He pulled the HumVee to a stop outside the headquarters building and opened Jersey's door. He was shocked at the paleness of her face when she opened her eyes and asked, "Where are we?"

"We're home, baby," he said gently, and reached in and picked her up in his arms.

She shook her head. "Put me down, Coop. I can walk," she protested weakly.

"Bulls.h.i.t," he said quickly, and proceeded to carry her up the four flights of stairs to the room where the medic was attending to wounded troops.

He laid her gently down on a cot next to Buddy, who was now awake. Buddy grimaced as he rolled on his side to look at Jersey.

"Hey, Jerse," he said. "You catch one too?"

"Yes, sir, I guess so," Jersey answered as the medic bent over her and began to remove the dressing Coop had put there.

274.

As the medic unb.u.t.toned her shirt, he glanced up at Coop. "You'd better leave, Coop," he said.

Coop grinned, staring into Jersey's eyes. "Don't worry, Doc," he said.

"I've seen 'em before."

Jersey's eyes narrowed and she scowled. "Coop, so help me, if you breathe a word . . ."

He held up his hands, palms out. "Don't worry, dar-lin'," he drawled with a smirk on his face, "my lips are sealed."

Jersey laid her head back and moaned, "Oh, G.o.d, why did you cause me to have to put up with this?"

Major Bean stuck his head in the door. "Coop, if you've got a minute, could you give me an idea of what we're facing?"

Coop bent down and patted Jersey on her good shoulder, the one with only a bullet crease in it. "I'll see you later, Jerse. Duty calls." As he walked toward the door, he added over his shoulder, "Now you mind the doc, you hear?"

"Get out!" Jersey commanded, though her eyes held the hint of a smile.

As the attack on the terrorist troops was pushed forward by Ben Raines and his Scouts, the mobile units sent out by Major Jackson Bean joined them in the fight, moving in and out of the fracas in their jeeps and HumVees and the other a.s.sorted vehicles they'd used to hara.s.s the enemy troops on the road into the city.

In the headquarters building, while Coop and Major Bean and a few otherScouts were firing from windows and the roof down on the advancing terrorists, Jersey had to be physically restrained from joining in the battle.

275.

"h.e.l.l," she groused as the medic ordered her back to her cot, "I can still fire with my left hand!"

"You pull those st.i.tches out, soldier," the medic said in frustration, "and I'll put them back in without anesthetic!"

Haji Kuchkool, seeing his troops in near rout after the arrival of Ben Raines and the reinforcements, yelled in rage at his troops to regroup and fight back, but it was no use.

Demoralized by the constant attacks of the Apache helicopters and the ferocity of Raines's troops, the terrorists began to run out into the desert and deeper into the city, trying to escape being slaughtered by the oncoming SUSA men and women.

Kuchkool's driver, seeing the desertions of his fellow troops, looked across the seat at Kuchkool. "Perhaps we should leave and try and make our way back to our ships in port, sir," he said.

Kuchkool, knowing that to escape would also mean certain death at the hands of El Farrar for his failure, shook his head. "No, we fight to the death here!"

Farid Zamet, realizing the fight was already lost, disagreed, though he didn't dare voice this opinion to Kuchkool.

As Kuchkool ordered his driver to drive toward the thick of the battle, Zamet, in the backseat, quietly opened the door and dove out of the HumVee as it careened down the street toward a group of soldiers in hand-to-hand combat.

Seconds after he hit the street and rolled into the gutter, he heard a loud roaring overhead and saw one of the Apache helicopters rushing downward at the HumVee.

276.

He ducked and covered his head just as the rattling chain gun shredded the vehicle and its two occupants into confetti-sized bits and pieces.

Zamet got to his feet and dusted himself off, his hands shaking at the closeness of the call. He was still dressed in civilian clothes instead of the terrorist uniform favored by the troops, and hoped he would be able to melt into the Muslim community of Tehran and disappear from sight. With luck, someday he could make his way back home and take up life with his family again. His days of revolution were over.

By mid-afternoon, the battle was all but over. Of the ten thousand terrorist troops that had come to Iran, less than a few hundred were left alive, and most of them were on the run in the desert trying to escape.

While his squad leaders rooted out isolated groups of terrorists that were still fighting, Ben entered the headquarters building occupied by Major Jackson Bean.Harley Reno, Anna, Hammer Hammerick, and Beth and Corrie joined him.

He'd run into them in the streets outside the building, and asked them to accompany him to see Major Bean.

Bean met him at the top of the stairs. "h.e.l.lo, Ben. Glad to see you,"

Bean said, shaking Ben's hand.

Ben laughed. "Glad to see you too, Jackson."

Bean waved a hand at a nearby doorway. "Buddy's in here."

Ben nodded and walked into the room. Buddy was lying on a cot next to Jersey, who was being fussed over by Coop. He was trying to get her to drink some juice.

" Jerse, the doc says you lost a lot of blood. He wants you to drink this."

277.

277.

"I told you once, Coop, I'm not thirsty," Jersey replied, clamping her lips tight.

"You want me to make you drink it?" Coop asked, scowling.

"You and what army?" Jersey asked, her voice low and dangerous. "Even with one arm I can still kick your b.u.t.t, Cooper!"

Ben laughed out loud. "Jesus, I'm glad to see things haven't changed."

Buddy looked over at him and smiled. "They've been going at it like this for hours. Thank G.o.d you're here to make them stop."

"Sir," Coop said in exasperation, "would you order Jersey to drink this?

The doc says she needs it."

Ben held out his hands. "Uh-uh, Coop. I'm just an adviser here. Buddy is still in charge."

Buddy shook his head. "No, Ben. The medic says I'm gonna need some major surgery when we get back home. It looks like you've got your old job back."

Ben smiled, and even though he tried to hide it, it was clear he'd missed leading his team into combat.

"So, General," Major Bean said from behind Ben. "What do we do now?"

Ben turned, his face grim. "Now we go after the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who started all this . . . Abdullah El Farrar!"

278 IT-NINE.

Lieutenant Sohail Shaeen couldn't believe the infidel commander, and it was a woman no less, trusted him with a jeep. As he drove toward the oil fields in the distance, he reflected that it wasn't all that much of an opportunity after all. If he tried to escape by driving out into the desert, all she had to do was to send one of those devilish helicopters after him.On the way to meet his comrades and try to talk them into surrendering, he thought about the infidels and their strange ways. Imagine, letting a woman fight in the army, and even more strange, putting one in a command position where men would have to take orders from her! And to make matters worse, she hadn't even had her head or face covered.

He shook his head. That would never work with Muslim troops. In the Muslim world, women were kept in the place G.o.d intended: in the home, cooking and cleaning and obeying their man's orders. In fact, in most of the countries Shaeen had been in, women weren't even allowed education.

That would only put unrealistic ideas in their heads. He'd heard that in the infidels' world, women considered themselves equal to men-an absurd notion on the face of it.

Still, he had to admit, the woman's army had defeated 279.

279.

his, and rather handily too. He made a face and spat out the side of the jeep. No, it couldn't be. She must have had a man telling her what to do the entire time. That was the only thing that made any sense to him.

Now, putting these crazy ideas out of his head, he had to decide what to do when he came to the oil fields. Should he instruct the men to fight to the death and to destroy as many of the oil rigs as they could before they were killed? That was surely what the Desert Fox, Abdullah El Farrar, would want.

On the other hand, Shaeen thought, it was one thing to be a martyr when you had at least some small hope of changing things for the betterment of the Muslim world. It was quite another to die when the war was already lost and to accomplish nothing by dying.

Surely Allah did not want his servants to die needlessly. Perhaps he would rather have his faithful men surrender and live to fight the infidels another day. After all, the Westerners were known for their softness when it came to prisoners. They didn't have the sense to destroy their enemies, but would in most cases let them live to come back and fight against them in years to come.

Shaeen smiled to himself. That was it! He would convince his soldiers to give themselves up, telling them that that way they could survive and reform another army in the future to kill the devil infidels.

As the jeep approached the first of the oil derricks, some overanxious soldier began to shoot at Shaeen, as if he were an enemy soldier.

Two slugs shattered the windshield of the jeep, causing Shaeen to swerve to the side and hurriedly jump out onto the sand so the soldiers could see his uniform.

280.

When there were no further shots, Shaeen stood up and waved his arms in the air, shouting in Arabic that he was a friend.

After a few moments, a man in a corporal's uniform stepped out frombehind the oil derrick and waved Shaeen forward.

Shaeen approached him and tried to remember the man's name, but it wouldn't come to him.

When the man saluted, Shaeen returned the salute and said, "I am Lieutenant Sohail Shaeen."

The man gave a slight bow of his head. "I am Corporal Hekmatullah, sir."

"Are you in charge of the forces guarding the oil rigs, Hekmatullah?"

Shaeen asked, glancing around, thinking there should be someone here of higher rank.

"Yes, sir, I guess so," Hekmatullah answered, looking a bit uncomfortable. "There was a lieutenant here last night, but he was supervising the placing of the mines on the oil rigs and there was an accident. One of the mines went off prematurely," Hekmatullah finished, glancing off to the north.

Shaeen followed his gaze and saw the still-smoking ruin of a distant oil rig. Its derrick was collapsed and the girders were bent and twisted as if some giant had stepped on the steel and crushed it underfoot.

"I see," Shaeen said.

"Do you have news of the fight in the city?" Hekmatullah asked. "How goes it?"

Shaeen hung his head. "I am sorry to say we have lost the battle, Corporal. Haji Kuchkool fought a glorious fight, but we were severely outnumbered," Shaeen lied, thinking the men would feel better if they thought that was the case, rather than know the truth, which was that the Muslim soldiers had been outfought.

281.

281.

"Then, we must martyr ourselves and blow up the oil rigs," Hekmatullah said vigorously. "That was Commander Kuchkool's final order to us when he sent us here to mine the rigs."

"No, that is no longer the case," Shaeen said. "I spoke with Commander Kuchkool just before he was killed in the battle."

"Commander Kuchkool is dead?" Hekmatullah asked, his face a mask of disbelief that such a thing was possible.

"Yes, I am afraid so," Shaeen said. "However, just before he was killed, he told me that I had to tell the men to save themselves and to not blow up the oil field."

"But. . . why?" Hekmatullah asked.

"He told me that Allah needed all of his faithful soldiers to stay alive so they could come back and fight another day against the infidel pigs,"

Shaeen said, casting his eyes heavenward as if Allah had told Kuchkool this himself."But if we surrender, the infidel soldiers will kill us," Hekmatullah said.

"No, that is not true," Shaeen said. "The infidels are much too soft to do that. They will hold us here for a while, and then we will be returned home to our families, where El Farrar will find us when he is again ready to do battle with the foreign devils."

Hekmatullah looked doubtful. "Are you sure that is what Commander Kuchkool ordered?"

Shaeen raised his hand toward the sky. "As Allah is my witness," he said, mentally hoping Allah would forgive him this small lie since it was in his service he said it.

"Do you want us to remove the mines from the wells?" Hekmatullah asked.

Shaeen thought for a moment, and then he shook his head. "No, we are not here to do the infidels' work for 282.

them. We will surrender, but if they want the mines removed, they can do it themselves."

It was less than an hour and a half after Jackie Malone had sent Lieutenant Sohail Shaeen into the desert that her sentries reported he was on the way back. His jeep was leading a long column of men who were on foot as they headed toward Riyadh.

Jackie glanced out of her headquarters window. She leaned out and hollered down at one of her squad leaders. "Make sure they're unarmed and then put them somewhere where we can keep an eye on them."

"Yes, ma'am," the soldier said.

Jackie turned back to Bartholomew Wiley-Smeyth, with whom she'd been talking. "Bart, what do you think we ought to do with the prisoners?"