A Desert Called Peace (90 page)

He sobered immediately. It wasn't enough to make up for the fact that after Masera's grisly execution the weak crusader governments had refused to give
any
ransoms. More than three dozen kidnappings and executions without so much as a drachma changing hands was enough to convince him it was a losing game.

Fadeel supposed that the charge of bad faith, after the Masera butchery, was enough to shield those governments from the domestic fallout of not paying.

When the governments had a reasonable and obvious chance to get "their" people back alive the pressure was tremendous. Now? Now nobody trusts us to deliver the goods.

Oh, yes, his people still went after the humanitarians and the journalists. The FSC even tried to stop them or rescue the peace-lovers in the other parts of the country. Here around Ninewa, for some reason, the Balboans generally didn't even make the attempt. And the other aid workers, the ones Fadeel thought might elicit a response from the mercenaries? Those were always too well guarded to even try.

Maybe they
want
me to kill off the ones I take. Something to think upon, anyway.
Fadeel scratched his head in puzzlement. He was, at heart, a fairly simple man rather than a devious one. Grand strategy was Allah's job, not his. He was for fighting.

For that fighting he had a new recruit as well, though this particular recruit's time in the organization was destined to be short.

Ishmael Arguello, an earnest boy of seventeen, had taken the death of his mother hard. The younger of the two boys, and the handsomer if not the brighter, Ishmael had always been his mother's favorite. Moreover, Layla had been the center of Ishmael's universe. He had been cast adrift when Layla was cut down in cold blood. His father had been little help. No more so had his brother. School friends and teachers had been sympathetic, of course, and when one of the teachers had suggested continuing his mother's work Ishmael had decided that that was for him. The teacher had also, very considerately, put the boy in touch with a . . . recruiter, for lack of a better term. That was close enough.

The overhead fan turned slowly and quietly in Fadeel's basement office. He sat on a cushion on the floor, his legs crossed underneath him, feet pressed against thighs, while he continued to muse on his problems.

In some ways this enemy understands us very well,
Fadeel thought,
damn him
.
In other ways he is almost as ignorant as the rest of this crusader alliance. He knows, for example, that disadvantaging clans by killing some of their workers causes more discontent. Why he never followed through on that understanding to the logical conclusion that killing very large numbers of clan members would destroy his enemies
and
serve as a salutary lesson to other clans, I just don't understand. He knows, absolutely he knows, that we are a people who take revenge. Why he can't figure out that he should eliminate people who are sure to become enemies by reason of the blood of relations . . . well, it's just impossibly foolish.

I understand that in Taurus and the FSC, guilt and innocence are entirely individual matters because their people
are
individuals, individuals who can be encouraged and deterred by what happens to them, personally. But here, we are
not
individuals. No system of punishment can mean as much to us without a collective, blood-related, aspect.

Of course, some of the bastards
do
understand that. How many times have I had my men lost to the infidel because he rounded up twenty or so clansmen from clans sympathetic to the cause of Allah, tried them for crimes and threatened to hang them if information—oh, and captures, of course—was not forthcoming? More than I care to count. How many times have the clans captured, bound, and turned over my holy warriors to secure the release of their kin? I can count how many, but I'd rather not.

And now, instead of the insurgency being fed by locals as I had planned, I have more foreign born mujahadin than I do Sumeri. And the supply of foreign born will dry up, too, if the enemy ever figures out how to target their families back home. Pray Allah, they never shall.

Fadeel cut his musings short. He had people to meet, notably some new volunteers to the cause.

Ishmael was given some travel funds, just enough to see him to the next station on his journey. From home he'd traveled by bus halfway through Bilad al Sham, spending several nights in a safe house in the capital while there.

The safe house had been a shock after the spacious, well furnished and maid-swept expanse of his own home, back in Akka. Besides its being cramped and filthy, Ishmael had found himself with the first case of lice in his life.

If the quarters had been bad the food was . . . well, the less said about the food the better. The
most
that could be said for it was that it prepared a man for leaving this life without regret. After a few days of undercooked rice and goat with the hair still on, what was there to fear with death?

From the safe house, Ishmael had moved on to a school, of sorts. This was where he was to be trained. Surprisingly, his training, along with that of another four boys about his age, was not very military. In fact, based on the little Ishmael knew about the subject from his mother, it wasn't military at all. Certainly it was nothing like the courses of instruction Layla had told him about her having attended in her glorious youth. He never even saw a rifle, except for the two in the hands of the guards posted at the front gate to the school's walled compound.

Instead, Ishmael's training was ninety-nine percent religious, though whether the Prophet would have recognized it as such was debatable. It was geared, in the main, towards producing a young man willing to martyr himself. At that, the school was very efficient, especially when it had good material to work with.

"You came looking for martyrdom," Fadeel observed to the new recruits. "We shall help you to find it. More than that, we shall help your martyrdom to be of the greatest effect here on
al Donya al Jedidah.
To that end, each of you will make a tape. In those tapes you will explain yourselves and your commitment to the cause of Islam, Triumphant. The tapes will later be broadcast by al Iskandaria to inspire the masses and bring yet more volunteers. In the end, we cannot lose. There are over a billion of us; few of the crusaders."

Fadeel smiled benignly at the martyrs to be, the smile changing in a moment from benign to ferocious. Voice rising, he said, "By your courage, you will earn a place in Paradise and bring us victory here."

Ishmael felt ridiculous. Worse than ridiculous, he felt
dirty.

Bad enough they'd shaved his face and made it up to look more girlish. After Fadeel's people had rigged him with a suicide vest they dressed him in hijab and even added a veil! It hadn't been made any better by the profuse apologies and explanations they'd offered either.

Ishmael had grown up in liberal Akka. He didn't think girls were all that inferior a sex, or not more so than most boys anywhere on the planet would think. But for all that he didn't want to
be
one or to look like one.

They'd insisted though, harping on the theme of, "Your mother would be proud of you. More than changing clothes; she changed her entire
face.
" In the end, of course, Ishmael had gone along, letting them shave him, make him up, load him with thirty pounds of explosive and shrapnel laden vest and bra, and rig him with a radio so that his handler could direct him and talk him through his part. They'd even coached him on walking like a girl, easier to seem to do in a burka than in any kind of infidel garb.

He wasn't allowed to drive himself to the vicinity of the school even though he'd had a license for almost two years.

"You don't know the area," Fadeel's people had explained. "You don't know which checkpoints are tighter than a houri's hole and which are manned by more easygoing sorts. You don't know where to park. Besides, how can your control direct you if he can't see you? You don't have the right accent if someone stops you. No, Martyr to the Cause," they'd insisted, "
we
will drive you."

Ishmael had been dropped off around the corner from the school. Doing his best to walk girlishly he'd turned that corner, walked about fifty meters forward and joined the stream of girls—some dressed in burkas or hijab and others in more modern clothing—that flowed through the gate and into the school yard.

Once inside the gate the girls who wore them had begun immediately to remove their Islamic outer coverings. Several were quite pretty and shapely, Ishmael noticed, with big brown eyes being the norm. They spoke to each other in high musical voices he found most enchanting and . . . 

"I can't do this," he said into the radio that ran from his explosive vest to an earpiece
cum
microphone. He turned to leave the school.

Sadly for Ishmael, more sadly for the girls at the school and their families, the radio had another purpose besides control. It also served as a remote detonator. With or without any words from Ishmael, the controller's instructions were to detonate it when a certain time had passed after Ishmael had walked through the gate or if it appeared he wanted to back out. That time was up. So was Ishmael's.

So was the girls'.

The bottoms of Carrera's and Sada's boots were stained red. That was as nothing to the red Carrera was seeing, a seething bloody red that arose to infuse his brain and cloud all his thoughts.

Fernandez was waiting for them at Carrera's and Lourdes' quarters. Lourdes was horrified, weeping. Carrera was simply outraged, though he mostly hid it behind an automatic stone mask.

"Have you seen the
al Iskandaria
broadcast, Patricio?" Fernandez asked, after Lourdes had dragged Carrera to a chair and forced a scotch over ice into his hand.

"No, why?" Carrera asked evenly.

"Our girlabomber was the son of that woman we had taken out in Akka, Layla Arguello. It was broadcast half an hour ago." Fernandez's look said more eloquently than could have any words,
And that's
your
fault.

"Fuck."

"Fuck," Fernandez repeated. Neither he nor Sada bothered to remind Carrera of their advice concerning the family of the Arguello woman.

Unconsciously echoing Fadeel al Nizal's thoughts of a couple of days earlier, Sada observed, "Your Christian heritage of individual accountability has no use here, Patricio. It can never be of use in a place where the individual places so much importance on family ties. Moreover, you seem to insist that groups cannot be responsible for the actions of individuals. This is nonsense, my friend, and
worse,
it's immoral. Mothers and fathers raise their sons to be such and must be held accountable. Moreover, by your own laws of war you hold organizations accountable. When the organization is a family it is
illogical
not to hold them equally accountable."

Carrera leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It didn't help; he still saw a red-stained courtyard filled with the bodies and parts of bodies of young, innocent girls.
I become just like my enemy,
he thought.
Well, so be it then. After all, I'm already better than halfway there.

"Is Fadeel responsible?" he asked.

"Clearly," Fernandez and Sada said together.

"Grab his family. Do it as soon as possible. Kill whomever we can't get at otherwise. All ages and sexes.
Punish this motherfucker
!"

"You don't really mean that, Patricio," Sada said. "We don't have to go that far."

"But you said . . ." Carrera began.

"I said you sometimes had to demonstrate a willingness to seriously hurt a tribe or family to control it. We can do that without exterminating it. Besides . . ."

"Besides?"

"You're not a complete barbarian, Patricio. Neither am I and neither is Omar, here. We still have to live with ourselves. We can be more selective."

Carrera breathed deeply, realizing what he had ordered.
Jesus, what am I becoming?

"Thank you, my friend. Yes, please . . . be selective."

"Your boys, Adnan," Fernandez offered.

"Yes," the Sumeri agreed. "It will take a while to set up."

"Fine, so long as it gets done. I have to go to the FSC for a bit anyway."

Campos was considerably warmer in his greetings than he had been the first time he and Carrera had met. He was practically effusive in shaking Carrera's hand and welcoming him back.

"Legate Hennessey, it is so good to see you once again."

"I go by Carrera now," came the dry answer. "That, or Pat."

"Fine, fine," Campos said. "I wanted to talk to you about your new and expanded area of responsibility. That, and the way you are conducting the war in your sector."

"For that," Carrera answered, "I could have spoken to your commander in Sumer or your ambassador. I didn't need to traipse halfway across the world with my . . . secretary. And I fight the war in accordance with the law, so don't bother."

Campos decided to drop the question of war crimes. After all, technically the legion did stay within the bounds of the law, at least insofar as anyone could prove. Shrugging, he continued with the important part, "Both General Abramovitz and the Ambassador thought it would be better coming from me. They seem to feel you're maybe a little hard to control."

"I am," Carrera admitted. "I'd still have at least
listened
."

"I'm sure you would have," Campos tactfully lied. "By the way, how many men do you have in Sumer now?"

"About seventy-seven hundred. And another five thousand or so back home, not counting those still in initial training. Why?"

Campos didn't answer directly. Instead he asked, "And we're paying you how much?"

"Now? Now it's fifty-five percent of what it would cost you to field an equivalent combat force. It was just under eight billion per annum. It's now over twelve. It's
still
a bargain for you," he added.