The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  “So remember me, harâmzâde, because I will remember you. Your first day in business will be your last day on this earth. I will hunt you like the sewer rat that you are. I know you believe me; I can see it in your eyes. You know I’m not afraid of the sewer. It doesn’t matter where you hide, I will come after you.”

  The Iraqi glared at Sam, then slowly nodded his head.

  “Go!” Sam commanded.

  The Iraqi turned and ran.

  Sam took a breath and turned to Azadeh again. “You be careful, Miss Azadeh. But be happy, too. You are off on another adventure, but this is a good one, I swear. Now go with Amina. She’s your friend.

  “I’ll remember you, Azadeh, and one day I’ll check up on you. And when I do, I want a good report. I want to hear you speak in English. I want to hear that you’re doing well in school. I want to hear about your new friends and your family. But mostly I want to hear that you’re happy. That’s all I ask.”

  Azadeh smiled and nodded, wiping a tear from her eye.

  Sam stood and nodded to Bono, then turned for the riverbank. He climbed into the small boat, and his friend pushed it back. Reaching into his vest pocket, Sam pulled out a small pen flare, held it away from his body, and turned his head. Pulling and releasing the firing pin, he sent the flare into the dark sky, where it exploded with a burst of red light.

  “Wait here,” he commanded as his boat drifted away. “A friend will come to get you in a blue Nissan pickup. You can trust him. You go with him. He will take you back to Baghdad and deliver you safe.”

  Azadeh started to run toward him, but it was already too late. The dark hull drifted into the current, then disappeared silently, slipping into the dark.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The new king of the House of Saud sat alone in a small office in the presidential penthouse atop the Royal Saudi Oil company headquarters building in Riyadh. He slouched at his desk, his head low, his eyes tired. A small reading lamp was the only light that illuminated the dim office, and there were deep shadows in the corners and across the wood furniture. The king preferred the semi-dark. He didn’t know why—it was just more comfortable to him now. He liked how the dim light softened all the features, making everything a little less harsh, a little less intrusive. The darkness invited open conversation. People were less aware of themselves, more willing to say things. The king had learned a lot of secrets from conversations in the dark, and he had grown comfortable with the night.

  King Abdullah al-Rahman was holding a highly classified document in his slender fingers. The report had been brought to him by General Abaza, and though he had read it already, he read it again, this time more slowly, considering carefully.

  It was a handwritten report by General Sattam bin Mamdayh, head of the ultra-secret Iranian Interior Police. As director of the highly classified security force, the Iranian general was in a very powerful position, able to operate almost entirely on his own. But he was also three or four layers down in the food chain and, like everyone, he had many superiors whom he had to please. And though his commanders were all powerful men, they had one thing in common: fear of the Saudi king.

  King Abdullah al-Rahman was not Persian, but he controlled many things. Many people. Many organizations. His reach extended much further than the borders of his land, and there was much he could influence beyond his own shores.

  Reading, the king had to squint, for the general’s handwriting was thin and imprecise, the Arabic adequate but barely readable. It told of the general’s attack at Agha Jari Deh: the destruction of the village, the burning of the man, the search for the young one. It told of their frustration, briefly describing the failure of his men.

  Though they had done everything possible, they had not succeeded in finding the child. Then the American soldiers had appeared, forcing his men to flee.

  American soldiers! Abdullah thought, his mouth growing dry. U.S. soldiers had dared to move openly inside of Iran! There had been rumors, even sightings of Special Forces units working inside the borders of Persia, searching for hints of their nuclear program, listening, watching, looking for things, but this had been different—these were combat troops. And they had shown up at the village at the very worst time.

  The king swore angrily, his gut burning inside.

  The Americans were watching. No, they were doing more than that; they were actively working against him, all of it under the table, all of it in the dark. And they had stopped the Iranian general before his work was complete.

  The king finished the report, stared a moment into the darkness, and then glanced at his watch. At a predetermined time, the general was going to make contact, and the king was going to wait up for him.

  At ten past one in the morning, the secure telephone rang. Abdullah let it ring five times, then picked up the receiver.

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  The Iranian General Sattam bin Mamdayh’s voice filled his ear. It was a deep voice, powerful and demanding. “This is General Sattam . . . ” he began.

  “I know who you are,” Abdullah cut him off in a sarcastic tone. After reading the general’s report, he was not in a good mood. “I’ve been waiting for your phone call. Now, what’s going on? It’s been almost three weeks; I want to hear some good news.”

  The general cleared his throat. “My men have been through the village again. They have searched all the mountains . . . ”

  “Save me the details. I’m a very busy man. It’s late. I’ve been waiting. Did you find him or not!”

  The general paused another moment. And with the silence, the king knew.

  “You have failed me,” Abdullah said before the Iranian general could respond.

  “I have not failed, my Sayid, but it is proving difficult. Much more difficult than we expected, more complicated, I’m afraid.”

  “We’re talking about a child!” Abdullah sneered in disgust. “A little four-year-old boy. I didn’t ask you to take over the Persian army. I didn’t ask you to conquer some foreign land. I asked you to do one little favor, to take care of one simple thing. I told you where to find him. I told you how I wanted it done. I did everything but pick up the gun and pull the trigger for you. And you’re telling me this is difficult. You’re telling me the child still lives!” The king cursed again bitterly, his voice hard and dry.

  “But,” the general defended, “the Americans came with their—”

  “You can’t be serious, Sattam. Please, tell me you are not that incompetent.”

  “The child was taken to the mountains. A local man was helping them. He warned the family we were coming, then helped the boy and his mother escape. They are up there somewhere, hiding in the mountains. It has been a difficult task. And then . . . ”

  “And then what, General Mamdayh! What terrible thing happened then? Your gun jammed? You broke a nail? Got some dirt or blood on your hands! Xodâvând, General Mamdayh, this was such a simple task!”

  “He had friends. They were helping him. I know the Americans are watching, which means my superiors will be watching. I have to be careful now.”

  The Saudi king shook his head. He had heard more than he could take. If the handwritten report from the general weren’t discouraging enough, listening to his whining explanations was simply more than he could stand.

  The phone was silent a moment as both men fell into thought: the general on how he might save his neck, the king on how he would kill the Persian general when he was given the chance.

  The soft hum continued until the king finally said, “General Mamdayh, you understand, of course, that I can do good things for you?”

  “Yes,” the general answered. “You can help me, I know.”

  “You know I have friends at the Iranian Ministry. The mullahs. Friends at the Iranian palaces as well. There is no place in all of Persia that my hand can’t reach. And money, General Mamdayh, I have plenty of that. And I am willing to help you. I am a man of my word. I can reward you generously. I can do many things. Do you
understand that, General? Do you know what I’m saying is true?”

  The general hesitated. He saw what was coming next, and he didn’t want to respond.

  “Answer me, Mamdayh. Do you know what I can do for you!”

  “Yes,” the general answered, his voice low and cool.

  “Then you also understand, General Mamdayh, there are two sides to my sword. I can help you if you help me, but I can hurt you as well. One word, and you would simply disappear. One phone call to my friends in Tehran, and you would never be heard from again. And not only could I have you killed, General Mamdayh, I could determine how. Fast or slow, I could tell them. If I wanted, I could have them cut off one of your fingers every day for ten days and have them deliver it to me. Then your toes. Then your elbows. Then your knees and your arms. I could have you taken apart, General Mamdayh, piece by piece, bit by bit, and have you delivered to my palace in an overnight pouch. And then I could turn to your family and do the same thing to them. I could do all this and more. So I want you to listen to me, General, and consider what I have to say.”

  Abdullah heard the general swallow painfully on the other end of the phone.

  “You made a pact,” the king sneered harshly. “Now, do you understand what I want?”

  “Yes, Sayid, I understand.”

  “And do you remember what I told you?”

  “You said you wanted him dead.”

  “Yes! That is right. He is the last of his offspring, the last of his seed. He will remember, he will grow, and he then will come after me. So I asked a simple favor, and now I’m going to ask you again: Can you find this young child? Can you find him and kill him? It is a simple thing, General Mamdayh. And it’s all that I ask.”

  The general didn’t hesitate. “Yes, King al-Rahman, I can do this for you.”

  Abdullah nodded slowly. “That is good, General Mamdayh. Now, go back! Search every mountain. Search every rock, if need be. You have taken too long already! I want to see results now. I want to see some bodies. I’ll give you three days, General Mamdayh, that is all you will have. Find this young boy and his mother and see them destroyed.”

  The general was silent.

  It would take months to search the mountain.

  He knew it was not enough time.

  * * *

  The Iranian general slumped in terror as he hung up the phone. His eyes watered with fear, red-rimmed and dreary, while his hands shook uncontrollably on the top of his desk.

  He should have known better than to enter an alliance with someone like Abdullah al-Rahman. He should have known it was dangerous to jump into such a slimy swamp. He had heard things; he had been told things. He should have known better than this.

  He had tried to kiss the snake, but now he had been bitten.

  A helpless, hopeless feeling sank into his dark heart. The truth was, he and his men had already done everything they could do. They had searched every corner, every canyon, every inch of that mountain. They had torn apart the village, interrogated everyone.

  There was nothing more he could do.

  He thought of Abdullah al-Rahman’s words, a cold sweep of terror running down his spine: “I can help you if you help me, but I can hurt you as well. . . . One word, and you would simply disappear. . . . I could have you taken apart, General Mamdayh, piece by piece, bit by bit.”

  It was true. The general acknowledged the king as a man of his word.

  Which left him no choice. Not if he wanted to avoid a most excruciating death. Not if he wanted to protect his family and himself from such pain.

  He could not choose if he died; that decision had been made for him now. But he could choose the timing and the method, which was a worthy thing to do. And in a society that didn’t place that much value on life, the decision was not especially difficult.

  * * *

  General Mamdayh’s body was found early the next morning by one of his maids. He had slumped at his desk as if he had simply fallen asleep at his work, his hands resting peacefully on his lap. The empty bottles of Valium and OxyContin were found on the floor. And though he died with his eyes open, his lips were pulled back in almost a smile of relief, as if the life he expected could not be worse than the one he had left.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  He knew it was coming. The forecast had warned them: Di kulâk on its way. Devil’s Storm. The Sudden Darkness. It would be here within the hour.

  It happened two, maybe three times every year. The great sandstorms rolled in from the desert to fall on the city like a wave.

  Something about the Di kulâk excited the king to the bone. In the old days, his ancestors had lived in terror of the storms. But Abdullah loved them. They connected him with his land, making him feel as if he were a part of the desert that he cherished so much.

  So he stood at the window, waiting for the great sandstorm to appear. He knew it would come from the east, across the great plain, and he stood watching, surrounded by luxury while waiting for the huge wall of sand.

  King Abdullah al-Rahman thought as he waited. There was much on his mind.

  He was standing at a window in the presidential penthouse in Riyadh. Surrounded by gold and teak and every fine thing in the world, the king was alone in his private lounge. To his left, a twenty-foot, custom-made plasma screen—one of the largest privately owned plasma screens in the world—showed a satellite feed from Al Jezzera TV. Under his feet, fifteen other television screens had been inlaid in the marble floor and covered with glass. Each television was tuned to a different satellite feed from the West, and the flashing images on the screens added an unnatural texture to the light in the dimly lit room, creating shifting shadows and flashing contrasts everywhere. The muted televisions inlaid in the floor were obviously not designed to be watched, but they did make a statement as to how the king felt about the western culture that flashed on the screens. To his right was an exquisite bar stocked with the finest liquors of the world. The liquor was only for his foreign guests, of course, alcohol being prohibited in the kingdom, but if the king were to indulge from time to time, who would dare question that?

  Did it bother King Abdullah that his kingdom developed, funded, taught, spread, and advocated Wahabbi fundamentalism, the strictest and most repressive interpretation of Islam anywhere on earth, while the king exempted himself from almost all of its teachings—the use of alcohol, for example, or, say, murder for another? The answer was clearly no. The king was not bothered at all. Abdullah did what he did for the good of the kingdom, and he had long ago gotten past the irony of his hypocrisy. To those around him, his closest advisors, his brothers, his few friends, the king made his personal feelings very clear: Allah had given his fathers religion as a means of controlling their people. That was its only purpose. It meant nothing more. The only thing their god truly cared about was keeping the kingdom pure to sustain the royal family, his chosen vessels on earth.

  Wahabbi Islam, with all its teachings and prohibitions, was a tool given to them. And it was a good tool. Important. But it was not the only tool they had. God had provided other means to keep his children safe from the great influences of the world.

  And King Abdullah would use them. He would use every one.

  The new king stood at a tall window, twenty feet from ceiling to floor, and looked out on the city 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 colo
rs 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 Master, the only man on the earth that Abdullah 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.”

  Abdullah 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. “Have you got any whiskey?” he asked impatiently.

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