The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  He waited, half expecting to hear an answer, then turned suddenly toward his mother.

  “Do you feel that?” she asked him. Ammon and Luke had gathered beside them on the creaking stairs.

  Sam put his arm around her shoulders. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. He didn’t waver. He didn’t hesitate. His voice was hard and firm. He felt cold despite the beads of sweat that ran down his face to sting his eyes. Looking at his younger brothers, he saw the courage and . . . what was it . . . the light that emitted from their faces. It was then it finally hit him, the confusion lifting as he stared into their eyes.

  The battle was in motion. The same battle from long ago. The battle for the souls of men, for the soul of their country, for their own family. Eons of waiting and preparing. And now the final days were here.

  But he was ready. They all were ready. Lucifer had not defeated them—and he wouldn’t defeat them now.

  Turning, he raced up three more flights of stairs to the final landing. Stopping at a locked door, he pulled out his pistol and shot the rusted lock. He pushed the door open and they ran onto the roof.

  Ammon quickly looked around, then raced toward the low wall that ran around the rooftop. They were four stories above the streets. Huge fires were burning now below them and a raging crowd had gathered, filling the shadows of the night. “Well, at least we got the high ground,” Ammon said as they moved across the tar-and-pebble roof.

  Sam angrily shook his head. “This isn’t Gettysburg,” he answered. He looked around desperately. The nearest building was at least forty yards away, across the street. “We don’t have an escape route.” He ran to the west wall. The rail yard was empty. It was a long way down. “Why did I come up here! It was stupid. This is the last place we should be.”

  Ammon grabbed his shoulders. “Dude, it doesn’t matter. We’re not leaving this place anyway.”

  Mary was standing by the door. “They’re coming up the stairs!” she cried. Ammon and Luke ran toward her. It sounded like an army on the other side of the door.

  “Kind of wish we had that lock now,” Ammon said as they pushed against the door.

  “Doesn’t matter. One blast with that shotgun is all it’s going to take,” Sam called back.

  Ammon pulled out his weapon. “So we shoot them as they come through the door.”

  He heard his mother gasp. “You can’t do that, Ammon!” she cried.

  He turned to her. “Mom, what are we going to do, then?”

  “I don’t know. But you can’t just shoot them. I don’t care who or what they are. You can’t shoot them, Ammon.” She turned. “You hear me, Sam! That is not who we are.”

  “I’ll tell you who we are, Mom,” Sam cried in a deadly voice. “We’re dead if we don’t stop them. They are coming, they want to kill us, and they’ve got lots of guns.”

  “Sam, we can’t—”

  “No, Mom,” Sam shot back. “We will protect ourselves.” He turned to Ammon. “We can not let them on the rooftop. If they come through that door, we shoot them. You understand me, dude?”

  Ammon’s hands were shaking. Sara let out a cry. Mary moved to her and put her arm around her shoulders. “I’ve got my baby here,” she whispered, hoping that Sara would understand. Azadeh hesitated, then moved forward. “Do they want me?” she wondered weakly. “If they do, then I’ll go down there. I will talk to them—”

  “No,” Ammon told her. “This has nothing at all to do with you.”

  The noise was getting louder, swearing and cursing and shouting from the stairs behind the door. Someone threw a rock onto the rooftop. Another shotgun blast echoed from down below. The night was completely dark now, the stars hidden behind a wall of clouds. The cold wind seemed to gust with fury, as if it could blow them from the roof. Pounding on the stairwell. Heavy footsteps. The foulest cursing. Heavy fists upon the door. Words they didn’t understand. A cold chill upon the air. Ammon fell back and aimed his weapon. Sam moved to his side and crouched. Luke pushed his mother and the other women toward the farthest corner of the roof. Kelly Beth was crying now, grasping at him, and he had to tear her from his arm. He huddled the women together. “Stay here,” he commanded before he turned.

  Then silence. Deadly silence.

  Luke ran back toward his brothers.

  “Stay away from the door!” Sam screamed to him. “Get into position . . .”

  The shotgun blast shattered the wood frame around the door, sending splinters and dust and pieces of broken metal exploding through the air. Luke fell back and scrambled across the pebbled rooftop. Ammon raised his gun and fired.

  “NO, NO, NO!” Sam screamed. “Don’t waste your ammo, man!”

  Another second of ugly silence.

  Another shotgun blast.

  The door twisted on its hinges, then fell back.

  The thin man with the crooked smile was standing there. His eyes were yellow, his teeth exposed, his lips pulled back in wild fury. “It’s time to shine!” he whispered in a dark voice that seemed to emit not from his mouth but from somewhere in his chest. He raised the shotgun and stepped forward. Ammon aimed at his chest and was about to fire when something caught his ear. Something in the wind. Loud. Powerful. A dull whop of spinning rotors.

  The helicopter swooped in from the north, the sound of its turbine engines and massive rotors swallowed up in the wind. Getting closer, it turned on its spotlight and aimed it at the roof. The chopper was flying so fast it almost overshot the rooftop before coming to a hover at the corner where the women and little girl were crouching. The spotlight was blinding and Sam raised his hands to shield his eyes. The chopper was all black. Army markings. He almost cried in relief.

  A loudspeaker under the nose of the helicopter shattered the dark night. “You there, with the shotgun. Drop your weapon and turn around!” Sam could see the door gunner now, his 50-caliber Gatlin gun moving on its floor-mounted hinges to turn his way. At 6,000 rounds a minute, the Gatlin could cut a man in two. “DO IT NOW!” the speaker sounded. “DROP YOUR WEAPON OR YOU DIE!”

  The man with the shotgun backed up, waited, sneered, then raised his weapon and aimed it at the women who were huddled at the corner of the building. He didn’t have time to fire. Sam’s bullet hit him in the head, almost directly in the ear.

  The chopper settled to a lower position. “GET IT!” the loudspeaker blared.

  A group of shadows scurried from the doorway of the building. Two or three men ran through. A half-second burst of gunfire emitted from the Gatlin gun, fire spouting from the barrel, smoke and white-hot tracers shooting through the darkness. The doorway shattered into a million pieces. Almost three hundred bullets impacted within a few feet of the center of the door. Another burst of gunfire, this one longer. The men were cut in pieces, blood and bone scattering through the air.

  Ammon stared, too amazed and sick to even move.

  Sam shook his head, grabbed his brother’s shoulder, and started running.

  Two Army Rangers jumped out of the hovering helicopter and ran toward them.

  “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord

  God will wipe away tears from off all faces. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have

  waited for him, and he will save us.”

  —Isaiah 25:8—9

  Chapter Forty-One

  Offutt Air Force Base

  Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command

  Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska

  Sara was terrified and angry. The metal door was locked, there were no windows, and she was cold. The room was dim and small and quiet, and although she could hear occasional footsteps in the hall, she felt so lonely, as if she were the last person in the world.

  Sometime before, they had allowed her to eat and shower—clean! the most wonderful feeling she could imagine—then immediately brought her back and locked her in the room. Alone again, she’d thought back on the helicopter ride through the long and lightless night. Not a word h
ad been spoken to them, not a hint of explanation or justification for what they’d done, no indication of who the rescuers were, how they knew about them, or what they intended to do with them now. Before the helicopter had landed at their destination, just as the sun was coming up, hoods had been placed briskly over all of their heads, their hands secured behind their backs, Sam’s and Ammon’s weapons taken. Touching down, the helicopter’s turbine engines still screaming, they’d been pulled from the helicopter one person at a time, all of them resisting except Sam. Separated, they were driven away in

  different cars. Now she didn’t know where her family was, how long she’d been there, or even where she was.

  She lay on the small bunk in the corner and stared up at the security camera that stared down at her. She blinked. It didn’t. She rolled over on the bed. A dim light burned in the deeply recessed, wire-covered socket on the ceiling, but if there was a light switch to control it, she didn’t know where it was. She was tired and cold and wanted to scream. Getting up, she paced until her feet hurt, then lay down once again. But she couldn’t sleep and sat up on the bed. Was it day? Was it night? She didn’t know what to think.

  The door finally opened. A man she’d never seen before was standing there. Blue shirt, dark suit pants, gray tie. A military haircut. Stern. Not overtly threatening, but serious. “Mrs. Brighton,” he said, “will you please come with me?”

  Sara stared at him. “Who are you?” she asked in a fearful, angry voice.

  He stepped into the room. “Please, ma’am.” He held the door back.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, not moving from the bed.

  “Ma’am,” his voice was firm.

  “Show me some ID. I want to know who you are with.”

  The man held the door back a little further and she glanced into the hall, catching a glimpse of a passing military uniform. Her heart skipped, the familiar sight an uncertain comfort. It wasn’t like she suddenly trusted the military more than any others—she didn’t trust anyone right now—but it was enough to give a hint of where she was.

  “You don’t need to know who I am,” the man said as he held the door ajar. “It doesn’t matter and it doesn’t help you anyway. But if you’ll come with me, I think you’ll have your questions answered.”

  “I doubt it,” she answered suspiciously.

  The stranger cleared his throat, growing impatient. Let him, Sara thought. Let’s see how he reacts; that’ll tell me more than anything what he’s really about. “Where are the others?” she commanded, her voice rising. “Where are my sons, the black woman, the girls?”

  He looked at her blankly. “Ma’am, I understand your fears and skepticism, but the truth is, I don’t who or what you’re talking about—and even if I did, I’m sure I couldn’t tell you. Not right now. Not yet. I’m not the one you want to talk to. There are others who will explain.”

  She looked at him as if for the first time. He looked familiar. Yes, she was certain. She had seen him before. Sometime recently. “Did you know my husband?” she asked, the sudden hope in her voice betraying her utter weakness.

  “Your husband?” he answered slowly, looking past her.

  Sara saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes even though his face remained passionless, his thick arms hanging at his side. “You knew him. Were you with him when . . .”

  He suddenly moved toward her. He was so much bigger than she was, at least a hundred pounds, and she quivered as he grew close. He reached out and she recoiled. Kneeling before her, he looked directly into her eyes. “Please, Mrs. Brighton, I understand a little of how you’re feeling. Now please, ma’am, just come with me.”

  * * *

  Sara was led into a large conference room. It was midday and the large Venetian blinds on the three walls opposite the door were opened to the light. Beyond the heavily tinted glass stretched a complex of low, brown-brick office buildings, militarily efficient, attractive but simple. Lots of grass between them. A large parade ground. An old fighter aircraft on a pedestal in a roundabout down the road. Seeing the blue sky and open space, she immediately felt better, her spirits lifting at the warmth and feeling of the sun. A large wooden table, surrounded by deep burgundy chairs, took up the middle of the room.

  Brucius Marino, the Secretary of Defense, sat at the head of the table.

  She froze, staring at him. An old friend? A new enemy? She didn’t know. Near the window, her oldest son was waiting, fresh and clean in a set of formal army greens, his chest decorated with a double row of military ribbons and medals. Sam looked at her and smiled and she ran to him, putting her arms around his shoulders. He seemed reserved, almost anxious, uncertain and tight. She stepped back and studied his face, then turned.

  The Secretary waited. Sara was suspicious, her eyes darting. She’d known him for many years, but she hadn’t seen him in several months even though the Secretary and her husband had worked together almost every day. He looked older now and tired, his dark eyes weary. She waited for him to initiate the conversation, but when he was quiet she turned back to Sam. He moved forward, taking her into his powerful arms again. She held him, standing on her tiptoes, her arms around his neck. “It’s okay, Mom,” he whispered quietly into her ear. So tender. So quiet. No way the other man could hear.

  They held each other a few seconds, then pulled apart. Sara wiped her eyes, drawing her fingers quickly across her cheeks. “Where are Luke and Ammon?” she whispered.

  “I just got through talking to them.”

  “They’re okay?”

  “Of course, Mom, they’re fine. Azadeh and Miss Dupree. Kelly Beth. They’re all okay.”

  “You’ve seen them?”

  “I haven’t seen the girls yet. Azadeh is with Kelly Beth down at the infirmary. They wanted to get some liquid in her, they thought she was dehydrated and undernourished. Kind of hard to tell them that a few days ago she was dying of cancer and that’s why she is so thin.”

  Sara’s shoulders shuddered visibly. She lowered her voice and turned away from the table, her eyes on the floor. “Are you . . . okay?” She didn’t know how to put it without just saying it out loud. Was he here because he wanted to be? Was he operating under any duress?

  Sam read the worried look on her face. “It’s okay, Mom,” he repeated. “You’re going to understand.”

  She took a deep breath and steeled herself, then turned toward the SecDef once again. “Hello, Bruce,” was all she said.

  He walked around the corner of the table, extending his hand. She looked at it before she took it. His shake was warm and firm. “Sara, it’s good to see you.” He sounded so sincere. “It is so good to know that you’re okay.”

  She didn’t answer, staring at him. She couldn’t let him know how much she knew. She had to be careful. She had to use her judgment—and hope that he was on her side.

  Marino nodded to the closest chair and she sat down, Sam pulling up a seat beside her. Marino returned to his chair at the corner of the table. “Sara, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to get it out. First, and most important, I want you to know how I felt about your husband, Neil.”

  Sara turned her head away.

  “I was with him, Sara, right up to the last day. It was only by the grace of God that I wasn’t killed with him. I should have been. They thought I would be. Sometimes I wish that I had been. But it didn’t happen. I am here. He is not. There’s nothing I can do to change that. There’s nothing I can do to ease the pain for either of us now. You lost your husband. I lost my best friend, a man I trusted more than any other in this world. There isn’t an hour that goes by that I don’t think about him, not an hour that I don’t think about what happened in D.C.” His voice trailed off, suddenly caught up with emotion. His lower lip trembled and he blushed with embarrassment and looked away.

  Watching him, Sara saw the naked grief that pulled the lines around his mouth. She immediately leaned toward him. “Bruce,” she asked, “is Julia okay?”

 
; The Secretary took a breath to catch himself, forcing his composure once again. He face was tight, the edge of his lips white with pressure.

  Sara understood. Reaching out, she took his hands in hers. “I’m so sorry, Bruce, so, so sorry. I didn’t know. I had no idea. The news said that you were killed in the explosion . . . there was just no way to know . . . I’ve thought about you both a thousand times . . . I’ve wondered about her . . .”

  The two friends sat in long silence, both of them lost in pain. Marino cleared his throat, tried to speak, waited, cleared his throat again, and said, “She was downtown with my youngest daughter. Someone called her and told her . . .” He stopped and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing painfully in his throat. “Someone called her and told her to come downtown. They sent a driver for them, said I was going to meet them . . .”

  Sara sobbed quietly for him, her cheeks tracked with rolling tears.

  “They sent her downtown . . . they knew . . . I was supposed to meet them . . . they were going to kill us both.” His voice grew hard and jagged as shattered glass. “They killed her. They killed my wife and daughter!” He fought to control himself, pain-driven rage burning in his eyes. He stood suddenly and walked around the chair, moving angrily toward the window. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, staring out.

  The room was silent. A large clock ticked a full minute on the wall. Sara stared down at her own hands. Marino stared out the window. Sam stared at the picture-covered wall, feeling like a voyeur. He shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have witnessed such a personal and private scene. This was the next president of the United States. He almost shuddered. He couldn’t have felt more out of place.

  The two grievers waited another moment in silent pain.

  “I’m sorry,” Sara said again.

  Marino turned around, his eyes red but clear and hard now. “I’m the one who should be saying that to you. Neil was the best man I have ever worked with. You know that I’m the one who chose him, the one who brought him to the White House? The president respected him as much as I did.” He fell silent. “I wish that he was with us now.”