by Ben Coes
El-Khayab reached up and pulled the thick black glasses from his eyes then turned from the window to the large table and his war council. El-Khayab’s hideously scarred eyes were like pools of inhuman green glass surrounded by pink and red charred flesh. But then those grotesque, dead eyes seemed to come alive with momentary fury, shimmering with untold emotion. He looked around the table at his war cabinet now as if he could see and more than a few at the table shivered under the otherworldly stare of a man who they all knew was as blind as a bat. El-Khayab turned back to the window once again, and they all remembered how such a quiet man had corralled the anger and hatred of so many to become the country’s most powerful and feared human being.
After several moments, El-Khayab replaced his glasses and turned from the window. He walked along the back edge of the row of seats occupied by his cabinet. He stopped halfway down the line, and moved to the back of one chair, where General Persom Karreff, the head of the Pakistani Army, sat in stunned silence.
El-Khayab placed his right hand on Karreff’s shoulder, patting the olive khaki gently.
“This is not over,” said El-Khayab, his voice barely audible above a whisper yet trembling in emotion that mesmerized his gathered ministers. “It is not close to being over. It hasn’t even begun.” His voice began to rise, like a preacher’s, the hissing, fiery words spewing forth like electricity through a fearful, awe-stricken room. “This war has not started! We cannot reach out and we cannot back down!”
El-Khayab stepped beside Karreff’s chair, to the table, then slammed his fist violently, striking the table with all his might.
“What our soldiers did at Yagulung was shameful, but it was a personal act by criminals. The destruction of Skardu was an act of war sanctioned by a government. The government of our enemy! Whatever is necessary, whatever troops, whatever weapons, move them now to the war theater. One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, half a million, a million soldiers. Whatever is necessary! The treasury is open. Give Field Marshal Bolin all that he needs. We must fight as if we believe there is no option other than the complete obliteration of India. Anything less will lead to our defeat. We cannot let them,” said El-Khayab, pointing to the crowd outside the window, “believe that we are willing to compromise or accept anything less than complete and total victory over the Hindu enemy!”
El-Khayab, the blind former cleric and now leader of the sixth most populous nation on earth, was done talking. He turned toward the door and, feeling his way along the backs of the chairs, marched out of the cabinet room.
9
CHASVUR STATION
“Why Australia?” Jessica had asked that morning in the hotel suite when he told her he was leaving.
“I’ve never been,” Dewey had said.
Dewey smiled to himself as the memory came into his head. He had to smile; he couldn’t imagine a more ironic memory; the thought of Jessica, naked on soft pima cotton sheets, the sounds and lights of Manhattan thirty-three stories below, contrasted with the present—sharp rock face, relentless rain, darkness—the shitstorm he was now knee-deep in.
He had little to guide him down the rock face. On the way up, his fingers provided the direction, feeling for rock to grasp. On the way down, he had to rely on the hard soles of his boots. He lost count of the times his footing gave way and he was forced to catch himself with his raw fingers.
“Okay I understand,” Jessica had said that late afternoon in the luxurious suite at the Carlyle Hotel, as she rested her head on his chest and they shared a glass of champagne. “How long are you going to be away?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Travel. Maybe work a little.”
“So, you’re … leaving, it sounds like?”
For some reason, clinging to the rock in the pitch-black, in the driving rain, he smiled at the memory. They’d taken the Acela to New York City one rainy Friday morning before he left for Australia. He would never forget that weekend in Manhattan. It seemed so long ago. Walking to the Guggenheim with the patting of raindrops on the big green umbrella. The cab rides, holding hands in the back seat, her body tucked against his muscled frame. The intimate table in the dimly lit Café Carlyle, listening to the French chanteuse whose name he couldn’t pronounce, unable to look away from Jessica’s eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. Holding hands as they walked through Central Park. And that night, the last night, when they’d eaten out at Sistina’s then practically run back to the hotel, making love for hours. It was afterwards, as they lay there on the bed, the sound of the Upper East Side echoing softly up to the thirty-third floor, honking horns, traffic, energy.
“Come back in, Dewey,” she’d whispered after that, as she leaned down and kissed his muscled chest. “Please come back in. I could say do it for your country, but what I really mean is do it for me.”
“I’m too old,” he’d said. “There are better men for the job, Jess.”
But what Dewey had really meant was: I want to live to be too old. I want to live and breathe when I’m too old to kill any longer and you are by my side and our children are asleep down the hall and we are happy.
But he didn’t say any of it. He closed his eyes and imagined Jessica’s auburn hair. He pictured her body, a photograph in his mind of her in a big, thick terry cloth bathrobe, the Carlyle logo emblazoned in navy blue, peeling it off as she joined him in the shower, her sculpted body, big, firm breasts, so shy at first then forgetting her pride as they stood under the big, oversized showerhead and the buckets of warm water.
“You can have any job you want, Dewey. Langley. You can return to Delta if you want. You can work at the White House.”
“That’s not what I want, Jess.”
Then the real question.
“But why do you have to leave?” she had asked, and in that last word he had heard her voice tremble. He had looked down and seen tears on her cheeks.
Dewey hadn’t responded. He had watched as Jessica rolled over and shut her eyes. After a long, long pregnant pause, she finally spoke again:
“Aswan Fortuna will never let it go,” she had said. “He’ll hunt you to the far corners of the earth. You can pretend you can go off and lead a simple life somewhere, but it’s a dream. He’ll find you.”
That was why Australia. A random point on a map, far enough away that Fortuna wouldn’t find him. And if, God forbid, he did, at least Jessica wouldn’t die too.
Finally, as Dewey searched with his foot below for a crack to step down onto, he felt flat, hard ground. In the dark, Deravelle leaned forward and brushed his snout against Dewey’s wet face. Dewey unwrapped the coat and felt for the girl. She was colder than before. He lifted the small frame and pressed his ear against her chest; he heard the faint beating of her heart. He reached for the wax raincoat with his right hand and put the coat on, wrapping her inside. He climbed atop Deravelle. On top of the saddle now, he secured the child within the coat, pressing her across his torso and chest, her small head tucked into the notch above his left shoulder, beneath his chin. Dewey guided Deravelle back from the butte, pulling the mare alongside.
If the oval-shaped butte was a clock face, they were at seven o’clock; Dewey knew that to get to the coast, they had to head straight out from the butte at two. He’d have to guess; there was no way to know exactly the circumference of the large rock structure and therefore where precisely two o’clock was.
“Are you feeling lucky?” Dewey whispered to the unconscious girl, gently pressing his bearded face against her cheek. “I am. That’s usually a good sign.”
He broke the horses left just as a furious smash of lightning hit. In front of him, he saw rolling valley for miles.
“Here we go, Deravelle,” Dewey said, kicking his stallion’s side, pushing the horse into a healthy trot. Trusting his master, Deravelle began a slow but steady run into the dark unknown.
“What’s your name, anyway?” Dewey whispered as they moved across the wet, mud
dy valley floor. “I bet it’s something sweet. In fact, I bet you’re sweet. Can you hold on for just a little while longer, sweetheart? We’ll be home soon. Just keep that big heart of yours beating, will you? Your mom’ll make you your favorite dinner. What do you think? Let me tell you a story about my mom. Okay, here goes. One time my brother Jack and I got in an apple fight. We were throwing apples at each other down in the McIntosh field…”
Dewey spoke to her for the entire ride. By his own estimate, he said more words to the little girl that night than he’d said collectively the entire year he’d been in Australia. But the words kept coming, and he let them, stories about Castine, about his brother, stories about Boston College and the football team, the touchdown he scored sophomore year against Notre Dame, Rangers, even some stories about Delta, stories he was, technically, prohibited by law from telling anyone without top secret clearance. But he told them anyway. Eventually, when he ran out of stories, Dewey started singing to the small child.
At some point, Dewey realized that he could see at least a horse length in front of him. He kicked Deravelle, urging him on faster. To the right, in the distance, he saw the faint glow of distant lights. He turned Deravelle toward the lights. As he got closer, Dewey knew that he had found Chasvur.
After a last stand of elm trees, Dewey came into a meadow, fresh cut and wide, which swept down to a large, rambling barn.
Next to the barn, he saw the back of a pretty stone mansion which he recognized from the photos. To the right, near the stables, overhead lights shone down on at least a dozen men, sitting atop horses or else standing in the drive. Umbrellas were scattered about as the rain continued to pour.
Dewey moved across the grass meadow until, halfway across the open field, someone at the barn pointed at him. He heard yelling, and then a lone horse with a rider on top lurched from the gathered party, galloping on a brown mustang toward him.
“Oh, thank God,” the man yelled as he came closer to Dewey. “You found her!”
“She’s alive. But she’s in shock and her forehead is badly gashed. She needs a hospital.”
“Mrs. Chasvur called an ambulance,” said the rider. “It’s waiting.”
* * *
In the pebble driveway between the Chasvur manor house and the barn, an ambulance, along with several police cars, awaited. Dewey moved into the bright lights. At least twenty people were gathered; EMTs, policemen, ranch hands. He saw Joe Sembler, standing next to one of the police officers.
The crowd moved over and surrounded them. A door on the side of the stone mansion opened and a woman with long blond hair stepped through the door and began a sprint, in bare feet, toward them. As she got closer, Dewey saw that the beautiful woman’s face was red with grief. She pushed her way into the middle of the small group.
Dewey untied the coat and opened it up.
He handed the little girl down to the woman, who smiled through her tears. She took her child and embraced her tightly. She shut her eyes and rocked her limp daughter in her arms.
Joe Sembler walked toward Dewey.
“I knew you were looking for her,” he said calmly as he came to Deravelle’s side. “When you didn’t come back, I knew you was out there.”
“Who is she?”
“The Chasvur girl. Their only child.”
Two EMTs stepped through the throng. One of them placed his hand on the child’s neck.
“Ma’am,” he said to the woman cradling her. “We need to move her.”
The woman held on to the girl. She followed the EMT toward the open rear doors of the ambulance, carrying her daughter. At the ambulance, she turned to Dewey.
“How can I ever thank you?”
“You just did,” said Dewey. “I was wondering. What’s her name?”
“Nicola.”
She climbed into the ambulance. A police officer shut the doors behind her. The ambulance ripped across the gravel and sped away from Chasvur, its red lights disappearing into the black rain.
10
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE
STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE
CARLISLE BARRACKS
CARLISLE, PENNSYLVANIA
In a small office on the second floor of the historic brick building that housed the Strategic Studies Institute, or SSI, Karl Chelmsford sat staring at the computer screen in front of him. Around him, the office was a cluttered mess; three walls were lined with bookshelves, the two chairs in front of the desk were stacked high with papers and folders. The floor was covered with small stacks of books and files. Behind him, a large window looked out on the neatly manicured green lawns of Carlisle Barracks. Chelmsford, with his bifocaled glasses just a few inches from the computer screen, was mesmerized by what he was reading.
Chelmsford turned and moved to a filing cabinet behind his desk. He rifled through it, looking for a particular brown accordion manila folder. The folder, more than three inches thick, was the product of more than seven years of research. He had a copy on his computer, but Chelmsford always liked to read a hard copy of his work before anyone else saw it. After what he just read on the OCONUS DMS, the top secret communications system within the Pentagon which he had access to, he knew this file would soon be read by a wider group of people than ever before.
The title of the working paper: “Tipping Point Kashmir: India-Pakistan War Scenarios in a Post-Nuclear Age Framework.”
Chelmsford, at the age of thirty-seven, was a tenured professor at Johns Hopkins University. He had two Ph.D.s. The first was from Columbia, where his thesis concerned the creation of a divided Kashmir, its history, and the reasons why overwhelmingly Muslim Kashmir opted in 1947 to ally itself not to Muslim Pakistan, but to the Hindu-dominated India, a chain of events that led inexorably to the near-constant state of trouble and conflict between the two countries for more than half a century. Chelmsford’s other Ph.D. was from MIT, where his thesis concerned the three wars between India and Pakistan and the possible implications of the next war between them, a war that would, for the first time, involve two nuclear-armed countries.
It was this thesis which brought him to the attention of General Tim Lindsay, who invited him to join the faculty of the U.S. Army War College. The War College, designed to educate U.S. military leaders, comprised military and CIA officials, as well as academics. SSI’s main mission was to predict future combat scenarios and wars, so that policy makers could better understand decisions as they were being made in the heat of battle. Since then, Chelmsford had split his time between teaching at the Johns Hopkins School of International Affairs, and modeling and updating different scenarios for a future war involving India and Pakistan.
When General Lindsay was appointed U.S. secretary of state, Chelmsford had sent him a bottle of Silver Oak and a note. Chelmsford had written:
General Lindsay,
My congratulations on your
appointment. I have no doubt
that you will be a truly great
secretary of state. Please
don’t take this the wrong
way, but I sincerely hope
we never have reason to talk
once you are in office,
other than as friends.
Sincerely,
Professor Karl Chelmsford
Now, as Chelmsford pulled the thick folder from the filing cabinet, he knew that war between India and Pakistan was now inevitable. He had read the entire document less than a month ago and knew it almost by heart. Still, he would try and read the entire document this morning, checking for the umpteenth time to make sure the logic of the alternative war scenarios was well-reasoned.
But he didn’t have time to even complete the first page of the document. His office phone rang, three fast, high-pitched tones. He assumed it was his main point of contact at the Pentagon, Defense Undersecretary Barry Ziegler. He hit the small red button that flashed on the corner of the phone console.
“Hi, Kitty,” said Chelmsford, referring to Ziegler’s assistant. “I have a feel
ing I know why you’re calling.”
“This isn’t Kitty,” said a deep, gravelly voice. “It’s Harry Black, secretary of defense. There’s a chopper waiting at the barracks helipad for you. Get your ass out there. You’re going to the White House. And bring that report.”
* * *
Two floors below ground, under the West Wing of the White House, the Situation Room was teeming.
Nearly every chair at the large conference table was occupied. The walls of the windowless room displayed live shot video feeds, taken by aerial drones, of different battle scenes in Kashmir. On one screen, a rotating sequence of video feeds showing Skardu in Pakistan-controlled Baltistan, now firmly in the hands of Indian troops. On another screen, a similar rotating sequence of videos showing Kargil, a town in Indian-controlled Kashmir now occupied by Pakistani troops. Kargil was now the epicenter of an escalating ground and air war between the two countries.
The room was mostly silent, a few whispers and private one-off conversations the only noise, as everyone in the room stared at the video screens, transfixed by the violence.