"Guard room," came from a speaker mounted above the buzzer.
"Odabasi ibn Minden," Hans said. "Open up."
"Immediately, sir." It was Hans' ensign's voice.
The door buzzed itself with the sound of a solenoid moving a bolt out of the way. Hans opened the door, said, "Thanks," into the speaker, and entered. Still crouching low, Hamilton followed. Hans shut the door quietly, then pointed. "Two barracks that way. They're marked. Good luck."
Both men then took night vision goggles from their packs and strapped them to their head. With a nod, Hamilton took off in the direction indicated.
He killed the hallway lights, then walked ahead to his target.
These are men I am responsible for, Hans thought, as he came upon the barracks room door for his own third platoon. Men I took an oath to lead. And . . . they're good men, too.
He heard another voice, an old and dying priest's voice. "What does the Koran say about lying to unbelievers? Turnabout is fair play."
But these men never lied to me. If anything, they were lied to.
"Not that. It's that it was permissible for you to lie under oath."
Oh. I suppose so.
Still, Hans hesitated at the door. His heart was pounding, yes, but not from fear. He was sick at the stomach, yes, but not from nerves. It was just that, The only man I ever killed—helped kill, anyway—was that old priest. And now I'm supposed to kill nearly one hundred. It's a hard step.
But will it be any easier, knowing that two hundred children down below will be infected with a deadly disease if you don't save them? Take your pick, Hans. At least the men in that barracks room are adults.
Sighing, Hans laid down the pack and removed from it the two jars and an oxygen mask with a small tank. Then, after placing the mask over his face, he opened both and set them down on the floor by the crack of the door. The door he opened gently until there was just about a foot of opening. He slid the jar of cyanide crystals almost through that opening. With two hands, carefully, Hans began to pour the acid onto the crystals. They immediately began to dissolve with a sound of crackling. He pushed the jar all the way into the barracks room and closed the door.
Inside, sleeping men began the process of dying.
On the other side of the castle, Hamilton felt none of the qualms Hans had. These were not, after all, his men. On the other hand, his heart was pounding just as Hans' was. And that pounding was from fear, if not fear for himself.
If I fail in this, he thought, what becomes of Petra? If I fail, what becomes of the children down below? If I fail, what becomes of the world?
I must not fail . . . I must not fail like I failed Laurie.
Repeating Hans' motions, Hamilton took out and prepared two jars. Likewise, he donned an oxygen mask—be nice if it was impossible to absorb cyanide through your skin and eyes—cracked the door, half pushed in one jar, and then filled it with acid from the other. He then pushed it in the rest of the way, and closed the door . . . just as the door for the other barracks room—the one for the headquarters platoon— opened and a robe clad janissary emerged from it.
"Who turned off the fucking lights?" the janissary cursed. "Get up to take a damned piss and you risk your life around this place . . . "
Will he find the light switch? Probably. If he does, will he see me? Certainly. If that happens . . .
Hamilton aimed his submachine gun at the greenish image of the janissary and pulled the trigger. The gun was suppressed; it hardly made a sound. The janissary, on the other hand, was not killed instantly and managed to get off a scream.
"Ah, fuck!" Hamilton exclaimed.
"Fuck," whispered Hans, as he heard a scream from the opposite side of the castle. He stopped on the stairs that led down to the ready room, wracked with indecision.
Now, do I go help Hamilton or continue with the plan we already have? If I go back, the ready room may alert. If I go on, I can perhaps keep that from happening. Or not. Or fuck it all up.
He waited that way for several long moments. Had there been more such screams, he'd likely have gone back. If Hamilton had asked he'd have gone back. As it was, it sounded as if Hamilton was still in control of the situation, and Hamilton didn't ask for assistance. Hans continued on down.
The path to the ready room led past the sealed pen in which the experimental slaves were kept, near the observation and cremation chamber. There was a light on in the pens. Hamilton looked in on the children. There were too many to count. Besides, lacking beds they lay on each other in a twisted tangle of heads, arms and legs. He could only hope they were all present and accounted for.
It was only the one, Hamilton thought. Just one poor bastard who needed to take a piss. How many more in ten seconds?
Already there were sounds coming from the last barracks room, men rising, questions being asked, the mechanical sounds of weapons being taken from racks.
No time to fuck around.
Hamilton re-slung his submachine gun and grabbed the last two jars. On the smoothly polished floor his feet scrabbled for purchase, to propel him towards the still ajar door. His speed picked up . . . too fast. By the time he'd closed on the door it was all but impossible to stop. Cradling the jars against his chest, he let himself fall backwards to the floor. Ouch.
He slid on back and side, closing to very near his target. His feet struck the bleeding corpse of the janissary he'd shot. That stopped him.
No time to fuck around.
Hamilton smashed the jar of cyanide crystals just inside the barracks room. He could see the scattered pile. The jar of acid he smashed too, just before the spot with the crystals began. Acid splashed. Crystals began to dissolve, releasing their deadly gas.
Hamilton rolled away from the door as fast as he could, rolled and rolled and rolled until he smashed against the wall opposite the barracks. He arose to one knee, unslinging his weapon as he did. His aim lined up on the door opposite just as the first janissary emerged, barefoot, yelping, and automatically stepping high to try to avoid the burning acid below. The poor janissary had a chemical hotfoot.
Hamilton put a three-round burst into the janissary's chest, causing him to fly back into the barracks room. The door swung back and forth on its hinges, fanning the cyanide gas emanating from the crystals on the floor.
A knot of three janissaries entangled themselves and their arms at the door, each trying to force his way through and all making it impossible for any. Hamilton fired again, a long and normally tactically unsound burst. The mass of tangled men didn't fly back this time. Instead, held in place by the common mass, they oozed downward, creating a small obstacle at the base of the portal.
Long enough in this spot. Hamilton tucked in one shoulder, his left, and rolled in that direction. When he finished his roll he took the prone, weapon still aimed at the door. Hamilton guessed there were perhaps nine rounds left in the magazine.
The next janissary out vaulted the bodies at the foot of the door. Hamilton fired and missed, fired and missed, fired and hit, spinning the janissary down, broken and bleeding.
Six down, maybe forty to go. Change the fucking magazine. No time to fuck around. Gas, do your stuff, he prayed, glancing at the door to the first barracks he'd poisoned.
Originally, Hans had intended to take control of the ready room and give Hamilton time to thin the exterior guards, and possibly even to divert reinforcements from af-Fridhav. There wasn't going to be time for that, now. Better to take control and make sure all the exterior entrances are locked, the mines armed. To Hell with subtlety.
Hans knocked on the clear glass window beside the ready room door. The guards inside were already rising. "Open up!" Hans ordered. "Open up! The enemy is upon us."
The frightened bayraktar dutifully pressed the button to release the door bolt. Hans pushed the sprung door open with his posterior. With one hand he reached in to the delay detonator atop the explosive charge in his pack. He pulled the detonator, tossed the pack into the room, and then dove for safety, le
tting the door slam shut behind him.
The explosive was a two stage thermobaric device. When it went off it first spread a cloud of flammable dust throughout the room. This then detonated, creating an overpressure that burst the window even as it smashed the internal organs of every man inside.
The explosion didn't do any good things to Hans, either. Even with most of a wall between him and the blast, still the force of the thing stunned and deafened him. He thought one eardrum might be burst. He knew he'd been concussed from the way the world shuddered and shook around him.
Unsteadily, having to use one hand on the wall for balance, Hans entered the ready room and began to fire at any of the bodies that looked like they still had a spark of life to them. Compared to the overpressure of the blast, the overpressure from the muzzle was nothing.
Only one man emerged from the first barracks room. That one was blue in the face and clutching at his throat. He collapsed, gasped for a while, and then died.
From the other room they came out still, but more slowly and unsteadily as the gas filling the room took effect. Hamilton almost felt sorry for them as they staggered out, weapons sometimes in hand but fingers clawing at throats. He went through three more magazines that way, putting the suffocating janissaries out of their misery. He'd lost effective count of the number he'd killed, though more than fifteen bodies littered the corridor floor.
Hamilton felt the castle shudder. That would be Hans' bomb, I think. No chance to take the perimeter guards out quietly now. Fuck. Going to make it difficult when we bring the airship in to load.
Hamilton thought frantically about the implications of that. No time to leave it to the guys inside to die at their own pace. Attack!
Quickly he dropped the half empty magazine in his submachine gun and replaced it. He felt to check that his oxygen mask was still in place and feeding. Then he stood and charged for the door.
* * *
The men on the perimeter would have heard the blast; of that Hans had no doubt. Still stunned and staggering, he went to the control desk and pushed the bayraktar's body out of the way. With one finger he armed the mines in place around the perimeter, to include the newly emplaced directional ones the men had put in at his order. With another he fired the modular mine packs that sealed off all the roads and gates around the castle. These each sent out twenty-eight little bombs that dispensed seven metal threads upon landing and then armed themselves. Touch one of the threads, or disturb the mine, and it would leap a meter into the air and detonate, sending tiny bits of hot serrated wire in all directions. Then Hans killed all the interior lights.
Lastly, Hans cut off all communication between the castle and the outside world.
As soon as the sergeant of the guard felt the blast, he raced for the front door of the castle. Pressing the speaker button to demand a report, he heard only moaning and a muffled pffft . . . pffft . . . pffft.
"Crap!" he said aloud.
The sergeant then turned to the main gate where stood the same gate guard who had admitted Hans just a little earlier. Ignoring the guard, the sergeant picked up the phone and punched in the number for the corbasi's command post at af-Fridhav. Modular mine packs were going off around the perimeter. The sergeant had to assume all the mines were armed and live, now. Shit.
"Headquarters," came the answer.
The sergeant's voice was frantic. "This is Castle Honsvang, Sergeant of the Guard Bozkurt. We're under attack. The odabasi is in there. I don't know if he's alive or dead."
af-Fridhav, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
"Calm down, sergeant," said the colonel. "I'll be along immediately with reinforcements. The important thing is not to let the enemy escape. . . . Sergeant? Sergeant?" The line was dead.
"Bloodyfuckinghell!" the colonel exclaimed, before shouting out, "Alert company . . . boots and saddles . . . im-fucking-mediately!"
Thinking about what he'd told the sergeant, about how the critical thing was to keep the enemy from escaping, the colonel realized that the enemy was most likely going to try to escape by air. How, he didn't know, but Switzerland was close and those brazen bastards were likely to be in on this. The colonel then began to dial for air support. Though Allah knows how long it will take those idiots to get out of bed, let alone get a couple of planes in the air.
The Caliphate's Air Force was filled with the lazy sons of rich, connected, powerful men. All the janissaries had contempt for them.
Briefly, the colonel considered delaying long enough for the men to draw heavy weapons and the ammunition for them. Ultimately, he decided that there just wasn't time, that a faster response was better than a more powerful one.
Castle Honsvang, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
Sergeant Bozkurt heard the tone on the line change from his living colonel's voice to absolutely dead. Shit. What the hell do I do now? Gotta think . . . gotta think. What do I know and what don't I know?
One: I know there are enemies inside and that their numbers are great enough to take down one hundred and seventy or more guards, most asleep but probably some of them alert. Okay, so myself and my fourteen men are outnumbered. Bad, bad, very bad.
Two: They might be a suicide mission but probably are not. If they were, they would have blown the castle sky high already rather than screwing around with retail work. So they intend to escape.
Three: If they intend to escape, they'll have some means, ground or air. I can't do squat about the air at the moment, since if it's coming it isn't here yet, but I can keep them from getting away by ground. And I can try to counterattack.
"Corporals! Corporals of the Guard! Report!"
While those were assembling, the sergeant said to the gate guard, the only man outside the perimeter of mines, "I relieve you. Run like the wind to the other castle and bring the baseski and the others. Run, son, RUN!"
"Hans? Hans report!"
"This is Hans . . . ready room is taken down and the guards dead . . . exterior doors are bolted and the mine and mine packs activated. I'm . . . not in such good shape."
"Communications?" Hamilton asked.
"Cut . . . but not before they could have gotten word out. Petra?"
"I'm listening, Brother."
"Get ready. There will probably be a column coming from af- Fridhav soon."
Petra sounded more cold than nervous to Hamilton when she answered, "I'm ready."
Hamilton's goggled gaze swept the room full of corpses. He knew that the cyanide would pass through his skin if he stayed around long enough. He began to back out, careful not to trip over any of the sprawled bodies. "Hans, I'm finished here. We've got to get control of the scientists."
"Understood. They'll probably have heard or felt the blast. I suspect they'll head to the lab to try to ensure the survival of their work."
"Good thought. I'll clear their rooms, to make sure, and join you there."
Hamilton pulled several bodies away from the door, then exited and shut it behind him. No sense in letting the gas escape.
Claude O. Meara, Guillaume Sands, and John Johnston the Fourth met on the broad landing outside their suites of rooms. Meara, as was often the case, had a young boy on a leash. Sands and Johnston held flashlights.
"What the fuck is going on?" Sands asked.
"Explosion," Johnston said. "Felt like it came from the direction of the lab."
"Merde!" Sands exclaimed. "We must save our work!" He and Johnston ran for the broad staircase that led below, ever so slowly followed by the waddling Meara, tugging on his play toy's leash.
The night vision goggles on his head were not nearly as good as what Hamilton had become used to in the Imperial Army. Even so, they were better than the predecessor to that army had had up until about the year 2014. They still gave no depth perception, but that was something inherent in the very idea. The picture was a bit grainier than he was used to, but that could be lived with. They were suffi
cient for him to see by, to vault obstacles with, and to find his way to the three renegades' doors based on his memory of the diagrams Hans had drawn over a week earlier.
Open. They're gone. Now where to? Probably the lab, just as Hans thought they would. Feets, don't fail me now.
On his way down, Hamilton heard some pounding at the heavy wooden door that stood between two tall towers at the front of the castle. The door barely seemed to notice yet, so it seemed to him, Even so, given enough time even a soft pounding might cause the door to come off its heavy hinges. He checked his downward progress and made his way to the leftmost of the two towers that flanked the door. Looking down he saw two men holding up one end of a log. He estimated there might be enough space for another four that he couldn't see.
Wish I had some grenades, Hamilton mused. Oh, well, no sense crying for what wasn't available.
He turned a crank to slightly open a window, then pushed the muzzle of his submachine gun out the crack. Taking aim, Hamilton squeezed off two bursts—pffft . . . pffft—that sent the two men he could see sprawling in pools of blood. The pounding from down below stopped immediately. One other janissary, brave or stupid, showed himself as he tried to drag the bodies behind cover. Pffft.
May not stop 'em but it will slow them down.
Hamilton turned from the window and continued his progress to the cellar and the lab.
Hans, stunned or not, still beat the renegades to the lab area. He found a seat which he pushed off to one side. He then waited for them to arrive. He heard them, two of them anyway, long before he saw them. His submachine gun was already reloaded by the time Sands and Johnston arrived.
"Freeze, swine!" Hans said once the two were in his sights. When they had, he amended, "Get on your bellies, filth! Where's the grotesquely fat one?"
Meara stopped when he heard the voice. He stopped so suddenly, in fact, that the play toy bumped into his overly ample rump in the dark.
My God, Meara thought. They've come to get me.
His universe had always been centered on himself. He couldn't imagine any attack on the castle that did not have him as its prime target. They'll put me in prison. I'll be beaten . . . people will be mean to me. I've got to get out of here. And to hell with the others.
Caliphate Page 29