Stephen Molstad - [ID4- Independence Day 03]

by War in the Desert (epub)

  “Good evening, Commander,” Reg said with a level stare. When Faisal saw who it was, he nearly tripped over his own feet trying to back up. He glared at Reg and reached for his pistol. Very loudly, Reg invoked the Bedouin custom of hospitality. “I ask to be accepted as a guest in your camp!” he shouted.

  There was a moment of tense silence. From the murderous looks he was getting, Reg thought every man in the camp must know about the price Faisal had put on his head. But the next moment, the commander regained his composure and relaxed. He even forced himself to chuckle. The others followed his lead.

  “Major Cummins, you startled me.”

  “I am asking to be accepted as your guest,” Reg said again, just as loudly.

  “Gentlemen,” Faisal said, turning to the others, “this is one of the pilots who assisted me in destroying the enemy over Mecca. Everyone will treat him as a brother while he remains here with us.” He spoke to them with a broad smile that disappeared the moment he turned back to face Reg. “What do you want?”

  “I was at your base in Al-Sayyid today when your stockpile of biological agents was taken by the aliens.”

  Before he could go on, Faisal interrupted him, saying that Reg was mistaken. “Saudi Arabia has no biological-weapons program.” Then he sent his radio operators back to work and led Reg several paces away so they could speak without being overheard. His officers followed. “There is no need for my men to know about the weapons you are talking about,” he said angrily.

  “I disagree. We’re all in danger of being exposed to some very lethal diseases. If the aliens can figure out a way to deploy those poisons, everyone from here to Sweden is in danger.”

  “Yes, I know,” Faisal shot back. “But I don’t think you came here to criticize us for having developed these weapons.”

  “You’re right. I came here because I’ve got a plan to get them back. Actually, it’s Fadeela’s plan.” When they heard her name mentioned, Faisal’s officers tensed up and looked as if they might come at Reg all at once. On the day that should have been his coronation as a major hero, Faisal had suffered the pain of having his bride-to-be “kidnapped” by a band of foreigners. The men surrounding him seemed anxious to avenge their hero’s suffering.

  “Where is Fadeela now?” Faisal asked.

  “Safe,” was all Reg would say.

  “Women are so unpredictable, so full of surprises, don’t you agree, Major?”

  Reg didn’t return the smile he was offered. “Fadeela’s no ordinary woman.”

  Faisal only shrugged, then ordered his officers to leave them. Reg wasn’t happy to see the men leave. Although they were hostile, they were also witnesses that would make it difficult for Faisal to go back on his promise of hospitality. Faisal walked to the front of the command tent and invited Reg inside. He smiled that smug smile of his when Reg thought twice before heading into the tent.

  “Major, you would not have come here unless you needed my help with your plan. I think you have no choice but to trust me.” Realizing he was right, Reg went inside, and the two antagonists talked for the next half hour. Outside, a dozen men held their ears close to the tent, trying to eavesdrop on the conversation. They heard Faisal laugh when Reg explained what he wanted to do. “It would be suicide,” the commander said loudly. But Reg doggedly continued to explain how the plan could work in a voice that was too low for the men outside to hear. They argued about the dangers of the biological weapons, air support, and the equipment Reg and his team would need for their raid. The men listening knew Faisal was seriously considering lending his help when he poked his head outside and asked for one of his lieutenants, a man who had climbed the first few stories of the tower at the front of the alien ship.

  When the two men finally emerged from the tent, they synchronized their watches, looking somber but optimistic. Faisal carried a handwritten list which he turned over to one of his supply sergeants. “Major Cummins will be traveling to Dawqah with a fragile cargo,” he announced, gesturing past the hilltops toward the Red Sea. “Give him one of our best trucks and all the supplies on this list. Make sure it is organized and ready for him in ten minutes.” Then he leaned in close to Reg, and whispered. “Your plan is dangerous, but I believe it can work. I expect to see you and your people back here within a few hours. With Fadeela Yamani, of course,” he added.

  “If we’re lucky, and we get the air support we need,” Reg said, “you’ll see her.”

  “Good luck,” he said, smiling. The two men shook hands before Faisal turned away to attend to other business. Despite his encouraging tone, he was certain he would never see Reg Cummins again. Or Fadeela Yamani. They would both be killed before they ever set a foot inside the ruined city destroyer. He was resigned to the fact that the legend he was creating for himself would take on a bittersweet twist at the end: But before they could be wed, his lovely bride was carried into the desert and slain by the savage infidels. It wasn’t the ending he’d imagined, but it was one he could live with.

  When Faisal was gone, the Yamanis’ chauffeur, Abdul, approached Reg enthusiastically. “Dawqah? Why are you going there? Mr. Yamani and I will go with you.”

  “Abdul, where is Khalid? 1 have to talk to him.”

  “Impossible,” Abdul said, pointing to the surrounding hilltops. “He is somewhere up there, a prisoner. No one may speak to him, only his father.”

  “Well, let’s talk to his father, then.” They went to the Yamanis’ Rolls-Royce and, when they opened the back door of the limousine, found Mr. Yamani disheveled, sitting bolt upright, yelling into a cellular phone. He appeared to be midway through an argumentative strategy session with the Saudi king. Although he seemed in better spirits than the last time Reg had seen him, there was a manic quality to the way he spoke into the receiver and slashed his free hand through the air. Abdul, like an orderly in a psychiatric ward, reached into the car and took the phone away from the old man, gently but firmly.

  “I told you, sir, the telephone is not working. But look who is here. You have a visitor. Do you remember Major Cummins? He is going to Dawqah.”

  Yamani looked up, confused. He stared at Reg for a moment without recognizing him. Then his expression changed.

  “The Teacher! Come in, come in.” Warmly, he waved Reg inside and offered him the seat facing his own. He seemed all at once to regain control of himself. “Do you have any news about my daughter? They tell me she was killed today, but I don’t believe them.”

  Reg assured him that Fadeela was alive and well. Then, looking into the old man’s eyes, he asked a series of questions in order to determine the man’s mental state. Yamani recognized the patronizing tone in his voice.

  “I have not completely lost my mind, Major Cummins, and I will thank you not to speak to me as if I have. The telephone, it is simply a game. A way of thinking out loud while I sit here with nothing to do. Now, tell me, what is this about going to Dawqah?”

  We’re not actually going to Dawqah,” Reg explained. “That’s just the cover story.”

  “I don’t want to hear a story. I want to hear the truth.”

  As quickly as he could, Reg outlined the plan, leaving out one important detail. He didn’t say that Fadeela would be joining the raiding party. There wasn’t any point in adding to the man’s burden. Mr. Yamani appeared to follow Reg’s explanation, nodding and grunting at the appropriate moments. But when he was finished, Yamani seemed lost again.

  “Dawqah is a nasty little town,” he said. “The beaches are polluted with oil, and there is absolutely nothing to do there. I suggest we rendezvous in Jeddah instead. Have you ever been to Jeddah?” Reg could see he was wasting valuable time.

  “Take care of yourself, sir. It’s time for me to go.” He started out of the car, but Yamani grabbed his sleeve and held fast. He seemed to be having another painful moment of clarity, but it was impossible to be sure. Tears welled up and poured down his cheeks.

  “I am grateful, very grateful to you. Tell Fadeela that her
old father is joining the war, that he is going to fight from now on.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Reg promised. But the once-great man didn’t hear him. His mind had darted off in a new direction, and he began shouting angrily at his chauffeur.

  “Abdul, coffee! Where are you? Bring me some coffee. Don’t you realize we are at war? You know I can’t fight without my coffee!”

  It looked like the last war Mr. Yamani would ever fight was the one for control of his mind. Reg figured the chances of him winning were somewhere between slim and none. Then again, he reminded himself, the old man had a better chance of making a full recovery than he and his ragtag unit had of living past sunrise.

  He didn’t check to see if the supply sergeant had given him all the items on the list. He got in the truck and drove away at once, wondering if he could trust Faisal. A couple of miles down the road, he pulled off the road after a blind curve to make sure he wasn’t being followed, then continued down the hill.

  14

  The Raid

  When Reg pulled an armored Mercedes truck off the road and drove toward the stand of scrub brush, everyone’s mood changed dramatically. The fact that he was back made it seem like anything was possible. Sutton and Yossi ran out to meet the I ruck and jumped on the running boards.

  “Cummins,” said Sutton, “you’re the luckiest son of a bitch I’ve ever met. I’m beginning to think I ought to stick close to you. Maybe some of that luck will rub off.”

  “Luck?” Reg asked with a cockeyed grin. “Maybe. But also a lot of skill.”

  “More like a lot of chutzpah.” Yossi laughed.

  Once Reg pulled the truck to a stop, the others bombarded him with questions about what Faisal’s reaction had been, the size of I lie army in the hills, and the dangers he had faced.

  “Faisal’s got over a thousand men up there. I asked him to give me half of them for an assault on the spaceship’s tower.” “What’d he say?”

  “After he stopped laughing, he said no. He wasn’t taking me seriously at all until I played my trump card.” He broke off and looked at Fadeela. “I told him who came up with the idea of raiding the ship. And I told him we were going ahead with it whether lie helped us or not. That got his attention. Suddenly, he couldn’t help me enough. He started pulling out maps, ordering supplies, calling soldiers into his tent to give us scouting reports. And he promised we’d have air cover. A group of Saudi jets will be waiting for us when we get to the city destroyer.”

  “But no troops?” Fadeela asked.

  “No troops,” Reg said.

  “In other words, he refused to help us.”

  Reg shrugged. “He gave us these supplies,” he said, gesturing to the cargo bed of the truck, “and he didn’t kill me. Didn’t even send anyone to follow me.”

  “What do you make of it?” Edward asked.

  “He wants us to go to the tower,” Ali said. “He doesn’t think we’ll survive.”

  “Exactly,” Reg said. “The only reason he gave me these weapons and let me go was so we’d all go into the destroyer.” He shot another look at Fadeela for her reaction before asking, “Who knows what time it is?”

  “Two a.m.,” Yossi said, “which leaves only about three hours until dawn.”

  “Then we’ve got to hurry,” Reg said. “Everyone pull these supplies off the truck and pick out a weapon or two. The more the merrier. We can discuss the rest along the way.”

  But before Reg could contemplate loading himself down with firearms, there was a pressing piece of business. He grabbed Fadeela and pulled her to the front of the truck. “Take off those clothes,” he said. “This uniform is too tight. It’s killing me.” He leaned against the battering ram that extended off the front of the chassis, pulled off his shoes, then began unbuttoning his shirt.

  “What else did Faisal say?” she asked, beginning to unlace her own boots.

  “He had a message for you.”

  “What was it?”

  “He said for you to be careful. Isn’t that a classic? After I explained what we’re proposing to do, he turns to me with a perfectly serious expression on his face and says, ‘Tell her to be careful.’”

  “We are going to be married soon. Naturally, he is concerned,” she said facetiously, trying to laugh it off. But not concerned enough to try to stop me, she thought. As much as she despised Faisal, the fact that he hadn’t tried to keep her away from the spacecraft hurt her. By giving Reg the weapons, he was actually encouraging her to go and probably get killed.

  “Hurry up with those pants,” Reg said, slipping out of the ones she had lent him. “Faisal also said he wouldn’t have given me any help at all if it hadn’t been your plan. He said you were a brave woman, and he’s looking forward to seeing you again soon. Or something along those lines. I don’t think he meant a word of it.” Waiting for Fadeela to get undressed, Reg stood there in nothing but his jockey shorts and a pair of dirty white socks as easily and unself-consciously as if he were in a preflight locker room talking with a fellow pilot. Earlier, when he and Fadeela had exchanged uniforms in the back of the moving truck, they’d modestly turned their backs to one another. But now he stood in plain view of her, too focused on the details of the plan and the danger that lay ahead to feel the slightest twinge of embarrassment.

  Fadeela hesitated. “Please turn around.”

  He did, and changed the subject. “I spoke to your father. He seems fine, in better spirits. That chauffeur of yours, Abdul, is taking good care of him. Your father had a message for you, too: ‘Tell my daughter I’ve joined the fight.’”

  “What about Khalid?”

  “I wasn’t able to talk to him, but I think he’s fine. Faisal’s got him posted to a gunnery battalion on the canyon cliffs. Ah, that’s a thousand times better,” Reg said as he zipped himself into his own trousers again. “I don’t know where you found that uniform, but it rides awfully high in the. crotch.”

  “I plan on having it altered as soon as I can make an appointment with my family’s tailor,” she shot back.

  “Smart aleck.” Reg grinned. “Let’s go pick you out a weapon. Maybe a rolling pin.” He led the way to the back of the truck, where the others were outfitting themselves. Ali had found a five-foot-long field gun that fired rounds the size of Cuban cigars. It was designed as a stationary weapon, but the broad-chested soldier took his kef-ftyeh back from Reg and tied it around the gun to create a shoulder sling. Edward strapped a flamethrower harness onto his back. A far cry from the antique weapon he had used the previous afternoon, this new flamethrower featured a lightweight ceramic canister that carried double the fuel, had adjustable settings, and didn’t require a constantly burning pilot—a major asset during a sneak attack. Remi, who along with Sutton was going to stay outside and guard the entrance while the others entered the ship, had chosen a bazooka-style, shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. Reg picked up a fully automatic machine gun and offered it to Fadeela. “Think you can handle one of these, or would you rather help Tye operate the alien pulse gun?”

  She accepted the machine gun, but then muscled past Reg and picked up the only remaining flamethrower. “I’ll take this one, too. Fire is what they hate the most. Fire is what I’m going to give them.” She slipped her arms into the harness assembly, then moved off to discuss the weapon with Edward.

  “I don’t like it,” Ali whispered to Reg. “She’s not a soldier; she’s a woman, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  Reg glanced over his shoulder. “I’d be careful about saying that to her face,” he told Ali. “She’s liable to barbecue you.” Fadeela must have heard them talking. “Is there a problem?” she asked, moving closer and holding the nozzle of her weapon menacingly in Reg and Ali’s direction.

  Ali glared at her for a minute before backing down. “No, there is no problem.”

  “Good.” She turned around and fired a test shot at a sel of nearby rocks. Night turned to bright day as the powerful jet of fire shot fifty feet and splattered
against the stones. Because the fuel was laced with generous amounts of napalm, the fire continued to bum long after it hit the ground.

  Ali’s anger flared as hotly as the flames. “What are you doing, stupid woman? You’re showing the aliens where we are.”

  Fadeela mocked him. “Why are you so afraid? Don’t worry. If the big bad aliens come, I’ll protect you.” Edward laughed at her joke, but Ali was far from amused.

  As the napalm-enhanced fire burned and dripped down the rocks, Reg called everyone together for a final strategy session. “Listen up. Even with Faisal’s help, this isn’t going to be easy. Everything within ten miles of the ship is heavily patrolled. The aliens move in pairs on their chariots. Hopefully, we’ll see them before they see us. But according to Faisal, they’ve got another trick: They bury themselves in the sand like land mines and pop up when humans come too close. Keep your eyes open. Faisal will be sending jets to bomb the northern edge of the ship. We’ll approach from the south and slip into the tower during the distraction.”

  “If we can get past the patrols,” said Ali.

  “Right. We won’t know if we can do that until we’re out there. We may have to turn back.”

  “No turning back,” Fadeela said matter-of-factly.

  “She’s right,” Yossi said. “If they release those weapons into the air at dawn, we’re deadjust the same. Better to go down fighting.”

  Reg squatted and drew a picture of the tower in the dirt. “I’ve been told there’s no way to enter the tower directly from the outside, so we’ll have to enter here, where the right side of the tower meets the front of the ship. The Saudi army was exploring this opening when the aliens began their attack.”

  “What did they find out?” Remi asked.

  Reg shrugged. “There weren’t any survivors.” He looked at the anxious faces around him. “Hopefully, we’ll have better luck.”