The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  Sam turned to Bono. “We’ve got to go!” he cried.

  Bono was already on his radio. “We don’t have much time, guys,” he told his team.

  Hidden in the foothills around the village, the U.S. soldiers sprang into action. Most of the groundwork had already been put in place. All they needed now was to implement the plan.

  Sam looked intently at Azadeh. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  She nodded hesitantly.

  “I’ll never be far away from you.”

  She nodded again, her eyes flickering with uncertainty.

  He took a step toward her and placed his hand on her arm. “Remember back in Chicago?”

  She nodded at him, her fear melting.

  “It’s just like that,” he said.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Along the Pakistan/Afghanistan Border

  Eighty-Five Kilometers East of Kandahar, Afghanistan

  The Saudi king’s helicopter, a huge white-and-blue Sikorsky, the largest and most expensive chopper in the world, approached low from the southeast. Flying up the valley, it followed the rutted dirt road that came to an end at the stone wall around the village. A thousand feet from the outskirts of the village, the helicopter’s nose rose abruptly into the sky, then leveled just as quickly as the chopper settled onto a patch of open grass. The ground around the village was wet and muddy, and there was no blowing dust as the enormous helicopter landed.

  The cabin doors instantly pulled back and the twelve-man Royal Security Forces (RSF) team ran down the short steps and spread out. Carefully selected, highly trained, indoctrinated to the point of being brainwashed, the members of

  the RSF were as brutal and efficient as any security forces

  in the world. Each of them would happily sacrifice his life for the kingdom. Each of them would kill or torture his own children for the king. None of them had a hint of conscience any longer, for their entire existence was dedicated to only one cause: protecting the king of the House of Saud. Were they ever to fail in this mission, every member of the RSF would die, for they were bound by a sacred oath of suicide. Were they to fail in taking their own lives, they would be hunted down, tortured, and killed, along with every member of their extended families and a viciously large number of their friends.

  To say they were dedicated to their mission was an understatement that bordered on the absurd.

  The foothills and perimeter of the village had already been secured with other military teams. The roads, buildings, market, and mosque had been secured as well.

  Altogether there were eighty-seven Saudi soldiers in the area now, all of them dedicated to protecting the king.

  The helicopter pilot kept the engines running but disengaged the rotors, allowing the blades to slow to a stop. King Abdullah watched from the bulletproof cockpit window as the RSF team fanned out around the helicopter. When given the all clear, he moved to the steps and loped down quickly, anxious to get his target and get out of here.

  Standing at the foot of the short stairs, he paused and looked around. Two of his guards were hunched down near the gate in the wall around the village, a small cut in the rock barely wide enough for a horse to pass through. Beyond the three-foot wall, he saw a couple of bodies lying in the streets, the water-filled ruts turning red beneath their bodies. On the other side of the village, a fire was burning, smoke lifting quickly into the calm skies, the blackness driven upward by the energy of the growing flames beneath. The village streets had been cleared, the terrified inhabitants told to remain inside their muddy shacks, and none of the villagers besides the dead ones could be seen. The chief of the RSF was standing near the front of the chopper, talking into a radio as the king glanced left and right.

  Twenty meters beyond the tip of helicopter’s rotors, the sniper held the boy. The child was small and submissive, but the sniper constrained him as if he were a dangerous animal. The king took out an American cigarette, lit it, pulled a deep drag, the smoke escaping from his nose, pulled again, then dropped the cigarette in the mud and started walking. Approaching the child, he bored his eyes into him. This was his nephew, son of his oldest brother, and he knew the child well.

  The boy-prince fought against the guard’s steely grip, then fell still and glared into his uncle’s eyes. There was no pretense between them now. The child knew why the king was here. His father and mother, all of his brothers and sisters, everyone he had ever cared about was dead. The young father back in Iran, Omar, the village leader, everyone who had taken a risk to help him had been killed as well.

  He was utterly alone now.

  His uncle had come to kill him.

  He bowed his head and waited.

  King Abdullah came to a stop in front of the prince and looked down. So much of his time and thought and energy had been extended toward this goal. He had come so far to do this, and it would bring him enormous pleasure to kill the child. But it would be more than just a pleasure; it would also bring him release. This was the last threat to his kingdom, the last human who could ever claim his crown. For this reason, yes, he wanted the boy to die, but there was more to this than that. He wanted to see it, to feel it, to be the direct cause of his death. He wanted to smell the tinge of blood. He wanted to feel the recoil of the gun and see the spattered flesh. He wanted to know and then remember how it felt to kill the child.

  He smiled at the prince and licked his lips.

  There was a certain honor in the killing. It was a thing that he should do. He could easily have ordered it taken care of, just like with most of the others. But he wanted to be the one who pulled the trigger. He wanted to kill the child.

  A sudden chill seeped through him, penetrating to his soul and bone.

  How was he going to do it? He didn’t know. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He might just shoot him. Simple, if not elegant. Or he might kill him with his bare hands. If he were alone, that would be how he would do it, but with his soldiers all around him it might be awkward.

  He stared into the boy’s eyes.

  The prince stared back defiantly at him.

  “You’re going to see your father,” Abdullah whispered to him.

  “You’re going to hell,” the young prince sneered.

  “I’m already in hell, my little princeling. Once we sign up with the Master, once he holds our souls in his hands, then hell is all around us. Hell is our entire world. There is no light or joy left inside us. There is no—”

  Abdullah stopped suddenly, catching the last words in his throat. The words had slipped out of him without thought, and he was frightened at his sudden honesty.

  How could it matter what he told the prince? In a few moments he would be dead.

  But did it matter to Abdullah?

  He didn’t want to know.

  Turning, he thought back bitterly to one of the most powerful memories of his life. Back at his palace. They were talking after the EMP attack. The old man had spoken to him just as the brilliant morning sunlight had broken across the concrete-flat horizon. “The truth is, my King Abdullah,” the old man had sneered, his voice wicked and sarcastic, “I was lying to you then. I promised you everything, but none of it is real. None of it will last forever. It will all come crashing down. We can fight and scratch and murder, we can lie and cheat and kill. We can plot and plan and muster, but we are never going to win. The sun will still rise in the morning. Light will always chase the dark. We cannot win. We never could.

  “And that, my friend, is the only truth that really matters. You have sold your soul for nothing. Now, welcome to my world.”

  King Abdullah thought, a dark desperation all around him, then turned back to the prince. “I’m going to kill you now.”

  The young boy didn’t answer.

  “You understand this?” Abdullah wondered.

  The young prince shook his head, tears of fear and sadness rolling down his cheeks. Then, ashamed at his display of weakness and emotion, he gritted his teeth and held his breath.


  Chapter Forty-Four

  Offutt Air Force Base

  Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command

  Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska

  Almost four hours had passed since the tuna sandwiches, chips, and bottled water had been sent up.

  Brucius was slumped in his chair, his head back. His eyes were open but his heart rate and blood pressure had slipped into something very close to sleep. Sara was stretched out on the leather couch, the deep burgundy blending with the color of her skirt, her shoes off, her blonde hair falling to one side of her face. Brucius knew that she was sleeping from the slow rate of her breathing and the sudden movements of her feet.

  If she was dreaming, and she seemed to be, then she wasn’t having pleasant dreams.

  A shadow fell across the room from the bright lights in the hallway. Brucius looked up to see his civilian attaché standing there.

  He immediately stood up.

  “They’ve decided,” the man said.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Offutt Air Force Base

  Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command

  Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska

  The swearing-in ceremony was broadcast over television and radio stations across the entire United States. Not many people would actually see or hear it, but the word would quickly spread.

  Brucius Marino, for twelve minutes now the legally sworn-in president of the United States of America, stood before his staff. The atmosphere inside the conference room was electric with emotion and energy. Everything was clear now, no more uncertainty in the air. All of the participants had known that they were doing the right thing; all of them had been completely committed to helping Brucius Marino retain power. It wasn’t any single man or party to which they were committed, it was a cause. But it was a huge relief to have the unanimous Supreme Court decision on their side. Their mission had been clarified. The law had spoken. The Constitution had made them right.

  The president looked around the room, and for a brief moment he was so caught up with the emotion that he couldn’t speak. He tried. His voice choked inside his throat. He waited, looking down, then raised his head again, but the emotion was still so overpowering that he simply couldn’t speak.

  Taking a breath, he looked away, then turned back to the people who had risked their lives to help him. Nothing he could say would be sufficient, and any attempt at a speech would only diminish what they’d done. So he didn’t even try. Instead, he focused on their mission. There was so much work to do still. “We have to get to Raven Rock,” he told them. He nodded to the engineering drawings spread out on the conference table between them. “We’ve been over all the plans. All of you know what you have to do.”

  Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex

  Southern Pennsylvania

  Once given the command, the Special Forces units moved in on the compound with great speed, securing every entrance or passageway into the enormous underground national command post. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, for there were more than a dozen entries, tunnels, and cargo elevators into the compound. But there was no opposition and it didn’t take much time.

  Minutes after the soldiers had received their orders, all of the exits to the command post were secure.

  President Marino had ordered the military forces not to enter Raven Rock. For one thing, there was no reason. None of the conspirators were going anywhere. And Marino didn’t want the risk of bloodshed. He would give the conspirators time to sort it out, to decide what they wanted to do—which was, of course, surrender, utterly trapped in the compound as they were. More, President Marino recognized that most of the military and civilian staff inside the compound weren’t the enemy; they were just doing what they’d been told. Very few of them were even aware of the conspiracy, and those who were had already been identified.

  While the exits were being secured, other military forces moved to control the compound’s communications grid, power sources, air-conveying units, and electrical power cables. Within minutes, everything the occupants of Raven Rock needed to communicate with the outside world was under the control of Marino’s troops.

  With the Supreme Court having found against them, and with Brucius Marino having been sworn in as the president, the conspirators inside the compound had no choice. Unable to get a message out, cut off from any energy or power sources, including the ability to get fresh air, the residents of Raven Rock had very little option.

  Once the leaders inside the compound understood the true hopelessness of their situation, they would surrender.

  Security forces were waiting to arrest the conspirators.

  They didn’t have to wait very long.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Along the Pakistan/Afghanistan Border

  Eighty-Five Kilometers East of Kandahar, Afghanistan

  The morning was calm and quiet, the only noise the muffled sound of the helicopter engines fifty feet behind the king. The pilot had pulled the chopper’s engines back to idle, and the helicopter vibrated softly in the mud as he waited for his master.

  Abdullah grabbed the boy under the arms and towed him toward the stone wall, the prince’s heels dragging through the slimy mud, leaving two light trenches instead of footsteps in his wake.

  Throwing him against the wall, the king stared at the boy and sneered. “I hated your father,” he hissed as he pulled out a chrome 9mm from the leather holster strapped around his waist. Holding it to the light, he examined the beautiful weapon, the highly polished metal glinting in the sun. “I hated him for as long as I can remember. In fact, my young princeling, one of my earliest memories is of sitting at the evening table wishing he would choke on his wad of meat. Yes, he was my older brother, but I had no respect for him. I wouldn’t say that he abused me—quite the opposite, he was patronizing to the core. That was one of the things I hated: how he treated me so kindly. And I resented from my youth that he would be the king. He didn’t have to earn it. He didn’t have to prove himself. Like a finely wrapped birthday present, it was simply handed to him. Can you really call that justice?” He pulled the lever of the Glock, the clicking sound of metal jarring in the morning silence. “I do not call that justice. I do not call that right. I believe you earn what you get and you get only what you earn. That is the world I live in. That is the world as it should be.”

  He turned and motioned to the pilot, twirling his finger in the air. In seconds it would be over, and he wanted the chopper to be ready.

  Even before the king had dropped his hand, the pilot engaged the rotors and the four long black blades started turning though the air.

  Abdullah held the gun in both hands, seeming to measure its weight, then focused on the young boy. “And now, my little princeling, I am going to give you a final choice—”

  There was a sudden sound behind him. A cry of pain. A cry for mercy. The king quickly turned. A woman was being dragged toward him, frantically fighting the guards who held her arms. She flailed in desperation, her words unrecognizable cries, her legs wobbling underneath her. She was dressed in a black dress, and a dark hijab covered her face below her eyes, but the king had enough experience to see that she was young.

  “Sayid, sayid,” she begged as the two soldiers shoved her between them as if she were a piece of meat. Pulling away from them, she reached out desperately for the young prince. “My son! My son!” she cried.

  The king scowled with bitter anger. Who was this woman, and why had the soldiers allowed her to get so close to him? He turned to the guards, members of the Saudi 21st Special Forces. They didn’t look at him, afraid of making eye contact, their helmets low on their heads. He would string them up by their intestines for allowing her to get so near.

  * * *

  The four American soldiers had positioned themselves strategically around the area. One was shooting from the dome of the tiny school. One of them was much closer, less than fifty feet from the king, hidden in an empty house. Two were shooting from the
foothills overlooking the village. Dallas Houston, the team leader, was tasked with calling the targets out.

  “Wow, baby,” Slapper muttered into his radio. “Look at that. She might have made it—”

  “Okay, okay,” Sergeant Dallas Houston cut him off as he talked into the microphone near his mouth. “You got the primary target, right, team?”

  “Roger that,” the second shooter shot back. “The king is in the western style business suit. He is very obvious.”

  “Okay, okay. Tally on the target. Tally on the woman. Is she in the line of fire?”

  “Shooter two is clear.”

  “Three.”

  “Four.”

  All of them called back concisely. The woman wasn’t in the way. They all had a clear shot at their targets.

  Houston took a breath. Just like they had drawn it up. Still, his face was sweating and he rubbed a sleeve across his brow, wiping the sting out of his eyes.

  “Okay, okay,” he repeated, his pet phrase when he was under great stress. “All of you call tally on the good guys. We don’t want to shoot our own men.”

  He was talking about Sam and Bono now, who were very close to the king.

  “Tally two.”

  “Tally three.”

  “Tally four.”

  All of the good guys were clear.

  “Okay, okay. Shooter two and three, you’ve got the nearest targets. The RSF leader is at the chopper’s twelve o’clock position. You take him and the four RSF guards to his right. Shooter three, you’ve got all of the RSF guards to the left.”

  One by one, they confirmed the team leader’s orders.

  Houston moved his assault rifle up to his cheek. “Okay.” (Just one okay now. The setup was the hardest part, and he was starting to relax.) “Three, you’ve got the units from the 21st stationed near the stone wall. I’m the free shooter. Any targets of opportunity are mine.”

  The team called back, confirming their last instructions.

  “After the first barrage, it’s every man for himself. But shoot to make your bullets count. And always, always, keep an eye on the friendlies down there!”