Caliphate

Chapter Seventeen

Castle Noisvastei, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

The gate guard from Castle Honsvang, breathless from his long uphill run, pounded on the great gates outside the castle until his hands began to bleed.

"All right, all RIGHT! I'm coming," shouted Latif from a window overlooking the near side of the gate. He muttered, too, "Where did the damned gate guard go? I'll have the skin off that lazy bastard's back for this."

In fact, the brothel's gate guard beat Latif to the gate by some seconds. All full of apologies, he insisted he'd only left to relieve himself. Latif said he'd take that under consideration, "Just before I have you beaten half to death and sold to a eunuch factory."

That sent the gate guard to his knees, begging for mercy and forgiveness, until Latif, realizing he couldn't open the gate on his own, said, "Never mind. Just stop blubbering and help me with this Allah- be-damned bar."

Together the two men lifted it, the gate guard doing most of the work, and admitted the breathless corporal.

"The men… from the security… company… you've got to rouse them… we are… attacked."

"Shit!"

Flight Seven Nine Three, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

"Shit," exclaimed Lee/Ling. The eyes opened wide with shock and fear. "They've made us. Shanghai tells me there are two fighters lifting from ar-Ramstei even as we speak."

"Fuck," agreed Matheson, "what can we do?"

"Can't outrun them," Lee answered. "Can't fight them at all. Can't surrender."

"Set her down?" suggested Retief, a member of the team since Matheson had been able to get agreement-"from the highest authorities"-that his family would be traded for from the Boer Republic. "How good's their radar?"

Lee shook Ling's head. "Second rate. What they make for themselves is poor. What we and the tsar sell them isn't great either. Good enough to see us in the air, yes. But good enough to catch us on the ground? Maybe not. The problem is that if I set down, some one of the locals will see us. And, given that, they might report it to the authorities. And there's no place around here that doesn't have some little town or other within view."

"Report us to the authorities?" Matheson mused. "Let me see the map."

Looking it over, Matheson saw one town a bit more isolated than the others in the area. "Set us down right next to that," he said. "I have an idea." He turned to one of the ex-cargo slaves and ordered, "Get me a couple of sheets… no… ah… three of them… and three checked tablecloths from the galley… and… ummm… a piece of rope or heavy string… say… ten feet worth. And bring me a sharp knife."

"Does this thing have a public address set?"

Matheson watched the ex-slave scurry off. And that's what I'm counting on; that slaves don't usually ask-lack the self confidence to ask, really-too many questions of those who seem to be in authority.

Castle Honsvang, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

The sergeant of the guard was neither a coward nor a fool. He'd been at the front of the battering ram, on the theory that fire, if any, would most likely come from inside once the door was down. When his men grasping the rear were cut down, he'd waited to see if any more fire came their way. When it didn't, he said a small prayer and walked out into the open, onto the blood-stained stones that marked where the enemy could fire, if he was still there.

Apparently, he's not. Still, if I pull more men off the perimeter and some kind of aircraft shows up, as I expect it will, the enemy might be able to get away.

Fuck.

Highway 310, Northwest of ar-Rebchel, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

The lights shone through the trees. Even before seeing the lights, though, Petra had heard the sound of the engines. With each meter closer, with each increase in the noise, with each glimpse of the headlights through the trees, the pounding in her chest grew.

For a moment she wanted to run into the little place inside herself where she'd hid during her rape, the same place that sheltered her during all the other abuses that had followed. And yet…

John needs me not to hide… and so does Hans… and Ling… and those poor children down in the other castle waiting to be murdered. And perhaps even, too, my grandmother, long dead but with a bitterness and hatred in her heart for the masters who ruined her life… perhaps she, too, needs me not to hide but to fight.

And Besma? She'll never be able to strike on her own, now. I owe it to her to…

Petra picked up a detonator in her left hand, wrapping her delicate fingers around it. With her right she flicked off the thick wire safety that would keep the squeeze lever from closing. Her right then took control of the other detonator. With her right thumb she flicked off the safety on that one.

"Wait… wait… wait," she whispered to herself as the column of trucks grew closer to the point she was supposed to set off the mines.

"Wait… wait… wait…" Petra scrunched down into her hole with just the top of her head and her eyes showing.

She misjudged it, just slightly. Or perhaps Hans had misjudged the proper spot to mark where she should squeeze the levers of the blasting machines. Whichever was the case, the mines detonated splendidly, all twelve of them, sending roughly eleven thousand halfounce steel cylinders skipping gleefully along and across the road.

Men who had been sitting or standing up in the backs of trucks were scythed down with a collective moan, their organs and blood spilling across the truck beds and the road. Drivers and co-drivers, sitting up front, fared no better. As for the trucks, tires were blasted out, gas tanks were ruptured, lights and windscreens smashed. One truck, its front tires blasted off, went nose down to the roadbed, twisted to the right, and began a body-spilling roll that ended only went it struck a tree, broadside. Still another exploded in a fireball as the steel fragments not only spilled its liquid fuel but struck a spark off of the frame. Another of the five trucks struck went slightly off road until running head on into a tree. One, too close to a mine, was blown on its side. The last truck, with no living driver at the wheel, plowed into the truck before it.

Though there were men left alive in the kill zone, and even men left unhurt, there was no one left unshocked. It was a massacre.

Except, unfortunately for the lead truck. It had gotten just out of Hans' preplanned kill zone a quarter of a second before Petra finished squeezing the handle on the blasting machine.

The corbasi cursed himself even as he cursed at the driver to "Move, move, move, you fool!"

Of course the filthy infidels had someone out to block the roads. I was an idiot. Idiot, idiot, IDIOT! And I've lost more than eighty percent of the men I brought with me. Shit. Should I go back and try to save any survivors? No… no. The important thing is still up ahead. And that ambush was thorough. There'll be a team of men there.

"Faster, dolt!"

It was the worst sound she'd ever heard. Men screamed, wept, and begged for aid. And most of them, she suspected, were as blond- haired and blue-eyed as she was.

Petra covered her ears with her hands against the sound. In the process, a small device, no bigger than a hearing aid, was knocked to the dirt below.

She'd expected to take some satisfaction in striking a blow against the Caliphate. All she felt was a desire to vomit. Their only fault was that someone took them young, just the way that someone took me. Poor boys. And yet, there's nothing I can do to help. Worse, if I don't get out of here John and Hans will finally come to the sedan I'm supposed to hide in, find that I'm not there, and come looking for me.

I'm sorry, boys, she thought at the stricken men out on and around the smoky roadway. I'm so sorry. But I can't help you.

With that, Petra crawled out of the hole onto her belly, her submachine gun clutched tightly in one hand. She kept crawling, skinning hands, elbows and knees, and getting a little mud in the submachine gun, until the light from the burning truck was dim. Then she got up to a crouch, glanced all around like a hunted animal, turned to her right and ran.

She never noticed that she'd left her radio, ground by her own feet into the mud and dirt of the hole, behind.

Flight Seven Nine Three, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

Perhaps a hundred people lived in the village below, crowded in behind a rickety and crude wooden fence. As the airship settled down just outside that fence, Matheson's voice came over the public address system.

"Infidels," he said. "Infidels, assemble to be counted and assessed."

Lee/Ling looked at Matheson as if to ask, What the fuck does that mean?

Matheson's answering glare said, Who cares, so long as it sounds suitably impressive and threatening?

Fearfully, the doors to the little shacks opened up and people began to step out.

"That's our cue," Matheson said to the newly armed and just liberated cargo slaves. "Follow me."

Each man, Matheson and the two slaves, had wrapped themselves in bed linen to simulate robes. On their heads they wore checked tablecloths held in place by short pieces of rope, tied in the back.

Matheson had his pistol strapped to the outside of the robes. The slaves carried his and Ling's submachine guns authoritatively.

Lee lowered the starboard side passenger ramp just in time for Matheson and his two escorts to debark. They walked over to the fence briskly. Forcing the gate open, Matheson demanded, "Who is the headman here?"

A stoop shouldered German advanced cautiously. At a distance of about six paces he got to one knee and answered, "I am, master."

Matheson swung his pistol in a broad arc, taking in the entire populace of the town. "Your people are needed for emergency work. Get them aboard. Now. On your head if so much as a single wretched soul escapes."

"But our crops-" the headman began to protest, pointing to where the airship had crushed the shoots in the fields.

"You will be compensated; that, or receive a tax remittance. Now cease your whining and get loaded. Bring your children. You will be gone too long for them to care for themselves. Food will be provided."

"Was that really necessary?" Lee asked, while awaiting word from Shanghai that the two hunting jets were gone.

Matheson shrugged. "If we'd tried to hold them there, some one of them might have doubted our official status and gone running to report. As is, they're convinced of it…even if some of them are still hiding in the village, they think they're hiding from the authorities. No chance then that they'll go to the authorities. Unfortunately-"

"Unfortunately, now we're stuck with them," Lee finished.

"Will that affect the flight?"

Lee shrugged Ling's shoulders. "Seven tons of emaciated Christians? I think not. It just seems unfair to risk them."

"To risk what?" Matheson sneered. "Lives lived in slavery aren't worth living. At least with us they'll have a chance at real life."

Lee/Ling stiffened. "Shanghai says the fighters are turning for home. Communications intercepts say they took off with the fuel in the tanks… and nobody had bothered to make sure the tanks were full when they parked them. How did these people ever get control of a continent?"

"Someone without the will to keep it gave it to them."

Castle Noisvastei, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

Latif went first to his office, just off of the entrance from where outside stairs rose above the mosqued courtyard, and entered the castle. The former gate guard of Honsvang followed as the brothel keeper waddled as fast as he could.

"There is a loudspeaker system," Latif told the janissary. "We haven't used it in years but-"

We're fucked, thought the janissary. No fool, he; he knew that if the thing hadn't been used in years then it probably couldn't be.

"-if the Almighty sees fit," Latif continued, "we can summon your comrades in a quarter of the time… a tenth!"

We're totally fucked, the janissary amended. Still, one never knows. Perhaps, just this once, Allah will lend us his aid.

Alas, it was not to be. Latif waddled briskly down the interior hallway, pushed open his office door, and sat down at the dusty desk holding the controls for the public address system. Pushing away some cobwebs he flicked a switch to power up the system.

And was rewarded with some crackling, and a fair bit of smoke pouring from the control box.

"Get your slaves to start knocking down doors," the janissary commanded. "And what do you have in this place for arms?"

That question spurred a thought. "Forget the slaves, except for those you send for arms," the janissary said. "I have a quicker way."

With that, the janissary left the office, trotted down the corridor to a spot near the center of the castle, took his rifle in hand and began firing the rifle methodically into the high ceiling. Janissaries began pouring out of rooms even as smashed plaster and bits of masonry poured down from above.

Castle Honsvang, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

It hadn't taken much to get the captive renegades to give him the combination to open the vault containing the virus. Hamilton had simply asked, "Now which of you does not want me to shoot him in the balls?" and they'd fallen over each other in their haste to volunteer.

The three renegades now sat, taped to chairs and facing away from each other. Their mouths were likewise taped. Hamilton and Hans had removed their shoes just before taping their legs to the chairs. For the nonce, Hans was occupied in the control room, watching the perimeter through the one closed-circuit television screen that was still useable, while keeping one hand poised near the switch to detonate diverse of the mines, if necessary. The slave boy liberated by Hamilton sat quietly nearby.

Not far away, in the lab, Hamilton spoke to the renegades while circling them slowly, not appreciably different from the way a shark might.

"I was taught this by Imperial Intelligence at Langley," Hamilton announced. "They called it 'musical chairs.' You'll see why in a moment.

"Here's rule number one: If any of you turn your heads to look at another, I will break one of your feet. If you understand, nod vigorously." Hamilton brandished a hammer he'd picked up in a closet off the main lab. If he hadn't found one, he'd have broken another chair to make a club for the purpose.

All three heads began bobbing like those of the children and whores the renegades had used and abused over the years.

"Very good. I'm now going to show you something. If it is part of the virus-of the virus project, rather-you will again, and without looking at each other, nod vigorously. If it is not, you will shake your heads to signify 'no.' If there is any disagreement I will smash one of each of your toes to bloody pulp. I'll then ask again. If there's any disagreement, I'll smash another. Again, in case it wasn't clear enough, if you try to consult, I'll break your foot. For starters. I can be a lot more imaginative if necessary.

"You see now why we call this musical chairs, gentlemen? It's because you sing."

Hamilton walked to a refrigerator and took a vial from it. He returned to the triangle of chairs and began to circle again, even more sharklike than before. "Is this part of the project?" he asked, with a calm all three scientists found utterly terrifying.

Hans heard Matheson's voice in his earpiece. "What's the situation?"

"We've got the castle," he reported. "We've got the scientists. The kids are still locked up except for one who was outside. We've the keys for their pen. Hamilton is interrogating your renegade scientists. So far, except for a short-lived attempt to batter down the main door, the local security, what's left of it, is just concentrating on keeping us in. It makes me wonder if they haven't got something coming to keep you from evacuating us by air."

"They did, Hans," Matheson answered. "We ducked it. They might… probably will… be back in a couple of hours."

"A couple of hours will probably give us the time we need," Hans said. "Unless… oh, oh."

The corbasi' s truck pulled up outside the gate and stopped. Armed janissaries began to spill off of the back, each man racing for cover behind whatever could be found. The colonel himself got out quickly, then hurried forward toward the gate until stopped by the sergeant of the guard.

"Sir, no closer," the sergeant said. "Whoever is in there set off the modular mine packs. The road's covered with the little bastards."

The colonel stopped immediately in his tracks, then crouched down low to present as small a target as possible. "What the fuck is going on in there? Where the hell is ibn Minden?"

"We think he's probably dead, sir-"

"Damn!"

"Yes, sir, he was a fine young officer. Anyway, there's been no sound of fighting for a while. The last was when one of them shot three of my men as we were trying to batter down the main gate. Whoever it was who shot them is probably up there still. But he can't see much of anything from the tower I think he's in."

"How are your men who were shot?" the corbasi asked.

"Dead, all three, sir."

"Dammit."

"I've sent for aid from the platoon that was on break up at the bordello. They should be along in half an hour or so, inshallah."

Castle Noisvastei, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

The still-cursing baseski formed the janissaries into four ranks, three of squads from the platoon and one of the company headquarters, in the reception hall above the castle's courtyard. Troops still filtered in, stumbling as they pulled up trousers and hopping as they tried to fit heavy boots to feet. None of them seemed actually drunk, the first sergeant was pleased to see.

Unfortunately, likewise were none of them armed, except for the one gate guard who had summoned them from their revels with sustained rifle fire. The baseski stifled a curse at fate.

Latif, hands clasped in worry before him, paced the hallway, likewise cursing. He'd sent two slaves, one to his own quarters and one to his guards, for whatever arms the castle might provide. He knew well enough how paltry these would be.

"Where are your stinking slaves with the weapons?" the first sergeant demanded, standing a couple of feet from the brothel keeper.

"Coming, Baseski, coming," Latif assured him.

Even as he spoke, the first of the slaves stumbled down the hall with an appreciable pile of weapons in his arms. He stopped next to the first sergeant and Latif. The sergeant took one glance at the pile and sneered.

"Shotguns? You have only shotguns in this place?"

"No, sir," the slave corrected. "There are two hunting rifles and also two automatic weapons."

"And where is the ammunition?"

The slave looked crestfallen. "You didn't say anything about ammunition," he said to Latif.

"Put down the weapons," the first sergeant ordered the slave. He then called out two names and ordered, "Go with this slave back to wherever he found these and bring all the ammunition there is to be had." The baseski shook his head with disgust. "Fuck! What does Allah have against me?"

Castle Honsvang, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

"God has turned his face from us," Hans whispered, as he watched the janissaries pour out of the back of the truck. "And what's happened to Petra? If these got through, are the others hunting her like an animal through the woods?"

He'd called for his baby sister many times on the communicator he'd snagged days before. She didn't answer. This ate away at him, causing a rise of nausea in his stomach. He was certain she'd have answered if she were still alive. He thought back to the day the tax collector had taken her away; felt anew-as fresh as if it were just yesterday-the humiliation of being unable to defend her.

Taking a last glance at the security board to ensure all the perimeter mines were still functioning, Hans checked his submachine gun, stood and walked out of the control room and toward the lab. He walked as if going to his death as, indeed, he felt he was and perhaps even should be.

"Boy," he said to Meara's toy. "Boy, follow me."

"Are there any other samples of this virus anywhere in the Caliphate?" Hamilton asked. He'd already placed every sample identified as virus or useful to creating the virus into the containment unit he'd been given back at Langley. Immediately, the three heads began shaking "no" in unison. From Meara flew tears, so hard did he shake his head.

Cleverly, Hamilton had asked mostly innocuous questions to begin. After a dozen of those, and three pulped toes each for the renegades, he'd trained them not to lie. From there he'd gone after the rest of the lab samples. Now his questions were oriented toward the spread of the danger.

"Bernie? Hamilton," he sent over his communicator. "High degree of confidence that there are no other samples anywhere in the Caliphate. How far out are you?"

"Maybe twenty-five minutes, John," Hamilton heard in his earpiece. "I'll send word to higher."

"It would be a good thing not to get nuked as we escape," Hamilton agreed, sardonically.

"Escape will be highly problematic," Hans announced, as he entered the lab.

At Hamilton's quizzical eyebrow the janissary added, "Petra didn't get them all. About twenty-at least that many-have joined the guards outside. Maybe worse, I suspect that the people I sent to the other castle are on the way back. We're about to be outnumbered about forty to one, and this time there's no surprise on our side."

"How truly good," Hamilton said.

Interlude

Nuremberg, Federal Republic of Germany,

10 July, 2022

Gabi had done her best to raise Amal to be kind, sensitive, considerate of the feelings of others, tolerant, accepting… in all, a human monument to multicultural decency. She was also, and this had come rather harder to both mother and daughter, a good student. In her school, of course, she had friends of all stripes and persuasions; boyfriends, as well.

In fact, Amal had a lot of boyfriends. And why not? She was one of the, if not the, prettiest girls in the school. From her mother and father she'd garnered a meter, seventy-five in height… and she still had a couple of years to grow. Her baby-blond hair had darkened to a lustrous auburn not untypical of the province of Franconia. Her body was already that of a woman, enough so to set young boys to daydreaming in class, much to the detriment of their grades.

Between the height, the hair color, such features as she'd inherited from Mahmoud, her slightly darkened skin and light brown eyes, and her Arab given name, she could pass for an Arab or a Turk easily enough and was often taken for one. In the peculiar circumstances of Germany in the year 2021, this could be a problem.

"There's the slut now," whispered Abdul-Halim to his four friends, Taymullah, Mansur, Zahid, and Jabir. Of the five boys, two, Mansur and Jabir, were sons of German reverts to the faith. They were, if anything, more devout than the other three.

"Shameless," said Mansur. "The cunt should be veiled properly, her hair covered properly."

"It's the filthy Germans, polluting the world," added Zahid. "It will be a better place once it belongs to us, once the law of God replaces the nonsense they adhere to."

"And that is our job," said Taymullah, clutching a blanket in both hands. "As the imam said yesterday at the mosque, it is up to us to bring the word and the ways of Allah to this Godless place."

Amal was only human and thoroughly female. She enjoyed the admiration she received from people, men and women both, as she walked the street toward home.

Thus, it came as quite a shock to her, so much of a shock that she didn't even cry out, when five boys surrounded her, exclaimed, "This is our sister," dropped a blanket over her head and pulled her into a cellar.

Germans and German law had, long since, stopped defending Muslim women. Turks and Arabs, often terrified of retribution and having lost any faith that German law would protect them, simply turned away.

The "smiley," the cutting of a Muslim girl's face from one ear to the corner of her mouth in retribution for her dressing as a westerner, had been something of an urban legend in the early part of the century. Many had written and spoken of it yet no examples had ever been produced, no criminal cases had ever been launched.

Yet life can imitate art. Barraged with reports of the phenomenon, the urban legend had been adopted and turned into horrific reality. There were girls with "smileys," now, and in every corner of western Europe.

It was, after all, an excellent way to make a girl cover her face, in accordance with the hadiths and the sunna.

"You can't do this," Amal wept. "I'm not a Moslem. I've never been a Moslem."

"In the name of Allah we can do as we wish," insisted Abdul-Halim. "Besides, everyone is born a Moslem, that's what the imam says. It's just that some of them, like you, are apostate."

"You see," added Zahid, "there are only two kinds of women in the world. There are those who follow the law of God, and then there are sluts. Which are you?"