And although it appears that the World has become effeminate and Heaven disarmed, yet this arises without doubt more from the baseness of men who have interpreted our Religion in accordance with Indolence and not in accordance with Virtu. For if they were to consider that it (our Religion) permits the exaltation and defense of the country, they would see that it desires that we love and honor her (our country), and that we prepare ourselves so that we can be able to defend her.—Machiavelli, The Discourses, Book Two, Chapter II
As he usually did, Bashir lay down for the night with his yellow radio's earpiece in his ear. Also, as usual, he punched in the code, hoping against hope that tonight there'd be an answer. There had been none since those five poor devils had been taken and crucified.
The coded message he sent out was simple: "tonight . . . tomorrow . . . tonight . . . tomorrow." He punched it in and pressed the key to transmit in a burst. This message must get through or my family is dead, he thought. Closing his eyes after the message went out Bashir was almost shocked to hear in the earpiece, "Message received. Thank you."
The chill early morning breeze raised dust across the regularly laid out encampment. By the airfield, in the tall, sandbagged control tower, Carrera scanned past the high earthen walls.
There were eyes on the camp. There were always eyes on the camp. You couldn't stop them from seeing. You couldn't stop their owners from reporting. The trick, then, was to make them think they saw something different, to make the unusual look normal and even the normal unusual.
The legion had since its arrival kept at least one cohort operating along the Kashmir-Pashtia border. That could remain there. Indeed, moving them without replacing them would have been inherently suspicious. Also, there were always at least four Pashtun Scout maniples and two to three Cazador maniples operating somewhere in the Balboan Zone of Responsibility, or BZOR. Few units operated without being in range of some kind of artillery or heavy mortar support.
Both Pashtun Scouts and Cazadors operated farther from camp than line infantry, and were much more likely to rely on air support than artillery or mortar fire if they found themselves in a jam.
Leaving one infantry cohort and the bulk of the service and support troops to guard the camp, Carrera had sent out one infantry cohort to replace the Cazadors and part of the Scouts. This was done slowly, over a period of days, so as to incite no comment. The infantry flew out with the morning supplies; the Scouts and Cazadors flew back, hidden in the IM-71s closed, almost windowless, cargo bays.
At the camp's own airfield the Scouts had spent a mere day being partially briefed and fitted with civilian clothing suitable for travel. They were issued passports with visas. They'd then transshipped onward, some via the Legion's AN-21s and 23s for the major airport at Chobolo, the capital of Pashtia, still others on civilian buses to cross the border. Still others left openly on horseback. Clothing for the foot scouts had been easy, since the one-size-fits-almost-all robe was common dress where the Scouts were headed.
For the most part, for those who flew out, this was Sumer, where Sada's closest followers arranged further onward movement through Yithrab for some, directly to Peshtwa, Kashmir, for others.
The long-range patrol that had served as retrans for the legion's spy in the enemy base was not replaced. Instead, a very quiet remotely piloted vehicle took up station within range and circled expectantly.
Subadar Masood spoke Urdu, the primary language of Kashmir, flawlessly and with a proper Peshtwa accent. He waited impatiently for a group of twenty-one of his scouts, all in civilian dress, to debark from the plane. With these, four legionary officers including Jimenez, and those men who had arrived previously, he would have a force of fifty-one men in the capital. This was just large enough to minimally man the vehicles he had purchased for cash over the preceding weeks, and also just few enough to excite no real comment in bustling Peshtwa.
Weapons, too, had been purchased. Masood smiled to think that he was buying from the very same men who made their livelihood selling to his enemies. Since he knew what he was about and the Salafis rarely did, he was confident, at least, of having obtained superior products.
Such purchases, on such a scale, would have excited comment almost anywhere else on Terra Nova: one man buying nearly six hundred rifles and machine guns, plus several tons of explosives and ammunition. In the decentralized ways of the Salafi movement, with no one really in charge (though Mustafa was still working on bringing some of the disparate submovements to heel) and its leaders more inspirational than operational, it was merely routine.
The only interest shown in the transactions by the government or any of its agents were requests for bribes, or baksheesh. Masood paid, of course; this was the price of doing business. He took some small satisfaction in haggling the bribes demanded down from the obscene—which would have excited interest, if paid—to the reasonable.
With weapons, ammunition and explosives excess to immediate needs all safely stowed in the cargo compartments of the buses, Masood directed the drivers and co-drivers to mount up. Without fanfare the column moved south to its rendezvous with the rest of the maniples committed to the attack.
The admiral's launch from the Spirit of Peace didn't need a landing strip, except as a convenience. The price to be paid for not having one was expenditure of fuel. Mustafa had promised fuel and Robinson had believed him.
I was told this area was safe, Robinson thought doubtfully, as he looked out the window to see a long line of what looked like bomb craters. Guess not.
Robinson had been a bit skeptical when the Salafi sheik had promised a cavern big enough to shelter his launch. Looking out his portside window, however, he had to admit that the excavation revealed as dozens of men pulled aside its camouflaging curtain was indeed impressive, easily as large as the VIP docking bay of the Spirit of Peace.
The pilot hovered briefly until he was certain that the concealing curtain was pulled far enough away to permit his shuttle easy entrance. Then with a few gentle adjustments of the horizontal thrusters the launch began to slide left, into the cavern. The Salafis replaced the curtain as efficiently as they had removed it.
There was no Marine band for this landing, no purple carpet and no salonlike terminal. The security was just as tight, though, as on Atlantis Base, if not so formal.
Mustafa was curt when Robinson stepped off the shuttle door with a burka-clad Arbeit. Robinson turned to help the marchioness to step down to the cave floor. "You have brought the weapons?" Mustafa asked.
"I have brought the weapons. The keys to activate them I retain," Robinson answered, tapping his forehead.
Mustafa smiled suddenly and brilliantly. "This is to be expected. We will emplace them where they will do the most good. You will detonate them. We will take the credit. The infidel will be destroyed."
Robinson refrained from pointing out that it would take more than a dozen wrecked cities to destroy the Federated States. Likewise he refrained from mentioning that the Federated States were very likely to launch a genocidal nuclear war against any place which so much as might harbor a Salafi if a dozen of its cities were nuked. Instead, Robinson intended to detonate only one of the bombs. This would leave the rest in place and hidden, in other words left as a threat, to force the Feds to pull back within their boundaries. That would leave the rest of Terra Nova to the either the Ikhwan or Tauran Union, the World League and their puppet master, himself.
The town was one of the central points for the support of the insurgency in Pashtia, much as it had been during the earlier Volgan- Pashtian war. There were still refugees from that earlier war, hundreds of thousands of them, rotting in tent cities in the barren hills to the southwest. Hundreds of humanitarian workers made a fat enough living through dispensing the charity that kept those refugees rooted to the area.
To the northeast of the town was a fertile plain the produce of which, along with the retail arms trade and the fat pickings from foreign aid, made Hoti the pleasant and prosperous burg it was.
The town was also large enough, the dress similar enough, and the language common enough that something over four hundred and fifty newly arrived Pashtians made little impression on it or its people. There were always guerilla bands traipsing through Hoti or, at least, there had always been for the last thirty-three years.
The buses, four-wheel-drive sedans, and light trucks under Jimenez's and Masood's command, waited by the town's outskirts. By twenties and thirties the rest of the party, those who had openly entered Kashmir across the common border as "refugees," met the vehicles. There weapons and—for vehicle leaders, radios—were issued and, in some cases, mounted.
"I almost can't believe we're getting away with this shit," Jimenez told Masood.
"The ways of Allah are inscrutable," the subadar answered, with a sardonic smile. "His mercy is infinite. What's more, sir, we're nothing unusual, not even for size. We're not even forming up in any particularly remarkable way. The mujahadin have been doing this for over three decades, and almost without pause. I, myself, joined a guerilla column to fight the Volgans not two miles from here thirty years ago. Purely routine."
Jimenez commented, "But it still seems too easy."
"Wait until we reach the Salafi base, sir. We'll pay there for any ease we've had here. Then, too, this is the last and only time we'll ever get away with this."
"How are the vehicles holding up?" Jimenez asked.
"Not bad. We should lose no more than, say . . . a third of them. Yes, about a third, over the next portion of our journey. Less if Allah is especially merciful."
Jimenez consulted his watch. "Fortes Fortuna adiuvat."
"Yes, sir," Masood agreed. "She does. Great writer, Terence."
"You understand Latin?" The legate was flabbergasted. "Latin?"
"School in Anglia, sir. Every proper gentleman there studies Latin."
Jimenez couldn't help laughing with surprise. "Load 'em up, Subadar. 'Fortune favors the bold' and the timely. We have a group of cavalry to link up with."
A military headquarters in a theater of war is rarely precisely quiet. The Coalition headquarters here, in the capital of Pashtia, rocked with fury.
Virgil Rivers was as angry as the three stars on his collar allowed and encouraged him to be. "How dare that bastard? How dare he present me this . . . this . . . this fucking ultimatum."
"It's not an ultimatum, Virg," John Ridenhour supplied calmly. Following his retirement from the FSA, he'd taken Carrera's shilling. "And please keep your voice down. It's an advisement. He has information that there will be a nuke or nukes at the Salafis' main base in Kashmir . . . today. He is acting on that. He is asking you to keep the Kashmir Air Force off his back while he does so. If you don't, and he and his force are destroyed, or the nuke gets away . . . on your head be it."
"John," Rivers answered, forcing himself to calm, "we both know that bastard and we both know it's an ultimatum . . . a fucking order. To me. Doesn't the son of a bitch know he works for me?"
Ridenhour gave a meaningful smile before answering, "The 'son of a bitch' works for nobody but himself. You know that. He did advise me to tell you that a similar message is going to President Baraka in Kashmir, but that it will be delayed a few hours until the attack is well underway. That message will say this attack is with FSC authorization and support. Baraka's no fool; if he doesn't get reports that you have scrambled your own fighters for air cover, he'll draw the obvious conclusion."
"Why couldn't Pat have come to me with this sooner?"
"So you could buck it to Hamilton? So the Foreign Affairs pussies in Hamilton could press for a 'diplomatic solution'? So the nuke or nukes could get away? Be serious, Virg, he's doing exactly the right thing."
"And another thing," Rivers continued, "how the hell does he know this? I've had not a word."
Ridenhour sighed. "Virgil . . . you boys give us a lot of technical intelligence. How often is it both right and timely, hmmm? The Legion gives you a great deal of intel from . . . other . . . sources. How often is it untimely or wrong?"
That was troubling. Indeed, everyone suspected the ways the legion obtained its information. No one on the same side, however, was willing to ask because no one wanted to know. The progressives never asked anymore because they were already certain that they did know.
"Why is it," Rivers asked, throwing his hands in the air, "that every time he does 'the right thing' it tends to be really fucking inconvenient for everyone around him?"
"It's more than a trick, I've discovered, Virgil," Ridenhour answered. "It's a genuine knack."
Not a man of the Cazadors thought they'd been pulled in early for a break. Excitement was in the air, along with deepest interest and a considerable flavoring of dread. That one side of the hangar had what looked to be six hundred main parachutes, harnesses and other air items but no reserve 'chutes added to the dread. More mysterious, and dreadful, another wall was lined with crates of foam padding, wooden sticks, and duct tape. The men talked and muttered among themselves, sitting on the cold floor of the hangar, until someone announced, "The Duque, commanding."
The nearly six hundred Cazadors assembled jumped to their feet and stood at attention as Carrera walked up to a low rostrum at one end of the hangar. A white sheet was hung behind him. "At ease," he called. "Seats."
Jesus, doesn't the boss look old and worn and thin? Man needs a break.
"Let's begin by asking a question," he began. "Does anyone here have a problem jumping at less than five hundred feet over ground without a reserve parachute? Come on now," Carrera insisted. "If you don't think you can or just don't want to try, stand up, report to Tribune Salinas of the Military Police there in the back. You'll be kept in isolation but no charges will be pressed. No hard feelings, either, at least from me. But if you can't do this we need to know now."
There was a stirring in the mass of troops. Most of them didn't want to jump that low. None of them were willing to admit as much. Carrera gave them a few minutes to settle down.
"All right then. I won't bother asking if you've got issues with doing an incursion into another country. It's a given that you don't or you wouldn't be here at all. Lights," he commanded.
Once the hangar had dimmed enough for a projector to work, Carrera called, "Map." Instantly, a large map of the Kashmir-Pashtia border region appeared behind him. All the men recognized it, despite the distortion caused by the slight waving of the sheet.
Carrera pulled a laser pointer from his pocket, flicked it on and laid a red point of light onto the Jalala area. "We are here." The red point shifted across the sheet until coming to rest on a fortress symbol on the other side of the border. "We are going there. Next map."
The previous, large-scale map disappeared to be replaced by one of the same scale but a smaller area, side by side with a small-scale map of the objective area.
"Your mission," Carrera continued, pointing at the objective map, "is to seal this off from escape. Before you do that, just before, other forces will infiltrate and attack the center of the Salafi fortress. Still another force, Pashtun cavalry that left some time ago, will seal the ends of the valley. Heavy infantry and artillery will move by helicopter to crack its shell and peel it. The mechanized cohort will cross the border here," again the point of light shifted to mark the major pass between Kashmir and Pashtia, "and take up a blocking position here," the light rested a bit farther north. "The Federated States Air Force will provide air cover at a distance. Our own Air ala will be in either the transport, the recon, or the close support mode.
"There's been no time to rehearse this, nor will there be except by back brief. For that matter, if we tried to rehearse it, it would just tip off the enemy. Nonetheless, we've been planning this operation for weeks. Your commanders have the plan. Cohort commander?"
"Sir!"
"Take charge of your men. And good luck to you all. Kick their asses."
Every infantry cohort in the legion carried enough landing lights, sometimes called "beanbag lights," to set up a pickup zone for helicopter movement. These were color-coded, different colors marking different spots and different functions on the chosen field.
Cruz's platoon had drawn the duty of setting up the PZ. Pulled at the last possible minute from their patrolling, they'd filled the beanbags of the lights with dirt and rocks to keep the rotor wash from blowing them away. They'd then placed them on the ground in the proper positions. With the duty of setting up the PZ had come the duty of running it. This meant not only arranging the rest of the maniple for pickup, but taking charge of the dozen 160mm mortars that were to fly out ahead of the infantry to take up a firing position in range of the objective and a couple of miles across the border.
The mortars and their ammunition had been dragged up by their integral trucks, the trucks having to make two or three trips each for the full load of projectiles. The shells were palletized, piled in nets that would be slung by hooks underneath the helicopters. The guns would be manhandled inside by their crews. The trucks would remain behind on the PZ; there were no roads or even trafficable trails where the guns were heading.
Cruz removed his helmet and wiped a hand across his brow; helping the mortar maggots to move that ammunition from truck to pallet by hand had been a backbreaking task.
"What now, Centurion?" Optio Garcia asked.
"Now we wait for a bit."
Three of the deployed legion's twenty Turbo-Finches were down for maintenance, housed in hangars. Likewise was one of its four ANA-23 gunships. The remainder stood in their concrete floored and revetted, steel-covered bunkers. There were hinged steel walls in front of the bunkers, proof against heavy shrapnel and lowerable on their hinges to allow the aircraft to leave and enter. Only enough of the doors were lowered to allow ordnance crews, supplemented by nearly every clerk and cook in the camp, to trundle in, jack up, and load the bombs, rocket and machine gun pods, and napalm canisters required for the attack.
The gunships received a different load, mostly machine gun and cannon ammunition for their fixed, side-firing guns, plus a dozen each five hundred pound GLS-guided thermobaric bombs that would be dropped from altitude out the rear ramps to strike certain key targets.
While the ordnance crews strained and sweated, mechanics and avionics repairmen pored over the planes, checking status and making necessary repairs. There was to be no waiting for parts; Carrera had decreed they could strip the other, nonflyable aircraft down to the ground to make sure the minimum necessary were fit for flight and fit to fight.
Miguel Lanza, a legate III himself now, watched the progress intently from outside. No sense in getting under the feet of men who sure as Hell know their business well by now, he thought.
A voice came unexpectedly from behind. It was Carrera.
"Your boys going to be ready on time, Lanza?" he asked wearily.
Lanza nodded in the semi-darkness. "No problem."
"What are you planning to fly, Miguel?"
"Gunship," Lanza answered. "Lets me in on the action and gives me a copilot so I can control the operation. Also gives me the best commo and sensor suite of any plane we have. Besides, I'm really not up to CAS anymore." Lanza sighed at the injustice of aging.
"Good choice. Carry on."
Lanza watched Carrera amble away like a man ten years older than he was.
Oh, Annan, yes, thought Arbeit, this is exciting.
The bomb sat to one side of the deep cavern. Mustafa ran his hands over it lovingly. Lost in his visions of an entire infidel city turned to a smoking charnel house, he barely heard the words of the high admiral.
"Broadly speaking," Robinson said, "if you continue to carry on the way you are, you are going to lose. Moreover, you'll lose in the worst possible way from both our points of view." Unconsciously, the high admiral reached up to stroke his right breast pocket. Yes, the detonation device is still there. The way Mustafa is looking at that bomb it's a damned good thing, too.
He spoke in a dimly lit cavern attached to a deep tunnel by a narrow, roughly hewn rock side tunnel. This far below the ground no sound penetrated from above. The air was uncomfortably cool and, despite an attempt to pump in fresh air, rather stuffy.
Nur al Deen objected, "Every day new fighters, some in groups, come to join the struggle. Our strength is growing, not weakening. The enemy, the Great Demon called the Federated States, is weakening!"
"Not enough," Robinson countered. "Their use of mercenaries is not only keeping the financial costs of their war down, it is keeping the casualties down below critical mass as well. And there does not appear to be a practical limit to how many mercenaries they can field.
"Alternatively," he continued, "the mercenaries' unproven but obvious penchant for targeting families even in the Yithrabi Peninsula, Southern Uhuru, Taurus and the Federated States, itself, has slowly reduced your available recruiting pool to the ignorant children of your madrassas. Their murders of sympathetic media types hurt you as badly. You are losing.
"That is why I want you to use one of the weapons I have brought here on Balboa. That's the breeding and training ground for the legion. Rather, I want you to emplace one there, in order to threaten the legion out of any further cooperation with the FSC."
"And that's another thing," al Deen objected. "You have brought us twelve nuclear weapons. This is enough to do incredible damage to the FS, damage from which they will never recover."
Robinson scoffed. "On the contrary, they will recover. Look at Taurus and Yamato and the number of cities they saw erased during the Great Global War. You can't even tell anymore that the war happened. On the other hand, if you use these weapons more than once the FSC will obliterate you and your religion. You are the most urbanized population on this planet. The contents of just one of their nuclear missile-carrying submarines would be sufficient to kill one third of you outright, and leave another third to die slowly of starvation and disease. And they would probably not stop there. Don't you recall what they did in the GGW when we hit two of their cities to stop their use of nuclear weapons against Yamato? They imposed a blockade that killed a third of that country's people by slow starvation. They would hate you more and do more to you." Robinson left unsaid, and they're quite likely to obliterate my fleet while they're at it, if I even suggested trying to prevent it.
Mustafa stood back from the bomb, removing his caressing hands with regret, and paced the cavern for a few moments, head outthrust and hands clasped behind his back. "Sadly," he said, pointing at Robinson, "this infidel is right. But that doesn't mean he is completely right. The Blue Jinn and his people must pay."
"I want the control of three bombs."
"One," the high admiral answered.
"Three," Mustafa insisted. "One in the FS which will be used. One on Balboa which will be used. And one on Anglia with another in reserve."
Robinson considered this. One used and one threatened knocks Balboa and the mercenaries out of the war. Two in Anglia, one used and one as a threat, probably prevents them from retaliating. That leaves eight for the FS, one used and seven threatened. Maybe . . .
Robinson looked at Arbeit. Although only her eyes showed through the burka her head nodded deeply. "Done," he answered.
The road that had been smooth from Hoti turned into a kidney- pounding washboard five minutes after turning off toward the enemy base. Speed dropped, out of sheer necessity to maintain health, to under ten miles an hour.
The convoy traveled with lights on. Anything else would have been suspicious. Even so, a wary group of tribesmen did stop the lead vehicle carrying Jimenez and Masood.
"What you here for?" a rifle-bearing brigand demanded, once Masood had stopped and dismounted.
Bold bastard isn't he? Masood observed to himself. Bet there are half a dozen machine guns covering us right now or he wouldn't be nearly so bold.
"We come to join the great Prince Mustafa," Subadar Masood answered, which was, after a fashion, true enough.
The suspicious tribesman ignored the answer, or seemed to. Instead, he went to the vehicle and looked over the passengers. He reached in and pulled away the scarf Jimenez had pulled across his face. Jimenez's white eyes shone against his coal-black skin even in the darkness.
"What this one?"
"He's from among the faithful of Uhuru, come all this way to fight for Allah."
The tribesman asked a question of Jimenez, who stared pleadingly at Masood.
"He doesn't speak our language," the subadar said. "Do you, perchance, know any of the Arabic dialects of Southern Uhuru?"
Scowling, the tribesman answered, "Not even know where this Uhuru place is. How speak language?" he asked, rhetorically.
Masood shrugged.
"Mustafa great man," the tribesman announced. "Give my people many gifts. You give gifts?"
"As the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, 'Give gifts to each other and love each other and hatred will disappear.' We would be happy to share our blessings with our brothers," Masood answered.
"Prophet, PBUH, he say that?"
"Indeed he did. We are brothers in our faith, are we not?" the subadar asked.
"Not know nothing about no brothers. You give gifts?"
"Would money do?"
"Money do fine," the tribesman answered. "You give . . . one hundred rupees per man."
Two drachma, near enough, per man? About a thousand in all? Sounds very reasonable to me.
Masood reached into a pocket. "Can you accept FSD?"
"FSD good."
Robinson had slept in better places. Indeed it was hard to remember ever having slept in a worse.
Oh, the Salafis had tried to make him comfortable. They'd laid out for him and the marchioness a bedroll of stacked rugs and provided blankets. They'd even made provision of a slave girl—Volgan, Robinson thought—to warm the bed and entertain their guests.
She might have been more entertaining but for the whip marks Arbeit had added to her bare back; the girl already had a fair collection. Robinson had to turn off the light to keep the disturbing image of the girl's criss-crossed back out of his view.
The girl spoke no English. Neither did Robinson speak Arabic or Volgan. He'd had to make do with pointing and signs. She seemed to understand those well enough. In any case, she cooperated, albeit without any noticeable enthusiasm.
Which is perfect, thought the high admiral, drifting off to sleep with the detonation device clasped in his hand under his pillow. The more of this world chained to these dolts the less of this world that will be a threat to mine.
Bashir's sleeping arrangements were considerably less luxurious than the high admiral's. He made do as best he could against the cold and rocky ground with a couple of blankets and his pack for a pillow.
Having sent his message and—wonder of wonders—received an answer, Bashir was more than certain that an attack was imminent. This had its good sides and bad.
I've done my job; done everything they asked. My family should be safe now. But what about me? When they attack they're going to see that their men have been crucified. They'll kill everything moving. Allah knows, I would. Shit.
So how do I keep them from killing me, too?
He hadn't come up with an answer before sleep took him. As he nodded off, Bashir wondered if he'd see the next sunrise or if a bomb would kill him while he slept.
The eastern sky was just beginning to glow red when the first of the gunships began its roll down the runway. Heavily laden as they were, the birds needed nearly every foot of runway space before they achieved liftoff.
Once the first one, Miguel Lanza at the helm, was up and had gained some altitude, the next began its take-off run. A few minutes later, with the last of the gunships airborne and circling overhead, the first of the nine Turbo-Finches in this attack wave likewise rolled down the hardened strip. These took off in half-minute intervals and assembled at an altitude just below that of the gunships.
Even before the last of the Finches was airborne, Lanza looked out his cockpit window and saw Crickets lining up below, ready to join the others. Behind the Crickets came the heavier but much faster NA- 21s and the Cazador-laden NA-23s.
Still in Lanza's view, the forty-one working helicopters of the ala lifted almost as one, then turned to the north. It was an awesome and thrilling sight.
This, Lanza thought, this is why I joined.
Carrera watched the aerial armada assemble overhead from the railed walkway that ran three hundred and sixty degrees around the airfield's control tower. A warmed-up Cricket stood idling near the base of the tower, its wings and fuselage bearing the legend "4-15." It had had installed a bank of radios and a map board. One pilot would fly its passengers, Carrera and two radio operators.
On the floor beneath the tower a temporary command post was set up. This would provide back-up control until another command post was set up near the objective. In the interim, Carrera was capable of running the entire thing in his head with only minimal assistance. Even bone weary, complex operations bothered him not a whit. It was creative thought that had become hard; that, and judgment. And he had Jimenez to help with judgment.
Looking to his right, Carrera saw that the heavily laden Cazadors were struggling into the Nabakovs' cargo bays, one man above pulling while two below pushed to get them up on the ramps.
There hadn't been time to get rough terrain jump suits for the Cazadors. Instead, they'd made their own, after a fashion, using duct tape to attach wooden leg braces and substantial foam padding. If they normally looked like waddling ducks before a jump, now they looked like children so insulated from winter cold they could barely move.
Even over the roar of engines, one could make out the singing as the men loaded aboard:
Thundering motors leave each man alone.
He thinks one more time of his loved ones back home.
Then come mis compadres to spring on command
To jump and to die for our legion and land.
And from our airplanes, and from our airplanes,
Compadre there's no going back,
Except in victory or fee-eet first.
Now make ready to jump. Attack!
The speaker radio in the control tower crackled. "Checkpoint Zulu Omega." That meant that Jimenez and the Scouts had sent the burst signal that they were at the bridge that served as the checkpoint for "two hours out." That was also where the cavalry would link up with them.
With a head motion to beckon his radio operators, Carrera left the control tower, passed quietly through the crowded command post below, and walked out to board the waiting Cricket.
"Incoming aircraft, Centurion!"
Hurriedly Cruz closed his wallet to put away the picture of his wife and children. I've done this before; I can do it again.
"Stand by your loads," he shouted to the mortar men who were already standing by. "Guide parties, assume guidance as soon as you have a bird."
Because they were under radio silence, the detailed operational control was a bit odd. There was a cross marked out off to one side of the PZ. The lead helicopter made for that, followed by another dozen in trail behind it. When the lead was about forty meters out it stopped and assumed a hover. The first of the guides stood up and pointed directly at himself and then at the helicopter pilot, who nodded his recognition. Then the guide made the hand and arm signal for "assuming guidance," two arms with flattened palms thrust straight up and parallel to each other, palms inward. He lowered his arms, turned, and began to run toward the first load. The helicopter followed slowly.
At that first load the guide turned and again made the "assuming guidance" signal. With more hand and arm signals he brought the IM-71 down to a soft landing. Immediately the clamshell door on the back opened up. A second helicopter was just setting down as this happened.
It was no easy matter for eight men to manhandle a 160mm mortar across rough ground and into the helicopter's cargo bay. Cruz had detached a couple of men from his platoon to assist with each. This was barely enough. Indeed, it might have proven impossible but for the fact that over the last ten years there had been plenty of opportunity to practice.
Once the heavy mortar and its eight crewmen, to which could be added one or two men from the mortar maniple headquarters, were aboard, the guide again took control of the helicopter, directing the pilot to shift left to where a large bundle of mortar ammunition awaited, the ammunition being bound up in a cargo net. As soon as the chopper was directly over the net, the guide thrust both arms directly out to his sides, parallel to the ground: "Hover."
Underneath, one of the two men who had assisted in loading the gun climbed atop the ammunition. In his hand he held a plastic handled screwdriver from which wire led downward. That wire was connected to another screwdriver, stuck into the ground a few feet away. Electricity arced from the hook underneath the helicopter to screwdriver. The wire carried the static charge to the ground, harmlessly. Then the legionary picked up a "donut roll"—a multi-layer thick circle of strap material, held together by a metal shackle—and attempted to slip it onto the hook. He missed. He tried and missed again. Cursing, on the third try he caught the shifting hook and pulled back on the donut roll to make sure it was firmly attached and the hook working properly. He jumped off of the ammunition and gave a thumbs-up to the guide.
The guide then whirled one arm over his head and pointed into the direction of the wind. With a sound of straining engines, the helicopter lifted up, shuddered a bit at the load once the straps connecting the donut roll and the ammunition pallet lost their slack, then pulled the net off of the ground and began to move forward, gaining altitude and leaving a whirlwind of dust, rocks and vegetation behind.
Dust spurted from each of the wheels as the column moved up the winding pass. Some had broken down on the way and been abandoned, their passengers' cargo being stuffed into the other vehicles as time and space permitted. Cavalry rode to either side with Cano on the left and his brother-in-law, Rachman, leading the right. For this mission, both for her own safety and the intelligence insight she could provide, Alena was back at the Camp San Lorenzo.
Jimenez, riding in front with Masood, recognized from aerial photographs taken by the RPVs of the legion the steep sided pass that led into the enemy fortress.
The trucks and buses were adorned with white banners painted in black and green. "There is no God but God," said some. "Mohammad is the Prophet of God," proclaimed others. More than a few carried the message, "The sword is the key to Heaven and Hell." Still others proclaimed, "Death to the infidel."
"The horns, do you think?" asked Jimenez. "Really? Isn't that overkill?"
Masood shook his head in the negative. "If we were what we proclaim ourselves to be, we would announce our presence among friends fearlessly. That means, yes, sir, the horns and the cavalry firing their rifles into the air."
Swallowing, Jimenez then said, "The horns then. Let them know we're coming so they won't guess who we are."
It had once been something of a day of mourning, in London, the anniversary of the Declaration that had utterly screwed up the proper ordering of the world. It was a happy day, now. And why not? The United States of America had ceased to be decades prior. It was now split among four governing regions, each with its own UE-appointed archduke to rule them. The world celebrated the Fourth of July now in memory of what wasn't.
Lucretia seemed to her father even more jubilant than the day called for.
Louis Arbeit, the marquis, had barely aged in all those years since he'd first assumed the mantle of leadership for Amnesty, Interplanetary. He'd spent those years well, moving the company from the relatively unremunerative harassment of unfriendly governments to more solid, sounder, and infinitely more profitable business arrangements. If there were political prisoners languishing in prisons and psychiatric facilities now, and there were, they were unenlightened, antiprogressive opponents of the UE. Amnesty had no interest in such.
One would hardly know that Lucretia was, herself, well along in years. She, too, had had the best antiagathics available. She could, and did, pass for twenty-two or -three, regularly. She bounced out to her father's favorite patio, bearing with her their morning coffee. The coffee came from the highlands of Panama where High Judge Nyere maintained extensive holdings farmed by the serfs that had been made of the locals. That land included what had once been the ranch of Belisario Carrera. It was worked by, among others, Belisario's collateral descendants, laboring under the lash.
"I made it especially for you, Father," Lucretia announced. They were still a very close family, even though Louis had stopped fucking his daughter decades ago.
He smiled, picked up and sipped at the coffee. Ah, just right.
Lucretia's lips smiled around her own cup. She, too, sipped, then said, "The world really is wonderful now, for people of our class, isn't it, Father?"
"Well . . . of course," Louis agreed.
"It's not so wonderful for people of my generation though," she said. "We have to wait and wait and . . ."
"We've had this conversation before, Lucretia. You'll just have to wait until . . ."
"No, I won't, Father," the daughter said. "I'm glad you like your coffee."
It was at about that time that the marquis of Amnesty noticed that his vision had become very narrow, and that his hand trembled as he lifted the cup back to his lips.