A Desert Called Peace Part 52

SS Hildegard Mises, 16/1/462 AC They'd let Nail talk, but only after drilling away most of the enamel on his two front upper teeth. This had been replaced with a temporary filling material. There was no sense, after all, in wasting the good stuff on a walking corpse.

Talk he did, intending to lie. Sadly for Mohammad, lies required concentration and pain destroyed it. They'd caught him in a lie, a trivial thing, really, from his own badly abused mouth.

He'd thought he'd get the drill again and shat himself at the thought of it. He'd probably have been happier if they had gone the dental route. Instead, though, they'd moved him to a different chair after stripping off his trousers. Even over the pain, he'd been deeply embarra.s.sed when his captor had stuck something cold and hard up his a.s.s, then put his p.e.n.i.s in what looked like a light socket.

There were things, he discovered, that hurt worse than dental work without anesthesia.

23 Al Rasul Street, Doha, 17/1/462 AC Although weapons were easier to obtain on the Yithrab peninsula even than slaves, the four Sumeris had brought in their own. These were silenced pistols, in 9mm. Other weapons, though it was to be hoped they would not be needed, were secured in the rental car's trunk.

The team waited near the guarded gate for the chauffeured limousine which always came at this time every day but Friday. Not that they intended to attack the limo, far from it. But the limousine carried four children, two boys and two girls, to and from their school every day. Its arrival thus signaled that all the targets were present at home.

Seeing the limousine pull through the guarded gate at the front of the mansion, the rental car's driver waited five minutes before following the same course. The gate opened and an ethnic Bengali emerged, wearing a uniform far, far too hot for the climate.

"May I be of a.s.sistance, sayidi sayidi?" the Bengali asked of the driver. In answer, the man sitting beside the driver shot the gate guard with his silenced pistol. One man got out to drag the Bengali's body behind some well-tended bushes. The car proceeded through the gate, and into the mansion complex.

Al Iskandaria Studios, Doha, Terra Nova, 17/1/462 AC "I won't show this perversion," Sheik Hamad insisted to the vicious looking man seated opposite him in his plush blue and green themed office.

Hamad was a study in contrast to his visitor. The sheik was tall and lean, with the sharp features of a desert nomad accentuated by his pure white keffiyah keffiyah. His visitor was short and a bit overweight, perhaps the scion of some peasant family.

Probably a Sumeri peasant family, the sheik thought, based on the accent. based on the accent.

"Yes, you will," the visitor answered amiably. "By the way, have you spoken to your wife today? Why don't you give her a call? They live at Twenty-three Al Rasul Street, do they not? Here, use my cell phone. The number is already dialed."

SS Hildegard Mises, 19/1/462 AC Nail knew they were working over his captured comrades, just as they had worked over him. He knew it because they often played his comrades' screams over the speakers in his cell when he was not, himself, under the torture.

They'd gotten pretty direct in their approach. They were being direct now.

"What is the address for the safe house you used in Ciudad Ciudad Balboa?" Mahamda asked. Balboa?" Mahamda asked.

The captive spat out an address. Mahamda consulted an earpiece stuck into his right ear and shook his head, sadly. "Your answers don't match, Mohammad. You know the price of that."

"Please...no...I am telling the truth," Ouled Nail begged.

"Perhaps you are and perhaps you are not. Listen to this." Mahamda turned on a speaker so that Ouled Nail could hear the pleading screams of his comrade. Nail couldn't know it, but the transmission was on a time delay controlled by the interrogation team to ensure that no one undergoing questioning could, between screams, coach anyone else on a story.

"He's just lost a fingernail," Mahamda said, calmly. "Now it's your turn." He flicked off the speaker and turned on a microphone. He nodded at an a.s.sistant.

Mahamda's a.s.sistant grabbed Ouled Nail's middle finger on his left hand firmly, then took a pair of needle-nosed pliers and jammed one end under the nail. The terrorist shrieked into the microphone then, sobbing, begged, "For the love...of Allah...please...please tell them...the truth."

It took three nails each before the addresses given matched perfectly. There were seventeen more nails to go, along with much skin, many teeth, and a virtual infinity of nerve endings. Indeed, there were more than enough nerve endings to learn everything Ouled Nail had ever known or even suspected.

Neue Ulm , Sachsen, 21/1/461 AC Senta Westplatz was busy packing for her return trip to Sumer. An agent of the freedom fighters was supposed to give her the tickets at the airport. In the background Fernsehen Sachsen Fernsehen Sachsen droned. Senta paid no attention to the television until she heard the name of a friend and comrade, Giulia Masera, mentioned. Even that really didn't catch her attention Giulia was often in the news until she heard the words, "kidnapped" and "torture." droned. Senta paid no attention to the television until she heard the name of a friend and comrade, Giulia Masera, mentioned. Even that really didn't catch her attention Giulia was often in the news until she heard the words, "kidnapped" and "torture."

She ran to the TV barely in time to catch the last four strokes of the whip that set her comrade to howling, much like a dog. Hand clenched over her mouth as she watched the spectacle, Senta was simply horrified, so much so that the knock at the door barely registered until it had been repeated several times.

Finally, Westplatz did go to the door, pulling her hijab over her hair automatically as she walked.

"Yes? How may I...?" she asked the deliveryman standing there, impatiently, while holding a wrapped package.

The blow to her solar plexus came as a shock to Senta. She went down like a sack of rice, loosely and almost without a sound. The delivery man entered the apartment, closing the door carefully behind him. He hit the woman once again, hard, in the chest. She wouldn't be screaming for help any time soon. From his pocket he drew a very small digital camera with which he took a short video of Senta moving feebly and gasping for air.

Returning the camera to his pocket, he then squatted down by the shocked almost-corpse and picked it up. He looked around quickly and identified the bathroom. Then he carried Senta to it, stripping her body and placing it in the tub. Another few second were spent recording that scene as well. After putting on some rubber gloves, he flicked the switch to close the drain and turned the tap to let the water fill.

Taking a towel with him, the delivery man then went to the kitchen and carefully opened the drawers until he found a sharp knife. He had one with him, of course, but it would be better in the short term if the implement came from the house. Returning to the bathroom he found that Senta, still gasping desperately, had sat up. He pushed her back and grabbed her left wrist, which he twisted toward the far wall. Senta struggled but feebly.

With the knife he made a long slash lengthwise up the radial artery. The cut went deep and blood spurted out, staining the tiled far wall and turning the water filling the tub red. The delivery man released the arm and took another short video of the blood flowing. Then he took that hand and wrapped it around the handle of the knife, holding it firmly. With this he made a not very deep and deliberately ragged cut up the right wrist. Then he let both knife and hand go free. He watched for a minute as blood loss took away consciousness. When the water had mostly filled the tub he shut off the flow and waited for ten minutes. A quick check of the carotid confirmed the woman was quite dead. He took some more video of the corpse.

The delivery man then retrieved the package and removed from it a change of clothing, another pair of rubber gloves, a false moustache, a digital camera and a plastic bag. He exchanged clothing, putting his old, blood-spotted clothes in the bag and the bag back in the package which he rewrapped loosely. He put on the gloves and began to search the apartment. Since no suicide was very likely to be packing a bag for a trip, he returned the articles of clothing to what seemed logical places. In the course of his search, he found a folder at the bottom of the bag. He did not find any air or train tickets. The folder he set aside for the moment.

Continued searching of the apartment turned up nothing further, not even a computer. Walking to the door, folder and package in hand, the man stopped to listen for a few moments. Nothing. Then he opened the door, exited, and closed the door behind him.

By the time the police began to suspect that Senta had been murdered, the a.s.sa.s.sin would be long gone, leaving no personal trace. The video would be posted on the Globalnet as a warning to other Kosmos who might be inclined to help the Salafi Ikhwan. Ikhwan.

SS Hildegard Mises, 24/1/462 AC The walls of the cell were covered with color photographs of the victims of the bombs he'd helped set off in Balboa. He couldn't escape them; his eyelids had been sewn open. When he looked at the pictures, in his mind's eye he saw his own family laid out butchered as he was sure they would soon be.

Mohammad Ouled Nail wept as the cell door opened in front of him. Mahamda entered with that small dark man Fernandez, he was called who seemed to be in charge. Another man, taller and lighter skinned than Fernandez, stood there as well.

Nail's hands were bandaged but blood oozing from the fingertips had stained the white gauze red.

It wasn't just pain that made Nail weep; it was also the shame.

He'd thought he was tough and brave. He'd thought he had faith in his G.o.d. He'd been sure they could never break him. He'd been sure, too, that he could lie.

He knew, now, in his innermost being, that there was no G.o.d. He knew he couldn't keep a story straight when in agony. And he knew he couldn't take the pain.

His joints were, half of them, dislocated from the little metal framework the "Scavenger," they'd called it they'd placed him in and tightened. They hurt almost as much from the decompression chamber he'd endured. His face they'd made him look in a mirror was blotched with burst blood vessels.

The evil looking infidel, Fernandez, made his p.r.o.nouncement. "Murdering b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Turn him into a woman, then hang him....her... it it." Then, horror of horrors, the evil infidel had bent down and whispered, "I'm sending a team to exterminate your family in Castilla, you son of a b.i.t.c.h."

Topside, far from the screams, Carrera and Fernandez sat on a large pipe, staring across the dark vastness of the ocean toward the lights of the Yithrabi coast. In these confined waters the ship rocked gently, slowly. It didn't matter; Carrera was sick to his stomach anyway.

"Do you ever have nightmares, Omar?" Carrera asked of Fernandez.

The Balboan shrugged. "Everyone has nightmares, Patricio."

"Do they?" He shook his head. "Not like mine, I don't think. Not like mine."

"Did you know," Carrera continued, "that I was raised to be a civilized man? I don't advertise it but my mother and father were progressives, cosmopolitans, in fact. I sometimes wonder if that's why I was able to transfer my loyalty from the Federated States to the legion; because I wasn't raised to be loyal to the Federated States, even though for many years I was and, to some degree, still am. An interesting thought, is it not; that maybe the end result of the destruction of ties to nations is not loyalty to mankind, but loyalty to even smaller and more exclusive groups than nations? To family most of all."

Fernandez's mind was not the sort to worry abut such things. He kept silent. Besides, what was wrong with having an ultimate loyalty to one's family? As far as he could see that was was the default state of mankind. the default state of mankind.

Carrera flicked a cigarette b.u.t.t over the side, then reached for a tumbler of whiskey resting on the deck by his feet. From this he drank deeply.

"Ever read any Shakespeare from Old Earth, Omar? Henry the Fifth, maybe?"

Fernandez shook his head in negation. "I've heard of it; that's all."

"No surprise, I suppose. It's a play; never underestimate the benefits of a cla.s.sical education. There's a scene there...where the king insists that he is not to blame for the condition of his soldiers' souls should they be killed in battle for him."

Carrera laughed, bitterly. "d.a.m.n old Will. He answers the questions he wants to but not the one you want him to. Tell me, Omar, what do you think? If Henry's soldiers had sacked Harfleur, would he have been responsible for the sack? For the rape of the "shrill shrieking maidens?" For the dashing of old men's heads to walls? For the "naked infants spitted upon pikes?" Where would the blame lie then?"

"Patricio," Fernandez began, "I don't thi"

Carrera cut him off. Nodding his head toward the hatch that led into the bowels of the ship, he asked, "And where does the blame lie here? Who is to blame for that obscenity taking place below? If it's you, does that relieve me of anything? I don't think so."

Sighing, Fernandez asked, "Do you want me to shut the program down?"

Taking another hefty slug of the whiskey, Carrera coughed and then answered, "That's the worst part; no."

Ic (Intelligence Office), Balboa Camp, Ninewa, 29/1/462 AC Thank G.o.d Patricio didn't succ.u.mb to the weaker part of his nature, thought Fernandez while sitting at his desk in Sumer. Bad enough he shows too light a hand with some of our adversaries. But we Bad enough he shows too light a hand with some of our adversaries. But we must have must have the information that comes out of that ship, whatever it costs. the information that comes out of that ship, whatever it costs.

The desk sat deep inside the Intel Office which was the most secure building in the camp. It was built of a double wall of pressure formed adobe bricks with the interior s.p.a.ce filled with earth as well. The office was surrounded by another wall, this one topped with barbed wire and with a tower at each corner of the compound. Guards manned the tower, the narrow gate, and the inside of the building continuously.

There was no air conditioning; Carrera simply forbade it on the theory that troops given air conditioning would never grow acclimated to the heat, which was, while drier, even worse than Balboa's. The four exceptions to this rule were the religious facilities, the field hospital, the troop messes and the small brothel quadrant full of Sumeri wh.o.r.es, most of them widows or orphans.

So instead of air conditioning, Fernandez sat under an overhead fan. Paperweights generally of steel, gla.s.s, or fired clay held the papers on the desk in place against the breeze of the fan.

It was better to be seated. After days on the Hildegard Mises Hildegard Mises Fernandez found himself still swaying when he walked on dry land. He hoped it would go away soon. Fernandez found himself still swaying when he walked on dry land. He hoped it would go away soon.

It had been worth it, though. Normally Fernandez was, while willing enough, not a man who enjoyed inflicting pain. This time had, obviously, been different.

They were still on the ship, the one named Ouled Nail and the other three who had survived. They'd be hanged when they'd healed from their surgery; be hanged, incinerated and their ashes dumped out with the garbage.

Big mistake to survive, Fernandez thought. Fernandez thought. Worse mistake to survive after killing my blood and then being captured. b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Well, let's see what today brings. Worse mistake to survive after killing my blood and then being captured. b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Well, let's see what today brings.

What today brought were dispatches from Sada, received from Sachsen. These included a folder taken from the not-quite-packed bag of a woman. Most of the names in the folder were of no interest. Rather, they were of no obvious interest as they had no markings against them in the folder to indicate any importance beyond the merely personal. They would, of course, be investigated anyway.

Two names were interesting. One of them was a woman, this one living in the City of Akka in Bekaa. She appeared in the folder as Westplatz's main contact with the insurgency.

"Odd," Fernandez said to himself, "very odd that a Spanish name should appear among our adversaries, yet be living in Bekaa." He decided to pa.s.s the name on to the research section.

When the name came back, a few days later, with a healthy file including pictures both before and after the plastic surgery, all Fernandez could say was, "Ohhh," before pa.s.sing the file back to Sada's office.

Akka, Bekaa, 2/2/462 AC Standing on a second floor, iron railed balcony overlooking the Tauranian Lakes, Layla Arguello shivered despite the warm night air. There was something going on that was monstrous in its implications. People, her her people, good and trusted comrades of many years of struggle, were disappearing right and left. She was pretty sure they were disappearing people, good and trusted comrades of many years of struggle, were disappearing right and left. She was pretty sure they were disappearing right. right.

She'd been something of an icon in her youth, had Layla. Borderline pretty, with a simple, sincere face masking a devious mind, a photographer had once taken her picture with her hair covered by a man's keffiyah and a man's rifle slung over her shoulder with the muzzle projecting above her back. This photograph had rocketed around Terra Nova, propelling Layla into an unwanted, even unfortunate, stardom. Songs had been written about her in several tongues. The stardom, in turn, had made it nearly impossible for her to continue her mission which was, by and large, the hijacking of aircraft.

Nothing deterred, Layla had undergone a series of plastic surgeries to hide her true face and make it possible for her to continue boarding aircraft in order to hijack them. The significant part of that that was that she had endured the surgery was that she had endured the surgery without without anesthesia, this being by way of a gesture of solidarity with the suffering anesthesia, this being by way of a gesture of solidarity with the suffering People People of the world. of the world.

Later in life, after many hijackings and many terms in prison, Layla had married a comrade from the struggles in Colombia Latina. Later still, she'd entered politics, winning office repeatedly based largely on her revolutionary past and her potential for continuing the revolution into the future. As a politician, her new face became even better known than had been her old. Likewise well known were her residence, office, domestic arrangements and family situation.

Is it time to go undercover again? she wondered, staring at the stars winking in the waves below. she wondered, staring at the stars winking in the waves below. No...I can't. The cause needs me here, easy to find and with all my connections intact. But I think I ought to improve my security. No...I can't. The cause needs me here, easy to find and with all my connections intact. But I think I ought to improve my security.

Balboa Base, Ninewa, Sumer, 3/2/462 AC Sada, Fernandez and Carrera met in a conference room in the intelligence offices. The conference room was small; the idea of a large conference in the shadowy, dirty world of intelligence, counter-intelligence and direct action was something of a contradiction in terms. A few flies buzzed Fernandez had reason to believe they were the only bugs in the room and the rotating fan whined despairingly overhead.

"There are a few people, very few," Fernandez admitted, "who won't won't break under torture. She's going to be one of them." break under torture. She's going to be one of them."

"She has two sons," Sada had pointed out. "She might not talk over threats to a husband, or even her father and mother, but she's an Arab, an Arab mother mother; she'll talk to save her sons."

"What do you think she's going to know to justify torturing and killing her sons?" Carrera had asked. "Remember, we do not torture anybody we have not announced that we have killed and are not planning to kill. If you tell me she's part of a plot to set off a nuke in a major city, maybe that would justify it. Maybe. Or if you tell me that you know know, not suspect but know know, that her sons are in on the whole thing. Can you do that?"

Sada shook his head. "No, we can't say that. Both of them are still in school. One's in college; the other in high school. They're likely to join the enemy at some point in time, yes, but for now? No, as far as we can tell they're innocent enough."

Fernandez grew heated. "If the sons will grow up to become terrorists, and they will, we should kill them now while we can. If we're willing to kill them then why not do the rest?"

"It just seems wrong."

"Patricio," Sada said, "you heard me when we first began working together but I don't think you listened. We Arabs are not like you people, and it isn't just a matter of religion. After religion, and not far behind...maybe even ahead, family is what really matters to most of us. We stopped, or at least cut down on, the hangings because it was making enemies of entire clans. The same logic applies here. At least the clans and tribes here could be bought off. But unless you are willing to kill the sons who will avenge this woman and the right or wrong of it matters not at all you are better off not touching her. What's the sense of killing or taking one terrorist if, in the process, you create two? On the other hand, if you're reluctant to take and use the sons to loosen their mother's tongue, at least let us kill the lot of them."

Fernandez inclined his head toward Sada. "Adnan is quite right, Patricio. Moreover, what's the difference between that and an air strike that takes out a whole family to get one terrorist? There isn't any and you know there isn't." Fernandez's voice and face grew desperate. "Patricio, for G.o.d's sake they created you you by killing your family and leaving you alive. They have brought out the very worst in by killing your family and leaving you alive. They have brought out the very worst in me me. This is not different."

Carrera thought about that. He'd done some terrible things, let innocent people be killed to get at the guilty. But this was just...wrong somehow. He couldn't deliberately order the deaths of the two boys on the mere chance that they might might someday become a threat. someday become a threat.

"No. Kill the woman, fine. Leave her family alone."

"Well," Sada said, acquiescing, "if it's to be a simple a.s.sa.s.sination then there's no sense in using my own boys for it. Can we afford to hire a hit team?"

Fernandez, still shaking his head in disgust at Carrera's squeamishness, asked, "Of course we can afford afford it. A hit team from whom?" it. A hit team from whom?"

"Possibly the Anti-Zionist People's Liberation Front; they're strong in Bekaa and never liked the fact that Arguello, a woman, garnered so many headlines. Or maybe the ZII, the Zion Intelligence Inst.i.tute, could suggest someone. Maybe they'd be willing to do it themselves. Give me a week to work it out."

"You have contacts with the ZII ZII?" Fernandez asked, incredulously.

"Just one good one," Sada answered and then refused to say more.

Akka, Bekaa, 9/2/462 AC As it turned out, ZII wouldn't touch it. The head of the organization, Mickey Zvi Maor, who knew Sada from school in Anglia, was firm on that. Oh, they wished the woman dead, one thousand times over dead. But they were such an obvious candidate for the hit that Maor begged off. He did suggest contacting one of the religiously affiliated parties in Bekaa, all of whom distrusted women in positions of power.