The Caliphate by André Gallo (booksvooks .txt) 📗

system was designed to produce a laser beam with the effective power of a fifty-four-megawatt beam.

     The roof was open less than a minute when Habib sent the beam to the satellite. It was received by one giant mirror, fed into the satellite, and shot out through another mirror toward Algiers.

     During a full minute, the beam bathed the area from the Place du Gouvernment and its complex of ministry offices on Rue du Docteur Cherif Saadane, past the railroad line along the coast, to the docks and overlapping onto the sea. Electric power in that part of the city came to a stop. All communications shut down. The explosions of war were absent.

     People on the street became instantly aware of increased heat on their exposed skin. Those wearing long sleeves or jellabas felt the sensation on their faces and hands. They searched for a cause but saw nothing to explain their quickly rising body temperature. They initially assumed that the heat was the prologue to the sirocco, the wind from the desert. But in seconds they dismissed natural causes. Their skin quickly turned pink and then red. Blisters followed, and the temperature of their blood and other bodily fluids began to climb to dangerous levels.

     The lobby of the Es Safir Hotel, located between Place du Gouvernment and the sea, as well as most public buildings in the area, quickly filled up with people looking for air conditioning. The instinct to move inside saved many lives.

    Some who lived or worked in apartments or offices on the top floors of buildings died from the superheated air. Fires erupted spontaneously. Any easily combustible material within the half-mile diameter of the laser burst into flames. Some drivers lost control of their vehicles and crashed. In three minutes, within the fifth-of-a-square-mile area, all was quiet. Later, fire trucks from other parts of the city started their sirens and headed for the blighted zone.

     Within an hour, a French correspondent in Algiers called his report into his Paris office.

At 14:30 today, the threat that al Khalil, the Salafist leader whose spokesman in Cairo delivered an ultimatum to the Muslim world to submit to Sharia law, materialized as a death beam from space. Casualties were minimal considering the apparent potential of the weapon—officials initially estimated one-hundred people, but a check of hospital reveals a somewhat lower number. But, as a military strike intended to annihilate the enemy’s physical infrastructure, al Khalil’s attack was a failure. Physical damage was minimal. We are waiting for an official statement from the Algerian Government. However, judging from the population’s reaction, placed in the context of al Khalil’s threat communicated at the press conference in Cairo, the death beam has had a psychologically devastating effect. Waiting for the promised ‘second strike,’ which al Khalil said would be much more lethal, I am Jean Pierre Lemoine reporting from Algiers.

Habib switched the aim of the space mirrors to Tehran and fired.

15:45

Hussein rolled over on his back. He had joined his men on the roof knowing that the entire operation now depended on keeping the roof open so that Habib could fire the laser.

     He reached for his walkie-talkie. As his eyes registered the blue sky, still clouded by the smoke rising from the UAV attack, it occurred to him that his life was probably about to end. What had the years brought him? He felt angry and resentful and ashamed that he had not lived up to his commitment. He had bet on the wrong horse. Al Khalil had always had his own agenda and never intended to include Hussein’s.

     He looked down from the sky and focused on his tactical situation. He reached for his short-range radio.

     “Tariq, we can’t hold out for your twenty-four-hour ultimatum. I could have told you if I had known what you were planning. I expect the Issies to send another helicopter up. One or two missiles and we are finished. We were lucky to shoot down one of their ’copters. He made a mistake and got too close. This time they will stay out of our range. Ask Salim to correct the time. Make it an hour, two hours at most. Any longer and this operation is over and so are we. Send me more men up to the roof. This is the key point now.”

***

In Tehran, Gholam Hussein Ejei, the head of intelligence, called Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi from his home in Niavaran, a residential district of choice for the wealthy during the Shah’s time.

     About a third of its inhabitants had left the country since the 1978-79 revolution, but a new class that thrived in the theocracy of the ayatollahs had replaced them. Ejei shooed away a servant who was offering tea on a silver platter.

     Safavi acted as though he was taking over the government following the deaths of both the chairman of the ruling council and of the president. Ejei knew he had to act quickly to support the new power center to survive the inevitable “night of the long knives,” a cleaning out of officials with uncertain loyalties.

     “General, you must order immediate retaliation against Israel. We have the rockets. We have the aircraft. This is the time. Our population will applaud your courage. You will become the father of the entire Muslim world. They will follow your example and erase Israel from the face of the earth. Everyone will admire you. Now is the time to act.”

     “I have called for a meeting of our top military and al Quds commanders. I want you to be there—in two hours at my house in Niavaran.”

***

In Algiers, fighting broke out. The AQIM, led by Ibrahim al Maghrebi, which had never dared attack the government in Algiers proper, took the radio station and broadcast appeals for the army to join the new Islamic Republic of