The conqueror - excerpt

The Conqueror

A Story
By
Michael Costa,

© Copyright 2002 MC



The time was noon, the call to prayer had been announced on the minarets, and swarms of peasants took to their feet under the stiffening air and relentless burning sun. Carpets rolled on marble floors, kneeling subjects offered prayers to an unseen and almighty God, children remained in the shade of dum palm trees, wild chickens scattered about tall, spitting camels. Camels, working their jaws on outcroppings of wild grasses, stared blankly at the Café as men served sparkling water and coffee to foreigners. Just as the last Muslim rose from the carpets, a figure dressed in Burqa and veil appeared and entered the Café. A bulge appeared on the figure’s stomach, this bulge had wires leading to a belt and a watch. Without warning the figure unveiled her long blond hair and steel blue eyes, then said in a melancholy voice - “For my Husband!” - then she took out a small device of bronze alloy and pressed a button. She exploded into arms, legs, head, and intestines in a matter of seconds. Two Muslim men lost an eye and a leg each, then the whole crowd panicked. Such was the day’s events; events which continued weekly since the Great War of the Infidels commenced.
Along one inland valley road there led a passage to a hidden grotto in the hills in Iram, south of Arabia. It was here, clothed in peasant garb, fed by goat milk and sparse rations of rice, falafel, coffee, and honey that an educated man lived; some would say a ‘prophet’. He lived by the Quran, he preached economics and astronomy, and was once married to a Saudi princess; all this changed when the Infidel came and democratized everyone. His retreat into the mountains was an ascetic one. He came here seeking solace and peace from daily events. In his self-made, mud-brick fortress he had a bed, clothing chest, toilet room, portable burner with plastic dishware, and a place to hang his scimitar by the poster of a respected General. His political associations were stoned, burned, and imploded by the remnant of the community of Bedouin in neighboring lands. He maintained an apolitical stance while not in the village below. His horse died while fighting in the Intifada, shot by guerillas from Assyria. So he maintains a solar glider for shopping purposes, and a run-down Vespa for his nightly ventures.
“My name is Omar Abu Nasser bin Ahmed al-Cairo. You may call me Omar al-Cairo, ‘the victorious’. In time,” he said while speaking into a recorder, “I will be victorious over the Infidel and free my families from the fangs of the Cobra.”
Omar’s best friend, Azim Khadaffa, an arms smuggler with a black belt in Kendo and a blue belt in Hapkido, comes to visit the fortress every Wednesday at 2pm. This time, like any time, was a good time for business with the black market. Azim had an interest in grenade launchers and laser guided Glocks with night-vision periscopes. He smuggled diamonds from Israel inside pitted dates. He passed off Damascus steel daggers as antiques and gave them to merchants at 30 Dinars each.

Omar collected his friend’s stash under a hole in the stairs, which led to an underground tunnel (sewage tunnel) to a room hollowed from limestone and mud. This room was about twenty meters across, and half-full of wooden storage boxes, some with labels still in Russian and Chinese dialect. Most of these were empty, having sold a majority of the sabre-toothed dragon cannons to Lebanon and Syria for four hundred million American Dollars, tariff free. A box of pineapple grenades from Hawaii (WW2 vintage) still rested on top of a rifle with mounted crossbow. A small box to the left contain C-4 explosive tipped bolts for the crossbow. Deep in the walls of the room were etchings of ethnic slurs directed at the Infidels and their democracies and the way they ruin people’s lives with self-righteous dogma. Some etchings bore traces of blood, made from bayonets. A target face for the crossbow lay undisturbed in the corner, with a moldy photograph of the late president of the Infidel; ten points for the perimeter, fifty for an ear, and a hundred for the eyes. There were two holes where the eyes once read. A tall, single bladed katana was mounted on a chainmail vest with Kevlar helmet alongside the front wall.
Omar’s sister, the wily Gameela, was educated in Europe and Japan. She was trained in Japanese martial arts, Italian politics and cuisine, and German military history and some classical material. She had a job at the local Iram Consulate, until angry protestors under the influence of the Infidel firebombed the building. Now she works at a local investigative agency as a Keeper of the Peace. She regularly brings in fresh fruit, fish steaks, and pasteurized cow milk every week. Today was her day off, so she made her visit to her brother’s home atop the sheer cliffs in the hills of Iram.
“Sabah al-kher! Omar, where’s Azim?” she asked while peering inside.
“Shokran, okht. He should be up here any minute with those rifle bullets.”
“W’allah! And I thought I heard the last of those hoodlums! Look! Channel Six on CNN!” she stopped in horror.
It was a recount of the days ahead with today’s bombing at the Café. Some emphasis on dictatorships and neo-fascism, then a relapse of non-intellectual self-expression leading to violent protests in public, which entered a scene out of the Vietnam War. “Power plus control plus assimilation” = the motto of the emerging global superpower, and all its ego bashing coming from the Infidel.
“Some day I will fight this Infidel and beat him,” Omar said.
“Or her?”
“Uh, yeah-sure, her! I will level the field with my prayers.”
“Prayers are our last effort, save vengeance and barbarism,” Gameela said.
“I hope you both have enough bombs to level the heads of the Infidels! Here is my new weapon, so I will leave it here for you to drool on it.” It was Azim.

“Hmm…” Omar started.
“What IS that?”
“Hmm… Mmmm. Hmm… Looks like a cluster bomb.”
“Actually you’re are looking at the nosecone to the warhead cluster bomb which the Russian military just released a prototype for the black market. I have two of them here, with a complete warhead and materials to build a rocket at the jet propulsion lab in town, inside the old Palace building.”
“How do you know this thing works?” asked Gameela.
“One would press here-,”
“-Don’t get carried away, besides it’s unplugged,” Azim cautioned Omar.
“Big red button! How AMERICAN!!”
“Anything else?” Omar asked.
“Sure. I have managed to acquire a stockpile of arms, shields, and C-4 from an underground factory with a hospital above. When we tunnel to the hospital, you will be able to load up by my truck and store the loot in your cave here.”
“Azim? What of soldiers?”
“Oh, well since most groups fled to Lebanon we would have to ask ‘Allah for help, no?” Azim cooled his black beret back on his coarsely shaven head.
“I can recruit Muslims I suppose?”
“Nay! The Infidel uses religion to belittle us. Use the children that play those expensive video games and that listen to Britney Spears music, for their minds are so polluted already, as many innocent Muslims would not be brainless enough for this plan…” Azim replied.
“Excellent. Oh, I remembered your cellular phone number, Azim. It’s my mother’s anniversary plus my horse’s epitaph number.”

Evening came quietly. The gentle winds gave way to a small dust storm. Scorpions and Cobra snakes crept among rocks and holes in the dirt of the hills. A jackal hailed the full moon at 9pm. Omar’s Vespa sputtered by along the sandy road into town, and was parked near the hospital. Omar walked along the sewer gates, lifted one panel, and fell in, closing it. A small fall onto brown leaves, cobwebs, rocks, rats, and rat dung broke his fall. The tunnel headed in four directions. He followed one to the basement, which led to a door, barred with heavy crossbeams of iron. He banged on the door, and a burly man, in a rough tunic and denim pants answered, and recognized Omar. Omar was allowed inside the factory. Rows and rows of rifles, equipment, siege and artillery weapons, clothing and armor, and stockpiles of food, water, money, and medical equipment was organized in parts of the room. In the center was a bomb making plant, with casings, explosives, and timers laid out on tables, with test mannequins attached to simulated bombs.

Omar walked inside near the mannequins.
“Don’t touch anything! I mean, ANY thing!” spoke a bomb expert.
“Of course. Do you have anything in the way of a Mercedes with leather? With rocket launcher on the roof?” Omar asked.
The bomb expert smiled. “Yes we do… It’s out back, parked in my space near the lobby.” They exchanged glances. “’You a bomber?”
“Not quite yet. I’m still training,” he lied.
“We should hurry - the Infidel could come at any moment. And once he does, no Theocracy will be safe, even in Iram.”

Azim transported the cargo from the tunnel, sparing no single barrel shotgun. He paid the expert with stolen gold from an American Embassy. Omar was given a map, some grenades, and a laptop computer for a mission. He was to enter the palace of a Turkish Sultan in nearby Qatar, drain their computer of all tactical information, and bomb their records. The information would be given to Azim, who would send emails across the black market for interested parties. Then they would form a militia and attack the embassies of the Infidel in an effort to regain some territory and withstand the invasion of self-expressive dogma.
Omar’s Vespa sped back home to the grotto. He placed his food in the cooler (near toilet room), changed clothes, and returned to the surface with his equipment. Azim was there in his Mercedes. Omar entered the car.
“I hope you are ready for this operation, Omar al-Cairo. Praise unto ‘Allah and may he guide you to victory over the Infidel.” The Mercedes drove ten miles out of city limits, en route to Qatar. In five hours they reached the Sultan’s Palace in Qatar, an enormous monument with domes, minarets, columns, pools, gardens, and a well-gated entrance with a ten-foot stone wall. They parked outside the gate and walked inside.
The Sultan was celebrating his successful business deal with a Japanese firm, and so threw a celebration in that honor in the Palace. Rich embroidered costumes, fancy appetizers on golden plates, fruit juice by the goblet, a crowd of well-wishers, and a crowned, turbaned Sultan in the midst greeted the two militants. As Azim was explaining the use of hydrocarbons in place of gasoline, Omar was elsewhere.
Looking past paintings of past sultans and sultanas, Omar found a switch under a walking stick in the brass can near a water fountain. He pulled it. A small door silently slid open behind the curtained hallway. He entered, and it was sealed. Omar could see behind the one-way mirrors along this passage leading to an office. Once inside, Omar located the Sultan’s mainframe and turned it on. He loaded a Microsoft engine, then searched for military encryption. This activity took about an hour of searching, finding, and saving onto his laptop.


The computer was accessed, downloaded, and silenced - and the records indicating that someone had entered the room were tied to a grenade and left alone.
“Where is he?” asked a worried Azim to his drink.
Omar briskly left the secret door, looked around and headed towards the main hall, laptop in hand. The Sultan was seated at his throne and the celebration continued with a belly-dancing performance by two women.
“What took you?” Azim asked to a nervous Omar.
“They had so many encryptions, and passwords, and … well, I managed to access their data files and downloaded some blueprints of military vehicles, some training manuals, and guess what? I now have plans for a ‘dirty nuke’ in my laptop!”
A small earthquake hit the hall. “Damn, the bomb, I forgot! Quick, we must depart! Azim!” Omar stated nervously.
The Sultan seemed alarmed, but dismissed it while guards inspected the rooms for damage. Then the Sultan smiled, “An Earthquake, only here in Qatar would one find ‘Allah’s displeasure!” The crowd applauded. Azim and Omar took to their feet and left the Palace. Their Mercedes lit up to a remote control device, and so they entered and drove away. As they drove away, two more explosions were seen in the backdrop - one from a window, another from the domed ceiling.
“Ahh…,” Omar started as he relaxed into the leather seat. “Now we will be ready for the Infidel.”
“God is Great!” said Azim as he drove. “Wasn’t that belly dancer about Gameela’s age?”
“What belly dancer?”
“There were two of them! Surely you didn’t miss them!”
“I was too busy being scared of being caught! How was your drink?”
“Bitter, much like the Infidel in Winter.”
“Well, then, let’s look at what we’ve borrowed.” Omar flipped open the laptop computer and accessed the stolen files. He read through them all on the way back to Iram.

Over the following week Omar and Azim recruited some seventy mercenaries for their Jihad against the Infidel, by email. With the profits of other businesses, they paid for weapons, and the creation of a small nuclear arsenal. Azim collected ammunition from the ‘Hospital’, and fueled his interests with new technology from imports. As this was progressing, new suicide bombings occurred in Iram, Qatar, and Arabia - by the Infidel, avenging their economic losses. Azim received an emergency email from a sister in Cairo, Egypt, detailing the presence of the Infidel.
“Azim, please send your soldiers here. In the Arabian Desert, east of Cairo, there is a storm of tanks, armored cars, and airplanes from the Infidel. Fatima.”

“Damn. Omar!” Azim announced.
“Yes?”
“Come here. I want you to read this email from my sister, in Egypt.”
Omar read the email. He turned.
“Exactly. We must go to Egypt. The Infidel is there, and ‘Allah will be there to guide us. Gather our men and the truck drivers. We will board a cargo ship for Port Suez, then head into the Arabian Desert to meet destiny.”
“And what of the nukes?” Omar hesitated.
“EVERYTHING.” Azim replied the email from Fatima and started emailing the militia using encrypted software.

One week later they arrived in the Arabian Desert in Egypt. Their trucks were aligned with the desert tombs and palm trees, while inside them were stationed all seventy mercenaries, nukes, equipment, and weapons. In the distance, far into the dust storms, one could see an outline of movement - tanks, trucks, airplanes, helicopters, and unmanned drones.
“The Infidel breathes! Quick, men, unfold the canopy! Assemble the rocket launcher for the nukes! And stand your ground, arm up, and wait.” Azim issued orders to his mercenaries. Omar donned a desert-camouflaged suit with boots, Kevlar armor, binoculars, and a rocket-launcher slung against his shoulders. The weapons being assembled took four minutes and a half. The Infidel still rode on the desert in the distance. They were patrolling between two mud-brick mastabas of long dead Pharaohs.
The Infidel stopped. The dust storm ceased. Tanks formed into flanks, and aircraft hovered overhead. Something else moved closer.
“What are they waiting for?” Omar asked.
“The Drones! Quick, fire at the unmanned aircraft!” Azim ordered.
A silvery-white, origami-shaped bird hovered ten meters away, sending vital signals back to the Infidel. A recently launched missile ended that transmission.
“Got one! Hu-yah! Go Infidel, go!” Azim celebrated.
A rocket fired from the desert and crashed three meters away from the closest truck. The mercenaries stood their ground and aimed and fired.
A melee of firing took place between each point - the Infidel on the desert floor, while the militia on a hill overlooking the mastabas. Omar loaded a nuke onto a motorcycle with sidecar and took some rifles and ammunition. He told Azim about his plan, and switched on his cellular phone, and drove off towards the Mastaba of Neferhotep. The fighting continued for an hour as Omar parked in the shade of a dum palm tree and some weeds. He kept the nuke in the sidecar and, using the bayonet on the rifle, broke into the Mastaba and waited.

Explosions were heard outside the tomb. Omar looked around himself in the dark, littered burial site. He lit a lighter and found himself staring into the eyes of a decomposing mummy. He shouted in horror, but got control of his fear. Another explosion was heard, this time above. He thought, “My friends are in danger, and I’m in someone’s eternal resting place waiting for the storm to clear.” Looking around he found a trail of gold coins (Roman) leading to a hole in the wall. He followed. Using the butt end of the rifle, Omar broke away the plaster wall and entered a small chamber in the darkness. Under a heap of debris, one golden tablet lay on the resin-soaked bone pile. It was written in Greek, Demotic Egyptian, and Assyrian languages. Some notes in Arabic were scrawled in ink across the bottom edge - magic words, when spoken, would raise the dead and block out the Sun. He placed the tablet in his pocket.
The Infidel’s army was heard asking for the mercenaries to ‘surrender or die’ just outside the mastaba. Omar headed back to the entrance. He opened the doorway and regained access to the motorcycle. Peering over the shoulder of the hill, he saw the mercenaries poised to attack the approaching Infidel. A branch snapped. The Infidel turned. Omar turned on the engine and drove off, away from the enemy; they took chase but stopped at the entrance to the tomb.
Nervous, Omar dialed the cell phone. Azim answered.
“Omar! Where are you? The Infidel has us outgunned.”
“Did you nuke them yet?” Omar asked.
“One. It hit their airplanes in the sky and rained over the tanks, but they are too numerous! Please ask ‘Allah for assistance, and hurry.”
Omar drove until he hit a bump in the road, and crashed into a tree. He slung the empty rocket launcher over his shoulder and mounted the nuke. Then he turned over the tree and fired. The ‘dirty nuke’ hit the ground and obliterated the enemy trucks, tanks, and a platoon of infantry. A helicopter came in from behind and started shooting at him. He immediately stood up and ran. Pft! Pft! Pft! The bullets hit his Kevlar, and forced him to the sand. The helicopter turned on the trucks and exchanged fire with the remaining mercenaries.
Twelve platoons appeared suddenly over the pass, with five tanks, four helicopters, and eighty armored cars. They aimed at the mercenaries and exchanged fire. The one helicopter circling was hit in the windshield and flew in circles until it crashed into a hillside and exploded. Omar looked up from the ground to see the Infidel waving its flag and poised to attack. The mercenaries were either dead or hiding. Azim was nowhere to be found, even his cell phone wasn’t signaling. Omar took out the golden tablet and examined it while he waited for destiny. It was in the shape of a Cippus of Horus, with an image of a god unknown to ‘Allah. He held it close to his heart and read the inscription as a prayer.

The earth moved. Trees swayed. The wind started to pick up speed. The Infidel waved its flag until it saw something on the ground, something different.
An arm penetrated the sand. The earth sunk into sinkholes - about fifty, then a hundred, and then a thousand, all around the mastaba! Out crawled skeletons, mummies, and dead things. They walked upright, moaned, and approached Omar, encircling him - his eyes shut in prayer. Some mummies tried to open Canopic jars and replaced their mummified organs into holes under their wrappings. Others picked up spears, swords, and shields from inside the mastaba and its surrounding buried necropolis. The Infidel hesitated. The mummies encircled Omar, all bearing weapons from the mercenary trucks and the tombs. They moaned in Ancient Egyptian, gasped, and whispered to him. After five minutes of prayer, Omar opened his eyes.
“W’Allah!” Then he looked at the tablet, as it was glowing a golden light. He held it upright and pointed at the Infidels. “Kill them!” The mummies thought so too. The mummies all approached the Infidels angrily. The Infidel dropped his flag in horror, and the platoons started to back away in fear. Suddenly, the sky was clouded, with thunder and lightning sparking in the distance.
The helicopters were being hit by lightning, some even exploded. The tanks were falling into sinkholes as new necropolises were being revealed. The armored cars were being stopped by wind, hail, and lightning bursts, then by approaching mummies. The platoons tried to attack the mummies, but those that did died from it, and were sucked dry by the thirst of four thousand years. The mummies attacked the remaining Infidels and chased them back to Cairo, and then marched on the Embassies and the Cities. Omar followed on his motorcycle. It was nothing ever imagined by his faith in his God.
One week passed. The mummies invaded all remaining properties of the Infidel, burning and stabbing their way across the desert, then returned home to Egypt where they returned to their tombs. Omar freed Egypt, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Assyria, and Iram from the presence of the Infidel. His friend Azim was discovered hiding in a pyramid. He froze in disbelief but thanked ‘Allah for this blessing.

A month later, Omar was recognized as the “Savior of Iram” and was given a Medal of Honor, and a palace in the city. Azim became a banker, and Gameela was granted a better occupation. Fatima, Azim’s sister in Egypt, became a Museum Assistant to the Arabian Desert Museum of Neferhotep, where she catalogued the possessions from that decisive mastaba. The suicide-bombings stopped. People were too preoccupied with horror stories of mummies haunting them at night. And the Infidel fell into distress, from a bad economic recession to a disinterest in the Middle East altogether. They went back to Country Music and Polynesian dancing.


An Excerpt from: Tales of the Kheri-Heb and Other Short Stories
© 2007 Michael J. Costa
Tales of the Kheri-Heb at Cafepress.com

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