The next morning broke brown and dusty from the wind that had howled through the night, leaving a haze of fine dust laying low in the air and tinting the sunrise with dim pink and gray hues. As the sun rose, the winds shifted to a light breeze from the Chesapeake Bay, which smelled of brine and wet marsh weed, humid and cold. The traffic started early as it always did in D.C., the legions of government minions and private sector bloodsuckers heading into the district to fight their unending battles over money and power. On the surface, everything looked normal: a steady stream of airliners took off from Reagan National Airport, the METRO line ran on time, and the 495 Beltway was bumper-to-bumper, the same as it had been for more than thirty years.
On the surface, nothing had changed.
But there was change in the air, a tension and expectation that had finally risen to the surface after bubbling underneath for a generation.
D.C. was a tense city. It had always been high strung, for many of the people who lived there were by their nature ambitious and on the cutting edge. But over the past several years, it had changed from nervous to neurotic, the Twin Towers and burning Pentagon having completed the transition from uneasy to scared. The truth was, D.C. citizens knew they were the primary target, the most likely city to burn, and they seemed to have grown used to the stress of the bull’s-eye on their backs. How many other U.S. cities had so many police barricades? How many had antimissile batteries hidden on the tops of their buildings or secret “sniffer” units that scanned the highways and ports, searching for the telltale radiation that surrounded a nuclear device? How many other U.S. cities had already suffered an anthrax attack, revived their underground shelters, or had their hospitals drill regularly to prepare for a mass-casualty attack?
Such was business as usual in Washington, D.C. But something new was astir now, a dark expectation that had been building for years. The people felt the pressure growing like a dark, rising cloud that was ready to burst, until there was an almost fatalistic acceptance that it was only a matter of time. A week, a year, maybe longer than that. But the disaster was coming. It was just a question of when.
* * *
Early in the morning, after his sleepless night of prayer, General Brighton showered and dressed quietly while Sara slept. As he sat on the chest at the foot of the bed to pull on his shoes, she stirred and held out her hand. He stood and went to her, kissing her on the cheek, then sat next to her.
“The boys are going rock climbing this morning,” she said in a sleepy voice.
Brighton nodded. He had heard them getting breakfast down stairs.
“You were up late again?” she asked.
“I had some papers to review.”
“You got a late call on the secure telephone?”
“Prince Saud called from Riyadh. He wants to get together when I’m in Saudi next week.”
“Prince Saud? How is he? You haven’t seen him in a long time.”
Brighton paused, thinking of the strain in his old friend’s voice. “He seemed a little anxious,” he answered. “But I can understand that. He’s sitting on a powder keg, and most of the people around him are striking matches and tossing them on the floor.”
Sara sat up and brushed her blonde hair from her eyes. Brighton watched her and wondered how she could be so beautiful, even in the morning, even barely awake.
Her blue eyes, pale and shining, narrowed as she thought. “Prince Saud is a good man. I have always said that, and it’s not because I’m overly impressed because he’s the crown prince.”
Brighton nodded, knowing that was true. With an advanced degree in education and having lived in some of the most sophisticated capitals of the world, Sara moved comfortably among the most elite circles. She had met presidents, ambassadors, senators, and kings, but she was hard to impress and unafraid to speak her mind, even to argue, if the opportunity presented itself. He remembered a reception at the White House about four months before when she had had a strained disagreement with the French president’s wife over the difference between the nature of boys and girls. Raised a traditional Catholic (meaning she actually believed what the church taught) and educated in Boston, she had been a vocal advocate of homemaking as a legitimate career long before being influenced by her baptism into the LDS Church.
Sara watched her husband. He knew he must look worn out to her, even more than usual. “Anything going on at work?” she asked sympathetically. “You look a little tired.”
Brighton didn’t answer. The truth was that there was always something going on at work. Always. Forever. It would never change. He felt like a kid holding his thumb in the dike. He had only ten fingers, and there were hundreds of holes, gushing cracks in the dam, all of them spurting powerful streams of dark water. He could move to the worst breaks, but more popped up every day. Pakistan was in shambles. Russia was moving into Chechnya again. Their friends in Europe had abandoned them, then sat back and laughed, hoping the Yankees would be brought to their knees. Argentina had just voted in a socialist government and announced they had developed a nuclear bomb, the first nuclear weapon in the Western Hemisphere outside the United States. The new Argentine government was courting ties to Cuba, the bastion of true communism that sat at their door. And North Korea. North Korea! He hardly had time to even think about that! Iraq was a mess. No, it was much worse than that. After forty years of Saddam and near-civil war, the people had yet to prove themselves capable of self-government. The mullahs in Iran were growing bolder, taking hope from the mess they had helped to make in Iraq. Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, the Fedayeen—there was more bloodshed and hatred flowing from those groups than any one nation could absorb. The enemies of the United States didn’t grow weak—they grew stronger—and there was no way to reason with them, absolutely no common ground. General Brighton sometimes felt they would be more successful in reasoning with a snake than negotiating with these radicals, for a snake, if it were to see an option that would benefit its position, would at least consider the move. But not these people. Brighton had seen it enough to be completely convinced. They cared not about bettering their position, their people, their children. They cared only about one thing and that thing was death. Death to their enemies. The glory of death in the cause. The glorious death of a martyr. Death through the holy war.
To the radical Islamist, the Americans weren’t human, they were jahili. Barbarians, subhuman. Decadent and soulless, without value to God. They were not only ignorant of truth, but they had rejected their God and so were worthy of death and indignity. And whereas most Westerners found value in any culture or society, believing they all were perfectible to one degree or another, it was not so for the Islamists, who considered Western culture completely devoid of truth or value, populated by savages with which they could not coexist. That was why it became acceptable to drag the burned bodies of American soldiers through the streets, why it was acceptable to hang the corpses of soldiers from a bridge leading into the city, why it was acceptable even to kill their children if they could. They would grow up to be barbarians. They were not innocent. Was a young scorpion less deadly than the mother who gave it life? Was there any sense, was there any justification or law that insisted they couldn’t kill their enemies until they were strong enough to fight back? No, there was no reason to wait. They would kill even the children, for they would only grow up to impugn the glory of God.
This is how their enemies thought. Brighton had seen their thinking illustrated a thousand times. They were not true Muslims, for Muslims did not believe in such hate. These were not true religious people. They had hijacked a religion to further their cause and were as likely, even more likely, to kill fellow Muslims as anyone else in their contest for power. They were enemies of any person who would stand up for freedom, be that person Christian or Muslim, black, brown, or white.
Brighton knew this wasn’t a battle between Christianity and Islam. It wasn’t a contest of religions. At its core, it wasn’t even a battle between cultures or nation-states. I
t was a battle for freedom. It was as simple as that. This was good against evil, black against white.
And it was a battle they were losing. At least that’s how he felt.
Of course, he believed in God, but he had read the Threat File. He knew they were in trouble. And that’s why he didn’t sleep at night.
Give him another day, another small victory, another chance at hope on the battlefield, and he would regain his optimism—he knew that he would. He had been down before, and he had always scratched his way up again. But his faith in America’s ability to prevail was growing fragile; there was no doubt about that. The battle had torn him, and he was growing scared.
Brighton thought quickly of an instant message the CIA had intercepted just the day before, an exchange between two Iraqi brothers who had forced their younger sister to participate in an uprising in the Iraqi central town of Ramadi. The message was crude and halting and translated loosely, but the meaning was clear:
Al-Anbari: All the people in the area have started to move.
I put our sister in the crowd and stuck my AK-47 in her hand. I see other mothers push their children into the rioting crowd.
I didn’t think the people here were so heroic.
Kamal: Whatever God wants! Blessed be the Almighty!
Al-Anbari: She just tried to come back, but I shut the door.
I told her I would kill her if she dishonored our name. It doesn’t matter she’s only nine.
Kamal: Oh God! God is great!
Al-Anbari: It is done. She was killed by our brothers, our own Iraqi police. But we will avenge her. We still have others we can put in the fight.
Kamal: Do what it takes, Al-Anbari. You strengthen my pride.
Brighton thought of the captured exchange between the two Iraqi brothers and wondered how he should answer his wife. How were things at work? Truth was, they were losing. They knew, all of the agents and officers he worked with, they all knew they couldn’t stop it. It was coming some day. Did he sleep well? Was he tired? The truth was, he hadn’t slept since taking this job. And yes, he was tired. He was worn to the bone. He was weary physically, mentally, emotionally; even his spirit was worn thin, like a sheet that had been laid on for too many years. There were too many battles. Too many enemies. He had to protect the country, protect the president. It was his responsibility to advise him on what he had to do. But there weren’t any answers, at least not enough. Their enemies were like rats climbing over the wall. They were shooting those rats one by one, shooting as quickly as they could, but there were so many! The rats spilled over the wall. Which meant he was failing. But what more could he do?
Brighton thought back on the night and the feeling that had kept him from his bed, the dark wind and dark spirit that had passed over their home. He wanted to tell Sara; he wanted to tell her everything. But most of it, he couldn’t. And what he could tell her would have to wait.
He glanced at Sara sadly, then forced a smile as she asked the question again, “Did you sleep okay?”
And like he did everyday, Brighton pretended everything was all right. “I slept okay,” he said as he kissed her hand. “Got to go now. I want to talk to the boys before I leave for work.”
“See you tonight then,” she said to him. “Are you going to be late?”
“Hopefully not, maybe even early. I’ll let you know.”
He stood up, kissed her forehead, and left the bedroom.
* * *
Brighton walked down the winding staircase and into the kitchen where he found his sons sitting at the table dressed in baggy shorts and oversized T-shirts. Overflowing bowls of cold cereal sat before them, and he noticed the spilled Whammy Charms on the floor. “Morning guys,” he said as he walked to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of orange juice. He glanced at the bowls of cereal. “You could cook some eggs. Or there’s frozen waffles in the freezer.”
Ammon looked up as he spooned in another mouthful of sugar and bleached wheat. “That’s okay, Dad. We’re in kind of a hurry, you know.”
“You going down on the river?”
“Yeah. Carderock.”
Brighton poured himself a small bowl of rolled oats, added some milk, and placed the bowl in the microwave. “Carderock? Is that at Great Falls in McLean?” he asked as he punched the buttons on the microwave.
“Yeah. It’s a good rock. Plenty of handholds, but if you don’t climb it just right you can find yourself hanging under some pretty awesome outcroppings.”
Brighton knew his sons could climb like flies. He was pretty good himself, but he couldn’t even come close to keeping up with them. Sometimes they made him nervous. It was one thing to be aggressive, another to be stupid; and sometimes the line was a fine one, and blurred. “How high is the rock?” he asked.
Ammon shot a quick look to his brother, who paused eating long enough to hunch his shoulders.
“I don’t know, Dad,” Ammon answered, “maybe fifty feet or so. It’s not the highest climb in the area, but because of the angle and outcroppings, it’s one of the hardest.”
Brighton pressed his lips as he pictured Luke and Ammon hanging from their fingers, their hands gripping the tiny ledges that extended from the rock, their feet and legs swinging through the emptiness as they pulled themselves up and over the sandstone outcroppings by only their arms.
He opened the window blinds that looked out on their backyard. “You don’t have any classes this morning?” he asked.
Luke poured himself another bowl of cereal as he answered. “Ammon’s got labs this afternoon. I’ve got calculus at ten. That’s why we’re in a hurry. We want to get in a couple of hours climbing before I have to get to class.”
Brighton watched his sons slopping in their cereal as he sipped at his juice. He knew something was up. He knew his sons well. “Why are you climbing on a Tuesday? Why not wait until the weekend when you won’t be in such a hurry?” he asked.
Again they both paused. Ammon shot a knowing look to his brother, then ducked his head.
Though only older by minutes, Ammon had always been more responsible, and it made his father nervous to see the guilty look in his eyes. It was Ammon’s nature to take things a little more slowly, and if he was nervous, then his dad got nervous too. Luke, on other hand, was a full-speed-ahead, let’s-give-it-a-go kind of guy. If he left a wreck behind him . . . no, when he left a wreck behind him, he would zip around to pick up the pieces, apologize for the trouble, then speed off to the next crash.
When neither son answered his question, Brighton asked it again. “What’s up, guys? How come you’re climbing today?”
Ammon took another spoonful of cereal. “Nothing special, Dad,” he answered. “A couple of guys we met last week want to come with us. They’re a couple of big-shot climbers from California, at least they think they are. They were bragging about all the rocks they had climbed out West. We told them there were some pretty good climbs around here, but they didn’t believe us.”
Brighton sipped again as he filled in the blanks. Luke liked to talk. Talked a little too much. So he had met some new friends from California where there were lots of natural climbing walls and had talked himself into a situation where he not only had to prove there were good rocks to climb along the Potomac River in northern Virginia, but also that he was the master of them all. Now it was time to make good. And Ammon was going along to keep his brother from killing himself.
How many times had he seen this before? Still, he had to smile. “You’re going to class though, right?” he asked as he sat down.
“We’ll make it, Dad.”
“You know how much tuition at Georgetown cost me?”
“Ah . . . yeah, Dad, it seems like you might have mentioned that before.”
“So I’m getting my money’s worth, right? You’re not just messing around? Sometimes you go to class? Sometimes you actually learn something, right?”
Neither son answered. “We’re learning lots, Dad,” Ammon finally said.
Luke looked up suddenly, “Oh, yeah, that reminds me, Dad—my history professor wants to know if you will come
in and speak to our class. He’s a flaming idiot, I tell you. Revisionist history, through and through. It was his idea to have you come as a guest lecturer, but I was thinking maybe you could set him straight . . .”
“Have him contact my office. I have to schedule through them.”
“It would really help me, Dad, if you could come. I’m afraid I might have ticked him off. Sometimes I argue too much.”
Brighton cocked his head toward his son. “Can’t imagine that, Luke.”
Luke lifted his bowl and drained the milk, leaving a white mustache on his upper lip. Ammon looked at him and laughed and Luke wiped it with the back of his hand. “Dad, you know we’re doing okay,” he said. “Don’t worry about us missing class. Anyway, remember we both have partial scholarships, which cuts our tuition by two-thirds; think how much you’d have to pay if it weren’t for that. And we know we have to keep our grades up to keep our scholarships. But you know, really, it doesn’t matter that much. We’ll leave on our missions after the first semester anyway, and by the time we come back, who knows where you and Mom will be living. Germany? California? Outer Egypt somewhere? But you probably won’t be here in D.C., so we probably won’t be coming back to Georgetown anyway. We’ll probably end up going to a college out West, maybe even to the Holy School . . .”
“Not me!” Ammon shot back. “No way I’m going there. BYU stinks. Go Aggies, I say . . .”
“Okay, whatever, but Dad, we’re keeping good grades anyway.”
Brighton nodded slowly, a sudden sense of sadness passing through him. It was one of the prices his family paid for the military life he led. No roots, not to speak of—his sons didn’t really have a home. Home was where their mom and dad were, and that could be anywhere. His sons were happy and adaptable, and they wouldn’t have had it any other way; they could make friends in weeks when others took years. But there was a sense of missing roots; there was no doubt about that. They would have their mission farewells in this ward, a ward they had lived in for almost three years, but it was likely that while they were on their missions their parents would move and so they would report their missions in a new ward, a place they had never been to before.
The Great and Terrible Page 29
