A Desert Called Peace (51 page)

In fact, of all the people Ali had to deal with, the only one who was not a problem was the thirteen-year-old boy currently kneeling between Ali's legs with his penis in his mouth. And that was at best a temporary distraction from all Ali's other problems, problems which were altogether too likely to prove extremely and unfortunately permanent.

Ali would rather have had one of his two wives kneeling between his legs. They, however, weren't there, while the young boy was.

For an all too short period of time, the thirteen year old was able to distract Ali from his many concerns. After tousling the boy's hair and tipping him generously, Ali buttoned his trousers, refastened his belt, and left his rather luxuriously appointed, and very deep, personal bunker to walk the front trench of the rightmost of the two fortresses atop the ridge.

Ali owed his position not to military skill and competence but to family connections. Oh, yes, he'd been to all the schools—and some of them were quite decent—that his army offered. But when one is that tightly connected to the ruling clan, and able to afford substantial bribes to one's teachers, it was not strictly speaking necessary to learn one blessed thing to graduate with honors. In fairness, it had to be said that Ali had learned somewhat more than most would have in his position. At the very least, he had learned something of military engineering. Thus, his trenches were narrow and deep, his bunkers had substantial overhead cover, and his obstacles were well sighted. More than that one could hardly expect.

Ali's men cowered as he walked the line. Occasionally, and not always for any obvious reason, he would lash out with his riding crop to slash a soldier across the face or neck. His cousin ruled the country by fear; could Ali do any less? Besides, the shit-footed clumsy peasants he had to work with understood nothing but fear and the lash. Moreover, terrorizing his men helped allay the worry that the sight of those four large bunkers being built in plain view instilled in Ali. He didn't understand them, didn't understand their purpose. Why put so much construction effort into something so ridiculously obvious and so completely passive? Queries to the local Yezidi had given answers that were not been entirely satisfactory. And queries to Problem Number One, his cousin, had been brushed aside.

Approaching
Stollen
#1,
7/2/461 AC

There was a slight jingling as the unit marched, the sound of loads shifting and metal touching on metal.

Cruz brushed snow—he'd never in his life so much as
seen
snow before coming to Sumer—off of his face and shoulders as he walked towards the pass east of Multichucha Ridge. Ahead of him and behind, and on both sides of the highway, walked the rest of the four infantry centuries, minus their mortars, of 1st Cohort, plus the scout and engineer sections and the forward command post team. No vehicles were used; those were left behind. Everything, to include food and water, went in on the soldier's backs.

It was a terrible, man-killing load. Besides his rifle, ammunition and auxiliary ammunition, Cruz carried food for five days, water for three, and a portion of the century's common equipment. In all, Cruz's load was better than one hundred and fifty pounds, and he was not the most heavily laden of the legionaries.

Nearing the pass, Cruz noticed that he could not see the genitalia that gave the ridge its nickname.

Thank God for the snow,
he thought,
freezing or not. If I can't see the pussies then the Sumeris won't see me. Besides, I'm already homesick enough.

Unseen by Cruz—or by anyone not within a few paces of the cohort commander, Tribune I Gutierrez—a noncom from Cheatham's Engineer Century met the 1st at the pass. The engineer cautioned Gutierrez, "Slow down and keep them quiet until you are in the
Stollen
." Gutierrez dropped his pace to a crawl to reduce the sounds coming from the company, sounds that might alert the Sumeris that the
Stollen
were being occupied.

Dammit,
the tribune thought, fuming at the low key jingling coming from behind him.
It isn't as if we didn't do our damndest to make sure everything was quiet and secured before we set out.
They had done what was possible. But some sound was unavoidable and in this cold air could well carry despite the muffling effect of the snow.

The engineer then led them down the road before cutting right across the open field to the shelter's narrow entrance. "File in silently," the engineer advised. A couple more engineers, these with homemade rakes, smoothed the snow behind the passing centuries.

Inside, the place smelled damp and musty, Cruz thought. It was a small surprise in construction so new. Buckets stacked in one corner suggested that it was soon going to have a very different, and much worse, odor.

There were signs on the walls, lit only by chemical lights, or "chemlights." Other chemlights traced out boundaries on the
Stollen
floor. One of the signs said, in the sickly green glow, "1st Century." Cruz led his team to that corner and set down his rucksack. His three men placed theirs beside his and, like him, began unrolling bedding, air mattresses, sleeping bags, and blankets. As Cruz and his boys were blowing up the air mattresses someone struck a match and applied the flame to a lantern. Immediately, the greenish gloom of the place dissipated, the more so as more lanterns were lit. In the new and brighter illumination, Cruz saw two charcoal stoves, one of which the supply sergeant was in the process of lighting. The charcoal wouldn't give off any noticeable smoke, he knew, but wondered if the heat distortion might not tell too much to someone watching and paying attention. He asked the supply sergeant about that.

"The exhaust doesn't go up," the sergeant explained. "It goes to an underground pipe. That leads to a couple of dozen smaller pipes that eventually emerge above ground. All those are perforated to dissipate the smoke and heat. Clever, ain't it?"

There were caves south of the town. These were originally natural but had been further excavated and in a few cases connected by the Yezidi during their long and generally fruitless fight with the Babel regime. To these caves the legion directed the people of Mangesh, Yezidi and Chaldean both, to go for shelter from the Sumeri artillery that would, almost inevitably, devastate the town on general principle. The two double-wides were likewise moved up to shelter close in to the mountains, under cliff faces. Howitzer and mortar fire could have reached them there, were they in range. At this distance, though, only high velocity artillery had a chance of reaching and that traveled at too low an angle to search the reverse slope of the hill.

The legion's table of organization included one smallish century of mixed civil affairs and psychological operations troops. The PSYOP legionaries printed the leaflets and ran the loudspeakers that directed the townsfolk to the caves while the CA types actually physically led them, organized them, and coordinated for transport to move their food and water, their old and sick, and the bare minimum of life support.

"This is not the first time we have had to do this," said Father Hanna, the local Chaldean priest, when the CA/PO Century commander mentioned how smoothly the move was going. The townspeople looked nervous, of course, but there was no great amount of wailing from the women, or complaining from the men. Even the children were pretty well behaved and that was something the signifer
never
expected.

"No, we have had to run to the caves many times, not just once," Hanna continued. The priest was old and gray but plainly robust as he and the signifer led the people to the south. He was also multilingual, speaking—besides Chaldean—Arabic, English, Latin, French and Spanish.

When asked about that he had only answered, "Oh, I served my time at New Vatican Hill when I was a younger man."

One of the caves had been set aside as a field hospital. Father Hanna had taken some pains to find women to assist there. This was much appreciated by Carrera, who said so.

He'd also said, when out of the priest's hearing, "That son of a bitch Campos was supposed to give me medical support equal to that the FSC troops will have in al Jahara. What do I get for my men? I get an understrength medical company from the 731st Airborne and a long drive over epically shitty roads to the FSAF base in Kemal; that, or a sometimes-possible-maybe-perhaps available medevac flight from the old Sumeri airbase at Siyilopi. Motherfucker!"

"Arrest the motherfuckers as spies," Carrera commanded McNamara when told that a group of media types from the Global News Network had arrived in now-abandoned Mangesh. When told of a humanitarian medical group nosing around he had said, with equal vehemence, "Arrest them. Take them to the caves and inform them they will care for our wounded as well as any civilians. Make it clear I am
firing squad serious
about that."

"Patricio," Jimenez cautioned, "do you really think it's wise to alienate the press?"

"Errr . . . maybe not, Xavier," Carrera relented. "Though frankly I doubt it matters. The press is the enemy, as much as the Sumeris or perhaps more so. But . . . all right. We won't arrest them as spies.

"Instead . . . Sergeant Major, take the pressies and medicos into
protective custody
, confiscate their equipment and cell phones, and confine them to the field hospital cave where they'll help care for our wounded. Don't trust the bastards; strip search them. If any of them are women see if the good father can come up with some Chaldean women to do the strip search. And if they try to escape, shoot them as spies."

The legion's air component, minus the remotely piloted vehicles that were forward based at Mangesh, was lined up at the airfield. This consisted of eight Turbo-Finch attack aircraft, twelve medium and four heavy lift Volgan helicopters, six Boiohaemum-built Cricket light reconnaissance planes plus four more slightly modified for medical evacuation, two ex-Volgan Nabakov NA-21 medium lift cargo planes and six lighter NA-23s upgraded to B300 standard.

Opposite the legion's air
ala
, by the cargo terminal, two Volgan LI-68s were still unloading artillery and mortar ammunition. Inside the terminal, near the Volgans and opposite their own aircraft, a century of Cazadors from the 6th Cohort waited for orders to board. Final orders were not expected for some time. The Cazadors would drop from two of the NA-23s.

The B300 was a much improved version of the original NA-23, having longer range, more lift capacity and much improved avionics. Dubbed "Dodos," apparently because they just looked a little awkward, the NA-23s were an early post-Great Global War-vintage design, with twin turbo-prop engines. The newest was over thirty years old. They were, however, fairly simple and robust aircraft and most were still flying even four to five Terra Novan decades later.

To get to the B300 upgrade, the original Dodos were completely disassembled and everything from struts to skin microchecked for excess stress and wear. Then, the fuselage was reassembled, with an additional meter being added between the cockpit and the main cargo compartment. Completely new wings were attached, and to the wings, in lieu of the old turbo-props, new Whitefield-Prance WPT9A-76R turbo-prop engines were added, driving five-bladed propellers. Lengthened troop seats were installed, along with new avionics, and a generally improved cockpit layout

Before being deployed, two of the NA-23s had taken a short detour to Zion where a frame was built up around the aircraft and thin composite Carbon Fiber-Shiff Base Salt tiles added for decreased radar visibility. In addition, the original tail section was replaced with one of V-form. It was these that would drop the Cazadors.

The B300 was, for all practical purposes, a new plane superior in every way, to include operating cost, to the original Dodo. It was the reduced operating cost, as much as the increased capability, that had decided Carrera in favor of the conversion, despite a "fly away" price tag of nearly three million drachma per aircraft and five million for the two that had been stealthified. The legion could—indeed, probably would have to—rely upon the Dodos for critical resupply.

One of the Cazadors due to be inserted via the stealthy Dodos, Sergeant Emmanuel Robles, paced nervously up and down that portion of the terminal set aside for the Cazadors. From time to time he took from his wallet a picture of his wife and three children waiting back home in Balboa. He also spent a good deal of time praying.

It just doesn't feel right.

Carrera frantically paced the small headquarters set up in an old Sumeri police fort on the outskirts of the town.

"I don't see how the hell you can be so calm, Raul," he said.

Parilla, sitting calmly behind a field desk with his feet up and his hands clasped behind his head answered, "Why should I worry when you are worrying enough for both of us and three more men besides?"

Carrera stopped his pacing, opened his mouth as if to retort, and then began to laugh. "Okay, you win. I'll calm down."

"Care for a drink?" Parilla asked. "The good father presented me with a bottle of the local brandy. It's actually pretty good."

The look on Carrera's face as much as said, "Gimme." Parilla poured several ounces of the brandy into a metal cup and handed it over.

"You know what's bothering me, Raul?"

"No."

"It's the coalition headquarters down in al Jahara. D-Day is supposed to be the day after tomorrow. Ordinarily, I'd expect hourly intelligence updates to have begun by now. But there hasn't been a word or, at least, not a word to us."

"Do you think they've forgotten about us way down here?" Parilla asked.

"Maybe they forgot," Carrera answered, "and then maybe they're deliberately ignoring us. I've got a call in to a friend."

"So what are we going to do if they don't answer?"