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  Daddy Jesus emerged from the shelter with a bottle of Scotch and three plastic cups. He set them down on the hood of the colonel’s jeep and poured three large doses. The colonel took one and threw it back, then signaled for another. The other two tasted their drinks and waited for him to begin.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Joseph took another swig of gin and orange juice. The others in the room had fallen silent, and Joseph was aware of them watching him, but he kept his own eyes on the TV screen fixed to the wall of the BBC’s bureau. A long cadaverous face, crowned by a ludicrous helmet, was building to the peak of its jeremiad.

  “. . . Yet another example of the systematic fabrication of stories by terrorist sympathizers in the liberal media . . . ”

  “My fat sweaty ass!” declared Joseph. An AP producer raised his glass to him.

  “. . . Once again, the bias of the self-styled gatekeepers of truth has been exposed in an on-the-ground investigation by your own independent watchdog, blow-back.net . . .”

  “On the ground? Bullshit!” Joseph sneered. “You’ve never been on the ground, pal! Day-tripper embeds don’t count.” There were ironic cheers from his colleagues.

  “. . . And so we say to 24/7 News: if you have nothing to hide, why don’t you release your footage? . . . ”

  “We already did, bugger-lugs! It’s on the news tonight—all over the planet!” There were whoops around the room.

  “. . . Why don’t you lay all doubts to rest,” continued the face on the screen, “by releasing for independent scrutiny the full, unedited digital files of all of the footage that your crew shot today? And let the world judge for itself if your story really is what you say it is.”

  The room filled with jeers and guffaws and catcalls. Somebody patted Joseph on the back, and ice and liquor tinkled into his glass. “You show him, Joe!”

  But Joseph wasn’t listening. “Oh, no,” he murmured softly to himself. “Oh, no; oh, no.”

  In his pocket, his cell phone was buzzing.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The colonel set his cup down a little unsteadily on the hood of the jeep. Daddy Jesus had switched the headlights off: the three men could see one another’s faces in the faint light from the sky. The colonel’s mouth had a bitter twist to it. He leaned his chest against the fender and put his elbows on the hood, cupping his face in his hands.

  “I’m taking it for granted,” he began, “that neither of you knows anything about the branch of mathematics which is known as fuzzy logic.”

  Daddy Jesus cleared his throat. “I do,” he said, and when they both turned to stare at him, he added defensively, “I saw a program about it on Discovery.”

  The colonel clapped his hands ironically. “Well done, Sergeant! You are a clever one. Well, for your benefit, then, Captain—and I’ll try and keep this simple for you—fuzzy logic is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with shades of truth. Whereas binary logic defines any given proposition as either true or false, as 1 or 0, fuzzy logic allows for degrees of truth or falsity. Something can be 0.1 true or 0.9 false, for instance. Am I losing you already, Captain?”

  “On the contrary, Colonel. For me that’s just another day at the office.”

  The colonel smirked mirthlessly. “Think so? I did say I was keeping it simple for you. Now, one of the things that fuzzy logic is good at, which traditional ‘crispy’ logic doesn’t do so well, is to allow you to set up mathematical systems which can handle vague concepts like hot and cold, empty and full, heavy or light. It’s easy to state how much someone weighs, for example; that’s just a figure in pounds. But is that person therefore to be considered heavy or light? That depends on subjective judgments and on such factors as age, gender, geographical origin, health, and so on. These are valuations which human beings and even quite simple animals find it easy to make but which baffle traditional computers, which need everything to be either one thing or another—”

  “That all sounds very interesting,” put in the captain. “I might even Wikipedia it when I get home tonight, if I remember to. But can you please tell us what it has to do with our problem.”

  “It has everything to do with our problem, Captain! A computer which is able to run on fuzzy logic can mimic the kind of basic operational judgments that people and animals make a million times a day without any difficulty. We feel a little warm, so we walk a little slower. We feel very warm, so we stop and find some shade. But we’re able to feed other factors into the decision—are we in a hurry, for example, and if so, how much of a hurry, and why? We don’t simply come to an abrupt halt as soon as the temperature reaches exactly eighty degrees”

  His hands groped the air in search of understanding. “Look, I’m not a mathematician either, or even an engineer. What’s important is that fuzzy logic is already widely used to run machines that can, to an extent, think and act for themselves. It’s used to control antilock brakes for automobiles, for example, and in digital imaging, and to power the artificial intelligence engines that run most computer games and simulations.”

  The colonel paused and drank again, and then he smiled crookedly. “Fuzzy logic chips allow modern washing machines to determine how much detergent and water they should use for any specified type and weight of load. And the same fuzzy logic, built into almost identical chips, is now being used by the Pentagon to drive the next generation of fully autonomous aerial drones and unmanned tanks and combat robots. Soon we’ll be seeing entirely new types of war machines, able to operate alone on ground, sea or air, and self-fueled by dead biomass found on the battlefield. And, of course, immune from prosecution for so-called war crimes.” He raised his glass to his listeners in a mocktoast. “I think, Captain, that perhaps by now you are beginning to see where I’m going with this.”

  “Yes,” said Smith. “I’m afraid I am.” He nodded, and Daddy Jesus refilled the colonel’s drink.

  The colonel went on: “Now, our friends in Washington are wonderful people, of course, but every now and then they get it into their heads to try and keep secrets from us, which isn’t very nice. Fortunately for us, the manufacture of prototype fuzzy logic chips is a very specialized matter, and the Pentagon has outsourced its production to a small semiconductor laboratory which also makes chips for civilian industry. Once we found this out, we arranged for a number of the military-grade chips to be accidentally switched to the neighboring production line, which makes chips for commercial washing machines.” He grinned. “Not long after that, the Maelstrom Home Appliance Corporation was forced to recall a whole batch of its brand-new Circe line of deluxe washing machines. They were making a terrible mess of any laundry put through them. Particularly the whites: everything came out all gray and streaky and sort of furred. Naturally, when the manufacturers realized why this was happening, they were horrified—this was potentially a major breach of homeland security! But upon mature reflection, they decided that it would be better not to mention the matter to the US government. After all, no harm had been done, really. They’d gotten all the missing chips back on the quiet . . . all except for one that was in a machine that happened to fall off a truck which was crossing a bridge over a deep and turbulent river. And why should they worry about that one?”

  “I still don’t quite get it,” said Smith. “If all you wanted was one chip, why did you bring the whole washing machine all the way here from America? Why not just take the chip out of the machine and smuggle it by itself?”

  “First, because you need a very skilled technician to remove the chip without damaging it. And second, for reasons of camouflage. It would have been very embarrassing for us if by some remote chance federal agents had caught our spies red-handed with the stolen microchip. But if the chip was still in its washing machine, well, that would be a different matter. Our people had an elaborate story prepared about how they were on a fishing trip and they happened to find a secondhand washing machine, slightly flood-damaged. You know how it is: so long as you maintain the barest veneer of deniabili
ty, you can get away with just about anything.”

  “So long as you keep things nice and fuzzy.”

  The colonel sarcastically touched Smith’s glass with his own. “Exactly.”

  “Another thing I don’t get is why you brought this treasure here, to the Slob. Why wasn’t it sent to a government laboratory or locked away in a vault at headquarters?”

  The colonel glanced away toward the blinking red light on the radio mast. “Oh, camouflage again,” he said. “If we’re spying on our allies, we have to consider that they might be spying on us. It felt safer to tuck the machine away out of the limelight. The Slob was the perfect place—it’s highly secure and far away from HQ, but it’s also visited a great deal in the normal course of things by the kind of aerospace scientists who would be qualified to remove and study the chip. And no one would ever think to look for it here.”

  “No one except for the gypsies.”

  The colonel, who had begun to regain some of his old arrogance as the whiskey worked on him, wilted again.

  “No, you fool—except for the Iranians!” He turned a stricken face to them. “You still don’t get it, do you? You think it’s just a coincidence that a weapons-grade washing machine was spirited into the Easy at exactly the same time that Iranian agents were detected there for the first time? Real Iranian agents, Captain, not the made-up ones we brief the security correspondents about every couple of weeks to frighten the public, the ones who we say are about to give the terrorists antitank weapons that actually work and antiaircraft missiles and bombs filled with anthrax and all of the rest of it—” He broke off, overcome.

  Captain Smith considered his commander’s back for a few moments, then put a hand on his shoulder. “You know, sir, it occurs to me there might just be one way that we could . . . ”

  The colonel whipped around and grabbed his forearm. “What are you saying, Smith? Finish what you were going to say!”

  “Well, sir, it’s just that—”

  “Spit it out, man! That’s an order!”

  “Well, if the Iranians really are now operating in the Easy, it occurs to me that there’s only one terrorist leader there who is smart and ruthless and high-powered enough to be working with them.”

  “Really? And you know this man?”

  Smith smiled grimly. “Oh, yes, sir. He’s an old adversary. A true fanatic, covered in blood. But I think that maybe, just maybe, we could get to him.”

  “How?”

  “The old-fashioned way: money. My guess is that the Iranians won’t have told him why they want that washing machine; I’ve heard that those Persian bastards play their cards close to their chests. If we come over the top at him with a big enough offer, maybe we can get him to double-cross them and give us the machine instead.”

  “What? Splendid! Do it, Smith! That’s also an order!”

  “We’ll need money, sir. A lot of money. We’ll have to honor any pledge we make to the terrorist, you know. In this line of business it doesn’t do to get a reputation for welshing.”

  “How much will you need?”

  “Ten thousand euros, I should think. No, wait. Better make it twenty.”

  The colonel scarcely seemed to hear him. “Twenty thousand, eh? Whatever. I’ll go and get it from my office. Meanwhile, you set the wheels in motion.”

  Smith waited until the colonel’s jeep had disappeared behind an abandoned billet, and then he turned and looked at Daddy Jesus.

  “Well, fancy that,” he said. “He keeps that kind of money in his office. If only we’d known that before, we wouldn’t have had to steal that darn machine in the first place, eh?”

  “No, boss.”

  “Come to think of it, stealing the washing machine and palming it off on Cobra was your idea, wasn’t it?” He considered his sidekick. “You’re not an Iranian agent, are you, Daddy Jesus?”

  “No, boss.”

  “Thought not. Still, I’m getting a little nervous about all this talk of Iranians in the Embargoed Zone. Driscoll was hinting at it too, and he can’t be wrong about everything. No, I think we’d better finish this thing right now just to be on the safe side. Get me Cobra on the phone. We can offer to give him a grand of White’s cash just to make sure it all goes off smoothly.”

  Daddy Jesus dialed his cell phone, listened, then cut the connection.

  “His phone’s powered off, boss.”

  “Off? Oh, well, get me a fix on his phone’s position. We can do that even with the phone switched off so long as he still has the battery in. Then at least we’ll know where to find him.”

  Daddy Jesus went to his jeep and tapped at the computer clamped to its dashboard.

  “No good, boss,” he called a few moments later. “His phone’s completely dead; he must have taken the battery out.”

  Captain Smith raised his eyebrows. “But I told him to keep his phone on at all times. He’s deliberately gone stealth on us! I’m beginning to smell a rat, Daddy Jesus. Go and round up those idiots from our armored detachment. They’re going to have to escort us back into the Easy tonight; we need to pick up that washing machine while we still know where it is. Better safe than sorry with all these Iranians about, eh?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The general who commanded the EZ Division had political ambitions and so he liked to host distinguished guests. Shortly after he’d assumed command he had decreed the construction of a new VIP compound on a bluff above the camp. There, politicians, arms dealers, rivals and journalists could be briefed and flattered by his elite teams of whispering aides and shiny-eyed press officers, their beds made, meals served, and laundry washed by a special cadre of young female soldiers chosen for their high curves and low self-esteem.

  Driscoll was given the best of the guest quarters, a private chalet with its own living room and kitchenette and an en suite bedroom with a big double bed. All was clean and correct but, in that uniquely military way, just a little bit dingy: the ever-so-slightly damp bedsheets were ever-so-slightly gray, and the plastic lamps and linoleum floor tiles had faded a shade from their prime; the armchairs and sofa were made of a dull mustard vinyl that almost matched the laminated bookshelves and the unstocked stale cupboards in the windowless kitchenette. The best thing about it, Driscoll decided, was the view: a picture window in the sitting room allowed him to gaze proprietorially out over a magical kingdom of tents and huts and aerials and jeeps and latrines where ley lines of gray-green duckboards crisscrossed the track-churned sand.

  Inside, the bedroom was smaller than Driscoll had expected, square and cell-like, with only one small window of very thick glass set high in the wall. The door was made of one-inch steel plate and opened outward into the living room; the bedroom, it had been explained to Driscoll, had been reinforced to act as a bomb shelter so its guests could sleep soundly at night.

  Still wearing his Kevlar jacket and his helmet, Driscoll paced back and forth across the little bedroom, a phone clamped to his ear.

  “So 24/7 won’t play ball, huh? So where do we go from here?” He listened and yawned. “I don’t agree, Cass. If we give them more time, then we lose our momentum. We have to go in for the kill now, while we still have everyone’s attention.” He glanced sideways at the mirror and met his own gaze. He looked tired, he saw, tired and grim. He shucked his shoulders and felt the lovely burden of his armor bear down on his back. A dangerous idea, planted during his jeep ride with Colonel White, burst thrillingly into flower.

  “Listen, Cass, there is one way that we can guarantee to keep 24/7 off-balance to keep this story going and, above all, to keep it to ourselves. Why don’t I chase the story down myself, in person, no army escort, on the ground, inside the Embargoed Zone.”

  There was a moment’s stunned silence, and then a tinny babble filled his ear. Driscoll waved it away. “No, seriously, Cass, think about it: I could go and visit the scene where they staged the incident. I could talk to people who took part—they’ll probably confess freely enough if they think I’m jus
t another sympathetic foreign journalist. I could ambush the cameraman. Why dick around with 24/7’s PR people in New York when we can go straight to the source? Let’s face it, this West is probably just another stupid tripod monkey who’ll give up the story for a fistful of nuts. And there’s another lead I can follow up as well—I have names and a home address for some of the actors—”

  His editor interrupted him again. Driscoll shrugged. “Sure, Cass, sure—it’s dangerous. Okay, some TV and newspaper correspondents still go alone into the Embargoed Zone, but let’s face it: they’re all either terrorist supporters or else too scared of the terrorists to tell the truth. But it’ll be different for me: if the terrorists work out who I am and what I stand for . . . Well, let’s just hope they don’t, eh?”

  Again Driscoll ignored the reply, his idea skipping on ahead of him. “There’s something else too, Cass,” he confided. “Something big. I caught wind of it this evening: something known only as the Toploader Project. I don’t know exactly what it is yet, but it ties in somehow with the faked footage or the Iranian agents, perhaps both . . . . The local intelligence boys are dedicating all their resources to it, which means it must be a very big deal indeed. And when I mentioned this Toploader Project to one of my top-secret private sources this evening—you might know the guy, Colonel White, he was military attaché in Washington until a couple of months ago—he nearly crashed the jeep he was driving! He actually started to shake!”

  Cass sounded impressed. Driscoll nodded at the mirror. “Yes, it must be something really hush-hush,” he mused. “Toploader . . . Probably some kind of mortar, I guess—with mortars you load the round in through the top of the tube.”

  His face began to frown at him. “But here’s the thing that puzzles me, Cass: the terrorists in the Easy already make their own mortars—I’m in mortar range of them right now, by the way; they could fire at any time. So why is the army suddenly so upset about them having mortars? Unless this is some kind of new mortar—a really, really big one, maybe. Some kind of mortar of mass destruction. Maybe firing those new terrorist pig-flu bombs one of my sources briefed me about this morning.”