[b]Atlas Mountains, Spanish Morocco[/b]

Julio's arms quivered, straining to lift the heavy crate up onto the ledge. Even in the chilled air of the pre-dusk desert, beads of sweat formed on the fringes of the mop of curly hair upon his head. His teeth gritted as his companion Joaquin helped him to raise that cumbersome wooden container.

"Breathe." Joaquin grunted, struggling with the same wooden box, recognizing by his puffed cheeks and red face that Julio was unfamiliar with heavy lifting. "You're going to give yourself hemorrhoids."

Spittles of saliva flew away from the exiled senator's pursed lips as he exhaled, readjusting his grip and shuffling about to a more comfortable position.

"One, two..., three!"

Julio lifted his end and shoved the crate onto the shelf formed by the pickup truck's lowered tailgate. With a final push, Joaquin and Julio forced the crate against the cab, affording the exhausted senator a chance to sigh and wipe his brow.

"How can one crate be so heavy?" Julio exclaimed in between huffs, his chest expanding and contracting from the exertion. "What the Hell is in there?"

"Heavy artillery, I'd imagine." Joaquin pointed at the bold Chinese lettering stamped in thick black paint on the topside of the crate. Out of curiousity, Julio hopped into the bed of rusting truck - the suspension creaking in annoyance underneath him - and slid the top off of the crate to get a glimpse inside. Nestled in neat rows amongst wads of packing cotton were at least a dozen long, slender rockets. Julio's eyes widened as Joaquin let out a sharp whistle of surprise.

"A good thing we didn't drop them." Julio added as he replaced the crate's cover - far more gingerly than he'd yanked it off.

"I imagine the government would really like to know how those got inside their third of the continent - this far into their backyard."

"The desert." Julio surmised. "A million soldiers couldn't adequately cover the Saharan frontier. It would not surprise me that the Ethiopians have been supplying dissident nomads with Chinese arms with the intent of destabilizing the government... only that they could get something this heavy over so much inhospitable terrain."

"That's what I'd call conviction, right there." Joaquin added. "When someone's willing to haul something this goddamn heavy across the Sahara just for the chance to cause you some trouble, you know they have it out for you."

As Julio gathered his breath, he became aware of the buzz of activity in the oasis encampment. The dim pre-dawn glow of the sun inching upward somewhere beyond the eastern horizon afforded only barely enough light to see, but the sensation of activity could be felt in the very air. Harried footsteps crunching through gravel and sand indicted that their Tuareg hosts were about. Dejene, the Ethiopian adviser to the Tuareg warriors, had woken the Spaniards well before the dawn in the interest of preparing for the bloody day that was to come. But the Tuareg had risen just as early as their Spanish guests, if not earlier. In the dimmest light filtering through the fronds of the oasis-side palms, the Tuareg were almost invisible; clad in blue and black robes like beings from another epoch, they trudged quietly through the camp. Fellow Spaniards, survivors from the crashed plane, seemed to be joining them now as well in filtering through to the nexus of the Bedouin camp.

"Come with us," A voice in Spanish called to Julio and Joaquin over the footsteps and groaning of camels. "The Amghar has something to say, we can continue packing later."

Without protest, Julio hopped off the truck bed and followed in behind Joaquin and another three of his countrymen. Though it could hardly be seen, the very air quivered with life. The tents and tarps rustled and shuddered as the occupants within prepared themselves for battle. The goats and camels grew restless too, almost as if protesting vainly against the building tension. Murmurs of the local tongue mingled with the glassy sound of water falling from the canyon rocks into the oasis as Julio and his companions pressed forward.

A substantial throng formed around the outskirts of the greatest of the encampment's tents - that belonging to the Amghar. At the front of the tent was a single palm oil torch planted in the gravel - the only source of light in the entire camp. The Tuareg were immensely cautious with any illumination during the dark hours of the night, and rightly so. Occasionally, the distant roar of gunships prowling in the night served as a grim reminder that the Spanish military was actively hunting them beyond the safety of their hidden oasis. The errant glow of a single lantern or torch could spell disaster for them all.

Standing in the flickering glow of that torch was the Amghar, the lord of the Bedouin tribe. The ancient, wizened Saracen stood stoically at the head of the gathering. Blue eyes clouded and abraded by a lifetime in the sand scanned methodically over the heads of his clansmen and the Spaniards his people had rescued. A dark blue robe drooped over wide shoulders; his leathery hands perched upon the pommel of a straight-bladed takouba pointed down into the Earth. His countrymen waited in reverent silence for their leader's words.

Standing off to the Amghar's right were Dejene and Graciela. A Tuareg chieftan, an Ethiopian soldier, and a Spanish woman - as unlikely a trio as any, they seemed to serve as the leadership around the camp. The Amghar and Dejene's partnership made some sense, but how Graciela had come to assist this band of Tuaregs in a remote corner of the Atlas Mountains was unclear. Rumors concerning her motives were rife through the Spaniards, but the consensus was that she was a political dissident. Rather than allow herself to be imprisoned in Arratzu, she found her way to the Tuaregs and found her calling in fighting directly against the regime of Alfonso Sotelo. Her loyalty to the cause never seemed to be contested. In spite of their disparate backgrounds, they shared one uniting aim: the end of the Second Spanish Republic.

Without warning, the Amghar began in a raspy dialect of Arabic. For the benefit of the Spaniards, Dejene proceeded to interpret in Castillian.

"A bloody day comes with this sun. When it departs from this land in the dusk, it will set upon a desert watered in the blood of infidels. The marauders will be left utterly crushed; their crimes against our people repaid many times over. We will go to their mountain - through the faith of our people and our skill with the sword and gun we will slaughter those who would destroy us. Those who would bury our very memory like refuse in the sand. We will make a mighty fool of the Dajjal Sotelo - we will give him a black eye today and show him to the world as the sower of misery and lies."

The Amghar looked across the masses, eying the Spaniards out for many seconds in silence as he thought of what he would say next. The cloudy blue eyes of the Tuareg lord fell upon Julio as he continued again in Arabic. Dejene resumed translating.

"You foreigners, people of Hispanistan, know this: when you arrived in this land, I did not trust you. The warriors of Hispanistan have committed a heinous evil against my people. Many years ago, our people were many; we inhabited this land as our fathers and their fathers had since the age of the Prophet, until Hispanistan came to call this land its own. Oil was found and your masters were avaricious. They killed our people as one would with vermin, they would sooner erase the memory of the Tuareg before they shared the treasure beneath our homeland. It was my fear that you were here to assist them in evicting our people from this homeland, and I was prepared to repay the infidels for the murder of one hundred kinsmen.

"But she advised me against it." The Amghar gestured to Graciela with an open hand. "She has recounted unto me the circumstances that brought you to us. Like her, I understand that each of you is an enemy of the Dajjal. You have been tortured, questioned, and beaten by the same infidel who have nearly destroyed my people. It was she that persuaded me to spare the lives of each of you, on the condition that you would join us in rectifying what has been meted out against us. The hour to recompense our hospitality has arrived."

"In the Hispanistani tongue, they call it 'La Cabeza'. Beneath this mountain they have built a great fortress. Our scouts may only steal glimpses of it from a great distance, so mightily it is defended. But from what we know of it, it is a redoubtable thing indeed. Aircraft arrive there by the half dozen every day, trains arrive more frequently by the week. And inside of its confines, we know they have many of our people that they have captured. I fear gravely for their safety, and I shall not rest until my people are freed from that monstrous place."

"Indeed, we are few in number against a foe of great menace. Recount, those of weak heart, the Prophet and the brave first muslims. Recount how through tact and the grace of Allah they repelled the might of Meccah. We are but a thousand against the might of Hispanistan, but we have the will of Allah on our side and that is worth more than a hundred thousand fighters!"

"Takbir!" A voice crowed out from amongst the Bedouin.

"ALLAHU AKBAR!" The Tuareg chanted in unison.

The Amghar glanced to Graciela once again. "The Hispanistani woman has crafted a plan that will allow us to secure victory - a diversion. We will bait the aircraft that hunt us so doggedly... and capture it! As many of our fiercest warriors as the machine will carry, they will fly into the heart of that place and begin the attack from within. They will sew confusion amongst the ranks of the enemy while the brunt of our warriors ride in amongst the chaos. The history of the Tuareg hinges on this day, brothers! We will free our kin and send the infidel screaming into Haawiyah!"

"ALLAHU AKBAR!" The Bedouin cried once more. The orange rays of the sun at last peered over the ridges of jagged rock above the oasis, shimmering and glinting against the sharpened takoubas the Bedouin pointed skyward. "ALLAHU AKBAR!"

With that, the Bedouin army wordlessly dismissed itself, chanting the takbir over and over as they marched out into the canyons to battle. They brushed and jostled past Julio, who stood dumbfounded. [i]That[/i] was the master plan? Steal a Spanish gunship and hope it would be enough of a distraction so that the remainder of the Tuareg could charge in with guns blazing? Julio was extremely dubious about how much damage a handful of camel-riding nomad armed with Great War firearms and rocket launcher technicals could inflict against the Spanish fortress embedded inside of a mountain. The notion of slipping away and escaping into the canyons while the Bedouin rushed off into certain death was becoming increasingly enticing. That is, until a rough black hand seized his shoulder. He spun around to find Dejene immediately behind him.

"Graciela needs you," the Ethiopian commanded over the chanting, "come with me."