“If there is war, the House of Saud will vanish from the Earth.”
***
Prince Ibrahim’s ears were still ringing as he entered the Cabinet Room. It had taken several hours to convince the Crown Prince to summon the meeting – he hadn't dared discuss the American demands over the telephone, even the line that was supposed to be secure – but he’d made good use of the time. He’d read the American demands carefully and realised that Saudi Arabia was in deep trouble. The highest-ranking person the Americans had demanded was a member of the Cabinet itself!
Westerners thought of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as an absolute monarchy, but the truth was a little different. The House of Saud had many different factions and the only way to hold them all together was through consensus; consensus...and the certainty that if they didn't hang together, they would all hang separately. They had all seen what had happened to the Shah of Iran when his people had finally had enough of him. They knew that it could happen to them, so conservatives, traditionalists, reformists and radicals worked together, hating each other but hating the outside world more. Prince Ibrahim thought of himself as a conservative, yet others didn't share his vision of Saudi Arabia. The radicals, in particular, wanted to reform the House of Saud itself. In a just world, they would all have died long ago, but they had the support of the clergy and that made their position nearly invulnerable.
He caught sight of Prince Mukhtar as they sat down on the rug, aping the habits of their forefathers. (Women were never mentioned; they were meant to be neither seen nor heard, not at the very highest levels of government.) Perhaps it was his imagination, but he looked darker now, illustrating why some called him the Black Prince. Prince Mukhtar’s control over the Ministry of the Interior made him powerful, powerful enough to impose his version of Islam upon the people, a version supported by the senior clergy. If he had truly launched the attack on America, Ibrahim knew; he would enjoy the support of the religious establishment. Handing him over to the United States would become a political impossibility.
“I received a statement from the Americans today,” he said, once the small talk had finally wound down to a halt. Calling it a statement made it easier to swallow, although he knew in truth that it was an ultimatum. “They have made the following demands.”
He outlined what the Americans had said, carefully studying Prince Mukhtar. The Black Prince showed no sign of his inner feelings, although he had spoken openly about how the Americans – the Great Satan – had suffered a mighty blow. It struck Prince Ibrahim as ironic; without the Americans, the House of Saud – which gave the Black Prince his power – would have collapsed long ago. The others reacted differently, some clearly on the verge of panic, others believing that they could game the system and emerge unharmed. Why not? They had done it before and the House of Saud still ruled in Riyadh. Prince Ibrahim quickly revised his plans to call his house and have his family flown to Europe. Threats or no threats, he knew what would happen to them if the mob got their hands on his beloved children.
“Outrageous,” Sheikh Shihad, Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs, said angrily. “Who do they think they are, making demands of us?”
“They think that we have mortally wounded them,” Ibrahim said, carefully. He knew that he would be accused of being pro-American, to the point where he could no longer lead his department, but there was no other choice. “They have made their demands. If we refuse to give them what they want, they will invade – or hit us with their own WMD.”
“The Americans are weak,” the Black Prince proclaimed. He hadn’t bothered to respond to the charges brought against him personally. “Iraq almost defeated them – and then they didn't have their entire country rotting away from inside. We will defeat them if they dare to send a single tank over the border.”
“We are surrounded by American bases,” the Crown Prince pointed out. He was also the Minister of Defence, although his military experience was limited to wearing a fancy uniform and allowing his junior staff to do his job. At least he could read a map. “And even if the Americans are weak, can the same be said of the Iraqis, or the Iranians, or even the Lesser Satan?”
There was a long moment of silence. No one had any illusions about what the Iraqis or the Iranians thought of Saudi Arabia. The new Iraqi Government knew that the Saudis had funded terrorist and insurgent groups within the country and, after beating the insurgency, had plenty of experienced and angry soldiers to call upon for punishment missions. The Iranians considered the Saudis to be unworthy guardians of the Holy Cities and hated the way the Saudis treated their Shia brethren. And the Israelis...every Arab leader had a healthy respect for the power of the Israeli Armed Forces.
“They would not dare to set foot in the Land of the Two Mosques,” Prince Mukhtar stated flatly. Ibrahim winced. The person who had popularised that term for Saudi Arabia was the country’s most infamous son. “If they dare, the entire Islamic World would rise up against them. We will not surrender to their threats.”
The meeting went on for hours, but nothing was decided.
No response would be made to the American ultimatum.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
You take a lot of young men who happen to have something in common – Arabic ancestry and Islam, in this case – and you make it impossible for them to blend in with the new society and you don't even enforce the laws of that society...what do you expect, but anarchy? God damn the social planners all to hell. They never had to live in the areas their theories saw blighted.
- Capitaine Jean-Luc Duvauchelle
Mediterranean Sea, Near France
Day 30
Capitaine Jean-Luc Duvauchelle braced himself as the Dassault Rafale jet fighter rocketed down the runway of Orange-Caritat Air Base and into the warm sunny sky. Even from high overhead, France didn't look peaceful; there were massive plumes of smoke billowing into the air from the direction of the southern cities. The outbreak of Henderson’s Disease – as the Americans had called it – and rabble-rousing by hundreds of treacherous French Arabs had sparked violence and anarchy in the streets of France. It was no consolation to know that most of Europe and America was suffering from similar violence, not when his friends and family were caught up in the suffering cities, yet there was nothing he could do about it. After the suicide bombing that had taken out the French President, the government had clamped down hard. The army had been deployed within the nation and the media had been firmly gagged.
He gritted his teeth as the jet fighter headed out over the ocean, staying away from the burning city nearby. The Arabs had been smuggling in weapons for years, perhaps in preparation for a civil war when the long-feared demographic crisis finally broke, and some of those weapons included American-designed handheld SAM missiles brought in from Algeria. The Algerian Government had been making noises about assisting its brethren in France – there was no love lost between France and her former colony – and several Algerian aircraft had been shot down, just before Henderson’s Disease had broken out in Algeria. There were now millions of refugees trying to get out of the country and to France, even though France too was infected. Perhaps they believed that the French Government had a cure for the disease; the rioters and insurgents down on the streets below certainly believed something along the same lines. But then, they’d been primed never to believe anything from an official mouthpiece.
The thought made him scowl as he checked in with the AWACS hanging over the ocean, its powerful radars sweeping the skies for hostile aircraft. The French Government had tried to stop the spread of Henderson’s Disease, warning people to stay indoors until they could be vaccinated, but the mullahs had swept them off their feet. Claiming that the government didn't intend to inoculate the French Arabs – in the hope that an increasingly troublesome minority would do them the favour of dropping dead from the plague – they’d taken their followers out onto the streets. The government hadn’t cracked down hard enough – and then tried to crack down too hard. Riots had
become terrorism and now there was a full-fledged insurgency in many of France’s cities. Down below, French soldiers were using live ammunition on the mob, while millions of French citizens were fleeing into the countryside, hoping to escape the chaos. The media might have been heavily censored, but enough stories had made it onto the internet to send a wave of anger down every Frenchman’s spine. Whatever the cause of the insurgency, it was war to the knife now, with no possible compromise.
He keyed his radio. “Anything happen while we were in bed?”
“Negative,” the AWACS operator replied. The informality was a subtle piece of revenge against the security officers – political officers, in other words – who had been posted to every military base in the country. Most of them couldn’t have flown an aircraft, or even reeled off operating specifications, to save their lives. Their job was merely to tackle defeatism within the armed forces, something that Jean-Luc and his comrades found insulting beyond words. The Americans might sneer, but the French Armed Forces were tough, professional and more capable than was generally acknowledged. “A handful of boats were intercepted by the navy and ordered to turn back; one had to be sunk when it opened fire on the frigate.”
Jean-Luc winced. The French Navy – and all of the other European navies in the area – had been tasked with preventing refugees from crossing the ocean and reaching Europe. The rules of engagement had once been complicated, with all kinds of cavorts designed only to satisfy lawyers, but Henderson’s Disease had put an end to that. The ROE now allowed only one warning, followed by sinking the refugee boat. Thousands had died, or had been left to drown in an unforgiving sea, but they still tried to escape the hell that had gripped their native country. Whatever they might have thought of the French Government, they had absolutely no faith in their own government – and, at the bottom line, they were entirely correct. The Algerian Government had fallen days after the plague started burning through its cities.
“Understood,” he said, as the fighter slipped into a patrol pattern. He would have preferred to have been dropping high explosives on the insurgents, but his fighter had been configured for air-to-air operations. Using it against the insurgents would be a waste of a very expensive jet fighter. “Don’t forget to let us know if something happens, will you?”
He smiled at the explosion of indignation from the AWACS and settled back in his seat, staring down at the blue ocean below. It looked calm and tranquil to his eyes, although he could still see the plumes of smoke on the horizon, but he knew that it was deceptive. There were dozens of military ships patrolling the waters, watching for refugees and sinking their boats on sight. The media had been calling it mass murder – before the media had been gagged for the duration of the crisis – but Jean-Luc knew better. The refugees might be carrying Henderson’s Disease and, after the insurgency, the disease might have already infected all of France. Jean-Luc was immune, as was most of the French military, but the same couldn't be said for the citizens. The flood of terrified refugees fleeing the cities might have spread the disease into the countryside. He didn't want to think about it, but looking down from high above he wondered if he was staring at the death of France itself. What Bismarck, the Kaiser and even Hitler had failed to do would be accomplished by a deadly plague and a vast number of insurgents, the ones stupid enough to believe that the government would withhold a cure, if it had one.
The situation was the same across most of Western Europe. The British had cracked down hard, but they didn't have the manpower to keep the cities sealed; the Netherlands and Denmark had lost almost all control, to the point where their governments had been begging their allies for help, help their allies couldn't afford to send. Germany was convulsing under riots and counter-riots and struggling for survival. The departure of Greece and several other countries from the European Union had barely been noticed. The resumption of ethnic cleansing and mass slaughter – if not genocide – in the Balkans had rated only a small mention in the media.
Jean-Luc shifted uncomfortably as the patrol wore on, wishing that he was back on the base in bed with his girlfriend. At least she had been vaccinated, courtesy of the French military and the stocks of vaccine that couldn't be distributed into the cities because of the insurgency. They’d talked about getting married and having kids, yet what sort of world would he be bringing his children into, once Henderson’s Disease had run its course? How many would be dead before it was all over? In cities across the world, there were so many dead that the incinerators couldn't keep up with them. The bodies themselves were a source of contamination.
The thought made him shiver. Two days ago, one of his squadron mates had flown his aircraft up as high as it would go, and then straight down into the waters. The brief investigation – there had been no time for a long formal investigation – had concluded that he had been suicidal, something Jean-Luc tended to agree with. Up in the sky, it was easy to feel that there was no connection to events on the ground, yet they could not be denied. His friend had snapped under the pressure of knowing what was going on far below him, or perhaps he had simply not wanted to return to the real world. There were times that Jean-Luc wondered if he would go the same way.
His radio buzzed, cutting off his morbid thoughts. “Flight-74, we have an approaching contact,” the AWACS said. Jean-Luc glanced at the HUD. Whatever it was, it was coming out of Tunisia and directly towards France. It didn't look like a jet fighter, from the radar return; it looked more like a jumbo jet. It didn't mean anything; back in the Balkans, the French Air Force had tried to assassinate a notorious Serb General by using a transport aircraft to shield a jet fighter. If the intelligence hadn’t been faulty – the Serb hadn't been where intelligence had insisted he would be – he would have been killed in the blast. “You are ordered to intercept and make them turn back.”
Jean-Luc smiled, hit the afterburners and sent the jet fighter rocketing away from his patrol course, directly towards the mystery contact. The thought of action was intoxicating, even though he was fairly sure that the contact wasn't actually dangerous, at least not to him. Its cargo might be very dangerous to France. He saw something glinting in the distance as he came into visual range and found himself staring. The aircraft ahead of him was a massive jumbo jet, one of the latest the Americans had produced, but it was covered in gold. The entire aircraft was gold. Jean-Luc wasn't sure if it was real gold, or just gold paint, yet the effect was astonishing. The sun glinting off the aircraft produced a remarkable image. There was no IFF signal.
He keyed his radio, set to the standard emergency channel. “Unidentified aircraft, this is Flight-74, French Air Force,” he said. Any pilot who didn't monitor that channel constantly would lose his licence and never fly again. “Identify yourself at once.”
There was a long pause. Jean-Luc used it to examine the aircraft and confirm that it wasn't hiding another jet fighter, or carrying any obvious weapons. The Americans had pioneered internal weapons bays for some of their most advanced fighters, but he doubted that anyone would have bothered to equip a jumbo jet with such systems. Even Air Force One didn't carry any offensive weapons.
“Ah...this is Golden Gate, out of Riyadh,” a voice said, finally. It sounded vaguely Arabic. “We are non-hostile and carrying the families of many prominent Saudi Royals. We request escort to France.”
Jean-Luc gaped at the arrogance. “Golden Gate, this is Flight-74,” he said. “You are ordered to return to your point of origin.”
The voice didn't seem daunted. “Flight-74, my passengers suggest that you check with your Interior Ministry,” it said. “They believe that they have been cleared to pass through and enter France.”
Jean-Luc swore, switched his radio over to the military channel and passed the issue up the chain. The AWACS operator ordered him to hold position and wait while it got passed higher and higher, something that left Jean-Luc puzzled. In his experience, the longer the delay between making the request and receiving a decision, the higher the buck was being passed.
He watched the jumbo jet carefully, wondering just what order he would receive. Judging from the time, it might be being passed to the government itself.
“Flight-74, this is Napoleon,” a new voice said. Jean-Luc straightened to attention, or as near to it as he could come in a jet fighter’s ejector seat. Napoleon was the call-sign for the senior French Air Force officer in the region. “You are authorised to turn them back. If they refuse to turn back, you are authorised to fire on them. They carry known cases of Henderson’s Disease.”
“Understood, Napoleon,” Jean-Luc said. He would have hesitated to fire on a civilian aircraft under normal circumstances, but if they carried Henderson’s Disease, shooting the aircraft down might be kinder than what awaited them in the future. He switched back to the standard channel. “Golden Gate, your request to enter France has been denied. I suggest that you turn back now, while you still can.”
“Negative,” Golden Gate said, after a long silence. “Our flight has been cleared...”
Jean-Luc uncapped the firing key, sighted along the nose of the jet fighter and fired a long burst of tracer across the flight path of the jumbo jet. “Golden Gate, I am armed and authorised to use deadly force,” he said, sharply. “If you refuse to turn back, I will fire on you and shoot you down. There are few SAR groups operating in the waters these days; you and your passengers will die. I suggest that you comply with my orders.”
The Coward's Way of War Page 27
