Caliphate

OSI Headquarters, Langley, Virginia,

27 November, 2112

There was snow on the breeze. Hamilton and Caruthers walked under a covered walkway between one of the academic buildings and the nearest cafeteria.

"Man, I hate Afrikaans," Hamilton said to Caruthers, following a language lesson. He could have been implanted, or "chipped," and learned the language quickly and perfectly. No free man ever gladly submitted to being "chipped," though it had uses for the disabled.

"Cheer up," Caruthers answered. "You don't have to learn it perfectly; just well enough to pass as a Cape English type who learned it as a second language. You do, on the other hand, have to get the Cape English accent down perfectly."

Hamilton nodded. "Working on it."

"I know. You had best concentrate, though, because there's not a lot of time before you have to go to D-D-S,"—Demolition, Destruction and Sabotage—"refresher, then the Mission Course"—special courses of instruction designed for particularly high value operations—"then into LCA"—local cultural assimilation—"followed by insertion."

"To say nothing about the knife," Hamilton said, his distaste palpable. Yet there was no choice but to send him to plastic surgery to alter his features and change the color of his eyes. It was altogether too possible that the Quebecers had managed to send off a picture of him before their ring was broken.

Caruthers shrugged. "There are worse things. At least you get to keep your mind and your thoughts to yourself. Even though I think that's a mistake."

Early on, when the chips had first been developed, OSI had made it a requirement that all foreign service operatives had to be implanted. The Han had been the ones to figure out how to hack into those chips. OSI was still not recovered from that particular disaster. And while the chips were infinitely more secure now, the prejudice remained. It remained so strongly that OSI couldn't force its operatives to be chipped; they'd resign first and in droves.

"No one is going to chip me," Hamilton answered. "Even before I knew about that poor Chinese slave, I thought the idea was disgusting. Since then . . . " He let the thought trail off.

"Well, . . . as to the Chinese girl . . . the Ministry of State Security is now telling us she's become somewhat unstable."

"Oh, great. Now what?"

"Nothing important. We still think we can make use of her. And she has been able to confirm the presence of Meara, Sands and Johnston in the castle we had thought them in."

"Any word on their 'progress' to date."

"No, and we don't think we can make any good guesses. I mean, how much can you read into it when one of them beats a slave girl half to death? When he normally beats the slaves?"

"Not much, I suppose."

"No," Caruthers said. "Not much."

"I really don't understand why we just don't nuke the castle out of existence."

"Couple of reasons. One of them is a good one, the other is even better. The good one is that England is a hostage. The Caliphate doesn't have much in the way of delivery systems, but they can range the British Isles. There are seventy million of our allies, citizens and subjects there. If we nuke the castle, they probably die."

"Better seventy million than five billion or more."

"True," Caruthers agreed. "That's where the better reason comes in. We have to know where research is being conducted, where backups might be, where strains of VA5H might be stored."

"It used to be easier, I understand," Caruthers continued, "to keep track of goings on in the Caliphate. But then their cell phone system deteriorated to the point that they had to fall back on landlines, most of them underground. Those we can't track for beans."

Caruthers' face grew contemplative. "You know," he said, "it would be worth it to let them use our satellite system just so we could listen in on the bastards . . . not that they'd be stupid enough to take us up on the offer if we made it."

The range bench held an assortment of weapons, all of types typically found in the Caliphate. Some of those types were imported there from other places, typically South Africa and China; still others were locally manufactured. How OSI came upon them the instructor didn't offer and Hamilton didn't ask. Nor did it matter; if he were going to be armed—something almost expected for fully free men within the Caliphate—it would have to be with something that would excite no comment.

Arranged from left to right on the bench were seven pistols, four submachine guns, three shotguns, six assault rifles, and two versions of the basic janissary armor piercing rifle.

"We've got five days," the instructor said, "five days to teach you to shoot and maintain all of these."

"Why so many versions?" Hamilton asked.

"Because we've not a clue what you'll actually be able to get. We can't even guarantee you will be able to get one of these; there are other types to be found within the enemy's country."

"Now wait a minute," Hamilton objected. "I'm going in as a slave dealer. The slaves will surely object to being slaves. It's only reasonable I'd carry arms with me from South Africa."

The instructor hesitated for a moment before speaking. When he did speak it was to ask, "Didn't they tell you the typical ages of the cargo?"

"You son of a bitch! You didn't tell me I was going to be transporting children!"

"Calm down, John," Caruthers said. The controller looked even more bone weary than usual. "There was no need for you to know."

And I'm going to have a few words with one large-mouthed instructor for telling you prematurely.

"Kids?"

"That's the usual cargo, yes."

"Sweet Jesus. Kids?"

"They don't take up as much space. They don't eat much. They're cheap. They're docile. They're easily converted to Islam once they're sold. Besides, the guy who runs the brothel in the larger castle prefers kids. That gives you an in to our Chinese chippie." Although when you find out the real destination of the kids you are going to puke.

"This is it," Hamilton said. "I'll do this mission because I said I would. But after this, I'm putting in my papers. My obligation will be over by the time this is and after that I am out of here."

There wasn't a building big enough, or expendable enough, to simulate actually blowing up the castle. Instead, demolitions refresher training concentrated more on the theoretical: dust initiators, expedient timing devices, local manufacture of high explosives, and such.

"What good does it do to know how to make triacetone- triperoxide, when there isn't going to be any in the castle?" Hamilton asked. "What is the logic of using low explosives—or even high explosives—when they might do no more than release the agent?"

"Mr. Caruthers insisted on a full refresher course, Mr. Hamilton," the explosives instructor, a Dr. Richter, said. "We follow orders. How you come up with the material, is up to you."

"It's box of rocks, stupid. And this shit"—Hamilton's finger pointed at a small cone of what looked to be a very damp white powder— "doesn't release any heat. It couldn't destroy the virus if I used two hundred tons of it."

"I need a nuke," Hamilton said. "Nothing else will work."

"No nukes. I've explained why."

"C'mon, Caruthers, you . . . or your bosses, are being ridiculous. Any attempt at destroying the VA5H without a nuke is just as likely to release it."

"Any attempt at nuking it, if there is another supply somewhere, is just as likely to get it released as simply cracking the castle would."

"Fuck."

"Fuck," Caruthers agreed.

"We need to talk to Mary."

"Talk to me about transportation," Hamilton said. "Safe transportation. Talk to me about how long it would take to make a vaccine if we had a sample of the virus."

"We could give you a general purpose containment unit, small enough to carry, cold enough to keep the virus inactive, and large enough to hold any likely container you might find the virus in," Mary answered. "But the risks . . . "

"John," Caruthers said, "if you got caught and engaged . . . if the containment unit were breached . . . we're talking end of the world here."

"We're talking end of the world anyway. This way we might have a chance of preventing that." Hamilton turned his attention back to Mary. "How long to manufacture a vaccine?"

"Full court press? Even assuming it can be done . . . maybe six weeks. Maybe a little less. But what difference would that make? Meara, Sanders and Johnston could simply—well, not 'simply'; but still they could—modify the virus to some other configuration."

Caruthers smiled cynically. "Mary, it isn't like John is going to leave them there alive. He'll either bring them back or . . . "

Her eyes grew wide. After all, she knew one of them. But . . . "Oh. Yes, I suppose that makes sense."

"No, Mr. Hamilton, not like that. Didn't you learn anything when you were among the heathen in the Philippines? You must remember to sit without pointing the soles of your feet at anyone more important than a servant."

Wearily, Hamilton stood in front of the large tray of kibsa, a rice- and, in this case, lamb-based dish, and sat again, this time tucking his legs under him in such a way—and a damned uncomfortable way it was, too—without pointing the soles of his feet anywhere but behind him.

"Much better. We'll practice that more later but for now let's try the kibsa while it's still hot."

The instructor reached out one hand, saying, "There are a number of ways to do this, all more or less correct. We'll begin with the classic method, the one that prevails over most of the Arabian Peninsula." Palm down, using his right hand, the instructor bent his fingers and dug them into the mass of steaming rice. He then closed his fist, causing a wash of gooey, yogurt-based sauce to run through his fingers and out each side of the cup of his hand. He continued to press until the mass of rice and lamb was compressed into a small ball about and inch and a quarter in diameter. This he then popped into his mouth.

"Your turn," he said to Hamilton, once he'd swallowed the ball.

The instructor saw Hamilton reaching out with his left hand and, quick as a snake, grabbed a long pointer and used it to rap Hamilton's knuckles. "Never," he said, "never, reach for or take anything with your left hand."

"Motherfucker!" Hamilton exclaimed, alternately rubbing and flopping his hand with a loosed wrist. "What the fuck was that for?"

"You learned nothing in the Philippines?"

Hamilton shrugged. "Look, we killed them when they fought and rounded them up and deported them when they didn't, or couldn't anymore. We did not socialize."

"I see," said the instructor. He sighed. "Where to begin? Mr. Hamilton, the Arabian Peninsula is not a place much given to trees or any crops from which paper could be made. Leather was, in olden times—and again, today—too valuable to use wastefully. Even rocks were rare in most places."

"So?"

"What are you going to do after we eat this meal, oh, sometime over the next day or two?"

"Sleep?"

"Besides that?"

"Ohhh."

"Yes, Mr. Hamilton. The culture our enemies sprang from never really got used to the idea of toilet paper. They used their hands. Given that they ate with their hands, it only made sense—you'll agree—for them to use one for one thing, and one for the other."

"Got it. Right hand only or you're shitting in the pot."

"Not just shitting in the pot, Mr. Hamilton. Use your left hand for anything involving another person and you are sending him the mortal insult of shitting on him."

"Shokran," Hamilton said.

"Very good. Afwan."

Hamilton ran doubting hands over another man's face. Not that the face wasn't attached to the front of his skull; it was. But that face was not his. The cheekbones were higher; the eyes had been reshaped; the nose was broadened and the ears subtly reoriented to stick out ever so slightly more. His eyes were green now—"The enemy has a thing for green eyes," Caruthers had said—and his chin more substantial.

"Who the fuck am I?" Hamilton asked.

"No one important," Caruthers answered, chuckling. Hamilton didn't look amused. "Oh, all right! You are Johann De Wet, scion of a not-very-important family from Cape Town. Though your name is Boer, and though you had a distant Boer ancestor of some importance, your ancestry is almost entirely English. You speak Afrikaans well enough, but with an accent. You elected to do military service, as all white South Africans must, prior to going to college. You rose to the rank of sergeant in the Logistics Corps, which sparked your interest in the transportation side of business. You are a graduate of the University of Cape Town where you majored in business administration, with a minor in international shipping."

Hamilton raised one eyebrow. "It's probably a stupid question, but . . . uh . . . I assume there is documentation? An electronic and paper trail to back this up?"

"All the important things, yes. The actual Johann De Wet died as a baby of pneumonia. Parents subsequently divorced and there were no other children." Caruthers laughed. "I imagine they'd both be very surprised to discover that their baby boy has returned from the grave."

Caruthers continued, "Upon graduation, you were hired by Koop Human Resources, based in Natal, but immediately sent to be an assistant administrator of a slave breeding camp in the Congo which has since been closed. Thereafter, you were resident in a hospital for two years while recovering from the outbreak of Ebola III that closed the camp.

"KHR, by the way, is a wholly owned subsidiary of OSI, though nobody knows that but us and South African Intelligence. And neither of us is saying. As I told you once, we can cooperate."

"You mean the company has been in the slave trading business for years now?" Hamilton asked.

"Leave off, Mister Hamilton!" After he said it, the man seemed almost to shrink. "It's a shitty world, John . . . and neither of us made it; we just have to live in it. Now if you'll allow me to continue, you will be working for one of our senior people over there. You don't need to know his real name but he goes by a local one . . ."