The Rods and the Axe - eARC (13 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Fourth Estate . . . Fifth Column? What’s the difference?”

—Richard E. Sampson, Accountant

Julio Asunción Airport, Garabito, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

There were two
ala
aircraft on the tarmac, one carried Lourdes and the bulk of the diplomatic party, the other carried refugees. The legion had planes capable of taking both in one lift. Instead, they’d used two smaller ones, NA-23s. Why? Because with what they expected the subtly screened Tauran women to say, Lourdes’ presence would have undermined the anticipated message. She’d still stopped by to commiserate with the Taurans, back at Herrera International.

The widow Lydia Gordon, tugging her three-year-old by the hand, was first to step off the plane flown by the Legionary Air Wing, the
ala
. She and her child were followed by fifty-one other family members, some widowed or half-orphaned but most with spouses and fathers behind wire as POWs. To compensate for those fifty-three, only forty-seven mostly wounded prisoners were waiting at Cristobal’s docks, back in Balboa, for transport. It was one of those rare days when Carrera decided to fulfill the letter of Parilla’s promise to the Taurans.

It was also the first return of the family members. This wasn’t through any ill will, nor even indifference. It was that the aircraft had been needed for other things prior. Though, it had to be said, there were advantages to letting the Taurans stew and fret over the civilian captives.

In any event, because this was the first load of civilian dependents, the press was waiting like a group of paparazzi privy to watching the crown princess of Anglia blowing the Household Cavalry . . . the horses, that is, not the troopers. The Balboan press was there, too, as were some less than honest or ethical . . . ah, but why be redundant . . . journalists, some of whom were on under-the-table legionary retainer.

Widow Gordon, when approached by the press, quite without being
openly
coached, had little good to say about the Tauran Union. “What? How do you
think
I feel about those pansies? I blame their incompetence for my husband’s death more than I do any supposed Balboan strengths. What were they
thinking?
Silly question, I know. But those bureaucratic filth made me a widow in my twenties.”

From there it got worse, running from the Tuscan woman who wept great snotty sobs on camera, then spit at the mention of the Tauran Union, to the Sachsen crew that stood together and sang, “Fuck the filthy Tauran Union,” through all of its verses: “Asshats, bastards, cowards, dimwits, shit feasting gallows bait . . .” And then there were the Gallic women, belting out the
Internationale
with feeling.

It was not known, and would not be known for a century when the pertinent files could be opened, whether the Balboans were somehow selecting people for return who were staunchly and especially anti-Tauran Union, or if they didn’t have to because
all
of the dependent families—perhaps because of the common military outlook—were staunchly anti-Tauran Union.

And the images and words couldn’t be suppressed, either, since several Balboan news teams were at the airport as well, feeding those words and images into the GlobalNet and through television across the hemisphere.

Perhaps the most annoying and frustrating thing to the Taurans was that they couldn’t stop the return, either. The Balboans would take those women and their children to Aserri, whether the TU willed it or not. And, while there were substantial sections of the yellow press that could be directed away, that would only work if all the press could be directed to ignore the return. Since it couldn’t, and since there was therefore no benefit to the cause by those otherwise cooperative elements of the media in shielding the Tauran Union, they wouldn’t. In effect, the conversation between press and Tauran Union defense and information ministries went something like this:
And fuck you; we have advertising to sell or we’ll go under. Selling advertising requires we give, or at least appear to give, the whole news. Cutting things that displease you out, when someone else is giving the whole story, means people will go elsewhere. Then we won’t be able to sell advertising, we go under, and then there’ll be no more cooperation from any of us. Ever. So fuck you again.

At least, that was the conversation reported between Zed Potter, the head of the Global News Network, and Monsieur Gaymard, the president
pro tem
, of the Tauran Union.

Cristobal, Balboa, Terra Nova

The Balboans didn’t give Jan Campbell a lot of warning. One moment she’d been supervising some mixed troops digging antianimal ditches, which—of
course
—could
never
be construed as antitank ditches, with von Bernhard’s group the next over, while the next half dozen guards, their rifles bayonetted, surrounded her and led her off. She could see plainly enough that Hendryksen was about to make a go at the guards no matter the odds.

“No, Kris,” she insisted, one placating hand raised, “it’ll be fine. Besides, them feeling they need this many guards for little me is quite the compliment.”

Neither she nor the Cimbrian need have worried. The Balboans may have been playing loose with the laws of war—witness the ha-has that couldn’t really be anything
but
antitank ditches—but they weren’t interested in murdering prisoners once they actually
were
prisoners. Campbell was marched along the narrow jungle trail to a larger one, which larger one in turn led to a gravel road. At the road was a weasel-faced man in a wheelchair. Behind him were a four-wheel-drive vehicle, her guess being that it was captured from the Gauls, and a muddied van with a lowered platform resting on the gravel.

Fernandez? What the fook does he want with me?

“To let you go, Captain,” the intel chief answered, quite without being asked. Well, it
was
, after all, an obvious question. “As to ‘why?’ which will be your next question, because my boss, who seems to have taken a liking to you, asked me to track down your whereabouts and see that you were well taken care of: Properly buried, if dead, properly cared for, if wounded, and properly released, if a prisoner.”

That was a total lie. Carrera might, just possibly, have directed that, had he remembered to. He hadn’t had the time or occasion to think about it. However, Fernandez
did
have major responsibility for disinformation, and Campbell, it was judged, could play a useful part in that.

She, on the other hand, was pretty sure she’d charmed Carrera, to a degree, and thought it entirely possible he’d given such order. Even so, “It’s not proper to release me ahead of . . .”

Fernandez lifted a palm, in unconscious echo of Campbell, with Hendryksen, a few moments before. “On the contrary, Captain, as we have learned from Tauran Union reactions to the murder of some meddlesome women, from our troops’
most
regrettable reaction to the quite legitimate killing of some of our female infantry, and from the eagerness everyone in the goddamned world is showing as regards returning the largely female population of widows and women whose men are behind barbed wire now, it is absolutely proper to get you off of our hands, you and every other Tauran or Zhong woman we hold.

“You wish to be equal and I approve of and admire that, Captain, I assure you. The world, however, laughs at our pretensions. Women are different, and the worlds of man insist they be treated differently.

“So, off you go, miss.”

Fernandez indicated the four-wheel-drive vehicle, on closer inspection a Gallic Sochaux S4, with a new paint job, and said, “One of ours will drive and two guards will stay with you to protect you, not to keep you from escaping.” He shook his head, wonderingly, saying, “I can’t imagine any reason someone about to be released from captivity would escape. Please don’t show me one.”

“And take me where?” she asked.

“We don’t want to muddy the water needlessly,” Fernandez replied. “You’ll go to Cristobal, to the place we’ve been using for the TU to pick up returnees and bring them home, by ship.”

“My compatriots?”

“Since you don’t share nationality with most of them, I am surprised to find you using the term. They stay here until released, exchanged, paroled, or we win or lose the war.”

“So the war goes on?” she asked. “Slaughtering us and rubbing our noses in it wasn’t enough?”

“That’s up to your side,” answered Fernandez. “You might suggest to them that peace is in their interests, too, and that they should pay, by rights, for all the damage they caused. Saying that, however, or promising to, is not a condition of your release.”

Fernandez’s face split in a wicked grin. “Speaking of what you should and should not say, however, we found the most interesting report from you in a file in Fort Muddville’s Building 59. It seems you tried to dissuade the Tauran Union from attacking, or at least to convince them we would prove tougher than they imagined. It seems also that the Gauls overrode that report.” Fernandez didn’t for a moment think about telling Campbell about the burned files of Tauran spies within Balboa. That was a bit of information too much.

The memory of that report brought a scowl to Campbell’s face. Given the results, it almost, not quite but almost, brought a tear to her eye.

“Yes, well, don’t be too terribly surprised, Captain, if the Tauran Union sends you someplace totally incommunicado if you mention that report. Every government, to include Anglia’s, is embarrassed to tears over the fiasco here. Some are perhaps teetering. I warn you, for your sake, not to say anything in public that might cause them to think you would be best used at a weather station, someplace unpopulated, cold, and forbidding.”

Campbell rolled her eyes heavenward, thinking,
Yes, it’s possible. It’s also possible that the reason they’re sending me home is so that I
will
mention my report, and embarrass my government further. My impression of Carrera is that he is not that devious. Fernandez, on the other hand . . . he just might be.

Consulting his watch, Fernandez said, “Now, miss, I must run along. You, please, be a good girl and go with your guards to Cristobal, quietly. If any of them gives you the slightest trouble, drop me a line and I’ll see to it that they get retrained for a mine clearing maniple.”

Kaiserswerth, Sachsen, Tauran Union, Terra Nova

Khalid was on his third printer, still chirping away as it cranked out letter of condolence number eighteen hundred and eleven. The other two sat off the floor, against one wall, their lift tops open and in one case, graced with some boot marks. Those two had long since given up the ghost in printing off letters of condolence, or just of information, for the more than twenty thousand Taurans in legion hands, one way or the other. This didn’t account for the printing of checks and envelopes.

Khalid had long since lost count of the number of ink cartridges used.

“Couldn’t they have gotten somebody else to help?” he asked of nobody. “Anybody?”

Now he had them nearly ready, over twenty thousand stuffed envelopes. Of these, some contained checks. Of those, there were two groups; those the Tauran Union had been informed of the deaths of and those they had not. A third group consisted of those the various Tauran militaries had listed as dead, but who were, in fact, alive. The fourth were prisoners, and had been honestly reported as such. The fifth was to the Castilians, with whom the Balboans had been absolutely up front, since the Castilian dead had died on behalf of Balboa

Ohhh, I shiver at the thought of those bureaucrats trying to get money back for insurance paid. Oh, wicked Fernandez!

All the letters were packed in boxes stacked to the ceiling in his small apartment, but the groups with checks were kept separate, as were the ones for the “resurrected.” Once these last hundred or so were done, all that waited was the word from Fernandez, which word had not yet been given.

But when it is? Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the recriminations, the flush of embarrassment on Tauran bureaucratic faces. I surely hope someone records some of it, for posterity.

The letter then sat in the printer’s tray. Khalid picked it up and read it silently. It was been composed by some legionary psychologists, for a particular effect, at a particular time. The particular type number was “Fourteen C, Sachsen fallen, no details.” It read:

Dear Mrs. Czauderna

It is with deepest regret that the President, Senate, People, and armed forces of the Republic of Balboa inform you that your son, Moritz Czauderna, has fallen in battle with the forces of the Republic.

Regrettably, amidst the confusion intendant upon the Tauran Union’s unprovoked attack, we have no details to give you. We recovered a body, a name tag, and nothing more. We have buried the body, with full military honors, among our own sacred dead. Your son was an enemy, perhaps, in life. In death he is our guest, an honored colleague and comrade.

After a final peace, of course, you may determine that you would prefer that Moritz’s remains come home. Assuredly, we will give them up to you or your agent. If not, be assured he is welcome here and that, should you wish to visit his grave you shall do so as our guest for the duration of your stay.

It is our law that those who fight and fall in their country’s service shall receive certain honors. This was originally a regulatory oversight, yet, as time has passed, we have come to see the wisdom of honoring even those who have fallen in battle against us. Thus, Moritz’s gravestone shall be marked with the wound badge of the
Legion del Cid
, and the
Cruz de Coraje en Acero
.

We do not presume to make fine and meaningless distinctions among those who have given all they have to give. All who fall, friend or foe, without disgracing their countries, are so honored.

In addition, we know that bureaucracies can be slow and inefficient, or sometimes even negligent. Though we have made lists of the dead and captured available to the Tauran Union, it is possible that they have not yet been able to take care of you. Enclosed you will find a check in the same amount as we grant to the families of our own fallen, to tide them over until normal bureaucratic systems can come into play. Accept it, please, in the spirit in which it was given, a spirit that recognizes a common humanity, whatever causes may lead us to differ.