A sailor on one of the boats, the stern said "San Agustin," shouted and waved for them to veer off. Lourdes was having none of it. Instead, she ducked down seconds before the yacht crashed into the dock, crumpling its own bow and splitting pole and frame of the other. Lourdes and her passengers were thrown forward.
The sailor, still shouting imprecations, jumped from his own patrol boat to the yacht's deck. "Lady, are you out of your fucking mind?" The sailor then noticed she had a submachine gun slung over one shoulder and amended, "If you'll pardon my language, ma'am."
Lourdes stood straight and answered, "Possibly. To both. My name is Lourdes Carrera. I am Duque Carrera's wife. I need to see your senior man present and I need your help."
In the dim white light of two moons, one of them now setting, and the yellow light of streetlamps, the sailor peered at this strange woman's face.
"By God you are the Duque's wife." He turned away, toward a small building just off the dock, and shouted, "Chief! Chief Castro!"
* * *
"I've got the five boats, yes, Mrs. Carrera," the chief said, once Lourdes had explained as much as she knew. His was a face burned dark by the wave-reflected sun and deeply seamed with a life of wind, and storm, and squinting against the elements. "But I've only got the crew coming off and the crew going on duty. And they're not even full strength. It's one of the downsides of being a militia." The chief shrugged, apologetically.
"Can you run a boat on half a crew?" Lourdes asked.
"Well . . . yeah . . . if we're not going to fight anybody," Castro admitted.
"All right then." Lourdes turned to Artemisia. "Arti," she said, "I need you to take your children and mine to," she leaned forward and whispered something in the black woman's ear, "and from there to wait. If what I am planning works, come back. If not, run to Hamilcar's . . . people . . . in Pashtia." She leaned forward again and whispered something else, a set of five numbers and the name of a bank, which she made Arti repeat back to her. "That will allow you and them to live well if it comes to that."
Turning back to the chief, she said, "I need you to take me to the coast, nearest where the road to Fort Cameron touches it. And I need a car to meet me there and take me to the fort."
The chief considered. "I've got a brother in law who bought a taxi with a legion loan. I can get him to meet us."
"The phones are out," Lourdes objected.
"His taxi has a radio and I know his frequency."
"Then let's do it."
Castro inhaled deeply and let out an equally deep sigh. "Yes . . . all right . . . let's. And, madam, if you've never been on a boat that can do better than seventy kilometers an hour, let me tell you that you are in for the ride of your life."
From the boat shack a voice called out, "Hey, Chief? Something's wrong with the television. There ain't no TV at all."
Television Studio, Canal Seven, Ciudad Balboa, Terra Nova
There were lights lit in the windows of the building. Under streetlights, trucks were rolling past, carrying troops to stations all around the city. Others, three of them, were stopped outside the TV station, disgorging troops. The second in command of those troops, Centurion Garza, walked up to the commander, Signifer Garza, and said, "This just doesn't make sense, Signifer. Orders in the middle of the night to take over the TV and radio stations, and to shut down the phones? Others to collect up the Senate? And no rumors preceding those orders? All in the Duque's name? Sir, we never do anything without at least some rumors in advance. Never. We're just that kind of force.
"I could see it if we were going to attack the Taurans without warning," the centurion continued. "But we've been expressly warned not to attack the Taurans. It just doesn't make sense."
The signifier shrugged. He was a youngish kid, just out of OCS, and without even a close combat badge to his name. Truth to tell, he was a little in awe of his centurion. "I don't know, Centurion Garza," the kid said. "I just know we—Seventh Legion, I mean—got orders to secure the town. We're doing that."
A look of nervous and apprehensive puzzlement crossed the centurion's face. He leaned forward and lowered his voice, as he spoke to his younger cousin. "Manuel," he said, "this stinks and if I were you I'd start looking around to find the source of the stench."
"All right," the signifier agreed, "just as soon as we shut down the station. Which, now that you mention it, stinks, too."
Bridge of the Colombias, Balboa, Terra Nova
The lieutenant of the Gallic Twentieth Infanterie Mécanisée, out of Fort Muddville, was doing what lieutenants do; running around like a headless chicken trying to put each combat vehicle in his platoon into exactly the right position. On the other side of the bridge a different platoon was doing the same. The company's third platoon was on the other side of the broad water, acting as a combat outpost of sorts.
Centurion Garza wasn't the only one puzzled by the ongoing events. A grizzled Gallic non-com told the lieutenant, "Sir, I don't like this a bit. There's a coup going on; we all understand that. But we got orders to move and secure this bridge long before that started. So we're in on it; the general is, anyway."
"Logical, so far, Adjudant," the lieutenant agreed, momentarily ceasing his useless clucking about.
"Well, sir, there's nobody around us—nobody friendly, I mean. There's a heavy division to the east of us that is definitely not friendly, and at least two Balboan infantry divisions—legions, I mean—behind us, and maybe closer to five, not including their Tenth Artillery Legion."
"Yes, so?"
"If that coup doesn't work, sir, we're at the bottom of an artillery funnel."
The lieutenant looked momentarily nonplused. "What do you recommend, then, Adjudant?"
"For starters, sir, let me worry about setting up this blocking position. Meanwhile, you should get over the map and get on the radio and figure out a way for us to get the hell out of here if things turn to shit."
"As my father, the general, often said, Adjudant, the good officer listens carefully to his sergeants' mess."
"Wise man, your father."
BdL San Agustin, Chepo River, Balboa
The boat was anchored as close to the bank as it could go without grounding itself. Chief Castro, not content with getting Lourdes to the coast, had motored upriver to bring her nearly a third of the way to Fort Cameron and the Volgan Tercio. He'd have gone further still but for two factors: This was as close as the road got, because a bridge crossed the river her and the bridge itself was built on pylons too close together to permit the width of the patrol boat to pass. Overhead, just off of the abutment, a single flashlight signaled three times.
"Is this wise?" Lourdes asked, with only the lightest nervous tremor in her voice. "How do you know it's your brother in law driving the taxi?" Automatically, she had ducked all but her head low behind the frame of the boat's cockpit.
"We both went to Cazador School," the boat's skipper explained, flashing a light of his own three times as well. "Though he's infantry, the poor benighted bastard. That's a common recognition signal we agreed to over the radio."
"Oh. Okay. And now."
"And now we're going over the side. Let me go first and help you down."
Lourdes waited until the chief had splashed over the side and called out to her.