There was no Marine band for this landing, no purple carpet and no salon-like terminal. The security was just as tight, though, as on Atlantis base, if not so formal.
Mustafa was curt when Robinson stepped off the shuttle door with a burkha-clad Arbeit. Robinson turned to help the marchioness to step down to the cave floor. "You have brought the weapons?" Mustafa asked.
"I have brought the weapons. The keys to activate them I retain," Robinson answered, tapping his forehead.
Mustafa smiled suddenly and brilliantly. "This is to be expected. We will emplace them where they will do the most good. You will detonate them. We will take the credit. The infidel will be destroyed."
Robinson refrained from pointing out that it would take more than a dozen wrecked cities to destroy the Federated States. Likewise he refrained from mentioning that the Federated States were very likely to launch a genocidal nuclear war against any place which so much as might harbor a Salafi if a dozen of its cities were nuked. Instead, Robinson intended to detonate only one of the bombs. This would leave the rest in place and hidden, in other words left as a threat, to force the Feds to pull back within their boundaries. That would leave the rest of Terra Nova to the either the Ikhwan or Tauran Union, the World League and their puppet master, himself.
11/8/469 AC, Hoti, Kashmir
The town was one of the central points for the support of the insurgency in Pashtia, much as it had been during the earlier Volgan-Pashtian war. There were still refugees from that earlier war, hundreds of thousands of them, rotting in tent cities in the barren hills to the southwest. Hundreds of humanitarian workers made a fat enough living through dispensing the charity that kept those refugees rooted to the area.
To the northeast of the town was a fertile plain the produce of which, along with the retail arms trade and the fat pickings from foreign aid, made Hoti the pleasant and prosperous burg it was.
The town was also large enough, the dress similar enough, and the language common enough that something over four hundred and fifty newly arrived Pashtians made little impression on it or its people. There were always guerilla bands traipsing through Hoti or, at least, there had always been for the last thirty-three years.
The buses, four-wheel-drive sedans, and light trucks under Jimenez's and Masood's command waited by the town's outskirts. By twenties and thirties the rest of the party, those who had openly entered Kashmir across the common border as "refugees," met the vehicles. There weapons and—for vehicle leaders, radios— were issued and, in some cases, mounted.
"I almost can't believe we're getting away with this shit," Jimenez told Masood.
"The ways of Allah are inscrutable," the subadar answered, with a sardonic smile. "His mercy is infinite. What's more, sir, we're nothing unusual, not even for size. We're not even forming up in any particularly remarkable way. The mujahadin have been doing this for over three decades, and almost without pause. I, myself, joined a guerilla column to fight the Volgans not two miles from here thirty years ago. Purely routine."
Jimenez commented, "But it still seems too easy."
"Wait until we reach the Salafi base, sir. We'll pay there for any ease we've had here. Then, too, this is the last and only time we'll ever get away with this."
"How are the vehicles holding up?" Jimenez asked.
"Not bad. We should lose no more than, say . . . a third of them. Yes, about a third, over the next portion of our journey. Less if Allah is especially merciful."
Jimenez consulted his watch. "Fortes Fortuna adiuvat."
"Yes, sir," Masood agreed. "She does. Great writer, Terence."
"You understand Latin?" The legate was flabbergasted. "Latin?"
"School in Anglia, sir. Every proper gentleman there studies Latin."
Jimenez couldn't help laughing with surprise. "Load 'em up, Subadar. 'Fortune favors the bold' and the timely. We have a group of cavalry to link up with."
11/8/469 AC, Chabolo, Pashtia
A military headquarters in a theater of war is rarely precisely quiet. The Coalition headquarters here, in the capital of Pashtia, rocked with fury.
Virgil Rivers was as angry as the three stars on his collar allowed and encouraged him to be. "How dare that bastard? How dare he present me this . . . this . . . . this fucking ultimatum."
"It's not an ultimatum, Virg," Ridenhour supplied calmly. Following his retirement from the FSA, he'd taken Carrera's shilling. "And please keep your voice down. It's an advisement. He has information that there will be a nuke or nukes at the Salafis' main base in Kashmir . . . today. He is acting on that. He is asking you to keep the Kashmir Air Force off his back while he does so. If you don't, and he and his force are destroyed, or the nuke gets away . . . on your head be it."
"John," Rivers answered, forcing himself to calm, "we both know that bastard and we both know it's an ultimatum . . . . a fucking order. To me. Doesn't the son of a bitch know he works for me?"
Ridenhour gave a meaningful smile before answering, "The 'son of a bitch' works for nobody but himself. You know that. He did advise me to tell you that a similar message is going to President Baraka in Kashmir, but that it will be delayed a few hours until the attack is well underway. That message will say this attack is with FSC authorization and support. Baraka's no fool, if he doesn't get reports that you have scrambled your own fighters for air cover, he'll draw the obvious conclusion."
"Why couldn't Pat have come to me with this sooner?"
"So you could buck it to Hamilton? So the Foreign Affairs pussies in Hamilton could press for a 'diplomatic solution?' So the nuke or nukes could get away? Be serious, Virg, he's doing exactly the right thing."
"And another thing," Rivers continued, "how the hell does he know this? I've had not a word."
Ridenhour sighed. "Virgil . . . you boys give us a lot of technical intelligence. How often is it both right and timely, hmmm? The Legion gives you a great deal of intel from . . . other . . . . sources. How often is it untimely or wrong?"
That was troubling. Indeed, everyone suspected the ways the Legion obtained its information. No one on the same side, however, was willing to ask because no one wanted to know. The progressives never asked anymore because they were already certain that they did know.
"Why is it," Rivers asked, throwing his hands in the air, "that every time he does 'the right thing' it tends to be really fucking inconvenient for everyone around him?"
"It's more than a trick, I've discovered, Virgil," Ridenhour answered. "It's a genuine knack."
Camp San Lorenzo, Pashtia
Not a man of the Cazadors thought they'd been pulled in early for a break. Excitement was in the air, along with deepest interest and a considerable flavoring of dread. That one side of the hangar had what looked to be six hundred main parachutes, harnesses and other air items but no reserve 'chutes added to the dread. More mysterious, and dreadful, another wall was lined with crates of foam padding, wooden sticks, and duct tape. The men talked and muttered among themselves, sitting on the cold floor of the hangar, until someone announced, "The Duque, commanding."