His mind raced, trying to think of a reason that his father might call. Would he call with good news? Probably not. His gut tightened up.
The captain quickened his step toward the Operations Center. “Pick it up,” he said. “He’s been on hold for five minutes already.” Sam recognized the strain in the captain’s voice. He had grown familiar with the sound, and he doubled his pace. But his boss deferred to him, walking at his side instead of leading the way. Sam knew it was unnerving to the captain whenever the White House called. Truth was, it was unnerving to the regiment and battalion commanders as well—it was unnerving to everyone from the chief of staff down. But there was nothing he could do about it. His father was who he was. Sam didn’t say anything as the captain walked nervously at his side.
Though he had never talked about his father, never so much as mentioned his name, it was impossible for the men in his unit not to know, and Sam knew how stressful it was for the captain to have the son of a two-star general in his command, the son of the special counsel to the president, no less. Best case for the captain, it was a zero sum game: Everything went perfectly, Sam stayed healthy, and no one said anything. But if Sam got wounded or killed, or the unit didn’t perform in an exceptional way, who would answer the hard questions that would come slamming down? Who was going to call the White House to tell the old man? Because of this, Sam knew the captain would happily ship him out, send the source of his problems to the next unit down the line. And Sam understood it. He would have felt the same way.
The irony was that Sam was the best soldier in the unit, courageous, faithful, always ready to go, always willing to put his neck on the line. Which was exactly the problem. Sam acted as if he had no fear. He acted like there were angels protecting him every day. He wasn’t stupid, but he was brave, almost brazenly so, and his boss often scolded him for having to be in the middle of the fight.
“Geez, man, can’t you ever stay out of the line of fire!” his captain had once screamed at him.
Sam looked up from examining a bullet hole in his shirt. The shell had shredded the loose material directly under his arm, leaving an entry and exit hole two inches from his chest.
“Do you always have to be in the very thick of the fight!” the captain cried again.
Sam had shaken his head, pushing his leather-gloved finger through the hole near his flak vest. “Wow, that was close.” He looked up and smiled.
“Can’t you just once stay at camp and take your turn guarding the perimeter like everyone else!”
“Hey, baby, that’s not why I’m here,” was all Sam had replied.
So it bothered Sam to have the captain walking at his side, almost half a step behind him, as if Sam should lead the way.
Moving into the Operations Center, the unit XO, a young major with a ridiculously thin mustache, was holding the satellite phone, which he thrust toward Sam as if it might explode. Then he turned away quickly, pretending to work through a pile of papers on his desk. Sam noticed his regiment commander, a thick lieutenant colonel, standing by his office door. The captain walked toward the colonel but neither one of them said anything, though they tried not to make it obvious that they wanted to hear.
Sam turned his back to his commanders. “Hey, Dad,” he said.
“Hi, Sam, how are you?” his father’s voice echoed through the satellite phone.
“Good, Dad. Fine. What’s going on?”
There was a short pause, which Sam immediately noticed, and his chest tightened again. “Things okay, Dad? Mom okay? Luke and Ammon?”
“They’re all good, Sam . . . ”
Sam considered the other possibilities. He thought of his biological parents, two social misfits who constantly struggled along. “Did the old man get knifed in another bar fight?” he asked. “The ol’ lady call for more money? Tell them to bite it, Dad, you don’t owe them anything . . . ”
“No, Sam, none of that. Really, everything is fine. I was just calling to, you know . . . say hello, see how you are.”
Sam didn’t believe it. He had already recognized the anger in his father’s voice.
There was another moment of silence. “I understand you just got in from an operation?” the general then said.
“Yes sir,” Sam replied. He knew this wasn’t the reason the general had called, but he had no choice but to wait until his father got to the point.
“It went okay, I hope?”
“You know how it is over here, Dad. You take one step forward, you hit a land mine and get blown a couple steps back. But tonight was pretty good. We got a couple of the bad guys and took back some of their ground. And none of my guys were hurt, which is all I could ask.”
“You’re all right then . . . ”
Sam was growing frustrated. “Dad, you really didn’t call me to talk about the mission, did you?” he said. “I go out every night. You never call. Now, what’s going on?”
Sam heard the sound of rustling paper, then the soft squeak of his father’s office chair, indicating he had stood up. “Sammy, you had a mission a couple days ago,” his father said in a quiet voice. “A mission into western Iran.”
Sam bit his lip. “We probably ought not to talk about this right now.”
“We need to, Sam.”
“It was a coded mission, Dad. If you really want to discuss it, I need to get to a secure telephone.” An image of the massacre shot again through his head. “But Dad, I’d really rather not talk about it, unless we really have to.”
“Sam, listen to me, okay. I know about the mission. I’m the guy who sent your unit there. And I don’t need you to tell me about it. I already know everything. But there’s something you need to know. Something you’re not going to like.”
Sam sighed bitterly. What could be worse than what he had seen? “Whatever it is, Dad, I think I can handle it,” he said.
* * *
Major General Neil S. Brighton stood in his White House office, a cramped inner room stuffed with classified folders, locking file cabinets, a small desk, and two blue leather chairs. He ran a hand through his thick hair and paced, the phone
at his ear, while staring angrily at the front page of the Washington Post.
The photograph was grainy and blurred, but heart-wrenchingly powerful. A picture may be worth a thousand words, yes, but not one of them had to be true, and this photograph was painfully deceiving. A dead child, a smear of blood on his chest, a dried trickle of red running from his shoulder and down the underside of his arm to drip peacefully off his fingertips and onto the ground. A woman crying in anguish while holding her son. Smoke and black vapor filled the entire background; it looked as if an entire village was in flames. Two U.S. soldiers stood side-by-side, looking past the carnage, one of them smoking a fresh cigarette. Their eyes were dull and deadly, as if there was no feeling at all. Sergeant Samuel Brighton was in the center of the photograph, rubbing his hands on the side of his face.
U.S. Soldiers Accused of Iranian Atrocities
Pentagon denies secret war in Iran
The general stared at the picture of his son and thought of his wife. She was going to be sick. He thought of Sam’s brothers. They would turn white with rage. He read the byline on the story: Mr. Lawrence O’Neil. The reporter had to know the story was a lie! The photographs had been floating around radical Arabic newspapers, televisions, and web sites for a couple days now, but no one in the western press had bothered picking them up. No one believed the accusations. Until Mr. O’ Neil.
Brighton thought of his position in the White House, knowing he might be forced to resign. If the press made the connection between him and his son, if they smelled the fresh blood, regardless of the absurdity of the allegations or what the truth was, he might be forced to withdraw in order to protect the president.
If he had to go, he didn’t care. He would resign if they asked.
The only thing he cared about was protecting Sam, a young man whom, though adopted, he loved as much as his other sons.
> Brighton slapped the paper on his palm and swore bitterly.
It was a lie. Everyone knew it. But that was how the game was played now. The U.S. had a lot of enemies who didn’t care about the truth.
Inaccurate but true was an acceptable standard to them.
The general swore again, breathing into the phone. “I’m holding the Post,” he finally said to his son. “Your picture’s on the front page.”
“Really!”
“Before you get too excited, you better let me explain.”
Sam remained silent while his father read him the first five paragraphs of the story. The telephone hummed when his father was through. Sam was clearly stunned. “Has Mom seen the picture?” he asked quietly.
“No. Not yet.”
“Can you hide it? Hide the papers? Tell her friends not to say anything.”
“I’m trying, Sam. But it’s likely that—”
“It will kill her if she sees that. She’ll go through the roof.”
“Listen, Sam, let’s not worry about your mother for right now. I’ll try to keep it from her, but even if I do, that’s not the main point. Worst case, she sees it and throws a couple pillows at the paper boy or maybe writes a nasty rebuttal, which would only muddy the air. Either way, she is strong, I’m not worried about her. It’s you, my boy, that I’m worried about . . . ”
“You’re worried about me!” Sam exclaimed. “Over this! Come on, Dad, if this is the worst thing that happens to me, I can certainly handle it.” His voice was light now and clearly relieved. “So some puke gets my picture from Al Jezzera and prints some lies in the press. So what! Think I care? Me and my buddies quit reading the newspapers a long time ago. This is no big deal, Dad. No big deal at all.”
Brighton hesitated. “I was worried . . . ” he continued.
“Who you better be worried about is that slime-ball reporter!” Sam said. “Who is this guy, anyway! Is he such a fool as to believe his own words?”
Brighton almost laughed. “You want his name? We could go meet him in a bar next time you’re back in the States.” Brighton laughed as he thought of the recent scene in a German pub, when he and Sam had been forced to fight.
“Go and get him, no way! I say you send his sorry butt over here. Let him spend a week with my unit, then see what he writes.”
Brighton smiled in satisfaction. What a difference that would make.
“So I made the front page of the Post?” Sam muttered, then chuckled again.
Brighton could picture his son’s face, the great smile and strong chin. “Yeah, pretty cool, huh,” he answered. They were both laughing now.
“You know, Dad, my only regret is I’ve wasted my fifteen minutes of fame while I’m over here. What a bummer. I feel cheated! I don’t get to savor my time in the sun.” Sam laughed again. “Bummer,” he repeated, then grew serious once more. “But listen, Dad, try to hide it from Mom, okay? That’s all I care about. This slime-ball reporter, my image, my face in the press, that means nothing to me. And it will blow over long before I get home anyway. But it will hurt Mom. She’ll get angry. So try to hide it, will you?”
“I will, son,” Brighton answered, “but there’s something else I want to talk to you about . . . ”
Brighton fell silent as his mind raced through the past couple of days. He thought about his dead friend, the Crown Prince of Arabia. There was so much going on. So much uncertainty. He was truly frightened. He had a stone in his chest. What was going on in Saudi Arabia, one of the most vital and dangerous places on earth? Had Prince Abdullah come to power? Had Abdullah killed his brother? What had happened to the king? Had he killed him too?
The general huffed in frustration, then threw the newspaper on the desk. It landed face up, Sam’s picture staring at him, and he flipped it over with the tip of his pen.
He thought of the Cherokees, the elite Deltas that were going to pull Sam into their midst. They went to the worst holes on the face of the earth and did the most rotten missions, taking care of the problems that no one else was willing to tackle, no one else could handle, and no one in the government wanted to acknowledge had to be done.
One in ten thousand soldiers was asked to join the Cherokees, and Brighton was proud of his son. But he was afraid for him too. The unit suffered horrible attrition. Theirs was a dangerous, hungry, exhausting, and blood-soaked world. They were also a group of the most dedicated soldiers in the military. Every one of them believed they were serving a cause that was worthy of their deaths. Though he knew Sam had the passion for the task, he was less certain that he himself would be willing for his son to make that sacrifice.
As he thought, the phone line fell quiet until he heard Sam’s voice again. “Dad?” Sam was saying. “Is everything okay?”
Brighton clenched his jaw, then took a deep breath. “Sure, Sam, everything’s fine. Really busy, you know. Sorry. I lost my train of thought for a moment . . . ”
“That was more than a moment.”
Brighton didn’t reply.
“That’s okay, Dad,” Sam answered. “It just means you’re getting old.”
“You have no idea, Sammy, no idea. What was I saying then?”
“We were talking about my mug on the front page on the Post. But then you said there was something else you wanted to tell me.”
Brighton hesitated. He shouldn’t say anything, but he couldn’t hold back. He would say only a few words. “Sam, I’m going to give you a heads up, okay? But this is just a private conversation between father and son. You understand me, Sammy. This is private, okay?”
“All right, Dad,” Sam answered. “This is between you and me.”
“You and me, Sam. You understand that . . . ”
“Maybe it’d be better then, Dad, if you just—”
“No, Sam, I want you to know. I want you to know that I gave it my blessing, so that when they talk to you, you won’t hesitate for me.”
“What are you talking about, Dad?”
“Listen, Sam, just listen, all right? Some things are happening. Some good things, some bad. And some of them will affect you. So you’ve got to be ready.” He paused again. “Sam, I know you expected to stay with your unit in Iraq for a year or more. But it might turn out differently. You might find yourself somewhere else.”
Sam paused before asking, “Why would I have to leave my unit? What are you saying, Dad?”
Brighton was firm now. “Just keep yourself sharp. That’s all I should say. Keep busy. Do your mission. But be prepared for something new, something that makes me very proud. It might be a week. Might be a few days. Either way, be ready for a call.”
Sam thought a long moment. He knew from the sound of his father’s voice that he wouldn’t say any more. “All right then, Dad. I’ll be ready. Now you take care of Mom.”
“I will.”
“And Luke and Ammon.”
Brighton cleared his throat. “Sam, you know that Ammon and Luke will be leaving on their missions soon.”
“How are they?” Sam wondered.
“All right.”
“You don’t sound too convincing.”
“They are okay,” Brighton answered. “But you know, sometimes I wonder about Luke. He seems so unfocused.
So . . . I don’t know, easygoing, like he’s satisfied with whatever life gives him. He doesn’t push himself like you and Ammon do, and I worry sometimes. He’s been seeing this girl. He really likes her. Sometimes I wonder what’s going on in his head? Does he really see the big picture?”
“You know that I didn’t see the picture either, at least not the same picture as you.”
“You did what you did. And I’m always proud of you.”
“Yeah, well, you tell Luke he better get himself prepared for his mission. Tell him that for me, Dad. Tell him he better go or I’ll come home, pig-thump him, drag him to the bishop’s office, and sign the papers for him. I mean it, Dad. I didn’t do it. It was a mistake, I can see that, but I have another purpose now. He�
��s got his own mission, a real mission, and I am counting on him.”
Brighton hesitated. “I’ll tell him,” he said.
“I’m serious, Dad. Tell him to go on a mission or I’ll come home and bust his head.”
Brighton almost laughed. He knew Sam could do it, but it might be harder than he thought. Luke had grown two inches and thirty pounds since Sam had seen him last. “I wonder if it’s a good idea to force someone to go on a mission by threatening to bust his head,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll rephrase that. Tell him to please get ready for his mission or I’ll be very, very sad.”
“Okay,” Brighton laughed. “He won’t want that, I’m sure.”
“Okay then, Dad. Now, listen, I think I’d better go.”
“All right. Keep your head down.”
“I always do, Dad.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
“Yeah, well, whatever. I’ll see you sometime, okay? Tell Mom I love her. Tell her I might be able to come home for Christmas.”
“I’ll tell her, Sam.”
The two men said good-bye, and Sam set down the receiver on the satellite phone. He stared at it a moment, unaware that his commander was watching him.
A few days, his father had warned him.
What was going on now?
* * *
Major General Neil Brighton sat on the corner of his desk, pondering what the future might hold for his son—for all his sons. Unbidden, the face of Prince Abdullah swam before his eyes. The general knew the prince; they had met many times. And there was something about him, something . . . cold. He was so cocky. So prideful. So full and arrogant. It was almost as if he knew something that no other man knew, as if he saw something coming that no one else could see.
Brighton reached over and picked up a red-bound report. Classified. Top-secret. White House National Security Staff. He flipped it open and looked at the photograph and the two-page memo inside.
The Pakistani general’s face was gritty and grim. His mustache hung over his large lips, and his eyes were dark as wet coal. The Pakistani was in charge of his nation’s nuclear program. And the photograph showed him talking to one of Abdullah’s senior men.
The Great and Terrible Page 59
