"They're smart, you know," Hennessey said. "At least as bright as a grey parrot."
"If they're so smart," Jimenez asked, "why are they nearly extinct?"
"It's the feathers," Parilla answered. "I daresay if you were that good looking, my ebony friend, people would be hunting you, too. Besides, coming near extinction, in the presence of man, is no shame… except to man."
"And they still do hang on," Hennessey added, flipping the bird a slice of fried ham that it caught and likewise bolted down. "Linda's been looking for a mate for this one."
"Speaking of hanging on, why did so many of you stay and hang on in the Estado Mayor?" Hennessey asked again, as breakfast neared its end. "Don't get me wrong. I think you did the right thing. I admire you dumb bastards, I did even then. But it was hopeless."
Jimenez sighed and shrugged. "We knew that. But what's a principle worth? What's honor worth, Patricio?
"Not everybody did stay in the Comandancia, you know. Truthfully, I do not know how many took off as the screen between the Transitway Zone and the Estado Mayor collapsed. For a certainty, very few of the real thugs Pina brought in stayed."
"We found well over a hundred bodies inside," Hennessey reminded. "And only the five of you that were too badly wounded to fight were taken prisoner."
Jimenez winced. "Oh, I know, Patricio."
"Damn shame. You had some good kids with you that day."
Jimenez smiled. "Yes. They were the best, the ones who wouldn't give up."
Parilla interjected while spreading butter on a piece of toast, "You will note, young Patricio, that those were men Herrera and I trained, for the most part-the old guard. I wish to hell we had their like again in the uniform of the country."
"We do, General," Jimenez objected. "The Civil Force boys are as good as what I commanded in 447." He grinned ruefully. "One of the good side effects of having been abandoned by most of their officers is that a lot of good men survived who would have been killed had they been properly led."
Parilla scowled as he buttered a bit of toast. "But they aren't an army, Xavier. A country needs an army."
Jimenez looked down at his own plate and, nodding, frowned. "Yes… well we're not going to get an army again; so we have to make do."
"We could have an army again, if…" Parilla didn't finish the sentence.
Hennessey thought for a bit, then said, agreeably, "You have good people. They make good troops. If you ever get an army again and need a little help…"
"Yeah, well," Jimenez said, "no one believes that here. We lost, after all."
"So did the Sachsens in the Great Global War," Hennessey objected. "Xavier, General… you know I was in the Petro War, too?"
Jimenez nodded as did Parilla.
"Well, let me tell you this. Six companies and fewer than a dozen independent platoons of Balboan light infantry-outnumbered, outgunned, hit without warning in the middle of the night-gave the FS Army more trouble than fifty divisions of heavily armed Sumeris. That's the truth; from someone who fought both. Your boys had nothing to be ashamed of."
Parilla smiled with pleasure. In truth, the Armed Forces of Balboa-be they called "Civil Force," "Defense Corps," or " Guardia Nacional " had been and remained his one greatest love. To hear good words of an organization and tradition for which few in the country had much use anymore did him a great measure of good.
Just as Parilla was touched by the admission, so too was Jimenez. Normally a block of black ice to the world, still his voice choked a bit as he tried to formulate fumbling words of thanks. Before he could get those words out he was interrupted by Lucinda, gone suddenly pale, bursting in on them.
" Senor, senores… come quick. Something terrible in the Federated States. On the Televisor. Come quickly!"
Exchanging worried glances, the three arose and hurried to the television room.
Columbian Airlines Flight 39, 0827 hours, 11/7/459 AC
Legs splayed, the stewardess lay face up with her open eyes staring blankly at the ceiling of the first class cabin. Her throat was raggedly slashed and a great pool of her blood stained the carpet around her. The blood likewise stained the back of a now abandoned guitar.
Forward of the stew's corpse, halfway up the flight of steps that led to the bridge of the airship, was another, smaller, pool of blood. It dripped from the steps down onto its donor, the airship's purser. His throat had been cut at leisure, after he'd been beaten senseless. It was a much neater slash.
At the head of the stairs, there was a bolted door that now sealed off the bridge from the rest of the ship. Inside were eight men, three of them dead and on the deck. Of the five living, all were covered in the blood sprayed from the throats of the crew as they were sliced open. Two of those living sat the pilot's and copilot's seats. Another two guarded the bolted door against some desperate bid on the part of the passengers to regain control.
Yusef, the final member and commander of the team, stood behind the two flight-trained hijackers. He had a mobile phone pressed to one ear on which he received reports from the other teams. With each report the smile in his blood-dripping beard grew wider, more jubilant.
"The Merciful, the Compassionate One smiles upon us in all his glory," Yusef exulted. "The other two airships are also in our hands."
Samadi, at the pilot's controls, pointed and exclaimed, "Brothers, look! There beats the heart of the beast."
Looking out the bridge's forward window, Yusef nodded with anticipatory satisfaction at the immense skyscraper that was their ultimate target.
"If you hanker after Paradise, Brother, then fly us into the base."
Samadi smiled nervously and nodded. He was not nervous over his impending death; that was nothing. But he was only the best pilot among them, not necessarily a good one. Pushing forward on the yoke with one hand, the other pushed the throttle all the way forward. The speed of the ship began to climb up to maximum.
Behind them, in the passenger compartments, the rest of the airship's passengers began to scream at the changing attitude, altitude and speed. The hijackers ignored those screams completely.
Headquarters, Terra Nova Trade Organization,
First Landing,
Hudson, Federated States of Columbia,
0829 hours, 11/7/459 AC
As with all poisons, Linda thought, toxicity is in the dose.
The ground floor of the TNTO was also the floor of the Terra Novan Trade Appeals Board, the planet's sole effective international court. Thus, that floor simply swarmed with lawyers. The density made Linda's skin crawl.
One child in her arms, another held by the hand and the third trailing along, Linda stepped onto an elevator heading up to the office's of Patricio's family firm.
"Your destination, please," the elevator's speaker asked.
"Chatham, Hennessey, and Schmied," Linda answered clearly, though with a slight but utterly charming Hispanic accent. The machine running the elevator understood it well enough, in any case.
With a smooth sound the elevator began to shoot upwards until it reached the 104th floor. There it came to an equally smooth stop. The doors opened to either side with a whoosh.
Heart pounding, as it always did whenever she had to meet some of her husband's family-Annie alone excepted-Linda Hennessey and her children stepped off of the elevator. A sign high on a wall announced, "Chatham, Hennessey, and Schmied," the name of the family business.
"Why do I put myself through this?" she asked of no one in particular. She asked and she answered, "Because family is important and I do not want my husband to have lost his… especially if I can help it."
"Come on, kids," she ordered, then led two of them forward. Linda carried Milagro, the baby.
Imperious, impervious, unsmiling and unfriendly, Pat's Uncle Robert Hennessey watched without any expression at all as Linda led and carried the children into his office. If my own wife… useless mouth… had managed to have children perhaps I would not resent this woman having taken my only-practical-son. I should not blame her… but I just can't help it.