Canticum Tenebris (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 2)

by John Triptych

  12. The Children of Ammon

  Zarqa Governorate

  David Zim continued to look at the remote display on his tablet as he crouched down in the makeshift forward observation post. There were three other Mossad operatives in the remote farmhouse with him. One of them was manning the portable radio, another one was behind the wheel of the Granite field intelligence vehicle that was hidden way at the back of the house, ready to start it up and get moving at a moment’s notice. The third man was sleeping on a folding cot in the main room.

  David made a brief glance at his snoring colleague before returning his concentration on the tablet he was holding. The small mini-laptop was giving him a constant video feed from the remote Ground Target Acquisition System cameras that they had set up to the north of the area just before dawn. They were in the northern outskirts of Qasr al Hallabat, a small desert town to the north-east of the Jordanian capital of Amman. The next few hours could very well decide the fate of not just the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, but the country of Israel as well.

  He remembered the night before, after arriving as part of the advance team that had been rushed into the area just less than six hours ago. That was when the latest intelligence estimates confirmed that the Babylonian Army would be passing through the area on their way south. Months of planning by the IDF and the remnants of the Jordanian military would finally be put to the test in this desolate place.

  David took his eye away from the video feed for a brief minute. He grabbed a plastic water bottle from a nearby backpack lying on a table and sipped at it. From his time in the university he had remembered that this whole area was once the biblical land of the Ammonites, an ancient kingdom from the Bronze Age that took their name from Ammon, a legendary king who was born from an incestuous union of Lot and his daughters. The old myth was that Lot and his children were the only survivors of the Lord’s destruction of the legendary city of Sodom. After his wife had been turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying God’s direct command that she not look back when the city was ground to dust, Lot and his daughters thought the world had finally ended and they inhabited a desolate cave for a number of years. Sensing a need to repopulate the Earth, Lot’s daughters seduced their old father. It was rumored that the Ammonites descended from that unholy union and ruled the surrounding lands before being exterminated by King David and the Israelites. How ironic it was that the old biblical stories were once again being played out in the present.

  After a few minutes, David noticed that the distant horizon on the video feed began to blur. The massive sandstorm that always preceded the Babylonians was coming. Since they had placed the GTAS sensors ten miles to the north of their position at the farmhouse, it meant that the enemy was no more than a few minutes away.

  After getting up from his chair, David kicked the side of the cot where his colleague was sleeping before turning his head to look at his radio operator. “Benny, alert Hippo One. Tell them that the enemy is in visual range.”

  As his radio operator started talking on his receiver. David’s other colleague instantly got up from the cot, ran a hand along his scalp to straighten his hair before grabbing an assault rifle that was propped up by the wall. “What did I miss?”

  “The operation is about to begin,” David said as he kept his eyes on the tablet. “Man your station, Omri.”

  A very large and special Israeli Defense Forces unit along with what was left of the Royal Jordanian Army had been carefully concealed in the abandoned town of Qasr Al-Hallabat. In the months since the Glooming began, a new faction that they labeled as the Babylonian Army had swept through Iraq. In a territory once claimed by an Islamic extremist faction and the Iraqi government, it was now being dominated by legendary gods who were once thought of as no more than mere stories. Sandstorms had swept across the entire area while legions of demons killed anyone who resisted. 21st Century weaponry was no match against the waves of sand and dust of the monsters that lurked within them. The Western powers had been utterly defeated and now all that stood between the resurgent gods of old was a hastily formed military alliance between Israel and Jordan. As the days passed, the situation became more and more desperate. Syria, eastern Lebanon, and the whole of southern Turkey had now been largely overrun as the Babylonians spilled across the Jordanian border and if left unchecked, would soon threaten Israel itself. The Saudis had retreated across their own desert and were making a last stand in Mecca, their holiest Islamic city. Iran had also been battered to the point where they had lost half their country.

  As his colleagues continued to relay information to their headquarters, David saw that the sandstorm ahead had picked up in intensity. He hoped that the remote sensors they buried would hold, as they needed every observation point that they could get.

  In the town’s headquarters, General Boris Siegel looked up and saw the reports that were coming in. All of his radio operators, who were once staring silently at their computer monitors just minutes before, were now in nonstop conversations with the unit commanders. The flap leading to the outside had opened and his, aide, Colonel Dan Tzur came in, followed closely by the Royal Jordanian Army field commander, General Saeed Ali.

  “You are just in time,” General Siegel said. “I am about to initiate Operation Megiddo.”

  General Ali frowned. He didn’t like that particular name for the operation and he had protested somewhat, but he had kept quiet after the King of Jordan agreed with the Israelis on it. “Are you sure this will work?”

  General Siegel looked down at the dusty floor of the tent. “I am not sure, but it is the only chance we have.”

  “I have seen a small demonstration of it when I was being briefed about it,” Colonel Tzur said to his Jordanian counterpart. “I think it will work.”

  General Ali was still skeptical as he crossed his arms. “The king has told me that along with his men, he will fight to the death if those demons reach Amman. If that happens, I will probably be dead anyway so we might as well proceed.”

  General Siegel pointed at one of the video monitors that were situated at the far side of the command tent. “Keep your eyes on that video feed, General.”

  As the Jordanian CO started to watch, he noticed that it seemed to be nothing more than an elevated platform near the center of town. Within minutes, a heavyset man with a full beard, thick eyeglasses and wearing a rabbinic prayer shawl over the shoulders of his black robes, made his way to the center of the platform. Beneath the stage, there were a number of IDF soldiers who seemed to be wheeling in what looked to be a large wooden crate. A few minutes later, the soldiers dismantled the crate and revealed what looked like a glass aquarium that seemed to be more than ten feet tall. There was something moving in the bottom of the glass enclosure. As General Ali strained his eyes for a closer look, he almost recoiled in horror.

  Rabbi Elijah Ba’al looked down at the glass enclosure and saw that the little creature it contained had begun to stir from its long slumber. The former exiled rabbi gestured at one of his assistants, an IDF soldier who carried a sealed ceramic pot with arcane symbols on it, to join him at the raised platform. The soldier walked up to Rabbi Ba’al as he noticed that the creature down below was staring at them with slitted eyes.

  “Don’t be afraid of it,” Rabbi Ba’al said as he took the ceramic pot from his assistant’s trembling hands. “That homunculus is under my control.”

  The misshapen creature looked vaguely human in that it had a pair of arms, legs and even a torso, but its head didn’t seem to have a neck as it was fused to its tiny, uneven shoulders. Its head was malformed, with a bulging forehead, a snout for a nose, and a gash for a mouth. One arm was shorter than another and one leg seemed to be shaped like a stump. It had pale grey skin and was completely hairless, like that of a newborn rat. The creature snarled at the terrified soldiers that were guarding it with its malformed little teeth.

  Rabbi Ba’al began an ancient chant as he held the old pot above his head. The homunculus began to get ag
itated as it pranced up and down along its glass enclosure. The creature tried to reach the open top of the aquarium, but its leaps were too short to get over the edge. The IDF soldiers glanced nervously with their Tavor assault rifles at the ready; they were under strict instructions not to kill the creature unless it had somehow got out of its pen. One soldier almost pulled the on trigger of his rifle but an IDF lieutenant spotted him in time as he pushed the rifle’s barrel upwards to the sky as he tried to calm the terrified guard down.

  As the rabbi continued his chant, the wind started to pick up as black storm clouds began to form above the town. The gusts of wind began to dissipate the incoming sandstorm as the water vapor in the air latched onto the dust particles and pulled them down into the sandy ground. A few more minutes passed as the rabbi’s chants became louder while the entire scene began to reach a fever pitch.

  Suddenly, everyone was startled by the multiple cracks of thunder overhead as Rabbi Ba’al let out a shout while throwing the ceramic pot into the aquarium. The pot shattered as it impacted right beside the homunculus. A strange red and greenish mist emanated from the broken pottery shards as it surrounded the little creature. The homunculus let out a shrill scream that terrified everyone as its body began to somehow shimmer and transform itself into a grey mist that melded with the gas that was already in its enclosure. Within moments, all that remained within the glass pen was a swirling, multicolored mist that resembled a miniature tornado.

  Rabbi Ba’al raised his arms up to the sky. “Now, I command you to banish the sandstorm! Release your power! Now!”

  At that moment, the miniature tornado smashed through its glass confines as it flew upwards into the sky. The strange, swirling vortex soon met up with the storm clouds above the town as the whole phenomena began to transform into a mile high, twisting tornado that seemed to be confined to the upper atmosphere. Even though they were a veteran IDF unit, a number of soldiers panicked and had to be restrained by their squad leaders.

  General Ali had been watching the whole event through the video monitor. His eyes were as wide as saucers. “May Allah protect us!”

  “Stage one of the operation is successful. Proceed to stage two,” Colonel Tzur said to one of the radio operators who almost instantly relayed it.

  General Seigel said nothing. Now it all depended on that crazy rabbi of theirs.

  The tornado swirling above the town began to pick up in intensity as it started to move towards the incoming sandstorm. Within less than a minute, the two gargantuan weather anomalies collided as the mystical forces on both sides began a titanic struggle to control the skies above. The dust clouds were much larger, as the meteorological phenomenon stretched across the entire region and had been steadily expanding for the past several months, but the gigantic tornado was more concentrated as it swept through the edges of the dust storm. Even though the swirling clouds of sand seemed to have a mind of its own as it attempted to break past the tornado, the violently rotating column of air soon overcame the more dispersed masses of dust and swept it all aside as the skies around the town began to clear.

  David Zim could see clearly now as his remote cameras observed the enemy that were once hidden behind the rapidly dissipating dust clouds. “Enemy contact at grid one-one, seventy-five-four. Call it in.”

  The Mossad radio operator began to rapidly relay the coordinates back to the town headquarters.

  Omri was using his binoculars as he peered just outside of the window. The enemy was less than a mile away from their observation post. He prayed that they would not be detected.

  The horde of creatures looked like an army from hell as they advanced across the open desert and headed towards to the town. Wild-eyed men rode in commandeered M1A1 Abrams and T-72 battle tanks that had once belonged to the now defunct Syrian and Iraqi armies. Human fighters wearing a hodgepodge of clothing and carrying assault rifles were advancing beside gigantic hybrid creatures that had the bodies of winged bulls but with the heads of bearded madmen. Thirty-foot tall giants wielding gargantuan stone clubs towered over their smaller counterparts as little imp-like creatures darted back and forth within the ranks of monsters and men.

  Over at the command tent, General Siegel made a silent prayer of thanks as he saw that the skies were clear and he immediately nodded to his aide.

  Colonel Tzur placed a hand on the shoulder of his most trusted radio operator. “Stage two successful. Initiate Stage three … now!”

  David Zim’s colleague, who had been manning the portable radio in the farmhouse, immediately jerked his head up. “Hand of God has been initiated! Air strike will commence in less than a minute.”

  “Everybody, take cover,” David said calmly as he put down the mini laptop on the table before crouching down with the others in the makeshift foxhole they had dug in the middle of the room before placing a lead-lined tarp over themselves. All four men closed their eyes as they scrambled to put on their CBRN suits.

  A pair of Israeli F-16s flew in a lazy circle over Al Zarqa, less than 20 miles away when a radio message was relayed to them. Almost immediately, both fighter bombers banked eastwards and went to full afterburners while arming their special payloads. Each F-16 had been modified by the Israelis over the years to maximize their strike role capability.

  Within less than a minute, both fighter bombers had already sighted the advancing horde and were beginning their bombing run as they initiated a high angle of attack right at the center of the enemy army. Without warning, the enemy somehow detected them. Winged creatures of all shapes and sizes flew out from the edges of the surviving dust clouds and began to close with them.

  One of the F-16 pilots started to panic as he saw the swarm of flying monsters bearing down on them at impossible speeds. He immediately banked right at full throttle in an attempt to evade their attacks. A winged griffon with a lion-like head smashed through the fighter’s cockpit while a second monster tore off its wing. The lead F-16 tumbled out of the sky.

  The remaining F-16 did not waver as it continued its angle of attack. The pilot of the aircraft had sensed that this would be a one-way trip so he maintained his calm and waited for his counterpart to initiate the release of the weapon. Sitting in the back seat of the F-16 was the weapons systems officer, who coolly looked at his heads up display as he finally found the right coordinates for the target. Just as the swarm of creatures got to within a few feet of the aircraft, it was able to detach its bomb. The single black lozenge-shaped object barreled through the air and fell right into the middle of the enemy ground troops below. The pilot and his weapons officer never got to see the bomb land on its target as their aircraft was torn to shreds in midair a split second after release.

  For a few tense moments, there was silence as David Zim opened his eyes and noticed that they were still underneath the protective tarp covering the foxhole. “Did any of you guys hear anything?”

  Benny, his radio operator, kept looking at his wristwatch. “It’s been over two minutes. The bombing run should have been over already.”

  Omri looked around at the edge of the tarp as he kept his rifle on the ready. “Did it go off?”

  “Wait here,” David said as he stood up, pushed the tarp aside and scrambled back up to the floor of the room. As he looked out of the broken windows of the farmhouse, he could still see the horde of creatures.

  Benny was the second person to lift himself out of the foxhole. “What happened?”

  David had taken off his gas mask and was looking at his remote video display once again. “Radio HQ, tell them the weapon did not go off. Repeat, the weapon did not detonate. Reason unknown at this time.”

  The communications officer at the command tent in Qasr Al-Hallabat listened in on his headset for a few seconds before turning to look at the general. “Sir, observation posts confirm that at least one bomb was dropped onto the enemy positions but it failed to detonate. Reason unknown.”

  General Siegel cursed. The 20-kiloton nuclear bombs they had dropped onto the
army of creatures had somehow failed to explode. What could have caused this?

  General Ali crossed his arms. “Now what?”

  Colonel Tzur sighed as he subconsciously kept a hand on the pistol in his side holster. “Now we fight.”

  General Siegel said nothing as he just nodded. Now it would be up to the troops they had defending the town and that damned rabbi. It was all out of his hands as he made another silent prayer now that his junior officers would be in charge leading the troops. He hoped that their discipline and training would prevail and would enable them to fight on.

  As the horde of monsters and men began to advance only a few miles from the town, more than a hundred wire-guided missiles flew out from specially prepared positions and impacted their front ranks. Within seconds, more than three dozen enemy tanks were burning from the initial salvo. The horde refused to waver however, as they kept on advancing as more missiles were being fired at them.

  Less than a minute later, over a dozen Apache gunships popped out of the open from their hiding places behind the town buildings and began to use rockets, missiles, and machine guns in a desperate attempt to cause as much damage to the enemy ranks as possible. In addition to the helicopter gunships, the Jordanians had several batteries of M114 Howitzer artillery pieces that began to fire at their pre-designated kill zones as the Babylonians advanced right into them. The army of monsters took a lot of casualties as great gouges began to form in the front and middle of their ranks, but they kept on coming as their own contingent of flying creatures began to engage the helicopters. The Apache gunships by this time had largely run out of ammunition and were forced to evade the swarms of winged creatures trying to bring them down. Sheer numbers prevailed as one by one, the helicopters were either driven into the ground or they retreated westwards at full throttle. By the time the air battle was over, only a pair of Apaches had survived and were on their way back to Amman for repairs and rearming. Many of the artillery crews manning the Howitzers were killed when the swarms of flying creatures descended on them, now that the helicopters were out of the picture.