Ashes - Enemy In The Ashes Part 23

Shaeen's eyes followed Bart's gesture. "Yes, Commander, I can see that."

"Have your men mined the oil wells?" Bart asked.

Shaeen gave a sad half smile. "I'm afraid I cannot answer that, Commander. You are aware of the Geneva Convention and its rules concerning treatment of prisoners of war, I take it?"

Bart smiled grimly back at Shaeen. "Lieutenant, let me give you some facts. You and your men are not prisoners of war. You belong to no recognized country's armed forces and you are not fighting in a declared war. You are terrorists and spies, nothing more."

When Shaeen started to speak, Bart held up his hand. "And as such, I am sure you are aware we would be perfectly within our rights to execute you and your men on the spot.""But. . ." Shaeen began.

Bart glanced pointedly at his wrist.w.a.tch. "You have 245.

245.

ten minutes to make up your mind, Lieutenant. After that we will begin to execute your men one by one until you are all dead. And then we will attack the oil fields and wipe our your troops there to the last man."

Shaeen glanced around at the stony faces of the troops around him. "But surely you do not want the oil wells destroyed."

Bart shrugged. "The most your men can do will be to blow up the derricks. The damage from such an act could be repaired in a matter of days." He glanced at his watch again. "You now have eight minutes, Lieutenant, or the lives of all of your men will be on your head."

Shaeen's eyes dropped and his shoulders slumped. "I will see what I can do, Commander."

Bart glanced at Jackie and winked so Shaeen couldn't see him. "Give the lieutenant a jeep, please, Jackie. We'll let him go and have a talk with his comrades."

246.

Haji Kuchkool, with Farid Zamet riding in the rear of his HumVee, stayed well to the rear of the advancing troops as they moved closer to the oil fields.

He winced in sympathy and anger as he saw hundreds of his men cut down by the withering fire from the defenders, as well as the rocket grenades that, with no vehicles to concentrate on, were now landing in the middle of his troops and cutting them down by the dozens.

By the time his men overran the oil derricks and found the defenders had retreated, the field in front of the oil field was covered with dead and dying men, and the screams and moans were pitiful to listen to.

Kuchkool turned to one of his lieutenants. "Go out into the field and shut those men up," he ordered. "Their cowardly crying is bad for morale."

The young soldier nodded, not having the slightest idea how he was going to accomplish this, short of killing the men himself. However, as young as he was, he knew it was certain death to defy or question Commander Kuchk-ool's orders, so he moved as rapidly as he could to get out of the sight of his temperamental leader.

As Kuchkool approached the area where the defenders had last been sighted, followed closely behind by Farid Zamet, he noticed a tent pitched between two oil derricks.

247.

247The tent was lighted from the inside by what looked like a lantern hanging on a pole in the center of the tent.

Kuchkool pointed with the barrel of his Kalashnikov. "Look there, Farid, there is a radio antenna on top of the tent. Perhaps this is the enemy's communications headquarters."

Zamet nodded. "Maybe they left some important papers behind that will give us some insight into the strength of their forces in the city," he suggested.

"Let us go look," Kuchkool said, smiling at the thought of the praise he would receive from El Farrar if he found something important.

As he moved toward the tent, a tremendous explosion came from fifty yards away, followed immediately by screams of pain and terror as a giant fireball roared into the sky.

Kuchkool and Zamet both hit the dirt, landing on their faces in the gravel and sand as hundreds of pieces of molten shrapnel tore over their heads and shredded the walls of the tent in front of them.

Once he was certain there were going to be no more explosions, Kuchkool got slowly to his feet, dusting himself off as he glared toward the source of the explosion.

"What happened?" he asked a soldier who was walking toward him, a dazed expression on his face.

"The enemy soldiers left a box full of grenades behind, Commander," the young man said, sleeving soot and dirt off his face. "It must have been mined, for it went off and killed almost a dozen men who were nearby."

Kuchkool glanced at Zamet, and then at the tent in front of them, a speculative expression on his face.

Zamet, catching the meaning of his stare, backed slowly away from the tent, his eyes wide with fear.

248.

"Soldier," Kuchkool said, "there are some papers in that tent over there. Go and get them for me."

The soldier, still dazed from his close call of moments before, nodded and moved toward the tent.

Kuchkool, following Zamet's lead, also backed away from the tent and moved over behind a nearby oil derrick.

Just as he got to the tent, the soldier stumbled over the wire Harley had left, and had time to look down before the plastique bricks attached to the wire exploded.

The soldier was blown into several pieces, and both Kuchkool and Zamet were knocked off their feet by the force of the blast.

"Allah be merciful," Zamet groaned from his position fiat on his back. A small trickle of blood ran down his forehead and onto his cheek from where a small pebble had ricocheted off a beam and into his skin.Once again, Kuchkool got to his feet and brushed himself off. Several soldiers ran up to him and asked him if he was all right.

"Yes, yes, of course," he answered impatiently. He looked at Zamet as he was climbing to his feet. "Perhaps we should hold off searching the oil field until dawn. It will be easier to spot the traps that have obviously been left for us in daylight," he said.

Zamet nodded, only too happy to get out of this accursed place before he too was blown apart.

"Gather the troops," Kuchkool ordered a nearby junior officer. "We move against the city."

As he walked toward his HumVee, Kuchkool growled, "I swear by Allah I will destroy the infidel dogs for what they've done to my troops tonight."

Zamet kept his mouth shut. He wasn't about to tell the commander he hadn't done all that well so far.

249.

249.

Once he was sure the medic had done all he could for Buddy, Harley called a strategy meeting of the squad leaders of the Scout teams holed up in Tehran.

Major Jackson Bean, Willie Running Bear, Samuel Clements, and Sue Waters were all in attendance.

"Major Bean," Harley began, "as ranking officer, you are next in line to Buddy to take command."

"I'm told Buddy asked you to take command, Harley," Bean said, smiling.

"Let's hear what you have to say before I decide whether to take command or not."

Harley shook his head. "That order by Buddy was just to get us out of the desert and into the city, Major."

Bean nodded. "All right then, here's how I see our situation. We're outnumbered a hundred to one. The only thing we've got going for us is we're small enough to be extremely mobile, while the larger force will be forced to move at a snail's pace."

Harley grinned, seeing where the major was going with his talk.

"The other thing in our favor is that it is the middle of the night.

Scouts are trained to fight in darkness, while most regular troops are not."

He paused. "My idea is to leave half our forces here in the city, spread out among as many buildings as we can so they'll seem like a larger force. When they draw the hostiles' fire, the rest of our men and women, divided up into small two- and three-man groups, will attack from the flanks and rear, hitting hard and fast and then disappearing back into the darkness. Pretty soon, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds won't know whether they'recoming or going."

Harley laughed. "And with our silencers, half the time they won't even know they've been attacked until they're already dead."

250.

Bean looked at his squad leaders. "Okay, guys and gals, let's get our teams put together and get them out of sight and ready to move."

He glanced at Harley. "I think your team is most used to guerrilla warfare, so we'll have your guys be some of our mobile troops, if you agree."

"Absolutely," Harley said, glad he hadn't been consigned to sit on a rooftop waiting for the enemy to come to him. He knew the rest of the team felt the same way: They'd all rather take the fight to the enemy than the opposite.

Back in the room where the rest of the team waited with Buddy, Harley told them the good news. "Coop, you and Jersey team up; Anna, you come with me; Hammer, you and Beth take Corrie with you and you'll be in charge of communications with Major Bean and the other mobile teams.

He'll let us know through you if any of the stationary troops come under too much fire so you can send a mobile team to take the heat off them."

"What about Buddy?" Jersey asked, looking over at his sleeping body on a cot against a far wall.

"Major Bean is going to leave some men here with him. He'll be a lot safer than any of us, Jersey."

Everyone nodded, and began to move off together in their teams, discussing among themselves how they were going to work the attack.

As they went down the stairs, Coop leaning heavily on the handrail and still limping, Jersey glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Maybe you'd better ask Jackson if you can take a position in one of the buildings, Coop. That ankle still looks pretty bad," she said.

Coop pressed his lips together and shook his head.

251.

251.

"Not on your life, Jersey." He paused and looked at her. "But it might be better for you to ask Harley to a.s.sign you another teammate. I'll probably just slow you down."

She stopped and turned to look square at him. "You say anything like that again and it won't only be your ankle that's swollen . . . it'll be your jaw too."

"But. . . but I just. . ." Coop began as she turned and walked away down the stairs.

"Shut up, Coop," she growled over her shoulder. "For once in your life, shut up!""Uh, yes, ma'am," Coop said, grinning at the back of her head.

"Wait right here," she ordered when they got to the door. "I'll be right back."

Five minutes later, she returned, driving up in an old U.S. Army jeep that looked as if it'd spent the last fifty years in the desert. The tires were worn almost flat and the paint had faded to the color of rusted metal, but the engine still sounded good.

"Jesus," Coop said. "What museum did you find that in?"

"I saw it on our way in to town earlier," she answered. "Remember the history of World War II?"

"Yeah, what of it?" Coop asked as he climbed into the pa.s.senger seat.

"In the deserts of North Africa, there were squads of men driving these jeeps against the Germans. They called themselves The Desert Rats, if I remember correctly."

Coop laughed and grabbed the winds.h.i.+eld as Jersey took off in a cloud of smoking exhaust. "Well, fellow rat," he yelled over the sound of the engine, "let's go get us some cheese!"

252 I'll THIRTY-FIVE.As the battle over Tehran began to rage, the silver s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p flashed into the upper reaches of the earth's atmosphere, leveling off at a distance of some two hundred miles.

Since all of the satellites monitored by the U.N. and by the Intel officers at the SUSA were turned to observe the goings on in the Middle East, the s.h.i.+p was un.o.bserved by anyone in authority on the planet.

The navigator of the s.h.i.+p, still flushed and breathing heavily from his encounter with his new female friend, punched a b.u.t.ton on the console in front of him. Moments later, his captain's voice came out of a nearby speaker.

"Yes, Garthul, what is it?"

"We have reached the planet where the radio-frequency emissions originated, Captain."

"Have you set up a synchronous...o...b..t?"

"Of course, sir."

"Then I shall be there momentarily. Call the science officer and have him begin his measurements of atmosphere and surface temperatures."

"Yes, sir," the navigator replied, and hastily buzzed the cubicle of the science officer. He would be glad to have someone else on the bridge when the captain arrived. It was nerve-wracking being alone with someone who 253might decide you would be more useful as food than as a navigator.

As the navigator circled the planet, the science officer was busily peering through the various instruments on the bridge and making copious notes on his handheld computer board.

Suddenly, he stiffened and pulled his head away from the viewing screen to stare at the navigator. "Garthul, stop the s.h.i.+p and hold it steady over this position for a while," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," the navigator answered, twisting dials to slow the s.h.i.+p.

Sometimes it seemed to him that everyone on this blasted s.h.i.+p outranked him, even though it was his skill that kept them all from flying into the nearby sun and being incinerated.

"What is it you see, Science Officer," Garthul asked, making sure to keep the tone of his voice subservient.

"There seems to be an armed conflict occurring in that area of what looks like desert below us."

"Are the radiation levels climbing?" Garthul asked, since armed conflict on civilized worlds usually meant the use of atomic weapons.

"No, and that is somewhat strange. Perhaps this world has not progressed to the level necessary to produce atomic weapons yet."