The Great and Terrible

by Chris Stewart

  The gang leader didn’t soften. “She’s one of them. Anyone can see that. You might be stupid enough to believe she’s not here to cause us problems, but me and my crew ain’t so stupid anymore. It’s time to clean our own house.” He stopped and glared at Sam. “We got each other,” he nodded to his brothers, “and that is all we trust. Now, you got a choice here, white boy. You give her to us and we let you go. Or you can be a superhero and try to save her and we’ll kill you both right here. What’s it gonna be? You got three seconds to decide.”

  A flash of movement in the smoky morning pulled Sam’s eyes away. Four of the men drew their weapons and pointed them at his head. In a simultaneous burst of motion, he pulled out his Beretta and shoved it into the leader’s face.

  “You’ll never get us all,” the leader mocked.

  “Maybe not, but I’ll get you.”

  “Go ahead and kill me! Do you think I freakin’ care? We’re all dead. We know it. I’d just as soon die from your bullet as from starving or puking my guts out on the street.” He moved an inch closer, pressing his forehead against the muzzle of Sam’s weapon. His face was loose and lifeless, his bare teeth sticking against the front of his dry mouth. “One thing I can promise you, soldier boy. You kill me, and your little princess there is going to suffer a long, long time. We could keep her alive for weeks, but it will seem like years. Or we could do this simple. You give her to us now, we kill her easy and let you go. You do something stupid, and we kill you, then make her wish she was dead. Now I’m not gonna do it for you, you army pukes know how to count. You got three seconds.”

  Sam hesitated, his face turning white with terror. A moment passed in silence. He closed his eyes in dread. Another moment of pure silence.

  “Guess that’s it,” the gang leader said.

  Sam deflated, swallowing hard against the knot inside his throat. He lowered his eyes and then his weapon. Cursing, he pounded his fist against his hip. Growing limp, he turned to Azadeh.

  She nodded and started crying, seeing the defeat inside his eyes.

  “I’m so sorry.” He leaned forward until their foreheads touched. They looked at each other, Azadeh pleading with her eyes. “I’m so, so sorry,” he told her. “I’ve got my family, my mother, all the others I have to think about. I’m so sorry to have to do this. It’s an impossible decision, but what choice do I have?”

  She didn’t answer. It wasn’t the first time she had been betrayed. Glancing toward the furious men, she knew it would be the last.

  “I’ve got to think of the others,” Sam concluded, his voice strangled in anguish, teardrops rolling down his cheeks. He lowered his head, unable to look at her, then leaned into her face, brushed her hair away, and whispered in her ear. “Be cool,” he said.

  Lifting her head, she looked up at him.

  “Be cool,” he said again.

  Turning, he glared at the gang leader and then started walking, pushing his way through the crowd of men. They held their shoulders against him and he had to turn sideways to work his way past. Sneering at his cowardice, they cursed and let him go.

  Focusing on Azadeh, his face contorted in rage and pleasure, the leader slapped her hard across the cheek. “I have a family,” he roared in pent-up fury. “My little girl is gonna die now. All of us are gonna die here and it’s all because of you. You and others like you.”

  Azadeh stared at him, her eyes wide in terror, a hand across her split lip. Then, looking past her tormentors, she watched in shock as Sam disappeared down the street. Her eyes blurred. It was over. She was defeated. And she didn’t care that much anymore

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sam ran as fast as he could, pushing through the crowd, throwing bodies left and right. He felt the gushing anger all around him as he ran, heard the cursing voices, felt the hands that pulled at him from every side, but he didn’t stop. He had a few minutes, maybe less, and every second counted.

  He ran a block. The streets were crowded now, more so than earlier in the morning, much more than on the day before. He reached an intersection and stopped, looking left and right. Which direction did they go? Which direction? He didn’t know. He ran to the nearest light pole and pulled himself up a couple of feet, his eyes moving desperately.

  There. Ahead of him. He saw their helmets. He dropped and ran again.

  They didn’t hear him coming as he ran up from behind, the sound of his footsteps swallowed in the noise of the moving crowd. They were together, still abreast, and he aimed for the center one. Grabbing the soldier by the shoulders, he spun him around.

  The other soldiers stopped. Sam’s Beretta was pointing at the captain, the muzzle right between his eyes. The man’s mouth hung open, his eyes wide, his hands lifting at his side. The other soldiers made half an effort for their weapons, which were hanging from leather straps around their shoulders, but Sam flashed his gun toward them, freezing them like ice. “Don’t, don’t!” the squad leader pleaded in heavily accented English.

  “No Englis,” Sam reminded him. The soldier winced. Sam knew that he had lied; all NATO/U.N. soldiers had to pass a rudimentary English test.

  “Don’t kill me!”

  “Don’t be stupid!” Sam sneered at him. “If I had wanted you dead, I could have killed all of you by now.”

  “We didn’t . . . we didn’t hurt any of the women . . .”

  Sam angrily shook his head. “This is what the U.N. sends for soldiers!”

  “We don’t . . . carry any money.”

  Sam jabbed the gun a little closer, making it obvious that he didn’t care.

  “What do you want?” the man pleaded in frustration. He was starting to understand that Sam wasn’t there to kill him. Still, his hands trembled at the side of his head.

  Sam pointed to the automatic weapons the men were carrying. “Your weapons!” he demanded, pressing his Beretta half an inch closer to the man. The soldier had to lean back to relieve the pressure of the metal against the tender skin between his eyes. “Your guns!” Sam cried. “I want them now!”

  The soldier didn’t hesitate, slipping the long machine gun off his shoulder and extending it to him.

  Sam grabbed the machine gun, turned toward the next man, grabbed his weapon too, then lowered his Beretta and turned and ran.

  Minutes, maybe seconds, was all the time he had.

  * * *

  Sam needed one thing. One simple thing. But he needed it desperately and he needed it now!

  Cover. A place to shoot from. A way to stop the men who were after Azadeh before it was too late.

  A large building loomed behind him, the front door open. A high school, it looked like, though it was remarkably beaten down. A large crowd had gathered on the corner where the wide cement steps met the street. A fence ran around the building and Sam dashed through the metal gate. Pushing everyone aside, he ran up the steps, taking them three at a time, rushed into the entry, and hesitated. The hallways were crowded with refugees—why the school was a better place to huddle than their apartments, he didn’t know. The crowd stared at him: blank eyes, lots of children, mothers and their babies. No one reacted to the sight of a crazy man and his guns. Sam studied the crowd in seconds, turned left, ran up another flight of steps, then turned left again. A long hallway, dark and empty. It was cold enough to see his breath. A line of doors on his left and right, dim light bleeding through the milky glass. He chose the first door, jerking on the handle. It was locked. Pulling out his handgun, he shot it open, pushed it back, ran into the classroom, slid down by the window, broke the sheet of glass with his Beretta’s muzzle, brushed the extended shards of glass away, and looked out.

  They were a long way down the street, almost a full city block away. The men had her surrounded. She looked at them in terror. The leader slapped her face, but she stood firm, not cowering. She had moved out from the wall. She was ready. She was going to fight them, standing right up to the end. As Sam watched, the leader reached over and grabbed her by the throat. He had a kn
ife. The others started cheering. A couple of them stepped back, giving their leader room.

  He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think. Every action was instinctive and sure.

  Lifting the machine gun, he felt its heavy weight. The weapon he had stolen was a Minimi Para, a short-barreled “paratrooper” version with a telescoped buttstock and a bluish metal clip. Looking down the street, he realized it was too far. The gun wasn’t good enough. Not from this range, not for this kind of thing. He stared down the barrel at the group of men, catching flashes of Azadeh’s face between their shoulders as they moved about. He cursed in fear and frustration. The Minimi wasn’t accurate enough, not with all the men around her, all of them moving, all the other people on the street. He estimated the distance. A hundred and twenty meters. More than a football field away. Too far. Way too far. The air was windy and filled with smoke and blowing debris. He swore and lowered the barrel. The gun simply wasn’t accurate enough for this sort of thing. It was made for power, not finesse, to intimidate from short range, not to make a pinpoint kill. Still, he knew he had to act. The Minimi wasn’t what he wanted, but it was all he had. Lifting the gun again, he aimed, wishing for his own sniper rifle—did the U.N. soldier ever clean and sight this thing? He adjusted for the wind that blew down between the buildings, did a final estimate of the distance between them, pulled the barrel of the light machine gun a fraction of an inch up and left, then fired a single shot, his shoulder recoiling from the pressure as the hot gases ejected the spent shell and pulled another round into the chamber.

  The gang leader’s leg collapsed, his kneecap shattered. Half a second later, the sound of the gunshot reached him. He cried in agony and fell onto the dirty street.

  Sam shot a full burst now, aiming over the attackers’ heads. Brick and mortar and dust and shattered pieces of metal exploded all around them as half a dozen shells impacted the side of the building next to where they stood. Some of them screamed. All of them dropped to the ground, their guns aimed in various directions. Azadeh fell, throwing her arms up to cover her head between her knees.

  The crowded street exploded with crying, fleeing people. A couple of the men hunkered down and shot, sending random bullets into the air. Then they froze, looking for the shooter, not considering the vital need for cover, foolishly leaving themselves exposed out on the street. Sam aimed again, this time more carefully, and fired another gunshot. Another man went down, a quarter-size hole through the middle of his chest. Another screamed, threw down his weapon, and turned and ran. The remaining men continued shouting to each other, pointing left and right. Their eyes jerking in frantic motions, they searched up and down the street. Sam remained hidden in the second corner window of the building, a full city block away. If they can see you, they can kill you. He barely raised his head above the windowsill.

  Another shot, this one another warning a few inches over the tallest man’s head. Cries and screams of fear and pain and anger. One of the men moved and hid behind another. A couple of them took up firing positions, but their handguns were no match for the shooter—that was painfully clear.

  Another shot, this one between them.

  That was it. They got the message. This wasn’t a fight they were going to win.

  The men scattered and ran. Some fled up the sidewalk, heading north. A couple ran into the crowd, bending low between the panicked people who were running up and down the street.

  Sam waited until the shooters had disappeared, then lifted his head above the window and called out. “Azadeh, can you hear me?”

  She slowly stood. It was too noisy. She didn’t hear him call. Screams and cries and people running on the street surrounded her. Her eyes darted left and right.

  Sam called again, but she didn’t hear him.

  Standing in confusion, she hesitated, then quickly turned and ran, moving down the street toward him, back in the direction from which they had come.

  “Good girl, good girl,” Sam coaxed her even though she couldn’t hear. “Don’t look back, just keep on running. I’ll be waiting for you down on the street.”

  He watched. She was getting closer. He did a final check for the gang members, then called her name again. She looked up at him, finally hearing his voice. He motioned to her and she understood.

  Leaving the window, he ran back through the hallway and down the stairs and met her on the street.

  Fifteen minutes later, they pushed into Mary’s apartment building and made their way up the stairs. Knocking on the door, they waited desperately until Mary let them in.

  “Where have you been?” Sara asked in a worried voice as they rushed into the room.

  Sam and Azadeh glanced at each other but didn’t say anything.

  They had already decided there were a few things the others didn’t need to know.

  * * *

  Across the street from the apartment building, a soldier in a dark uniform watched through a long-range scope. The glass in Mary’s apartment had been tinted with a layer of opaque film to keep the sun out, but he still could see enough, and he reached up to the radio transmitter at his neck.

  “I’ve got them,” he said.

  “Are you certain?” the controller asked.

  “Yeah, it’s them.”

  “Stand by,” the controller told him.

  Three minutes later, he came back. “Stay in position. Keep a tag on her.”

  “For how long?” the soldier asked.

  “Until we tell you.”

  The soldier answered, “Roger,” and sat down for the wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Vienna, Virginia

  Twelve Miles West of Washington, D.C.

  Brucius Theodore Marino stood in the bedroom window looking out on the street. A dozen stalled cars still cluttered the road, though most had finally been pushed out of the way, the worthless metal carcasses left at awkward angles along both sides of the curb. The houses in the neighborhood were old, a mix of red-brick, two-story Victorians and old southern plantation homes with white siding and green or black porches that wrapped around from the front doors to the sides. The street was narrow, with old trees draping their branches over the pavement, almost forming a tunnel of branches and leaves. All was quiet—it was still very early in the morning—and he couldn’t see anyone on the sidewalk or the street.

  Which meant almost nothing.

  He knew that they were near.

  He stood, feeling the oppressive lack of sound. He wasn’t used to silence and certainly not used to being alone. He had staff: security men, personal aides, drivers, butlers, maids, and chefs. He had three full-bird colonels whose only jobs were to attend to his travel schedule, and four-star generals climbing over themselves to see that his will was done. He had black sedans, underground bunkers, military helicopters, and jet aircraft at his beck and call.

  No, he wasn’t used to the silence, especially the silence of being alone.

  But he was alone now. Alone in a way that he’d never been before.

  He stood behind the lacy curtain, then moved slowly to his right, looking farther up the street. The residential lane ended with a T at Lawyers Road, which cut through Vienna from the northwest on its way toward D.C. Ironic, he thought, he’d spent his entire life working as, with, for, and against various lawyers. He worked, ate, slept, partied, ran, philosophized, argued, skied, hunted, and drank with various lawyers—pretty much spent his entire life with members of the second oldest profession. Yet, he would happily admit that he hated them all. Shakespeare’s notion was genius: They should kill the lawyers first.

  His grandfather had been a lawyer. His father had been a lawyer. He was a lawyer, graduate of Harvard Law. But his son would never be a lawyer. He would simply not allow it. Not unless they killed him first and buried him somewhere underneath Lawyers Road.

  How a lawyer and business leader found himself the civilian commander of the greatest military force in the world, Brucius didn’t know. Looking back on his life, he sometim
es wondered. Trading the boardroom for the bunker—was it a worthy sacrifice? “Hey, with a crazy name like Brucius, what’d you expect?” his wife had used to tease. “Where’d your mom come up with that one?” He figured that was as good an explanation as any other: It was all his mother’s fault.

  Frowning, he looked out, his heart racing, his palms sweating at his side. He heard footsteps behind him and quickly turned around. His daughter knocked once and entered the small bedroom. “Dad?” she said in a questioning voice. “You’re up early.”

  “So are you.”

  She glanced at the still-made bed. “You didn’t sleep at all last night.”

  “I slept some.” He nodded to the leather chair.

  She frowned in displeasure, a growing look of concern on her face.

  “Where’s Kyle?” her father said, asking about his son-in-law.

  “We heard they’re setting up a government aid center at the Metro station in Falls Church. He’s going to walk down and see if we can get some baby formula and milk.”

  The man’s face crunched at her words, a crush of pain and guilt sweeping over him.

  He could get them milk. He could get them baby formula. He could get them anything they wanted and he could get it right now. He could make sure his daughter and her family lived. He was, after all, one of the most powerful men left on earth. And he could have more power. He could have anything he wanted.

  All he had to do was come out of hiding.

  All he had to do was go along.

  She watched her father’s face and stepped toward him. “Daddy, are you okay?”

  He tried to smile at her. “It’s eight or nine miles to the Metro station in Falls Church.”

  “Kyle’s in good shape. No big deal for him. And if we could get some formula, that’d be a really good thing.”

  Her father’s face contorted in pain again.

  “Dad, are you okay?” she pressed a second time.