told him he could sell it for. And don't the bastards stop by from time to time to make sure I'm not gouging, too? Of course, that doesn't stop me from taking some of the grain and trading it for other foodstuffs, which I can mark up rather more than that.
With the profits, and given that he was one of the first stores to reopen, Tariq not only hired two assistants, he also took on an armed guard for the evenings when he closed shop.
Of course, not everyone had a job yet. The six thousand or so men employed by the legion, locally, were only a fraction of those needing work. On the other hand, those six thousand with money created a certain amount of work on their own, as did the men of Sada's brigade and even the damned foreigners. In any case, Tariq was finding business picking up almost to preinvasion levels. As to whether it would drop off again, as more competition reentered the market; who could say? Tariq hadn't gotten where he was by inability to compete or to work hard. Indeed, in a freer market he expected to do rather better.
No one noticed when the tall, slender man with the oddly and unevenly shaped eyes pulled the beat up, dented and dirty white van to the front of the store. Even the lack of a license plate excited no interest; many, perhaps even most, of the automobiles operating in the town were unlicensed. Perhaps they had once had licenses; who knew?
The slender fellow had a friendly face, although anyone who saw him probably thought it seemed a bit distant. He fiddled with something in the van, something below door level. No matter, everyone in the country was still in a state of shock, even those for whom the shock was not unpleasant. Nor was there anything particularly suspicious in the driver's reaching below the dash.
Opening the van's door and stepping out, the driver simply walked into the store. No one thought it odd that he consulted his watch and left after approximately four minutes. And no one walking by the storefront connected the man departing with the parked van.
Standard military time fuse burns at a rate of forty seconds per foot. The fuse had been cut to a length of fifteen feet. Thus, between the time he reached below the dash, and subtracting a few seconds to enter Tariq's store and five minutes inside, the slender man had just over four minutes to walk away at a fairly leisurely pace. He was almost three hundred meters away when…
'What the fuck was the point?' Carrera asked Sada.
'I'm not sure,' the Sumeri answered. 'Does it have to have a point?'
The two men, surrounded by legionaries with a few of Sada's men as well, stood in front of what had once been a store. The street was mostly still there, barring only a four foot deep crater, but the front of the store itself was gone. Indeed, much of the back was gone as well. Bodies and parts of bodies remained. Some of those parts were very small.
'Do we know how many people?'
Sada asked one of his men before answering, 'At least fifty-seven. That many are more or less intact. As to the parts…'-he spread his arms, shrugging- '… hard to say.'
Carrera's eyes focused on one very small part. It was a leg, small, slightly olive in tone, with a shoe on the foot. A baby girl's leg, he thought. A baby girl… like my Milagro. So fucking what if she was a Moslem, she was still just a baby girl. Bastards!
Sada looked at the legate, looked away quickly, and offered, 'It is no shame to cry, my friend. The shame would be in doing nothing about this atrocity.'
Wiping a hand across his face, which did little more than streak the dust that had gathered there, Carrera forced the sorrowful tone away and asked, bitterly, 'What can we do? It's in the nature of these things that they leave little evidence.'
Sada laughed grimly. 'Remember what I said about us being the sort of people who become exceedingly resentful about losing family members? Well… I think we have here the recruiting brochures'his hand swept the scene, taking in the bodies and parts of bodies'to acquire some numbers of people who will do anything to get even for what's just been done to their family. Watch and see if I'm not right.'
He bellowed something to one of his officers supervising the soldiers at the bombing site. The officer came over and Sada spoke to him briefly. Then he turned back to Carrera and said, 'I've just ordered Lieutenant Faroush to round up as many relatives as he can find and bring them to the university. I don't suppose your people are up to teaching a course in counter-terror? No? Well, we'll think of something. After all, it isn't as if we Sumeris have never had experience in crushing dissidents.'
Village of Qadir Karam,
Ninewa Province, 10/4/461 AC
Sada's adjutant had narrowed the number of applicants down to thirty-six.
Since this was Sada 's adjutant, the officer didn't do the normal thing for Sumer and select based on who could offer the highest bribe. Instead, he screened out those too old, or too young, those who didn't look strong enough and those with wives and children still living. Not that the others were turned away completely. Instead, they were redirected to neighborhood militias. Some joined; some did not.
After that, the adjutant selected for intelligence and desire for revenge. This required personal interviews, literacy being far from universal in Sumer and vindictiveness something that could never be objectively tested for. This process took time but narrowed the number of suitable candidates considerably.
Those few dozen were gathered now in a plain and somewhat rundown adobe mosque in this plain and ramshackle Sumeri town. Indeed, the only brightness to the assembly came from the flickering lamps along the walls and the shining, hating, vengeful eyes of the men assembled. Along with the few dozen was another, smaller group of specialists Sada had recruited from the dictator, Saleh's, secret police.
'So,' Sada began, in addressing them, 'you have agreed to give up your old lives, to become instruments of justice and vengeance? Excellent. Let me tell you what you are going to do. In a few minutes I am going to turn you over to one of my officers and a couple of special people he has selected to teach you how to become the instruments you wish to be. Before that happens, I am going to take your oaths, in the name of Allah, that you will obey every order you are given without question. You will be trained, over the next few months, in how to kill. More than that, you'll be trained in how to kill in the most terrifying manner. After that, you will return to your homes. In time, orders will come. You will gather in small groups to prepare and then you will hunt down and kill-or otherwise punish-those whom you are told to, wherever they may be and who or what ever they may be.
'Let me explain something to you, two things, actually. One is that once you have taken the oath, you may not release yourself from it. Your families are hostages, wherever they may be, for your continued obedience. The second is in the nature of what you are to do.
'You see, there are three kinds of terrorism. The first is what you have suffered, random acts of senseless violence. This kind almost never works,' Sada sneered. 'Witness the Federated States of Columbia. When their people were randomly killed, they merely went to war to exact vengeance and destroy the terrorists. Two regimes, here and in Pashtia, which formerly were great supporters of terrorism around the world, have fallen. More than that, as boys in school you all read-at least those of you who had the chance to attend school did-of the great terror bombings of the Great Global War. That was all random terror; it targeted nobody in particular. Note that no one ever knuckled under to them until nuclear weapons were used. So much for random terror.
'The other kind of terror is specific. With this kind, punishment is inflicted on particular persons, either on themselves or on those whom they love. To be the target of specific terror is a fearsome and terrible thing. Specific terror works. If it didn't, would the dictator have lasted a week?'
The eyes of the men assembled seemed to glow. Yes, yes, they thought. This is what we want: specific terror.
'The third kind of terror is genocidal. With this an entire people and even civilization is threatened with destruction. Thus, it includes specific terror because, if all are killed, then all whom you love are killed as well. Anyone who does not believe that this kind of terror works is a fool. Genocidal terror was all that kept the Federated States and the Volgan Empire from destroying each other and, incidentally, probably us as well. Genocidal terror is probably all that keeps the United Earth Peace Fleet and the Federated States from using nuclear weapons on each other now.
'So there are your three types. The kind that was used on you and brought you here and the other two, which are the kinds you will use to retaliate. Are there any questions?'
Seeing there were none, Sada said, 'Very well. Stand and raise your right hands…'
University Compound,
