Torn From On High: Free City Book 2 (The Free City Series) (3 page)

6. 21.080N,
12.271E

Tariq
squatted briefly in the shade at the base of the ruins; he set the ancient
long-barreled Bedouin rifle against the crumbling old wall and stared across
the surrounding dunes.

The
sun had risen only about an hour ago and already it was scorchingly hot in the
early August desert.

He
fidgeted with his shemagh face scarf which was the required orange striped with
green wore by all of the Desert Serfs. Although not originally one of the
sparsely scattered locals, Tariq was certainly outfitted as one.

The
searing heat of the early morning had caused the surrounding sands to simmer
hypnotically, he noted.

Their
Master at the EurAfrican Imperial Military Base in Tunis had hastily sent Tariq
and his two workmates to this desolate inferno a year ago.

After
months of sweltering isolation and painstaking work, their vital task was
nearing completion.

• • •

For
over six and a half thousand years Tunis and its outlying boroughs have
suffered through repeated onslaughts.

The
particularly strategic coastal promontory with a commanding view of the Gulf of
Tunis and the Mediterranean beyond was first settled by Berber traders and
later grew to become the fabled Phoenician city of Carthage. The ancient city's
location at the southern edge of the narrows between Sicily and North Africa
allowed the Carthaginians to tightly control ship traffic and, by extension,
trade in much of the eastern Mediterranean.

This
advantage quickly led to conflict, most notably with the Romans who eventually
enslaved nearly all of the residents after laying waste to the metropolis in
146 BC.

As
spiteful as the Romans had been towards the Carthaginians, the location was
unmistakably optimal as a trading port and Julius Caesar eventually rebuilt the
city. Development quickly spread inland to the area now occupied by Tunis.

When
the long Roman rule faltered during the chaos that proceeded the Dark Ages;
Genseric, King of the Vandals overtook the city. A half century past before the
wobbly remnants of Roman power recaptured the metropolis.

The
area later fell to the Arab Muslims that swept across North Africa towards
Gibraltar and eventually on into the Iberian Peninsula. Tunis became an
important Arab military outpost and trading port during the Dark Ages that
shrouded most of Europe to the north in provincial ignorance.

Centuries
later during the Eighth Crusade, European Christians briefly tussled with the
locals for control of the choice location but the effort proved disastrous.
Shortly thereafter Andalusian Muslims and Jews cast out from their homeland
arrived in Tunis and the area again flourished in comparative peace for over
two hundred and fifty years.

In the
16th Century, the Ottoman Empire battled back and forth with Christians from
Spain and Tunis fell for a time into the hands of Europeans. The Ottomans
retook the city and it quickly became an opulent center of commerce and
skullduggery. Tunis was a primary port for the Barbary Coast pirates that
mainly dealt in captured Christian slaves for the Islamic markets of North
Africa and the Middle East.

Post-Renaissance
Europeans, particularly from France, gradually overtook most of Tunis. The vast
French protectorate of Tunisia was established in 1881.

In
1941 Tunis played an important part in supplying the legendary Nazi Afrika
Korps under the command of Erwin Rommel in the North African Campaign of World
War II. Men and munitions were fed in through the port to carry on the Axis
struggle to control the northern portion of Earth's second largest continent.

Through
protracted and agonizing efforts with no small amount of luck and nearly
inexhaustible resources, the Allied Forces slowly prevailed over the German-led
Axis. The French masters briefly regained control over Tunisia just after the
war.

But
European Colonialism was doomed. One by one the colonies were set free. Tunisia
gained independence from France in 1956.

Tunisians
then enjoyed about two hundred years of comparative peace before the worldwide
butchery of the protracted Second Amero-Asian War decimated most human life on
Earth.

In a
rare bit of luck for the region, by the end of the Second Amero-Asian War in
2196, Tunis had been largely spared from the madness that destroyed the
irreplaceable age-old cities of Cairo, Rome, Athens and many, many others.
Tunis was saved but sadly, most of the residents were not. For nearly fifty
years, great clouds of radioactive dust and stray plumes produced by chemical
and biological weapons from Northern Europe drifted south over most of North
Africa which denuded the region of nearly all life. By 2300, global warming had
caused a 5-meter increase in the water level of the Mediterranean, which cut
off the ruins of Carthage from the rest of the sleepy and sparsely inhabited
remnants of Tunis.

The
abrupt rise of the Warlords in 2363 revived Tunis yet again.

Bwana
Kufuzu, the brutal First Warlord of EurAfrica, quickly established a military
presence in the region, greatly enhancing his efforts to subjugate the
remaining inhabitable portions of Europe to the north. In the ensuing
eighty-three years, Tunis has been outshone only by the huge EurAfrican capital
of Arusha far to the south as the most populous and wealthy urban area on
Earth.

With
Arusha's recent destruction, Tunis now ranks as the Earth's most important
city.

In an
amusing twist of fate, nearly fifty years ago engineers and architects from
Tunis were largely responsible for the design and construction of the fledgling
city of New Rome. Situated about a hundred kilometers south of the
uninhabitable wreckage of the old metropolis, New Rome owes much to its
eternally tenacious rival on the Gulf of Tunis.

• • •

“You
will sleep here,” the Overseer's Assistant pointed into one of the dozens of
doorless rooms in Domestic Servitude Housing Block 43.

The
mute slave peered shyly into the austere quarters.

The
tattered bed was little more than a narrow cot with a thin gray moth-eaten
blanket. A rusty metal washtub and a filthy plastic bucket in the far corner
made up the bathroom and laundry facilities.

The
shuttered window on the opposite wall contained no glass. The hot afternoon
wind from the desert whistled through causing the ill-fitting louvers to rattle
disquietingly.

It was
above average lodgings for a drudge.

The
slave ventured into the chamber that would be his home for the foreseeable
future. He set his meager bundle of threadbare clothes on the bed.

“You
are permitted one meal per day at the Slave's Dining Hall in Building 3. You
are scheduled for 3:25AM until 4:05AM. If you are not present during that time
you will not be fed,” the Assistant cackled sardonically. “You will report to
the Building 17 Slave Master at 6AM tomorrow morning for assignment.”

The
slave nodded.

• • •

A half
an hour further along into his solitary patrol rounds, Tariq stopped for water
under an especially desiccated and scraggly palm.

Far to
the north, he recalled, in the comparative paradise of Tunis, he and the others
had been toiling away on the back-up planning for counterinsurgency should the
Fiefdom of EurAfrica face the unlikely prospect of invasion by either
IndoPacifica or AmerAsia, its two largest neighbors.

He had
been field-testing a crude new handheld particle beam weapon at the Base
Ordinance Range when he learned of the news. Nearly a half-day earlier, Outer
Reaches hooligans had detonated an antimatter weapon over Arusha and vaporized
Daniel Kufuzu, the Benevolent and Exalted Fourth Warlord of EurAfrica.

His
Fiefdom was suddenly without the strong and steady hand of a leader, an
untenable situation that required immediate and decisive action.

Kufuzu
and his advisors had foreseen, although in hindsight imperfectly, just such an
unfortunate and despicable event.

The
threesome of Paramilitarist Serfs had been sent off from Tunis later that day
in a rusty old road machine. Their grueling twenty-one hundred kilometer
cross-desert trek had taken nearly a month. Along the way they had acquired,
sometimes with cash, sometimes with brutal force, all needed supplies.

Fifteen
years earlier their present sweltering location had been selected to be used
only if Daniel Kufuzu met with an untimely death.

The
long abandoned thousand year-old ruins of the Fort of Djaba and the nearby
prehistoric caves lay on the edge of a dune-covered Saharan plateau in the
northeastern portion of what had long before been known as the Republic of
Niger. The spot had been carefully chosen because of its inhospitable climate
and utter isolation.

The
idly curious would never stumble upon the forsaken location to interrupt their
surreptitious undertaking.

• • •

The
mute slave filled the Commander's cup with strong black coffee.

“That
will be all,” the officer motioned to the door with mild annoyance at the
unfamiliar drudge, “now get out.”

The
slave silently bowed in deference before leaving the office.

Commander
of Covert Operations and Feudal Master of Paramilitarist Serfs Frédéric Rameau
scowled at the stack of communiqués from Nairobi as he sat stiffly at his desk
in the sprawling EurAfrican Imperial Military Base in Tunis.

The
ruthless thirty-two year-old former soldier had quickly risen to his current
position as Head Spy for the Northern District of Africa when he had thwarted a
poorly planned coup six years ago. Daniel Kufuzu himself had personally
rewarded Frédéric with the prestigious appointment as thanks for preserving the
Warlord's standing as the Supreme Leader of EurAfrica.

But
the job had been a letdown for Frédéric. Instead of the intrigue and high drama
of fieldwork, he spent nearly all of his time directing two-dozen subordinates
from his stuffy little office. Living the vicarious thrills of others was not
his style.

He
sighed and sipped his now-cold coffee.

Perhaps
it wasn't so bad.

His
three personal Serfs were hiding out in the desert right now tending to the
most vital and unexpected of undertakings. Soon all of humanity would be stunned
by what they had managed to accomplish. Certainly as their Master he would
personally be credited with achieving the great feat. They were, after all,
just Serfs.

Frédéric's
daydreams of glory were interrupted by the topmost document on the stack in
front of him.

He
slowly read through the dispatch from an operative in Nairobi.

The
man had secretly “befriended” a veteran female Inspector from the Free City
Inquisitor's Office and discovered an intriguing bit of information regarding
an unsolved crime during a recent drunken dalliance with the woman.

Frédéric
reread the message several times and smiled; this, and the work of his Serfs,
would change everything.

• • •

With
Tariq's return from the patrol of the area adjoining the cave his workmate Qadir
trotted out into the heat to replace him on sentry duty.

In the
comparative coolness of the well-hidden cave, Tariq bowed reverently to the
scruffy man seated comfortably on several burlap sacks of now moldering grain.
Grimy, unshaven and dressed as the rest of them were in the malodorous and
well-worn garb of the Desert Serfs, the raven-skinned man certainly didn't look
like a powerful leader.

He was
a bit too dark and delicate in appearance to be successfully passed off as a
local, Tariq and his workmates knew, so they had spent days just after they'd
recloned him carefully developing a very detailed story that explained the
inconsistencies.

The
ruse was that the man was a black Arab trader from the island of Lamu a bit
south of the equator just off the coast of East Africa. Two years ago, he'd
been begrudgingly handed over to a new Master to settle a gambling debt. Now,
the elaborate tale went, he tended to group's supplies in the cave because he
was too frail for the rigors of the open desert.

“The
surrounding area is clear, Oh Exalted One,” Tariq held his bow for several
seconds.

“Very
good, my servant. Shall we begin today's studies?” the man asked.

Tariq
nodded, “If it pleases you.”

“It
certainly doesn't please me, but,” he smiled scornfully, “I've come to realize
that it is necessary.”

The
lightly-built black man rose, “Had my Palace advisors been better prepared for
my assassination then I would not have been forced to endure these many months
of hiding in the desert whilst I’ve been reeducated as to what has transpired
over the past fifteen years.”

Tariq
glanced up at the man, “I understand your frustration. Your Aides most
certainly failed you by maintaining only out-of-date DNA and memory files. I
will strive to keep these vital records current should we be forced by future
misfortune to repeat this process.”

The
Warlord chuckled, “Yes I know. Thank you Tariq; you and your workmates have
struggled mightily to rectify the ineptitudes of others.”