Or ... was Virlomi behind this?
Was Virlomi pregnant with his child?
The Caliph is dead. But here is his baby, born after he died but infused with the gifts of God from his birth. In the name of the baby Caliph, the council of wazirs will rule. And since the mother of the new Caliph is ruler of India, he will join the two great nations in one. With Virlomi as regent, of course.
No. Virlomi could not have wanted him murdered.
Ivan would have an airplane waiting. The airplane that brought him. With his own trusted crew.
Alai drove at a normal pace. But he did not drive to the checkpoint where he normally entered the airport grounds. In all likelihood, that place would be manned by the conspirators. Instead, he went to a service gate.
The guard sauntered over and started to tell him only authorized service vehicles could use this gate.
"I'm the Caliph, and I want to go through this gate."
"Oh," said the guard, looking confused. "I see. I—"
He pulled out a cellphone and started to punch at it.
Alai didn't want to kill this man. He was an idiot, not a conspirator. So he swung the door open, bumping into the man. Not hard. Just enough to get his attention. Then he closed the door and reached through the window. "Give me that cellphone."
The soldier gave it to him. Alai switched it off.
"I'm the Caliph. When I say to let me through, you don't have to ask anyone else's permission."
The soldier nodded and ran to the controls and the gate slid open.
As soon as Alai was through the gate, he saw a small corporate jet with Cyrillic lettering under the Common letters naming the corporation. The kind of plane Ivan would have used.
The engines started up as Alai approached. No, as Ivan's car approached.
Alai stopped the car and got out. The door of the jet was open, forming steps to the ground. Holding one hand on the pistol in his pocket— for he was taking this plane whether it was Ivan's or not—Alai walked up the steps.
A businessman—or so he seemed—waited for him inside. "Where's Ivan?" he asked.
"We're not waiting for him," said Alai. "He died saving me."
The man nodded once, then went to the door and pushed the button to raise it. Meanwhile he shouted, "Let's go!" and then said to Alai, "Please sit down and fasten your seat belt, my Caliph."
The plane began taxiing before the door was closed.
"Do nothing out of the ordinary," said Alai. "Nothing to alert them. There are weapons here that could easily shoot down this plane."
"Our plan exactly, sir," said the man.
What would the conspirators do, when they found out that Alai had escaped?
They would do nothing. They would say nothing. As long as Alai might turn up alive somewhere, they dared not be on record as saying anything.
In fact, they would continue to act in his name. If they followed Virlomi's plans, if her insane invasion went forward, then Alai would know they were with her.
When they were in the air—having waited for ordinary permission from the controllers—Ivan's man came back and stood diffidently two meters away.
"My Caliph, if I may ask?"
Alai nodded.
"How did he die?"
"He was busy shooting the guards surrounding me. He got two of them before they cut him down. I used his weapon to kill the others. Including Alamandar. Do you know how far the conspiracy went?"
"No sir," said the man. "We only knew that you would be killed on the airplane to Damascus."
"And this airplane? Where is it taking me?"
"It has a very long range, sir," said the man. "Where will you feel safe?"
Petra's mother was tending the babies while Petra and Bean oversaw the last preparations for the opening of hostilities. Peter's message had been terse: How busy can you keep the Turks, while watching out for Russians in the rear?
Turks and Russians allies, or potentially so. What game was Alai playing? Was Vlad in it? Trust Peter not to share any more information than he thought he had to—which was invariably less than other people actually needed.
Still, she and Bean had been spending every spare moment working out ways, using limited, undertrained, and underequipped Armenian forces to cause maximum disruption.
A raid on the most highly visible Turkish target, Istanbul, would enrage them without accomplishing anything.
Blocking the Dardanelles would be a harsh blow against all the Turks, but there was no way to project that much force from Armenia to the western shore of the Black Sea, and maintain it.
Oh, for the days when oil was strategically important! Back then, the Russian, Azerbaijani, and Persian wells in the Caspian would have been a prime target for disruption.
But now the wells had all been dismantled, and the Caspian was mostly used as a source of water, which was desalinated and pumped over to irrigate fields around the Aral Sea, with the runoff being used to replenish that once-dying lake. And to strike at the water pipeline would impoverish poor farmers without affecting the enemy's ability to wage war.
The plan they finally came up with was simple enough, once you bought the concept. "There's no way to strike the Turks directly," said Bean. "Nothing is centralized. So we'll strike Iran. It's highly urbanized, the big cities are all in the northwest, and there'll be an immediate demand for Iranian troops to come home from India to fight us. The Turks will be under pressure to help, and when they launch a very badly planned attack against Armenia, we'll be waiting."
"What makes you think it will be badly planned?" Petra asked.
"Because Alai isn't running the show on the Muslim side."
"When did this happen?"
"If Alai were in control," said Bean, "he wouldn't let Virlomi do what she's doing in India. It's too stupid and it will kill too many men. So ... somehow he's lost control. And if that's the case, the Muslim enemy we're facing is incompetent and fanatic. They're acting out of anger and panic, with poor planning."
"What if this is Alai's doing, and you don't know him as well as you think?"
"Petra," said Bean. "We know Alai."
"Yes, and he knows us."
"Alai is a builder, like Ender. He always has been. An empire won through audacious and bloody conquest isn't worth having. He wants to build his Muslim empire the way Peter is building the FPE, by transforming Islam into a system that other nations will want, voluntarily, to join. Only somebody's decided not to follow his path. Either Virlomi or the hotheads within his own government."
"Or both?" asked Petra.
"Anything's possible."
"Except Alai controlling the Muslim armies."
"Well, it's simple enough," said Bean. "If we're wrong, and the Turkish counterattack is brilliantly planned, then we'll lose. As slowly as possible. And hope Peter has something else up his sleeve. But our assignment is to draw Turkish forces and attention away from China."
"And meanwhile, we'll be putting pressure on the Muslim alliance," said Petra. "No matter what the Turks do, the Persians won't believe they're doing enough."
"Sunni against Shi'ite," said Bean. "It's the best I could think up."
So for the past two days they had been drawing up plans for the quick, audacious airborne attack on Tabriz, and then, when the Iranians started to react to that, an immediate evacuation and airborne attack on Tehran. Meanwhile, Petra, in command of the defense of Armenia, would be prepared to make the Turkish counterattack pay for every meter of progress through the mountains.
Now everything was ready, awaiting only the word from Peter. Petra and Bean weren't really necessary while the troops began their deployment and the supplies were moved to depots in the areas where they'd be needed. Everything was in the hands of the Armenian military.