Bashir pulled himself up into the bed of the truck. The huge Arab waded through the remaining sheep to the back of the cab. There, he grabbed a dirty canvas sheet off the floor, sheep droppings rolling off as he unfolded it. Then, Bashir rigged the canvas so it ran from the top of the cab to halfway across the bed. He anchored it to the side rails.
The smell of unwashed sheep over ode the smell of Yosef’s unwashed Guardsmen.
“That will give some shade as well as something to hide under if we are spotted,” he said to Yosef. He looked at the woman and her child.
“Saida, you should place yourself and your child here in the corner. The road ahead is very rough and the corner will help balance you.”
Bashir helped her move.
“When we arrive at my relatives, I have a cousin who nearly completed a year of medical school. He will attend to your wounds.” He patted her head and turned to Yosef, who watched through the rails and whispered, “He also treats the sheep.”
The nephews helped Bashir down.
“Where are we going?” Yosef asked. He shaded his eyes and looked south. Miles and miles of waist-high thorny bushes and rough arid land stretched from the road to the horizon. Beyond the horizon lay the Sahara Desert. No one would ever find them there, but who would care because few went in and even fewer came out. “Colonel, there is a small trail that only I and my friends know. We should be safe, Allah willing. By tonight, we should be at the village of my relatives.”
“I seem to remember that there are minefields out here.”
“Of course. Old World War II minefields, first laid by the Germans and then by the French and then later by the Americans and then later, after the war, the French again.
By the time they finished, we had minefields on top of minefields, a polyglot arrangement of international death.”
“I am assuming you know your way through them.”
Bashir patted his ample stomach and laughed.
“Oh, Colonel, you bring such mirth with you. I will tell you this. I have yet to be killed by any of the mines and if I am, then you are welcome to blame me on our way to paradise. Back on board, my friends! We have miles to go!” Bashir shouted, clapping his hands twice.
The Guardsmen and Bashir’s nephews climbed onto the bed of the truck. Two of the nephews slipped the tail section in place as Bashir and Yosef hurried to the cab.
The truck hit a bump as soon as Bashir drove off.
“Try to make yourselves as comfortable as possible, Mr. President.”
He reached up and took the sunglasses off of Alneuf.
“Here, let me remove the tags, Mr. President.”
Finished, he handed them back.
“We have five kilometers to go before we turn into a small wadi that runs nearly the entire way from here to the other side of Algiers,” Bashir said, then mumbled audibly, “if we make the five kilometers without someone seeing us.”
“Mr. Bashir,” Aineuf said.
“We owe you a great debt for this.”
“Mr. President, you owe me nothing, but if you want to pay me, let’s talk about that farm bill you sponsored last year.”
CHAPTER NINE
Duncan paused inside the entrance to Combat Information Center, allowing his eyes to adjust to the blue lighting. He stifled a yawn. The commodore. Captain Farnfield, and Colonel Stewart were huddled over the plotting table in the center of the large compartment.
Highly qualified petty officers were hunched over each console. Scattered, seemingly haphazardly, young seamen shuffled restlessly at assigned displays. Long black cords led from bulkhead sockets to sound-powered phone sets wedged tightly on their heads like fierce mandibles of warrior ants — fingers. constantly on the mouthpiece as they “rogered” and relayed information throughout the ship to other background peers on the sound-powered phone web of the USS Nassau. Like an uncoordinated Mexican wave, hands shot out as petty officers pressed buttons on consoles while others triggered radio circuits to relay information.
All across Combat cool professionals manipulated sensors and weapon systems as the sailor warriors of the twenty-first century shared and coordinated elements of the task force, keeping the ships and aircraft in proper formation as, like a hurricane, the amphibious armada moved relentlessly toward its objective.
Duncan weaved his way around the manned consoles-the low murmur of operations, a constant buzz in the background — until he reached the plotting table. The smell of sweat, old coffee, and fresh morning pastries filled the air.
Duncan glanced at the clock: about an hour before reveille sounded. The last watch before reveille was an hour into its four-hour duty cycle.
“… and how long has it been?” Duncan heard Commodore Ellison finish.
“Hello, Duncan. Sorry to jerk you out of the rack, but thought you needed to be here.”
“Commodore,” the Combat Information Center watch officer answered, “we last had contact with USS Gearing at nineteen hundred hours during routine comms check.
Since then we haven’t had a reason to contact her. It was only when Radio tried to raise her a couple of hours ago for daily cipher change that we realized we had lost contact with her. I checked the logs on the other circuits and discovered she had failed to acknowledge any group calls during the night.”
“What else. Lieutenant?”
“We tried calling on secure voice, the electronic warfare net, the aircraft control circuits, and even the antisubmarine warfare net — no reply. I have the operators calling every minute on the minute in an attempt to reestablish contact.”
“The Network Centric Warfare grid?” the commodore asked, referring to the tactical satellite warfare system connecting warships together digitally to share national and joint force intelligence, sensor, and surveillance information.
The CICWO shook his head. “Checked, sir. She is no longer anywhere on the NCW, or even the global information grid. I have the information technicians checking to see when she dropped.”
The commodore stroked his chin, then added, “Okay, inform me when we reestablish contact. Let’s give her twelve hours, but if we haven’t established comms by zero seven hundred hours, I want an aircraft to check on her.”
The CICWO glanced at the twenty-four-hour digital clock above the plotting table.
“Aye, aye, sir.” He had nearly two hours. He turned and made his way to the air search console.
The commodore pushed his bifocals back on his nose.
“Gentlemen, European Command has finally gotten off its ass and given Sixth Fleet permission to break the Gearing off track. Of course, to break off, we got to contact them.
Sixth Fleet has ordered us to sortie at flank speed to take station just over the horizon from Algiers. Since yesterday things have been going from bad to worse. Intell reports an American killed last night — executed by Algerian insurgents, who are going ape-shit and killing everybody and everything in sight! Ironically, remnants of the Algerian Army engaged the insurgents. They saved the remainder of the hostages from the same fate only to abandon them to their fate in an old Russian truck. They must have had God with them, for they made it to the American Embassy.”
Ellison paused, then continued.
“It don’t look good, men.
The new Algerian revolutionary government, which no one knows who the hell they are or even where the shit they’re located, is rounding up foreigners — the ones they don’t shoot — and forcing them into the American Embassy compound.