Carnifex

12/7/467 AC, Hamilton, FD

'Where the hell does this arrogant son of a bitch think he comes from?' asked Malcolm in a fine rhetorical rage. 'Who the fuck does he think he is? Doesn't he know who the fuck I am?'

He thinks he's the only one who can save your bacon and the only one who both can and will provide troops willing to fight. He thinks that he has you over a barrel, thought Rivers, back in the SecWar's office. And he's right, too.

Rivers felt guilty—he really did—at the Progressive SecWar's discomfiture. He should be, he knew, more apolitical, even totally apolitical. Oh, well, tough shit; I despise the Progressives and I do enjoy watching the SecWar impotently rage.

In a repeat of Carrera's performance back on the Isla Real, Rivers took a sheet from a folder and passed it over. 'This is what it will cost if we don't hire him now. And this,' he continued, passing over another sheet, 'is how much it will go up in two months. He didn't say so, Mr. Secretary, but I think that if the situation gets worse any faster than he has anticipated, these prices will go up even more.'

14/7/467 AC, Panshir Base, Pashtia

In the military of most of the world, Class One supply—the most absolutely important class of supply—was food. And it was beginning to run short.

Marciano and his aide, Del Collea, stood outside the command bunker watching a heavy lift Taurcopter Civet stagger in under max load. This was no mean accomplishment with food, the chopper's main cargo, as food tended to cube out a carrier—to fill up its interior space—long before weighting it out. In this case, the Civet had another load slung underneath. Moreover, though it was not normal procedure, the Civet also carried a ton and a half of fuel.

Jets circled overhead. This was a futile attempt at intimidation of the guerillas who had Marciano's Tuscan Ligurini Brigade besieged. The pilots of the jet were under strict orders not to bomb lest civilians be hurt. Deep down, Marciano was beginning to wonder if the political masters in the Tauran Union to which his own country's politicians kowtowed weren't really more concerned that the Tauran forces not harm any of the guerillas. Certainly, the effect of not aggressively engaging the guerillas had been civilian deaths an order of magnitude greater than his forces would have inflicted if they'd gone hog- wild.

The chopper began a slow turn to the right, aligning itself with the short airfield. This was not, strictly speaking, necessary as the helicopter could simply hover in. That, however, burned fuel and fuel was becoming scarce, hence the mixed load.

Del Collea, younger and with better eyesight, saw the missiles first.

'Shit,' he said, sotto voce.

'What?' Then Marciano saw them, too.

Two were fired. Only one hit. That one was enough. It impacted on the tail boom, severing the connection of tail rotor and transmission. The tail rotor immediately stopped spinning vertically which caused to Civet to immediately begin a horizontal spin. The pilot apparently tried to fight it but ended by losing all control over the helicopter. Quite possibly vertigo caused him to lose all control over himself, as well. Marciano and del Collea couldn't see that, though. They could, and did, see the helicopter go into a graceless, wavering, spiraling descent that ended in a very impressive—there was that cargo of fuel—fireball.

'Going to be short rations for a bit longer,' del Collea muttered.

15/7/467 AC, Kashmir

Ashraf had imagined a long and dangerous trek to get from his guerilla company's area of operations to the school he was to attend. In fact, he'd lain awake for most of two nights, worrying about ambush, air attack, long marches and sleeping rough.

As it happened, Noorzad had simply given Ashraf's escort some money, and the two, plus some other ex- Haarlemers, had hopped a bus, gone to the Pashtian capital, Chabolo, and caught a flight to Kashmir's capital. From there, it was a simple taxi ride—oh, yes, with the usual forceful haggling—to the school. The school operated openly, making no pretense of hiding what it was.

After turning over his charges, Ashraf's escort had departed, leaving behind only some words of encouragement. Ashraf had been taken under the wing of his advisor, Majdy.

Majdy was, like Ashraf, Haarlem-born. They were about of an age. Indeed, most of the school's student body was in their early twenties. Moreover, most of the student body were 'reverts;' Taurans or Columbians who had accepted Islam, and in particular the Salafi version of Islam, and then joined the jihad. If they shared any language it was typically English. Arabic, so that they could learn to read the Koran in its original sacred language, was a major part of the school's curriculum.

Until that time though, the students and their advisors—and there was an advisor for every student—would communicate in the common tongue or in their native language. Majdy, of course, also spoke Dutch.

'Did they feed you on the flight?' Majdy asked politely.

Ashraf grimaced. That was answer enough.

'Come then, Brother,' Majdy said. 'You must be hungry. There's no sense in going any further while your mind is on food.'

With that, the advisor led off out of the dim reception area, through a green and white tiled garden courtyard, and toward a single story building from which came the enticing smell of food, well prepared.

Executive Mansion, Hamilton, FD, 17/7/467

The President was shocked. 'He wants two thousand tons of gold? Two-fucking-thousand?'

Malcolm sighed. 'He wanted two thousand, seven hundred, but has agreed to settle for two thousand plus the difference in FSD. Oh, and he wants the right to buy some things directly through our channels: radios, night vision equipment, some ordnance. Plus intelligence support.'

'What? Not tanks and up-to- date aircraft?'

Again, Malcolm sighed. 'When he insisted on the right to buy items that's what I thought he wanted. I offered, as a bargaining chip. But, no, the fucker's very happy with his mix of major equipment now. He only wants the radios for commonality and interoperability, and the ordnance and night vision because ours is incrementally better than what he can buy elsewhere.'

The President scowled as if to say, If you had delivered the Taurans as you promised . . . 

'Why gold?'

'It seems he's begun raising revenue by selling rights to the stuff to the rest of the world's very wealthy and very nervous. Based on what he's sold, against what we believe he's bought, he is overselling by quite a bit. I'm told that won't matter, as long as the price remains fairly stable and there's no run on his assets. I've got to warn you, Mr. President, that this much gold, if he uses it all to back his certificates, will make him completely independent and fully capable of waging war, or doing anything else he likes, completely on his own.'

'How much of this is because we tried to cheat him?' the President asked.

'Maybe fifteen percent. It was a mistake, but with the press howling for blood it was perhaps an unavoidable mistake.'

Malcolm's face grew thoughtful. 'You know, Mr. President, we could hire a lot more troops from Latin Columbia and even western Taurus for this much money.'

The President shrugged. 'What would they do then? Insist on not being used for combat? Insist on being deployed someplace we don't need them? No non-Islamic government can stand the prospect of casualties anymore. They can't even stand the prospect of enemy casualties. And noncombatants? No, it's your fucking mercenaries or nobody.'

Malcolm refrained from answering, Unfortunately, they're not my mercenaries.

19/7/467 AC, Quarters Number One, Isla Real

With Parilla retired and he and his wife now living in the Casa Linda for the duration of the Presidential campaign, Carrera had had a choice: leave the larger Quarters One unoccupied, which struck him as wasteful, move an underling into larger quarters than he had himself, which struck him as preposterous, turn Quarters One into a Bachelor Officers' Quarters, which struck him as altogether too noisy, or move in himself. He'd chosen the latter, and turned his old Quarters Two over to his favorite legion commander, Jimenez. It had been a toss up between Jimenez and Kuralski.