Shadow of the giant

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.