It was the eleventh month of the crisis. Word came from the U.S. President to prepare to begin the run-up to liberate Kuran.
Unfortunately, the execute order came at 2:36 P.m. Hamidi Gulf Time, while Prince General Suleyman Bazzaz was technically in command of the Star in the Center of the Flower of the East Military Base, a sprawling command post north of Nehmad.
"Absolutely not," sniffed the prince general, who was redolent of Old Spice on this day. This was a concession to the Americans, who had been driven to fits of retching by prolonged exposure to excessive amounts of English Leather. They were wearing out their gas-attack equipment.
"What do you mean?" roared General Hornworks. "That was a direct order from our commander in chief!"
"Your commander in chief," Bazzaz said with cool unconcern. "To us, he is hired help."
General Hornworks had to be restrained from strangling the prince general on the spot. Recognizing two things despite his lack of military background-that his life was in mortal peril and that once his watch was over, the infidel general was certain to execute the insane order of the United States President-Prince General Suleyman Bazzaz did the only thing that to him made tactical sense.
He had the general clapped in irons.
Then he called his father, the sheik.
"You have done well, my son," said Sheik Fareem. "I can see the day when you will stand proud as sheik general."
"May your greatness increase, O Father," said the prince general. "What do we do now?" "We will not risk a foolhardy war over the spoiled Kuranis. Instead, we must have patience and trust in Allah. Something will come up."
The hoped-for something came by U.S. military plane a day later.
A smartly dressed Pentagon attache asked to speak with General Hornworks. It was not yet dawn, so this was no insult to Prince General Bazzaz, otherwise he would have found himself in chains as well.
"General Hornworks has been disposed of," he told the attache.
"You mean he's indisposed?" asked the man, thinking he had encountered nothing more than the expected language barrier.
Bazzaz had to think about that one. "Yes, I mean that. You may deliver your message to me, the prince general in charge of UN Central Command."
"I am sorry, General Prince-"
"Prince General."
"Prince General," went on the attache in a polite robotlike tone that implied the prince general had no more standing than Whistler's mother. "But my orders are to deliver this briefcase to General Hornworks in person. It is urgent, sir."
Prince General Suleyman Bazzaz noticed that the man carried the briefcase manacled to one wrist. He contemplated accusing the attache of theft, which would give him a wonderful excuse to chop off the infidel's hand and not have to fuss with the doubtless complicated lock.
Further consideration brought him to the reluctant conclusion that even if he did that, there was still the matter of the briefcase lock. War was such a tiresome affair, he concluded.
"Come, then," Prince General Bazzaz said stiffly.
The attache was escorted to the general's basement cell. He didn't blink an eye when he saw his superior behind iron bars.
"This is for you, sir," he said, snapping to rigid attention, the briefcase held out in stiff arms.
"You can hold that pose until the desert turns to glass," General Hornworks said acidly, "but as long as those bars are between me and that briefcase, there's not a dang thing I can do about it."
"I will agree to open the cell," Prince General Bazzaz said, "if my American counterpart will agree to abide by my every wish."
"Eat sand."
Bazzaz stiffened. He was not sure what would happen if he unlocked the cell, but the contents of the briefcase intrigued him.
"I would open this cell as a gesture of solidarity, and trust to your good instincts, even though you are a consumer of pork chops and bacon, if only you would agree not to harm me."
General Hornworks' eyes narrowed craftily. "Done," he said quickly. "I ain't one for holding a grudge."
"Excellent."
The prince general signaled the turnkey. The cell opened.
The American general stepped out. Silently, he took the briefcase and unlocked it with a key the attache silently handed to him.
Out of the briefcase came the leopard-spotted tortoiseshell.
With a hangdog expression on his square-jawed features, General Winfield Scott Hornworks turned the cracked, desiccated shell over in his hands as if that would somehow activate it.
"This thing's just a goldurn turtle shell," he muttered. "Let me see that," said Prince General Bazzaz.
"See it?" snapped Hornworks. "You can keep it. It's nothing."
The prince general accepted the shell in his smooth hands. And with both of his callused hands, Hornworks shoved him into the cell he had just vacated. He kicked the door closed.
"Now it's your turn," he snorted.
"You are not authorized to do this," Bazzaz protested, grabbing the bars. He let go when he realized he was getting rust on his immaculate sleeves. "It is day."
Hornworks looked around the dim cellblock. "Sure looks like night to me." He eyed the attache. "Wouldn't you say, soldier?"
"Yes, sir, it's definitely dark," said the attache. "Pitch."
"Let me out! This is an outrage!"
"What're you beefing about?" growled General Hornworks. "You got your dum turtle shell."
Bazzaz looked down. In the wavering light he examined the cracked shell. He turned it like a compass, as if recognizing it.
As the American general and his attache walked away, he called after him.
"Wait! I understand now!"
"Glad to hear it." The general chuckled. "Next war, we might even get along."
"No. This shell, it contains the secret! I know what to do now." The prince general's voice skittered excitedly.
General Hornworks stopped dead in his tracks. He turned.
"If this is a trick," he warned, "I'm gonna reach my hands in through those bars and throttle you good."
"Truly, it is not a trick. Look!" The prince general held the tortoise shell in the light.
"Looks like a mud turtle after a deuce-and-a-half squashed it into Tennessee roadkill," Hornworks concluded.
"Examine the cracks. Please," pleaded the prince general.
Frowning, Hornworks returned to the bars. He leaned down to see better in the weak light.
"Explain it to me," he muttered.
The prince general used a shaking-with-excitement beringed finger to trace a line across the length of the shell.
"Behold!" he said proudly. "This is the border with our country and unfortunate Kuran. And this long brown shape must be the infamous Maddas Line."
"Naw, it's a squiggle of color put there by nature."
"Allah put it there, and Allah does not roll dice."
"Baloney."
"Is that pork?" Bazzaz asked, wrinkling his hooked nose.
"Search me. What are these cracks?" "These are lines of attack. See, they are coming from the north. They obviously represent tank and soldier queues."
"Mechanized and infantry columns," said Hornworks thoughtfully. They did look pretty realistic at that.
"And these," Bazzaz said excitedly. "See those lines that drive up to strike the Iraiti lines? These are counterattacks."
Hornworks blinked. He leaned closer. They did kinda have that look. In fact, the strategy was pretty damn strack.
General Hornworks caught himself. "Wait a chicken-scratching minute," he exploded, straightening. "These are just cracks."
"If this is so, why did your Paragon-"
"Pentagon."
"-send this to you by messenger?"
That was a point General Winfield Scott Hornworks had no clear answer to.
"What're you suggesting?" he asked at last.
"If these lines mean that Irait will attack here, here, and here," Bazzaz said, indicating the border line, "we must arrange our pe
oples."
"Forces."
"To intercept their charges here, here, and there."
General Hornworks looked askance. "I'll buy that on one condition," he cautioned.
"Speak this thing," Bazzaz said sincerely.
"That nobody, but nobody, hears about our little tete-a-tete. "
"You mean strategy session."
"No, I mean tete-a-dang-tete," said General Hornworks, signaling the turnkey. "I could be cashiered for what I'm about to do."
As they walked from the dungeon, the all-important tortoiseshell passing back and forth between them, Prince General Suleyman Bazzaz made a mournful comment.
"It is unfortunate the Iraitis did not wait another three years before attacking."
"Yeah?" his American counterpart growled. "Why's that?"
"Because by then I would have had my own personal aircraft carrier and your services would not even have been necessary."
Chapter 7
They were lost in Abominadad. It was easy to become lost in Abominadad. Every building boasted a huge portait of Maddas Hinsein, wearing a bewildering assortment of uniforms. And even though he seemed to have more changes of clothes than Imelda Marcos had shoes, it was still not as many uniforms as Abominadad had buildings.
"I think the American embassy is around this next corner," Don Cooder ventured.
"Yeah? What makes you say that?" asked Reverend Juniper Jackman.
"Last time I was here, the U.S. embassy was around the corner from a picture of President Hinsein dressed as a biblical warrior riding a chariot."
Reverend Jackman looked up. Sure enough, there was Maddas Hinsein, flogging a team of horses like an outof-shape extra from Ben Hur.
Cooder led the way around the corner. The bags under his eyes seemed to melt in disappointment as they encountered a sun-bleached mosque.
"If that's our embassy," Reverend Jackman said sourly, "we're definitely in the wrong pew."
"I think we're lost," muttered Don Cooder.
"I think you're right."
They paused in the shadow of the mosque. The clatter of Hind gunships came from somewhere over the rooftops. It did not quite drown out the deafening clash and clangor of those giant scimitars, still going at one another with a ferocity equal to an ancient Armageddon.
"Tell me," Cooder said, his eyes haunted. "Do those sound like our helicopters or theirs?"
"You tell me, you're the ace newshound."
"I just read copy."
They heard a racket of rockets and machine guns.
Then, one by one, the fireballs lifted over the rooftops.
"We're being nuked!" Don Cooder howled.
"The Bible was right!" Reverend Jackman screamed, sounding as surprised as a man could be. "The world's gonna end in the Middle East!"
Which was precisely the thought racing through the dazed mind of Maddas Hinsein when he witnessed the identical sight. He had stumbled through the souks and byways of downtown Abominadad in his frayed abayuh until he had come to a movie theater which played, by presidential decree, a perpetual double bill consisting of The Godfather, parts one and two. They were Maddas Hinsein's favorite films.
Maddas had ducked into the theater's welcome darkness. It was deserted, so he took a seat in the center of the first row.
As it happened, he came in on the scene where Don Corleone first mumbled the immortal line, "I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse."
Under his concealing veil, the big brown eyes of the Scimitar of the Arabs misted over. He had sent his foreign minister to a summit with the now-deposed Emir of Kuran with instructions to deliver that very line at exactly high noon.
When the emir had refused Irait's generous offer to surrender the vital Homar oilfield and a pair of unimportant islands to Irait, despite his own nation's heavy indebtedness to Kuran, the foreign minister had broken off talks, as instructed.
Obviously the emir had not been a movie buff. He had missed the very clear diplomatic signal.
The first Iraiti tank divisions rolled through Kuran within twenty minutes of that pretext of a meeting. They advanced, as one newspaper had put it, "as if laying down blacktop, not waging war."
Don Corleone knew how to motivate men, thought Maddas Hinsein as the flickering screen images filled him with nostalgia.
Unfortunately, Maddas Hinsein did not know how to run a movie projector. The reel ran out, leaving the engrossed Scimitar of the Arabs blinking at a blindingly white screen. He cursed the lack of a projectionist. The man had deserted his post. When he was restored to power, Maddas promised himself, he would have the slacker hanged for dereliction of duty.
It was as he stumbled out into the deserted streets that Maddas Hinsein saw the first fireball. It was like a fist of flame snaking skyward.
It looked exactly like a mushroom cloud.
"Impossible!" howled Maddas Hinsein. "It cannot be!"
There were two reasons for his hasty conclusion. First, he knew that these could not be U.S. nukes. The Americans had not the stomach to nuke Abominadad, he was certain. Of course, he had been equally certain that the U.S. would not bat an eyelash at his lightning annexation of Kuran. And before that, that his neighbor Irug could not resist his invading armies more than a month. A decade-long war that bankrupted both regimes had resulted.
Then another fireball blossomed before his veiled eyes like an angry flower.
"How can this be?" Maddas sputtered.
The second reason the sight of mushroom clouds stupefied the Scimitar of the Arabs was that he was certain they could not mark an Israeli attack. Not that the Jews would hesitate to strike. But that by now their entire leadership should be breathing Sarin, Tabun, and other fatal nerve gases.
For the deadfall commands President Maddas Hinsein had left with his loyal defense minister, Razzik Azziz, were explicit instructions to unleash war gases on Tel Aviv and other key Israeli installations via the dreaded al-Hinsyn missile.
"Traitor!" snarled Maddas Hinsein. "The coward has betrayed his heritage to save his worthless skin."
Gathering up the ebony folds of his abayuh, Maddas Hinsein stormed down the street.
Another mushroom cloud lifted into the air. The distant thunder of concussion shock blew glass out of windows, showering him with wicked shards. Miraculously, none struck him, which the Scimitar of the Arabs took as a sign from Allah.
His course took him past the sprawl of Maddas International Airport. What he beheld there stunned him to the core.
He saw Americans and Europeans, their faces alight with relief, stumbling from buses and official vehicles. They carried luggage. His own national police were escorting them to waiting planes lined up at terminals and on the runways as if anxious to carry the hostages to the outer world.
"More treachery," said Maddas Hinsein, reaching through a slit in his black garment to grasp the ivory grips of his personal sidearm.
He considered executing the traitors where they stood, but realized he had only six shots in his pistol, while they had AK-47 assault rifles.
Reversing direction, Maddas Hinsein retreated like a furtive black specter.
The fireballs had expended themselves, he saw. Except for the regular roar of jet aircraft taking off, the city had grown quiet. It was like the lull before the storm.
As he rushed toward the U.S. embassy, the only source of hostages available to him, he vowed that Maddas Hinsein would be the storm of all storms.
Chapter 8
The President of the United States received with profound relief the news of the exodus of what were diplomatically called "guests under duress" by the Iraitis and "hostages" by everyone else.
"This means we're out of the woods, doesn't it?" he suggested to his defense secretary.
"Yes," the man said firmly.
"No," inserted the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, just as firmly. His dark handsome face was stiff with resolve. As the first black to hold the position, he was not about to become a yes-man to the d
efense secretary, whom everyone knew harbored presidential aspirations. So did he, but he was too sophisticated a strategist to tip his hand in advance.
The President's brow furrowed. "No?"
"Look at these satellite recon photos," said the chairman, laying down a folder stamped "TOP SECRET" on the polished table.
They were down in the White House Situation Room. The red threat-condition lights were ablaze.
The President extracted the photos. He looked at the one on top. So did the defense secretary.
What they saw was an overhead shot of Abominadad. They knew it was Abominadad because of the unmistakable latticework of a roller coaster that had been inexpertly thrown up on the western outskirts of the city, near the fixed antimissile missile batteries. The roller coaster had been part of the loot of Kuran. Taking it down and transporting it overland had proved easier than putting it up correctly. Most of the tracks stopped in midair, as if bitten off.
Closer to the center of the city was a large area of debris, much like a crater. Smoke smudges billowed up from this area.
"What is it?" demanded the President, shifting to the next photo. It showed a slightly larger crater. As did the one below it.
"Arab Renaissance Square," reported the chairman. "You can see the mangled scimitar in the upper-right-hand corner."
"Looks like a pretzel," the defense secretary commented.
"What caused this?" asked the President.
"Unknown, sir. But whatever it is, it's getting wider. The CIA believes this is why the Iraitis are so hot to capitulate."
"This is why they've asked us to cease hostilities?" the President asked, dumbfounded.
"I believe so."
"But we haven't started hostilities. This isn't our doing. "
"Must be the Israelis," said the defense secretary. "Their fingers have been on the trigger ever since this fracas started."
"If we ask nicely, do you think they'll stop?" the President wondered aloud.
The defense secretary called the secretary of state, who in turn called the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Word was flashed to Tel Aviv and flashed instantly back.
"The Israelis say they are on stand-down," reported the defense secretary only nine minutes after the President had asked what had been a rhetorical question.
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