Caliphate (49 page)

"Matheson, this is Lee," the pilot sent over the communicator attached to his ear. "We've got a problem and you're going to have to hurry."

Shit, Doc,
Matheson sent,
you've got to come up with something quick. We've not much time left before the airship either has to leave or it won't be able to.

Be calm, Agent Matheson, I've had to do some stubby pencil drill.

For what?

For whether the one source of massive heat we've got is up to the job.

What source?
Matheson asked.

The crematorium,
Richter answered.
It's got its own fuel supply and oxygen source. It has to have. We can use it to increase the temperature of the lab.

You mean as in leave the door open and turn on the flame?

Precisely.

What if it has a fail safe so it won't fire up if the door is open?

Silly question, Agent Matheson. If it has a fail safe you
break
it.

The nausea and the stumble-causing disconnect between eyes and brain were still pretty bad. And moving quickly only made it worse. Twice on the way to Hamilton's position Hans had to stop to vomit. Once he nearly fell over. Even so, Hans eventually clattered up the twisting stairs to Hamilton's position. He was nearly shot for his trouble.

"Jesus
Christ
, Hans! For God's sake announce yourself."

Exhaling forcefully—for, immediate stress-wise, the only thing worse than being shot is coming close to shooting a friend— Hamilton lowered his weapon.

"Sorry, John," Hans gasped, putting a defensive hand out. "I'm a little disoriented."

"Never mind," Hamilton conceded. "What's going on back there?"

"The children are freed. I don't know if they're aboard the airship yet. The airship's sinking. We've not much time."

At about the same time the janissary sergeant of the guard decided he should get back to the serious business of breaking down the gate. He opted to do it in the same way the colonel had, assigning men to keep the windows of the towers covered. The sound of the pounding down below quickly changed in quality, too—the earlier battering must have had some effect. The door was clearly weakening.

"I think it's about to give," Hamilton said.

"Yes," Hans agreed. "And that's why you have to go back, to get Petra, if she's still alive. I can hold the fort here. As long as I'm lying down and not moving, I can shoot."

Hamilton hesitated. "What about Ling?" he asked, cocking his head slightly.

Hans sighed. "Ling is important to me, yes. I might even be important to her. But it's mostly important that she be freed, if she can be freed, and have a decent life. This, you and your people can give her better than I can. And for Petra . . . you're her future. I'm only her past."

Hamilton stood for a moment in indecision. He called for Matheson, "Bernie, how much longer do we have?"

"Not much, John. And when you and Hans head to the airship, don't come by the lab; take the upper passages. It's going to be very warm down here."

"Roger," Hamilton answered. "Do we have a few minutes anyway?"

"That much, sure."

Hamilton reached out a fraternal hand to Hans' shoulder. "There's some solid furniture down below. If you're going to stay here, let's make you a fighting position facing the gate that can take a hit."

Nobody was hit racing through the cleared path in the minefields facing the castle's main gate. For this beneficence, Sig and the
baseski
both said a special prayer of thanks.

"Sergeant of the Guard!" the first sergeant bellowed as he passed through the checkpoint and took a crouch behind a concrete barrier.

"Over here, Top," the sergeant answered from his position in the alcove. The sergeant had to shout to be heard over the pounding of the battering ram. "We're almost through."

10 July, 2022

The cellar was dark and dank and dreary. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and the pipes and draped along the walls. There was an old moldy mattress on the floor, Amal saw.

"By the time we're through with you, you'll be glad to don the veil, slut," Zahid said, confidently, to Amal. The boy moved a small, silvery pocket knife in front of the terrified girl's eyes.

"Don't hurt me," she pleaded. "Please don't hurt me."

"We're not going to hurt you much," said Zahid. "We're just going to cut you from your ear to your mouth."

"That," agreed Taymullah, "or you can admit you're just a slut and let us all fuck you. Your choice."

That was no better a choice than being cut. Again, tears pouring down her face, Amal sobbed, "Please don't hurt me. I'll wear a veil. I promise."

"Your word's no good, slut," Zahid said. "Only way we can be sure you'll follow the law is if we cut you. Then you'll be too ashamed to show your whore's face."

"DON'T HURT ME!"

"We have no choice."

"I'll do anything you want; just don't hurt me," the girl begged, head hanging in hopeless and helpless shame.

Once more, Zahid flashed his knife by her eyes and then moved it as if to slash her cheek. He didn't cut her though. Instead, he brought the knife down to her shirt and began to cut it away.

The police car that took Gabi to the hospital didn't flash its lights or blast its siren. Instead, it went only as fast as the traffic would bear. It could have used its sirens and lights of course, but the woman sitting in back was so nearly hysterical that the two policemen up front thought that they'd only make things worse.

"What happened? What happened? What happened?" Gabi kept asking. Neither cop had an answer. They knew the woman's daughter had been hurt and was in the hospital, but that was all they knew . . . about the daughter. The policemen recognized well enough the artist woman who'd been so prominent in the papers and on television a couple of years prior.

One of the policemen helped Gabi to walk on unsteady knees from the patrol car into the emergency room. Surprisingly, a doctor and another policemen, this one in mufti, met them near the door. He led them to a small alcove, not too private but as good as could be procured on the spot.

"Your daughter was attacked," the doctor said, even before Gabi could ask a question. "She's hurt . . . badly, I'm afraid. And, yes, she was raped."

Gabi sank into herself, weeping and cringing at the thought of her sweet and innocent baby attacked by animals.

"We don't know who did it," the plainclothes policemen added. "She was in a neighborhood where this sort of thing happens a lot. Usually they leave German girls alone unless the girls have some connection with the Muslims."

Gabi said, between sobs, "My daughter . . . had an . . . Arab . . . father."

"That might explain it," the policeman agreed, "assuming she looked the part."

Gabi swallowed, forced herself to be calm, and asked, "There's more, isn't there?"

"Yes." The policeman looked at the doctor as if begging him to take this burden.

Hesitantly, the doctor said, "Ms. Von Minden . . . after they raped her . . . maybe before . . . maybe even during . . . they beat her pretty badly. She has several broken ribs and a broken arm. She's concussed. One knee is dislocated."

At each addition to the injuries Gabi shuddered as if struck. She looked at the doctor through her tears. "There's more, isn't there?"

The policemen put his finger to his cheek and drew a line down to the corner of his mouth. "It's a Moslem thing," he said. "They slashed her face open so she'll have to wear a veil for the rest of her life."

Gabi stood. Her fists clenched in front of her face. She felt feelings she should never have felt, thought thoughts she should never have had. But this was no abstract principle. This was her
daughter
, her flesh and blood, who had been hurt. She began to speak, coherently at first and then rising to a scream. "We should have gassed them . . . we should have gassed them . . . we should have gassed them . . . WE SHOULD HAVE GASSED THEM!"

But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, "If the woman is in her boudoir, in her house and if she's wearing the veil and if she shows modesty, disasters don't happen."

—Sheik Taj Din Al Hilaly

Cursing herself for a fool, Petra ran toward the edge of the town.
I'm an idiot, an idiot, an
idiot
! I've lost my damned communicator and now Hans and John are both probably frantic.

She stopped where the woods ended, looking right and left for any sign of people, especially policemen or janissaries. She saw none. Heart pounding, she released the folds of the burka she'd gathered up so she could run through the woods. She looked again for signs of people. Seeing none, and still gripping her submachine gun, she sprinted—as best she could, given the constraints of the burka— across the frozen field and for the shadows of the town. That few towns in Germany had streetlights anymore, an-Nessang not being among those that did, helped.

Breathless, Petra slammed herself against a wall and then crouched down, much like a feral animal. She listened for the sound of footsteps for a while and, after hearing none, stood and tucked her submachine gun in the folds of her burka. Even there, her fingers remained wrapped around the pistol grip of the weapon.

Trying to exude a confidence, a sense of right-to-be-there, that she did not feel, Petra walked out from the shadows in the direction of the car where she was to meet Hans or John. Her footsteps were brisk, her pace steady. A lone policeman, leaning against a lamppost, shivering and in the process of nodding off, nodded to her form instead. Politely, she nodded back and continued on her way.

Petra, raised first in a Christian town and then in a brothel, didn't know that any show of friendliness was overwhelmingly likely to be misunderstood as a show of interest, an invitation. The policeman, cognizant of his power and authority, cold and thinking perhaps of getting much warmer, followed her.

The situation was about to get hot. Still, Hans crouched behind the heavy oaken table, reinforced by chairs and trunks and whatever was to hand, that he and Hamilton had set up to cover the gate once it fell off of its hinges or was otherwise smashed through. He wasn't too worried about a direct hit. True, the oak, even at two inches thick, wasn't up to warding off rifle fire. But the trunks and other pieces in front of and behind the oak should have been enough.

A direct hit wasn't going to be the only problem, though. The open foyer in which he hid was of stone. That stone would cause ricochets. And against those, Hans had no protection at all but his officer class torso armor.

He didn't expect a lot of protection from it but, even so, Hans took the crucifix from under his uniform and hung it plainly on the outside.

Bam . . . bam . . . bam
, the ram battered at the gate. Hans heard a sound of wood cracking and splintering.
Bam . . . bam . . . crrraackckck
and the left-hand side of the gate popped open, followed by the right.

Hans didn't hesitate. As soon as the wooden gate was out of the way he opened fire, holding the trigger down until bolt locked to rear on an empty magazine. In the confined space of the alcove before the gate, perhaps no more than ten feet by twelve, Hans put just over one bullet into every two square feet. The half dozen janissaries holding the ram were cut down like harvested wheat. Except that wheat doesn't bleed or scream.

"Goddammit, Matheson!" the pilot screamed. "I'm losing lifting gas like you wouldn't fucking believe and if you don't get your ass up and I'm leaving without you!"

"Calm down, Lee, I'm on my way," the black answered, as he prepared to close the door from the lab to the staircase. Already, with every burner in the crematorium on full blast, the temperature in the lab was inimical to human life. How high it would get neither Matheson nor Richter could be certain.