"Take your Scud launcher to the Maddas Line," President Hinsein had instructed.
The Maddas Line was a Maginot Line of earthen-berm fortifications and barbed-wire coils just above the Kuran-Hamidi Arabian border. When the UN forces attacked, as surely they would, they would have to breach that horrendous fortified barrier.
"Park it at Launch Station Ibn Khaldoon," Maddas added.
"At once, Precious Leader," Colonel Zarzour said, saluting snappily, even though he was communicating by field radio. Who knew but that there might be a spy for the president lurking nearby? So it was better to salute and keep one's head than not to and risk losing it.
"When you are there, set your missile for coordinate 334."
"Three-three-four. Yes, yes, I have it."
"Then contact me. Personally."
Leaping into the driver's booth of the eight-wheeled mobile erector-launcher, Colonel Zarzour drove it out of its sand-colored protective revetment.
He had driven madly. The launcher barreled south through the featureless talcum-powder-like sands, resembling a giant camel-colored lipstick container on wheels.
When he ran out of petrol-petrol being a precious commodity during the crisis, thanks to the anti-Irait embargo-some forty kilometers south of Station Khaldoon, Zarzour faced a choice. Commit suicide or lie boldly.
He decided to lie, not boldly, but brazenly. If he shirked his duty, the Scimitar of the Arabs would have his body interred with dead pigs as punishment for his dereliction. There were worse fates than suicide, and Maddas Hinsein had compiled a list of them, which he sometimes read aloud on Iraiti television as a kind of poem to loyalty. He was not sometimes called the Scourge of the Arabs because he was unafraid to scourge the Arabs as well as the infidel unbelievers.
"Precious Leader," Colonel Zarzour reported by radio, "I am at the appointed place."
"Good. Launch."
It was not the order Zarzour had expected. He had not been sure what to expect.
But because he did not want to spend eternity with the corrupt flesh of unclean animals, he went to the control panel and initiated the launch sequence.
The missile canister reared up with the whine of toiling machinery, until it was completely vertical. Colonel Zarzour punched in the targeting coordinates.
Then, tears in his eyes because he knew these coordinates were in Hamidi Arabia, a land of fellow Moslems, Zarzour initiated the firing sequence. Then he ran for his life.
Dense black smoke began generating at the base of the missile. The stern vomited an orange tail of flame and thundered straight up. The desert air quaked and vibrated.
When the Soviet Union first sold Irait their top-of-the-line Scud missile system back in the days when the two nations were allies, they did so with complete confidence that even if Maddas Hinsein should acquire a nuclear and chemical warfare capability and undertake some grandiose misadventure, the Scuds would avail him little because they were notoriously unreliable.
The Scud missile that lifted off from Launch Station Ibn Khaldoon, turning south, should have been no different. But through a quirk of Soviet technology, and the fact that it had been fired from the wrong position, its gyroscopic inertial guidance system, shifting and compensating in confusion, did something no Scud had ever before done in the history of modern warfare.
It struck its assigned target. Dead center.
Chapter 23
Praetor Winfield Scott Hornworks got the call in the privacy of his air-conditioned office.
He blanched at the sound of the anxious voice buzzing in his ear. "Oh, no. Oh, no," he moaned. His voice trailed off into a kind of sick mew.
Woodenly he replaced the tactical field telephone receiver when the voice was through reporting. A man learning that he had terminal cancer might wear such an expression.
Taking up his non-issue ostrich-plume helmet, he trudged out of the office and down to the basement war room, where Imperator Chiun and Prince Imperator Bazzaz were examining flash messages.
"It's over," Hornworks said leadenly.
Sheik Fareem looked up. "What is, Praetor Hornworks?"
"The war," the American general said in a crestfallen tone. "It's done with. We lost."
"How can this be?" demanded Chiun, Master of Sinanju.
"The Iraitis hit us where we really live. Our army's sunk. We've suffered complete tactical paralysis. We're talking about the worst military defeat since the Little Big Horn."
"Speak English."
"They got the 324th Data Processing Cohort," Praetor Hornworks explained, dejection muting his voice. "It was a Scud, damn their eyes. Warhead filled with nerve gas. The poor bastards-I mean bastards and bitches, since we're coed now-never had a chance. Every one of 'em's down."
"How many dead?" asked Chiun, his eyes pained.
"None. They got into their chemical suits just in time. They're sick as dogs, but they'll pull through, once we're done medevacking them to Germany."
"Can these worthy ones be replaced?" asked Imperator Chiun.
"You kidding me?" Praetor Hornworks said indignantly. "You know how long it takes to train a soldier in VMS? Besides, that ain't our biggest worry. They got the computers, the faxes, the telex lines, everything. It was all tied in through the 324th. That's all she wrote. Our tooth-to-tail logistics are shot."
Around the room, the faces of Chiun, Sheik Fareem, and Prince Imperator Bazzaz looked as blank as three slices of Wonder Bread.
"We have no inventory control!" Hornworks snapped.
If anything, their blankness increased.
"We don't know where anything is!" Hornworks shouted in exasperation. "Or was. That means munitions, rations, armor, rolling stock, the whole shebang. Including our compaign plans. They were all on hard disk. I'm sick, I tell you. My pension just went south. We're reduced to war-gaming with an abacus, if we had one."
"Ah," said Chiun, the sheik, and the imperator general in unison. The Master of Sinanju turned to the sheik.
"Have you an abacus to lend this unfortunate white?" he asked.
The sheik nodded. "For a price."
The Master of Sinanju told Praetor Hornworks, "You shall have your abacus, praetor. Take heart. Your problem is solved."
"Wonderful," growled Hornworks. "That ain't all the bad news. Maddas Hinsein just appeared on the TV. He's alive and kicking. We're back to square one."
"No," said Chiun, lifting a wise finger, "for I have a brilliant plan!"
"And the dang lraitis have a zillion Scuds all ready to go. They may be neolithic by our standards, but they'll kill us just as dead as neutron bombs."
"You have neutron booms?" asked Chiun, wispy beard atremble.
"Sure, can I use them? Assuming I can find them now."
"No!" said Chiun firmly. "Consign them all into the Gulf!"
"Then let me unleash our air assets," Hornworks pleaded. "Please. We gotta knock out those Scuds fast! We can do it inside of a day, maybe three. We have Wild Weasels, Ravens, Skyhawks, Blackhawks, Tomcats, Eagles, Flying Falcons, Cobras and Jaguars, all set to go.
"I will not risk the lives of innocent animals in a war not of their making," Chiun said flatly.
"But we can own the skies!"
"Let the enemy have the sky," proclaimed the Master of Sinanju in a triumphant voice. "We will take the ground."
"Yes," said Sheik Fareem sagely. "We want nothing of the sky." The old sheik turned to his adopted son. "Are you in agreement, my son?"
"Absolutely. There is no oil in the sky."
Praetor Hornworks blinked. His eyes narrowed craftily.
"How about Apaches?" he asked. "And maybe a few Tomahawks? At least let me use the tip of the spear."
"This is not a Wild West movie," Chiun sniffed. "I will not allow the noble but oppressed red man to be dragged into the white man's folly."
"I suppose warthogs are out of the question?"