“It’s a mistake, sir,” said Gravenholtz. “You’re giving this towelhead way too much credit.”

“Hey, Lester, let’s keep it civil,” said Rakkim. “I mean, I could call you a pasty-faced, freckle-assed, thimble-dicked mother-”

Gravenholtz swung on him. Rakkim slipped the blow, but slowly, not wanting to reveal his own speed. Might have been a mistake. One of Gravenholtz’s fists just barely grazed him, but drew blood and laid a welt along the side of his jaw.

“That’s enough, Lester,” said the Colonel. “Now, I’m showing Rikki the ravine. You can either accompany us or find something else to vent your spleen on.”

Rakkim walked beside the Colonel. Touched his fingertips to his jaw. Now he had a good idea of how fast Gravenholtz moved.

“I warned you,” muttered the Colonel. “Lester’s a dangerous man to provoke.”

Rakkim heard Gravenholtz start after them, the redhead slipping on the loose rocks.

They climbed on for another ten minutes, one switchback after another, when Rakkim heard it. The other two kept climbing, oblivious. A few minutes later, when they reached a large, flat area near the summit, even they could hear it. The call to noon prayer, the voice weak but insistent.

“Lester?” The Colonel glared at Gravenholtz. “Goddamn it, Lester, you try my patience.” He stalked into the woods, Rakkim and Gravenholtz following. The Colonel’s two guards trailed behind. The forest was sparse, the soil rocky and poor, the ground littered with broken whiskey bottles and empty cans of beef stew and Spam and creamed corn. The call to prayer was coming from a lean-to the size of an outhouse. A grimy man dozed beside a nearby tree, an assault rifle resting on his knees.

“Open the door!” the Colonel barked as the grimy man woke up.

The man got to his feet, fumbled in his pocket, and stuck a key in the padlock on the lean-to.

The Colonel pushed him aside, opened the door. He looked back at Gravenholtz.

“I can explain, sir,” said Gravenholtz.

“No, you most certainly cannot,” said the Colonel. He extended his hand into the lean-to, helped a man inside stagger out, the man half blinded by the light, blinking, his arms bound behind his back. “Give me your canteen,” the Colonel ordered.

The grimy man reluctantly handed it over.

The Colonel held the canteen to the prisoner’s mouth, water pouring down the man’s chin in his eagerness. “Easy, soldier,” urged the Colonel, giving him time, making him slow down. They stood there, the two of them, until the Colonel finally tossed the empty canteen aside. “I gave orders before I left last week that this man was to be executed,” he said to Gravenholtz.

Rakkim recognized the prisoner-a Fedayeen named Hodges, first in his shadow warrior class two years ago. Rakkim had been at the small graduation ceremony as a guest of General Kidd. It was Hodges, but his face was wrong…the planes of his cheeks were misaligned, his jaw unhinged, one eye swollen shut, his chin caved in. So broken he could never be made whole again.

The pain must have been agonizing, but Hodges stood there calmly, legs spread slightly, to the limit of the short chain around his ankles. His arms were strapped behind his back, bound at the wrist and elbow. At the Academy, Rakkim had seen a Fedayeen commando tied hand and foot like this, watched him jump and snap his knees into an instructor’s forehead. Knocked the instructor out. Nice move, but the commando didn’t have a broken ankle. Hodges did. Rakkim made eye contact with him, saw a glimmer of acknowledgment, a moment of relief, then resignation. Hodges had to have guessed what Rakkim was doing here. There was nothing Rakkim could do for him without jeopardizing the mission. They both knew it.

The Colonel’s two guards had joined them, their weapons trained on Hodges.

“You disobeyed my direct order, Lester,” said the Colonel.

Gravenholtz’s face was the color of a rotting orange. “Well, sir…the boys get so little entertainment, stuck up here, that I decided to do what I could to lighten their load.”

“Your boys, not mine,” said the Colonel. He gently turned Hodges’s head, noted the filth and scars along the side of it, the places where his broken bones had not healed properly. He unbuttoned Hodges’s shirt, saw his busted ribs sticking out like pickup sticks. The Colonel buttoned him back up. Smoothed his blood-crusted hair. “You have my apology, soldier.”

“He’s a damn spy, Colonel,” said Gravenholtz.

“Yes, he’s a spy. That’s why I sentenced him to be executed,” said the Colonel, his eyes still on Hodges. “He’s also a soldier operating under orders and one hell of a brave man, which is why he deserves to be put in front of a firing squad and executed with full military honors, not abused for the pleasure of cowards.”

Gravenholtz’s voice was a raspy whisper. “Sir, you got no call-”

“You disobeyed my order, and you disgraced yourself,” said the Colonel. “Torturing a man like this…If I didn’t need you, I’d put you down like a rabid dog, Lester.” He rested his hand on his sidearm. “You’re dismissed. Take this piece of shit with you.”

Gravenholtz gave a sloppy salute and ambled off, the grimy man following.

“Shall…sir, shall I put the prisoner back?” said one of the Colonel’s guards.

“Let him bathe first. You know where the freshwater spring is. Let him take all the time he wants, but don’t get too close and keep your weapons on him at all times. Every moment,” said the Colonel. “After he’s clean, give him time to pray and then bring him back here. We’ll put him out of his misery.” He stepped closer to Hodges. “Are you ready to meet your maker, soldier?”

Hodges nodded.

“Sorry I don’t have your holy book so you could read-”

“No need, sir,” croaked Hodges, “I’ve memorized the holy Quran.”

“It would be defiled by my touch anyway. That’s the way it works, right?”

Hodges looked straight ahead.

Rakkim watched Hodges limp away, the two guards following behind, weapons ready. The wind rose up from the lowlands, and he smelled pine and cedar, clean smells, earth and eternity. He hoped Hodges filled his lungs before he died. Strange business. Rakkim had been warned that the Colonel had become a ferocious Muslim-hater, preaching vengeance and genocide, but it wasn’t true. The Colonel had no qualms about executing his enemies, but there was no cruelty in the man, only a harsh justice. Gravenholtz was a beast-even worse, he slipped his leash from time to time.

The Colonel looked out over the hills and valleys below. The breeze blew through his long hair, his eyes squinting, as though waiting for some phantom army to appear, the heavenly host in all its glory.

Rakkim remembered seeing the new president of the Belt on TV in the diner. A grinny-Gus, that’s what the hunters at the Piggly Wiggly Diner had called him, forks scraping over their plates as they mocked the president. You would never hear anything like that in Seattle, not in public anyway, but politicians were the same everywhere. Most of them weak, preening word merchants eager to accommodate whoever was in front of them. Lip service. It sounded obscene. Even President Kingsley wasn’t immune to making the most repugnant compromises, playing off the conservative ayatollahs against the modern technocrats, watering down a proposed travel ban on unmarried females and trumpeting it as a victory. Maybe it was. All Rakkim knew was that if someone had to rule, he preferred a leader who was hard but honorable, with spine and a sense of decency. A man like General Kidd. Or the Colonel.

“Who were those men we saw on the way up?” said Rakkim. “The ones whose tents were falling down around them.”

“Those are Lester’s men. He brought them with him when he joined up about five years ago. Border raiders, one step ahead of the noose. Scum for the most part, and no field discipline, as you noted, but fierce fighters. Like Lester himself. He lacks charm, and he’s got a mean streak, but when the bugle blares…”