Chapter 51
"Beijing is gone," whispered Colonel Venter. "It's fucking gone."
Shlomi exhaled forcefully and ran his fingers through his hair. Ziad hung his head.
"Well... That kinda sucks." he said.
Shlomi stared at the ground, face contorted in deep thought.
"Something's not right..." he muttered. "It doesn't make sense..."
"Hmmm?" said Venter, obviously not paying much attention.
Shlomi stood up straight, a determined look on his face.
"I feel like we've all been tricked by somebody. Like somebody's been pulling the strings behind the scenes the whole time. It's all too convenient."
"What do you mean?" asked Venter.
"No offense to your country, Colonel, but I would not have guessed the South Africans to have the kind of intelligence capabilities necessary to track the stolen weapons all the way to a remote area of China. Also, how did our airplane so easily traverse their airspace without arousing suspicion? It doesn't work like that. It almost feels like whoever has been pulling the strings sent us up to recover these nukes-" he waved at the twenty-five nukes still sitting on the tarmac, "- to keep us less suspicious for a certain amount of time. Like, they had to get the bombs from somewhere. So they chose here. But obviously you guys would discover that some were missing and go looking. And since the Israelis were so closely involved in developing and hiding the bombs, obviously the South Africans would immediately ask Israel for support. That's why they sent me down here."
Shlomi started pacing back and forth.
"So in order to keep the 'innocent' South Africans and Israelis from panicking," Shlomi continued, "they sent us up to China to destroy some highly visible terrorists and recover a bunch of bombs, giving 'them' time to sneak off with the remaining five and plant them in Beijing."
Shlomi stopped.
"Were all five bombs used to destroy Beijing or are there still unexploded, undiscovered nukes out there?"
Venter paused, unsure. "We don't know yet."
"Shit..."
Ziad had stood apart from their discussion, and watched the airfield in despair.
Suddenly, he heard a loud crack from the direction of the parade ground. He turned.
"Uh, Shlomi... You're gonna want to see this," he said.
Shlomi turned and looked where Ziad was facing.
"Oh. That explains everything."
Colonel Venter looked too.
"What, Mr. Patil?" he said, clearly confused. "He's just a civilian contractor who works with the government. Completely harmless. I don't know who those two girls are, though."
Ziad looked closer. Indeed, there was Parvati and Padma, uncharacteristically motionless as Mr. Patil spoke to Major Smit.
Shlomi faced Colonel Venter.
"Colonel, do you trust me?" he asked in a very serious tone.
"Um... Yeah, I suppose so. Why?"
"Do you trust your men?"
Venter looked slighly offended. "Of course I do!"
"Call them here. Armed. And do it quietly."
The Colonel gave Shlomi a confused look before meandering over towards the barracks in the least suspicious way possible.
Ziad made sure his rifle was loaded. Of course it was, he's not stupid.
"Shlomi?" he asked.
"Yeah?"
"Are we totally fucked?"
"Probably." responded Shlomi cheerfully.
"Oh, good."
"Yup."
Ziad watched Mr. Patil levitate the twins and float them into one of the buildings. The door closed silently behind him.
Colonel Venter and his commandos just happened to appear out of their barracks, fully armed and kitted out and just happened to wander over to where Shlomi and Ziad were standing, nothing suspicious. Nope.
"Now what?" asked Venter.
"Now, we see who's on our side and who isn't." said Shlomi dramatically.
"What's our side?" said one of the commandos.
"The side of freedom and liberty, honor and integrity, peace and... Kittens or something. Fuck, I don't know. But I do know that the guys who willingly blew up a few million Chinese are orchestrating a new world war and sure as shit aren't the good guys."
"Fair enough." responded the commando. "Who do we kill?"
"I love working with soldiers," said Shlomi. "They're so much easier than politicians. Anyway, we're going to kill anyone that tries to stop us."
"Aren't we going to get in trouble for that?" asked another commando.
"Yes."
"Oh, that's not good."
"But then you can kill whoever gets you in trouble."
"Oh, that's good."
Shlomi racked the charging handle on his rifle.
"You ready?" he asked Ziad.
Ziad gave Shlomi a look that said 'no, I'm not ready at all. Nope, not me. Of course I'm ready, asshole.' It was a very eloquent look.
"Good. Let's go kill stuff."
Parvat and Padma were deposited in a small room with nothing but two mattresses and a toilet. They were stripped of their wands before being unfrozen. The thick metal door swung shut and was locked.
"Asshole." spat Parvati.
"But... But why?" Padma cried.
"Don't you get it? Our dad is a psychopath bent on the destruction of the current world order and the establishment of some sort of new world order. I bet he hangs out in smoke-filled rooms full of old white guys plotting."
Parvati fell onto one of the mattresses, not even bothering to take her shoes off.
"At least they didn't take this."
She reached under her robe and pulled out the pistol that had been hidden there.
"What's that?" asked Padma.
"It's a CZ75 9mm pistol. Designed in Czechoslovakia. It is, in my opinion, one of the best large-capacity handguns on the market. Handles well, accurate, not that expensive. Some my criticize that it's chambered in the smaller 9mm round versus the larger, more powerful .40 S&W or .45 ACP, but those guys are just silly armchair warriors who can debate about 'stopping power' or whatever theoretical bullshit. I like the 9mm because I can carry a lot more of it and there's way less recoil, so I'm far more accurate and likely to hit my target with every shot."
Padma had stopped crying and was now staring blankly at Parvati as if she had just grown a third arm out of her eye socket.
"Uh... What?"
Parvati sighed.
"It's a muggle tool that kills people."
"Oh. Why do you have that?"
"You know all those people that have been getting blown up and/or killed at Hogwarts and elsewhere?"
"What, like the Death Eaters and those Slytherin kids? Or when that weird Eastern European guy and his entourage got evaporated in that explosion that completely destroyed the Headmasters office?"
Parvati winced.
"Yeah. Them."
"What about them?"
"Well, I'm the one who killed all of them. That was me. I've been running a one-woman terrorist campaign against Voldemort and his ilk."
Padma stared at Parvati. Then a strange thing happened that Parvati did not expect.
Padma smiled and said, "Cool! Why didn't you tell me earlier, I would have helped! I don't want to kill anybody but it doesn't seem like anyone else is actually fighting Ol' Voldie. Everyone hyped up Harry Potter but I haven't heard from him for months. Dumbledore's dead, and anyone else is probably gonna die too. So it's good that you're doing this. Or did that, I suppose."
Parvati was taken aback.
"Really? You're not pulling my leg?"
"No-"
The lights switched off and the cell was suddenly pitch black.
The commandos approached the door silently and lined up against the wall. The man at the front reached out to open it, and the men behind him tensed, fingers almost on the trigger.
The doorknob turned and the door opened, blocking the view of the commandos. The commando at the front hastily pulled back his hand and raised his rifle.
A man stepped out and lit a cigarette. He stared at the seemingly empty parade ground.
Ziad stepped out in front of him and casually nodded.
"Oh, 'ello." said the man between puffs on the cigarette.
"Can I borrow a cig?" asked Ziad.
"Yeah, sure mate." The man extended a box towards Ziad.
Ziad grabbed the man's hand and yanked him forward out of the doorway where three commandos immediately piled on top of him.
The man was tied up and gagged before you could say 'Oh no I'm being attacked!'
Ziad peered into the dimly lit hallway behind the door to make sure nobody saw. Nobody had.
He nodded at the lead commando.
"It's all clear," he whispered.
The commandos slithered into the building. Ziad entered after them, gave one last look outside, then shut the door.
Around the back of the building, Shlomi opened the circuit breaker screwed into the outer wall. He flipped a couple of switches and the power went out.
The hum of the air conditioning system faded.
Inside the building, the lights went out. The building sank into utter darkness.
The commandos activated their night vision goggles.
They slid from room to room, looking for their target.
Down the hallway, a door opened and a weak ray of light flickered out. The commandos stood still, rifles at the ready.
A man stepped out, flashlight flicking up the hallway.
Inevitability, he would sweep the light down the hallway and reveal the commandos. He did so.
Ziad shot him in the head.
The flashlight clattered to the ground. The man collapsed on top of it, and the light disappeared.
The echo of the gunshot faded.
"Go loud." said Venter. "No need for stealth now."
The commandos stormed forward.
Parvati stood and faced the door, pistol held ready.
"Stand beside the door," she ordered Padma.
The sound of running footsteps grew louder, followed by the sound of keys in a lock.
Parvati tensed her finger on the trigger.
The door swung open and the cell was bathed with light. Parvati was blinded.
She fired the pistol until it was empty.
The light winked out.
The commandos stopped at the sound of the gunfire that didn't originate from them.
"Downstairs." said Venter.
They ran to the stairs and descended into the basement, leaving half a dozen commandos guarding the main floor.
The basement was really just a line of cells with thick solid steel doors.
One of the doors at the far end was open and a body was lying on the ground in a rapidly expanding pool of blood.
The commandos rushed forward. Ziad looked at the body.
"Holy shit!"
He looked inside the cell. Parvati and Padma stood there, looking rather scared, especially since they couldn't see anything and heard a lot of general shuffling about.
"What the hell are you two doing way down here?" he asked.
"Who's asking?" said Parvati.
"A ghost from the past, that's who." responded Ziad.
Recognition swept across Parvati's face.
"Is that... Ziad?" she said.
Colonel Venter looked at Ziad questioningly. Ziad? He mouthed.
"Er... No." said Ziad. "It's your friend from school in Israel, Oshri Cohen."
Parvati caught on blessedly quickly.
"Oh, right, how could I forget. Oshri Cohen, that jackass who disappeared without a trace despite telling me he'd be back in a week?"
"Uh, yeah. That guy. It's a long story. Anyway, Parvati, I think you just blew your dad's head off. Congratulations, now we've both killed our fathers. I'd say there's something symbolic about that, but I'm not into the whole metaphysical clockwork-God bullshit. That's heretical. Anyway, now that you killed the dude we were going to interrogate to find out why he's blowing up Chinese cities, I think we should all get the fuck out of here before all hell breaks loose."
"I shot Dad?" mumbled Parvati.
"Sure as shit looks like it." said Ziad.
"Oh..."
"Yeah, we're going to want to leave ASAP. They'll be bringing the whole army down on us soon."
"I'd love to leave, Oshri, but I can't see where the door is." said Parvati.
"Oh."
Back outside, the commandos made a loose circle around the nukes still sitting on the tarmac.
"What do we do with these?" asked Shlomi. "They've still got a couple of hours on the timers. But they're going to explode no matter what we do."
"Yeah,"answered Ziad, "I think Mr. Patil or some other wizard did some magic stuff on them. Magic and nuclear weapons really shouldn't mix, but here we are."
Padma was eying the bombs with a discerning eye.
"We portkey them to the middle of the ocean and blow 'em all up there?" said Ziad.
"That would end up irradiating too much water. Too much fallout." Shlomi said.
"I have an idea." muttered Padma
"In the middle of Siberia?" suggested Ziad.
"That would trigger the Dead Hand device and the whole world dies."
"Yeah that's no good."
"I said I have a plan." Padma said, a little louder.
"Antarctica?"
"Do you want to melt everything?
"Hmmm... France? France sucks?"
"Ha ha very funny."
"I have a plan you assholes!" yelled Padma.
"What?" said Shlomi, distracted.
"Are you bloody stupid? Or deaf? Anyway, the way you guys described it, namely China probably about to nuke Russia and World War III about to go down, I say we use these nukes to incinerate Voldemort."
Ziad stared at her.
"That only makes sense if nukes are already flying all over the place and Europe is going to die anyway."
"We've still got a couple of hours on the timers, right?" said Padma, "We can take the bombs someplace nobody cares about, like the middle of the Taklamakan desert or Alabama, and watch the news. If the shit hits the fan, we blow up Voldemort. If it doesn't, well then we can try to figure something else out with the nukes."
Parvati smiled maliciously, "I really should have brought you onboard." she said.
"Yes, you should have."
Shlomi and Ziad continued to stare at them.
"You two are out of your damn minds." said Ziad.
Parvati eyed Ziad. "You got a better plan?"
"Well, no..."
"Exactly."
The sound of helicopters began to echo across the desert.
"Ok, let's get ready to go!" shouted Colonel Venter. The commandos gathered around Ziad, who quickly wrapped a rope around all the nukes and turned it into a portkey.
"Grab on."
KHUNJERAB PASS, PAKISTAN/CHINA BORDER
Sergeant Nasir-ul-Mulk, Pakistani Army, watched his Chinese counterparts watch him.
"What's up with them today?" he asked the soldier next to him.
"No idea. They seem especially bitchy right now."
"Odd."
The sergeant yawned.
"Hey Hassan, can you go grab me some more coffee? Thanks."
A few minutes later Hassan returned and poured coffee into the sergeant's mug from a thermos.
The mug started rattling.
Nasir looked up. The Chinese border guards had disappeared.
"What in the name of God..." he muttered.
Private Hassan hefted his rifle.
Nasir lifted his binoculars to his face and peered across the border into China. His face drained of blood.
"Why?" he whispered.
Hundreds of tanks roared down the valley, smashing the small border station under their tracks and barreling towards Islamabad to burn it down in righteous vengeance.