Three Kings

“Pony up!” Major Reeves gave the order to hisRecce Troop, 1st Squadron, 12th Lancers, well outside the brigade perimeter that night, and with orders to scout the way north. The brigade had been hunkered down in NBC mode, all buttoned up with filters running and snorkels sipping and cleaning the air. The men had just completed air samples for radiation levels, tapping their touch screen digital panels in the new Dragon IFVs, which formed the bulk of this squadron. To their great surprise and relief, everything was green and clean. The Russians had thrown an ICBM at them, with aMIRVed warhead. They got two of the three bombs that meant to destroy this vital unit in the British Army where it stood its security watch over the even more vital oil facilities at BP Sultan Apache. That third warhead had gone off, but it was well wide of the target zone, and 7th Brigade would live to fight another day… but not in the year 2021.

One man had inadvertently seen to that, though history would never record his name. Was he the hungry young mishman who had taken that last sweet roll in the bakery bins of Kirov’s mess hall? It did not matter. The only thing that did matter was that Gennadi Orlov found himself atBirBasure that night, about seven kilometers from the place that would one day mark the northern border of Sultan Apache oil field. And Gennadi Orlov had brought something with him in his pocket, though he did not know what it was.

Major Reeves was leading his troop, as he often did. He was a self described “desert loving Englishman,” a line he filched from his favorite movie, Lawrence of Arabia. He had signed on for Army service as soon as he was of age, and specifically requested service in the 7th Brigade, the Desert Rats, his Great Grandfather’s old unit. The stories he had heard as a boy had stayed with him all his life, from the sand boxes where he once played them out with his toy soldiers, to the real deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a Desert Rat, through and through, and knew the proud history of his Brigade chapter and verse.

They were going to use infrared and night vision sensors to advance, their lights dark as the sleek new eight wheeled IFVs rolled forward over the tough ground. He had orders to move out and scout the road north throughBirBasure. The Brigade wasn’t sticking around for the Russians to drop another egg on them, and he would lead the way out.

“Well where’s the bloody road?” said Reeves, tapping his digital terrain map. GPS was down, most likely the result of the EMP effects from that big air burst they had just ridden out. They still had their map available, but it failed to locate their present position, or that of any other vehicles in the brigade. The satellites are probably gone as well, he thought. Communications had been spotty all evening before the missile alert came in. Things were heating up in the war, and now it had finally come to the desert.

“Can’t see a thing,” said Cobb, the driver. “We should be right smack on the road, sir. In fact we were right on the road when that alert came in, and we’ve only moved a few yards to the hull down revetment. It should be right under our noses.”

“Well it’s not under our noses, Cobber. You must have canted off into another bloody salt pan of something.”

“No sir,” Cobb protested. “I’d feel that bang away. We’ve got good wheel traction, the ground is firm, but the road… well it’s just not there any longer, sir.”

“Probably buried under a foot of sand by now with this wind, Move us out. I’m signaling the column to follow. The damn thing can’t all be under sand, and we’ll find it soon enough.”

Reeves was going to get his job done, road or no road. Frustrated, he opened his top hatch and stuck his head out, wanting to put his human senses to the test where the digital sensors had failed. The smell and sting of blowing sand was all he got for his trouble. Yet the column was ready to move out, and he was the tip of the spear, fearless, because right behind his squadron was a Sabre of heavy Challenger 2 tanks from the Royal Scotts Dragoons. The deep growl of those big tank engines could be heard over the whine of the restless desert wind, and that had a way of giving a man confidence in his job.

Reeves looked over his shoulder, squinting through his protective goggles, and could barely see the tanks behind his column, though he could hear them even better now. It was pitch black, and the wind was bitter cold. He could not even see the lights from the perimeter towers back at the Sultan Apache facility, which seemed odd, in spite of the obscuring sand storm.

He was a scout, and it was his job to lead the tanks forward, but here they had gone and blundered right off the road, and it was nowhere to be seen. Good enough. He was back through the hatch, shutting it tight as he pull off his protective eye goggles.