A Desert Called Peace cl-1

by Tom Kratman

  And was knocked flat on his face as the gasoline inside suddenly caught in something that was only just less than a full up fuel-air explosion. Only the many open portals of the building kept it from going up in a huge, contained, thermobaric kaboom. By the time he had rolled on his back and sat up, the entire ground floor poured forth flames. Before he had gotten to his feet the second and even some of the third floor windows had tongues of flame licking out.

  The screaming inside the buildings went on for a very long, very satisfying, time.

  XVII.

  "Hump it, you bastards, hump it!" Qabaash shouted across the river to the struggling gangs of Sumeri engineers frantically rebuilding something that would do for a floor to the smaller of the two bridges spanning the river. Even while they built, thin squads of uniformed Sumeri soldiers, Sada's men, carefully crossed onto the near bank along creaking a foot path laid along the bridge's skeleton. These assembled as they crossed under their own leaders. A news team was mixed in with one column, having bribed one of the lesser commanders to let them in.

  Even Sada's brigade couldn't change human nature.

  The members of the GNN camera crew were careful to place the still burning building as a backdrop to their reporter. This seemed easy but wasn't. There were confident looking regular Sumeri troops standing below the building. Obviously they had to be left out. Worse, there were armed civilians who were not only not fighting the soldiers, but were actually welcoming them and helping them.

  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 terriblewithout 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 farther off was that the legion was smashing 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 farther 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. 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 passes and I can join the mob.

  GNN had a mission and a message. The farther the crew moved into the town, the less they found to back up that message. Yes, there were dead bodies damned 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.

  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 madhouse," 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 not being allowed out of Pumbadeta.

  Checkpoint X-ray, Wall of Circumvallation, 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. After a very quick trial these were shot by firing squads organized by the religious leadership of the town, a substantial bounty being paid to the tribes who brought in outsiders who could not claim and prove membership 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.

  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 Sa'ana, prince of the Ikhwan 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 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 space infidels, the pigs from Old Earth, likewise assures 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 bloody handed Fadeel al
Nizal?

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

  And where 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 associates 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, 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 to win. I have been to Taurus, I have been to the Federated States. I know what they are like. I know… You 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 fuck whom they will without marriage, even within marriage? Women baring their bodies in public like wantons? Women learning to read? Women voting? Women free?

  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 God? 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.

  And then there is Pashtia. Yes… perhaps Pashtia can be reopened as our major effort. After all, the mujahadein and the money that would go to Sumer otherwise are still available; will still be coming. And then, too, Pashtia has few roads and railroads, no ports, not many airports. Can the infidels even supply a larger force in Pashtia? Perhaps not; the Volgans never could.

  Yes, Pashtia is where we shall fight them. Pashtia is where we shall crucify the swine.

  II

  Carrera half lay on a supply pallet outside the field hospital at Balboa Base. His legs hung off with his feet on the ground. Both arms were outflung on the pallet, the hand on the right one holding a smoldering cigarette. Under the other arm was strapped a pistol in a shoulder holster. He looked up at the stars and the moons, speaking to Linda in his mind.

  I almost murdered a city, love. I was ready to. I had everything needed to destroy it. I'd have given the order in a few days if one bloody mullah hadn't saved me from it. What do I owe, do you suppose, to a man who kept me from getting more blood on my hands than I could ever wash off? I'm building him a new mosque, a grand one. But I don't think it's nearly enough.

  Carrera didn't bother to stifle a yawn.

  I'm tired, Linda, so tired. Not just of the work but of the means . My boys are great, they do whatever I want them to. But they can do it only because the sins are all on my head.

  It was easy, baby, when I first began. Then it was all abstract; I didn't have to think. And I was too full of hate to feel much else.

  I wish it were over. But it never will be, will it? Not in my lifetime.

  He stopped thinking for a while, feeling the cool night air, seeing the twinkling stars, and conscious of the pistol strapped to his chest.

  That would be the easy way, wouldn't it. And I'd like to; I really would. But I can't do that either. I owe it to you and the babies to continue the fight. And I owe it to my men not to abandon them.

  I owe it to Lourdes, too, her and the new baby. And…

  Sada materialized next to the supply pallet. "Ruqaya says it's time, Patricio."

  Sitting up, Carrera tossed the cigarette. It would never do to bring fire inside a place where pure oxygen flowed. He stood and turned to follow Sada to the maternity ward. At the door, a nurse helped him into a hospital gown. Sada stayed outside as Carrera entered.

  The look on Lourdes' face was one of pure excruciation. Standing in the adobe field hospital, wearing the hospital gown to cover his battle dress, Carrera took her hand. He felt every contraction and spasm right along with her. Though Sada was not allowed into the delivery room, his wife, Ruqaya, held Lourdes' other hand, stroked her damp hair and forehead and whispered words of encouragement to her.

  Carrera had tried to send Lourdes back. In this one particular, though, her will had been iron.

  "My mother bore four children with never a doctor in attendance," she'd said. "My grandmother had eight and all in her own bed, on her own and my grandfather's farm.

  Without even electricity. I'm no wilting flower, either. I am your woman. My place is with you and I WILL NOT GO!"

  It was a surprising show of resistance from such a normally serene and cooperative person. He'd known he was not going to win that fight. Instead, bowing to the inevitable, he'd flown in an obstetrician from Balboa. At some level he'd felt a certain guilt about that; using his position for special consideration for his own family.

  Am I becoming like the Balboans, placing family first? Am I becoming like the Islamics? Certainly Adnan and Ruqaya, Fernandez and Jimenez, and-so far as I can tell-each and every one of the troops, approved. I must think on this… later.

  To his own question he'd had no answer or, in any event, not one that satisfied. He'd sent the doctor out, always under heavy guard, to deliver babies all over the BZOR to try to give the appearance of having brought specialist medical aid for the mission and not for his own sake or that of his new wife.

  And in that, too, it seems I am becoming more like my enemies. Do I care so much about appearances? I never did before.

  And that was another thing. A few days before he'd had one of his horrible nightmares. This one was different, though. Linda had been there, as usual, along with Julio, Lambie and Milagro. But so had Lourdes and the baby.

  It was the picnic nightmare, again, only with the oddity that Lourdes and Linda, both, were his wives and seemed quite content with that situation. It was positively Islamic and even worse than usual when all six screamed and turned to rotten meat, then crumbling bones, before his eyes.

  His reveries were interrupted by a loud, piercing, wailing scream from Lourdes and a painful squeeze of his hand. Her head was up off her pillow, bobbing as she gasped for air. In a few moments of hard
struggle it was over. Lourdes' head returned to her pillow. She still gasped and-Carrera had no doubt-was still in agony. Compared to agony of actual delivery, though, what she felt now was probably small beans. Indeed, by comparison it was likely pure relief. He could see that on the smile that shone through her tears.

  Carrera heard a slap and then one very, very affronted wail. He was distantly aware of the flash of a scalpel and of the baby being passed to Ruqaya.

  "Behold, Patricio," Ruqaya said, flicking a miniature penis with an index finger, "you have a son."

  Before placing the child at Lourdes' breast, Ruqaya held the boy's tiny ear to her mouth and whispered, " La illaha illa Allah; Muhammadan rasulu Allah." There is no God but God; Muhammad is the prophet of God.

  Carrera let it be. On the other hand, What religion should the boy be raised in? I'm a Catholic, if a bad one. Lourdes is Baptist, and a good one. But, who knows; maybe Ruqaya has a point.

  Nah.

  He looked at the boy again, now nuzzled into his mother, and felt something he had not felt in a very long time. It wasn't love; he loved Lourdes and had for a lot longer than he'd been willing to admit it. If she was not Linda, she was still the finest-and based on her just concluded delivery one of the toughest and bravest-human beings on the planet.

  No… it's not love that I feel anew. It's… it's… He struggled with the concept before realizing, It's a sense of future, of having a continuing place in the march of Man. I lost it when Linda and the children were killed. Lourdes has just given it back to me.

  With his right palm stroking Lourdes' hair he bent over her and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. "I love you, Lourdes," he said. "In all this world I love you and our child above all. You, and he, have given me my future back."

  And for that future I will fight.