The Shark Boats, page 15
He’s drunk, Reiner thought. Badly drunk, from the way he was steadying himself.
“President Ramirez is at present our nominal enemy,” Senator Kaye said. “Although – Major Reiner, I know you are a loyal man to a country that has not treated you well enough. That killed your parents and failed to make restitution. What do you think of Ramirez and his ideology?”
You’re one of the furthest-left members of the Senate, Reiner thought. Kaye and a few others had voted against war even after Misan Field, even after acknowledged Northern saboteurs had destroyed two battleships, a cruiser and the logistics depot at Rimshaw Dock.
There’s no secret in what you think of Ramirez.
The trouble wasn’t stating his opinion. The trouble was stating it tactfully. To buy time, he sipped on his drink.
Eddie drained his glass, clumsily refilled it, offered the bottle around. Cromwell carefully accepted a refill; so did the Senator.
“I think there may be one or two reasonable arguments for communism,” Reiner said. “As a soldier, however, it’s my duty to point out that it’s the ideology of our enemy.”
Senator Kaye smiled.
*
Very astute, the Senator thought. He knew perfectly well – from having read between the lines of that reporter’s story – that Major Reiner had been totally corrupted by capitalism. There were men who worked at investment banks and had a social conscience; Reiner wasn’t one of them. It was a pity, but it was also a fact.
Another fact, it seemed, was that Reiner wasn’t sufficiently ideological as to be disrespectful to a USC Senator over it. But he wasn’t dishonest, either – he hadn’t said he liked socialism.
Senator Kaye smiled slightly. As much as he could trust any near-stranger, he now trusted Reiner. The man was combat-experienced, competent, and discreet.
Good.
Cromwell made some witticism about the Liberal Party. Reiner carefully sipped from his glass, probably more on edge now than he’d been in combat. Eddie staggered over to the edge of the balcony, leaned over the balustrade and threw up.
Senator Kaye felt a twinge of pity for the major. He may be a corrupted financier who really believes in this inequality, but does he really deserve what I’m going to give him?
Too bad.
He’d shown himself to be a man Kaye could trust with his younger son’s well-being.
*
“You have permission to enter,” the aide said to Chavez, who had been gazing around the anteroom. I’ve never seen this kind of luxury even in descriptions of how corrupt the old order was, he was thinking.
The office of Hermano del Suelo General Erico de la Stavrenis made its anteroom seem cheap. Pre-Vienna wall hangings made of some reflective combination of silicons and plastics. Weapons of historical significance, including a solid gold cavalry sword that a particular Cajamarcan President had had made for himself. Paintings and silk rugs.
The Hermano del Suelo stood behind a huge desk made from a single slab of Southern redwood. Hector Chavez shivered.
To be in the presence of the second founder of liberty. Chief of our intelligence services. Commander of the Brotherhoods. Right hand of President Ramirez himself.
He had absolutely no idea what was going on; no clue why he was being honored like this. If the Brotherhood was going to have him executed for failure, he’d have been shot on the spot or taken to Cajamarca in irons. He certainly wouldn’t have been given priority transport to the presence of such an exalted figure as de la Stavrenis himself.
He realized that Brother de la Stavrenis still hadn’t said a word to him. The Hermano was looking at him with a slight smile on his face.
He’s looking at me, Chavez thought. I have his attention.
A Christian – a poor, deluded victim of that persistent capitalist myth – might have felt the same way in the presence of their fictional Jesus or Mary.
Or their God.
“I’ve heard about you, Teniente Chavez,” said de la Stavrenis finally. “At ease, Lieutenant. Sit down.”
de la Stavrenis leaned back in his chair, placing elegantly-cut leather boots on his desk. A little nervously, Chavez sat down on the nearest guest chair, which was as comfortably-appointed as the rest of the room.
“Dennyville,” de la Stavrenis said. “An insignificant little trade town. One of about a dozen trans-shipment and exchange points for our southwards logistical pipeline.”
The man is a genius, Chavez thought. A counterintuitive, brilliant genius whose information gave us victory from the claws of defeat a hundred times during the Revolutionary War. The man who masterminded Tuan. What does he want with me?
“Emmanuel Goldstein,” said de la Stavrenis. “Formerly Hubert de Mayo, younger son of an aristocratic family that narrowly failed to escape to Tuan at the end of the war and was consequently liquidated. Goldstein did escape to Tuan, and went on to enable sedition, guerilla warfare, and at least six hundred and thirty-two significant incidents of industrial sabotage.”
And who escaped, Chavez thought, his fists clenching hard at the memory.
“And who escaped,” said de la Stavrenis. “In the process, your shark-boat squadron was cut in half. Its commanding officer, killed.”
This doesn’t make sense, Chavez thought. If I’m being found liable, they’d have arrested me. Second, I’m not going to be found liable because the Party doesn’t make mistakes and I wasn’t responsible. I think. There’s nothing I could reasonably have done to prevent what happened.
I’m going to get you, Reiner, for murdering Jorge.
He said nothing.
“Congratulations,” said de la Stavrenis, and tossed something glittery at Chavez. Chavez caught it – no, them. A pair of gold anchors. The insignia of a Capitane de Corbeta. Lieutenant-commander.
“I’ve heard good things about your attitude, Chavez. Keep it up. Squadron Seven’s yours.”
de la Stavrenis swung his feet down from his desk and stood up. Chavez stood himself.
“Is that all, sir?” he asked. He flew me eighteen hundred miles for this?
Something seemed to glitter in the intelligence chief’s eyes. He smiled slightly.
“It was a pleasure to meet you,” de la Stavrenis said. “Dismissed.”
Chapter Nine
Engines roaring, the Isabella turned sharp left. Reiner held up his index and his middle fingers, pointing at the third target. A couple of empty barrels being towed at a safe distance by the Ragnar Danneskjold.
Pulli opened fire with his quad fifties. One short burst and the barrels were splintered wreckage. Reiner smiled.
He pointed at the first and second targets with all four fingers. Pieter, on the thirty-five millimetre fore gun, carefully aimed. Blew the first one apart. He and his assistant gunner frantically reloaded another shell. Thirty seconds later, Target Two was gone.
Not bad for a Bernese-hating TransEquaaner son of a bitch, Reiner thought with a grin.
“Take us in,” he told Calina.
Two young men were waiting at the dock. Gold bars glinted on their shoulders – second lieutenants’ insignia.
The last of our officer complement. Good.
As they docked, he recognized the men. They drew themselves to attention and saluted.
“Second Lieutenant Rob Cromwell, sir. Reporting for duty.”
“Second Lieutenant Edward Kaye reporting, sir.”
What the hell is a Centralian exile doing in USCA officers’ uniform?
Kaye was easier to explain. In fact, his presence explained Senator Kaye’s invitation. The Senator had been feeling him out for the job of babysitter.
The last I saw you, Kaye, you were emptying your stomach in a corner of the ballroom.
How the hell did I offend the Senator badly enough for him to saddle me with this clown?
*
A day later, the four shark boats headed north for Karna, loaded high with supplies and the extra fuel they’d need to make it all the way. They were laden heavily enough to reduce speed to about half of their maximum, but that was still enough to outrun anything the PNA had except their own shark boats.
Reiner almost hoped he’d run into a few of those; he wanted blood and there was a chance that any PNA shark boat he met would be commanded by Hector Chavez.
We’ll see how good you really are, you son of a bitch, in a fair fight against equally-trained professionals.
Nothing happened. They pulled into Karna two weeks later, without incident.
*
Stevodore parties of walking wounded met the boats at Karna’s one remaining dock. Shells were exploding noisily elsewhere on the tidal peninsula. Followed by his boat skippers – Captains Grey and deKuyper, and Lieutenant Fordham – Reiner headed into the underground complex to report.
Halfway to Macquarie’s offices, he met Colonel Palmer hurrying fast the other way. The gaunt chief of staff returned Reiner’s salute and then spoke fast.
“It’s good to see you here. Come this way.”
Macquarie was asleep, a junior aide told Palmer.
“Wake him,” Palmer ordered tersely.
Shit, Reiner thought as the nervous aide went into Macquarie’s quarters. Something’s happening. Something urgent.
“You two,” Palmer said to Reiner and deKuyper, who was the squadron XO. “Come in.”
The general looked like death. He’d thrown on – or slept in – a set of unwashed fatigues, and his eyes were rounded by black circles. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
Then, from a drawer of his desk, he produced an eight-by-ten-inch photograph. It showed a handsome darker-skinned man with high cheekbones, receding hair, a well-trimmed goatee and a pencil moustache like deKuyper’s.
Macquarie fixed his eyes on Reiner’s and deKuyper’s in turn.
“Do you know who this man is?” he demanded.
deKuyper shook his head.
“No, sir,” said Reiner. Although he recognized the photo from somewhere.
“His name is Manuel Quintillian,” Macquarie said. “President of the Republic of Five-Ports. Until twenty-four hours ago, he and his staff were safely here. They’ve absconded. I want you to find him.”
A few moments of silence.
“Yessir,” said Reiner.
“The man decided that Karna was going to fall. He had a personal launch. Don’t know where he found the fuel – we didn’t give him any. He decided to make his way south through the islands, to Centralia or somewhere. Govern from exile. The coward.”
“Yessir,” said Reiner.
“The Norks would love to have Quintillian. They’d love to have him negotiate a peace, which he’s talked about trying to do. When he was here, that was no threat. Now he’s on his own. He might. If he says to, a large number of the remains of the Five-Ports army will probably lay down their arms. At present they’re tying up more than quarter of a million PNA soldiers in garrison and anti-guerilla duties. That’s almost twenty divisions they’re not throwing at here, or at our troops on the southern islands.”
And you really think Quintillian is likely to turn traitor?, Reiner wondered. That was shocking. The newspapers back home painted the man as a heroic patriot and a staunch ally.
He cleared his throat and cautiously said as much to Macquarie.
“And that would make it worse if he changed sides,” the general said. “Your job is to find him. Make that impossible. Bring him back to secure territory before the PNA gets him. He absconded less than twenty-four hours ago. He can’t have gone far.”
“Has he made any – uh, overtures, sir? Are they in communication?”
“Not that we know of. As far as we know, the PNA don’t even know he’s out of here. Your job is to bring him in before anything does happen. Treat him with respect. But take him back. Is that understood?”
Macquarie saluted. Reiner and deKuyper saluted back.
“One question, sir,” Reiner insisted – obviously the salute meant ‘get out of here’.
“Yes, Major?”
“What if he doesn’t want to come?”
General Macquarie smiled thinly.
“Make him.”
*
Shells exploded amidst the rocks high above the bunker complex, tens of feet above Captain John deKuyper’s head. He couldn’t hear them, but he could feel their vibrations in the rock.
So this is Karna, he thought as Palmer escorted them towards his own office. It was every bit as bad as the rumors said. They were starving and dying here; every single person was emaciated and exhausted. General Macquarie and his chief of staff were the only ones he’d seen so far who weren’t wounded.
deKuyper envisaged those shells crashing down on the docks, on the boats, exploding amidst the Ragnar and the Isabella and the White Russian. Stranding him here to fight and die on a hopeless front line.
Major Reiner paid no attention. deKuyper was scared.
At first, he’d had no time to think about it. Reiner had docked and taken them right in and within minutes they’d been in Macquarie’s office. The only thing in his mind then had been I am in the presence of a four-star general.
Now he had the time to worry. These shells were the first fire deKuyper had ever heard in anger. He liked it a lot less than, in his heroic daydreams, he’d imagined he would have. Not that he’d had many of those daydreams. He was a sales manager, not a warrior. The Reserves had been a way to pay for his college loans.
Somebody had summoned the other boat officers, and the senior NCOs, into Palmer’s office. The place was crowded. Reiner held up the photo of President Quintillian, passed it around, and began to brief them.
A bunch of smugglers and foreign expatriates, deKuyper thought. No more than half of Squadron Ten were real USC soldiers. The men obeyed his orders, but deKuyper felt, or imagined he could feel, an undercurrent. What are you doing commanding us? Where were you at Dennyville? Why isn’t Grey our XO?
He glanced at himself in a half-broken mirror someone had left in the briefing room. Tall and slim, with a receding black hairline although he was only thirty-one. A slight pencil-moustache that obstinately refused to thicken.
You don’t look like a warrior, he thought. Shivering as more shells blasted their vibrations down into the underground complex.
Pray God may I become one.
*
“Gentlemen,” Colonel Palmer said to the squadron’s eight officers, “this is Julio Indigio. He’s a former military aide to President Quintillian. He knows the Five Ports and he knows where the President is likely to be. He might also be able to help you persuade you to come.”
Indigio was a squat man in his early thirties, with thick, messy black hair and constantly-moving eyes.
“Pleased to meet you,” Indigio said. “Major. Captain. Captain. Lieutenants. I trust you’re going to help me get our President back where he belongs. Uh-huh.”
“Yeah,” said Reiner. His first impression of the man was dislike. He couldn’t say why – something about how the guy looked, or carried himself, or something.
I cannot trust this bastard, he thought.
“He’s probably at the Angan Peninsula,” said Indigio. “There’s an airstrip there, uh-huh. Not too many Norks around.”
His eyes glanced around the room, never meeting Reiner’s.
I definitely don’t like him, Reiner thought.
Hell, he didn’t like this mission. Macquarie was ordering him to take a national President at gunpoint, if necessary. Without, apparently, having considered that there was still a Five-Ports army left in existence and the President was likely to have surrounded himself with some of them.
If I had my druthers, I’d be off looking for Captain Chavez. Too damn bad.
“Let’s go,” he said.
*
Four hours ago, a coded radio message had called Squadron Seven off patrol. Without explanation, Chavez and his four shark boats had been directed to a certain map reference in the open sea. Approaching it now, Chavez saw that his squadron was not the only naval unit that had been routed there. A whole task group was coalescing around a brutal-looking heavy cruiser, the PNS Planaltina.
Three troop transports. One armored landing transport. A freighter, whose decks were lined with soldiers – from the size, it probably held at least a battalion. Two destroyers and a corvette. What looked like a light cruiser was approaching on the northern horizon.
Chavez took the Rubina alongside the Planaltina. She was a big vessel, almost a battlecruiser, grey and nasty and bristling with heavy cannon. A junior officer was waiting for them; a staircase had already been lowered.
*
About twenty officers had gathered in the Planaltina’s briefing room by the time Chavez and his new XO, Senior Lieutenant Melita, arrived. It was a small room in the bowels of the ship, stinking of oil and cigar smoke. The officers sat on folding chairs or stood along the bulkheads. In front of the room, Commodore Velasquez stood with a burly Brotherhood lieutenant-colonel. A map was taped to the chalkboard behind them.
“Chavez. Good to see you,” said Velasquez. He was a tall, balding man in an immaculate white dress uniform.
“Thank you, sir,” said Chavez. He scanned the other officers in the room. Army and Navy. The People’s Navy didn’t have Marines – that function was served by Army squads and platoons temporarily assigned to the ships.
“Did you see the Mananda?” Velasquez asked.
“The light cruiser? Still on the horizon, sir.”
“We’ll have to start without them. Someone can brief Captain Tomasino later. We don’t have the time to wait another thirty minutes. Colonel, the floor is yours.”
“My name is Lieutenant-Colonel Bosco,” said the burly Brotherhood officer. “Peoples’ Intelligence. As the commodore said, we have very little time. This task group has been thrown together at a moment’s notice, as you can clearly see, from the units available in the area. You all have heard the name Manuel Quintillian, President of the oligarchic so-called Republic of Puerto Quintos.”
