Caliphate

Chapter Fourteen

Honsvang, Province of Baya, 16 Muharram,

1538 AH (27 October, 2113)

"Merry fucking Christmas!" Hamilton exclaimed at the display of chemical and metal deadliness laid out in the sitting room of his suite. Hans hadn't stopped with the single submachine gun and two pistols he'd mentioned to Sig, the armorer. "If we hadn't arranged for maid service to be cancelled, we'd be fucked."

"Not really," Bernie corrected. "All this will fit in the lockable armoires. I just wanted to do an inventory."

"Oh."

"Nerve agent antidote?" Bernie asked.

"Two containers of three each," Hans answered, pointing to a bed.

"What do you need NAA for?" Hamilton.

"Incapacitate people we don't want to kill," Hans answered.

"Fair enough," Hamilton agreed. "What about the mines?"

"Rather than wait, I buried a dozen of them near the road to afFridhav, last night," Hans answered. "Along with five hundred meters of det cord, two detonators, wire, etc. All we have to do is dig them up and emplace them. Well, and arm them, too, of course."

"Night vision goggles?" Bernie asked.

"Four pair," Hans answered.

"Where the hell did you get this much firepower?" Hamilton asked. "How the hell did you get suppressors, for God's sake?"

Hans explained, "We don't have much in the way of gun control for Moslems within Islamic lands. You go in, show an ID, give the man money and he gives you the weapons. It's not hard."

Hamilton, coming from a country where the Second Amendment was pretty much a dead letter, was surprised.

"You never can tell what they'll leave out of an intelligence briefing," Bernie said. "Body armor?" he asked of Hans.

"I was only able to get one other set besides my own," the janissary apologized. "Sorry."

"No problem; we'll make do."

Petra was there, though Ling was back at the brothel. There were two busloads of tourists from the province of al-Andalus so she'd be busy for a couple of days. Hans tried, not always with success, not to let it bother him.

"When are you going to teach me about the mines?" Petra asked.

"Nothing to teach, really," Hans said with a shrug. "We'll set them up and mark off when you should detonate, if you have to. For the rest… well… hold up your hand."

Petra did. Hans then put up one hand with two fingers, index and middle, forming a V.

"Squeeze those together." When she did, easily, he said, "Release them and do it again." She did. "There's no more to it than that," he finished.

"That's it? I squeeze something and a couple of hundred men who've never, so far as I know, done me any harm just die?"

"They probably won't all die," Hans answered. "A lot of them will just be really badly hurt. You're going to hear some awful things. Can you deal with that, sister?"

Petra sighed, thought about it for long silent minutes, then answered. "In the basement of Castle Noisvastei there are several dozen women without brains, or at least without full brains. They're chippies like Ling and Bernard… but not like them either. These women have chips that make them simple fuck-machines.

"In the other castle are two hundred children, no worse than… as innocent as… I was, who are going to be infected with a disease to see if it works to kill them.

"Back home… near home, rather, there's a Moslem girl who's my best friend in life… and she's nearly as much a slave as I am.

"So yes; if I have to kill a couple of hundred men who've never done me any harm to help bring this rotten society down… I can do it."

"That's my girl," said Hans. "Tomorrow, we go to teach you how to use a submachine gun… and to familiarize Bernie and John with the ones we use here."

Actually, thought Hamilton, if I can arrange it and we succeed in getting her out of here, that's my girl.

Both Bernie and Petra were asleep as Hans and Hamilton made plans for the assault.

Hans explained the security arrangements. "There are five barracks rooms, one per guard platoon and one for the headquarters. Each is maybe twelve hundred cubic meters… here, here, here, here, and here." His finger pointed in turn to five large spaces, apparently added on to the castle's exterior, on the diagram of the ground floor of the castle he'd drawn up earlier. "One platoon of about forty-five is assigned to each. One of those rooms will be empty on any given day. In addition, on the second floor are rooms for some of the senior noncoms."

His finger touched down lightly at various spots around the perimeter drawn on the diagram. He said, "There are usually fourteen or fifteen guards on duty around the perimeter at any given time. In addition, the platoon headquarters and the two squads from that platoon not on the perimeter will be down in the command post, what we call the 'ready room,' in the basement. That's also where the security cameras feed to. The ready room is capable of alerting the perimeter guards, the barracks rooms, and the noncom rooms with the push of a button. The perimeter can likewise alert the ready room."

"The children?" Hamilton asked.

Hans flipped a page in the notebook and pointed again. "Here, just off the laboratory and the crematorium."

"I don't see any way to do it," said Hamilton. "We take out the perimeter guards and the ready room alerts as soon as one of them fails to answer… assuming we even could take out the perimeter guards. We take out the ready room and the perimeter guards alert as soon as one of them reports in and no one answers. We take out the barracks that are full first and the noncoms and headquarters alert the ready room."

"I was thinking timers on the cyanide but-"

"-but that means they have to be emplaced early. Can't you just imagine it: every room gets its own suspicious looking jar within a jar with a sign on it saying 'Warning: don't jostle. Cyanide within.' Hmmm… maybe we're going about it all wrong. Maybe the trick isn't to kill them inside the castle. Maybe the trick is to get them to go outside the castle and… oh, that won't work, will it?"

"No," Hans shook his head. "We still have to get the children out. Even if Ling under her controller can hold the thing steady against the wind, with a ramp from the ship to the battlements, she can't do it while two hundred men are shooting at her unarmored airship."

"I had another idea I've been considering… it's not a war-winner but it might help."

Hamilton raised one quizzical eyebrow.

"It depends on the fact that I'm new, fresh out of school, an honor graduate and therefore an unknown quantity but quite possibly a fanatic," Hans began. "I can get away with a lot of simple weirdness and harsh or unusually kind behavior for a while without exciting any more commentary than troops usually have for the new boss."

"What's that get you?"

"Well… suppose I start tiring the janissaries out so they sleep like rocks. That makes it easier to get the cyanide into their rooms without causing a fuss, right?"

"It would," Hamilton agreed.

"And suppose that within the overall program of tiring them out, there's a reward for the platoon that does the best… a reward of, say, a night at our favorite local brothel. That cuts out one guard platoon of four."

"Helps… but what about the noncoms?"

"Can't send troops to have fun without supervision," Hans said. "Got to be a regulation against it… somewhere."

Hamilton chuckled.

"What's so funny?"

"You remind me of my first commander when I was in the Army. He was a dick, too, but he usually had reasons for what he did, reasons he would almost never let you in on unless you had to know."

"Oh. Okay… so how does it work out if we do this?"

Hamilton thought about that. "All right… assume that two barracks and the noncom's rooms are empty, one from the duty platoon in the ready room and one at the brothel. One of us takes two rooms, the other takes one. We go in, open the jars, pour the acid and get the hell out, quick, closing the doors behind us. Then the one who took out only one room-you, I think-goes to the ready room. I go outside. Then… ah, vug." Hamilton paused. "We're still stuck. In communication or not, there's no good way for you to kill twentyeight men single-handed, while I try to off another fourteen or fifteen one or two at a time. Someone, somewhere in there, is going to notice. Is there anyway to cut off communications between the perimeter guards and the ready room?"

"No… it's wireless. Even the cameras are wireless," Hans said.

"Shit. This is a job for a company, better still a battalion, of Rangers in Exo suits… not for two men."

"That's not true," Hans said. "Your Ranger company, or battalion, would be so noticeable that there would be a division here guarding the place."

"Yeah," Hamilton conceded. "Maybe so. Shit. Oh, well, it's not like we could get that company or battalion if we asked. And we're still fucked."

"Hard. No grease," agreed Hans. "I'm out of ideas."

There was something Hans had said earlier nagging at Hamilton's mind. Something about…

"I know how, maybe. It's a long shot but it might work. It's not going to be subtle, mind you. And it will still require some timing… and that you send a platoon plus to the brothel."

"Now didn't you say that the perimeter mines are command armed and optionally command detonated?"

The next day Hans directed Bernie in how to drive the other three conspirators to a secluded valley he'd found, about three miles to the east of Honsvang and slightly to the south. Hans met them there in a janissary issue truck. He'd brought along the weapons and enough ammunition for a fair degree of familiarization practice. The valley was too close to civilization, still, to fire without the silencers.

Looking at the pistol Hans had bought for her, Ling demurred. "My controller will know how to use the weapon," she said. "And far better than you could teach me. After all, China made it."

"It still needs to be test-fired," Bernie said.

"Not really," said Hans. "I did that at the weapons house where I bought them. It was funny, too, the way the owner's assistant looked at me when I insisted."

"Why funny?" asked Hamilton.

"People here… most Moslems, anyway, don't test much. Or maintain much. Or train much. If Allah wants something to work, it will. If he doesn't, it won't. And nothing any human being does or fails to do will make the slightest difference."

"That's bizarre," Hamilton said.

"Yes," Hans agreed, nodding seriously. "Most of the people aren't even aware that they think like that, they just act that way naturally. It's one reason why the janissaries are so important to the Caliphate. We weren't brought up to think that way and by the time they gather us it's too late for us to change. So we do test and we do maintain and we do act as if God helps those who help themselves, impious though the thought may be.

"Anyway, Ling, if you don't want to shoot you can load magazines."

Matheson and Hamilton loaded their own, while Hamilton and Hans loaded half a dozen submachine gun magazines for Petra. She was not a natural, a half dozen magazines were not enough.

After Matheson was satisfied that he had the measure of his pistol, he moved off to one side and broke it down to clean and oil it. Meanwhile, Hans and Hamilton took turns working with Petra while Ling kept reloading. After perhaps a thousand rounds, they'd gotten Petra to the point where she could hit a man-sized target at twentyfive meters, with at least one round of a three-round burst, about six times in ten. At that level she stuck, though, so much so that neither thought there would be much benefit in keeping at it.

"And besides," said Hans, "the sun is going down soon. It may be that no one can hear us shooting; but they may still see the muzzle flash if we keep it up."

"Right," Bernie agreed.

"He's… going to… fucking… kill… us," grunted one janissary to another as Hans led all but one platoon of the company through the ninth mile of a twelve-mile run. The troops' feet and knees shrieked in protest. Air heated by exertion formed little frosted cones in front of their faces. It was too dark to see that, of course.

The run had led over hill and dale, which is to say up sheer-sided mountain and down again, for over an hour so far. From the open area in front of Castle Honsvang, he'd led them down to and around the town, then up to Castle Noisvastei and back down again, over the bridge to the town of af-Fuss, to Walnhov, and with many a twist and turn thrown in for good measure. And the young commander showed no signs of flagging, still.

Behind the formation, cursing the fate that had delivered him into the hands of an outright lunatic of an odabasi, the baseski, or first sergeant, pushed from behind to ensure that none of the older or weaker men fell out. Hans had left the idiot bayraktar behind, responsible for security in his absence.

Finally, Hans pulled up in front of Castle Honsvang and ordered a halt.

" Baseski!" he called, at which command the senior noncom marched up to report.

"Take charge of the company. All except the alert platoon: breakfast, showers, full marching packs, weapons, basic load of ammunition, here, in one hour."

"Sir!"

What an asshole.

While his baseski ran the troops through their paces, Hans walked briskly to his own quarters. On his way, he passed one of the American renegades, the one he remembered as Meara. The grossly fat bastard was leading a nine-year-old brown-skinned boy, presumably his bed partner of the night before, by a leash, in the direction of the experimental slave pens. The child was crying.

Hans kept his face a mask, nodding no more than politely. Even so, he vowed inside, You will be punished for this, swine. He wondered why the filth didn't recognize him from the resemblance to his sister, then decided that the fat bastard was so self-centered he was incapable of recognizing most other people as human beings, let alone seeing familial relations by facial features.

Claude O. Meara removed the leash and pushed the boy into the pen with the rest of the experimental animals. A girl of perhaps eleven met the boy with open arms, glaring her hatred at Meara from over the boy's shoulder. Meara sneered and locked the heavy door, turning away to walk to the main lab.

There he found Guillaume Sands busily at work at his desk, manipulating a diagram of the true VA5H virus shown on a computer screen.

"Morning, Will," said Meara. "Any progress?"

Sands shook his head. "A little, not much."

"How soon before we're ready for more live tests?"

"Maybe ten days," Sands shrugged. "Maybe a little less."

"We're down to just the new batch, you know," Meara said, pointing generally at the crematorium and the pens.

Sands shrugged. Unlike Meara, he had no sexual use for children. Also unlike Meara, he took no particular joy in watching the victims die slowly. At least, unlike Meara, Sands never pulled up a chair to enjoy the sight of their suffering and death through the viewport. He didn't care that they did, either, of course. If a few people had to die so that that construct of utter evil, the American Empire, died as well… well, so be it.

Honsvang, Province of Baya, 19 Muharram,

1538 AH (30 October, 2113)

Hans looked half dead.

"This isn't going to work," said Matheson. "Your idea of wearing the troops out to make our way easier is a good one. Unfortunately, it's also wearing you out, so badly that you're not going to be much use to either of us when the time comes. And if you take a break a couple of days before, so will the troops. Worse, you're wearing yourself out faster than you are them because you are, so to speak, working two jobs."

"But what can I do?" Hans asked desperately. "Both things are necessary."

Matheson sighed. He'd seen so many new officers like this. Hell, he'd been just like this at one time. Still, he was an old hand. His job had once been to mold young officers. That Hans was a member of an enemy army didn't change that.

"You've got to learn to delegate, young odabasi. You have a senior noncom, do you not?"

"Yes."

"Can he be trusted to lead some of the training?"

"Probably. The colonel says he's quite good. I haven't had a chance to see it yet."

"Then have him do so. You have an executive officer, don't you?"

"Yes, but he's an idiot," Hans said.

"All second lieutenants are idiots," said Matheson. "They become better through experience. Is he an idiot without energy?"

"Well… no. He seems more confused than lazy."

"Then unconfuse him. Give him some missions to accomplish on his own. Meanwhile, you sit in the ready room and watch the cameras. Snooze. Relax."

"I'll… try," said Hans, dubiously. "But I'll still have two jobs and only one me. I'm still going to be tired, if maybe a little less so."

"For normal fatigue," said Bernie, "up to a point, we have pills."

Honsvang, Province of Baya, 22 Muharram,

1538 AH (2 November, 2113)

Hans was at Castle Honsvang, resting, it was devoutly to be hoped. Matheson and Ling had left this morning for am-Munch, Matheson taking the methane-powered car with him.

This left Hamilton and Petra alone. He still "owned" her for a few more days, and Latif still had his deposit against her return. With the mission upcoming and, in Hamilton's opinion, the really excellent chance that within a few days they'd all be dead, there was no question of, and less motivation for, sex.

And besides, thought Hamilton, lovely as she is, I haven't the first clue as to whether she's been doing it because she wants to, really, or because it's the only job she knows.

"Petra," he asked, "if we survive… make it through, what do you want to do with your life?"

I can't tell him I want to spend it with him, she thought. In the first place, it's ridiculous. He's an important man and I'm just a houri, defiled and defiling. He could never stay with me or want me with him permanently. What do I tell him?

Instead of telling, she asked, "What could I do? I can read but that's small beans in your world where all women can read. I know nothing but my… profession and that I would like to give up if I can."

"Well… of course you can," he said. "We have prostitutes where I come from but prostitution itself is illegal. They have even less of a position in my homeland than they do here. School? You can read, that's quite a bit. Would you like to go back to school?"

"Can you imagine me, at seventeen, sitting down at a desk too small, with my knees under my chin and surrounded by seven-yearolds?"

That was a funny image. Even so, he answered it seriously. "Maybe not in a regular classroom, no. How about if we hired a tutor for you?"

"I own nothing," she said. "Well… a little money I've saved hoping to buy myself back from Latif. But that's not enough for a tutor. Besides, I'll have to leave it behind. Asking for it would be too suspicious."

"I have money," he said. "Certainly enough for that. And there are programs, too, that help pay for such things. And my agency is going to owe you big if we pull this off." Of course, if we don't, and the disease is released, we're all going to be dead. So the agency and the country will owe you massively.

"Why should you pay for me?"

Because I think I'm in love with you? No, mustn't say that. How about, "Because we're comrades in arms? Because we're friends? Because it's the right thing to do?"

She thought about that for a while. Instead of answering, though, she admitted, "I'm terrified, you know. I might have talked big about striking a blow against this rotten system. But I'm scared to death. Do you know what they'll do to me if they catch me? My brother told me. They'll nail me to a wooden cross and leave me hanging there in agony for days. He's seen it. He's had to do it. Then, when they've extracted the last bit of pain they can from me they'll come with big iron bars and smash my legs so I hangthereuntilIsuffocate." Her voice grew high and a little shrill on the last few, jumbled, half-hysterical words of the last sentence. She really was terrified, he could see, and had been hiding it.

"I won't let that happen," he said. "Whatever the cost."

"If it happens, you'll probably be there on the cross next to mine." She bent her head as her shoulders began to shake.

He took her head in his hands and lifted it up to face him. There were tears gathering in her eyes, he could see.

" I won't let it happen, " he promised, again. "If it gets that bad, well, they won't take either of us alive."

"You swear to it?"

"I swear."

"I've got to tell you something," Hamilton said. "I loved a girl once. She was a lot like you in looks, though, honestly, she was just pretty where you're really beautiful. She had all the advantages you never did. But she wasn't spoiled by it. She was very brave right to the end."

"The end?" Petra asked.

"We were in the Army together. Her platoon was ambushed. I couldn't get to her in time. She was killed. In the end, rather than let herself be captured she asked for fire to come in on herself."

"What was her name?"

"Laura… Laurie Hodge. I took it really hard for a long time. I suppose that's why I got out of the Army; it just reminded me every day that I'd failed her, a woman I loved."

Hamilton's face grew very serious. "But I won't fail you. I couldn't live with myself if I did."

And that was as close as he could come to telling Petra that he loved her.

Interlude

Nuremberg, Federal Republic of Germany,

11 September, 2015

The city was a better place for an artist than Kitzingen had been. This was true not only in the scenes and people there were to be drawn or painted, but in the ability to sell her work as well. There was more for Amal, as well; more culture, especially. This had figured into Gabrielle's decision to relocate a few years earlier, too.

Then, too, the EU was still growing jobs almost entirely in the public sector. With the country graying, young people leaving, and fewer paying taxes, Gabi needed the improved sales. Worse, given a choice between keeping up welfare payments and reducing the size of the bureaucracy, Europe had no choice. She was incapable of reducing either the number or the living standards of the bureaucrats. Indeed, she could not only not reduce, she had to expand. The bureaucrats were her most important supporters.

Mahmoud helped. He'd still not given up on getting Gabi and Amal to the United States. He called from Boston at least weekly and at least half of any given conversation was, subtly or openly, about just that. He was, in fact, nagging Gabi at the precise moment that the phone screeched and then went dead.

"Mommy," Amal called from the living room of their small apartment. "Mommy… something on television… something bad."

Gabi stood facing the television, tears coursing down her face and her little fist wedged between clenching teeth. The screen was split in three, each section showing a mushroom cloud over an American city. One of those cities was Boston and she knew now why the phone had shrieked and died.

The commentators were all as shocked as Gabi. People were bandying about inconceivable numbers of dead and dying. The bombs were apparently very old technology, very primitive, very powerful, and highly radioactive. Four million dead seemed likely, as each city had been caught during the work day, when the offices and buildings were most full.

Thank God, Gabi thought, even through her tears, her loss, and her pain, thank God I didn't take Amal there. Then, realizing what she'd been thinking, she amended, Thank fate, in any case.

Everyone was sure the United States would retaliate in some heavyhanded, murderous fashion. Thus, Gabi's art took a back seat for a while to her demonstrating, with other fair-minded people, against any such thing. Amal in tow, she was to be seen in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Munich. Wherever there was a gathering to remind the United States of its own responsibility for what had been done to it, there she was.

Nor was her voice subdued. Almost uniquely, she could point to Amal and say, "This baby lost a father and she is not crying out for a mindless vengeance." That voice could claim as well, "I lost my lover and I am not crying out for vengeance."

For a while, even, Gabi was something of a star. That stardom lasted until, eventually, everyone realized that the United States was not going to continue the game of mindless retribution, of the "eye for an eye" that left everyone blinded.

And after all, as the President of the United States said, "The perpetrators are all dead. Who is there to take revenge against?" That this was a lie was obvious to no one who wanted to believe it was true.

So, instead of revenge, the United States government reduced its aid to Israel and much increased the aid to Hamas, which had come out on top in the bitter feud with Fatah. It withdrew the last of its soldiers from Islamic soil. It accepted without demure a sudden, and serious, rise in the price of oil. It even changed the immigration rules to permit more immigrants from Moslem countries. It called off the pursuit of Osama bin Laden, which meant little in any case as Osama hadn't been heard from in years.

Of course, the President was only one woman, with one voice. There were other voices… carrying very different messages.