Above, in the ad hoc command post, a computer graphics man constructed a diagram of the interior from the reports of the grunts fighting below. Looking over the man's shoulder as he rotated the diagram on the screen, Carrera was amazed.
"Jesus, they must have been building this thing for thirty years, wouldn't you say, Subadar Masood?"
Masood, who had been walking up behind Carrera very quietly, snapped his fingers. It was impossible, so far as he could tell, to sneak up on his Duque.
"At least thirty years," he answered, "to my own certain knowledge."
At that moment an IM-71 carrying wounded lifted off from the valley floor and rotored out, heading south.
"I wish to hell I had some kind of gas that would seep down and clear the bastards out without losing any more of my men," Carrera said. "Carbon dioxide would do, if we had a way to manufacture it. Chlorine would do even better but that's against the rules."
Masood shook his head in the negative. "Wouldn't work, Legate. There are all kinds of baffles and twists down there. And then how would you get rid of the gas, even if it worked, to search?"
"Probably couldn't," Carrera admitted. Looking at the 3D diagram on the monitor screen, he said, "May not matter anyway. It appears to be mostly cleared."
He looked toward the crew manning the telephones. "You are keeping the men below informed, right?"
"Affirmative, Duque."
* * *
"Wait," Cruz whispered, holding up one hand to halt the second of the thirty-nine remaining men of his platoon. There was a shuffling and jangling from behind him as the men ran into each other.
"What is it, Centurion?" his optio asked.
"I heard something ahead."
"This fucking place is spooky."
"No shit."
The sound from ahead died out at the same time Cruz's men managed to quiet down. There was no need for him to tell them to fix bayonets. They'd learned early on that firing a rifle in these close confines was nearly as painful as being shot. Most of the clearing had been done with flame, rifle butt and bayonet.
"Cruz, that you?" rang out in Spanish from up ahead.
The thudding hearts slowed immediately as men exhaled with relief. If there had been anything more terrifying than closing to bayonet range in these infernal caverns the men couldn't imagine what it was.
"Yeah . . . yeah. Dominguez?"
"Oh, Cazador compadre!" came the laughing answer.
Cruz felt the fear drain away. "Christ, 'Minguez, you scared the shit out of me."
"Tell you what, Cruz; you clean my drawers and I'll clean yours and we'll see who has the hardest job," Dominguez answered as he strode forward. "Hey, what the fuck is this?"
In the IR, using only his monocular, Cruz didn't understand at first. He pulled out one non-IR chemlight and, ordering his men to shut one eye, broke and shook it.
"Holy shit!" he exclaimed, looking into what appeared to be a very shallow tunnel with many large boulders blocking it a few feet in. "You don't suppose . . . "
"Buck it up to higher." In this case Dominguez meant both higher in the chain of command and higher in elevation.
* * *
"They fucking what?" Carrera raged.
"It looks like they got away," Jimenez explained. "Whichever direction that tunnel goes in, and I'd be willing to bet it doglegs somewhere, they'll have gotten into the karez system and that's extensive enough they could be heading anywhere.
Carrera felt his heart sink and his energy drain away. All this, for nothing? All my men lost or crippled, for nothing? War for almost nine fucking years, for nothing? Why, God?
He sat down, right on the dirt and grass. Click.
Jimenez sat next to him. "Hey, we hurt the bastards," he tried to cheer.
"Not enough," Carrera answered distantly. "Never enough."
"Wonder who that is?"
Carrera looked up to see an FSA helicopter, sporting a red placard with three stars on it, winging in. "Rivers," he answered, "come to claim the nuke."
"The nuke?" Jimenez asked. "There were eleven of them."
Carrera answered, tiredly, "I know that. You know that. He doesn't. We're going to keep ten . . . just in case. They've already gone back to base."
"Dangerous game, Patricio. I know we have the seven but those were really unaccounted for."
"It'll be fine."
* * *
Rivers was escorted up the top of the massif by the same naik who had seen to Carrera earlier. Neither said a word.
Rivers didn't offer to shake hands; he was still furious at being maneuvered as he had been.
"So there really was a nuke."
Carrera nodded. "Yes. I was always certain there would be," he answered. "But their chiefs got away. All we managed to get here were a lot of indians."
"Well, intelligence will be interested in getting their hands even on just indians."
"No . . . that's not going to happen. We'll develop our own intelligence and share it with you," Carrera corrected. "Besides, there weren't very many indians taken, either."
Changing the subject, in large part because he knew that, if Carrera said he was not going to turn over any prisoners, then no prisoners would be turned over, period, Rivers asked, "How did the chiefs get away?"
"Tunnel. We had no clue before we hit this place but it apparently leads to the underground irrigation system here, the karez."
Rivers thought about that one. "You are planning on giving me the nuke, right?" Seeing Carrera's listless nod, he continued, "Well . . . just because you share all your intelligence with us"—Rivers didn't really believe that—"doesn't mean we share all our intelligence with you."
Carrera cocked his head to one side, raising an eyebrow.
"We might be able to tell where they are underground. Don't bother asking how, but we sometimes can."
Hmmm. He means what? Seismic? Maybe, but probably not. Ground penetrating radar? Too deep. Carbon dioxide emissions? No . . . that wouldn't work as CO2 sinks. Maybe . . .
"Thermal? From so far underground? Some of these karez are a thousand feet down."
"It might work," Rivers shrugged. "I'm promising only to try."
Gunoz Karez, 800 feet down, 13/8/462
Water there was in plenty; all one had to do to drink was stoop. Since it was well above ankle-deep, one didn't even have to stoop that far. Food was another issue entirely. And, since there was none to issue . . .
"There will be food ahead," Nur al-Deen promised. The word filtered up and back the long line of refugees. "Food ahead . . . food ahead."
Progress would have been slower but that the karez was dark enough that the women and older girls could lift their burkhas up out of the water and away from tangling their legs in wet folds of cloth. In the light they'd have been too fearful to do so. In Salafi lands girls had been forced to roast to death rather than leave a burning building improperly clothed.