Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5) by George Wallace (different ereaders .txt) 📕

have seen down there,” Abdul said. “First, someone went to much trouble to make the village suddenly appear yet look as if it had long been there. And then, we have observed much unexplained activity.” Abdul took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Not the usual, where they merely teach men—practically children, actually—how to point a gun and pull a trigger or how to approach a targeted group of people without arousing suspicion and detonate themselves. We have reason to believe it is much more sophisticated and lethal than that.”

The agent’s tone got Beaman’s attention.

“So, what do we do?” he again asked.

Abdul tossed the cigarette into the dust at his feet and crushed it with his boot heel.

“Our mutual friend believes it all might be tied to someone named Nabiin.”

“Nabiin?”

“But to some, he is known as the Prophet. If we are able to confirm that one fact…” The agent’s voice trailed off as he stared down into the deep, darkening valley.

“If we confirm it, what?” Beaman finally asked.

“Then it may already be too late.”

Even as Abdul spoke, the two men heard the unmistakable roar of jet aircraft approaching rapidly. There were four of them, a flight of Russian-built SU-30s. But each plane carried the unmistakable orange, white, and green Indian Air Force roundels.

The jets flashed by so low and close they were actually below where Abdul and Beaman stood, watching, mouths open. Beaman was certain that he could read the pilots’ instruments.

Then the noise of the engines was drowned out by the staccato roar from each plane’s 30mm auto-cannon. Next came the flash and thunder as the fighter jets unloaded their ordnance on the training village. The four planes went supersonic as they climbed and then disappeared over the high ridge, heading east toward home.

A second wave of four SU-30s swooped in and dumped their loads of cluster bombs. But they fell on nothing more than a burning hole in the ground.

The little village that had popped up so suddenly had just disappeared from the face of the earth far more quickly and violently.

Ψ

Nabiin gazed through the lenses of his fashionable spectacles at the cramped little room in which the other men waited quietly but patiently. He studied the faces of the small gathered group seated comfortably on cushions scattered about the cave floor. The only adornments were colorful and intricate Persian and Afghan rugs that lay on the floor or hung from pitons in the rock wall.

This would be one of the very few—and likely the very last—times that the Prophet would gather his most powerful lieutenants here in this particular location. Nabiin sensed that it had become incredibly dangerous by now, that the likelihood had become high that the American devils and their many spies would stumble upon some hint of the grand plan now underway. However slight such a thing might be.

No, they, in their narrow-minded political way of thinking, still viewed any violence in this part of the world as a war over oil. As tribal strife. As a wrist-wrestle among the Russians, Chinese, and Americans for influence among the rich oil sheiks and religious dictators. They would never suspect the holy war, the prophesied “Great Battle,” was about to be unleashed. Though they and their bombs and missiles could certainly not stop such a conflagration, it would still be better if they had no idea until the battle had begun in earnest.

Fewer believers would die. And the solitary anointed leader could sooner ascend to unstoppable power over two billion followers now bound to do his bidding.

Nabiin well knew that the Americans would be impossibly tenacious if they sensed even an inkling of what had already been set into motion. But still, despite all the risk, this final meeting in the mountain cave was necessary. His faithful acolytes needed to receive their orders—and their inspiration—directly from him. In person. It was the only way to make sure that they truly understood the historic proportions of their assigned tasks. The ramifications of even the slightest failure. After all, they were to be the instigators of the Al-Malhama Al-Kubra, the Great Battle.

To Nabiin’s immediate left, Sheik al-Wasragi, the Somali terrorist leader, sat dressed in his routine white thobe and red checked smeagh. Today, though, he also wore a heavy camouflage jacket thrown over his shoulders as protection from the high-mountain chill. These Pakistani mountains and high altitudes were so very far and different from al-Wasragi’s African desert haunts.

Next to Sheik al-Wasragi, Phillip Tong, the Sudanese banker, shivered and rubbed his red nose. He was equally uncomfortable in the chill air.

General Farad Babak, the Iranian head of the Yemeni Houthi rebels, completed the small circle. The short, stout general seemed more at ease than his African compatriots. Nabiin’s faithful lieutenants, Farian Gurmani and Beren Sheedi, stood silently behind their master, one on either shoulder, poised and ready to instantly meet any need, follow any order that the master might wish.

“My faithful friends,” Nabiin said, starting the meeting. “It is time to discuss how we move toward the Al-Malhama Al-Kubra. It is our fate and destiny to move the faithful toward the final days. General Babak, to you and your followers falls the honor of forcing our Chinese neighbors to protect their preposterous ‘One Belt, One Road’ overreach. My informants tell me that a re-supply ship is making its way to their Djibouti base with more troops and weapons. I am confident that they actually plan to extend their domination over East Africa from just the economic realm into something approaching colonialism. You will find a way to stop the ship. The more violent and bloody, the better, so as to effectively discourage such encroachment in the future.”

General Babak nodded but offered no comment.

Nabiin turned to his left. “Sheik al-Wasragi, I require that your best and most brave fighters take action on several fronts. The Americans must be pushed out of Djibouti, of course, and the success must be swift and complete.