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General Martinez.
The man who'd executed two of his Grogs, and would have killed Ahn-Kha right before Valentine's eyes, was the second-highest-ranking officer gathered at the ceremony, subordinate only to MacCallister, who'd supervised the drive on Dallas-Fort Worth. Valentine knew that he held some rear-area post as a reward for his resistance-such as it was-during Solon's brief reign over the Ozarks.
Old and very bad blood linked Valentine and Martinez. In the crowning irony, Valentine's whole rising in Little Rock and his defense of Big Rock Mountain had taken place under Martinez's command. But only technically; Martinez hadn't moved a man to his assistance when he was most needed.
There were salutes, and when the salutes were done, handshakes.
"Congratulations on your staff appointment, Major Valentine," MacCallister said from beneath a white mustache that mostly hid a missing incisor when he spoke.
"Richly deserved," Meadows put in.
They sidestepped.
Valentine gave Martinez a formal salute, returned equally formally.
"General," Valentine said.
"Major," General Martinez returned. He still looked like a turtle, even in his green-and-brown dress uniform. He didn't offer his hand.
Meadows led Valentine to a chair behind and to the right of the generals. He passed Valentine the Razors' flag.
"You deserve this more than anyone," Meadows said quietly. "They always were yours."
"Co-"
"Shut up, Major. That's an order."
MacCallister said a few words thanking the men for their bravery, devotion, and sacrifice. He read out the Razors' list of regimental achievements and citations, and explained that skilled men were desperately needed elsewhere, and it was his sad duty to order the dissolution of the battered regiment.
"A grateful Free Republic thanks you," General MacCallister said as he dismissed the men. Evidently progress had been made in the governance of the bits of four states that comprised the Freehold.
The soldiers had heard it all before. All of them knew about the Claw, and that the Claw couldn't be questioned. Even if they didn't call it that.
When it was done Valentine was expected at a late lunch with the generals. But there was something he had to do first. He went over to the line of wounded and spoke to each one. He ended at Post's elevated bed. Post looked better by exponents.
"Which nurse did you end up with?" Valentine asked.
"Which didn't he?" one of the men snickered.
"Sort of all of them and none of them, if you follow me, Dave," Post said.
Valentine handed him the folded flag. "I want you to hang onto this until you're better and we link up again."
"Hear you're going to be kind of busy on staff training. Maybe the higher-ups aren't nuts after all." As executive officer for the Razors, Post had spent endless hours in the Byzantine bowels of Southern Command procedures, trying to keep the Razors better supplied and better equipped than a half-forgotten rear-area reserve. "But why me? It's Meadows' flag."
"It's our flag," he said, and hoped Duvalier was lurking somewhere near-perhaps beneath the bandstand. "You're keeping it until I come back from leave. There's a few questions to be asked and a promise to keep."
Post's smile matched the Texas sun in brightness, and exceeded it in size.
"Thank you, sir."
The Ark, Pine Bluff, Arkansas: Southern Command collapsed when Solon arrived, not in panic, but in a controlled implosion more reminiscent of a carefully demolished high-rise than a chaotic rout.
Stockpiles of foods, medicines, and especially weapons disappeared into predug and camouflaged caverns. Where caverns weren't available, basements sufficed. One of the most important of the Eastern Arkansas caches resided at SEARK-the Southeastern Arkansas College. Southern Command had several important facilities around Pine Bluff, including the main docks on the lower Arkansas, the old arsenal that produced munitions for the Freehold, the war college at the old University of Arkansas (an agricultural and technical university taught civilians on the same campus) and, in a nondescript building at the edge of campus, a group of scientists devoted to researching the Kurians, known by a few as "the Miskatonic." From machine tools to research archives, key resources were concealed on the overgrown campus of SEARK, or "the Ark." A whole greenhouse on the campus existed just to shelter plant growth that would be used to cover entrances to underground warehouses, and the more burned-out and disused a classroom building looked, the more likely it was that explosives could be found stored in the rusty darkness of the basement.
The Ark deception worked in Pine Bluff. Southern Command, in abandoning the arsenal, blew up piles of junk to make it look as though machinery was destroyed rather than hidden. The Miskatonic turned piles of old phone books into fine white ash in a bonfire outside the institute.
Pine Bluff, in the year after Solon's rule, is only a shadow of the lively riverfront town, with its markets and stores, blacksmiths and seamstresses. Some of the population still wears the dull yellows and oranges of Solon s Trans-Mississippi Confederation, others go about like hungry beggars as they lookfor lost friends and loved ones, searching for familiar faces from the shops and docks.
