“Concur. But I endorsed your memo to Pat Finch for two more rotorheads on the staff. He hasn’t got back to me officially but I think that Personnel will recommend approval to the board.”
Keegan grinned self-consciously. “Yeah, that’s what Sallie said. I told her it might help if they recommend dual-rated guys. Uh; you know… like me. Fixed wing
Leopole saw an opportunity. “Hey, Sallie made quite an impression on Dave Main.”
The pilot smiled broadly. “Sallie makes quite an impression on everybody.”
Leopole eyed his counterpart. He suspected that Ms. Kline and Mr. Keegan might have socialized at one point. If so, they were an odd couple: she was a spiritualist and he an agnostic. But as Mike Derringer always said, it takes all kinds to fill a battleship.
Ali reached his rendezvous almost two hours late. Nobody objected.
The doctor stepped out of the VW van, leaving his passenger inside. Ali was greeted by his reception committee, headed by a Syrian expatriate named Kassim. “My brother, peace be with you.”
“And unto you,” Ali replied. He held few men in absolute trust, but Kassim was among them. If nothing else, the man’s loss of a foot to a Soviet mine had earned him trust on earth and a seat in Paradise.
Kassim gestured behind him. “I have two good men,
“The papers are prepared, then?”
Kassim nodded gravely. “They are genuine. We have certain… friends. They travel routinely to Amman and then will enter the Zionist zone.”
Ali’s teeth showed as he smiled in the dark. “All is proceeding as planned, then. The first, ah, package, departed Islamabad a few days ago. When the westerners and their Jewish masters look into this case, they will have an even wider area to cover.”
Kassim glanced at the van again; the woman’s dark shape blended into the night. “Does she truly understand what awaits her?”
Ali nodded vigorously. “It is one thing to pull a pin or push a plunger and vanish in an instant. Before the warrior knows it, he awakens in Paradise. But this…” he nodded toward the young woman in the van. “This method requires vastly more courage and devotion.”
Kassim’s companion joined them, a carpenter known as Farrukh Awan. Ali had noticed that they spent more time together of late.
Looking at the woman, Kassim said, “Perhaps she will become a vestal virgin. She shames us all.” Ali suspected that he offered the sentiment for Awan’s benefit. The young man had potential.
Ali placed a bony hand on his colleague’s arm. “She was going to die anyway, you know. And I would not save her if I could — she is far too valuable this way. Just remember, we cannot all be messengers, my friend. Some of us must prepare the message. But God will know his servants, and all shall receive his blessing.”
Before handing over the woman to Kassim’s team, Ali beckoned to her. She stepped from the van, moving slowly and with apparent difficulty. When she approached him he raised a hand in benediction. Obviously quoting from memory, he intoned,
“Pledge. O Sister, the following against the unbelievers:
“Covenant, O Sister… to make their women widows and their children orphans.
“Covenant, O Sister… to make them desire death and hate appointments and prestige.
“Covenant, O Sister… to slaughter them like lambs and let the Nile, al-Asi, and Euphrates Rivers flow with their blood.
“Covenant, O Sister… to be a pick of destruction for every godless and apostate regime.
“Covenant, O Sister… to retaliate for you against every dog who touch you even with a bad word.”
The female jihadist placed her right hand on her forehead, bowed toward her benefactor, and walked toward the other vehicle. The rough-hewn men of Kassim’s team stepped aside, watching her with reverential curiosity.
Meanwhile, the Syrian leaned close to Ali, speaking softly. “When shall we expect the next, um, shipment?”
“Most likely within a week. Such volunteers are rare, and I am adjusting the dosage to provide some overlap, but it is an inexact science. I would prefer to release all the carriers at once, but the most willing have terminal illnesses and their condition dictates the schedule. However, God willing, we shall have some to disperse among the Crusaders’ accomplices as well as in the West itself.”
“God willing,” Ali translated in Urdu. Whatever the language, the sentiment was exactly the same.
Mike Derringer felt that he walked a fine line before the teams left. He wanted to bid his operators good-bye and good hunting, but he did not wish to overstate the matter. Therefore, he decided on last-minute handshakes at the airport. Meanwhile, he convened a final meeting with his braintrust.
Inevitably, Derringer launched into one of his favorite subjects, ironically, one that usually left him depressed. He began, “The problem with the global war on terrorism — well, all right, there’s a lot more than one. But in comparison with conventional war, there’s no way to get a grip on the size of the problem. A few days ago the news reported that coalition troops killed or captured about seventy combatants in Iraq. A few days before that, twenty or so Taliban were killed in Afghanistan. Okay, let’s take those numbers at face value. What do they mean?”
There was silence in the room.
Derringer nodded his balding head. “Exactly.” Then he grinned. “You don’t know, and neither do I. Hell, I suspect that nobody knows— maybe not even our enemy. The point is, we have no idea what the loss of ninety or a hundred men represents. Is it a lot? A few? Does it matter at all?” He shrugged. “Nobody knows.”
Leopole rubbed his high-and-tight haircut — an unconscious sign of irritability. “Admiral, I see your point. But shouldn’t we be careful about a body count mentality?”
“Yes, Frank, we should. And I would be well down the list of those who would ever endorse Robert Strange McNamara’s approach to anything: from Edsels to Vietnam. Hell, the bastard didn’t even believe in his own war. But at least in Vietnam we had a rough idea of the enemy’s strength. Now…” His voice trailed off.
The retired marine picked up the retired admiral’s thought. “Yes, sir. Apparently EOB estimates still run from several hundred to maybe twenty thousand.” Establishing enemy order of battle had long been a sore point in the Pentagon; it still was.
Derringer found his voice again. “Let’s look at it another way: reverse the numbers. If we or the coalition lost seventy men in Iraq and twenty more in Afghanistan in a couple of days, what would be the result?”
“Some kind of policy change,” offered Wolfe. “We might even pull out.”
“I tend to agree. But we know our force levels. One hundred dead represents, what? A fraction of a percent. In the overall scheme, it’s tiny. But in a country where the press lives by the motto ‘If it bleeds, it leads,’ that tiny number could have enormous effect.
“Which is why this Marburg project is so important. In Clauswitzian terms, it’s elegant: economy of force writ large. Sacrifice a handful of suicidal hosts in exchange for tens of thousands of casualties, and not just on the battlefield. People dying in droves in Heartland, USA. But you know what? The human cost would not be the decisive factor. The knockout blow would be economic. Let a pandemic loose in this country, and maybe Western Europe as well, and the Western economy would tank. It might take decades to recover.”
Knowing he had made his point, Derringer surveyed the audience. He was met with level gazes of planners and operators who already shared his tacit sentiment. But he spoke the words anyway. “Find them, gentlemen. Find them and kill them.”
5
