Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The

by Molstad, Stephen

  “That’s not it,” he broke in. “Khalid’s in trouble. Serious trouble, I think.”

  “What has he done now?” she asked, suddenly serious.

  “Today, in the air, Faisal ordered his men to attack the destroyer before the shields came down. It was a stupid order, and all the men who obeyed it are dead now. Your brother broke away with a few others. I think it was common sense, but the king is calling it treason. He also mentioned that Khalid did something like this before, that he crossed Faisal during the Gulf War.”

  “Where is my brother now?”

  “We’ve looked everywhere for him. I think he might have run off somewhere.”

  “Faisal will be the ruin of my family yet! He is more treacherous than the aliens who tried to destroy us!” She sat down on a garden bench and put her head in her hands.

  “What happened before?”

  “According to my brother, Faisal ordered an attack on a few Iraqi jets flying inside their own borders. They shot the planes down and then flew home, where Faisal created an elaborate story about facing down a large group of bombers. It was all designed to turn him into a hero. When Khalid went to his superiors, he was told to keep his mouth shut so he wouldn’t embarrass the Saudi army. It was my brother’s word against Faisal’s and that of his henchmen. I must go and find my father. He will be forced to bargain with this evil man for my brother’s amnesty.”

  “I may be able to help,” Reg said.

  “This is a Saudi matter now,” Fadeela said. “No outsiders will be allowed to speak at the trial.”

  “I won’t need to speak. I can give Khalid something to use against Faisal.” Then he told her about the recording.

  “Not only is he handsome and brave and unafraid of women, he is very clever as well.”

  Just then, a messenger arrived. He was one of Fadeela’s nephews, who spoke to her urgently in Arabic.

  “They’ve arrested Khalid at the airport,” she told Reg. “He was trying to escape in his plane. They’re bringing him back to stand trial tonight. The king is very angry.” As she and her friends hurried away toward the palace, she turned and called back to Reg. “Please bring us the recording. My brother’s life may depend on it.”

  “Did you see that?” Tye asked when the women had gone. “I was only about sixty-five virgins short of paradise.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Back to the airfield. We’ve got to find Thomson.”

  Standing at the edge of the runway, they watched as the two C-130s landed, then kept careful eyes on the gangplanks as the passengers disembarked to the cheers of the crowd. It was past midnight, and the crowds were thinning, but there were still a lot of people out there. Thomson was nowhere to be seen. Reg approached a man with a familiar face, the burly Saudi captain who had treated them so roughly the day before. Reg was a little apprehensive about talking to him again, and was surprised when the big man turned to him with a smile and lifted him off the ground in a bear hug. When asked if he’d seen Thomson, the captain looked around him, surprised that the British lieutenant colonel wasn’t among the disembarking passengers.

  “Everyone wants to find this little man,” he said.

  “Who else?” Reg asked.

  “I don’t know. Some soldiers who arrived with the transport planes,” he said. “They were looking everywhere for him.”

  “Some of Faisal’s men?”

  The captain didn’t know.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Tye asked. “That Faisal’s covering his trail?” Reg didn’t answer, but it certainly looked that way.

  By the time they drove back to the palace, Khalid’s trial was almost over. It was being held in the king’s quarters on the second floor of the palace. Guards had been posted at the bottom of the main stairway to ensure privacy. Nevertheless, a steady stream of soldiers and members of the royal family passed back and forth through the cordon, delivering news to those waiting on the main floor. Most of the guests, including the pilots, had gone off to bed or to more private parties. A somber mood had settled over the fifty or so people who were still there.

  One of the Saudi royal princes approached Tye and Reg, eager to share what he knew.

  “That fool Khalid Yamani told them everything. He should have remained, humble and silent and begged for mercy. But instead he became angry and accused Faisal of stupidity and cowardice. Now they will be harder on him.”

  “How hard?”

  “Usually these things are settled with money, and the Yamanis are rich,” the prince said, “but they were lenient with Khalid the last time. This time the penalty will almost certainly be death.”

  Reg tried to persuade the guards at the base of the stairs that he had important evidence to present at the trial, but they wouldn’t allow him to pass. Frustrated with his helplessness, he spotted Mrs. Roeder pacing the balcony, talking into her headset. He caught her attention, and she signaled she’d be right there. In the meantime, Fadeela arrived, escorted by her nephew and a few of her veiled friends.

  “Major Cummins, you are just in time, thanks be to Allah. Where is the tape?”

  “The man who made the tape wasn’t on the plane back from the Empty Quarter. I’m still looking for him. I’m sorry.”

  Fadeela made a sound as if she’d been wounded.

  “What can I do for you, Major?” asked Mrs. Roeder, coming down the stairs.

  He asked her to speak with the king and try to persuade him to delay the sentencing until Thomson could be found. She blinked back at him.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said in that breezy, American way that meant he was asking for the impossible.

  Fadeela walked past Reg and took hold of Mrs. Roeder’s arm, pulling her closer and whispering something to her. Then she removed one of the ruby rings from her finger and pressed it into the American woman’s palm. Mrs. Roeder hurried up the stairs into the room where the trial was being held.

  “If only we could find Thomson,” Reg said to Fadeela with a worried look. “I’m afraid something might have happened to him. Faisal has every reason to want that tape as badly as we do.” One of the guards barked a warning, reminding them it was forbidden for them to speak to one another. Reg fixed him with a stare, daring him to enforce the rule. The soldier backed off.

  “Major Cummins,” Fadeela began quietly, “you have been of great service to my family, and I appreciate everything you have done. I believe you tried your best, and I wish things had turned out differently. Goodbye, and thank you again.”

  She turned away from him and surrounded herself with her friends. Reg didn’t know what she was talking about, but it didn’t take long for him to find out. Faisal came striding out of the king’s quarters and hurried down the stairs. In spite of their previous encounter, he greeted Reg warmly. He looked relaxed and, as usual, supremely confident.

  “What do you know about Thomson?” Reg said in a not-so-friendly tone. “He wasn’t on either one of the planes coming back from the camp, and he was seen talking to some of your men before he disappeared.”

  A look of concern spread across Faisal’s face. “Yes, I learned a few moments ago that he was not aboard the evacuation flight. I have been waiting to see him myself. I believe he made an audio record of today’s battle, which I would like very much to play for the king. It confirms Khalid Yamani’s guilt. I hope nothing has happened to Colonel Thomson. He is an excellent man.”

  “You know as well as I do that tape would ruin you. How convenient that it didn’t show up.”

  “I’m confident that it will, eventually.”

  Fadeela came to the stairs and spoke to Faisal in Arabic. Whatever she said put a smile on his face. They said a few things back and forth, none of which Reg could understand, before she lifted her veil away from her face. This shocked the people around them but delighted Faisal, who laughed in recognition. For the second time in as many days, he had seen this beautiful woman’s naked face. An elderly
man standing nearby was not amused. When he saw the maiden exposing herself in the company of men, he used his walking stick to strike her hard across the back of her legs and yelled at her. Reg grabbed the old man and pulled him roughly away from Fadeela.

  “It looks to me like you care too much about this girl, Major,” Faisal said.

  “I’m a friend of the family,” Reg said.

  “And soon, a friend of her husband as well,” he laughed. “We’ve just now made an interesting arrangement. If her father agrees, which I believe he will, Fadeela and I will be married tomorrow.” Faisal headed back up the stairs, chuckling to himself.

  “Married? What did you say to him?” Reg demanded.

  Fadeela didn’t answer him. Instead, she and her friends hurried away.

  *

  Down the slope from the royal mansion, past the swimming pool, was a large château, a gaudy replica of a famous French castle in the Dordogne Valley. The sounds of laughter, conversation, and music drifted out its windows and into the warm night air as Reg and Tye came walking somberly down the hill. The news that Fadeela was going to marry Faisal had hit Reg hard, and he was in a mild state of shock.

  “That poor girl,” Tye said, “trading herself away to save her brother. She must love him. I don’t know if my sister would do the same for me.”

  Reg was hardly listening. In the short time he’d known Fadeela, he’d come to admire her spirit, the way she refused to be dominated. She was tough, beautiful, and ruthlessly honest. The more he learned about her, the more he felt himself drawn to her. It was for her sake that he had found the courage to stand atop a water barrel and convince a hostile group of soldiers they should support the American plan to defeat the city destroyer. But now, only a few hours after deciding that Fadeela’s freedom was something worth fighting and dying for, it had been ransomed away.

  When they entered through the arched stone doorway of the château, they were greeted by a butler, who returned their military uniforms, laundered and ironed. The man led them down the richly appointed hallways, carrying a lantern to light the way since the electricity was not working. Reg would have been happy to call it a night, but Tye came into his room after getting changed.

  “Time to join the party, sir. Throw that uniform on and let’s go.”

  “Not tonight,” Reg said. ‘Too much on my mind. Besides, I feel like I could sleep for a month.”

  Tye did not find that answer acceptable. “Listen to yourself. A few hours after you save planet Earth from certain doom, and you’re ready to mope around your room and turn in early.” Reg looked at his watch. It was past midnight, but Tye wasn’t finished. “I know you’re unhappy about this business with Fadeela, but that’s exactly why I’m not going to let you sit in here by yourself. Let’s go. You can sleep when you’re dead.”

  Two minutes later, they were walking down the hallway with candles, poking their heads through open doorways to inspect the parties going on inside the rooms. Behind one of the closed doors, they heard Miriyam’s voice. It sounded like there was a party going on inside, so they knocked.

  “We are nobody inside of here,” laughed a man with an Arab accent.

  “Go away,” yelled another. “We gave at the office.”

  “Only pilots allowed inside!”

  Tye banged hard on the door. “It’s the police. What are you doing in there?” A moment later the door opened a crack and Yossi’s face, framed by his thick glasses, poked outside. When he saw who it was, he pulled the door open wide and offered a crisp salute.

  “Major Cummins, nice to see you. Come in.”

  A dozen people were crowded into the candlelit room, laughing and talking. It was a scene that would have been impossible before the invasion. Miriyam, an Israeli, sat on a sofa squashed between Edward, the Palestinian from Jordan, and a gray-haired Syrian pilot with his arm in a sling. Yossi, the Ethiopian Remi, and one of the Iranian pilots crowded around Reg, welcoming him to the party. Everyone was relaxed and in high spirits.

  They laughed and talked about what it had been like facing the aliens that afternoon until there was another knock at the door. It was Sutton, returning with a case of warm beer. He was followed inside by Mohammed, the crack Iraqi pilot who had flown so brilliantly. He looked different than Reg expected him to. He was in his early twenties, with a gap-toothed smile and a peach-fuzz mustache.

  “Good flying out there today,” Reg said when they were introduced. “Where’d you learn to handle a plane like that?”

  “Naturally I am a very great pilot,” he announced with a big grin. “I am an Iraqi.” The other pilots moaned when they heard him bragging and pelted him with pillows from all directions. Mohammed ducked and moved for cover.

  “I heard a nasty rumor down in the service kitchen,” Sutton said, offering Reg a beer. “Khalid’s sister is going to marry that bloody Faisal. If she doesn’t, he’s going to have Khalid’s head lopped off. It’s all anyone’s talking about. And get this: They’re going to have the ceremony out at the crash site tomorrow while the king’s having his photo taken with a bunch of dead aliens.”

  “Let’s hope they’re dead.”

  “Of course they are. Nothing could have survived that crash.”

  “It’s disgusting,” said Miriyam. “The way they treat the women in this country is disgusting. The men take many wives and keep them like prisoners and slaves.”

  “That is the old way,” a Saudi pilot said from across the room. “We young Saudi guys, we only have one wife. It’s better than it was.” He was trying to be conciliatory, but it didn’t stop an argument from starting to boil. Miriyam, the only woman in the room, tried to show the Arab men in the room that they were all sexist pigs. Predictably, they took offense, and the shouting match was on. It was still raging ten minutes later when Reg slipped out the door and returned to his room.

  He lay in bed for a while listening to the sounds of the celebration before drifting off into unconsciousness. Less than two hours later, he woke out of nightmare and sat bolt upright in bed. Realizing he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, he put on his freshly laundered uniform and went downstairs.

  The royal servants were busy preparing a lavish breakfast for the pilots in the château’s lobby. Buffet tables were piled high with food, but the only thing Reg wanted was black coffee. While he was drinking it, two more pilots came downstairs and joined him: Mohammed—the young Iraqi—and the captain of the Israeli pilots, Miriyam. The three of them sat down on plush couches beneath an original oil painting Reg recognized as the work of the French post-impressionist Bonnard. While the other two chatted groggily, Reg stared out the darkened windows toying to answer a question: The night before, he’d helped win the most important battle humanity had ever fought. So why did he feel so dead inside the next morning?

  He stood up, and said, “I’m not waiting any longer. I’m heading out to the ship.”

  Miriyam and Mohammed looked at one another in surprise, then followed him out the door.

  7

  “INTO THE SHIP”

  Reg, Miriyam, and Mohammed were taken to the At-Ta‘if airfield by one of the army of limousine drivers who would transport the royal entourage out to the crash site later that morning. The first people they met upon arriving there were a squad of United Nations Peacekeepers. They were Frenchmen who had come from Somalia to help the Saudis in their “mop-up operation.” Their commanding officer, a man named Guillaume, was frustrated with the Saudi ground crews. They said the earliest the Frenchmen could be airlifted out to the downed alien ship would be that afternoon.

  “You have many helicopters empty,” Guillaume shouted angrily, pointing to a group of H-110s sitting idle near a ruined hangar.

  “It cannot be helped,” one of the Saudis told him, glancing toward the heavens.

  Reg received a very different reception. A handful of the Saudis knew him from Khamis Moushayt, while many others recognized him as one of the pilots who had saved Mecca. They crowded aroun
d him, Miriyam, and Mohammed, smiling and shaking hands. There would be no problem arranging a trip out to the ship. Arrangements were made immediately.

  When Guillaume and the other Peacekeepers saw what was happening, they were incensed. “You can find a way to bring these tourists, but not for us?”

  Reg pulled Guillaume aside and offered him a deal. In exchange for the privilege of flying out to the ship aboard “Reg’s” helicopter, the Frenchmen promised to allow Reg and his two partners to accompany them on their trip inside the ruined city destroyer. Guillaume was a stocky, rough-looking character with a bushy blond mustache and piercing blue eyes that matched the blue U.N. beret he wore on his head. His face was full of small scars that looked like the results of a grenade explosion. He didn’t like having to strike deals in order to do his job, but he accepted, and within a few minutes, his squad of eighteen lifted off in one of the H-110 helicopters.

  A pink glow, the first light of the new day, filtered through the smoke and grit hanging over the eastern horizon. What was left of the ruined alien ship was still smoldering. It had come to rest in a hard, stony part of the desert, seventy-five miles southeast of At-Ta‘if. In the murky light, it looked like a strange, archaeological wonder, a ruined city from some long-lost civilization. The desert was alive with hundreds of trucks and tanks stationed around the perimeter of the felled giant. They looked pathetically small, like Lilliputians surrounding a sleeping Gulliver. The greater part of the destroyer had been flattened or torn away completely by the chain-reaction explosions. What remained was nothing more than a steaming jungle of carbon black debris.

  Reg ordered the pilot of his chopper toward the front of the destroyer, the only part that was still largely intact. This wedge-shaped remnant towered above the rest. There was a four-mile curve at the nose of the destroyer, and it was two miles deep. The roof over this fragment maintained its convex shape, but in some places had lost its structural integrity and hung like a heavy sheet of shattered glass on the supporting structures hidden beneath it. The whole thing looked unstable. Although it was only a fraction of what it had been, it was terrifyingly large.