Caliphate

mind that; we see you as more the lone operative at this point.

'Atkinson, you dolt: linguistic scores.'

The holographic file opened to an equally insubstantial sheet documenting, among other things, Hamilton's Defense Language Aptitude Test, or DLAT, which was used not only by the military, but by State and OSI as well.

'We could teach you any language or combination of languages,' Caruthers said, admiringly. 'This would make you useful anywhere. Do you already speak any languages beyond English, Spanish, and French?'

'A little German, and I picked up fairly decent Tagalog in the PI campaign.'

'Not much use for that anymore, except in the Philippine Scouts as the Philippine Army is absorbed into the Imperial Army and expanded. Certainly, we don't have a great need for the language. You didn't want to be a sepoy general, after all, did you?'

'I don't want to be any kind of general,' Hamilton answered. 'I don't think I ever did.'

Caruthers shrugged. 'If you join us, of course, you won't be.'

'What will I be?'

'That I am not sure of, though the way we do business now I will be your handler, if you join and are accepted for field work. Several of my colleagues have looked over your file and suggested you might be best used for direct action, 'wet work,' as we sometimes say. That, however, is all speculation. Your exact training track will not be determined until you are well into the BIOC, the Basic Intelligence Operatives Course.'

'I get to be a shavetail again, do I?' Hamilton asked, noticing the similarity between the letters BIOC and IOBC.

'Not exactly,' Caruthers said. 'For one thing, we won't get you up at two in the morning for a nine AM movement.' Seeing the look on Hamilton's face, Caruthers added, 'Yes, Lieutenant Hamilton, I was a grunt, too. That's where I met that buffoon, Atkinson.'

Kitznen, Affrankon, 24 Jumadah II, 1533 AH

(25 May, 2109)

It was still early morning, though the sun was full up. Besma was at school, Ishmael having escorted her. Most of the other servants were off at their various tasks. Inside the house of Abdul Mohsem were only Petra, al Khalifa, her son, and two of her son's friends.

With a grunt, Fudail, al Khalifa's son, closed the kitchen door firmly, tripping the latch. Two of his friends, Hanif and Ghalib, stood leaning against adjacent walls with their arms folded. The three formed a U, trapping Petra against the last wall. Not liking the looks in the boys' eyes, liking even less the obscene wagging of Hanif's tongue, the slave girl backed away.

Her back pressed against the broad oak table, the same one upon which al Khalifa flogged her approximately weekly. She remembered that there was a knife on the table and turned to grab it.

Too late. Like a cat, Fudail sprang forward, grabbing the slave's arms in a firm grip. He pulled her from the table. 'Move that knife, Ghalib,' Fudail ordered. 'We'll have use for the table.'

'Let me go!' Petra demanded, trying to kick backwards, a blow Fudail easily avoided. In answer to the demand, Fudail released one arm, the hand of which found new purchase in her long blond hair. The other hand spun her around, causing her hair to twist and pull. He released the other arm and slapped her across the face, twice, hard. Petra would wear the bruises for many days.

'In France they call this 'le tournante,'' Fudail explained.

Taking advantage of the girl's shock, Fudail, still grasping her by the hair, reached up and tore open her bodice. Her breasts, still growing, were too small to actually need a bra. The ripped cloth exposed them to the boys. Ghalib and Hanif clapped their approval. Fudail's fingers grasped the right nipple, squeezed as hard as he could, and then twisted, raising a cry of pain and despair from Petra.

'I think the Nazrani whore liked that,' Hanif said.

'Then she'll like the rest of the program even more,' said Fudail. He twisted Petra's hair harder, forcing her to her knees. 'Open your mouth, slut,' he ordered, using his free hand to lift his kurta, the long Islamic shirt, above his privates.

When Petra failed to obey immediately, Fudail twisted her hair still more viciously until her mouth opened in a pained, horrified moan, The moan was cut off as he stuffed her mouth with his penis.

'Don't even think about biting,' he hissed, 'or I'll cut your throat with a dull, rusty knife. Now suck it, whore.'

Terrified, Petra did. Fudail kept his grip on her hair, moving her head back and forth even as he thrust with his hips. That the repeated pressure of his penis on the back of her throat caused her to gag, and tears to pour from her eyes, bothered him not a whit.

Fudail was young, no more than fifteen himself, and had no great experience. In scant minutes he'd groaned and thrashed and filled the girl's mouth with his seed. 'Swallow it, slut!' he commanded.

Finished for the moment, he hurled Petra to Hanif's feet. 'It's your turn,' Fudail said. 'Use her the same way. We'll fuck her after she's sucked each of us.'

Hanif repeated Fudail's performance, hauling the girl up to her knees by her hair and forcing himself into her mouth. Petra barely resisted. When Ghalib's turn came she resisted not at all.

Then they took the last of her clothing and tied her, face down, to the oaken table.

It isn't me; it isn't me; it isn't me, Petra repeated in her mind, over and over, as the boys took turns with her. Her arms and legs were tied to the table legs with crude rope. Her belly and young breasts pressed to the smooth surface of the table. A thin trickle of blood ran from between her legs and onto that surface at one end; tears gathered in a puddle at the other. The forced rubbing of her nipples on the oak was beginning to hurt almost as much as her nether regions did.

It isn't me; it isn't me; it isn't me.

She'd lost count of how many times she'd been violated, though she could remember the ways. The times had been many; the ways only three. Of those, one had hurt and still did, while the other had been so agonizing the boys had gagged her first to keep her from screaming. The gag remained, even after the last of them had pulled out of her anus.

It isn't me; it isn't me; it isn't me.

And then, with a final gasp and groan from Fudail, it was over and the boys were untying her from the table.

'Cover yourself, bitch,' Fudail demanded, tossing her torn clothing across her back. 'And if you think you can do any good by telling anyone, I assure you it will be far worse on you than it will on us.'

In a daze, Petra arose and pulled her garments over herself. In a daze she staggered back to the room she shared with Besma. It was only when she'd collapsed into a corner that she finally screamed.

Not far from the door to Besma's room, al Khalifa smiled wickedly. Perfect, she thought.

Besma found Petra there, later that afternoon, no longer screaming but quietly rocking and weeping, her head in her hands and self-inflicted scratches across her face and upper torso. When Besma knelt before her friend she saw bruises that had turned ugly—black and blue and swollen.

'What happened? My God, what happened?'

Petra didn't answer. She lifted her head from her hands but stared off into the distance blankly. At this distance, Besma saw the scratches, little lines of blood welling up, clearly. She looked down at the ones lower, those across Petra's chest and breasts. Around them, the material of the slave girl's garment was plainly torn. Two rounded red spots marked where Petra's abraded nipples had touched the cloth. Looking down still further, Besma saw the blood stain where the garment touched between Petra's legs.

'Who DID this!' Besma demanded. When Petra didn't answer she shook the girl violently, repeating, 'Who DID this?'

Petra's lower jaw shook as more tears welled up. 'Fudail . . . ' She gasped out. 'Fudail . . . and his friends.'

Besma's hands were curled into claws. Her long red nails—her father indulged her in the vanity—ached for the eyes of Fudail. Her teeth longed to rip out her stepbrother's throat. She walked with purposeful steps to the house's main room. Ishmael, standing at the inner door, backed away when he saw her face.

Her father sat on a cushion on the floor, reading an expensive, leather-bound copy of the Koran. al Khalifa, wearing a satisfied smile, sat demurely in a corner opposite Abdul Mohsem, busying herself with knitting. Fudail sat near his mother, eating some nuts from a bowl. If anything, his smile was even more satisfied than his mother's.

'Monster,' Besma whispered, as she closed the distance between her and her stepbrother. 'Monster,' she said aloud as she neared his sitting form. 'Monster!' she screamed as she launched herself, claws outstretched, for his eyes.

Fudail barely managed to get his arms over his eyes in time. That didn't stop