(Wrath-05)-The Master's Cry (2012)

by Chris Stewart

  The arming and deployment of the Choun Ohmonee had been a straight-up operation. No subterfuge or deception had been involved; it simply loaded up the missiles at the military port in Cho’ong Jim, then headed east across the open Pacific toward the United States.

  Now, sitting off the western coast, it waited for the same message as its sister ship to the east.

  THIRTEEN

  East Side, Chicago, Illinois

  Mary Shaye Dupree held the sleeping girl’s hand while speaking to her softly. She wiped her brow, which was pale and clammy, then pushed aside a stray strand of dark hair as she caressed her cheek. The girl’s face was bony, her lips tight, her thin hair matted to the side on which she slept. Azadeh noted the intravenous line sticking into the child’s left arm and the monitor attached to her middle finger, but she wasn’t certain what they were for.

  When the child didn’t wake, Mary leaned across the mattress and kissed her, tucked the soft blanket around her neck, stood, and turned to Azadeh, motioning toward the hall. Closing the bedroom door quietly behind her, she walked with Azadeh into the living room again.

  “Her name is Kelly Beth,” Mary said as they sat down. “I adopted her when she was just a toddler, which was some six years ago now.”

  “A toddler?” Azadeh wondered.

  “I’m sorry—a young child—not a baby, a little older.”

  Azadeh nodded, understanding. “She is very sick?”

  “Yes. Very sick.” Mary turned her eyes to toward the window. It had started raining and the day had turned gray. “She isn’t going to live, I don’t think. I used to hope. I used to pray. But I don’t think any of it mattered.”

  Azadeh studied her hands. “She has a sickness?”

  “Cancer. Inoperable bone cancer.”

  Cancer. One of the very few English words that Azadeh would have recognized even as a child. It translated to saratân in Farsi. She nodded sadly. It was a dreaded word, a deadly sickness, a sickness that, based on her experience, didn’t offer much hope. When someone got saratân in her small village back in Persia, that person was almost certain to die. No such thing as insurance. No real money to speak of. No good doctors. Those with saratân might die in a short time or a long, they might die in a lot of pain or maybe quickly, but they almost surely wouldn’t live.

  “I’m sorry,” she offered quietly.

  “We caught it really late,” Mary continued, her voice pained and measured now. “I know that it was my fault. I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life. But at the time, I just didn’t understand, I didn’t realize, I had never dealt with anything like this before. She hurt all the time, deep in her legs, and I took her to the doctor, but the people down at the clinic, you know, they’re inexperienced and way overworked. It wasn’t their fault. I think they did the best that they could, but by the time I got a referral down to Cook County Hospital, there wasn’t a lot they could do. They tried a few things, some new things, they experimented with some new drugs and procedures, but like I said, we were—you know—way too late to help her. . . .” Mary’s voice trailed off.

  Azadeh watched a single tear roll down each of her cheeks, which Mary quickly wiped away. It pained Azadeh to see her suffering, and she instinctively wanted to reach out and take her by the hand.

  Someone moved down the hallway outside their front door. The rain dribbled against the kitchen window, trickling down from the fifteen stories overhead. The old refrigerator hummed. But other than that it was silent as Mary stared across the empty space. “I love her,” she finished. “I would have done anything for her. I would do anything now. If there was anything I could do . . . .”

  Azadeh reached out and took Mary’s hand, holding it inside her own. “I’m so, so sorry,” she repeated.

  Mary coughed, then turned to face her. “The good Lord, He is out there. I have to learn to trust Him. It will all be OK.”

  Azadeh nodded back toward the bedroom. “Insha’allah. If it is God’s will.”

  Mary nodded. “Insha’allah. God’s will.”

  Azadeh was a sensitive girl by nature, and her upbringing had only made her more so. She knew that Mary wanted to talk about her child. “Tell me her name again,” she asked.

  “Kelly Beth.”

  “Kelly Beth. That is beautiful. If you were to translate my middle name, Ishbel, from Farsi into English it is very close to Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Kelly Beth. Two good names. Very similar.” Azadeh paused a long moment, looking off. “My last name, Pahlavi, goes back many, many generations in Iran. It is royal blood. And my given name, Azadeh, means ‘Freedom is my oath to God.’” She folded her arms, almost defiant, and her eyes flashed. “I have always been very proud of my names,” she said.

  Mary smiled and touched her shoulder. “Ishbel is almost the same as Elizabeth?” she asked.

  “Yes, very close.”

  “That is beautiful.”

  Azadeh nodded down the hallway toward the bedroom. “How old is Kelly Beth?”

  “Almost ten. She will be ten next month.”

  “Then we will celebrate her birthday.”

  Mary pressed her lips together. “If she makes it that long.”

  “You said that she is—I do not remember the word—she is not your own . . . flesh? Your own child?”

  Mary stood and walked into the kitchen. There was a small coffeemaker beside the sink, and she poured herself a cup. “Would you like some?” she asked Azadeh as she lifted the half-empty pot.

  “No, thank you.”

  “You do not like coffee?”

  “Not American coffee. It is too weak. Like water. We have a much stronger drink. I miss it. It is good. But,” she laughed a little, “very bad for you, I think. It stains our teeth and makes us, ah, quick to temper. I am glad to be away from it, I think.”

  Mary brought her cup back and sat on the couch, folding her legs underneath her to keep her feet warm. “I adopted Kelly Beth when she was just a child. Her father had abandoned her before she was even born. Her parents never married. Her mother was strung out. Do you know what that means, Azadeh?”

  Azadeh shook her head.

  “Oh, that is so beautiful,” Mary laughed with delight. “You don’t know what strung out even means. You’ve never had to fight it. You’ve never had to watch what it can do to those around you. That is very good, Azadeh.” She reached toward the young woman and patted her knee. “We want to keep it that way, girl. We’re going to keep it that way.”

  Mary leaned back against the couch and sipped the warm coffee. “Strung out is when you have ruined your life on hard drugs. Heroin. Cocaine. You know about them?”

  Azadeh squinted as she thought. “No,” she finally said.

  “That’s all right, baby, we can talk about that later. Let’s just say that Kelly Beth’s mother wasn’t able to take care of her anymore. She didn’t want her baby, at least not sufficient to keep herself healthy enough to care for her. I had a chance to take Kelly Beth and help her. It was supposed to be only for a couple of weeks, a couple of months at the longest, but it went on and on, and it ended up that I was able to adopt her, you know, make her my child.”

  Azadeh nodded.

  “Her mother is dead now,” Mary concluded. “No one knows about her father. No one even knows who he is.”

  “I understand,” Azadeh answered. But the truth was she didn’t. It was all so strange. So different. There was much to learn in this new country, and she felt lost and insecure.

  For a moment she almost wished she were back in Khorramshahr. It had been hard there, but she had understood it, unlike so much of this new home.

  FOURTEEN

  Royal Palace, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  King Al-Rahman walked into the Great Hall. The thirty-foot ceiling towered over his head and the room was dark, illuminated mostly by a row of dim lights along the ancient walls. Four huge, wrought-iron chandeliers hung from enormous beams that crossed the ceiling, but the room was built deep inside the pal
ace, and there were no outside windows or natural light. The thick walls, heavy brick and ancient mud, stifled every sound from outside. Four overstuffed leather couches were arranged around a circular depression in the floor, part of an old fire pit. A low oak table trimmed with gold sat where the fireplace used to be.

  Al-Rahman moved to the center of the room. His eight brothers fell silent and the room seemed to suck them up, making them feel even smaller than they were. Al-Rahman raised his hand, indicating for the ministers to sit down, which they did, dividing themselves up among the four couches.

  Al-Rahman studied them without saying anything, assessing the mood in the room. Yes, they were some of the most powerful men in the world, but each of them stared up at him with dark, submissive eyes.

  The king knew that some of his brothers were furious at his sudden rise to power. Some resented the death of their father and their oldest brother, the crown prince. Most suspected that Al-Rahman had killed them, but they couldn’t prove it, even if they had wanted to. None of them did—far better to leave that filthy stone unturned—but they resented the fact all the same.

  They also realized that Al-Rahman had turned the kingdom away from their father’s path toward democracy. None of them were disappointed by that, though some might have wished it hadn’t been so bloody. And though they were grateful the king had secured their royal power, they were also furious about the nuclear attacks in Gaza and Washington, D.C. The entire world had been thrown into utter chaos. Things were so messy now, so much more difficult to control.

  As the eight ministers took their seats, Al-Rahman almost smirked. If they had any idea . . . any idea what he planned to do.

  “Brothers,” he started slowly, “let me get right to the point.”

  The princes watched him carefully. They hardly seemed to move as a heavy air settled over the room.

  Al-Rahman paced, his eyes cold and sullen, his skin tight, the hollows of his cheeks deep and dark. He seemed to cast a spell upon them as he moved, drawing them in to his world. “Some of you are wondering,” he started, “so I will tell you. Yes, I killed our father. Yes, I killed Crown Prince Saud. I killed his wife, Princess Tala. I killed their children. I killed them all.”

  The men sat in stunned and open-mouthed silence. Not a sound penetrated the ancient walls. Only their breathing and a few croaking swallows could be heard in the enormous room.

  “I killed them,” Al-Rahman went on, “but that is not everything you need to know. I also arranged for the nuclear attack in Gaza. I arranged for the attack on D.C. as well. And we are just beginning.” The king glanced down at his watch. “The most deadly attacks will take place a little less than three hours from now.”

  The senior prince bowed his head. Al-Rahman watched him carefully, then went on. “Believe me, dear brothers, I have just started my work. I killed our father. I killed our brother. Now I will kill you as well. You are either with me or against me. There is no middle ground. You either join me or I kill you. It is as simple as that.

  “What’s it going to be? You have two minutes to decide.”

  The senior prince stood up, his face contorted with rage. “Join you?! You’re a madman! You killed my father. You killed my brother. I will never—”

  Al-Rahman reached under his robe, took out a Colt .45 from a shoulder holster, and shot his younger brother in the head. By the time he hit the ground, the senior prince was already dead. The sound of the gunfire echoed through the enormous chamber and then was swallowed up again. The air filled with the acidic tartness of burnt gunpowder, and blood began to seep from under the dead prince’s head.

  King Al-Rahman took a step back, eyeing the other princes in the room. They stared at him aghast, too shocked to speak or move. “Don’t underestimate me,” he told them as he fingered the warm barrel of his pistol. “I am totally committed to my course. This isn’t something I dreamed up in the past week or so. This goes back much further. I have been planning this for years.”

  Standing before his brothers, the king thought back to his first meeting with the old man, so many years before. He thought of their introduction on the beach, the airplane trip to the city, sitting in the Mercedes outside the United States Embassy in Paris, learning he had to kill the people inside the embassy before he could take the next step.

  He could hear the old man’s voice as it hissed in his ears. “Commit now to join us! Tell me to kill your countrymen. Prove to me we can trust you. Now what are you going to do?”

  It was a good test. Al-Rahman knew that now. Catch them off guard. Make them decide! Who were they? What were they? What was really in their hearts? Would they kill or would they hesitate? Would they wash their hands in blood?

  The results of the test were immediate and nearly flawless. There was no cheating, no second-guessing, no faking the results. They were either with him or against him. And they had to kill to join his cause.

  And not just any blood was going to satisfy him. The king was more demanding than that now. It would take more than a simple murder after all that he had learned.

  Al-Rahman turned to his brothers and took a step toward them. “Are you with me? Then you must do this! I want to know what’s in your heart. Will you bloody your hands to join me? Or will you choose to die right now?”

  “Join you?” one of his younger brothers muttered, his eyes gaping wide in rage and fright. “Join you, King Abdullah? What are you talking about?”

  “Join me as I bring the Great Satan to its knees. And if you think that I’ve already done that, let me assure you, you are wrong. There will be another attack before the day ends, an attack that will destroy them as a nation, send them back two hundred years. Tens of millions are going to die. And then we will rise up with our brothers as the most powerful people on the earth.” Al-Rahman stopped and caught a breath. His face was drawn now, his eyes blazing, his lips pulled tight. He looked almost like an animal: bared teeth and glowing eyes, his heartbeat racing through the pulsing vein against his neck.

  “Christianity! Freedom! Human rights!” He spit the words. “These are foul and loathsome things. The spirit of their God is found in freedom. But with one attack, we kill them both!”

  “Tell me, my younger brothers, and I want you to tell me now! I will need your help to establish the world order after the U.S. has been destroyed. There is too much work, too much responsibility to be carried by just one man. I need your allegiance. But I need to know right now. Will you join me? Will you help me destroy the Great Satan? Are you willing to help me kill a hundred million of our enemies, to completely bring them down? Or do you seek a weaker peace, a weakened nation, a weakened order, a weakened state?”

  The king took another breath. The muscles in his face relaxed and he lowered his eyes. He paced back and forth once again, then glanced down at his watch. “Twenty seconds and counting. What is it going to be?”

  The seven men sat in stunned silence. Their mouths gaped open as they stared with dry and unblinking eyes. It had been less than three minutes since the king had walked into the room. Three minutes to learn that he had killed their father, the crown prince, a hundred thousand Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, all the people in Washington, D.C. Three minutes to watch him shoot their older brother!

  One of them looked down at the dead prince, who lay atop a spreading pool of dark blood.

  It had to be a joke. It could not be real!

  “King Abdullah,” he started, lifting his eyes to the king, “what are you saying?” His voice was high and rasping, panic rising with the wad of spit in his throat.

  “Are you with me?” Al-Rahman demanded, his eyes blazing again. “Are you willing to work with me as we reorder the world?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t even know what you are talking about!”

  Al-Rahman lifted the Colt and shot him.

  The prince fell over dead.

  FIFTEEN

  East Side, Chicago, Illinois

  The first night that
Azadeh was in her home, Mary lay in her bed without moving, listening to the dark. She could hear Kelly Beth’s deep breathing just beside her and she suddenly panicked as she counted every breath.

  How many precious breaths did her child have left?

  She lay there in near terror for an hour, but no matter how she tried she couldn’t help but count the breaths. Finally, in dark frustration, she pushed herself out of bed. Moving down the hall, she quietly opened the door to Azadeh’s bedroom and looked in on her. She could see only the girl’s outline in the dark, but it appeared she was asleep. Mary closed the door and walked quietly into the kitchen, moved to the window, and looked out on the night.

  Just in front of her was another brick wall, another tenement building, dirty and blackened from a generation of soot. Five floors below her, a homeless man slept on the grate. Steam rose around him, but still he shivered from cold. Mary watched him, then turned her gaze to the only patch of night sky she could see from her valley of mortar and stone; there were no stars in East Chicago and she could not see the moon.

  She reached out to open her dirty kitchen window, pushing up against three or four coats of white paint, but the window held tight. How long had it been since she had opened it up? She pressed upward again and the thin pane finally moved a few inches, allowing the cold air to blow inside.

  She stood by the sink, letting the air chill her bare arms, and took a deep breath to savor the smell. The air came up from the park and carried a faint scent of trees and wet brush. It was quiet outside, at least as quiet as Chicago could be. With the taxis and Martin Luther King Highway, the elevated train on its track, music from the bars, and the thugs on the streets, she never heard actual silence, just a softer roar. She glanced down at the drug dealers on the street corner. They were there every night, come heat, snow, rain, or shine, a permanent part of the sidewalk, like the cracks in the cement. The coming storm meant absolutely nothing to them. Nuclear war in the Middle East, even nuclear war in their own country, none of that mattered to these men on the streets or the addicts who lined up to get another hit.