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 could 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."