CALIPHATE(93)

Not bad shape, Hans conceded, while looking down the stubby barrel of a submachine gun. The weapon was disassembled into its components on the same crude wooden table the unit armorer used for his own inspections and repairs. Hans sat at the table on a backless, slightly padded, rotating stool.

"How many of these do we have?" he asked of the armorer. "Unissued, I mean."

"A dozen, sir," the armorer answered. He was an older type, wearing glasses, with a short, neatly trimmed, gray beard, and a ginger step that told of knees beginning to decay from arthritis.

He was probably a janissary cadet when my parents were in diapers, Hans thought. "You must be coming up on retirement soon," Hans said.

"Yes, sir," the armorer answered. "I'll have my thirty years in next year, about this time."

Okay, not quite that old. I guess the service really does wear.

"Not going to stay past that?" Hans asked.

In answer the armorer smiled and raised one hand, palm down facing the floor. The hand was raised above neck level: I've had this shit up to here.

Hamilton would have recognized the gesture instantly from a statue back at Fort Benning. Hans did as well, though not from the statue. He laughed.

"What are you planning to do after that, then?"

The armorer shrugged. "Not sure, sir. Settle down with a wife, start a business . . . grocer, I was thinking . . . raise a few kids. I've still got a year to think about it."

Hans felt a sudden lump form in his chest. No you don't. You've less than two weeks before I have to kill you. And for what? Because some asshole grabbed you, as with me, and took you as a child to make you into a soldier for a bunch of fucking aliens. What a shitty fucking world.

Hans did not, of course, say any of that but, rather, contented himself with, "That's as good a plan as I've heard. Still, the unit will miss you when you go."

The older man smiled. "I'll miss the boys, too. And maybe the life . . . I've gotten used to it, after all. Thirty-two years since I was gathered? They're not easy to let go of, sir, all those years. Still, when it's time; it's time. And I am getting old."

The armorer was such a likeable old soldier. Hans found that he did, in fact, like him. He sighed with regret. Not for much longer.

"Going back to your old town?" Hans asked.

The armorer shook his head. "How could I, sir? My parents are long dead. My brother and sisters are Nazrani. The boys I played with, as a boy, too. It would be . . . too . . . "

"Awkward?" Hans supplied.

"Exactly that, sir. It would be too awkward."

"I understand. Have you picked a wife yet?"

"Yes, sir. Nice girl. A widow who lost her husband down in the Balks facing the infidel Greeks."

"Ah. Yes. 'A troop sergeant's widow's the nicest, I'm told.' How old is she?"

"Half my age plus seven years," the armorer answered. "Just as the Prophet, peace be upon him, recommended. She already has a kid. I've been helping out a little with money."

"Sounds perfect," agreed Hans.

He went silent then, as he reassembled the submachine gun he'd been inspecting. When finished, he handed it back to the armorer, saying, "It all looks good. Tell me, is there a good place to buy personal arms in town?"

"A good place, sir? No, not here. There's one north of here past Svang in Walnhov, though. What were you looking for?"

Hans pointed at the submachine gun with his chin. "Maybe one or two of those and a couple of pistols. Just for practice, you understand. Well . . . that and the sheer joy of owning my own, now that I'm an odabasi and can afford them."

"Oh, yes, sir. I understand perfectly. Walnhov's your place. Tell the owner, Achmed's his name, that Sig will rip his balls off if he cheats you." Sig, the armorer, hastily amended, "Not that he would. He's one of us, too."





Interlude


Nuremberg, Federal Republic of Germany,

1 December, 2011


The city had seen much beauty in its centuries as it had, too, much ugliness, from party rallies to war crimes trials and hangings, with bomb and fire and ruin in between. As with every city in Germany, its history was an eloquent witness to the horrors of war, a demanding call for a better way. Though there had been peace for sixty-six years, yet the stones and the tortured bricks remembered . . . yet children still learned from adults.

In the Christkindlmarkt—a once a year for four weeks, open air city of wood and canvas—Amal clapped her hands with childish glee at the brightly lit, colorfully costumed pageant being put on for her, among some thousands of others. The baby was at an age when her favorite colors were "oo" and "shiny." Those criteria the show met well.