The Sergeant picked up the microphone. "Prepare to restart it," he said, resetting the clock.

He finally seemed to take notice of me. "I see we have Inspector-General Tetsuo Hanavi visiting the class today. He used to be a real soldier, before he joined the IG Corps. Remember your lessons, Tetsuo? You mind demonstrating another wrong way to do it?"

"Fine," I said, "but let's just simulate the door being kicked down. I have a bad knee."

"Will do." He threw me a pair of goggles. "Put them on."

"What for?"

"See, the thing of it is, I'm teaching this class, and you're not. That means that you get to do it my way," he said with a smile that he didn't entirely mean.

I put the goggles on, and he waved me toward the door leading into the hallway. I walked through, shut the door behind me, and relieved the private of his phony weapon. I checked the empty magazine and chamber as a matter of reflex before I slid the magazine out and then back in, resetting the fire simulator's counter.

"Now watch this carefully, class."

I took up his position to the side of the room, and raised the rifle to port position.

"Beginning timing on five,"
the overhead speaker announced.
"Five. Four. Three. Two.
One
."

"Simulating kick," I said as I turned and gently kicked at the door; it swung open immediately, as though broken.

I stepped inside the staff room.

"Good evening, gentlemen," I said.

Two of the staff officers yelled; a third snatched at the pistol on his belt.

I just held down the trigger and sprayed imaginary fire all the way across the room, ignoring the simultaneous loud
crack
s of two simulated pistol shots, while the rifle went silent, simulating emptiness.

Their shots weren't quite as simulated as they used to be when I was a boy in school. One pellet slammed into the wall next to me, but the other caught me on the right side of my forehead, snapping my head back, sending a cool wetness sliding down the right side of my face.

I brought up my hand to my face; it came away red with fake blood. Now I understood the reason for the eye protection.

"Score; six out of ten men wounded, three dead, one uninjured. Our striker is also dead. Now, pay attention: what mistakes did you make, General?"

"One." I stripped the goggles off and held up a finger as I turned, letting them see what a bloody face looked like.

Not really the way it was, but as the lights came up in the classroom, I could see from the pale faces that the point had gotten through.

"Kicking open a door when you haven't even quietly tried the knob is pretty silly. It just announces that something violent is about to happen, and can draw attention from other quarters. If you know the local knock, and can talk the local language, much better to just knock, announce yourself, and walk in."

"Two."

"Two: I had the burst suppressor off, and I sprayed around the room like I was using an autogun to sweep a beaten-fire zone. That would have been a bad mistake. An assault rifle has a limited clip—I should have set it for five-round bursts, then picked targets and walked the bursts through them."

"Priorities?"

"My first target should have been the man who was moving; he was clearly the most dangerous adversary.

"Second and third," I went on, "should have been the ones yelling; they understood what was going on, and were the next most dangerous. That would have taken about twenty rounds, altogether—including an extra insurance burst.

"After that, I should have remembered that the Barak assault rifle has only thirty rounds in the clip, and disengaged from the room, firing another burst while I did so, which would have left me five rounds to deal with anything unexpected in the corridor. Then I could toss in a grenade while I reloaded."

"What is the worst thing you did?"

"The 'Good evening, gentlemen.' That was ridiculous. I was there to kill them, not to talk to them."

"True."

I wiped the phony blood from my face and waved my wet hand at the Sergeant. "You got something I can use to wash this off?"

I was toweling at my wet hair while, behind the plexi, the old soldiers who had been playing at being Freiheimers were busy rearranging the room for the next class.

"Very nice," the Sergeant said. "I see that you remember your lessons."

A bit. One of the things I did, in my spare time, was to teach the Section version of an entry-and-assault, which is a bit more demanding: we're supposed to be able to move in and out a lot more quietly than regular soldiers.

But I remembered the basics, the ones you teach to line troops.

I nodded. "The question is, Uncle Tzvi, is this all just practice, or do you still have it? And do you have five friends?"

He was silent for a long moment. Then:

"For what?" he asked, as if it mattered. He knew what I was offering; he would do whatever I asked him to do, and he knew it damn well.

I shrugged, as though I was considering, then dismissing, his concern. "To spring Shimon Bar-El out of whatever problem he's in on Thellonee. Hope it's a small problem, because there's going to be less than a dozen of us, altogether, and we're going under cover of a negotiating team—I don't want to use any of the real negotiators. No weapons, except for whatever we can procure locally."

"On Thellonee? That's going to be a bitch."

I shrugged. "No pretenses between you and me: it's likely to be bloody, Uncle. We'll start it off with the Mercenary's Toast, but it'll be a lie."

" 'The Mercenary's Toast is a wish, not a promise.' " The Sergeant smiled. "I think that can be worked out. Only promise I need from you, is that if I do well enough on this, you'll consider using me again. For something where the goal is something better than this."

Shimon was my mother's brother; Tzvi Hanavi, my father's. Little love was lost between the two of them; Uncle Tzvi would have cut off his own hand before betraying Metzada.

Still, this wouldn't be about rescuing Shimon Bar-El. It would be about blood.

The wars drive us all insane. Some men are broken into useless hulks that can't even feed themselves. Some men get a taste for blood. The Sergeant was one of those. I'd just given him a whiff of it. He'd follow the scent all the way to Thellonee, as long as I let him, as long as I led him. It wouldn't even matter if I told him that I was deliberately manipulating him.

He wouldn't care.

"No promises," I said. "Now, can you find some friends? Or do you want me to fill out the team?"

"What kind of friends?" he said, again with a smile. It was a real smile, but it wasn't an amused one.

"Old ones. Expendable. Retired. Blooded. The kind of men that it's easy to underrate, but who still have a little something left, even if they can't run as hard as they could when they were boys."

His smile wasn't friendly anymore. "Expendable old soldiers for an expendable mission? What expendable idiot is running it?"

"Me."

"You? Correct me if I'm wrong, little Tetsuki, but have you
ever
had a command? You were a staff officer until they made you IG."

I touched a finger to the star on my left shoulder. "This says I'm considered qualified to command an offplanet mission, all by myself. You want in or out?"

His smile ceased being that of a hunting tiger, and became the sad one of an old man who felt more than a little useless. "Any good news?"

"I think I can get Dov in on the team."

"No. That wasn't what I meant. I mean, it is important?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I think it may be, but I don't know."

"But you think so?"

"I think so."

The smile broadened. "In."

As though my saying it might be important had made a difference. The old tiger would have been in anything that meant action, anything that meant another taste of warm blood in his mouth, even if it was his own.

He nodded again. "You'll have your retread soldiers, Tetsuo; I'll get started now. When do we leave?"

"One week."

"Good."

"Why is that good?"

"In another two weeks," he said, smiling as he clapped a strong hand to my shoulder, "I might be too old for this. I'd best get to work. One would think that there isn't much time to get another five old useless men."

"How long do you figure it'll take? All you can say is that it's a mission, and that they are to consider themselves expendable."

For a moment, we were pupil and teacher again, and he was again disappointed with me for not paying attention to the words of yesterday's lesson. I could see my father in his eyes. My father never approved of me.

"Tetsuo, Tetsuo . . . you forget, sometimes," he said, with my father's voice. "Remember Eleazar ben Mattityahu?"

What's colloquially known as a kamikaze attack—a suicidal attack by a single man on a capital asset of the enemy—was
not
invented in Earth's Second World War by the Nipponese. Our people had invented it millennia before, when the Maccabees kicked the shit out of the Assyrians, sending the bastards running home.