The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  “There’s simply nowhere here to land,” the pilot confirmed.

  “What about the recon photographs?”

  “You got me. Might be some distortion in the picture. Don’t know. Don’t really care. All I can tell you is there’s no place to land down there.”

  Sam checked the digital image of the satellite photograph once again. That was the problem with this area—so much of the terrain was vertical that the photo images were easily distorted, making them impossible to interpret.

  “Isn’t there anywhere along the beach?” he demanded of the pilots.

  “Nothing, boss. You can come up here and check it out yourself. There are no beaches around this lake, not in the traditional sense. The water comes right up to the rocks and trees.”

  Sam turned to Bono. “Think we could try to fast rope?”

  Bono immediately shook his head. “The trees are way too high. The ropes wouldn’t even touch the ground.”

  “We could use the rescue cable to hoist ourselves down.”

  “Yeah, if we had an extra hour.”

  Sam turned back to the cockpit. “You following this, guys?”

  “Roger that, boss. Looks like we’re calling this mission an abort.”

  Sam snorted. He knew the pilot was only kidding. Although they didn’t know any of the details about the mission—Special Operations were always kept on a strict need-to-know basis as a way to protect the aircrews if they happened to get shot down—the pilots clearly understood this was the highest priority mission they had ever flown.

  There was silence for an awkward moment.

  “Looks like we’re going to get wet,” Bono said.

  * * *

  Two minutes later, the enormous helicopter thundered toward the northernmost edge of the lake, then started to slow. Fifty feet above the water, the nose pulled suddenly into an aggressive flare, the rotors spinning up as the pilot took pitch out of the blades. The chopper settled quickly toward the water. Ten feet above the lake, with both side doors open,

  the chopper came to a momentary hover, then descended

  into the water, kicking up three-foot waves. Aft, a wall of water moved across the metal floor. The pilot kept the helicopter light, maintaining power in the blades, never allowing the full weight of the helicopter to settle onto the lake although it would have floated even if he had.

  With the doors open, the six-man team and Azadeh evacuated the helicopter within seconds. The water was deep. And cold. Bitter cold. With their packs and equipment weighing them down, they knew they had only a few seconds to get out of the water before cramps and hypothermia set in. The Cherokees started swimming, packs on their backs, ammo and weapons around their waists, rifles over their heads. Bono and Sam kept hold of Azadeh, pulling her along.

  A couple of the soldiers disappeared below the water. The pilots watched, both of them subconsciously holding their breaths. The two men suddenly reappeared, this time much closer to the water’s edge. Approaching the shoreline, none of them were able to walk. The water was just too deep. The pilots watched the soldiers struggle to pull themselves atop the rocky walls that descended into the water for hundreds of feet below.

  Counting, the pilot waited until the team was safe; then, getting a thumbs-up from Bono, he pulled up on the collective in his left hand, applying greater pitch to the main rotor blades. Taking deeper slices of air with each rotation, the rotors drooped as the heavy chopper lifted, gallons of clear water rushing out the aft and side doors.

  * * *

  Sam watched the chopper lift, turn its tail to the right, and climb higher before dropping toward the water once again. Seconds later, its dark image disappeared, lost in the dim light.

  Turning toward the rocks around him, he started climbing. He was shivering already, his body contracting to keep in what little heat it could. But he didn’t even think about it. In a few minutes he would be sweating. It would be hours before they stopped to rest.

  The last thing he had to worry about was being cold.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Along the Pakistan/Afghanistan Border

  Eighty-Five Kilometers East of Kandahar, Afghanistan

  The Saudi soldier was dressed in combat gear, his face hidden in the low brush a third of a kilometer above the village. He kept his eyes on the two men and young boy who were talking down below him. He hardly moved as he watched them, not wanting to give any indication of his position. But the truth was, even if he’d been lying right beside the targets, he would have been impossible to see. Everything about him was camouflaged: his face, eyelids, teeth, clothes, hands, even the boots on his feet. Still, he hardly moved, lying prone across the wet ground, his shoulders and torso stuffed underneath a gnarled Cydonia shrub, its low branches meeting the wire grass that clung to the side of the hill, the only thing that kept the topsoil from washing away with every storm. It was barely light, but light enough for him to see, and he watched the men through a long-range lens, the magnification bringing them close enough that he could have read their lips if he spoke the language they were communicating in right now.

  But he didn’t. He was a foreigner in this land.

  A foreigner and a killer.

  The sniper rifle was heavy in his hand. It too was carefully camouflaged, tattered pieces of colored burlap wrapped around the stock and 24-inch barrel. Above his fingers, the bolt was seated in the chamber. He was ready to fire.

  He held the rifle close to his chest, wanting to keep her warm. It was suspicious, and kind of crazy, but legend was that it was bad fortune to kill a man with a cold rifle, and he didn’t want to tempt the shooting gods.

  The U.S. Marine Corps M40A3 long-range rifle was an outstanding weapon, one of the world’s best. When coupled with the new M118LR ammo, the sniper rifle was capable of extreme accuracy out to 1,000 feet, about the distance he was sitting at right now. He sniffed. No wind. The air was clean and cool and, up here in these mountains, very thin. At this range, give him three seconds and he could put a group of five bullets within a two-inch circle. Give him a couple of seconds longer, and he would group the same shells within three-quarters of an inch.

  Three-quarters of an inch. About the same size as a human eye.

  Three-quarters of an inch. Accurate enough to do this job.

  He eyed the two men and small boy through his lens, then laid it carefully to the side and touched a small button on the clip attached to his lapel. “I have the boy,” he stated clearly.

  “You are certain it is him?”

  The soldier wouldn’t have made such a mistake. He knew the danger to himself if he were wrong. His punishment for making an inaccurate call and diverting the other forces from their own searches would have been painful, even deadly.

  No, the boy’s face was intricately and clearly etched into his mind. So was the face and outline of the fat one. It was part of the art of long-range sniping: accurately identifying the target. “I have him,” he repeated curtly.

  The radio in his ear was silent for a full half minute. “We are ten minutes away,” his commander finally said. “Keep the target in sight. Kill the old man if you have to, but don’t lose sight of the boy. If you have to, expose your position, but do not lose the boy!”

  The soldier listened but didn’t answer.

  “Pile Driver wants the boy alive!” the voice reiterated.

  Pile Driver: the daily code word for the king. The soldier listened, then dropped his hand to pick up his rifle once again.

  “Confirm!” he was directed.

  He quickly lifted his hand to his lapel and pushed the transmit button. “Confirmed,” he replied.

  Adjusting his weapon, he watched the fat man through the scope. At this range it was as easy to watch him through the shooting scope as with his binoculars, and quicker if he had to shoot him, which a significant part of him hoped he would have the chance to do.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Offutt Air Force Base

  Headquarters, U
.S. Strategic Command

  Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska

  Brucius Marino leaned against the desk. Sara Brighton stood at one of the windows of the large and finely furnished executive office located on the second floor. Behind her there was a sitting area with two opposing leather couches and four wing chairs. To her right sat a huge wooden desk, a bright American flag behind it. A row of dark windows looked out on the military base. At one time the office had belonged to the base commander, but no one had seen him in more than a week, so it had been commandeered. Still, she felt like an intruder in the stranger’s office.

  Leaning against the office window, she looked out. The shades were open, one of the windows, even, and a late-night breeze was blowing gently against the wooden blinds.

  They weren’t hiding anymore, not literally and not figuratively. There was just no reason any longer. The men in Raven Rock knew they were here now, knew what they were up to, knew what they intended. The end game was close now—upon them, really—and there was no purpose or advantage in pretending any longer. The path split in a clear fork before them, and the nation had to choose. No longer were they able to stand and consider or try to stretch between the two alternatives.

  She glanced nervously at the wall. The clock stood still. She checked her watch, given to her by one of Marino’s aides, then sighed. Time was passing agonizingly slowly. Her mouth was so dry she had to work to swallow, and her stomach was tied in knots.

  Behind her, Brucius Marino adjusted his weight against his desk, sometimes reading, sometimes staring off in thought, but mostly watching Sara out of the corner of his eye.

  She was a truly beautiful woman. He admired her in so many ways.

  She turned and looked at him. He seemed completely relaxed.

  “They’ve been deliberating for almost six hours,” she said.

  He nodded to her. “A little more than that.”

  Sara thought of Justice Jefferson, his pride and exaggerated sense of worth. Were the other justices like him? She didn’t know. Did they have the courage to do the right thing? Did they even have the wisdom to know what the right thing was to do? Again, she didn’t know.

  By now, the men inside Raven Rock would know that Justice Jefferson had left their compound. By now, they would have realized that Marino had gathered the two remaining Supreme Court justices and brought them out to Offutt. By now, they would surely understand that the three justices were meeting and that they would soon decide which path the nation ought to take. She knew their future was hanging in the balance, depending on what the three surviving members of the Supreme Court finally said.

  Marino watched her, his thoughts much the same as hers.

  If the justices found against him, he didn’t know what he would do. He wouldn’t have many options. But whatever action he took, he would remain within the law.

  If, on the other hand, the justices found against the men in Raven Rock, Marino knew that those men would fight him hand and tooth and nail. No way would they give up power without a fight. They would destroy the country if they had to. For them, so much the better if they did. They would do anything to stop him, no matter what the Supreme Court said.

  Which was why he was preparing for open war.

  Sara hugged her arms around herself as she stared absently out the window. There were a few security lights around the base entry points and a couple of lighted windows in the headquarters complex, but beyond the perimeter fence that lined the base it was utterly dark, the stars and moon hidden by a layer of clinging clouds.

  “Are you nervous?” she asked Brucius as she turned around.

  He looked at her and nodded. “I’ve had a knot of fear inside my stomach since before the nuclear explosion in D.C. It’s pretty much been the only thing I’ve felt for many weeks.”

  “Funny, you don’t seem nervous.”

  He hunched his shoulders. “All the fears have been squeezed out of me, I guess.”

  Sara interlaced her fingers nervously. “I wonder how things are going with . . . you know, Sam and the others.”

  “Sara, if I’d heard anything I would have told you. I’m not keeping any secrets. Last we heard from them, they were on the chopper making their way toward the village where the boy was supposed to meet us. Truly, if I had any information, especially any bad information, I would have told you.”

  “I know you would.”

  They fell into silence. Brucius moved behind the desk and started looking through the drawers. Finding a small key, he stood and walked to a locked cabinet, opened the etched glass doors, and pulled down a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. “You want something to drink?” he asked her.

  She shook her head.

  He looked embarrassed. “Of course not. My mistake.” He started to open the liquor, then changed his mind, screwed the lid back on, and put the bottle back. Locking the door, he moved silently back to the desk.

  The door to the office was open and there was constant traffic up and down the hall. Someone appeared in the doorway and both of them turned instantly, their eyes expectant. “Have they made a decision?” Sara blurted out before Brucius could even say anything. The young lieutenant looked at her, uncertain what she was even talking about. Information regarding the three Supreme Court justices had been very tightly controlled.

  Sara shot a quick, embarrassed look to Brucius. “Sorry,” she almost said before he cut her off.

  “Yes?” he asked the lieutenant.

  “Sir, would you like me to bring you up some sandwiches?”

  Brucius motioned toward Sara. “You must be hungry. Why don’t you let them get you something?”

  She shook her head. She was far too nervous to eat.

  Brucius waited, giving her a chance to change her mind, then turned to the young lieutenant. “You got any tuna fish?”

  “I’m sure we could find some, sir.”

  “That’d be nice. With horseradish sauce and mayonnaise. And lots of Tabasco.”

  Sara smiled. His order reminded her of her husband and sons. In her mind, she could hear them in the kitchen of the old house in Virginia, knocking down plates of chips and salsa sprinkled with the various hot sauces Neil had collected from around the world, some of them deadly to a normal person with any taste buds left.

  Brucius studied her. “What are you smiling about?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Just thinking.”

  They fell silent once again. Marino bent down and placed the key back inside the desk drawer. Sara walked to the door and poked her head out, looking down the hallway that ended at a set of double doors. Two guards were posted there, mini-machine guns (more effective, if less imposing, than the full-size models) held at the ready in their hands. She watched them, knowing the justices were working behind the heavy wooden doors. Staring down the hallway, thinking of the Court and the direction they would take the country, thinking of the men who had conspired to steal their freedoms, she found her husband’s whispered words coming again into her mind, the sudden warning he had told her in the darkness of the night.

  “There are men around the president who want to destroy our country,” he had said.

  She had stared at him, unbelieving.

  “He has put them in position within the government but he doesn’t know who they really are or what they’re willing to do. They will kill him if they have to. Our government’s survival isn’t assured.”

  Looking back, she realized that even her husband hadn’t understood how dangerous the conspirators really were.

  Pulling her head back into the room, she glanced down at her watch again.

  Sighing, she took a breath.

  Why was time passing so slowly?!

  Chapter Forty

  Along the Pakistan/Afghanistan Border

  Eighty-Five Kilometers East of Kandahar, Afghanistan

  Omar turned to the village leader. The abbu Rehnuma was a tall man, thin, his arms nimble but strong. He’d had a hard life—life on t
he mountain was hard—but his trials hadn’t hurt him; quite the opposite, they’d made him softer, more patient, more willing to suffer, more inclined to do good. His faith was strong, his gratitude for every day of life full and genuine. He had children of his own now and he loved them as much as any man.

  Which was the only hope that Omar had: that this man’s faith in his God and his love for His creations, especially those who were small and vulnerable, would sway his decision.

  But it could go either way. The leader’s love for his children could lead to compassion or it could lead to fear. If compassion proved the greatest, he would allow sanctuary for the child. If fear for his family prevailed, he would send them both away.

  Omar held his breath and waited.

  The sun was barely breaking over the sheer mountain peaks behind him. The ground was squishy and soft beneath his feet from three days of constant rain. The air was cool and clear as only the mountain air could be, cloudless and clean, with visibility of a hundred miles or more. Looking around him, Omar felt suddenly exposed. For the past week, he’d been traveling under cover of night or fog, but he was standing in the open now, looking down on the village. He knew that it was foolish and he glanced toward the hut, wishing they were inside.

  The village leader remained silent. Omar couldn’t wait any longer. “Sanctuary,” he pleaded.

  The leader shook his head. “I have a family. They would be in danger. It wouldn’t be right to jeopardize their safety. I’m sorry, my good friend, but the answer is no.”

  Omar stared at him, his mouth open. He wanted to take the village leader by the clothes and shake him. He wanted to smash him in the face. He wanted to scream and curse him. He wanted him to see! This child is our future, the future of our world. Everything you hold dear and holy is hanging in the wind. He is the only hope of a future kingdom in Arabia not based on insanity and rage. The Americans won’t let Abdullah survive inside his kingdom. They will come for him. Yes, he has wounded them, but the Americans are still alive. They’ll retaliate. They’ll surely kill us. This child is our only hope!