The Coward's Way of War (55 page)

The planes droned over the city, their cargo hatches opening and leaflets dropping from them, heading down towards the ground.  There were thousands upon thousands of leaflets, each one written in Arabic and English, warning the defenders of what was to come.  The city was already surrounded and escape was cut off; soon, the Iraqi forces would begin their advance.  The leaflets called upon the defenders to surrender, offering good treatment in exchange for preserving the Holy City, but Fareed would have been astonished if they had accepted the offer of surrender.  The clerics who ruled Mecca had been willing to demolish artefacts and buildings that dated as far back as the Prophet Muhammad himself; they certainly wouldn’t object to remodelling Mecca a little, if it meant keeping it out of the hands of infidels.  Even the Iraqi Sunnis, Muslims all, were infidels to them.  In Fareed’s view, they saw the term ‘infidel’ as meaning simply ‘someone who isn't us.’

He watched dispassionately as the clerics scrambled for the leaflets, ordering their men to collect them and take them for burning, rather than risk having the young men read them and start wondering if there was a better way.  A handful of young men who picked up and started to read the letters were brutally beaten and taken away by the religious police, before they could start to contaminate their fellows.  Fareed had seen many acts of barbarity over his years in the Marine Corps, yet there was something uniquely disgusting about the act of beating a boy for daring to look at a letter.  If they had been secure in their faith, nothing – not even an offer of freedom and wealth – would have shaken them.  It was the ultimate proof of their moral bankruptcy.  They clung to life and power because they didn't dare face the Day of Judgement.

The planes faded away into the distance, leaving the clerics organising their forces.  Mecca had been turned into a strongpoint to rival Fallujah, although the clerics had had significantly less time to get ready for war.  On the other hand, they had been able to draw on vast stocks of weapons and material from the Saudi armouries and even the help of hundreds of trained soldiers.  Fareed had never been very impressed with the Middle East’s training methods – the Corps would have sacked any Drill Sergeant who showed such obvious incompetence and favouritism – but some of them knew what they were doing.  Others didn't; he’d watched hundreds of accidents within the streets of Mecca, each one perfectly avoidable. 

Idiots
, he thought.  The rumble of planes in the distance was growing louder, but this time the noise was different.  Allied planes were on their way...and this time they weren’t going to drop anything as harmless as leaflets.  His lips twitched at the irony.  The clerics would probably have considered dumb bombs less dangerous than leaflets that might seduce their young men. 

He glanced over at his spotter, exchanging signals.  Khan nodded and pointed a laser device towards the building the clerics were using as a command and control centre.  None of them would be able to see the dot of light – it was invisible to the naked eye – but the sensors on the orbiting planes would be able to pick it out easily.  The clerics wouldn't know that they were being targeted, for they’d picked a building that hadn't had any prior military use for their headquarters, at least not until it was too late.  Fareed smiled to himself as the planes drew closer, daring the enemy to light up whatever SAM assets they had and open fire.  Once the bomb was dropped, anyone left alive in the wreckage would die at his hand.

***

G
eneral Mohammad Karim winced as the flight of Allied jets roared over the Holy City, seconds before the bombs started to fall.  Opinion had been divided on the subject of if it were permissible to use warplanes against Mecca, for using any kind of weapon in the Holy Cities was a great blasphemy.  Ironically, the Saudis themselves had pointed the way, with their clerics’ blanket authorisation to fight in the Great Mosque and evict the forces of a religious fanatic so fanatical that even the Saudi clergy had refused to tolerate his existence.  They’d used tanks, guns and poison gas to evict the terrorists who had occupied the heart of Mecca, so Karim was prepared to use aircraft to remove another group of terrorists from the city.  The Iraqi Government had been very clear.  They wanted the city in Iraqi hands before the King of Jordan could do something stupid and get involved.

The Iraqi Air Force had been designed, originally, for fighting insurgents and had concentrated on CAS and other such operations, relying on the Americans to provide air defence systems and striking power that could be used against other countries.  Even now, years later, CAS remained the most prestigious part of the air force and the Iraqi Government lavished money on it, buying a strange combination of the latest American designs and some older, proven aircraft.  He watched as a hundred aircraft roared overhead, dropping their smart bombs towards their targets, the command and control centres holding the defenders together.  Seconds later, explosions billowed up from the heart of Mecca.

“A bad business,” the Mullah beside him said.  Karim nodded.  The clergy of Iraq might have authorised the mission, but no one was very happy about dropping high explosive near the Great Mosque.  “Do you think they’ll surrender?”

Karim shook his head.  Iraq had embraced a more moderate form of Islam than either Saudi or Iran, if only because Iraq had direct knowledge of just where the more extreme forms of Islam inevitably ended.  The disgust that had led to the end of the insurgency, when Iraqis had turned on foreign interlopers and thrown them out of their country, had been powered by disgust at the many atrocities the foreigners had perpetrated.  Forcing the Iraqis to destroy large parts of Mecca in order to destroy them would be just like the fanatics.  They didn’t care, for they
knew
that God was on their side.  Anything was permissible, provided it was done in the name of Allah.

He keyed his radio as the smaller aircraft retreated, while the larger aircraft and the American-designed drones remained on call, ready to drop additional bombs on targets of opportunity.  “All units, this is the CO,” he said, simply.  “You are ordered to advance.”

***

Fareed smiled to
himself as the building disintegrated in front of him, shattered by the force of the American-designed bomb that had smashed through the roof, fallen through several floors and then detonated.  The terrorists inside the building probably hadn't even had more than a second to realise that they were under attack before it was too late and the bomb exploded, wiping them and their store of ammunition and other supplies out of existence.  He scanned the remains of the burning wreckage with his scope, but there was no sign of any survivors.  The nearby buildings had been badly damaged by the blast and people were pouring out of them, yet they weren't the targets.  The real targets had been obliterated.

The ground shook as more bombs detonated within the city, blasting great holes in the enemy defence lines.  Fareed and other teams had scouted the city, picking out targets and transmitting the data to the Iraqi commanders.  Now, all that targeting was paying off as enemy strongpoints and ammunition dumps were destroyed, shattering the enemy’s ability to resist.  If the cities he’d seen in Iraq were any example, they probably wouldn't have destroyed the enemy’s store of ammunition, but they’d certainly crippled their ability to fight back.  He heard the sound of secondary explosions as an ammunition cache detonated, hopefully catching a few more terrorists within the blasts.

Come on
, he signalled with his hands, crawling away from the rooftop and back towards the fire escape.  The entire city seemed to be up in arms, with thousands of young men running around, unsure of what they should be doing.  Fareed was tempted to pose as one of their commanders and start giving orders, but it was far too risky; Khan would have thought that he’d gone insane.  Once they were down on the streets, he allowed the crowd to push them onwards, away from the sound of the guns.  The Iraqis were shelling the city in preparation for the big push.

He exchanged a glance with Khan as they found themselves in a more secluded spot.  Their orders had been to remain within the city and wreak what havoc they could, once the Iraqis began their bombardment.  A wealth of information passed between them and they followed the young men, hearing the sounds of clerics urging them to battle and distributing ammunition and drugs.  Fareed had seen terrorists hopped up on drugs before; they felt no pain and came on like zombies, very hard to kill.  A shot through the head was the only way to kill one of them instantly.

The mosque ahead of them had clearly been built by the Saudi Government, for it had the strange combination of fantastic design and spiritual deadness common to all such mosques.  The young men were massing inside the compound, being handed grenades and a quick primer on how to use them, much to Fareed’s private amusement.  Grenades were dangerous and someone who only had one lesson wouldn't know how to use them properly.  He’d had to pull the pin and then count up to three before throwing the grenade; he doubted that the young men in front of him would even be able to hesitate before they threw the grenade.

Quite calmly, they walked into the mosque and picked up a small number of grenades.  No one questioned them, not even a cleric.  They’d seen the weapons on their shoulders and realised that they were snipers, the elite among the fighters.  The Islamic fighters valued their snipers, Fareed knew, and some were very skilled.  They were treated almost like rock stars and few would dare get in their way.  He unhooked a tiny American-designed grenade and dropped it to the bottom of the box of grenades, before exchanging nods with the cleric and walking out.  Two minutes later, he hit the switch and the grenade exploded, setting off the others in a terrifyingly-powerful chain reaction.  The cleric and his congregation died before they even knew what had hit them.

Good riddance
, Fareed thought, as he started to look for other targets of opportunity.  The jets were resuming their bombardment of key positions, while the Iraqi gunners were shelling, trying to clear the line of advance.  They’d probably block roads through scattering debris over the buildings, but Fareed had the impression that they didn't care.  The more they killed through bombardment, the fewer who would have the chance to kill an Iraqi soldier as they advanced through the city.  It made sense...besides, Mecca could always be rebuilt.  A dead soldier was gone forever. 

Khan made a signal and Fareed followed his gaze.  Another cleric was standing on a box, screaming obscenities to his followers, calling down the wrath of Allah on the Americans, the Iraqis and the Saudi Royal Family.  Fareed gave him points for bravery, even though the House of Saud was clearly done for in Mecca, but it hardly mattered.  He followed Khan as he scrambled up the side of a building and onto the roof, peering over and down towards the cleric.  The man had concealed himself from any observers who might be flying over the city, but he hadn't thought about snipers.  Perhaps he hadn't realised that enemy snipers were within the city.

Just keep talking
, Fareed thought, as he lined up the shot. 
I'm going to kill you and your friends won’t even know that I’m here
.

***

Hakeem Irfan listened with interest as the preacher - Izz al Din, a man the Americans considered a
terrorist – raved on, inciting his followers to a frenzy of rage.  He recorded the entire sermon with the camera he carried in one hand, knowing that the Japanese-designed system would be transmitting the live feed directly up to the satellite and from there to the world.  Al Jazeera might not be flavour of the month among the Saudi Royal Family – too much honesty was considered a bad thing – but the forces defending Mecca saw the need for publicity.  A single American atrocity – or something that could be made to look like an atrocity - was worth a thousand deaths.  The Americans were ultra-sensitive to world opinion, which seemed to matter to them.  Privately, Hakeem was no longer sure if that were true, but it wasn't a problem.  Live footage from Mecca as the Iraqis attacked the city would ensure that he would become the most famous reporter in the world.

He allowed the camera to pan across the horde of cheering young men and then back up to the preacher, who was still raving.  It was getting boring rapidly for a sophisticated man like Hakeem, but his followers were eating it up and coming back for more.  His minders, two tough men from Palestine, seemed to be enjoying it as well, although they were also keeping an eye on him.  He’d been warned that there were things he could not broadcast to the world and if he did, he would never leave Mecca alive.  He didn't blame the fighters for that...

Hakeem didn't hear the shot.  One moment, the cleric was speaking; the next, his head literally exploded as a bullet passed through it.  The entire crowd was stunned speechless as the cleric stumbled backwards and crashed to the floor.  Hakeem caught it all on the camera.  A shot like that meant a sniper and that meant...the crowd seemed to follow the same line of logic, but they weren't mounting an effective search.  They were just raging around, shaking their fists and swearing revenge.  Some of the junior clerics got into a fight over who should speak to the people, although Hakeem couldn't tell if they were fighting over who should take on the role or who shouldn’t.  The position didn't seem to have a very long life expectancy.