not punished Yusuf for his self-confessed failure of spirit on Ellis Island but had instead rewarded him lavishly for returning to the fold with useful information had spread rapidly through the ranks of the fedayeen. Yusuf, who had expected to be shunned as a coward and detailed into some demeaning or even suicidal role, found himself the object of envy and much good-natured ribbing at having shared the delights of the emir's personal harem, even if only for a day. The man did not simply inspire loyalty. Looking upon him for the second time in a week, Yusuf understood something his enemies never would: The emir inspired love.
He did not look happy today, however. The dark and somber cast of his features matched almost perfectly the bleak weather and deteriorating news from the front. As the emir weaved his way through and around the trashed store displays, hopping over a mannequin and crunching the broken glass of an empty jewelry cabinet under his boots, Yusuf could not help worrying that something had gone terribly wrong. His worst fears were confirmed as the emir held up both hands and gestured for the fighters to gather around him and be quiet.
'My friends, I bring ill tidings,' he announced. A troubled murmur ran through the small gathering of armed men. 'I have had word from the front. The Americans have cut through our allies…'
The grumbling turned much darker and uglier, but the emir hushed the angry crowd with a gentle gesture of his hand. 'It is only to be expected,' he said. 'They are pouring everything they have into this battle, and our… allies… are not as well equipped or trained as you. Nor do they fight for a higher purpose. We cannot expect them to bend themselves to God's will and do his hard work when they do not have faith. All they have is their greed. Do not blame them for this. Pity them and forgive them as Allah would.'
Yusuf was surprised to find a tear welling up as his throat tightened. As he listened to the emir, his anger at the failure of the bandits turned to pity and even a little shame.
'Even so, there is now more hard work for us to do. We are preparing a fearsome defense upon which the Americans will perish like sailors dashed against the rocks by a great storm.'
The mood in the room changed again at that. The fighters became more attentive. Yusuf noted his own men clustering around him and lifting their faces expectantly to the emir, who had climbed atop what looked like an old cabinet in a perfume display.
'We need time to ready that defense, and I'm afraid I must ask you men to give me that time. It almost certainly means asking you to give me your lives.'
A single voice cried out. 'Our lives! Our souls! For you, anything, my sheikh.'
The crowd erupted in a single roar of agreement. Yusuf found himself shouting along with everyone else.
'There is more,' said the emir, raising his voice to be heard above the clamor but not actually shouting. He seemed to have a way of projecting his words so that they reached right to the back of the assembly. 'I'm afraid it is not so simple a matter as laying down your lives in battle. There are women and children in the path of the American onslaught.'
Yusuf was stunned. He'd had no idea any of the families were even on the main island of the city. Although he had no woman of his own yet, he understood that all the families of the warrior-settlers were maintained safe and far away from the fighting. When he thought of them caught up in Kipper's infernal war, his reaction was identical to that of his comrades-outrage. The emir gestured for calm again before the men's anger could run away with them.
'A small party ventured downtown a few days ago after we received reports of a sizable food store that remained untouched. They set out before the current fighting began, gathering supplies for the main family camp, when they came under fire from the Americans' artillery. Soldiers soon followed, and they took shelter, hiding nearby in the public library. They are still there now with just a handful of guards. The American numbers are small, just a platoon of militia, but more will surely follow. We need to get them out, along with whatever supplies they have salvaged, and then we need to hold that position as long as possible. You need to hold that position as long as possible. If you can do that, if you can give me the time, I will prepare a trap for the infidel that will break him at last. I ask you now, as men of the the Fedayeen Ozal, my very finest warriors, who is willing to give up his life that our women and children might live and our enemies fail?'
The answering roar drowned out the sound of the rain and the rumble of battle for the first time Yusuf could recall. They ran, heedless of the rain that lashed at them, sometimes making it impossible to see more than half a block ahead. They ran, heedless of the many pitfalls and traps that lay in their way. Half-submerged wreckage and debris on which a man might trip and shatter his leg. Lethal depths, open manholes, yawning concrete mouths where rusted steel grates had given way and now lay like the jaws of the city, waiting to consume anyone foolish enough to fall headlong into them. They ran, bounding over barricades of crashed cars, darting inside the husks of looted shops whenever the dull chopping thud of rotor blades echoed through the empty canyons above them, warning of the approach of American helicopter gunships. They ran carrying the burden of their weapons and the extra ammunition they had been given, weight they bore by dropping food they would not need. They ran even when their legs grew hot and their muscles trembled and terrible barbed knots of pain spread through their bodies, starting as stitches in their guts and flaring into white-hot incandescent flames that burned their lungs. They ran without checking for snipers. Or mines. Or the cruder man traps left by the pirates and bandits who had passed through here before them. They ran counting the blocks they passed, but only at first. They ran when they lost count, and they ran all the harder when they had no idea how much farther they had to run. A couple of blocks from their destination Yusuf heard the crack and bark of small arms fire. The rain that had served to cover their passage down the long avenue that ran down to the library building had eased off, allowing him to spot the muzzle flashes of the American militia well before he blundered into them. Tony Katumu proved his worth immediately, pulling Yusuf and the other men of the saif off the main boulevard and nearly half a block to the east, where they threaded their way through a shambles of collapsed scaffolding, overturned buses, and crushed taxicabs in front of some sort of school or university.
'If we cut through here, we can get into the library through a park just behind it,' Tony said. 'Without the Americans seeing us.'
Fighters from maybe half a dozen more saif had followed Yusuf and his men for no reason other than they looked like they knew where they were going. As they waded through filthy knee-deep water, the spasmodic gunfire increased in intensity. The other fighters were presumably engaging the enemy on the street. Yusuf wished he had some way of coordinating with his fellow saif commanders, but none of them had radios, and indeed they had never been trained to use them, even if they'd been able to salvage some. Instead, he was forced to do as commanders had done for millennia.
'Quickly, gather on me,' he cried out. The small war band, maybe twenty or thirty men strong, all of them heaving and gulping for air after their long run down through the city, followed him under a tower of iron scaffolding from which torn and ragged sheets of plastic flapped in the wind and rain. He hoped it would be enough to hide them should any Americans fly over. With everyone undercover, he explained the simple plan.
'We are going to follow Tony through this block and across the road into a park behind the library where our people are trapped. We cannot get in through the front doors without being seen, but I hope… I am certain that God willing there will be another way in from the rear. If there is, we will take it. We will rescue our women and children, and the men of one saif will escort them back.'
He could tell from the way the men looked at one another that nobody was likely to volunteer for a task that involved running away from the infidel.
'There is no shame in doing this,' he insisted loudly. 'Not only will those men bring honor to the Fedayeen Ozal, but they can aid the fight of those who stay here by returning with reinforcements and ammunition. We are going to need both because many Americans will die by our hands here today.'
He finished his speech with a rousing war shout, or as rousing as a boy of his age could manage when addressing a band of hardened fighters, many of whom were older than he. It worked, however. The men answered fiercely with their own shouts and cries.
'Let us go, then,' he said loudly over the drumming of the rain on the discolored plastic sheeting above them. 'Tony, you lead.'
Tony Katumo seemed to stand a few inches taller with pride as he called out, 'Follow me,' and led the combined fedayeen of half a dozen saif into the fight.
44
