The Last Crusade (31 page)

Saladin smiles watching the video feed from his drones, three of which have been shot down. He calls the Mahdi for the official release of the nuclear weapons.

“Your Holiness, they are preparing for the attack. I believe, the time is NOW.”

“I’ve seen the video, I agree your plan was perfect, you have my permission to attack, use our remaining weapons to our best advantage. Destroy the Crusaders, leave them defenseless.”

“Yes, your Holiness. I will issue the order. Allah Akbar.”

“Allah Akbar.”

Saladin launches surface to surface short range missiles with both nuclear and conventional warheads. In order to maintain the sham, Patriot missiles launch to intercept the incoming missiles, five of which are destroyed in midair. Three have nuclear warheads which are triggered by the interception. Three bright flashes light up the Sinai because the interception is so close to the camp, large sections of the camp are under the three exploding 15KT bombs. The explosions briefly blind the antimissile missile's radar allowing seven other missiles to explode over the camp. Ten mushroom clouds rise over the Sinai destroying the phony military base.

The Caliphate broadcasts the images of the swirling mushroom clouds of destruction. They show a before picture of tens of thousands of tanks and an after showing the boiling clouds and destruction of the camp. Millions of Muslims rush into the streets yelling and cheering ALLAH AKBAR! They jump for joy and fire AKs into the air celebrating the destruction of the Crusader’s army.

In Philadelphia President Bentley looks at the television feed from the Caliphate,
animals, they kill our children and sing, they think they’ve killed millions of our soldiers and they cheer and sing praises to their God. They are warped. Something happened to them, they don’t think like the rest of us do. I know what I have to do, I pray God forgives me for what I’m about to do.
He’s interrupted by his Chief of Staff,  

“Sir, General Green says he’s ready as is everyone else.”

“Bring me the nuclear release case.”

“Yes, sir.”

A US Marine Major carries the black case to the President, he unlocks and opens it, turning it to face the President he says,

“Mr. President, give them hell. They killed my son, send them all to hell.”

“Major, that’s what I’m about to do. Is it ready?”

“Yes, sir. Enter your code, place your hand on the scanner for verification you’re you and press the enter button.”

“Please stay with me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Two minutes later the computer in the case flashes a message, “ORDER ACCEPTED.”

“Sir, there’s nothing to do now but sit back, the order’s been issued. I expect the initial launches are taking place as we’re speaking. Are you going to address the country?”

“I’m going to wait until the weapons strike the Caliphate, I’m afraid if I make an announcement now, I’d be giving the Caliphate advance notice and I’d cause panic among our people. I think they used up their WMDs on our camp at the border, my experts told me they had less than fifteen weapons left. They have no long-range missiles left.”

“Mr. President, they may not be able to attack us, but Egypt, Israel and Russian are within their range.”

“All are on full alert; I hope we knock down anything they put in the air.”

The President’s Chief of Staff says,

“Mr. President, General Green is on the red line.”

“General, any problems?”

“Mr. President the Israeli weapons landed first, followed by ours, then the Russian SSBN birds launched from the Gulf and the Red Sea. They were able to launch four birds, three were intercepted, one exploded with a 10kt warhead over Jerusalem, the west bank of the city.”

“They struck their own people?”

“We think the missile’s range was too short, or their aim was off.”

“Are our weapons working?”

“Sir, I have a map of the Caliphate I can have it put on your large monitor, it will show where our weapons strike. Would you like me to have it displayed on your monitor?”

“Yes, thank you General.” Said a very tired sounding President.

A large map of the Caliphate is displayed on the 80-inch monitor, it shows red circles where weapons have exploded, each new explosion shows as a new red circle. The map of the Caliphate quickly looks like it has measles. Red circles and blotches which are the areas of destruction begin to cover the map. Soon, black circles begin appearing.

“What are the black circles?”

“Ground penetrating weapons. Most are 25mt Russian weapons, real monsters. They are designed to dig out their bunkers and buried weapons labs and warehouses. Being ground penetrators, they will generate a lot of fallout. You’ll see that by the black coloring spreading in the winds, anything, anyone under the black cloud will die from radiation poisoning.”

The people in the Oval Office sit watching the monitor in shock. The President’s Chief of Staff taps President Bentley on the shoulder, he bends down to whisper to him,

“Sir, I believe it’s time for you to address the nation/world. I’m sure the media has picked up on the nuclear explosions, it could cause mass panicking. You need to make sure they understand what’s happening and there will be a minimum impact on the country. We can’t afford additional disruptions and riots.”

“Alright, are the cameras set up in the Situation Room?”

“Yes, sir.”

The two men walk down the hall, a make-up artist quickly tries to pat the President’s forehead with powder.

“No, I’ll be alright, let the people see I'm sweating.”

“Yes, sir.”

President Bentley stands behind the Presidential podium, the Situation Room is filled with press cameras and reporters; as soon as he walks into the room, they begin yelling questions at him.

“Do you have a comment about the school attacks?”

“Did we attack the Caliphate with nuclear weapons?”

“What are you going to do about the rioting?”

“Did you just kill millions of innocents?”

The last question snapped the President to reality, he stared at the reporter who asked him of he’d just killed millions of innocents.

“Innocents? Who said they were innocent? Didn’t you see their reaction to the death of our children? They planned and carried out attacks which killed over nineteen hundred of our children, their worried parents, and first responders. They twice tried to pit Russia and us against each other. They tried to get us to kill each other so they could sweep in to finish the job. Did you see their response when our military bases were struck with nuclear weapons? How dare you call them innocents? Where were their voices calling for calm? Where were their voices calling on the Mahdi to come to the peace table? Where were the so-called moderate Muslims? How could anyone call them innocent?”

“Sir, most of the Muslims want to live in peace as we do, you just passed Hitler as the world’s largest mass murderer.”

“After killing millions of us and millions more around the world, killing our children and timing bombs to kill our first responders, how can anyone stand there and say that Muslims want to live in peace? The only peace they want is the peace of the dead. They want to kill everyone who doesn’t follow their rules or agree with them. What is wrong with you people? Do you live in a different world than the rest of us?”

Another reporter boos him, the President nods to the secret service agent who grabs the reporter, removing him from the room.

“Remove him from the White House, revoke his press pass and kick him out.”

The other reporters are shocked at the President’s actions, one yells, “what about freedom of the press?”

“What about our dead, what about the death they caused, what about them singing and dancing in the streets over the bodies of our dead children. Why are you supporting the murderers? Why do you always support the Muslims over the rest of us? Why do you always support them? Are you really secret Muslims? Why do you always take their side? Why don’t you tell the truth about the crisis? Why did most of you cheer when our military lost the last Crusade? Why did you try to shame the parents of the lost military members? Since I’m not running for office again, I can get away with saying what so many people want to say, Are you Americans?”

The reporters are shocked into silence; no one has ever spoken to them like this before. They are the fifth estate, the chosen ones, the ones who make or break political careers. A low sound begins to break to the surface in the Situation Room, a growl of anger from the press.

“Let me be very clear, I don’t care what you think of me. I have no further offices to run for. You can’t hurt me; you can’t print or broadcast anything about me that I care about. I know some of you are thinking you can raise enough noise to get me impeached, all I have to say to you is, try it. Let’s see who the people support. I’m the President, I’m going to address the American people, let’s see who they believe, you or me. I think it’s time you returned to reporting the news and not trying to make the news. Report both sides of a story, not just the side that matches your agenda. The people no longer trust you. I don’t trust you. Your careers are the ones which are at risk! Remember that. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to address the American people, if you try to interrupt me, you’ll be removed from the White House and your press credentials will be revoked.”

The media stands in front of the president in shock. No one has ever spoken to them like this before. Most swear to themselves they’ll find a way to get even with the upstart President.

President Bentley ignores the media, he turns his attention to the lead cameraman who nods to the President, he counts down with his fingers, five, four, three, two, one, the red recording light turns on.

“Good evening my fellow Americans. I would like to address the many rumors that are spreading like wildfire. Rumors such as a nuclear war, new terror attacks, I’ve even heard that some believe aliens have landed. As sure as I’m standing here, I can assure you there’s no reason to worry. In fact, there’s a very good reason to celebrate. The rumor of many nuclear weapons exploding is TRUE.” President Bentley pauses to allow his comments to sink in. “The nuclear weapons were OURS! We did the attacking. We attacked the Caliphate for their attacks against our children, for their attempts to start another war between Russia and us. We attacked the Caliphate in retaliation for their nuclear attack against our Crusader base in the Sinai. They struck our base with at least ten nuclear weapons, here are images of their attack on our base.” He omitted the fact that less than three hundred people were on the base and half of those were in deep underground bunkers when the attack took place.

“Our stated strategy has always been to respond in kind if WMD are used against us. Our allies and I made a decision that enough was enough. The Caliphate wasn’t going to allow us to live in peace. No matter what terms we offered them, their response was peace was only possible if we accepted Allah as Lord. I don’t know about you, but I take our Constitution very seriously, I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Our way of life isn’t possible under Caliphate rule. Our two cultures can not coexist. One can study history to see that Islam isn’t a peaceful religion. They have been trying to conquer the world for over fifteen hundred years, their idea of peace is when they rule the world. Every offer of peace and terms we made to the Caliphate was turned down with the demand we accept Allah.

Our allies, which are NATO, Russia, Egypt, Israel, the Latin American countries and the Pope all agreed that we wouldn’t surrender our freedom. You know we attempted to fight a conventional war against the Caliphate before, we lost that battle because the Caliphate armed their citizens, citizens we bypassed as noncombatants. We paid dearly for underestimating them. We withdrew our forces and offered terms which were refused. How did the Caliphate respond? They tried to set Russia and us against each other by killing Russian President Putin and blaming us. Thankfully we had an AWACS plane in the area that recorded the incident and shared the radar recordings with the Russians. When we and Russia didn’t take the bait and attack each other, the Caliphate attacked our schools. They attacked our innocent children, not just here but in all our allies’ countries! That’s when we decided we had to settle the question of the Caliphate once and for all. We were already building our forces in the Sinai for a conventional attack when the Caliphate struck them with nuclear weapons. I’m sorry to say there was a very heavy loss of life and equipment.