“Today, in Africa, the faithful battle the forces of iniquity as the ummah rises up in righteous anger to slaughter the Christian descendants of the apes and pigs the world knows as the Jews. In the hadith of Sahih Bukhari, are we not instructed that the Day of Resurrection will not arrive until the Muslims make war against the Jews and kill them, and until a Jew is hiding behind a rock and tree, and the rock and tree say, ‘O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!’ ”
“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
“O Muslims, surely the day is at hand!”
“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
“O Muslims, the time has come to bring about the coming of the Twelfth Imam!”
“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
“O Muslims, will you not join me? For I am no longer Ali Ahmed Hussein Mustafa Mohammed Fadlallah al-Sadiq…”
“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
“… but Seyed Khorasani, the living embodiment of the holy prophecy. Make way! Make way for the Blessed Mahdi, Abu’ Qasim Hujjat ibn Hasan ibn ‘Ali.”
At that instant, the vision of Mohammed that the Nigerians had seen appeared in the sky above the Ayatollah’s head. Maryam felt a chill pass over her as she, like everyone else in the square but the Grand Ayatollah, prostrated herself before the Prophet’s majesty.
It all made sense, thought Maryam, lying there eating the holy dust of the holy city. Not the vision — if that was real then there was no point to anything she was about to do. It was the end of the world and the world was just going to have to accept it.
But the resurrection of the Mahdi — that could be explained.
In the fall of 2009, the West had been astonished to learn that the holy city was also the site of a hitherto-unknown uranium-enrichment facility located on one of the Islamic Revolutionary Council bases nearby. The mullahs had, of course, lied about it to international inspectors and naturally the willing fool who ran the International Atomic Energy Agency was only too willing to accept their lies. He was, after all, a faithful Muslim, and taqqiya—bald-faced lying — was an acceptable practice when you were prevaricating with infidels. But the atomic energy program her father had begun for the Shainshah was finally about to bear a hideous, poisoned fruit.
That’s why Skorzeny had used her as a bargaining chip. When the first Iranian bomb exploded, what better propaganda coup could the mullahs have than to parade the daughter of the Shah’s greatest scientist, the father of the Iranian nuclear program — and blame it all on her family? She would at once be a heroine and a martyr, to be exhibited and then publicly executed in Evin Prison as a traitor to the Revolution and an object lesson for the masses.
Let the West cavil — the true believers in Tehran would have their apocalypse.
And so would Skorzeny. “Frank Ross” had been right all along — this was not the end times, this was the endgame of Emanuel Skorzeny’s long war against the West and its religions. If he had to subvert Islam to accomplish his ends, so be it. “Dying, you destroyed our life. Rising, you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come again in glory.” That was the Memorial Acclamation of Christian worship, now perverted to his will.
They had to stop it. And she would have to do what she could, no matter what the cost. Not to save the world — the world had no lien on her loyalty. No, it was to save her country, to save herself — and to save him.
A less likely pair could hardly be imagined. Both orphans, both killers, both lovers. Adrift in a world they never made, and battling another orphan who would unmake it forever.
She got to her feet as the rest of the crowd rose. She glanced from side to side at the other women, some of them veiled, some not, but all clad in the chador on this holy occasion. What were they thinking? Did they think of their mothers, those laughing, smiling women whose photographs they kept hidden and out of sight in the innermost recesses of their homes and their minds, the young college girls of the fifties and sixties of short skirts and tight sweaters and quick laughs, the mothers and torchbearers of two thousand years of civilization and high culture in the darkness of central Asia? The women who counted Jews and Assyrian Christians among their friends and neighbors, who drank in the bistros of Tehran and dined openly in the best restaurants and spent the summers at their fathers’ country houses on the Caspian, where they ate beluga caviar for breakfast and made love on the beach at night?
Subjugated now, all subjugated by an alien desert misogyny, imposed by force and maintained by terror.
“O Muslims,” shouted the Grand Ayatollah, pointing toward the holy mosque, wherein lay the holy well. “Your prayers are about to be answered!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Oceana Naval Air Station, Virginia
The three Super Hornets were waiting for them, as promised, at Oceana, right there on Tomcat Boulevard in Virginia City, an homage to the old Grumman F-14 Tomcats. Room for one pilot and one passenger in each. Twenty percent larger than the Legacy Hornet, and fifteen thousand pounds heavier at max weight, with a third more fuel capacity, the F/A-18F Super Hornets could kick just about anything’s ass. At fifty-five million dollars a pop, they’d better.
“Don’t wreck ’em, okay?” said Commander Stephen Joseph. “These babies almost cost real money.”
“Range?” asked Devlin. “And don’t bullshit me, because I’ll know.”
“Twelve hundred nautical miles, in and out.”
“Airborne refueled?” asked Danny.
“What, do I look stupid?”
“Radar?” Devlin again.
“If they’re looking you in the face or up the ass, they ain’t gonna see ya. Not quite Stealth level, but good enough for government work. Full ECM. But try to fly straight.”
Danny was walking around one of the three Super Hornets. “Weapons? I see a twenty-millimeter Gatling, four Sidewinders, JDAMs… ”
“And you can get them in red if you don’t like them in white or blue,” said Joseph. “Sparrows, Mavericks…”
“JDAM bombs. I like that,” said Danny. “I hear CBU Clusters, too.”
“If you say pretty please.”
Danny kicked one of the tires. “We’ll take three,” he said.
“Where to, sir?” asked Commander Joseph.
“Diego Garcia, and we’ll take it from there,” said Devlin.
Diego Garcia was a small atoll in the Indian Ocean south of the subcontinent. Administratively, it belonged to the BIOT, the British Indian Ocean Territory, but in practice its forty-four square kilometers were entirely given over to a joint forward operating base of the Americans and the Brits. Basically, it was a stationary aircraft carrier fashioned from a coral reef. Strategically situated among East Africa, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, India, Indonesia, and, at a stretch, Australia, Diego Garcia controlled one of the most critical areas on the planet.
“What about you, Mr. Harris?” asked Joseph. “And you, Mr. Barker?”
“We’re headed elsewhere.”
“We’ll need some choppers, too,” said Danny. “Carrierbased in the Gulf of Oman. The Eisenhower will do just fine.”
“Heavy lifting? MH-47s? We can have those there as well.”
Danny shook his head. “More along the lines of MH-60Ks. The new ones, with Stealth technology. Six will do just fine.”
Commander Joseph smiled. “ ‘Night Stalkers Don’t Quit,’ huh?”
“They never die, either.”
Joseph looked at the two men standing before him. This was probably the last time he would ever see them, no matter whether the mission was a success or a failure, whether they lived or died. But he was proud to be serving with them.
“I suppose this is all classified.”
“Got it in one.”
“Dangerous? I mean, more so than usual?”
“Any man KIA, his family will be taken care of. No worries there. But I’d prefer bachelors, if you catch my drift.”
&nb
sp; “Got three hot-sticks flight teams itching to mix it up.”
“They’re going to get to scratch that itch. And if you know your men, Commander, they’ll all be coming home.”
“Outstanding,” said Commander Joseph.
“Now load those suckers up with JDAMS and get them in the air.”
Devlin and Danny started to walk away. They were heading back to Washington to go over the plan with Danny’s Xe ops once more and then they’d be in the air, and on their way to the Al Dhafra Air Base in the Emirates, which would be their jumping-off point. Joseph called out after them.
“We’re going to get it right this time, aren’t we?”
Smart fellow.
Devlin turned and gave a thumbs-up, and then they were gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
St. Louis
“I hate Missouri,” said Angela Hassett. “I hate everything about it. I hate the weather, I hate the humidity, I hate the cold, I hate the damp, I hate the symphony, I hate the people, I hate the blacks, I hate the whites. I hate the French and the Germans who founded it. I hate the Okies in the Ozarks. I even hate Branson.”
She was naked, sitting upright in the bed at the old Adam’s Mark in downtown St. Louis.
“I thought you loved humanity,” said Jake Sinclair, just as naked, beside her.
“I do love humanity,” she replied. “It’s just people I can’t stand.”
Sinclair kissed her and then rolled back over on his pillow. They had made love three times already and he was exhausted, although he would never admit it. “In that case,” he said, “you’ll make a great president.”
Now it was her turn to kiss him. The press was probably downstairs, but she didn’t care. The press fed from her virgin hand every morning, noon, and night. The press was her best friend, her protector. She told them almost nothing, her campaign told them less than nothing, but the press was so wedded to the notion of the First Woman President — historic! — that they would do anything to see it become reality. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” said the wise reporter in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
How easy it had all been; nothing to it, really. All you needed was a gimmick, an angle, a “first” for the narrative and the media would block and tackle for you all the way to the end zone, which was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She had quickly learned the First Lesson of Media, which was that nearly all reporters hated being reporters, hated being servile toward those they regarded at the very most as their social equals and, at worst, their inferiors. After all, they had all gone to the same schools together, they socialized together, they lived in the same neighborhoods in Georgetown and on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But the power imbalance thing really pissed off the ladies and gentlemen of the press, which is why they had, in effect, created their own shadow government, a government-in-permanent-exile but always on the job, and an endless round of television shows on which they interviewed each other, hounded some hapless office-holding nitwit, and then interviewed each other about the interviews they’d just done. A more perfect circle of jerks could hardly be imagined.
The Second Lesson of Media was corollary to the first: Most reporters wanted to be something else. The ones who could write a little wanted to be Real Writers. The ones who couldn’t write very well wanted to be Hollywood screenwriters. And the ones who couldn’t write at all wanted to be movie producers. Every story came with an angle, and that angle had to be Option Money. Every series of stories had to build a Narrative. And that Narrative could only be one thing:
Oppressed Minority Triumphs Over White Men.
Well, she certainly qualified. And now she was wiping the floor with John Edward Bilodeau Tyler.
She had worked hard at establishing the legend, from the time she first burst on the scene as the governor of Rhode Island. Rhode Island! Thank God for federalism, for where else in the world could you and your gang take over a dinkyass state like Rhode Island and be taken seriously? To burnish the legend, she had moved quickly to toss the Italian mobsters who had been running the joint for decades into the federal pen — they had supported her, even helped her buy some choice real estate in Newport, but now that their usefulness was at an end, they had to be made an example of. Hello, Supermax, the ultimate no-tell motel.
And the media had been a part of it, which was why she found herself at this moment in bed with the loathsome Jake Sinclair. This was a consenting adult, two-way-street transaction, a fuck for access and endorsement. In a few weeks it would be all over, and she would never again have to have his hands on her body. She would send him packing back to whatever little chippie named Jenny he was currently married to, and then, when all the reports of campaign irregularities surfaced via leaks from her press office, she’d have him arrested and thrown in jail, preferably for life.
“You’re up across the board,” said Sinclair, consulting his iPhone. His newspaper had broken the recent reports of the special tracking chip implanted in every iPhone, which made him laugh, since anyone with a source in Washington had known for years that the iPhone incorporated the SKIPJACK technology from the Clinton Administration: Big Brother was watching you, for your own safety. Naturally, Tyler got the blame. “Eighteen points, in some states.”
Don’t get cocky — that was a lesson she had learned long ago, when she was a girl. Never trust a fixed fight until the fight is over and the bum you bet on has his hand raised in triumph. Now that bum was her, and the hand being raised was the one that would not be on the Bible as she took the oath of office on January 20.
It was amazing how stupid the media was, how gullible. They were just like Churchill’s description of the Germans: either at your feet or at your throat. And the only thing you needed to do to keep them away from your throat was to feed them — in this case, information. Information on the other guy. Once they had made up their mind that their precious “narrative” dictated that you were the good guy and the other guy was the bad guy, you had it made in the shade.
Just as long as you didn’t do anything stupid. And the later into the election season it got, the smarter you became. At this rate, she wouldn’t even need the collapse of the dollar that a certain quiet campaign backer had told her he could deliver. In fact, she’d have to really fuck up now to lose. Either that, or the other guy would have to get awfully lucky. And Jeb Tyler’s luck had run out.
Her private phone rang. Sinclair tried to snoop over her shoulder as she looked at the display, but she turned away from him. “I have to take this,” she said, rising and heading for the bathroom.
“Another lover, I suppose?” he said and then flopped back on the pillow. He was very proud of himself, Mr. Sinclair was, getting to advance-fuck a president of the United States.
She closed the bathroom door. “Yes?”
“Are you alone?”
“I am now.”
“Don’t tell me it’s that awful Sinclair. Really, my dear, I thought you had better taste than that.”
“Yeah, well, you do what you have to. Everything in place?”
At the other end of the line, Emanuel Skorzeny had an uncharacteristic moment of hesitation. “Yes, of course.”
“Don’t fuck with me, old man,” she said, her voice rising,
“Need some help in there?” came Sinclair’s voice from the bedroom.
“We have a deal and I expect that deal to go off without a hitch. I need to put this bastard Tyler in the ground, six feet under, so that by Election Day he’ll be lucky to carry his home state of Louisiana. The country’s sick of his ineptitude. It’s sick of watching the body count rise on his watch. One more push and he’s done.”
“Do not underestimate him, Angela,” said Skorzeny. “I made that mistake once and it cost me a considerable amount of money, staff, and personal happiness.”
“That’s your problem. You can always find more money, I’m sure you can find staff, and as for your personal happiness, I don’t give a shit. Just tell me our little surprise
is going to go off without a hitch.”
“Haven’t you been reading the papers? Watching television? I noticed you haven’t said a word about the trouble in Africa.”
“Why should I? There’s no votes in it, and besides it’s more fun to watch Tyler flounder and stew. As far as I’m concerned, that’s for your amusement. I want the bang for my buck you promised me.”
“Oh, you’ll get it, all right,” said Skorzeny, “and right on schedule. Just one thing, Angela…”
“What’s that?”
“Do be prepared for Tyler to have a little October Surprise of his own. The man has the cunning of a snake, and if you’re going to beat him, you’re going to need to be utterly ruthless.”
Angela Hassett smiled. “I think I’ve done pretty well in that department so far,” she said.
A loud knock on the door. “You going to stay in there all day? I gotta go.”
“Keep your pants on, big boy,” she said sweetly, “and let a girl do what a girl’s gotta do.”
“Okay, but hurry up. Jeez…”
“What an idiot,” said Skorzeny.
“Yes, but he’s our idiot for now,” she replied. “And when he’s no longer useful… ‘ruthless,’ you were saying?”
“Listen to me, Angela. It’s not just Tyler. He has people — one man in particular. This man might well be the most dangerous man on the planet, next to me. Pray you never meet him.”
A voice from outside the door. “Aw, Angela, come on… ”
“I think I can handle men,” she said to Skorzeny. “Just do your job.”
She rang off, splashed some water on her face, and looked at herself. In less than a month she would be looking at the president-elect and, a couple of months later, the POTUS herself. That’s when the real fun would begin, when fortunes would be made and unmade, and when social transformation would begin in earnest.
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