Beep. Beep. Beep.
The CURE director was looking at one of the greatest crises he had ever faced.
The range of the neutrino bomb's magnetizing wave was far greater than even the wildest guesses of the scientists at Los Alamos. Even though the small plutonium bomb had been set off in the north of the West Bank, it had caused a technological catastrophe nearly eight hundred miles away in some instances.
Due to the effects of the bomb, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Cyprus were totally cut off from the outside world. Nothing technological appeared to be working in any of the small nations nearest the blast site. Much of Iraq was similarly affected.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt as far as Aswan, Izmir, Turkey, on the Aegean, Syria-all had experienced the devastating sweep of the magnetic neutrino wave. The invisible wall of heavy atoms had even reached as far as Abadan, Iran-some 780 miles from the blast zone.
It was a cataclysm of incalculable proportions. The only information coming out of the region was that available via satellite.
Smith had shifted his focus almost immediately. At that point, the neutrino bomb was the old news. What was happening in the rest of the world as a result of the blast was what worried the CURE director now.
The situation was grim.
As he had secretly feared, other nations viewed the incident as an opportunity.
Smith was in the process of reading the latest report, this one from Cuba.
Castro had acted on the news out of the Mideast with surprising speed. The head of the former Soviet client state was in the process of rounding up weapons to ship to Arab sympathizers. A fleet of three banana boats had been assembled to sail the arms to the Mediterranean. For Castro, it was both a moneymaking scheme and an attempt by the forgotten dictator to gain a toehold in the region.
While Castro's eagerness to take advantage of the situation was almost laughable, the actions of other nations were far more serious.
Smith dumped the terse Cuban report back into the growing file of international opportunists. He pulled out an update of one of the more troubling cases.
Russia was involved in a massive collection of arms. Even as Smith read the report, he knew that crates of guns and ammunition were being airlifted to ships in the Black Sea.
The former superpower clearly saw the events in the Mideast as an opportunity to regain some of its past glory. Smith had even intercepted a private memo to the United Nations that had originated somewhere high up in the Russian Duma. Before the end of the day, there would be official condemnation from the Russian government for the actions of the United States in the West Bank. At the same time, the vessels would already be on their way to the Middle East.
America would be helpless to stop them.
The Sixth Fleet was in disarray. The aircraft carrier that had brought Remo into Lebanon was out of commission. At present, it was unknown whether it was damaged beyond repair. Smaller battleships in the vicinity had been similarly affected.
The Russians would have no interference entering the region. There would be no objection from the helpless U.S. ships nor from their impotent crews. They would be forced to watch in silence as the Russian flotilla sailed with its deadly cargo into the silent ports of terrorist nations.
And the United States would not be alone in silence. The navies of virtually every nation in the area had been crippled by the neutrino wave. At the moment, hundreds of vessels were floating helpless in the sea, targets to be boarded or blown out of the water by hostile forces. The crews did not even have arms to resist.
While the Russians presented the greatest threat, they were by no means alone. Libya and Iran were involved in an air war-limited at present to see who would have the pleasure of annexing the entire affected region.
The French saw an opportunity to retake some of their former possessions.
China was thrilled with the chance to spread its military influence into a new region and, if anyone attempted to stop them, perhaps employ some of the American technology they had obtained with Dr. Ree Hop Doe's aid.
Even the British-worried that others would get there first-were preparing arms shipments. A force was already on its way from those western areas of the Mediterranean not overcome by the neutrino blast. More were heading in from the Atlantic. America was also responding.
Worried that some hostile nation would be first to lay claim to the wide-open oil fields of several of the countries in the magnetized zone, task forces from the Second Fleet were already being pulled out of the western Atlantic and sent into the Mediterranean. Ships from the Pacific were being spread thin into both oceans to compensate. But the repositioning would take two days at best.
Fortunately, it seemed that, at least for now, everyone was experiencing the same disarray. Smith dreaded the moment that someone realized the real opportunity was not in the Mideast, but elsewhere in the world. Many nations were so eager to race for the pot of gold they saw in the Mediterranean they were leaving their own territorial waters nearly undefended. It was a blind feeding frenzy, the likes of which the modern world had never before seen.
Smith watched it all from his Folcroft office, helpless to do anything about it.
Hopefully, Remo was nowhere near the bomb when it went off. If he had survived the blast, he was somewhere in the area. Even though he had failed to stop the bomb, there was still the matter of retrieving the former President.
At this point, Smith would have liked more than anything to send CURE's enforcement arm after whoever had set off the neutrino bomb. It appeared to be Nossur Aruch and his PIO. Bryce Babcock was not alone in this; that much was certain. But there was no way to contact Remo in the field. If he found the President, Remo might just bring the former chief executive back without going after the PIO leader.
In the end, the villain in this might get away. Smith would have to satisfy himself with the fact that having the former commander in chief returned to American soil might be the only resolution to this dire situation.
And the tinderbox that was the Middle East would have to decide its own fate.
As he worried over this inescapable conclusion, Smith's computer emitted a sudden electronic beep. Typing rapidly, he brought up the latest information the CURE mainframes had culled for him.
Behind his rimless glasses, his gray eyes scanned the newest lines of text.
Spain was now in on the act. The European country was sending several naval vessels to the Mideast. At present, the data on the latest nation to join the growing tide of warships was incomplete. Intelligence sources had yet to determine how much weaponry the Spanish State was shipping to the region.
Smith dumped this latest report in with the others and backed out of the system. Before shutting off his computer, he disabled the automated beep that alerted him to incoming information concerning the region. It had been sounding almost nonstop since the detonation of the neutrino bomb.
Smith was only one man. There was nothing he could do from his Folcroft office that would remedy this crisis.
Even Remo and Chiun, with all their abilities, would be unable to stop the situation from playing out in whatever manner was destined.
One way or another, it was already over.
With this thought in mind, Smith got up from his computer and climbed wearily from behind his desk. With both hands, he rubbed his aching lower back.
The Folcroft cafeteria had received a shipment an hour before. He had heard the truck back in behind the building.
The cafeteria director was supposed to have gotten in some of the prune-whip yogurt he enjoyed. Smith left his office in search of his guilty little pleasure. The only one in his dour life.
Chapter 34
The army had grown from a handful of ragtag PIO soldiers to a mighty force of shouting, triumphant Palestinians. By the time they passed through the Ghor depression through which the Jordan River flowed to the north of the Dead Sea, they were five hundred strong.
Horses panted and frothed, propelled by frantic kicks from jubilant Arabs. They screamed the war whoops of their ancestors as they passed the border of Israel into Jordan. Two meaningless names. Both nations would soon be one. Along with many others.
At the front of the army, Bryce Babcock struggled to stay in his saddle. The horse between his legs pounded forward in spite of its rider's limited equestrian skills.
Beside the interior secretary, the former President of the United States rode into the encroaching night, his body moving in perfect rhythm with the animal beneath him.
And, on his magnificent sleek black steed at the head of the victorious pack-sweat glistening off its muscled rump, hoofs digging half moons in the clayish earth-Nossur Aruch was a conquering god. They had sensed his purpose, these sons of Palestine who followed him. Gone were the feelings of mistrust from the past few dark years. Gone, too, was the anger. The hatred. He was power; he was the future. And they were his.
To lead.
To govern over.
To send to their deaths if he so commanded. He was their caliph. Their sultan. Their king. Nossur Aruch was finally, at this late point in his life, the monarch he had always hoped to be.