The Coward's Way of War (34 page)

Andrew shook his head as the car passed through the gates, a final volley of shoes bouncing off the rear windows.  The protesters were packed close together, perhaps for moral support in the face of the police and National Guardsmen, yet the Arabs had little concept of social distance.  They hugged and embraced each other regularly, something that would be sure to spread Henderson’s Disease through an unprepared population like wildfire.  The Saudis were saying nothing, but Andrew would have been astonished if they hadn't had a few cases of Henderson’s Disease before Patient Zero had been discovered in New York.  One of the other problems with biological warfare time bombs was that they could never be counted on to go off when you wanted them to detonate.  A thousand different factors could accelerate or delay detonation.

The door opened, allowing him to breathe in the hot dry air of the city.  The Saudis might just be luckier than they deserved, for Henderson’s Disease wasn't fond of direct sunlight.  Andrew would have hated to count on it, but it was just possible that the rate of infection would be slower, even without an immunisation program.  Even so, it would eventually burn through Saudi Arabia as well, which would be ironic.  He steeled himself as he stepped out of the car and allowed the Foreign Minister’s male secretary to welcome him into the building.  The President’s orders had been clear and, even though Andrew was no career diplomat – he had received the post because he wasn't tightly linked into the State Department – he had winced at their bluntness.  But then, with hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of Americans infected with Henderson’s Disease, there was no time to be indirect.  The Saudis had to be made to understand that they finally had to choose a side.

The thought made him scowl, for Saudi money hadn't just corrupted the Arabs.  The Saudis had invested heavily in Washington, using everything short of outright bribery to build up a Saudi Lobby that put the Jewish Lobby in the shade.  Indeed, the Saudis had bought controlling interests in many media outlets in both America and Europe and used them to mount a constant propaganda barrage against the Jewish State.  Israel had been permanently painted as a villain, with everything they did portrayed as unreasonable aggression, while their enemies had been depicted as helpless civilians.  Even outside the media, there were so many people who were – directly or indirectly – on the Saudi payroll that the State Department had been warped out of shape by their pressure.  Their pressure had cost the United States dearly over the years. 

He smiled as he entered the Foreign Minster’s personal office.  Despite claims that the Saudi Government was economising, there was never any trace of restraint in their offices, no sense that the cents had been counted carefully.  The office was a strange cross between an ordinary office – one that might have belonged to a CEO – and a desert tent, one that might have been used by a tribe crossing the desert.  Tasteless artworks littered the walls, while a massive pot of coffee bubbled away in one corner.  Hundreds of executive toys had been scattered around the desks; computers had been placed against the wall, where they showed a constant live feed from outside.  Andrew felt his lips twitch as he saw one of the protesters waving a sign that read – in Arabic – YOUR TIME HAS COME.  He wondered if it meant America's time, or that of the House of Saud.

“My friend,” Prince Ibrahim said, as he rose to his feet.  The Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs looked nervous, his dark eyes twitching from side to side.  He had put on weight, Andrew noted dispassionately, eating well while many of his people starved.  “Welcome to my humble abode.”

Andrew looked at the extended hand and refused to shake it.  Normally, there would be some food and drink and polite – if insincere – enquiries into the health of each other’s families, but the President’s orders had been clear.  The Arab habit of procrastinating – in the hope that Allah would take away whatever was bothering them if they pretended it didn't exist – could not be allowed to distract them from the import of his message.  Prince Ibrahim looked puzzled, and then waved Andrew to a Western-style chair.

“You must be tired,” he said.  “I shall have my Secretary bring us both some coffee...”

Andrew studied him evenly, for he’d read the file the CIA had compiled on Prince Ibrahim over the years.  He'd studied in America and had had at least one illegitimate son in the United States, the result of a brief affair with an American woman.  He’d never acknowledged his son and the CIA wasn't sure if he even knew that the brat existed.  He’d even experimented with drugs and alcohol, something he’d kept on drinking even after a return to his country and starting his long climb up through the ranks of the House of Saud.  His three wives – Islam allowed a man to have four wives, although some members of the House of Saud had been known to marry far more than four women – had borne him seventeen children, nine of whom were studying in the United States.  One of them had nearly been lynched following the outbreak of Henderson’s Disease; they had all been taken into protective custody.  If the police had known what Andrew knew, they might have lynched the kids themselves.

“I won’t be staying,” Andrew said, bluntly.  It would have been rude in America, let alone in Saudi Arabia, but part of him felt darkly amused at pushing the Saudi so hard.  Prince Ibrahim had to know something – the rush of American troops into Kuwait and three entire carrier battle groups heading towards the Middle East could hardly be concealed – but what did he know, or suspect?  “I have been tasked with delivering a message from the President.”

He sat back in his chair and studied Prince Ibrahim for a long moment.  The Saudi was practiced in concealing his emotions, yet he still looked deeply concerned, even nervous.  Andrew smiled inwardly, making no attempt to conceal
his
thoughts, and leaned forward.  It was vitally important that there were no misunderstandings, nothing that would allow the Saudis to try to wriggle out from their obligations.

“We have discovered that the biological weapon deployed against the United States – a Weapon of Mass Destruction – was launched from Saudi Arabia,” he said, flatly.  “We have furthermore discovered that elements within the Saudi Government were...involved in launching the attack.”

He reached into his briefcase and dumped a set of papers on the desk.  “We have a list of demands,” he continued.  “We will accept nothing less than complete and total compliance with our demands.  If you refuse to submit, we will launch a military invasion of your country, remove the House of Saud from power and impose our own order.  Your country launched a biological attack against the United States.  We will not allow that to go unpunished, nor will anyone else.

“You will immediately surrender the persons named in this document,” he said, tapping the papers on the desk.  “You will allow FBI and CIA teams to operate within your country at will, without impedance, to find and arrest all members of extremist groups within the country.  You will allow us to make a public examination of your finances and determine exactly where the money is going.  You will disband the religious police and remove most of the restrictions on your citizens.  You will put a stop to the flow of anti-American, anti-European and anti-Israeli propaganda within your country.  And you will grant your guest workers full rights as citizens of your nation.

“If you refuse these demands, there will be no further negotiation,” he concluded.  “The next American official you will see will be the commanding officer of the 3
rd
Infantry Division as he takes your surrender in the ruins of this office.  Or perhaps you won’t survive so long.  Your population isn't vaccinated against Henderson’s Disease, is it?”

He smiled, darkly, at the Saudi’s expression.  “There are two other things you need to know,” he added.  “The first one is that there is a field of thought in Washington that demands that we use our own WMD in response to the attack you launched.  Your cities are defenceless against nukes.  Bear that in mind.  The second is that our NATO allies are with us on this.  Your mansions in Europe will be seized; the money your princes have salted away for a rainy day has been frozen.  There is nowhere to hide any longer.

“If there is war, the House of Saud will vanish from the Earth.”

***

Prince Ibrahim
’s ears were still ringing as he entered the Cabinet Room.  It had taken several hours to convince the Crown Prince to summon the meeting – he hadn't dared discuss the American demands over the telephone, even the line that was supposed to be secure – but he’d made good use of the time.  He’d read the American demands carefully and realised that Saudi Arabia was in deep trouble.  The highest-ranking person the Americans had demanded was a member of the Cabinet itself!

Westerners thought of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as an absolute monarchy, but the truth was a little different.  The House of Saud had many different factions and the only way to hold them all together was through consensus; consensus...and the certainty that if they didn't hang together, they would all hang separately.  They had all seen what had happened to the Shah of Iran when his people had finally had enough of him.  They knew that it could happen to them, so conservatives, traditionalists, reformists and radicals worked together, hating each other but hating the outside world more.  Prince Ibrahim thought of himself as a conservative, yet others didn't share his vision of Saudi Arabia.  The radicals, in particular, wanted to reform the House of Saud itself.  In a just world, they would all have died long ago, but they had the support of the clergy and that made their position nearly invulnerable.

He caught sight of Prince Mukhtar as they sat down on the rug, aping the habits of their forefathers.  (Women were never mentioned; they were meant to be neither seen nor heard, not at the very highest levels of government.)  Perhaps it was his imagination, but he looked darker now, illustrating why some called him the Black Prince.  Prince Mukhtar’s control over the Ministry of the Interior made him powerful, powerful enough to impose his version of Islam upon the people, a version supported by the senior clergy.  If he had truly launched the attack on America, Ibrahim knew; he would enjoy the support of the religious establishment.  Handing him over to the United States would become a political impossibility.

“I received a statement from the Americans today,” he said, once the small talk had finally wound down to a halt.  Calling it a statement made it easier to swallow, although he knew in truth that it was an ultimatum.  “They have made the following demands.”

He outlined what the Americans had said, carefully studying Prince Mukhtar.  The Black Prince showed no sign of his inner feelings, although he had spoken openly about how the Americans – the Great Satan – had suffered a mighty blow.  It struck Prince Ibrahim as ironic; without the Americans, the House of Saud – which gave the Black Prince his power – would have collapsed long ago.  The others reacted differently, some clearly on the verge of panic, others believing that they could game the system and emerge unharmed.  Why not?  They had done it before and the House of Saud still ruled in Riyadh.  Prince Ibrahim quickly revised his plans to call his house and have his family flown to Europe.  Threats or no threats, he knew what would happen to them if the mob got their hands on his beloved children.

“Outrageous,” Sheikh Shihad, Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs, said angrily.  “Who do they think they are, making demands of us?”

“They think that we have mortally wounded them,” Ibrahim said, carefully.  He knew that he would be accused of being pro-American, to the point where he could no longer lead his department, but there was no other choice.  “They have made their demands.  If we refuse to give them what they want, they will invade – or hit us with their own WMD.”

“The Americans are weak,” the Black Prince proclaimed.  He hadn’t bothered to respond to the charges brought against him personally.  “Iraq almost defeated them – and then they didn't have their entire country rotting away from inside.  We will defeat them if they dare to send a single tank over the border.”

“We are surrounded by American bases,” the Crown Prince pointed out.  He was also the Minister of Defence, although his military experience was limited to wearing a fancy uniform and allowing his junior staff to do his job.  At least he could read a map.  “And even if the Americans are weak, can the same be said of the Iraqis, or the Iranians, or even the Lesser Satan?”

There was a long moment of silence.  No one had any illusions about what the Iraqis or the Iranians thought of Saudi Arabia.  The new Iraqi Government knew that the Saudis had funded terrorist and insurgent groups within the country and, after beating the insurgency, had plenty of experienced and angry soldiers to call upon for punishment missions.  The Iranians considered the Saudis to be unworthy guardians of the Holy Cities and hated the way the Saudis treated their Shia brethren.  And the Israelis...every Arab leader had a healthy respect for the power of the Israeli Armed Forces.

“They would not dare to set foot in the Land of the Two Mosques,” Prince Mukhtar stated flatly.  Ibrahim winced.  The person who had popularised that term for Saudi Arabia was the country’s most infamous son.  “If they dare, the entire Islamic World would rise up against them.  We will not surrender to their threats.”

The meeting went on for hours, but nothing was decided. 

No response would be made to the American ultimatum.

You take a lot of young men who happen to have something in common – Arabic ancestry and Islam, in this case – and you make it impossible for them to blend in with the new society and you don't even enforce the laws of that society...what do you expect, but anarchy?  God damn the social planners all to hell.  They never had to live in the areas their theories saw blighted.

-
Capitaine
Jean-Luc Duvauchelle

Mediterranean Sea, Near France

Day 30

Capitaine
Jean-Luc Duvauchelle braced himself as the Dassault Rafale jet fighter rocketed down the runway of Orange-Caritat Air Base and into the warm sunny sky.  Even from high overhead, France didn't look peaceful; there were massive plumes of smoke billowing into the air from the direction of the southern cities.  The outbreak of Henderson’s Disease – as the Americans had called it – and rabble-rousing by hundreds of treacherous French Arabs had sparked violence and anarchy in the streets of France.  It was no consolation to know that most of Europe and America was suffering from similar violence, not when his friends and family were caught up in the suffering cities, yet there was nothing he could do about it.  After the suicide bombing that had taken out the French President, the government had clamped down hard.  The army had been deployed within the nation and the media had been firmly gagged.

He gritted his teeth as the jet fighter headed out over the ocean, staying away from the burning city nearby.  The Arabs had been smuggling in weapons for years, perhaps in preparation for a civil war when the long-feared demographic crisis finally broke, and some of those weapons included American-designed handheld SAM missiles brought in from Algeria.  The Algerian Government had been making noises about assisting its brethren in France – there was no love lost between France and her former colony – and several Algerian aircraft had been shot down, just before Henderson’s Disease had broken out in Algeria.  There were now millions of refugees trying to get out of the country and to France, even though France too was infected.  Perhaps they believed that the French Government had a cure for the disease; the rioters and insurgents down on the streets below certainly believed something along the same lines.  But then, they’d been primed never to believe anything from an official mouthpiece.

The thought made him scowl as he checked in with the AWACS hanging over the ocean, its powerful radars sweeping the skies for hostile aircraft.   The French Government had tried to stop the spread of Henderson’s Disease, warning people to stay indoors until they could be vaccinated, but the mullahs had swept them off their feet.  Claiming that the government didn't intend to inoculate the French Arabs – in the hope that an increasingly troublesome minority would do them the favour of dropping dead from the plague – they’d taken their followers out onto the streets.  The government hadn’t cracked down hard enough – and then tried to crack down too hard.  Riots had become terrorism and now there was a full-fledged insurgency in many of France’s cities.  Down below, French soldiers were using live ammunition on the mob, while millions of French citizens were fleeing into the countryside, hoping to escape the chaos.  The media might have been heavily censored, but enough stories had made it onto the internet to send a wave of anger down every Frenchman’s spine.  Whatever the cause of the insurgency, it was war to the knife now, with no possible compromise.

He keyed his radio.  “Anything happen while we were in bed?”

“Negative,” the AWACS operator replied.  The informality was a subtle piece of revenge against the security officers – political officers, in other words – who had been posted to every military base in the country.  Most of them couldn’t have flown an aircraft, or even reeled off operating specifications, to save their lives.  Their job was merely to tackle defeatism within the armed forces, something that Jean-Luc and his comrades found insulting beyond words.  The Americans might sneer, but the French Armed Forces were tough, professional and more capable than was generally acknowledged.  “A handful of boats were intercepted by the navy and ordered to turn back; one had to be sunk when it opened fire on the frigate.”

Jean-Luc winced.  The French Navy – and all of the other European navies in the area – had been tasked with preventing refugees from crossing the ocean and reaching Europe.  The rules of engagement had once been complicated, with all kinds of cavorts designed only to satisfy lawyers, but Henderson’s Disease had put an end to that.  The ROE now allowed only one warning, followed by sinking the refugee boat.  Thousands had died, or had been left to drown in an unforgiving sea, but they still tried to escape the hell that had gripped their native country.  Whatever they might have thought of the French Government, they had absolutely no faith in their own government – and, at the bottom line, they were entirely correct.  The Algerian Government had fallen days after the plague started burning through its cities.

“Understood,” he said, as the fighter slipped into a patrol pattern.  He would have preferred to have been dropping high explosives on the insurgents, but his fighter had been configured for air-to-air operations. Using it against the insurgents would be a waste of a very expensive jet fighter.  “Don’t forget to let us know if something happens, will you?”

He smiled at the explosion of indignation from the AWACS and settled back in his seat, staring down at the blue ocean below.  It looked calm and tranquil to his eyes, although he could still see the plumes of smoke on the horizon, but he knew that it was deceptive.  There were dozens of military ships patrolling the waters, watching for refugees and sinking their boats on sight.  The media had been calling it mass murder – before the media had been gagged for the duration of the crisis – but Jean-Luc knew better.  The refugees might be carrying Henderson’s Disease and, after the insurgency, the disease might have already infected all of France.  Jean-Luc was immune, as was most of the French military, but the same couldn't be said for the citizens.  The flood of terrified refugees fleeing the cities might have spread the disease into the countryside.  He didn't want to think about it, but looking down from high above he wondered if he was staring at the death of France itself.  What Bismarck, the Kaiser and even Hitler had failed to do would be accomplished by a deadly plague and a vast number of insurgents, the ones stupid enough to believe that the government would withhold a cure, if it had one.