Carnifex

no comment. The infantry flew out with the morning supplies; the Scouts and Cazadors flew back, hidden in the IM-71s closed, almost windowless, cargo bays.

At the camp's own airfield the Scouts had spent a mere day being partially briefed and fitted with civilian clothing suitable for travel. They were issued passports with visas. They'd then transshipped onward , some via the Legion's AN-21s and 23s for the major airport at Chobolo, the capital of Pashtia, still others on civilian buses to cross the border. Still others left openly on horseback. Clothing for the foot scouts had been easy, since the one-size-fits-almost-all robe was common dress where the Scouts were headed.

For the most part, for those who flew out, this was Sumer, where Sada's closest followers arranged further onward movement through Yithrab for some, directly to Peshtwa, Kashmir for others.

The long range patrol that had served as retrans for the Legion's spy in the enemy base was not replaced. Instead, a very quiet remotely piloted vehicle took up station within range and circled expectantly.

11/8/469 AC, Peshtwa International Airport, Kashmir

Subadar Masood spoke Urdu, the primary language of Kashmir, flawlessly and with a proper Peshtwa accent. He waited impatiently for a group of twenty-one of his scouts, all in civilian dress, to debark from the plane. With these, four legionary officers including Jimenez, and those men who had arrived previously, he would have a force of fifty-one men in the capital. This was just large enough to minimally man the vehicles he had purchased for cash over the preceding weeks, and also just few enough to excite no real comment in bustling Peshtwa.

Weapons, too, had been purchased. Masood smiled to think that he was buying from the very same men who made their livelihood selling to his enemies. Since he knew what he was about and the Salafis rarely did, he was confident, at least, of having obtained superior products.

Such purchases, on such a scale, would have excited comment almost anywhere else on Terra Nova; one man buying nearly six hundred rifles and machine guns, plus several tons of explosives and ammunition. In the decentralized ways of the Salafi movement, with no one really in charge (though Mustafa was still working on bringing some of the disparate submovements to heel) and its leaders more inspirational than operational, it was merely routine.

The only interest shown in the transactions by the government or any of its agents were requests for bribes, or baksheesh. Masood paid, of course; this was the price of doing business. He took some small satisfaction in haggling the bribes demanded down from the obscene—which would have excited interest, if paid— to the reasonable.

With weapons, ammunition and explosives excess to immediate needs all safely stowed in the cargo compartments of the buses, Masood directed the drivers and co-drivers to mount up. Without fanfare the column moved south to its rendezvous with the rest of the maniples committed to the attack.

11/8/469 AC, The Base, Kashmir TTL

The Admiral's launch from the Spirit of Peace didn't need a landing strip, except as a convenience. The price to be paid for not having one was expenditure of fuel. Mustafa had promised fuel and Robinson had believed him.

I was told this area was safe, Robinson thought, doubtfully, as he looked out the window to see a long line of what looked like bomb craters. Guess not.

Robinson had been a bit skeptical when the Salafi sheik had promised a cavern big enough to shelter his launch. Looking out his portside window, however, he had to admit that the excavation revealed as dozens of men pulled aside its camouflaging curtain was indeed impressive, easily as large as the VIP docking bay of the Spirit of Peace.

The pilot hovered briefly until he was certain that the concealing curtain was pulled far enough away to permit his shuttle easy entrance. Then with a few gentle adjustments of the horizontal thrusters the launch began to slide left, into the cavern. The Salafis replaced the curtain as efficiently as they had removed it.

There was no Marine band for this landing, no purple carpet and no salon-like terminal. The security was just as tight, though, as on Atlantis base, if not so formal.

Mustafa was curt when Robinson stepped off the shuttle door with a burkha-clad Arbeit. Robinson turned to help the marchioness to step down to the cave floor. 'You have brought the weapons?' Mustafa asked.

'I have brought the weapons. The keys to activate them I retain,' Robinson answered, tapping his forehead.

Mustafa smiled suddenly and brilliantly. 'This is to be expected. We will emplace them where they will do the most good. You will detonate them. We will take the credit. The infidel will be destroyed.'

Robinson refrained from pointing out that it would take more than a dozen wrecked cities to destroy the Federated States. Likewise he refrained from mentioning that the Federated States were very likely to launch a genocidal nuclear war against any place which so much as might harbor a Salafi if a dozen of its cities were nuked. Instead, Robinson intended to detonate only one of the bombs. This would leave the rest in place and hidden, in other words left as a threat, to force the Feds to pull back within their boundaries. That would leave the rest of Terra Nova to the either the Ikhwan or Tauran Union, the World League and their puppet master, himself.

11/8/469 AC, Hoti, Kashmir

The town was one of the central points for the support of the insurgency in Pashtia, much as it had been during the earlier Volgan-Pashtian war. There were still refugees from that earlier war, hundreds of thousands of them, rotting in tent cities in the barren hills to the southwest. Hundreds of humanitarian workers made a fat enough living through dispensing the charity that kept those refugees rooted to the area.

To the northeast of the town was a fertile plain the produce of which, along with the retail arms trade and the fat pickings from foreign aid, made Hoti the pleasant and prosperous burg it was.

The town was also large enough, the dress similar enough, and the language common enough that something over four hundred and fifty newly arrived Pashtians made little impression on it or its people. There were always guerilla bands traipsing through Hoti or, at least, there had always been for the last thirty-three years.

The buses, four-wheel-drive sedans, and light trucks under Jimenez's and Masood's command waited by the town's outskirts. By twenties and thirties the rest of the party, those who had openly entered Kashmir across the common border as 'refugees,' met the vehicles. There weapons and—for vehicle leaders, radios— were issued and, in some cases, mounted.

'I almost can't believe we're getting away with this shit,' Jimenez told Masood.

'The ways of Allah are inscrutable,' the subadar answered, with a sardonic smile. 'His mercy is infinite. What's more, sir, we're nothing unusual, not even for size. We're not even forming up in any particularly remarkable way. The mujahadin have been doing this for over three decades, and almost without pause. I, myself, joined a guerilla column to fight the Volgans not two miles from here thirty years ago. Purely routine.'

Jimenez commented, 'But it still seems too easy.'

'Wait until we reach the Salafi base, sir. We'll pay there for any ease we've had here. Then, too, this is the last and only time we'll ever get away with this.'

'How are the vehicles holding up?' Jimenez asked.

'Not bad. We should lose no more than, say . . . a third of them. Yes, about a third, over the next portion of our journey. Less if Allah is especially merciful.'

Jimenez consulted his watch. 'Fortes Fortuna adiuvat.'

'Yes, sir,' Masood agreed. 'She does. Great writer, Terence.'

'You understand Latin?' The legate was flabbergasted. 'Latin?'

'School in Anglia, sir. Every proper gentleman there studies Latin.'

Jimenez couldn't help laughing with surprise. 'Load 'em up, Subadar. 'Fortune favors the bold' and the timely. We have a group of cavalry to link up with.'