Carnifex

with—I hasten to add—the full backing and support of the Federated States. You can try to resist, and get in a war with the FSC or you can do the smart thing and announce that this operation is entirely with your approval. One way makes you look weak and foolish, especially when your air force goes down in flames. The other makes you look strong and decisive.'

The prime minister, Baraka, short and dark, listened attentively. His face showed only a trace of hostility. After all, all this emissary-without-portfolio said was true enough. He didn't have control of CID. He didn't have control of the Tribal Trust areas. And it was entirely conceivable, even probable, that the Salafi base could be about to play host to one or a number of nuclear weapons. It was even possible that the weapon was coming from his own country's stockpiles.

He still didn't have to like it.

Siegel understood perfectly well. To the ambassador who had accompanied him to the meeting he said, 'Would you leave us for a moment, sir?'

'I am further authorized, Mr. President,' he said, once the door had closed behind the ambassador, 'to offer you and your family sanctuary for life, in the Republic of Balboa and to . . . ' he dug into an inside pocket of his coat and withdrew a small red booklet . . . 'to offer you a substantial guaranteed honorarium if you cooperate in this.'

He handed the booklet over to Baraka who opened it and read without comment. Finished reading, the President placed the booklet into a desk drawer and sat, silently, for a few minutes.

'What's Balboa like, Mr. Siegel?' he asked.

'Wonderful place, Mr. President,' Sig answered. 'Warm though a bit wet, rather like here. Clean. Beautiful women. Low cost of living. Best of all, sir, it's very secure.'

Baraka slowly nodded before reaching out one finger to an intercom. 'Achmed, call the General Staff duty officer. I want every plane in the Air Force grounded. Further, I want the Army's regiments in the posts bordering the tribal lands to the south confined to barracks. Lastly, set me up a press conference for noon, to be held here.'

Already he felt the vultures circling. The important thing, the President knew, isn't whether or not our borders have been violated. The important thing is that I act like I am confidently in charge.

The Base

Mustafa felt his confidence wilting like a desert flower— quickly and completely. His closest followers sat stunned. This was not supposed to happen, not here, not in the sanctuary that God, in the form of the Kashmiri government's inability to control their southern border, had ordained.

Stunned transformed to horrified when another messenger burst in saying, 'The stinking President of Kashmir has come on the television. He says that the attack is with his permission. He says his air force is staying out of it only due to incompatibility between the FSC's Air Force and Kashmir's. We'll get no aid from that quarter.'

Was it the nukes that brought them here? Mustafa wondered, dully. But then, how could they know? I told no one but Abdul Aziz and Nur al-Deen. They wouldn't tell any one. They are the most faithful of the faithful. Robinson couldn't have told. If he had, he'd have been out of here last night. Sometimes it makes me wonder whose side God is on.

'What are we to do, Mustafa?' al-Deen asked.

'Fight,' Mustafa answered, fatalistically. 'What else can we do? But,' his eyes fixed on Nur al-Deen, 'begin collecting the cadres, the most important ones, and the families. We may lose here, but that will only be Allah's test of our faith. If we can get the key people out,' his finger pointed, 'along with that one weapon, we can continue the struggle.'

'I'll send an advanced party out now,' Nur al-Deen said, 'to gather some of our followers further north, their vehicles and animals, to provide us a cover when we emerge.'

'Excellent, my friend, except . . . ' Mustafa looked at the bomb. 'Not to the north. We'll take the southern route. And we will prevail yet.'

Camp San Lorenzo

'What is it, Alena?' Fernandez asked. 'Worried for your brother and your husband?'

'I am,' the girl admitted. 'But that's not it. I am missing something and I don't have a clue of what.'

'Maybe it's only nerves.'

'No,' Alena insisted. 'I know nerves and I know when there's a truth staring at me from nose length away. This is the latter. Why can't I see it?'

To that Fernandez had no answer. He operated off of hard evidence, not the half mystical insights of this Pashtian witch-girl, however damnably effective those insights might sometimes be.

* * *

His father had told him to pack his rucksack—and little Hamilcar was very proud that he'd been issued the very same model the legionaries carried—and to report to Fernandez. He'd packed himself, though his father's driver had taken him to Fernandez's office in the main headquarters building. Gaining entrance was no problem; the troops were used to Ham having the run of the place.

Besides, he knew better than to ever mentiona word of what went on there, not even in the thrice weekly electronic letters his father insisted he send to his mother.

Half carrying and half dragging the rucksack behind him—'Dig your own hole; carry your own roll,' his father insisted—Ham stumbled in the direction of Fernandez's voice, saying, 'Maybe it's only nerves.'

* * *

Alena heard a small sound, something like an oversized mouse scurrying, and looked towards it. A small boy, bowed under the weight of a rucksack bigger than he was, staggered and stumbled towards Fernandez. She started to smile and then looked again at the boy's face. She'd seen that face before . . . somewhere . . .

'Iskander, our Lord,' she whispered, before dropping to her knees and then placing her face and palms to the floor.

The Base

Jimenez lay beside a Pashtun Scout bearing a laser designator. He pointed at a stream of tracers rising to the sky. The tracers chased behind a Turbo-Finch, just pulling up and away from a strafing run. Almost they closed the gap before the 'Finch pulled away.

'Bring fire down on that,' Jimenez ordered the scout. 'Right at the base. Pulverize it.'

'Yes, sir,' the scout answered, aiming his designator at the target while another man on a radio called the artillery for supporting fires.

Jimenez crouched above the military crest. He was in plain view of hundreds of Salafis on the surrounding hills, but out of their range. For the enemy that were in range, he had the mass of the crest for cover. Even so, bullets from below struck the trees and branches above him steadily, sprinkling him with bits of wood and bark they had chewed off.

Crouching lower still Jimenez moved closer to the crest where the Scouts had set out a perimeter and were battling fiercely to keep the huge numbers of charging and firing Salafis at bay. As he got closer still he went to his belly to crawl forward. A commander has to see the action; not just rely on reports of others to guide him.

He crawled, he lay, he saw, he thought, Holy shit.

The hill sides and valley floor below were crawling with the enemy.

'Good fighting,' Masood announced, approvingly, as he flopped down next to Jimenez.

'Maybe too much of a good thing,' Jimenez answered with a smile.

* * *

Despite a pretty severe case of nerves, and the incessant shaking of the helicopter, Cruz forced a smile to his face. There was a lot of acting involved in combat leadership and he'd been to some of the best training for actors available. What, after all, was Cazador School except some hundreds of men in utter misery pretending that they liked it?

The helicopter would have been a little bit overstuffed if it had borne, as it was designed to, Taurans or Volgans. For the smaller and slighter Balboans who made up the bulk of the Legion it was possible to cram several more, sometimes many more, troopers than the design had called for.

In this case, with forty-seven men of his own platoon, a two man and one pooch scout dog team, another two forward