Dawn of Hope- Exodus

by Dobrin Kostadinov

  ‘No, no, no!’ the rich man started yelling, but his cries fell on deaf years. Not one shred of mercy was left in the eyes of the two murderers and they jumped at him as if they were starved lions, but instead of sinking their teeth into him, they tore him apart with their blades.

  He got a few deep stab wounds all over the body, then the killers rifled through his pockets for valuables and money. They left him to die, moaning, in his own blood, at the feet of the passing crowd, without anyone who could help him or call for an ambulance. Richard was beaten to death and dumped in the same manner. Something totally explainable, but every bit as unacceptable was happening in the world. People slaughtered each other for a loaf of bread and no one could tame the crowd unless it tamed itself. But when and who would manage to quell it? Perhaps the fall of the human race would be enough for the passions on the planet to cool. Everything that had been built in the past five thousand ears was ripped to bits and razed to the ground in a single day. Society, state, institutions–nothing existed any more. All that was left of mankind were hungry, ill and impoverished human-like creatures who strove to survive. It was a picture more fitting to the life of our forefathers tens of thousands of years ago, the only difference being that the present-day tribal system had more modern weapons for destruction at its disposal . . .

  Shortly after Radeberg’s death the news about the raging world chaos reached the only place on Earth where discipline and preparation were the dominant mood. Omar received a call regarding the condition of present world order:

  ‘Hello, General, it’s the Iranian Defense Minister talking. Are you aware of the situation?’

  ‘Partially,’ the officer responded.

  ‘The UN has issued an evacuation order for a group of people to a few locations. I’ll send you the list, I’m expecting you in my office in an hour,’ the Iranian army commander-in-chief commanded and hung up. A few minutes later the General received on his phone a list with the names of a few hundred people. It comprised oil tycoons, billionaires and politicians. At the bottom of the sheet were indicated the hour and the coordinates, underlined in red. At ten o’clock GMT the evacuees had to be at the site. The pick-up points were the four bases Omar was to attack later that night. But Saadi did not set out for the meeting; he did something else instead.

  ‘I want you all to stir yourselves up! There’s a change in the plan, we’re taking off at 9 o’clock tonight. We’ll use the cover of the night,’ he instructed aloud and left everyone astounded at his decision.

  ‘Don’t stare at me, get to work!’ he bellowed. Then he deleted the list he was sent earlier on. Omar hastened to call his wife, but no one picked up on the other end of the line. The mobile connections in Tehran were still not cut, but no voice answered after the signals. He called once, twice, thrice, a fourth time, still no answer. Yet, there was no time even to panic.

  ‘Milev, I have to go for my wife and kids. You’ll be in charge until I’m away and if I’m not back by 9, you’re leaving! You’re the man, you’ll lead them!’ He commended that onerous responsibility probably to the only person who could live up to it and whom he trusted. The Eastern European was left speechless, he had received a direct order form the enraged Iranian. Omar walked over to four of the mercenaries and commanded them to accompany him into one of the helicopters the base owned. Less than ten minutes later the machine was flying towards the capital or, more precisely, towards the building the General lived in. The distance was shorter by air, but when they started entering the city, they stumbled across the throngs of people, running frantically in all directions with no end destination. Fires raging in some of the buildings were spreading across other constructions, yet there were no city fire brigades. Broken, turned-over cars, crossfires between military fortifications which were about to surrender–those were just bits of the entire spectacle that the Iranian witnessed in such a short time. All that happened just for a few hours, Saadi thought as he called his wife one more time, but this time mobile communications were practically non-existent. Despite their arrangement, the officer, escorted by the soldiers, landed on top of the building he lived in a little before five p.m. The pilot was left in a stand-by position and the four men got off together with Omar, one of them stayed behind to guard the machine. The group opened the exit door and headed down the stairs. The first thing they encountered were two criminals who were robbing a flat two floors down. One of them was taking out whatever he came across. He was holding two gold chains and a laptop. The other one was beating a woman on the floor–she was all covered in blood, weeping and begging for help. The officer saw what was going on and could not treat the matter with indifference. He was not going to show any mercy to the invaders.

  ‘Hey,’ he shouted to call the attention of the two brigands. They looked at him and before they could react, they were struck down. The offender was greeted by two shots in the head, fired by Saadi himself, and the other one was executed by the soldiers. Wasting no second, they hurried down the stairs. The team came upon more or less the same picture everywhere in the building. Some of the apartments were broken into and screams and cries of powerlessness came out of them.

  Burdened by his fears, Omar ran so fast down the steps that the soldiers could hardly catch up on him. When he found himself in front of his flat, the horror he encountered was no different. The door was ajar and no sound was heard, just a deadly silence set against the background of the screams in the building. He pushed it open slowly and slipped in first, the mercenaries followed him close behind. His home was turned upside down. The place was a total mess, but that was not what drove him to the edge. The officer shuddered at the grasp of the adrenaline and the emotions that came a bit too strong for him. He scanned the living-room and the dining-room, but there was no one there. Neither his children nor his wife were to be seen. He was seized by a fit of panic, but a moment before tears of wrath and grief started trickling down his face he headed for the room at the bottom of the corridor, it was shut. He closed his hand around the handle and yanked open the door. The view his sight fell upon crushed his spirit for life.

  What he saw smote him as though he was a tree split in two by a lightning. A ragged stranger was assaulting the lifeless body of his wife. She did not move, all soaked in blood. Chills ran down the General’s spine. The rapist saw the black look on the face of the military and jumped out of the bed, onto the floor, curling up in the corner. The General’s eyes were fire balls like those of an enraged bull, his body was drained of any other feeling than that of revenge, adrenaline was guiding his blind fury. He pulled out his knife and headed for the miserly scum.

  ‘No, no!’ He stretched his arms in an attempt to push Saadi away, but the General towered over him and stabbed him ten times, roaring in agony. The victim was screaming his lungs out in pain and the last blow was inflicted in the throat. Omar left the knife planted there–thrust into the villain’s neck, leaving the pervert to die, choking on his own dirty blood. After the outburst of anger, he dissipated into helplessness, into utter powerlessness. The General went over to his wife’s body, took her by the hand and wept. Those were the manly tears of a devoted husband and father.

  ‘Why, why?!’ he asked a few times and growled torn apart by the inhuman grief that held him in its clutches. But much as he talked to her, she never moved or breathed again. He leaned over her, brought his face close to hers and kissed her. With shaky hands he closed her eyelids–her eyes were staring into space without any sparkle of life. Even the steel-hearted commandos softened and felt the pressing need to cry. They were washed over by a wave of grief at the sight of their commander, weeping and moaning like an entire crowd of people. They left him to mourn alone. The soldiers walked out of the room and set themselves to wait for their leader at the front door. They heard him yell and curse everything he’s ever come into contact with throughout his life. It was a tragic scene of the broken union of two lovers’ souls.

  About twenty minutes later the General joined hi
s men. His bloodshot eyes still glistened with tears. He locked the door, intending to come back to his deceased wife later.

  ‘We need to find my children, they must be around here. We’ll search all apartments, all corridors, each and every corner where they could be hiding. Find them, I beseech you!’ He wiped his tears on the sleeve of his uniform, but more of them threatened to find their way out.

  One of the men rushed down the stairs to bolt the building’s entrance. No one had to go in or out of the construction. The other two soldiers along with the officer went checking the apartments from top to bottom. They entered into the opened flats, looking for the little ones, but they were not there. The sight, however, was just as cruel. Beaten and robbed the inhabitants of the homes had surrendered, but Omar and his team made sure the invaders were brought to justice. The locked apartments were too many and while they checked them one by one, breaking the doors with special assault machine, time passed by imperceptibly. The last apartment they tried was on the first floor, but it did not make it any clearer where the children could be.

  ‘Guys, go back to the base, you have no time. Leave me behind, I’ll keep the search in the air ducts and the sewer pipes. I’ll even go out in the swarm if I have to, but I’ll find them!’ the General cried. Night had begun to fall outside.’

  ‘Are you sure, Sir?’ one of the commandos asked.

  ‘Yes, go, that’s an order!’ he gave his men final instructions before he renewed the search on his own. The team headed back to the roof, jumped into the helicopter and a few minutes later they were on their way to the base, trying to get there on time.

  The Iranian officer continued his inspection, but the more he looked for them the more desperate he became, for he realized they were just nowhere to be found. Was it really possible that everything he had ever loved was lost for good? The odds were going in that directions, and the truth was that he felt how the tragedy and the anguish were slowly, but surely killing his desire to live, existence no longer meant anything much to his broken heart. The awe-inspiring Omar Saadi . . . No one ever got to know what happened to him after that. He turned into a memory . . .

  The men returned to Al Nadir. But, alas, they did not bring good news. Everyone learned about Omar’s decision to stay and that weakened the desire of many of the freelancers who were preparing to leave. Milev was the only one who did not judge the General for his choice; he felt that he had lost not only a great man but also a dear friend. What he was worried about now was how they were going to carry out the Heavenly Ascension operation. At that time and place he had to inspire courage and to convince the people in the base that everything was going to turn all right. Rogers felt rather tense under the circumstances and sensed most palpably the absence of the commander-in-chief. A few hours before he had written an algorithm which was intended to override and control a web of deadly satellites. He was testing his brainchild when the news arrived. Milev walked into his office and found him sitting behind the computer with hands on his head.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Dimitar asked.

  ‘How can you even ask? Omar is gone, what are we going to do? What am i going to do, I was supposed to fly with him on the flight commander. I haven’t even held a gun in my life and now I have to take charge of a plane and assume full responsibility for the entire undertaking,’ he admitted, sharing his fears.

  ‘Not everything lies in your hands alone, don’t forget that Alice and I are right by your side. Pull yourself together, if not for me, do it for her.’

  ‘But I’ll fail you, I’m not sure I can pull this through,’ Harry confessed doubtfully.

  ‘Just do what you have to. With or without Omar up there, you’re the genius in this case, don’t forget that. Finish what you came here for and leave the rest to us. You are the man!’ Milev ensured him, giving the youth’s shoulder a pat. ‘The access codes for one of the satellites are in the cupboard next to you, from there on it´s your go. Provide us with a cover by air and a communication hole and we’ll do the rest. We’ll be in the air in a few minutes!’ the Lieutenant encouraged him once again and left to go check on the overall spirit in the base. Like a true leader he bred strength and a sense of immortality into his underlings now that all the responsibility of the mission had fallen to him. . .

  The planes were waiting. The new commander-in-chief was on Runway 1, but Harry was still not there. Just before Milev set out to look for him and check whether he had not reconsidered, the two lovebirds came out of the control room pulled in a warm embrace and headed proudly in his direction. The strong wind that blew behind them came whirled up by the propellers of the flying machines and mixed with all the dust that floated around. Shortly before they parted–each heading for their bird, Rogers stopped and pulled his lovely girlfriend aside. He looked her in the eyes and kissed her like he was never going to see her again. A premature goodbye although he still held on to the last shred of dying faith. It was difficult for him, but his desire for success made him believe in his own power and inspired him to take part in that great endeavor.

  ‘Promise me you’ll come back!’ Alice demanded.

  ‘Only if you do, too. I’m nothing without you, do you hear me? Nothing!’ Harry screamed over the noise and pulled her tightly into his arms. Alice felt like crying, but that was hardly the time for that. She kissed him on the lips and clutched him.

  ‘I’ll be waiting for you right here, I’m not going anywhere unless I see you smile,’ she said and ran towards one of the lanes with watering eyes. Feeling powerless, Harry watched his darling as her figure receded into the distance. He looked ahead and saw Dimitar waving his hands at him and motioning for him to get on board, they were already running late.

  Rogers strode ahead for his plane and when he passed Milev, the Lieutenant nodded at him approvingly, then he got into the flying machine that was equipped with everything he needed. The cargo compartments of the other eight planes were already staffed with approximately three hundred parachutes each. Half of the aircraft were fitted with a new landing technology (TLS) that they were going to test in their first attack. The other half were equipped with non-TLS parachutes. All of the cargo jets had capsules attached to their tails, like trailers with wings, containing a rather valuable cargo. Those were the infantry teams plus two combat drones waiting to be activated. That so called capsule was programed to detach and land in the right moment, initiating the offensive by land.

  They finally left. Hundreds of men and women ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of justice. A banal notion that they were going to endow with a new life. Even the young Rogers had started to believe in that. Once the plane was in the air, he uploaded the algorithm onto the servers and sent it to the Iranian satellite he had access to. That brainchild of his was more of a virus which could clone itself countless times, infecting the entire system of satellites. Each cloning of the main virus had to be deactivated with a concrete formula specifically designed by Harry himself. Every copy of the malware multiplied itself extremely fast, faster than the time it took to be deactivated and he needed that time to secure himself access to the interconnected satellites orbiting the Earth. More or less he controlled everything: the GPS signals, the radio, the TV, the Internet and the other communications, the banks and what not. He felt all that power focus in his fingertips for a second, maybe it was precisely for this moment that he had lived so far, for the idea that he had the unlimited ability to do whatever he pleased with everyone. But things were different now. Perhaps love had something to do with that or his ability to tell right from wrong, he was the only one who knew the reason deep down inside of himself.

  After he had his five minutes of glory and power, he cut all communications. The citizens of the entire planet were plunged 150 years back in their development. After that he established control over Russian and American combat satellites. All of them were programmed to melt a tank for seconds, and now their powerful beams were under his command. Shortly before they reached their target
he activated them. Rays like a divine wrath came down striking the missile and the electromagnetic shields which warded off the four military fortresses against air raids. Harry started circling over a site where he could not be spotted or detected and provided green light to the other planes . . .

  Synchronized like a hands of a watchmaker the mercenaries spread around the bases at the same time. The battle for Eisenhower was expected to be the hardest, but there was no one to lead them, Omar was not there to take charge so that front became Rogers’s main focus of attention. And then, with the fall of night the two infantry modules detached themselves from the birds and made successful landings. The mercenaries had a threatening look dressed in the land offensive suits. The metal helmets and the metal masks that fell in front of their faces added extra protection. The freelancers were also armored with metal plates covering their shoulders which served as protection when shoulder-firing. Having that and other improvements they were ready to enter the battle fearlessly. They also had two offensive drones at their disposal which were supposed to provide them with machine-gun fire cover. The two squads from the modules regrouped and rushed to assault the target. Two rays descended from the black sky and burnt holes in the wall standing in front of them. That was all they needed–a way into the heart of the fortress. A whole army strode out of it. A few vague figures came out of clouds of dust and the lights of the burst-fire. Those were the same artificial organisms that were used for the final exam of the six heroes. Evil and indestructible at first sight, the animal figures lunged at their attackers. But they fell in the trap General Saadi had laid for them. Before the creatures had managed to get dangerously close to the invaders, a few shells were fired at the inorganic beings, aiming not to vanquish them, but to subdue them. Harry had written a virus which had to reprogram them once injected in them. The shells lodged in three predatory robots and the uploading of the virus was over quickly and effortlessly. They tossed and turned, trying to shove off the injectors, but it was all to no avail. A few minutes later they found themselves directly under Harry’s control; he sent them back against their owners. Those who defended the establishment were twice as shocked by what was happening, yet they kept putting up as much resistance as they possibly could, defending the wall. That was exactly what they had to do after all. When the planes finished their second circle over the base, the first wave of modern-suited assailants hit the non-suspecting base guardians; the second wave–the regular parachuters–was scheduled to attack five minutes after that when the third rotation of the planes was done–they aimed to reinforce the infantry in the attack on the gate.