Chapter 30

The traditional Arabic definition of dawn was that moment when the sky was bright enough to tell a black thread from a white one. Sayeed had his militia ready to take their positions as soon as they could make their way without lights. He wasn't convinced that his opponents would actually attack that early – a dawn attack would be to his advantage, not theirs, as they would be facing into the rising sun. It wouldn't hurt to be in position, though, just in case. But if his men were to be in place by dawn, they all had to be up much earlier, his officers had to be awake earlier still, and he did not expect to get any sleep at all.

“Captain Kharam?” He was fairly sure he wasn't tired enough to be hallucinating, though. He -knew- that voice, but if anyone else overheard him talking to it...

“You're alone for the moment. Don't joggle your coffee cup. It's hard enough to use it for this. Just wanted to give you a heads-up. My friend Shadow is inbound on the enemy positions. There should be quite a show in about a quarter hour.”

He peered into the cup. Sure enough, there was an image - of a wolf's head - grinning up at him from its depths. The helpful sorceress wasn't even a true human, it seemed. “How...?”

“Mirrors aren't the only way to do this. We don't have much time before your aide gets back. I was able to get authorization to use some fairly advanced weaponry – the Pentagon finally realized we should use it before it stops working if we have a worthy target. We'll see what happens, but you may be able to make a dawn attack yourself if they're disrupted enough. That's up to you, of course, but I thought I'd give you the warning.”

“.... Thank you...?”

“Thank -you-, Captain. Twenty second warning, the sergeant's on his way back. Good luck!” The image vanished.

He shook his head, and automatically picked up the cup to take a sip before realizing what he was doing and setting it back down with a shudder. <What have I gotten myself involved in??>

* * * *

Captain Sterling smiled to herself as she settled the F-15E Strike Eagle into its approach, ten thousand feet above the desert. <One last delivery for the denizens of beautiful Al-Suwar. Nice to know that Janet was right about them. They may not be the allies I'd choose, but they do seem to be at odds with the ISIL lunatics. And the enemy of my enemy... may not be my friend, but at least it's someone I can work with.> She'd found the vehicle park that the fanatics had set up, and the targeting laser was now locked onto the center of it. <One minute to release... and then I -really- put the fear of God into them.>

The four bombs she'd been tasked with delivering were Joint Standoff Weapons System devices, officially abbreviated as J-SOWS and unofficially referred to as Smart Pigs, a name that Sterling found ironically amusing under the present circumstances. She waited through the countdown timer and punched the release switch, letting them fall free to guide themselves, each toward a pre-determined offset to the laser-designated target point. As soon as they were on their way, she dove, reefing the Eagle into a wide turn as she shed altitude for speed.

The bombs dropped toward their targets, the single-minded computer on board each one adjusting the fins to ensure that it did not deviate from its planned trajectory for the first mile of its descent. And then they burst, revealing that the outer shell concealed a multitude of bomblets, each of which had an infrared sensor that locked onto the heat signature of an engine, a stove, or a campfire...

* * * *

Abdullah had followed his captain to the mosque, and then to the top of the western minaret, unsure why they were going there. He finally became puzzled enough to ask when Captain Sayeed raised a pair of binoculars and gazed out to the west, where the soldiers of ISIL waited for the next day's attack. “What are you looking for, sir?”

“I want to make sure that they are not trying to do something sneaky. They still seem to be there, though.”

“You have complained often enough that only the Americans can fight effectively at night. Did you actually expect ISIL to be able to do so?”

“Effective is a relative thing, Abdullah. And ISIL is no stranger to operating at night, even if not for the purposes of a pitched battle. The most dangerous thing in warfare is to assume you know what the enemy will do, for then even a poorly executed departure from your expectations may succeed against you.”

“I see... But they are not doing anything unusual?”

“Not that I can...” He suddenly swung the glasses toward the south. “What is -that-?”

Abdullah automatically looked in that direction as well. There was a glimmer in the distance, rapidly approaching and growing, the glimmer rapidly resolving into a swirling vortex of fire-lit dust racing across the desert, all in perfect silence. The eruption of the ISIL encampment in scores of explosions took them both by surprise.

* * * *

For the inhabitants of the camp, the surprise was much worse. The majority of them had been asleep, their officers and senior non-coms in the best tents with proper heating in the desert winter night. Sterling's stealth cloak kept them ignorant of even the bare existence of an airborne threat until it materialized. A few of the sentries had spotted the same glowing turbulence to the south that Sayeed and Abdullah had, but they were still trying to make sense of it when the camp erupted behind them.

Each Smart Pig carried twenty of the infrared seekers, and half of them had targeted the vehicles parked in their rudimentary laager. Some of the bomblets had chosen the same targets, but twenty-one supply trucks and fifteen technical pickups vanished in the space of two seconds. One of the trucks was carrying mortar ammunition, and the resulting explosion damaged another half-dozen vehicles. The remaining bomblets went after twenty heaters and seventeen campfires. ISIL's punishment brigade found itself decapitated in the space of that same two seconds, with only one junior officer and none of its clerics surviving the strike – and a quarter of its warriors were casualties as well. The rest, suddenly awakened to a night of explosions and fire, were still trying to come to grips with what had happened when the vortex of air and fire swept over the camp, accompanied by a crashing thump of sound that half-deafened the survivors. The whirlwind knocked down the tents that had survived the bombs, scattered campfires and men and debris, and then was gone, a low rumble all that remained as it swept to the north.

The planned dawn attack would not happen after all.

* * * *

Abdullah muttered prayers to Allah as the vortex swept over the ISIL field camp, still in silence. “The Americans did this? Called up a djinn to fight for them?”

“The Americans, yes. I doubt -” He was interrupted by a double bang, nearly as loud as the bomb explosions that had wrecked the camp. “Thought so. Not a djinn, Sergeant. Merely an airplane. They are -very- good at this sort of thing.”

“An airplane? But I saw no airplane! Just that fiery whirlwind!”

“Of course. The vortex caught your attention. The airplane was just in front of it, hidden by darkness and perhaps by whatever magic let them fly invisible cargo planes to us. But it was an aircraft.”

* * * *

Shadow swung wide to the west after releasing the Smart Pigs, racing the bombs to ground level as her airspeed climbed from a leisurely four hundred knots to just below the speed of sound while looping around to overfly the camp from the south. She leveled out at a mere five hundred feet above the ground and hit her afterburners as she came out of stealth. The Strike Eagle leaped ahead, smashing her back into her seat as her velocity climbed to nearly Mach Two. Her wingtip vortices created a huge whirling mass of dust behind her, now lit by the flames of the afterburners as she outraced the sound of her own passage across the desert floor toward the camp.

The bombs detonated ahead of her when she was twenty seconds and eight miles out, and her smile was all teeth as she gently pulled back on the stick, climbing slightly as she dragged a sonic boom over the already devastated camp and sped back toward the Turkish border. Ten miles north of al-Suwar, she cut off the afterburners and traded speed for altitude, settling back into her stealth field as the plane returned to its original ten thousand feet and four hundred knots.

Ten thousand miles away, the Director of the NSA smiled as she contemplated the mirror which displayed the results of the raid. <That worked out even better than I had hoped. Captain Sayeed is going to have a very pleasant surprise in the morning.>

* * * *

“Very interesting.” Heather leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes to give herself a break from reading the computer screen. “The spell blocks falsehoods, but can only generate the truth if it's in the system somewhere?”

“Pretty much. Otherwise it leaves things blank.” Stardancer had spent two days coaching the falcon in how to do the spell, and it looked like she had finally been successful. “It took a lot of work to develop, but it's been very useful.”

“It does seem to be rather obsessive about covering all the bases. Was this a government project? Or did you get it from one of the Immortals?”

“Neither, actually. It was a private project, done on our own time.”

The falcon raised a feathered eyebrow at that. “Our?”

Stardancer nodded. “Our. Mine and... others. We had good reason to do it. Not all of the Immortals are friendly.”

“Thor?”

“Oh, Thor's friendly enough, in his own way. Loki, not so much.”

“And neither of them strikes me as very computer literate... I am suddenly curious as to whether or not your previous statement was actually... coherent.”

“Every word was true.”

“Yes, but did the sentences have anything to do with each other?”

The red-haired witch gave the falcon a very thoughtful look. “That... goes into territory with serious implications for national security. Will you accept my word that the spell has never, to our knowledge, been used against the interests of the citizens of the United States?”

Agent Jackson grinned. “Certainly. If you'll email me that statement.”

Stardancer blinked, and then slowly smiled. “Oh, well played, Ms. Jackson. Well played. And acceptable. What's your email address...?”

* * * *

Sayeed watched from the minaret as his sentries reacted to the explosions and the sonic boom and his militiamen poured out of their homes and barracks to their positions in the wake of all the noise. He nodded in approval – had that been the beginning of an attack, they would have been in position and ready for it before their opponents arrived. As it was... he smiled to Abdullah. “Well, it would seem that our American friends have woken everyone up. Shall we go see about taking advantage of the opportunity they have given us?”

Abdullah nodded. “Will it not take some time to give everyone their new orders, Captain?”

“Normally, yes. I think we will borrow the loudspeakers here to speed up that process. I'm sure the Imam will understand when we explain it to him later.”

“You're not going to ask him first, are you, sir?”

“Wake him in the middle of the night? Besides, we must do this as quickly as possible. Military necessity means we must act now.”

* * * *

In the old days, the call to prayer had been done by leather-lunged chanters from the high towers of the minarets. In more modern times, the chanters used public-address systems instead – of course, the speakers were still in the minarets – but the mosque was not supposed to be used for secular purposes. This did not stop the likes of the Islamic State from declaring that anything they wanted to use them for was by definition part of the jihad and therefore not secular, and Sayeed had no compunctions about doing the same. He'd worked out his announcement on the way back down the spiral stairs, and begun planning his attack while the equipment warmed up. Abdullah nodded when the ready light came on, and he picked up the microphone. “Warriors of Al-Suwar! You heard the explosions, and some of you may have seen the attack on the encampment of our enemies! The blasphemers who dared to claim that Allah, the Merciful and Benevolent, wished for them to burn children to death have been dealt a mortal blow this night. Take your positions immediately! We will finish their destruction.”

Abdullah smiled. “Inspiring, my Captain.”

“Let us hope so. Gather my officers and the senior sergeants, I need to give them the battle plan. The sentries will no doubt be telling everyone else about the djinn who swept in from the desert to help us. It will be best to let them know what really happened as soon -” He paused as the door burst open to admit the mosque's senior muezzin.

“Captain! What do you think you are doing!?”

“I think I am organizing the defense of this town. And if you will excuse me, I have more work still to do.” He brushed past the man, who trotted along after him, still voicing objections.

“Did you have permission from the Imam to do this?”

“I'm sure he would have granted it had there been time to ask, Mehmet. For now, I must strike while they are disorganized. You can make yourself useful by finding the Imam and telling him that we are about to destroy the enemy brigade entirely.”

“But--!”

Sayeed turned to glare at the man, his eyes hard. “That was not a -request-, Mehmet. I do not have time for you right now.” He turned away and resumed his rapid walk to headquarters, leaving the shaken man behind.

His voice was almost a whimper as he spoke to the empty air. “But... I can't -find- him...”

* * * *

Ali reflected on his mixed fortunes. His life had been anything but quiet up to this point, but whenever he'd had bad luck before, it had always been followed by a stroke of good luck that more than made up for it. He'd had to run away from home, but arrived in al-Raqqa just at the right moment to be taken in as an apprentice by Ishmael. He'd lost that job when Ishmael died, which led him to join up with the Islamic Council forces voluntarily, just a few weeks before they had conscripted a bunch of unwilling young men, and so he was a trusted corporal rather than a distrusted private. He had been ordered to sentry duty before the battle against the apostates at Al-Suwar when the djinn had swept over the camp, and so had been out of bed – and out of danger – when the camp had been destroyed. He'd gone back to gather his squad together, to find that Faisal had taken his spot nearest the fire, and been the only fatality among them.

And there he had been when Sergeant Hashem appeared to gather his unit together and take their place to repel the expected follow-up attack by the apostates. The camp was still a confused pandemonium when the firing started, and to veteran ears it was spotty and uncoordinated. The soldiers of the Islamic State might still outnumber their opponents, but that didn't mean much if they couldn't coordinate, and no orders had arrived from their superiors. Still, they were at least dug in when the other side's soldiers arrived, and the apostates backed off after exchanging a few shots.

A voice came from out of the night after a few minutes. “You might as well surrender. We have you surrounded, and most of your brigade is already prisoners, casualties, or running.”

Hashem's response was predictable, Ali knew. The man was a fanatic, brutal to civilians, a bully to his subordinates, and only his illiteracy had kept him from becoming a cleric himself. “Never! We are true soldiers of Allah! We will fight to the last man, and be rewarded in Paradise!”

Yusuf grumbled quietly next to him. “That son of an ape probably believes it, too. I suspect he'll end up somewhere else.”

Ali nodded. “True. He'll be in the Pit by dawn. That is, if he doesn't manage to sneak off while -we're- all dying to the last man.” Today, he decided, he would have to take matters into his own hands to maintain his lucky streak. All along the perimeter of their position, rifles poked out into the night as they prepared to fend off the apostates. He brought his own up as well, but instead of watching for movement from the other side, he was estimating the distance to the sergeant.

He turned suddenly, aiming his weapon at the man, and had the satisfaction of seeing the look of astonished terror on Hashem's face the moment before he pulled the trigger. And then he called out into the night himself. “The sergeant's changed his mind. Is that offer still open?”

Yusuf was astonished himself. “You shot him! You shot the sergeant!”

“It was him, or the rest of us. Did you really want to die because he didn't want to give up?”

“But... he was a sergeant!”

“And a lousy one.” He raised his voice again. “Stand down! Safe your rifles!”

* * * *

The attack on the remnants of the ISIL camp was a textbook operation. With most of their leadership already dead, the survivors – those that had not already fled back up the road toward Al-Raqqa – had barely begun to try to reorganize when Sayeed's militia swept around them and called on them to surrender. Most of them did so – a few groups of diehards fought it out, but most of the soldiers were only too happy to give up, in a few cases going so far as to turn on their own superiors when they insisted on fighting to the death.

Abdullah brought one of the militiamen to him a half hour after the sun had risen. “Sir? Maktum has found something you need to know about immediately.”

Sayeed turned. “Oh?”

The young corporal nodded. “I found out why Ashwar was missing from the attack, sir. And... ” The man looked very uncomfortable, and took a deep breath before continuing. “...I think you need to see for yourself, sir. I'm hoping I'm wrong, and you know him better than I do.”

Sayeed had a sudden suspicion of just what Maktum was hinting at. “Lead the way.”

* * * *

There wasn't much left of the kerosene heater that had attracted the attention of one of the infrared seekers, but a bomblet designed to penetrate armor tended to produce less sheer destruction when it encountered a soft target instead – which meant the bodies were recognizable. Ashwar's was outside the remnants of the command tent; inside it three of the bodies were dressed in the garments of imams, and one of the three was Basir. Sayeed shook his head, sadly. “Isam warned me about this before he fled. He told me that Basir was more interested in his own power than in protecting our people. I'd hoped he was wrong.”

Muktam and Abdullah both nodded. Abdullah asked the next question. “What do we tell people, sir?”

He sighed. “I'd prefer to tell them that they died in the attack, but too many of our people know that Ashwar was missing from our ranks. For now, say nothing. I need to see if I can contact our American suppliers. Abdullah, find Lieutenant Ahram, and tell him he's in charge of the clean-up. Put the prisoners under guard... use the old stable at the west edge of town. Tell Ahram about this, but make sure he knows he's to keep it a secret.”

Abdullah nodded. “Yes, sir.”

* * * *

Sayeed sat in Isam's computer office, pondering the mirror he'd found there... two weeks ago, was it? A few days less than that, actually. Amazing that so much had changed in that time. So far, he had been a witness to sorcery, or had it inflicted on him. Dangerous, perhaps, but not sinful in and of itself. All of the legends spoke of such things – honest Muslims defeating sorcerers, outwitting djinni and demons and corrupt viziers. But to initiate contact, to activate the sorceress-wolf's spell himself? That was a step farther, and potentially corrupting. Isam had pointed out that there were several powers that the Americans referred to as magic, and he had claimed that this one was not the type that called on the denizens of the Pit... but he had turned out to be one of the animal-folk in the end, after all, and thus not a reliable source. <No. It may not be as fast, but I shall use the computers. That way – > He paused as he heard the wolf's voice again, and very slowly reached out to pick up the mirror.

“Still not sure if we are summoning evil powers to do this, Captain?”

He frowned. “And now you are reading my thoughts, Sorceress?”

She shook her head. “No. I do not have that power, and what powers I do have are nearly all too weak at this distance anyway. I can watch, and speak with you given some time to prepare... but I will admit that I -have- been watching since I talked to you last, and it was easy to guess what you were thinking about. You recognized Basir, of course.”

“Of course.” He met the wolf's gaze, his eyes steady in spite of his misgivings. “Was he truly going to betray us, or was he trying to negotiate with them?”

“He was offering you and your officers as scapegoats, in return for using your militia to reinforce their attempts to hold Abu Kemal and rejoining ISIL. He did not believe you could hold out, even with the supplies I sent you, and apparently did not wish to take the chance.”

“And what do you believe?”

“I believe that you will not only succeed, but do quite well. But then, I have an advantage in these things. I suspect that most of the people you captured last night will be willing to join your forces – and you already have foreign contacts who can supply you with military materiele. If you decide to cooperate with the Americans and their Iraqi allies, I foresee a good chance that you will have a bright future... Colonel Kharam.”

“What? What do you foresee, Prophetess?”

“I foresee many possibilities, Colonel, and which of them will happen is still uncertain. I see what -may- be, not what -will- be. But the chance that you will die in battle is now greatly reduced, the chance that ISIL will obtain nuclear warheads is practically zero, and if you choose to try, there is a significant chance that you will do for Syria what Ataturk did for Turkey. I will continue to support you if you decide to join our coalition, and once Abu Kemal is rescued from the control of ISIL, we will be able to ship supplies to you in much greater quantities. What you choose to do is up to you, but I wish you luck.”

“Thank you...”

“Until next time, then. You can always send an email if things aren't urgent.”

“I... yes. I believe I will. Until then, Prophetess.”