Prologue:

There was neither preface nor warning.

One moment the air in the high Afghan pass was calm and cool with the morning's late summer breeze. Trees, tall evergreens from forests never harvested, swayed and danced in the gathering sun. Standing atop a high rock the muezzin called the faithful to prayer. "Allahu Akbar; Allahu Akbar." God is great. God is great. Come to prayer. Prayer is better than sleep. God is great.

With the muezzin's call, the women previously busied with cooking breakfast for the holy warriors gathered in the camp stopped and knelt, facing generally west-south-west. The warriors and children for whom those women cooked likewise abased themselves in the direction of Mecca. Their compassed prayer rugs showed the direction. Their heavy Kalashnikovs - never far from the holy warriors' sides - skewed those compasses too.

Smoke from hundreds of campfires passed on the breeze, carrying savory aromas to the noses of all the hungry fugitives in the camp.

It was a moment of peace before the first of the artillery shells began to lay their minefields to the south.

Even before the shells, one mujahid felt no peace. He ignored the morning call to prayer as he ignored the sounds and smells of the camp, as he ignored his own murmuring stomach - slated to be full for the first time in weeks from the largesse stockpiled in a nearby cave against the day of need.

The warrior's eyes wandered seeking those other eyes he felt, he knew, were on himself and his comrades...and their families. These were the same eyes that had followed him and his across half the province. Damned Pathan mercenaries. Sell their souls and their God for a little pay, the chance to loot and rape.

But the Pathans were as they were; nothing could change them, nothing ever had. Il hamdu l'Illah. To God be the praise. Said differently; what could one do?

Instead, the warrior turned his mind to his true enemy: Him. That one. Why does he pursue us so? What have we ever done to his people or his country? Blue eyed ifrit! Murderer! Torturer! Fiend!

For the warrior had heard the screams of those left behind and abandoned in the long pursuit. There was no pity in his enemy, no mercy; this he knew. The warrior rubbed a gray-shot beard and shook his head with dismay and incomprehension.

Finally, reluctantly, the warrior, Abdul Aziz abdul Kalb ibn Kalb, turned to his neglected prayers. In them, he began to find a moment's inner peace before turning back to his wife, Khalifa - even now preparing the morning meal - and their children.

The next moment, as Khalifa - prayers likewise finished - added a bit of seasoning to the hummus, peace was split and rendered. First came the freight train racket of artillery shells incoming. These exploded, apparently harmlessly, to the south. Air bursts dotted the sky with smoke puffs as the shells discharged cargos from their bases. They did no apparent harm.

Other shells, mixed high explosive and ICM, Improved Conventional Munitions - shells dispersing small anti-personnel bomblets, began to pepper the camp. Limbs were ripped off, bellies opened, bones shattered.

Shrieking something incoherent, Khalifa grabbed the nearest of her children, ran a few steps, grabbed the other by one arm and sprinted for something, anything, that would shelter her and them from the blasts.

Those first shells lifted after a few disconcerting volleys. They were followed within seconds by the resounding malevolent whine of a dozen assault aircraft, in two waves of six, hugging the eastern ridge as they crossed it before plunging down to spit death and flame among the denizens of the camp. Rockets, cannon and machine gun fire raked out, hundreds - thousands of rounds.

Women were screaming, children crying. Men cursed and fumbled for weapons even as the first six aircraft began their passes, harvesting before them the broken bodies of many scores.

Once over the eastern side of the camp the first six attack planes released a dozen canisters of napalm, two each. These tumbled down from hardpoints on the wings. The cannisters hit the ground then split, broke open, and ignited. Long tongues of fiercest orange flame licked for hundreds of yards through the camp, scouring their paths free of life. Warriors, along with women and children, twisted and shrieked and were turned to writing human torches before being reduced to charcoal and ash.

The morning smells suddenly changed from savory to sickening as burning human meat added its contribution to the air.

The first wave split off into two "vics" of three, one veering north, one south, to come around for another pass each from those directions.

The camp now alerted, the second wave took some fire as it made its strafe. No matter, the aircraft were armored against small arms and even heavy machine gun fire, less vulnerable to shoulder fired anti-aircraft rockets than either helicopters or high performance jets, carrying a lethal load and flown by men with hate long festered in their hearts, these fresh, rearing warhorses had proven their worth in this long and bitter campaign.

This, the second wave demonstrated as they swooped across at a higher level than the first. Not bothering to use their machine guns, cannon or rockets, they each released an aerodynamic cylinder from underneath. These fell a distance then, with a pop,kicked out three smaller cylinders and a number of glowing sparklers.

The smaller cylinders burst at a predetermined height, spreading an inflammable aerosol.

The searing tongues of napalm flame heating her face even through her veil, Khalifa twisted her head and body searching frantically for the sign of an escape. The two children now in her arms screamed and cried. Like mindless animals they twisted and tried to escape her grasp. She held them all the tighter; so tight the children could feel her own heart beating frantically beneath her breast.

Which way to turn? Which way to turn? Already Khalifa could hear the steady whop-whop-whop of the helicopters fast approaching; the merciless enemy. She did not know what they would do to her in the event she was captured. The ignorance was worse than knowledge might have been. She had to escape somehow; her and the children.

And then Khalifa heard a faint series of tiny explosions overhead. She looked upward and to the east...

Proximity fused, the Fuel Air Explosive cylinders fell to a preset distance above the ground before detonating. Their aerosol clouds spread outward rapidly, mixing with the air and growing to touch upon each other. In a short time, a moment, one fingerof one cloud touched a sparkler.

Khalifa was not one of the lucky ones, those directly under the blast. They died quickly, having barely a chance to voice an unheard scream before the near-nuclear explosion incinerated them and all they held dear.

Instead, she and her children stood at the periphery. She felt her children torn from her grasp as she and they were picked up and thrown. Khalifa could not see them because the intense heat had burned away her face and eyes along with most of the skin on the front side of her body.

High pressure air pounded her internal organs and, forcing its way into her lungs, expanded and tore them.

Briefly Khalifa flew through the air on the leading edge of the blast wave, a human tracer trailing flame. A violent stop against a large rock broke her spine - a small mercy as at least the pain from her lower body went away with the break. Then again, with ruptured organs and lungs, with half of the feeling part of her body flash burned, the mercy was small indeed.

Then the vacuum struck as the air rushed in to fill the space it had occupied before the blast. Khalifa felt it ripping the air through her mouth and her lungs loose from the inside of her chest. She, along with others who had survived so far, was pulled inward even faster than she had been thrown away.

Racing back to the encampment, Abdul Aziz caught sight of the first half dozen Shturmoviks - the mujahadin still used the term they had picked up during the Russian occupation a decade and more before - sweeping across. He fired his rifle at them fruitlessly as they passed overhead. Looking desperately between the swaths of flame left in their wake, Aziz caught sight of his family, still standing safe between flaming strips.

Even as he watched helplessly, his family was blasted to ruin by the second wave.

He mouthed a wordless "nooooooo".

Then Abdul Aziz abdul Kalb ibn Kalb turned and ran.

Above and at a distance from the perimeter of the camp's smoking ruins helicopters hovered and landed. From their bellies they began discharging troops. Some dropped off sling loads of artillery and ammunition. Some dropped off other loads of supplies.

Carrera, nicknamed "The Fiend" or "the blue jinn" by many of his enemies, and not a few of his ostensible friends, watched calmly as the heavy mortar crews struggled to manhandle the guns into firing position.

Below the hill on which he stood, some 1500 meters from the camp, his second infantry battalion spread out to sweep across. Largely ineffective fire fell among them, bullets half spent shooting little demons of dust into the air. The advance went on regardless.

Carrera lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes, his gaze sweeping across the camp where some hundreds of the enemy tried to slow down or stop his onslaught. Past them, so he saw, more hundreds of women and children - and some few spiritless men - crawled, walked and ran from the carnage.

His sweeping gaze touched upon a child of indeterminate sex, tugging at the half carbonized corpse of what was probably its mother. My children's mother was burned to death and yours warbled with glee, he thought, without any trace of emotion.

Further on, near the edge of the artillery-laid minefield, men, women and children who had sought that route for safety lay along an irregular line. It was much too far for Carrera to make out any details. His mind supplied them even so. You are not so broken as my own babies were when your leader murdered them.

Carrera's thoughts were interrupted by the soft padding of footsteps behind him. He recognized their source. None other walked with such near perfect quiet as his prized chief of his almost equally prized Pathan scouts.

"Subadar Masood?" he said without turning.

"Sir!" exclaimed Carrera's senior Afghan, springing to attention near his side. A smile briefly crossed the Pathan's face. You, alone of all men, can hear me coming.

"The scouts? All paths east and west?"

"Sealed tighter than a houri's hole, sir."

"Very good. I want as many prisoners as possible. Rewards."

"Yes, sir. So my men have been told."

In the much colder air above the high Afghan pass breath gathered to frost a gray-shot beard. Hard they came, those puffs of air, pumped from struggling, bellowing lungs. They burst outward to form a little horizontal pine before settling to and disappearing against the ubiquitous ice and snow.

Hard pumped the heart beneath the lungs, forcing warmth to freezing limbs, forcing blood to a brain straining to make sense of disaster.

Laying close to the ground, seeking to make himself invisible - one with the snow and the ice, the fugitive huddled, eyes and ears questing for some escape. Nothing looked very promising. Nothing sounded so, either.

In the cold, still air sound carried very well. The fugitive's ears caught easily the irregular sound of steel on steel; the sharp and distinct hammering punctuating the fainter screams and cries of men, women...children. The fugitive cursed his enemies, then let fall a single tear which froze on his face before it had descended an inch.

Ahead, the steady whop-whop-whop of helicopters told of escape routes being systematically cut off. Unseen, far above, the harsh drone of the Shturmoviki and the cursed infidels' gunships swept along, hunting for any who might have escaped the camp. Behind, the baying of dogs, hunting dogs with the sharpest of noses, told of other fugitives being tracked through the snow, ice and rock. From all around, at odd times, came shouts of triumph as some mercenary, apostate Pathan scout dragged a cowering man, woman or child from a hiding place.

Despair crowded the fugitive's heart and mind; despair at loss, despair at ruin.

The thought of his own wife and children, now forever lost, was almost more than he could bear. "They'll pay. By the 99 beautiful names of Allah, I swear they will pay for this," muttered the fugitive to himself.

The pitiless ice made no answer.

Resaldar Mohamad Kamal didn't answer either; though he heard. He pointed to one of his grinning men, then to another, and made a slight finger motion in the direction from which the sound had come.

The scouts glanced at each other. A wordless plan formed between them. Carrera paid bounties for live prisoners. They'd take this one alive if they could.

Silently the two designated scouts began to creep forward and around.

The sun was beginning to sink into the west, casting long, horrid shadows across the land.

Holding a bleeding head with one hand, Abdul Aziz still glared with hate at his captors: dark men for the most part, heavily armed and generally much shorter and stouter than he.

Along with several hundred other male prisoners, Aziz waited to hear his fate. Their feet and legs were taped together, and only those badly hurt found their hands free. The women and children had been segregated, though not so far away that the man ascending the small hill nearby could not see both groups at once.

A small group followed up the hillside. One was medium in height and unformed. One looked oriental. Three more were dressed much as any other mullahs might be. A sixth wore the white dress of Qatar.

That man in the lead - Aziz had never seen him but had heard enough descriptions to recognize "the blue jinn" in person - paused and lit a cigarette that he puffed contemplatively for a few moments. Then he sat in a chair that had been prepared for him while a mullah began to speak into a microphone.

"I have consulted with General Carrera," announced the mullah, "whom you see to my right, concerning your fate. He, in accordance with the Sharia, has pronounced sentence of death upon you, for complicity in murder. I have approved that sentence."

It was widely speculated that the mullah only consulted the quarter Krugerrand Carrera paid him for each desired - "legal" - death sentence he passed on. Carrera never admitted this. Neither did he deny it.

"Your children shall be taken back to Carrera's country, there to be adopted and raised as Christians. Your women, and the girls over twelve, are awarded to his Pathan scouts as prizes. Mr. Yamaguchi," and the mullah's head nodded to indicate the oriental man who had accompanied the party, "and Mr. Al Ajami," another head nod, "represent certain interests in Japan and Qatar that might wish to buy some of these women from the scouts. Having consulted with the general I have informed him that there is no religious prohibition to this. For his part, he says he could care less what happens to them."

A wild and heartrending sound emerged from the cluster of women as the Pathans began to prod them away to the processing area. Aziz felt a sudden relief that his wife had been spared the ignominy of rape followed by sale into prostitution.

"As for the rest of you, as I said, you shall die. But the general tells me to inform you that he is solicitous of your souls."

The mullah stopped speaking and backed away from the microphone. Carrera took his place. He spoke in decent Arabic, Aziz was surprised to discover.

"Some years ago the actions of your leader robbed me of my wife and children." He turned to the chief mullah. "What does Surah 81 say?" he asked.

The mullah recited aloud, loud enough for the prisoners to hear, "When the infant girl, buried alive, is asked for what crime she was slain..."

"What does it mean?"

"It means, general, when God asks who murdered her, for no infant girl can be guilty of a crime."

"Does Allah approve?"

"He does not, general. Surah 81, The Cessations, is concerned with the end of time, Judgment Day, and the punishment of the wicked. God will punish the murderers of infant girls."

The staged morality play continued. "Ah, I see. What does the Koran say about those who bring disorder to the world?

"It says, general, in Surah 5, The Table, that those who fight against God or his Apostle, bringing disorder to the world, should be killed, or have the hands and feet cut off on opposite sides, or be exiled, or be crucified."

"I see," said the uniformed man. "Do those who kill infant girls fight against God?"

"They do," answered the mullah, "for this is expressly forbidden under Islam.

The general turned back to his captives. "I loved my family, even as - one supposes - you love your own. I swore, when they were murdered, to avenge myself on all who had contributed, even passively, to my loss. Thus you shall die. I am though, as Mullah Abdullah told you, very solicitous of your souls. So before you die, you will be thoroughly christianized."

Then Carrera smiled, nastily, and turned to his Subadar.

"Crucify them."

Chapter One

I loved you

And so I took the tides of men into my hands
And wrote my will across the sky in stars...

T. E Lawrence

Anno Domini 2001

Gualaca, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama, 1641 hrs, 10 September

High on one wall of the library hung a lone certificate, in Spanish, signifying ahigh Salvadoran decoration for valor. The gilt name emblazoned on the award was

Patricio Hennesey de Carrera. Posted beneath the certificate, framed with obvious pride, hung a letter of reprimand from a general officer. It was addressed merely to "CPT Patrick Hennessey". Both certificates described the same series of events, though in rather different terms.

The library covered three of the room's four walls. Against the fourth, under the certificate - and the letter of reprimand, stood a desk and chair, each made of dark finished Honduran mahogany, hand crafted. A middle aged man, graying, face weathered with the wear of long years in the sun and rain, sat at the desk, eyes fixed on a book.

The book was one of many, many. Reaching floor to ceiling, the volume-packed shelves of the library held the essence of a lifetime's interest and study, more that 14,000 volumes in all. Even over the broad, deep desk more bookshelf space was stacked...and - like the others - filled to overflowing.

Despite appearances, there was an order to the volumes, a theme as well. The library was about war. If there was a book on the plastic arts - and there were several - the owner had studied it because he knew that art had propaganda value. If there was a book on music - and there were dozens - that was because music, too, was both a weapon and a training tool of remarkable subtlety. If there were books on communism - and there were some few - it was because the reader believed in knowing one's enemy.

There was even a copy of the Koran.

However, most of the library was more obviously military. The collection covered, as nearly and completely as possible, every human age and culture as it pertained to armed conflict. An English translation of Vegetius rested next to another copy in the original Latin. Apparently not as confident in his Greek as in his Latin, the reader kept most of Xenophon in Loeb bilingual texts - Greek and English alternating pages. Plato, Rousseau, Machiavelli, Aristotle, Hitler, Lenin, Mao...war was about politics, too, and so the reader studied politics as well.

A stranger, given time to realize the single minded purposefulness of the library, might eventually have concluded that the reader considered war his art; perhaps all he cared about.

The stranger would have been wrong. War was not all the reader cared about. Nor even what he cared most about.

The reader, one Patrick Hennesey, late of the United States Army, put down the book he had been studying and closed his eyes, deep in thought. Decision Cycle Theory, the Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action loop, plainly was working against Nagumo atMidway. How and why is combat on the ground different? Friction? Scale and scope? The vulnerability of large single targets like aircraft and aircraft carriers compared with the endurance and ability to soak up punishment of ground forces composed of many small units and separate individuals? Nagumo's pure frigging bad luck?

Hennesey's narrow, aquiline face frowned in concentration. Pale blue eyes, normally slightly too large for the size of his face, narrowed to the point that a viewer would not have been able to see the darker circles around the irises that typically gave those eyes their frighteningly penetrating quality. "The eyes of a madman," said some.

Have to think on this one. Hennesey resumed his reading.

Music poured softly and soothingly from the speakers behind him. A cigarette burned in the ashtray on his desk, smoke curling up about twelve inches before being sucked outside by a ventilation fan to disperse in an courtyard surrounded on three sides by the rambling, three winged house Hennesey and his wife Linda had had built following his departure from the U.S. Army.

Hennesey watched with disapproval as his own hand picked up the cigarette to bring it to his face. He took an unhealthy deep drag. Dainty disgusting thing, he thought, holding his hand out. Sickening for a soldier - even an old 'has been' like me - to have such small, miserable, soft hands. Oh well, the rest isn't so bad.

Nor was it. Hennesey was somewhat slight of build, true. But a well formed chest topped slim hips, themselves atop legs unusually massive, the result of many, many miles of heavy-pack forced marching; infantry legs, plain and simple. Even several years of enforced relative idleness had not robbed the legs of their strength.

Turning his attention away from his utterly unsatisfactory hands and fingers, Hennesey's eyes wandered over the bookcases containing his library. He put the cigarette down, replacing it in that hand with an iced whiskey. Ice cubes made a tinkling sound as he sipped while continuing to peruse the library's shelves.

Hennesey's eyes came to rest on a simple metal-framed picture of Linda, his wife, now visiting his relatives in the United States. As always, even a picture of her brought a smile to his face. Hennesey felt a happy inner glow that, of all the women in the world, he had been lucky enough to find this one.

12 years now they had been husband and wife; 12 years and three children. And still she looked like the 19 year old girl he had married. If anything, so her husband thought, she was more lovely now than when he had married her.

Next to the one portrait was another, that of Linda with their son and two daughters. We do damned good work, don't we, hon'? Miss you.

Hennessey's thoughts were interrupted by the faint, timid rapping of the maid's knuckles on the frame of his library door.

Hennesey looked up from his family portraits.

"Yes, Lucinda?" he asked.

The woman was older, poor, and never terribly pretty. Nonetheless, her family had been in service to Linda's for untold generations. This explained why she had taken a job even at the wretched salary earned by a domestic in the Third World. Hennesey tried to treat her kindly and, had she been asked, the maid likely would have voiced no ground of complaint. Certainly she had more salary than most in her line of work, a small suite of rooms rather than the usual oversized closet, and was treated more as a member of the family than as hired help.

"Señor, there are two men here to see you. One is from the Fuerza Publica; a Major Jiminez. The other is General Parilla. You know, sir, the old dictator?"

"Xavier? Here? Great! And Parilla? Wonderful, Lucinda." Hennesey rousted himself from his office chair and raced to greet his old friends and former enemy.

Walking briskly across the cobble-stoned way that led through the courtyard, Hennessey stopped briefly to study the clouds gathering overhead. To himself he muttered, "Storm again, from the east it seems. Oh well, I like the rain anyway."

The door leading from the courtyard to the foyer was open, befittingly so in a place so warm. Hennesey passed through it without pause and saw two men, seated politely on overstuffed chairs in the mahogany paneled foyer.

Rank indeed had its privileges. He thrust out a welcoming hand first to retired (forcibly retired) General Raul Parilla; short, dark, more than a little fat now, his years of service behind him. Most of the general's still abundant hair had gone to gray.

The general returned the clasp warmly. "Patricio, it is good to see you again after all these years."

"Sir...you too, sir."

Smile broadening at his other guest, Hennesey greeted a friend of much longer standing and even deeper feeling. Indeed, so close were he and Xavier Jiminez that neither of them much minded that they had once fought each other nearly to the death...and had fought to the death of many of their followers.

Where Parilla had grown rotund with the years, Jiminez remained whippet thin, a lean, black hunter and racer.

No words passed between Jiminez and Hennesey. With friends so close, none were needed.

"Lucinda," Hennesey called. "Please bring a bucket with ice, a bottle of rum, some coke and some scotch to my study. And three glasses, as well, please. Gentlemen?"

With that, Hennesey lead the way back across the courtyard.

New York, New York, 1515, 10 September

She didn't understand, she could never understand, just why her husband's family loathed her so. She was sweet to them, as she was sweet to everybody. She dressed well. She carried herself with an aristocratic - but never arrogant - bearing that would have done more credit than deserved to any scion of the Mayflower or Jamestown. She spoke well, both in the Spanish they seemed to refuse to admit to being a civilized language and in rather cultured English.

And - though she would never have claimed to be so - she was beautiful; simply beautiful. Perfect face, perfect figure. Perfect teeth, perfect hair. Everyone liked her.

Linda sighed, But Patricio's family never has. I suppose they never will. No, that's not quite fair. With the exception of his cousin, they despise me. But Annie is always friendly and nice. Linda smiled at her husband's cousin, seated opposite her in the crowded New York restaurant.

"The thing is, Linda, dear, that you make them feel inferior. After all, what is my family but a bunch of broken down potato farmers who grafted themselves onto some and down and out families of WASPs? Well, and a few well-to-do Jews too, of course."

"But you? When Columbus sailed the coast you had a few ancestors to wave to him from the shore. When the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock, you had ancestors that said, 'There goes the neighborhood.' You even come from old money. Oh, not so much as we have, I know - not nearly...but it's older. And that counts, my dear.

"You make Uncle Bob's skin crawl, because everything he has clawed his way to, everything his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather clawed their way up from, you came by naturally."

Annie sawed and speared a bit of steak from her plate with an air of minor logical triumph.

"Is that why he insists on seeing the children and I at his office? Surrounded by his tokens and triumphs?" Linda asked.

"That....yes," Annie responded. "Other things too. You see; our family has been in decline for 40 years. Not in money, but in people. Few of the women wanted children. Of those few, some couldn't have any. Bob's wife never had any, for example. And when you subtract the couple of gay boys who will never have children...nope, we are in decline."

Annie paused, remembering back across the veil of years. "When I was a little girl I remember everyone setting so much store by Pat. It used to kill me the way we doted on him. Yes, even us girl cousins. He seemed to have something the rest of us had lost; a certain, oh, spark, I guess. Uncle Bob in particular expected him to grow up to take over the business."

Linda snorted. "Patricio? Business? He hates business."

"Oh, I know," Annie agreed. "He always did. Me, too. So I don't do it; I just live off the trust fund."

Annie sipped at a drink, sipped again...again. "I always understood him better than the others did. If I had been a man, I'd have joined the Army to, to make my own escape."

She continued, "So, anyway, when he ran off to join the Army at age 18, it just infuriated Bob. And enlisting rather than going to one of the military schools? Well, we haven't had an enlisted man in our family since Great-great-great-uncle Bill with the 12th Kansas Infantry in the Civil War. Then, when Pat insisted on staying in...well...it took the heart right out of uncle at first. That was when he cut Pat off, you know."

"Well here I have one son and two daughters," Linda said. "They carry the name, they even look like your family rather than mine. And the women of my family insist on having children...lots of them. Speaking of which..."

"Yes?" Annie asked, expectantly.

Linda just smiled and held up three fingers, then slowly raised her little finger to make a fourth.

Gualaca, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama, 1957 hrs, 10 September

As Linda and Annie dined in New York, Hennesey, Parilla and Jiminez poured over maps from the 1989 United States invasion of Panama, called "Operation Just Cause." Hennesey was working on a history of that invasion - something neutral and objective to balance the often propaganda-distorted works already in print. He had to work on something, not having any longer a job to call his own.

Jiminez pointed a long, thin finger at the map. "Right there, Patricio. Right on that damned corner was where the war started."

Hennesey straightened up from the maps. "Tell me about it, Xavier."

As Jiminez spoke, Hennesey went to his computer and began to type, fingers blurring over the keyboard.

Qandahar, Afghanistan, 10 September, 1905 hrs, GMT

Some miles from the center of the city a bearded man hunched over a keyboard. In the dim light the glow of the monitor illuminated his face to the resemblance of a demon. Distantly, an electrical generator groaned, the sound traveling down damp, narrow hallways. The generator brought light, heat and fresh air to an elaborate complex of caves painstakingly excavated from the living rock.

Abdul Aziz Abdul Kalb Ibn Kalb brought up a free email service; Hotmail, in fact, then typed in a sign-in name, "calisrfrdude" and a password. The screen changed to reveal an account with nothing but spam in the inbox, and no messages sent. He began to compose a meaningless message.

Composition completed, Aziz attached a photo as a jpig file. The photo, properly processed, contained a message, simply, "93, L, A, X, Execute, 11 September."

Aziz saved the message to his Draft folder, then closed the account. When it was opened later in the day, in Riyadh, it would be copied to a different account and saved into yet another. From there it would be opened in London and copied yet again to a different account. Finally when opened in Boston, it would never actually have been sent. There would be no trace to Qandahar.

Into the computer Aziz typed, "Yahoo.com".

Interlude:

"The orders are received. We go tomorrow."

"Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar," the swarthy men congratulated each other, shaking hands and slapping backs in their unconstrained joy. Now, finally they were chosen to strike a great blow against their great enemy. Now, at last, they would bring home to the Great Satan the meaning of war.

"Shall we rehearse again?" asked the youngest member of the team.

The leader smiled indulgently and answered, "No need, Samadi. We have rehearsed so many times any one of us could cut a throat in our sleep. No. Go out. Have a good time. Just be asleep before midnight and remember that tomorrow night you will be feasting among the houris of paradise."

Samadi simply shook his head in the negative and went to his room to study his flight manuals.

Chapter Two

My sons were faithful...and they fought.
Padraic Pearse, The Mother

Panama City, Panama, 16 December, 1989

The rain had come quickly, taking in its wake the trash and the smell, and even covering briefly the sounds of the city under its soft hammering. People scrambled for shelter or ignored the downpour as the mood took them; for this was Panama City, on the closing end of its wet season, and the only possible weather forecasts were 'it is going to rain' or 'it may stop raining soon'.

The deluge passed as quickly as it had come. From his sheltered vantage on an upper floor of one of the many buildings of Panama's Comandancia, the national military headquarters, Xavier Jiminez, Captain, Panama Defense Force, sighed as he watched the streets nearby fill again with people.

Jiminez missed the rain as soon as it passed, missed the feeling of solitude, of peace, of being subsumed in nature. Panama was the rain; the rain was Panama. Jiminez loved both very dearly.

Casting a wary glance skyward, Jiminez was pleased to see the clouds still blocking the stars above. He said softly, only to himself, "Not tonight. They won't hit us tonight. Not with the clouds so low and thick."

He did not say aloud, not even so low that only he could hear, 'but they will hit us.' Another sigh escaped him, this time for things that could not be helped, things as inevitable as the rain. 'They will hit us.'

Dozens of automobiles passed by the Comandancia every minute. Had any looked up, they would have seen Jiminez 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.

Pushing 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 'Maximum Leader', Jiminez' smile grew even broader. "Son of a bitch," he muttered under his breath. He could have spoken aloud, since that same 'Maximo Jefe' was either passed 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 raise or maintain a smile over. Jiminez turned his gaze back to the street below, watching the passing 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 Jiminez' 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 watched as the rifle gave off three spurts of flame, each one driving the corporal's shoulder and body backwards.

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

"What the...?" exclaimed US Navy Lieutenant Commander John McMasters, as the sound of firing assailed his ears. The pretty, blond woman walking beside him let out a frightened shriek and clutched tightly at his arm. McMasters glanced around quickly and saw a Panamanian holding a rifle in a classic standing firing position.

Heart racing, fear rising in a city and neighborhood where the police protection was so good one never had to be afraid, McMasters grabbed his wife's arm firmly and said, "Honey, we had better get out of here."

"What was that, John?" asked the shocked wife, her voice quivering.

"I don't know but..."

"You! You fucking gringos! Stop right where you are."

Seeing three armed and uniformed Panamanians advancing toward him - more importantly, toward his wife - McMasters took a single, brave, step to place himself between her and danger.

McMasters watched as the furious seeming Panamanians closed the distance quickly. Without another word of warning one of the Panamanians jammed his rifle into the pit of McMasters' stomach. Pain lanced out across his body as his breath was forcibly expelled. He doubled over, gasping like a fish. The wife screamed.

"Quiet, bitch!" said the senior of the Panamanians, a corporal. His arm lanced out, a single, and fairly light, backhanded blow stunning the woman into silence.

From his bent position the Navy officer struggled to straighten. "You motherfu..." he began to say.

McMasters had no chance to finish as a rifle butt slammed into him from above, knocking him face down into the wet pavement. He felt teeth shatter and tasted the salty iron of blood filling his mouth.

"I'll kill you, you bastards," he gasped through broken teeth, still trying to rise to his wife's defense. His instant fury and hate operated as a general anesthetic, helping him to overcome the pain.

"Leave him alone! Leave him alone!" shrieked the wife.

With a single hard shove the corporal drove the woman back against a wall. "Your turn is coming, you gringa puta."

"Get the fucking spy on his feet," the corporal ordered. "Hold him up."

Roughly, strong arms lifted the American and slammed him into the wall next to his wife, pinning him there. He struggled uselessly against the strong arms holding him.

With a contemplative look on his face, the corporal reached out his left hand and gripped the American's jaw, twisting the head from side to side as if searching for the perfect angle. With a speed any lightweight boxer would have approved of, or perhaps envied, the corporal's fist lashed once, twice, three times. The already stunned and groggy victim's head smashed back into the wall as often. Eyes with vision already dimmed began to puff and swell shut.

"Beat him," commanded the corporal, stepping back to grab the wife by her hair.

McMasters felt more vicious blows to his face, felt more teeth jarring loose. He heard, as much as felt, the sound of ribs cracking as another set of fists pummeled his mid-section.

His efforts to block the blows to his torso merely left McMasters face and head open. When he transferred his weakened and uncoordinated arms to protect his face, the blows shifted back to his cracked ribs.

McMasters refused to let himself cry out from the hammering, but he could not restrain an occasional grunt from the agony.

"Cease," ordered the corporal. The beating stopped, briefly.

"What were you and this twat doing here?" he demanded again.

Head slumped, body anguished, mind fuzzy, McMasters answered through split, bleeding lips, "Ju...ju...just walking."

"Please don't hurt him anymore," begged the wife, tears pouring from widened eyes. "Please. We were just taking a walk." Her shouldered shuddered from sobs.

The corporal turned his attention back to the woman. "Just walking, eh?"

He pulled her hair forcefully, painfully, upward - bringing forth a bleating cry of pain.

"You will tell me what the two of you were doing here or this son of a bitch will never, never see the light of day again. Clear?"

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

Reaching the staircase, one hand grasped the banister as a pivot for Jiminez' 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 Jiminez' face and looked quickly for something else to do, someplace else to be.

Jiminez burst through the door, then trotted for the gate to the complex. Armed guards were all around. Some stood idly, each certain that Jiminez had something besides them on his mind. Others, those nearer the gate, were plainly at a heightened alertness. Jiminez trotted through them all without a sideward glance.

Reaching the gate, Jiminez 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, Jiminez 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, Jiminez was certain, Americans. They were too well dressed, too light skinned, too blonde - especially the woman - to be anything else.

Jiminez stopped his career briefly, just watching intently. In his gaze the crew surrounding the Americans began to beat the man mercilessly. A knee intersected the American's groin. His unsuppressed "oomph' was audible.

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

More words were spoken, but none loud enough for Jiminez to make out clearly. He saw one of the troops smash the American man's head back against the wall. Another made a half-ways grab at the woman's breasts, then reached down instead and patted her thigh meaningfully.

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

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

Gualaca, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama, 2229 hrs, 10 September

Hennesey stopped typing. He looked up at Jiminez and asked, "What happened next, Xavier?"

"I heard the corporal say, 'Kick the fucking spy again.' Then some private complied, bringing his knee up hard into the American's groin. The Navy officer - he was a tough man...very. Even so, he could not quite suppress an agonized 'oomph'. His wife began to weep, quietly. There were streams of tears running down her face, a terrified face."

"Raul," Hennesey turned his head to address Parilla. "You were the commander of the old Guardia Nacional. What changed? What do you think caused them to act like that? With a woman, I mean?"

"Noriega," answered the short, brown and somewhat rotund Parilla in a single word.

"Noriega? How?" asked Hennesey, raising a single eyebrow.

"Oh...I doubt I have to explain this to you, Patricio." When the eyebrow remained raised he continued anyway. "Look. We had a little tiny force in Panama. Maybe 2,000 men. Maybe a few more. But they were select. Good men. Noriega 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, Jiminez 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 is service. Somebody, after all, had to set an example." Parilla ruffled Jiminez' hair just as if the younger were still the old man's aide de camp.

Hennesey laughed, more at the gesture than at the words. He turned back to Jiminez. "What happened then, Xavier?"

Jiminez sighed and shook his head with a mixture of regret and disgust. "I saw the corporal lift the woman's head by her hair. 'What? You afraid he won't be able to perform in bed, bitch? How about I have a half dozen of my men give you the last decent fuck of your life?' Poor woman's mouth formed a silent "O" of terror as she shook her head back and forth in plea. God, that just pissed me off; treating a woman like that."

"Then the corporal released the 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 fuck you were doing here. Just out for a stroll, you say. No doubt.'"

"All this time I was half jogging closer. I saw the private put his hand under the husband's chin and push up hard. The American's head slammed into the wall behind. It must have been hard enough to split the thin skin over his skull."

"Still holding the chin, the private pulled his arm back to strike the husband in the face. I grabbed his arm.

"'What the hell...?' The private looked at me over his shoulder. His eyes widened like saucers. When he realized who I was, he stopped and came to attention.

"I smiled at him. Oh, 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.

"Then the corporal's eyes widened. He stuttered, "Captain Jiminez. Sir. We were...'

"I just cut off the explanations and excuses with a slash of the hand."

"I said, 'I know what the hell 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 told me, 'Sir, these are spies. We can't just...'"

"I really did lose my temper then. All on its own my hand shot out, grasping the corporal's uniform shirt. Then I slammed the son of a bitch against the wall and pressed my fist to his solar plexis. Then I gave him gave two quick punches, never letting go the shirt. He started to gag.

"'Now that I have you full and undivided attention,' I growled, 'what you can 'just' do is what I just told you to do. Let the chingada gringos go. You want to start a fucking war?'"

"That Navy officer was spying you know? Probably without authorization but still spying," commented Hennesey.

Jiminez 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."

Panama City, Panama, 16 December, 1989

"Up there! The windows!"

A few vehicles ahead of Captain Hennesey, a young soldier twisted his body to realign the heavy machine gun. "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 overborne by the .50's steady booms, could not tell that the shrieks coming from inside did not somehow sound military. Even Noriega hadn't thought to conscript 5 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 fibres 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 while seeping from the dots.

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

The soldier's platoon sergeant roughly pulled the body off of the stand. With one hand he dumped it to the floor even as the other hand scrambled for purchase on the inside of the hatch well. The platoon sergeant pulled himself up into the hatch, drew his remaining arm through, then grasped both spade handles of the fifty cal.

Again, there was the faintest light from the side of the street opposite where the gun pointed. The platoon sergeant felt something strike his armored vest, then ripple through his left shoulder. He felt more than heard the crunch of splintering bone.

Not too bad. Doesn't even hurt much. He reported to his company commander.

"Sergeant Piroute, you don't sound right," Hennesey commented into the radio. He ignored normal radio procedure; Panama had no real electronic warfare capability.

"I'm fine, sir. Just fine. A little hit. Not bad."

"Can you carry on?" Hennesey asked.

"Yes, sir. No sweat sir," the platoon sergeant answered as his well drilled right arm jerked the fifty's charging handle, twice; ka-chink, ka-chink. Steadily, the gun turned towards the dimly perceived flash. The sergeant's thumbs pressed down on the gun's smooth butterfly trigger. Again, long, steady bursts lit the night. Fountains of powdered cement, wood and stucco emerged from a wall where the fifty's bullets struck. On the other side of the wall a sniper - young and brave but not too well trained - suddenly found himself minus the legs that had held him up. His dying thoughts were of his mother.

Heated by a lodged fragment of a tracer, a piece of wood began to smolder. Soon enough it would blaze.

The platoon sergeant, still ignoring his own wound, spoke orders into a microphone. The tracks rolled forward, toward Panama's Comandancia.

Behind him was nothing but fire and smoke and dead bodies, some of them carbonized. Ahead of him was more fire, more smoke...and much of the fire was of the directed variety.

Hennesey ducked his head barely in time to avoid a random burst in his direction. He spoke into a radio and, on command, a helicopter gunship came in low to rake a threatening section of the compound with cannon fire and rockets. Another command and a team of his infantrymen rushed the wall to emplace a demolition charge.

"Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!" the men exclaimed, racing back to the cover of their armored personnel carrier. Again Hennesey ducked as a dark, angry cloud blossomed from the wall.

His men resumed their fire as the last of the demotion spawned fragments pattered on the ground. Hennesey lifted a hand, then swung it forward. One platoon, still covered by the armor of their carriers, raced for the breech. Hennesey's own track followed.

He thought it funny at the time that he was not afraid. 'Too busy,' I guess. His men, seeing this, likewise showed little fear.

No more did the defenders. Outnumbered, outgunned, to a degree also outfought but not surpassed in courage, they continued to hurl their defiance at their assailants.

With a clang of metal on metal Hennesey emerged from the rear door of his carrier. A quick glance at one of his platoon leaders. Phil will be fine. Another wider glance encompassed the men. They seem ready to go.

Hennesey smiled confidently, nodded once and shouted, "Let's goooooo!"

With a roar the men followed.

The men followed as if into a vacuum. Bodies lay sprawled everywhere, in every manner of undignified death. Here lay a headless torso, there a torso-less head.

Hennesey shook his head with regret. He thought of his old classmate, Xavier Jiminez, probably even now lying dead somewhere in compound. Jiminez would never run, this Hennesey knew.

Around him, to either side, his platoons and squads fanned out across the compound. Occasionally, shots rang out where an American trooper simply felt he could not take the chance. This was the price of a fierce resistance; a price the Panamanians had understood when they had decided that honor demanded that resistance.

Hennesey heard a scream rising above the sounds of battle, the scream coming from a burning building. Poor bastard, he thought. Horrible way to die. Why the hell didn't they surrender when they saw it was hopeless?

A fire team leader, a corporal, led his 3 men to the sound of the scream without being told to. Dodging from cover to cover, they reached the building just as it collapsed. The screaming grew for a few seconds, then petered out into sobs amidst the smoke and falling sparks. Then the sobbing stopped, small mercy.

From off to one side, at another building, one of Hennesey's troopers called out, "I've got five of 'em, here."

A sergeant ordered, "Bring 'em out."

"I don't think so, sarge. They're all fucked up."

Hennesey jogged over to investigate. He passed the trooper standing flush against the wall by the door, entering a room taken straight from hell. Bodies, parts of bodies...above - and below - all, gallons of blood. He looked for signs of life. He looked for his friend.

Hennesey knelt beside one body that still showed signs of life. With grief shaking his voice he asked, "Oh, Xavier, you big, dumb, brave fuck. Why the hell didn't you surrender when you had the chance?"

To his surprise the body answered, "Because I had my duty, Patricio."

Gualaca, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama, 2356 hrs, 10 September

"We sure as hell tried to get you to surrender, you know."

"I know that too, Patricio. But we had taken our oaths. We had our duty as we saw it." This time it was Parilla's turn to nod in silent agreement.

"It was too late though?" Hennesey enquired.

"Patricio, it was always too late. It was too late when Torrijos was killed. It was too late when General Parilla here let himself be tricked out of office by Noriega." Here, Jiminez referred to one of the cleverest coups in history, where one would-be dictator, Manuel Noriega, convinced a rather reluctant dictator, Raul Parilla, to resign his military post in order to run for the civil office of president....then ensured there would be no civil elections.

Parilla muttered, "Son of a bitch cocksucker," under his breath.

"It was too late," Jiminez continued, "when the thieving son of a bitch lined his pockets with the money we might have used to build a force big enough and powerful enough to make your president think twice about invading until we could solve our own problems. It was too late when we launched the coup in October, 1989 and failed. It was always too late."

"Speaking of which," Hennesey interjected, "it is late in general. I've had Lucinda make up guest rooms for both of you. If you'll tell her what you would like for breakfast, I am sure it can be arranged. In any case, I'm turning in."

Interlude:

She glided through his dream like a goddess on a cloud; shining perfection. The cloud of her hair shone with vitality nearly divine. Her perfume was the lightest fresh mist in his nostrils. Perfect rounded breasts danced - thinly veiled -before his eyes, enflamed aureoles outlined in the fabric that covered them. As ever, his eyes were dazzled.

She came to her husband, pressing herself against him and inclining her head to be kissed. Her lips opened slightly, dreamily, in invitation.

As they kissed, Pat ran his hands over her back, skin so smooth that but for the seam of the pajamas he couldn't tell where silk left off and equally silky skin began. No matter that she had borne him three children, no mark showed anywhere on her body. Hennessey buried his face in the junction of her neck and shoulder, reveling in the richness of long flowing hair the color of midnight; savoring her warmth, her wondrous scent.

She backed up, pulling and leading him towards the bed. At the bedside, goddess-fingers deftly removed his shirt, undid his belt. As she began to kneel, most un-goddess-like, she whispered, "I love you, Patricio. Only you. Ever...forever." Her husband groaned, fingers flexing involuntarily in her hair, as sweet soft lips and roving tongue found and teased.

He knew he did not deserve this.

Sensing the right moment, one of Linda's feet replaced a knee. She arose gracefully, kissing her way upward.

How they moved onto the bed he did not know. Where their clothes went he did not know. One moment they were standing, she in pajamas and he half in working clothes. The next, he lay atop her, naked together, her back arched, face flushed with desire. A greedy, grasping hand guided him into her. A small gasp escaped her lips as he began to fill her body as he filled her heart.

For his part it was as if he had entered heated honey. He reveled in the warm, wet heat from inside her. His hands roved and stroked, caressed, squeezed, fondled with more than fondness.

Together, they began the age old dance; long slow strokes together. Her moans were more than music to his ears. They inflamed him, drove him on and on, faster and faster. With her moans turning to cries of ecstasy, he groaned, shuddered, spent himself inside her.

Patrick Hennesey smiled in his sleep.

Chapter Three

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

Gualaca, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama, 0754 hrs, 11 September

Hennesey, Parilla and Jiminez took their breakfast in the courtyard. The sun was up, a pleasant breeze blowing. The night's mosquitoes were vanquished by day; nothing was allowed to gather anywhere near the house that might draw or breed flies. There was only the smell of the flowers, Linda's carefully nurtured garden, and of the repast: bacon, ham, eggs, corn tortillas. Above all was the smell of strong Panamanian coffee, grow by one of Hennesey's in-laws in a high, cool mountain valley halfway to the Caribbean coast.

"Why did so many of you stay?" Hennesey asked, again, as breakfast neared its end. "I mean; it was hopeless."

Jiminez sighed. "We knew that. Not everybody did stay in the Comandancia, you know. Truthfully, I do not know how many took off as the screen between the Canal Zone and the Comandancia collapsed. For a certainty, very few of the real thugs Noriega brought in stayed."

"We found well over a hundred bodies inside," Hennesey reminded. "And only the five of you that were too badly wounded to fight to be taken prisoner."

"I know."

"Damn shame. You had some good kids with you that day."

Jiminez 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 I trained, for the most part. The old guard."

Hennesey thought for a bit, then said, "Xavier, General...you know I was in the Gulf War too."

Jiminez nodded as did Parilla.

"Well, let me tell you this. Six companies and less than a dozen independent platoons of Panamanian light infantry - outnumbered, outgunned, hit without warning in the middle of the night - gave the US Army more trouble than 50 divisions of heavily armed Iraqis. That's the truth; from someone who fought both. Your boys had nothing to be ashamed of."

Parilla smiled with blinding pleasure. In truth, the Armed Forces of Panama - be they called 'Public Force', 'Defense Force' or 'Guardia Nacional' had been and remained his one true 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 Jiminez. Voice choked, he was trying to formulate fumbling words of thanks, when they were interrupted by Lucinda, gone suddenly pale, bursting in on them.

"Señor, señor...come quick. Something terrible in the United States. On the TeleVisor. Oh, come quickly!"

With an exchanged glance, the three arose and strode to the television room.

North Tower, World Trade Center New York, New York, 0829, 11 September

Heart pounding, as it always did whenever she had to meet some of her husband's family - Annie alone excepted, Linda Hennessey - accompanied by her children - stepped off of the elevator. A sign high on a wall announced, "Chatham, Hennesey, and Cohen" - 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 over me."

"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 watched without any expression 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.

In her own way equally impervious, Linda smiled with a warmth to rival the sun of her homeland. She glanced about Bob's office, mentally comparing his trophies and mementos - golf, business, and such - with her husband's, much to the favor of the latter. I am proud to be the mother of my husband's children.

"Linda," Bob greeted, without noticeable enthusiasm.

She didn't answer directly, but placed Milagro down on the floor and said, "Go see your grand-uncle, niños."

The two little ones scurried around Bob's imposing desk. The eldest, the boy, walked with an aristocratic gate belying his years before putting out his hand to shake, formally. By that time Milagro had already climbed aboard.

Still sitting in his chair, his throne, Bob looked down into a lovely little girl's enormous brown eyes, saw the image of the nephew that was more like a son, and felt his heart melting.

He looked up to say something to Linda. She was looking out of his office window, wide eyed, speechless, shock written on every curve of her unlined expression. Bob's eyes followed and saw. Mouth gaping wide he said, "Oh, my God."

Gualaca, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama, 0903 hrs, 11 September

Hennesey, like Parilla and Jiminez, missed the first impact. However, like the rest of the world - and unlike Uncle Bob and Linda, they saw it replayed over and over in the next several minutes.

"Dear, God," Hennesey exclaimed, "that's my uncle Bob's building." He raced for the phone, frantically dialing cousin Annie's number in New York.

North Tower, World Trade Center New York, New York, 0849, 11 September

Arms clutched protectively around the now crying Milagro, Bob and Linda's son, Julio, rushed to the side of the fallen mother.

"What happened?" she asked, groggily.

"I don't know, I don't know," answered a shocked Bob as he helped her to her feet. "The planes never come that close. Jesus, it hit us!"

As Bob spoke, the fire sprinklers came on overhead, sprayed for a fraction of a second, and then died as pressure from below fell to nothing. The pipes had been cut. Unchecked by the sprinklers, smoke and flames began rising past the exterior window.

Milagro began coughing and crying as faint smoke filtered into the office complex. Minutes passed as Linda soothed the child, Julio calming the next oldest beside her. Just as the last tears were wiped and the last sniffles snuffed, Julio looked up and pointed out the window. The he said, "Mom, there's another one..."

1050 5th Avenue, New York, New York, 0859, 11 September

"Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT, STOP that ringing!" Bad as the ringing was, the sound of her own shout seemed about to tear the top off of Annie's head. She shuddered and pulled a pillow over in an attempt to shut out the nagging phone. No such luck. It continued to ring.

"Shit," she muttered. "May as well see who it is."

Slowly, reluctantly, not a little angrily, Annie stumbled to the phone.

"Who is it?" Annie asked, her voice still distorted by alcohol. After Linda had left her at the restaurant, she had consumed more than her share of Black Russians before going home alone.

"Annie, it's Pat. Where's Uncle Bob right now."

Anger drained from Annie's voice. "Oh, hi, Cuz. I imagine he's at the office. Why?"

Hennesey's voice in the telephone receiver was frantic. "Turn on the TV, Annie. Something's happened at the WTC."

"Sure ok...." Annie half stumbled to the television. It came to instant life just in time for the woman to catch the second plane slamming into the South Tower. For several seconds she stood dumbfounded, then blurted into the phone, voice breaking with tears, "Pat...Linda and the kids are in there!"

On Annie's screen, the second tower continued to burn.

North Tower, World Trade Center New York, New York, 0915, 11 September

It was pandemonium. Office workers ran to and fro frantically, looking for some escape. Cute little secretaries in short skirts wept. Some people, the calmer or braver ones, punched numbers into their cell phones for a last goodbye to their loved ones.

The smoke inside was worse now, though it was still not visible to the naked eye. Outside, however, it was an angry black cloud rising past the windows like a swarm of vicious wasps. Tongues of flame licked up occasionally, though the greatest flames were just visible through the smoke, dancing around the South Tower.

Milagro - clutched in Linda's arms now - coughed from the smoke, coughed and cried. Her elder sister, nicknamed "Lambie", tried to be brave though a quivering lip and dampened eyes betrayed her. The boy, Julio, put an arm around Lambie's shoulder and hugged her close and tightly.

Uncle Bob had left them for a few moments to check on the possibilities of escape via elevator or stairwell. He returned, looked at Linda, then shook his head slightly. No way out.

At his nod, she steeled her face and pushed her emotions away before they themselves ran away with her. For the nonce, she pushed away the decision: burned or crushed or fallen? Oh, my babies, why? What did you ever do to harm anyone?

A hand gently brushed the baby's hair and cheek, brushed away a tear and a bead of sweat. The floor was growing noticeably hotter. "Don't cry, Milli, we'll be fine," she lied.

Taking his cue from his mother, 10 year old Julio said much the same to Lambie. Even as he spoke those few words of comfort, he looked at his mother meaningfully. We're going to die, aren't we Mom?

Linda answered, indirectly, "I wish your father could see you now. He would be so proud of his son."

The boy smiled, as best he could manage, and nodded. He wished his father could see him, too, see him grow up to be a man. He had wanted to be a soldier like his dad. Well, he would act like one now.

Bob stood there for a moment, watching the silent interplay with admiration. I was so wrong. What a woman my nephew found. What children she brought to our family. He walked the few steps to Linda and handed her his cell phone. "Here, call your husband if you can get through." He patted her shoulder, not ungently, nor even lacking a certain late blooming love and affection.

Linda took the device and smiled up, gratefully.

"I have something else I have to do," Bob announced.

The uncle, the old tyrant, walked to his desk, fiddled with a computer that had no wires coming from it, then began to speak.

"John," he said aloud to a face that appeared on his screen, "there's not much time. Can I do a codicil to my will over this line? I can? Good. Prepare to copy this then. 'I, Robert Hennesey, being of sound mind and body...'"

Gualaca, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama, 0924 hrs, 11 September

Hennesey was pale, pale, Parilla saw; paler even than the gringo norm. The American's eyes were glued to the television screen that showed the imminent collapse of all his hopes, the destruction of his life. On the screen people were jumping from the flaming towers to smash their bodies below. It was better than burning.

Hennesey's own cell phone rang. Jiminez picked it up, answered, then - not without some reluctance - passed it over. "It's Linda," he announced.

Like a drowning man grasping desperately for a life preserver, Hennesey took the phone.

"Honey, where are you and the kids?" he asked, desperately.

He heard screams and cries in the background as Linda answered, "I'm here at Uncle Bob's office...the children are with me. I am so sorry, Patricio."

Hennesey felt his heart sink. "Is there any way out?"

"No...I don't think so. The only way off would be helicopters, now. And I do not hear or see any. It's getting very warm in here, husband. We'll have to go soon. Why don't you talk to the kids? Do not worry; I will wait as long as possible but I will not let our babies burn if I can help it. Goodbye, Patricio. You know I love you."

"I love you, too, Linda. I always have," he wept.

"Dad?" Hennesey heard young Julio say, voice quavering, then firming up. "I am being brave, Dad..."

North Tower, World Trade Center New York, New York, 1003, 11 September

The smoke was very bad now. The windows people had knocked out in order to jump had let in as much smoke as fresh air. Ashes floated on the fire-fanned breeze.

Uncle Bob, Linda and the kids crouched low, breathing what oxygen there was in the hot, stifling, and smoke laden air of the office.

"Not much more time...Linda," Bob said. As if to punctuate, a chorus of heart rending screams came from down the hallway. The fire had eaten through the floor, consuming a half dozen office workers who had been steeling themselves for the jump. The screams seemed to go on and on.

Linda stifled a sob as she hugged Milagro and Lambie to her breast. With tears rolling freely down her face, she said, "It's just so wrong. What did my babies ever do to harm anyone? What did I do? What did Patricio do that he should be left all alone?"

Bob just shook his head. He had no answer that would help. He looked out the window towards the South Tower, even as a cloud of dust and smoke began to billow out from it.

"It's collapsing. The fire is getting worse. We have to go now."

Linda nodded, sniffed, suppressed a cough. "One last thing first." She took her arms from around the girls briefly, put her hands on her stomach and said, "I baptize you in the name of the Father..."

Gualaca, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama, 1028 hrs, 11 September

"Don't look, Patricio," implored Jiminez, voice strained with despair for his friend.

"No...don't," whispered Parilla.

Hennesey ignored them, his eyes fixed on the television image. Down went the North Tower, slowly, majestically. With it went his wife, his three children, possibly a fourth, too. Linda had hinted before she left for the United States that she might be expecting. He gave off a soft, wordless cry.

In the background Lucinda bit her hand to stifle wracking sobs. "Oh the babies, the babies, the babies...my Linda....oh, I changed her diapers as a baby...my little ones..."

Overwhelmed with grief, Hennesey just let his head hang, tears running down his face to gather and drip from the end of his nose. He made no sound, yet his shoulders shuddered spasmodically.

Not knowing what else to do, Jiminez walked to the liquor cabinet, extracted two glasses and a bottle, then poured a light drink for himself and a much larger one for Hennesey.

"Here, Patricio, drink this. For a while, it will help."

Nablus, Palestine, 1330 GMT, 11 September

As Hennesey wept, as thousands around the world wept and shrieked their grief, a series of rather differently spirited impromptu demonstrations erupted around the world. From Jakarta, Indonesian to Beirut, Lebanon to Nablus, Israel Moslems took to the streets, automobile horns blasting, people dancing, women warbling the Arabic call to battle and victory.

Hennesey, thousands of miles from Nablus, watched one such woman, her face transformed with radiant joy.

Parilla whispered, "Bastards. Fucking Moslem bastards! They should be destroyed."

Hennesey watched the image carefully, engraving every line of the harridan's face onto his mind. "'What though the field be lost?'" he quoted. "'All is not lost; Unconquerable will and study of revenge, immortal hate and courage never to submit or yield.'"

Interlude:

Hennesey had first laid eyes upon his future wife at a national festival. She had been 17 then, one of the dancers garbed in the national costume - the Pollera. Linda's hair had been done up in an intricate array of gold and silver. There was no word adequate to describe her. Perhaps 'stunning' came close.

As he had first laid eyes on her, so had she - without at the time knowing - laid hands upon his heart. In a phrase, he had fallen, abjectly and completely. And he didn't even know her name.

In his dream, Hennesey again watched the dance, again pushed his way through the crowd, again steeled himself to introduce himself.

The dream Linda, as she had so many years before, smiled warmly...friendly...confident as only beautiful young women are confident. The brash gringo had a certain something, as she had admitted to herself.

They walked as in a dream and the walk was a dream. "I am going to marry you someday", Hennesey said. "You and only you."

Linda had scoffed. "You just met me. We haven't even been properly introduced."

"No matter," he answered. "You and only you."

"You are so sure? What makes you think I would marry you? Besides I am only 17."

"No matter. I will wait." He seemed very certain.

She laughed, white teeth flashing in the sun. "How long will you wait, brash gringo?"

"Forever...if I must," he answered seriously.

"Forever is a very long time," she countered.

"For you, and only you, I would wait 'forever'."

Young Linda inclined her head to one side, enchantingly, and raised a single eyebrow. "Hmm...perhaps you would at that."

A face wrapped with amusement turned suddenly serious. "Do you smell something?"

Hennesey's nose wrinkled. He sniffed. "Smoke. From where?"

He and Linda looked downward at the same time. "Oh," she said in surprise.

The hem of Linda's green-embroidered pollera was on fire, the fire racing up and out. Hennesey knelt to try to beat the flames out with his hands. The fire raced on, ignoring his efforts. She began to scream as the flames reached her skin. "Please help me," she cried. "Please."

For all Hennesey's thrashing hands, the personal inferno spread. His hands turned red, then began to blister. The blisters broke. His hands began to char. All the time he never stopped trying to put out the flames.

Linda screamed with agony, he cries cutting through Hennesey's heart like a knife.

Hennesey looked up. The girl was a mass of flame. Fire leapt from her hands to her face. Hair crackled. Gold and silver ran like water. The flames began to consume her face.

Ignoring the fire and the pain, Hennesey wrapped his arms around the girl, hands still beating frantically to put out the fire that was eating her alive. The fire must have eaten it's way inside her as well, for her eyes - once brown and warm - turned red, hot and then burst like overripe grapes.

Still screaming, Hennesey sat bolt upright in his bed. He wept for a little while, as quietly as he was able, then walked to the liquor cabinet.

Chapter Four

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun...

Chesterton, Lepanto

Panama City, Panama, 12 September

It had been good to drive, to have to concentrate on something besides his murdered family. Even the mind-diverting task of ducking the larger potholes was welcome. Through the little towns on the Pan-American Highway he drove slowly and carefully. At the larger ones he would stop sometimes, gas here, lunch there - in Santiago, at the Hotel Sanson. Finally he came to the great bridge that spanned the Canal's Pacific end. He almost smiled at a particular memory of the bridge. Almost, not quite.

The City had changed since he had first seen it so many years ago. It was still clean, remarkably so for a large metropolis in Latin America. But the buildings had grown to the sky over the last 15 years. He looked up at them briefly, then turned his eyes back to the road as unwelcome thoughts invaded his mind.

Though much had changed, much was the same. Driving through Panama's streets he was cut off, tailgated, honked at and cursed with friendly abandon. Pretty girls walked the sidewalks, the parks. Young men looked, watched, pursued. Food and flowers wafted on the breeze, competing with the sea.

Emerging along the coastal road, Avenida de Balboa, Hennesey almost managed to enjoy the fresh sea breeze off the high tide covered beach and mud flats. To his left he passed the Restaurante Marbella, where Linda had taught him to appreciate what a delicacy Corvina, Atlantic sea bass, could be in the hands of a fine cook. To his right he smelled the flowers of Parque Anayansi. He came at length to the Marriott-Caesar, arguably the best hotel in Panama City, almost certainly the most ornate.

After a bellhop had unloaded the bags, a red uniformed valet took his car and parked it in the patrolled garage. Hennesey took a receipt in return, following the bellhop through marble and gilt and gracefully hanging palm fronds to the front desk to register.

He planned to spend a few days at the Hotel Marriott, using it as a base while he waited for flights to the United States to recommence.

This took several days.

He spent his evenings, and evening came early this close to the Equator, drinking in the disco on the ground floor of the hotel. A wretched dancer - Hennesey described himself as the worst dancer in the entire history of human motion, he still enjoyed looking at pretty girls on the dance floor. He enjoyed it, that is, so long as none of them reminded him too much of his wife. This wasn't a problem, generally, since most of the women in the disco were light skinned. Light skin in Panama indicated a fairly pure European ancestry, hence prosperity. Though of a quite prosperous family, Linda had been a Spanish, French, Indian, Arabic mix. She was fairly dark, like a mestiza, a part Indian, part Spanish woman. Since the Marriott was expensive enough to be only for the prosperous, there were few women of plainly mestiza backgrounds. None of these had been pretty enough to bring forth painful memories.

His first night at the Marriott a few women, either too insensitive to pick up on Hennesey's pain or kind hearted and sympathetic enough to wish to relieve the pain if possible, approached him. It wasn't difficult for Hennesey to tell the difference. The former he sent packing with few words. The latter he spoke to as much as they might care to speak. Misery does not care for solitude.

The second night in the City a pair of women, a tall and light one and a slightly shorter dark one, sat down not quite beside him. It was the darker one who broke the ice. She said her name was Edielise. Hennesey didn't catch the last name and didn't really much care to. He answered her questions, asking only enough of his own for politeness' sake. He covered his reticence by taking another drink whenever the girl seemed about to say something that might call for a thoughtful response.

The other girl, who remained silent throughout the conversation, thought, what a typically arrogant gringo. Here Edi is trying her best to be polite and all he can do is nod and grunt. He's hardly even responding at all. Hennesey and the darker girl had been speaking English the whole time. Pushing her own drink away, the lighter of the two said, in Spanish, although she spoke excellent English, "Come on Edi, this gringo is too dull and stupid to waste time on."

Hennesey, who also spoke quite good Spanish, answered quickly "Maybe you're right. I might be dull and I'm probably stupid too. Mostly, though, I'm just tired, drunk, and sad."

A little angry at her comment, Hennesey decided to tell her why he was in such a mood. It might make her feel a little ashamed. And Hennesey was in a mood to hurt someone. "You see, my wife and three little children were killed two days ago, in New York." He delivered the words with the kind of apologetic tone that sounds like 'it's all my fault' but makes the hearer feel that it is entirely their fault. Then, while the two girls sat dumbfounded, Hennesey excused himself and left for his room. He didn't feel any better by having hurt someone. It was cruel, pointlessly so, and worse, he knew it.

When Hennesey reached his room he was already cursing himself for being a boor. It wasn't their fault, he thought. They were just trying to be nice. Tomorrow I'll go to Colon. I'm not fit for civilized company right now.

After Hennesey left, the taller, lighter girl, her name was Lourdes Nuñez Cordoba, stayed in the disco for a long time feeling very small, very dark, and very ashamed.

Lourdes was only twenty-four, slender and pretty enough, too. She had lived a somewhat sheltered life. She'd never known anyone who had so much real hurt in his voice as that Norteamericano had. What a bitch I am, what a pure bitch. That poor man's lost everything and I had to insult him. I didn't even have a chance to apologize. Damn. Turning to her friend she asked what the American's name was.

"I don't know his last name. It was a funny one. His first name was Pat, he said."

Lourdes said to her friend. She gestured at the door with her head. "Let's go home. I'll come back myself tomorrow, early, and see if I can catch him before he leaves. I hope he'll accept an apology. I feel so terrible."

When Hennesey awoke the next morning, hungover and needing a shave, he cursed to see the time. "Dammit, almost eleven. I wanted to get out of here no later than nine." He went to the shower to scrape off the previous day's accumulations. Normally he liked to sing in the shower, old Irish ballads of war, revenge, and rebellion that he had learned at his grandfather's knee. This morning, he felt no wish to sing. As he soaped off, Hennesey's mind wandered to the events of the night before. He felt genuinely guilty at having lashed out, even subtly, at the poor girl who had called him dull. He didn't blame her a bit; he had been pretty dull. Realistically, he did not blame himself too much either. He resolved to be a little kinder in the future. Wrapped in a towel, he left the shower and picked out the clothes he would wear for the day; a short sleeved green shirt, blue jeans and running shoes. The rest he began to stuff into suitcases in no particular order.

By noon Hennesey had finished packing. He rang for a bellhop, 'El butones' in Spanish, to come and carry his bags to the lobby of the hotel. At the front desk he tried, and generally succeeded, in being pleasant to the obligatorily polite receptionist He was about to turn to leave when he heard a very sweet voice behind him hesitantly ask, "Pat?" He turned then to see who belonged to the voice he didn't recognize.

"Oh, it's the girl from last night." Hennesey kept a welcoming, almost happy tone in his voice. He took one of her hands in both of his. "Look, I'm terribly sorry for having left the way I did. I really haven't been quite right for a while now."

However, as soon as she had recognized him, Lourdes immediately began a lengthy and heartfelt apology of her own. Talking at cross purposes, and simultaneously, the two continued for half a minute before the realization that neither had heard a word the other had spoken stopped them both completely. Twice more they began to speak at the same time only to stop cold again. Finally Hennesey decided to be a gentleman and let Lourdes speak first.

Almost taken aback by being allowed to speak after three false starts, Lourdes said, in English "I'm so sorry for saying those terrible things about you last night. I feel like such a 'orrible person. No wonder you didn't want to talk after losing your family like that. Will you please, please forgive me?" The imploring look in her enormous brown eyes was sincere.

Hennesey shook his head as if he didn't understand why she should feel repentant. "There is nothing to forgive. Your friend was doing her best to cheer me up. I wasn't in the mood to be cheered, I guess. You were perfectly right to call me stupid. But I don't know any other way to be right now. I should be apologizing to you."

A sudden rumbling in his stomach told Hennesey that it had been almost a full day since he'd taken any sustenance except as alcohol. He asked the girl at the front desk if he could leave his bags there over lunch. Of course an establishment as thoroughly accommodating as the Panama City Marriott would have no problem guarding a few bags. On an impulse Hennesey asked Lourdes if she would care to join him.

"Are you sure you want company?" she asked.

"Please. I promise to be civil. And I've never cared to eat alone."

Nodding assent, Lourdes joined Hennesey on the way to one of the Hotel's four restaurants. Before leaving the lobby Hennesey tipped the bellhop who had moved his bags. Despite the receptionist's assurances that they would be safe it couldn't hurt to keep the help on his side.

The young woman was fine company, perhaps because she was trying her best to cheer the sad man accompanying her. Over a meal of prawns on rice, her conversation kept up a cheerful mood. Hennesey was surprised to find himself sometimes honestly smiling.

Objectively, and without lust - it was far too soon for that, Hennesey found himself appraising the girl, making an inventory, so to speak. Looks twenty-one, maybe twenty-two. Nice hair, light brown shading to blond. Good facial structure, nice high cheekbones. Nose a little prominent but overall a good shape. Slender and tall, her breasts would look better on a shorter woman. Nice posterior. Very beautiful eyes, large and liquid brown. Also a good heart or she wouldn't be here with a broken down, miserable old fart like me.

As the meal neared its close, Lourdes asked the question she had wanted to ask since Hennesey had left the disco the night before. "How did your wife die?"

Hennesey paused before answering. It wasn't easy for him to think about. He returned his fork to the plate. "Lourdes, that's some of my problem. I don't know. All I know is that she and the kids were caught in my uncle's office building when the planes hit. That, and that they were not killed right away." Hennesey paused to rub away the beginnings of a tear.

Lourdes didn't respond immediately. After a brief pause of her own she simply said, "Poor man."

Chilled, the meal was finished mainly in silence. Assuming that the loss of his family was too painful for him to talk about any more, Lourdes went along. Soon the lunch was ended. Before the two left the restaurant, Lourdes - feeling quite forward and even daring - wrote her home and business phone numbers on a napkin, and pressed it on him. "Pat, when you come back to Panama, and if I can help you in any way, please call me."

Hennesey nodded that he would as he paid the bill for the meal. Then he escorted the woman to his car and drove her to her work. When he returned to his hotel he was informed that he would be able to fly to the United States the following morning.

New York, New York, 17 September

"I won't stand for it. I just won't stand for it. That money's mine. I'll sue, I swear I will. I've made promises. There are 'causes'..."

Annie, seated in a typical lawyer's client's leather chair turned to her cousin Sidney and said, "Oh, shut up you mincing little fairy."

Oh, how I hate squabbling families, thought the attorney and executor, Walter Tweed. Steepling his fingers in front of his receding chin, he cast his eyes on Sidney and said, "That would be a very grave mistake, Mr. Cohen. Your Uncle arranged his will quite carefully. Should you - or anyone - in person or by proxy attempt to contest his will or its codicil you will be utterly cut off from everything. This state will honor such an 'in terrorem' clause, Mr. Cohen, I assure you. And New York is so chilly this time of year." The lawyer smiled nastily.

The reading of Uncle Bob's will and it's last minute video codicil had started with a rash of crocodile tears, all but for Annie - whose tears were sincere, and Patrick - who felt nothing. Indeed, so still and detached was he that he might as well have been the chair he sat upon, that, or a corpse himself.

Tweed cleared and throat and asked, "Now if I may continue without further interruptions? Good. Colonel Hennesey..."

Deadpan, "I'm not a colonel anymore."

"Nonetheless, your uncle referred to you as such in his codicil. His so referring also indicated a true change of heart as concerned his feelings toward you. So, unless you object strenuously, I will continue to so address you."

Hennesey shrugged his indifference.

"Very good then. To continue, you are, in the main, your uncle's primary beneficiary. What this means as a practical matter is fourfold. You have inherited the chair of Chatham, Hennesey and Cohen. You have also the control of your Grandfather's trust, the William Hennesey Fund. You are the inheritor of his personal and real property upon the demise of your aunt, Denise - Robert's wife, who retains a life estate...."

1050 5th Avenue, New York, New York, 1923 hrs, 17 September

Annie shivered slightly as her cousin tossed a switchblade knife onto the kitchen counter before removing his suit jacket. "Where did you get that thing?" she asked.

Hennesey pointed to a place over a cabinet. "Right there, where I stashed it the last time I visited."

"You really haven't changed since you were little have you? Everything is violence. Why?"

He quoted, "'Force rules the world still, has ruled it, shall rule it. Weakness is meekness and strength is triumphant.'"

"You can say that? After everything that's happened?"

"After everything that's happened, cuz, how could I say anything else?"

Annie didn't like knives. She didn't like guns. She, quite reasonably, didn't like violence. She changed the subject.

"What are you going to do now, Pat?"

He shrugged. "Go home...back to Panama. Bury what I have of my family...first haircuts and things...then...hurt a lot. Drink a lot. Eventually die."

Annie grasped at straws. She did not want her cousin to die, nor even to hurt. She did not want to mention, or even let his mind dwell on, what the fireman had told them near ground zero earlier in the day, namely that it was unlikely that much in the way of remains would ever be recovered. She asked, instead, "What about the company? The trust?"

Again, he shrugged. "What do I care? The only good thing about Bob changing the will is that Sidney won't have the money to send to 'Save The Whales', 'Meat is Murder', "Fur is Forbidden', or the gay storm troopers. For the rest? Eh? Who cares?"

"Pat. It's a lot of money."

He just looked at her, so much as to say 'can't buy me love'.

Tocumen International Airport, 18 September, 1035 hours

David Carrera, Linda's brother, was waiting at the Aduana, the airport customs office. Although a Lieutenant in Panama's 'Public Force', the successor - such as it was - to the Panama Defense Force, itself a successor to the old 'Guardia Nacional', still David wore civilian clothes.

Eyes scanning the thickening line at the Aduana, David finally caught site of his brother-in-law. Jesus, Patricio looks like crap!

Moving forward to the officer in charge of Customs, David flashed a badge, pointed and spoke a few sentences. Rank had its privileges. The customs man smiled ascent, then gestured for Hennesey to come forward.

Waved through after the most cursory inspection, Hennesey passed Customs then stretched out a hand to David.

David smelled alcohol, a lot of alcohol, on Hennesey's breath. He decided to ignore it, asking only, "How was your flight, Cuñado?"

"It was all right. Right up to where I nodded off to sleep and awoke screaming. The stewardesses were upset with me; bad for passenger morale I suppose. On the plus side they fed me booze until I fell asleep again. This time without dreaming."

The two walked without further words to where Hennesey's car waited. At his mother's insistence David had taken a police flight down to the airport to drive Hennesey home. Before turning the keys over to David, Hennesey removed his jacket, opened the trunk, and put on a shoulder holster bearing a forty five caliber pistol, his Kimber compact.

Trees, rivers, bridges, towns; all flashed by without comment or conversation. Only once on the long drive did Hennesey make a sound. That was when he inadvertently drifted off to sleep and awakened screaming. He did not say of what he dreamed. He did not need to; David knew already.

At length the car passed into Chiriqui, then up the highway toward La Ciudad de San Jose y David, called 'David' for short.

At length, Linda's brother flicked the turn signal to head down the gravel road that led ultimately to Gualaca, the Miranda family ranch, and the house Hennesey had shared with Linda.

"No," said Hennesey. "Take me into town please. I need to go to the liquor store."

David sighed, nodded, flicked off the turn signal and continued straight ahead into the city.

Hennesey heard it as a warbling cry, coming from dozens of throats. He recognized it immediately; he had heard it in the past.

"Drive towards that sound, please, David."

Again with a sigh, David turned the wheel of the car to bring it in the direction of Parque Cervantes, the practical center of the city. Traffic slowed as they neared the park. Reaching the southeast corner, David merged into the traffic and did one complete loop around the square.

While David watched traffic, Hennesey watched people. There, in the middle of the park stood a fair mob, several hundred. Though as swarthy as Panamanians, they were not Panamanians. Hennesey would have known this from their signs - "Death to America", and such; the women's tongues flicking back and forth in an Arab victory cry; and the happy faces of people celebrating a blow against a great and infinitely evil enemy.

"Pull over and park, please; in behind the car with the green bumper sticker."

Dark tanned from years in the Panamanian sun, with hair naturally dark where it wasn't tinged with gray, only Hennesey's gleaming blue eyes might have given him away for the gringo he was. No matter; he kept his eyes narrowly slitted as he watched the local Moslem's at their victory celebration. No flicker of emotion to his face betrayed what he was feeling as he watched men celebrate the murder of his wife and children.

Even as the celebration began to break up he did not move from the car on which he leaned, arms folded nonchalantly.

He smiled broadly as a group of six obviously Middle Eastern men walked toward the car just ahead of his own; the one with the green bumper sticker that said, "there is no God but God."

The Moslems joked and played amiably among themselves as they came closer. Hennesey's smile broadened even more.

He said, loudly and in rather decent Arabic, "Your Prophet was sodomite and a liar. Your mothers were whores. Your fathers were their pimps. Your wives specialize in fellating barnyard animals and all your sisters came from sex change operations. You are fools if you think your children are yours."

David looked questioningly at Hennesey. He had not a word of Arabic, though he did not the way in which the Arabs eyes flew wide at a word that sounded like "sharmoota". He needed none Arabic, however, to understand the import of what was said. This was as plain as the wide-eyed rage and hate on the faces of the men who now ran toward them waving signs like clubs and shouting their fury.

For a moment David knew fear. He need not have. Lightening-fast Hennesey's left hand pulled back his light jacket even as his right sought the pistol.

Hennesey's sweeping left arm blocked and deflected the sign that the nearest of the Arabs sought brain him with. Whispering, "Bastard" at the same time, he smashed the muzzle of his pistol once, twice, three times in the area of his enemy's solar plexus. Every blow felt like the lifting of a burden. The Arab's breath left his body in an agonized whoosh.

One down, five to go. Before gravity could pull the first one to the ground, Hennesey had brought his focus to the main body of his assailants.

The gang attacking Hennesey could see in his eyes that this one was not going to run. They could also read that their intended victim intended to kill or maim as many as he could before he went down. They could see from the gun that he had the means to do so. Like any street gang, anywhere, these were no heroes. While they all would have advanced confidently on someone who showed the slightest fear, when faced with a target like Hennesey they stopped cold.

Had they run, some might have lived.

A quick but delicate squeeze of the trigger and the pistol recoiled in Hennesey's hands. His mind provided details his eyes could not possibly have seen; a burst of flame, the spinning half-ounce lump of bronze jacketed lead, the bursting of shirt and flesh and blood and bone. The first target's back arched as he was impelled to the ground.

A chorus of screams arose from bystanders, Panamanian Catholic and Arab Moslem both, as the crowd ran and sought cover.

The four still standing didn't have time to close on their victim before the next of them went down with a slug that ripped through his arm and both lungs. Again, Hennesey smiled slightly at the satisfying recoil. His victim, now fallen to the street, wheezed faint screams.

The other three, torn between fight and flight, made the worst possible decision, they did nothing, frozen in fear. Carefully but quickly aligning the barrel, Hennesey shot one through a head that burst under the impact like an overripe melon dropped from a height. Recovering the pistol from its heavy recoil, his smile grew broad now as he squeezed the trigger yet again to ruin the left side of the last standing assailant's chest. Hennesey didn't need x-ray vision to know that he had exploded the man's heart.

The last Arab standing was like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-tractor, frozen, helpless...already dead.

He did not shoot that last standing Arab; not immediately. Instead he walked forward calmly, spit in the man's face, and kicked him in the crotch. The Arab bent over and melted to the ground.

Attack MY family will you? Celebrate their murder? He took a short step forward, bent over at the waist, then calmly placed the hot muzzle against the man's head. Again, his mind shrieked, 'Attack MY family will you? The Arab barely registered the pressure and the smell of crisping hair as his brain went scampering like a frightened rabbit. With such a helpless target, Hennesey had leisure to rise and walk around to a better firing position. He didn't want an innocent bystander to take a bullet that passed through his intended target.

Carefully gauging angles, he knelt down pulled the thugs head up by the hair, jammed the pistol - hard!, hard enough to break the skin and the bone beneath - into the man's face. Then he grinned even more widely, withdrew the pistol slightly, and fired. David, standing nearby, was spattered with blood and brain.

Hennesey stood again and turned his attention to the first man, the one who had tried to brain him with a sign. The Arab began to beg for his life in mixed Spanish and Arabic. Hennesey said, "Fuck you," then shot him through the stomach, savoring the resulting scream.

Hmmmm....one bullet left. Might need it later. Hennesey turned the pistol in his grip, his index finger passing through the trigger guard. The pistol was now a hammer, not a firearm.

He walked forward, face now lit by a glowing smile. Speaking with unnatural calm to the former celebrant, Hennesey explained that shooting was really too good for swine like him.

The pistol swung almost too quickly for the eye to follow. There was a crunch of bone, a spray of crimson, and another scream. Again and small chunks of hair attached to flesh joined the crimson spray. Again and teeth flew. Again...again...again....again....

"Patricio? Patricio, stop. He's dead. Please stop."

Hennesey became conscious of a hand gripping his shoulder. "What?"

"He's dead Patricio. You don't need to hit him anymore." David shook his brother-in-law's shoulder to pull him back to the present.

Dully, Hennesey asked, "Dead?" He looked down. "Yes, dead. Good."

"We need to get away from here, cuñado. You know, before the police come."

"No," Hennesey answered. "Better to take care of it now."

Calmly wiping the blood and brain stained pistol on the shirt of his victim, Hennesey locked the slide to the rear, ejecting the last - unspent - shell. Then he laid the pistol on the ground, stood, and turned to lean again against his automobile. In the distance a siren shrieked.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Hennesey realized that he felt good for the first time in just over a week. He calmly pulled out and lit a cigarette, enjoying the first puff as he had not enjoyed anything since his family was murdered.

"So you see," Lieutenant David Carrera explained to the investigating police corporal, "my brother-in-law here was minding his own business when these foreigners simply attacked him with their signs. I don't know why, though. They were speaking their foreign gibberish."

The corporal looked skeptical indeed. Hennesey, seeing the skepticism, suggested, "Why don't you call Major Jiminez, Cabo? I'm sure he can set this all straight."

The call was unnecessary, as it turned out. As soon as Jiminez, the local Public Force commander, had heard the words on the radio, "gringo...shooting...arabs" he had put two and two together, come up with the name 'Hennesey', and set out for the scene.

Jiminez did not ask Hennesey anything. He is just too likely to tell me the truth. And I think I do not want the truth. Instead, he asked David, who repeated the story he had told the corporal.

Jiminez looked at the 6 dead Arabs. He looked at Hennesey's locked-back, empty, blood and brain spattered pistol. He looked at the dead Arab nearest the car and noted that his head was more a misshapen lump of mangled flesh and beaten bone than a human being's. Then he pronounced his learned judgment.

"An obvious case of self defense, corporal. Let the gringo go."

Gualaca, Chiriqui, Republic of Panama, 25 September

Hennesey looked better than he had, thought Linda's mother. He had even told her that the nightmares had, if not quite stopped, at least lessened since he had shot the Arabs. May they never come back. Poor man.

Around a small hillock overlooking the Carrera family ranch and the stream Linda had swam in as a girl, Hennesey, the remaining members of Linda's immediate family, a dozen and a half aunts and uncles, her last surviving grandparent, and about seventy of her one hundred and four legitimate first cousins stood in the rain for a funeral service. A five-foot tall marble obelisk rose above a shorter plinth placed on the hill. It was blank for now but would soon bear a bronze plaque inscribed with the names of Linda and her three children, plus a gender neutral name for the unborn. As the priest went through the funeral service, Hennesey wept.

I will never see her again. Never hold her in my arms again. All my dreams for the two of us, all my - our - dreams for the children are gone; dead. What is left? Nothing.

Oh, Linda, my life and my love. I wish I were with you, wherever you are. I wish I were wherever I could bask in your approval. I wish I were wherever I could be warmed by your glow. I wish...I wish....I wish

At least you are there with the children. Someday, maybe soon, I will join you. There is nothing for me here anymore. Nothing.

Linda's mother had arranged for the funeral. Hennesey himself had the monument cut, polished, and set in place. He couldn't think of anything else to do.

Hennesey's mind wandered back to the thought of being with Linda. However, the one place he would not permit the thought of was the precise place, wherever it might be, where Linda's and the children's bodies rested. He could not bear the thought of the unknown, unmarked grave. He could not bear the thought of them rotting unprotected, of being eaten by worms and insects. No!, screamed his mind, whenever his thoughts ventured anywhere near that subject. Too far, too awful. Do not trespass.

When the priest was finished, and the relatives had said their condolences and left, Hennesey continued standing alone in the rain while Linda's four brothers and her father filled in the grave which contained a sample of her hair, a few personal belongings, a toy for each of the children, plus another for the unborn.

Never very religious, nonetheless Hennesey prayed to God to take care of the souls of his wife and children. As he prayed, his tears mixed with the rain and fell to the ground at his feet. After a long while, he left.

Interlude:

It was warmth; it was peace.

With the song of birds in the air, Linda and Patricio sat on a blanket spread on the side of a small hillock. To their northeast gurgled the creek in which she had swum as a girl. Between the hill and the creek, on grass weeded and kept smooth by family retainers, Julio, Lambie and Milagro played a game of ball, Milagro - in particular - giggling madly as her two older siblings tossed the ball too and fro over her head.

It was contentment; it was happiness. His love was with him and the results of that love were with them.

Hennesey heard Linda say, "It's hot Patricio. Here, why don't you have a beer?"

While keeping one eye on the children, he held out a hand for the bottle she offered. As he took it, his nose was assailed by the stench of rotting flesh. He closed his eyes and whispered, "Oh, no."

When he could bring himself to open them again, he looked at his wife. She knelt motionless by his side, flesh turned black with decomposition and bones beginning to show through as the flesh fell away in long rotten strips and irregular pieces. She made no sound.

Pained, frightful cries came from the children. "Daddy! Help us!"

Almost too frightened to look, still Hennesey turned his gaze toward the creek. The children's game had stopped; the ball sitting still on the smooth grass. They stretched blackening arms out toward him, pleading, imploring. Even as he watched, little Milagro exploded in a cloud of bone and rancid meat. Lambie and Julio shook and shivered, screamed and begged, as their bodies fell to ruin.

Hennesey looked back to Linda. She was no longer there. In her place lay a neat pile of disconnected bone. The children's screaming stopped. He looked back for them.

In their places too, were little piles of joints and ribs.

"Martina. This is Patricio. Would it be all right if I stayed with you and Suegro for a little while?"

Chapter Five

In peace, children inter their parents; war violates the order of nature and causes parents to inter their children.

Herodotus

Finca Carrera, Gualaca, Chiriqui, Panama, 29 September

Poor Patricio, thought Linda's mother, Martina.

Martina looked out to where her son-in-law sat unmoving on her front porch, the picture of human misery. Some food she had brought to him lay untouched on the porch railing; untouched that is except for flies.

He had no remaining relatives - barring his cousin Annie - that he wished to see in the United States, he had told them. And even with her he found it difficult to talk.

When he had called a few nights back, misery and horror in his emotion-choked voice, and asked if he might stay for a while, the family had naturally taken him in. Martina had been hoping to restore some measure of peace to the tortured soul.

Though it seems to have done little good. Still, it can't have been good for him to stay in that house.

Nothing worked, though. Hennesey took no interest in anything. He just sat there on the porch, day after day. What passed through his mind no one knew. The only interruptions to his vigil came when he took the short walk to Linda's grave. Sometimes, too, he slept in the bedroom the family had provided. Just as often, however, he would fall asleep in the chair on the porch. He hardly spoke to anyone. He drank far too much.

Arranging some flowers on a table beneath the window, Martina thought, Oh, the poor broken man. He's got nothing left. I don't think I've ever seen a sadder sight than the way he just sits there, day after day, no hope or purpose.

She resolved to demand that her husband find something to interest Hennesey, something to give him even a little interest in life. Maybe cousin Raul can think of something to help. He's mentioned that he thought very well of Patricio.

Linda's father shook Hennesey's shoulder. "Patricio, there is someone who wishes to see you." At the insistence of his wife, the father had invited a distant cousin and old family friend, ex-PDF General Raul Dario Parilla, to come to talk with Hennesey.

Parilla remained one of a very few influential Panamanians interested in giving the country an Army again. Linda's father was not one of them - though the more politically minded Martina was. Like much else in Panama, the fact that there was such a group was an open secret. As Parilla had told Señor Miranda, they did little more than debate about it. The group had accomplished precisely nothing yet...and it had been 8 years.

Hennesey didn't even look up. Twirling the ice filled glass in one hand, he said, absently, "I don't want to see anyone, Suegro. Please ask whoever it is to go away."

"You will want to see this one, Patricio. It is General Parilla. He wants to ask you for some advice. Talk to him, won't you? For me, if nothing else."

Shrugging, Hennesey agreed. "Okay, Suegro. I'll see him."

Linda's father led Parilla out onto the porch. Hennesey stood up; though he knew the general well, and though neither was any longer in service, old habits die hard. The two shook hands and sat down. Linda's father left them there.

Parilla lit a cigarette before beginning. At his first exhalation, he said, "How have you been, Patricio...you know....since...?"

"I don't know how to answer that really, Raul. Not well? Yes, that. I have not been well."

Giving a quick fraternal squeeze on the shoulder, Parilla said, "Well, man, I can understand that. I wish...but there weren't any words that day. And I have none now. Except I am so sorry."

"Yes. Me too, Raul. But sorrow doesn't help. Nothing helps."

Parilla nodded understanding. In the same shoes, he could not imagine feeling differently.

"I came here to ask advice, Patricio."

"Yes, so said my father in law. I don't know what could I would be, but if I can help..." He let the words trail off.

Parilla's mind groped back 17 years, to the day he had first met a much younger Lieutenant Hennesey. Hennesey had been leading a joint United States - Panamanian small unit exercise at the Jungle School at Fort Sherman, Panama. Hennesey had managed to win out in the problem, a company raid, but only barely - because of the presence of foreigners on the mission, and then mostly through the aid of his acting XO. Still, since Parilla had no idea of how to conduct a raid at all, he had been impressed.

"Well I think you can. But tell me...you never have, you know...why aren't you still with the United States Army? And...too...why don't you go back now? I remember; you were good."

Hennesey nodded quietly, then paused to think about his answer.

"Well," he began, "I can't go back. They don't want me."

"Why not? It makes no sense to me, your leaving. It never has."

Hennesey sighed with pain, an old remembered ache to go along with he fresh agony. "There's nothing I can tell you that won't sound like sniveling, Raul."

"I know you are not a crybaby, Patricio."

Muscles rarely used stretched Hennesey's mouth into something like a grimace. "No. No I'm not. You really want to know?"

Seeing that Parilla did, he continued. "Raul...you know that in the Army, nearly any organization I suppose, you will often be forgiven for being wrong. What they never tell anyone is that you are very unlikely to be forgiven for being right."

Parilla looked honestly perplexed and said so.

Another deep sigh from Hennesey. "It had to do with training; my approach to it. Let me ask a question of you, Raul. In the old Guardia who trained the privates on a day to day basis?"

"Their sergeants and corporals mostly. Is there a better way."

"No. None. But that isn't the way it worked most places in the US Army. There, oh, since time immemorial, most of the day to day training has been closely supervised by officers. Mostly, it doesn't work very well either."

"No. I can't see how it could," Parilla agreed.

"Well...I did something a little different. I had been watching the training of individual soldiers very closely for nearly two decades. In all that time, every time someone mentioned 'individual training', the stock solution was 'tighten up the training schedule', waste not a minute...you know, all that rot."

"I decided to try something a little different. I made my subordinates loosen the training schedule, to leave a lot of gaps and holes for the sergeants to use. Then I made them put on the schedule certain things that had to be done by Thursday night...or else. Told them I would test for it too."

"Well...they didn't believe I was serious. But I was. The first week I tested...had my sergeant major test actually...the whole damned battalion failed and so I held them over the next night until nearly midnight retesting. Next week it was about 5/6 of the battalion to just after 11. Then about 3/4 until 10 or so. By the time six weeks rolled around I had privates going to their squad leaders and saying, 'Forsooth, sergeant, I am in desperate need of getting laid. The only time to do that is Friday night. The only way to have Friday night off is to pass the colonel's test. So teach me this shit, please.'"

"About that time my boss got wind of it; tubby little fart of an ex-tanker. He hadn't a clue. I explained what I was doing and he told me to stop. I answered, 'No, sir. Relieve me if you want but this starting to work pretty damned well.'"

"Well he wouldn't do that. But he hated it."

Parilla likewise didn't understand why Hennesey had done this, and said so.

"The trick," Hennesey answered, "was that the sergeants had for decades been conditioned to being told what to do and conditioned at the same time out of any native initiative they might have had. Over-supervised if you will."

"But weren't you over-supervising doing it your way?"

"At first, yes. But once I had them in the habit of finding and using time, I let them run with it. And, oh, Raul did it ever work. We had an individual training test a few months later. They call it the EIB - Expert Infantry Badge - test. The rest of the brigade shut down for three weeks to prepare for it. My battalion rolled to the field; did any number of things that had nothing to do with this test."

"We came in the day before the test. I told the boys to get a good night's sleep. We'd take the test in the morning and clean equipment the day after."

"When the smoke cleared I had something over 70 of my battalion pass the test. This had never been done before. Pissed off my boss to no end."

"I do not understand," Parilla interjected. "You do something that well...surely it makes your boss look good."

Hennesey gave a rare laugh. "Uh...no. Surely it does not. The rest of the brigade failed miserably by comparison. Made him look bad, in fact."

Parilla's eyes widened. "Ohhhhhh..."

"'Ohhhhh,' indeed. But that wasn't the worst of it. A couple of months later the brigade had an organization day. Lots of athletic competitions and trophies, things like that. Well my boss volunteered my battalion at the last minute to be the duty battalion - picking up trash and such - for the division, for that day. So I went out with about 1/6th as many men as the other battalions, a fair number of mine being people who had been hurt in training."

"Jesu, he really did hate you, didn't he?"

"That would have been my guess," Hennesey muttered. Then he added, "We beat the rest like we owned them too, cripples and all. Why, for one competetion I didn't even have enough people to field a complete team and we won anyway. My brigade commander was so pissed about it he stormed off the parade field just before awards presentation."

Parilla snickered. "Surely he couldn't relieve you over that?"

"No. That came later. And, in a sense, tubby little turd or not, he was right"

"You've got to remember, this was in the most intensely politically correct years of the Clinton administration. Peacekeeping and Operations Other Than War were the big thing. Everybody had to play along."

But, Raul. I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. I looked at my boys, thought about the way the world really was...and I could not, not, not train them to pass out multi-culturally sensitive, vegan rations to starving Third-Worlders in a politically correct manner. I kept training them to fight, orders to the contrary or not."

"That was the last straw. The brigade commander fired me. And so, here I am. And so, my wife and kids were in New York on the 11th of September." Hennesey's voice broke at that last and it was a long moment before he could look up.

"What a damned waste," Parilla said. "I've known you had real talent for this sort of thing since I first met you. What a waste you can't do it anymore."

Parilla leaned forward with an almost conspiratorial air. Speaking softly, he said "Patricio, I am part of a group - we probably don't deserve the name "conspiracy", more like a debating club for now - that would like to see Panama fully sovereign again, which means rearmed. But we haven't the faintest idea of how to go about such a thing, you see. I thought, since you're about the only man, outside of the NorteAmericano Marines who guard the Embassy, in the country who has ever even been in a real army, that you might be able to tell us."

Recovered, Hennesey answered, "Go ahead and ask. I may be able to help a little."

The direct approach? Yes. "How could we rearm ourselves?"

Hennesey thought about it for just a few seconds. Looking from the same window though which she had seen him before, Linda's mother saw the first sign of any interest in anything since he had returned to Panama.

Hennesey gripped the lower half of his face in his right hand, thinking into the question. "Much would depend on the US attitude. If the United States were hostile, then you're simply screwed...although there are a number of techniques you can use to hide an armed force if the legal government will help. For one thing, you can use front organizations: Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, civilian labor groups...unions, fraternal organizations, police and fire departments. I'm assuming here that the Morales government want's nothing to do with that."

A sneer crossed Parilla's face. "That is unfortunately correct. The traitors actually had the gall to try to legislate away our ability to defend ourselves; like Costa Rica." Parilla spit with contempt.

Parilla paused then said, "Well, that's not entirely true. The new "public force" is in most respects a blurry mirror of the Old Panama Defense Force. But it is a singularly ball-less version of the PDF."

Hennesey nodded. "Then it will be almost impossible unless you can either change the government or change its mind....or fool it."

"I see. Well, what can be done without a change of government?"

Hennesey leaned into his left hand and rubbed his temples. Opening his hand, palm upward, and looking toward the sky, he answered, "Staff work. You can prepare Tables of Organization and Equipment. If you have money, you can buy some equipment and hide it. You can send people to work with other countries that have armies. You can prepare programs of instruction and plan to set up training facilities even if you can't actually set them up. Perhaps a military high school, another one - I mean, might help."

"How would you prepare for something like that?"

"Me, Raul? I couldn't. Not any more."

Parilla cut him off. "Oh, horse shit, Patricio. You live here. Your roots, new ones to be sure - not as deep as they might be, are still here. Here is where your blood rests. And we need you. We've got communist Colombian guerillas from FARC and the ELN pressing our southern border. We'll have the homegrown variety soon enough, too, if we don't do something. We are the trade route for the world. And the same people who killed your family will eventually figure that out and come for us too."

"I still can't. Look...sir...Raul. I'm a broken man. I not good for anything anymore. I just don't have it."

Parilla stood as if to leave. He turned, paused, and then turned back. "You know, Patricio, we need you. I told you; no one in Panama has ever even been in a real army. We could offer you much no one else can: a new home, a life worth living, useful work to do. We would not be ungrateful for the help; you know that."

"I still can't, sir. I'm not the man I was."

"Well...think it over some, at least."

Hennesey shrugged. After Parilla left, Hennesey went back to twirling the ice in his drink, occasionally glancing toward Linda's grave.

His blank look was suddenly replaced by a deep and lasting frown. Could it be possible? There is a framework here, the Public Force. There are some good people, men like Xavier, in it.

He debated within himself. But, no. 12 years gone by since they thought of themselves as infantry? Riddled with corruption, Javier has told me. No training in heavier weapons. No experience in combined arms or higher staff work.

But...couldn't I give them some of that? Surely I could. And I have friends still, good soldiers all, who could help.

Money? It always comes down to money. And even if Uncle Bob's estate does end up in my hands, it's a pittance compared to what's actually needed. I am no Crassus.

Not enough for an army. Enough for a staff? Yes...at least enough for a staff.

Ah, no. Forget it. It was true what I told Parilla. My heart and soul are gone from me. They died with Linda and the kids. I just can't.

Can't? Why not? I was a good soldier before I met Linda.

Good? Yes. But she made me a human one. Before I met her? I was a monster.

So be a monster. This is the time for monsters again.

Hennesey's frown cleared. He remembered how very damned good it had felt to shoot men cheering the murder of his family. He wondered, How good might it feel to kill the men actually behind killing my family? Might the nightmares stop then? Heart began thumping and stomach churning. With his left hand he reached over and poured his drink onto the ground outside the porch. Then he walked into the house, hugged Martina his mother-in-law, shook his father-in-law's hand and left.

"I need to do something at the house," he announced as he walked out the door.

Finca Carrera, 2 October

Hennesey shook Parilla's hand warmly. "It was good of you, sir..."

"Please, Patricio; 'Raul'."

"Very well then...Raul. It was good of you to return to see me. I think, maybe, I can help you now." Yes, I can help you....and I can help me...now.

Parilla positively beamed. "Ah! Wonderful. How?"

Hennesey did not need even a moment to think; he had already thought about it enough. He had spent two entire days thinking about it. "I will collect a small staff, house them somewhere out of the way, and put them to work on the things I mentioned before. While I am doing that, you need to be setting up the government to knuckle under for re-armament. You can do this?"

Parilla thought about it for a moment. "I can do some of it."

"Well...that's a start. Perhaps some propaganda can do the rest. In any case, soon the United States will need an ally; an ally that doesn't blanch when the body bags start coming home. If a way can be found to hasten that day, so much the better."

Parilla pointed a finger at Hennesey. "Could you do that kind of preparation for rebuilding a Panama Defense Force? Really?"

Hennesey didn't hesitate at all. "Yes. Really. Only...let's not call it the Panama Defense Force. Too politically correct for my tastes. Also too much of an image marred by defeat."

"La Armada," Parilla suggested.

"Maybe that. But maybe not either. The people who legislated away the name while leaving a shadow of the reality are plainly people more interested in image than facts. Call it an army and they'll be more likely to resist."

Parilla pushed Hennessey's objections aside for the time being. "Patricio tell me, what would you do specifically? Wait. Let me get something to write with." Moments later, notebook in hand, a beaming Parilla prepared to take down Hennesey's thoughts.

Hennesey pulled a pack of cigarettes from a breast pocket, stroked a match to light it. With smoke curling about his head in an infernal halo, he answered, "I have friends who were once good soldiers in the United States Army...some other armies too, but who despite being good soldiers, very good - some of them, never made any great success of things. In some cases this was precisely because they were superior soldiers. They have left the service early or have retired. I would hire some of them to come here to do the staff work."

Half turning his head away, Parilla focused one eye on Hennesey. "Could you trust them to be discreet?"

"They are my friends. Yes, I would trust them." The one's I will pick? Oh, yes.

Parilla asked, "How much would this cost?"

Hennesey didn't need quick calculations. Those were long since made. "A fair figure might be about $900,000 dollars a year, not more than 1.2 million; perhaps four million to start up. The annual figure could go as high as two million or even 2.5 million but I really don't think it will cost that much, not before we start to recruit and expand."

Parilla took a deep breath before telling Hennesey "Patricio, I would like you to take charge of this project, to make all possible preparations for Panama to have its own armed force again, in fact as well as name. Will you do it?"

"I'm sure I can't afford the whole thing on my own, sir...err, Raul. My uncle's estate is tied up for now. I have an income, but something short of lavish. And Linda's insurance, too, of course." But what I have, this project has.

Parilla answered, "You won't have to. I never thought you should." He shrugged his shoulders and looked heavenward in mock shame. "We do have certain sources of funds...not always above board but also not often traceable." Parilla's hands spread in helplessness at the wickedness of mankind. "Noriega wasn't, sad to say, the only ruler of the Country ever to have a foreign bank account. I can have a reasonable down payment on the start up amount - say $450,000 - tomorrow. The rest will take a couple of weeks. As for greater amounts for actually recreating a force? Well, Noriega took 275 million a year in unofficial taxes from the Colon Free Zone. Most went to line his pockets; his and his cronies. But we could raise probably 400 million per year now without hurting trade overmuch. And we are not that poor a country. Our Gross Domestic Product runs nearly 10 billion. A couple of hundred million more could be squeezed out of government revenues. That's not small change."

Hennesey nodded agreement. "Then I will go back to the United States in two days to begin...Raul."

Hopkinsville, Kentucky, 5 October

As Hennesey had indicated to Parilla, he couldn't make his plan work alone, he would need help. So he had drawn up several lists of people that had worked with or for him over the years who might be available. Most of these he eliminated as unsuitable. Forty nine remained. He stood now outside the gun store owned by one of them. It looked depressed. A few posters of guns decorated the walls. Through the windows he could see rifles and pistols in glass cases. Still, this was much the most bedraggled looking gun store he had ever seen. He walked into the store.

"Is Terry Johnson here?"

The crop haired, wiry man behind the sales desk put down the rifle he was inspecting and answered that no, Terry was not there, but he would be in later.

"Do you know where I can find him?" The soldier - or perhaps ex-soldier - serving as a salesman didn't know that either. He returned his attention to the rifle.

"Well, if you don't mind, I'll just wait." Hennesey amused himself by walking around the store, examining some of the guns on display, reading the few posters on the walls. As he walked and looked, he tapped his fingers nervously on the glass cases.

One of the items on display caught Hennesey's eye. It was apparently a plaque from Terry's former "A" team in the 5th Special Forces. The plaque showed a picture of Terry's team members behind a burning red smoke grenade. It was inscribed: "To Captain Terrence 'Terry the Torch" Johnson From his Team Mates of ODA 3, Co B, 3rd Bn, 5th Special Forces". Johnson looked at the men in the picture and realized that the 'sales clerk' was one of them.

"Did you leave Group, too?" Hennesey asked, pointing to the picture.

Again the 'clerk', laying the rifle aside, returned his attention to Hennesey. "No, sir, I'm still with Group. We all pitch in from time to time to help Terry make a go of this. Doesn't seem to be working though."

Hennesey decided that, when Terry arrived they would have to talk elsewhere. It would not do to have a member of Special Forces listening in. It wouldn't do even if Hennesey could be certain he would keep silent; no sense in putting the man in a conflict of interest; less still in compromising his purposes. Ultimately, he expected the United States would not only approve of his intentions, but would help further them. But that might not be the immediate reaction.

He continued to pace about the shop. Asking to examine a Chinese made Kalashnikov with a folding triangular bayonet, Hennesey filled the time with small talk.

Terry Johnson muttered a curse as he yanked the wheel of his decrepit pickup truck to avoid a newly loosened piece of the road fronting his shop. He turned into what passed for a parking lot, turned again then rolled to a stop beside the blank brick that made the place's southern wall.

He noticed a well-dressed customer inside, a rare enough event, but even so went first to check the mailbox that stood by the juncture of the highway and the concrete walkway leading to the front door.

"Bills," he muttered with disgust. He flipped through the little stack quickly. Overdue, past due, past due, overdue, overdue, cancellation...shut off notice....Fuck! ATF wants to inspect me? Fuck.

Life used to be a lot better than this. It used to even be worth living.

Shaking his head, Johnson walked to the door, opened it, and walked in. The customer he had seen turned around. He was wearing a smile and what looked like an expensive suit.

Johnson stopped and looked at Hennesey. It had been a dozen years since last they had met. For a few moments he puzzled over the familiarity.

Recognition dawned. Johnson wrapped Hennesey in a bear hug, planting a sloppy kiss on his forehead. "Pat! How the hell are you?"

"Lemme go, you nasty fuck!"

Disentangling himself, Hennesey calmed immediately and answered, not quite truthfully, "It could be worse, Terry. Yourself?"

Johnson lifted and dropped one shoulder. "A long story. It could be better. What the hell are you doing here in 'Hooterville'?"

"I came to see you, Terry. Let's go have a little chat."

The two old friends left Johnson's gun store and drove to a nearby restaurant. They spoke of old times serving with the Army in Panama. Also, as soldiers around the world tend to do when reunited after a long separation, they traded information on every mutual acquaintance they could think of. This continued throughout lunch and on into the drinks that followed. Then Hennesey began to probe Johnson for his own history since he had left Panama in 1987.

"Well, I got married. That was a really big mistake. We did not get along. We got divorced about eighteen months ago. 'Free at last, Free at last'. " Johnson raised his beer in a unilateral toast.

Hennesey was unsurprised. Johnson had never had any real sense when it came to women. That Johnson had been married, Hennesey knew. That he was now divorced was a plus. Hennesey asked: "Is that how you ended up out of the Army?"

"No. I know what you're thinking. 'Bad woman drives good man to drink' or something like that. Actually the divorce didn't bother me all that much." Johnson paused. A painful memory caused him to scratch at the tabletop. "Pat, do you remember how you told me to stay away from Special Forces?"

Hennesey nodded. No sense in bringing that whole thing up again.

Johnson continued. "I should have taken your advice. It was everything you warned me about, only worse. 'Good people in a shit matrix,' wasn't that what you said? In short, my battalion commander lied to me. Then screwed me for following the order he gave me himself."

This sounds interesting, Hennesey thought. He made a hand motion - come on - for Johnson to continue.

Johnson raised a quizzical eyebrow. "You really want to hear this? Okay. My team and I were on a deployment to the Middle East. Where doesn't matter; it's secret anyway. I got orders from this SOB to do a blank fire attack on a police fort. It was a training mission so I didn't think anything of it at the time. When I went to the police fort to recon it, however, it did not - repeat not, look like a good place for a blank fire raid."

Johnson put up his right hand and raised one finger for each reason he had thought the raid a bad idea. "These guys had serious security out; machine gun bunkers, even a few anti tank weapons, all live ammunition so far as I could see. They did not look to me like they were planning to take part in any blank exercises. They did look like they were expecting the Israeli army to roll over the ridge at any moment."

"Anyway, I got on the SATCOM, this little portable satellite dish we carried, and told my battalion commander that I didn't think this exercise was a good idea and why I thought so. He went ballistic on me over the radio. Insisted that it was all laid on and coordinated, etc., etc. That, and that he wouldn't come in my mouth. I said I still didn't want to do it. He ordered me to." Again Johnson clenched a fist at a memory that still rankled.

"So we did the raid. I couldn't use live ammo on the cops and I didn't want them to have a chance to use it on my guys. So I improvised. We attacked with more pyrotechnics than you have probably ever seen used in one place. We had hundreds and hundreds of grenade and artillery simulators. Smokepots, signals. The works. The attack went just fine. God, it was pretty!" Johnson sighed with pleasure, then frowned. "Only thing was the police fort sort of...uh...burned down. To the ground. Must have been more wood in the place than you might expect."

"Anyway, it turned into a big international stink. I claimed I was following orders, which is not a bad defense if you haven't committed a war crime. My CO denied ever giving me any orders. Cocksucker. My word against his, and he was an SF 'good old boy'. I had a choice of resignation or Court-Martial. I resigned. I should have listened to you," Johnson summed up.

Hennesey reflected before starting to speak. Here is a man with little owed to the Army. He began his recruiting pitch.

"So, Terry, what are you going to do with yourself for the rest of your life?"

Johnson shrugged. "I don't really have any plans. I get about ten thousand a year from a family trust fund. I'm a part time sheriff for this burgeoning metropolis. I load a bread truck three days a week. I had really hoped to make something of the gun store but it's costing me more than it's bringing in. That's even with free help from my old team. There are a surprising number of obstacles the government throws in your way if you want to run a gun store. I really don't know what I'm going to do, Pat."

Hennesey nodded with understanding. Toss the bait...plunk. "Would you like to get back into uniform again, Terry?"

Johnson shook his head vigorously. "With the Army? No thanks. Sure, I miss the Army...or I miss the old days in the Army, anyway. I thought about joining the Guard but they're as fucked up as can be. I don't think I could stand it. In any case, no, I don't think there's a place for me anymore."

And good bait must wriggle, must never stop being bait. "Answer the question, Terry. Would you like to get back into uniform?"

"Okay. You win. Like I said, I miss the service something awful. Yes, I'd like to soldier again."

"Can you follow orders; my orders?"

"You've always been senior to me, Pat. You taught me more about training and fighting than all the military courses I've had...in less time, too, come to think of it. Why do you ask?"

Set the hook. "Remember, Terry, how we used to bullshit from time to time about having our own army; what we would do to make it a great one? Well, there is a chance we can do just that over the next few years. I have come into a large amount of money recently. It is enough to get the ball rolling and keep it going for a while. It could be parleyed into an army with time and a little luck." Reel 'im in.

Johnson didn't hesitate. "I want in."

"We'll be going back to Panama."

Remembrances of happy times as a young lieutenant flooded Johnson's mind. A dozen warm images competed for attention: booze, girls, song...happiness. "I want in even more than I did before you mentioned it. It will be great to see Linda and your kids again. By the way, how many do you two have now?"

"We don't have any, Terry...Linda and the kids are dead. I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind. WTC...that's all." Hennesey forced the pain from his voice as he forced it from his conscious mind.

That's a lot worse than a divorce. Poor Linda....poor Pat. Johnson turned his eyes toward the table. "Okay, Pat. There're no words I can say except...I'm sorry."

"Thanks. Me, too. But getting back to business; I will be in charge."

"You've always been in charge, you know that. Now please quit tormenting me and tell me the plan."

Hennesey looked up for a moment, unconsciously rubbed his hands together, then answered. "For now the plan is to recruit a small staff. Mostly that will be your job, the recruiting I mean. Carl Kennison is going to do some of it too. I am going to go look us up an old friend to be our Sergeant Major. His name's McNamara. You don't know him. Good man though; you'll be impressed, trust me. I'll also be going to New York, London and Leipzig for a few other people."

"Mac and I will go on ahead to Panama to set up a headquarters. You'll round up the rest of our group. Most of them you don't know either. I'll give you a list of names, addresses, and personal histories when we get back to the car. The list also has the pay scale I'm willing to offer."

Johnson interrupted. "Speaking of that, what is the pay?"

"In your case it's forty eight hundred a month, tax free, plus room and board. Is that acceptable?"

"Very. Please continue."

Hennesey pulled out a checkbook. "I'll be turning forty thousand over to you. With that, you'll need to get around to where these people are, sign them up, and get them, and yourself, flown to Panama. I'll expect an accounting except for five thousand, which is your personal flat rate for expenses. You want to live like shit and save some of it, go ahead and live like shit."

"I don't expect you to make any sales pitches. I'll be giving you a personal letter for each one that you are to recruit. The letter will explain the deal generally. I've noted on the list the duty positions I'm offering, with the priority of assignment for each one. By the way, you are to keep control of the letters. Let them read them, then get them back."

"There are nineteen people on your list. I don't need or want that many. They are prioritized, also. As soon as you have filled all the duty positions, stop looking."

Hennesey paused again. "Do you have a decent car, Terry?"

"No, not really. I had one but I had to get rid of it when I left the Army. I have a beat up old pickup."

"That's just as well. You won't have a lot of time to drive from place to place. I'll tell you what. I'm going to add eight thousand to that forty thousand. I want you to fly to each city or nearest city. Use rental cars to get around once you get in the right general location."

Dearborn, Michigan, 7 October

Dan Kurolski waited at the Airport for the stranger who had spoken to him over the telephone two days prior. The stranger had identified himself as Terry Johnson. The stranger had said that he would be arriving today and was carrying with him an employment proposal from a mutual friend, Pat Hennesey. Kurolski had been only mildly interested in the proposal. He was doing well enough financially as a computer programmer. He didn't really need the work. But the stranger had said that the work would be soldierly. Kurolski was reminded of Kipling's words; the lines that went, 'The sound of the men what drill. An' I says to me fluttering heartstrings, I says to 'em Peace! Be still.'

That was why Kurolski was at the airport today to meet a total stranger. He had heard the sound and it had made his heartstrings flutter. Kurolski flat hated being a civilian.

Kurolski saw someone matching the description Terry Johnson had given of himself. He went up to meet the man.

Johnson was the first to speak. "Dan Kurolski?" he asked, putting out a hand.

Kurolski nodded. "And you would be Terry?"

"Yes, Terry Johnson. Pleased to meet you."

The two men shook their introductions. Kurolski gestured toward the door and the parking lot beyond. "Come on. We can use my car."

Both men were graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point. During the drive they traded information on mutual friends and acquaintances, as Hennesey and Johnson had done a few days before. The fact that their classes were three years apart and they had never served in the same location limited their conversation. They drove in silence a while before Kurolski asked, "Where do you know Pat from?"

"He was my Company XO when I was a platoon leader in Panama. And you?"

Kurolski smiled at a half forgotten memory. "We've never actually served in the same unit. The way the school schedule worked out we always seemed to end up going to school together. The Basic Course at Benning was where we first met." Dan laughed aloud.

At Terry's quizzical look he elaborated, "My first acquaintance with our friend Pat was when he chewed me out for not keeping my foot in the same fixed position and my mouth shut while standing at ease. You would have thought that in four years at 'Woops' " - West Point - "someone would have taught me the proper position for standing at ease. I thought they had. We argued about it, which amused everyone but Pat and myself. Finally he just told me to shut up and do what I was told. It was kind of funny, one shavetail chewing out another. I was more shocked than anything, shocked enough to shut up anyway. You know - rank among lieutenants, virtue among whores? After he fell the formation out I went up to complain. He told me to go look it up. I did. Unfortunately for my self-esteem, he was right. That, and a few other occasions where other people doubted him, convinced me that when he insists something is right; it's right."

Johnson chuckled. "That sounds like him. He could be such a fucking anal bastard about anything having to do with the Army. Where else did you go to school together?"

"Ranger School. The Advanced Course; Benning again. Then Leavenworth - the short course."

Johnson said, "You know, Pat taught me a lot about being a combat leader. When he was XO he used to just dog all the platoon leaders out trying to teach us everything from the proper employment of barbed wire obstacles to how to conduct a raid to understanding, and, more importantly, ignoring, the principles of war."

Kurolski agreed, "Oh, he's good. At least as near as you can tell from peacetime operations."

Abruptly turning off the road they were on, Kurolski pulled into his driveway. Johnson followed him into the split-level house that stood next to that driveway. Once inside Terry noticed a number of pictures of a woman. Crap. A married man might not go.

Kurolski motioned for Johnson to take a seat in the living room. Johnson placed a briefcase on the couch beside him and took out an envelope. He handed the envelope to Kurolski.

Kurolski opened the envelope, took out the letter inside, and began to read:

2 October, 2001

Dear Dan,

The bearer of this letter, Terrence Johnson, is representing me. He is well known to me, trustworthy and loyal. You may speak with him as if you were speaking to me.

I am writing to offer you a job, working for me, as a military planner and consultant. The job will be performed in a Third World country. You do not need to know at this time which country. Suffice to say that it is a pleasant, hot and wet but otherwise comfortable place, with a large city and an active nightlife. Do not expect, if you accept this offer, to have overmuch time to enjoy the nightlife.

Your particular job will be as Chief of a small staff I am assembling. You will be second in rank after myself. The pay is initially $4,800 per month, plus room and board. All of that amount is tax free. Life and medical insurance will be provided. Terry will arrange transportation.

You may assume that nothing I will ask of you is illegal, likely to be of interest to the United States in the near term, or harmful to the United States in any way in any term.

If you decide to join up, let Terry know immediately. I would give you time to decide if I could. I can't. I must ask you not to repeat any of this. Terry will collect this letter, and your decision, now.

I hope you will join me.

Sincerely,

Patrick Hennesey.

Kurolski looked up from the letter, toward Johnson. "He doesn't allow much time to decide, does he?"

Johnson answered, "If you think about it, if someone needs a long time to decide something like this, then he probably doesn't need to go. Have you decided?"

Kurolski looked around at the interior of his house. Fading memories, painful ones as often as not. There was nothing there to hold him. "I'll go. Can I have a few days to get my house on the market?"

"You can take 14 days from today. I'll send you tickets as soon as I finish making arrangements. You'll have to take care of your own passport, if you need one." Johnson offered his hand a second time. "For Pat, let me say 'Welcome Aboard'. Ah, what about your wife?" he asked, pointing at a picture.

"Dead. Cancer. It's why I'm not in the Army anymore. I had to take care of her and so I missed my chance to command a company. No command; no chance."

"Oh. Sorry. Pat didn't know."

"Thanks. No reason he or you should have. Anyway, it would be worth the trip just to see Linda."

"She's dead, too. Pat said it was on September 11th...in the WTC."

Kuralski bowed his head and began to fight back tears.

"You loved her too, didn't you?" Johnson asked.

Kuralski just nodded and said "She was like a mother to me...to everybody. A mother...but more, too. You know?"

"I know. And pity the poor bastards who murdered the family of Pat Hennesey."

Interlude:

Hennesey was a smoky wraith hidden in a wreath of smoke. He did not recognize his location; yet somehow it felt very high in the air. There was a floor beneath him, yet he floated above it. Though floating, he felt the heat emanating from the floor.

He was drawn forward by laughter. The smoke parted as his shade moved on and through its swirling screen.

The laughter came from a swarthy man. "Infidels," cried the man, "see the judgment of Allah."

A voice he recognized shouted back, "Allah will send you to hell, Samir, you miserable bastard!"

He was drawn forward by the voice, away from the hyena-like laughter. "Uncle Bob?" he asked. There was no answer. The shade could not see the wraith, though the wraith could see the shade as it shook its fist. "Uncle Bob?" the wraith repeated.

The shade turned and knelt by a small group. Hennesey recognized his wife, his children. Others were there too, none of whom he recognized.

"Mom, will Daddy make them pay, the men who did this?" Hennesey saw his son, Julio.

"That will be as it will be," Linda answered. "But...knowing your father, I think - probably - he will."

"I know he will," said Julio, very firmly.

"I will. I swear it. I will!" whispered the unheard wraith.

Linda looked at the rising flames behind her. "Almost time children. Pray now." Linda began to recite, "Our Father, who art in heaven..." Many others joined in with her. So did Uncle Bob.

The prayer over, Linda began to sing. Hennesey recognized the song, "Yo te bendigo." In English it was called, "Abide with me." It was in English that the others sang, all but one remarkably lovely Hispanic office girl in a short red skirt.

Drawn by the music, drawn perhaps by the sound of Linda's strength and courage, people crept and crawled to where Linda's little group sang. The singing grew in volume as more people joined in.

As the song neared its end, Linda and Bob stood. So did the others. It was not as hard to stand near the window as it had been in the smoke filled interior. Bob took Julio in one arm and wrapped the other around Linda's waist.

Linda, with Lambie in one arm and Milagro in the other stopped singing briefly. "Close your eyes, babies," she whispered, kissing each in turn on the head. Then she began to sing again as she walked forward.

At the broken out window Linda hesitated for a moment. The wind rushing past the smashed out window ruffled her hair.

"God, even now she is so beautiful," whispered her husband's shadow.

Then Linda squeezed her children tightly to her, waited to feel their answering hugs... and took a single step. As Linda, Bob and the children fell forward, others shuffling up to take their places, Hennesey heard, "Help of the helpless, O' Abide with me...."

A shadow wept.

Chapter Six

Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth.

Archimedes

Tocumen Airport, 9 October

"Ahhhhh. Smell t'e flowers! T'ere's no place like Panama!"

Hennesey smiled indulgently at the tall, gray haired black man walking at his side. They moved quickly through Panamanian immigration and into the baggage area at Tocumen International. At the Aduana, or Customs, a senior customs agent recognized Hennesey from his previous trip and waved him, the other two whites, and the sole black man forward to the front of the line. With a conspiratorial smile, the Aduana agent fell over himself to make the group's transit through the terminal as trouble free as possible. Within mere minutes Hennesey and his companions, John McNamara, Command Sergeant Major (retired), Mattias Esterhazy - late of the Bundeswehr's Fallschirmstuermpioniere, and Her Majesty's former Royal Sapper - Gary Clean, were standing at the Hertz counter to pick up their rental car.

"Where are we goin' first, sir?" asked McNamara in a melodious Virgin Islands accent. Esterhazy and Clean kept silent, overwhelmed by sights and sounds past their previous experience.

"First, Sergeant Major, we're going to check in at the Marriott. We've got reservations already. An acquaintance of mine - nice girl; 'Lourdes' - has reserved rooms for us. Then we'll need food, I think. This afternoon, after lunch, we'll go look at buying a headquarters. I want you there for that. It may take us a couple of days to find something appropriate."

The CSM nodded. "I've given t'e set up some t'ought. Once we find t'e right place, just leave it to me."

"As always, Sergeant Major."

As the rental car pulled up, Hennesey thought to ask: "You were never stationed on the Pacific side were you?"

"No, sir. I've been here, of course, but only to pass t'rough."

"Okay, I'd better drive. I know the way."

The drive from the airport to the Marriott was uneventful. Check-in, too, at the hotel went smoothly, as expected. The rooms proved more than adequate. As Hennesey was unpacking, the room telephone rang. "A young lady to see you, sir; 'Lourdes'."

"Yes, fine. Please have her escorted to my room."

"I am here to see one of your guests," Lourdes said to the man at the registry counter. "Patrick Hennesey."

The man looked her over briefly and came to a rapid conclusion - Hooker. A high end model, I suspect.

Lourdes' already huge brown eyes widened further still. He can't really think...oh, no...I don't look...I don't dress...I hardly even wear any make up...he can't really...Dammit I'm a good girl!

She said nothing except to sigh as the man picked up the telephone and announced her, then signaled for a bellhop. The bellhop came up to stand beside her, a wide smirk on his face. He thinks so too?

She followed the bellhop to the elevator, embarrassment - and not a little anger - growing inside her with each step. She stewed in simmering juices while waiting for the elevator doors to open. She thought, I should have just asked for the room number and told them I could find it myself. But then...no...if I knew my way around the hotel they would probably be certain instead of just guessing.

Lourdes and the bell hop rode up past several floors before the bell chimed, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. She let herself be led to Hennesey's room quietly, like a sheep to slaughter.

Hennesey opened his door, a few minutes later, in answer to the bellhop's knock. Tipping the man a dollar and dismissing him, he gestured for Lourdes Nunez de Cordoba to enter. She hesitated, automatically. Finding a house for someone you barely knew was one thing; being alone in a hotel room with a near stranger was something a Panamanian girl of good upbringing just didn't do. The thought of what the hotel staff had assumed about her made her skin crawl.

Overcoming her rearing, Lourdes walked in. "It's very nice to see you again, Patricio."

"And you, too. Have you been well?"

"I am all right, but my work has closed. I'm out of a job. My family has been supporting me. With business so depressed, and so many people out of work, I doubt I will find another job soon."

"You already have one, working for me, if you want to and are willing to put up with some conditions."

Lourdes immediately raised a suspicious eyebrow. "What conditions?", she asked. I am a good girl dammit! You may be good looking, but you are not THAT good looking.

Understanding, in part at least, Hennesey chuckled slightly. "Probably not what you're thinking. Firstly, your job will be general clerical, with some supervisory responsibilities, work gangs and such. Second, the pay is twelve hundred per month plus room and board. You'll earn your pay, believe me. I am not easy to work for."

"I don't believe that."

"Believe it, Lourdes. I am not a nice man."

"I don't believe that either." The woman thought for a while. This is the best offer I've had lately. Reaching a decision, she answered, "I'll take it."

"Good. I'd hoped you would. You're on the payroll as of the beginning of October. I'll have your first paycheck for you tomorrow. Oh, yes, there is one other thing before you commit yourself. I expect absolute loyalty, discretion, and obedience from those who work for me. You must also never tell anyone, not your boyfriend, your parents, or your priest - no one - what you do for me or what I do. Can you do that?"

"I don't have a boyfriend right now. I am a Baptist, so I don't have a priest. I can keep quiet." She hesitated. "Are you planning something illegal? I don't want anything to do with drugs...or guns."

"No drugs. And we won't be running guns, if that's what you're worried about."

"All right then. What's my first job?"

"For now, you're going to lunch with myself and a couple of close friends. Then we'll meet the real estate agent."

La Chorrera Province, 12 October

"Señor, I am certain this will fit your needs," announced the short, greasy looking realtor.

It had taken three days, and fourteen houses, before the realtor had finally brought them to something appropriate. Lourdes had not understood what was wrong with the others they had seen. Hennesey hadn't bothered to explain. The one in front of which Hennesey, McNamara, and Lourdes stood now seemed close to fitting the bill. It was some 20 miles west of Panama City, on a promontory overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a mansion of sorts, old and built of stone. It hadn't been occupied for some months, or possibly years.

"What do you think, Sergeant Major?"

McNamara's head leaned a bit to the side, a study in contemplativeness. "Security is good, very good. We've got cliffs on t'ree sides. Hard for someone to get in directly. A little wire would make it even harder. T'en t'ere's t'e wall around it. T'at can be improved a bit, too; wire...broken glass...t'at sort of t'ing. I figure an easy 150-meter clear zone inside t'e wall, 250 on t'e side facin' t'e road. It's t'e best we've seen so far. I'd like to see it from t'e air before you buy it t'ough."

"Good thought. Lourdes, please take the car and the CSM back to the city. Go to Paitilla airport. Rent an airplane or a helicopter, if you can...with a pilot. Then, Sergeant Major, I want you to check this place out from above. The realtor can drive the rest of us back after we look over the inside. We'll meet you back at the hotel."

Restraining the impulse to salute - barely - McNamara contented himself with a nod and left. Lourdes turn and followed McNamara quietly as Hennesey and his engineers, Esterhazy and Clean, walked forward to inspect the mansion.

"Where do you know Patricio from, Sergeant Major?" Lourdes kept her eyes on the road as she and the CSM chatted.

"T'e 'old man'? We go back a few years. 'Have kind of a mutual admiration society. He t'inks I'm about t'e best Sergeant Major he ever met." McNamara chuckled and flashed a smile brilliant in his homely black face. "And I am. I know he's about t'e best commander I ever met...at any rank."

"What makes him so special?" Besides that he's cute...and I don't think you care about that.

"If you were a soldier it would be easier to explain. I don't know how to explain it to a civilian."

"Try."

"He's a warrior; t'e real article, no fake. He's afraid of absolutely not'ing. Why when our brigade commander once told him to stop training to fight or get relieved...but never mind t'at. Long story. Sad one too." McNamara sighed, despondently.

"He wasn't always well liked in t'e Army. As a matter of fact he was sometimes quite hated. Smart as hell; too smart for some. Too...aggressive, too. Also he's t'e best trainer of infantry, any soldiers - really, I've ever seen. I've never met anyone who even came close, and I've worked for t'e big boys. He can take a group of nice clean-cut American kids and make t'em into SS men in about six mont's. And he loves soldiers. We tend to reciprocate when we get a boss like t'at. After a few months' acquaintance troops will die for him."

"I don't believe that." McNamara gave her a pitying look.

Seeing the look, Lourdes said, "He told me that he wasn't a very nice man."

The Sergeant Major laughed out loud. "T'at's a crock. If you're one of his t'ere's no battle he won't fight for you; not'in' he won't do. Take me, for example. I was slowly dyin' from sheer lack of purpose. T'en he came about two t'ousand miles to f ind me and give me a reason to go on living, to make my last years good ones. No, he is a very nice man. Besides, you should see him some time, when t'e bullets are flying and the mortar rounds going crump. Eyes glowing from inside, I swear to it."

"And what are the two of you going to do?"

"I don't know all of t'e details yet. What I do know is t'at we're goin' to work to make an army for Panama to help in t'is war...and to make it a good one. He's bringin' in anot'er 18 or so people, specialists sort of, to help wit' t'e work."

Lourdes thought about that as she drove. A 'good' army? Panama has never had a 'good' army. Whatever army we have had has typically been just an instrument of oppression, corruption, or - more usually - both. But those problems are out of MY ability to influence in any case. Who knows, maybe here I might be able to do some good.

Marriott Hotel, 13 October

"Another drink, top?"

McNamara thought it over briefly. "No sir, enough for me already." He refrained from saying, 'enough for you too.' Not his place, so the sergeant major felt. His tone betrayed his thoughts, however.

Hennesey understanding the tone signaled the waitress for one more, not a double this time. McNamara contented, let it pass.

Over drinks in the Hotel's bar, the CSM, Hennesey, and the engineers discussed the potential, and potential liabilities, of the latest house they had inspected. The realtor had said $2,435,000 was the asking price. Hennesey had shamelessly whittled him down to $2,085,000, even so, but still without firmly committing to buying the place. He wasn't entirely sure. The house was a little run down, despite its setting and architecture.

"The place needs work, Sergeant Major: painting and floor refinishing inside, some new windows, some plumbing and electrical work...phones."

Esterhazy interrupted, "More zan zat. Ve'll have to pour concrete to make a basement floor and finish ze valls if we're going to get any use out of ze basement. Zat's important, nicht wahr?"

Hennesey and the engineers had discussed probable interior setups on their inspection. The house, though huge, would be hard pressed to hold everyone and all the needed offices and other spaces. Once the wives arrived with the children...?

"But it can be done," insisted Clean, in a studied middle class London accent. "Take some bloody time, though."

"T'at's not a problem sir. When t'e troops get here, I'll put 'em to work so you wouldn't recognize t'e place."

Hennesey shook his head. "No. I appreciate the money saved, but I wanted the place to be ready for them when they arrive, first impressions and all. Then, too, some of the troops aren't going to be staying in the headquarters indefinitely. When the married men's wives arrive, those men will be moving out. It wouldn't be like they were doing the work for themselves."

"Sir, don't be dumb about t'is. You're payin' t'em yourself. T'at makes it all right to have t'em do work for you. Besides, what t'ey make t'emselves? T'at t'ey'll appreciate."

"Okay. Conceded. But I need some of the rooms ready as soon as possible anyway. Okay," he said, making a final decision, "we'll take the place; finish off the individual areas later. The common areas, my quarters and yours, and the basement floor I need done now. Gary, it's your project, yours and Lourdes'. We'll also need a domestic staff - one or two cooks, a housekeeper. I've got one of my in-laws looking for some suitable women."

The CSM started to say that the troops incoming could take care of that too when Hennesey cut him off. "Sergeant Major, when they get here I've got much too much for them to do for them to be polishing brass. And you'll have too much to do yourself to spend a great deal of time supervising them polishing brass. Besides, you know you hate that shit."

Hennesey and McNamara discussed a few details about setting up the Headquarters. Then Hennesey turned over to Clean a large bundle of cash, $40,000 in 20's, to fund the initial work he wanted done. "There's more available when you need it," he said to the Brit.

Giving the CSM the keys to their rental car, he said, "Sergeant Major, in the morning I'll be heading up to Chiriqui for a few days to see some people. I'll rent another car at the hotel desk. Check us out of the Hotel when the house is minimally fit to move into. Here's a check for the full price plus closing costs for the headquarters. I'm turning in. Oh. And Gary, put up a sign on the front. We'll call the place 'Casa Linda'."

David, Chiriqui, 14 October

After a seven hour drive to Linda's family's city residence, Hennesey was ready for the cold beer her brother, David, handed him at the door. The beer was Balboa. It was not good beer. But Hennesey recalled that Linda had done a television commercial for that company in the mid eighties, the family owning some stock in the enterprise.

Without pausing for formalities, Hennesey asked, "Do you have the list?"

David nodded, "Yes, Patricio. 738 names and addresses of the parents, wives and children of the soldiers who were killed in the invasion, and those civilians and Dignity Battalion troops who fought, too. I also have the list of the 215 soldiers and DB troops who were permanently disabled. It has taken me almost all this time to finish compiling it. Why did you need it?"

Hennesey didn't answer directly. "Has the government started paying support to any of them yet?"

"No. Did you expect they would? Much more likely they'll throw the disabled troops in jail than give them money."

"I suppose I didn't expect them to help, not really. Politicians are the lowest of scum...except for politicians who masquerade as soldiers. Never mind, we'll take care of them for a while, thanks to my Uncle Bob. I want you to find a lawyer here in Chiriqui. Your family keeps one on retainer, don't they?...Good. Set up a trust fund. I'll give you a check to start it off. Then I want every wife and set of parents on that list to get two hundred dollars per month. Send an additional hundred for each kid. If there is a particularly needy case let me know. We'll try to cover that too."

"There is one case I'm aware of. One of our mid-rank NCOs who was killed in 1989 had a very young daughter. His parents are dead. His wife just died." David saw that Hennesey flinched.

"She was sending the girl to the University. I'm afraid fifty dollars won't cover that. Three fifty might, if she's very careful and can work, too."

"Fine. Put her down for three hundred and fifty a month. Any others?"

"I'll have to check. It would have been easier if you had told me why you needed to know."

"I know. Sorry. I wasn't sure myself until about a week ago. Do you have my domestic staff?"

"I have the two cooks and housekeeper you wanted. And Lucinda has agreed to take the new job. My mother will send one of her girls over to keep up your old place. All threes women are all noted for keeping quiet. They also don't have any great grudge against gringos. That's important, isn't it?"

"Very. Now, tell me, have you arranged to move yourself to Panama City?"

"Yes. I start the beginning of next month."

"Good. I'll want you to make as many connections as you can. Will you be stationed in the City?"

"Yes, with DENI, the National Department of Investigations. That's in the City. I'll be working for a Major Fernandez. Which thought doesn't thrill me...Fernandez has a reputation for extreme measures."

"Too bad. It's still a useful posting."

"I don't see what difference it makes, Patricio. The government is not going to let us rebuild an army."

"Well...I need to talk to Parilla about that in a couple of days."

Panama City, 16 October

"Not a chance, Patricio," Parilla said, with finality. "I can raise maybe 85 of the votes we need in the legislative assembly. The rest? They're shitting in their pants at the thought of resurrecting the Defense Forces."

"Bribes?" Hennesey asked.

"Still not enough. And we can't just bribe those who are opposed to us. In fairness, we'd have to bribe the entire crew that would vote our way or they'd vote against us out of spite. That's more money than our little fund has in it. Millions more. Many millions."

Hennesey sighed. "I'm afraid my pussy cousin in New York is going to tie up my uncle's estate for some years, too, so I don't have all that much to help with; just the 14 million or so that are my personal bequest. Less now, really, what with the market down."

"But I thought you said that your Uncle's will would cut...what was his name? Sidney?..out of the will if he contested it."

"Yes, so my uncle's lawyer told me. But apparently, from Sidney's point of view it is a good bet. He gets a lifetime income, a comfortable one, if he keeps quiet, true. But he's filthy fucking rich if he sues and wins. And, apparently, an 'in terrorem' clause, with a videotaped codicil to a will, under unusually stressful circumstances, is just weak enough that he might win. So says the lawyer now, anyway. He's advising that I settle."

"Are you willing to settle?" Parilla asked.

"Willing? Up to a point. I don't care about the money. I don't care about the prestige or the power it represents. But if I could keep enough to fund our little enterprise I would settle. Problem is, Sidney hates my guts. Can't say I blame him either. He would never settle anyway."

"So. Well, in any case, I just can't deliver the votes Patricio. Not enough; not at a price we can afford."

Hennesey scowled. "Hmmmm. More than one way to skin a cat. Raul, do you know any good propagandists?"

Drama Department, University of Panama, 18 October

Only with difficulty did Hennesey manage to find his way to the University of Panama's drama department. The campus sprawled. When he did find it, a secretary showed him to the office of Professor Ruiz, with whom he had an appointment. Hennesey had gotten Ruiz' name from Parilla. The professor had a reputation of being a nationalist to a degree even greater than the University norm. When Hennesey had made the appointment, he had given his name as Patricio Carrera.

Ruiz' office was shabby and rundown, as was much of the University. Books, papers, and binders littered the office in the worldwide academic decor. The professor was not run down; though his glasses were dirty and his tie-less shirt wrinkled, he made a show of energy that belied his years.

Ruiz made a place for Hennesey to sit, saying "And so how may I help you, Señor Carrera?"

"Professor, I want to fund a series of projects, one of them a movie. Your name was given to me as someone who might be inclined to make the kind of movie and the kind of projects I want."

"And what kind of movie would that be?"

"Frankly, I want a propaganda movie. I want..."

Hennesey stopped speaking when Ruiz' secretary brought in two cups of coffee. Ruiz passed over the sugar and waited for Hennesey to continue.

"As I was saying, I want to make a propaganda movie...about the 1989 invasion. I am told you might be able to make such a movie, given funding."

Ruiz brightened immediately. He began to wax about the terrible atrocities committed by the United States, the suffering of the people, the destruction of the economy. Then Ruiz paused. "But aren't you a gringo, yourself?" he asked.

"I am. And I am not interested in an anti-American movie. Oh, don't misunderstand; the United States is going to have to be the enemy. But I need them to be an honorable enemy. As for atrocities; that's not the message I wish this movie to send. Perhaps later we'll do another...on a different kind of atrocity. But the kind of film you are thinking of tells about the evil of the United States. What good would that do? We have bigger enemies. Worse ones too, now. Enemies of our entire civilization. So, what good?"

"It would help rally the people against this puppet government. That is quite a bit, don't you think?"

"Up to a point. But I do not want to demoralize the people. Instead, I have a different idea. Let's not spend our effort showing the United States as bad. Anyone here in Panama who believes that already doesn't need further convincing. Instead, let's work on showing Panama - Panamanians, rather - as good. With the glaring exception of Noriega, of course."

"But everyone in the country would agree even more on that. What's the point?"

Hennesey thought that Ruiz was perhaps overoptimistic about that. Few in Latin America had any real faith in their own governments and societies.

He answered, "That depends on how we go about it. I want a film about Panamanian soldiers doing their duty unto death. I want you to write a script, or have one written, about the last stand of the PDF in the Comandancia. I want the film to give three main messages. First I want the movie to show that the PDF troops in the Comandancia fought as well as any troops ever have, as well as the gringos did...or better. This will tell the people that they are not inferior, not helpless. Second, and without going to the level of the ridiculous, I want the movie to show that the only reason the PDF lost at the Comandancia was because they were outnumbered and outgunned, not outfought. Third, and this will probably require the greatest artistry on your part, I want the message sent that while the battle was physically lost, morally it must be seen to be a victory."

"There were so few survivors, at the Comandancia, I mean, that it will be difficult to be accurate."

Hennesey smiled grimly. "So much the better. Without witnesses there will be few to criticize what the story shows; if we're broadly and generally realistic. Get copies of some American movies from World War Two, The Fighting Sullivans, maybe. Maybe Sahara. You'll see what I mean."

Ruiz hesitated. "I would like to do the script myself, but I don't know anything about soldiers or fighting."

"Do not worry about that, Professor. I have several first class technical experts coming who can assist you. In addition," and here Hennesey handed over the draft of the history he had been working on with Jiminez, "here's an accurate version of the truth."

Ruiz flipped through the draft quickly. His English was acceptable for the purpose. "How quickly do you need this done, Mr. Carrera?"

"In World War Two, films like this were turned out in as little as three months. I'll give a little more time than that. By the first of May I want to see a rough cut. Can you do the job on five hundred thousand?"

"If I start today, and can keep costs low - a very big 'if', that; then yes."

"Then start today, Professor Ruiz. I'll be in touch."

"You mentioned other projects"

"Ah. Yes. Several. I need radio and TV propaganda. I need newspaper propaganda. I will want a series of soap operas - 'Novellas', you call them. I am thinking of six."

"Concerning?"

"Well for the first use as a working title 'El Rasul' - the Prophet. I want it to be on the oppression and betrayal of Christians under Mohamed when Islam first reared its head. Historical accuracy is unimportant. I want to plant the thought in Panama that Islam is evil and false in its very roots. For the second, 'Los Esclabos', a romance of Christian lovers torn apart by Moslem slavers. He goes to a galley, she to a harem. For the third, "El Martillo', I want the turning back of the Moslem tide of conquest at Tours. Also a romance..."

"Why so many romances?" Asked the Professor.

"Because I want the women of Panama enraged at the very thought of sharing a planet with Moslems. For the fourth, 'Lepanto'..."

Casa Linda, 22 October

With a substantial expenditure of cash, the engineers and McNamara had worked a miracle or ten in getting as much of the house ready as they had. All of the floors had been redone, the walls of the common area's on the first floor painted or papered, barring only those which were already paneled. Lourdes was given the task of furnishing the place.

"Use your own judgment," Hennesey told her. "You dress well. I trust your taste in general. Besides, the people I have coming are used to Army furniture: often poor quality, almost always tasteless. They'll be impressed if the stuff isn't outright ugly. Hmmm...try to stay within budget, Okay?"

Lourdes was warmed slightly. He likes the way I dress. He thinks I have good taste. He...he trusts me. She flashed him a brilliant smile, which quickly turned to a frown when he failed even to notice.

Hennesey's own quarters, and some of the common areas, had been filled with his own, or rather his and Linda's, furnishings. Hennesey now sat on one of those chairs, sipping a scotch on ice. Among other things the CSM had done to prepare the place was to use his PX privileges - as a retiree from the Army he was entitled to use the Post Exchange and liquor, or Class Six, store - to furnish a bar. Hennesey swirled the ice and sniffed, savored the peaty aroma.

The CSM and Lourdes were currently at the airport picking up the troops. Hennesey thought they might even be on their way back by now. He was filled with a curious sense of - almost - happiness he hadn't known in some time. Whether this was because he was soon to see many old friends, because it heralded the start of real work again, or because he was an imperceptible measure closer to his goals, he couldn't have said.

Johnson and Kennison had wired ahead with the names of those they had recruited, the names encoded by prearranged numbers. The list had pleased Hennesey immensely; twenty two good men were all anyone needed for a job like the one he planned. He had them...plus Lourdes. Lourdes? Pretty girl. Nice girl. In another time...another life...oh, well. He pushed her from his mind.

Hennesey had wanted to go to the airport but McNamara had talked him out of it. In retrospect, he had realized, the CSM was right. It was better for the Sergeant Major himself to get the troops, billet them, put out the rules of the house, and then have Hennesey make the grand entrance. The troops had signed on for a military enterprise; the more like a military enterprise this looked, the happier they would be. Stage management? Not my forte. So I will, for once, listen to someone who knows.

There had been some discussion, too, as to whether or not the troops should come in separately; on the sly, so to speak. Ultimately, McNamara had nixed that.

"Too much bot'er. Besides, if t'ey come in openly an toget'er, lookin' like t'ey're supposed to - soldiers, t'e customs and immigration people will be too afraid to say anyt'ing about it...for now. But if t'ey come in separately, t'ey would look like a bunch of criminals - damned suspicious, anyway - to anyone who can add t'eir names, origins, and destinations up and come up wit' US!

Upon reflection, Hennesey had agreed.

From the upper back porch of Hennesey's quarters he could see for some dozens of miles out over the Pacific Ocean. The smell of Panamanian cooking wafted up from the kitchen below and on the other side of the house. It reminded him of Linda, painfully. He continued to gaze out over the ocean, mulling his plans over in his mind.

Hennesey sat there, just staring at the sea and thinking, for perhaps an hour. Then came from below the sound of moving vehicles, two autos and a step van hired for the occasion, grinding up the gravel of the front drive. This pulled him from his reveries. The Sergeant Major's melodic Caribbean voice, loud but not shouting - Sergeant Major never shouted - and the opening and closing of automobile doors told Hennesey that his new command had arrived.

Inside the first floor foyer, the CSM had the troops pile their bags against the wall. Then he brought them into the conference room that had been set up opposite the room even Lourdes was beginning to call 'the mess'.

"Welcome, gentlemen, to your new home. In a few minutes I'll be showin' you to your quarters. For now I want to give you t'e rules of the house and t'e organization. First off, t'e house rules. You are expected to keep your own quarters clean; t'at goes for both officers and men. Meal times are 0800 to 0900, 1130 to 1230, and 1800 to 1900. T'e kitchen is t'e province of t'e chief cook. She's a tough old bitch, so no snackin'. If you miss a meal, other t'an in t'e line of duty, tough shit."

"Second is t'e schedule. Physical training will be conducted from 0600 to 0715, Monday t'rough Saturday. I will lead it, initially. Starting next week we will begin to rotate leadership of t'e PT sessions. T'e CO has ordered weights.

"Blendin' in. For t'ose who don't speak Spanish, Miss Lourdes here will be giving lessons from 1930 to 2100 nightly, Mondays t'rough T'ursdays, until you do. T'e rest of t'e time you work on t'e CO's project.

"Saturday afternoons and Sundays are off unless you have duty. Two men, one officer and one NCO, will be on duty during the weekend days. One NCO will pull duty from 0600 to 0600 on weekdays. The CO and I will not be pulling t'e watch. T'ose who pull t'e weekend duty will have the followin' Monday off. Check t'e schedule on t'e bulletin board, which, as you can see, is right behind me. If you are not on duty or workin' you are off and can do what you want. Now, how many of you are married?"

McNamara raised an eyebrow "Still married, Daugher? Your wife is a saint." Seeing two other hands raised the CSM said, "T'at will be fine. T'e CO is going to have t'e outbuilding, I suppose it used to be servants' quarters, converted as soon as possible to make married quarters. He's also going to put up a few houses for t'e spillover. He's going to hire an English speakin' teacher from t'e locals for your kids. Your families are invited to t'e eat in t'e mess when t'ey arrive. Your wives will be expected to help out wit' social occasions at need."

"T'ere is no rule against drinkin' when not on duty. If you want to have a bottle in your room t'at's no problem. I've set up a bar. Drink prices are posted behind it. If you want to use t'e common bar just check off what you took and it will be deducted from your pay. Beer wit' lunch and dinner are free.

"We will not be wearin' uniforms for t'e next several months. You are required to look presentable. Haircuts are not optional. If you can stand t'em in t'is heat, mustaches and neatly trimmed beards are encouraged.

"T'e maid will take care of your laundry on days I'll post on t'e board. You are expected to bring it to t'e laundry room yourself.

"Some time next week we'll have t'ree cars and a light truck you can sign out. T'e Mercedes is t'e CO's, leave it alon'. If you take a car on personal business you will return it wit' a full tank.

"We have no medical personnel. T'e sick will go to Panama City, PC, for treatment."

One man, Daugher, raised a hand. "Weapons, Sergeant Major?"

"Our weapons are limited to two pistols, mine and t'e CO's, and a couple of AK's. We'll be gettin' more in a few days. Among other t'ings, we will all be goin' to town tomorrow to apply for permits to carry a weapon concealed. T'e CO is payin'. He will also be payin' for your personal sidearms. T'ey will all be forty-fives.

"Lastly, t'is. You are to avoid any contact wit' anyone here in Panama except in line of duty. You may not discuss any aspect of what we do wit' anyone. You will report any attempt to get information about our activities to me. Any questions before I send for t'e CO?"

Seeing there were none, the CSM asked "Miss Lourdes would you go get t'e Boss, please?"

After Lourdes left, the Sergeant Major added, "One ot'er t'ing. I don't know if t'e CO has any interest in t'at one. Keep your fuckin' hands off, anyway. T'at means, among ot'ers, you, Daugher."

"Oh, Sergeant Major..." Daugher began, plaintively.

"Hands off, boyo."

Lourdes shivered as she left the foyer. Those men. They look so dangerous there in a group, not at all like Patricio and the Sergeant Major. And the way that tall blond one kept looking at me? I don't think I like him.

Reaching the door to the porch just off of Carrera's private quarters, she knocked politely. "Patricio? The Sergeant Major says he's ready for you now."

Carrera gave a friendly smile; friendly and no more than that. "Thank you, Lourdes. I'll take it from here but I would appreciate your checking on dinner, if you would."

"Certainly. Will you need me for anything before dinner?"

"No. No, thank you. Everything should be fine."

A mildly uncomfortable few minutes were spent between Lourdes' departure and the moment McNamara saw Hennesey about to enter the conference room. He announced "Gentlemen, t'e Commander."

Everyone rose to attention as Hennesey walked to the center of the room in front of them. Yes, he thought, this will be a good crew. The most talent I've ever had working for me at any one time, I think. Before beginning to speak he looked over the assembled men recently arrived. He ordered "At ease." Those who had had to rise resumed their seats.

By the door stood Johnson and Daugher. Tall, blond, strong as an ox, and disgustingly Aryan looking, Daugher had personally killed - with his bare hands alone - almost as many people as were in the room and always in 'self defense'. Framing them were Soult and Mitchell, more like younger brothers to Hennesey than subordinates. Years before they had been Hennesey's drivers at different times in different units. They looked nothing alike, Soult being rail thing and Mitchell something of a human fireplug.

Short, balding, and wearing glasses, Dan Kuralski's looks were deceiving. However much he looked like an aging professor at some small eastern university, his heart was a soldier's heart, his mind a soldier's mind.

Must see about getting Dan re-married while he's here, Hennesey thought. I wonder if Lourdes can be any help there.

Next was Carl Kennison. Irwin Rommel, Robert E. Lee, Heinz Guderian and Ulysses S Grant could probably not have passed a body fat test. Zhukov? No way. Welcome to you, too, my chubby little genius.

However pudgy in appearance, Carl could press several times his body weight. He had also run Hennesey into the dirt on more than a few occasions. Hennesey's standard revenge had been to wait for Carl to begin to press a substantial weight, then comment nonchalantly 'Pretty good shape for a fat boy.' Kennison had never failed to collapse helplessly and immediately, sometimes with dangerous results.

Carl had not been picked for either his appearance or his physical strength. Hennesey remembered that in Carl's unusually long time as a Second Lieutenant he had had the distinction of having received a letter of reprimand once a week for a three month period from a full Colonel or higher -without even once repeating reprimanders. Little things: kicking his company commander in the groin, burning down a National Guard headquarters, loading 46 men on a quarter ton vehicle and taking them for a drive (two letters from that one).

I like a man who can break the rules.

On a chair behind the table sat Aaron Brown, a diminutive tanker - and one of only three blacks in the group - whose platoon had been the normal attachment for Hennesey's rifle company years before. Hennesey hadn't seen Brown's smiling chocolate face for nine years. But he had remembered; as had Brown. Seeing Hennesey's eyes on him, Brown said aloud, "Es braust unser panzer, sir."

"Im stuermwind, dahin," Hennesey finished.

Next to Brown was William Morse, a former squad leader for Hennesey.

Okay, so Morse isn't the brightest soldier who ever lived. I'll take an honest man with a good heart who tries really hard before I'll take some glib shithead looking out for number one. Hennesey was well pleased that Morse had joined his group.

There was no smile for the next man, just a nod of respect. Hennesey had wanted Michael Bowman in the crew despite the fact that he was a borderline psychotic.

Have to keep that one busy; not give him time to start contemplating his navel. Bowman was as capable as Morse, considerably smarter, but not quite so reliable. A dangerous man. Well, so are we all.

Esterhazy and Clean stood in the back of the room along with several others. Hennesey nodded in turn to 'Dutch' Rudel, a chemical officer but also an Army Ranger; Greg Harrington - the only other tanker in the group, but much more valuable for his logistics skill than his ability to order a charge; Lawrence Triste - a first rate intelligence officer; and Tom Christian - infantry but with long experience in personnel administration.

Hennesey was especially pleased to see the men in the last group: 'Sig' Siegal, looking like a Koala bear in mufti; Fletcher, serious as always; Prince who knew Hennesey's training methods and could be counted on to see them through, and Clinton, whose happy smile belied a fine mind and a meticulous sense of order. Siegal's brains, linguistic ability - he spoke Spanish, French, German, Italian, Arabic, Turkish and Tagalog - and knowledge of weapons, organizations, and the Third World in general would be indispensable. 'Fletch' was a communications man. Prince, an 'expeditor'. And lastly, Warren Clinton, as thieving - and giving - a supply man as ever doctored a property book.

Fletcher, Clinton and Siegal were the only new arrivals to have stayed in the Army long enough to have retired.

Hennesey looked each one in the eyes before beginning to speak.

"Gentlemen, it is better than I can say to see you all here in one place. You've all heard my introductory speech at one time or another. I don't see the need to give it again. I won't ask you why you decided to come. Your reasons are your own so long as you follow the rules and do your jobs."

"You probably won't get rich here working for me. Then again, you might. Don't count on it anyway. The pay you were promised is all you should count on.

"I think I can promise you that we're going to have a lot of fun over the next several years. Military fun, the only kind worth having for people like us.

"Ranks? Don't worry about mine. Officers retain the ranks they had in the U.S. Army. The Sergeant Major is the Sergeant Major. Consider him a Warrant Officer Five for Chain of Command purposes and don't fuck with him. Fletch, you were a First Sergeant, I believe. Your will hold WO4. Former Sergeants First Class are three's. Former Sergeants and Staffs are WO1's and 2's respectively. When the time comes to wear insignia that is what you will wear. For now it doesn't matter.

"The mission. We are going to recreate an army for Panama, to plan the foundation of something that can be of use to the United States at need. The first part of that will be pretty dull. Later, it should get a lot more exciting...when we actually can start building and training. Better still when we can deploy and fight. Still, don't expect too much right off. Don't worry about who's paying the bills.

"Organization. We are a staff. I intend for us to set up under something close to the old German model, not the one the United States inherited from the French. That means that personal administration, instead of being the "One", is the "Two", Roman numeral two. The Roman numeral "One" shop is the Operations, Logistics, and Intelligence office - Ia, Ib, and Ic, respectively.

"Assignments are as follows. Dan, you are the Chief of Staff. Larry and 'Sig', you have the Ic, Intel. Captain Harrington has the Ib, Logistics. Mr. Clinton will assist you, Greg. You're also in charge of the household.

Hennesey turned his gaze to Johnson. "Terrence, you are Ia, Operations and Training. Morse, Bowman, Fletcher, Daugher, Prince, and Brown are all in your Shop. Likewise you have - and let me introduce - Gary Clean, late of Her Majesty's engineers and 'Dutch' Rudel, late of the 82d Airborne.

"Tom Christian has the II, personnel. Mitchell, assists you, Tom. Matthias Esterhazy has some experience in banking. He's our comptroller. The Sergeant Major is, as stated, the Sergeant Major. Sergeant Major, Soult will assist when he's not working for me directly. Lourdes, although normally you would work for Captain Johnson as our Spanish teacher, for now you work for the Sergeant Major and myself.

"That is all for now. This evening, after chow, I'll give you your immediate work priorities. If you have questions, hold them until then. The Sergeant Major will show you to your rooms and offices. They're a mess. You'll also be doubling up until I can have quarters prepared for the married folks. When you figure out what you need to fix your rooms up, drop a request with Mr. Clinton."

It was a festive time. After all, how often do a group of men get together with a real prospect of renewing their youth?

Lourdes and the domestic staff had done wonders. The dining room - Why did Patricio insist on calling it the mess? she had wondered - was bedecked with flowers and wreaths. Candles burned unnecessarily in sconces.

Table space had been a problem. Hennesey's old dining room table, his and Linda's, had been large enough for 12 with chairs to match. That left ten spaces short. Lourdes had brought in a card table suitable for 4, and moved in another one from the kitchen that could handle six. Crystal, silver and china had had to be a mix of three different sets each.

Still, as Hennesey admitted to himself, the girl has done wonders.

This being an occasion of some celebration, dinner centered on a large turkey, roasted and stuffed, to the usual trimmings of which were added various Panamanian dishes; empanadas - a sort of meat turnover, fried yucca - a fibrous tuber superior in taste to potato, a corvina - noble fish! - filleted and broiled with butter and garlic, and a sancocho - or stew. As it was a sort of Thanksgiving for people who never again expected to be able to do the work they felt they were born to, wine was served, along with the beer. When dessert was finished, and plates cleared away, the Sergeant Major lit a candle - the 'smoking lamp'. The cook brought in a tray of single malt scotch with glasses just as the smoke began to curl to the ceiling.

Standing, Hennesey began to speak:

"Everybody moved in, allright?" he asked. Seeing the general assent, he continued. "Notebooks ready? Good. We have two initial tasks, one minor, and one major. The minor one is ourselves. You've all had a chance to see what your quarters and offices need. You'll fix them yourselves. A little more complex is the question of arms, equipment, and uniforms. Uniforms will have to wait. We can't wear them for a while yet. Sorry. For arms, we need enough to defend ourselves against minor threats and possibly to take out a minor target ourselves."

Hennesey addressed Harrington directly. "Greg, I'm going to put you in touch with my brother-in-law. He's ex-PDF; now Public Force. Good kid. Have him put you in touch with a black market supplier. I believe he knows at least one. I want two anti-armor weapons - RPGs, Carl Gustavs, 90mm Recoilless Rifles - I'm not picky. Get us two light machine guns - SAWs or RPKs, it doesn't matter which, and a dozen and a half rifles - AKs or M16s. Make sure that the rifles match the LMGs, whichever you buy. Get starlight scopes for each. Also get four or so pair of night vision goggles. Don't buy Russian for those. I also want two sniper rifles, Dragunov's, M-21s, or even bolt action. Oh, yes, get us a PKM, MAG, or MG3 machine gun. Don't buy an M-60, no matter how cheap it is; the odds or it being just plain worn out are too good to risk. Get a forty-five for each man. If the dealer has silencers for the pistols, get one for each."

"Also, the day after tomorrow I'll give you a check to go to town and get a pickup and three passenger cars. You'll also need to pick up the Mercedes I ordered a few days ago. Task the One shop as needed for drivers.

"When you're downtown it should be possible to buy 23 sets of body armor...hmmmm....make it 24 - get a slender one for Lourdes too. Don't scrimp on those. Get the best available. Gentlemen, give Captain Harrington your sizes before going to sleep tonight.

"Greg, I also want you to look into the possibility of buying a boat, forty or so feet and fast. Don't commit to it yet, though.

"The maid could probably use a washer and dryer as well. See about getting a big freezer for the kitchen. It's got to be cheaper than paying someone to do a daily grocery run the way you fuckers are bound to overeat."

Harrington didn't answer and had no questions. He looked distracted as he scratched notes on a pad.

Hennesey turned to Johnson:

"Terrence, you are tasked to provide two of your people to the University of Panama as technical advisors for a film about the 1989 invasion. Lourdes, you will go with them as translator. Terrence, have them report to a Professor Ruiz. Lourdes knows the building and office. So much for ourselves, for now."

Hennesey began to pace around the room as he spoke to the group as a whole. "The major task, however, is to design an army for Panama for the future. That is what will consume most of our efforts for the next few months. Dan, as chief of staff I want you to direct that. Start with the assumption Panama can raise and sustain a force of about 30,000 regulars and maybe 45,000 reservists. Assume that between Panama and the rest of Latin America we can find as many as 12-15,000 volunteers a year. The reservists are critical because you just can't politically trust professional Latin soldiers. Eventually, given the fantastic degree of governmental corruption, they will overthrow their governments. The reservists are to counter that.

"Among the regulars, assume an expeditionary division of maybe 10-11,000. For now, optimize it for Afghanistan. Assume a mirror force back here in Panama raising and training. Make three reserve combat formations for every regular formation left in country. Design an air and a naval brigade, the air brigade having a composite regiment forward deployed with the expeditionary division. Make a training base and whatever command, control, communications and intelligence apparatus needed for the home based forces. At-home regulars and reservists, as they can be raised, form into two divisions.

"Dan, do the whole Table of Organization: numbers, equipment, ranks, individual gear, et cetera. Maximize ground combat forces. Plan for a very austere logistic and admin tail. Plan for Russian equipment, where it will do. With them having gone about half belly up I think there will be a lot of useful military equipment for sale in the near future for cheaps. Nonetheless, consider a mix of US and NATO equipment for the regular forces, Russian for the reserves."

Kuralski looked up from note taking and asked: "What kind of fire support? What kind of system? Tacfire?"

"No, Dan. How's the quote go: 'Real soldiers don't trust Tacfire.' Number of guns and throw weight are the Third World solution to the artillery battle. And put the forward observers in the combat support/weapons company of the maneuver battalions. I've never liked the idea of people who have to fight together being strangers to one another."

Hennesey continued. "Assume that Panama will never be able to afford a high tech battlefield commo system. No microwaves, few or no frequency hopping radios. Regular radios and wire are what they need."

Kuralski observed, "I'll need a computer to keep track of all of this. It will save months of work."

"Fine. Will a PC do? Okay. Have the log shop get you one, the best available. On second thought, Greg, better make it about six. This isn't our only concern."

Hennesey interjected, "'Dutch' don't worry about NBC beyond individual protective masks, recon, and some decontamination capability. This isn't that kind of country. Worry about training."

"In broad terms, we are going to plan to build a division to help the United States with whatever target the President decides to go against first. I expect to have to call that division a division of military police. Don't let the name fool you. It's to be a combat infantry division, having within it all arms and services. Oh...and deploying to the theater of war, wherever that might be, by the end of March, 2003.

Hennesey paused briefly, then added, "In the back of your minds, I want you to keep the concept of a 'nation in arms'... just in case.

"A last word before we adjourn for the evening. For various reasons I have found it useful to go by my wife's maiden name, 'Carrera'. It's a name of some local importance. It also became one of mine the day I married her. Mostly it will help to allay suspicions about our obviously gringo origin. Force yourselves to think of me that way from now on: Carrera."

Hennesey tossed off a drink, then grinned evilly. "The fucking WOGs are going to remember it, I promise you."

Casa Linda, 5 November

"Sir, there are four Public Force officers and an NCO here to see you." Jamey Soult stood at a respectful attention, a habit Carrera had never succeeded in breaking him of. "Shall I have the rest of the boys stand to?"

"Quietly, Jamey. Have Sergeant Major collect up five or six of them. Silenced pistols. You stay with them. Have them keep out of sight and earshot. I'll call if I need you."

Soult left quickly to summon aid. You people go after the Boss and there'll be hell to pay, I promise.

Carrera calmly walked down the stairs from his office to meet the men who were very likely there to arrest him. Why the hell didn't David let me know this was coming? He should be in a position to know.

When Carrera walked into the living room where the Panamanians sat, he relaxed immediately. They all had the affable look of men with no intention of arresting anyone. They stood up when he entered the room.

Taking the Panamanians in with a single glance, Carrera saw that they were a Major - about as high a rank as existed in the new 'Public Force' that had replaced the PDF, two Captains, a Lieutenant and a Sergeant Major. He knew none of them by sight, however their uniforms all bore name tags that identified them.

The Major's name was Fernandez. He was small, slight, mildly stoop shouldered. He appearance gave no hint of the frightful reputation of which David Carrera had warned.

After shaking hands, Fernandez asked, "Señor, are you the same Carrera that has been supporting the families of those killed in the 1989 Invasion?"

I am."

"May we ask why you are providing for them out of your own pocket?"

"For no reason than that I thought it wrong for the parents, wives, sons, and daughters of brave men to go in want if I could do something about it."

"I see." said the Panamanian Major. "An unusual generosity. You are a NorteAmericano, are you not?"

"I am, though I make my home here."

Fernandez began a staccato interrogation. "Why should you do that? Why should you come here now? What do you intend here? We know that you have a small army here on the premises with you. We also know that you were an American officer; that you lost your family in the World Trade Center. I have investigated. And no, I have not yet informed the government."

Hennesey - no, 'Carrera' now, said simply, "Revenge."

Major Fernandez smiled. "That is a worthy goal; as it was to plant your brother-in-law in my department. However, your brother-in-law is a nice kid but has no business in intelligence...so please get him moved."

"I don't know where else to send him."

"Major Herrera will take him. He said to me, just a few days ago, 'I'm down one platoon leader anyway as soon as I fire the stupid son of a rabiblanco bitch who's wrecking my third platoon now."

The other officers with Fernandez tried to control smiles at this; tried and failed.

Patricio Carrera agreed, "Okay. Fine. David should be glad of the change. I hadn't intended to offend anyone. I just wanted to keep tabs on things."

"You didn't offend me. It is impossible to offend me. Unless you're a Noriega or someone riding on his coattails or some gringo trying to run our country. That would offend me."

"You do not care for your former 'Maximo Jefe'?"

Fernandez gave an evil, angry laugh. "No. Not me. Not my men. Not anyone in my department. Noriega? When the going got tough that cowardly son of a bitch got going."

"Oh. I see your point. Major Fernandez...I will not run out on you. But I will tell you that in the course of avenging myself on the stinking wogs I am going to help make Panama free, really free, for the first time ever. That...and I know what I'm doing."

Carrera paused, then made a decision. "Follow me please. Just you. Say nothing."

With a shrug, Fernandez motioned for his men to remain while he followed Carrera downstairs to the staff room. It was empty at the time, as McNamara and the other on duty were currently upstairs checking pistols and ammunition.

Carrera flicked on a light. Fernandez saw three entire walls each covered with an intricate diagram. Carrera explained, "This is why I'm here. I don't want to 'run your country'. I just want to help it build an army; like any other country has. This is part of that, though it's a long way from complete. Tell me, Major Fernandez, have you ever even been in a real army? No, I thought not. Not your fault. But you do not, cannot, know what goes into creating one? Do you know what schools you need? What equipment? How many spare parts of what type? Ammunition? How much does it all cost? How long will it take to do X? Is Y what you should really be doing?"

"I do know. And I'm here to show you...you and the rest of the old Defense Force."

Fernandez moved closer and looked over one of the diagrams. He noted that there were many blank spaces. This Carrera doesn't have all the answers then. But I didn't even know the questions. He considered this. At length he nodded his head slowly. "Perhaps you do know. Perhaps you do, indeed. How can I help?"

"In many ways, Major. Notably by keeping the government off my ass and out of my business. And by giving me whatever you can to make them support this effort."

"My department can do this."

"Then 'Viva Panama', Major. Will you and your men join me for a drink?"

"Thank you, no. There are some rumors I need to get back to the city to check on."

Interlude:

Bombs went off somewhere overhead, shaking the earth and making the lights flicker from time to time. No matter, the cave was deep and very safe indeed.

Feeling quite safe, Abdul Aziz Ibn Kalb Abdul Kalb still withered under the glare of his chief. Not that the glare was directed at him personally - no, not at all. The glare was directed at a report just received from the organization's cell in, of all places, Panama. Interference on the part of the organization's great adversary had delayed receipt for some time.

"How dare they? How dare they? By the 99 beautiful names of Allah how damned dare they shoot down six of our people? How dare they even think of joining this new 'crusade' against us? Little pissants!"

Aziz forced himself to stand tall and corrected, " 'They' didn't. Just one man shot six Moslems in an outlying town. 'Self defense,' the local police said. Maybe it was too."

"No matter. And then there's this other swine trying to raise political support for aiding the Americans. Well...we shall just have to put a stop to that."

The chief rubbed a thumb against a forefinger nervously. "What cells do we have in Panama?" he asked.

Aziz had an answer ready, of course. He had expected the question. "We have one 'expeditor' cell, one informational cell, three direct action cells and one command cell. 23 people total."

"The direct action cells? What are their missions?"

Again, Aziz had the answers ready to hand. "One of them is trained for ship seizure and pilotage. They were intended to be able to grab a ship and ram the locks of the canal. But it has to be a special ship, one carrying explosives or LNG, to really do damage."

"Any such ship coming through the canal soon?" the chief asked.

"No chief, we really weren't thinking about attacking Panama for a year or two. The other cells are directed at, in the one case, the trans-Isthmian pipeline that sends oil from Alaska to the Caribbean Sea for shipment to the United States' east coast. Heating oil mostly. In the other, they are a bomber unit. Their status report says they are capable of detonating two to four truck bombs."

The chief mulled a bit. "Pipelines and truck bombs. Hmmm...."

Chapter Seven

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? and if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Casa Linda, 21 November

"Don't sweat it, Dan. You and the boys have worked miracles."

Despite the words, Carrera could not keep the disappointment out of his voice. Though it was true; the staff had worked miracles. They knew the required personnel and equipment strength down to the last item. By dint of 16 and 18 hour days they had designed tables of organization and equipment for every required formation. They had devised detailed programs of instruction for officers, senior non-coms, and enlisted men. They had charted out training areas, ranges, and had at least a tentative plan for barracks. They had the sketch of an adequate recruiting organization. Working with Jiminez, Parilla and Fernandez they had the core cadre sketched out as well: mostly good people with only a few politically necessary hacks.

What they could not do was take that cadre of officers and senior non-coms, having only the most limited of combat arms experience, with no background in armored warfare, artillery, combat engineering, chemical warfare, mountain operations, counter-guerilla warfare...complex staff planning, a host of esoteric military skills and attributes, and make them competent overnight.

Apologetically, Kuralski answered, "Three years, Pat...or maybe four at the outside. That we could do ourselves. But not in 18 months. Not in time for the spring, 2002 campaign." Kuralski hesitated, then said, "Pat, outside of a couple of us we do not even speak enough Spanish to train them."

"I understand. Not your fault." Carrera sighed. "Go hit the rack, Dan. Maybe something will turn up."

Carrera closed his eyes and put his head in his hands.

Before leaving, Kuralski turned and said, "Pat, Daugher had a death in his family. He's asked if he can take a couple of weeks leave. Bowman wanted to go with him, said he'd never been to Chicago. Any problem?"

Carrera, despondent, said, "Sure. Let 'em go."

Satisfied, Kuralski left Carrera alone with his troubles.

Lourdes found him there like that, unmoving, head still in his hands. She padded in on bare feet, silently. At least, if Carrera had heard he gave no sign. She thought, how very sad and tired he looks. Poor man.

She reached a hand to pat him lightly on the back. The hand never touched; a bare inch from him she drew it back. He had never invited her to touch him in any way. She didn't feel right doing so now.

Instead, Lourdes backed off, walked around the wooden table and took a chair opposite her boss.

That, Carrera heard. Though his eyes remained closed he recognized her familiar sounds. He said, "Hello, Lourdes. What is keeping you awake so late?"

"Nothing, really," the girl answered. "I came down for a glass of milk and found you here. What's wrong, Patricio?"

Eyes still shut, chin resting on steepled fingers, he answered, "Everything."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Want? No. Need? Maybe so. I am trying to build a force to avenge my family. You know this. We have made some pretty good strides in that regard too. But I have three problems...and they appear insurmountable."

Lourdes made an inquisitive sound. Carrera continued.

"First off, no matter what we have planned, the staff informs me - and I believe them - that there is no way to put a useful force into the war in a timely fashion. 'Three years,' they tell me, 'maybe four.' Then there's Parilla. He thought he could swing the government around to supporting us. He can't. He's pulled every string, called in every favor, and we're still short the votes we need. Lastly, my damned cousin. I could afford to bribe enough politicians if I had control of my Uncle Bob's estate. I do not. Cuz found a lawyer who would...at least I guess he would...support him for an estate fight. So it looks like everything we have done so far is wasted."

Eyes still shut tight Carrera moved his right hand to massage either side of his nose with index finger and thumb.

"It looks pretty hopeless."

Lourdes chewed on her lower lip, thinking. "I can't think of anything to do about the will or the government, Patricio, but...oh what's that word in English?"

"Try Spanish," Carrera suggested.

"No, no," Lourdes insisted. "I don't think we have a similar word. I'll remember it. I'll....outsourcing?"

Carrera's eyes flew wide. The irises swiveled like twin turrets to focus on the girl. "Say that again."

"Outsourcing. You know, where you hire outside..."

"I know what it means." A trace of excitement crept into his voice. "Lourdes, go wake Dan, would you? Then call the airport and get me a flight for Columbus, Georgia. Hmmmm. For the day after tomorrow, I think. Lastly, make me an appointment for tomorrow afternoon with a corporate law firm in Panama City."

Lourdes nodded and got up to go.

"And Lourdes? All my damned geniuses couldn't come up with that trick. Not sure why. Maybe a character flaw. Maybe my character flaw. But you did. Thank you."

Unsure as to quite why, Lourdes felt a bounce in her step and happiness in her heart as she left the kitchen.

Columbus, Georgia, 23 November

"It was good of you to see me, General, on such short notice...and especially right after Thanksgiving."

Major General (retired) Kenneth Abogado merely smiled. He smiled firstly because it pleased him to be remembered as a soldier and as a general officer; not everyone with whom he came in contact had the good manners to do so. He smiled secondly that an offer had been made to him - better said, 'suggested to him' - that might, just might, help him escape from the constant smell of human shit being recycled. Life had been hard for Abogado since leaving the Army - hard, disappointing and, in a sense, degrading.

"My name is Pat Hennesey, though I go by Carrera now. I doubt you remember me, but we have met."

Abogado frowned in concentration. "You had the beautiful wife," he announced, remembering a single dance at a single officers event with the single most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

"Yes. 'Had' is the word," Carrera said bitterly. "In a way that's why I am here."

Abogado started to open a desk drawer, a drawer where he kept a pistol, then remembered he had never even tried to sleep with this man's wife. He closed the drawer and relaxed.

Carrera explained to Abogado, coldly - no tears now, no emotion showing through his armor - what had happened to his family.

"Son, that's is a tough break," was all Abogado could say.

"Very tough," Carrera agreed. "Nor am I going to just take it. But I seem to have hit a wall." In a few sentences he explained what he had done to date in Panama and what he was trying to do.

"But I have a problem, several actually, but only one of which you can help me with."

"Help? How?"

"You are familiar with MPRI and what they do?"

"I know about them," Abogado spat out, his bitterness rivaling that in Carrera's tone a few moments before. "They shut me out. Just shut me out. And me, the best trainer of infantry in the Goddamned Army, too."

"You were very good," Carrera agreed. "Would you like the chance to train soldiers again?"

Ordinarily Abogado would have played a little hard to get, to sweeten the deal whatever it was. However, at about that time the wind outside shifted and an overpowering whiff of recycled and recycling human feces assaulted his nose. "Where do I sign?"

"Not so simple," Carrera cautioned. "You haven't even heard what I need."

"Seemed obvious. You need someone to train and lead an expeditionary force."

Carrera sighed. He hated to disappoint the old man. Yet Abogado was old. He might have been quite something in his younger days. Indeed, he had been quite something. But he could never stand that kind of pace again.

Carrera sighed and shook his head again. "No, sir. We have a commander already. And a deputy. And a staff. What I need is a school. You have done that, and done it remarkable well. That's why I am here; to offer to let you do so again."

Abogado kept the disappointment off of his face and out of his voice. Yet, I am not too old, a part of his mind insisted. I am not!

"Details?" he asked.

"In the big picture," Carrera went on, "I am having a lawyer down there form a corporation. It will be called...oh....FMTGRP - 'Foreign Military Training Group, Republic of Panama.' Inc., of course. Rather 'S.A.' Means the same thing, basically."

"If you accept my offer the day to day running of this corporation will be yours, within certain guidelines my people in Panama are working on."

"And this corporation is to do precisely what?"

"Well, I am willing to listen to reason on this but basically I need a group to train officers. I need one shortened Command and General Staff College course for about 100 officers. Then I need that CGSC to morph itself into a general purpose, all arms advanced course for another hundred. Then I need it to morph again into a combined Officer Candidate School and Infantry Officer Basic Course. I'll need one each CGSC and Advanced Course class, two OCS classes. Lastly, this group is to change back into a small CGSC, a small Advanced Course, and a continuing OCS."

"Clear enough. I would need maybe 20...oh, possibly 24 good men for that. I could find them, I think."

Carrera nodded. This was close enough to his own estimate. "Secondly, I need a Non-commissioned Officers Academy. We will need to take Senior NCOs and bring them into the real military world, take middle and junior NCOs and prep them to be platoon leaders and platoon sergeants..."

Abogado interrupted, "you mean send them to OCS?"

Carrera shook his head in an emphatic 'no'. "They'll need much of the same training, yes, but I intend to follow the German model in this and keep a very small officer corps, about 3 percent of strength. Most platoons will be led by NCOs. Anyway, call this Group Two of FMTG; the officer group being Group One."

"Then I need something like Ranger School; call it 'Cazador School' to take the best of new privates and select from them those who have that...oh...certain something that makes for a good officer or a great Senior NCO."

"The last groups are a little fuzzy right now. My staff is still working on requirements. Basically, though, we'll need a small version of the NTC...rather the JRTC, to test my battalions, a service support training group that will also train specialist warrant officers, a flight school for both helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, and you will need a small headquarters yourself."

Abogado whistled. "Tall order."

"Yes. Very. Can you do it?" Carrera asked.

The old general raised one quizzical eyebrow. "Can you fund it?"

"Not yet. Part of it, yes. Not all. That must await developments."

"You mean, 'Don't quit my day job, right?" Abogado's voice was heavy with disappointment.

Carrera pondered for a moment. "No. Quit your day job. Get away from the smell of shit and come back to the land of flowers. You, at least, I can support for a term of years."

"Let me make a few calls, first. Is that all right?"

"Surely, General. But, to be fair, I ought to tell you I have appointments over the next two days with General's Schneider and Josephson."

Abogado scowled. "Cancel 'em. I'll take the job. By the way, what does it pay?"

Carrera smiled broadly. "Enough."

New York, 23 November

"I have had about enough of this place," announced Bowman. Daugher whispered agreement under his breath.

Daugher and Bowman hated the city, hated the stink, hated the noise. They hated the silly disguises they felt called upon to wear - yuppie glasses and false mustaches, a slight amount of stage makeup, and practiced walks. Likewise they hated Hennesey's little fairy cousin for putting in jeopardy their own best hopes for the life they wanted to lead.

(For they still could not think of him as Carrera. For too many years had he been 'that motherfucker, Hennesey' to them for them to change easily.)

They were following Sidney now. He hadn't been hard to find and he was not hard to follow as he walked from his Greenwich Village apartment to some unknown destination. Though the streets were dark, there was enough light to make out Sidney's little sachet.

"Pitiful little faggot," announced Bowman.

"Not quite as pitiful as he is going to be," corrected Daugher.

They almost lost Sidney when he turned a street corner. Racing to catch up they saw no sign of him when they had made the same corner. Music blasted from somewhere. The two raced to the next corner. Nothing, no sign.

"Shit!" said Bowman. "Lost the little mincer."

The two turned back the way they had come from, frustration seething within them. After a few minutes walk, Daugher tapped Bowman on the shoulder before pointing upward to the opposite side of the street.

"The Peeled Banana?" Bowman could hardly believe it. "You think?"

"I think it's worth looking," said Daugher.

Bowman shrugged, "Maybe so. After you."

With a similar shrug Daugher led the way. The interior was not so bad. Oh yes, it was full of more homosexuals than Daugher had seen since being let out of prison on a false, and later overturned, conviction for murder. But they seemed not the terribly aggressive type. He began to relax...slightly. The he saw two men, neither of them Sidney, kissing in a corner and a flood of unpleasant memories returned.

"I hate queers," he whispered too softly to hear.

Daugher and Bowman went to an open spot at the bar, one where they could see the - no pun intended - comings and goings of the clientele. There they sat, nursing their drinks and avoiding mixing, for nigh upon two hours.

"Not a sign," observed Daugher. "Might as well hit the road; try again tomorrow."

Bowman nodded agreement, then said he had to visit the men's room. Daugher thought about counseling against that, then thought the joke was too good to spoil.

Thus it was a very surprised Bowman who entered the men's room and saw a kneeling Sidney, servicing what was almost certainly a very new acquaintance. Ignoring his intended victim, Bowman did his business and left. Before he left, however, he had cause to note a window, about head-high, that ventilated the men's room.

"Bastard's in there," he told Daugher. "Little fairy is blowing somebody."

"Then he's been in there since we arrived," whispered Daugher. "Must be 'ladies night out'. Anyone else inside?"

"Just the blowee."

Daugher did a few quick mental calculations. "Ok...you can't go in there again. That might draw suspicion. I'll wait until the guy with him comes out, do the job, stuff him out the window and come back. Then we can leave."

Sidney, apparently, either had great talent for the enterprise in which he was engaged or lacked any at all. It was quite some time before the man Bowman had seen with him emerged. By that time another had gone in and stayed. Then another. It was past ten PM before they knew Sidney was alone.

"And....we're off," Daugher whispered, tapping his fingers on the bar.

"Oh, aren't you a big one," Sidney observed as Daugher undid himself to urinate in the trough. "Want me to take care of that for you."

"Sure, brother," Daugher agreed as he turned around.

The last thing Sidney ever felt was the blow from above that rendered him unconscious. He never felt the cool water of the toilet that flooded around his face. He had no sense of the arms that held his head and body down against his own unconscious thrashing. He was oblivious to the water flooding his lungs, as he was oblivious to the strength that picked him up and twisted him around after the bubbles had stopped coming up around his face. He never felt the hands that gripped shoulder and chin and twisted his neck in a way human necks were not intended to go. He never heard the crack of his neck breaking. When his wallet was removed from a back pocket - Well, thought Daugher, there needs to be some better motive for the killing - Sidney's body was already beginning to cool. He was thus spared the embarrassment of shit filling his trousers. Likewise he never knew that his bladder had let go. He felt neither the scrapping as he was lifted up and pushed out of the small ventilation window nor the noisy impact on the trash cans below that window.

Daugher left an empty men's room behind him.

"Done?" Bowman asked.

"Very done."

New York, 27 November

Lourdes had passed on the news when Carrera had called in to the Casa Linda from his hotel in Columbus. He was shocked, at first. Then secretly pleased. Than swallowed with guilt at the feeling. Try as he might, he had not been able to shake that feeling of satisfaction at Sidney's most timely demise. His shame grew with that failure, warring with his joy.

Having flown up for the funeral, Pat had listened patiently to the Jewish branch of the family's rabbi droning on and on about Sidney's many virtues; his love of animals, his support for equal rights, his staunch activism. All true enough, I suppose. Funny though how the rabbi ignored his inveterate love for cock. Killed him, too, in the end. Good riddance.

Now, standing in bright winter sunshine at the graveside, with Sidney's heart-broken mother weeping into her third husband's arms... Aunt Sarah was always good to me. Always. Too bad she has to suffer. She deserves better.

Cousin Annie, smelling more than a little of strong drink, leaned against Pat Hennesey for support. His arm helped support her as she shook with great shuddering sobs. She whispered, over and over, "Poor Sidney. Oh the terrible things I have said to him."

Neither she, nor any of the family, even knew to think of him as a 'Carrera.' He did not think it useful to enlighten them, either.

As the funeral began to break up, Pat half carried Annie to Aunt Sarah's side. The two women fell upon each other with weeping. Pat and Sarah's current husband held back.

Finally, Annie backed off and Pat took Sarah in his arms, cradling her aged head with one hand. "I am sorry," he whispered to her. "For you, I am sorry. I know what it's like."