THE PRESS ROOM was still underpopulated. So many of the regulars were elsewhere, some caught out of town and blocked by the travel ban, others just missing, and nobody quite sure why.
'The President will be making a major speech in one hour,' van Damm told them. 'Unfortunately, there will be no time to give you advance copies of the speech. Please inform your networks that this is a matter of the highest importance.'
'Arnie!' a reporter called, but the chief of staff had already turned his back.
THE REPORTERS IN Saudi knew more than both their friends back in Washington, and they were moving out to join their assigned units. For Tom Donner, it was B-Troop, 1st of the llth. He was fully outfitted in a desert battle-dress uniform, or BDU, and found the twenty-nine-year-old troop commander standing by his tank.
'Howdy,' the captain said, halfway looking up from his map.
'Where do you want me?' Donner asked. The captain laughed.
'Never ask a soldier where he wants a reporter, sir.'
'With you, then?'
'I ride this,' the officer responded, nodding at the tank. 'I'll put you in one of the Brads.'
'I need a camera crew.'
'They're already here,' the captain told him, pointing. 'Over that way. Anything else?'
'Yeah, would you like to know what this is all about?' Donner asked. The journalists had been virtual prisoners in a Riyadh hotel, not even allowed to call home to tell their families where they were—all they'd known was that the reporters had been called up, and their parent corporations had signed agreements not to reveal the purpose of their absences for such deployments. In Donner's case, the network said that he was 'on assignment,' a difficult thing to explain with the travel ban. But they had been told the overall situation—there'd been no avoiding it—which put them one up on a lot of soldiers.
'We hear that in an hour or so, or that's what the colonel told us.' But the young officer was interested now.
'This is something you need to know now. Honest.'
'Mr. Donner, I know what you pulled on the President and—'
'If you want to shoot me, do it later. Listen to me, Captain. This is important.'
'Say your say, sir.'
THERE SEEMED SOMETHING perverse in being made up at a time like this. It was, as always, Mary Abbot doing the job, wearing her mask, and this time gloves as well, while both TelePrompTers ran their copy. Ryan hadn't had the time or really the inclination to rehearse. Important as the speech was, he only wished to do it once.
'THEY CAN'T DO cross-country,' the Saudi general insisted. 'They haven't trained for it, and they're still road-bound.'
'There is information to suggest otherwise, sir,' Diggs said.
'We are ready for them.'
'You're never ready enough, General. Nobody is.'
IT WAS TENSE but otherwise normal at PALM BOWL. Downloaded satellite photos told them that the UIR forces were still moving, and if they continued, then they would be met by two Kuwaiti brigades fighting on their own turf, and an American regiment in reserve, and the Saudis ready to provide rapid support. They didn't know how the battle would turn out—the overall numbers weren't favorable—but it wouldn't be like the last time, Major Sabah told himself. It seemed so foolish to him that the allied forces could not strike first. They knew what was coming.
'Getting some radio chatter,' a technician reported. Outside, the sun was just starting to set. The satellite photos the intelligence officers looked at were four hours old. More would not be available for another two.
STORM TRACK WAS close to the Saudi-UIR border, too far for a mortar round, but not safe from real tube artillery. A company of fourteen Saudi tanks was now arrayed between the listening post and the berm. There also, for the first time in days, they were starting to copy radio transmissions. The signals were scrambled, more like the command sets than the regular tactical radios, which were far too numerous for easy encryption systems. Unable to read them immediately—that was the job of the computers back at KKMC—they did start trying to locate their points of origin. In twenty minutes, they had thirty point-sources. Twenty represented brigade headquarters. Six for the division command posts. Three for the corps commanders, and one for the army command. They seemed to be testing their commo net, the ELINT people decided. They'd have to wait for the computers to unscramble what was being said. The direction-finders had them arrayed on the road to Al Busayyah, still doing their approach march to Kuwait. The radio traffic wasn't all that remarkable. Maybe, most thought, the Army of God needed more practice in march discipline… though they hadn't done all that badly in their exercise….
With sunset the Predators were launched again, motoring north. They headed to the radio sources first of all. Their cameras turned on ten miles inside the UIR, and the first thing one of them saw was a battery of 203mm towed guns, off their trucks, their limbers spread out, and the tubes pointed south.
'Colonel!' a sergeant called urgently.
Outside, the Saudi tankers had selected hillocks to hide behind and were putting a few crewmen out to act as spotters. The first few had just started to settle into their observation points when the northern horizon flashed orange.
DIGGS WAS STILL discussing deployment patterns when the first message came in:
'Sir, STORM TRACK reports they're taking artillery fire.'
'GOOD MORNING, MY fellow Americans,' Ryan said to the cameras. His image was being carried worldwide. His voice would be heard even by those without TV sets at hand. In Saudi Arabia, his words went out on AM, FM, and shortwave bands so that every soldier, sailor, and airman would hear what he was about to say. 'We have been through much in the past two weeks.
'The first order of business is to tell you of progress we have made with the epidemic which has been inflicted upon our country.
'It was not easy for me to order the imposition of a ban on interstate travel. There are few freedoms more precious than the right to come and go as one pleases, but based on the best medical advice, I felt it necessary to take that action. I can report to you now that it has had the desired effect. New disease cases have been trending down for four days now. Partly that's because of what your government did, but it's more because you have taken the proper measures to protect yourselves. We will give more detailed information later in the day, but for the moment I can tell you that the Ebola epidemic is going to end, probably in the next week. Many of the new cases are people who will definitely survive. America's medical professionals have performed superhuman work to help the afflicted, and to help us understand what has happened, and how best to combat it. This task is not yet complete, but our country will weather this storm, as we have weathered many others.
'A moment ago, I said that the epidemic has been inflicted upon us.
'The arrival of this disease into our country was not an accident. We have been struck with a new and barbaric form of attack. It's called biological warfare. That is something outlawed by international treaty. Biological warfare is designed to terrify and to cripple a nation, rather than to kill it. We've all felt the disgust and horror at what's been happening in our country, the way in which the disease attacks people at random. My own wife, Cathy, has worked around the clock with Ebola victims at her hospital in Baltimore. As you know, I was only there a few days ago to see for myself. I saw the victims, talked with the doctors and nurses, and outside the hospital I sat with a man whose wife was ill.
'I could not tell him then, but I can tell you now, that from the beginning we suspected that this epidemic was a man-made act, and over the last few days, our law-enforcement and intelligence agencies have formulated the proof we needed before I could tell you what you are about to hear.' On TV screens across the world appeared the faces of a young African boy, and a white-clad Belgian nun.
'This disease started some months ago in the country of Zaire,' the President went on. He had to walk everyone through it, slowly and carefully, and Ryan found it hard to keep his voice even.
THE SAUDI TANKERS remounted their vehicles at once, fired up the turbine engines, and moved to new locations lest their original points had been spotted. But the fire, they saw, was aimed at STORM TRACK. That made sense, their commander thought. The listening post was a prime intelligence-gathering point. Their job was to protect it, which they could do against tanks and troops, but not against artillery fire. The Saudi captain was a handsome, almost rakish young man of twenty-five. He was also devoutly religious, and therefore mindful of the fact
