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Chapter 24
A leopard was not capable of the speeds a cheetah could manage, but after being seen, he sprinted the first mile of his trip in under three minutes, bolting from the edge of the town to a cluster of date palms at the edge of one of the fields. Unfortunately, this left him tapped out, and he flopped to the ground under the trees to watch Al Suwar while he caught his breath. He'd rested less than ten minutes when he heard activity from the town. <A truck starting up. No, two of them. Whoever it is, isn't going to give up easily. Probably Ashwar set a spy on me.> He shook his head. <Shouldn't have run in a straight line. If they can figure out which way I'm going, they can get ahead of me in those trucks. Time to move out again.> He dragged himself to his feet and padded away from the little grove where he'd lain up. This time he moved out in a different direction. <And let's hope that -they- keep going straight if they track me that far...>
Ashwar was not pleased with the progress of his hunt. “Can't you go any faster, Hafez?”
“I don't usually do this at night, Ashwar. What is -supposed- to happen is that we wait until the morning, and track down the beast by following his tracks while he is asleep for the day. If you insist on following him at night, I will need light, and even in daylight one does not track on the run.”
“I do not want him to escape. He can lead us to the other demon-spawn.”
“Unless they vanish into thin air, Ashwar, he will not escape.”
“That is -precisely- what concerns me, Hafez. What if the Americans intend to take him away the same way they have been sending the guns in?”
The old hunter frowned. <He's obsessed. But perhaps it's best to humor him...> Aloud, he offered an alternative. “There's a risk involved, but if you want to take the chance of losing the trail until morning, I can try to guess what he's up to and skip ahead. We most likely won't catch up to him tonight if we don't, but we may lose a half a day if we do and I guess wrong.”
“No more than half a day?”
“At worst, we have to go back to Al Suwar at dawn and track him properly. At best? We can catch up before dawn if he doesn't do anything too sneaky.”
“Let us try, then. And we will leave the decision in the hands of Allah.”
“Then let's get back into the trucks. He was running at full speed just after Rafiq saw him, and so far he's aiming for the date grove at the far side of Abdul's fields. We'll stop there and I'll see if I can find his tracks leading out.”
Hafez chuckled as he knelt beside the irrigation ditch. “Oh, that sneaky, sneaky, cat.”
Ashwar was frowning again. He'd been pleased when the hunter's first guess turned out to be correct and they found the leopard's tracks leading out of the date grove. “What did he do?”
“He's definitely not a normal cat. He jumped -into- the ditch instead of across it, and not too far from a junction point. We'll have to split up and look for where he got out again, and it could be anywhere in the network. The good news is that he'll leave an obvious track where he jumped out, so anyone should be able to spot it. It shouldn't slow us up too much.”
“Can't you make another guess?”
“Not safely, Ashwar. We suspect he is heading north, but there's a lot of hills to lose yourself in up there. We need to have something better than that if you hope to find him tonight. The question is, did he take the branch along his direct route? That'd be obvious. Or did he break east or west along the side channels? I suspect...” Hafez pondered the possibilities for a minute. “I'm going to try this way. Send out someone to check the other two channels, though.”
Isam watched the cluster of lights break up and move in different directions along the irrigation channels. <That should slow them down a bit. But they must have Hafez helping them, and that means they won't be fooled for long. So... as soon as I can, I have to take a route that the trucks can't follow. Time for another sprint.>
The trucks were moving only a little faster than a man could walk now, the rough ground as they moved away from the river's floodplain making it dangerous to move much faster. Hafez rode in the bed of the lead truck, following the leopard's tracks with a searchlight as they went. They were six miles out from the village when he banged on the cab and called “Stop!”
“What's the matter now?” Ashwar was fuming at the slow pace.
Hafez suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, since arguing with him wasn't going to do anything but make things even slower. “I told you this was going to be no ordinary hunt. He changed course somewhere along this patch of bare rock. I need to find it again.” He played the searchlight over the area, then turned it off and clambered up a steep slope with a flashlight. Ashwar followed along behind, not nearly as sure-footed as the hunter. “Hah. He wants to force us to abandon our vehicles. He's climbing here, sticking to the steeper slopes. We either follow on foot, or drive another three miles while he travels a half-mile across this ridge and try to pick up his trail on the other side. He's not that far ahead of us now, though...” He raised his voice, calling back down to the trucks. “Omar! Turn the searchlight back on, see if you can spot him on the slopes!”
Sayeed glared at his head sentry. “What do you mean, he went on a night patrol?”
The fellow shrugged. “He said it was your orders, Captain. He took his squad and two of the trucks and headed out about an hour after sunset. Heading north into the hills, flashing a searchlight around. The odd thing is, Ali said he saw old Hafez with them.”
“What? Why would he...?” He sighed. “He's after the snake. Either he thinks he saw it again, or he's got some other reason to go out tracking it tonight. Get the duty squad together, and make sure Ali's with them. I'm going to make a quick trip to talk to Isam and then we're probably going to go and try to catch them before they do something to annoy our suppliers.”
Yasmina and her sisters waited at the opening to the cave-bunker as the desert night deepened. Their mother was on the cliffs above, watching from one of her favored perches. She had finally agreed to go with the Americans if (as she insisted on saying) they came, but preferred to let her eldest daughter deal with the wolf and her magic. “Are we really going to ride in a plane, Yasmina?”
Yasmina reached over to hug her youngest sister. “Yes, Tali, we really are. I'm not going to promise that it will be a -comfortable- airplane, but we are going to ride in it and soon we will be in a place where we can have a real home again.” She'd made sure to gather the family's meager possessions in preparation for the evacuation, and after her mother had left, she had followed the wolf's directions and poured a fair amount of their water into the largest bowl she could find. Talifa kept trying to drink out of it; Fatima and Nasua helped her keep the young one distracted.
Shortly after midnight, the water rippled and spoke her name. “Yasmina? Are you all ready?”
The younger ones clustered around, amazed by their first encounter with the message spell. “We are, Lady. We have packed what we wish to bring with us, and my sisters and I are waiting at the entrance to the cave. Mother is watching from one of her lookouts.”
“Not too far away, I hope?”
“Not far at all. She often basks there during the day.”
“Good. You may have another refugee joining you; a leopard from that village to your south, who revealed himself to me just this night and is trying to get to your pickup point before you have to leave. He is being followed, but I think he will manage to stay ahead of his pursuers. When the plane arrives, though, I need you to warn the soldiers about this. Can you do that for me?”
“I will try, my Lady. What if they do not listen?”
“The lion speaks your language, but if you can't get his attention, bring anyone you can to the bowl. I can talk to them from here if needed. If they are on schedule, they should be arriving soon.”
Talifa was watching the image in fascination. “You're pretty!”
Yasmina tried to shush her sister while the wolf chuckled. “Thank you. Yasmina, would you introduce us while we wait?”
“I am sorry, my Lady. She is only four.”
“That's quite all right. I certainly wasn't going to be offended by that.”
“She is Talifa, my Lady. Fatima and Nasua are seven. Girls, this is Lady Janet, the American sorceress who has offered to help us.”
The young ones produced a confused chorus of 'thank you' and 'nice to meet you'. Tali picked up on the sorceress part and added, “Do you have a flying carpet?”
Yasmina winced, but the sorceress merely laughed again. “I'm afraid not, little one. But I -am- friends with a dragon or two.”
“Reeeally? Wow!”
“Really and truly, Talifa. But for now, you have to be ready when the plane arrives. Listen to your big sister.”
“I will!”
Yasmina was finally able to get her sister away from the bowl. “I am -sorry-, my Lady.”
“Don't worry about it. She's adorable. Now remember, the lion speaks Arabic and Farsi. So do some of the others, but Chief Jefferson will be the easiest one for you to recognize. And when he gets there, you tell him what...?”
“That the leopard is coming from the south, but is being followed.”
“Very good. Good luck to all of you. I will see you in a few days.”
“Thank you, my Lady.”
“Isam? Are you here?” Sayeed frowned when there was no answer. It wasn't like the computer tech to leave lights on when he wasn't home – or to leave the door unlocked. “Isam?”
He spun at the unfamiliar feminine voice coming from the computer. “He's been gone for a couple of hours now, Captain. He left instructions on how to send messages under the keyboard.”
“How...!?” He shook his head. “Of course. The American sorcerer is a sorceress, after all. A trick with the computer, no? Something like a phone?”
“Close enough. Isam decided that he would take his chances with me rather than risk being found out by Basir's spies. I'm afraid that one of those spies -did- find out part of the truth earlier tonight.”
Sayeed nodded. “And three nights without deliveries means that you are removing the snake from our lands, I assume? Isam is going with her?”
“He hopes to, yes. Your sergeant is trying to catch up with him, but I hope for his sake that he will be unsuccessful. The escorts I sent along will not be gentle if he interferes.”
“I am somehow not surprised that Basir has spies. Who are they, then?”
“Ashwar himself, I'm afraid. I do not know how many of his squad are in his confidence, but he has taken them all with him, as well as an older gentleman who seems to be an expert tracker.”
“In'sh'allah, Sorceress. You will not hold this against the rest of us, I hope?”
“We still would like to see you escape from the control of ISIL, Captain. The deliveries will resume in two nights. Your enemies should be delayed for at least another week. The recent successes of the Iraqis have distracted them.”
“This is good to know.”
“Keep your eyes open, though. They may decide to call on you for reinforcements on their way south. I cannot tell you what they have not yet decided themselves.”
Sayeed nodded. “I understand.” He paused. “May I ask what your purpose is in this? Why did you pick Al Suwar to assist, out of all of those afflicted by them?”
“You called me Sorceress, Captain, and I will not deny it. But mostly, I am a prophetess. I started to help you because if I had not, millions would have died. And I will continue to help you, because it is the right thing to do. Someday, I think, I will be able to tell you more, if you still wish it.”
“When would that be?”
“Perhaps in a year, perhaps in five. There is a small mirror on top of the computer. If you are not afraid of sorcery, take it with you, and if you need my assistance again, look into it and speak my name.” She spoke the word in English. “Diviner.” She chuckled. “Or you can use Isam's email, for as long as the computers will work. For now, you should go and try to keep Ashwar from getting his squad killed for no reason. And do not trust Basir too far. He is, I think, more upset that he was low in the hierarchy of ISIL than by their purpose.”
“You have watched him at his councils as well as the rest of us, then?”
“Of course. I am not certain whether or not the truly faithful can block my magic, or if it would require the True God's direct intervention – but Basir has no such protection in either case. He is your ally for now, but...”
“I understand, Sorceress. And now, as you say, I need to deal with Ashwar. I will speak to you again someday.”
“I know well enough where he is heading, Ashwar. Bring the trucks around the hill and meet me. I will follow his trail while you do that.”
“Should we not all go with you? What if he doubles back to attack you?”
Hafez considered this. “Lend me Ali and Faisal if this worries you, then. But I believe he is in too much of a hurry to be somewhere else to be lying in wait for me. Twice now he has sprinted, and leopards do not much enjoy doing that when they do not have to.”
The three continued to climb, the old hunter following the leopard's tracks in the moonlight while his young companions watched for an ambush. At the crest of the hill, Hafez turned to look out over the valley to the north. “Ah. What did I tell you? There he is.” He pointed. Halfway across the valley, the big cat padded toward the next set of hills. “Let us hurry down, so we can be there when Ashwar arrives with the trucks.”
Ali raised his rifle, but Hafez pulled the barrel down. “No. You will never hit him at this range, and it would warn him he's been seen. We need to get closer.” He led the way downhill.
Davis toggled the microphone on his headset to the all-hands circuit. “Five minute warning, Master Sergeant.” He went back to the cockpit circuit for his next comment. “Bring us into the western end of the valley, Captain, and I'll take over.”
Sterling acknowledged, her eyes still on the guidance systems. “Aye-aye, Major.” She brought the Osprey down to two hundred knots and five hundred feet above ground, then nodded. “Your plane, Major Davis.”
“My plane, Captain.” Both of them went to the all-hands circuit again. “Coming in to our landing zone, Seals. Two minutes.”
The old hunter pointed north as he and his escorts ran down the hill to join the two trucks. “The leopard is nearly across the valley. And we are being followed from the village. I saw four trucks from the top of the hill before we descended. If we are going to stop the shapeshifter before we are stopped ourselves, we had best hurry. I--”
The droning rumble of aircraft engines suddenly echoed from ahead of them, interrupting the old hunter's report. Ashwar looked up, his eyes narrowing in sudden enlightenment. “The infidels mean to rescue him with another of their invisible aircraft. Hurry!” Hafez and his guards jumped aboard the trucks, hanging on as they charged across the valley to the next pass in the hills.
The Osprey gently came to ground, the odd aircraft's engines tilted to provide vertical lift rather than forward thrust, the rumbling of the oversized counter-rotating propellers somehow different from either a true helicopter or a standard airplane. Major Davis gently set the craft down forty yards from the cave that concealed the bunker, and the Seals opened the rear hatch and spilled out, moving to their pre-assigned positions. Six of them spread out to form a perimeter – the others oriented themselves and moved to the cave entrance where Yasmina waited with her sisters.
Yasmina breathed a sigh of relief as the lion-morph moved toward her with several of his companions. “Chief Jefferson, effendi?”
He held up a hand to stop the rest. “You are Yasmina?”
“I am, effendi. Mother is up there..” She pointed up the near slope. “And your Lady Sorceress said to tell you that there is a leopard coming from the south, but that he is being followed.”
Jefferson blinked at the title. <I wonder who she is in contact with?> He nodded to the girl and passed it on to the rest of the circuit. “Team, Six. Be advised our contact says that the extra pickup is on his way from the south, but is being followed.”
“Team, Ten. Confirmed. I see two technicals moving in the next valley. Looks like... yes. I can see what I think is our pickup about a mile out. Should I prepare to engage the technicals?”
“Ten, Actual. Get ready, but do not engage unless they fire on us or on the pickup.”
“Actual, Ten. Copy defensive fire only.”
Jefferson turned his attention back to the snake-girl. “Can you show us the warheads?”
Yasmina nodded. “As soon as I get my sisters on your airplane, or Mother gets here. I promised her I would not leave them alone.”
“That's easy enough. Frank, you carry the little one. Robbie? You and I will carry the bigger ones. Let's hussle!”
The three of them jogged back to the Osprey, each carrying one of the youngsters. Yasmina grabbed the things they had packed and slithered along behind, surprising the Seals by nearly keeping up with them.
Jefferson chuckled as they got the young ones on board and turned them over to the loadmaster. “You're faster than I expected, Yasmina. Let's go get the bombs now.”
“This way, effendi.”
Farrah watched from her ledge as the odd aircraft landed and its passengers spread out in a circle around the landing zone. Half of them moved toward the cave – the other half, all clad in fluttering bits of cloth that made their very forms indistinct, moved rapidly to form a ring around the aircraft. The white bear moved to the south side of their valley and climbed to a lookout of his own. She started down the hillside as the soldiers took her daughters to the aircraft. She hadn't really been sure what she would decide until that moment.
She met them at the mouth of the cave. “You made sure they were safe before you went after the bombs.”
Jefferson nodded to her. “Of course, ma'am. If we have to leave early, we can always destroy the bombs. People are more important.”
She turned her gaze to her eldest daughter. “I told you to stay with your sisters.”
Yasmina hissed. “They are safe, Mother. These are -good- men. And the sooner we collect everything they came for, the sooner we can all leave. Jefferson-effendi asked me to show them the way to the bombs. But not until after the young ones were on the plane.”
She turned to the lion. “And you and your men carried them out. You do not fear us?”
Jefferson returned her suspicious look with one of puzzlement. “Is there any reason we should, ma'am? Even before the Event, most Americans would have agreed that it doesn't matter what someone -looks- like.” He chuckled. “I'll admit that a lot of people were scared of snakes in general, but you and your girls are no more that kind of snake than I am just a lion. We're all people first.”
“Strange that the imams do not think so... perhaps my daughter is right. Perhaps they do lie about what is in the Q'ran.”
Jefferson cleared his throat. “Not for me to say, ma'am. But if you don't mind, we do have a schedule to keep. If you'd join your family on the plane...?”
Farrah nodded. “Yes. I believe I will...”
Sterling concentrated on the mirror she'd pulled out of the pocket of her flight suit. 'We're on the ground, Diviner. Anything we need to know?”
“Ah, there you are, Shadow.” The wolf grinned at the bat. “Your extra passenger is about a mile out-”
“That's what our scouts reported. And that he's being followed by two technicals.”
“They're not authorized by the local commander. Some kind of factional thing going on, apparently. Anyone behind those two is trying to intercept them.”
“So what's the rules of engagement for them?”
“Baker-four. We don't want to drive the locals back into the arms of the ISIL fanatics, after all. From what I gather, there's only one or two even in the pursuing trucks that are problems. Any other casualties would be blue-on-blue.”
The bat grumbled. “Crazy Arabs. Can't even manage a civil war without complications. How many sides do you -need-, anyway?” She shook her head. “Anything else? If not, I need to talk to the Seals.”
“That's it. Get them out safely, and I'll see you after you make a few more deliveries to the locals.”
“Roger that.” She shifted back to the radio. “Actual, Shadow. Be advised, there are good guys in pursuit of the two technicals you've spotted. ROE Baker-four. There's a factional squabble among our allies and we don't want to get involved if we don't have to.”
“Shadow, Actual. Confirm Baker-four and friendlies in pursuit. Give us fifteen minutes until we can dust off.”
“Roger that.”
Yasmina led the way into the hill. The Iraqis who'd hidden the bombs nearly two decades earlier had used a natural cleft in the rocks, sealing off a side passage and adding some facilities and supplies as well as the storage chamber for the weapons Saddam Hussein had not admitted he had ever possessed.
Petty Officer Jacob Attanucci led the way into the room with the warheads, carrying a Geiger counter. He passed it over each of the spherical objects, nodding as he did so. “They're the real thing, all right. Elevated radiation counts, of course, about right for fifty kay-tee warheads. But they look safe enough for now.”
“They have the detonators here?”
“Looks like they're built in. I'm seeing what looks like a keyed activation port on 'em.”
“Our job is just to get them out of here. Let the techs back on the Iwo Jima sort out the details.”
Jefferson nodded. “Sounds like a good plan to me. Two men on each to carry them?”
“Should work. Saddam's people would have had cradles for them, but they didn't leave 'em here, it looks like. So put 'em in the slings we brought and take 'em out that way.”
“Let's do it, then. We don't want to hang around here any longer than we have to.”
Isam paused at the base of the last hill. <They must have spotted me crossing the valley. They're coming more or less in my direction, and they're moving fast. Either that or they heard the plane and they're just heading towards the noise.> He started climbing, bounding up the steep slope, sure-footed and sharp-eyed in the night. He paused again at the top, looking down at the aircraft waiting in the valley beyond, then turned to look at his pursuers one last time.
“Don't worry about them. Now that you're here, we'll be long gone before they arrive.”
The voice was a complete shock, and Isam jumped and spun around, not quite suppressing a yowl of surprise. The voice chuckled. “Pretty good camouflage, am I right?” What had appeared to be a shelf of moonlit desert rock shifted downslope and rolled, revealing the form of a white bear covered in... something. Isam mrowlled a question. “Can't talk in that form, I guess?” The cat shook his head. “We call this a ghilly suit. No magic involved.” He pointed. “Get yourself down to the Osprey, I'll be right behind you.”
Isam complied, the bear padding along by his side. He could only hear one side of the conversation, but it was evident that the Americans were preparing to leave. “Actual, Ten. We're on our way down.” A brief pause. “Headed for the gap two miles east, moving about fifteen across the terrain last I saw. Good ten minutes plus before they can range.” The bear grunted at the response. “On our way.” He turned back to the cat. “Don't want to stick around to say hello to the folks following you, I take it?” Isam shook his head again and growled. “Good. Pick up the pace, we want to be gone before they get... whoa!”
Isam had launched himself downslope at full speed, bounding from outcrop to outcrop with a scattering of loose pebbles and scree. Nichols dropped to all fours and lumbered along after him. <Guess he -really- doesn't want to meet up with them..>
A leopard was not capable of the speeds a cheetah could manage, but after being seen, he sprinted the first mile of his trip in under three minutes, bolting from the edge of the town to a cluster of date palms at the edge of one of the fields. Unfortunately, this left him tapped out, and he flopped to the ground under the trees to watch Al Suwar while he caught his breath. He'd rested less than ten minutes when he heard activity from the town. <A truck starting up. No, two of them. Whoever it is, isn't going to give up easily. Probably Ashwar set a spy on me.> He shook his head. <Shouldn't have run in a straight line. If they can figure out which way I'm going, they can get ahead of me in those trucks. Time to move out again.> He dragged himself to his feet and padded away from the little grove where he'd lain up. This time he moved out in a different direction. <And let's hope that -they- keep going straight if they track me that far...>
Ashwar was not pleased with the progress of his hunt. “Can't you go any faster, Hafez?”
“I don't usually do this at night, Ashwar. What is -supposed- to happen is that we wait until the morning, and track down the beast by following his tracks while he is asleep for the day. If you insist on following him at night, I will need light, and even in daylight one does not track on the run.”
“I do not want him to escape. He can lead us to the other demon-spawn.”
“Unless they vanish into thin air, Ashwar, he will not escape.”
“That is -precisely- what concerns me, Hafez. What if the Americans intend to take him away the same way they have been sending the guns in?”
The old hunter frowned. <He's obsessed. But perhaps it's best to humor him...> Aloud, he offered an alternative. “There's a risk involved, but if you want to take the chance of losing the trail until morning, I can try to guess what he's up to and skip ahead. We most likely won't catch up to him tonight if we don't, but we may lose a half a day if we do and I guess wrong.”
“No more than half a day?”
“At worst, we have to go back to Al Suwar at dawn and track him properly. At best? We can catch up before dawn if he doesn't do anything too sneaky.”
“Let us try, then. And we will leave the decision in the hands of Allah.”
“Then let's get back into the trucks. He was running at full speed just after Rafiq saw him, and so far he's aiming for the date grove at the far side of Abdul's fields. We'll stop there and I'll see if I can find his tracks leading out.”
Hafez chuckled as he knelt beside the irrigation ditch. “Oh, that sneaky, sneaky, cat.”
Ashwar was frowning again. He'd been pleased when the hunter's first guess turned out to be correct and they found the leopard's tracks leading out of the date grove. “What did he do?”
“He's definitely not a normal cat. He jumped -into- the ditch instead of across it, and not too far from a junction point. We'll have to split up and look for where he got out again, and it could be anywhere in the network. The good news is that he'll leave an obvious track where he jumped out, so anyone should be able to spot it. It shouldn't slow us up too much.”
“Can't you make another guess?”
“Not safely, Ashwar. We suspect he is heading north, but there's a lot of hills to lose yourself in up there. We need to have something better than that if you hope to find him tonight. The question is, did he take the branch along his direct route? That'd be obvious. Or did he break east or west along the side channels? I suspect...” Hafez pondered the possibilities for a minute. “I'm going to try this way. Send out someone to check the other two channels, though.”
Isam watched the cluster of lights break up and move in different directions along the irrigation channels. <That should slow them down a bit. But they must have Hafez helping them, and that means they won't be fooled for long. So... as soon as I can, I have to take a route that the trucks can't follow. Time for another sprint.>
The trucks were moving only a little faster than a man could walk now, the rough ground as they moved away from the river's floodplain making it dangerous to move much faster. Hafez rode in the bed of the lead truck, following the leopard's tracks with a searchlight as they went. They were six miles out from the village when he banged on the cab and called “Stop!”
“What's the matter now?” Ashwar was fuming at the slow pace.
Hafez suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, since arguing with him wasn't going to do anything but make things even slower. “I told you this was going to be no ordinary hunt. He changed course somewhere along this patch of bare rock. I need to find it again.” He played the searchlight over the area, then turned it off and clambered up a steep slope with a flashlight. Ashwar followed along behind, not nearly as sure-footed as the hunter. “Hah. He wants to force us to abandon our vehicles. He's climbing here, sticking to the steeper slopes. We either follow on foot, or drive another three miles while he travels a half-mile across this ridge and try to pick up his trail on the other side. He's not that far ahead of us now, though...” He raised his voice, calling back down to the trucks. “Omar! Turn the searchlight back on, see if you can spot him on the slopes!”
Sayeed glared at his head sentry. “What do you mean, he went on a night patrol?”
The fellow shrugged. “He said it was your orders, Captain. He took his squad and two of the trucks and headed out about an hour after sunset. Heading north into the hills, flashing a searchlight around. The odd thing is, Ali said he saw old Hafez with them.”
“What? Why would he...?” He sighed. “He's after the snake. Either he thinks he saw it again, or he's got some other reason to go out tracking it tonight. Get the duty squad together, and make sure Ali's with them. I'm going to make a quick trip to talk to Isam and then we're probably going to go and try to catch them before they do something to annoy our suppliers.”
Yasmina and her sisters waited at the opening to the cave-bunker as the desert night deepened. Their mother was on the cliffs above, watching from one of her favored perches. She had finally agreed to go with the Americans if (as she insisted on saying) they came, but preferred to let her eldest daughter deal with the wolf and her magic. “Are we really going to ride in a plane, Yasmina?”
Yasmina reached over to hug her youngest sister. “Yes, Tali, we really are. I'm not going to promise that it will be a -comfortable- airplane, but we are going to ride in it and soon we will be in a place where we can have a real home again.” She'd made sure to gather the family's meager possessions in preparation for the evacuation, and after her mother had left, she had followed the wolf's directions and poured a fair amount of their water into the largest bowl she could find. Talifa kept trying to drink out of it; Fatima and Nasua helped her keep the young one distracted.
Shortly after midnight, the water rippled and spoke her name. “Yasmina? Are you all ready?”
The younger ones clustered around, amazed by their first encounter with the message spell. “We are, Lady. We have packed what we wish to bring with us, and my sisters and I are waiting at the entrance to the cave. Mother is watching from one of her lookouts.”
“Not too far away, I hope?”
“Not far at all. She often basks there during the day.”
“Good. You may have another refugee joining you; a leopard from that village to your south, who revealed himself to me just this night and is trying to get to your pickup point before you have to leave. He is being followed, but I think he will manage to stay ahead of his pursuers. When the plane arrives, though, I need you to warn the soldiers about this. Can you do that for me?”
“I will try, my Lady. What if they do not listen?”
“The lion speaks your language, but if you can't get his attention, bring anyone you can to the bowl. I can talk to them from here if needed. If they are on schedule, they should be arriving soon.”
Talifa was watching the image in fascination. “You're pretty!”
Yasmina tried to shush her sister while the wolf chuckled. “Thank you. Yasmina, would you introduce us while we wait?”
“I am sorry, my Lady. She is only four.”
“That's quite all right. I certainly wasn't going to be offended by that.”
“She is Talifa, my Lady. Fatima and Nasua are seven. Girls, this is Lady Janet, the American sorceress who has offered to help us.”
The young ones produced a confused chorus of 'thank you' and 'nice to meet you'. Tali picked up on the sorceress part and added, “Do you have a flying carpet?”
Yasmina winced, but the sorceress merely laughed again. “I'm afraid not, little one. But I -am- friends with a dragon or two.”
“Reeeally? Wow!”
“Really and truly, Talifa. But for now, you have to be ready when the plane arrives. Listen to your big sister.”
“I will!”
Yasmina was finally able to get her sister away from the bowl. “I am -sorry-, my Lady.”
“Don't worry about it. She's adorable. Now remember, the lion speaks Arabic and Farsi. So do some of the others, but Chief Jefferson will be the easiest one for you to recognize. And when he gets there, you tell him what...?”
“That the leopard is coming from the south, but is being followed.”
“Very good. Good luck to all of you. I will see you in a few days.”
“Thank you, my Lady.”
“Isam? Are you here?” Sayeed frowned when there was no answer. It wasn't like the computer tech to leave lights on when he wasn't home – or to leave the door unlocked. “Isam?”
He spun at the unfamiliar feminine voice coming from the computer. “He's been gone for a couple of hours now, Captain. He left instructions on how to send messages under the keyboard.”
“How...!?” He shook his head. “Of course. The American sorcerer is a sorceress, after all. A trick with the computer, no? Something like a phone?”
“Close enough. Isam decided that he would take his chances with me rather than risk being found out by Basir's spies. I'm afraid that one of those spies -did- find out part of the truth earlier tonight.”
Sayeed nodded. “And three nights without deliveries means that you are removing the snake from our lands, I assume? Isam is going with her?”
“He hopes to, yes. Your sergeant is trying to catch up with him, but I hope for his sake that he will be unsuccessful. The escorts I sent along will not be gentle if he interferes.”
“I am somehow not surprised that Basir has spies. Who are they, then?”
“Ashwar himself, I'm afraid. I do not know how many of his squad are in his confidence, but he has taken them all with him, as well as an older gentleman who seems to be an expert tracker.”
“In'sh'allah, Sorceress. You will not hold this against the rest of us, I hope?”
“We still would like to see you escape from the control of ISIL, Captain. The deliveries will resume in two nights. Your enemies should be delayed for at least another week. The recent successes of the Iraqis have distracted them.”
“This is good to know.”
“Keep your eyes open, though. They may decide to call on you for reinforcements on their way south. I cannot tell you what they have not yet decided themselves.”
Sayeed nodded. “I understand.” He paused. “May I ask what your purpose is in this? Why did you pick Al Suwar to assist, out of all of those afflicted by them?”
“You called me Sorceress, Captain, and I will not deny it. But mostly, I am a prophetess. I started to help you because if I had not, millions would have died. And I will continue to help you, because it is the right thing to do. Someday, I think, I will be able to tell you more, if you still wish it.”
“When would that be?”
“Perhaps in a year, perhaps in five. There is a small mirror on top of the computer. If you are not afraid of sorcery, take it with you, and if you need my assistance again, look into it and speak my name.” She spoke the word in English. “Diviner.” She chuckled. “Or you can use Isam's email, for as long as the computers will work. For now, you should go and try to keep Ashwar from getting his squad killed for no reason. And do not trust Basir too far. He is, I think, more upset that he was low in the hierarchy of ISIL than by their purpose.”
“You have watched him at his councils as well as the rest of us, then?”
“Of course. I am not certain whether or not the truly faithful can block my magic, or if it would require the True God's direct intervention – but Basir has no such protection in either case. He is your ally for now, but...”
“I understand, Sorceress. And now, as you say, I need to deal with Ashwar. I will speak to you again someday.”
“I know well enough where he is heading, Ashwar. Bring the trucks around the hill and meet me. I will follow his trail while you do that.”
“Should we not all go with you? What if he doubles back to attack you?”
Hafez considered this. “Lend me Ali and Faisal if this worries you, then. But I believe he is in too much of a hurry to be somewhere else to be lying in wait for me. Twice now he has sprinted, and leopards do not much enjoy doing that when they do not have to.”
The three continued to climb, the old hunter following the leopard's tracks in the moonlight while his young companions watched for an ambush. At the crest of the hill, Hafez turned to look out over the valley to the north. “Ah. What did I tell you? There he is.” He pointed. Halfway across the valley, the big cat padded toward the next set of hills. “Let us hurry down, so we can be there when Ashwar arrives with the trucks.”
Ali raised his rifle, but Hafez pulled the barrel down. “No. You will never hit him at this range, and it would warn him he's been seen. We need to get closer.” He led the way downhill.
Davis toggled the microphone on his headset to the all-hands circuit. “Five minute warning, Master Sergeant.” He went back to the cockpit circuit for his next comment. “Bring us into the western end of the valley, Captain, and I'll take over.”
Sterling acknowledged, her eyes still on the guidance systems. “Aye-aye, Major.” She brought the Osprey down to two hundred knots and five hundred feet above ground, then nodded. “Your plane, Major Davis.”
“My plane, Captain.” Both of them went to the all-hands circuit again. “Coming in to our landing zone, Seals. Two minutes.”
The old hunter pointed north as he and his escorts ran down the hill to join the two trucks. “The leopard is nearly across the valley. And we are being followed from the village. I saw four trucks from the top of the hill before we descended. If we are going to stop the shapeshifter before we are stopped ourselves, we had best hurry. I--”
The droning rumble of aircraft engines suddenly echoed from ahead of them, interrupting the old hunter's report. Ashwar looked up, his eyes narrowing in sudden enlightenment. “The infidels mean to rescue him with another of their invisible aircraft. Hurry!” Hafez and his guards jumped aboard the trucks, hanging on as they charged across the valley to the next pass in the hills.
The Osprey gently came to ground, the odd aircraft's engines tilted to provide vertical lift rather than forward thrust, the rumbling of the oversized counter-rotating propellers somehow different from either a true helicopter or a standard airplane. Major Davis gently set the craft down forty yards from the cave that concealed the bunker, and the Seals opened the rear hatch and spilled out, moving to their pre-assigned positions. Six of them spread out to form a perimeter – the others oriented themselves and moved to the cave entrance where Yasmina waited with her sisters.
Yasmina breathed a sigh of relief as the lion-morph moved toward her with several of his companions. “Chief Jefferson, effendi?”
He held up a hand to stop the rest. “You are Yasmina?”
“I am, effendi. Mother is up there..” She pointed up the near slope. “And your Lady Sorceress said to tell you that there is a leopard coming from the south, but that he is being followed.”
Jefferson blinked at the title. <I wonder who she is in contact with?> He nodded to the girl and passed it on to the rest of the circuit. “Team, Six. Be advised our contact says that the extra pickup is on his way from the south, but is being followed.”
“Team, Ten. Confirmed. I see two technicals moving in the next valley. Looks like... yes. I can see what I think is our pickup about a mile out. Should I prepare to engage the technicals?”
“Ten, Actual. Get ready, but do not engage unless they fire on us or on the pickup.”
“Actual, Ten. Copy defensive fire only.”
Jefferson turned his attention back to the snake-girl. “Can you show us the warheads?”
Yasmina nodded. “As soon as I get my sisters on your airplane, or Mother gets here. I promised her I would not leave them alone.”
“That's easy enough. Frank, you carry the little one. Robbie? You and I will carry the bigger ones. Let's hussle!”
The three of them jogged back to the Osprey, each carrying one of the youngsters. Yasmina grabbed the things they had packed and slithered along behind, surprising the Seals by nearly keeping up with them.
Jefferson chuckled as they got the young ones on board and turned them over to the loadmaster. “You're faster than I expected, Yasmina. Let's go get the bombs now.”
“This way, effendi.”
Farrah watched from her ledge as the odd aircraft landed and its passengers spread out in a circle around the landing zone. Half of them moved toward the cave – the other half, all clad in fluttering bits of cloth that made their very forms indistinct, moved rapidly to form a ring around the aircraft. The white bear moved to the south side of their valley and climbed to a lookout of his own. She started down the hillside as the soldiers took her daughters to the aircraft. She hadn't really been sure what she would decide until that moment.
She met them at the mouth of the cave. “You made sure they were safe before you went after the bombs.”
Jefferson nodded to her. “Of course, ma'am. If we have to leave early, we can always destroy the bombs. People are more important.”
She turned her gaze to her eldest daughter. “I told you to stay with your sisters.”
Yasmina hissed. “They are safe, Mother. These are -good- men. And the sooner we collect everything they came for, the sooner we can all leave. Jefferson-effendi asked me to show them the way to the bombs. But not until after the young ones were on the plane.”
She turned to the lion. “And you and your men carried them out. You do not fear us?”
Jefferson returned her suspicious look with one of puzzlement. “Is there any reason we should, ma'am? Even before the Event, most Americans would have agreed that it doesn't matter what someone -looks- like.” He chuckled. “I'll admit that a lot of people were scared of snakes in general, but you and your girls are no more that kind of snake than I am just a lion. We're all people first.”
“Strange that the imams do not think so... perhaps my daughter is right. Perhaps they do lie about what is in the Q'ran.”
Jefferson cleared his throat. “Not for me to say, ma'am. But if you don't mind, we do have a schedule to keep. If you'd join your family on the plane...?”
Farrah nodded. “Yes. I believe I will...”
Sterling concentrated on the mirror she'd pulled out of the pocket of her flight suit. 'We're on the ground, Diviner. Anything we need to know?”
“Ah, there you are, Shadow.” The wolf grinned at the bat. “Your extra passenger is about a mile out-”
“That's what our scouts reported. And that he's being followed by two technicals.”
“They're not authorized by the local commander. Some kind of factional thing going on, apparently. Anyone behind those two is trying to intercept them.”
“So what's the rules of engagement for them?”
“Baker-four. We don't want to drive the locals back into the arms of the ISIL fanatics, after all. From what I gather, there's only one or two even in the pursuing trucks that are problems. Any other casualties would be blue-on-blue.”
The bat grumbled. “Crazy Arabs. Can't even manage a civil war without complications. How many sides do you -need-, anyway?” She shook her head. “Anything else? If not, I need to talk to the Seals.”
“That's it. Get them out safely, and I'll see you after you make a few more deliveries to the locals.”
“Roger that.” She shifted back to the radio. “Actual, Shadow. Be advised, there are good guys in pursuit of the two technicals you've spotted. ROE Baker-four. There's a factional squabble among our allies and we don't want to get involved if we don't have to.”
“Shadow, Actual. Confirm Baker-four and friendlies in pursuit. Give us fifteen minutes until we can dust off.”
“Roger that.”
Yasmina led the way into the hill. The Iraqis who'd hidden the bombs nearly two decades earlier had used a natural cleft in the rocks, sealing off a side passage and adding some facilities and supplies as well as the storage chamber for the weapons Saddam Hussein had not admitted he had ever possessed.
Petty Officer Jacob Attanucci led the way into the room with the warheads, carrying a Geiger counter. He passed it over each of the spherical objects, nodding as he did so. “They're the real thing, all right. Elevated radiation counts, of course, about right for fifty kay-tee warheads. But they look safe enough for now.”
“They have the detonators here?”
“Looks like they're built in. I'm seeing what looks like a keyed activation port on 'em.”
“Our job is just to get them out of here. Let the techs back on the Iwo Jima sort out the details.”
Jefferson nodded. “Sounds like a good plan to me. Two men on each to carry them?”
“Should work. Saddam's people would have had cradles for them, but they didn't leave 'em here, it looks like. So put 'em in the slings we brought and take 'em out that way.”
“Let's do it, then. We don't want to hang around here any longer than we have to.”
Isam paused at the base of the last hill. <They must have spotted me crossing the valley. They're coming more or less in my direction, and they're moving fast. Either that or they heard the plane and they're just heading towards the noise.> He started climbing, bounding up the steep slope, sure-footed and sharp-eyed in the night. He paused again at the top, looking down at the aircraft waiting in the valley beyond, then turned to look at his pursuers one last time.
“Don't worry about them. Now that you're here, we'll be long gone before they arrive.”
The voice was a complete shock, and Isam jumped and spun around, not quite suppressing a yowl of surprise. The voice chuckled. “Pretty good camouflage, am I right?” What had appeared to be a shelf of moonlit desert rock shifted downslope and rolled, revealing the form of a white bear covered in... something. Isam mrowlled a question. “Can't talk in that form, I guess?” The cat shook his head. “We call this a ghilly suit. No magic involved.” He pointed. “Get yourself down to the Osprey, I'll be right behind you.”
Isam complied, the bear padding along by his side. He could only hear one side of the conversation, but it was evident that the Americans were preparing to leave. “Actual, Ten. We're on our way down.” A brief pause. “Headed for the gap two miles east, moving about fifteen across the terrain last I saw. Good ten minutes plus before they can range.” The bear grunted at the response. “On our way.” He turned back to the cat. “Don't want to stick around to say hello to the folks following you, I take it?” Isam shook his head again and growled. “Good. Pick up the pace, we want to be gone before they get... whoa!”
Isam had launched himself downslope at full speed, bounding from outcrop to outcrop with a scattering of loose pebbles and scree. Nichols dropped to all fours and lumbered along after him. <Guess he -really- doesn't want to meet up with them..>
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