The Crisis (25 page)

The woman kneels by his side. She places a bowl of tea where he can reach it and touches his arm. Her gaze rises to Ghedi's. He stares until she turns away. She's veiled but he feels desire, then anger. How dare she, in the presence of this man? The imam feels for the bowl and sips, then works at his teeth for a while. Resumes, so softly his disciples must lean forward.

“Young brothers, God calls the Koran the ‘Al-Dhikr Al-Hakim.' It is greater than any human doctor, even in the hospitals of the West. It prescribes the treatments for the illness of our hearts. Are we not all evil in our hearts?”

“Truly, yes,” says Mahdube. The others murmur agreement.

“Then how can we become worthy? By obeying God's precepts, trusting in His infinite mercy. The holy Prophet, peace be upon him, calls Him forgiving, merciful, wise, mighty, patient, and understanding. These are not empty words, like those from the West, where ‘freedom' or ‘peace' has one meaning for Jews and Crusaders, another for us.

“The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, ‘Those who show mercy will be shown mercy by the All-Merciful. Be merciful to those on Earth, and God will be merciful to you.'

“Now, what does this mean? God is merciful, but not to those who deny Him and persecute His people. These invaders are worse than slavering hyenas. Is an animal equal to man? Not in the sight of God. But hyenas were created by God and do only what they were created to do. Likewise, He created men to worship Him. Instead the foreigners raise up images to worship, though God sent many Messengers to warn against this throughout the ages.

“Most blasphemous of all, they believe the world is theirs to know, theirs to shape. But this world is not ours; it is God's. It is not our will that determines it, but His.

“The Americans say they come to help. But no believer will take food from infidel hands. It's made from swine. The only way to cleanse it is to take it by force. This then is justified.

“Ghedi, you're very quiet,” he says, and instantly the young man straightens, his heart accelerates. Surely the old man knows every thought in his mind. No one else is as kind as his master. Nor as utterly ruthless, when the Word tells what must be done.

“I listen to your wisdom, master.”

The sheekh chuckles. “My wisdom, as you call it, is no more than the fart of the camel in the
shamal
. My son, I must ask a hard thing. I must ask you to leave us.”

Ghedi sits motionless. The old man has schooled them to ponder before filling a foolish mouth with empty words. Finally he says, “I don't understand, my father. You wish me to leave you?”

“I do not
wish
it, my loved son.” His hand's warm on Ghedi's shoulder, his voice quavers in his ear. “You are the best of these and closest to my heart. Do you not understand, that is why I must put you from me? You must leave, bitter though it is for me to tell you so.”

Ghedi sits confused, not so much at what the old man says, but by his emotions. His old life, as a child, is a distant dream. If he has a father, it's Nassir. He forces himself to say, “What must I do?”

“Help me up.”

Supported between them, the sheekh's frail as a rotten basket. He totters
as they half carry him into a larger room, then out into a courtyard filled with sunlight and the regard of three pure white cats with great blue eyes. The old man raises a hand, and they wait until the cats rise and drift away. He motions to a heap of old brooms and firewood. Ghedi pushes them aside, careless of scorpions, and uncovers a rifle.

Now that they're in the open under the flaring sun he hears wingbeats above, loud and nearing. The old man makes as if to take the weapon, then shakes his head. “I am too weak. Do what is necessary, my son.”

“Here, master? Now?”

Mahdube's and Ikrane's envy shows in their eyes. He basks in it as in a father's praise.

He raises the rifle and waits. The sound increases.

It fills their ears, and a black wasp appears above them. He aims and pulls the trigger, blaced against the blast. The green tracer rises searching like the finger of the Angel of Death. The old man lifts his arms. He shakes his fists at the aircraft, inviting martyrdom. Ghedi fires until the magazine runs out. Surely he's hit it! But the machine only slightly deviates from its course. Then inclines, like a landing bird. He thinks for a heart-stopping instant he's killed it. But it passes from view, the whick of its strange wings fading.

“Thus do we declare jihad against the enemies of our faith and people,” the sheekh says, patting his shoulder. “Go to the southern mountains. There, my young orchardsman, you will do your pruning. There you will find companions to do the will of God. You will report to us, and await our advice.”

“I will do all you say, my master and father.” Ghedi salaams to him, then to the other disciples. They nod back, supporting the old man, but hatred seethes in their eyes now.

He'll go to the mountains and lead men. So be it. It's God's will. Perhaps he'll even find his brother and sister, after whom he's asked and searched for years, yet never found. If they still live.

All will be as God wills. The thought brings peace in a world set on end. He salaams again as the blazing sun whitewashes spotless sky. Then kisses his master's wrinkled brow, smelling as he does so the mingled scents of cumin, and incense, and cinnamon.

S
OMEHOW he'd missed ever flying in a SuperCobra. There weren't many in the Navy-Marine complement, so no wonder, but as Dan walked toward tail number Four Two's low-contrast paint across
Tarawa
's fryinghot nonskid he already regretted having so cavalierly volunteered for the lift ashore.

Cobras were smaller close up than in flight, when they assumed the larger-than-life presence of an angry hornet. But they still looked lethal crouched on skids, with bulging cockpit glass like an insect's eyes, the swelling shoulder pods of the turbines, stubby wing-mounts racked with drab-and-yellow Hellfire missiles. And not least, the triple barrels of the chin-mounted gatling tilted up like the stabbing proboscis of a predatory
Vespida.

Skull wrapped in sweat-damp rubber and plastic, he set his boots where the crew chief pointed, swung up, and inserted legs and trunk down into a dauntingly cramped seat behind the pilot. Instruments, screens, and switches covered every surface. The crew chief strapped and plugged him in, with a running commentary on how to exit he knew he'd never remember. Curved glass sealed just above his head. They then squatted for long hot minutes with the turbines turning in a muted whistle-thunder as the pilot checked instruments.

“All set back there?”

He clicked the switch on the throat mike. “Ready when you are.”

Before he'd finished they were skybound, the deck dropping away so fast vertigo and nausea struck simultaneously. He clenched his teeth and tried to focus on something other than being sick as the blue sea rolled up and nearly over the top of the cockpit. He grew heavy, then floated up till only woven nylon kept him from departing the aircraft headfirst.

Since Operation Collateral Gratitude had transitioned from Phase I,
Insertion, into Phase II, Infrastructure and Governmental Reconstitution, he'd averaged three hours' sleep a night. The forward staff element had flown from
Mount Whitney
to
Tarawa
to prepare for Ahearn's arrival. The command ship would stay in Djibouti, since Ahearn was still dual-hatted at Centcom. The colonel commanding One-Five MEU would be in charge of most of the ground forces in theater.

The occupation had proceeded smoothly, with the exception of the armored clash west of Haramah, for which the U.S. had been criticized in Mideastern media. The marines had occupied the camps of the Ashaaran Twenty-first Armored and Seventeenth Mechanized, and were negotiating with the commanders of the other formations in their upcountry laagers. Ahearn had declared a cease-fire pending the outcome, and sent parties to meet with the tribal elders and with the last government representative in the capital, a General Abdullahi Assad.

Meanwhile, helicopterborne marines were securing road junctions and bridges. Armor and amtracs were moving up the MSRs, the main east-west and north-south highways. They brought small amounts of humanitarian supplies to grease the way, but their main function would be providing security for the distribution of food and medical aid by the Red Cross, UNICEF, and other relief agencies.

Dan was headed to what was fast becoming the curse of running a humanitarian intervention: meetings. Ahearn didn't micromanage. He laid out what he wanted done in a terse message each morning, and wanted brief-backs at noon and 1800. Beyond that, Dan scheduled his own movements. His status was grayish, though. He wasn't assigned to either Centcom or the JTF, but reported directly to Ahearn as a roving troubleshooter. He kept TAG as an info addee on his message traffic, and updated his commanding officer by e-mail. Mullaly didn't acknowledge most of what he sent but hadn't registered any objections. As for Admiral Contardi, Dan hadn't heard from him. Maybe his transformation assignment was OBE. Overtaken, in that wonderful Navy acronym, by events.

The AH-1W dived as it crossed the beach, hurtling over the labyrinthine streets of an ancient Red Sea city. He twisted to check out the terminal, wondering how the raising of the sunken tug was going, but it was past before his eyes could lock on.

The city was low, most buildings only one or two stories high. The walls were mud or concrete, with the typical East African flat roof. As they flashed over, women froze above clothes baskets, children pointed, men looked up from cards.

“Tracers,” the intercom stated. “See 'em, from down by that minaret? Somebody don't like us. Hang on.”

Dan braced himself as the Gs hit. Streaks of green light arced up from the maze of walls and roofs. Then curved away, falling astern.

“Not leading us enough. That's why I kept low. Give 'em less time to react. This ahead, with the gridwork streets, this is the colonial city.”

Dan pressed his nose to the Perspex as the pilot rolled, giving a wide-angle view straight down. He recognized the Presidential Palace from overhead imagery. The streets were littered with overturned cars and the confetti glitter of shattered glass, the
Kristallnacht
aftermath of the breakdown of civil order. The ministries had been looted too, and their fallen roofs said they wouldn't be functioning again soon. Computers, files, equipment, were toast. The staffs—from the former president's clan—had fled. He was torn between astonishment at people looting their government, and a realization it hadn't been
their
government at all. The apparat of a cronyist tyrant was more like it. Unfortunately, one building down there—maybe the one with charred circles around it, the potholed street snowy with scattered paper—was the National Library; another, the National Museum.

The pilot jinked, and Dan swallowed. They flew over a wide space with stunted trees. The Champs Nationale. Among acacias and tamarinds his gaze snagged on rows of tents, military vehicles, the white-bordered outline of a hasty helo pad. Geometrical lanes of yellow tape channeled multicolored particles of humanity across the dead ground.

“Twenty-first CSH,” the laconic voice-over noted. The Twenty-first Combat Support Hospital of the Thirty-sixth Medical Evac Battalion had been the first Army unit in country. This encampment would be the nucleus of an extensive health commitment. Treating the population, yes, but more important, getting local hospitals and clinics open again. Unfortunately, the limiter on both medical care and feeding was going to be transport. Since most Army and Air Force assets were tied up in Iraq,
Tarawa
was providing air support as well as most of the in-country logistics lift.

The city resumed after the park, but interspersed with homes now were small, lifeless fields. Once painstakingly irrigated by hand-dipped wells and motor pumps, now they were only baked dust. Here and there smoke spiraled. He hoped it was cooking fires. To his left lay the bed of the Durmani River. He saw no water, and the trees along the banks looked dead.

“Airfield, to your right.”

The Cobra rose, then dipped in a corkscrew to throw off heat-seeking missiles. It went nose-up and dropped toward instant hangars whose fresh-minted aluminum roofs sparkled in the sun. Dozers and power diggers were excavating foundations and cable trenches. A star in the distance grew into the stubby wings and vortex tips of a C-17 on approach.
The airlift route was arduous: C-5 Galaxies from Germany and the States to Incirlik, C-17s and C-130s for the final leg to the too-short strip at Ashaara. Graders were at work lengthening the tarmac.

Looking down, he locked building after building into the planning documents. Incredible what America could do. Like
Civilization
or
Age of Empire
, where each time you toggled back to the game screen your digital slaves had reared new monuments, bridges, cities. He wondered why it couldn't be done in the crumbling cities, the sucked-dry small towns, that paid the taxes Washington spent so lavishly.

The earth hurtled up, flattened, the rotors speeded up. Saliva sprang into his mouth. If only he could get the cockpit cracked before he had to spew . . .

 

THE Joint Task Force's shore element was headquartered in the air terminal. He threaded construction tape past hard-hatted contractors in coveralls. They maneuvered forklifts of prefab trusses through gaps in the walls of the waiting area, pushed cable reels on handcarts. Welding arcs glinted, and the smells of burning metal and fresh paint mixed with the limestone-cave draft of full-power air-conditioning. He checked in with a marine with a slung rifle and pinned on a security pass.

The next space was curtained off with canvas. Rows of metal chairs faced a plywood podium still being power-nailed together as he found a seat, powered up his notebook, and checked for a wireless connection. No luck. Civilians in shirtsleeves trickled in. They made a beeline for the bug juice dispensers. Most of the chairs were occupied by men in BDUs and coveralls. A working meeting.