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www.akademika.com www.southweeststrings.com; www.island-comfort.com; gwen.ca; www.lumitonetv.com; www.d.co.il 25177610; Young couples off in darker www.akademika.com areas watched the activities a they nuzzled close together. Kahlan had never felt so alone. Savidlin, his freshly cleaned coyote hide around www.akademika.com his shoulders found her and Richard, and dragged them off, slapping Richard' back the whole way, to sit with the elders under their shelter. U.s. tennis porfessional rankings. What www.akademika.com was going on? Why was she changing her story? Johnson cleared her throat, then continued in the same deliberate way. I believe it www.akademika.com is correct to say that I was a willing participant in all the events of the evening. Where south are you going? 'First to www.akademika.com Silden to find Abuk and those three men you mentioned. If we have any luck, we'll put paid to this mess within a few days. CHAPTER www.akademika.com 3 THE island of Cyprus, once torn by bloody conflict between Greeks and Turks, basked in the Mediterranean sunshine and the money spent by ten thousand www.akademika.com members of the International Peacekeeping Force who made the island their Middle East headquarters Clerks, computer specialists, missile technicians, sensor analysts, bureaucrats, warriors by www.akademika.com remote control, each of the ten thousand men and women who wore the sky blue uniform of the Peace Enforcers was paid well www.akademika.com and regularly They had brought peace to strife-weary Cyprus, as Greeks, Turks, and even the descendants of displaced Palestinians found more to www.akademika.com be gained by earning Peace Enforcers money than by shooting at one another Prosperity did not end hatred and long historical grudges, it merely www.akademika.com put them to one side while everyone put their best energies into the scramble for steady money Banda Smgh Bahadur, commandant, IPF Cyprus, was a www.akademika.com huge Sikh, still strong and fierce-looking despite his eighty-odd years His proud curly beard was as white as the immaculate turban wound around his www.akademika.com leonine head His back was unbent, his shoulders wide and square as a castle gate In bygone eras he would have wielded a www.akademika.com heavy curved sword against his foes, or fired a high-powered rifle with merciless, deadly accuracy Now he sat in a padded leather chair, www.akademika.com surrounded by younger officers in a comfortable air-conditioned office as they pored over satellite pictures of poppy fields in Turkey The picture table was one large www.akademika.com horizontal display screen, and the-false color imagery he studied was being relayed in real time from an IPF surveillance satellite several hundred miles above the Earth's www.akademika.com surface Four young men and one woman officer were hunched around the table, bending over, scrutinizing the imagery The entire span of the table www.akademika.com top glowed with harsh colors that showed steep lagged ravines deep in the Taurus Mountains, near Lake Van The face of an www.akademika.com old man, thought Bahadur as he studied the seamed craggy display Much like my own Papavei omniferum, said Bahadur's imagery analyst, a blonde young www.akademika.com woman from California Id recognize that signature anywhere Bahadur looked up at her with eyes of cold steel The young officer touched a few buttons www.akademika.com on the keypad built into her side of the display table A spectral analysis of the region they were examining appeared in a box at one www.akademika.com corner of the horizontal screen Alongside it appeared a laboratory spectrum that matched it so closely Bahadur could not tell the difference It's www.akademika.com poppy fields, all right, said the intelligence chief, a stocky oriental And illegal as sin Bahadur nodded a ponderous agreement, yet still brought www.akademika.com up the display that showed all the legal poppy fields in the region They were small and under the relentless control of the Turkish government The www.akademika.com fields in the satellite views twined through tortuous valleys far from the eyes of government inspectors They even tried to overgrow them www.akademika.com so the satellite sensors would miss them, said the blonde imagery analyst Well have to move against them Bahadur said, Standard procedure Notify the Turkish authorities www.akademika.com after we have sterilized the fields Offer our assistance in arresting and interrogating the farmers One of the young officers stepped swiftly www.akademika.com across the office to a red command phone To his intelligence chief the Sikh said, Trace the method of processing Probably minimal, said the www.akademika.com Asian Just enough to make some potent opium They wouldnt dare to try to operate a sophisticated processing plant They could have www.akademika.com made arrangements with a legal medical house to produce extra, unregulated amounts of heroin, said Bahadur, his voice heavy, slow, weary That is www.akademika.com possible, the intelligence chief admitted I will check on it The younger officers left after straightening up to attention and making casual but correct salutes www.akademika.com Bahadur leaned back tiredly in his chair, alone with his thoughts In his mind he saw Peace Enforcer planes swooping low over those rugged valleys, www.akademika.com spraying a nearly invisible mist of biological agents that specifically killed the poppy species and nothing else He saw poor Turkish farmers running from www.akademika.com the IFF helicopters and paratroopers that dropped out of the sky to round them up and turn them over to their government police He saw www.akademika.com smug men in expensive business suits sud denly arrested for their part in processing illegal heroin After all these years they still have not learned, www.akademika.com Bahadur thought The money is irresistible The lure of enormous amounts of money, if only they can avoid the notice of the www.akademika.com Peace Enforcers But they cannot Year after year, decade after decade, they continue to try We find them, we catch them, we kill their www.akademika.com crops and destroy their factories and put them in jail for life And still others try The world is at peace, and www.akademika.com even the lowest of the low are getting richer instead of poorer Yet people still turn to drugs Bitterly the old Sikh www.akademika.com realized that global economic growth provided a larger market for the forbidden pleasures The wealthier the world becomes, the more people can afford to play with narcotics How the gods must weep at our folly Is there no end to it? |