Plains Of Fire. Don Pendleton

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      THE DISTANT SOUND of launching rockets sounded like a warthog clearing its nostrils, at least to Lieutenant Alem Tanku of the Ethiopian Expeditionary Force. The Avtomat Kalashnikov rifle that had been resting across his knees was instantly in his hands, and he jerked to his feet. On the horizon he could see the white yarns of exhaust smoke trailing from the thrust nozzles of a half-dozen rockets and he stuck his fingers into the corners of his mouth to amplify his whistle.

      The shrill bleat woke the other sleepy Ethiopian troops on his side of the camp, and they began rushing along the shanty homes, rapping doors or rickety walls to awaken Sudanese refugees.

      Tanku squinted as the contrails of the artillery rockets snaked across the sky. He didn’t put it past the Thunder Lions to launch a quick reconnaissance by fire with a long-distance salvo. He was halfway to the communications shed when the rockets reached the apex of their climb. Losing power, they began their descent, gravity proving stronger than burned-out chemical motors. The contrails bent sharply as the remnants of their fuel gave out, smearing flat black streaks across the graying dawn.

      “Artillery launch from Thunder Lions’ recon force,” Tanku shouted as he reached the entrance of the communication shed.

      The comm operator, Lieutenant Jolu Okuba, nodded, already rattling off the information.

      “Launch coordinates?” Okuba relayed from headquarters.

      “Six miles out,” Tanku said, eyeballing the end of the puffy dissipating arch of smoke. “Northwest, call it heading 310.”

      Okuba barked the information to the Ethiopian Expeditionary Force command. He glanced nervously back toward Tanku. “The evacuation?”

      “We’re rousing the civilians. Luckily, they’re early risers,” Tanku said. “This section of the camp is already filing out through the fence.”

      Okuba nodded. Tanku could tell that his fellow soldier wanted to bolt from his position, but his duty kept him on station. It wouldn’t be much of a consolation when nearly ten inches of enemy warhead dropped out of the sky, delivering the punch of dozens of kilograms of high explosives. The lieutenant looked toward the descending rockets when he saw one burst into a blossom of smoky tentacles that stretched across the sky over the refugee camp.

      “Gas attack!” Tanku bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Gas masks!”

      Okuba whirled back to the microphone, updating the EEF’s officers about the changing nature of the rocket assault. Other rockets began detonating as they dropped within a certain height, splitting the air with sharp cracks that were unnervingly devoid of the light of flame.

      That was the surest indication on Tanku’s part that they were dealing with some form of chemical assault. The Ethiopian’s face twisted into a rictus of anger as he glanced toward Okuba.

      “Put your gas mask on!” Tanku snapped.

      “You don’t have one!” Okuba replied. “They don’t have masks outside!”

      “Just do it!” Tanku ordered.

      Okuba did so. His gas mask was in the bottom drawer of his desk.

      Tanku cursed himself for not bringing his mask with him, but he knew that none of the refugees would have more than a wet towel to protect their lungs from whichever chemical scourge Bitturumba’s Thunder Lions were dropping on their heads.

      With the introduction of weapons of mass destruction, Tanku idly wondered if there was a possibility that the United States would take a more urgent role in the Sudanese conflict. After all, it was the fear of Muslims with chemical weaponry that started the Iraq war, and that had been spurned by far less spurious evidence than an actual chemical attack such as here.

      Tanku steeled himself, waiting for the first symptoms of poison or nerve agent to appear. There wasn’t even the scent of burned almonds, indicative of cyanide gas, in the air. He knew that nerve agents were odorless and flavorless, but once they touched him, he would begin twitching uncontrollably, frothing at the mouth as he felt his insides liquefy. Unfortunately, a quick glance to Okuba reminded him that the gas masks the Ethiopians wore were thin, almost useless protection against the horrors of weapons like Sarin or Tabur.

      He waited for a full minute, breathing shallowly, as if the lowered respiration would somehow protect him from the ravages of chemical weapons that could be absorbed through the skin. He looked at his deep dark forearms, imagining the colorful globules of nerve agent molecules drifting and wafting down to his skin, turning his nearly black forearms gray and diseased as they landed, penetrating living flesh to invade his bloodstream.

      “Alem?” Okuba asked, his voice muffled by the gas mask.

      “Keep it on,” Tanku grated. His shoulders were knotted so tight that he thought that his tensed muscles would snap his clavicle like a twig.

      “I don’t think anything was released into the air,” Okuba stated. “There isn’t any reaction anywhere in the camp.”

      Tanku glanced around. His fellow Ethiopian soldiers were radioing in and he could hear their voices over Okuba’s radio. They were reporting a complete lack of casualties.

      “I don’t even see any harm from shrapnel released by the air-bursting rockets,” one EEF trooper announced.

      Tanku’s shoulders loosened and he took a deep breath, releasing it in a sigh of relief.

      “Maybe they wanted to show us that they had the means to release bio or chem agents into the air,” Okuba noted, pulling off his mask. “To let us know that we don’t have anything to stop them.”

      “You think they’d really bring down the ire of the Americans?” Tanku asked. “Saddam had a chemical weapons program, at least before he shipped it off to Syria before the invasion.”

      Okuba shook his head. “Iraq is full of oil. This is the Sudan. What would the Americans care about here?”

      “So Bitturumba isn’t the least bit concerned that he’s opened a can of worms,” Tanku grumbled.

      “We’re on our own. I can’t think of a single white man who would come over here, roll up his sleeves and fight for us,” Okuba growled.