Caliphate (38 page)

Not bad shape,
Hans conceded, while looking down the stubby barrel of a submachine gun. The weapon was disassembled into its components on the same crude wooden table the unit armorer used for his own inspections and repairs. Hans sat at the table on a backless, slightly padded, rotating stool.

"How many of these do we have?" he asked of the armorer. "Unissued, I mean."

"A dozen, sir," the armorer answered. He was an older type, wearing glasses, with a short, neatly trimmed, gray beard, and a ginger step that told of knees beginning to decay from arthritis.

He was probably a janissary cadet when my parents were in diapers
, Hans thought. "You must be coming up on retirement soon," Hans said.

"Yes, sir," the armorer answered. "I'll have my thirty years in next year, about this time."

Okay, not quite that old. I guess the service really does wear.

"Not going to stay past that?" Hans asked.

In answer the armorer smiled and raised one hand, palm down facing the floor. The hand was raised above neck level:
I've had this shit up to here.

Hamilton would have recognized the gesture instantly from a statue back at Fort Benning. Hans did as well, though not from the statue. He laughed.

"What are you planning to do after that, then?"

The armorer shrugged. "Not sure, sir. Settle down with a wife, start a business . . . grocer, I was thinking . . . raise a few kids. I've still got a year to think about it."

Hans felt a sudden lump form in his chest.
No you don't. You've less than two weeks before I have to kill you. And for what? Because some asshole grabbed you, as with me, and took you as a child to make you into a soldier for a bunch of fucking
aliens
. What a shitty fucking world.

Hans did not, of course, say any of that but, rather, contented himself with, "That's as good a plan as I've heard. Still, the unit will miss you when you go."

The older man smiled. "I'll miss the boys, too. And maybe the life . . . I've gotten used to it, after all. Thirty-two years since I was gathered? They're not easy to let go of, sir, all those years. Still, when it's time; it's time. And I
am
getting old."

The armorer was such a likeable old soldier. Hans found that he did, in fact, like him. He sighed with regret.
Not for much longer
.

"Going back to your old town?" Hans asked.

The armorer shook his head. "How could I, sir? My parents are long dead. My brother and sisters are
Nazrani
. The boys I played with, as a boy, too. It would be . . . too . . . "

"Awkward?" Hans supplied.

"Exactly that, sir. It would be too awkward."

"I understand. Have you picked a wife yet?"

"Yes, sir. Nice girl. A widow who lost her husband down in the Balks facing the infidel Greeks."

"Ah. Yes. 'A troop sergeant's widow's the nicest, I'm told.' How old is she?"

"Half my age plus seven years," the armorer answered. "Just as the Prophet, peace be upon him, recommended. She already has a kid. I've been helping out a little with money."

"Sounds perfect," agreed Hans.

He went silent then, as he reassembled the submachine gun he'd been inspecting. When finished, he handed it back to the armorer, saying, "It all looks good. Tell me, is there a good place to buy personal arms in town?"

"A
good
place, sir? No, not here. There's one north of here past Svang in Walnhov, though. What were you looking for?"

Hans pointed at the submachine gun with his chin. "Maybe one or two of those and a couple of pistols. Just for practice, you understand. Well . . . that and the sheer joy of owning my own, now that I'm an
odabasi
and can afford them."

"Oh, yes, sir. I understand perfectly. Walnhov's your place. Tell the owner, Achmed's his name, that Sig will rip his balls off if he cheats you." Sig, the armorer, hastily amended, "Not that he would. He's one of us, too."

The city had seen much beauty in its centuries as it had, too, much ugliness, from party rallies to war crimes trials and hangings, with bomb and fire and ruin in between. As with every city in Germany, its history was an eloquent witness to the horrors of war, a demanding call for a better way. Though there had been peace for sixty-six years, yet the stones and the tortured bricks remembered . . . yet children still learned from adults.

In the
Christkindlmarkt—
a once a year for four weeks, open air city of wood and canvas—Amal clapped her hands with childish glee at the brightly lit, colorfully costumed pageant being put on for her, among some thousands of others. The baby was at an age when her favorite colors were "oo" and "shiny." Those criteria the show met well.

She sat on her mother's lap; Gabrielle enduring the thing for the baby's sake and not from any religious devotion of her own. Still, despite the religious theme, Gabi found herself drawn into the pageant. Perhaps it was only because of the reminder of her own innocent and trouble-free babyhood. That, and that Amal was certainly enjoying it.

Children don't learn Christmas from us,
Gabi thought, ruefully.
We learn it from them.

As the lovely blond girl with the curls and the golden crown had said, at the opening, from the gallery of the Church of Our Lady, "You gentlemen and ladies, who were once children, too . . . "

The air was cold but still, still enough that their coats held warmth enough for comfort. A children's choir was forming up as Gabi rose with Amal in her arms. She didn't have to stay for that; the singing would reach to every little corner and stall of the Markt. And, in a way, it would be all the better for being background.

"Mommy," Amal asked, "Will Daddy be here this Christmas?"

"He says he can't, Honey," Gabi answered. "He's still working over there and that he can't take vacation for Christmas this year. He promised to be here for your birthday, though."

Yet another reason to hate America,
Gabi thought.
They take no rest and leave none for others, either.
Why
are they like that? It must be something in the blood, or a disease that infects all who go there to stay.

"He
did
send you several presents, though," Gabi added, as Amal's face sank.
Sure he can send presents. He earns enough there. And gives next to nothing in tax.

Tax in Germany was becoming a problem, even in
German
terms, and they'd grown used to being nearly as heavily taxed as the French. The country was graying fast. Worse, because there were places where young people could earn more and keep more, places like America, Canada, Australia—and, increasingly under the assault of AIDS, South Africa—young Germans were leaving. This left more tax to be paid by fewer workers, which drove even more to think about leaving. Nor was there much sign of improvement. There were not so many children in the
Christkindlmarkt
as Gabi remembered from her own youth and those had been few enough.

And still Mahmoud pesters me to go there and marry him. Sometimes it's tempting. But then he'll say something like, "I'm an American citizen now; Amal should have the same chance when she's older . . . if she wants." He
knows
how that pisses me off.

Gabi watched Amal's eyes as they passed a stand with spicy Nuremberg gingerbread on display. She made as if to keep going, watching the baby's eyes stay fixed on the treats. Then she turned, abruptly, scooped up a piece and passed it to the girl. Gabi took a silver and gold colored two Euro coin and gave it to the stall keeper.

While she awaited her change, the baby leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"Thank you, Mommy."

And
that
just
made
Gabrielle's Christmas.

We hope that we can either return to the policies of that imagined past or approximate some imagined ideal to recapture our innocence. It is easier than facing the hard truth: America's expansiveness, intrusiveness, and tendency toward political, economic, and strategic dominance are not some aberration from our true nature. That
is
our nature.

—Robert Kagan, "Cowboy Nation"

"Merry fucking Christmas!" Hamilton exclaimed at the display of chemical and metal deadliness laid out in the sitting room of his suite. Hans hadn't stopped with the single submachine gun and two pistols he'd mentioned to Sig, the armorer. "If we hadn't arranged for maid service to be cancelled, we'd be fucked."

"Not really," Bernie corrected. "All this will fit in the lockable armoires. I just wanted to do an inventory."

"Oh."

"Nerve agent antidote?" Bernie asked.

"Two containers of three each," Hans answered, pointing to a bed.

"What do you need NAA for?" Hamilton.

"Incapacitate people we don't want to kill," Hans answered.

"Fair enough," Hamilton agreed. "What about the mines?"

"Rather than wait, I buried a dozen of them near the road to af- Fridhav, last night," Hans answered. "Along with five hundred meters of det cord, two detonators, wire, etc. All we have to do is dig them up and emplace them. Well, and arm them, too, of course."

"Night vision goggles?" Bernie asked.

"Four pair," Hans answered.

"Where the hell did you get this much firepower?" Hamilton asked. "How the hell did you get suppressors, for God's sake?"

Hans explained, "We don't have much in the way of gun control for Moslems within Islamic lands. You go in, show an ID, give the man money and he gives you the weapons. It's not hard."

Hamilton, coming from a country where the Second Amendment was pretty much a dead letter, was surprised.

"You never can tell what they'll leave out of an intelligence briefing," Bernie said. "Body armor?" he asked of Hans.

"I was only able to get one other set besides my own," the janissary apologized. "Sorry."

"No problem; we'll make do."

Petra was there, though Ling was back at the brothel. There were two busloads of tourists from the province of al-Andalus so she'd be busy for a couple of days. Hans tried, not always with success, not to let it bother him.

"When are you going to teach me about the mines?" Petra asked.

"Nothing to teach, really," Hans said with a shrug. "We'll set them up and mark off when you should detonate, if you have to. For the rest . . . well . . . hold up your hand."

Petra did. Hans then put up one hand with two fingers, index and middle, forming a V.

"Squeeze those together." When she did, easily, he said, "Release them and do it again." She did. "There's no more to it than that," he finished.

"That's it? I squeeze something and a couple of hundred men who've never, so far as I know, done me any harm just die?"

"They probably won't all die," Hans answered. "A lot of them will just be really badly hurt. You're going to hear some awful things. Can you deal with that, sister?"

Petra sighed, thought about it for long silent minutes, then answered. "In the basement of Castle Noisvastei there are several dozen women without brains, or at least without full brains. They're chippies like Ling and Bernard . . . but not like them either. These women have chips that make them simple fuck-machines.

"In the other castle are two hundred children, no worse than . . . as innocent as . . . I was, who are going to be infected with a disease to see if it works to kill them.

"Back home . . . near home, rather, there's a Moslem girl who's my best friend in life . . . and she's nearly as much a slave as I am.

"So yes; if I have to kill a couple of hundred men who've never done me any harm to help bring this rotten society down . . . I can do it."

"That's my girl," said Hans. "Tomorrow, we go to teach you how to use a submachine gun . . . and to familiarize Bernie and John with the ones we use here."