Caliphate

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 af- Fridhav, 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 twenty- eight 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 twenty- five 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-Füss, 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.