The vision playing in Patrick's mind shifted from past memories to possible futures, and none of them were pleasant. Patrick believed that reality was nothing more than a state of consciousness: Reality was whatever he decided it would be. But as hard as he tried, his mind couldn't play an image of a successful rescue or escape. He saw Wendy first being manhandled, isolated, imprisoned, even tortured; then he saw her incinerated in the fireball at Mersa Matriih. It was too horrible to comprehend.
'Patrick?'
His focus snapped back to the present. His armor's sensors were inoperative-he visually estimated their range at around two miles, well within main gun range. 'Any contact with Headbanger?' Patrick asked.
'No,' Dave Luger replied. 'EMP still has all communications shut down.'
'Won't the crew see the Egyptians coming after us and launch the Wolverines?' Hal Briggs asked.
'They should-if their gear survived the blast, if our datalink is still active, and if the Wolverines can fly through the EMP,' Patrick said. 'It should all work, but it's not. I just spoke with President Thorn, but we can't raise the Megafortress-the EMP is really screwing up transmissions.'
'What did Thorn want?'
'For us to come home and bury our dead,' Patrick said. Unfortunately, they might be among the dead soon. 'Master Sergeant, any advice?'
'We first send the men out as fast as possible away from the area,' Chris Wohl said. 'Then we take out as many of the big tanks as we can and engage the other threats as best we can.'
'Do it,' Patrick said. Wohl immediately ordered the Night Stalkers to retreat west. But no sooner had they started off than someone yelled, 'Sir! Tanks behind us, coming in fast!'
Patrick turned, and his blood ran cold-another line of heavy armor, this one smaller than the line to the east but coming on twice as fast, had appeared as if from nowhere. A company-sized force must have managed to speed across the desert and surround them. Before he could react, some of the small tanks to the west opened fire with their main guns.
'Take cover!' he shouted. 'Chris, Hal, take the tanks to the east! I'll take the ones to the west!' But even as he swung his electromagnetic rail gun west to attack the newcomers, he knew he was too late-he could hear the shells whistling closer and closer..
… but they didn't hit their position-instead, the shells started impacting near the Egyptian tanks. Their accuracy wasn't that great, but it didn't seem to matter: The Egyptian tanks took immediate evasive action, and Patrick could see the gun barrels elevating and turning, changing targets to the oncoming, unidentified vehicles to the west.
Whoever they are, Patrick thought, they're on our side, at least for the moment. He swung his rail gun back to the east. The targeting sensors weren't operable, but at this close range it didn't seem to matter. The newcomers created lots of smoke and confusion; Chris, Hal, and Patrick hit a few of them with the hypervelocity projectiles, and that's all it took. The remaining Egyptian tanks reversed direction and scattered. The Night Stalkers immediately turned their attention to the newcomers from the west.
With the threat from the Egyptian tanks over for now, the newcomers raised a large flag from the lead vehicle. It was a green banner trimmed in gold with a strange and unidentifiable crest on it, with crowns on top and a crown atop a circle ringed with nine stars with a crescent and star inside. 'Who are they?' Hal Briggs asked. 'Turks? Algerians?'
The newcomers moved in swiftly. They had a collection of all sorts of vehicles, from aged M60 tanks to Russian BMPs to Humvees to Jeeps, armed with an even wider variety of weapons: heavy cannons, machine guns of all sizes, even older ex-Soviet antitank rockets and antiaircraft missiles. Their uniforms didn't help identification either: They wore everything from Bedouin robes to World War II-era Nazi-style desert uniforms to American 'chocolate chip' desert cammos.
'What do you want to do, sir?' Chris Wohl asked.
Patrick hesitated, but only for a moment: 'Lower your weapons.'
'Are you absolutely sure, sir?' Wohl hated the idea of lowering his weapon while anyone, especially unidentified hostiles, had theirs aimed at him or his men.
'Do it, Master Sergeant,' Patrick said. Patrick lowered his rail gun to port arms but did not shut it down. The others did likewise.
The scene looked like something from a bad remake of the TV show The Rat Patrol. As soon as the convoy of vehicles reached the oil wells, several of them jumped off their vehicles and motioned for them to drop their weapons and raise their hands. Their personal weapons were a mix of hardware from half the world's arms manufacturers spanning four or five decades. 'I'm not surrendering to these guys, sir,' Wohl warned Patrick in a low voice. 'Do something, or I will.'
'You Americans?' one of the men who stepped out of the lead Humvee said. He had an Egyptian accent, but it was very slight-he could've been an Arab conveniencestore clerk from Boston. 'Who are you guys?'
'We're escapees,' David Luger said. 'We were detainees at Mersa Matruh.'
'You're very well armed for escapees,' the stranger said. He looked over at Patrick and the others in their Tin Man battle armor. 'Very well equipped-more like attackers than escapees.' He motioned to Patrick. 'If I didn't know better, I'd say those were electromagnetic weapons that fire hypervelocity projectiles.'
'What?' Luger was completely surprised, and he showed it. 'How do you know about hypervelocity weapons?'
'You think because I live in the desert I don't know about such things?' the man asked. 'I read Popular Science and Aviation Week & Space Technology. I read about the exoskeleton your friends over there are wearing in the London Times. I didn't know they actually came out with something, though. Very interesting.'
'Who are you?'
'It appears we're not doing names today,' the stranger said, 'so I don't have an answer for you now. What I do require of you is to put your weapons down on the ground and raise your hands.'
'That will not happen,' Chris Wohl said.
'By the sound of it, I think you must be the noncommissioned officer in charge of this team,' the stranger said. Patrick noticed then how young the man was under his black Kevlar helmet wrapped with a white turban, chocolate-chip battle dress uniform, green Nomex flying gloves, and thick-soled heavy-tread knee-high tanker boots. When he moved, Patrick actually noticed a black shirt underneath his BDUs, with a white shirt underneath that made it appear as if he were wearing a cleric's collar. 'But you will be silent now. I am in command of this area, and you are the trespassers.' He turned to Luger, shook his head. 'And you, sir, are not the commander of this force.' He looked over to the others. 'I will speak to him now.'
Patrick stepped forward. 'What do you mean, you are in command of this area? We're in Egypt.'
The man turned, and Patrick noticed a smile on his youthful face. 'I assume I am addressing the infamous Castor. Finally.'
'You are very astute, sir,' Patrick said. 'Who are you?'
'Since we are now talking in code words, I am called Dabbur-the wasp,' the stranger said. 'We are called the Hubub-the sandstorm. And this is my desert. It has been so for nearly two hundred years. We have protected it for that long. It is not about lines on a map or governments.'
'Your intelligence system is effective-Your Highness.' The man smiled, which made him look even younger than he looked at first. He issued a command in Arabic, and his men lowered their weapons.
'Who is he, Muck?' Hal Briggs asked.
'His Royal Highness, Sayyid Muhammad ibn al-Hasan as-Sanusi, the true king of Libya,' Patrick said. The man smiled, shouldered his weapon, and bowed in thanks for the recognition and proper address. 'The sword of vengeance of the Sahara and leader of the 'Sandstorm,' the Sanusi Brotherhood.'
'You got it,' Muhammad as-Sanusi said. 'And who are you-other than trouble of the first magnitude around here?'
'Friends-as long as you don't align yourself with Jadallah Zuwayy.'
'You mean my 'sixth brother,' Jadallah the Brave, the protector of Islam and the savior of the people of Libya? Give me a break,' Sanusi said disgustedly. He took off his helmet and poured water from a canteen on his face. He had a thin, triangular face, wide eyes, and a ready smile, even while deriding someone. 'But what pisses me off even more is that the people of Libya really bought his bucket of bullshit.' He looked carefully at Patrick, then nodded. 'You know my good 'brother,' then? So I assume you're the devil robot that nearly destroyed Jaghbub and
