Part 61 (2/2)

In the end, they'd settled on placing the camera low and the reporter on a small earthen ramp they'd thrown together. This allowed the reporter to speak about the terrible destruction though, admittedly, other than that one building it didn't seem so terrible without letting in the unwanted messages of welcoming townsfolk and competent Sumeri troops. Best of all, this angle showed the stinking mercenaries' aircraft overhead. The obvious implication of ruined edifice in the near background and flying combat aircraft further off was that the legion was smas.h.i.+ng the town like a bully child.

”Pumbadeta is dying,” the reporter began...

Fadeel didn't want to die just yet. Some of the crusaders leveled charges of cowardice against him. None of his own men did. He had work to do and could not let death inconvenience that work. They knew that and accepted it.

How to prevent it though; that was the problem. Taken by surprise by the men of the city he'd already lost one quarter of Pumbadeta. Much worse, as his men fell back onto prepared positions further in, they'd run into ambush after ambush. The very positions they'd prepared they often found in enemy hands as they reached them.

This town is lost, Fadeel thought. Fadeel thought. Nothing for it but to lie low, blend in, hope my fighters take some with them, and then escape to rebuild. Next time, I'll know better than to count on the Kosmos to come to my rescue. In the interim, best to hide out, I think, until the fighting pa.s.ses and I can join the mob. Nothing for it but to lie low, blend in, hope my fighters take some with them, and then escape to rebuild. Next time, I'll know better than to count on the Kosmos to come to my rescue. In the interim, best to hide out, I think, until the fighting pa.s.ses and I can join the mob.

GNN had a mission and a message. The further the crew moved into the town, the less they found to back up that message. Yes, there were dead bodies d.a.m.ned near everywhere, but they were almost all armed. The town itself, though, had suffered little destruction so far.

”Well, we'll make do,” announced the reporter. He directed his camera crew to remove weapons from several dozen bodies to make them look like innocents caught up in the fighting. It wasn't perfect but it was better than nothing.

Fadeel's first thought when he saw the camera crew was, My salvation. My salvation.

He walked directly over and introduced himself in good English as ”Ahmad Habib al Fadel. Can I help you?”

Pleased to have someone who spoke English and Arabic with him the reporter hired Fadeel on the spot. He proved, over the next few hours, to have a real knack for setting up the bodies of those killed in the fighting to look incredibly innocent and pitiable.

When the day's shooting was done, the reporter asked Fadeel if he would like a lift somewhere.

”Anywhere away from this mad house,” was Fadeel's answer.

The reporter and his crew, no less Fadeel, were quite surprised and shocked to discover that, while a bribe might have gotten them in, even high powered media types were still still not being allowed not being allowed out out of Pumbadeta. of Pumbadeta.

Checkpoint X-ray, Wall of Circ.u.mvallation, 10/8/462 AC The excuse was to pay those who had fought and to make sure the town was thoroughly swept of insurgents. Using the same checkpoints as they had previously used to filter out the women and the children, the legion likewise filtered out the townsfolk from the insurgents.

The first step had been for the tribal leaders and those military advisors Sada had selected for them to come out and take charge of their displaced, tent city ”neighborhoods.” Having done so, and confirmed that the women and children were alive and well, they returned to the town and began to lead their fighters, and those who had taken no part in the fighting but for whom they were still responsible, out through the checkpoints. No one left except for those who were vouched for by their tribal leaders.

The men leaving were separated into those who had fought and those who had not. Both groups were subject to paraffin tests to see if, in fact, they had fired small arms. The purpose was quite different. Among the groups identified as fighters by the tribal leaders and whose clothing showed traces of small arms propellant, one hundred drachma was paid immediately. The fact that the legion's original cadre had been police who were used to gathering evidence helped here.

Any in the other group who showed such traces raised immediate suspicions. Some were identified as ”okay” by their own relatives. Others could not be identified. These were shot after a very quick trial by firing squads organized by the religious leaders.h.i.+p of the town, a substantial bounty being paid to the tribes who brought in outsiders who could not claim and prove members.h.i.+p in a local tribe. Those so identified who showed traces of a foreign accent were hanged.

Among those shot was a GNN camera crew which tried to bully its way through a checkpoint. They were not shot for the bullying. Rather, they were shot for attempting to help escape one Fadeel al Nizal. They claimed innocence but, given that the man's picture was in worldwide circulation, that their news network had shown nothing but harshness and contempt toward the war and those who fought in it (barring, of course, the insurgents), and that their own video found in the camera demonstrated an attempt at what was really enemy propaganda, neither the mullahs, nor Sada, nor Carrera, were convinced. They went to the wall, in tears, and still pleading.

Fadeel was not hanged on the spot. Neither was he shot. Instead, at an interview with Carrera and Sada, he was told, ”Friend, you are going to take a long, long cruise.”

Even then, Fadeel was most uncooperative, despite the threat and reality of pain, until his parents, kidnapped in an operation long planned, were brought to him aboard the Hildegard Mises Hildegard Mises.

Epilogue.

I.

With Hecate and Bellona hurtling overhead, from just outside the cave's mouth that led down to his underground command post, Mustafa min Sana'a, Prince of the Ikhwan Ikhwan contemplated a bleak present and a bleaker future. contemplated a bleak present and a bleaker future.

Why, O' Merciful One, do you try me so? Why do you seem to favor the infidel? Why have you caused us to lose in Sumer? Is it my failings? Or is it that the Sumeris, themselves, are unworthy of your redemption? Or is it, perhaps, that you required us to lose there so that when we win this world, as we eventually must, we and our descendants will be in no doubt that it was You who gave us the victory, and not by our own efforts?

Oh, yes, we will hang on in Sumer for a few more years, perhaps even a decade. We are a stubborn people, as You made us to be, and an optimistic one. But the tide is against us. I know this, no matter what I tell my followers. And the chief of the s.p.a.ce infidels, the pigs from Old Earth, likewise a.s.sures me that our cause there is lost. He tells me that terror met terror there, and the greatest terrorists won.

Who would have believed it; that an infidel from the greatest of infidel states should have become a greater terrorist than even the b.l.o.o.d.y handed Fadeel al Nizal?

Curse him, O' Mighty One, this filthy pig, Carrera.

And were is is Fadeel, anyway? He has disappeared from the world and left no trace. I think he must have been taken, though. Too many cells around the world of which only Fadeel and I and my closest a.s.sociates knew have likewise gone into the ether. Too many accounts with too many millions in them have also gone. I think Fadeel must have lived and I think he must have talked. Fadeel, anyway? He has disappeared from the world and left no trace. I think he must have been taken, though. Too many cells around the world of which only Fadeel and I and my closest a.s.sociates knew have likewise gone into the ether. Too many accounts with too many millions in them have also gone. I think Fadeel must have lived and I think he must have talked.

What could make a man like Fadeel talk? Oh, he was a lion lion, despite our occasional differences. No ordinary interrogation would have broken Fadeel. This Carrera swine must be deep into Shaitan's clutches if he could make Fadeel betray trusts.

Unconsciously, Mustafa's teeth ground together with the sheer hate and frustration of it all. He began to pace the mouth of the cave, hands clutched tightly behind him.

Allah, we've got got to win. I have been to Taurus, I have been to the Federated States. I know what they are like. I to win. I have been to Taurus, I have been to the Federated States. I know what they are like. I know know... You You know, how they have begun to contaminate even the faithful. know, how they have begun to contaminate even the faithful.

It is an abomination. Especially is it an abomination where women are concerned. Women working outside the home? Women choosing their own mates? Women free to f.u.c.k whom they will without marriage, even within marriage? Women baring their bodies in public like wantons? Women learning to read? Women voting? Women free free?

Abomination, abomination, abomination, ABOMINATION! ABOMINATION!

You have created the one above the other, the man above the women, just as You have placed the faithful above the infidel and the dhimmi. And these infidels would seek to recreate the worlds in ways contrary to your will? Forbid it, Almighty Allah! Help us to forbid it and to bring your just rule to this world, to this universe.

You, O' Allah, are the greatest plotter of all. Help us and guide us, your faithful servants.

Mustafa had a sudden and unsettling, even an awful, thought.

He asked aloud of the night air, ”Is it my fault that we have lost, my G.o.d? Is it my misspent youth? The days of uselessness and the nights of drunkenness and debauchery? I regret them all, O' Most High. I know they all should have been either my wives or those held under my right hand before I touched them. I humbly ask I humbly beg Your forgiveness. I knew not then what I know now.”

Facing toward Makkah al Jedidah, Mustafa prostrated himself, bowing repeatedly and whispering his prayers and his penance. When he was finished, his mind was clearer, clear enough to think upon the future which looked so bleak.

So we have lost in Sumer. So be it. What is there to gain, then? How shall we proceed?

Further attacks on the Federated States? The last one didn't work out precisely as planned, now did it? Why was this? I had thought them much weaker than they proved to be. I had thought them as weak as the Taurans. No, then; no more attacks on the FSC until and unless I can make them truly crippling. No more threats unless the threat is so deadly even they will not face it.

But what is left then? What is left when they have won in Sumer?

There are the Xamar pirates. They owe me, many of them. Perhaps they can be persuaded to integrate their individual efforts, to join the higher holy cause. I will dispatch Abdul Aziz to that end as soon as possible. Perhaps the pirates of the Nicobar Straits, too, can be brought into the fold. Most of them are of the faithful, after all.

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