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

One hundred meters beneath him, the jagged teeth of the Atlas Mountains rose up toward Julio Zuraban. The mountain range's breath blew into him from all angles within the open Barracuda gunship; though the desert air was warm indeed, the wind's speed stole the warmth off Julio's skin with ease and tugged at the spare pilot's fatigues he had thrown on before takeoff. Julio and the other Spaniards aboard the commandeered helicopter would have to look the part if this plan had any hope of success.

And as far as he was concerned, it didn't.

Julio was surprised that the plan concocted by Graciela, Dejene, and his Tuaregs had made it this far. Capturing a helicopter from the Spanish Army was no small feat in its own. But it was one thing to bait and surround a patrol gunship out in the desert, and another thing entirely to capture a military base. Liberating a place as well defended as La Cabeza seemed like it would be a daunting task for seasoned soldiers or mercenaries. And of all the twelve people crammed aboard this helicopter, only Dejene - the Ethiopian commando - seemed to have any military expertise. Graciela had proven herself a capable markswoman, and Joaquin had used his issued handgun perhaps twice during his service in the Madrid police district. As for the rest of them, Sotelo might have found them ideologically dangerous, but in combat they could not be expected to inflict any casualties.

"We're getting close," Julio could scarcely make out over the pulsating whine of the rotors. In the copilot's seat, Graciela traced her fingers over a landmark on a checkerboard-folded topo map, then pointed out a distant ridge to the Ethiopian piloting the chopper, his knappy mane billowing in the wind flowing through the bullethole in the windshield to his left. "La Cabeza should be just beyond that ridge."

"We will have to be cautious in landing," Dejene noted. "If they see the bullet hole in the windshield, it will arouse suspicion."

"Climb up a bit higher," Graciela suggested. "If we are at higher altitudes, no one on the ground will be able to see it."

As Dejene throttled up, Julio heard the whirring din increase in pitch while the Earth shrank beneath the gunship. Julio did not consider himself an acrophobe, but with no walls between himself and the churning air beyond the Barracuda's riveted hull, he was rather grateful for the seatbelt strapping him to the chopper's bench seating. Outside the hull, the sawtooth ranges of the Atlas Mountains gave the horizon a jagged edge. This was the northwest fringe of the Sahara desert; beneath their helicopter, the endless sand ergs that dominated North Africa became a patchwork of desert valleys where the desert worked its way between the outward-running fingers of the Atlas foothills. Dunes of undulating sand glowed in the late afternoon sun between ridges of dark granite. The land below was a majestic and desolate place; a place that was deeply inhospitable to man. The government had gone to incredible lengths to ensure their facility at La Cabeza was not found.

"Julio," Joaquin nudged him in the side, "do you feel that?"

"Do I feel [i]what[/i]?"

Julio held still for a moment, and then he felt the sensation. A constant vibration coursing through the helicopter, in the air itself. The other Spaniards looked about now with concern written on their faces. They too felt the vibration, and feared something was wrong. Some fearful seconds passed before an olive-colored mass then drew into their field of view outside and the roar of four great propellers droned into their ears over the pulsing whine of the propellers. Out of nowhere, an airplane had appeared in the sky next to their gunship - close enough that Julio would be able to throw something at the plane's near wingtip and drifting closer at a dizzying speed.

"Plane!" Julio bellowed fearfully. Dejene and the pilot of the airplane seemed to have noticed one another at the last available moment. He got a brief glimpse of the other plane making a hasty, jerky bank out of the way before Dejene yanked hard on the throttle and peeled the helicopter down and away in the opposite direction. Julio's fingers gripped the bench with white-knuckle force as the chopper descended.

"Where the Hell did he come from?" Joaquin remarked over the propellers.

"That was a Gargola, as was the one we shot down," Dejene noted once he had stabilized the Barracuda. "We drifted into their landing approach."

"Let's be sure we don't-..." Graciela began, but stopped herself midsentence. "There it is." That prompted everyone in the chopper to look forward through the windshield. A far ridge had just passed underneath the helicopter and at last, the Spaniards saw what La Cabeza truly was.

A colossal mesa of red sandstone rose up into the sky above a backdrop of distant ranges, commanding a rocky wasteland that extended for miles and miles in every direction. The stone mass had the appearance of a half-buried face looking skyward from the desert floor; ridges on the top of the mesa would slope upward and downward in such a way that a person's forehead, nose, and chin were vaguely represented. There was no doubt that this mountain was La Cabeza - the Head.

Paved roadways crisscrossed the desert around the mountain itself, often running parallel with a railroad that ran from North to South. Julio could see a freight train chugging away from the mountain along the track below him. Diffuse diesel smoke rose from the engine car as it towed perhaps a kilometer's worth of cars laden with unmarked shipping containers.

"Look how they've got sentries escorting the train," Joaquin noted. Julio squinted at the nondescript containers and saw men stationed atop every fifth or sixth car. He could make out rifles slung over their shoulders, a few of them made visors with their hands and watched their Barracuda swoop past.

"I've never seen guards posted on a train like that before. Even when I was in eastern Turkey, where the Armenians ambushed railroads all the time, I'd never seen anything like that," Julio recalled. "Whatever they're moving, they're taking no chances with it."

As they approached the mountain itself, a perimeter of of chainlink fencing passed underneath them. Flanked on either side by sentry towers were road and rail checkpoint. As the helicopter passed beyond the fenceline's barbwire wreathes, they had infiltrated La Cabeza in earnest. But looking down upon the facility, it was difficult for Julio to imagine how they would get any farther.

The Spanish facility was a nexus of activity. Below them on the ground, guards and vehicles were everywhere. On dead-end sections of railroads off of junctions near the base of the mesa, two other trains had been parked and were being inspected by what appeared to be yet more armed guards. These ones were composed of cars carrying large, cylindrical tanks, several of which were tethered to tanker semis by thick hoses.

Like a trail of ants making its way back to their hill, a convoy of tankers trundled down the beltway along the talus slopes at the foot of the mesa. Dejene followed them, flying close to the furrowed walls of the mesa. Julio watched the Barracuda's shadow ripple and undulate as it passed along the jagged rock wall. Suddenly, he found himself staring down the barrels of a massive artillery piece ensconced within a hewn alcove in the rock.

"[i]Dios mio[/i]," a fellow Spaniard exclaimed as the rest of the party laid eyes upon it. It was a triple-barreled gun that dwarfed the Barracuda. The yawning opening of the barrels, oriented in a triangular fashion, were every bit as wide as those of the mammoth guns placed upon modern warships.

"What the hell is that supposed be - a minigun howitzer?!" Joaquin exclaimed.

"We have grossly underestimated La Cabeza," Dejene admitted. "The Tuareg are not prepared to engage fortifications of this strength."

"You're not suggesting that we abandon the attack?" Asked Graciela. "[i]Querido[/i], we have come to far to turn away now..."

It was then that the helicopter came upon the airstrip. The Gargola bomber that they had nearly collided with on their approach had landed and taxied near an air traffic control tower near the foot of the mesa. Marching out of the fuselage were ranks of shackled people, all being escorted onto the tarmac by armed gunmen. A line a thousand-people in length cast long shadows against the tarmac as they were marched away from several idling airplanes to a number of flatbed trucks. Julio recognized that he and his fellow prisoners would have been among that teeming mass if Dejene and his Tuaregs had not inadvertently rescued them.

"No," Dejene answered, guiding the helicopter over the airstrip to turn about. "We won't get an opportunity like this again. I intend to destroy this monstrous place from the inside out."

"Spaniards!" The Ethiopian spoke loud enough that he could be heard by all over the propellers. "Those are your countrymen they have down there. I fear the worst for them! That grim fate was not yours, and neither will it be theirs. We are going to liberate them, and bring the evil men responsible for this place to justice."

Julio had been roused.

"Dejene has the right of it." The exiled Senator unbuckled himself from his bench and gathered himself up onto his feet. The attention of the Spaniards, Graciela included, had been captured. "If things continue at this rate, history will remember the people of the Second Spanish Republic as the complacent race that allowed Alfonso Sotelo to destroy them." He felt the helicopter descending, the hum of the propellers lowering in pitch as Dejene found a landing spot.

"For three years, I've allowed myself to be Sotelo's victim. I've been chased across this Earth, only trying to avoid his grasp and it accomplished nothing. I would be another prisoner if I had not been granted this opportunity. We are not prisoners - the Spanish are not a race of victims. Spaniards cast the Moors out of Iberia, Spain conquered the New World. We expelled Napoleon's legions, and we freed ourselves from monarchy. To cower and submit to a tyrant is uncharacteristic of our race."

"I am not a fighting man - none of us are. That does not excuse us to quail now; not when fate has granted us a unique opportunity to bloody the regime that has so humiliated us. We have made it this far, gentlemen."

Joaquin grinned ear to ear as he slapped his commandeered assault rifle into Julio's arms. The Senator gave a determined nod, and deftly yanked the FE-74's lever back with a satisfying clack.

"Let's see how much farther fate will have us go."