Carnifex. Part 60

The first wave split off into two "vics" of three, one veering north, one south, to come around for another pa.s.s each from those directions. The Turbo-Finches, the modified crop dusters, could turn on a drachma.

The camp now alerted, the second wave took some fire as it made its strafe. No matter, the aircraft were armored against small arms and even had a chance against heavy machine gun fire. They were also less vulnerable to shoulder fired anti-aircraft rockets than either helicopters or high performance jets. Carrying a lethal load, they were flown by men in whose hearts hate battled for dominance with the desire to be done, to finish this, to go home. These fresh, rearing warhorses had many times proven their worth in the brutal and bitter campaign.

This the second wave demonstrated as they swooped across at a higher level than the first. Not bothering to use their machine guns, cannon or rockets, they each released an aerodynamic cylinder from underneath before giving their engines full throttle and racing away. The cylinders fell a distance then, with a pop pop, broke open and kicked out three smaller cylinders and a number of glowing sparklers.

The smaller cylinders burst at a predetermined height, spreading an inflammable aerosol.

The searing tongues of napalm flame heating her face, Khalifa twisted her head and body searching frantically for the sign of a refuge. The two children now in her arms screamed and cried. Like mindless animals they twisted, trying to escape her grasp. She held them all the tighter; so tight the children could feel her own heart beating frantically beneath her breast.

Which way to turn? Which way to turn? Already Khalifa could hear the steady whop-whop-whop of the helicopters fast approaching. This was the merciless enemy who hunted without either giving rest or, apparently, taking it. She did not know what they would do to her in the event she was captured. The ignorance was worse than knowledge might have been. She had had to escape somehow; her and the children. to escape somehow; her and the children.

And then Khalifa heard a faint series of tiny explosions overhead. She looked upward and to the east...

Proximity fused, the thermobaric cylinders fell to a preset distance above the ground before splitting and then detonating. Their aerosol clouds spread outward rapidly, mixing with the air and growing to touch upon each other. In a short time, a moment, one finger of one cloud touched a sparkler.

Khalifa was not one of the lucky ones, those directly under the blast. They died quickly, having barely a chance to voice an unheard scream before the near-nuclear explosion obliterated them.

Instead, she and her children stood at the periphery. She felt her children torn from her grasp as she and they were picked up and thrown. Khalifa could not see them because the intense heat had burned away her face and eyes along with most of the skin on the front side of her body.

High pressure air pounded her internal organs and, forcing its way into her lungs, expanded and tore them.

Briefly Khalifa flew through the air on the leading edge of the blast wave, a human tracer trailing flame. A violent stop against a large rock broke her spine-a small mercy as at least the pain from her lower body went away with the break. Then again, with ruptured organs and lungs, and a body flash-burned, the mercy was small indeed.

Then the vacuum struck as the air rushed back in to fill the s.p.a.ce it had occupied before the blast. Khalifa felt it ripping the air through her mouth. She felt her lungs loosen away from the inside of her chest. She, along with others who had survived so far, was pulled inward even faster than she had been thrown away.

Racing back to the encampment, Abdul Aziz caught sight of the first half dozen Shturmoviks Shturmoviks-some of the mujahadin mujahadin still used the term they had picked up during the Volgan occupation of two decades before- sweeping across. Uselessly and fruitlessly, he fired his rifle at them as they pa.s.sed overhead. Looking desperately between the swaths of flame left in their wake, Aziz caught sight of his family, still standing safe between flaming strips. still used the term they had picked up during the Volgan occupation of two decades before- sweeping across. Uselessly and fruitlessly, he fired his rifle at them as they pa.s.sed overhead. Looking desperately between the swaths of flame left in their wake, Aziz caught sight of his family, still standing safe between flaming strips.

Even as he watched helplessly, his family was blasted to ruin by the second wave.

He mouthed a soundless, "Nooo."

Then Abdul Aziz ibn Kalb turned and ran.

Above and at a distance from the perimeter of the camp's smoking ruins helicopters rotored in and landed. From their bellies they began discharging troops. Some dropped off sling loads of artillery and ammunition. Some dropped off other loads of supplies.

Among those landing troops, one helicopter was distinguished by virtue of having discharged only a few men. One of these was Carrera. His face was mostly covered against the wind and the sun. A clear area had been left open, however, revealing eyes that glowed when the angle to the rising sun was just right. Sometimes, so swore both enemies and friends, the eyes glowed on their own.

The eyes glowed now. Through them the Carrera watched calmly as the heavy mortar crews struggled to manhandle the guns out of the helicopters and into firing position. He watched for a few moments before, satisfied, he turned his attention elsewhere.

Below the hill on which he stood, some fifteen hundred meters from the camp, one of his infantry cohorts spread out to sweep across. Largely ineffective fire fell among them, bullets half spent shooting little demons of dust into the air. The advance went on regardless.

Carrera lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes. The magnified gaze swept across the camp where some hundreds of the enemy tried to slow down or stop his onslaught. Past them, so he saw, more hundreds of women and children-and some few spiritless men-crawled, walked and ran from the carnage.

His sweeping gaze touched upon a child of indeterminate s.e.x, tugging at the half carbonized corpse of what was probably its mother. My children's mother was burned to death and yours warbled with glee, My children's mother was burned to death and yours warbled with glee, he thought, without any trace of emotion...he could not he thought, without any trace of emotion...he could not afford afford emotion, not now. emotion, not now. Still, little one, I am sorry for you. Still, little one, I am sorry for you.

Further on, near the edge of the artillery-laid minefield, men, women and children who had sought that route for safety lay along an irregular line. It was much too far for Carrera to make out any details. His mind supplied them even so. You are not so broken as my own babies were when they were murdered. You are not so broken as my own babies were when they were murdered.

Carrera's thoughts were interrupted by the soft padding of footsteps behind him. He recognized their source. Few walked with such near perfect quiet as his prized chief of his almost equally prized Pashtun scouts.

"Subadar Masood?" he said without turning.

"Sir!" exclaimed the senior Pashtun Scout, springing to attention near his side. A smile briefly crossed the subadar's seamed, craggy face. You, alone of all men, can hear me coming, You, alone of all men, can hear me coming, he thought. he thought.

"The Scouts? All paths east and west?"

"Sealed tighter than a houri's hole, sir."

"Very good. I want as many prisoners as possible. Rewards are offered."

"Yes, sir. So my men have been told."

In the much colder air above the high pa.s.s breath gathered to frost a gray-shot beard. Hard they came, those puffs of air, pumped from struggling, bellowing lungs. They burst outward to form little horizontal pines before settling to and disappearing against the ubiquitous ice and snow.

Hard pumped the heart beneath the lungs, forcing warmth to freezing limbs, forcing blood to a brain straining to make sense of disaster.

Close to the ground, seeking to make himself invisible-one with the snow and the ice-the fugitive Abdul Aziz huddled. His eyes and ears quested for some route of escape, some way to survive to carry on the fight and avenge his family and his cause. Nothing looked very promising. Nothing sounded so, either.

In the cold, still air sound carried very well. The fugitive's ears caught easily the irregular sound of shots and screams. The fugitive cursed his enemies, then let fall a single tear which froze on his face before it had descended much more than an inch.

Ahead, the steady whop-whop-whop of helicopters told of escape routes being systematically cut off. Unseen, far above, the harsh drone of the Shturmoviks Shturmoviks and the cursed infidels' guns.h.i.+ps swept along, hunting for any who might have escaped the camp. Behind, the baying of dogs, hunting dogs with the sharpest of noses, told of other fugitives being tracked through the snow, ice and rock. From all around, at odd times, came shouts of triumph as some mercenary, apostate Pashtun Scout dragged a cowering man, woman, or child from a hiding place. and the cursed infidels' guns.h.i.+ps swept along, hunting for any who might have escaped the camp. Behind, the baying of dogs, hunting dogs with the sharpest of noses, told of other fugitives being tracked through the snow, ice and rock. From all around, at odd times, came shouts of triumph as some mercenary, apostate Pashtun Scout dragged a cowering man, woman, or child from a hiding place.

Despair crowded the fugitive's heart and mind; despair at loss, despair at ruin.

The thought of his own wife and children, now forever lost, was almost more than he could bear. "They'll pay. By the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah, I swear they will pay for this," muttered the fugitive to himself.

The pitiless ice made no answer.

Havaldar Mohammad Kamal didn't answer either; though he heard. He pointed to one of his grinning men, then to another, and made a slight finger motion in the direction from which the sound had come.

The scouts glanced at each other. A wordless plan formed between them. Carrera would pay bounties for live prisoners. They'd take this one alive if they could.

Silently the two designated scouts began to creep forward and around. The military arts their prey had learned only partially, they had grown up with.

Interlude

11/6/409 AC, Botulph, Federated States of Columbia, Terra Nova Robert Hennessey, Senior, sat quietly on a bench in the central park of this great metropolitan city on the Federated States West Coast. In the sun Hennessey read his newspaper. More especially, Hennessey read for word of the fighting in the Mar Furioso, the great sea of Terra Nova, where his son, Lieutenant Robert Hennessey, Junior, led a platoon of Federated States Marines in the long, slow, b.l.o.o.d.y drive across the sea. The sooner the war was over, the sooner young Bob was safe, the better, as far as the old man was concerned.

After all, I'm not getting any younger and I need the boy to take over the chair of the firm.

There was grounds for hope now, despite the obscenely long casualty lists posted every day from the fighting across central Taurus and on the islands of the Furioso. Just a few days before the papers had blared out of a second Yamatan city blasted to cinders by some new weapon developed in secret.

Whatever it takes to get the Yamatans to surrender short of invading the home islands, Robert Senior thought. Robert Senior thought.

There was hardly a family in the entire country to be found that hadn't lost a son or a husband. Hennessey heard weeping and looked over to where a woman, formerly playing with her children on the gra.s.s, had broken down in tears.

Whatever it takes.

He heard a familiar horn beep. Folding his paper, Hennessey arose from the park bench to walk to where his chauffeur was exiting the limousine to hold open the door. He gave himself this one break, one hour every morning, to relax in the central park away from his responsibilities. The hour never seemed to last long enough.

From the corner of one eye Hennessey thought he saw a bright streak across the sky. He glanced up just as the streak became a flash that consumed him, his city, the young, weeping woman, her children, trees and buildings and park benches...everything.

UEPF Spirit of Peace "Target One...destroyed, High Admiral....Target Two....destroyed."

Silently, High Admiral Laurence Napier, nodded his head. If ever a man looked spiritually crushed, that man was he, for he had just given the order and overseen the extinction of over one million people.

What choice had I, though? My orders from the Consensus were clear; they allowed no room for maneuver. "Any detonation of a nuclear weapon for purposes of advancing a war effort on Terra Nova is to be met by an equivalent or greater response from the United Earth Peace Fleet." I picked the two smallest cities in the Federated States for that...the two smallest that had a chance of working, in any case, San Fernando and Botulph. What else could I do?

Suddenly, Napier felt the overwhelming urge to vomit. Without another word he arose from his command chair and raced for his own quarters. Halfway to his quarters he found he could not restrain himself, emptying the contents of his stomach for some nameless prole to clean up. Still heaving, Napier continued on to his quarters.

There he sat in silent horror at the oceans of blood on his hands. He imagined it all, the young children playing on the gra.s.s, the old men reading their morning papers, the flash, the fireball...

In the end, the imagining was too much. Napier removed a pistol from his desk, made sure it was loaded, placed the muzzle to the roof of his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

This left another mess for the proles to clean up.

Chapter Twenty-six.

Strong winds, strong winds Many dead tonight, it could be you-Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Homeless Homeless

Jebel Ansar, 18/8/469 They called Carrera "the Blue Jinn." He took a small and perverse pride in the t.i.tle. Blue jinni were evil jinni. That his enemies thought him evil was...pleasant. Even more pleasant was the sight of his enemies, beaten and bleeding, captive and bound.

Carrera, the Jinn, looked over those enemies in the late afternoon sun. Sinking in the west, the sun's light was carved by the mountains to cast long, sharp shadows across the ground. Much of that ground was covered with the head-bowed, broken prisoners.

One of those captives, Abdul Aziz ibn Kalb, held his bleeding head upright. Abdul Aziz glared hate at his captors. These were a mix of Pashtun mercenaries-tall and light eyed; light skinned they would have been, too, had the sun not burned them red-brown-and shorter, darker men. All were heavily armed, bearing wicked looking rifles with s.h.i.+ny steel blades affixed. All sneered back the hate Abdul Aziz felt, mixing with that hate a full measure of disgust and contempt.

Aziz's hate mixed with and fed on fear. Along with several hundred other male prisoners, and well over a thousand women and children, Aziz waited to hear his fate. The male prisoners' hands and legs were taped together. Not far away, the women and children waited unbound. The two groups were close enough together that Abdul Aziz could see the noncombatants as well as a small group of his enemies ascending a low hill to his front.

Leading that group, Abdul Aziz saw, was a uniformed man, medium in height, and with his face and head wrapped with a keffiyah. Another looked oriental. Three more were dressed much as any mullahs would be. A sixth wore the white dress of the Emirate of Doha. The last was another man in uniform, bearing the rank badges of a subadar subadar. Trimly bearded, tall and slender, with bright gray eyes, the subadar subadar looked Pashtun to Abdul Aziz. looked Pashtun to Abdul Aziz.

That man in the lead partially unwrapped the keffiyah from around his head. Aziz had never seen him before, but had heard enough descriptions to recognize the "Blue Jinn."

Carrera paused and lit a cigarette. He puffed it contemplatively for a few moments. Then he sat back easily in a chair, almost a throne, which had been prepared for him by his followers out of hastily felled and trimmed trees. Even at this distance Abdul Aziz saw the eyes that gave the Jinn his name. Though it was just a trick of the sun, the eyes seemed to glow from the inside like malevolent coals.

A dark-clad, bearded mullah walked to the microphone of a portable public address set standing in front of the chair and began to speak.

"I have consulted," he announced, "with Duque Duque Carrera, the man you probably know as the Blue Jinn, and whom you see to my right, concerning your fate. He, in accordance with the Sharia, has turned the general resolution of your cases over to myself and my fellow mullahs. We have p.r.o.nounced sentence of death upon you, in accordance with the will of Allah, for complicity in murder." Carrera, the man you probably know as the Blue Jinn, and whom you see to my right, concerning your fate. He, in accordance with the Sharia, has turned the general resolution of your cases over to myself and my fellow mullahs. We have p.r.o.nounced sentence of death upon you, in accordance with the will of Allah, for complicity in murder."

It was widely speculated that the mullah only consulted the quarter gold Boerrand Carrera allegedly paid him for each desired "legal" death sentence he pa.s.sed on. He never admitted this. Neither did he deny it.

"Your young children shall be taken back to your enemy's country," the mullah continued. "Your women, and the girls over twelve, are awarded to his Pashtun Scouts as prizes. Mr. Yamaguchi," and the mullah's head nodded to indicate the oriental man who had accompanied the party, "and Mr. Al Ajami," another head nod, "represent certain interests in Yamato and Doha that might wish to buy some of these women and girls from the Scouts. Having consulted with the Jinn I have informed him that there is no religious prohibition to this, that you are all apostates and your women may properly be enslaved. For his part, he says he could care less what happens to them so long as it is within the law."

A wild and heartrending moan emerged from the cl.u.s.ter of women as the grinning, leering Pashtun began to prod them away to the processing area. Aziz felt a sudden relief that his wife had been spared the ignominy of rape followed by sale into prost.i.tution.

"As for the rest of you, as I said, you shall die. But the Jinn tells me to inform you that he is solicitous of your souls."

The mullah stopped speaking and backed away from the microphone. Carrera stood and took the mullah's place. He spoke in decent Arabic, Aziz was surprised to discover, though his accent was somewhat heavy.

"Some years ago the actions of your leader and your movement robbed me of my wife and children," Carrera announced. He turned to the chief mullah. "What does Surah Eighty-one say, O' man of G.o.d?" he asked.

The mullah recited aloud, loud enough for the microphone to pick up so that the prisoners could hear, "When the infant girl, buried alive, is asked for what crime she was slain-"

"What does it mean?"

"It means, sayidi sayidi, when Allah asks who murdered her, for no infant girl can be guilty of a crime."

"Does Allah approve of burying infant girls alive, then?"

"He does not. Surah Eighty-one, the Cessations, is concerned with the end of time, Judgment Day, and the punishment of the wicked. G.o.d will punish the murderers of infant girls."

Carrera's face twitched in the smallest of smiles. "Ah, I see. What does the Holy Koran say about those who bring disorder to the world?

"It says, O Jinn, in Surah Five, the Table, that those who fight against G.o.d or his Apostle, bringing disorder to the world, should be killed, or have the hands and feet cut off on opposite sides, or be exiled, or be crucified."

"I see," said Carrera. "Do those who kill infant girls fight against G.o.d? Have these men brought disorder to the world?"

"They have. They do," answered the mullah, "for this is expressly forbidden under Islam."

Carrera turned back to his captives. "I loved my family, even as-one supposes-you love your own. I swore, when they were murdered, to avenge myself on all who had contributed, even pa.s.sively, to my loss. Thus you shall die. I am, though, as Mullah Ha.s.sim told you, very solicitous of your fate in the hereafter. So before you die, you will be thoroughly Christianized."