Part 3 (1/2)

”Chuy.”

”You and Chuy-you are involved in this and you don't work for your government?”

Now it was Rucker's turn to look a little confused. He goosed up the engines and the plane raced down the airstrip, dipping momentarily in the thinner air when it cleared the tarmac and then resuming its course for the capital city of the Freehold, located deep in the heart of Texas.

”Us? Work for Austin? Doc, don't be all rude.”

An hour later Somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico Deitel was once again in the copilot's chair and having difficulty engaging in a conversation with Rucker.

”We are told there is much poverty in the Texas Freehold,” he said.

Rucker shrugged.

”Yeah. I mean, I guess. There might be. I don't know that anyone keeps track of that,” he said. ”Not polite to go nosin' around in other people's business.”

Deitel was an educated man-the finest Prussian primaries and university, medical schooling at the prestigious Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and plenty of travel through Europe and the African colonies. He considered himself well-educated. But nothing he'd read or heard about the Texas Freehold or the Propriedad de Brazil held exactly true. Not for the two countries and especially not for the people.

Well, almost nothing.

Deitel had arrived in Brazil expecting to find impoverishment and decadence. True, there was decadence-he'd arrived just in time for Carnival, which offended him on more levels than he could count. But Rio was as modern and prosperous a city as any in the growing Reich; its universities advanced, and its medical technologies rivaled-okay, in some ways were better than-most anything he'd seen in Europe.

And despite what he'd been told, Brazil seemed no more different than any other modern country-plenty of rich and poor and middle cla.s.s. He was beginning to expect the same would hold true for the Texas Freehold, despite what he'd been told and despite Rucker telling him very little.

Another point along those lines-what he'd expected by way of treatment from someone who'd fought as a mercenary, versus the reality of how Rucker was treating him. Even if it was from a remove, Rucker was treating him without any malice.

Rucker was the first Texan that Deitel had ever met, and, yes, there was the cowboy hat he'd first seen him in. But Deitel had expected little more than an oversized crop duster for a charter plane. The Raposa was exceptionally modern.

To learn that Rucker was part of the militia force that so quickly brought an end to the Great War-it was a bit much.

At twenty-three, Deitel was too young to remember a lot of the war. It started when he was just nine and ended before he turned sixteen. But he'd studied the subject extensively. The conflict began in 1913 in Europe, three years before the Freehold got involved at all.

The worldwide conflagration started small enough. Everyone agreed on that point. Binding treaties and interventionist strategies had turned a minor regional conflict into a world war.

At first it was a European war. Then it grew into a war that quickly burned across Africa and threatened to consume Asia and South America in conflagrations between European colonies there. The northern Union States under President Wilson joined the war on the side of Imperial Germany in 1915. The Union States still held a grudge against England and France for their recognition of the Confederate States in 1863 and their recognition of the Texas Republic in 1835.

Meanwhile, the Confederate States sided with the British Empire and France, of course, for the same reason. The Great War never touched the North American continent, but only because the Union States and CSA both honored the terms of the Foggy Bottom Treaty of 1864, which established a demilitarized zone between the American powers. One war on their home soil was quite enough for northerners and southerners, despite their long-simmering hatred.

The Texas Freehold-one of the nine Anglo nations of North and Central America-remained neutral.

That changed in 1916. Sort of.

That year, a desperate France pleaded to Austin for help. As in 1861, during the War for Southern Independence, private citizens from across the Freehold banded together to form the Texas Volunteer Group, an entirely private militia. When the French called, Texans always obliged. Mercenaries, they were called by Imperial forces of the U.S., Germany, and Russia.

Within a few months of the call for help, tens of thousands of Freeholders were fighting in the trenches and in the skies of Europe alongside the French.

The Freehold itself, politically and formally as a nation, still remained officially neutral, since it was only their citizens under the banner of a private militia fighting in the war.

This unconventional state of affairs caused no end of uproar among both enemies and allies alike. For some reason most Freeholders couldn't fathom, it was considered n.o.ble and proper to fight a war with involuntary conscripts but improper for volunteers to fight under a private banner. Freeholders asked what kind of man would make someone pay for or fight a war he didn't want.

”You really have no qualms about dealing with Germans?” Deitel finally asked.

”Should I? War's long done, Dr. Deitel. We made war on the German military, not on German people.”

”Given how your people conducted war, we a.s.sumed you all hated Germans,” Deitel said.

Rucker c.o.c.ked his head and an eyebrow.

”How do you mean, Doctor?”

”Your people were a terror. My nation fought the French and Englanders to a standstill. It was b.l.o.o.d.y and ugly, but the war was stable. Then you came. According to the histories I have read, you did not fight as we knew. You simply went around the trenches and fortifications. You attacked us from every side but the front. Your horse troops cut off entire regiments. Your rangers crawled into trenches at night and scalped our machine gun crews. They organized and trained French villagers behind our lines to conduct war, arming the old, women, and even children. You appeared from nowhere and faded back into the dark and the wilds. It was the stuff of nightmares.”

There was a long silence.

”It wasn't personal,” Rucker finally said with a shrug. ”We just wanted to get it done with.”

Deitel couldn't have looked more confused and insulted if Rucker had stood and relieved himself in Deitel's coat pocket.

”Look, you bring us to a fight,” Rucker said, ”don't expect us to come with our dancin' shoes.”

”Germany didn't bring you,” Deitel said. ”You came at the request of the French.”

”Mais oui,” Rucker said.

”I never understood the nature of the Freehold's 'special relations.h.i.+p' with France,” Deitel said.

Rucker shrugged.

”They had our backs in the first revolution in 1776. Convinced Jefferson and the Founders to get rid of slavery. They were the first to recognize Texas in 1835. h.e.l.l, they gave us the Statue of Liberty. You seen the picture postcards-that lady standing on the sh.o.r.e off New Orleans. The French been with us in good times and bad,” Rucker said.

”Many say that your people conducted themselves like war criminals.”

”Do you want off the plane? I can arrange that,” Rucker said.

”Oh come now,” Deitel said.

”I've got the captain hat right here.”

Deitel gave a nervous laugh.

”I wasn't joking,” Rucker said. ”We have parachutes and everything.”

Deitel opened and closed his mouth silently, then chose his words carefully.

”I don't mean to offend you personally, Herr Kapitan. It's just that, from what I've been taught, your people were like the savage Indians in the western American nations. And therefore I am shocked you'd allow one of my people here.”

”Strange definition of savage. We didn't make war on civilians and sh.e.l.l cities. Merde. We didn't bomb towns or use gas and dragon belchers. Besides, Far Ranger's company motto is 'Anything, Anytime, Anywhere.' That includes Huns, I reckon.”