Carnifex

28/4/468 AC, University Hospital, University of Balboa

The doctor looked utterly befuddled. He closed the file on his desk and said, "Jorge, I haven't a clue why you can see again. Your records indicate there was never any physical reason for your blindness. If there was no physical reason, then the blow you took in the brawl two weeks ago can't have been the cure, or at least not the physical cure. Your records indicate that your eyes were always able to see but that your mind refused to process the information. Maybe that fist coming at you was threat enough to overcome whatever reason your mind had for blocking off your sight."

"But I never saw the fist coming, Doctor," Mendoza answered. "It wasn't until Marqueli brought me around that I could see." Mendoza didn't remember that he'd blinked.

The doctor removed his own glasses and began cleaning them with a corner of his guayabera. He shook his head with frustration.

"I can't explain it, Jorge. I can only observe and report. If you would like, I can make you an appointment with a head doctor."

"No . . . no, thank you. I've had my share of those."

"Is this going to cost you any of your disability benefit?" the doctor asked.

Marqueli answered, "We've told the legionary disability office. They checked and said Jorge was already maxed out with the loss of his legs. He won't lose anything just for getting his sight back. They even said that he's still entitled to a paid helper—presumptively a wife and therefore me—with vision or not."

"That's generous," the doctor admitted. "But he was taking a doctorate. Will that . . . "

"No, doctor," Mendoza said. "That's a totally separate program. Though I admit . . . . " He glanced over at his wife.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I'm going to miss you're not reading to me."

She smiled, warmly, and reaching over to pat her husband's hand. "I still will if you like. On the other hand, you can read to yourself a lot quicker than I can read to you. I'll bet you, husband mine, that you make much faster progress this way than the old way."

"That's a thought, isn't it?"

* * *

In another ward, one at the opposite end of the hospital and behind doors continuously guarded, Khalid looked into a mirror at his new face and wondered, What, if anything, is left of me?

Khalid had done his last hit, involving ricin and a pressurized gas projector, on the streets of Hajar, Yithrab. Unfortunately, he'd been made. Only a fast journey to a prearranged spot in the desert, and a last minute Cricket flight from the air arm of Sumeri Intelligence, had gotten him out of the country. His old face was known now and he could never have continued to work as long as he'd kept it.

It was amazing what could be done, though, with some small shifts in the corners of his eyes, a widening of the nose, pulling back of his ears, shaving down of the cheekbones, the addition of a spurious scar, and a change in the shape of his mouth.

The only problem is, it doesn't feel like me anymore. I almost wish—

Whatever thought Khalid had been about to complete, it was lost to the interruption of seeing a small, dark, and rather feral looking man appear in the mirror behind him.

"Legate Fernandez," Khalid said, before turning around.

Fernandez said nothing at first, but just peered intently, trying to match Khalid's new face to his old. Finally, satisfied, the intel chief shook his head and said, "Not a chance you will be identified short of a DNA screening. Very good."

"You know you've been detached from Sumeri Intelligence to work for me for the next two years, correct?"

"Yes, Legate, I understand that," Khalid said. "What I don't know is why?"

Fernandez smiled and answered, "Given your work history, that is a fairly stupid question, no?"

Khalid's smile, strange in this new face, grew to match Fernandez's.

From under his left arm Fernandez drew a thick, bound, and sealed portfolio. This he opened and withdrew what looked to Khalid like a score or so of folders.

"These are, for the most part, your targets," Fernandez said, passing them, and the portfolio, over to Khalid. "One is travel documents, another rules of engagement. Still a third has financial information. Specifically, that folder contains a list of smallish bank accounts that will hold, in the aggregate, enough money for several years' independent operations plus operational expenses. The accounts match the travel and identity documents. We'll fill them in the order given and at the times given.

"Your rules of engagement for these will be different from what you have become used to in the past," Fernandez explained. "All of these men are either major reporters, producers, or editors for the media in the Tauran Union and the Federated States; or they are, broadly speaking, politicians; or they are academics; or they are entertainers. There is a certain amount of overlap in those last three. All have given considerable vocal and literary moral support to the enemy. Some may have given more concrete support to the enemy; intelligence, financing, and the like. All have also attacked both the Legion del Cid or President Sada at one time or another. You are not, however, to kill them right off."

Khalid looked interested but at the same time confused.

Fernandez let the obvious confusion pass for the moment. "As I suggested, when you leave here, you will be on your own until your target list has been serviced or otherwise rendered ineffective. It will be rare if we, or Sumeri intelligence, ever contact you, though you will be required to contact us upon successfully servicing a target. We have, you see, learned much from the enemy.

"Whenever one of those editors, reporters, academics, entertainers, or politicians says or permits something to be said against the enemy, or against Islam, or against Salafism, then you may kill them. Given who they are, that something is certain to be very mild. You will leave a copy of whatever it was they said, or wrote, or permitted to be published by the body or near enough to the body that it will be found. You may have to interpret this guidance very liberally. For example, if one of them puts out something in favor of women's rights, or gay rights, that would be considered sufficient to make them active targets. If one of them makes a speech that is not recorded, you may have to write a slogan condemning the speech."

Khalid's confusion grew. "I don't understand this . . . "

It was Fernandez's turn to smile. "We've thought about this for a long time. Our reasoning is . . . complex.

"They will have a choice or, rather, some sets of choices. In one set, they can continue to present only negative views of us, and the war, and thus lose credibility with some of their audience. Or they can be 'objective' and die, with the Ikhwan taking the blame. In either case, their voices will be silenced or, at worst, made ineffective. Eventually, we expect, many will realize they are being killed for expressing their views and simply shut up."

"Many of them really are too stupid to get that message, I think," Khalid said. "Moreover, most of their target audience is too stupid to understand and accept that the press, the academics and the progressives are simply putting out blatant propaganda on behalf of the enemy. They are all progressives and Kosmos, are they not, these pols, reporters, editors and professors? The target audience cannot even accept that they are held in as much contempt as they are by the people you want me to kill. In any case, under the rule you have given me, some of them will simply stop giving off any message that is remotely critical of the enemy and most of their audience will not even notice."

"We understand this," Fernandez agreed. "That is the other set of choices. For those who will not get the message we will want you to have evidence that the people you killed were assassinated. We can show that evidence, without turning it over, of course, to certain persons among the classes of targets in order to spread the word in an unprovable way. Imagine, if you will, Khalid, that you kill . . . " Fernandez took the folders and rifled through them until he came upon one in particular. "This woman, say."

Fernandez opened the folder to show Khalid a picture of a woman, taken from her own GlobalNet site. She was well dressed in a cream colored suit, and, if a bit overweight, all in all, by no means unattractive.

"This is Sarita Iapes. She is not only highly critical of the war effort but of the Legion and President Sada in particular. She's been a nexus for anti-war effort reporting for years. So, say, someday you wait in ambush in an automobile and simply run her over, a routine hit and run. But you have a camera going so that you can give us a picture of her in the moment before you kill her. We show that picture to, again, say, David Prefer, one of her reporters, and explain to the wretch that she was killed, and, approximately, why."

"Understand, Legate," Khalid said, shaking his head doubtfully, "I merely want to understand the mission perfectly so that I can execute it perfectly. Okay, so you do that. All it does it shut them up. It does not make them report on us favorably."

"We don't need favorable reporting," Fernandez explained. "That would be overreach. The danger with these people is that they are not a neutral asset. They're with the enemy, even if they don't know it. It would be, oh . . . too much to expect them to change one hundred and eighty degrees. It is sufficient that they merely stop harming us and helping the other side; no need to help us and harm the other side. Indeed, if they did that, they'd be in as much danger from the Ikhwan as they are from us and they likely know it. In that case, they'd probably take their chances and continue to support the Ikhwan."

"So . . . we are going for the minimal but achievable goal?" Khalid asked.

"Yes. Moreover, if two years goes by without ever a negative comment from one of them on either us or the enemy, then you may assume they have taken the hint and shut up. In that case, put them on the inactive target list."

"Cle-ver," Khalid said.

"If you are captured, of course . . . "

Khalid snorted. "Allahu akbar! Long live the Salafi jihad."

"Quite. The Kosmos down there will insist on superior treatment for you as long as you can credibly claim to be on the side of the Ikhwan. Just remember, Khalid, they must be made to feel the hard hand of the war they support."