entrance. The fire splashed into the well-appointed room. Before it managed to burn up all the oxygen and suffocate him, Ali felt the flaming stuff touch upon and begin to eat away at his skin.
From outside the bunker, the engineer manning the flamethrower heard a satisfying scream. Grimly smiling, the engineer said, 'Teach you how to treat prisoners, motherfuckers.'
Interlude
16 Rabi I, 1497 Anno Hejirae, Nairiyah, Saudi Arabia
(15 March 2074)
Times were hard for the Faithful. For a while, for many years, it had seemed they would take Europe by default. And yet the perfidious Euros had found their balls in the end, returned to their roots, and ghettoized or deported the Muslims among them. America had been more generous, in its way. It welcomed Muslims, in considerable numbers. Yet it did so in the sure knowledge that its way of life was so seductive that few, if any, among them would remain true Muslims.
In their home, yes, even in Saudi Arabia, things were no better. The Saud Clan, fickle and faithless, had turned from their Salafist roots and concerned themselves ever more with sequestering the diminishing oil wealth of the country for their own benefit. A large and ruthless secret police organization barely sufficed to keep a lid on things. Mosques were purged; holy men disappeared without a trace. All was black.
The vision came to Abdul ibn Faisal as a dream, yet it was a true dream. He knew it was. No dream had ever seemed so real and when the voice of the Almighty had called in it…
'Servant of the Beautiful One, Servant of the Beneficent, Servant of the Most Compassionate…' and on through all the ninety-nine names of Allah. These, though, Abdul knew for himself. Indeed, he could have recited the ninety-nine names in his sleep. For all those ninety-nine, it could still have been just a dream.
But when the mighty voice had thundered out the one-hundredth name? Then Abdul had known that this was not just any dream, but a sending from the Most High.
The world around the dreaming Abdul was little beyond light and his own prostrate, quivering form. The great voice of Allah seemed to come from everywhere.
'The believers fear going to this new world, this Donya al Jedidah,' rumbled the great voice. 'They ask, 'Where shall we turn in prayers when al Makkah is not even on the same world? How shall we make the hajj, even once in a lifetime, when the vacuum between the worlds prevents it?' Go you forth unto the believers, Abdul ibn Faisal. Tell them that they are to take a single rock from the Kaaba, in al Makkah. This rock you shall know when you see it for I shall mark it for your eyes alone. And it shall be one of those set by Abraham, stone upon stone, as a shelter for Hagar and her son, Ishmael, the Father of the Arab People.
'This stone shall be set in silver after it is taken. And you shall take it with you to al Donya al Jedidah where you shall build a new Kaaba. The believers, such as I shall have given the Grace to know they are chosen, shall follow you, some in one ship and others in others. There you shall settle, as Salafiyah, you and those who follow.'
'I am the Maker of Universes. Obey me.'
Trembling still, Abdul awakened from his dream to find himself on his bed, on all fours, and with his head down low. His second wife lay sleeping beside him; so he saw when he looked up.
It seemed to him that the light by which he saw his wife ebbed very slowly.
Chapter Twenty By steeping himself in military history an officer will be able to guard himself against excessive humanitarian notions. It will teach him that certain severities are indispensable in war, that the only true humanity lies in the ruthless application of them. -Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege, 1902 Edition
Hill 1647, Topographical Crest, 0909 hours, 13/2/461 AC
It was too cold by far for meat to rot. Even so, the air was thick with the stench of phosphorus, napalm, explosives, blood and shit from ruptured intestines. Smoke floated thickly on the breeze. To the north, the steady whop-whop-whop told of the helicopters returning from dropping off the bulk of the Cazador Cohort. Behind, the muted roar of scores of tanks and other armored vehicles droned.
There were bodies everywhere, enough so that Carrera wanted to puke. He couldn't, of course, not in front of the troops. That would come later. And with it would come, so he strongly suspected, a new set of nightmares to steal his sleep. So be it; so be it. What is necessary is necessary. But if I couldn't compartmentalize, I think I'd go mad.
'The problem with a massacre…' Reprisal, Carrera reminded himself, REPRISAL. 'The problem with a reprisal is that it can take just as much out of the men as a battle.'
'Sir?' Soult queried.
'Look around, Jamey,' and Carrera's hand swept over the hill to encompass hundred of listless, weary legionaries, many of them with horrified looks on their faces. 'These guys aren't happy about what they've done here, many of them. They'll be useless for at least a day.'
'Then why'd you order it, Boss? I'm not bitching; I'm just curious.'
'Two reasons,' Carrera answered. 'One is that the boys were pissed and were going to do it anyway, no matter what anyone said. If that had happened, discipline would have been shot permanently. Instead, by giving them the order to do it, discipline is maintained. Thus, on some other occasion where maybe the enemy doesn't deserve this kind of butchery, we'll be able to hold the men in check because they know that if a reprisal had been warranted we would have ordered one.'
'You said two reasons, Boss.'
'Yeah,' Carrera answered. 'The other reason is that the law requires it. I'll explain later. In the meantime, give me the radio.'
Soult handed the mike over. Carrera made a call to the commander of his mechanized cohort. Brown answered, 'Sancho Panzer speaking.'
Carrera pulled the mike away and looked at it quizzically for a moment. When he returned it to his ear and mouth, he said, 'Sancho, my armor!'
'Where you want it, Boss?'
'The pass between the two fortresses. Legate Jimenez will be taking you, plus Third and Fourth Cohorts, plus the artillery and half the engineers forward. You lead. I'll join you later. Xavier, did you copy that?'
'Roger, Patricio,' Jimenez answered. 'Set up a defense or keep pushing?'
'Relieve the Cazadors, then hold in place. I want to see about bringing up the rest. That, and one other thing.'
'I'll need more trucks,' Jimenez observed.
'You can have the helicopters for one lift. Trucks we are scrounging up.'
'Fair enough. Meet you there. Er… what about my prisoners?'
'Base of the hill. The MP century is coming up to take charge of them.'
'Wilco, then, Patricio.'
Good old Xavier. On him I can rely.
Carrera handed the microphone back to Soult. 'Jamey, get ahold of every one of our units on this hill. Tell them I'll speak to them on this side of the bridge in… oh… two hours. And tell the sergeant major to bring any of the pressies he's rounded up there at the same time. And I'll need the priest. Oh, and send the PSYOP chief and Fahad the Chaldean up to me. We need to make a little announcement.'
It was actually closer to two and a half hours before everyone and everything needed were assembled.
Carrera walked out and stood on a little knoll between the bridge and the base of Hill 1647. The officers, centurions and legionaries stood at attention until he called, 'At ease. Break ranks. Cluster around.' He held up his arms straight to his sides, to show that he wanted the men grouped to where he could speak directly to them all at once. All told, there were nearly seven hundred uniformed men.
Behind the uniforms, still under armed guard but otherwise unrestrained, were approximately thirty-four members of the press, about seven of them bearing video camcorders. As soon as the legionaries were seated one of the pressies raised a hand and opened his mouth as if to speak.
'Shut up,' Carrera said, pointing directly at the man. 'You have no rights here. You have no say here. You ask no questions here until you are allowed to. Shut up and learn.'
Turning his gaze slightly left and then right to take in all the clustered media types, Carrera continued, 'Let there be no bullshit among us. You are my enemy and I am yours. Whatever I say you will lie about. Whatever you, in your incarnate ignorance, hear you will not understand and will misreport. If by some strange twist of fate one of
