“In all fairness, Miss Yamani, the foreign pilots were divided long before we arrived here.”
“Stop calling me Miss Yamani. My name is Fadeela,” she said. “The point is that we can no longer afford to act like Saudis, or Iraqis, or Egyptians, or whoever. We must begin to think and act together, as humans!” She paused long enough to take a sip of her drink.
“I notice you and your brother have at least one thing in common. You both seem to dislike this Faisal character.”
Fadeela’s lips curled when she heard the name. “Ghalil Faisal makes all of his decisions based on his own interests. He is a snake.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
There was an awkward silence during which Fadeela continued to stare across the table as if she were waiting for him to say something brilliant, something that would lead to the swift and sure destruction of the invaders. Reg tried to avoid making eye contact. Each time he looked at her, he felt thrown off-balance by her disconcerting green eyes and the beauty of her face—inappropriate thoughts during a military strategy session. He glanced out the window and saw that Khalid was still talking to the soldier.
“Major, I must ask you another question.”
“Stop calling me ‘Major,’ he said, imitating her. “My name is Reg.”
She didn’t react. “I am wondering, Reg, what is it that you fight for?”
The question took him by surprise. “I’m not sure what you mean. Are you asking what cause I’m fighting for?”
“Precisely. Do you fight for the love of your country?”
“I serve my country,” he told her, “but I’m not one of these rah-rah, Rule-Britannia types.”
“For a wife and children then?”
“Haven’ t got any of those. Why are you asking?”
Fadeela studied him sadly. “Because I don’t see the man my brother has described to me.”
“I’m afraid Khalid has a tendency—”
“His tendency,” she interrupted, “has been to describe you as an intelligent and resourceful warrior. But you don’t look that way to me.”
Reg’s anger flared suddenly to the surface. “Look here, princess, I’m awfully sorry I can’t whip up a quick fix to your pesky alien problem, but I’ve trained half the men in your bloody air force. I’m a pilot and a teacher, and a damned good one. I don’t need to apologize to you for not being something else!”
Fadeela leaned toward him, matching his anger. “The time for teaching is past us. Now is the time for action, for warriors. But you have nothing to fight for.”
They stared murderously at one another until Reg sniffed and turned away. “It’s been a long, hot day and I’m completely knackered. Maybe—”
“And don’t call me princess,” she interrupted again. “I hate that. I am not a princess.” She stuffed the cork back into the bottle, put it back in its place then headed toward her room. She stopped and turned, wanting to say something before she left. All the harshness left her face as she struggled to find the words she wanted, but after a moment of trying, she gave up and closed the door.
3
MEETINGS
By the time Reg made his way back to the international side of the runway, darkness had fallen. He found that a small forest of tents had sprouted beneath the wings of the jet fighters. Reg had thought that the tents, a goodwill gesture from Faisal, might have fostered a spirit of cooperation among the different groups of pilots. Instead, they had only encouraged the contingents to move farther apart. The Iraqi tents were pitched as far as possible from the Iranians, Reg noted, and the Israelis appeared to have negotiated with the Jordanians so that Edward and his friends formed a buffer zone between Muslim and Jewish camps. A diagram of the camp would have nicely illustrated the geopolitics of the region.
Reg made his way toward the British tents, pitched directly beneath the wings of the Tornadoes. As he passed behind the one enclave, laughter rang out. Looking over, he saw that Thomson was sitting cross-legged among a group of Syrian pilots. As he thumbed through his phrase book, straining to read in the dim light cast by the small dung fire, one of the pilots threw some dried branches across the flames. The smell of sandalwood floated through the chill night air.
It’s good he survived, thought Reg of the lieutenant colonel. He may be setting himself up as a laughingstock, but he’s doing a good job as ambassador-at-large, too.
There was no movement at the British camp. A neat stack of dung briquettes sat next to a basket of scented kindling, but neither had been disturbed. Reg assumed the other two Brits were talking with some of the internationals. He’d not been lying to Fadeela when he told her he was tired, so he chose a tent at random and lifted the flap, intending to crawl inside and go to sleep.
There was a sudden movement inside the tent, followed immediately by the unmistakable metallic click of a pistol being cocked. Reg stumbled backward as Sutton emerged from the tent, looking around wildly, obviously just awakened.
Seeing Reg sprawled on the ground, Sutton put the gun on safety, and growled, “Damn it, Cummins! What the hell are you doing sneaking about?”
Sitting up and dusting sand off of his flight suit, Reg said, “Tad jumpy, aren’t we?”
Tye crawled out of another of the tents, as Sutton replied, “You scared the piss out of me. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s an alien invasion going on. Call your name out next time.” Sutton reached back into the tent for his boots, pulling out a pack of cigarettes as he did so.
Tye said, “So, Major, I guess you’re pretty tight with the Saudis.”
“What are you going on about now, Tye?” asked Reg.
“Well,” said the young man, “that big captain knew your name. So did that Saudi pilot at the supply plane. Then you went off to the private planes while the rest of sat out here freezing our arses off. What kind of crazy place is this, anyway? Hot as the devil during the day, then cold as a Shetland Islands winter at night.”
“That’s the desert for you,” said Reg. “As to being ‘in tight,’ that’s probably an exaggeration. I have a few friends in the Saudi military establishment. Quite a few of these fellows went through the Flight and Training program at Khamis Moushayt.”
“One of the Saudis at the supply plane told Yossi and me that you’re a top gun, that you kicked some serious butt in Desert Storm.”
“You heard wrong,” said Reg a little too harshly. He didn’t want to discuss his performance during the conflict with Iraq.
Sutton had his cigarette lit and was looking doubtfully at the fuel they’d been provided for a campfire. “This grease monkey is convinced you’re going to save us.” He picked up a briquette and sniffed it. “What is this shit, some kind of charcoal?”
“You’ve got it backward. It’s charcoal made out of shit,” said Reg. “That’s dried camel dung, Sutton.” As the lieutenant cursed and began scouring his hands with sand, Reg turned to Tye.
“Look, lad,” he said, “I can fly a plane, sure. But no amount of fancy flying is going to do us any good against these aliens. You saw their shields. You saw the maneuverability those fighters of theirs possess. If we’re going to beat these bastards, it’s not going to be through head-to-head aerial combat.”
“Especially since there probably aren’t that many combat aircraft left to send against them,” said Sutton. “Rumors are going around, pretty much confirming what we heard from Khamis Moushayt before they went off the air. Thirty-six cities destroyed, and now the blighters have moved on to have a go at another thirty-six. A radio message came in from some Druse militiamen holed up in the mountains of Lebanon. They reported that the Jerusalem ship was moving into Jordan.”
“What about the one over Turkey?” asked Reg, worried that they might have two ships to worry about in their neighborhood instead of just one.
“We’ve not heard anything at all from farther north,” said Tye. “Which is just as well, I suppose, given what these Saudis are planning.”
“And what’
s that?” asked Reg.
“That tall Ethiopian, Remi, told us that the Israelis told him the Saudis had been talking to the Egyptians. Apparently, they plan to go in with guns blazing if the local ship moves toward Mecca. They told the Egyptians the only way to get their planes refueled was to help defend the city.”
Reg nodded meditatively. “Makes sense,” he said. “From a Muslim’s point of view at any rate.”
“It doesn’t make any kind of sense at all!” Sutton said. “This Faisal is apparently some kind of religious fanatic!”
“Oh, come off it, Sutton,” Reg said. “Mecca is one of the high holy sites of Islam. They’ve already seen Jerusalem destroyed, and the bulk of Saudi Arabia’s domestic military doctrine is built around defense of Mecca. A lot of these pilots would consider it their sacred duty.” Reg paused. “I hadn’t thought of it; Jerusalem, Rome. I wonder if the aliens are intentionally targeting religious sites.”
Tye pursed his lips. “Wasn’t there one over Los Angeles?”
“Good point,” conceded Reg. “It was just a theory.”
Sutton angrily flicked his cigarette butt into the sand. “Don’t give me that rot about ‘sacred duty,’” he said. “These foreign pilots will take the Saudis’ fuel and say they’ll defend the city, all right. And then as soon as they’re in the air they’ll head off in whatever direction they please.”
Tye chimed in, “That’s what Lieutenant Sutton says we should do, too.”
Sutton crouched in the sand between Reg and Tye. He handed his lighter to Tye and indicated that he should hold it to light the map he sketched in the sand.
“Look here,” he said. “If these holy warriors will top off the tanks in our Tornadoes, we might be able to make it to Diego Garcia.” He sketched a long line to the British possession in the Indian Ocean, site of a major British air base.
Reg shook his head. “We don’t even know if the facilities there still exist. The aliens could have been there by now.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” replied Sutton. “At least there’s a chance we could be back among our own kind.”
Reg sighed and crawled into one of the tents. “You’re even less bright than I’d thought, Sutton,” he called through the canvas. “Think about it. If we hadn’t spotted the smoke from that crashed tanker today, we’d be dying of thirst in the deep desert, assuming we survived bailing out of our planes. And now you want to fly over open ocean with no satellite navigation aids and intermittent radio communications, hoping that you’ll find the island before your fuel gives out.”
“I’d risk it to get out of here,” came Sutton’s reply. “Look, Cummins, I think it’s great that you’re having a love-in with your Arab pals, but we’ve got to launch a counterattack against these damned aliens before it’s too late. Sitting out here in the desert is a waste of everybody’s time. We should all get back to our own armies. That’s the only way we have a chance of making a difference; it’s the only way to make sure we have a planet left to fight for.”
Reg lay on his back in his tent. He had to admit that Sutton did have a point. There were too many factions in the desert camp, all working at cross-purposes. It would be impossible to plan an effective assault on the aliens.
He closed his eyes. It had been a terribly long day, the longest day of his life, and he desperately needed rest. But as he lay there, he couldn’t stop his mind from churning. Sutton’s last remark had been too close to the question Fadeela had asked him: What do you have worth fighting for?
*
When the moon had climbed above the dunes towering on the horizon, the representatives from each country present were again called to Faisal’s tent. The British decided to try to get away with sending three representatives. Reg, Thomson, and Tye left Sutton to hold down the fort.
As they approached the runway, they were met by a pair of Israelis: the thin, bespectacled Yossi and his female commander. From the moment the Brits saw her, they could tell the Israeli pilot was wound tight. She had a trapped look. The name on her flight suit was Marx, but she introduced herself simply as Miriyam. She was short, solid, and strong. The dark circles under her eyes were visible even by moonlight, and her mass of coiled auburn hair bounced with an anxiety of its own.
“I can’t believe that they’ve kept us out here all day,” she said. “We need just two things from these Arabs: jet fuel and access to their radios. We have to insist on this, as a group. If they won’t give us what we need, we’ll have to take it.”
Reg looked at Yossi, who merely shrugged. Neither the two of them nor Tye wanted to attempt calming Miriyam down. But then Thomson stepped into the breach.
“Captain, you might want to exercise some restraint in this meeting, as a woman. These Arab men are extremely old-fashioned, you know, not exactly a bunch of women’s libbers.”
Miriyam stepped up and grabbed Thomson by the lapels. The two of them were approximately the same height, but Thomson easily outweighed her. She took no notice of that as she lifted the colonel off his feet and spoke through clenched teeth. “I can handle myself.”
As she eased Thomson to the ground, however, some of the anger seemed to go out of her. “I apologize,” she said. “Of course you are right. I will try.”
As they approached the command tent, they could see that it was already crowded. The flaps had been tied back, and several Saudi soldiers stood guard. The five of them stepped up to the entrance and peered inside. The tent was crowded with forty or fifty people, a mixture of Saudi officers and foreign pilots. They stood in small groups, speaking in hushed tones. Low-ranking officers moved through this edgy crowd, offering steaming tea in plastic cups. It had the appearance of a grim cocktail party.
As the five new arrivals hesitated at the entrance, a handsome Saudi officer made his way through the crowd, opening his arms to greet them.
“Salaam alechem, my brothers. I am Ghalil Rumallah Ibn-Faisal. It is the will of God that we meet here this evening. He has brought you here to support us in our fight against this most terrible enemy.”
Reg hadn’t recognized the camp’s commander without his robes, but he saw now that this was the man who had spoken with the Saudi captain at the prayer session earlier in the day. Now he was dressed in a sharply tailored khaki dress uniform. Numerous military decorations were plastered across his chest.
Thomson greeted the man warmly. The man’s only been in Saudi Arabia for a day, thought Reg, but he already knows that flattery is the grease that turns the wheel here.
“You Saudi chaps deserve three cheers from all of us,” said Thomson. “It took crack judgment and foresight to organize this camp as quickly as you’ve done. Without this base we’d all be lost, completely lost.”
That’s true enough, thought Reg, as a big smile spread across Faisal’s face.
“How did your lot pull this all together so quickly?” Thomson asked.
Faisal joined them outside the tent and spoke. “I tell you, when I first saw the fires in the sky I trembled like a woman, but then I sank to my knees and prayed for direction. And Allah, in his wisdom, showed me what I should do. He told me to build an army in the farthest desert, where my people could gather themselves until the chosen moment. From this place, it was revealed to me, we will join the battle and win a glorious victory.”
Reg kept his features schooled in a neutral expression, as did all of the others except for Miriyam, who scowled. And Thomson, of course, who nodded and grinned broadly.
“Sounds marvelous,” said the colonel. “If this vision of yours is correct, it sounds like we can’t lose.”
Miriyam suddenly let out a sharp cry of disgust. “This is not a time for children’s stories,” she hissed. “God did not bring me here to fight under Arabs! We demand that you give us fuel at once so that we can return to Israel.”
Yossi put his hand on her shoulder in an effort to calm her outburst. That only succeeded in making her angrier and louder. She pushed his hand away and stepped closer
to Faisal.
“You can all stay out here in the middle of nowhere and talk to one another as long as you please!” she shouted. “Just give us our fuel!” The sound of her voice made several people in the tent turn to see what was happening.
Faisal’s reaction surprised Reg. He expected the commander to react to Miriyam much as Khalid had to Fadeelah that afternoon. Instead, Faisal only seemed amused. In a voice loud enough to be heard throughout the tent, he addressed Yossi.
“Mr. Israeli,” he said, “your superior officer, he is acting like a woman.” Then, pretending to see her for the first time, he gasped, and said, “Allah be praised! He is a woman!” A wave of nervous laughter swept through the tent, but Faisal’s smile melted as he took in the group of Brits and Israelis. He spoke again, this time much lower, and in a menacing tone.
“I am bound by a very old Bedouin custom,” he told them. “I must welcome all who reach my tent. Even if he is my worst enemy, even if he is a jackal who murdered my only son, I must welcome him for a period of three days.”
“What happens after three days?” asked Tye.
“The wise guest,” answered Faisal, “doesn’t stay to find out.” He motioned for a pair of guards, who stepped between the Israelis and the entrance of the tent. Then he turned and looked directly at Reg.
“I think it would be best if these people waited outside. Englishmen are well-known for their fondness for Jews, so we will trust you to represent their interests at our planning conference.” With that, he clapped a friendly hand against the back of Tye’s neck, causing the sunburned mechanic to wince, and led the British pilots into the tent.
Thomson worked fast, attempting to smooth over the incident at the entrance. He introduced himself and his comrades. “We’re beginning to add up to quite a force,” he said to Faisal.
“Yes, Colonel,” came the reply, “and we expect more pilots to join us soon. Small groups of planes have hidden themselves throughout the Empty Quarter. We are finding more of them with each passing hour through our radios.”
Reg spoke for the first time. “There’s a difference between gathering firepower and building an army, Commander. Without a common purpose, this is just a collection of men and machines.” Thinking of Fadeelah, he continued, “There are some who might say that you’ve been hampering any chance for unity.”
Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The Page 57