"I think I need to talk to my senior officers and noncoms," Sada finally answered. "Assemble them at daybreak, here. And have a few dozen of these leaflets, enough to pass out, collected."
Interesting, thought Sada, that my enemy is giving us this chance.
Surrounded by a dozen men he trusted, Sada's sergeant major listened attentively as the instructor explained to fifty of the Fedayeen as-Sumer, the civilian irregulars ordered raised and armed by the dictator, the finer points of convincing the enemy you were harmless in order to get close enough to them to detonate an explosive belt. The design of the belt, in particular, he thought clever.
When the instructor had finished the sergeant major stood up and asked, enthusiastically, "Are you all prepared to give your lives like this?"
" Aywa! Aywa!" the fedayeen answered, with an enthusiasm to match the sergeant major's own. Yes! Yes!
"Good," the sergeant major said calmly. Then he said to his men, "Arrest them and put them in the penal platoon. All except for their instructor. Take that one outside and shoot him."
"Ah," said Faush. "Very clever indeed." The object of the major's admiration was an ambulance bearing the Red Crescent symbol which had had its sides reinforced with plate steel to serve as a clandestine armored personnel carrier. Two others in the hospital bay had been likewise converted, while a fourth and fifth had been made into suicide truck bombs.
"Don't you agree, Sergeant Achmed, Private Omar, that this is a clever set up?"
"Oh, yes, Major," the two submachine gun bearing enlisted assistants to the logistics officer agreed. "Very clever. Absolutely clever!"
"Yes. Now please shoot the men responsible."
The major was out the door and on his way to his next inspection before the submachine guns stopped chattering.
The damnable thing is, thought Sada, I can't help but use the hospital. It's the tallest building in town and the only one that will give the miserable air defense guns half a chance of covering the troops.
He stood in the walled yard of a mosque, looking up at the hospital building that dominated the skyline even through the dust that still swirled in the air. A company of Sada's soldiers were engaged in removing a substantial armory of everything from small arms to explosives from the mosque's interior. It was neither a small mosque nor a small armory.
While most of the company were busied with demilitarizing the mosque, one squad was engaged in removing the bodies of the mullah, two fedayeen, and one operative from the national secret police. Another squad had marched off the rest of the fedayeen to the penal platoon, which had grown to be a very large company.
Sada looked around, thinking hard. This compound would do for a hospital, he thought. Big enough. Covered. And there's a generator inside, which is more than the hospital can say. Still, using a hospital for an air defense site…
Then he considered the other reason, the secret reason, the really, really big secret reason he had to play by the rules. His gaze wandered in the direction of the local university- Damned secret police had better get here and take those packages off my hands- and then back to the hospital.
Well, I am the local governor, after all. I have the authority to close or move a hospital. Outside of a mosque a place doesn't become sacred merely for what it once was or could have been or even what it might be. Then again, what do I get out of it? One aircraft, maybe two. Then they flatten the building anyway.
Sada sighed. Still, one or two are better than nothing. And I have to try.
"Faush?" Sada asked, "How long to totally move the hospital from there to here?"
" Amid… I'm not sure," the logistician answered. "It could be done in a couple of days, I suppose. It might be less time if you let me use the penal platoon as slaves."
"Do it," Sada ordered. "But when you do it remove every trace that suggests the building is a hospital. And paint big target symbols on the sides. Yes… big ones."
Command Post, Legio del Cid, 25/2/461 AC
"Pat," Triste began, "it's the funniest thing. We got a message over the radio, from the enemy commander. It was in the clear. He wanted us to know that the hospital has been closed and may be considered a legitimate target. He spoke really excellent English, too."
Fahad's chest swelled ever so slightly; the Chaldeans hadn't been given to excessive pride in a very long time. Even so, you could hear the pride in the man's voice when he said, "Well, Legate, I did teach him, after all."
"The other thing is, Boss, we've taken fire from the hospital. They took out an RPV. Before the RPV went down, it got some good shots of the other side of the town. The civilians are moving out and being escorted by uniformed soldiers."
Interlude
5 Duh'l-Qa'dah, 1507 AH, Makkah al Jedidah, Al Donya al Jedidah (19 January, 2084 AD)
If he had ever doubted that his bedroom vision was a true one, those doubts were dispelled when Abdul ibn Fisel took his first look out the window of the transport and, peering through the clouds, saw the new homeland below him. It was watered; it was green. Wonder of wonders, there were trees, not merely around oases, but in forests large and small scattered across the landscape.
Animals grazed, Abdul saw, as the shuttle descended lower to fly over the landscape. Great herds of them wandered, heads down in the verdant grass or muzzles submerged in the flowing water of the land's many rivers and streams. Abdul did not even try to count them; he knew that all was as Allah had foretold in his vision.
Some of the elephants seemed impossibly large and incredible hairy.
The view of the new land disappeared behind flying grass and dust as the shuttle came to a hover by the spot Abdul had selected-rather, that he had known as soon as he had seen it on a map-for the first settlement. The engines squealed and the landing struts thrummed as the ship settled down to a jarring landing. There was another hydraulic sound as the two ramps, one on the side for passengers and one in the rear for cargo, lowered themselves to the ground.
Accompanied by his dozen closest followers, Abdul and his Salafis stood and moved, rifles in hand, to the relatively open area by the landing ramp. The rifles were of the older style, muzzle loading and flintlock fired. They were Salafis, by Allah, and dedicated to doing things in the old way. Admittedly, even the muzzle loaders post- dated the true Salafis, those generations of the Prophet's time and the two that followed. Nonetheless, the muzzle loaders pre -dated the influx of contaminating western ideas and, so, Abdul had judged them, in the absence of guidance to the contrary from above, as being fit to carry to the New World.
Four of his followers, specially selected for their piety and their physical strength, carried the Stone, the single oblong rock he had been instructed and allowed to take from the Kaaba in Mecca. From this stone, the spiritual link to the original Holy City would be maintained. Toward this stone, and the new Kaaba that would be built, the faithful would pray and their prayers be carried across Allah's infinite space.
With deep piety, the party moved down the ramp, Abdul leading the four selected to carry the Stone and the other eight flanking the porters as an honor guard. Abdul led the group to a spot far enough away that the litter-carried stone would not be sullied by the blast when the shuttle took off to bring in the next load. He told the four porters to guard it and then made a motion for the other eight to follow him. These he led to the shuttle's cargo ramp. Already the first of the camels, horses, sheep and goats were being offloaded by others among his followers. The armed men were not needed for that.
In all things Abdul and his followers intended to follow the ways of those who had known, or followed closely in the footsteps of, the Prophet. What was permitted by Allah must never be forbidden. What was forbidden must never be permitted. All things must be as they were.