The Hundred Gram Mission (27 page)

"This is also the first time one of our sites has been attacked," said Kareem. "They want to gather materials: drives, computers, documents. They want to learn more about us. A drone strike will do this."

"So what do we do?" Wahlid.

"This changes nothing," Kareem shook his head. "We stay with the plan."

13 km SW of Zinzibar

"I've never fought an American drone."

Twenty pickup trucks came bumping down the N4 Highway. Decades of war and nation building gave it schizophrenic surfacing. Mounted on the truck beds were heavy weapons; jammers; and serious men. 

Seated on the floor, men checked their rifles and adjusted homemade flak vests. One was reading from a pocket copy of the Quran. Another checked their GLONASS
[lvi]
coordinates.

"I have," said a craggy-face man next to the boy.

"How did you kill it?" asked Boy.

"We shot it a lot," said Craggy Face. Some of the other men laughed. "Really , that's all there is to it. I remember when the Americans used Humvees. You blew them up with roadside bombs. Then they armored the Humvees, so then we used bigger bombs. Then they switched to MRAPs. You just shoot rockets at the engine block - make it catch fire. Then they dismount. The Americans like their machines: disable them, and they have to fight you, man against man. Drones are just machines."

"With these drones," Boy adjusted his Apple Wearable, "they've stopped sending men."

"They're harder to kill than men," the old man patted his RPG launcher. "But easier to kill than an MRAP. The Americans think they can solve anything with technology. Every time they make a new machine, we find a new way to kill it. That's why we'll win. Because there is no machine that can defeat a man!"

The air went painfully white, something exploded ahead of them. Boy covered his eyes - the men around him were screaming. He heard trucks slam stop, or hit each other. Their own truck pulled to the side of the highway.

Boy opened his eyes.

There was a burning crater where the lead truck had been. Men were howling and falling on to the road, clutching their eyes.

"Can you see?" a hand viced around his arm. It was the old jihadi. He was staring behind Boy's head. "
Can you see?
"

"Yes! What the hell happened?"

"Cover your eyes, and run!"

"What?"

"Just do it!"

The rearmost truck exploded, white light for shrapnel. Boy took two eyefuls and was permanently blinded. Eighteen more explosions pulped the column into boiled tar, steel droplets, and blinding, visible light.

"The laser satellites destroyed the Al-Sharia column. We just lost three hundred brothers."

There were gasps around the loading area. One of the engineers dropped a gene sequencer, it smashed into plastic and glass.

"Keep working," Kareem snapped a clip into his pistol. "Everyone stay at your tasks. We will get through this."

Mustapha bent at the knees, like they showed him, and put his arms around a crate.

"No," Kareem tapped him on his shoulder. You come with me. All the farmers, come around the back with me.

A pair of guards stepped up to Mustapha, faces like masks. They stared at him till he stood and followed after their leader. Mustapha looked about: guards were herding all the other farmers. Before he passed around the corner, he saw them wave back the unmarried ones.

"You are all very fortunate," said Kareem, walkie-talkie and pistol drawn. "You will become martyrs today."

Beside Kareem was a table with thick vests in neat rows. Armed guards flanked him, and formed behind the group.

"You said you would protect us!" Arguer stepped forward, hands into fists. The guards tensed. "You said you would never hurt us or our families!"

"Azzam, I am not trying to hurt you. I am giving you a chance to help your family. If you don't take it, they will die here, and so will you. So will everyone."

"You cannot do this to us!"

"These are radio controlled," Kareem ignored Arguer. "All you have to do is get close to the drone. You won't have to worry about when to activate it. We will do that."

"You coward!"

Kareem shot him through the throat. The farmers gasped, two got down to try and help him. Arguer was still, blood pooled under him.

"Azzam's wife and daughter," Kareem said into the walkie-talkie. He stood there, staring at the farmers. Then they heard women screaming from around the front. There were two shots, and then more screaming.

"There isn't a lot of time," Kareem motioned to the vests.  "Put these on, or you know what will happen."

"Alright, start the truck."

Yosri and his mother Aida sat in the back of the crammed, Toyota Hilux
[lvii]
, wedged between two pharmaceutical printers. In his lap was a dark, solar panel he had been given. Sticky taped wires ran from it to a small fridge.  Standing over them was a guard, his rifle shadowed the panel. He was staring into the morning, where Yosri had seen the meteors.

Soundless, the electric vehicle started moving.

"No, wait," said the man on the ground, he wore a keffiyeh and a flak jacket.

"We need to go before they get here," the driver leaned out.

"They're already here," said the truck guard, pointing. "Do you see it?"

The horizon fired a dot, it expanded into a black, pilotless, helicopter. Those with scopes saw rocket pods under its wings and a machine gun. Men with RPGs and shoulder-launched anti-air missiles rushed up and took aim.

"Nobody shoot!" said Keffiyeh. "AA-teams, put your weapons down and get behind cover."

At 200 meters, the helicopter turned and started to orbit the base.

"What is that?" asked an RPGer on the roof.

"QAH -97
[lviii]
, attack helicopter," said Keffiyeh. "It's doing recon."

"So why don't we kill it?" asked an AA crewman from behind a crate.

"You mean try to kill it? You fire, and they know you're there, and what weapon your using. Then the
real
attack begins. Nobody shoots at it till I say so - even if it starts shooting at us."

The helicopter's orbit crossed the road, the guard's head followed it.

"It's seen us," said the driver.

"Alright, go twenty meters, and stop. Turn on your radio. You," he pointed to Aida. "You want your son to live?"

She nodded.

"Then stand up."

Aida got to her feet. Her hand went to Yosri's head.

"Don't sit down again, till the guard tells you. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"If you do, you know what will happen."

"Yes."

"What will happen Mama?" asked Yosri, loudly.

"Be quiet and behave," she steadied herself against a box.

The truck began to move.

It went ten meters and then the helicopter changed course.

"It's coming at us," said the driver.

"Just a few more meters, do it," said the radio.

The helicopter stopped over the road, and faced the truck head on.  Aida looked over her shoulder as the guard stepped behind her. She looked back, and noticed the red laser dot on her chest.

She closed her eyes.

"What's it doing?" asked the radio.

The driver didn't reply.

After a few moments, Aida opened her eyes. The helicopter was still there, judging her.

"Fuck this," she gave it the finger.

"Stop! What are you doing?" said the guard.

"Fuck you!" Aida glared at him. "If I die today, it won't be as a coward!"

"Get her under control," said the driver.

"Don't touch me!" she held up her finger. "I'll grab my son and jump out of this truck."

"I'll shoot you," said the guard.

"And then it will shoot
you
," she smiled. 

"What's going on over there?" said the radio.

"Fuck this!" offered Yosri from the floor. "Fuck you!"

The helicopter turned and resumed its earlier path.

"Go!" said the radio, "Don't stop till Sana'a!"

The vehicle began moving, picking up speed.  Aida sank to the truck floor and muttered a prayer.

"You're not supposed to sit till I say," said the guard.

"Shut up," she put her arm around Yosri, "and give us some water."

Yosri giggled. "Mama said bad words! Lots of bad words!"

"Be quiet and behave."

"Alright, get the next truck moving!"

Another truck pushed forward, crammed with loaf-sized, Japanese, super computers and a kid with a cleft palate. The helicopter moved back to challenge it, did the standoff, and lost again.

"Alright, third truck!"

"Wait," a man using binoculars, on the roof.

"What do you see?" asked Keffiyeh.

"Two more aircraft. They look - "

His head exploded, corpse flopping backwards. Gore pattered down like the start of a rainstorm.

Someone screamed, everyone swore. The AA teams grabbed their launchers, kneeling behind sand bags, micro-radars pulsing. A gunner on a technical swung his weapon about, and fired at the growing dots. Two more heavy machine guns joined it.

"Hold your fire!" Faisal pulled the keffiyeh down around his neck. "You fucking idiots!"

"They're shooting at us!" whined the gunner.

"They're trying to provoke us, to see what we have! I need a drone jammer, now!"

A zipping sound - another man was exploded on the roof, an arm landed in front of Faisal.

"They're picking us off!"

"We have to do something!"

"They killed Kerrim,
you bastard!
"

"Faisal," Kareem crackled on the radio, "Get the trucks out."

"Third truck, go!" Faisal waved the vehicle on. "Go on Khatim. Go on,
go!
"

The vehicle pulled into the dirt road. Three laser sights pinned the dazed grandmother through her headscarf. The truck kept moving; the red dots finally grew bored and vanished.

A man stood on the roof holding what looked like a 1980s TV aerial, fitted to a gun stock. He tracked one of the helicopter dots with it.

"Is it working?" asked the crouching man beside him.

"It's working!" said the jammer. "It's - "

The anti-material round punched him in half, and exploded through the roof. Men screamed, some starting jumping off the roof.

"Kareem, we can't take much more of this!"

"I'll deal with it. You just keep those trucks moving."

Across the little fields of Khat and Sorghum, were old oil barrels wrapped in solar panel, cling film. Their lids whirred and slid off, and Ali Baba.com-sourced quadcopters rose out. They flocked into a circle, welded together by beams of infra-red.

Four floors down, the screen flashed "READY."

"Three targets. Do you see them?" Kareem asked.

"YES." the screen replied.

"Destroy them. You may use all units."

"UNDERSTOOD."

The drones charged a helicopter.

Its anti-projectile laser lanced one, two, three of them. The fourth got within ten meters and exploded. The shockwave shoved the helicopter like a sumo wrestler, ball-bearings sparking off sloped armor.  Then the fifth drone detonated, right under the fuel tank. Men saw the fireball and cheered. The sixth and seventh drone brought it down.

It took twelve drones to bring down the second helicopter. The third retreated. The defenders' jeering dancing could be seen all the way from space (and was). 

"How many trucks so far?"

"Nine," Faisal told his radio. "I can't see the helicopter anymore."

"It's four kilometers out on radar, and still going. Get all the vehicles out; they can stagger themselves on the road, once they're clear of here."

"Understood. What about us?"

"We're coming up now, so save the last truck for us. Get everyone on the trucks, and out of here."

The last four trucks of critical supplies, pulled on to the dirt road. Behind them, men were swarming onto technicals, cheering and shooting into the air.

"There's nothing else?" said the driver of the lead truck.

"Nothing," said Faisal on the radio. "Praise God, we survived a drone strike!"

"They weren't so tough!" the driver laughed. "Next time they should send - "

The bullet shattered the safety glass, and pinned him through the forehead. The truck drifted to the side, slowly stopping. The gunmen in the back jumped out, one squeezing a child to his chest. The gunman jerked and crashed, as if punched in the head. The child sat up on the corpse, bloodied and screaming.