The Last Crusade (15 page)

The IDF general looks at the map, “General, what are your orders if their civilians attack us. I don’t want my people bogged down fighting an insurgency behind us as we advance. We remember your problems in Iraq, we don’t wish to repeat your experience.”

“Are you suggesting we use a scorched earth policy?”

An angry Israeli General stands, he slaps the table, “At the end of the day, you will go home leaving us to live with the remains of the war. My Prime Minister would prefer we end the problem now so we don’t have to refight this war next generation and the one after that. We’ve been fighting them for our entire existence. We’d like to live in peace for a while. We agreed to join the Crusade since we were led to believe this would be the war to end all wars with the Muslims.”

General Green shakes his head, “I don’t think my people back home will support a final solution.”

Standing up again and pounding the table, “Don’t ever use those words to me again! During the Holocaust, you sat safe and sound with oceans protecting you on both sides. You knew about the camps and did nothing. You knew and yet you turned away the
Saint Louis
you sent those poor souls to their deaths. You can’t imagine the horror of being sent to the camps. You don’t know what it’s like to have tens of thousands of missiles land on your country. I’m willing to bet if Canada or Mexico launched missiles into your country like we’ve had to deal with, you would have invaded and crushed them. Yet, every time we moved to stop the missiles, you forced us to halt before the job was finished, leading to more deaths. Maybe if you had let us take care of the problem years ago, we wouldn’t be sitting here mourning millions of deaths or planning an invasion with millions of people.”

“You Jews aren’t the only ones who’ve suffered.” Said an equally tired and angry Egyptian General.

“General, let me remind you, we only attacked you after you struck us. We never started a single war. Since signing our peace agreement, we’ve gone out of our way to honor it, we came to your aid.”

“As have we. Hence, why we’re sitting next to you and why we publicly thanked you for your help when the Caliphate tried to crush us. My people owe you our lives, we always pay our debts. We’ll never forget what you did for us.”

The two generals hug, The IDF general looks into the Egyptian’s eyes, “I know you do. We’re proud to fight shoulder to shoulder with you.”

Pope Francis II smiles,

“Now that we have the love fest out of the way let us continue with the briefing.”

General Green nods towards the Pope.

“Your Holiness, we will open hostilities with thirty days of air bombardment to suppress and take down their air force and air defense network. Once the Caliphate has been softened, we’ll begin the land war.”

The Russian General, Colonel General Georgy Zhukov II laughs,

“My friend, don’t you think they learned their lesson from watching your Gulf Wars? I suggest we launch this war differently, they will be expecting an air attack to open the war, they will have their army in underground bunkers, their SAMs will be ready for us. I suggest we open the attack with a move they haven’t seen before. One that will surprise them.”

“General what are you suggesting?”

“We try to capture or kill their leadership. If we succeed, they will be leaderless. We know they're operating from a bunker in Syria. We know where it is, we helped them build it. I suggest we send our special forces in to attack and remove the Mahdi and his senior staff.”

Pope Francis II looks at the Russian General with concern on his face,

“Are you sure they’re using the bunker you build for Assad? Can you really get people inside his shelter and remove him? If it’s possible, I like it. It means we won’t place millions of our people at risk nor will we kill millions of innocents.”

“Your Highness, are any of them innocent? We don’t think so. If we succeed in taking out their leadership, we’ll ensure we don’t have to repeat this war every generation.  My people have grown tired of fighting the same fight over and over.” Said the Israeli General.

“Says the man who dropped sixty nuclear weapons on the Caliphate.” Sneers General Zhukov II.

“We do what we have to. We’ll do whatever we have to so no one will repeat the Holocaust. We warned the world we take ‘Never Again’ very seriously. We have no regrets about what we’ve done. We’d do it again if we had to.”

Pope Francis II holds up his hands.

“My children, we have a common enemy, we shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves. Let’s take a short break to refresh and continue our planning.”

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The Mahdi climbs on the white horse, people bow as he passes, he nods to everyone he passes so they know the Mahdi has seen them. He allows the horse to slow his pace, Mahdi looks up into the star filled sky, closing his eyes, he speaks out loud to Allah, “Is it time? Will they attack soon? What do you want me to do?”

A bright flame crosses the sky above the Mahdi’s head. Silently looking up he smiles knowing he has received his answer. He tells his horse to go home. Returning to the Conference room in the buried bunker, he smiles to the other Caliphate leaders.

“I have received a message from Allah. We won’t wait for them to come and attack us. We will strike them in their assembly areas, we will strike their ships at sea, we will stop them from placing one of their infidel boots on our holy soil. Prepare our forces to strike for Allah. Allah will protect us from their weapons while we kill the infidels.”

The assembled group jumps to their feet cheering.

“My friends, we will attack! We attack for Allah! We will bring Allah’s word to everyone in the world, this is our chance. Allah has shown us the way. Tonight he told me the time for us to strike is now.”

@@@@@

Three days later, dawn spreads over one of the Army of God’s Warrior assembly bases at Sochi on the Black Sea. Soldiers wash, some line up for breakfast, others sip their tea telling stories of other times and places; lies about women they supposedly met and bedded. The air raid alarm breaks the dawn’s silence, heads pop up searching for the cause of the alarm. A few see the gray smoke tails of S300 and S400 missiles rising into the air to intercept whatever is coming their way. A few see the explosions high above their base. The battle between missiles continues for five long minutes. The soldiers rush to the battle positions, donning armor and weapons to fight off the invasion they knew had to be following up the missile attack. So far the Russian anti-air defense systems are proving their worth by destroying the Caliphate’s incoming missiles.

Russian LT General Yuri Gagarin, the commander on site, studies the maps while holding a phone, “We don’t know where they came from. We were having breakfast when the automatic alarms sounded and our anti-air missiles automatically fired.” His report is interrupted by two large explosions. The base is rocked; large fireballs blot out the dawn’s light. “Some got through, we just got hit. No, I don’t know how badly, I’m talking with you. Yes, I’ll call you back.” Yuri is knocked off his feet by another explosion.
Damn, where are the missiles coming from?

Caliphate anti-radar missiles home on the S300 and S400 radar units, they explode over the flat radar faces, shredding them with thousands of steel cubes. Additional missiles strike the command and communications vans, leaving the anti-air missiles without any guidance. The destruction of the anti-air missile shield enables the Caliphate to attack the base from the air. Missiles and bombs rain down from the sky. The Caliphate modified cargo aircraft to drop pallet loads of bombs over the unprotected bases. Cheap long range bombers.

Twenty minutes after the alarms sounded, the staging base is covered by dense smoke from thousands of burning vehicles and tents. Seventy percent of the base is destroyed by the spoiling attack.

While the Sochi base is under attack, two additional Russian staging bases also come under attack. General Green shakes his head while reading the reports wondering how he overlooked the possibility the Caliphate would strike them first.
What an idiot I’ve been. I thought they were too seriously wounded from the Israeli attacks to mount a spoiling attack. I should have made sure. Damn it.
His thoughts are interrupted when Pope Francis II enters his office.

“They caught us by surprise didn’t they?”

“Yes, your Holiness they did. We don’t know how they did it. We’re trying to see if the Caliphate somehow developed stealth technology. Something new, something that our anti-air systems didn’t pick up.”

“My son, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find out how they attacked us, we’ll quickly develop a defense around it and we’ll continue with our plans for our strike. I’ve already released the attack group to capture the Mahdi. If they succeed, this war is over. If not, it’s going to get very bloody, very quickly.”

“My son, go with God. I’ll pray the decapitation strike succeeds.”

“Thank you, your Holiness.”

Chapter 4

Five B2 stealth bombers fly over the suburbs of Palmyra, Syria, which is in the middle of the desert, far away from the coastal cities. Buried three hundred feet underground is the Caliphate’s command center. The entrance to the bunker is surrounded by helicopter landing pads, mobile anti-air guns, and anti-air missiles. Two divisions of armor are based within a mile of the bunker. Four of the B2s opens their bomb bay doors, inside each is a pressurized container holding eighteen special operating troops who are ejected from the bomber. Each is wearing a pressurized suit and a stealth chute. The fifth B2 is armed with advanced anti-radar missiles. Thirty-six missiles are fired at the radar units which destroy the Caliphate’s ability to stop an aerial attack.

The special forces units hanging under their parachutes see the anti-radar missiles’ gray exhausts leading down from the B2. They smile seeing the flashes from the explosions over the radar antennas.  The anti-radar missiles don’t see two mobile Caliphate gun units because their radars aren’t turned on. They flip on their radars when the missiles explode over the anti-missile radars. The mobile guns begin firing at the dropping soldiers. Caliphate soldiers rush outside, firing at the dark falling forms. Since they can’t see the falling soldiers very well, they fire on full auto into the sky hoping to hit the falling soldiers, many of which are hit. The few that make it to the ground are quickly captured by the guards, only eight survive the combat drop.

The eight surviving special forces troops, with their hands zip-tied behind their backs, are paraded to the Mahdi, who is waiting for them.

“How nice of you to drop in and pay us a visit. I bet it was pretty scary being dropped like a bomb from a B2, then watching the missiles fly around you and dodging hundreds of thousands of bullets. I congratulate you making it all the way here. I assume the Russians told you where my bunker was located.”

“We have nothing to say, except for our names, ranks, and serial numbers.”

“Suit yourselves. I was only trying to be sociable. I’ll have you taken to our medical facility so you can be checked by one of our doctors, then we’ll have breakfast. If you behave yourself, I’ll allow you to watch our next attack on your troops. You can’t win, Allah is on our side, he is protecting us.”

“And if I say God is protecting us?”

The Mahdi nods at one of his guards who shoots one of the soldiers.

“I don’t think your God is protecting you now. Allah is protecting us, which is why there’s only seven of you left and all of us are untouched. Allah is more powerful than your weak God. Allah is the true God, he is going to ensure we win the Last Crusade, we’re going to crush your troops, and then we’re going to crush your countries, convert or kill the survivors and watch Allah rule the world.”

“What do you want from us?”

“How many people is the delusional Pope sending against us? Where is he planning on invading?”

“Major, Johnathan Walker, First Delta Squad, serial number, 147 77 4321.”

“I’d hoped you’d save your men from being tortured.”