The general stared at Sam’s picture and thought of his wife. She was going to be sick. He thought of Sam’s brothers. They would turn white with rage. He read the byline on the story: Mr. Lawrence O’Neil. The reporter had to know the story was a lie! The photographs had been floating around radical Arabic newspapers, televisions, and web sites for a couple days now, but no one in the western press had bothered picking them up. No one believed the accusations. Until Mr. O’Neil.
Brighton thought of his position in the White House, knowing he might be forced to resign. If the press made the connection between him and his son, if they smelled fresh blood, regardless of the absurdity of the allegations or what the truth was, he might be forced to withdraw to protect the president.
If he had to go, he didn’t care. He would resign if they asked.
The only thing he cared about was protecting Sam, a young man whom, though adopted, he loved as much as his other sons.
Brighton slapped the newspaper on his palm and swore bitterly.
It was a lie. Everyone knew it. But that was how the game was played now. The United States had a lot of enemies who didn’t care about the truth.
Inaccurate but true was an acceptable standard to them.
The general swore again, breathing into the phone. “I’m holding the Post,” he finally said to his son. “Your picture’s on the front page.”
“Really?”
“Before you get too excited, you better let me explain.”
Sam remained silent while his father read him the first five paragraphs of the story. The telephone hummed when his father was through. Sam was clearly stunned. “Has Mom seen the picture?” he asked quietly.
“No. Not yet.”
“Can you hide it? Hide the papers? Tell her friends not to say anything.”
“I’m trying, Sam. But it’s likely that—”
“It will kill her if she sees that. She’ll go through the roof.”
“Listen, Sam, let’s not worry about your mother for right now. I’ll try to keep it from her, but even if I do, that’s not the main point. Worst case, she sees it and throws a couple pillows at the paper boy or maybe writes a nasty rebuttal, which would only muddy the air. Either way, she is strong, I’m not worried about her. It’s you, my boy, that I’m worried about . . . .”
“You’re worried about me?” Sam exclaimed. “Over this? Come on, Dad, if this is the worst thing that happens to me, I can certainly handle it.” His voice was light now and clearly relieved. “So some puke gets my picture from Al Jezzera and prints some lies in the press. So what? Think I care? Me and my buddies quit reading the newspapers a long time ago. This is no big deal, Dad. No big deal at all.”
Brighton hesitated. “I was worried . . .” he continued.
“Who you better be worried about is that slime-ball reporter!” Sam said. “Who is this guy, anyway?”
Brighton almost laughed. “You want his name? We could go meet him in a bar next time you’re back in the States.” Brighton laughed as he thought of the recent scene in a German pub, when he and Sam had been forced to fight.
“Go and get him, no way! I say you send his sorry butt over here. Let him spend a week with my unit, then see what he writes.”
Brighton smiled in satisfaction. What a difference that would make!
“So I made the front page of the Post?” Sam muttered, then chuckled again.
Brighton could picture his son’s face, the great smile and strong chin. “Yeah, pretty cool, huh?” he answered. They were both laughing now.
“You know, Dad, my only regret is I’ve wasted my fifteen minutes of fame while I’m over here. What a bummer. I feel cheated! I don’t get to savor my time in the sun.” Sam laughed again. “Bummer,” he repeated, then grew serious once more. “But listen, Dad, try to hide it from Mom, OK? That’s all I care about. This slime-ball reporter, my image, my face in the press—that means nothing to me. And it will blow over long before I get home anyway. But it will hurt Mom. She’ll get angry. So try to hide it, will you?”
“I will, son,” Brighton answered, “but there’s something else I want to talk to you about . . . .”
Brighton fell silent as his mind raced through the past couple of days. He thought about his dead friend, the crown prince of Arabia. There was so much going on. So much uncertainty. He was truly frightened. He had a stone in his chest. What was going on in Saudi Arabia, one of the most vital and dangerous places on earth? Had Prince al-Rahman come to power? Had Al-Rahman killed his brother? What had happened to the king? Had Al-Rahman killed his brother too?
The general huffed in frustration, and then threw the newspaper on the desk. It landed face up, Sam’s picture staring at him, and he flipped it over with the tip of his pen.
He thought of the Cherokees, the elite Deltas that were going to pull Sam into their group. They went to the worst places on the face of the earth and did the most rotten missions, taking care of the problems that no one else was willing to tackle, no one else could handle, and no one in the government wanted to acknowledge had to be done.
One in ten thousand soldiers was asked to join the Cherokees, and Brighton was proud of his son. But he was afraid for him, too. The unit suffered horrible attrition. Theirs was a dangerous, hungry, exhausting, and blood-soaked world. They were also a group of the most dedicated soldiers in the military. Every one of them believed they were serving a cause that was worthy of their deaths. Although he knew Sam had the passion for the task, he was less certain that he himself would be willing for his son to make that sacrifice.
As he thought, the phone line fell quiet until he heard Sam’s voice again. “Dad?” Sam was saying. “Is everything OK?”
Brighton clenched his jaw, and then took a deep breath. “Sure, Sam, everything’s fine. Really busy, you know. Sorry. I lost my train of thought for a moment.”
“That was more than a moment.”
Brighton didn’t reply.
“That’s OK, Dad,” Sam answered. “It just means you’re getting old.”
“You have no idea, Sammy, no idea. What was I saying then?”
“We were talking about my mug on the front page of the Post. But then you said there was something else you wanted to tell me.”
Brighton hesitated. He shouldn’t say anything, but he couldn’t hold back. He would say only a few words. “Sam, I’m going to give you a head’s up, OK? But this is just a private conversation between father and son. You understand me, Sammy? This is private, OK?”
“All right, Dad,” Sam answered. “This is between you and me.”
“You and me, Sam. You understand that.”
“Maybe it’d be better then, Dad, if you just—”
“No, Sam, I want you to know. I want you to know that I gave it my blessing, so that when they talk to you, you won’t hesitate for me.”
“What are you talking about, Dad?”
“Listen, Sam, just listen, all right? Some things are happening. Some good things, some bad. And some of them will affect you. So you’ve got to be ready.” He paused again. “Sam, I know you expected to stay with your unit in Iraq for a year or more. But it might turn out differently. You might find yourself somewhere else.”
Sam paused before asking, “Why would I have to leave my unit? What are you saying, Dad?”
Brighton was firm now. “Just keep yourself sharp. That’s all I should say. Keep busy. Do your mission. But be prepared for something new, something that makes me very proud. It might be a week. Might be a few days. Either way, be ready for a call.”
Sam thought a long moment. He knew from the sound of his father’s voice that he wouldn’t say any more. “All right then, Dad. I’ll be ready. Now you take care of Mom.”
“I will.”
“And Luke and Ammon.”
“Them too. Got them all. Now keep your head down.”
“I always do, Dad.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
“Yeah, well, whatever. I’ll
see you sometime, OK? Tell Mom I love her. Tell her I might be able to come home for Christmas.”
“I’ll tell her, Sam.”
*******
Major General Neil Brighton sat on the corner of his desk, pondering what the future might hold for his son—for all his sons. Unbidden, the face of Prince al-Rahman swam before his eyes. The general knew the prince; they had met many times. And there was something about him, something . . . cold. He was so cocky, prideful and arrogant. It was almost as if he knew something that no other man knew, as if he saw something coming that no one else could see.
Brighton reached over and picked up a red-bound report that had the words “Classified, Top Secret, White House National Security Staff” across the cover. He flipped it open and looked at the photograph and the two-page memo inside.
The Pakistani general’s face was gritty and grim. His mustache hung over his large lips, and his eyes were dark as wet coal. The Pakistani was in charge of his nation’s nuclear program. And the photograph showed him talking to one of Al-Rahman’s senior men.
Neil Brighton shivered, a cold run down his spine.
His instincts were screaming. Danger. There is danger. He shivered again.
The sense of foreboding led his thoughts again to Sam and the Cherokees who would be recruiting him within the week. The unit was so secret that even the code name was classified and changed every three months to keep Congress and the press at bay. They were a top-secret Special Forces unit that worked on the razor’s edge of the law. Some would argue that what they did was illegal (the U.N. would certainly say that it was), for they slipped across the borders of both friends and foes, operating in countries against which the United States was not at war. And they did things, they got to people, that no one ever talked about—no one in the military, no one in the administration or the Congress. They operated in Israel, Europe, and Pakistan. They operated in Tajikistan, southwestern China, and Saudi Arabia as well.
They were the best America had to offer, America’s most valiant sons, willing to sacrifice and suffer to take peace to the most dangerous parts of the world.
The general shook his head sadly.
Was it a good use of fine men? Sometimes he wondered. It wasn’t clear anymore.
He frowned and looked up, staring through his bulletproof window at the deep White House lawn. What had brought them to this moment? Why had it come to this? Things had accelerated so quickly, and they were accelerating still.
The world was spinning. Would it ever regain control?
NINE
Camp Freedom, West of Baghdad, Iraq
The night after Sam Brighton had taken the call from his father, his team had been tasked to do a night recon on some suspect houses in Northern Baghdad, but the mission had been aborted owing to lack of helicopter transports to infiltrate the team. As a result, Sam spent the night in his bed, under his cover when it was dark, quiet, and cool, instead of having to sleep in the middle of the day, with the light, heat, and noise. He got a good night’s rest, something he hadn’t enjoyed in more than two weeks.
Next morning he woke early, ate some breakfast, cleaned his gear, swept the tent floor (a completely pointless thing to do), waited in line for a nonrestricted computer to send some e-mails (he mostly communicated with his other army buddies scattered around the world), then went down to the unit Operations Center to see what was going on.
Entering the enormous tent, Sam felt the cool air. Outside, the morning sun had already grown hot, and the air-conditioned tent was a welcome relief. The Operations Center was stuffed with loads of electronic and communications gear—satellite telephones, GPS receivers, more than two dozen portable computers, handheld devices, UHF radios to talk with the unit’s helicopter pilots and ground crews, FM radios to talk with the ground troops when they were in combat on the ground—and all of this equipment demanded cool, clean air. The desert was excruciatingly hard on men, equipment, and machines, and it was a constant effort to keep everything from choking on the sand and dust.
The Operations Center was quiet; only a few soldiers were there. None of the unit’s combat teams had been tasked with combat excursions, so, except for a few standard security patrols in the small towns along the road between Camp Freedom and the airport, everyone had a little time to catch up on things. For a moment, Sam wondered what day it was. He glanced at his watch, a military issue black dial with the date and time. It was 9:36 a.m., Sunday.
He looked past the communications consoles in the middle of the room and spotted Joseph “Bono” Calton, a dark-skinned captain who was one of his very best friends.
Bono was a poster boy for the twenty-first-century soldiers fighting an unconventional war—fluent in Arabic and German, an expert marksman, equally good with a sophisticated GPS computer and in hand-to-hand combat with a knife. And he seemed to have the endurance of a mule—he could hike for twelve hours without stopping to rest. Most important, with his dark skin and dark eyes, he could blend in perfectly with the local populace. Sam had always wondered why his friend was so dark-skinned, but once he had seen a picture of Bono’s mother, a beautiful Moroccan his father had met while spending a summer in Northern Africa, he understood.
Six years out of college, the captain had just celebrated his twenty-eighth birthday, though he looked a bit older, with his dark face and sharp eyes. Having grown up in Los Angeles and graduated from one of the rich-kid high schools they made prime-time soap operas about, if anyone had an excuse to be spoiled, Bono certainly did. Sam knew that his dad had made a zillion dollars in the dot-com craze, getting out when the getting was good and settling down to a life of tennis, margaritas, and investing his cash. But when it came to money, Bono seemed completely uninterested. The only thing he really ever talked about was his family, and sometimes Sam got tired of looking at pictures of the two beautiful blondes, one his daughter, one his wife. Maybe he was only jealous—it was painfully clear the captain had something special that he did not have.
Like a lot of guys in the unit, the captain had several nicknames: “Sniper” (for his marksmanship), “Abu” (his dark features), the “Mule” (his flat-foot plodding). But most called him “Bono” for his inexplicable attachment to a mysterious brand of South Korean running shoes that you could only buy in the back alleys in Seoul. Still, he was such an imposing figure that none of the enlisted guys dared call him anything but “captain” to his face, and in a formal setting or in combat everyone called him “sir.”
It hadn’t taken more than a few days for Sam and Bono to become very good friends. They were alike—dedicated, fearless, with a bit of attitude, and both were in the Army because they loved the fight and believed in the cause. Sam knew that Bono could have followed in his father’s tracks, taken over his business affairs and spent Wednesday mornings on the golf course and Friday nights at the club. He also knew that Bono would just as soon drive splinters of wood under his fingernails as spend his life behind a desk.
In this one thing the two men were the same. They were driven by ambition, but not for ambition for cash.
Bono hadn’t yet noticed Sam standing near the doorway, so he kept his head down, concentrating on his work. In the quiet of the empty Operations Center, Sam’s thoughts drifted back to the first time they patrolled together.
*******
Sam’s Delta unit had been bouncing in and out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan (as well as several “non-host nations,” where they had not been invited and were definitely not supposed to be) for more than three years. As one of the U.S. Army’s most highly trained and versatile units, the Deltas went where they were called, which meant they spent a lot of their time on the road. While most army combat units in Iraq were eventually assigned more-or-less permanent facilities for their living quarters—early during the war, some of the more fortunate ones even ended up in former palaces of the ruling elites—the Deltas were not usually so lucky. Knowing they were far more mobile and in high demand, they didn’t spend a lo
t of time worrying about their living conditions. That seemed fruitless and wasteful. They were Deltas, after all—they didn’t need air conditioning or swimming pools. They needed clean weapons, lots of drinking water, and a mission every night.
Bono had been assigned to Sam’s unit just five months before. Sam clearly remembered the day he had been tasked to pick up the new captain at the airport in Afghanistan, where he watched Bono climb down the makeshift ramp from the enormous 747 airplane, a contract carrier ferrying soldiers in and out of the country. Sam took him to Camp Lenard and showed him his tent (which had become suddenly available when the previous captain had been killed by a sniper while out on patrol), then helped him unpack his gear and showed him around.
On the afternoon of that first day, Sam sat in the corner of the Operations Center, watching the young captain work.
Like any organization, the U.S. Army had its share of weak, cowardly, selfish, ignorant, and truly bad officers. But such men never made it into combat positions, or, if they did, they were quickly removed. Men’s lives were on the line, the chain of command understood that, and no one suffered fools in a combat zone. Indeed, the men who volunteered for and achieved the status of combat officer were some of the best that the United States had to offer. But still, there were variations in their capacities to lead. There were good officers and great officers, brilliant leaders and others who were not as talented or creative. Sam was instantly curious which kind of officer the new captain would be.
It generally took the men a few days, maybe even just a few hours, to evaluate their new leaders, and their first impressions almost always proved to be uncannily accurate. Sam better than most at evaluating his fellow officers—he knew he would be working with the captain for the next eight months or so—so he set about to study him and learn what he could. He watched how Bono took care of his equipment, how he spoke to the senior officers and the men under him. Sam listened to Bono’s tone of his voice and the things that he said. Sam noted the things Bono carried around in his pockets and the optional equipment he had.
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