The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  The Ab Tayyib was black with red striping, freshly painted but rusting underneath the thick paint that had been carelessly slapped around. Barnacled below the waterline and poorly maintained, the Tayyib’s two huge diesel engines kept the dual propellers pounding at the sea, but it was becoming more and more common to have to shut down one of the engines for maintenance as the ship chugged along. The deck was worn, the grating torn in places, and the cavernous hold smelled of diesel, grease, mold, salt water, and filth. The ship had been at sea for several months now, having stopped in Malaysia before moving on to Cambodia, where it was re-flagged a final time before sailing back to Yemen, through the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal.

  Ten weeks after leaving the expanding ports at Jeddah, the ship had traveled the equivalent distance of a trip around the world. It would have been impossible to have tracked it even if it hadn’t been repainted, re-flagged, and renamed.

  There was simply no way to know or be suspicious when the ship showed up off the eastern coast of the United States.

  Had the Coast Guard had any reason to board the vessel, it would have taken only seconds for the mission of the Ab Tayyib to become painfully obvious. The ballistic missiles and elevator-controlled launcher built into the hold were pretty hard to disguise.

  At 04:43 local time, the improvised communications center inside the rusting Ab Tayyib got the highly encrypted strike instructions. The exact altitudes, flight azimuths, trajectories, and yield settings for the warheads had already been programmed into the flight computers, but still the captain reviewed the final flight instructions very carefully, comparing every line of code against the numbers burned into his memory.

  His first officer hovered over him, his hands moving nervously.

  “Praise be God,” the ship captain finally said.

  The first officer forced a quick smile, though inside he had to hold down a cry of grief.

  He didn’t want to die. No man really did. But he would die now, he knew that, and though he had been preparing for this moment since he was a child, the reality of having just a few hours to live still left him cold.

  He thought of his wife. He thought of his children. Would they know? Would they remember? Would they honor his death as much as he hoped that they would?

  The Choun Ohmonee (The Good Mother)

  Ninety-Three Miles West of San Francisco

  The Choun Ohmonee was a smaller ship than the Ab Tayyib, but more seaworthy, faster, and ten years newer. Flagged in North Korea, a society more secretive than any other nation in the world, it hadn’t gone through the painful exercise of re-registering and re-flagging to hide its movements and identity, although it had been renamed as a concession to the Arab masters.

  The arming and deployment of the Choun Ohmonee had been a straight-up operation. No subterfuge or deception had been involved; it simply loaded up the missiles at the military port in Cho’ong jim, then headed east across the open Pacific toward the United States.

  Now, sitting off the western coast, it waited for the same message as its sister ship to the east.

  Chapter Thirteen

  East Side, Chicago, Illinois

  Mary Shaye Dupree held the sleeping girl’s hand while speaking to her softly. She wiped her brow, which was pale and clammy, then pushed aside a stray strand of dark hair as she caressed her cheek. The girl’s face was bony, her lips tight, her thin hair matted to the side on which she slept. Azadeh noted the intravenous line sticking into the child’s left arm and the monitor attached to her middle finger, but she wasn’t certain what they were for.

  When the child didn’t wake, Mary leaned across the mattress and kissed her, tucked the soft blanket around her neck, stood, and turned to Azadeh, motioning toward the hall. Closing the bedroom door quietly behind her, she walked with Azadeh into the living room again.

  “Her name is Kelly Beth,” Mary said as they sat down. “I adopted her when she was just a toddler, which was some eight years ago now.”

  “A toddler?” Azadeh wondered.

  “I’m sorry . . . a young child . . . not a baby, a little older.”

  Azadeh nodded, understanding. “She is . . . very sick?”

  “Yes. Very sick.” Mary turned her eyes toward the window. It had started raining and the day had turned gray. “She isn’t going to live, I don’t think. I used to hope. I used to pray. But I don’t think any of it mattered.”

  Azadeh studied her hands. “She has a sickness?”

  “Cancer. Inoperable bone cancer.”

  Cancer. One of the very few English words that Azadeh would have recognized even as a child. It translated to saratân in Farsi. She nodded sadly. It was a dreaded word, a deadly sickness, a sickness that, based on her experience, didn’t offer much hope. When someone got saratân in her small village back in Persia, that person was almost certain to die. No such thing as insurance. No real money. No good doctors. They might die in a short time or a long time, they might die in a lot of pain or maybe quickly, but they almost surely wouldn’t live.

  “I’m sorry,” she offered quietly.

  “We caught it really late,” Mary continued, her voice pained and measured now. “I know that it was my fault. I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life. But at the time, I just didn’t understand, I didn’t realize, I had never dealt with anything like this before. She hurt all the time, deep in her legs, and I took her to the doctor, but the people down at the clinic, you know . . . they’re inexperienced and way overworked. It wasn’t their fault. I think they did the best that they could, but by the time I got a referral down to Cook County Hospital, there wasn’t a lot they could do. They tried a few things, some new things, they experimented with some new drugs and procedures, but like I said, we were . . . you know . . . way too late to help her . . .” Mary’s voice trailed off.

  Azadeh watched a single tear roll down each of her cheeks, which Mary quickly wiped away. It pained Azadeh to see her suffering, and she instinctively wanted to reach out and take her by the hand.

  Someone moved down the hallway outside their front door. The rain dribbled against the kitchen window, trickling down from fifteen stories overhead. The old refrigerator hummed. But other than that it was silent as Mary stared across the empty space. “I love her,” she finished. “I would have done anything for her. I would do anything now. If there was anything I could do . . .”

  Azadeh reached out and took Mary’s hand, holding it inside her own. “I’m so, so sorry,” she repeated.

  Mary coughed, then turned to face her. “The good Lord, he is out there. I have to learn to trust him. It will all be okay.”

  Azadeh nodded back toward the bedroom. “Insha’allah. If it is God’s will.”

  Mary nodded. “Insha’allah. God’s will.”

  Azadeh was a sensitive girl by nature, and her upbringing had only made her more so. She knew that Mary wanted to talk about her child. “Tell me her name again,” she asked.

  “Kelly Beth.”

  “Kelly Beth. That is beautiful. If you were to translate my middle name, Ishbel, from Farsi into English it is very close to Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Kelly Beth. Two good names. Very similar.” Azadeh paused a long moment, looking off. “My last name, Pahlavi, goes back many, many generations in Iran. It is royal blood. And my given name, Azadeh, means ‘Freedom

  is my oath to God.’” She folded her arms, almost defiant,

  and her eyes flashed. “I have always been very proud of my names,” she said.

  Mary smiled and touched her shoulder. “Ishbel is almost the same as Elizabeth?” she asked.

  “Yes, very close.”

  “That is beautiful.”

  Azadeh nodded down the hallway toward the bedroom. “How old is Kelly Beth?”

  “Almost ten. She will be ten next month.”

  “Then we will celebrate her birthday.”

  Mary pressed her lips together. “If she makes it that long.”

  “You said that she is . . . I do not r
emember the word . . . she is not your own . . . flesh? Your own child?”

  Mary stood and walked into the kitchen. There was a small coffeemaker beside the sink, and she poured herself a cup. “Would you like some?” she asked Azadeh as she lifted the half-empty pot.

  “No, thank you.”

  “You do not like coffee?”

  “Not American coffee. It is too . . . weak. Like water. We have a much stronger drink. I miss it. It is good. But,” she laughed a little, “very bad for you, I think. It stains our teeth and makes us . . . ah, quick to temper. I am glad to be away from it, I think.”

  Mary brought her cup back and sat on the couch, folding her legs underneath her to keep her feet warm. “I adopted Kelly Beth when she was just a child. Her father had abandoned her before she was even born. Her parents never married. Her mother was strung up . . . do you know what that means, Azadeh?”

  Azadeh shook her head.

  “Oh, that is so beautiful,” Mary laughed with delight. “You don’t know what strung up even means. You’ve never had to fight it. You’ve never had to watch what it can do to those around you. That is very good, Azadeh.” She reached toward the young woman and patted her knee. “We want to keep it that way, girl. We’re going to keep it that way.”

  Mary leaned back against the couch and sipped the warm coffee. “Strung up is when you have ruined your life on hard drugs. Heroin. Cocaine. You know about them?”

  Azadeh squinted as she thought. “No,” she finally said.

  “That’s all right, baby, we can talk about that later. Let’s just say that Kelly Beth’s mother wasn’t able to take care of her anymore. She didn’t want her baby, at least not sufficient to keep herself healthy enough to care for her. I had a chance to take Kelly Beth and help her. It was supposed to be only for a couple of weeks, a couple of months at the longest, but it went on and on, and it ended up that I was able to adopt her, you know, make her my child.”

  Azadeh nodded.

  “Her mother is dead now,” Mary concluded. “No one knows about her father. No one even knows who he is.”

  “I understand,” Azadeh answered. But the truth was, she didn’t. It was all so strange. So different. There was much to learn in this new country, and she felt lost and insecure.

  For a moment she almost wished she were back in Khorramshahr. It had been hard there, but she had understood it, unlike so much of this new home.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Royal Palace

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  King Abdullah walked into the Great Hall. The thirty-foot ceiling towered over his head and the room was dark, illuminated mostly by a row of dim lights along the ancient walls. Four huge, wrought-iron chandeliers hung from enormous beams that crossed the ceiling, but the room was built deep inside the palace, and there were no outside windows or natural light. The thick walls, heavy brick and ancient mud, stifled every sound from outside. Four overstuffed leather couches were arranged around a circular depression in the floor, part of an old fire pit. A low oak table trimmed with gold sat where the fireplace used to be.

  Abdullah moved to the center of the room. His eight brothers fell silent and the room seemed to suck them up, making them feel even smaller than they were. Abdullah raised his hand, indicating for the ministers to sit down, which they did, dividing themselves up among the four couches.

  Abdullah studied them without saying anything, assessing the mood in the room. Yes, they were some of the most powerful men in the world, but each of them stared up at him with dark, submissive eyes.

  The king knew that some of his brothers were furious at his sudden rise to power. Some resented the death of their father and their oldest brother, the crown prince. Most suspected that Abdullah had killed them, but they couldn’t prove it, even if they had wanted to. None of them did—far better to leave that filthy stone unturned—but they resented the fact all the same.

  They also realized that Abdullah had turned the kingdom away from their father’s path toward democracy. None of them were disappointed by that, though some might have wished it hadn’t been so bloody. And although they were grateful the king had secured their royal power, they were also furious about the nuclear attacks in Gaza and D.C. The entire world had been thrown into utter chaos. Things were so messy now, so much more difficult to control.

  As the eight ministers took their seats, Abdullah almost smirked. If they had any idea . . . any idea what he planned to do.

  “Brothers,” he started slowly, “let me get right to the point.”

  The princes watched him carefully. They hardly seemed to move as a heavy air settled over the room.

  Abdullah paced, his eyes cold and sullen, his skin tight, the hollows of his cheeks deep and dark. He seemed to cast a spell upon them as he moved, drawing them in to his world. “Some of you are wondering,” he started, “so I will tell you. Yes, I killed our father. Yes, I killed Crown Prince Saud. I killed his wife, Princess Tala. I killed their children. I killed them all.”

  The men sat in stunned and open-mouthed silence. Not a sound penetrated the ancient walls. Only their breathing and a few croaking swallows could be heard in the enormous room.

  “I killed them,” Abdullah went on, “but that is not everything you need to know. I also arranged for the nuclear attack in Gaza. I arranged for the attack on D.C. as well. And we are just beginning.” The king glanced down at his watch. “The most deadly attacks will take place a little less than three hours from now.”

  The senior prince bowed his head. Abdullah watched him carefully, then went on. “Believe me, dear brothers, I have just started my work. I killed our father. I killed our brother. Now I will kill you as well. You are either with me or against me. There is no middle ground. You either join me or I kill you. It is as simple as that.

  “What is it going to be? You have two minutes to decide.”

  The senior prince stood up, his face contorted with rage. “Join you! You’re a madman! You killed my father. You killed my brother. I will never—”

  Abdullah reached under his robe, took out a Colt .45 from a shoulder holster, and shot his younger brother in the head. The power of the bullet propelled the prince’s body, almost lifting his feet off the ground before sliding him across the wooden floor. By the time he hit the ground, he was already dead. The sound of the gunfire echoed through the enormous chamber and then was swallowed up again. The air filled with the acidic tartness of burnt gunpowder, and blood began to seep from under the dead prince’s head.

  King Abdullah took a step back, eyeing the other princes in the room. They stared at him aghast, too shocked to speak or move. “Don’t underestimate me,” he told them as he fingered the warm barrel of his gun. “I am absolutely committed to my course. This isn’t something I dreamed up in the past week or so. This goes back much further. I have been planning this for years.”

  Standing before his brothers, the king thought back to his first meeting with the old man, so many years before. He thought of their introduction on the beach, the airplane trip to the city, sitting in the Mercedes outside the United States Embassy in Paris, learning he had to kill the people inside the embassy before he could take the next step.

  He could hear the old man’s voice as it hissed in his ears. “You must kill them if you will join us. I will give you thirty seconds to think about it, but that is all the time you will have to decide!”

  It was a good test. Abdullah knew that now. Catch them off guard. Make them decide! Who were they? What were they? What was really in their hearts? Would they kill or would they hesitate? Would they wash their hands in blood?

  The results of the test would be immediate and nearly flawless. There was no cheating, no second-guessing, no faking the results. They were either with him or against him. And they had to kill to join his cause.

  And not just any blood was going to satisfy him. The king was more demanding than that now. It would take more than a simple murder after all that he had learned.

&n
bsp; Abdullah turned to his brothers and took a step toward them. “Are you with me? Then you must do this! I want to know what’s in your heart. Will you bloody your hands to join me! Or will you choose to die right now?”

  “Join you?” one of his younger brothers muttered, his eyes gaping wide in rage and fright. “Join you, King Abdullah? What are you talking about?”

  “Join me as I bring the Great Satan to its knees. And if you think that I’ve already done that, let me assure you, you are wrong. There will be another attack before the day ends, an attack that will destroy them as a nation, send them back two hundred years. Tens of millions are going to die. And then we will rise up with our brothers as the most powerful people on the earth.” Abdullah stopped and caught a breath. His face was drawn now, his eyes blazing, his lips pulled tight. He looked almost like an animal: bared teeth and glowing eyes, his heartbeat racing through the pulsing vein against his neck.

  “Christianity! Freedom! Human rights!” He spat the words. “These are foul and loathsome things. Thespirit of their god is found in freedom. But with one attack, we kill them both!”

  “Tell me, my younger brothers, and I want you to tell me now! I will need your help to establish the world order after the U.S. has been destroyed. There is too much work, too much responsibility to be carried by just one man. I need your allegiance. But I need to know right now. Will you join me? Will you help me destroy the Great Satan! Are you willing to help me kill a hundred million of our enemies, to completely bring them down! Or do you seek a weaker peace, a weakened nation, a weakened order, a weakened state!”

  The king took another breath. The muscles in his face relaxed and he lowered his eyes. He paced back and forth once again, then glanced down at his watch. “Twenty seconds and counting. What is it going to be?”