Phoenix Sub Zero

After all, fourteen centuries ago Mohammed had himself been driven from Mecca to Medina — the holy exile, the hegira, during which Mohammed founded Islam. The Prophet had then fought his way back to Mecca in an astonishing and triumphant battle, winning an immortal glory. By the time he was forty Mohammed and Islam had taken over the Arab world.

Now Sihoud had been given the Scorpion, just as Mohammed had received supernatural power from the archangel Gabriel, and now the war would be won. The infidels would sneak away and hide, and Mohammed al-Sihoud would triumph. Sihoud truly believed that.

Chapter 2 Thursday, 26 December

ASHKHABAD, TURKMENISTAN

UIF MAIN BUNKER COMPLEX

Sihoud yawned. It was many hours past the time he had hoped to sleep, and there was more to do before dawn than stare at the machine’s screens. He had a war to win, troops to command, armies to move, but first he must deal with his Iranian chief of staff, the worrying technocrat Rakish Ahmed. Still, he reminded himself, Ahmed was more than worth his pay — he had delivered the Scorpion weapon. For that Sihoud could stand to indulge his worldly fears; he just wished Ahmed could comprehend that they were destined to prevail. He believed that.

Colonel Ahmed frowned in low conversation with one of the officers at the tactical command console, who occasionally put one finger in the air and talked into a secure radio-telephone.

Sihoud could see Ahmed’s expression grow darker. Finally he turned from the console and faced Sihoud, a pained look on his face.

“Sir, we need to leave, now. I believe an attack is imminent on this command center.” Ahmed had been trained by the Iranian Air Force to state the conclusion first, the supporting evidence last. It was a habit that irritated Sihoud, but he waited. “An antiaircraft station, the north post, reported radar contact on a large airborne blip. The radar was a height-finding unit, and reported the plane climbed up from zero to fourteen kilometers very rapidly, then dived back down again. At

first we didn’t believe it, but the south station just confirmed, they saw the same thing. This correlates to the lost jetliner, sir. It has to be paratroopers.” Ahmed paused to grab a radio handset and barked orders into it, something about a Firestar fighter and a Kawasaki U-10 truck at the south utility tunnel exit.

Sihoud calmly shook his head. There were no paratroopers and there would be no withdrawal through the utility tunnel.

Ahmed had too little faith.

The night before, Sihoud had had a dream, a dream of conquest. Angels from heaven had fought beside him, one telling him he would rule all of Asia and all of Africa, that the infidels were to be cast into the seas. No part of the dream portended any threat. Sihoud felt it down to the marrow of his bones. The only thing that mattered at the moment was deploying and firing the Scorpion plutonium missiles with their cargo of death, the wages of sin, delivered by Allah’s agent on earth. General Sihoud.

Ahmed still stood there with the radio handset plugged into one ear. “We shot missiles at the aircraft. General. None of them hit — the plane was too far away. General, I have a U-10 truck waiting for us and a Firestar at the airstrip—”

“Stop. If the plane was so far away that our antiaircraft missiles could not reach it, it must have been very distant.

How far away was it?”

“About a hundred kilometers, perhaps slightly more.”

“A hundred kilometers. And these paratroopers will have a long walk ahead of them. Did your radars show any parachutes?”

“No, sir, but—”

“Colonel, come with me.”

Sihoud led Ahmed to a partitioned corner of the room and snapped his fingers. An attendant brought two cups of steaming tea. Sihoud sipped the brew and stared through the steam at Ahmed, his eyes now showing some compassion.

When he spoke his resonant voice was quiet, even gentle.

“Colonel Ahmed, Rakish, my friend, you are thinking about your wife and son, are you not?”

“I’ll always think about them, but that has nothing to do with this bunker being threatened.”

“I wonder. Rakish. I wonder whether losing your family and your home has made you think you might lose me too.

I assure you that will never happen.”

As Sihoud talked Ahmed’s mind wandered … 200 meters down a utility-access tunnel there was a U-10 truck waiting for him and Sihoud, and four kilometers further south a Firestar fighter was being pulled from a hangar, fueled, and warmed up, all on Ahmed’s orders. As chief of staff he was also responsible for Sihoud’s security, and that part of the job was almost the toughest. Because Sihoud was fearless to the point of foolhardiness. The man really did believe he was invulnerable—a dangerous self-deception. And if Sihoud did not want to be protected, there was little to be done until the worst happened. Perhaps then he would listen.