Chapter 26

I’m pretty certain the border guards on both sides of the gate were surprised when I rode up on a motorcycle.

All border traffic coming from Punjab had been held in Peshawar for the preceding three days. That allowed my troops to stage in Landi Kotal, barely three miles from the border. Of course, that was almost six road miles, courtesy of the twisted path the Torkham highway took through the mountains.

Also, there hadn’t been much traffic coming from Afghanistan, either, since the First Gurkha Regimental Combat Team had crossed the border two days earlier and ninety miles north, at the small town of Shamadam. Their orders were to simply and methodically follow the Kunar river road towards Jalalabad, but were also to go up the valleys between the mountains with light vehicles and heavy weapons. Weapons beyond simple rifles left over from when the Soviets invaded were to be immediately destroyed. Any complaints were answered with the same response on the complainers.

The Gurkhas were not an invading force; they were a conquering force. The nation of Afghanistan no longer existed. The civilians were now citizens of Punjab, just like their Pashtun brothers and sisters. The Gurkhas also checked out each of the local mullahs for his philosophy. If he was reasonable, he was left in place. If not, he was eliminated. In spite of the February rains, they had already cleared five miles into the first two mountain valleys, and were also ten miles south of the crossing along the road.

Their orders were simple. Proceed down the road, and eventually link up in Jalalabad, however long it took. Ensuring that the remaining citizens would be amenable to Punjab rule was more important than speed.

In the meantime, the morning after meeting with Colonel Suwal, I rode my motorcycle – the one we’d left at the estate – with a large Punjabi flag flying from the back, from Landi Kotal to Torkham just after dawn. I stopped on my side of the gate.

“Good morning, my soldiers. If you would be so kind, please open things up on our side of the border, so I may go discuss things with those guards,” I said, pointing to the Afghani border guards a few yards away.

“Um, yes, Your Majesty,” one of them said. “Shall we accompany you?”

“That will not be necessary, but thank you,” I replied.

They quickly rolled the gate back, allowing me to let the clutch out a little and roll my bike forward. I stopped with the front tire just short of touching the rolling gate on the Afghanistan side of the border crossing.

“Good morning, soldiers of the military of the soon to be non-existent nation of Afghanistan. I am His Royal Majesty, King California Lewis, sovereign monarch of Punjab. In case you’re unaware of reality, the leaders of Afghanistan have decided that they want to violate the precepts handed down by the Messenger from Above regarding growing and selling drugs. Obviously, that’s against the rules we all have to live by now. So, I realize that you may have not heard, but this region of the world is once again at war. Specifically, Persia, Mesopotamia, and Punjab have jointly decided that since our nations were originally created by the British without consideration for those living here, it’s time to rearrange things a little. Change the borders around a bit, get rid of the drug dealing government, make things better for everyone that lives here. You know, nothing major. If you’d be so kind as to open the gates, I need to go to Jalalabad and set things up with them, as a major portion of the population of this region of your former nation is very much ethnically related to a major portion of the population of my nation.”

Two of the guards looked unsure of themselves, while the third shook his head. “You may be a King, but you are not my King. It will take more than a young boy to get me to disobey my orders!”

“Would the Second Gurkha Regimental Combat Team be enough? Their leading elements are about two klicks behind me right now. That’s just a couple thousand Gurkha warriors, about thirty T-72 main battle tanks, thirty some-odd BMP armored personnel carriers, and I didn’t even count how many attack helicopters and ground attack aircraft were ready to go,” I calmly said.

He chuckled, then. “What are they going to do when their King is no longer around to lead them, though?”

“I’m still on this side of the border. If you did something really foolish, then I suppose they would simply level Kabul. And Sayel Pashtar would find you, your entire family, and ... well, he is, after all, an assassin.”

Shaking his head, he said, “No man can be as good as they say he is. Open the fence and let this young fool in, so I can say he invaded us before I kill him.”

I put down the kickstand on my motorcycle, and stepped off it, as the two lower ranking guards pushed the fence open. Their leader smiled, taking his rifle off and readying it.

“Come ahead, young and foolish King, and invade my country!”

“Okay,” I said, stepping across the border.

He opened fire, spraying me with bullets.

I sighed. “Is that any way to fire that weapon accurately?” All thirty of his bullets were suspended in midair, about two inches from me. His mouth hanging wide open, he started scrambling for another magazine.

“I don’t think so.” I mentally turned them around, then sent them back at him at the same velocity they’d had when they exited his rifle’s barrel. All thirty of them hitting at the exact same moment, immediately exsanguinating him.

The two lower ranking guards released the gate, trying to raise their rifles into position to shoot me. I was quicker in bringing my M16 up and firing a round at each of them, between the eyes.

I turned to the Punjab guards behind me and ordered, “Come on, get both the gates open. You heard what I said, the armor is not that far behind me.”

There was yelling from ahead, as a squad of guards boiled out of a nearby barracks. I calmly worked my way through them, with a single shot to each of them all that was needed. A couple of them managed to get some unaimed shots off in my general direction, but nothing that was a threat to my motorcycle or the guards behind me.

I walked back to where the rest of my soldiers guarding the Punjab side of the gate had gathered.

“Clean this up, clean out their barracks, and deal with any civilians on the former Afghanistan side of the border appropriately. Oh, and that means if they’re willing to become Punjab citizens, then allow them to do so. If not ... so be it. You’re all quite well aware of the laws and rules of my Kingdom. The same also goes for the Imams and mullahs. Mosques are not off limits to being searched ... or destroyed. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the ranking guard officer said.

A couple of city police officers had come running up at the sound of gunfire. “Stop! What are you doing?” one of them yelled.

I was walking back to my motorcycle, and said, “Dealing with matters of state. Tell me, are either of you related to citizens of Punjab?”

The one who had yelled paused, and replied, “Of course. We both are. Nearly everyone in town is a cousin to someone who lives on the other side of the border.”

I smiled and said, “Good. You’ll find that the border here is being moved about a hundred twenty kilometers that way,” pointing to the northwest. “About fifty-five kilometers the other side of Jalalabad. About two hundred twenty klicks to the west further north, eighty klicks further south. Everything and everyone on this side of that line are now Punjabi citizens, whether they know it or not. You might want to assist my guards here in tearing this gate and wall down.”

“What of those who do not wish to live under your rule, Your Majesty?” he politely asked.

“They have a choice. They can either move and live under the rule of the Persians, who will be taking the northern portion of what’s left, since those people are more closely related to them, or under the rule of Pakistan, who will be taking the southern portion of what’s left. Or they can, if they’d like, be buried here and now. There never really was a united Afghanistan, ever since the British lost control in 1919. Before that, it was a mass – or mess, if you prefer – of small kingdoms that simply existed to seize power and control from each other. The only reason Afghanistan was created in the first place was to be a buffer between the British Empire and the Russian Empire. It’s time to fix things, and bring the people into the twentieth century ... whether they want to, or not.”

He looked at his partner, then at my guards. “Three of the mosques in town will not present a problem. The mullahs and worshipers there are closely related to the Punjab,” he said with a smile. “Many of them may have been involved in cross border traffic without paying certain taxes and duties, but who is to know for sure? The other one ... will act as a mufti and call a fatwa, saying this is a violation of Sharia law, would be my guess.”

I nodded. “That’s fine. There’s just one problem. The nation of Punjab is not ruled by Sharia law. It is ruled by me. I do not recognize Sharia law as having any legal, moral, or ethical standing whatsoever. It is based upon a man’s interpretations of an alien device left over from when Shiva was last here. I am the King of Punjab. My word is law. Any mufti or mullah who does not recognize that and acts against it – and I consider speaking against it, or issuing a fatwa, as acting against it – is a criminal. You are a police officer. You will uphold my law. Do you have any questions?”

“Your Majesty, what is the penalty for acting against you?” he asked.

I nodded to where my gate guards were dragging the bodies to the side of the road. “The government in Kabul has decided to violate international law and the edicts given to us all by the Messenger from Above. They are supported by many mullahs, warlords, and outsiders. What is the penalty for that support, under the laws of man?”

“I understand, Your Majesty,” he said. He stopped and looked at the far end of the long street that ran through both sides of Torkham, where the first T-72 flying my banner had just rolled into view. Then he grinned. “It is good to have a powerful leader in charge of our people again, Your Majesty. Thank you.” He bowed and then backed away.

I got back on my idling motorcycle, put it into gear, and continued through Torkham. The rifle fire, along with the noise the tanks were making, had brought most of the residents and workers out to line the street. I had the bike in second gear, so I wasn’t going very fast, and did the royal wave, imitating what I’d seen Elizabeth and Phillip do.

Some of the men watching me had grim looking faces. Many, if not most, looked optimistic, and in some cases, downright cheerful.

I still kept a protective shield up, even as I followed the road north. Three and a half miles north of Torkham, the road made a sharp turn, following the valley between the small mountain ridges. There was a rural village just after the turn. I looked up at the ridges as I went through the pass, and saw what I had halfway expected to see. Several men were hiding in the rocks, waiting to ambush my tanks with rocket propelled grenades. They were hidden from normal view, but not from my vision.

I stopped my bike, got off, and then yelled up at them. “Come on, surely you can do a better job than that! If I can see you up there, what makes you think my troops will not? Many of you are cousins to my people. Why would you not wish to be under my rule, along with your families?”

“Die, invader!” One of them stood up, aimed and fired his RPG at me.

I raised my hand, using telekinesis to catch it in flight. Then I flew up to him. He stood in shock as I brought the RPG round over to me as I landed next to him. I enclosed the explosive in a small bubble with a vent to the top, then blew it up.

I looked around to see the other fighters staring at me, the fear in their eyes obvious. I shook my head and said, “Put down your weapons and go home. If you are related to my people from Punjab, you may continue to live here, under my rule, as this is now part of Punjab. If you do not wish to do so, then you either will leave, to live under the Persian or Pakistani rule, or you will die.”

One of them started to raise his rifle. I simply took it from him, turned it around, and shot him with it ... all while standing twenty feet from him.

“I am not the devil. You are free to continue to worship Allah, but those preaching that Muhammed was his prophet are wrong. Muhammed was preaching words that he learned from an alien device. The government of Afghanistan is no more. It violated the rules of the Messenger from Above. Afghanistan is no more. There is now only Persia, Pakistan, and Punjab. Return to your homes and decide for yourselves what you are going to do. Cooperate with me, and you and your families will not be harmed, unless you choose to die. If that is your choice, my soldiers will be more than happy to kill you.”

The man that’d fired the RPG finally said, “You ... you flew up here!”

“Of course I did. I am the Guardian of the Earth. Ask yourself why the Kings and Presidents of every other nation in this area – Persia, Mesopotamia, Pakistan, India, and even those in far off Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan – and more importantly, why their mullahs and clerics, accept what I say as truth.”

The remaining men looked at me, looked at each other, and then looked at where the rifle was still floating in the air. I levitated it over to the RPG gunner and said, “He chose ... poorly. I suggest you choose wisely.”

Then I flew back down to my bike. The men that had planned a good ambush of an armored column like they’d done so many times against the Soviets, simply shouldered their weapons and began climbing down from the rocks, to head for their homes. I waited for them, as the first tank was now close enough the commander of that tank could see both me and the men coming down from the mountain.

I waved the tank forward, allowing the men to gather beside the road. “You can have a ride home. Be careful climbing onto the tanks.”

The RPG gunner looked south, at the armored column that was approaching. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“You’re welcome, of course. But it does seem to me that you gave up rather quickly. That does not sound like the fierce mountain fighters that kept going after the Soviets. Why is that?” I asked, legitimately curious.

“It is obvious. You are not sending your tanks in without infantry support. That is the sign of someone who knows and understands what this pass represents. I feel quite certain there are helicopters and jets just waiting for the radio call. Plus, of course, you have also showed us you are not just a regular man, either.”

“Well, of course. I’m the Guardian of the Earth, and these men are one of my Gurkha Regimental Combat Teams, after all.”

He frowned, then spat on the ground. “Gurkhas!”

“Do you have a problem with Gurkhas?”

He sighed, then replied, “They are devils. They would not follow Kipling’s advice. Instead, they would continue fighting on, even while wounded and against our women.”

“Of course not. They are not soldiers. They are warriors.”

The lead tank stopped behind my motorcycle. An armored personnel carrier two vehicles back pulled up alongside the tank. Colonel Suwal came out the rear hatch.

“Your Majesty, is there a problem?”

I looked at the Afghans with a questioning look. The RPG gunner simply shook his head.

“No problem. These men were just out hunting, and found out that the game they were hunting was actually hunting them. I promised them a ride back to their homes on the outside of our tanks, is all.” I used my telekinesis to lift them up, so they were now on the front deck of the lead tank, then went back to my motorcycle.

Other than briefly stopping to allow the men to get off the tank after another couple miles, my military convoy continued on behind me. I had to stop at the Lalpura turn-off, as there were police vehicles blocking the road.

The police didn’t even try to negotiate, they simply opened fire on me. That didn’t do anything, since I’d put my shield back up as soon as I got back on my motorcycle. There was a problem for them, however. Specifically, the road was more than wide enough for the tanks to have spread out a little in the fields to the north of the road. So, when they rounded the curve a couple hundred feet behind me, there were three of them that fired almost simultaneously. That took care of the police presence in a rather fatal way.

I simply continued on, using my telekinesis to push the debris off the road, with my Gurkhas following me, and a division of our regular army following them. We were thirty-eight miles from Jalalabad.

Two days later we pulled into Jalalabad, having taken a total of eight injured. Two of my BMP troop carriers had gone to investigate a building, and one of them drove through a demolished building that concealed a basement. The floor wasn’t designed for a load of more than fifteen tons, and collapsed. Other than that incident, we didn’t have any need for our tank recovery units ... as far as our equipment was concerned. They did have to pull a few Afghan Army units out of the way, that couldn’t retreat fast enough.

The Afghan government had sent what organized and mobile units they had north out of Jalalabad, in an attempt to stop my First Regimental Combat Team. When my Second RCT and First Infantry Division crossed the border, at the same time Persian units crossed heading towards Herat, while Pakistani units were heading for Kandahar, the leaders of the government decided discretion was the better part of valor and headed for the airport in Kabul to evacuate.

There was just one small problem with that plan.

Afghanistan didn’t have an Air Force, and I did. Technically, they had some planes, but they didn’t have anyone who could fly them. They did have some helicopters, even some of the big Mi-24 helicopter gunships, and pilots for them. Unfortunately for them, ever since my coronation ceremony, there had been multiple ferry flights of airplanes that had been given to me, so we had a bit over two hundred A-10 Warthogs sitting at the Peshawar airport.

It was only one hundred thirty-nine miles as the crow – or the Warthog – flies, from the Peshawar airport to the Kabul airport, and the A-10 had a combat range of two hundred twenty miles. So, at the same time I was clearing the road at Lalpura, my Air Force was making a coordinated strike on the Kabul Airport and rendering the runway completely unusable with a dozen airplane dropping Mark 82 five hundred pound dumb bombs. While that was going on, another dozen were firing AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles at the sitting duck helicopters.

After that, Niranjana had leaflets dropped ahead of both my advancing units, along with radio broadcasts from our clerics and mullahs, explaining just how much hurt was going to land on anyone that fucked with us, as well as what we were doing and more importantly, why we were doing it.

The Khalqists and Parchamites of the Afghan Army and Air Force, along with the Sarandoy in the Afghan Ministry of Interior, effectively conceded Jalalabad to me, ordering their forces back from north of Jalalabad before we got there. They had them throw up a barricade of forces where the Kabul-Jalalabad road turned north just west of the border of the Laghman province. That was fine so far as I was concerned, because I didn’t want Kabul.

However, I did want to keep their attention on my forces. Since I had quite a number of M109 howitzers, along with other towed artillery, and as I wasn’t too concerned about counter-battery fire, we stopped just west of Shahidan. That put us only eight miles from their barricade. The one hundred fifty-five millimeter main gun had an effective range of just over eleven miles. It also didn’t hurt that we knew they only had a couple of M101 howitzers, which I already knew could only fire seven miles.

I watched as we sent a couple of helicopters up to provide fire control, and once things were situated, we started a nice and easily sustained barrage.

“Colonel Suwal, what do you think?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I almost feel sorry for those poor bastards over there. I have thirty-six of these guns. Since we’re not doing this to force a breakthrough, I’m only having one gun fire every fifteen seconds. That means it’ll be nine minutes between each individual gun firing. That’s four hours of continual shelling with their internal loads, before the guns have to stop to reload. Then, we’ll take a break and reload, while the Air Force gets to have a bit of fun for a few hours. As it says on the bottle of shampoo, rinse and repeat.”

“Do you think they’ll try to reinforce things here?”

“Your Majesty, we have their attention firmly fixed here. We have their leadership trapped in Kabul, so they cannot flee by air. As if anyone nearby would take them. The biggest question is, how quickly can the Iranians ... apologies, Persians ... advance with no opposition other than some civilians?”

I chuckled. “If this was against Israel, I suspect the Persians would lose, just as every other invasion of that nation has failed. Now? The Afghan mujahideen no longer have the US supplying them weapons to fight against the Soviets. Based on the reports I’ve seen, the entire Afghan Army has a paper strength of eighty thousand, with an actual strength of about forty thousand, since half their Army doesn’t want to actually be in the Army. The Pakistani Army and Air Force are dealing with whatever was in Kandahar. I am not a military genius, but I doubt they have Chesty Puller leading them.”

He blinked, and said, “I know the name. An American Marine General, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yes, one that I think our Gurkhas would gladly follow. At the start of the Korean War, the Chinese Army managed to surround Puller’s Marines. He said, ‘We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies things.’ He also said, ‘They’re on our left, they’re on our right, they’re in front of us, they’re behind us ... they can’t get away this time.’”

Suwal nodded and said, “Apt words. No, I doubt very seriously, to paraphrase Patton, that those ‘poor, dumb bastards’ that are dying and going to die for their country have any effective leadership at all.”

By this time, the two regular Army divisions that had been following my RCTs were doing their jobs in going door to door through every hamlet, village, city, and town that I controlled and making sure the civilians knew about my rules. We’d also sent a smaller unit composed strictly of ethnic Pashtun troops to follow the river valley north from Shamadam, to explain the change of government. One really good thing about my being the Prince of Punjab for such a long period before I became King of Punjab was how the people of the region knew that I actually was interested in making sure they had proper medical care, and in providing jobs for those that wanted them.

“Well, Colonel, you know what you’re doing here. Obviously, call Queen Niranjana if you have any problems. I have to go back to Islamabad and get cleaned up, because I need to be in Geneva the day after tomorrow.”

He nodded, and replied, “We will not fail in our duty to you, Your Majesty!”

I started to walk to my motorcycle, and then paused. “Is it okay if I keep the rifle?”

That brought a laugh from him. “Your Majesty, it is your rifle, anyway. If you wanted to take one of the T-72s home with you, it is already yours.”

I grinned, shook my head, and said, “That’s okay. I already have one of those, and a Centurion Mark Eleven in my garage in Budhanpur. The former owner liked his toys, and I find they’re fun to play with, as well. He had two of this type of motorcycle, and I took one of them, plus another, to America with me. I left this one here so I’d have something to ride if I ever needed it. Niranjana had it delivered to the palace after my coronation.”

I stopped at the refueling tanker and filled the tank up on my motorcycle, then took off. I probably scared some people I passed, since I made the hundred miles to Peshawar in an hour. I stopped and topped the tank off, and made it to the palace after another hour.

Sayel was waiting for me.

“Your face is dirty,” he said.

“Fortunately, not a lot of bugs to get caught in my teeth, though,” I replied.

Nodding, he replied, “That is true. Wrong season for those. Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Yeah. Is everything okay here?” I asked.

“Of course. We enjoyed watching the videos at the end of each day that were sent back by the combat correspondent embedded with your Gurkhas.”

I blinked. “Combat correspondent?”

“Yes. I must say, you’re quite good with that rifle. A bit of a showoff, giving each of the men at Torkham a third eye, but still, acceptable. I presume you weren’t hurried.”

I snorted. “For me? Not in the least.”

I took the rifle off my shoulder, dropped the magazine from it, and then worked the action, taking the round out of the chamber. “While I cleaned it each night, even if I didn’t use it any more after the first day, it could probably be cleaned again. Where’s the weapon cleaning station?”

He held out his hand. “I’ll take care of it, Master. Your Queen awaits.”

I grinned and said, “It’s good to be the King.”

It was very good. Neither Niranjana nor Sukhjeet complained in the least.

I walked in with my wives for a late breakfast.

“Good morning, Your Majesties, Your Highness.”

“Good morning, Brent. What’s going on in the world?” I asked.

He grinned and said, “Funny you should ask that. It seems there was a bit of a coup in Afghanistan yesterday. General Secretary Najibullah and Chairman Nabal of the People’s Democratic Party were both killed, and Sultan Ali Keshtmand is asking for peace between Persia, Pakistan, and Punjab, and he will make sure there is peace between the Islamic Nation of Afghanistan and all its neighbors.”

“He did? What was the response from Persia and Pakistan?”

“Something along the lines of, fuck off. Only not so polite. I don’t think Presidents of countries normally use the words that Khosravi used when talking to other national leaders. He and Khan made sure Her Majesty and I got copies of their replies, since they knew you were leading your armies from the front. They plan on splitting things up with Punjab, as previously discussed.”

He shook his head. “You’ve really disturbed the whole diplomatic corps, you know. Instead of the bureaucrats behind the scenes negotiating things that used to take months or years, now national leaders are just calling each other up and talking. The whole diplomacy where everyone feared offending someone else, promising one thing while planning another – you know, the usual backstabbing – isn’t quite a thing of the past, but it is well on its way to becoming extinct.”

That brought a frown to my face, and I said, “I didn’t do that.”

Brent shrugged and replied, “Maybe not intentionally. Just call it the fallout of your actions, but it’s the result of the way you do things. You’ve been doing it since before I had the semi-unfortunate pleasure of making your acquaintance. You find a problem, you figure out the solution, and you go fix it. I’ll just pick an easy one. Wind turbines. You know how to make them easier, more economically, and more powerful than anything we had. You – and I’m using the plural you in this case, to include Elroy and your wives, even if they were girlfriends at that point – didn’t contact the government to see if they could help. You just found Siemens, presented the information to them, and then sold it. At the same time, you ignored all the government bureaucrats and formed a multinational company to sell them. You didn’t ask for government aid in paying for research or startup costs, you went out and did all that on your own. You had orders for, what, two hundred or more, a four hundred million dollar deal, before the ink was even dry on the contract!”

I raised a finger. “Initial order of two hundred, with two hundred more per year for at least five years, so actually a two point four billion dollar deal.”

“Same fucking difference. That’s not how the game is played, because you completely cut the middle man out of it. Then you kept doing that, quite successfully. Ice-X, the nuclear power plant deal, the Microsoft computer deal ... don’t get me wrong, you did what you thought was needed to fix all the things wrong here. Mycroft was right, you know. We were going to kill ourselves at some point, and while Bruce Banner would call what ‘the other guy’ did was quite ruthless, it was also what we needed to have happen. And it was all done without involving or invoking middle and lower class bureaucrats. No one else could’ve gotten everyone together in San Francisco like you did, to deal with Cris. The same for Hugo. What Walter Mondale is doing, running things with a minimum of staff so he’s actually accessible to talk to the people that matter about the problems that matter, is being seen now as the proper way for a government – or a business – to operate.”