Stephen Molstad - [ID4- Independence Day 03]

by War in the Desert (epub)

  Miriyam blinked first. She took a rifle from the African, then called across the truck to the Arab. “What’s your name,” she asked him.

  “AH Hassan.”

  “Ali, my name is Miriyam.” She tossed him the rifle. “From now on, we fight together.”

  Ali couldn’t help but grin. Needless to say, he’d never met a woman quite like this Jewish warrior. “Okay, sounds good to me.” Tye and Sutton were already in position. They had cut away the canvas tarp covering on the left side of the truck and were waiting for a clear shot at the alien chariot, but they were only getting occasional glimpses. Each time they sighted on the aliens, the aliens’ pointed skeleton heads disappeared again behind the banks of the wadi.

  “Faster, man, let’s go,” Edward screamed at Yossi. “You drive like my grandmother.”

  Behind the wheel, Yossi was driving as close to the soft edge of the wadi as he dared. “Who are these people we’re chasing?” he wanted to know.

  “Friends of mine,” Reg said.

  “Your Arab girl?”

  Before Reg could answer, they drove downslope and saw the alien chariot right beside them, not twenty feet from the driver’s door, speeding along a parallel course. The oversize aliens were crouched forward behind the chariot’s front wall as the skinny legs of the sledlike vehicle pumped furiously in the sand. No steering controls or instrumentation of any kind was visible. The chariot seemed to guide itself around the obstacles in its path. A moment after gunfire started raining down on them, the big shell head of the creature closest to them turned to look up at the truck. Then it raised its arm and pointed one of its elongated bone fingers at Yossi. A pulse blast shot toward them and

  lore through the roof of the cab, inches above the driver’s head.

  Cursing in Hebrew, Yossi turned away and slowed down.

  “What are you doing? Chase them!” Reg yelled.

  “What are you, crazy? I’m not killing myself to save a bunch of rich Arabs.”

  That was the wrong thing to say. Edward took out a pistol and pointed it at the driver’s head. “Drive, asshole, or I’ll kill you and follow them myself.” When Yossi hesitated, Edward squeezed ihe trigger until the hammer cocked into position.

  “Okay, hold on tight.” He slammed the gas pedal down and headed after them. Before they could catch up, a pulse blast toasted the third vehicle, and shots were whizzing past the gray Mercedes carrying Khalid.

  Remi shouted forward to the men riding in the cab. “We need more ammunition.”

  “Make it count,” Edward told him, handing him a few twenty-four-round magazines. “This is the last we have.”

  An explosion flashed up out of the wadi, and, a second later, they caught sight of the car in which Khalid was being held a prisoner. It was turned upside down and burning. The soldiers in the back quickly used up their remaining bullets.

  The chauffeur of the last car, the blue Rolls-Royce, slid open (he glass partition and called back to his passengers. “Around the next turn, I’m going to stop. When I do, get out fast. I’m going to back up and ram them.” The earthen walls were closing in on them, leaving only a few feet of clearance on either side, and the alien chariot was gaining on them. This was their last hope. “Hold on!”

  After crashing through a barrier of acacia bushes and fishtail-ing around a bend, the driver slammed on the brakes. Fadeela threw open her door and pulled her elderly father into the sand. When they were clear of the door, the tires spun, and the Rolls started moving in reverse. The aliens’ chariot came speeding around the comer right on cue, moving too fast to swerve out of the way. But as the chauffeur bore down on them, the thin insec-tile legs of the chariot sprang into the air and clattered over the roof of the Rolls as it passed underneath. The chariot settled smoothly to the ground and rushed past Fadeela and her father before it could slow down and stop. Then it turned in place and began marching back for the kill.

  Fadeela heard a rumbling sound in the air as the chariot trotted closer, and one of the aliens leisurely raised a pointed finger in her direction. But both the creatures turned their heads in a new direction when a large shape came flying over the edge of the embankment. The battered Saudi army truck soared through the air and landed on top of the aliens and their chariot with a loud, splintering crack.

  The people inside the truck were thrown forward like a collection of rag dolls. But none was seriously injured, and they came staggering outside to inspect the damage. The aliens, their exoskeleton armor, and their transport had all been mashed into an indistinguishable pulp. A few of the chariot’s stick legs continued to twitch weakly as the smell of ammonia wafted into the air.

  Reg jogged down the wadi to where Fadeela was holding her badly shaken father. When he got there, she stood up and threw her arms around him and squeezed him tightly, burying her face in his chest. When Mr. Yamani saw this, he snapped out of his teary-eyed stupor, stood up, and moved toward them. Reg assumed the old man was angry, when he was only grateful. He threw his arms around the both of them and held them while he cried.

  As the others inspected the bodies under the truck, Miriyam warned everyone that the aliens could attack without touching, but that didn't stop Tye from climbing halfway under the truck when he noticed something moving. He was, after all, a mechanic. “Somebody come and have a look at this,” he yelled. When the others came around to where he was, all they could see were his long legs lying in the sand. “Down here, look at this!” They squatted and saw him only inches away from an undamaged bony hand. There were four spiky gray fingers opening and closing very slowly.

  “Don’t touch it,” Miriyam screamed at him. “It’s still alive.”

  “Do I look insane? Of course I’m not going to touch it. But look at this gizmo on the hand. It’s some kind of light display.” He pointed to an amber-colored circular disk set into the back of (he hand. It was blinking out a message or a picture—he couldn’t tell which—composed of tiny diamond shapes.

  Miriyam wasn’t much concerned with his discovery. She understood the danger he was in, so she ducked underneath the foul-smelling truck and pumped a few slugs into the broken chest of the armor, making sure the little one inside was dead.

  “Okay I think you killed it,” Tye called. “The blinking stopped.” He pried the disk out of the bone with a pocketknife and brought it out into the sunlight wrapped in a handkerchief. The lop of it was like a thin sheet of amber-colored glass. It wasn’t glass, though, because there were veins running through it. When he flipped it over, Miriyam recognized the coppery material lining the bottom—it was the same substance she’d seen on the doors in the bowels of the destroyer. She suggested showing it to Reg.

  Yossi lit a cigarette and blew the smoke at Edward as he walked past. “You still think I drive like your grandmother?”

  “No, you proved me wrong. You’re a very fine driver,” said Ihe Palestinian as he reached into the breast pocket of Yossi’s shirt, took the last cigarette out of the pack and lit it. “Probably you could have done even better if it was Jews inside the cars, instead of a worthless bunch of Arabs.” He wadded up the empty package and tossed it at Yossi’s feet.

  No one was quite sure which direction they should go from there, but everyone agreed it should be away from the downed alien destroyer. The Yamanis’ driver knew the area well and said there was an oasis town not far away. The truck was damaged but still operable. They found a place where it could be driven out of the wadi, then towed the limousine out as well. As they were preparing to drive away, a pair of men came walking toward them: Khalid, still in his handcuffs, and his jailer. They’d climbed out of their burning Mercedes seconds before it exploded. Mr. Yamani howled with joy at the sight of his son still alive. Fadeela ran forward to greet him. When they came closer, Reg told the jailer to unlock Khalid’s handcuffs, but he refused.

  “The instructions of Commander Faisal were clear,” he announced in an official tone of voice. “Khalid Yamani will be freed only when the wedding h
as been completed.”

  The pilots exchanged glances with one another and without a word being spoken, they fanned out to surround the man. They might have been enemies in the past, but they were slowly forging themselves into a coherent unit. The jailer became visibly nervous when he realized what he was up against.

  “Listen to me, little man.” Miriyam started toward him, ready to settle the matter in her less-than-delicate way when a big hand fell on her shoulder and arrested her progress. It was Ali.

  “Let me.” He walked up to the guard and stood over him menacingly. “Do you know who I am?”

  “You are Ali Hassan.”

  “That’s right.” He snatched away the jailer’s keys and unshackled Khalid’s hands. “I am Ali Hassan, and from now on I will fight with these people.”

  9

  An Oasis Town

  About noon, the freshly dented Rolls-Royce and the equally battered old truck came to the oasis town of Qal’at Buqum. It was no more than a cluster of swaying green palm trees in the middle of an arid valley baking in the sun. From a distance, it looked an all-too-perfect mirage, except for the twenty-story-tall steel radio tower that rose from the center of town. Under normal circumstances, it was a dusty village with two hundred permanent residents. That day, there were almost a thousand people within its limits, down from the three thousand that had slept there the night before. You could walk from one end to the other in ten minutes. Brightly painted shops and houses with crumbling mud-plaster walls lined the road, standing shoulder to shoulder with the prefab commercial buildings built since the oil boom. On the eastern horizon stood the Asir mountains, the great barrier between Qal’at Buqum and the sea.

  The town’s central square was an asphalt parking lot overgrown with weeds around the edges. The Saudi military had established a command post there, retreating into the shade of the nearest building, the post office, to escape the intense midday heat. Some of the soldiers had been on the plateau with the royal family and their guests when the ambush took place.

  As Reg and his crew were piling out of their truck, they were surrounded by children trying to sell them things. Yossi pushed them aside as he moved past on his way to the Saudi headquarters. The others did the same. The last ones out of the truck were Tye and Sutton.

  Sutton hesitated before wading into the mob of dirty children. He looked back and saw that Tye had taken out the amber medallion and was examining it for the umpteenth time.

  “Will you quit fiddling with that blasted thing and let’s go?” He jumped to the ground, and the children immediately swarmed around him, showing him wristwatches and sunglasses for sale. They tugged on his clothing, shouting, “This very good, this very cheap.” Sutton roared angrily at them to get away, and they shrank from him in fear.

  “For Pete’s sake, man, they’re just kids.” Tye hopped out of the truck and waved hello. In a flash, the little salesmen were on him, pushing and shouting and shoving their wares into his face.

  “My name Mohammed,” said the tallest boy. He had dark eyes and the wispy beginnings of a mustache. His skin was as dark as Remi’s. He slid an ami around Tye’s waist. “I am your friend. You come with me the shop my cousin. Very good merchandise, very good price.”

  “I’ve got a friend named Mohammed. Did anyhow. Sorry, boys,” he announced. “I’m broke. Me no money.” Of course, that wasn’t quite true. He had a thick wad of Saudi riyals, the equivalent of five thousand American dollars, stuffed into his undershorts.

  Even though the kids were pushy, Tye couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. They were scrawny and dirty and looked like they didn’t live anywhere in particular. One boy caught the tall Englishman’s attention. All he had to sell w'ere some old magazines. He opened one of them for Tye’s inspection and held it toward his face. Just when they were letting Tye go his way, Sutton bolted back toward them and grabbed one of the oldest boys by the scruff of the neck, then shook him. “Sutton, what are you doing?”

  “You little sneak,” Sutton yelled at the kid, walking him roughly over to Tye. “Give it back to him.” The boy, Mohammed,

  was terrified, crying and pleading with Sutton in Arabic.

  “You’re scaring the hell out him, man. Let him go.”

  “He’s faking it,” Sutton said. He shook the boy again and told him to quit crying or he’d call the Saudi soldiers over. “Thief get hand chop chop.” Realizing Sutton wasn’t going to fall for his act, Mohammed snapped out of it and straightened up.

  “I no t’ief. You drop this one.” He opened his hand and showed Tye the amber medallion he’d taken from Tye’s pocket.

  “Well that’s interesting,” Tye said, bending over to study the disk. “It’s working again. Can I have my handkerchief, please.”

  “I no take—” When he began to protest, Sutton twisted the collar tighter around his throat. Mohammed pulled out the handkerchief and handed it over. Tye lifted the disk away from the boy’s palm and it went blank again. He put it back down, and it lit up again.

  “Isn’t that queer?” Deciding it probably wasn’t dangerous, he set it in his own palm. It worked again. He looked up at the pickpocket and smiled. “Thanks. I think you figured it out.” Sutton turned him loose, but only after planting a hard kick in the seat of his pants. The boys all cursed them as they walked away to join the others pilots.

  They found the rest of the squad standing around the village’s post office, directly under the radio tower. Lookouts had climbed to the top of the twenty-story structure to keep a watch for any unwanted visitors. The soldiers who had escaped from the ill-fated photo session at the crash site had a grim tale to tell. Nearly everyone had been killed. The aliens took a number of additional casualties, but the battle had been a one-sided rout. After surrounding them, the chariots had moved in and systematically hunted the humans down. There had been several cases of “brain torture,” an interrogation technique. Reg knew exactly what they were talking about, having suffered through it himself. The tanks had done almost no damage because the alien pulse blasts shorted out their electrical systems, and the Saudi Air Force couldn’t get close enough to give effective air support. It was, in short, a slaughter.

  Ali and Khalid were given assault rifles, but the soldiers refused to issue weapons or ammunition to any non-Saudis. They did, however, introduce Khalid to the town’s leading merchant, an old woman in a traditional Bedouin dress and a black cloth wrapped around her leathery brown face. When Khalid asked if she had any ammunition, she squinted at his weapon.

  “What is that?” she asked. “A Kalashnikov? I think I can help you. Do you have any money?”

  Remi took out the envelope he’d been handed during the ceremony and tossed it to Khalid. “Buy the store,” he said.

  Khalid Yamani was used to handing out large sums of cash, not receiving them. He chuckled and said he’d bring Remi plenty of change, then started following the old woman toward her store.

  “Always go in groups,” Miriyam said. She pointed at Sutton and told him to go with Khalid.

  Sutton didn’t appreciate her tone of voice. “Yes, sir!” he said, and gave her a sarcastic salute before leaving.

  “Why did you bring that guy?” Yossi asked when Sutton was gone. “He is a pain in the ass.”

  “You noticed that, too, eh?”

  After a while, the heat drove them toward the shade of the oasis’s palm grove, where the temperature was twenty degrees cooler. As in many oasis towns, the actual springs at Qal’at Buqum were buried under concrete and surrounded by barbed wire. The pools of dark water babbling beneath the trees were all man-made and supplied by underground pipe. There were picnic benches, trash cans, and brick ovens for family barbecues. Scores of refugees from the cities had taken up residence in this shady park, living mostly out of the backs of their cars. Some of them wandered over to speak with the multinational squad of pilots when the sound of automatic gunfire came from overhead. The men perched in the radio tower were firing at something and shouting t
o the soldiers standing in the square below. The white flashes of an alien pulse weapon tore through the air and smashed into the radio tower, sending the lookouts plummeting to their deaths. The civilians hit the deck as Reg and his crew ran back toward the square. The destructive pulse bursts were coming from inside a walled compound just across the town’s only road.

  Reg found the ranking Saudi officer hiding in the bushes beside the post office. He and his men had already devised a plan to suiTound the compound. Before Reg could talk to them, they took off, running in crouches.

  “Don’t these bastards have anything better to do than follow us around?” Sutton asked, gesturing toward the alien hiding place. He and Khalid were back from their shopping spree and started passing out magazines full of cartridges.

  “We should follow them,” Khalid said, watching the soldiers advance. They had reached the edge of the road without incident. Making it across was going to be another matter.

  When Miriyam stood up to survey the situation, a pulse blast tore into the front wall of the post office, only inches from her head. It didn’t seem to bother her much. She squatted and conferred with Reg. “It looks like there’s only two of them over there.”

  “They like to start small,” Reg said, “then rush in and hit you from all sides.”

  She turned around and looked into the parklike oasis, thinking the same thing Reg was thinking. “If they get into these trees,” she said, “they’ll be able to drive us out into the open.”

  “We’ve got to split up and defend the perimeter.”

  “You’re right. Three groups of three.” She pointed at Tye and Ali. “You and you, follow me.” Then she turned and hurried along the wall, leading the group toward the rear of the post-office building. From there, they headed off in different directions.

  Reg, Remi, and Khalid ended up together. They jogged through the trees, keeping alert for signs of danger. As they passed campsites, Khalid shouted to the people in Arabic, warning them of the possible danger. Reg stopped and took a long look around.