four other surface combatants and twelve military transport vessels carrying thousands of combat-ready Marines and soldiers.
Not part of the information published to the other navies in the area, twenty re-commissioned American and European vacation-style cruise ships recently had joined the task force. Purchased recently and quickly refurbished in seaports in Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka to carry between five and ten thousand people each in a style noticeably below their original luxury, and for only a few days’ duration, these ships looked out-of-place on the shakedown cruise.
Ying’s force represented the forefront of the first true blue-water, open-ocean capability for China since the Ming Dynasty.
In 1420, the Chinese Navy had made her the most powerful maritime nation on earth. Afraid of outside influence, and certain nothing was to be learned from foreigners, the Emperor had banned ships and international trade. The largest wooden ships ever built were burned to the waterline and sunk. Within decades the knowledge of their construction and use had been lost.
The Chinese Navy was about to come back.
The Officer of the Deck approached and saluted, then held out a sheet of paper on which was printed a single word. Received moments before from Beijing, decrypted, and now delivered to its addressee, that word was, “Go.”
Admiral Ying took the paper, nodded, folded and put it into his pocket. Again he looked across his ships, then turned and walked onto the Bridge. As he entered, the captain of the ship stood to attention only to be waved back into his seat by the admiral.
“Captain, please make a heading of 300 degrees magnetic,” he said calmly. “Make turns for 22 knots.”
The Lanzhou turned to the new heading and slowly accelerated. The vessels in his group turned with him and the entire flotilla now steamed toward the Arabian Peninsula.
10,000 meters off his port bow, moving slowly enough to barely make steerage-way at a depth of 100 meters, Captain Bill Grant, commanding officer of the fast-attack submarine USS California leading Task Force-19, listened to the movement of the Chinese ships. Grant and two sister fast-attack submarines nearby had shadowed the Chinese ships since they had entered the Indian Ocean.
Recording the transit of competing navies was part of the normal tasking of TF-19, a small submarine force covertly roaming the Indian Ocean. By moving slowly to avoid making noise when in close contact with the Chinese vessels, and then jumping wide around them when the Chinese flotilla was far enough away not to be able to detect the covert force, racing ahead in their predicted course and awaiting them again, Grant and his three submarines had managed to remain undetected, but in contact with them for over a thousand miles, reporting regularly through CINCSUBPAC of the status of the ships he was shadowing.
15
Mecca
Thursday, 11 April, 13:57 hours GMT (16:57 Local)
Ibrahim Al-Rashid stopped before the electronics store and glanced at his watch. It was almost time for the evening news broadcast. He waited patiently. It was the first day of the month of Jumada al-Ukhra, in the Islamic calendar year of 1434.
In the West it was the 21st Century.
Around him other men, young and old, men with little education, few jobs, and less future gathered to watch the televisions in the window displays.
Around the city other men and boys did the same. They had no televisions of their own; never would. Ibrahim knew that the hated Jews and their American puppets kept these luxuries from them; his Imam told him so at Friday prayers in the mosque he attended each week.
At 17:00 the news broadcast started. The newsreader was excited, rapidly delivering a message from their hero, the son of the reclusive Arab who had been martyred by the Infidels, a son to be proud of, one who now continued to stand up to the hated America.
The screen filled with a file shot of the face of the thin Arab who had struck their enemy so hard and so brutally a decade ago. Then it switched to a video of his son, the ‘Prince of Terror’ as he now was being called.
“Praise be to Allah. Praise be to all who destroy the infidel where he is found. Praise to those who help rebuild the Caliphate and spread it across the world as Allah, praise His name, has written through the hand of His prophet Muhammad, may He rest in Paradise,” began the thin Arab.
“This very evening Allah will strike. He will destroy the invaders to our holy lands. He will commit to the fires those who would invade and defile our lands. Praise be to Allah. Tonight the fire of Allah will strike the palaces and governments of the unbelievers in our lands. His unstoppable force will strike their fields and cities. It will destroy their men, women and children, and remove their stain from our Holy lands. Praise be to Allah!”
Al-Rashid and his fellows could not believe their ears. Wide grins split their faces! Hands clamped into fists shot into the air in triumph! Tonight!
In the streets around them cars were screeching to a stop, drivers turning up their radios on which were being broadcast the same unbelievably joyous message. Behind Al-Rashid people were pushing and shoving to get near the displayed televisions as the announcer repeated the words of the Arab, crying in happiness as he did so. Men were shouting out, yelling across the streets, repeating what the Arab was saying.
“Praise be to Allah!” Ibrahim shouted. “Allahu Akhbar!”
The men on the sidewalk jumped up and down. Pandemonium broke out. Knots of men swelled and became larger, smiling, cheering and laughing in ecstasy!
Cairo University (15:57 Local)
In the Cairo University library Khalid Al-Dakhil surfed the web, browsing the Western pornography that he loved, but was not allowed by Islam to see. Reluctantly, knowing he needed to get back to his studies, he clicked back to his home page.
A picture was displayed prominently on his homepage of the man who had become his hero over the past years, the man who had stood-up to America, to Israel, to the House of Saud and their infidel collaborators. Actions for which he had been martyred.
Now his eldest son was taking charge. With the Muslim Brotherhood taking-over Egypt from the despised Israeli-loving Mubarak, and the Prince of Terror talking and broadcasting about becoming more aggressive against the hated infidel, Khalid and his peers were restive with their imagined future glory.
Beneath the picture in large letters was written, “Tonight Allah brings fire to the invaders and returns their birthright to all men of Islam!” The text continued to describe in excited, flowery prose the upcoming destruction of Islam’s enemies.
Unable to sit still, Khalid stood with the excitement – he could barely contain his energy to finish reading the words! He shouted, he screamed “ALLAHU AKBAR!” at the top of his lungs, and ran to tell his friends.
Across Arab lands the reaction was the same. In Jeddah, Cairo and Damascus, men and children danced in the streets, celebrating the imminent destruction of their hated enemies.
In London, in Paris, in Detroit and Amsterdam and Bali, everywhere large groups of Muslim men gathered, the scene was the same. Allah be praised! Tonight was the night! Across the globe Muslim men rejoiced, dropping to the ground to pray in thankfulness for the deliverance soon to come.
