The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  Ammon couldn’t speak. His mind was a haze. “Hey, that was kind of exciting,” Luke said with a smile.

  Ammon shook his head. “I’m so sorry . . . so sorry . . .”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “The rope. The bolt! It was my fault.”

  Luke shook his head and waved a dismissive hand. “Come on, Ammon, don’t go soft on me. There wasn’t a thing you could do; it’s just one of those things. Anyone who climbs knows that it happens. There was no way you could know.”

  “I knew the bolt wasn’t sure. The rock was starting to crack. I should have stopped you . . .”

  Luke pushed himself up, leaning into the rock. “That’s a crock and you know it! There was no way you could know. Now don’t go girly on me, Ammon. Besides, I’m okay. And now I can say I made it over the ledge. Without a safety rope even. Let’s see Samuel beat that!”

  Luke smiled, but his voice trailed off and both of the young men were quiet.

  “I heard something,” Luke finally said in a reverent tone.

  Ammon’s eyes narrowed. “I saw something,” he replied.

  “I felt such a power.”

  “It was as if a hand lifted you up.”

  They both fell still for a very long time. Then they looked at each other, and Luke lowered his eyes. “Can you throw me a rope? I want to get off this ledge.”

  Ammon secured the rope to the tree and lowered it to his brother. Luke secured it to his harness, and Ammon pulled him the last ten feet to the top of the rock.

  The two young men drove in silence the entire way home. “Should we tell Dad?” Ammon asked as they pulled into the drive.

  Luke shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Maybe someday, but let’s not mention it now.”

  Neither one of them even considered telling their mom. There were just certain things it was better for moms not to know.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sara Brighton watched her husband pack for the trip to Saudi Arabia as she sat on the edge of their bed, her legs crossed with her feet under her knees, her flannel nightgown pulled tightly around her knees and tucked under her feet.

  Like all military officers, Brighton had spent much of his career on the road, and it took him only minutes to pack for the trip. One suit bag and one carry-on—the general had it down to an art. His travel bag was like his schedule, tight and precise. And he always traveled light: no fluffy bathrobes, extra clothes, or personal pillows. The only nonessential items he would carry would be a small set of military scriptures (well-worn but with print so small it was getting difficult for him to read) and whatever history book he was reading at the time. For the major items he kept a prepacked military suitcase in the back of his closet, which contained a fully packed toiletry bag, dark socks, air force shirts, two dress uniforms, dark leather dress shoes, a long overcoat, and athletic gear.

  After joining the NSC staff, Brighton was surprised to discover how often he had to travel with only a few moments’ notice. (He had to laugh at seeing the look on his neighbor’s face the first time a military chopper set down in their cul-de-sac to whisk him away. In a town that lived and died by perks, even the Armani-suited attorney had trouble matching that power play.) Because of the short-notice requirements, Sara had learned to launder his clothes and repack his bag immediately upon his return, for neither of them knew when he would have to head out again.

  As Brighton stuffed military papers into his briefcase, Sara watched in silence, twisting a strand of light hair in her fingers. She frowned, then adjusted her nightgown, pulling it over her knees.

  “How long will you be gone?” she asked intently.

  “Couple days,” Brighton answered.

  Three days in Saudi Arabia. A quick hit and go. Overseas trips like this were no more unusual for him than a trip to the mall.

  “Saudi Arabia is a long way to go for just a few days,” Sara said.

  Brighton pressed his lips and nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  “You say you have some meetings with the Saudi military commanders?”

  “Yeah. We’ve had a little problem in some of our joint operations we need to iron out.”

  “Joint operations? As in command and control or operational missions?” After years of being married not only to her husband but also to his job, Sara had the basic concepts of military operations and their lingo down.

  Brighton nodded, then dropped to his knees and looked under his bed. Pulling out A Short History of the World, he shoved it into his briefcase. “There are some operational options we’re looking at,” he explained.

  Sara considered. Operational missions with the Joint Saudi Forces. She knew what that meant. If one read the daily papers, especially the Washington Times, one could add two and two and come up with a pretty good estimation of the top-secret information that was given to the president in his presidential daily brief. For weeks now, even months, the Times had been saying that the Royal Saudi king, King Faysal, was preparing to move against many of the terror camps that had sprung up along the Iranian border across the Persian Gulf, many of which were, ironically, originally funded by the Wahhabi fundamentalists that ran his own kingdom. Many of these terror camps had been used as the operations centers from which they attacked targets within the kingdom, and the king had decided he had no choice but to act. A house divided will not stand, and the terror the Islamist radicals were wreaking within his own kingdom had to come to an end.

  Sara formulated in her mind some of the issues her husband would discuss with the Saudi commanders. Would the United States provide military or intelligence assistance? How would that play with the terrorists in Iraq? How would it play if they didn’t act? If the United States partnered with the already weakened Saudi king, might that more likely lead to his downfall, something that was a tremendous concern in the West? How would the Iranians react if they suspected the United States had aided the Saudi attacks on Iranian soil? Worse, how would they react if they perceived the Americans as too weak or hesitant to take action in a case that so clearly had national security considerations at stake?

  Sara bounced the possibilities back and forth, grateful for the thousandth time that she didn’t have her husband’s job. It was a lose-lose proposition. Indeed, most of the issues he dealt with had little positive potential but were a bottomless pit when it came to the downside.

  Which explained why he was so tired and on edge all the time.

  She counted the months until the next election. A little more than a year. If the president wasn’t reelected, something that seemed likely now, the new administration would reorganize the NSA staff and bring in their own team. Her husband would be reassigned. They would have to move on.

  She approached the possibility with very strong and yet mixed emotions. Personally, nothing would make her happier. It would be such a huge relief. It would be like casting off irons; her family would be so much better off without the stress of Neil’s job. But the president was such a good man, such an honest man, such a loyal and honorable leader, and the thought that the nation . . . her nation . . . might turn its back on him caused her such heartbreak she nearly cried at the thought. He had been so attacked, so smeared, so besmirched. From the day he had entered office it had been nothing but three years of brutal insults and personal assaults.

  “HE HAS BETRAYED OUR NATION!”

  “POWER IS ALL HE CARES ABOUT!”

  The screaming opposition was more brutal and mean-spirited than anything she had ever seen in her life.

  But Sara knew the landscape; after years of life in the military she knew her way around, and she wasn’t fooled by the things that she read in the press.

  Still, it was heartbreaking to watch. It actually cut her inside. Satan had stirred up so much opposition, so much mindless and visceral hate. He stirred the wicked to hate anything that was good, even those who had sacrificed so that they might be free. “Dumb Jock Killed in Afghanistan,” one of the opposition new
spaper headlines had read in reporting the death of a well-known athlete who had volunteered for the war. Sara had printed the headline from the Internet and pasted it in her journal. As a sign of the times, nothing seemed to say more.

  Hate and opposition. It was everywhere she looked. No reason. No logic. No well-considered arguments. Hate and opposition. It came from all sides. She considered the hostility she saw in many national leaders, then thought of the principles Mosiah and Alma had taught:

  “The foundation of the destruction of this people is beginning to be laid by the unrighteousness of your leaders.”

  “Do your business by the voice of the people. And if the time comes that the people choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, this is the time when he will visit you with great destruction.”

  She knew it was true. She saw it every day. If the people willingly and knowingly chose corrupt and evil leaders, then they would pay.

  But so would the innocent. They could not be spared, for they were in the same boat. If one group was punished, everyone paid the price.

  Sara considered in silence, completely lost in her thoughts, until the sound of the clock ticking brought her back to the room. She looked at her husband, who was staring at her.

  “Did you say something?” she asked him.

  “Do you know where my security badge is?” he asked for the second time.

  “You left it on the counter downstairs. I tucked it in the zippered pocket in your briefcase.”

  “Thanks,” he answered quickly as he checked to make sure it was there.

  Sara fluffed the two pillows and leaned back against the headboard. “So you’re coordinating some operational issues with the Saudis?” she asked again.

  Brighton nodded quickly but didn’t offer more, and she didn’t press. He always told her what he could, which wasn’t much anymore, and she had grown used to his silence about the things he was involved with at work.

  She shivered lightly and pulled her arms close to her body. A cold front had moved through, and a fall chill filled the air. The house was quiet around them. Luke and Ammon had gotten up early again and were already gone.

  “I think something happened while the boys were rock climbing yesterday,” Sara said as she watched her husband pack.

  Brighton paused. “What do you mean?” he asked as he counted his socks.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Luke’s arms were all scratched to pieces. I asked him about it and he just seemed . . . I don’t know, a little overly anxious to explain. Then both of them were way too quiet. I have no doubt in my mind they weren’t telling me something.”

  Brighton watched, interested. “No missing limbs?” he asked.

  “Not that I could see.”

  “No contusions. No concussions or brain matter exposed?”

  Sara winced and grimaced. “No. And yuck! Do you have to be so graphic? These are our sons we’re talking about, and I worry about them. They do crazy things. There’s way too much testosterone roaming around here!”

  “I know,” Brighton smiled. “I can’t figure it out.”

  She looked at his smile. As if he had no idea where they got it.

  “It was a strange day altogether,” she continued.

  “How’s that?” Brighton asked.

  Sara hesitated. “Well, first there was this thing with Luke and Ammon. But then, you know the Burkoughs at the end of the block?”

  Brighton hesitated. He didn’t know his neighbors well. “He works for State?” he asked.

  “No. Other side of the street. Young black family. He’s an associate in one of the law firms on D Street.”

  “Okay. I know who you mean.”

  “Great family. I like her a lot. She works for the Red Cross.”

  “Yeah . . .” Brighton answered absently. The comings and goings of his neighborhood would never be of much interest to him.

  “They have two daughters,” Sara continued. “The oldest girl, I think she’s seven, she put her hand in a nest of black widow spiders yesterday. It gives me the willies just thinking of it. She was bitten at least six times, I was told. She’s in the hospital. They think she will make it, but she is a very sick little girl.”

  Brighton’s eyes narrowed. “You’re kidding!” he stammered.

  Sara only nodded.

  “A nest of black widows! I’ve never heard of such a thing. They are predatory insects—they don’t nest together; they eat each other, I thought.”

  Sara shivered and looked around their room as if she expected to see spiders crawling up the walls. “I don’t know, Neil, I don’t know. But she isn’t the only one who was bitten. A couple of kids at the school have been bitten too. They say it’s the warm winters we’ve been having. Warm winters, no snow or freezing temperatures to kill the spiders like the normal winters would. I was listening to the radio. They said there’s an infestation of black widows that reaches throughout the South.” She shivered again. “I want to get our house sprayed,” she said.

  “Do it,” Neil said. “Call the exterminators first thing this morning.”

  “I already did. They are swamped. Can’t be here for three weeks.”

  “Three weeks!” Neil replied in surprise. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, honey. I wish I was.” She looked around the room again and pulled the blanket up. “Yuck again. A ball of black widow spiders! I tell you, I’m not going down to the basement until the exterminators come.”

  “Have you seen any spiders?”

  “No. But I haven’t been looking until the past couple of days.”

  Brighton thought. “Okay,” he said. “Stay out of the basement. And keep your eyes peeled anytime you’re outside or in the garage. This is an old house; there are too many dark places for them to hide. And be careful in the garden. Check your shoes and gloves. I’ll spray the house and yard first thing when I get back. That will get us through until the exterminators come.”

  Sara nodded. “Okay. I’ll be careful. But the first time I see a ball of black spiders rolling toward me, you’ll find me somewhere in Maine where the winters are co-o-old.”

  Brighton smiled and reached down to kiss her cheek. “It’s a really nasty thought, isn’t it? It would give anyone the creeps.”

  He checked his watch. His flight, a C-21 military executive jet, was scheduled to take off from Andrews Air Force Base a little after 7:00 a.m. He had a pile of work he would complete as they crossed the Atlantic Ocean; then they would stop and refuel in Germany before heading to Arabia, where he would arrive early the next morning. “Got to go, babe,” he said as he stood from the bed.

  “All right, General Brighton. Have a good trip, SIR!” she teased as she pretended to salute.

  Brighton looked through the open doorway to the twin’s room down the hall. “Where are the boys?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, something at school. Intramural football practice, I think. But they both told me to give you a good-bye kiss for them.”

  “Cool. I like it when you kiss me. No offense intended to the guys.”

  Sara smiled and stood up, put her arms around his neck and kissed his forehead wetly. “That’s for Luke,” she said, then kissed his right cheek. “And this one’s for Ammon.”

  Brighton grinned in pleasure. Puckering his lips, he closed his eyes. “And from you?” he asked expectantly.

  Sara looked at his closed eyes, then took his hand and shook it. “That’s from me,” she said.

  He smiled and pushed her back, making her fall on the bed. “I don’t think so,” he laughed as he tickled her bare feet.

  She giggled, then sat up and kissed him good-bye. Before she let him go, she looked at him for a long time, holding his face with her hands as she stared into his eyes. She looked at him like this every time he went away and had done so since his first combat deployment during the Persian Gulf war.

  “Couple of days, right?” she asked him.

  “Five day
s. Three in Saudi, a couple of days en route,” he replied.

  “I always miss you.”

  “You know I miss you too.”

  She took a step back and let her arms fall to her side. “You’re going to see Crown Prince Saud bin Faysal?” she asked.

  “Yes, we’re going to get together after my other meetings.”

  “Where are you meeting?”

  “At one of his palaces in Riyadh.”

  Sara looked worried. She knew something was up. The crown prince didn’t call in the middle of the night just to set up a time to get together for a chat. She studied her husband. “He’s a good man,” she said. “But I think he’s in trouble.”

  “The entire kingdom’s in trouble. Everyone’s in trouble. It’s the times we live in.”

  “Yes, I understand that. But he is particularly vulnerable. And he is a good friend.”

  Brighton nodded quietly.

  “Now listen, you be sure to thank him for that . . .” Sara hesitated. “What do we call that thing he gave us, anyway?”

  “Geez, I don’t know. What do you call a $300,000 decoration that hangs on the wall?”

  “Whatever it is, you thank him, Neil Brighton! Don’t forget. Even if we didn’t get to keep it, you still have to thank him. You have a tendency to forget these kind of things, but you’ve got to remember, okay?”

  Brighton flipped his Palm open. “Got it written here,” he said.

  Sara chewed on her lip. “Tell Prince Saud I send my regards. Tell him I love him. Tell him to be strong.”

  Brighton only nodded, then reached for his black bag. Lifting the strap over his shoulder, he turned to face her again. “Sam’s in Germany, you know. His unit has two weeks’ recuperation time.”

  “Yes. I’m so relieved to have him out of Afghanistan for a while!” she answered, then looked at Neil hopefully. “Maybe you could see him while you’re over there,” she said.

  Brighton shook his head. “Don’t think so,” he answered. “Very tight schedule.”

  “He’s staying not far from Ramstein.” Her voice was hopeful, almost pleading.