“To see as you saw, my good servant. I see you desire your freedom, but not quite yet.”
“I did as you asked.”
“And more. But you have seen evil, have you not?”
Nickolai nodded.
“Then please, be well and bide your time until I tell you how that evil is to be dealt with.”
Nickolai stared into the effigy of Mr. Antonio, who he knew was not really there, and realized that he had no choice.
“Excellent decision, Mr. Rajasthan. In time you will see yourself first among your kind.”
“Nickolai, Nickolai!”
Nickolai opened his eyes to Kugara’s voice. He was momentarily disoriented, his last memory was talking to the image of Mr. Antonio in the midst of the ash. Now he looked up at Kugara’s face and above her a shining crystal ceiling that seemed to twist itself into some fractal vanishing point.
He sat up and asked, “What happened?”
“The shield dropped, and you collapsed.”
Nickolai felt his temple, and thought about the eyes that were wired deep into his brain.
“Are you all right?” Kugara asked.
“No,” Nickolai said, “I don’t think so.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Conversions
Before declaring victory over your opponent, make sure you are playing the same game.
Everyone is expendable.
Yousef Al-Hamadi walked down a hallway of unpainted metal. He didn’t carry his cane because the microgravity of Khamsin 235, like all the 732 asteroid-sized bodies that passed for Khamsin’s moons, was too slight to require it. Khamsin 235, while not nearly the largest, was just dense enough to have gravity strong enough to prevent a human being on its surface from jumping into orbit under his own power.
It still was weak enough that he quickly got into the habit of holding onto the ubiquitous guardrails that lined every corridor; otherwise an errant step could send him headfirst into the ceiling, bad leg or not.
The fact he was here at all was exceptional. He headed the Caliphate’s balkanized intelligence community, which meant that he was placed as far away from actual operations as one could be and still be an intelligence officer. He collected data, set priorities, and gave orders to implement the policies and objectives of the Caliphate government.
It had been years since he had so much as debriefed a field operative. The fact that he was present at this facility was an anomaly. The officers here, a complement of fifteen men, had no clue that he had been coming until his ship radioed for clearance to dock.
Not only was he not officially here, this facility didn’t officially exist. In any bureaucracy the size of the Caliphate, there were endless black holes and cul-de-sacs where money and resources could drain away without any accountability. While Yousef despised the corruption and petty agendas this bred within the government, he was not above using such techniques for his own purposes.
As long as such purposes served the Caliphate.
The officers here only knew this place as Detention Facility 235. Even they had no clue that, ultimately, the knowledge of this place’s existence was limited to them, Yousef, and a few of his trusted deputies. Even the
