Part 3 (1/2)

Dozens of automobiles pa.s.sed by the Estado Mayor every minute. Had any looked up, they would have seen Jimenez smiling, white teeth sparkling in an angular, coffee-dark face. They would not have seen his hands as they clenched and unclenched to no perceivable rhythm.

Pus.h.i.+ng the sight and sound of the automobiles from his mind, twisting his head to look directly at the corridor leading to the office of his country's ”Supreme Leader,” General Antonio Pina, Jimenez's smile grew even broader. ”Son of a b.i.t.c.h,” he muttered under his breath. He could have spoken aloud, since that same dictator was either pa.s.sed out drunk, or, if he retained some semblance of consciousness, certainly engaged in fornication with one or another of his bevy of mistresses.

The smile closed, a sneer taking its place. Some things were just too disgusting to maintain a smile over, even for him. Jimenez turned his gaze back to the street below, watching the pa.s.sing cars as one might watch fish in an aquarium, relaxing, vicarious, mindless existence...like watching the rain.

Below, a corporal of the guard stopped a car. This was an unusual enough break from the pattern to catch Jimenez's attention. He watched closely, intently. He watched as the car leapt forward, missing the corporal by mere inches. He watched as the corporal grabbed a nearby rifle, charged it, and raised it to his shoulder. He saw the rifle give off three spurts of flame that lit up the area as if by a strobe, each shot driving the corporal's shoulder and body backwards a few inches.

Under the glow of an overhead streetlamp, the rear window of the automobile shattered under the fire. Jimenez saw countless tiny flakes of gla.s.s burst into the air then fall, sparkling, to the dull pavement below.

”They shot up the car, killed your man,” Jimenez explained. ”That was understandable, if unwise. But then they grabbed that Naval Officer and his wife...threatened them, beat him and a.s.saulted her. I tried to stop it but...”

Hands clenching convulsively, Jimenez turned from his station and began walking briskly to the nearest staircase. His booted feet tap-tap-tapped on the hard stone floor.

Reaching the staircase, one hand grasped the banister as a pivot for a forceful turn. His feet beat rhythmically on the stairs as he descended. Soldiers and flunkies, each and every one perplexed at the unexpected shots, took one look at the fixed, fierce and even painful smile on Jimenez's face and looked quickly for something else to do, someplace else to be.

Jimenez burst through the door, then trotted for the complex gate. Armed guards were all around. Some stood idly. Others, those nearer the gate, were plainly at a heightened sense of alert. Jimenez trotted through them all without a sideward glance.

Reaching the gate, Jimenez slowed his trot back to a brisk walk. As if in compensation, his hands' clenching became almost frenzied and his smile grew broader still. He headed straight for the guard shack from which the shots had been fired.

Reaching the shack, Jimenez found it to be empty. He looked around until, under the city lights, his eyes caught on the former occupants. They were surrounding two civilian-clad people one man, one woman; both, Jimenez was certain, from the FSC. Gringos Gringos-the name had been carried across the stars. They were too well dressed, too light skinned, too blonde especially the woman to be anything else.

Jimenez stopped for a moment, watching intently. In his gaze the crew surrounding the gringos began to beat the man mercilessly. A knee intersected his groin.

The woman's head bent down as if she were crying. One of the Balboans grabbed her hair and pulled her head erect again. Jimenez thought she must have been threatened then, as she began shaking her head back and forth in obvious terror.

More words were spoken, none loud enough for Jimenez to make out clearly. He saw one of the troops smash the gringo's head back against the wall. Another made a half-ways grab at the woman's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then reached down instead and patted her thigh meaningfully.

Jimenez's smile grew brilliant. Hands forming fists, he strode forward.

From clouds overhead and to the south the first hints of another warm sprinkling began to descend.

Hennessey stopped typing. He looked up at Jimenez and asked, ”What happened next, Xavier?”

”I heard the corporal say, ”Kick the f.u.c.king spy again.” Then some private did, kneeing this navy type's groin. That Navy officer he was a tough man...very....well, he hardly made a sound. But his wife was crying, streams of tears running down her face, begging for her husband. She looked terrified. Who could blame her? Not I.”

”Raul,” Hennessey turned his head to address Parilla. ”You were the commander of the old Guardia Guardia. They weren't like that before. What changed? What do you think caused them to act like that? With a woman, I mean?”

”Pina,” answered the short, brown and somewhat rotund Parilla in a single word. ”Our drunken idiot 'Supreme Leader.'”

”Him? How?” asked Hennessey, raising a single eyebrow. In principle, he agreed, of course, but wanted Parilla's thoughts.

”Oh...I doubt I have to explain this to you, Patricio.” When the eyebrow remained raised anyway, he continued, ”Look, we had a little tiny force in Balboa before I was ousted. Maybe two thousand men. Maybe a few more. But they were select. Good men. Pina brought in...oh, Christ, Patricio, some of the people he brought into the force weren't much more than criminals themselves.”

To Parilla's side, Jimenez just nodded in silent agreement.

”And then he had to get rid of, out of the way anyway, a lot of good people. It was only my nagging that kept our friend here in service. Somebody, after all, had to set an example.” Parilla leaned over and ruffled Jimenez's hair just as if the younger were still the old man's aide de camp.

Hennessey laughed, more at the gesture than at the words. He turned back to Jimenez. ”What happened then, Xavier?”

Jimenez sighed and shook his head with a mixture of regret and disgust. ”I saw the corporal lift the woman's head by her hair. I heard him say...”

”What? You afraid he won't be able to perform in bed, b.i.t.c.h? How about I have a half dozen of my men give you the last decent f.u.c.k of your life?” The wife's mouth just formed a silent ”O” of pure terror. She began to plead for herself then, as well as her battered husband.

The corporal released her hair and turned back to the husband. He asked, ”You want that, boy? Shall we gang-bang your wife? No? Then tell me what the f.u.c.k you were doing here. Just out for a stroll, you say. No doubt.”

A private put his hand under the husband's chin and pushed up hard. The naval officer's head slammed into the wall behind. It struck the exposed brick wall hard enough to split the thin skin over his skull.

Even now Jimenez smiled at the memory, the same smile he had been using since boyhood whenever something really really annoyed him. annoyed him.

He went on, ”So the private's still holding this poor guy's chin and was c.o.c.king his arm to hit him in the face when I reached them and grabbed his arm.”

”He said, and I remember this clearly, 'What the f.u.c.k...?' Then the private looked at me over his shoulder. Oh, Patricio, it was good to see. His eyes got big like saucers when he realized who I was.”

”I smiled at him. Patricio, I confess...I was not always as even tempered as I am now. The private knew what that smile meant. He looked...well...a lot more frightened than that poor woman did.”

The corporal's eyes bugged out. He stuttered out, ”Ca-Ca-Captain Jimenez. Sir. They're spies. We were...”

Jimenez cut off the explanations and excuses. ”I know what the h.e.l.l you idiots were doing. I can see what you were doing. But I don't think you know what you were doing. Let the gringos go...with apologies. And pray it's enough.”

The corporal insisted they were spies. That's when Jimenez lost his temper. He grabbed the corporal's uniform s.h.i.+rt and slammed him against the wall, following up with two quick punches to the solar plexus.

”That Navy officer was was spying you know? Probably without authorization but still spying,” commented Hennessey. ”Then again, maybe he spying you know? Probably without authorization but still spying,” commented Hennessey. ”Then again, maybe he had had authorization, too. I had awfully detailed and up to date information when my company rolled out.” authorization, too. I had awfully detailed and up to date information when my company rolled out.”

Jimenez sighed. ”Yes, I know. I knew that even then. But I still didn't want a war we could not even hope to drag out very long, let alone win.”

Hennessey was a bit odd about impending combat. He'd fret nervously, go to see everything, to check on everything, to look into the face of every one of his soldiers. And then, as it got closer, he'd simply begin to calm down. It was almost as if he was detaching a part of himself. Perhaps it was the part that was human. Certainly it was the part that seemed seemed most human. In any case, when the time came, with something like an internal mental most human. In any case, when the time came, with something like an internal mental click click, he would drop off fear, drop off trivial personal concerns, and become something very like a machine.

”Up there! The windows!”

A few vehicles ahead of Hennessey, a young soldier twisted his body to realign the heavy machine gun mounted atop the armored personnel carrier. ”Target!” The flash from the muzzle lit the buildings to either side as fifty caliber bullets, long bursts in steady streams, streaked out to punch through the thin walls of a third story room. The pounding of the heavy machine gun was a palpable blow over the entire upper half of the gunner's body.

The gunner, ears covered by his track commander's helmet and hearing under a.s.sault by the fifty's steady booms, could not tell that the shrieks coming from inside did not somehow sound military. Even Pina hadn't thought to conscript five year old girls.

From the other side of the street a single, mostly hidden, muzzle flash sparked. A bullet forced its way between the aramid fibers of the gunner's armored vest. He gasped and slumped down to the footstand. Blood began to drip, then gush. It flowed across the raised dots of the metal floor plates, gathering in the lower flat parts.

Confusion on his face, the dying soldier called out once, ”Mama?” Then his body went limp, dead.