The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  “We know what they’re planning to do! We know how they’re going to do it! We know where Abdullah’s heading. We have to take them now. We can’t sit here while they do this! Legal or illegal, we’ve got to act!”

  The lawyers glanced painfully at each other. The lead Pentagon attorney spoke, his voice slow and measured, an even-tempered balance to the Secretary’s rage. “It’s difficult, Mr. Secretary. I’m sorry, but, legally, this matter leaves us on very unstable ground. You’ve asked for our opinion, but we’re talking about a situation that is unprecedented in every conceivable way. There is nothing here for us to go on. We’re treading virgin ground. If you want us to voice a preliminary opinion, this is what we would say: There are obvious problems with the conviction, but this is a political process as much as a legal one, and the Constitution is very clear. There is no appeal process from conviction. Our only hope lies in the Supreme Court. And as we all clearly saw, the only surviving member of the Court presided over the Senate proceedings. His entire purpose was to assure the constitutionality of the process. What are we going to do, ask him to overturn himself?”

  Brucius Marino sat back, his face taking on color once again. “Is that possible?” he demanded.

  The attorney shrugged. “I think, sir, in this situation, almost anything is possible. But does it even matter? With only one member of the Supreme Court still alive, we have very few realistic options, not with him sitting with the others down in Raven Rock. And we all know one of the first things President Fuentes is going to do is name new members to the Court. He’ll choose people who will support him.” The legal counselor hesitated, looking down, then raised his eyes to meet Brucius’s vicious stare. “I’m sorry, sir, but it seems to me this might be over.”

  The SecDef raised his hand. “But if we had other members of the Court?”

  “I just don’t know, sir. I suppose . . .” he glanced quickly to the other lawyers. “I think we would agree that if you were to locate and assemble other members of the Supreme Court, they might be willing to issue a finding. But they’re dead, sir. We all know that. None of them survived.”

  For the first time in weeks, Brucius Marino leaned back and almost smiled. “If we had some other members of the Supreme Court, we might be able to overrule them?”

  The lawyers hesitated. “It is possible,” the lead attorney said. “But in this situation, it doesn’t matter, sir.”

  Brucius turned to his right, looking at his chief of staff. The COS barely moved, but it was enough for Brucius to know.

  “Good enough,” Brucius said. “We’re going to do it! We’re going to do it now.”

  The COS started protesting. “Sir, it is too dangerous. Your plan has enormous risks—”

  “Everything is risky now!” Brucius shot back. “Everything we do now is by definition a risk. But the truth of the matter is, in a couple of hours, a couple of days, all of us could be dead.

  “So yes, I understand it’s risky. But we don’t have any choice. We’ve got to do it to save our nation, and if that means that all of us are going to die here, that’s a small price to pay.”

  He shifted his eyes, looking at the other men. “All of you get ready. I’m not waiting any longer. We’re going to do it now.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Four Miles West of Chatfield

  Twenty-One Miles Southwest of Memphis, Tennessee

  Caelyn and Bono sat talking on the porch under the light of the stars, her head resting on his shoulder. The moon was just a sliver of white against the dark sky and the countryside was completely void of any light, a long, broken line that seemed to stretch forever beneath the starry horizon. Above them, a single yellow candle flickered in Caelyn’s parents’ bedroom. The sun had been down for almost two hours and their eyes had had time to adjust to the dark. Caelyn had rarely experienced such darkness, and it amazed her how well she could see, given only the flicker of natural light from the stars. Bono was not surprised, having spent many nights out on patrol in desolate areas.

  They sat on the porch swing, a cold breeze pushing dry leaves across the grass and along the lane to pile up against the picket fence. As they talked, there was a rustle of movement to their right and Bono immediately turned and listened. Caelyn seemed not to have noticed. Bono cocked his head. The sound of footsteps? Could it be? He listened again, certain he had heard it. Who? Why were they out there? Caelyn started to speak but he lifted a hand to hush her. She turned to him, sensing his growing tension.

  He peered into the darkness. His pistol was hanging on his web belt upstairs in their bedroom closet, hidden away from Ellie; now he wished that it was at his side.

  Caelyn didn’t move. Bono listened. Silence. The wind blew, moving leaves again. More movement with the rustle. Empty blackness as far as he could see. More motion beyond the tree line. An animal? Maybe nothing?

  No, he was certain of what he’d heard.

  Slowly, his footsteps light, every motion tight and under perfect control, he stood up from the porch swing, motioned to Caelyn to stay still, moved toward the steps, grabbed onto the pillar that held the slanted roof, then swung onto the grass in one movement. He crouched there, getting low enough to change the angle of his view so he could use the starlight to look up against the horizon. The existing light was weak but enough to illuminate the ground, the barns behind the fence, the trees in the backyard. Another sound. The sense of movement. Bono took a step forward, glanced back to Caelyn one more time, held his finger to his mouth, turned and started moving forward, still crouched. One step. Two. Stop to listen. Stop to look. Low, still using the starlight to look for shadows against the horizon. Another step. Another look . . .

  The sound of running footsteps erupted across the grass, light and furious. Bono started running after them. A squeal of fear before him. Cries. A couple of voices, very young. The sounds of children?

  “Hey there!” he called out.

  “GO!” someone screamed out from the darkness. Bono ran again, but lost the sound of their footsteps when his own feet started crunching through the dry leaves under the huge oak. Without enough light to follow them, he stopped and

  listened, having to rely upon his ears. Darkness. Silence now. He listened, frowned in frustration, then rushed across the lawn, coming to the picket fence. Turning his head, he strained to hear again. The footsteps faded in the distance, the voices hissing and whispering as they ran.

  Children! Had he heard children in the darkness?!

  The voices were high and childlike, the footsteps short and quick, but the cries were also different from children’s voices somehow—more conspiring, more agitated, more conniving and devious. He peered across the open fields behind the fence, but the retreating footsteps were gone now, faded into the distance. He stared into the darkness until Caelyn came up behind him, moving quickly to his side.

  “There was someone out there,” she said. “I could hear them running.” She was fighting to keep her voice under control.

  Bono stared without answering.

  “Did you see them?” she asked.

  “No, not really.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  He couldn’t see the expression on her face but he sensed her fear and agitation from the aggressive shaking of her head. “No,” he answered simply.

  “Who could it be?”

  “I don’t know, babe.”

  He glanced back toward the house. “Come on.” They moved across the dry lawn together, running toward the porch.

  “They were children,” Caelyn whispered as they ran. She was speaking to herself but Bono heard her anyway. “I saw their shadows. I heard their voices.” She stopped and gripped Bono’s arm, her fingers digging into his bare skin. “Children! Do you understand that? There were children out there in the darkness.”

  “I don’t think so. Not really children. They were something else.”

  “Something else?”

  “Kids. Teenagers, maybe.”

 
; She shook her head but didn’t answer.

  Bono watched her carefully, glanced back toward the darkness, then pulled her across the lawn, onto the porch, and into the house. He shut the door behind them, locked it, and peered through the window. Feeling the kitchen table behind him, he turned and walked down the hall and up the stairs, his footsteps almost perfectly silent against the wooden floor. Thirty seconds later, he reappeared. Caelyn couldn’t see anything but his shadow, so she reached out, touching the canvas holster against his chest. “Baby, what are you thinking? You put that thing away!” Bono stood by the window, looking out intently. “You hear me, Joseph? Put that thing away. There are children out there, honey. You can’t even think about—”

  He reached out and put his finger to her lips, nodded for her silence, then moved down the hallway toward the front door. He checked the deadbolt, making certain it was locked, then waited, his head close to the thin pane of glass in the middle of the door, listening, his eyes looking down so he could concentrate on what he heard. Caelyn waited in the kitchen. From where she stood, all she could see was a hint of his shadow. Taking a breath, the darkness and silence all around her, she felt a sudden sense of fear, bone-deep and gut-wrenching.

  There was something there!

  Outside the door! Out on the front porch!

  She couldn’t see it. She couldn’t even hear it. But she knew. She sensed it. Something was there. Her heartbeat skipped and then doubled, pounding suddenly in her throat. She moved half a step to get a better look down the hall. Bono was crouching at the doorway, his body outlined by the faintest hint of starlight that bled through the living-room windows. He crawled to his right and she sensed the motion. She waited, watching, hardly breathing, then glanced above her, thinking of the bedroom on the second floor where Ellie slept.

  Bono crawled over to the front window but didn’t look out, keeping his head below the glass. He listened, hearing movement against the wooden porch. Heavy. Deliberate. More than one set of footsteps. A couple of men, opposite him now, on the other side of the wall.

  He inched back toward the door, his weapon ready, put both hands across the deadbolt and slowly slid it back, moving the metal a fraction of an inch at a time to keep it silent. Listening again, he realized that the footsteps had faded away and he motioned toward Caelyn to wave her back. Instead she inched forward, her bare feet silent against the wooden floor. Bono gestured with more urgency, waving her into the safety of the kitchen. Defying him, she ran forward, turning at the bottom of the stairs and racing up. Stopping at the top of the stairs, she positioned herself at the end of the hall. There she waited, looking back. What her plan was, she had absolutely no idea. All she knew was that she had to get herself between whatever was out there in the darkness and her child.

  Bono watched her go up the stairs, then turned back to the door. Reaching up, he grabbed the handle, holding his weapon at the ready. With a jerk, he threw the door open violently. It swung back on its hinges, crashed against the doorstop, and swung halfway closed again. He didn’t move, waiting and listening against the wall. Silence. The sound of his own breathing pounding in his ears. Then, with a flash

  of movement, he stood and ran across the threshold, falling into the night.

  Caelyn almost screamed when she saw the white-hot double flash of fire. At the same instant she heard the crashing impact of two bullets against the wall beside the door. Two more flashes of light and two ear-crushing sounds, these two much closer, having come from Bono’s gun. Screams sounded from behind her—Greta crying from her bedroom at the unexpected noise. Footsteps and voices hurtled across the porch and Caelyn’s heart slammed into her chest. Her husband was gone now, having disappeared into the darkness. She cried and started running, descending the stairs two or three at a time to follow him, almost falling as she ran. Halfway down she stopped and looked back. Up? Down? Her husband? Her child?

  “Don’t leave Ellie!” an unseen voice seemed to cry in her ears.

  Turning, she ran back up the stairs and down the narrow, picture-lined hallway. She reached the first bedroom, the white outline of the door frame barely visible in the tiny hint of light. “Mom, come with me!” she shouted as she burst into the room.

  Her mother was standing in confusion beside her bed. The bedroom was dimly lit, the moonlight in the east filtering through the upper windows. Her mother ran toward her. “What is it? Who is it?”

  “Go get Ellie. Stay with her!”

  “Who is it? Who was shooting?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know. Now GO, GO, GO!”

  Caelyn ran back into the hallway. Her mother ran behind her, then turned and sprinted down the hall toward Ellie’s bedroom. Caelyn rushed toward the empty stairs.

  Halfway down she heard the scream.

  She stopped, her blood frozen in her veins. The contents of her stomach rose inside her and she almost threw up on the floor. Cold shots of fear ran through her, spiderwebs of terror that spread across her back and down her arms.

  Ellie cried out from her bedroom once again, then was muffled into silence.

  “JOSEPH CALTON, GET UP HERE!” Caelyn screamed toward the porch.

  Bono was already on his way, rushing through the door and bounding up the stairs. She recognized the raging glare in his eyes as he ran by. Not my daughter! Not my child! the furious look on his face screamed.

  He ran up the stairs in wild anger, calling as he ran, “ELLIE! WHERE ARE YOU, ELLIE!”

  He hurtled into his daughter’s bedroom, his eyes flashing left and right. Greta lay across the bed, holding onto Ellie, who was crying in her arms. The bedroom window was open, a cold breeze blowing the curtain back. Caelyn rushed into the room behind him. Ellie’s tears were glistening in the moonlight, her fingers clinging at Greta’s clothes. Bono’s eyes darted around the room again, taking in the open window, the blowing curtains, a deserted burlap sack and string of rope left in a heap on the floor. He heard the sound of heavy footsteps across the wooden shingles on the roof. He ran toward his daughter, dropping to his knees beside the bed. “Are you okay, baby?” he whispered to her as he reached out to stroke her head. She buried her face into her grandma’s shoulder and didn’t answer. Caelyn rushed forward and pulled Ellie into her arms.

  Bono looked at Greta. “Is she hurt?” he demanded.

  “I don’t think so,” Greta answered. “I got here just in time. Someone had her. They let her go when I came into the room. They ran out . . .” she nodded toward the window.

  Bono stood and leaped toward it, staring out.

  The roofline sloped gently toward the south. A huge oak tree at the corner of the house spread its branches over the roof. There was movement across the yard now, but it was too dark to see. He turned back to Ellie, put his hand atop her shoulder, and whispered to Caelyn, “Is she okay?” He needed to be assured.

  Caelyn didn’t answer. Greta looked across the bed toward him. “She’s okay. I got here in time to stop them.”

  Satisfied, Bono turned and crawled through the open window. The women listened as the sound of his footsteps across the wooden shingles quickly faded into the night.

  Outside, Bono jumped, swung on a low branch to catch himself, then dropped onto the ground. Reaching for his holstered weapon, he raced into the dark.

  Three minutes later, he returned. The women had moved to the other bedroom and were huddled together on the corner of the bed. Caelyn’s father was standing guard, a baseball bat—autographed by his favorite Yankees—in hand.

  Bono moved up the stairs, found them in the bedroom, and knelt in front of Caelyn and Ellie. Reaching out, he pulled his daughter close. “You’re okay, Ellie, you’re okay,” he whispered to her. “It’s going to be all right.”

  “Daddy, Daddy,” she started crying.

  Handing her to Caelyn, he stood up once again. “You’ll be okay,” he assured his daughter in a hurried voice. His eyes were always moving. His mind was somewhere else.

  “Where are you
going?” Caelyn asked him, sensing his thoughts.

  “I’ll be back. I’ll be okay.”

  “Don’t you leave us, honey.”

  He tried to smile to reassure her, squeezing her hand. The moment lasted less than half a second. Then he turned and disappeared into the hall and down the stairs.

  * * *

  The sun was just coming up when Bono returned to find Caelyn in the kitchen huddled over a propane burner, cooking a batch of pan bread. He stepped into the room. She turned and took a step toward him, then stood still. Her face was almost sick with fear and worry. “Where did you go!” she demanded in a panicked voice.

  He slowly shook his head.

  Unable to hold back, she ran toward him and grabbed him so tightly he could hardly breathe. Moments passed. He felt her shaking; then she pushed back to look into his face.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, looking him over from head to toe.

  He was covered with dirt and mud: his clothes, his face, his hands, his arms. Even his eyelids and ears were caked in mud. It took her a moment to realize he had camouflaged himself. “What did you find out? Who was out there?”

  He slowly shook his head. “Gangs. Roving bands of thieves and . . .” his voice trailed off as his eyes darted to the stairs, “worse,” he finally offered.