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Valentine recognized the grip; he'd been in it often enough. Patel had been the Second Wolf Regiment's premier wrestler for three years running. Valentine had once seen his new sergeant major dislocate a horse rustler's shoulder when he didn't like the tone of his answers under questioning.
Valentine turned up the radio. "Give him something to think about, Sergeant Major."
"Hel-" Petrie began to shout.
It was a tight fit, with the three of them behind Petrie's desk, Valentine keeping Petrie's mouth shut with a stiff-arm.
Petrie finally gave, his muscles turning from wood to oatmeal.
"We're going to take care of three pieces of business this morning, Petrie," Valentine said, wiping his bleeding nose and flicking the blood onto Petrie. "First, you're going to fill out a hundred releases for me with the names blank. Second, you're going to do whatever paperwork needs to be done for your central office. Patel and I both know how to write and type. We can do either to give you a hand. We'll even send out for sandwiches on my tab and have a working lunch. When I'm satisfied, we're going to write out your resignation from ISO.
You can tell your uncle you got sick of rice.
"One slipup, one bit of paperwork slowed up, one questioning telegram-and you're going to jail, Petrie. I'd better see a postcard from whatever sinecure your uncle finds you. Yes?"
He removed his hand from Petrie's mouth.
"They're Quislings," Petrie said.
"That wasn't a yes. Dislocate his shoulder whenever you like, Patel."
"Who cares if they get squeezed? They've done plenty of squeezing across the river, believe you me."
"That's in the past."
"You're assaulting an ISO officer. You'll wind up-"
Valentine heard-and felt-the pop of Petrie's shoulder.
"Arrrrgh-" Petrie grunted, sagging. Patel shoved him back into his chair, his arm hanging.
"I didn't think you'd do it," Petrie said softly, his face white with pain.
"A dislocation's easy to fix," Valentine said. "Petrie! Keep your hand away from that phone.
Broken fingers are a bitch while they heal."
"I could pop his jaw," Patel said, gripping either side of Petrie's head. "That'll cut his talking down to lOw.' "
Valentine let Petrie catch his breath.
"So, Marshal, have we reached a deeper understanding? You've got three more limbs. I don't want have to leave you in a bathtub full of ice without any of them working, but I will."
"You can have 'em," Petrie said. "Hope one of them rolls a grenade into your tent for me.
That's all the thanks you'll get from those mooks."
"You're a mean, stubborn bastard, Petrie," Valentine said. "If your uncle can't find anything for you, you're welcome to join my outfit."
Liberty, November: The word "camp" implies a certain bucolic simplicity, but Camp Liberty is anything but. It is in fact a small town once named Stuttgart: "The Rice and Duck Capital of the World."
A few old-timers remain in town, "making do" as the locals say with the constant influx and outflow of people picked up from the banks of the Mississippi. Everything from exhausted, half-starved families to rogue river patrol units who beached their boat and ran for it are funneled into Liberty.
The former Camp Liberty, which stood just south of town, headquartered at the old high school just off Route 79, was destroyed during Solon's takeover. Much of Stuttgart's housing was demolished and populace was herded into "temporaries"-prefabricated homes designed for easier concentration of a populace, a Kurian specialty. Solon had great plans for the rice-growing region, and construction materials were hauled in for apartment buildings, a New Universal Church Community Apex, even a theater. When Solon's Trans-Missippi order collapsed, most of the residents fled the wire-bordered housing, happy to abandon the roof over their heads for wider horizons.
Southern Command was not about to let the construction gear, raw materials, and prefabricated housing go to waste, so Stuttgart became the new Camp Liberty and work began on a new hospital, training and orientation center, and combined primary I secondary school for children who escaped the KZ with their parents.
Meanwhile, their elders were put to work in the rice mills, when they weren't attending class to acclimate them to life in tougher, but freer, lands.
