There were rumors of great demonstrations, some said even riots, in the American cities, some claiming that an infuriated populace was demanding an all-out attack on the Caliphate itself to teach it a lesson it would never forget, while others said that they were anti-war demonstrations calling for peace at any cost in oil or national pride, others that the Americans were secretly negotiating with the Caliphate.
Having lived in France and therefore knowing something of the conflicting tides of popular opinion in an electoral democracy, I could well image that all of the rumors were probably true, and the American government might not make any decision until our apparition before their forces on the border would force a decision on them.
The rumors concerning the Caliphate and the wider world of Dar al-Islam beyond were wilder and even more varied. It seemed clear that there were demonstrations all over the Caliphate and the Muslim countries beyond and even in France, Germany, and Britain in support of the march. That there were calls for a Caliphate pre-emptive nuclear strike on the American fleet or even on their forces within Kuwait were dubious, but that there were Caliphate agents either infiltrating or attempting to infiltrate America itself with suitcase nuclear charges to hold their cities hostage seemed incredible.
Even more bizarre were the stories that the Caliph was awaiting the emergence of Osama the Gun or the Madhi from the jihadi masses to give the order to march. That the Caliph would arrive on a white horse to lead the march himself seemed like something out of the tales of the Arabian Nights.
Finally the order, or rather the signal, to begin the march came in a manner that no rumor had predicted. After the sunrise prayer, there was a great commotion within the tent city that began at the periphery and spread inward; noise, and babble and running about that achieved coherence when men arrived from several directions at once spreading the word.
“The march is beginning!”
“Leave your tents behind!”
“Allahu Akbar!”
“Water trucks!”
“Caliphate soldiers!”
“Buses!”
“Trucks!”
Upon grabbing some of these excited messengers and questioning them further, we managed to learn that a large fleet of tanker trucks had arrived north of the tent city, as well as trucks carrying military field rations, accompanied by a few thousand Caliphate troops, who were even now dispersing through the vast encampment to put the order to move abroad.
It was chaos and confusion and excitement. Those who had vehicles or animals to ride were apparently to mount them along with as many who did not as they could bear. There were buses and trucks commandeered from all over the Caliphate west of the tent city, but they certainly could not carry half a million, and those who did not secure a place aboard them would have to walk.
Mullah bin Turki had a car somewhere and swiftly departed for it, along with Major Karim, Saddam Tikriti, and the Caliphate army survivor Ahmed Jabbar. The Bedouin chieftain Moussa Kadim had arrived by camel and took Moustapha bin Moustapha with him.
Ali Tawafi made himself the sergeant of the rest of us, forming us up into a squad, instructing us to stay together in a tight wedge like a rugby scrum with him at the point, and led us west towards the waiting vehicles through a roiling and most unbrotherly elbowing and shoving crush of humanity, as through a mob jammed together on a metro platform during a rush hour slow-down strike, using his gun butt as a lever to pry us a path forward as gently as possible, which was not very much.
When we finally reached the edge of the tent city in this manner, along with the tens of thousands doing much the same, thousands of overloaded trucks and buses were already pulling away northward, and thousands more for as far as the eye could see in either direction were being engulfed by men behaving like a nest of ants swarming over a long river of honey.
Not that we behaved in a more polite or selfless manner as we pushed and shoved and scrambled to join them, but at least I had observed not a threatening with weapons or even a fist fight breaking out, no mean tribute to Muslim brotherhood under the circumstances, praise be to Allah.
The six of us managed to reach a rickety and rusty truck whose open bed already held what appeared to be a full load of some dozen men, which by the stink of it seemed to have previously carried sheep, or chickens, or something worse, and with shouts, pleas, and muscle power, we nevertheless managed to cram ourselves aboard into a packed mass of men smelling not much better by now, not that any of us were smelling like a rose, and off we went.
* * * *
A week-long trek across a seacoast desert under a searing sun was a nightmare march, though according to Ali Tawafa, not nearly as bad as the panicked flight of the Nigerian Army back to the Benué from the catastrophic thrust towards Calabar, with the American Falcons and Vultures harrying them all the way.
“At least the Americans are leaving us alone, and the Caliphate is more or less providing us with more or less water and what passes for food.”
Indeed the Caliphate was, long experience with providing for far greater numbers on the move during the Hadj making it barely possible. The Jihad was led not by a general or a Madhi or any human leader but by the great fleet of water-carrying tanker trucks proceeding in the fore, and it camped to rest and sleep during the height of the day when they halted to dispense the water ration. The trucks in turn were refilled daily from oil tankers sailing along the coast with water from the desalination plants. Much of it tasted foul, and the ration was limited, but we had enough to survive.
Meager rations were also dispensed, brought in by truck and helicopter, parachuted or dropped from low level by aircraft, and this was supplemented by the private vendors who were given priority on the military transport if they had no vehicles or animals of their own. A few thousand Caliphate troops were with the march of the jihadis, if not within, seeing that the food and water was distributed in an orderly manner.
It was an impressive feat which raised the spirit above the unavoidable privations, and all the more so because there indeed were never any American military aircraft to be seen in the blazing blue-white sky, only the camera drones of television news networks, not even reconnaissance drones. The rumors abroad were that the Americans were refraining from violating Caliphate air space to avoid provocation, or that the Caliphate had secretly negotiated rules of engagement, or even that Allah was somehow intervening to keep the skies clear.
It seemed an encouraging omen, though there was a story going around that the Americans believed that a week-long desert trek would decimate the Jihad to the point where it fell apart and do their lethal work for them with the blame falling on the Caliphate.
But despite such misgivings, despite marching from the late afternoon through the hot night and into the hours before noon and sleeping fitfully under the terrible midday sun under makeshift tents and awnings, in terms of the soul, the march was an exhilaration, becoming more and more so each day, as fatigue and heat, the monotony of the journey, and the brilliant sunlight off the desert sands induced visions of the spirit as well as the ordinary mirage.
Tens of thousands prayed aloud as we advanced. Mullahs and Imams recited verses from the Koran on the move. Whereas on the first day the multitude of individuals had selfishly sought places on the motorized transport, as the days wore on, by unspoken agreement, those who had ridden the day before, spontaneously gave way to those who had walked.
Day by day, as if the heat of the sun was burning away our impurities, as bearable thirst and paucity of food, the shimmering sameness of the landscape, drove the attention towards inner reflection, the march of jihadis gained the enveloping light of Holy Purpose, assumed the all-embracing spirit of the Hadj.
The measured movement amidst a community of the Faithful merged us into a single soul with a single purpose, became much like the circling of the the Ka’aba, though we were moving in a straight line, and in place of
the white ihram worn by all as the color of peaceful Islam on the Hadj, Holy Pilgrimage, the styles of dress of all the lands of Dar al-Islam were on display, and even the banners of its diverse nations.
And thousands upon thousands wore the green mask as the emblem of our united purpose, and as the days went on, most of the false Osama the Guns gave over their pretenses at being the Madhi, charlatans and madmen alike dissolving into the body of the Umma.
Hadj and Holy War had become One, jihadis made hajis, for we had all surrendered to the Will of Allah on a pilgrimage not for the salvation of our own individual souls, but the soul of Islam itself, a great army of jihadis marching across the desert sands towards the ultimate confrontation with the worldly champion of Satan, and surely no other mission, even the Hadj itself, could be more holy than this.
Together we had indeed become the Madhi.
* * * *
After the sunrise prayer on the morning of the seventh day and before we got underway, cries of alarm and milling commotion suddenly spread through the march at the sound of jet engines approaching from the east, and many sought what futile cover there might be had under trucks and buses.
But there was chastened laughter when what appeared in the skies above us was no more than a score or two camera drones, circling, and occasionally swooping low, so that the ensigns not of the United States Air Force but CNN, Al Jazeera, the BBC, Euronews, and several other news channels could be glimpsed, perhaps a deliberate showing of world television’s colors.
Though nothing of it could yet be seen, clearly the advent of these metal birds meant that we had neared the Kuwaiti border during the night, as the appearance in the skies of shore birds signals the approach of a ship to the land.
There was a pressing forward by all to gain the forefront of the march, jihadis mounting buses and trucks, vehicles gunning their engines angrily as they tried to move forward through the excited and packed mass of jihadis on foot who immediately began walking, trotting, trying to run forward.
Our group had ridden during the last leg of the march and it was our turn to go afoot, and Ali Tawafa, our “sergeant” led us afoot, using the same rude tactic as he had the first day, forming us into a tight wedge with himself at the point and plowing us through the sea of humanity like the blade of a bulldozer.
It was a huge crowd, every man within it was pressing forward, we had not been near the front when we started, and it took the better part of two hours to reach a position where there were no more than a hundred or so ranks before us, from where I could at last behold the forces of the Great Satan lined up from horizon to horizon on the border.
From this distance, whatever war machines the Americans had brought up were only visible as sunlight shimmering and flashing off an irregular cordillera of metal, a threatening mirage on the horizon, over which circling Falcons and perhaps Vultures appeared as clouds of tiny midges hovering on the edge of visibility.
But perched above the vaguely visible American line at regular intervals, on what appeared from afar to be like scores or even hundreds of miniature Eiffel towers, were flat square things reflecting the sun like mirrors, and taking the distance into account, I judged that they must have been perhaps a hundred feet on a side.
“What are those things?” cried Abubakar Mugali even as we and all those surrounding us continued to march towards them.
“Mirrors turning the sunlight into something like a giant burning lens?” Osama bin Osama suggested fearfully.
“They never used anything like that against us in Nigeria…” muttered Ali.
“Or in Afghanistan…”
“Some new secret weapon…” I muttered, unable to imagine what they could be.
When we got close enough to make them out clearly, I saw to my amazement and confusion that though they might have never been used as a military weapon before, there was nothing new or secret about them.
The Americans had positioned their fearful hovering Crab robots all along the border at hundred yard intervals. There were thousands of the robot mini-tanks waiting amidst them forming a solid line of firepower to hold the line or advance forward. And ranks of more of these robots and weapons platforms positioned scores of ranks deep behind them. And artillery pieces and rail-cannon barely visible in the rear. And above this vast robotic force, thousands of Falcons and Vultures circled, and above them a canopy of fighter-bombers from the aircraft carriers.
But what visually dominated this vista of terrible military might was a line of huge flat television screens. And when we were close enough to see what was displayed on them I was stunned to see that it was ourselves.
The screens were displaying identical images from the camera drones circling the march and perhaps from cameras on the American line itself, for the images changed from moment to moment, delivering a mix of coverage of the great Jihad approaching the border that made the situation clear not only to the watching world, but clearer to the half million subjects of the coverage than any of us could know from within the march ourselves.
The Americans had made themselves the eyes of their own enemy. A weapon this might be of a sort, for it was a dazzling and benumbing series of rapidly cut visions that at first had all who beheld them frozen in our tracks like a crowd watching the final match of the World Cup of football in a public square.
There were aerial views from high up, revealing that the water trucks that had been leading the march had spread out in a long dispersed line at hundred yard intervals, causing the Jihad to spread out in both directions from horizon to horizon behind them, or at least as far as the cameras could show, like a mighty river come up against the wall of a dam.
There were closer aerial angles focused on sections of the march, showing hundreds of men already wearing green masks while others donned them. There were views taken from within the American lines, displaying the forces of Islam confronting them, displaying the many banners of the lands of Dar al-Islam.
We beheld ourselves. In all our might. In all our vulnerability. Mullahs and Imams could be seen leading prayer. Thousands upon thousands of jihadis wearing the green mask and waving their weapons. Osama the Guns haranguing their little squads of the Faithful. Most hypnotizing of all, there were images of us watching ourselves on the huge television screens.
It was magic of a kind. The magic of the Great Satan. The magic of Hollywood. The magic of television itself.
We had no leader. No Madhi came forward to break the trance and issue an order or give a signal to advance into the teeth of the American guns. It was like a film I had seen of a matador freezing a bull in place, not with a sword, but with a mere piece of cloth. In that moment I was that bull. As were we all.
Then the water tankers began to creep ever so slowly towards the fateful border. Towards the American lines. We saw it on television, so it must be so. I found myself walking forward. We all did. The television screens showed us ourselves, an enormous sea of jihadis moving forward towards victory or death—
Then the screens suddenly went blank, freezing us in our tracks once more.
An instant later a crest appeared on the screens—an eagle clutching the olive branches of peace in one talon and the arrows of war in the other.
An enormous voice rang out.
“The President of the United States!”
“You have been lied to,” were the first words he spoke. “The United States of America is not your enemy. The American people are not the enemy of Islam. We are not the Great Satan. And Islam and Christianity agree that Satan is the Prince of Liars. So before you force America to do a terrible thing, I ask you to listen for a few short minutes, and then ask yourselves, who has lied to you, the government of the United States, or that of the Caliphate, which has led you by falsehood to the brink of destruction for nothing more than oil and its own worldly power.”
The man’s enormous face almost ashen, his graying hair
too neatly combed, his white shirt, dark blue lapels, and red tie in the colors of his nation too perfectly in place, his lips firm in determination, but his blue eyes watery and bloodshot, as if with fatigue, or fear, or possibly both.
To me they looked as if they were peering out from behind the mask of his presidency, as he stared unwaveringly at the camera, or rather, no doubt through a transparent screen displaying the words he read, prepared for him by the wordsmiths of Hollywood, by the machineries of the Great Satan itself.
But there was silence and stillness among us. Whoever had written these words had done the devil’s work well, for the falsehood was all too well hidden by an elusive something that seemed to mask it behind some unpalatable truth.
“America has never lied to you. The terrible drought in our agricultural heartland has made it impossible for us to feed the people of your desert heartland without starving our own. The world knows this is true. You know this is true. We would continue to trade food for the Caliphate’s oil if we could, but we can’t, so we won’t. As yourselves, would the Caliphate starve its own people to feed us?”
I found that I could not deny the truth in this to myself, and looking around me, I saw that few others of us could. Feed the stranger if you could, but feed your own family first.
“America needs oil to maintain its prosperous way of life, and the world knows that this too is self-evident truth.”
And so it was. Who could deny that?
“What we did in Nigeria, we did to obtain the oil we require, and oil, and only oil, is what we are here for now. It is a matter of national survival. Forgive us not for what we must do, but do it we must, and so we will.”
There was a huge intake of collective breath at this stunning confession, followed by a rapt silence. For who could not marvel at such a candid admission, and who could wonder at what the voice of the Great Satan might possibly say next? A mighty speech this was, to be made to an enemy multitude!
That voice hardened. The President’s mouth firmed, and a certain power came to those rheumy eyes.
Osama the Gun Page 36
