CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
We few, we happy few, we band of ruthless bastards!
-From 'The Black Seal,' The Black Adder
D-Day, Bandar Cisman, Ophir
'What the fuck?' Cazz asked of nobody in particular. 'About time, but what the fuck?'
The spur to his question was the armored column, emerging from the dust, led three Ferrets followed by seven tanks he'd have taken for enemy, each of those tanks dragging another one by tow cables. Two of the dragged tanks, once they were close enough to really see, looked rather the worse for wear.
The tanks pulled into a row. Men, just one per, emerged from the turrets and began undoing the cables. The other vehicles began to split off into two columns, roughly evenly divided between turreted, gunned Elands and the unturreted ones packed with infantry. A third column, consisting of two more Ferret scout cars with some odd, boxy projections on top, and two obviously civilian trucks loaded down-packed to the rafters, really-with locals in their own dress, cut right and headed generally to the beach. A fourth, composed of three more turretless Elands, made straight for Cazz's own mortar platoon.
A single turretless Eland, with loudspeakers mounted to the sides, headed for Cazz. He saw Reilly riding in the empty turret well, one of his doggies manning the machine gun, the colonel's lady, Phillie, and his big, black sergeant major, Joshua. Also up there was one of the locals, an ancient type, what little hair he had gone steel gray.
'What's with the wrecks?' Cazz asked Reilly as the latter emerged from the Eland's side door.
'I'm a scrounge. Six of them we grabbed at the ambush, but two of those broke down. We picked up another three working ones at the lager, then I decided to tow the two that broke down and as many as looked like they might be repairable at the ambush site.
'I always wanted my very own tank platoon. Or company.'
'He really wants his own division,' Joshua said. 'But he's a reasonable man and will settle for what he can get.'
'Or division,' Reilly admitted. 'We'd have taken the rest but . . . they . . . ummm . . . weren't in the best shape. So, anyway, what wonderful entertainment have we got going here?'
'Nothing much since we penned them in. Oh, sure, we've traded shots back and forth and I lost two men, one dead, one wounded. Probably killed twenty or twenty-five of the locals, and I couldn't guess how many wounded. But basically, nothing much. Now that you're here with the heavy shit we can assault the place properly.'
'Maybe not,' Reilly said. 'Maybe I've gotten a better idea.'
'Really? What's that? I'm not even remotely averse to something that keeps any more of my boys from getting hurt.'
Reilly pointed at the gray-fringed, mostly bald local. 'The old man up there is the father of the chief of Ophir. He's also the father of the head of this town. I think he can talk his boy into surrendering. He seems very reasonable and very eager not to have done to any of his people what I promised would be done if I didn't get a surrender nice and quick.'
Cazz raised an eyebrow. 'Just out of curiosity, what did you promise?'
'Robbery, rape, murder, massacre, demolition, and extinction. Carthage, basically.'
'Would you have . . . never mind, I don't want to know.'
'Neither do I,' Reilly admitted. 'But having made the promise, and being, as I try to be, a man of my word . . .
'Anyway, I propose to send the old man-he goes by ‘Zakariye,' by the way-under guard, to his son, to have a little chat.'
'He'd have obliterated the place in no time flat,' Joshua said. 'Man of his word, after all.' Though I am a little miffed, still, that you both cost me fifty dollars to that son of a bitch, George, and are fucking a subordinate. Oh, well, I suppose every man has some failing. And, I admit, the girl is pretty. Or was, before turning her nose to mush. And noses can be fixed.
***
All fire had ceased but ostentatiously armed helicopters, three of them now, and CH-801's, to the tune of four, circled the town menacingly overhead. Above those, and above all the witnesses, the sun beat down hot and fierce.
'If you try to harm either of these men, Son,' Zakariye said, between the lines of occupied buildings and surrounding Marines and soldiers, his head inclining to one side, then the other, to indicate his grim-visaged guards, 'or to free me, I have it on very good authority that this port will be obliterated, along with everyone in it.'
The son, a man of no mean years himself, balked. His finger pointed at the circling aircraft as he said, 'Gutaale will destroy those things in a moment.'
'Jabir,' the older man said, for this was his son's name, 'Gutaale's precious new air force was destroyed on the ground. Why do you think his planes have not shown up yet.'
'His fleet-'
'No,' Zakariye shook his head. 'That lies on the bottom of the sea. And, before you mention the new tanks he purchased, stand for a moment.'
Jabir stood and the father put one arm across his son's shoulders. 'See there?' Zakariye said, pointing. 'And there?' The point of aim shifted.
'Those are the tanks you were about to mention. No, Son, your brother has nothing to send. You can fight, if you choose to, and you, your wives, my grandchildren, all will be killed.'
'What choice, Father?' Jabir asked.
Zakariye sighed. 'It seems that your brother seized someone he should not have. That's why these men came here. That's why they destroyed the airplanes, the boats and ships, the armored force. It was explained to me on the way here. They don't know where the man, more of a boy really, taken by Gutaale is. But they know where and who we are. They only want us to trade us.'
'How do they know?' Jabir asked.
Zakariye laughed bitterly. 'Do you recall an American ‘journalist' who passed by here some months ago?'
Jabir thought for a moment, then shrugged and answered, 'Al Ful-tan? He was just a scribbler, a maker of pictures and stories for magazines.'
'Sadly,' Zakariye corrected, 'not. He was one of these men. They know exactly who we are. Or didn't you let al Ful-tan take a family portrait, and print you a copy?'
'Oh, shit. That was dirty.'
'Yes, it was,' the father agreed. 'As to whether it was dirtier than kidnapping a free man from foreign soil and holding him as a hostage, I leave to Allah to determine. The question is now, as was also explained to me . . . quoted to me, 'Will you yield and this avoid, or guilty, in defense, be thus destroyed?'
'Do you think Gutaale will trade?' Jabir asked. 'If my brother will not, I'd rather die fighting.'
'He'll trade,' Zakariye said. 'For he is no different from any of us; no different from Khalid, whose son was taken. Hilarious, is it not?' he asked.
D-Day, MV
