"Surrender!" he shouted to his own infantry. "Drop your arms and put up your hands. Surrender!"
In his NVGs Reilly saw the gesture. "Cease fire," he commanded. "Cease fire, I said, goddammit," he repeated when he also saw a machine gun from his own side chop down several Ophiris. The word passed from his radio to the others, and then by word of mouth. In a few minutes, the firing stopped. Only then did he see a much larger number of the enemy rise from the ground, putting up their hands. "Prisoner teams out."
"James, grab the radio. Follow me. Bring the translator."
Finding the senior officer remaining among the enemy's tanks wasn't particularly hard. It was just a matter of counting radio antennae, all pretty well lit by the fires of burning tanks. At least that's how Maalin assumed his foe found him.
"You are the commander?" the white enemy asked through an interpreter.
"I was," Major Maalin said.
"You have two tanks to the west, chasing a few of my vehicles. Order them here, and to surrender."
"And if I refuse?"
Reilly jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where his own infantry were collecting up the beaten enemy and herding them out onto the main wadi floor. "Then all your men here go into a ditch and get shot, along with yourself. Then we'll hunt those tanks down and kill them anyway. But I don't have time to fuck around, so you get a chance to save their lives, and the others'."
It was a hard world, and a cruel one, Maalin knew. He didn't doubt this . . . Well, American, I suppose he is, and if half the stories told of that vicious people are true, he'll carry out his threat. Murderers, it is said, the lot of them, whatever pious platitudes their government may put forth for public consumption.
"One moment, please?" he asked, as he scrambled up the side of his tank, reached in, and took out a radio mike. What he said, Reilly didn't know, though it didn't seem to alarm the translator.
Then Reilly got a call from Snyder. "Alpha Six, Scout One. The enemy has reversed turrets and is rolling to your position. How did you do that?"
"Just good planning," Reilly answered, even while thinking, Luck. Pure fucking luck. I was ready to trade you guys for a little time. Thank God, I didn't have to.
A stretcher team trotted by, a moaning man bouncing on the stretcher. Reilly sighed. It's never really been about killing the enemy, he reminded himself. It's always been about winning when that requires you to risk your life.
He stood quietly for several minutes then, both his RTO and the enemy commander looking at him, intently in the one case, warily in the other.
"What's your name?" Reilly asked of the Ophiri.
"Maalin, Muktar. Major."
Reilly inclined his head toward the east, where Coffee had set up an ad hoc aid station that was rapidly filling.
"Major Maalin, have your men bring their wounded to my chief medic. We'll treat them as best we're able before we have to go."
"Yes, sir," Maalin answered. "Thank you, sir."
Reilly took the mike from James and broadcast, "By the way, all platoon leaders, this is Alpha Six. Do we have anybody who knows how to drive a T-55? I need . . . six of 'em."
"I kin dribe wun o' de pides o' shid," said a voice that sounded a lot like Lana's, but as if she were speaking with a clothespin over her nose.
Reilly ignored that for the moment, saying, "That's one. I need five more. And, Lana, if that was you, report to me, center of the kill zone. Other people who can drive a T-55 do the same. Infantry platoons and mortar section, I need two people from each of you to stand in a turret and look threatening."
He handed the mike back to James, who stuck it to his ear, listening intently. Suddenly, James smiled. "Dustoff, two minutes out," he announced. Turning to where Sergeant Coffee and the other two medics, under the lights of the medical Eland, fussed over seven wounded men, next to a line of five of their own dead, James pointed and repeated, "Dustoff, two minutes out!"
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The bullet is a mad thing;
only the bayonet knows what it is about.
-Alexander Vasileyevich Suvarov, Count Rymnik
D-Day, Yemen
As hot as the day had been, and it had been nearly life threatening, despite the shade of the nets, the night was bitter. Konstantin shivered despite himself and despite the robes he wore over his battle dress. And the breeze didn't help. Unconsciously he pulled his headdress tighter to him, at the same time pressing on the earpiece cum microphone he wore, as did his men.
"Browned skin and contacts, fake beards or not, we're going to stand out like sore thumbs, you know," Galkin said, holding up his rifle for emphasis. This close, it was easy enough to see both, despite the dust laden breeze, blowing out of the northeast from Saudi Arabia's Rub al Khali, or Empty Quarter.
The Romans had called the place, "Arabia Felix," Happy Arabia, this based on the income from harvesting and trading incense, as well as trade generally. Sadly, the bottom had nearly dropped out from the frankincense and myrrh markets many centuries past, while, conversely, the market in oil, which Yemen didn't have much of, had grown enormously in decades recent. Thus, while Saudis may have tooled around the desert in four-wheel drive Mercedes, it was more common to see Yemenis on dirt bikes doing the same. Or hearing them.
Seeing but not hearing them would have been considered odd. That was one of the little weaknesses to the plan. Konstantin had accepted the weakness as necessary if he were going to be able to get to Yusuf's palace close enough, which meant quietly enough, to do the job in time to get picked up and brought home. His dirtbikes were as silent as the weapons his men carried.
Still, as long as the viewer was some distance away, then the procession of keffiyeh-covered, dishdasha-clothed men, with their robes hiked up around their waists, probably wouldn't invite much comment or attention.
And the arms they carried, that couldn't be hidden under robes?
"Oh, hell, this isn't Europe, or even Russia; everybody in Yemen who isn't a slave carries a rifle," Baluyev answered Galkin's objection. "Besides, it's dark."
"Even some of the slaves are armed," Konstantin said, "depending on how trusted they are."
"See? Even the slaves." Baluyev stopped for a moment, a curse on his lips. "Fuck; when did we get so used to using expressions like ‘even the slaves'?"
Konstantin shrugged. Who knew, after all? It wasn't as if the institution had ever gone out of style completely. Why, in the heyday of the Soviet Union virtually everyone in it or controlled by it had been a slave.
"Never mind," the major said. "We have this job to do, now. Maybe someday we can do something about some other problems. Maybe."
The shocks made more noise than the engines, squeaking in outraged protest as the dirtbikes slammed down onto the sand after skipping over the tops of dunes. The breeze had died down, though it left a great deal of dust hanging in the air. And it was still cold.
We look so much like Arabs, thought Konstantin, who loathed Islamics on general principle and had since Afghanistan, that the only way we could look more Arabic is if I have everyone stop and fuck Galkin.
I don't think that's necessary, though. Besides, even if it's a fair approximation of Islamics, it's unfair to Galkin.