Caliphate (28 page)

"Whatever the cause, the white portion of the South African population dropped substantially, about in half, even while the black and mixed populations grew. Even worse, it was the most technically skilled and capable whites who left, while those who stayed tended to be government flunkies and corporate bureaucrats."

Bongo slammed on the brakes and cursed at a black couple crossing the street in front of the company car. The couple just smiled at him and waved.

"Two factors changed that rough demographic stability. One was the roughly one third of the black female population of child bearing age that was infected with HIV, the virus that caused AIDS, the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. This not only killed them in disproportionate numbers, generally in their most fertile years, it caused a very serious social breakdown because of the number of orphans produced. Still worse, it put financial strain on a government that had difficulty enough eking out tax dollars from the many sticky fingers, white and black, those tax dollars passed through. The government, hoping for yet more money in foreign aid to pilfer, even denied that HIV caused AIDS, which of course let the problem rage out of control.

"Still, with low white birthrates and white flight from the country, one could have expected roughly similar proportions to be maintained.

"And so they would have been, had there not been a different wave of white flight in the world, commencing in the 2020s. That wave emanated from Europe. Some of it washed up in Australia and New Zealand. Some small part was allowed into the United States and its possessions. But only South Africa found itself in really desperate need for immigrants. Thirteen million Europeans found their way here."

Bongo's voice grew contemplative. "I have often wondered if the barbarian migrations that wrecked the Western Roman Empire didn't start just that way, one group in Mongolia raiding Chinese living north of the Great Wall, thereby causing the Chinese to push the first offending group right off its lands, starting a chain reaction. Whether it did or not, it sure worked that way here. First the Moslems nudged us, then we made their lands uninhabitable, they in turn went to Europe, which drove the Europeans here, which further fucked the blacks here, in the ass and without grease.

"It might not have been so bad, except for two other factors. Those Europeans who fled were typically highly fertile and more than a little bitter about being driven—whatever the truth of the matter, that's how
they
felt about it—from their original homes. They were, moreover, the most highly conservative of Europeans. They were not remotely interested in nepotism masquerading as affirmative action. Nor did they see why affirmative action should disadvantage them, since their ancestors had had nothing to do with
apartheid
. This is all a fair point of view, you'll agree," Bongo said, smiling over his shoulder at Hamilton.

"The civil war that broke out in 2038 lasted for nine years and cost millions of lives. At the end of it, disciplined fire, the old European military tradition, and a critical alliance with the Zulu people ended black majority rule in South Africa. By 2065, virtually all of sub- Saharan Africa was under white sway once again. They've learned a lot, though. That controlling hand is often felt only lightly. They prefer to rule through locals, much as the French did for more than half a century after notionally giving up their empire.

"Still, give the Boers . . . oh, yes, they're all Boers now, even the Cape English . . . give them their due. They pay their bills. The only exception to effective white rule in sub-Saharan Africa is Zululand, a hefty chunk carved out of Natal and points north for the Zulu in full payment for their services. And this time they weren't idiot cheapskates about it; this time they gave the Zulu a real country."

"What the fuck?" Hamilton's eyes could not believe what they were seeing, one man, two women in
hijab
, half a dozen kids with the oldest girl in
hijab
as well. "A
Moslem
family? Running around free?"

Bongo raised his eyes heavenward and shook his head with disgust. "I
knew
those assholes at Langley would miss important details." His hand left the steering wheel to point a finger generally off to the right front. "We've got maybe three hundred thousand Moslems here in Cape Town, something like three-quarters of a million in the country as a whole, exclusive of possessions and protectorates. There's a mosque over there," he said. "Pretty large one, actually. They call it the 'Red Mosque.' No, it isn't painted red and never has been. About forty years ago, a wild-eyed imam used to preach the
jihad
from its pulpit. Then one Friday, the Boers sent in ten thousand assegai-wielding Zulu. They killed every man, woman, and child in the place, then went on to kill every imam in Cape Town and their families, except for a very few the government took under its protection. After that, about fifty-thousand more of them were sold, some locally and some to the Caliphate, as slaves.

"Since then? Never a problem with the Moslems here. Never a peep, as a matter of fact. And some thousands of them drop Islam and become Christians every year. See,
Baas
De Wet, terror
works.
"

"Well, it beats the fuck out of Olson Hall," Hamilton whispered very softly to himself when shown to his temporary quarters. The woman guiding him was extraordinarily tall, being just over six feet. If Hamilton had been more familiar with South Africa he might have identified her as being a mix of Dutch, Irish, English, French, Arab, Malay, Swede, Bantu, and Hindi. The percentages would have defied even a native to guess. He thought her very pretty as, indeed, any man would have. The woman, not much more than a girl, really, whatever her height, introduced herself as "Alice."

She directed Bongo to place Hamilton's bags on the bed, then dismissed him, peremptorily. Hamilton thought it a fine commentary of the senior agent's fieldcraft that he bowed and scraped his way out on the suite with a more servile expression on his face than any Hamilton had seen on the liberated slaves of the Moros, during the Philippines campaign.

Alice then proceeded to empty out Hamilton's two suitcases, leaving alone only the contents of the locked carryall. The suits were hung in a large armoire, one of a pair to one side of the queen-sized bed. Underwear and socks went into drawers inside the armoire, while Alice carried his toiletries to the suite's expansive bath. Shoes she placed on a tree, without comment.

It was always a pleasure to watch an expert at work. Deciding that Alice knew what she was doing better than he did, Hamilton sat down in a comfortable stuffed chair and watched her work. She spoke very little.

It doesn't matter; a girl with an ass like that doesn't need to talk to be entertaining. Not that she's beautiful, but she's at least very pretty and her body is . . . amazing. If I weren't on mission I'd be a fool not to at least
think
about asking her out.

Some of Hamilton's clothing she found faulty upon examination. These she separated out for the maids to take care of.

And then she was done, standing there in the middle of the room. "Why don't you take a shower,
baas
," Alice suggested.

Hamilton's hair was full of shampoo and his eyes burning with soap when he heard a small click and felt a cool draft on his wet body. There was somebody inside the shower with him. He immediately backed into one corner, putting out one hand to guard while trying desperately to get the soap from his eyes.

He stopped himself, feeling inexpressibly silly, when he heard Alice laugh. "Didn't you understand?" she asked. "I come with the room . . . like a piece of furniture. I'm here for your enjoyment."

"How did you end up here?" Hamilton asked, later, as the two lay in bed, half-exhausted.

"I was born," Alice answered, cryptically. "I'm sorry," she amended. "That wasn't fair. I wanted to go to school. I couldn't afford it. KHR made me an offer. I get room and board—and it's a very
nice
room, don't you think?"

"Very nice," Hamilton agreed.

"Yes. The company gave me a budget to decorate and I did it myself. I was even able to save a little.

"Anyway . . . well, I get room and board, a small stipend, and can go to class when I don't have duties here. It may take me six years to get a degree, instead of four, but six years is better than never."

"And for that?"

"For that I signed a contract of indenture . . . I have to be nice to men assigned to this suite." She smiled warmly. "I was happy when you were assigned,
baas.
Usually the men are a lot older and I don't care for them much.

"Someday, if I graduate well, I'd like to put in papers to emigrate to America . . . or maybe some of its possessions where the rules for immigration are a little easier."

Hamilton said nothing but thought,
You should try and I wish you luck, Alice. We may suck . . . but the rest of the world is just one giant vacuum that pulls away hopes and dreams and runs them through filth on the way to the garbage can.

Hamilton's last thought, as he drifted off to sleep, was,
Amend will. Give ten thousand? No, that wouldn't be enough. Give twenty-thousand Imperial New Dollars to Alice Mbatha, of KHR House, Cape Town, with hopes that it helps her make her way . . .

"If you wince," Bongo said, on the elevator ride down to the pens, "if you give any indication that those kids are anything more than cattle, you are out of here." It was an idle threat, after spending so much time training Hamilton for this one mission, he was not going to be replaced. Still, Bongo thought, perhaps he didn't understand that.

"I won't," Hamilton assured his ostensible servant and genuine boss. "But I've got to ask: How the hell do you stand it, day after day, year after year?"

"You can get used to anything," Bongo replied. The subterranean elevator doors opened to the sound of wailing and moaning and utter human misery. "Some things are just a lot harder than others.

"This is one of the hardest," Bongo whispered, before taking the lead and saying aloud, "This way,
baas
, your lot is right over this way."

There were six pits below the elevator walkway. Separated by some kind of tough, clear plastic, they allowed the staff of the complex to walk between them to distribute food and water. The oddest thing, to Hamilton's eye, was that to one or two sides of each of five of the six pits women, some black, some brown, a few obviously with some white in their ancestry, stood staring at the sixth, their hands seeming desperate to push through the clear barriers that held them.

"Why—"

Bongo answered before the question was fully formed. "Those are mothers, pining for their children. The children—our cargo—are in the sixth pen."

Unbidden, Hamilton walked to stand above the sixth pen, the one obviously holding nothing but wide-eyed, mostly silent in shock or weeping with terror and despair, black and colored children aged from about six to nine or ten.

God is never going to forgive me for this,
he thought.
For that matter
, I
am never going to forgive me for this.

"You seem upset,
baas
," Alice said, standing in front of a seated Hamilton and wearing little but a short silk robe. "Can I help?" Before Hamilton could answer she dropped to her knees and began to undo his trousers.

"Later, Alice," he said. "Please. Later tonight I'd be very happy to have you again. For now, I just need to think."

"As you wish,
baas
," she answered, rising to her feet gracefully. "If you change your mind, just call. I'll be at the desk working on my studies."

South Africa had produced high quality wines and beers for centuries. Wine or beer, however, just wouldn't do. And the local whiskey was . . . charitably . . . not good.

The brandy, however, was superb. Hamilton poured his own drink from a net-wrapped, amber bottle labeled "Klipdrift."

Damned shame,
he thought,
that I can't allow myself to get drunk. Crimes like the ones I'm engaged in cry out for sweet oblivion.

Is there a way out of this? Caruthers was right; better two hundred should be enslaved than that four or five billion, and civilization itself, should die. But it would be better still if nobody were enslaved and all those billions, plus civilization, lived.

Is that possible, though? Is there any way I can save these kids? Save their mothers down in the slave pens? Do that while still stopping VA5H? I doubt it.