"Then, too," she said aloud, "perhaps I should buy a commission in the Peace Forces. I've always fancied how I'd look in uniform."
Lucretia walked to her father's desk and pressed a button on the intercom. A face appeared, that of one of the maids, Emily.
"Yes, mum?"
"I feel like celebrating. Whiskey. Ice."
"Yes, mum."
When the maid arrived, not more than five minutes later, Lucretia waited for her to pour and then struck her across the face with her riding crop. "You were too slow."
Weeping, the maid sank to her knees, crying and covering her bruised face with her hands.
"That's better, Emily. I much prefer you in that position. But . . . I think you would look even better with your face to the floor." Arbeit used her dainty foot to press the maid's head downward.
Lucretia left the girl there, trembling and cowering, and with blood welling from the slash across her face. The new Marchioness liked that, the image, the reality, the trembling fear. She picked up the glass of whiskey and drank deeply.
Lucretia then laughed and started to sing, softly:
"Arise you prisoners of starvation . . . "
Chapter Twenty-four
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost.
Evil, be thou my good.
Milton, Paradise Lost
12/8/469 AC, The Base
The two infantry cohorts peeled the edges of the fortress, one clearing east, one west. As they did, they made the valley floor below uninhabitable to the Salafis trying desperately to relieve the central massif. As they did, too, it was possible for Jimenez and Masood to shift their own troops away from the cleared portions and concentrate on the sections of the massif still under attack.
It was not possible yet for the Scouts atop the massif to delve into the lower area, the caves and tunnels. It was also, Carrera considered, unwise to pull in the wide-ringing Cazadors and cavalry scouts to assist until the outer valley floors could be cleared in detail.
Still, one part seemed clear enough. He directed his Cricket to land by that part of the massif's base.
* * *
"Get us the fuck out of here, Martin," Arbeit begged. "I don't want to die here . . . or anywhere."
Robinson ignored her. He needed desperately to call his ship or Atlantis Base. Unfortunately for that, his belt communicator could not penetrate the rock above and getting up to the surface was quite problematic. His allies here held the entrances to the caves, but any attempt to emerge was driven back by a fusillade of fire. Even being near the edges was dangerous as the enemy aircraft could swoop in at any moment to deliver rockets and napalm. Burned and bleeding men were even now being carried deeper below.
"You look worried, infidel," commented Nur al-Deen.
"And you're not?" Robinson retorted, then realized the retort was hollow. Nur al-Deen did not look worried in the least.
The Salafi smiled. "Not at all. Not only is my faith in Allah limitless, but we have an escape tunnel."
"What?"
"An escape tunnel. It leads from under this hill to a main line of the local karez."
"Karez?"
"Yes, karez. They're underground . . . oh, aqueducts I suppose you would call them. About a meter wide, maybe one and a half to two high, deep below the ability of the infidel sensors to reach, and they lead everywhere. There are tens of thousands of kilometers of them in this area. It's a tight fit and, for the tallest among us it will be very uncomfortable to walk so far bent over like old women. Still, we can get out. And we will, while the martyrs above buy us time to escape."
It suddenly hit Robinson, "Those things I thought were lines of bomb craters . . . those are part of the system?"
"Yes," Nur al-Deen replied. "There are none for the tunnel that leads from here to the main line. That was deliberate on our part, partly for defense and partly for deception. We are building a fire by the tunnel entrance to draw in fresh air so we can use it. Before, any enemy who tried to would have had to carry their air with them."
Relieved, Robinson ran his hand across his face, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the detonation device. He wasn't necessarily going to be captured or killed after all. "You must take me with you. I still control the nukes," he said. "Only I have the key codes."
"Of course," Nur al-Deen agreed, amiably. "Otherwise we'd stake you out for the other infidels now."
Camp San Lorenzo
"Karez," Alena said, suddenly, looking up from where she lay in full proskynesis of the floor before a befuddled Hamilcar. "My Lord gave me the insight. Truly he is a god."
"What was that? Karez? And please stand up, girl."
Seeing Hamilcar did not object, Alena stood and said, "What was bothering me; I know now . . . the karez. You know, the underground aqueducts?"
"What about them?" Fernandez asked.
"I think that if one passes close enough to the enemy base, they will have tunneled to it."
The Base
Carrera's Cricket jostled to a rough landing not far from where four crosses still stood. The pilot had a time of it avoiding the mass of vehicles still standing there, some of them burning and smoking, and which had brought in the Scouts. The ground leading from the vehicles was littered with corpses.
Carrera sighed, looking at the crosses. They really did it. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. He got on the radio and made a call back to Camp San Lorenzo with a demand for his engineers to make something for him, a lot of somethings, as a matter of fact. Then he exited the aircraft and walked to stand at the base of one of the crosses. This one held the cold, blackened body of a young signifer he had personally commissioned not long before. I promise you, son, they'll pay with interest.
A half squad of Pashtun Scouts ran up, their naik looking at Carrera so much as if to ask, Are you insane, Duque? This area is not secure.
As if to punctuate, an almost spent bullet whined in, kicking up dust near Carrera's feet. He ignored it.
"Naik, can you lead me up to Jimenez?"
"Yes, sir," the Pashtun answered. "He and the subadar sent us. This way please."
"And leave a couple of men to guard my Cricket."
"Yes, sir."
Escorted by his two radiomen, these having pulled the radios out from the Cricket and slung them on their backs, and three of the naik's scouts, Carrera began to mount the steep-sided hill to his front.
* * *
The way was steep in places. Robinson nearly fell at several points. Torches were an impossibility, the air was barely enough to sustain life. Fortunately, the Salafis had a fair number of chemical light sticks to illuminate the way. Still, the point light sources were few enough that many tripped on loose rocks and slipped on the damp tunnel floor.
The people in the tunnel amounted to perhaps just over five hundred mujahadin, Mustafa's most faithful, a party of them taking turns carrying the litter on which rested the one nuclear weapon they had salvaged. There were also many times that in women and children. These last were not only those who belonged to the core of the faithful, but as many others from those staying behind as could be gathered before the tunnel behind them was deliberately collapsed.