by Jack Mars
Please. Please leave something for my mother.
The sharp rubble was biting through the knees of his orange jumpsuit. It hurt. But that didn’t matter, either. It wouldn’t be long now.
Planes were coming. That was another fact of life here—the constant bombing runs. The sound got louder and louder as the planes approached. Soon it was a shriek so loud it drowned out everything. Swann couldn’t cover his ears. He screamed, but he didn’t seem to make a sound.
WHUMP.
WHUMP.
WHUMP.
The ground trembled as the bombs hit. Somewhere nearby, not here.
As the quiet slowly returned, he heard another sound, a sound that was still going from before.
“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
The executioner leaned down next to Swann’s ear. His face was covered with a black mask. Swann had not seen the man’s face, but he knew the voice—he spoke with a British accent.
“Why did you come here, Mark?”
Swann shook his head. “I didn’t come here. I came to Turkey. You brought me here.”
The man held the knife in front of Swann’s face, very close to his eyes.
“Your eyes are useless to you. Perhaps I should take them.”
Swann closed them shut, as if the eyelids alone could protect them. He didn’t want to cry this time—he had promised himself that he wouldn’t. He didn’t want to beg. He didn’t want to hear the sound of weakness in his own voice. He wanted to go out strong.
“Please.”
“You are a Crusader spy, yes?”
Swann nodded. There was no sense fighting it. They knew who he was.
“Yes.”
“What did you learn? What information did you pass on?”
“Nothing. I didn’t have time.”
He was lying. There was a tiny space inside him where he could still do that. He had learned something. The man who contacted him, the man who kidnapped him… Swann knew this man.
“Then what use are you?” the executioner said. “What use are you to us? What use are you to anyone?”
Swann started crying. It just hurt so bad. His face hurt. His body hurt—they had beaten him across his torso with their rifles butts. But mostly it hurt inside. He was going to die for no reason. He was helpless before their cruelty.
How did they become this way? Who were these people? What response could there be to such wanton and mindless savagery?
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know anything.”
“Mark Swann, you are an admitted Crusader spy. You have been sentenced to death before God, and in accordance with the laws of this sacred land. I now carry out this sentence by the power vested in me by the Islamic State.”
The men shouted now, their chant growing louder and louder and louder.
“ALLAHU AKBAR! ALLAHU AKBAR! ALLAHU AKBAR!”
“Please!” Swann screamed.
His chest heaved. He hung his head. There was nothing left.
The executioner placed a gun to his head. That was good. It was a relief. They were just going to shoot him. It would be over in one second.
He was going to die. Right now. He tried to breathe. He felt his bladder release. It didn’t matter.
There must be some—
The gun moved the slightest amount as the man pulled the trigger.
Clack!
Swann dropped to the ground. He lay there, gasping. Behind and above him, the men were laughing now. Swann had pissed himself, and they thought that was funny. He didn’t care.
It was a mock execution. He was alive. He lay on the hard ground, tears streaming from his eyes.
“Cheer up, Mark Swann,” the executioner said. “Your time will come soon.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
11:45 a.m. Mediterranean Time (5:45 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
A desert highway
Syria
The sun was riding high now. It was getting hot.
“I found a systems analyst here,” Mika said. “He created a program that is running every possible combination of the ten digits in Trudy Wellington’s phone number, and using each one to try and log in. So far nothing has worked.”
Luke stood outside the truck, held the phone to his ear, and scanned the empty highway. It was twenty miles to al-Raqqa. They were close. As he watched, Russian bombers streaked across the sky and dropped their loads on the city. They veered off to the east, moving fast, trailed by anti-aircraft fire that never seemed to find its target.
The ISIS stronghold, being bombed to dust. If Nigel was right, then Swann was in there somewhere.
“Luke,” Mika said. “Do you think there’s going to be a war?”
“There is a war. We’re right in the middle of it.”
“I mean a nuclear war.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
“There are fallout shelters here on the base. They’re moving supplies down to them, preparing them for use. They told me that if I can’t get a flight out, I’ll be expected to go into a shelter by early this afternoon.”
“Are you afraid?” Luke said.
“Yes.”
In his mind, Luke caught a fleeting glimpse of Becca and Gunner. Where were they? Were they afraid? He had this satellite phone—he should try to call them. Even if it was just to say goodbye…
“Keep running those numbers,” he said. “It’ll take your mind off your troubles.”
“Okay, Luke.”
In the shimmering distance, Luke saw what he had been looking for all this time. A convoy was coming. He couldn’t tell what it was yet. Hopefully something good.
“Mika? I have to go.”
He hung up the phone and ducked his head inside the TV truck. Just behind the door was an MP5 submachine gun. Next to it, the Canadian newsmen sat, their backs against the interior wall, their faces stricken.
Just past them, Nigel the British terrorist lay on his side. His face was bruised and misshapen from Ed hitting him. His eyes were black. His mouth was swollen like an overripe fruit.
“We got one,” Luke told the Canadians. “Be quiet, stay low, and you’ll be okay.”
They stared at him. They didn’t move.
“Low,” Luke said. “On the floor.”
Grudgingly, they lowered themselves to the bottom of the truck.
Luke nodded. “Good.”
He looked at Nigel.
“Nigel, if I hear a peep out of you, you’re the first one to die. Okay?”
Nigel nodded.
Luke took a deep breath. He felt his heart skip a beat. This was going to be interesting.
He stepped out into the roadway and away from the truck. He glanced back at it. The front left tire was off and lying in the road in front of it. The van itself was up on a jack. There was obviously something wrong with it—it was disabled. And this was no place to break down, out in the desert, in the middle of ISIS country.
He glanced out into the sandy scrubland by the side of the road. Nothing out that way, as far as the eye could see. Just empty desert, starting to bake in the searing heat of the day.
He held a white handkerchief high and waved it. He wore the heavy black vest of the cameraman, the big white letters TV emblazoned across the front and the back.
On the road, the convoy rolled to a stop. The first vehicle was an ancient pickup truck with two men in the cab. Behind it was a beat up black Mercedes sedan—looked like there were four guys in there, two in the front, two in the back.
Behind that was pay dirt. Last in line, a large heavy-duty pickup with an M-60 machine gun mounted in the back. A big strong guy in a black hood and mask, a T-shirt, and combat fatigues stood up in the truck bed, manning the gun. He had another man with him, his assistant, who was there to feed the ammunition belt.
Bingo! Luke wanted that gun.
There was one guy in the cab of that truck—the driver.
Luke did a quick calculation. Nine men.
A man clim
bed out of the passenger seat of the first truck. He wore the same get-up as all these clowns. Black mask and hood, black shirt with ammo vest over it, combat fatigue pants and boots. He carried a new-looking AK-47. Luke waved the surrender flag at him as he approached.
“Americans?” the man said. He had a vague European accent. Dutch? Swedish? What was it with these all these Europeans joining ISIS?
Luke shook his head. “Canadians. We’re the TV news.”
The man shook his head. “You shouldn’t be here. You’ll be killed.”
Luke stepped closer. “We’re trying to get to Raqqa to cover all the bombing. Looks like the Russians are going wild over there. We were going to film the civilian casualties, but our truck died.”
The man glanced around. Something about this story wasn’t convincing him.
“You are alone?”
“My partner is in the truck. He’s not feeling well.”
The man gestured with his head. “Bring him out. I want to see him.”
Luke hesitated. This conversation had already gone on way too long.
Ed?
The telltale sound came as if Luke had conjured it with his thoughts.
Doonk!
From way off to the left, in the barren desert scrubland, a grenade screamed in on a nearly flat trajectory. Luke could swear it made a sizzling sound just before it hit.
Ssszzzzzzz… BOOOOOM.
It ripped into the side of the Mercedes sedan. The car blew outward in a hundred shattered fragments—metal, glass, flying limbs of the car’s occupants. Almost instantly, the gas tank blew, sending a fireball into the sky.
Luke stepped up to the man in front of him. In the same motion as the step, a knife appeared in Luke’s hand. He swiped the blade across the man’s neck, nearly ear to ear. Blood jetted from both sides. The man’s eyes went wide in surprise. He dropped his AK-47 as his hands went to his throat, trying to close the gap there, trying to put all the blood back in.
Luke bent and picked up the man’s gun.
He ran for the front of the pickup truck. The driver was climbing out. Luke raised the gun and shot him. The man did a crazy death dance and fell to the roadway.
In the rear truck, the gunner sighted on Luke. Luke dove to the ground in front of the first pickup. He crawled in the dirt below the truck’s grille.
An instant later, the big M60 opened up, an ugly blat of gunfire, heavy rounds destroying the pickup. The windshield shattered. The tires popped and went flat. Bullets punched holes in the metal. Steam rose from under the hood.
Luke couldn’t stay here. If he did, he was going to die. The shooter probably couldn’t see him through the flames and smoke from the burning car, but it didn’t matter. Those rounds were going to find him sooner or later.
Another burst of machine gun fire came from his left.
Ed had popped up from his cover. He ran across the sand, firing his MP5. He was too exposed out there.
Luke jumped up. In the pickup bed, the gunner was turning his machine gun to face Ed. Luke let him have it with a blast from the AK. The man jittered and jived, but didn’t go down—he was wearing a flak jacket.
Luke ran toward him.
Suddenly the truck started going backwards. The driver was backing it away from the carnage, trying to escape, trying to buy his gunner time.
The M-60 was pointing halfway between Luke and Ed. No good. No target. The big man fiddled with his big gun. He was doomed.
His feeder jumped out of the truck bed, fell to the roadway, got up, and started running.
Luke sprayed the windshield with gunfire. The glass sprayed inward and the driver died at the wheel. The truck rolled backwards under its own momentum.
It slowed to a stop.
Ed stepped onto the roadway now, walking fast, coming in from the left. Luke came in from the front. They hosed the big gunner with machine gun fire. He steadied himself on the M-60 mount, stumbled, then fell off the back and onto the road.
The guy was huge. He was superhuman. He was still alive and trying to crawl.
Ed was closer than Luke. He stepped up to his man, pulled a pistol, and shot him once in the head.
BANG.
Luke walked over, breathing hard. He patted the truck.
“This is all I wanted for Christmas.”
Ed smiled. “That gun’s a beauty.”
Luke couldn’t help but smile himself. “Oh yeah.”
Guns, man. They brought a smile to people’s faces. He looked over the side of the truck bed. Piled on the floor were about a dozen ammo belts.
“All gassed up, too.”
They stood for a minute. Luke could feel his heart slowing down. Across the road from them, out in the desert, the man who had been the machine gun feeder was running away. He was running toward al-Raqqa in the distance. That was going to be a long run. Even so, the man was a loose end.
“What do you want to do about that guy?” Luke said.
The M79 was strapped to Ed’s back. He brought it around, opened the chamber, and carefully loaded a grenade.
You know,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about this hard drive Mika is trying to open. What was the original question? Do you remember your friend’s number, right? The question didn’t actually ask for the number. It asked if you remember it.”
Luke thought about it. “I’d have to ask Mika again, but I think so, yeah.”
Ed walked out into the roadway. He looked both ways. There was nothing coming for miles and miles.
Luke pulled a small pair of binoculars from inside his vest.
For a moment, Ed watched the man running across the desert. Then he raised the M79. He fired, this time on a high-arcing trajectory, like a quarterback throwing a bomb to the end zone.
Doonk!
He looked back at Luke. “Well, you remember the number, don’t you?”
“Sure. I already gave it to Mika.”
“That’s my point,” Ed said.
Luke held the binoculars to his eyes. Out in the shimmering desert, he found the running man. He watched the man for a few seconds. Suddenly, there was an explosion out there, right where the man was a second before. What had been the man flew apart like a cheap doll right before Luke’s eyes.
“Got him.”
He looked at Ed.
“You were saying?”
Ed came walking back from the road. “You remember the number. And the question is whether or not you remember the number.”
“Yeah.”
Ed shrugged. “In that case, the answer, and maybe the password, is yes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
6:55 a.m.
The Situation Room
The White House, Washington, DC
“Susan, you’re being very foolish.”
It was Pierre, talking into her ear while the Situation Room filled up.
The room was already packed, and more people were coming in all the time. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was here, and he traveled with an entourage of aides and assistants. Kurt Kimball was at the front, standing in his customary place before the computer screens, his muscular arms folded, and chatting seriously with his aide Amy.
Susan stood near the doorway, wedged against the wall. Pierre and the girls were already at Cheyenne Mountain, and for that Susan was glad. They had taken one of the company planes from Los Angeles, leaving during what to them was the middle of the night. They had landed fifteen minutes ago.
“Pierre…”
“Susan, I don’t pretend to understand you. But know this: no one will blame you for going where it’s safe, and no one will praise you if you stay in Washington and get yourself killed. You can’t help the American people if you’re not alive.”
“It’s too soon,” Susan said. “We can fix this.”
“You can just as easily fix it on the plane. Or fix it here.”
She shook her head. “I don’t agree. I think we need to be here, committed, in the game. If I get on that plane, I’ll feel like I
’m running away. My staff will be scattered, and the whole thing will slip out of my hands.”
“Susan, it’s already slipped out of your hands.”
She didn’t respond to that. She wouldn’t. They were growing apart, she and Pierre, more and more all the time. They had been for years, but the events of the past six months had accelerated it. It almost felt like a wedge had been driven between them, and now it was prying their relationship open, cracking it asunder.
“Okay,” he said. “I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s all right if you did,” she said.
“I didn’t. But at least agree to this. If your advisers tell you that it’s time to go, listen to them. I love you. Your daughters love you. Okay? If nothing else, if you won’t do it for yourself, come here for us.”
“Okay,” she said. She could do that, she supposed.
But not right now.
Kat Lopez walked into the room and made a beeline for Susan.
“Honey, I’ve gotta go,” Susan said.
“Okay, knock ’em dead. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Kat looked reasonably fresh, like she had found a couple hours sleep somewhere. She had changed into a gray pinstriped suit, which was form-fitting and showed off her curves. Her make up had been reapplied. She looked a lot more human than Susan felt. Even so, her face was completely serious.
“Susan.”
“Hi, Kat. How are you feeling?”
Kat nodded. “I’m okay. Listen, I want to give you the update. There’s a lot.”
Susan sighed. “Let’s hear it. I’ll do my best.”
“Okay, first order. The Vice President has been moved to Site R. She arrived there in the past half an hour. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of Education are being taken to secure and semi-secure sites as we speak. The Senate Majority Leader and President Pro Tempore—”
“Ed Graves,” Susan said.
“Yes. He’s also at Site R.”
“Is that okay?”
Kat nodded. “It’s the best we can do. Karen White is on her way to Cheyenne Mountain. So Marybeth Horning will be at Site R with Senator Graves, and you’ll be out at Cheyenne with the Speaker. If either place gets hit, you and Marybeth will always be top dogs in the line of succession.”