continued to click upwards and by the time the Beast and its rider responded, it was too late for them to stop the manned missile that was being aimed at them.
Dumah blew her stream of smoke at the racing truck and al-Sohl lost sight of his target as the gray fog enveloped his cab. He felt his lungs seizing up as the poison took hold, but he was close enough now and his last conscious act was to release the dead man’s switch in his hand. Around him, the picture of the inside of his truck shrank to nothing, a tiny white dot in the center of his vision.
Al-Sohl saw strange things, weird shapes, strange colors, indescribable things that he forgot as soon as he saw them. Things that no human mind could ever recall because they were swamped out by the great white glow as the tiny dot in his vision swelled up and filled his vision. It changed, dimmed slightly then resolved into white and gray shadows. He blinked, his eyes slowly recovering and the shadows started to make sense. The white glow was lighting, the shadow was a woman bending over him. A nurse.
“Mr al-Sohl? Husni al-Sohl?”
He tried to croak out an answer but all he could do was to nod his head.
“That’s wonderful. We’ve been keeping an eye open for you as the dead came through. The Israeli Army asked us to.”
“Did I kill the Beast?” The voice was still a croak.
The nurse hesitated. “No, but you hurt him badly enough that he broke off the attack to recover. That bought enough time to evacuate more civilians from the area. Your sacrifice saved a lot of lives, tens of thousands of them. You’re quite the hero you know. We’ve even got some virgins who’ve volunteered to come over and give you a proper welcome.”
Presidential Palace, Naypyidaw, Myanmar
“You let us down!” Than Shwe’s voice was accusing and peevish.
Michael-Lan stared down at the ridiculous figure with something close to disbelief. “Pardon?”
“You promised us you’d help us with the war against the Siamese. Now we will have to run, spend the rest of our lives in exile because you failed us.”
“If you think I promised you anything, little humans, you are sadly mistaken. I merely pointed out that the opportunities that were there for you. If you can’t turn them into reality, then that’s your fault.”
“You owe us! We have been together for years, we closed our country off from the world so you could come here in peace.”
“You were well paid for your services. Do you think I do not know how high were the prices you charged for your goods? And how low were the values you gave me for the jewels and gold you got in return.” You are really, really pathetic, thought Michael, as if I, an archangel owe you anything or should treat you as anything more than humble menials. It is you who are duty-bound to us, not the other way around. We owe you nothing. Michael-Lan reflected that he rather liked humans but their constant demands to be treated as equals were wearing.
Still, despite these people’s whining, they had done him proud on this trip. The power-assisted cart that he was using had been piled high with highly-refined number four heroin and huge numbers of methamphetamine tablets. They’d said they were cleaning out all their stocks and that appeared to be just what they had done. Even with his own literally superhuman strength augmented by the electric motors on the cart, he had difficulty overcoming the inertia of the huge cargo. It really was very, very heavy.
“Here, despite your rudeness, I have a final payment for you.” Michael-Lan fished inside his robes and tossed Than Shwe a large bag, one stuffed with precious stones Michael had ‘liberated’ from Yahweh’s palace. “They are a generous payment.”
Than Shwe counted the stones, running them through his fingers. “Generous indeed. And they will have to be now our country is collapsing before the Siamese Army. Our exile will be a long one.”
Michael-Lan raised his eyebrows at the whining voice, then jerked hard on the cart to get it around the corner that led out of the storeroom into the corridor that led to the outside of the palace building. At least, when the palace had been built, they’d had his bulk and size in mind so the corridors were high and wide. That made maneuvering the cart much easier. Michael reflected that the cart really was remarkably heavy.
Israeli Navy Submarine “Tekuma”. Eastern Mediterranean
“The news is still bad?” Captain Alex Ben-Shoshan was almost hoping nobody would hear the question so he wouldn’t get an answer.
“Very bad. The Scarlet Beast has broken into Jerusalem. It is laying waste the city and destroying all that is sacred there. The Whore of Babylon spreads her contamination across the city and none survive its poison. The Whore protects the Beast while the Beast destroys and together they kill everything. The dead already number in their hundreds of thousands. ” The Executive Officer on the submarine took a deep breath and stabilized his voice. The news from Tel Aviv had been shocking, the city had fallen, surviving humans were streaming away from it in great columns. For the first time in the Salvation War, a human city had fallen to the netherworlders and its population reduced to panicking refugees.
“What about our allies? Is there no help coming for us?”
“General Petraeus is sending aid, at least a corps of his army. But he must assemble them first, they are spread all over Hell, trying to stabilize the situation there. Then he must open a portal, move them through and get them ready to fight. By that time, there will be little left of us to save.”
Ben-Shoshan sighed. The eternal strategic curse of Israel, the country was simply too small. All its vital areas were packed closely together and an attack on one could hardly avoid damaging the rest. If the Scarlet Beast and the Whore finished destroying Jerusalem and then moved to the country’s heartland, it would all be over.
“Is there any word from Tel Aviv? Do they have orders for us.”
“Yes, Captain. For us, for Dolphin and for Leviathan. We are to prepare for Operation Masada immediately. We are designated as the prime shooter with the other two backing us up. We must destroy the Beast before it moves out of Jerusalem. Authorization to fire can be expected very soon. Tel Aviv says we are to be ready.”
“Then we shall. Order the munitions experts to prepare the packages and get our missiles ready to shoot.” Ben-Shoshan laughed sadly. “When I joined the submarine arm and learned of our missiles, I had many ideas about the day we would finally use them. But never once did I think of a situation like this.”
Chapter Forty
B-1C “Spirit of Sheffield”, Over Los Angeles
“We’ve joked about doing this you know. Never thought we actually would.” Group Captain Martin Winters was keying the GPS coordinates for the 96 GBU-39 bombs nestling in the Spirit of Sheffield’s bomb bay. Behind him, he knew that the weapons systems operator on the second B-1C, Spirit of Detroit was doing the same.
“What, bomb a U.S. City? We had plans for that was well, and we weren’t joking. But then SAC had plans for everything.” Colonel Fitzhubert was an old SAC hand, recalled to the colors along with every other veteran with a pulse and a body temperature greater than ambient. Or so it seemed. “Double and triple-check those coordinates, we’re threading a needle with these things.”
That was an understatement, Winters thought. The bombs had to go down along a thin strip of rough country between the built up areas on Hacienda Heights and the crowded city of Whittier down in the valley. They were lucky they had small-diameter bombs. He could imagine the chaos that two thousand pound bombs could cause down there. “Everybody keeping out of our way?”
“You bet. The fighters are hanging back, waiting for us to flush the game. As soon as Uriel bales out of his cover, we’re out of here and they’re in. Guns and missiles blazing. And the two Scalpels of course.”
“How does that look?” The display showed the bright areas of built-up Los Angeles with a red spot indicating the predicted impact point of the bombs. They formed a dense mass, completely blanketing the Turnbull Canyon area. Spirit of Detroit was making her run at almost a 90 degree angle, pounding the area between Hacienda Heights and La Habre. They had the bad job, there were a small number of scattered homes in that area and the chance of people in them surviving was slight.
“Good job. Let’s hope it all works.” Fitzhubert swung the B-1 around and set the bomb-navigation system to make the optimum delivery run. Bombing people had come a long, long way in a just a little less than a century. “And how do you like the B-1C?”
