New Rokkaku Short Story: The Kids on the Block
WELL, SOMETHING NEW FROM ME TOOK LONG ENOUGH. Eventually, I will explain what’s going on, what happened to IX and if there will be more consistent writing from me in the future. But for now, enjoy this fic. And since I’m not going to get a chance to say it later; welcome back, Soujiro Rokkaku.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, if you will please take your seats. The auction will begin in five minutes.”
-x-
Qamishli, Syria
The Commanders offered a few options when it came to narcotics. While food was scarce even when they were winning, there was always plenty of drugs to go around. Drugs to keep you awake, help you sleep; even keep you erect if that was what you needed. The older soldiers and advisers preferred khat: their mouths often full of leaves as they chewed through as much as they could fit. The younger ones preferred opium after one or two fights and they were desperate to sleep without waking up screaming. Leyla, at her age, didn’t know the name of her preference. It came in an inhaler and she was told it originated from the hated West. But it worked.
At thirteen, the Captain of the Third Children’s Regiment of the Free Life Movement had lost the need or desire to sleep. Even after night fell over Qamishli, her once vivid green eyes had a permanent shadow. She was still the gangly weed that had run up and down these streets, batting her eyes through the bazaar and playing pickup soccer just a few years ago. But that small amount of time had stripped away the potential and left the weed: just strong enough to keep up right and balance the Dragunov sniper rifle she had been given. Twin scars stretched from her mouth to the bottoms of her ears: a personal reminder from one of the radical imams of her ‘place’.
Walking the streets of Qamishli, she could see her place in the crumbling homes, the streets ripped apart by mechanized units and bombings, and the dead that had been left to rot in the remains: with anyone who could bury them either running or hiding in fear. Her family and friends had not been so lucky when they arrived. Her Father was always wary of the militant Islamists springing up around them and their unabashed hatred for the Kurdish. Leyla remembered the panic when news that the bloody tide that had overtaken Iraq was heading towards them, and that the national government was focused, as usual, on protecting themselves; they moved as fast as they could. It just wasn’t fast enough.
The memories sent one hand to her neck, clinging to the scarf around her neck, and the other into her pockets: her inhaler. With a deep breath blood rushed to heard: sharpening her senses to where even the empty streets sounded a bit louder. Footsteps. Someone was coming. Leyla wiped the tears from her eyes and turned to meet one of only three people who knew she would be there. Tariq wasn’t Kurdish, but like Leyla and many others, had been taken to make up the children’s regiments. He was the Captain of the First Children’s Regiment: usually sent out to face the local forces before the regular adult units. It was, admittedly, genius. One look at the baby-faced Tariq would make any soldier hesitate just long enough to get shot.
“You were right. Something is happening.”
A rustling behind him sent them both hustling into a narrow side street: the few lights surrounding the dark street fading as they disappeared into the darkness. A few FLM soldiers passed through; laughing to each other about something Leyla couldn’t translate in her head. After a moment, Tariq sighed and drew her attention back to him.
“The Commander is moving troops to the south of the city: close the airport and through the main road. There are soldiers here too: guarding the city center.”
“So, is it the national government? The Russians? Or would the Americans care enough to send soldiers here?”
“Dunno,” The darkness broke around Tariq as he lit a cigarette. The boy took a long drag: the white smoke rising into the air after a moment. “Whoever they are, the Commander’s scared. He’s got company, too. That foreigner is back too, and he brought someone with him. I’ve never seen the other guy before.”
“He’s in the Nu Dem building, then. I can get him if he is.”
“Are you sure?”
There was some movement and a small light from the tip of the cigarette extended to her. She took it. “I’ll need to draw him out of the building. If I can, I know a spot where I can get a clean shot.”
“It’s still a big risk, Captain. We’re lucky no one has told anyone yet. If you can’t kill the Commander, we don’t have a chance.”
“I’ll kill him.” Leyla exhaled. “I need to borrow a bomb from you though to do it.”
“And then what? What happens then?”
She had thought about that over and over to keep herself from thinking of other things lately. Despite his age, Leyla figured out quickly ‘the Commander’ was someone who was easy to scare and easier to predict. But then? Combined, the child corps had roughly fifty fighters. The FLM group in Qamishli had well over that, if not more. The odds and fates were completely stacked against them.
“Captain?”
“Do you think about how many people you’ve killed?”
In the dark, she watched Tariq shift and squirm before taking back his cigarette. “Always. You?”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“There’s nowhere for us to go back to. There’s too much blood on us. This is it. This is the last thing we do before we all go to Hell.” Instead of handing it back, Leyla tossed the cigarette down the street. “But we can drag them to Hell with us for what they’ve turned us into…what they’ve made us do. And maybe there will be less like us going to Hell when we’re done.”
-x-
Caesar Oliver Duquesne was not supposed to live past thirty.
Most of his siblings didn’t. Both of his older brothers were dead: cut down in cold blood and buried back home in Louisiana. He didn’t understand the reason why for Franklin, but by the time the Duquesnes buried Jeff, the reasons behind it became clear. In retrospect, Caesar supposed his Mother expected him to be hurt or angry over the territorial squabbles that had taken two of his family members away from him. ‘Black Men can’t be that reckless with their lives,’ she mused as she waited for some sort of emotion. Instead, surprisingly to her and most of his family in the aftermath, he shrugged it off.
Unfortunately, his other siblings didn’t learn from their brothers’ mistakes. Mikayla was sitting on death row after getting busted for several murders she served as accomplice to and Jackie was probably lost in Lake Charles with a needle still sticking out of her arm...if she wasn’t already dead. Mistake after mistake after mistake with the Angel of Death hovering waiting for him to follow in his family’s footsteps. The statistics were clear on that much.
He, however, was never that incautious.
His gifts were not substantial as far as Duquesne himself was concerned. He was not athletic or intellectually gifted: though he had some talent with numbers. However, he could read a room, see patterns and had a gift for persuasion. He used those to get into the right rooms and finesse the people who could help him change his future. No, he had not escaped the criminal lifestyle that tainted the Duquesnes. But, as he realized after finding out how his brothers died, it wasn’t the criminal lifestyle that killed them: it was the thug lifestyle. Criminals survived: it was their talent. Thugs died every second of every day.
So, Duquesne survived and survived until he reached the position he wanted. His reputation for discretion and persuasion made him friends who needed a middle-man for the more questionable deals they engaged in. And, when necessary, removing some problems that happened during the course their business. A Fixer: powerful enough to make moves on his own, vague enough to stay off the radar of any law enforcement. Then he found out there was a need for his talents on a global stage and it opened avenues he could barely have dremt of when he was younger.
Caesar Duquesne wasn’t supposed to live past thirty. He was forty now and standing in the middle of Qamishli. The war there had spiraled out of control and provided several opportunities for the organization he served as underboss to. Entangling and nurturing those opportunities while not overplaying his role in the wars were an interesting challenge, but he had did it very well. A few euros to a few blue helmets here and there got the best currency he could find into Syria: weapons. Small and large arms, explosives even an anti-air platform he was able to talk out of the hands of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. All of it had found its way into the hands of FLM: turning what was once a small Kurdish rebellion against the Syria government into a bloody, unceasing quagmire threatening to swallow the entire region.
And now he had a front row seat to the plan’s next stage. The building they were in was once a Kurdish nationalist publication: Nu Dem. They were situation in the newsroom: the nationalist posters and Kurdish flag remained, defiled, with the FLM flag in preeminence behind a shoddy conference table. While he understood most of the conversation between the two others in the room, he was more concerned with the men guarding them all. Covered in body armor and armed with the best automatic weapons money can buy, their guards represented Executive Risk PMC. They had been operating in the region for years in various capacities, so it made perfect sense for them to be there. But they were mostly Western-born, and he didn’t need anyone growing a conscience with two of the most wanted terrorists on the planet arguing right in front of them.
The first was the leader of the contingent: Adil Alman al-Adnani. From what he could find, Adnani was an Iraqi local who had been rebelling his entire life. First against the Jordanian Royal Family, then he worked with the Chechen rebellion until the ruling oligarchs narrowed in on him. Working with FLM must have been a dream come true for a hardcore believer like him: on the front lines for a potential return of true Islamist rule in the region. But that faith had given way to something far more volatile.
The Commander al-Adnani Duquesne had met a year back had become scattered. His hair and beard hung in ragged strands: his clothing nearly in tatters. What was left of his right hand waved frantically: a desperate attempted to make a point that seemed to slip every now and then. The only thing that was in one piece on him was his bullet proof vest that was riddled with bullet holes.
Khalid bin Safidi, however, was much more collected. Well-groomed with clean black robes flowing from head-to-toe, the Saudi national found himself in any incredible position as, while wanted, no one outside of that room knew exactly what he looked like. The world usually looked for terrorist to be active bombers or planners: not bankers. Yet Safidi was one of the most talented bankers Duquesne had ever seen. The way he grew wealth for FLM would make some on Wall Street envious. It also put him in prime position to do what Duquesne, his organization and FLM needed their commander to do.
“If you fought for our cause one day in your damned life and actually got your hands dirty, you’d know why I cannot do what you’re asking me to do!”
“And if you thought beyond this moment, you’d know why I am asking.” Safidi responded with a sneer. “This war is bigger than this one little corner of the Levant. You have lost ground here against the Russians and government forces in the last three engagements. They will take Qamishli: if only to keep it out of Kurdish hands. Our partners have to move faster to beat them to that, since you have so clearly failed.”
Adnani spat and jabbed his nub of a finger into Safidi’s robes. “Watch your tone, you Saudi bastard. I’ve done more for our faith in one lifetime than you can do in three!”
“No one is questioning that, which is why we need you to leave. Tonight. Alone.” Safidi didn’t back away: the cold darkness in his eye warping into Adnani’s. “When it’s done, and you reappear in Mosul or Baghdad or Tikrit, your legend will be untouchable. You will be able to gather converts in ways that even the Central Council can’t yet. Then we can get our true victory.”
“Who is this ‘we’?” Adnani spat again. “I haven’t agreed to anything.”
“You will. Or we will leave you here! Don’t forget Adnani, you need our money and this one’s arms as well! Either you have us backing you or you will fail. Just like you did in Chechnya and with the Hashemites before that.”
The mention of his past seemed to stall the FLM commander for a moment. So, you’re not as fanatical as you act. Predictable: so predictable. Duquesne smirked, reaching into his coat pocket for one of his Turkish Gold cigarettes. With a flick of the lighter, he was more than ready when Adnani turned to him.
“I suppose you bring similar threats, Mister Duquesne?”
“Threats? No.” Duquesne sighed in a cloud of smoke. “Realities, more or less. You are valuable to us, but it’s worthless if you don’t see that value yourself. Safidi is correct: you can become immortal if you leave here tonight. If you don’t, you’ll just be one more dead Syrian in a conflict that has gotten out of control. In cases like these, the right choice is obvious, wouldn’t you agree?”
Adnani sighed, then sighed again. For a moment all he did was breathe as the weight seemed to settle on his shoulders: shrinking him in the shadows of Safidi and Duquesne. “My men will die if I leave them on their own.”
“Your men are martyrs for a cause they knew was bigger than themselves when they joined you. Their names will live in infamy so long as you are there to tell the world who they were.”
“…What would I even do? Just wait for the Russians to come in and destroy them all before going to Iraq? Watch them all die?”
Duquesne exhaled another cloud of smoke: the acrid smoke filling the room as the fixer mimed consideration. The plan was already set though. The only thing necessary was for him to comply. Unbeknownst to Adnani though, the plan didn’t call him to go to Iraq. Before he could elaborate, however, an explosion erupted on the streets below.
The room shook as whatever glass was left in the remaining windows shattered and flew into the air. The commander was knocked to his knees as the others scrambled to avoid the smoke and glass. Duquesne tossed the cigarette and pulled his Beretta M9. The mercenaries in the room prepared their main arms as well and each took a window: listening as the dead city came alive with shouts.
“What the Hell just happened?!” Duquesne said. “Someone get me some information!”
The words barely left the fixer’s mouth before another explosion ripped through the city. Then another, and another. Soon the sound of explosions was joined with gunfire and the screams of the dead mixed in with the yelling of their attackers. Whoever they were, Duquesne knew the difference between Russian and Arabic, and none of the screams were in Russian. The realization, though, was lost outside of himself.
“They’re here! The Russians are here! We will not let them take Qamishli!” Adnani’s good hand grabbed his AK-47 and charged out of the room. “Turn on the lights and grab your weapons!”
“Don’t go out there, you idiot!” Duquesne’s word fell on deaf ears as spotlights lit up the street. “Dammit. Secure Safidi!”
The Commander was well ahead of him, but it was a short trip down the stairs: only a few flights. Duquesne crashed into the wall as he scrambled to catch up. Something had gone wrong with their plans: very wrong. He could hear Adnani barking orders in the lobby as he landed on the main floor: the FLM commander was only a few steps ahead of him. “Adnani get back here!”
But he wasn’t listening. Blinded by faith, or glory or something else entirely he charged out of the doors of the Nu Dem offices, his trusted weapon ready for battle; right into a bullet.
In the noise that had overtaken Qamishli, it was hard to pinpoint the shot that did it. But it was enough to Duquesne to skid to a stop before heading out the main doors himself and dropping behind cover. No sooner than he did the body of Adil Alman al-Adnani crash backwards to the main floor. The FLM soldiers who had heard the blast had come to investigate, only to see the body of their leader dead from a clean shot to the head. They had barely processed Adnani’s death before more shots rang out, taking out two more soldiers before the rest could get their acts together and begin firing at a building across the street.
A sniper?!
Duquesne seethed: one less asset would be an issue for his employer’s larger plan. However, looking at the pool of blood spreading around the now deceased FLM commander, the fixer’s sinister mind began to spin. The possibilities, probabilities and outcomes all came together in a flood of predictions. A few seconds, maybe more, to flesh through them all as the battle around him grew more intense with each decision. Finally, given what he knew, Duquesne made the only call he could.
Proceed as planned.
“Stupid, reckless; foolish. He couldn’t even let himself get used correctly.” Duquesne snarled as he scrambled back up the stairs: keeping his head low just in case. After an eternity, he was back in the conference room where Safidi was, indeed, secure. “Make the call!”
“We’re already have, Mister Duquesne.” One of the mercenaries held out a satellite phone, which he took. “The operations center is ready for you”
“This is Duquesne,” The fixer corrected his horn-rimmed glasses as another explosion irritated the Hell out of him. “The FLM forces are turning against one another. Are the drones in position?”
“Yes sir, but –”
“We’re in the Nu Dem building. It’s marked. Eliminate all available enemy targets.”
“Mister Duquesne if you’re still in the city, it’ll won’t be clean.” Duquesne squeezed the phone until he was sure it was about to break. “We’ll have to explain the bombing to the Department of Defense. Plus, we cannot differentiate between the child units we have intel on and the adults with the UAVs.”
“I don’t give a damn! We’ll figure it out later!”
“…”
“Do I have to remind you what will happen if Qamishli is still standing when I leave?”
“…No, sir.”
“Then you may fire when you are ready.”
-x-
Hey Noora. I’m doing something really stupid. I wish you were here to try and talk me out of it.
Battle cleared her senses and her mind: letting Leyla do two things. The first is to focus on her targets and make the best shots she could. It was the first thing she had been taught when she was forced into FLM and it was a lesson she was more than happy to keep using that lesson. The second was more unfortunate. Her mind was clear: free of distractions and drugs and nightmares. Just her targets, herself and the memories of a better time whenever she took a deep breath into her scarf.
Bang. Bang.
Leyla had grown up with Noora. Noora wanted to start wearing perfume which her parents obliged her own and Leyla constantly mocked her for. It wasn’t terrible, just so ridiculous. She could hardly take her friend seriously when she insisted on dunking herself in that stuff every day. ‘One day you’ll get it Leyla.’ Noora scolded: twisting the tail ends of her scarf to keep from hitting her friend.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Noora was dead: a piece of cloth and that awful scent the only thing left of her. As were her parents, and Leyla’s parents and everyone they ever knew or love. And now, so was the commander. The shot was perfect: the best she had ever done. A happy sob of relief left her throat before she turned her attention to the other soldiers who had come. She would kill them all: or at least as many as she could before her ammunition ran out.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Click.
Clearing the tears from her eyes she reached into her pouch for another ammo clip. It slipped: clattering along the floor of the school room she had bunkered in. It had a clear view of the Nu Dem headquarters that she used to stare at in boredom during her classes: imaging the future when she could be across the street, travelling the world to bring information back to the Kurdish people. Keeping on her stomach to avoid the shrapnel of bullets hitting her cover, Leyla pulled the clip back to her and loaded it. Even with the soldiers she’s killed, more were still coming for their revenge.
Clearing her eyes again, the girl heard something different: explosion. Tariq should’ve set off all the bombs he had. She wondered, then realized no one was shooting at her. The sounds of battle had melted away into screams of terror. Carefully, she pulled herself up to her knees, then her feet as she watched missiles rain from the sky into the city. The remains of her home city crumbled and fell before her eyes, which widened in grim reality as she realized two of those missiles were heading right for her.
-x-
Zurich
The black-tie event was originally intended to be private: only for the power players and their representatives who would be directly involved in the auction. However, so far, he had respectful, but winded conversation with the American Ambassador to the United Nations: a son of Pashtun immigrants with a flair for realpolitik. He was followed by the Deputy Chief of Staff for the ruling oligarch in Moscow: a taciturn woman who earned her current employer’s favor through direct, deadly force.
They were joined by others wanting an edge after the bidding was done. An envoy from the Saudi Prince, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi Family; the Vice-Premier of the People’s Republic of China. It was more than he could have hoped for. It was a given that the auction would be a success, however hosting an event like this and opening it beyond the primary bidders was risky. They could always spend their time trying to influence which way the bidders would go instead of the one who would be holding the money. And yet, with some patience and no small amount of crowd control, Soujiro Rokkaku remained in the center of the room: with both the money and the influence in the palm of his hand.
The Baur au Lac Hotel had been the perfect location for the initial auction benefiting the Greater Kurdistan Fund. It was an interesting choice and benefit, considering there was no Kurdistan yet. Now, they were pieces on a board: inhabited areas of different regional states. However, combined, the proposed new state would immediately be a regional, if not global power. Beyond housing the sixth largest reserve of oil in the world, Kurdish-controlled areas housed untapped copper, coal and iron deposits: just to name of a few mineral resources. Most of the contracts were to extract those resources, along with building the infrastructure necessary for the proposed country to begin operating at top efficiency.
It was a challenging, expansive project: especially with the unrest in the region brought on by the formation and rebellion of certain Kurds and Islamists through the FLM. Still though, it was only a challenge: one that wasn’t beyond Rokkaku’s capabilities. It was why he was trusted with chairing the Fund, along with his other duties as Executive Chairman of the Rokkaku Corporation.
“Sir.”
The Chairman turned from his conversations to his right-hand woman. Halimah Rao had a successful career in the Singaporean civil service: well-respected and rising to prominence in the Strategy Group of the Prime Minister’s Office before accepting her current role in the Rokkaku Corporation. He had instructed her not to interrupt his politicking unless there was news from Qamishli. Looking at his watch, he realized that news was coming an hour early. Something had changed.
Excusing himself, he followed Rao from Le Petit Palais, the grand venue that served as their auction and dining hall for the evening and was immediately flanked by his security as they escorted him to a salon-turned-boardroom where he had held some of the private meetings of the auction. Rao adjusted her black hijab as the doors closed. “It’s Duquesne.”
“What happened?”
“He wouldn’t say. He insisted on talking directly to you.” Rao said, extended a mobile phone. “He’s still in Qamishli.”
A dark look crossed Rokkaku’s smoke-grey eyes. “Mister Duquesne. What happened?”
“Sir, we had a rebellion while I was on the ground. It looks like the children units banded together and tried to get revenge on their superiors.” Duquesne voice crackled from the other end. “They raised some serious Hell until the UAVs from Executive Risk bombed the city.”
“They lost control of children?” Rokkaku said. “That was the easiest part of their job.”
“Apparently. Although, it does give us more to work with as far as the media is concerned. Instead of putting it all on the shoulders of the Russians, we now have child terrorists trying to free themselves from their masters and failing.”
“Yes, that does have potential.” Rao handed her boss a butane lighter and guillotine as he pulled a Cohiba Siglo II from the humidor chest in the middle of the table. “It will certainly make it easier to get a Western coalition to declare the FLM a terrorist group. How does it look?”
“Bad. Bodies are everywhere and not just from the FLM. I’m guessing if we dug under the surface, we’d find the people they slaughtered to take Qamishli in the first place. Whatever media is let in here are going to have a field day.”
“Good. We will go with that then.” Rokkaku took his seat at the polished conference table. “You were with Safidi. Is he safe?”
“He’s safe. Adnani got blown away, though. A sniper took him out.”
“That complicates my plans for Iran.”
“Stupid bastard had a martyr’s complex and ran into a trap. Nothing can be done about that.”
“The Iranian regime will not be shaken by anything less than a legend. Without Adnani, we will have to manufacture a new one.” Rokkaku breathed in: the end of his cigar burned brigther, followed by rich smoke filling the air. “If I remember correctly, there was a religious leader inside of the FLM, right?”
“From what I understand, his role has been mostly as an adviser to the military leaders. Though he has been on the various fronts to preach to the soldiers. I can start putting together a file on him, if necessary.”
“It is, Mister Duquesne. We may be able to turn him into much more depending on his capabilities. I will have Mrs. Rao take care of that, though. Make sure Safidi makes it back across the border safely, then lay low until I return to Kobe.”
“One more thing. One of the drone operators at Executive Risk may be developing a conscience.” Duquesne voice quieted. “The kid gave me push back when I gave the kill order. I can find out his personal details and determine if he’ll be a risk moving forward.”
“If he is truly feeling guilty, he will take care of himself.” Rokkaku sighed. “Still though, you may keep an eye on him if you wish. The worst-case scenario is that we tie that loose end before it becomes a problem. Talk to the leadership, though. Their training is not thorough enough if some of their people are that emotional.”
“Of course.”
The Chairman hung up the phone and sat back: smoking in silence for a few minutes. Finally he turned to his aide, “Syrian Kurdistan is ours.”
“Not without complications, though?”
“I never seem to be that luckily Halimah.” Soujiro Rokkaku mused. “Al-Adnani is dead. I will have to be more creative to lure the Iranians into conflict for their Kurdish piece..”
“Maybe we can assemble Greater Kurdistan without the Iranian piece. At this point, we will also have to control the crowd. Some downstairs have already started questioning their investment, especially if there is a long-term insurgency. I overheard the talk when I came to retrieve you.”
“Let them talk,” The Chairman said. “The more fighting there is over Kurdish territory, the more expensive it becomes.”
“You’re more confident than usual in the value this project, Mister Rokkaku.”
“Not just in the value of the project. The value of life, Halimah.” With another great breath, Rokkaku rested his cigar in a glass ashtray and steepled his fingers. “Generations of lives have been lost there. Entire families are buried in the fields of Kurdistan: waiting for some archaeologist fifty years from now to find them. But all that death has only made the land richer: those souls sewed into every resource. It is in our grasp; waiting for us to reap a harvest unlike anything else we have seen. And once our platforms and container ships are there, it will be worth every life that bled out on its soil.”
A heavy knock on the door brought an end to the conversation. Rao opened it, allowing in one of the bankers from Julius Kohler: a slim German man with an overbearing bright expression. In contrast to the two in the room, he was jubilant. The ledger under his arm had a great deal to do with that.
“Mister Rokkaku,” The banker said with a heavy German accent. “You wanted to see the books once we were done?”
“How many contracts are left to be auctioned?”
“Two or three. I’ll get you an accurate number, but they are for the utilities. No one is touching those until they actually see what they have to work with.”
“That’s, actually understandable.” Rao sighed. “Though arrangements will have to be made for that and we cannot do at the moment.”
“Regardless, the auction went very well. The representatives for the provisional Kurdish government have agreed as well. All that is necessary now is your signature as Chair to allow for the transfer of funds into our accounts.”
“How much will be going in tonight?
“The full amount raised at auction, sir. Fifty Billion American Dollars.”
A small smile of satisfaction crossed his lips as the banker placed the ledger full of contracts in front of him. With his cigar in one hand and a fountain pen in the other, Soujiro Rokkaku got to work.
