ordered.
'Attack command received, stop attack,' the computer responded.
'Commit Dragon.'
'Laser commit.. laser engaging.'
But the results were not quite as pleasing this time. The crosshairs were dead on the target, and the diode laser was firing at full power, but the target remained. Patrick left it on for a full ten seconds before terminating. 'Didn't blow the launch tube. Not enough power to shoot down through the atmosphere at this range.'
'Please don't suggest we get any closer.'
'Don't worry-I think we're close enough. But we've got to figure out a way to pump more power into the system.'
'You're disappointed because your big laser couldn't slice, dice, and julienne every target? Too bad, sir,' Franken joked. 'Can we terminate the test and go home now before they empty those last two missiles on us?'
'You got it, AC. Test terminated,' Patrick said after a sigh of relief. He quickly punched up the initial point of the air refueling anchor into the navigation computer, then replotted the flight path to take them well clear of Libyan airspace. 'Center up and let's go home.'
Al-Azhar Mosque and University was the oldest university in the world, a solemn and beautiful place in the Islamic section of Cairo. Muslim students from all over the world came here to study the Quran and listen to the world's most noted authorities on Islam. All Egyptian clerics had to study here, some as long as fifteen years, in the traditional Socratic method-a tutor and his pupils, asking and answering questions until both were satisfied that it was time to progress to the next lesson.
The three-acre compound was a mixture of early Islamic, Mamluk, and Turkish architecture, representing the dynamic history of the place. Al-Azhar was also the focal point of international celebrations of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad in late June. Islamic scholars and leaders from all over the world assembled here to an all-night mulid, or prayer festival, to tell stories, make speeches, teach, and pray.
The guests were assembled in the Madrasa and Tomb of Amir Atbugha, a grand hall inside the Gates of the Barbers that housed the university's collection of ancient manuscripts. Guest were served shai and ahwa-no alcohol at all, not even for foreigners-and a luscious assortment of mezze appetizers while they talked of politics, religion, and Muslim life, viewed the rare manuscripts, and waited for the festivities to begin.
The chief of the general staff of the United Kingdom of Libya, General Tahir Fazani, had waited a discreet distance apart from the heads of state. This was a time of worship and reflection, not state business, so he would not be permitted to address his president first. Fazani simply choked down his impatience, stayed in the shadows, appeared as if he was praying or simply observing a moment of silence, and waited for his president to come to him. Fazani came from a long line of career military officers, but he had spent most of the last twenty years in Russia, Syria, and China studying military technology and modern warfighting-and staying out of the grasp of the previous Libyan dictator, Colonel Muammar Qadhafi. He was an expert political survivor-he knew when to make his voice heard and when to blend into the shadows, like now.
The new president of the United Kingdom of Libya, Jadallah Salem Zuwayy, sauntered over to Fazani, barely acknowledging his presence, only casting enough of a glance in his direction to order him to follow. Zuwayy was a tall, light-skinned man in his late thirties, with dark eyes, a thin mustache, and a dark beard that grew to a satanic point to the base of his long, thin throat. He was a former army officer who reportedly engineered the military coup that overthrew Qadhafi. Like Qadhafi before him, Zuwayy liked to wear different outfits depending on the occasion and his audience: Today he wore traditional Bedouin garb, rich-looking silks and muslins, bordering on opulent. Most times, Zuwayy was in desert-style battle dress uniform, often wearing tanker's boots and carrying a variety of weapons, from antique, ornate curved cavalry swords to live grenades.
'What is it, Fazani?' Zuwayy asked sternly.
'He wants an update on the deployment,' the chief of staff replied. He then held out a secure cellular telephone.
Zuwayy felt like telling Fazani to throw the phone into the garbage-but he dared not. The man on the other end of that secure connection had very long fingers-more like very long claws. 'Everything is ready?' the tall, thin, ethereal cleric asked in a low, monotone, disembodied voice.
'Yes, Highness,' Fazani reported. 'Just yesterday. All units are in full readiness.' He handed the cellular phone to Zuwayy and bowed.
Zuwayy smiled, then touched a preselected code on the phone's keypad. 'You'd better have some good news for me, Zuwayy,' a voice said angrily. 'You've been dodging me long enough.'
'All is in readiness,' Zuwayy said. 'My troops are in place, and the units are ready.'
'It took you long enough, Zuwayy,' the voice on the other end of the phone warned. 'They should have been in place days ago.'
'Come here and try dragging those things across the desert yourself, my friend,' Zuwayy said. 'You will see how easy it is.'
'I gave you plenty of time and money to set those units up, Zuwayy,' the voice said. His foreign accent was thick, but his meaning was all too clear. 'You had better not screw this up, or the first casualty in this war will be you.' And the call was abruptly terminated.
Zuwayy did not disguise a look of utter contempt on his face as he handed the phone back to Fazani. 'I look forward to meeting him in person,' Zuwayy muttered. 'I should like to see how black his heart really is.' He erased the scowl on his face, replacing it with a serene smile, as he noticed an entourage heading toward him. 'Now I must suffer this lackey.'
'Peace be upon you, Mr. President,' the host of this celebration said warmly. President Kamal Ismail Salaam was the fourth elected Egyptian president since the Nasserite revolution in 1952. Tall, slender, and energetic, appearing more Italian than African, Salaam was the minister of finance under former president Muhammad Hosni Mubarak and leader of the National Democratic Party upon Mubarak's retirement from politics. Like Mubarak, Salaam was a military veteran, serving as the commander in chief of the Egyptian Air Defense Force Command.
'Es salaem alekum! Peace upon you, brother!' Zuwayy said loudly so the whole room could hear, spreading his hands far apart as if to embrace his host even from across the room. He stepped quickly across the richly carpeted floor toward his host. Walking the requisite three paces behind him was the Libyan Secretary of Arab Unity-the closest Libya came to a foreign minister-Juma Mahmud Hijazi.
Two of President Zuwayy's bodyguards quickly stepped up to President Salaam and stared at his hands and those of the others around him, looking for drawn weapons. It was a little irritating, but Salaam let the feeling go. The hall here at the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Egypt, was filled with dignitaries, diplomats, and celebrities from all over the world, here to celebrate the Prophet Muhammad's birthday. There was a lot of security in the place alreadytwo Egyptian soldiers inside and outside every doorway, along with a dozen Presidential Guard snipers watching from catwalks overhead-but Zuwayy was the only one to bring his own bodyguards into the great hall.
Salaam clasped Zuwayy's shoulders and embraced him in a traditional Arab greeting. 'Ahlan wa sahlan. Tasharrafha! Hello and welcome. We are pleased and grateful by your presence, Mr. President.' This was the first time meeting the new leader of neighboring Libya, and it was about what he expected, given Zuwayy's reputation. Zuwayy's lips turned tense and hard, and his hands disappeared perturbedly inside the billowing cuffs of his ornate silk robes.
Zuwayy's Minister of Arab Unity — looked positively horrified. 'Pardon me, Mr. President,' Secretary Hijazi said in a low but stern voice, 'but my lord prefers to be addressed as 'His Royal Highness' or as 'King Idris the Second.' I am sure my office made the proper notifications to your office in a timely manner. And touching his highness without his permission is absolutely forbidden.'
'Of course,' Salaam replied. 'Yes, I was so notified.' He bowed to Zuwayy. 'My apologies, Highness.'
It was a joke, of course-everyone knew it. Jadallah Zuwayy claimed to be a descendant of the sheikhs of the al-Sanusi dynasty, the tribe of powerful desert nomads that united the three kingdoms of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan under Islam during the Turkish occupation and formed the kingdom of Libya. It was Muammar Qadhafi, after oil was discovered in Libya, who led a military coup that overthrew King Idris al-Sanusi in 1969 and formed a military dictatorship; the al-Sanusi sheikhs were driven underground by Qadhafi's death squads and formed the
