Then Carrera smiled, nastily, and turned to his subadar.
"Crucify them."
* * *
Abdul Aziz spoke English quite well. Moreover, Carrera was close enough to the microphone for him to hear the dread words, "Crucify them."
He had not been the only one. Several others understood English, too. The group of a bit over four hundred captives began to curse and writhe on the ground, trying to free themselves of their sticky bonds. Balboan Cazadors and Pashtun Scouts then walked among them, applying boot and rifle butt until they quieted down.
Several helicopters came in shortly thereafter bearing bundles of metal stakes slung underneath. The bundles swayed in the downdraft and crossing wind. The helicopters and their load, again, caused a stirring among the mujahadin. Again, the guards dealt with it brutally.
As soon as the helicopters' loads were unbundled some men went to work with devices—to Abdul they looked like sections of heavy pipe with end caps on one end and handles welded on—to drive the crosses (for that's what the bundles proved to be) into the earth. The steady clang-clang-clang went on for quite some time. When it ended, one section of the valley was saturated with crosses.
The crosses looked to have been about four meters high, with a one and a quarter meter cross piece welded on, before they were erected. Afterwards, they seem to stand about three quarters of that above the earth.
Abdul Aziz ibn Kalb was one of the first to be taken to his death. The haughty Pashtun guards carved up the mass of prisoners, forcing lanes between them. Three of them walked up to Abdul and grabbed him by his tape-bound arms and legs. They then carried and dragged him to his cross. His arms, which had been taped behind, were cut loose. He was roughly stripped of his clothing. Then his hands were re-taped in front. Two of the guards lifted him up bodily, while the third hooked his arms over the peak of the upright. They then lowered him, none too gently, letting him fall with his back to the cross until his taped wrists reached the welded juncture of upright and cross piece. They lifted his feet and taped them to the upright, forcing him to relax his knees by the none-too-gentle method of striking him in the gonads. Once he was in that position his hands were taped to the crosspiece so that he could not hope to wear away his bonds by rubbing them against the upright, or to free his arms by lifting them over the top.
Thus affixed, Abdul Aziz could not get his wrists over the upright even by standing fully erect by his taped feet. Still, the orders had said to do it that way and the Scouts were the sort who followed orders. Besides, what Pashtun worthy of the name would hesitate to follow the orders of a leader who gifted them so lavishly with slave women and money.
Abdul Aziz was in no pain, as of yet, even though the position was uncomfortable. He wondered how long it might take for discomfort to transform into agony. He had his first clue when, after about fifteen minutes of having his weight on his wrists, he found he could not breathe. Rather, he could not exhale and had to push up with his feet to relieve the pressure to allow him to expel the used air in his lungs to draw in new.
True, no nails were used, neither were any bones split, nor did a drop of blood flow. But this was not a mercy. The Romans knew. Of the two major forms of crucifixion, nailing and tying, it was nailing that was the more merciful.
The crosses, twenty rows of twenty, held exactly one hundred Salafis for every one of Carrera's men who had died on a cross. They faced the low hill on which he sat, watching all four hundred men affixed to the mechanism of their execution. A group of what looked to be fifteen mujahadin and two Earthpigs sat miserably at the base of the hill, at Carrera's feet, where they too could watch and feel the suffering of comrades and followers.
* * *
Masood handed Carrera two small devices. One looked like what it was, a detonator. The other looked somewhat similar to a cell phone. "We took the detonator off the weasel in the United Earth Peace Fleet uniform. The old one with the beard had the communications devices."
"Bring the UE officers to me, Subadar." Masood left and grabbed the bound Robinson and Arbeit by the hair, dragging them up the hill and tossing them at Carrera's feet. Arbeit squealed like a pig at the effrontery and the pain.
"You intended to give the Salafis nuclear weapons." It was not a question. Besides the eleven captured at "the Base," a Scout ambush had taken the last nuke not far from this spot as it was being moved to Camp San Lorenzo by camel.
"No, no," Robinson began. "I was only . . . "
Masood kicked him, hard, in the kidney.
"We've captured enough evidence and documents in the cave complex to know better," Carrera said. "You were coming to use a nuke on my people at our camp." This, too, was not a question.
"They made me," Robinson tried to explain, with a begging, pleading quality to his voice.
"What did they threaten? Torture? You'll soon learn a lot about torture."
Carrera looked at the cell phone-like device. It had a button on it that said, in tiny letters, "Call." He pushed it and was immediately rewarded with, "UEPF Spirit of Peace. How can we help you, High Admiral?"
"Give me Marguerite," Carrera said.
Carrera waited only moments before a familiar voice came back, "Captain Wallenstein, High Admiral." The voice sounded terribly fearful.
"It's not your High Admiral, Captain; it's me."
"Duque Carrera!" One could hear the fear washing away. "How grand to hear from you. May I infer you have been successful?"
"You may. I wondered if you might like to speak to your High Admiral."
"Why that would be a great pleasure, Duque. Thank you."
Carrera bent at the waist and held the communication device down to Robinson's ear.
"Marguerite, get us out of here," Robinson ordered, though the panic, even terror, in his voice robbed the order of all authority. "Offer them anything, give them anything, but don't leave us to die like this."
Wallenstein laughed. "Why would I do that, Admiral? After all, you're just an 'adequate officer, but no more than that.' You weren't much of a lay, either. And as for the marchioness . . . " She let the words hang.
Carrera took the communicator back and held it to the side of his face. "Nice chatting with you, Captain. Don't worry about your High Admiral. He'll be well taken care of. Perhaps we can do business again, sometime."
"My pleasure, Duque."
19/8/469 AC
His troops had built a series of great bonfires around the scene of execution. More wood stood by each to light this night and the next. Two of the great, roaring fires flanked Carrera closely, their radiance keeping away the chill of the evening and early morning. The fires lit well a scene from Hell, yet were far enough away that they lent none of their warmth to the denizens of that Hell.
A bottle of scotch sat on one arm of the thronelike chair his troops had also constructed for him. On the other was a glass, frequently consulted and frequently refilled. Despite the fatigue, such a tiredness as ordinary rest could never touch, Carrera refused to sleep.
Is this justice? he asked himself. Is it justice for my family, for my men? Left to me, I'd leave them alive to suffer for much longer. But my crucified men deserve justice no less than I do. This, one hundred for one, is justice to them. My justice will have to wait.