So the radio call went back to Ali when the column came upon the overturned truck. Tziz was screaming in the microphone at him as usual, telling him to hurry up. But the top officer had no idea what it was like for Ali to get his men and equipment from the end of the convoy all the way up to the front. Engineers should always be placed at the front of the column, but Tziz considered them too low-class for such an exalted position.
When Ali finally reached the scene of the truck's accident, he was stumped. The truck was twisted in such a way that it could not be straightened out either mechanically or manually. Its gas tank was leaking fuel everywhere, and there was a great danger of fire. So the first thing Ali did was have his men cover the fuel on the roadway with sand. But how to move the huge eighteen-wheel beast? He didn't have a clue.
After studying the situation with Major Tziz and his bad breath breathing down his neck, Ali came to only one conclusion. They couldn't push the truck without significant damage to their own vehicles—even one of the tanks would have a hard time with it, even if they could get one down off its flatbed. They couldn't blow the truck up, as that might damage the road to the extent that the column could not pass at all. They couldn't radio back for a heavy towing vehicle from Abu Ahl, as that would take too long.
In Ali's opinion, then there was only one thing to do. Call ahead to Dawrah and ask that a heavy-lift helicopter be sent to the site. If the chopper's winch could be attached to the truck, it might be able to move it enough to allow the column to pass.
With much huffing and spitting, Major Tziz finally agreed to the plan.
But this was where it really got strange.
No sooner had Major Tziz made the request to Dawrah base, when a helicopter appeared in the sky. It was a heavy-lifter—a Russian-built Hook. Just the type that the column needed to move the disabled truck.
But something was wrong here. There was no way that the message for help could have been acted on so quickly. Secondly, the helicopter looked to be on fire and about to crash.
When the huge chopper flew right over them and continued north, toward the sheer mountain, Major Tziz cried out: "Why does he not land here, with us?"
"Perhaps he is afraid he'll injure us if he crashes," Ali replied.
A few moments later, the helicopter went right into the mountain.
Or so it appeared. Because when the smoke and fire cleared, it seemed as if the chopper might have actually crash-landed. It had not been destroyed—not completely anyway. But it had picked a very inopportune spot to come down on.
That was when Tziz began whacking Ali on the back of his head.
"Don't just stand there!" Tziz was screaming at him. "Go rescue those brave men!"
*****
So now Ali was at the head of a small convoy of trucks filled with mechanics, racing towards the mountain, wondering what the hell he was going to do once he got there. The mountain's face was absolutely sheer, and climbing up to the cliff would be nearly impossible without extensive climbing gear such as ropes and cinches—and maybe not even then.
But Ali was smart enough to know that he would have to give it a try.
So when he and his six trucks arrived at the base of the mountain, he had his men line up. He selected the two smallest, lightest men and told them to start climbing.
Then he radioed back to Major Tziz and told him he had the situation well in hand.
The two climbers got higher than Ali ever thought they would. It was at least eight hundred feet up to the cliff where the helicopter lay burning, and his men reached a point about two hundred feet high, simply by using every rock and handhold possible to them. Ali was heartened for a moment—maybe there actually was a way to scale the rock face. He briefly theorized how big this would make him look in Major's Tziz's eyes.
But then his climbers found their climbing was being hampered by something falling on them from above. It was hot and sticky and in a very short time, they discovered it was aviation fuel, trickling down on them from the crash site.
This caused the climbers to quickly retreat back down the way they came. And Ali was back to where he started.
His next idea came when he spotted a substantial outcrop of rock located about one third of the way up the sheer face, and not in the current stream of hot liquid flowing down the mountainside. If he could get a chain up to the outcrop and secure it, his men could climb up and then possibly feel their way up from there.
He sent the two men climbing again, this time with orders just to reach the small ledge with the chain. This they did with remarkable ease. They attached the chain to huge boulder, and now a dozen of Ali's soldiers were scaling the chain. Not wanting to be left behind, Ali was the last one to make the ascent.
Now they were one third of the way up.
But the rocks here were very straight and they were not so good for climbing. However, there was another jagged outcrop about 150 feet above them. Could they get the chain to there?
He selected the strongest man among the twelve, and sure enough, with some lasso motion, and in three tries, this man got the chain to hook onto this new ledge. Now two of his men scampered up, and upon reaching this new high spot, helped the others, including Ali, up to the higher elevation.
Now they were more than two thirds of the way to their goal. Feeling very confident, Ali radioed back to Major Tziz and declared he and his men would gain the cliff within minutes. Tziz's reply was little more than a huff, but this did not dispel Ali's enthusiasm. If he reached the top in time and was able to rescue and give aid to the survivors of the crash, he would have to be recognized by Tziz's superiors, maybe even his unit commander, or the defense minister. Or maybe even Saddam himself.
So now Ali started barking orders, screaming at his men to find another place where they could place the climbing chain. But before these words were fully out of his mouth, the mountain started shaking. . . .
Ali was convinced that he'd had the bad fortune to climb a mountain during an earthquake—that was how violently the rocks beneath his feet were shaking. A storm of dust came down upon them, with smoke and rocks too.
Then he and his men saw an incredible sight—and a unexplainable one as well.
With much noise and exhaust, a helicopter lifted off from the cliff, now just two hundred feet away from Ali's position!
What was this? The chopper they'd seen crash into the cliff certainly was in no shape to take off again. Yet here it was, its engines roaring, its rotors spinning. Passing slowly right above their heads.
This seemed impossible in itself. But then, the mountain began shaking again. The vibrations increased and incredibly,
another
chopper appeared above them. It was as large as the one that had crashed, and was making twice as much noise. No sooner was this aircraft moving away when a
third
aircraft appeared. And then a
fourth
!
Ali was astonished. So were his men. What was going on here? Where were these choppers coming from? It made no sense.
They watched in stunned silence as the four choppers formed up and moved slowly towards the south, passing right over the stalled column again.
Ali's radio began belching, but he was not going to answer it. He didn't have to. He knew it was Tziz. And he was not going to talk to the major until he reached the top of the cliff—and that was what he began urging his men to do.
Somehow, his men got the chain to hook on a rock up on the cliff itself, and soon they were climbing up to the ledge. Ali was the third man to arrive on the cliff, and what he saw here made no more sense than seeing the four mysterious helicopters take off.
Up here the place was littered with shell casings, hoses, buckets, wires, empty chow packs, and puddles of gasoline everywhere. Sitting close to the edge was a helicopter—the one they'd seen crash. It was surrounded by pools of gasoline.
But there was something else. There was a small fire that had been left behind, and it was now following a trail of gasoline that reached about fifty feet into the largest pool of gas surrounding the badly damaged helicopter. Ali had just enough time to yell to his men to get down when the flame reached this pool of gas. A huge explosion shook the cliff once again. A ball of yellow and orange flame mushroomed straight up—taking much of the helicopter and the litter with it.
When it was over and the fire had died down, Ali finally had the courage to call back to Major Tziz.
"What is happening up there!" the major was screaming, so loud Ali imagined he could hear him all the way from the highway without the benefit of the radio.
"I don't not know, sir," Ali replied weakly. "We came up to aid one helicopter and four more appeared and took off. It does not make sense. Now everything is aflame. And if that is not the truth, sir, you may cut out my eyes and tongue."
"That might be just what we do," Tziz replied.
Zim had just completed his daily sponge bath when Major Qank came in on his knees.
The intelligence officer took a look at the mammoth Zim sitting atop the mountain of pillows, seven Japanese girls drying his enormous partially clad body, and nearly burst out laughing. This would have been a fatal mistake, of course—but it was hard not to laugh at the huge sultan-wannabe. He looked like a character from a bad science-fiction movie. Qank bit his tongue and waited until the girls had wrapped Zim into his expansive bathrobe. It was a job equivalent to setting up a circus tent.
"This is good news, I hope," Zim finally barked down at Qank.
The intelligence man took this as an opportunity to get off his knees and tiptoe over to the mound of pillows.
"It is, sir," Qank said, holding up the three-ring binder in his hand. "These are the final numbers for our . . . well, our pending sale."
"Of my beautiful gunship?" Zim asked him, sounding almost sincere in his sadness.
"Yes, sir," Qank replied. "And I must say the purchase price is substantial, considering everything involved. Your guest in Room 6 has really done well by us."
Zim nodded to his squad of sponge girls, and the nubile teens quickly exited the chamber. Another wave from Zim and the two bodyguards left the room as well. Now it was just he and Qank—and the two dozen hidden microphones that recorded everything said inside the vast room.
"Read me the details," Zim told Qank with a yawn. "I'm much too tired to do it myself."
Qank excitedly opened the binder. "With pleasure, sir . . ."
He quickly turned through the pages of handwritten notes—the man in Room 6 wrote down everything—and reached the last page.
"You will not be surprised that the gunship purchase is going to the highest bidder," Qank began. "The offer begins with 20 F-14A Tomcat repair kits, complete with new carbon-hardened turbine blades and all-weather NACT weapons-radar retrofits."
"Good," Zim pronounced. "Continue . . ."
"Offer also includes delivery, over the next eighteen months, of twenty dozen TOW missiles, complete with new refit batteries."
Qank paused and looked up at Zim, who looked uncharacteristically interested and engaged.
"Go on," Zim said. "Get to the important part."
Qank took in a deep breath.
"The remainder of the purchase price will be filled out in cash," he said.
Zim's left eyebrow arched a bit.
"How much?"
Qank wet his lips and began reading: "Total cash payment for the gunship will be one hundred million, American, at the dollar-trading price on the Zurich Exchange on a day of your choosing within the next sixty days."
Zim's eyebrow went up another half inch—a sign he was almost overjoyed.
"I hate to part with it," he finally said. "But we cannot turn down such an offer. The man in Room 6 has indeed served us well."
"He has, sir," Qank parroted.
Zim thought for a few moments.
"What about our camouflage?" he asked Qank.
The intelligence man was slightly confused. "Excuse me, sir."
"You know, for the media—in case word of this ever gets out."
Qank thought a moment—then it hit him.
"You mean the 'cover story,' sir?"
Zim just nodded. Qank had come dangerously close to correcting him.
Qank began flipping through the previous handwritten pages.
"Our friend says: 'If this transaction ever makes it into the public eye, our story will be that it was a secret third-party purchase of ten MiG-29 Fulcrums from an unnamed former Soviet republic.' "
Zim gave a little shrug. "Plausible, I guess," he said. "Now, what about the gunship's crew—the surviving ones anyway?"
Qank turned to another page. "They will be given a cash payment and then dispersed to the four winds."
Zim showed agreement with this also. "And these odd special operations people?" he asked. "The ones in the funny helicopters. The ones so easily fooled. What will happen to them?"
Qank hesitated a moment. It was true. The chopper-borne special operations troops had fallen for the fake-airplane ruse perfectly and completely, filling in several holes the man in Room 6 said had to be filled before the gunship could be sold off.
And although the present location of the American chopper unit was not known at the moment, finding them would not be much of a problem—again, according to the man in Room 6. Indeed, since they had learned the chopper unit was in-country, they had followed the instructions of Zim's special hotel guest to the letter, and so far his plans and information had been flawless. Why would they doubt him now?
So Qank said: "The man in Room 6 has come up with a rather creative solution as to what to do with these helicopter people. I can tell you his idea now, sir, or wait until it has been completed."
"I'll wait," Zim replied. "It will make more pleasurable listening that way."
Now came several long minutes of complete silence. All Qank could hear was Zim's labored breathing.
Finally the big man came back to life.
"All right, accept the offer," he declared. "I will miss my lovely gunship. But it has made us substantial sums in the past two years, and has served us well. Now, even in getting rid of it, it is giving us a big return. I think it's a good deal."
"I agree, sir," Qank toadied. "Shall I let the man in Room 6 go ahead with the final arrangements then?"
Zim simply nodded. "Yes, and be sure to thank him profusely for me. Send some nonalcoholic champagne to his room. I know he just loves that stuff."
Qank did a deep bow. Time to get out.
"As you wish, sir," he said, backing up.
He was almost out the door when Zim cleared his throat—a signal that Qank should freeze.
"One last thing," Zim said. "How is that cash payment going to be made?"
Qank began sifting madly through the handwritten notes. He just hoped he could find the answer before Zim lost his notoriously short temper.
He finally found the right page; it was covered with scribbling, obscene doodles, and many, many numbers. But at the bottom was the information Zim wanted to know.
"The payment will be secured through a series of wire transactions," he began reading. "Through the usual avenues in the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, and finally on to Zurich."
To Qank's amazement, Zim actually laughed. A full, burst-out guffaw from the huge man was rather frightening.
"Do you realize how I was paid the first time by these people who are now buying the gunship?" he asked Qank.
The intel man numbly shook his head. Was Zim actually going to reminisce with him?
"No, sir," Qank whispered.
"It was back in the late seventies," Zim began, looking at the ceiling. "A minor transaction. An exchange of a SCUD missile for F-14 parts, coincidentally enough, with some money on the side. And those fools actually sent me a check! And a birthday cake! Can you believe it?"
Qank started laughing now for real—not so much that some government would make payment to Zim for a back-alley arms deal by check, but that they would send him a birthday cake along with it.
"I'm sure that won't happen this time," Qank told him. "After all, they are just buying back what was once theirs in the first place. I have to believe they will want to cover their tracks better than that."
Zim laughed again.
"Never underestimate the U.S. Government, Major," he said. "You never know what they'll do next."