"Looks like a mud turtle after a deuce-and-a-half squashed it into Tennessee roadkill," Hornworks concluded.
"Examine the cracks. Please," pleaded the prince general.
Frowning, Hornworks returned to the bars. He leaned down to see better in the weak light.
"Explain it to me," he muttered.
The prince general used a shaking-with-excitement beringed finger to trace a line across the length of the shell.
"Behold!" he said proudly. "This is the border with our country and unfortunate Kuran. And this long brown shape must be the infamous Maddas Line."
"Naw, it's a squiggle of color put there by nature."
"Allah put it there, and Allah does not roll dice."
"Baloney."
"Is that pork?" Bazzaz asked, wrinkling his hooked nose.
"Search me. What are these cracks?" "These are lines of attack. See, they are coming from the north. They obviously represent tank and soldier queues."
"Mechanized and infantry columns," said Hornworks thoughtfully. They did look pretty realistic at that.
"And these," Bazzaz said excitedly. "See those lines that drive up to strike the Iraiti lines? These are counterattacks."
Hornworks blinked. He leaned closer. They did kinda have that look. In fact, the strategy was pretty damn strack.
General Hornworks caught himself. "Wait a chicken-scratching minute," he exploded, straightening. "These are just cracks."
"If this is so, why did your Paragon-"
"Pentagon."
"-send this to you by messenger?"
That was a point General Winfield Scott Hornworks had no clear answer to.
"What're you suggesting?" he asked at last.
"If these lines mean that Irait will attack here, here, and here," Bazzaz said, indicating the border line, "we must arrange our peoples."
"Forces."
"To intercept their charges here, here, and there."
General Hornworks looked askance. "I'll buy that on one condition," he cautioned.
"Speak this thing," Bazzaz said sincerely.
"That nobody, but nobody, hears about our little tete-a-tete. "
"You mean strategy session."
"No, I mean tete-a-dang-tete," said General Hornworks, signaling the turnkey. "I could be cashiered for what I'm about to do."
As they walked from the dungeon, the all-important tortoiseshell passing back and forth between them, Prince General Suleyman Bazzaz made a mournful comment.
"It is unfortunate the Iraitis did not wait another three years before attacking."
"Yeah?" his American counterpart growled. "Why's that?"
"Because by then I would have had my own personal aircraft carrier and your services would not even have been necessary."
Chapter 7
They were lost in Abominadad. It was easy to become lost in Abominadad. Every building boasted a huge portait of Maddas Hinsein, wearing a bewildering assortment of uniforms. And even though he seemed to have more changes of clothes than Imelda Marcos had shoes, it was still not as many uniforms as Abominadad had buildings.
"I think the American embassy is around this next corner," Don Cooder ventured.
"Yeah? What makes you say that?" asked Reverend Juniper Jackman.
"Last time I was here, the U.S. embassy was around the corner from a picture of President Hinsein dressed as a biblical warrior riding a chariot."
Reverend Jackman looked up. Sure enough, there was Maddas Hinsein, flogging a team of horses like an outof-shape extra from Ben Hur.
Cooder led the way around the corner. The bags under his eyes seemed to melt in disappointment as they encountered a sun-bleached mosque.
"If that's our embassy," Reverend Jackman said sourly, "we're definitely in the wrong pew."
"I think we're lost," muttered Don Cooder.
"I think you're right."
They paused in the shadow of the mosque. The clatter of Hind gunships came from somewhere over the rooftops. It did not quite drown out the deafening clash and clangor of those giant scimitars, still going at one another with a ferocity equal to an ancient Armageddon.
"Tell me," Cooder said, his eyes haunted. "Do those sound like our helicopters or theirs?"
"You tell me, you're the ace newshound."
"I just read copy."
They heard a racket of rockets and machine guns.
Then, one by one, the fireballs lifted over the rooftops.
"We're being nuked!" Don Cooder howled.