Bono watched, shaking his head in confusion. “Might be engine trouble,” he said.
Sam had been on helicopters when they’d had engine trouble before. This wasn’t an engine problem. This was something else.
“Hey, what’s going on!” he shouted to the pilot nearest him.
Both of them ignored him. Either that, or they didn’t hear.
“I’ll find out,” Bono said. He undid his harness and crawled forward. “What’s happening?” he asked.
Both of the pilots were crying. Bono’s face showed confusion and fear. Sam watched him carefully, a sickness rising inside. The copilot rolled the throttles back so they could talk without yelling. Bono listened, then seemed to fold over as if someone had punched him in the gut.
He looked up to ask another question, but the pilot shook his head.
Bono hunched his shoulders, looked away, then pushed himself backward across the cabin floor. Even in the dim
light, Sam could see that his face was pale. “What is it?” he demanded.
“Oh, geez,” Bono muttered.
Sam felt a rising sense of dread. “Tell me!” he demanded.
Bono took his hand. “There was a nuclear detonation. They said that D.C. is gone. They think a quarter of a million people are dead. The president, all his cabinet, the Congress, the Supreme Court . . . everyone . . . all the city . . . everything is gone.”
Sam sat back. He didn’t believe it. It was some kind of sick joke. He thought of his father in the White House. His mother and brothers lived not too far from there. “No,” he muttered weakly. “Bono, you have to be wrong.”
“Everything . . . ” Bono stammered. He didn’t look at Sam anymore. “Everything . . . everybody . . . our government gone . . . ” Then he stopped suddenly. How could he be so stupid! How could he have forgotten!
He turned back to his friend. “I’m so sorry, Sam . . . your family . . . ”
Sam angrily shook his head. “It can’t be!” he almost shouted. Bono just stared at him.
Sam saw the anguish in his expression and it finally sunk in. He took a slow breath and held it, then unbuckled his lap belt and leaned over, falling onto the cool desert sand.
State Road 68
Southern West Virginia
Ammon drove, his eyes tearing, his hands trembling on the wheel. Luke was sitting in the back, holding his face on his palms. Sara stared straight ahead. She seemed not to react at all.
The radio announcer cut back and forth from one special report to another. Everyone knew precious little about the situation in D.C., and the reports from across the rest of the nation were incalculably bad.
There had been no communication with the president. Was he dead or alive? Congress had been in session at the time of the detonation, and most of them were certainly gone. The reports of destruction throughout the capital were simply unbelievable. There was little left inside the Beltway. Two hundred thousand . . . perhaps a million . . . who knew how many were dead?
Across America, there was panic in many city streets. The grocery stores had been raided within a few hours, leaving nothing on their shelves. The freeways were crammed with hordes of panicked masses fleeing all the major cities. Al Jezzera television was reporting that five American cities would be destroyed, one city hit with a nuclear bomb every day for the next five days. So far the U.S. government had no response to the report, but everyone seemed to believe that Washington would be the first, not the last American city to be hit. Fuel was being hoarded, the pipelines and underground fuel tanks that fed each service station running dry within hours. The cities still had electricity, but in order to conserve the suddenly limited reserve of energy resources, all the power plants had been ordered to cut back their output, leaving brownouts and blackouts across almost every state.
The reports went on and on: riots in New York, rumors of an impending nuclear attack on L.A., almost a hundred people trampled or run over in the streets as two million panicked people tried to flee.
In less than a day, in less than a few hours, order had been replaced by chaos. The sense of invincibility that had permeated the nation for more than two hundred years had been replaced by an utter sense of pandemonium and vulnerability.
All in one afternoon. After a single attack.
The reporters kept on talking. All of the airports had been closed. No civilian air traffic was allowed to take off, and all airliners already in the air had been diverted away from the major cities to alternate landing airports. The roads leading out of New York City were completely impassable now; more than four hundred accidents had been reported on the Jersey Turnpike alone. Hundreds of thousands could be seen walking . . . the same thing in Seattle . . . Chicago . . . Dallas . . . every major city . . . pandemonium . . . armed men stealing people’s vehicles . . . siphoning the fuel right out of their tanks . . . shootings in Nashville . . . looting in Manhattan . . . fires reported in downtown Chicago . . . the Secretary of Interior was the highest ranking government official to be identified . . . he broadcast a desperate call for order from some unknown location, but he had not been seen on TV . . . false reports of foreign terrorists taking hostages in downtown Miami . . .
Ammon listened, shaking his head in despair.
The anchorman suddenly cut to another reporter: a military pilot had reported flying directly over the White House, or at least he thought it was the White House, or where the White House used to be . . .
Sara moaned in anguish as she listened to the reporter’s voice. Ammon reached for her hand and held it painfully tight. “Remember, Mom, there’s the underground Situation Room. He would be safe down there. He’s all right, I promise . . . ” He squeezed her hand again, trying to sound convincing.
But Sara knew it wasn’t true.
She had lost her husband, the only man she had ever loved, the light of her life for the past twenty-five years, the man who had brought her more joy than any person had a right to ask. The father of her children, the north star in her life, the man who had held her and loved her and kissed the tears from her eyes.
He was gone now. And she knew that, because she felt him near. He was speaking to her as he always had. “I’m so sorry,” he seemed to say. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to be with you, but it was supposed to end this way. I have another work. So do you now. Keep the faith. Carry on. I will be waiting for you, Sara, and I will always be near. You will feel my breath in the morning, in the soft warmth of the sun. I will look for you in the evenings. Then we’ll be together again.”
Sara brought her hand to her face to hide her quivering lip. “I love you, Neil,” she muttered.
And his spirit was gone.
Ammon glanced over at his mother. “What did you say, Mom?” he asked.
She turned to him, her eyes red, her cheeks stained with tears. “I said I love . . . ” she answered, then glanced back at Luke. “I love you both so much!” she repeated.
Ammon kept driving, but he had slowed to a crawl. He wiped his eyes and bit his lip and kept the car moving west.
Luke leaned forward from the backseat and put his arms around his mom. He leaned into her shoulder and wept like a five-year-old boy. “I want my dad. I want my dad. I want my dad,” he cried.
Sara turned around and held him. “I love you, Luke,” she said as she held his head. “Your father loves you. You know he loves you.”
“I want my dad,” he cried again.
Epilogue
Mount Aatte
North of Peshawar, Pakistan
Omar carried the young boy on his shoulders as he made his way up the final crest on the trail. It was steep and dangerous, with a vertical drop on his left that fell almost three thousand feet. The mountain was rocky and bare, and the trail cut back and forth a dozen times as it wound its way up. Omar huffed as he toiled, his breath coming in gasps though his footsteps remained steady as he climbed up the trail.
A third of the way up the mountain the ridge suddenly dropped, reveali
ng a hidden valley on the other side, a gentle canyon tucked neatly between the extended ridgeline and the mountain: rolling green hills, a small river, fruit trees, and long grass. It was wet, the ground spongy and soft from the previous night’s storms. Above the river, against the mountain, the rising terrain had been leveled, a thousand years of backbreaking work turning the side of the mountain into ascending terraces, some less than ten or twelve feet across. Wheat and oats had been planted on each terrace, and the grain was full now, the heads plump, almost ripe. The growing season was short on the mountain, and the wheat would barely have time to turn golden before the first snowfalls came.
To call the cluster of small mud huts and thatch barns a village would have been an overly generous description. There was no road to the houses, no electricity, no water except what they drew from the river. Even the river valley below them was isolated, and the small village hidden behind the jutting ridge was even more remote.
Omar stood at the crest of the hill where the trail broke from a thick stand of pines. Looking down on the hidden valley, he finally smiled.
Remote. Isolated. The people who lived here were shepherds and farmers who worked the dirt with their hands. The outside world meant nothing to them. And the feeling was reciprocated—they meant nothing to the world.
Omar relaxed for the first time in days.
It was a very long way from home, a long way from Iran. Even further from Saudi Arabia. To another world he had come.
Here the prince would be safe.
He adjusted the boy on his shoulders, then started down the steep trail. The air grew warmer as he descended, but his burden was light.
The village leader was waiting. Omar paused at the door to his home, the finest mud hut in the village: three tiny rooms, an indoor cook stove, and the ultimate luxury, an ancient clay pipe that drew water from the river upstream and brought it right to his front door.
The leader was a young man, perhaps less than thirty, though his thick beard and sun-baked skin made it difficult for Omar to guess. He sat on the floor in the corner and listened to Omar while chewing brown leaves. His face was hard, but it softened as he studied the child.
“You take advantage of my generosity,” the young shepherd said.
Omar shook his head. “I bring you a gift. A chance to serve Allah. I call upon the Pashtun law of sanctuary, and that is always good.”
The leader stared and then nodded. Yes, that was true. And they were honor-bound, for Pashtun law required them to render aid to the homeless, the wounded, those who had no one else. Several times, the village leader had stood up to the Taliban, hiding young boys they had forced into service. On this matter the leader considered the Qur’an to be clear. He had a moral obligation to provide sanctuary and he would not disobey the holy word of God. And though the Taliban had threatened to destroy him and the village for defying them, they had not carried through with their promise, at least not yet.
The leader considered a moment, then walked toward the young boy. Kneeling, he smiled at him gently and held out his arms. Sensing the safety, the young prince walked into his embrace.
Omar watched, then reached into a deep pocket under his robe. “You will keep him,” he said, pulling out a thick wad of cash.
The village leader glanced at the money, scowled, and looked away.
Omar extended his hand. “Not for you. For him. His expenses—”
“He will have no expenses that God will not provide. I don’t do this for you, Omar. I do this for Allah. I do this for the law.”
Omar nodded and begged forgiveness. Then he walked toward the young prince and knelt down by him. Reaching into another pocket, he pulled out a slender gold chain, thin and fine, with a single diamond attached at the end, a beautiful star radiating silver slivers of light. He unlatched the chain, placed it around the boy’s neck, and kissed him on both cheeks. “I give you this to remind you of who you really are,” he said. “You are the diamond of the future. You are worth every star.”
The boy looked at the diamond, then at Omar, and he smiled wearily.
Does he really understand? Omar wondered. Does he have any idea at all?
He tucked the jewel under the young boy’s clothes, placing it near his chest, then pulled back and held the prince by the shoulders. They stared at each other a long moment, as if they could communicate without saying words.
“What have I told you?” Omar finally asked him, breaking the heavy silence.
“You will come for me,” the young prince said.
“That is my solemn promise.”
The boy stared in silence at him.
“And until that day?” Omar asked.
“I am to prepare myself.”
“Prepare yourself for what?”
The young boy lifted his chin and squared his shoulders, his eyes burning with a sudden light. “For the day that I will be king.”
“You were born to be a king. You must prepare. You must be worthy. You will reclaim the kingdom. Now, I know that is difficult for you to understand, but you are wise, I can see that. Even now I can see there is wisdom and great strength in your eyes.”
The young prince only nodded. Omar pointed at the shepherd. “You must listen to him.”
“I will, Master.”
Omar pressed his lips, then stood and touched the boy on his head.
He had no sons, only daughters, and he loved this young boy as if he were his own. He would have died to protect him. He would have done anything.
It was time to go. Omar drew a long breath. Looking around the room, he wished he could think of the right thing to say. Then he leaned toward the child and whispered in his ear:
Ye shall shine forth,
Ye shall be as the morning.
And ye shall be secure,
Because there is hope.
The ancient prophet Job had spoken those words such a long time ago. It wasn’t much, but he meant it, and it was all he could think of to say. And the words were as true now as they had ever been.
“Hope. Always hope,” he whispered to the young prince again.
East Side, Chicago
Azadeh stared at the tall building. The highway behind her was crowded and noisy, with honking taxis and the smell of burning fuel heavy in the air. The public housing was bland—not depressing, but close to it—a tall, tan-brick building covered with soot and small windows evenly spaced on all floors.
She stood alone at the front entrance to the building and stared.
Five steps up from the sidewalk. A metal, double door. A chrome bar for a handle. Thin panes of reinforced, covered glass.
She glanced at the small bag at her feet, which contained everything she owned. Lifting her eyes, she looked at the double doors again.
Inside, the woman was waiting.
A new life. A new home.
Her heart beat like a hammer, causing a rush through her head.
A new home. A new family. A new start in life. America was a strange place—generous, sometimes warm, sometimes cold, demanding, unforgiving, charitable always, but with certain expectations attached.
She took a deep breath, her dark hair covered in a simple blue scarf. Two young men, their dark skin ripped with muscles and barely covered with undersized body shirts, walked up the sidewalk toward her; she took a step back, embarrassed to see so much of their chests. They stared at her a moment, then walked into the building that would be her new home.
Azadeh followed them with her eyes, looking at the front door again.
The woman was in there waiting for her, on the other side of those doors. Her heart skipped a beat. She was terrified.
Then she heard it, in her mind. The words seemed to come out of nowhere, but they were crystal clear: the song that her father had sung to her since she was a child, before she was old enough to understand the meaning of the words that he sang:
The world that I give you
Is not always sunny and bright.
But knowi
ng I love you
Will help make it right.
So when the dark settles,
And the storms fill the night,
Remember I’ll be waiting
When it comes,
Morning Light.
Taking a breath, she walked up the steps and through the front door.
She stepped into a large foyer and looked around: brick walls, fluorescent lights, tile floor, cigarette machine and ashtrays, a couple of worn-out fabric sofas, a soda machine, and a chrome fountain that, judging from the rusted basin, no longer worked. The foyer smelled of stale cigarette smoke and appeared to be empty. Then Azadeh turned to her right.
The woman who had agreed to be her guardian was standing near the door that led into the stairwell. She looked shy, almost frightened. She was evidently new at this too. She was holding a package wrapped in white paper and tied with a bright bow. A small woman, she had the kindest smile Azadeh had ever seen.
The two women stared at each other: a proud black woman from the one of the poorest neighborhoods in the United States and a young girl from one of the poorest villages in Iran. Both were alone. Both were survivors. Both were hoping to find something more.
Azadeh took a step toward her. The woman held out the present, uncertainty in her eyes. “Welcome, Azadeh,” she said cheerily, her voice was as warm as her smile.
Azadeh lowered her eyes, took the gift, and felt instantly at home.
Camp Smash
Eastern Iraq
Sam Brighton stared into the small fire. It was raining and, though his poncho kept him dry, he still felt chilled to the bone. There was a scattering of tents behind him, small, camouflaged units that sat low to the ground. There were a dozen or so men at Camp Smash, but Sam and Bono were the only ones around at the moment, almost three in the morning. Neither man was tired, though Sam was considering getting in a quick nap before the sun rose, if it ever would break through the clouds and light rain.
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