[The Fear Saga 01] - Fear the Sky (2014) (59 page)

On his way out of the cave, Shahim had carefully extricated the rifles from each of the two dead guards along with several grenades from each of their belts and then he had stepped back out into the night.

His black shape now moved stealthily up and around the other general’s cave to a spot on the shelf of rock just above its entrance. Once there, he quietly unpinned one of the grenades he had pilfered from the dead guards, angled his arm back behind him and pitched it with a powerful throw in a high arc to land well outside the camp’s perimeter. A moment later the explosion shook the night, awakening a hornet’s nest.

Just hoving into view in the sky above, one of the satellites noticed the disturbance. The AI still believed Shahim to be sleeping peacefully in his cave many miles away over the border in Pakistan. The sudden explosion at the encampment brought the AI’s full attention and Shahim registered as it informed him of the situation, unaware of his complicity in it. It began scanning the area closely, broadcasting a live signal of the unfolding events into his head. It also told him it did not know the source of the commotion. Good, thought Shahim, let us hope it stays that way.

On the ground, the camp sprang to life, warriors running from their caves, and lookouts searching the night sky for the attackers they assumed were upon them. Shahim silently unpinned another grenade as the men started to run about, hoarse whispers racing throughout the night. A moment later the night was rocked once more by a fresh explosion twenty degrees around the perimeter from the first. The night-sensitive eyes of the fighters that happened to be looking in that direction were stunned, leaving them blinded and disoriented as an even more profound darkness settled around them now. Several started firing, confusion and fear fueling their madness. Finally, Shahim sent a third grenade into the top half of the valley, near the entrance to the first general’s cave, careful so as to avoid having it land too close to the men running out from it.

Amidst the shouts, explosions, and random gunfire, he now sensed that there were only three people still remaining inside the cave under his feet. He had no doubt that the second general was among them, probably cowering with some of his personal guard. He took his fourth and final grenade and uncorked it, bending and tossing it into the chamber.

He was already stepping away when the explosion, contained and amplified by the cave’s rock walls, obliterated the three men inside. The blind fear and anger of the fighters reached critical mass. Different groups of the same army were shooting at each other in the confusion and Shahim compounded this by shouting into the madness, “The generals are dead. Run! Run for your lives! The Pakistanis have killed our beloved generals!”

After a few more well-placed shouts spelling out the propaganda he wished to spread, Shahim began to walk about among the flood of men now fleeing the hail of bullets coursing through the base. Several men came clambering past him through the blackness, stumbling on rocks as they fled. They were completely unaware of Shahim’s presence in the night as they streamed away in fear. He looked at them running out of the night, analyzing their faces until he saw one that he recognized from his time in Pakistan. He grabbed the man and threw him to the floor, pinning the man down and covering his mouth to silence him.

Shahim whispered into the frantic man’s ear, “Silence, soldier, I am one of you. They are near.” The man under Shahim froze, “I heard some of them shouting to each other and I think they are Pakistani soldiers. Here, I killed one of them and managed to take his jacket. We must take it. We must take it back to the fighters in the Hindu Kush and tell them what has happened here.” Shahim grabbed the man and lifted him bodily to his feet, still holding him tight to stop him from running off or making a noise. But the man was paralyzed with fear and was not going to argue with this single voice of reason in the enraged night.

Shahim led him away, “Come, I will lead you to one of our jeeps. You will escape this attack and live to fight another day.”

Walking through the crags in the valley, Shahim led the man, navigating the darkness with ease. He guided the soldier to where two jeeps lay well covered with camouflage in the next valley, helping the man push one of the off-road vehicles onto the dirt track that led to the encampment. He signaled for the man to get in as the car started rolling down the track and leapt into the driver’s seat himself. He let the car roll at first, not starting the engine but relying on the steep slope of the road to get them started. The last thing he wanted was to draw fire from the melee tearing through the encampment and get his patsy killed.

“What are you doing?” whispered the other man, staring into the darkness ahead of them, “How can you see the road?”

But Shahim ignored him and went on. Shahim could see that the road leveled out ahead so he put the car into second gear and popped the clutch, allowing the car’s own momentum to jumpstart the engine. As soon as the pistons were firing, Shahim gunned the throttle and the car surged forward. He drove off at inhuman speed through the mountains, his charge holding on for dear life.

Several hours later the now bright moon was starting to give way to the first blues of dawn. They had made good headway and had already crossed the unmarked border back into Pakistan. Reports from the AI told Shahim that throughout the mountain range insurgent forces were awakening to radio reports from the destroyed encampment and stragglers from the mad firefight were stumbling out across the bleak mountain range. Shahim assumed that many of the surviving fighters there now knew that most of their casualties had been caused by ‘friendly’ fire, but he was happy to hear that this was not what was being disseminated.

There was news of an attack, and there was news of the deaths of the two generals who had been encamped with the decimated force, but few would be willing to admit that there had been no sign of an actual attacking force. Few would be willing to admit they had been part of some misconceived gunfight that had killed two prominent generals. Instead, stories of the nonexistent Pakistani force became distorted and overwhelming, as Shahim had hoped they would.

The reports the AI was relaying to Shahim even included details of the flight of two men in a jeep, the AI unaware that Shahim was one of them. From these images, Shahim confirmed that he was, as he had thought, approaching the camp that he called home, the camp the AI believed he was still in. Without warning, Shahim pulled the car to a halt.

The other man was delirious after the brutal punishment of the drive, but he came to as the car stopped and turned to Shahim. Shahim spoke as he climbed from the car, “You must go on from here on your own, my friend. My home is near here, but you must take news of this attack back to the main camps deeper in the Kush. For my part, I am going to rejoin the Great Shahim Al Khazar who camps near here. He will know what to do about this attack. When you get back, listen for word of his response and make sure your own brethren join the cause.”

The other man stared at Shahim and nodded. This man by his side knew the Great Shahim Al Khazar! No wonder he had known what to do when the attack came.

Bolstered by the mention of the now legendary Shahim, the weary soldier smiled and climbed over into the driver’s seat, saying, “Praise God, my brother. I will listen for news from Shahim Al Khazar. Thank you for saving me, you are indeed a messenger from almighty God. I will make sure everyone knows who perpetrated this great injustice this night.” said the grateful soldier, still clutching the Pakistani army jacket Shahim had given him early in the night.

Shahim looked seriously at the man, bowed slightly, and then turned and ran off into the last remnants of the night. He did not look back at the man, the image from the AI told him that the soldier was getting ready to drive off as Shahim climbed up and over the high ridge that lay between him and his own encampment. He considered the seed he had planted. Naturally he would get his own group to mobilize in response to the attack, but this additional source of verification that it was the Pakistanis that had perpetrated the attack would help fuel the fire he hoped to start.

He did not go to his own cave. He needed to bamboozle the satellite still watching his movements. He ran into a larger cave and into the waking group there as they heard about the attack over their radio. He called on them to gather in the valley below, even as he exchanged his shawl with one of them. None of them argued for a moment with the fearsome warrior, and he joined them as they then all flooded out of the cave to go and gather the rest of the camp’s forces.

The satellite noted them all leave the cave from above, still unaware that Shahim was among them, and now loosing the trail of the man that had come to the camp as they all went this way and that. With the satellite now watching one of the wrong men, the real Shahim ducked into his own cave and changed once more before making his own way down into the valley to incite the gathering horde.

* * *

By the evening, Shahim had agitated and enraged a string of encampments, summoning them to his banner. The deaths of the generals had decapitated a huge part of the region’s militia, and Shahim had stepped into the vacuum. And so, not eighteen hours after he had flicked the first proverbial domino, he came to be sitting in the back of one of fifteen trucks bearing an angry company of warriors down from the mountains.

The reports from the AI were now starting to show signs of concern. It could see the growing convoy descending on the Peshawar Army Base, and its requests that Shahim intercept the insurgents had gone unanswered.

Too late to turn back now, thought Shahim. The dominoes would fall as they may. They had so little time and the plans of John Hunt and the team of humans depended on him initiating the chain reaction here in Pakistan.

But he also needed to continue to dissemble until the last, for the AI and the rest of the Council must not know what he was doing until it was too late for them to stop him. He smiled at his fellow warriors in the back of the truck as it rumbled toward the unsuspecting Pakistani army base, and then stood and clambered toward the clattering old vehicle’s back.

Lifting the tarpaulin flap that hung over the back of the truck, he leaned out and looked skyward. Then, using his left hand to shield his eye from drivers of the trucks behind, Shahim unsheathed his laser and locked on to the satellite ranging unseen, far, far above them. The tight beam connected with the orbiting platform and he opened a direct channel to the AI. Providing a carefully edited version of his activities over the last twenty-four hours, he informed the AI and thus the Council that he was travelling with the warriors to make sure that they did not go too far. He posited, quite truthfully, that it would be very damaging to his credibility within the insurgent force for him to suggest that they not retaliate against the Pakistani army, and by instead assuming a leadership role in said attack he would be in a position to stop the soldiers before they became too emboldened, while also reinforcing his own reputation.

This was, after all, a natural consequence of what the Council had planned for him, he assured the AI. He would allow the rebels to break into the army base, even helping them to penetrate the base’s defenses, but he would stop them from getting hold of any of the serious weaponry. It would be just enough to give the insurgents the confidence that they would need to do it for real when it better suited the
Council’s
purposes.

Message sent, he pulled the awning back down and walked back up to the front of the truck’s flatbed.

The AI’s continued tracking of the convoy told him that there were two checkpoints between them and their destination. Time to run interference for his small force, thought Shahim. He had gathered over 450 men, but there were over five thousand stationed at the base fifteen miles down the road. He could even the odds for them, but he could not afford to have his force waste its momentum on small firefights at pointless checkpoints.

“Tell the driver to pull over!” he bellowed over the noise of the grumbling diesel. The message was passed and the truck duly pulled to the side, its fourteen fellow convoy-mates forming up in a long idling line behind it amidst the dust and diesel fumes.

Shahim jumped down from his truck, noting who followed him from amongst the fighters in his lead vehicle. Good, these brave souls would be his vanguard. Turning, he saw two junior leaders running up from trucks back down the trail. In the confusion after the devastating attack in Afghanistan only thirty-six hours ago, he had made sure his was the strongest voice. He was their proxy leader now. And he was shepherding them toward the fight of their lives.

The first of his new generals approached, asking, “What is it, Al Khazar? Why have we stopped?”

Shahim looked at him and then placed his hand on the man’s shoulder, a sign of great friendship, “There is a roadblock ahead, designed to give advanced warning to the base of any approaching force. I intend to take three men and destroy that roadblock. Hassim Bin Maktala, I name you general in my absence.”

The man froze a moment, Shahim had never taken another man into his confidence in the storied year since he had first joined the army. Now he, Hassim Bin Maktala, would have his own destiny tied to this star’s ascension. He bowed his head, but Shahim was not finished.

“Hassim, you will bring the rest of the force to the main gate and meet me there. They have their forces spread wide around the base’s perimeter to ward off small attacks. Leaving their pathetic roadblocks to give them enough warning to gather their troops at any given point to resist a more concerted attack.” Shahim smiled, “I will see to it that they do not get that warning.”

Another leader, Dakar Wakin, came running up, but Shahim and Hassim stayed focused on each other as Shahim carried on, “Though we have only four hundred and fifty to their five thousand, we will crush the unsuspecting forty-five men that make up the standing guard at their main gate. By the time the rest of the base is alerted, we will have spread out into three groups.