The Coward's Way of War

by Nuttall, Christopher

  The parachutes opened, slowing the descent of the black-clad men just before they hit the ground. Shooting broke out as some of the firebrands opened fire, only to be shot down themselves by the invaders, who didn't hesitate to gun down anyone who looked even slightly threatening. Mushad dropped his rifle and raised his hands, only to be knocked to the ground by a burly man with an Arabic appearance. His hands were wrenched behind his back and a plastic tie was used to secure them, before his attacker left him lying there and ran on towards the terminals. Isolated bursts of shooting echoed out, but all resistance was swiftly and brutally quashed. Mushad lay there, not even daring to move, until two of the men marched over to him, removed everything on him that could be used as a weapon, and pulled him to his feet. They pushed him towards one of the hangers, where he saw the remains of his company. He’d started with ninety men; now, only forty had survived the battle. All of the firebrands were dead.

  His captors pushed him to the ground and growled to him – in Arabic – to stay there and remain out of trouble. Their voices shocked him, for that was not an American accent; it was an Iraqi accent. Mushad had met a number of Iraqis in his career, including a couple of Saddam’s officers who had sought refuge in Saudi Arabia and the accent was unmistakable. Now he knew what he was looking for, he could see other signs, including different uniforms with Arabic markings on the side. The force that had captured the airport knew exactly what it was doing. Ten minutes after they’d captured the remains of his force, they’d set up defensive points at the gates and had started moving the blockades away from the runways. As Mushad watched in horror, a massive transport aircraft lumbered out of the sky and started to disgorge an entire army. The aircraft carried tanks, guns and hundreds of fighting men.

  He found himself comparing the tough, professional Iraqi fighters to his own men and found them wanting. No matter how much Saudi TV had tried to disguise the issue, the Iraqis in front of him were the product of a war, a war where those who survived learned very quickly...while Saudi Arabia had only handled a small insurgency inside the country’s borders. The defenders of Mecca had no idea what was coming in their direction.

  Ashamed, he lowered his head and waited for his destiny to claim him.

  ***

  “We have secured Mecca East Airport, General,” the paratrooper commander reported. “There was a small amount of resistance, but nothing significant.”

  General Mohammad Karim nodded in relief. It had been his plan to snatch the airport and turn it into a forward base, before moving on to secure the outskirts of the Holy City, but he knew that it could have gone horrendously wrong. The Iraqi SF who had watched the airport for the last two days had monitored everything on the airport, yet one thing he’d learned from the insurgency in Iraq was that it was the little details that could provide the greatest headaches. The Americans had had a simpler way of putting it; Keep it Simple, Stupid.

  “The forces hitting King Abdulaziz International Airport are facing tougher resistance,” he said, although that too wasn't unexpected. The Saudis had to know that once Jeddah – the gateway to Mecca – was secured, the Iraqis could start shipping in heavy armour and use it to seal their doom. There was an armoured column crossing the desert from Iraq itself, but it was suffering from repeated delays, not entirely to his surprise. The Saudis were throwing their young men at the invaders like sand – or shoes. The odd thought made him smile. “We’re going to keep bringing in men and material here.”

  He smiled as another heavy transport aircraft landed on the runway. It was an operation that could never have been dreamed of by Saddam’s Army, something that would give the New Iraqi Army far more pride in its own competence. Karim had been a young man when the Americans had invaded Iraq and overthrown Saddam; after his sister had been killed by the insurgents – the terrorists, as anyone with any sense knew them to be – he’d joined the New Iraqi Army. Years later, he was a General and Iraq was at peace.

  “Yes, sir,” the paratrooper said. He paused. “I request permission for my unit to redeploy to join the main attack force.”

  Karim understood. The one thing that Iraqis and Iranians agreed upon was that Saudi Arabia had made a terrible guardian of the Holy Cities. The chance to liberate the Holy Cities was a dream come true, as far as they were concerned. Everyone wanted to be involved in the operation. Iraq had its own reasons for moving fast. Jordan seemed to think that it had a right to the Holy Cities and had been making noises about sending troops south to recover them before the allied forces arrived.

  He grinned. It was too late now.

  “Granted,” he said. “Transfer the prisoners to the interrogators and then report for orders.”

  ***

  Mushad looked up in alarm as a pair of burly interrogators picked him up and marched him towards one of the aircraft, ignoring his protests and half-hearted struggles. The interior of the aircraft was mercifully cool, but somehow he wasn't reassured, not after he was strapped into a chair and confronted by a pair of dark-skinned men. The look in their eyes reminded him of the religious police, a mania impervious to logic and reason.

  “Let me make one thing clear,” one of the men said. His Iraqi accent was very strong. “We have had experience in breaking men who thought they could not be broken, for everyone breaks eventually. We will record everything you tell us and verify it. If you decide to lie to us, we will find out about it and hurt you. Do you understand me?”

  Mushad nodded desperately, unable to speak.

  “Excellent,” the second interrogator said. “If you cooperate with us, you will eventually be released back to your family and your normal life. If you refuse to cooperate...well, trust me, there is always room for one more in the mass graves.”

  The first interrogator leaned forward. “Now,” he said. “Tell us everything you know about the defenders of Mecca.”

  ***

  Colonel Abdul Al-Sultan scowled as he looked down at the map. Unlike most of the officers appointed to the defence of Mecca, he did have a fairly complete military education, with time spent in training centres in America and Britain. He even had time spent in Iraq, openly with American forces and covertly with some of the Sunni resistance fighters who had opposed the American plan for their country. Unfortunately, he was not in sole command of the defence of Mecca. The Saudi Government had appointed a council of learned men to lead the defence and he was supposed to take their orders. It would have helped if the council had included men skilled in the art of war.

  Mecca and Medina were defended heavily, but not all of the defenders could be trusted to follow orders. The regular Saudi Army had deployed infantry battalions to defend the cities, along with a heavy contingent of SANG forces and Ministry of the Interior troops, but the government had thrown open the doors to foreigners willing to fight and die in the defence of the Holy City. They were poorly armed and barely willing to obey orders; indeed, several hundred had insisted on going out to confront the Iraqis as they deployed. The Iraqis had scythed them down with ease. The only protection they had against American and Iraqi air power was the Iraqi reluctance to use heavy weapons inside the Holy City. He doubted that that protection would last very long.

  He looked over towards the council, which was still debating some of the finer points of Islamic law and trying to apply them to their situation. Their delaying tactics – deliberately or otherwise – had prevented him from either sending reinforcements to Jeddah or pulling out the defenders before the Iraqis blocked their escape. Parts of Jeddah might still be under his control, but they weren't the parts that mattered...and, with the port in their hands, the Iraqis could rush in reinforcements from the sea. He’d issued what orders he could, yet he knew that it was too little, too late. The Iraqis held the whip hand now, at least until they tried to take the city directly.

  “Fetch my driver,” he ordered his aide. There was no point in waiting with the council, not until they came to some consensus...and they’d probably still be debating by th
e time the Iraqis stormed the building. “I'm going on a tour of the defences.”

  ***

  Fareed Ackbar was a patient man – but then, an impatient man did not become a master sniper. The team – the shooter and the spotter – had reached their destination quickly, after they’d slipped into the city, knowing that no one would dare to challenge them. They had, after all, authorisation from the Black Prince himself. The fact that Prince Mukhtar would have been very surprised to discover that he had issued the authorisation was neither here nor there; he was the Black Prince and his orders were not to be questioned. Fareed had been rather surprised by just how easy it had been.

  Or perhaps it wasn't that surprising, he reflected, as they waited for their target. There were so many competing groups in Mecca that the leaders had to be trying hard to avoid friction, knowing that it could lead to bloodshed. There were representatives from several known terrorist groups, including three that hated each other more than they hated the Americans, and fighters from a dozen countries. The leaders of the defence had to be having real problems getting everyone praying in the same direction, let alone fighting according to a single plan.

  He ran his hand along the barrel of his weapon. His Dragunov sniper rifle was warm to the touch. His friends had teased him about it, ever since he had picked it up on the streets of Iraq, and urged him to get a more modern rifle, but he had the Dragunov for years and they had been through much together. Getting ammunition was a pain in the ass, as the Americans would say, but it was worthwhile. He had been on the verge of retirement when the mission had come up and he had begged for the opportunity. Realising one of his father’s dreams meant more to him than he liked to admit, even now, years after he had started out on his road through life.

  A very long strange road, he thought, remembering growing up as a Cairo native, stealing to keep himself alive. He had left the fetid, crowded slums of his home and travelled far, finding a new homeland, a new life and a renewed faith to believe in. And, along the way, the boy who had never touched a rifle became a master of the long kill.

  Moussa Khan, his spotter, twitched and pointed. An observer might not have noticed that either man had moved, but this team had been together for several years. They'd worked out a secret body language between them. An outsider might have called it telepathy, yet any sniper pair would have understood instinctively. Fareed smiled, without moving his lips. The target had entered the firing zone. Three vehicles, all civilian in origin, were moving towards the outer defences of the city. The mere fact that the vehicles were moving confirmed that their mission was important, for fuel was no longer cheap in Saudi Arabia. He peered through the scope, checking each vehicle in turn; their target sat in the second one, his head barely moving. His lips were twitching nervously, as if he were praying – or perhaps composing excuses. Fareed shrugged inwardly. Who cared?

  He sighted carefully and squeezed the trigger. He smirked as the bullet hit the window, giving Colonel Abdul Al-Sultan a fraction of a second to look up before the American round – obtaining Russian bullets was too much trouble – went through his head. Fareed was already moving, followed rapidly by his spotter. The defenders of Mecca would be after them as soon as they worked out where the shot had come from and if they weren't gone by then, they would be killed – if they were lucky.

  “Good shot, dude,” Khan said, as they threw themselves down the rubbish chute.

  Chief Warrant Officer Fareed Ackbar, a twenty-five year veteran of the US Marine Corps, grinned. All his life, his father had dreamed of recovering Mecca from the infidels who held it, a dream that had eventually gotten him killed by the Egyptian Regime. He would never have approved of the Corps, but perhaps he would be pleased, wherever he was, to see his son finally realising his dream.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, as they slipped away into the shadows. “A good shot.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The core lesson of Islam – indeed, the only important one – is that Allah exists and there is judgement. It seems to be easy to forget that amidst all the minutia.

  - Chief Warrant Officer Fareed Ackbar

  Mecca, Saudi Arabia

  Day 50

  From their new vantage point, Fareed and his spotter watched as heads turned towards the sky. The defenders knew that the RSAF no longer existed in any meaningful form, apart perhaps from a handful of aircraft that had been reserved for suicide missions. The aircraft droning their way towards Mecca had to belong to the forces surrounding the city and cutting off all lines of retreat. Not that many of the defenders actually wanted to retreat; they’d sworn to defend the Holy City and, urged on by clerics, was what they intended to do. The snipers had watched as countless young men had injected themselves with a cocktail of drugs, providing inhuman strength and endurance for the coming fight. In the long term, the drugs would almost certainly kill them, but it hardly mattered. None of them intended to survive the coming battle.

  He gritted his teeth as he caught sight of a bearded man extolling the virtues of martyrdom and had to hold back the urge to pull the trigger and blow him into the next world, where he was sure Allah would not give him a warm welcome. His audience listened and shouted their approval, finally prepared to die for the one thing that gave their lives meaning. They – and their female counterparts – were the true victims of the Middle East, young men and women with nothing, not even hope, in their lives. They were fit only to die for the cause and die they would, in their hundreds. They wouldn't be able to even comprehend the possibility of another way forward.

  They were a strange bunch, he realised; many were Saudis, but others were foreigners, even Europeans and perhaps a couple of Americans. They had all searched for meaning in their lives and had found it in the hands of a barbaric version of the true faith, one that would eventually devour itself. The Saudi Royal Family had, in order to save the Holy City from one group of radicals, made a devil’s bargain with another group of radicals. In exchange for support, they’d delivered the souls of their children into the hands of clerics, who’d started the long process of turning them into fanatics. The problem had been building up for a long time before 9/11 had introduced the world to a whole new fear.

  The planes droned over the city, their cargo hatches opening and leaflets dropping from them, heading down towards the ground. There were thousands upon thousands of leaflets, each one written in Arabic and English, warning the defenders of what was to come. The city was already surrounded and escape was cut off; soon, the Iraqi forces would begin their advance. The leaflets called upon the defenders to surrender, offering good treatment in exchange for preserving the Holy City, but Fareed would have been astonished if they had accepted the offer of surrender. The clerics who ruled Mecca had been willing to demolish artefacts and buildings that dated as far back as the Prophet Muhammad himself; they certainly wouldn’t object to remodelling Mecca a little, if it meant keeping it out of the hands of infidels. Even the Iraqi Sunnis, Muslims all, were infidels to them. In Fareed’s view, they saw the term ‘infidel’ as meaning simply ‘someone who isn't us.’

  He watched dispassionately as the clerics scrambled for the leaflets, ordering their men to collect them and take them for burning, rather than risk having the young men read them and start wondering if there was a better way. A handful of young men who picked up and started to read the letters were brutally beaten and taken away by the religious police, before they could start to contaminate their fellows. Fareed had seen many acts of barbarity over his years in the Marine Corps, yet there was something uniquely disgusting about the act of beating a boy for daring to look at a letter. If they had been secure in their faith, nothing – not even an offer of freedom and wealth – would have shaken them. It was the ultimate proof of their moral bankruptcy. They clung to life and power because they didn't dare face the Day of Judgement.

  The planes faded away into the distance, leaving the clerics organising their forces. Mecca had been turned into a strongpoint to rival Fallujah
, although the clerics had had significantly less time to get ready for war. On the other hand, they had been able to draw on vast stocks of weapons and material from the Saudi armouries and even the help of hundreds of trained soldiers. Fareed had never been very impressed with the Middle East’s training methods – the Corps would have sacked any Drill Sergeant who showed such obvious incompetence and favouritism – but some of them knew what they were doing. Others didn't; he’d watched hundreds of accidents within the streets of Mecca, each one perfectly avoidable.

  Idiots, he thought. The rumble of planes in the distance was growing louder, but this time the noise was different. Allied planes were on their way...and this time they weren’t going to drop anything as harmless as leaflets. His lips twitched at the irony. The clerics would probably have considered dumb bombs less dangerous than leaflets that might seduce their young men.

  He glanced over at his spotter, exchanging signals. Khan nodded and pointed a laser device towards the building the clerics were using as a command and control centre. None of them would be able to see the dot of light – it was invisible to the naked eye – but the sensors on the orbiting planes would be able to pick it out easily. The clerics wouldn't know that they were being targeted, for they’d picked a building that hadn't had any prior military use for their headquarters, at least not until it was too late. Fareed smiled to himself as the planes drew closer, daring the enemy to light up whatever SAM assets they had and open fire. Once the bomb was dropped, anyone left alive in the wreckage would die at his hand.