Baghdad was no longer a city.
It was a fortress.
Checkpoints every kilometre. Black-market surface-to-air missiles on rooftops. Tanks rolled through shattered streets while Ba'athist banners flew high in defiance of the encroaching coalition.
And at the heart of the storm, Saddam Hussein stood in the marble hall of the Republican Palace, speaking to his nation and the world.
The cameras rolled. The translators stood ready.
His voice, once calm and theatrical, now thundered with apocalyptic fury.
"To the cowards who hide behind foreign flags… to the false coalition who dares threaten the cradle of civilization… I say this: Babylon does not kneel. Iraq will burn before it bows. And for every drop of blood spilled on our soil, a thousand invaders shall drown in fire."
Outside, his soldiers roared in unison. Inside, his generals remained silent, eyes flickering to the west-where American aircraft carriers had already formed a horizon of steel.
But Saddam wasn't finished.
He dismissed his ministers. The cameras stopped. Only two remained-his most trusted commander, and a strange foreigner cloaked in desert robes.
The clone.
Vekom's representative.
Saddam poured himself a glass of scotch and looked directly at him.
"They bring fleets, satellites, fire from the skies. I want the end of empires in my hands. Tell your master-I want a nuke."
The clone didn't flinch.
"The cost is beyond gold. Are you prepared to pay with blood, not coin?"
Saddam grinned.
"Baghdad will be ash soon. What is blood to a man who already walks among ghosts?"
The request was transmitted immediately.
Vekom, orbiting high above in the Stratos Forge, received the encrypted signal.
Request: Nuclear Delivery System — Fission-grade.Target Buyer: HVT-SADDAM / Risk Rating: 98%.Price Negotiated: $3B + 40 metric tons of gold.
He hesitated. Nuclear sales were not standard procedure. But the war itself had become too profitable to ignore.
He opened a private channel.
"Activate Sub-Level Hydra Vault. Prepare transfer of Icarus Payload."
Minutes later, a black-market logistics drone departed from a disguised freighter in the Persian Gulf, carrying the parts of a crude tactical warhead enough to level an army base, or start World War III.
As U.S. jets bombed radar installations near Basra and British forces secured the southern oil fields, Saddam moved the warhead into a desert bunker near Tikrit. It was primitive, unstable… but it was real.
For the first time in years, he felt powerful.
He ordered his remaining forces to prepare a "final message" for the world.
But Vekom wasn't done.
Behind the scenes, he sold false intel to the CIA whispers of Saddam's "Super Weapon," laced with exaggerated blueprints and forged footage.
Washington panicked.
The President authorized Operation Fireglass a full-force carpet bombing of the entire Tikrit region.
And before Saddam could launch anything, a storm of steel and flame turned his secret bunker into a crater two miles wide.
There was no warhead.
There was no final message.
There was only silence.
But Vekom had already moved on.
He recovered the gold via clone scavengers.
He sold the panic to NATO in the form of new missile defense systems.
And he broadcast the chaos across insurgent networks worldwide, stoking the fires of resistance.
In the end, Saddam was never meant to win.
He was a flame used to ignite the world.