them.
When the first of the refugees reached the target, he jabbed his finger down on the 1 key. The shrill scream of the machine gun bullets ricocheting off rocks filled the narrow pass. Three unfortunate people at the head of the column howled and fell wounded to the red dirt. After a short while, however, the Mohajeran realized that all the machine gun fire was aimed at one place. They began to move cautiously around that area, giving it as much room as they could. One by one, they gathered courage and slipped by to one side.
Jan Muhammad cursed. Of course, he could retarget the machine guns to another point, but the same thing would happen again. The enemy would realize they were safe elsewhere in the defile. And it was pointless to aim the guns by tapping information into the data deck. The refugees would all be gone long before he got the next position set up.
Jan Muhammad hurried outside. The deep blue sky of the false dawn and a cool breeze gave the morning an innocence that was pure illusion. Jan Muhammad knelt briefly on the edge of the cliff, glaring down in frustration, until a few shots from below made him scuttle back. That gave him an idea. Not far away, the weapons of the Mohajeran he had killed were stacked together until headquarters sent someone to collect them. Jan Muhammad grabbed a plastic and alloy-steel automatic rifle. He examined it quickly; it was in disgraceful condition, but with luck it wouldn’t blow up in his face. He lay down with his head raised just high enough to see over the edge.
Jan Muhammad waited for a chance to avenge the insult they had paid him. When he saw a flicker of motion, he squeezed off a few rounds and was gratified to hear a shrill cry of pain. He still had his command moddy chipped in, so he was getting an unbroken view of the pass from one end to the other. He could see where each rebel had concealed himself. They had neutralized his data deck and his heavy weapons, but they were wrong if they thought he was going to admit defeat. He would fight even if he were reduced to throwing rocks and stones. He grinned as he looked down patiently from the cyberlink, down at his enemy. They didn’t realize how exposed they were.
Besides the rifles, Jan Muhammad had captured a number of grenades as well. He began tossing them down into the Tang-e-Kuffar, flushing some of the refugees from hiding. The Mohajeran decided to chance a break, and as they sprinted through the pass, Jan Muhammad picked them off in their panic. He had been trained to use cyberlinked guns, not conventional infantry weapons; but now the refugees were learning how badly they had underestimated him. When the sun first edged over the broad, parched plain, he had accounted for half the Mohajeran in the party.
As the morning stretched on, he got a few more as they attempted to rush by him, and the rest when they withdrew up the winding, unprotected path. He stood up at last, his neck muscles aching and stiff. He hadn’t given up, although the refugees had taken away his advantage. Even if the Mohajeran tried storming his bunker again, he wasn’t afraid. Without the cyber weapons, he was still confident that he could keep them from overrunning his position. He wondered what Sergeant Abadani would say when he heard that Jan Muhammad, using antique guns and toy rifles, had beaten a unit of Mohajeran.
Hours later, while he was frying some flour in lard and chewing on a greasy stick of dried mutton, Rostam’s voice called to him from the bottom of the hill. The old man sounded frightened. That made Jan Muhammad laugh, but it was a somber and dangerous laugh. Jan Muhammad was curious if Rostam had been sent to try another scheme of some kind. The old man was a fool, and Jan Muhammad might have been amused, except he understood clearly that if Rostam had been successful, Jan Muhammad might well be dead now.
“Yaa sarbaaz!” Rostam’s voice quavered in the hot, still air. “Yaa sarbaaz, we must talk!”
Jan Muhammad kept scraping the browning flour in the pan. He added another spoonful of lard and watched it melt. “Rostam?” he called.
“We must talk!” The spy was terrified.
“Why do you say that? What do we have to talk about?”
“Don’t act that way, aga. Please let me explain. Let me come Up.”
“Explain if you want to, but do it from out there. This bunker stinks enough as it is.”
“I can’t just stand here and shout at you, aga.”
“Why the hell not?”
There was a pause. Jan Muhammad glanced out and saw Rostam shifting nervously from one foot to the other. He held his large stick, but the mule was nowhere to be seen. “Listen, O worthy one: It is true that I did as the Mohajeran ordered, but I was forced to do it. They threatened me. I’m many times a grandfather, I’m all used up. I can’t stand up to strong young men when they force their way into my home.”
“They gave you something to put into my data deck?”
“Yes, aga.”
Jan Muhammad muttered a curse. “Did you think you were helping me, when you did what they told you?”
Another pause. “No, aga, but I had no choice! The shopkeeper in the village, he was with them, and he said that I’d die slowly in front of everyone if I did not cooperate. He said that he’d never sell me another loaf of bread, another bottle of wine for solace in my old age.”
“But you never thought to warn me. You were more afraid of this shopkeeper and the refugees than all of the Mahdi’s army. You are worse than the Mohajeran; you have refused the service of the blessed Mahdi. You think only of your worthless belly, when you were given an opportunity to benefit the deputy of Allah.”
“I was afraid, aga!”
Jan Muhammad spat in disgust. “You’ve made that very clear, old man. You threw in your lot with the Mohajeran, so now you’ll have to ask for protection from them. I wish you luck.”
“But, sarbaaz, the entire village…when they heard, they drove me out, into the desert — “
“And what do you want from me? Sympathy?”
Rostam began to weep. “I can’t live without food, without water. Where will I go?”
Jan Muhammad had stopped paying attention. He tapped a few keys on the data deck.
Jan Muhammad typed 1.
“Sarbaaz!
“You submit when it serves your purpose,” shouted the soldier. “And when it doesn’t serve your purpose, you break every law of the Prophet, may blessings be upon his name and peace.”
Jan Muhammad typed 1.
“Pity me!” Rostam was hysterical. He had fallen to his knees in the stony soil, and now he raised his arms in supplication. “Think of your own father. Would you treat
“My own father would not have left me weak and vulnerable to my enemies, and he wouldn’t have taken sides with the haters of Allah.”
“Bismillah!” screamed Rostam. He fell forward, laying his forehead in the dust, trembling with terror.
Jan Muhammad’s finger descended over the keys, hesitated, then hung motionless in the air. He could not bring himself to murder this wretched old man. “Go!” he called. “Get off my hill! Go starve to death in the wilderness! Walk to Jerusalem and ask the forgiveness of the Mahdi!”
“‘Whoever forgives and amends, he shall have his just reward from Allah,’” quoted Rostam. He staggered off, away from the young man he had betrayed, away from the village that had turned him out.
Jan Muhammad closed his eyes tightly, wondering at his sudden change of heart. “In the profane mouth of an unbeliever,” he murmured, “even the words of the Prophet can lose their beauty.” Behind him, unheeded, his poor midday meal burned and was ruined. With his augmented vision, Jan Muhammad watched the old man until he was out of sight, swallowed up by the seared and withered expanse of waste.
