"It is as before," Azziz returned. "They are stalemated. Yet they seem tireless. What manner of beings could these be?"
No one had an answer to that.
Presently the defense minister had an idea.
"Perhaps there is a way to defeat them," he offered, his dark eyes alight.
The president lowered his field glasses. "Tell me."
"Gases. We will pour war gases down upon them."
"Will this work?"
"They have noses. They must breathe like mortals. If they breathe the gases in, they must die."
"Is it not dangerous to us?" wondered Azziz.
The defense minister shrugged unconcernedly. "The wind is from the east. The enemy are to the west. We may lose some of our western sector, but we will lose more than that if this madness continues unchecked."
The president considered only a moment. "Do it," he commanded.
Since the only missile battery in Abominadad had been decimated, the defense minister had to call the outpost of the Abaddon Air Base in order to effect a Scud strike.
"Yes, that is correct," he said. "I did say to launch your missiles at Abominadad. The western sector. The former Maddas City. You can do this?"
The defense minister listened. Absently he reached up to brush his mustache. Touching bare flesh, he felt a stab of fear. Then he remembered. It was safe to be without a mustache in Irait now that Maddas Hinsein was no more.
When the word came back that the missiles would soon be launched, the defense minister said, "Thank you," and lowered the phone to its cradle.
He heard the click just as the president shouted, "Wait! Do not launch!"
"Why not?"
"The wind has now shifted this way! In the name of Allah, call them back!"
Frantically the defense minister picked up the receiver. He began stabbing the keypad, his eyes starting from his head, his face sprouting a hot sheen of sweat.
Two rings later a bored voice said, "Achmed's Tyre Emporium."
This time true fear clutched at the defense minister's heart and would not let go. He stood there, his eyes stricken, the annoyed "Hello? Hello?" assaulting his unhearing ears through the trembling receiver.
"You have called it off?" shouted the president.
The defense minister hesitated, his tongue a cold slug of fear in his dry mouth. Should be reveal that he had misdialed, or should he try again? With a new president it was impossible to tell which was the survivable option.
Then all choice fled the defense minister's mind.
From beyond the windows where the rest of the Revolting Command Council watched came a low roaring. It swelled to a screech, and at the apex of the sound came a steady crump crump crump.
Air-raid sirens wailed. From roofs all over Abominadad, antiaircraft artillery opened up, sending reddish-orange tracers streaking into the clear heavens.
The faces of the Revolting Command Council turned, eyes wide, mustacheless mouths forming identical bloodless lines. They regarded the defense minister with stupefied expressions.
Recognizing his predicament, the defense minister decided to lie.
"It was too late," he said miserably. "My loyal forces, eager to perform their sacred duty, could not wait to execute my order. It is done."
"So," said President Razzik Azziz thickly, "are we, brother Arabs. For all three missiles have missed. One has landed on this side of the Tigris. There are gases coming this way."
Then a gruff voice asked a deceptively innocuous question. It was the last voice any of them ever expected to hear again. It chilled their marrow as it asked:
"Where are all your mustaches?"
Chapter 15
The voice repeated its harsh question: "Where are all your mustaches?"
As one, the right hands of the Revolting Command Council of the Republic of Irait flew to their naked, exposed upper lips.
"Which traitor among you is responsible for the disaster that has befallen our proud nation?" demanded the stern voice of Maddas Hinsein, Scimitar of the Arabs.
He stood in the doorway, flanked by blue-bereted Renaissance Guards. This evidence of their loyalty established without fear of contradiction, he waved them from the room. The door closed.
Fear roosted in each man's eyes. Paralysis gripped their very bones, as if their marrows had congealed.
In that moment's hesitation, Maddas roared, "I demand an answer!"
Deaf to the last dull crump coming through the window behind them, oblivious of the nerve-gas cloud that was lifting over the western skyline, the Revolting Command Council pointed at the current president of Irait, Razzik Azziz, who they realized was destined to go down in Iraiti history as the shortest-lived ruler since pre-Islamic days.
President Razzik Azziz realized this too. He pointed at the others.
"Precious Leader," Azziz said, sick-voiced. "They insisted I take your place. I told them, 'But no Arab could do that. It is preposterous.' They all refused the honor. Irait was in desperate straits. What could I do?"
Since the order to relax had not been given, the accusing fingers remained leveled. Arms trembled from nervous strain.
Maddas Hinsein, resplendent in a jet-black military uniform festooned with so much gold braid and green tinsel that he resembled a Christmas tree in mourning, put his hands on his thick hips.
"The hostages have been set free," he growled. "By whose orders?"
The fingers continued pointing.
Maddas nodded. "Our beloved capital has been gassed. By whom?"
The fingers stabbed the air anew. President Azziz switched hands.
Maddas nodded. "You have shaved your mustaches. Who allowed this?"
The fingers strained emphatically. Stiff features began melting like wax effigies.
Then President Razzik Azziz made the mistake that had cost more Iraiti officers their lives than enemy fire over the course of a decade of war with neighboring Irug. He attempted to reason with Maddas Hinsein.
"But, Precious Leader," he stuttered, "we thought you were dead. We shaved only to express our profound loss."
For a moment the fleshy brown face of Maddas Hinsein wavered in its scowl. His gruff features softened. A sudden moistness leapt into his calflike eyes.
"My brothers," he said, laying a hand over his massive chest. "You thought to honor me so? I am touched."
"We are glad you approve, Precious Leader," said President Razzik Azziz, lowering his aching arm.
It was then that Maddas Hinsein pulled his pearl-handled revolver and shot the man once in the belly.
Razzik Azziz was carried backward by a dumdum bullet that exerted over twelve thousand foot-pounds of velocity. It actually lifted him off his feet just before he slammed into the wall at his back.
He made a big red smear on the paint as he slowly slipped down to a sitting position, an uncomprehending expression on his freshly shaved face. As if radar-guided, dozen digits followed him down.
"The rest I could forgive," said Maddas Hinsein, stuffing his weapon back into his holster. "But only a fool would believe that the Scimitar of the Arabs was dead. Maddas Hinsein will die when he is ready, not before."
"We believed you were still alive," chorused the surviving Revolting Command Council members, their fingers still accusing the shuddering corpse that had been Razzik Azziz. "But he made us shave at gunpoint."
"Next time this happens, you will take the bullet in your brains before you lift a razor to your faces," ordered the Scimitar of the Arabs.
"As you command, O Precious Leader," they promised.
Maddas nodded. "Take your seats. We have work to do."
"But, the gas," sputtered the defense minister.
Maddas looked up sharply. "Is the window not closed?"
"Yes, Precious Leader."
"Then we have time."
And so, woodenly, they took their seats around the rectangular table, which had a huge hole cut in the center. Maddas Hinsein had decreed it be built that way so no assassin c
ould lurk under his meeting table and strike him dead. Also, so there was no place to hide from his wrath.
The council members sat. After giving his seat at the head of the table a quick once-over for poisoned tacks, Maddas took his place. He smiled broadly. "Now," he said. "Where were we?"
Chapter 16
An orbiting KH-12 satellite first detected the impact craters mushrooming along the western section of Abominadad, and the resulting eruption of gas.
High-resolution images were down-linked to a top-secret CIA ground station in Nurrungar Valley, Australia, from there microwaved to the Washington, D.C. and the National Photo Intelligence Center for processing, and passed on to CIA analysts in Langley, Virgina.
A preliminary analysis revealed that the impact craters were caused by Scud missiles, launched from mobile erector launchers. This puzzled CIA analysts. The only Scuds deployed in what the Pentagon had dubbed the Iraiti-Kuran Theater of Operations were in Irait and Syria. A Syrian strike on Irait seemed improbable.
Then the spectroscopic analysis of the clouds came in.
"Sarin?" said the chief analyst in a puzzled voice. "Only the Iraitis have Sarin." Then the significance of his discovery reached him.
Down in the Tank-the nukeproof basement strategy room of the Pentagon-the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff accepted the telexed CIA report, read it grimly, and turned to the remaining officers in the room.
"Bad news. We have confirmation that the Iraitis have definitely refitted their Scuds to deliver war gas."
"How do we know this?" asked the chief of naval operations, who had visions of unleashing a few Trident and Polaris missiles on Abominadad in a massive preemptive strike destined to go down in naval history and incidentally put him in the running for the 1992 presidential elections.
The chairman's clipped answer dashed his hopes like seawater washing over a cutter's bow.
"They just hit their own capital," he said. "Took out their entire defensive missile batteries and one of the largest roller coasters known to man."
This impressed everyone. No one had ever heard of a successful air strike on a roller coaster.
"Civil war?" asked the Army Chief of Staff.
The chairman strode over to a telephone, saying, "No idea. I'd better inform the President about this. It sounds big."
The President of the United States didn't know if civil war had broken out in Irait. But he had hopes. It would be the solution to all his problems. Up to this moment he had been praying for an earthquake.
After he hung up from the Pentagon, he called the CIA. They had no information either.
All the hostages had come out of Abominadad. So had the U.S. ambassador and his staff. They were blacked out, intelligence-wise.
The only missing factor was the whereabouts of Reverend Juniper Jackman and anchorman Don Cooder. They had not come out with the others. Only days ago the President had been prepared to go to war over their execution. But with the death of Maddas Hinsein, the American public-and more important, the media, which had been stoking the war fires-had turned their attention to the overriding question: was Armageddon near?
The President got out of his Oval Office chair and went over to the window overlooking the Rose Garden.
The solid pine flooring under his feet felt uncertain, almost rubbery. Outside his door, a Secret Service guard stood clutching a green canvas sack that contained a gas mask emblazoned with the Presidential Seal. As a counterterrorist precaution, Jersey barriers ringed every significant Washington building from the White House to the Lincoln Memorial. It was as if, he thought, he and the world stood on the crumbling edge of a great abyss.
He wondered why he thought of an abyss. Outside, beyond the latticework of glass panes, the sun shone and the roses were dewed from a brief morning shower. The world as seen from the White House looked postcard perfect.
So why did he feel like the lead lemming closing in on a precipice, and not leader of the greatest nation on earth?
Chapter 17
General Winfield Scott Hornworks burst into the basement war room of the Star in the Center of the Flower of the East Military Base, waving a telex flash message.
"I got bodacious news," he crowed. "The damn Iraitis are cleaning their own plow for us!"
Seated around the floor, on reed mats, Master Chiun, Prince General Bazzaz and Sheik Fareem looked up from huddled consultation. Their faces quirked into annoyed expressions.
"Speak English," requested Chiun.
"I am speaking English," Hornworks insisted. "Some hotshot Iraiti rocket unit-I mean legion-has up and wiped out the Abominadad air-defense ring all by his lonesome, including a roller coaster they were using as an antimissile shield. It's probably a coup. Maybe civil war. "
The annoyed expressions fled, leaving in their places identical stony ones.
"Don't you get it?" Hornworks snapped. "It's practically victory."
"It is nothing," said Chiun flatly. "Come and sit. We have much to discuss."
"Well, pardon me all to hell," muttered the general. "I thought we might all take some comfort from the collapse of the enemy."
Unhappily, General Hornworks lowered his burly body onto a mat. He waved the telex under their noses. "At least read this thing. It's from the Pentagon. The Iraitis have gassed themselves."
Chiun accepted the sheet, glanced over it briefly, and threw it high into the air. Slipping and sliding down the air currents, it was reduced to confetti under a sudden flurrying of his long fingernails.
"That was an official communique," Hornworks said dispiritedly.
"And this is a war council," said Chiun gravely. "We have made our decision."
"What decision?"
"The decision to go to war, of course."
"War? We don't need to go to war no more. You haven't been listening, have you? The Iraitis are at war with their own dang selves. All we gotta do is sit tight and pick up the pieces when they stop falling."
"And you have forgotten your horoscopic lessons? The tyrant Maddas will not be stopped by mere civil war. He will emerge victorious to vex us anew. We must be ready to strike before this happens."
"The Master of Sinanju speaks truly," said Sheik Fareem in a grave voice.
"Inshallah," said Prince General Bazzaz.
"We can't go to war without presidential authorization," said General Hornworks in a sullen voice, not caring one whit whether Mars was ascendant over Saturn or not.
"I am the ruler of Hamidi Arabia," said the sheik. "If the Master of Sinanju says that war is necessary to defeat the aggressor, then there will be war and you will be silent."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this," moaned Hornworks, burying his face in his hands. "I'm a West Point graduate. I'm the ninth Hornworks to rise to a generalship in the U.S. Army."
"I have decided to promote you," came the voice of Chiun.
Hornworks looked up, haggard and blinking.
"Promote! To what? I'm a four-star general."
"You are now Praetor Hornworks," answered the Master of Sinanju.
"Pray . . . what?"
"It is what you would call second in command," explained Prince General Bazzaz.
"That's a goldurn demotion!" Hornworks exploded. "I'm supreme allied commander, Cent-Com! You can't demote me!"
"We will fight as the Romans did," added Chiun, ignoring the outburst.
"That's gonna be kinda hard," Hornworks snorted. "To the best of my recollection, the Romans didn't have much of an air force."
"And we shall have none," said Chiun flatly.
"How're we gonna win a war without an air force?" Hornworks exploded.
"By superior strategy. First, you will reorganize your legions."
"I already got them redeployed according to that dang turtle shell."
"It is a tortoiseshell, and your enemy already knows how you are to fight this war," Chiun corrected.
"Yeah. By massive air strikes."
"Exactly why you will not do this."
"We can't get into a bloody ground slog!"
"You will not. First, you must select sixty of your bravest centurions-"
"Centurions? Is that kinda like a captain?"
"Possibly," Chiun said vaguely. "Each centurion will command a century of one hundred infantry. Six centuries will comprise a cohort."
"Companies and battalions," said General Hornworks, beginning to write this down. Since he no longer had his telex, he used his sleeve. "Yeah, yeah. My military history is coming back to me now. A division is what-a legion? We already got a sackful of legionnaires-all French."
"Then your horsemen."
Hornworks looked up from his sleeve. "We don't have any durn horsemen."
"What do you call the iron turtles with the long noses?"
"Tanks. Oh, you mean tank cavalry?"
"Yes. The equities. You will prepare them to enter the land now called Kuran."
"We send in the tanks without air cover and we're sunk," Hornworks snorted.
"There will be no air cover," pronounced the Master of Sinanju.
Pain on his face, General Hornworks looked to the others for support.
"There will be no air cover," said Sheik Fareem.
"There will be no air cover," added Prince General Bazzaz.
"Whose side are you on, anyway?" Hornworks growled.
"The winning side," Bazzaz told him.
Hornworks winced. "What about naval support? Navy gunnery is the finest in the world-much as I'm loath to admit it as a career army officer."
Chiun fingered his beard. "The Romans had no navy. Navies are Greek." He shook his bald head. "No, we will have no navy. You may send the ships away. The Mesopotamians once fought the Greeks, and would be prepared for such obvious tactics. They never fought the Romans. The advantage would be ours."
"Advantage? You're setting us up for the greatest defeat in the history of warfare!"
"Only if you fail to carry out the instructions of the imperator."
"What's an imperator?"
"I am."
"Is that kinda like a general?" Hornworks wondered.
"It is absolutely like a general," Chiun told him.
"Figures," Hornworks said morosely.
"What am I?" asked Prince General Bazzaz with a straight face.
"You are now prince imperator," Chiun told him.
Arabian Nightmare td-86 Page 8