True Allegiance

by Ben Shapiro

  On the screen, Prescott watched in fascination as the operatives approached the back door of a Tehran apartment building. They’d been flown over the border quietly, by helicopter; their journey through the desert had been followed every step of the way from the White House. After the initial group touched down, they’d separated, figuring that infiltration of the capital would be easier if they approached the city as individuals. The only hang-up had come when the truck carrying one of them had broken down on the road. That particular operative had been smuggled out of the country, his part of the operation scratched.

  Now the CIA operatives, dressed in local garb, set a quick-burning charge on the outside of the ironwork door. It flared brightly, but in the alleyway, there was nobody to see it. One of the operatives gently nudged the door open with his foot. Before him spread a dark hallway.

  “No lights,” came an order.

  “Check,” whispered one of the men.

  They crept down the hallway, visibility no greater than ten feet ahead. To the sides ran door after door. A light flashed on behind one of the doors; an old woman suddenly thrust it open. One of the operatives sprang forward, grabbing the handle and easing it shut. “Police,” he bellowed in Farsi, hoping the rest of the apartment dwellers would hear him. “Stay in your home.” She nodded, terrified, and let the lock click home. In Tehran, questioning the police would have been foolhardy.

  The operative waved the team forward.

  At the end of the hallway was another door, heavier than the normal apartment doors. The operatives placed another charge, let it burn through. When it finished, they nudged the door open with their weapons. Behind the door, a cement staircase led down, the angle steep, the stairs narrow. The men would have to move single file.

  “Death trap,” muttered the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

  “Shut up,” shot back Prescott.

  “No lights,” the commander reiterated.

  “Check,” said the operative running point.

  The men moved forward, slowly, taking the slimy steps carefully. Then, down the hall, they heard screaming. In English. Footsteps, charging directly at them. The operatives shouldered their weapons, aiming down into the darkness.

  “What the fuck is this,” one of the operatives swore softly.

  Then he saw.

  The cracked cement tore into the soles of Brett’s feet, gashing them, but Brett hardly felt it—he hadn’t moved this fast since high school football. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” he screamed at the Americans standing twenty yards above him on the stairs. “THEY KNOW YOU’RE HERE! GET OUT!”

  He heard the sound of a couple of safeties being switched off—and then he saw the guns pointed directly at him. “RUN, YOU MORONS!” he shouted. The operatives were blocking the stairs, standing there idiotically. Then again, he had time to think, he was covered with blood from head to toe.

  He didn’t have time to explain the blood, however. He didn’t have time to explain the bodies of Yusuf and his fellow thug lying a hundred feet beneath them, several stories into the earth. He didn’t have time to explain how he’d heard Ashammi walk down the hallway two days before—heard his cultivated Arabic recede along the hallway, fade in the distance, heard Ashammi inform Yusuf to guard the American pig general at all costs, not to let anyone in, that Allah would reward him for his good work.

  He’d waited. He’d bided his time. For forty-eight hours, he had kept himself awake, waiting to hear any sign that Ashammi had stayed at the site. He’d cursed Prescott—the president had failed him again, ignored his request for an airstrike, let Ashammi escape thanks to dithering and gutlessness. Then, he’d begun banging on his door.

  “Yusuf!” he yelled in Farsi. “Yusuf! Your pig mother whore is lying with the Zionists tonight. I shit on Mohammed’s beard!”

  When that tirade resulted in nothing more than some angry grunts from Yusuf, Brett turned it up a notch. His Farsi was limited, but as he knew that for every language, the first words to learn were the most colorful curse words available. Now he unleashed them over and over again.

  Yusuf threw open the door, snarling.

  And Brett hit him directly in the face with four days’ worth of shit and piss. It hit him right in the eyes. Before he could wipe away the waste, Brett punched him in the belly with one hand, grasping for Yusuf’s knife with the broken arm. The pain made him gasp.

  Yusuf went crashing into the hallway, slamming his head on the stone wall. He bellowed in rage; his companion, the seventeen-year-old cameraman, came running down the hall, an aged Kalashnikov in his hands. Brett grabbed Yusuf with both hands, clenching his jaw, and spun him around like a tackling dummy. Yusuf spun, stumbled, regained his equilibrium, and then charged. Brett sidestepped him, deflected a clumsily thrown haymaker, and then stepped behind him and slit his throat.

  Yusuf spluttered, his blood jetting from his neck in great bursts. Brett pulled his head back, opening the wound wider. As he did, the seventeen-year-old appeared in the doorway, shouting in Farsi. He opened fire just as Brett charged him, using Yusuf’s still-upright body as a battering ram. He threw the giant Persian at the teenager, hearing the bullets thunk deep into Yusuf’s flesh. Yusuf, clasping at his throat, tumbled forward, landing directly on his friend in the hallway. Before the boy could push Yusuf off, Brett jumped on top of Yusuf’s corpse, pinning the boy to the ground.

  Then, without hesitating, he stabbed the boy through the eye.

  When he looked up, he saw the explosives packed along the ceiling.

  Then he noticed a camera, operated by remote, in the corner of the hallway. It hadn’t been there during his initial trip for the hostage videotaping. Now, however, it was, and it was moving.

  Finally, he heard a voice from above, yelling in Farsi: “Police. Stay in your home.” The Farsi had a slight American accent.

  He pushed himself to his feet and sprinted, lungs screaming for air, down the hallway.

  “RUN, YOU MORONS!” he shouted. When the operatives finally recognized General Brett Hawthorne, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and covered with blood, they turned and ran. They smashed their way down the hallway—no time for discretion now—as the basement exploded, rocking the ground beneath them. Two of the men fell; Brett vaulted them, yelling at them to get up, grabbing one by his bulletproof vest and virtually throwing him down the hallway with his good hand. Civilians’ heads popped out into the hallway as the explosion registered; Brett looked over his shoulder to see them engulfed in the flame that poured down the hallway like water through a flooding pipeline. A blast of heat rocketed him through the door at the end of the hallway. The other operatives sprinted ahead of him; one man behind him screamed inhumanly as the fire caught him.

  Brett turned back, pushed the man down into the dust, smelling his sizzling flesh as he tried to put out the flames. The man’s screams finally stopped as he fell unconscious. One of the other operatives grabbed the burning man by one arm; Brett grabbed the other. Together, they ran down the alleyway into the darkness.

  In the Situation Room, Mark Prescott sat back in satisfaction, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, as the feed cut out. Sparse clapping broke out in the room. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs turned to him, eyes wide. “They knew we were coming, Mr. President,” he said. “They knew we were coming.”

  “What do you mean?” Prescott asked.

  “The explosion. And then how do you think our guys got out of there so easily afterward? The Iranians must have known Ashammi was there. They’ve been housing him. They just didn’t want to fight us directly, that’s all. They were expecting Ashammi’s thugs to take our guys out. When that didn’t happen, they backed off.”

  “So the hell what?” Prescott replied.

  “So that means that they’re ahead of us. Way ahead of us.”

  “You worry too much, General. They failed.” Prescott smiled the million-wa
tt smile. “General, why don’t you take the night off. We just rescued one of America’s top generals with no casualties. We’ll deal with all the rest tomorrow.” He winked. “Except, of course, for the press conference. We’ll do that just as soon as our boys are in Jordanian airspace.”

  Austin, Texas

  Brett was alive.

  Brett was alive, and coming home to her. Ellen found the tears welling up in her eyes as she watched President Mark Prescott stare unwaveringly into the camera, announcing the rescue. He’d called her personally just a few minutes beforehand to let her know that Brett was safe. The conversation had been brief; he’d expected praise and thanks, and she dutifully gave it to him. She couldn’t stand the man, of course, after what he’d done to Brett—elevating him, then betraying him, sending him thousands of miles into the teeth of danger to keep him away from the television anchors—but he’d made the right call.

  Brett was coming home.

  She repeated the thought in her head on a loop. Her stomach clutched tightly inside, a combination of joy and nervousness more profound than she’d felt on the day of her wedding. She realized that she hadn’t seen her husband for a year. That she’d given up on ever seeing him again.

  She turned up the volume on the television.

  “…and we never leave our men and women behind,” Prescott said confidently into camera. “General Brett Hawthorne has a heroic tale to tell, and he will tell it as soon as he arrives back in the United States and has time to recover with his beautiful wife, Ellen. But he, like our other heroes, deserved to come home.”

  The anxiety in Ellen’s stomach turned to indignation. It wasn’t enough for the president to make political hay off her husband’s rescue after abandoning him in Afghanistan. Now he’d turn Brett’s homecoming into a case for widespread troop withdrawals. She should have figured that would be the next shoe to drop.

  And sure enough, Prescott jumped into that case with both feet. “I vowed on the day I became president that I would bring our troops home, that I would end wars of aggression we have fought halfway around the world,” he said, using language stronger than he had ever used. Of course, he could afford to, after this public relations triumph. “And now, I will make good on that promise. Brett Hawthorne’s rescue marks the beginning of the final phase of my plan to bring every American home from Afghanistan. Welcome home, General. And may God bless you and your wife and all the men and women of our armed forces serving in harm’s way. And may God bless the United States of America.”

  Ellen angrily switched off the television. Then she leaned back on her couch and closed her eyes.

  The phone rang. Ellen hastily checked her bedside clock—it read 7:56 a.m. She’d overslept; she’d taken a sleeping pill to calm herself down after the president’s speech. Bubba had given her the morning off. “Hell, you deserve it,” he’d said, “even if that husband of yours did get himself caught.”

  The determinedly cheery ring continued. She leaned over, picked up.

  “Ellen Hawthorne,” she said groggily into the phone.

  “It’s me, baby.”

  Involuntarily, tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, God, you’re all right. Brett…”

  “We don’t have time, baby. I’m here, I’m fine. I can’t tell you where I am right now for security reasons—we’re not in American airspace yet—but I need you to call Bill.”

  She immediately snapped to attention. Brett didn’t need the loving wife right now—he needed the partner. She’d put on that hat so many times, it sprang to her without delay. “What’s going on?”

  “I need you to conference in Bill. He’ll know.”

  “Why can’t you call him directly?”

  “I can’t explain.”

  “I’m your only call? They’re monitoring it?”

  “You got it.”

  She scrolled through her cell phone until she came to the name: Bill Collier. She dialed. On the first ring, General Collier picked up. “This is Bill.”

  “Bill, this is Ellen. I’ve got Brett on the other line. I need to conference you in.”

  “Do it.”

  She put them on the party line. “Okay,” she said, “we’re all together.”

  “Thanks, babe,” said Brett.

  “Glad to hear you alive and kicking, kid,” said Collier. “Thought you’d bitten it that time.”

  “Bill, I need you to get your boys on something. I need them to find a known associate of Ashammi’s. Name’s Mohammed.”

  “Well, why don’t you give me something tougher to do? Like find a specific Mexican named Juan?”

  “He’s coming to the United States. He’s about five foot nine, one forty. Skinny, maybe seventeen years old. Blue eyes, angular face, sharp, big nose. Get your boys on it. There’s not much time.”

  “You got it, Brett.” General Collier hung up.

  “Are you okay, honey?” Ellen asked, after she knew Collier had clicked off the line.

  She could hear him sigh audibly. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t know what I’m doing here, why I’m doing it. What they did to my guys in Afghanistan . . .”

  “I know, sweetheart, I know.”

  “Ellen, I wasn’t supposed to live. That wasn’t the message I gave. I blinked ‘AIRSTRIKE.’ Not tactical mission. Not rescue. Airstrike.”

  “But sweetheart, you’re alive. You’re coming home. I know you feel guilty. I know you never meant to leave your men behind. But you alive is better than you dead.”

  “Me alive isn’t better than Ashammi dead. He was there, Ellen. He was there. I gave them the location; I knew they’d have time to take the shot. But Prescott, damn him, didn’t have the balls. He just didn’t. And now Ashammi’s out there, planning. He’s smart, Ellen, smart as hell, and he’s steps ahead of us. We were lucky to get out of there alive. If it hadn’t been for a stupid thug named Yusuf, we’d all be dead, and Prescott would have an international incident on his hands anyway, dead Americans and their body parts spread all over Tehran. Damn the man. Damn him.”

  She found tears in her eyes again. Her man, her strong, unwavering man, so ready to die. “But you’re coming home, sweetheart. You’re coming home.” On the other end of the phone, she could hear her husband exhale.

  “You’re right,” he said slowly. “I’m coming home.”

  “Take a bullet for you, babe,” she said.

  “Take a bullet for you, sweetheart.”

  The line clicked dead.

  One minute and twenty-nine seconds later, Bill Collier received a call from his wife, Jennifer. He let it go to voice mail. He was busy tracking down a man named Mohammed with ties to Ibrahim Ashammi.

  The first phone call Ellen received came from Bubba. He told her to turn on the television. When she did, she saw the George Washington Bridge tilting in slow motion, cars falling into the Hudson. She saw the close-up helicopter footage of women and children screaming in their vehicles as the two-level bridge collapsed in on itself. She saw anchors weeping openly, real-time footage of relatives taping “HAVE YOU SEEN” posters to a makeshift bulletin board at the new World Trade Center. She saw President Prescott vow to track down the perpetrators of the attack, announce that America needed to pull together, despite its differences, announce that he would be mobilizing National Guard troops across the nation to travel to New York City for rescue and cleanup. She sat glued to the television for two hours.

  Then she heard a knock at her door. When she opened it, Bubba was standing there. His face looked gaunt, ashen. She ushered him into the living room, where he settled his bulk onto her leather couch.

  “I got a call from Prescott,” he said. “He wants our boys out there ASAP.”

  “I know. I saw it on the news.”

  “I won’t send them, Ellen.”

  She shuddered involuntarily. “You know by law that you have to. The
National Guard can be mobilized by the president once a national emergency has been declared.”

  “Under Posse Comitatus, that isn’t totally clear. But this ain’t about law anymore, Ellen. It hasn’t been for a long time. We pull our troops off that border, and I’ll have more dead ranchers on my hands, more children floating up in that river. I don’t have the stomach for that.”

  “There’s another river with dead kids in it, Bubba,” Ellen said.

  He shot her a hard look. “You think I don’t know that? I’ve seen the footage, too. And I’m damn sorry about it. But I’m not governor of New York. I’m governor of the Republic of Texas, and my first duty is to this state. We give up those troops, we might as well let Prescott open the border officially to the cartels and the smugglers. They’re the only thing standing between us and a full-scale invasion.”

  “The invasion is slow motion. That situation in New York isn’t.”

  He exhaled heavily. “I know that, too. But I just don’t trust Prescott. Once he mobilizes the National Guard on behalf of the feds, he can put them wherever he wants—and he can put them where I can’t order them to do a damn thing. Listen, Ellen, I’m not here to argue. I’m here to plan. And let me tell you, girl, that I’m doing this one way or another. If you can’t commit to helping me, I’ll find someone who will. There won’t be any hard feelings.” He paused. “But if you’re with me, Ellen, if we can stand together, we can get through this.”

  She glanced at the television. The rescue crew was pulling another body from the water—a young girl wearing a Disneyland sweatshirt. It was footage, Ellen knew from 9/11, that they’d only show today, during live coverage—then the psychiatrists would explain to the network brass that showing such images was “triggering,” and the pictures would disappear to spare the sensitivities of the American viewer. The scrolling chyron underneath the picture flashed quotes from Prescott’s speech: “PRESIDENT: WE WILL STAND TOGETHER…PRESIDENT CALLS UP NATIONAL GUARD…PRESIDENT TO REDEPLOY TROOPS TO NEW YORK AS THEY ARRIVE FROM WAR ZONES ABROAD…PRESIDENT VOWS TO ‘TRACK DOWN THE PERPETRATORS’…”