Invasion полностью

Captain Mohammad Karim leaned back as the line of prisoners were marched past towards one of the security camps outside Basra, where they would be interrogated and – eventually – punished. The Iraqi police had been watching this particular group for several weeks, confirming that they were actually involved with smuggling weapons and explosives into the country, before sending in his Company to arrest the men. Some of them had tried to fight it out, hoping, like so many others, that poisoned faith could provide a counter for training and experience, the others had shown their ‘willingness’ to die for the cause by surrendering at once. Karim and his men had bound their hands, searched the warehouse quickly and effectively, and found enough proof to ensure that the men spent a few uncomfortable years in the desert.

Idiots, he thought, as he lit up a cigarette. His men had been recruited in the chaotic years of the insurgency, first working for the Americans and then for the Iraqi Government, and between them they had nearly a hundred years of experience in street-fighting. The terrorists they’d captured were nothing more than untrained punks from a madrassa somewhere in Saudi or Pakistan, dangerous only in numbers and only then if their targets were unarmed. The explosives they’d had with them might have killed a few dozen Iraqis, but it was much more likely that they would kill themselves when they tried to plant them. The Iraqi citizen who’d called in the tip, one of millions who was sick of the violence that kept trying to rear its head in his country, had probably saved their lives. They wouldn’t be thanking him any time soon.

“All yours,” he said, as the policemen came and took custody of the terrorists. It made sense to have the army conduct the arrests, but the police had to hold them in custody, before they were tried and sentenced. The police weren't a soft option; they lived and worked in Basra and loathed the terrorists who’d tried to tear the city apart. They would be more likely to accidentally shoot the prisoners while trying to escape, rather than letting them go, something that had been a persistent problem back in the early days. Now, Iraq was finally starting to stand on its own two feet.

He looked over towards the single American advisor. The man had been distracted lately, worrying about the fate of his fellow countrymen in America…and it was hard to blame him. The terrorist internet had been shouting the praises of the aliens to the skies for destroying the Great Satan, but Karim was fairly sure that the aliens didn’t mean Islam any favours either. They’d casually destroyed mosques along with churches in America, after all, and they probably intended to do the same in Iraq. The only saving grace, as far as he could see, was that the aliens probably didn’t have the numbers to take on the entire world. By the time they reached Iraq, they might even be ready for them…

But in the meantime, there was work to be done. The main Iraqi supporters of terrorism had been either beaten or brought into the government, where they found it much harder to get to grips with the problems they’d claimed had easy solutions, but there were still thousands of terrorists out there. The alien invasion had brought more of them out of the woodwork, whereupon they’d started to attack Americans and their allies all across the Gulf. They’d also started another campaign to bring down the Iraqi Government, although this one had failed spectacularly…even though the world media would probably hail it as a great terrorist success. Karim had a private blacklist of reporters, mainly American, who always exaggerated in their reports…and not in the favour of the good guys. It was a complex war, an endless struggle that had been, mercifully, coming to an end…and one where enemies could become friends, or vice versa, at the drop of a pen.

He rounded up the men of his company – the only injury had been a soldier who’d accidentally banged his arm against a wall and was hamming it up in fine style, claiming to have been crippled – and they collected their weapons and supplies. One thing they’d learned from the early days had been to keep a close eye on their own weapons, even though Iraq was swimming in weapons, just to prevent further losses to the enemy. He recalled a newly-formed unit that had been thrown into the deep end and collapsed under fire, surrendering all their weapons to the terrorists, and was determined that that wouldn’t happen again. Like most young officers, he had a wife and children…and they would never have any cause to be ashamed of him.

“Back to barracks,” he ordered. “By the left, quick march!”