(Wrath-04)-Breathless (2012)

by Chris Stewart

  And King al-Rahman would use every one of them.

  The new king stood at a tall window, twenty feet from ceiling to floor, and looked out on the city that he loved. He could see it coming in the distance now, the great, rising storm. Thick sand was moving slowly toward them like a huge wall of brown water, boiling and mean. It stretched from north to south as far as the king could see and rose upward to four or five hundred feet. It rolled and raged as it moved across the land, swallowing everything in its path, a terrifying brown wave of sand. It was small now, still in the distance, but it was coming fast. The king’s heart skipped a beat. It was a terrifying sight, like something out of a nightmare, except this was real and moving toward him. The king stood and watched.

  Above the wall of sand, the sun was rising over the desert and the buildings of Riyadh were splashed in bright colors of the early morning light, the predominant browns of the Arabic arches and porticos mixing easily with the pastels, desert pinks, and light blues. Some of the main buildings in the city were fascinating works of architecture, almost playful pieces of art, but even the tallest buildings seemed to shrink from the coming wall of sand, the billowing wall looming over the tallest building in Riyadh.

  The buildings on the outskirts of the city were swallowed as the storm moved toward him.

  He heard his office door open behind him. He turned his head just a bit, lowering his chin to the side, but he did not turn around, and he could not see who it was. Then he heard the shuffle of soft feet, and his heart jumped in his chest. He heard the deep breathing, the rattle in the chest, and his lips turned up in a smile. Then he smelled him. The stale clothes. The smell of medicine and disinfectants. The smell of sour breath.

  He turned around slowly.

  The old man was standing there.

  The king bowed at his waist. He didn’t think, he just did it; it was an instinctive reaction, one he could not have explained. Yes, he was king, but this was the only man on earth that Al-Rahman feared. He bowed his head, then rushed forward and took the old man by the arm. He felt the thin flesh, the tender skin and weak muscle hanging like limp cloth on the bone, as he guided the old man toward the nearest chair.

  “Old friend!” he cried. “I did not expect to see you here!”

  The old man smiled sarcastically. “What you really mean, King Abdullah,” he accentuated the title with obvious satisfaction, “was that you did not expect to see me at all. Here. Somewhere else. You thought I was too close to death to be seen anywhere.”

  Al-Rahman didn’t deny it. He knew he couldn’t lie to this man. “I did think, my good friend, that you were too weak to travel. So, yes, I’m surprised to see you anywhere.”

  The old man looked up and grinned, his teeth brown from a lifetime’s worth of drinking dark tea and smoking cigarettes. “Have you got any whiskey?” he asked impatiently.

  Al-Rahman nodded and fixed the old man a glass. He sipped, and then leaned back his head. “Your little episode with the Iranian general was a disappointment, my friend.”

  Al-Rahman hesitated.

  It had been twenty-four hours since the Iranian general had chosen to kill himself. What a coward! What a woman! The king cursed to himself.

  The old man watched Al-Rahman carefully, studying the look on his face.

  Al-Rahman shrugged in frustration. “He failed me,” he said.

  “He did more than that. He failed us all.”

  “He said he would find him.”

  “Yet the young one still lives.”

  Was there anything the old man didn’t know? No. There really wasn’t. He had learned that before. “It is a disappointment,” he answered slowly. “I needed him. He deserted me. There is nothing I can do about that now.”

  The old man nodded slowly. He didn’t accept it so simply—that was clear from the look in his eyes.

  Al-Rahman looked at the old man, though he tried not to stare. There was something about him, something strange and powerful. He still looked old, that was true, but he looked healthier somehow. Last time they had met, he would not have given the old man a week to live. Yet here he was once again, sitting with him in this room. And not only was he here, he looked better. Not younger, but recycled. Freshened and new, as if, through some miracle, he had been granted more time.

  It was unnatural. Abnormal.

  And Al-Rahman wanted to know how it was done.

  But there was a lot about the old man that the king wanted to know.

  Once, years before, after too many questions, the old man had taken his hand and squeezed it so hard that it hurt, all the time looking him straight in the eye. “It is better if you don’t know too much,” he had said. “It is better for you and it is better for me. Let’s just do our business. That is all that you need.”

  Through the years, Al-Rahman had accepted that he would never know about his friend. But looking at him now, with his renewed energy, he was certainly curious as to where he had been.

  The old man looked at him, and then took his hand. “You have been an efficient learner,” he said in a raspy voice. “From the first time we met, that wonderful day on the beach, I knew you would be one of our stars. From that first night outside the embassy building, when you told me to kill your countrymen, I knew you would be someone our team could count on. I would lay my life on the table for you, Abdullah, and I know you would do the same thing for me.”

  “Yes,” Al-Rahman answered. “I would die for you.”

  The old man stared at him, his dark, sullen eyes boring into the king’s soul. Al-Rahman held his gaze the best that he could, but he finally looked away.

  “You are frightened,” the old man mumbled. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  “No,” Al-Rahman answered. “I am careful, that’s all.”

  The old man shook his head. “You are hesitating. Always thinking. Waiting for the exact time to move. You can’t do that, Abdullah—you have to move now. We’ve been waiting for this moment a very long time. You must make a decision. Be willing to act. There will be no sign from heaven. Nothing will fall from the sky. You have to take a breath, be committed, and stay with the plan. And you must do it now. It is time that you move.”

  “But I was thinking—”

  “No more thinking, Abdullah, it is time to act!”

  “But if we wait until—”

  “You have only a few days,” the old man almost sneered. “The United States is suspicious and they are watching you now. Your older brother had a friend. He works for the American president. He knows about you, and he is watching. Every day that you hesitate gives him more time to think. Far too many people around you have died suddenly. Too many bodies can be found in your wake: the Pakistani general who provided the warheads, the Iranian general who killed himself recently, your brother, your father, all of their kin. You are surrounded by death, and they will want to know why. And though the U.S. intelligence apparatus isn’t perfect, they are not nearly as stupid as their critics think. They will figure it out if you give them too much time. So you’ve got to move quickly for this thing to work. You’ve got to strike the United States and strike them where it counts. If you take out D.C., you can take out their entire government. Then you can turn your eye on Israel. She will be waiting for you. After that, the final battle. After that, the final war.

  “But you can’t wait a few months. You don’t even have days. If you haven’t moved within seventy-two hours, it may be too late.”

  “All right,” Al-Rahman answered. “I can see that is true.”

  “Three days. Maybe four. You must move by then.”

  Al-Rahman only nodded.

  “You are ready?”

  “I am ready.”

  “I hope that you are.”

  The king turned and looked out the window. The sandstorm was almost upon them. It moved across the city like a great tidal wave, swallowing everything that fell in its path. It was a block away, then half a block, then a hundred feet. Then it was here. The sandstorm w
ashed over the building. The light turned orange, then deep brown, then as dark as the night.

  The old man moved forward, standing beside the new king. They watched the storm together without saying anything. The sand beat against the windows like a billion pellet shots, and the wind howled across the roof, causing the building to sway.

  The two men stood in silence until the old man turned around. “There are still some things I must teach you,” he said in a solemn tone. “They will strengthen you in your weakness, provide you comfort and power. They will give you support when you need it to see this thing through.”

  Al-Rahman nodded, waiting. “Then teach me, my friend.”

  “There are secrets we should talk about. Secrets that go back many years. They are sacred and chosen, and they will change your life forever once you hear what I say. Once you have learned them, you will be bound to your oaths. You can never deny them. They will bind you, my friend, like the web of a spider wrapped around its prey. They will bind you forever. But you are ready, I am sure. You have been ready for a long time. And now I’m ready too.”

  Al-Rahman waited, submissive, as the old man scrutinized him.

  “You do not believe in God,” the old man went on, “but I’m here to tell you that is a terrible mistake. Not only is there a God, but in fact there are two. Two gods in the universe. They are eternally locked in battle and they are both powerful. One God is the spirit of freedom that has threatened your land. He is your enemy, your destroyer—He seeks to bring you down. He brings the idea of democracy and freedom, which will destroy the kingdom you’ve built. If He wins, He will leave you homeless and destitute. He will destroy your family and everything that your fathers have built.

  “Some people will claim that freedom belongs to all mankind. That is a lie. Don’t believe it. From the beginning of time that lie has been deceiving the world.

  “Some will say that all people have been given the power to choose. Another lie. Don’t believe it. Life is not a matter of choice. It is a matter of strength. It is not a matter of freedom. It is a matter of power. That’s the only thing that matters: who is strong, who is weak, who can convince enough of the others to follow. That is all that matters in this miserable world.

  “And know this, young king, for there may be times when you will doubt. It is no sin, my brother, to defend what you have: your kingdom, your family, your place in this world, the riches and privileges that your forefathers built. It is no sin to protect them, and protect them you will.

  “Now, listen to me, Abdullah. There are things you must learn. Certain oaths and combinations that will unlock special doors.”

  FOUR

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  Major General Neil Brighton stood anxiously in the narrow pantry outside the Oval Office. He glanced at his watch: 10:16 A.M. He had only twenty minutes with the president, beginning at 10:20 A.M., and as always he found himself standing outside the office early to make sure that he was ready. It was an obligation demanded of the staff, and an easy one to offer, since he worked just down the hall. And he didn’t want to waste a minute of his allotted time. Twenty precious minutes. He needed them all.

  Leaning away from the wall, he glanced down the hall toward his own office. The West Wing was quiet; it was a Saturday afternoon, and most of the staff wasn’t in. He studied the hallway, with its heavy blue-and-white window coverings and imposing paintings—former presidents, western landscapes, the D.C. landscape in 1822—all of them set in large, gold-gilded frames and spaced evenly between the high windows.

  Halfway down the narrow hallway was a display of military photographs. But there were none of the typical pictures of speeding fighters, powerful ships, or deadly battle tanks. Instead, the photographs showed soldiers—mostly young men, a few women—all of them battle weary, with dust and sweat and dirt on their faces. The pictures were tender: a young rifleman, his heavy M-16 under his arm, bending down to pet a small kitten with his fingers while anxiously surveying the battle damage around him; a multi-ethnic group of soldiers standing in a circle, their heads bowed in prayer; a young soldier sitting cross-legged in the dirt dressed in full battle gear—flak vest, helmet, protective goggles, and gloves—while holding an infant in his arms. Smoke was wafting in a stiff breeze behind him and debris had been scattered everywhere, but the soldier looked almost peaceful, as if he were holding his own child. There were pictures of soldiers handing out candy, giving a young boy a high five, kissing a letter from a loved one, helping an old woman across a battle-scarred street. There was a picture of a young medic wrapping the broken leg of a small dog, a little boy standing nervously at his side, one hand on his puppy, another on the medic’s arm. In the middle of the pictures was a handwritten note:

  This is why we do it.

  It had been General Brighton’s idea to put up the display. Most of the national security staff had been against it. Too emotional, the national security adviser had said. But Brighton had insisted, even going to the president when the others told him no. Upon seeing the photographs, the president had agreed with Brighton.

  The general considered the display one of the better things he had done. Members of the press, congressional delegations, cabinet secretaries, White House staff, all of them passed the display every day. Most of them stopped. The pictures were simply too compelling to pass by casually without taking a look. And some of those who stopped to look at the pictures studied them for a long time. The images caused them to think. Brighton was happy about that.

  Looking farther down the hall, Brighton could see the open door to his office, a tiny cubbyhole at the far end of the West Wing. It was hardly more than a closet, with old wood floors, a single narrow window (sealed shut and covered with shatterproof Mylar coating), and a small wooden desk dating back to the Civil War. It would have been an embarrassingly tiny office had it been in any other government or business building in D.C. But it wasn’t. It was in the White House—which made his 80 square feet of space more valuable than most any piece of real estate in the world. Many people would have happily paid millions of dollars in order to work this close to the president.

  General Brighton considered that fact as he looked down the hall. He knew it was fifty-three steps from his office to the Oval Office door. He knew that. Fifty-three steps. He had counted them many times.

  Fifty-three steps away from the president, the most powerful man in the world. Fifty-three steps away from some of the most pivotal moments and decisions of the last two hundred thirty-five years.

  Most people had no idea how big the White House really was. Hidden behind carefully planted landscaping, and with much of it built underground, the fifty-five thousand square feet of office space and living quarters were spread across six stories and one hundred thirty-four rooms, with eight staircases, three elevators, and thirty-five bathrooms. Out of all of this space, Brighton had but one tiny office.

  Fifty-three steps from the president.

  Sometimes it felt like a mile.

  He glanced again at his watch. 10:18 A.M. now. He fidgeted, moving from one foot to the other. He wasn’t nervous, but he was restless; that was just the way it was. One didn’t enter the Oval office without feeling a little on edge.

  Four minutes later, the heavy door to the Oval Office swung open and the president’s chief of staff let him into the room. Behind the chief of staff, next to a white Elizabethan couch, the president was standing, his back to his desk. He wore a dark suit with a striped shirt and red tie, and he was bending over while an assistant held a document for him to sign. Behind him, the National Security Adviser, Johnny “Bo” Grison, Brighton’s co-worker on the national security team, was leaning against the gently curved wall, his right arm tucked across his chest, his left elbow resting in his right hand, his fingers touching his lips. Grison was staring at the floor, deep in thought, and he paid no attention as Brighton walked into the room.

  Grison and General Brighton had a mutual respect for each other,
but they were not close friends. They were on the same side of the battle, but they tended to see things from very different points of view. Although Grison was the man who had recommended to the president that he bring Brighton on as his personal security adviser (he had argued for a long time that the president needed an informal and less structured link between his intelligence and military chains of command), Brighton knew that sometimes Grison now regretted the move. Grison thought Brighton was a pessimist: too skittish, too fast to act, too willing to see threats when there was nothing there. Brighton, on the other hand, thought Grison was too slow, too methodical, always waiting for more information and never willing to make any kind of final decision.

  “Bo!” he once exploded in exasperation. “You can’t wait for perfect intelligence. It doesn’t exist. We get what we can, but you will never know everything. If you demand perfect information, then you are demanding the impossible. Sometimes, Bo, you’ve got to go with your gut. Sometimes you have to close your eyes and jump off the cliff. If we always have to wait until you are perfectly comfortable, we’ll never move. Things are changing too quickly. Our enemies are quick and cunning. We have to be quick and cunning too. We’ve got to stay up with them, Bo, or this whole thing falls down.”

  “You’re talking like a fighter pilot, ready to bomb something—anything—to bits,” Grison had shot back. “This is different, Neil. We’ve got to be careful. If we don’t get it right, if we make a mistake, then we all pay the price.”

  Brighton’s face was tense with frustration. “Our enemies aren’t afraid of making mistakes,” he said.

  So the two men served in nearly constant conflict, and the president knew it. But he didn’t mind. In fact, that was precisely what he was hoping to get. It gave him the conflicting voices, the different points of view, the balance he needed to make the best decisions he could. And the president was a strong man. He was capable of listening and thinking, then making a decision for himself.

  After signing the last document, the president tucked his pen inside his breast pocket, and the aide disappeared through a narrow hallway door, leaving the four men alone. Brighton glanced at the president as he sat down. Not tall, but with the square shoulders of a boxer, the president was, for the first time in his life, starting to show his age. His eyes were accented by crow’s-feet, which a few years ago hadn’t been there, and his temples were turning white.