by Dale Brown
The man turned, and Patrick noticed a smile on his youthful face. "I assume I am addressing the infamous Castor. Finally."
"You are very astute, sir," Patrick said. "Who are you?"
"Since we are now talking in code words, I am called Dabbur-the wasp," the stranger said. "We are called the Hubub-the sandstorm. And this is my desert. It has been so for nearly two hundred years. We have protected it for that long. It is not about lines on a map or governments."
"Your intelligence system is effective-Your Highness." The man smiled, which made him look even younger than he looked at first. He issued a command in Arabic, and his men lowered their weapons.
"Who is he, Muck?" Hal Briggs asked.
"His Royal Highness, Sayyid Muhammad ibn al-Hasan as-Sanusi, the true king of Libya," Patrick said. The man smiled, shouldered his weapon, and bowed in thanks for the recognition and proper address. "The sword of vengeance of the Sahara and leader of the 'Sandstorm,' the Sanusi Brotherhood."
"You got it," Muhammad as-Sanusi said. "And who are you-other than trouble of the first magnitude around here?"
"Friends-as long as you don't align yourself with Jadallah Zuwayy."
"You mean my 'sixth brother,' Jadallah the Brave, the protector of Islam and the savior of the people of Libya? Give me a break," Sanusi said disgustedly. He took off his helmet and poured water from a canteen on his face. He had a thin, triangular face, wide eyes, and a ready smile,
even while deriding someone. "But what pisses me off even more is that the people of Libya really bought his bucket of bullshit." He looked carefully at Patrick, then nodded. "You know my good 'brother,' then? So I assume you're the devil robot that nearly destroyed Jaghbub and scared the living shit out of him?"
"Maybe. How do you know about that?"
"Zuwayy's men blabbed it all over open channels all last night-you couldn't shut it off," Sanusi said. "I think your impromptu nose job improved his looks. And of course, we saw your fireworks show from twenty miles away. Very impressive. Some of my radar outposts picked up traces of an aircraft still orbiting west of here-your air support, I gather?"
"We came close to taking out your men here with our air support."
"Unless you have EMP-proof radios, I doubt it," Sanusi said dryly. "We lost contact with all our patrols the instant that device went off. God in heaven, I always suspected Zuwayy had nukes, but I never thought he'd be stupid enough to actually use them."
"You don't talk like an Arab, Your Highness."
"Oh, I can talk Arab just fine when I need to," Sanusi said. "But I've lived in the States for the past five years, and I picked up the lingo pretty well." He held out his canteen to Patrick. "Can you drink water through that thing?"
"Yes," Patrick said-but then he disconnected his helmet, pulled it off, and accepted the canteen. "But I prefer not to." He grimaced at the canteen.
"Don't worry-it's purified," Sanusi said. "I've lived in the States too long to drink the local water, especially from the oases. I may be the sword of vengeance of the Sahara, but the worst my stomach can handle is L. A. tap water. My men can drink month-old camel piss dug out of a hole in the desert if they had to, but not me. I've got plenty of purification tablets in there." Patrick took a deep swig, then handed it back. "What's your name?"
"McLanahan. Patrick McLanahan."
"Good Irish name," Sanusi said. "Who are you guys?
Where do you get all that firepower? U.S. Army Special Forces? Delta Force? Navy SEALs?"
"None of the above."
"Ah. Some supersecret commando job, contracted by the CIA or something," Sanusi said, taking a drink. When Patrick did not reply, Sanusi merely shrugged. "My men will find out eventually. We have spies everywhere, and neither the Egyptians nor the Libyans can keep a secretthey all think once you get out into the desert, no one can hear you. I heard a report that the lovely Mrs. Salaam and General Baris had been meeting with some special infantry teams at Mersa Matruh-I assume that's you. Good thing you got out when you did."
"Some of our guys were not so lucky."
"The prisoner exchange," Sanusi said, nodding. "I heard. I'm sorry, Patrick. So it was you guys in on that raid at Samah that started this whole mess."
"We didn't start it-but we mean to finish it," Patrick said ominously.
"I'm sure you guys are tough-and you're going to have to be, to go up against Zuwayy and his troops," Sanusi said. "They've got some mean-looking shit all of a sudden-new Russian weapons, armor, rockets, aircraft, the works, hundreds of millions of dollars' worth. Zuwayy's either been investing some of the money he and his cronies have been ripping off from the Libyan treasury and buying weapons on the international arms market with it, or he's got a wealthy new Russian sponsor."
That last comment set off nightmarish explosions in Patrick's head, but he ignored the warning bells for the moment. "We could use your help to get back to Cairo."
"Cairo? What in hell do you want to go back there for?" Sanusi asked in surprise. "I thought you said you were escapees from Mersa Matruh."
"We were being held there during the prisoner exchange so we wouldn't interfere."
"Oh really? You sure it wasn't so they'd be sure to fry you just like your friends?" Sanusi noticed Patrick's face blanch and harden to stone, and he put a hand on Patrick's
shoulder. "I'm sorry, McLanahan. You lost some of your men in that explosion, I know."
Even though Patrick was beginning to trust this man, he still did not feel like elaborating. "Egypt is wide open for attack. We can help stop Zuwayy until the rest of the world organizes a defense against him."
"What makes you think they will?" Sanusi asked. "Who will lead them-Thomas Nathaniel Thorn, the so-called leader of the free world? He's too busy having seances so he can communicate with the spirit of Thomas Jefferson.
"Patrick, no one cares about Libya or Egypt-all they care about is the oil," Muhammad Sanusi said. "It's been that way since the Brits discovered oil here. The world will deal with anyone who will sell oil to them-they don't care if it's Salaam, Zuwayy, Khan, or Bozo the Clown. And when the oil runs out, the world will turn its back on this entire continent. All Arabs know the score, PatrickI'm surprised you don't. Do you really believe you're here fighting for justice or to protect the weak? You're here because of the oil-how to get it, how to keep it coming. I don't care who your employer or commander is-you're here because of the oil. Am I right, my friend?"
Patrick didn't answer-he didn't have to. King Idris the Second, the true king of Libya, nodded knowingly. "You want to fight for Susan Bailey Salaam? Well, I don't blame you-she is definitely one hot babe, even after taking one in the face in Cairo." He paused for a moment; then: "Sure is lucky she survived that blast, wasn't it?" Patrick said nothing-he couldn't, because he didn't know anything about her or the incident at the mosque. "You're sure you want to do this?"
"I'm sure."
"Okay. But I still contend: Why go back to Cairo? That's where the action's going to be soon. Either Zuwayy will chew it to pieces with his army, or it'll collapse under the pressure of its own loss of identity. Why would you, an American, hang around for that?"
"You gotta fight for something."
"Sure you do. Home, family, God. I'm out here in the
Sahara with my men instead of back at The Resort at Squaw Creek up in Lake Tahoe or my three-bedroom suite that my buddy Mohammed al Fayed owns at the Hotel Bel Air because Qadhafi chased my family out of our own country, and Zuwayy is busy raping what's left." Then he stopped and looked knowingly at Patrick. "Unless you've already lost those things-then you fight for whatever captures your heart-or your soul. Has Susan Bailey Salaam done that for you, Mr. McLanahan?" Patrick did notcould not-answer.
Muhammad as-Sanusi looked carefully at Patrick; then, apparently noticing something in the man's face, he smiled and winked. "Man, you are one out-of-place dude," he said. "I'm not sure exactly where you're supposed to be, but it is not here in the desert, wearing metal pajamas and
carrying a Buck Rogers space gun." Again, Patrick couldn't respond. "Whatever. I still think it would be suicidal for you and your men to go back to Cairo or anywhere in Egypt. But I have the perfect place. If you agree to work with me and my soldiers, I'll bring you there and you guys can set up and work there."
"Where is this place?"
"Not far. About a half-day drive, assuming we don't run into any patrols." He looked at Chris and Hal, still in their battle armor, smiled that boyish smile again, then added, "But I think we can probably handle any patrols we run across out here. Let's go."
"You have a base right on the Egyptian-Libyan border that's secure from Zuwayy and his troops?"
"I didn't until today," Sanusi said with a chuckle. "Min fadlak. Let's go."
They hadn't moved far before alarms started going off in the Tin Man battle armor. "Radiation warning, Muck," Hal Briggs reported.
"How convenient-radiation detectors in that armor," Sanusi said to Briggs. "You must tell me all about that system. My men and I might be in the market for a few
dozen." He turned to Patrick. "The Libyans are broadcasting that the Zionists set off an American nuclear device at Jaghbub," he said, "to kill Zuwayy. Did you have such a device?"
"You know we didn't," Patrick replied.
Sanusi just smiled. "But all of Libya and most of the world believe this is so," Sanusi said. "It'll make Libya's next move easier to justify."
"The invasion of Egypt?"
"Well, I think that's pretty obvious," Sanusi said. "The question for you is: What's the objective?"
"You said it yourself: oil."
"Libya has oil. Lots of it."
"Then Libya either wants more, or it wants to control what it doesn't have-or destroy it."
Sanusi smiled. "I think I know where you belong now, Mr. McLanahan-or is it General McLanahan? It's still not out here in the desert, though."
Soon the effects of the electromagnetic pulse in the atmosphere from the explosion at Mersa Matruh were subsiding, and shortly after that, they started receiving position data. "We're only twenty miles from Jaghbub," Patrick pointed out.
"Correct."
"The radiation levels are getting higher," Briggs said. "They'll reach danger levels soon."
"The radiation levels are high enough to affect normal radio communications," Sanusi said. "If a Libyan patrol doesn't have radiation detectors-and by now, all of them do-the disruption of radio communications would get their attention." Patrick wondered why Sanusi would bother to offer that unusual detail.
By the time they were within five miles of Jaghbub, the radiation levels had reached danger levels. From here they could see the base-and there was no doubt that the base had suffered a tremendous attack. The sand was scorched black, like the ruins of Mersa Matruh; armored vehicles, buildings, helicopters, and all sorts of objects, most unidentifiable, lay bent and smoldering. Bodies, charred
black and burned almost to the skeleton, could be seen scattered everywhere, along with the carcasses of vultures and other desert scavengers who tried to feed off them. The Libyans had erected signs on every road and path, warning in Arabic and English to stay away from the area because of deadly radiation. Obviously many Libyans had ignored the warning, because they could see abandoned Libyans armored vehicles everywhere-they imagined they were filled with the bloated, rotting corpses of radiationpoisoned soldiers.
"My ancestral home," Sanusi said, "or at least what remains of it after Qadhafi and Zuwayy desecrated and perverted it."
"I'm sorry it's been destroyed," Patrick said.
"You should be-you did most of it, at least to the base," Sanusi said. He smiled, nodded, then added, "Nah, don't be sorry. The base was an abomination to the spirit of my ancestors. They created a place of worship and a place of learning here-Qaddafi and Zuwayy turned it into an armed fortress and a den of sin. You only did what I've wanted the power to do-flatten it. Come on."
"You're going there!"
"Of course," Sanusi said. Some of his men dismounted to examine the new armored vehicles; shots rang out, indicating that some half-dead soldiers were being dispatched by Sanusi's men. But then, to Patrick's surprise, the soldiers started up the vehicle and drove it off-not away from the base, but toward it!
"Patrick..."
"It's okay-I get it now," Patrick said. Muhammad Sanusi just smiled and nodded as they continued on.
As they got closer to the carnage that was once the holy Islamic town of Jaghbub, the details became clearer: Some of the corpses were real, but most of them were faked plaster or wooden mannequins. Some of the armored vehicles had been destroyed not from a nuclear blast but by regular antitank or RPG rounds or by the Wolverine cruise missile's Sensor-Fuzed Weapon rounds blowing through the weaker upper hull. The blackness surrounding the base
Tvas dark sand, gravel, or charcoal, not the vaporized remains of buildings. "You faked a nuclear blast here?" Hal Briggs asked incredulously.
"It wasn't hard to do after what you guys did here," Sanusi said. 'The base had been pretty much evacuated by morning-we cleaned up a few security patrols, captured a bunch of good equipment, blew up several thousand pounds of high explosives and ammunition for realism, and used the dead and destroyed vehicles to create the look of a decimated base."
"And the radiation ... ?"
"Some captured medical radioisotopes, scattered along the roads and paths. Not enough to be picked up by a radiation-detecting aircraft or satellite, but plenty to be picked up by ground-based sensors. You don't need much if you got the rumor mill going properly-start spreading rumors by radio and teletype that there's been a nuclear detonation in the desert, and bad news travels real fast."
"So all the messages and reports about an American nuclear attack ... ?"
"Provided by us," Sanusi said. "Complete with pictures, eyewitness accounts, sensor data, even some soldiers suffering radiation sickness. Combined with what's happened at Mersa Matruh, folks will believe anything now."
"Eventually the army will send in troops to secure this base," Chris Wohl said. "You can't fool them forever."
"We'll be out of here before they get brave enough to send someone with more brains, Sergeant," Sanusi said. "But I think the action will be starting elsewhere, and they'll hold off on investigating Jaghbub for a while."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because I'll be the one starting the action," Sanusi said with a smile. "And now, with your help, we'll make an even bigger splash."
They drove out to the flight line, where the burned-out hulks of several helicopters and one large jet, about the size of a Boeing 727, sat. The runway was lined with dozens of bomb craters-there didn't appear to be more than one or two hundred feet of usable pavement any-
where. But Patrick already figured that Sanusi and his men were masters at concealment and camouflage. "Okay, Your Majesty-how did you do it?"
"A little sand, a little wood- it won't stand up to closer scrutiny, but visually, they look real enough," Sanusi replied. "A couple men can sweep them off to the side in a few minutes, and it takes less than an hour to put them all back in." He stopped his Humvee. "Your attack destroyed most of the buildings and facilities aboveground, but not all of them-and best of all, the POL storage is intact."
"It is?"
'The army put most of the petroleum storage underground, so your big explosive didn't destroy it," Sanusi explained. "The fuel farm your bombs blew up were the old tanks. The underground tanks were topped off, toothere's probably one hundred thousand gallons of jet fuel down there, ready to go. Maybe more. All his weapons are underground, too-bombs, missiles, rockets, guns, rifles, and ammunition from seven-millimeter to fifty-sevenmillimeter. I would need a thousand men to help me haul it all away." He looked at Patrick. "And I'll trade it all for some help."
"What do you want us to do?"
"Stop Zuwayy and whoever's behind this sudden military buildup of his," Sanusi said. "Zuwayy's got something up his sleeve, and he's getting s
ome big-time financing to do it. I'm only irritating him right now-but you could really put the hurt on him. I assume that because you were still in the vicinity of the base, you didn't use all your resources here-I'm convinced you can destroy any base, any military site, in Libya or Egypt."
Just then, Patrick heard, "Tin Man, this is Headbanger."
"Go ahead, Headbanger."
"Thank God we got you, sir," George "Zero" Tanaka, the pilot aboard the EB-52 Megafortress bomber, said. "We were just about to bug out for an emergency landing strip. What's your situation?"
"We're secure," Patrick reported. "What's youi status?"
"We're a few minutes past bingo for the secondary re-
cover base," Tanaka said. Patrick knew that the secondary recovery base for the EB-52 was an isolated abandoned air base near Vol'vata, in the extreme southern tip of Israel-no support, no fuel, just a relatively safe piece of concrete on which to set a two-hundred-thousand-pound plane and wait for help. It was also their last planned emergency recovery base-any other emergency strips they might use from here on out would be in Egypt, Libya, Sudan, or Algeria-or they would ditch in the Mediterranean Sea or Red Sea. "We lost our tanker support. Got any instructions for us?"
The question, Patrick thought, was rather moot now. Patrick knew he shouldn't trust anyone, especially a Libyan, but Muhammad as-Sanusi was different-or so he hoped.
"Yes, I have instructions," Patrick said. "Get a fix on my location-you'll find a seven-thousand-foot concrete airstrip here. We have fuel, possibly weapons, some support equipment."
There were a few moments of silence as the Megafortress crew plotted his location; then: "Ahh ... verify this location, sir?" Tanaka asked.
"The location is accurate: Jaghbub, Libya."
"And you are secure?"
"Affirmative."
"Then you wouldn't mind telling me the nickname of the base where we launched from."
Their conversation was on a secure satellite link, but Patrick was still pleased that the Megafortress crew thought of a code phrase to use that only a few folks would know; plus, by saying a nickname, if Patrick was under duress, he could make up any name without arousing suspicion. "Hooterville," Patrick replied, giving the nickname the B-52 crews once used for Blytheville Air Force Base in rural northeastern Arkansas.
