The catch was that the Caliphate knew its history as well; back then, as soon the original Janissaries became aware of their own importance they had revolted demanding higher wages and more privileges. After 1451, every new sultan was obligated to pay each Janissary a reward and raise his pay rank. Soon they had such prestige and influence that they dominated the government.
They mutinied in order to dictate policy, changed sultans as they wished through palace coups. Eventually, they grew so powerful that their danger exceeded their value and the Sultans had destroyed them. That destruction was called The Auspicious Incident.
Model knew that his community here would survive only as long as his value exceeded the risk it posed. His people had been useful so far, they'd put down rebellions against the strict fundamentalism of the Caliphate. They'd put down Shi'ite rebellions against the Sunni Moslems, and Sunni rebellions against the Shi'ites. They'd crushed the infighting between various subdivisions of both. That was another advantage his troops had, being part of neither sect, their actions were independent of either. It meant, of course, that they were hated by both. That didn't matter, not to the Ruling Council. As long as threats to their power were eliminated the effects on the tools they used went unnoticed. Then again, his Einsatzgruppen had been working with gusto 'cleansing' the territory of 'infidels' and 'apostasy'.
Thinking about it, it was strange how his army and civilians had taken brutal casualties escaping from Russia but the Einsatzgruppen had hardly lost a man. It had been the Einsatzgruppen that had been the first to convert when the suggestions had started. They'd built gas chambers to dispose of those useless as slave labor and factories where the slaves could be worked to death. Jews, Christians, Druze, Bahais, Kuwaitis, Bahreinis, Saudis, the camps were full. The Einsatzgruppen had done so well they'd been given their new name of 'Guardians of the Faith' and ostentatiously demonstrated their loyalty to their new masters. Those masters did not include Walter Model.
Model sighed. He'd been so proud of getting his people out of Russia, of beating the Russians one more time. But, all he had managed to do was to lead his people into yet another trap. Every time he pulled off a miracle, every time he had done the impossible, the only result was lead his people into another trap. Each time, the traps grew tighter, the number of survivors smaller, the chances of escaping again even slimmer.
Even if they could escape, there was no way home and, anyway, there was no home to go to. He had reports from what was left of Germany, there were people there but they were scattered across the countryside in small fanning communities. The Ruhr Valley was a blasted and lethal ruin, the Rhine was a polluted mess, the lovely Black Forest, Germany's lungs, was blasted and burned. There was no home for his soldiers to return to.
He'd tried to build a new home but had seen it perish under a whirlwind of high explosives and steel as the Russian Army had crushed it. Instead, he'd become the commander of an army of slave-soldiers. An army under a suspended - but still very much present - death sentence. Now, he had to find another way out, another escape and hope this time it wouldn't lead to another trap.
CHAPTER TWO: MOVE TO CONTACT
Home of Admiral Soriva, Yokohama, Chipan
As he sprinted down the corridor in his home, Admiral Soriva could not help but reflect that paperwork especially bureaucratic paperwork and bungling, badly written, bureaucratic paperwork in particular was a lifesaver. It had saved his life anyway. His task for the evening had been reading a long dissertation from a Navy officer, written in excruciatingly jaw-breaking grammar, proposing that the decision to scrap the four Yamato class battleships should be reversed and the ships be returned to the active fleet. It was nonsense, of course, the ships had been decommissioned four years ago and had already been stripped ready for scrap.
By the end of the sixth page, frustration had overcome patience, making him screw the report up into a ball and throw it across the room. He'd almost immediately regretted the outburst of temper, the author meant well, he was doing what he thought was interests of the fleet - and was doing so in the proper, disciplined manner. Slightly ashamed Soriva had gone to retrieve the document. Walking past the window, he had noted the guard on his gate had gone. That had made him look harder, to see a body-sized shape crumpled under a tree and then a dark figure -perhaps more than one - slipping through the shadows.
The sight had made him go to his desk and take the American Colt automatic from the top drawer along with the half dozen loaded magazines he kept there. Then, he had stepped out of his office, just in time to see a figure entering the front door. A figure dressed in black from head to foot with a scarf covering the lower part of his face and a sword in his hands. A ninja, an honest-to-legend ninja. Straight out of bad novels and worse films, something this tasteless had to have Masanobu Tsuji's hand in it somewhere.
The ninja raised his sword up and Soriva shot him between the eyes. The intruder went down in a heap; Soriva had almost expected him to fly backwards like the movies, then he would have known this was a bad dream. He didn't and this wasn't. A second intruder was directly behind the first, Soriva shot him in the stomach then again in the head after he was down. The third intruder tripped over the bodies of the first two, falling flat on his face. That had never been in the movies either. Soriva shot him anyway.
It was as if the shots had been a signal, there was a ripping crash from the back of the house. More intruders, that was when he'd started his run to where his family were sleeping. Even as he reached the family rooms, he heard a scream from his eldest daughter's room. A scream that ended in a terribly final cut-off. He would have time to grieve later.
Three more intruders were coming towards him but he was between them and the rest of his family. He hosed off the remaining rounds in his pistol, dropped the magazine and slapped a new one home. All three intruders were down, one still moving. Soriva remembered the scream from his daughter's room and fired another shot, killing him. In front of him, his wife was standing in the entrance to their room, her eyes round with shock and her hand over her mouth. He grabbed her by the arm and half-pushed, half dragged her back to the room used by the other two children. As they reached it, his son opened the sliding door and pulled Soriva's youngest daughter through.
“ Father, I heard the noise so I got Hana ready to leave.”
Another thing to remember later, time to be proud of a young son who not only kept his wits when his world was falling apart but remembered to look after his little sister as well. They had to get out of here, the six dead assassins wouldn't be the end of it. There had to be another plan in case their attack failed.
Admiral Soriva's car was parked behind their house, by all the laws of logic, the attackers should have disabled or booby-trapped it. But anybody who could send assassins dressed up as Ninjas might be so obsessed with historical mythology he'd forget there might be modern options. It wasn't as if they had much of a choice anyway. Soriva pushed his wife and children out and towards the car. Their driver was lying dead by its side, his head neatly removed. Soriva reflected that the swords weren't quite such an insane idea after all, they were silent and, if he hadn't had that few seconds of warning, the assassins would have been on him and his family before he could get to his gun. On the other hand, if they'd had grenades and sub-machineguns, he and his entire family would be dead by now.
Next question; was the car booby trapped? There was no time to do a careful check, he pressed the starter button and the engine roared into life. No fires, no explosions, so far anyway. Car into gear, (still no explosions, still no fire) but the car was rocking as his children got into the back and his wife climbed into the front seat with him. Then, he rammed the bamboo gate.