The Last Crusade (5 page)

“Mr. Minister, Egypt has been a good friend, she has lived up to her treaty obligations. We are the only country who has come to her aid. America, India, even China have turned her down. All are afraid of angering the Caliphate. We will honor our treaty and support our friend. We will because it’s the right thing to do and it will show us how the Caliphate will come after us. By helping defend Egypt, we’ll be hurting the Caliphate. Anything that hurts the Caliphate helps us. Every one of their tanks we destroy is one less they can send against us. Weakening them at the Egyptian border delays their attack on us.”

“But sir, can we afford to give them all of the military aid we’re providing them?”

“Most of what we’re giving them is our cast offs.”

“Are we, at least, getting paid for it?”

“Oh yes, in gold.”

“In that case, I withdraw my objection.”

“I thought you might. We’re going to get a ringside seat to watch how our enemy fights, we’ll get to test our weapons over Egypt’s land without putting our people at risk.”

Smiling the Finance Minister nods his head, “When is the first payment arriving?”

“It’s downstairs under guard, would you like to see what one billion dollars in gold looks like?”

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After the Russian Ambassador leaves the Oval Office, the President of the United States of America sits behind the Resolute desk wondering what could possibly go wrong next. This isn’t how she was expecting her Presidency to go. Her phone buzzes,

“WHAT?!”

“Madam President, you have a caller on line one. I think you need to take this call.”

“Why do you think ‘I need to take this call’ when I’ve already said NO calls!”

“Because he claims to have a video of your husband and two of New York’s highest paid escorts which he’s going to release to the media if you don’t speak with him right now. He said to tell you, it’s no big thing.”

“Damn Bill, I told him to be careful! How many times do I have to bail his ass out of hot water? Put the blackmailer on. Get the FBI to trace the call, maybe we can grab the recording or take him out before he releases it.”

“Yes, ma’am, line one.”

A very angry President lifts the handset yelling into it, “Hello, who is this?”

“The person who’s going to destroy your husband’s legacy and your name with his. Not only do I have a video of him in bed trying to get it up with two escorts, but, once drunk, he talks a lot of shit about you. How is your real lover, Huma?”

“What do you want to kill the video?”

“I don’t want anything; I’m going to enjoy crushing you. I just wanted you to know where the blade that’s going to slice and dice you came from.”

“Who are you?”

“Someone who knows a lot about many of the people who disagreed with you, how they suddenly had fatal accidents or killed themselves. I think it’s best if you don’t know who I am. Since I know you’re trying to track my call, I’ll say goodbye for now. I’m sure we’ll be talking again soon. I’m going to enjoy watching you squirm. I’m going to laugh and celebrate after you’re forced to resign in disgrace.”

Click.

Hillary throws a crystal paper holder across the room, Huma rushes in, “Is something wrong?”

“Get me my husband. I don’t care where he is, find the asshole and get him on the phone. He never could keep his pants on.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t forget about later, I’m really going to need to be with you tonight.”

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Two days before the planned attack on Egypt, the Caliphate sends their last demand,

“Mr. President, we have received another formal demand from the Caliphate, they are offering us forty-eight hours to stand down and accept their terms to join the other nations of the Caliphate. This time, they promise our leaders will be allowed to leave the Caliphate alive. If we agree, they will send a team to help us escape before the people rise up and kill us as they did in Saudi Arabia. If we refuse their offer, they say, they will invade from land, sea and air, they promise to totally crush us in a single day.”

“It’s nice of them to offer us a way out. Of course, that’s if one trusts them to keep their word. I think once we agree to their terms they will send agents to kill us, they’ll hang our bodies over the Parliament’s front door. Their troops will flow in while our people are confused and leaderless, they will be able to conquer us in a single day. That’s if we’re foolish enough to believe them. I don’t do you?”

“No, sir.”

“We have photos of their forces lined up along our borders, they’ve broadcast their intentions. They can’t allow us to live because they know we’ll publicly speak against them. Did they send another messenger?”

“Not this time, I guess they didn’t appreciate getting their previous messenger returned in two parts.”

“Oh well, send back a message asking for another couple of days, tell them we’re negotiating with a few countries to see who will accept us. They’ll buy that answer; they’ll relax thinking we’re going to accept their offer. Their military will stand down thinking they’re just going to roll through to a hero’s welcome. We need time. Hopefully, this will buy us a couple of days.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ask the Field Marshal to join us.”

Fifteen minutes later the Field Marshall joins the President,

“I see you’ve exchanged your dress uniform for your field uniform, expecting to sneak out and fight on the line for Egypt?”

“Yes, sir. I am. Once the shooting begins, I’ll be more useful on the front line.”

“No, you won’t. There will be many front lines, the country needs you in the bunker directing the war from a central location. Let me show you our latest message from the Caliphate.”

“Interesting, I agree with your response, we know they plan to hit us in forty-eight hours, I’d like your permission to hit them in twenty-four, we’re ready to go within minutes of you signing the order.”

“Field Marshal hit them tomorrow just before dawn. Use the new shells the Israelis gave us. They should come as a nasty surprise to their tank commanders.” Smiling like a shark smelling blood in the water, the Egyptian President looks at his Field Marshal.

“Yes, sir! I think it will ruin their entire day, maybe their entire week.”

“I hope so. If the shells work as advertised, we should be able to attrit their tank forces before they know what hit them. Field Marshal, send them to hell before breakfast.”

“Yes, sir.”

The next morning, the Caliphate thinks they’ve won the battle for Egypt without firing a shot. The troops are relaxed; the invasion is now being discussed as a freedom parade. The troops will wear their dress uniforms; they're shining their boots so they’re glossy black as they march through the country. Their tanks have been being quickly spray painted bright green and polished. The troops have been told they can sleep in until seven, the mood in Caliphate camps is at an all-time high, their fear of dying is gone, they’re looking forward to showing the Egyptian women how friendly they can be.

As the dawn sun peeks above the horizon, thousands of missiles and artillery shells explode over the Caliphate’s forces lined up along the border. The soldiers are still sleeping when the missiles and shells begin exploding, catching the invaders completely by surprise. The shells are some of the newest in Israel’s inventory, each shell has a small sensor which guides them to the top of the tank’s turret where the armor is the thinnest. The shells have dual HEAT warheads, the first generates a thin stream of molten copper which cuts through the thin top armor of the Caliphate tanks, once the top is cut open, the shell’s main warhead fires, cutting apart everything inside the turret. The explosion blows up the twenty main gun rounds stored in the turret. Thousands of tank turrets are hurled skyward. Every shell fired strikes a tank. One shot, one kill, the Caliphate military is taken completely by surprise.

The shells are an Israeli improvement of an American design. The shells were originally designed to overcome the large numbers of the Warsaw Pack tanks in the Cold War. America needed a force multiplier in order to slow down a massive Soviet tank invasion of Germany. Intelligent armor shells were developed; the design was given to Israel at the end of the Cold War. Israel quickly updated the shell’s sensor with the most up to date microprocessor, enabling the shells to quickly determine a tank from other vehicles on the battlefield and guide itself to the top of the turret. Once a shell selects its target, the shells communicate with each other. No shell is wasted striking a previously killed tank. The explosions wake the Caliphate troops, who, half dressed, run out of their tents seeing flames shooting up from their tanks; they stand in shock watching turrets flying through the air. They are caught in the open when the next wave of the attack commences.

Hundreds of multiple rocket launchers launch their missiles across the border into the Caliphate bases. Each missile carries a warhead of anti-personnel shells that explode over the troops, showering them with hundreds of steel cubes, cutting the surprised Caliphate troops apart. The second wave of missiles carries FAE (Fuel Air Explosive) warheads. The warheads spray a fine mist of explosive over the camps, once the mist is evenly spread, an igniter fires, causing the mist to explode. The FAE warheads kill everything under them through a combination of blast, fire, and overpressure. Nothing living survives under the explosions. An FAE warhead is the most powerful warhead next to a nuclear warhead. Over one-hundred-thousand, Caliphate soldiers are killed within the first five minutes of the Egyptian attack, without a single Egyptian loss of life.

The Caliphate invasion force in the Mediterranean is soundly sleeping on their ships thinking they’re not going to be used when American heavyweight Mark 48 torpedoes begin exploding under the keels of the troop ships. When the torpedoes explode under the ship’s keel, they cause a large gas bubble to form which lifts the ship out of the water, when it crashes back into the water; her spine/keel is broken, usually causing the ship to break in half. The Egyptian and Israeli submarines snuck up and struck the troop ships and destroyers floating calmly in the Mediterranean. None of the Caliphate ships survives the surprise attack. Ten minutes after launching the first torpedo, fifteen Caliphate ships are sunk in the Mediterranean, killing more than ten thousand people. The burning ships can be seen along Egypt’s coast, surveillance satellites in space report the explosions and fires from the burning camps and ships.

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Ms. Clayton swallowed two sleeping pills before laying down and getting comfortable in the Presidential bed smiling that all of her hard work and blackmail finally gave her what she’s dreamed of since high school. She closed her eyes knowing she’d find a way around the problems the Russians, Chinese and Caliphate demanded to keep her secrets, this wasn’t new to her. She spent most of her adult life negotiating under the table deals; buying and selling people’s secrets. She drifted to sleep when the phone next to her bed started ringing. She opened one eye, looking at the phone’s flashing red light. She ignored it, rolling over. The longer she ignored the ringing phone, the louder it rang, after trying to pull the pillow over her head to block out the ringer she gave up, groggy from the sleeping pills she grabbed the handset,

“WHAT?”

“Madam President, it appears the Egyptians have struck the Caliphate forces that were camped along her border.”

“So what? It sounds like it’s an Egyptian internal issue, don’t bother me again.” Slamming the handset down she wrote herself a quick note to fire the duty officer who woke her. The very question she raised in her 2008 campaign with Obama, the ringing phone at three o’clock had now been answered. Mrs. Clayton rolled over and went back to sleep.

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Ali Muhammad Tanvir and his senior advisors discuss their plan on merging Egypt into the Caliphate when an out of breath messenger runs into the executive dining room interrupting their breakfast,