Omar glanced to Rassa, expecting to see him roused with anger. The two had conspired many times, and Omar knew how Rassa felt about the Iranian government. But Rassa’s face remained passive as he stared at the calm morning sea.
Omar crushed his cigarette and turned his eyes to the rising sun.
A long silence followed. Omar started talking, then fell silent, then shifted his weight against the rock once again.
“Should he tell him,” Omar wondered? “Should he tell Rassa of his dream about his daughter?” Truth was, he wanted to forget it, to drive it from his mind. But he had always been a dreamer and his dreams had always proven true!
He glanced uneasily at his young friend. “And Azadeh, how is she?” he asked. It would have been considered very rude to ask about another’s daughters or wife had he not been a close friend.
Rassa didn’t see the flash of concern in Omar’s eyes. “She is growing restless,” he answered, a look of pride on his face. "She wants to leave to go to school."
Omar pushed himself up to his feet, eager to get off the cold stone. “You know, Rassa, I have nine daughters,” he said. “Some of them are goat ugly. I don’t mean to be unkind, but I am an honest man and I know what I see. There aren’t enough blind men in the valley for my daughters to marry. But thankfully some of my daughters look like their mothers and not me. Some of them are beautiful, Rassa, I am proud to say. But I tell you now, Rassa, there is something in Azadeh. She has a beauty that goes far beyond the eye.”
Rassa smiled proudly. “Thank you, Omar,” he said.
“I’m not just being pleasant, Rassa. She is a vision, an angel who fell from heaven. Sometimes angels fall among us. Where angels fall and why, Allah does not reveal. But Azadeh is an angel and she has fallen here.”
Rassa nodded slowly. “Our children are like angels in our midst.”
“Yes, Rassa. But this generation, these children, I don’t know . . . there is something about them, something I don’t understand. They are better than we were. They are better than we are now. And we are all the time speaking of how our children need us, but I have come to believe that before this time is over, it is us who will be needing them.” Omar glanced down at the village and rubbed his hand over his face. He felt himself tremble and he was embarrassed. He was a hard man, a businessman, a man of great wealth and means. But this dream, this cold warning, it had cut him to the bone. And he loved Azadeh as much as he loved his own.
He turned to the younger man. “Take care of her,” he warned him. “I’m worried for her, Rassa . . . ,” his voice trailed off.
Rassa rose to his feet, his eyes hurt and intense. “What are you talking about Omar?” he demanded.
Omar started to answer, but the words didn’t come. He remained silent for a moment, his mouth open, then turned away and shrugged, wishing he hadn’t said anything. What could he tell him? How could he make him understand? “Your child is in danger Rassa, for I had a dream!” He would sound like a fool if he tried to explain!
“I just worry for her, Rassa,” he finally said. “She is young, she is special, and you have been left to care for her yourself. She needs a mother, like we all do, and you need a wife. I worry for you both. That’s all I meant to say.”
Rassa watched his friend’s face, knowing there was more, but Omar waved his hand and moved toward the steep steps. “It is nothing, Rassa. Nothing. I must go. It is getting late and we both have work to do.”
Omar stopped short of the stairs, then turn and lowered his voice. “There is a meeting tonight,” he said
Instinctively, Rassa looked around. “I can’t come,” he said. “Tomorrow is Azadeh’s birthday.”
Omar grunted, “Yes, yes, of course.”
Omar started down the stairs.
“Be careful,” Rassa whispered to him as he disappeared.
ELEVEN
Balaam found Lucifer in a dark room, casting his temptations over his flock, draping them in a cold and passionless blanket of sin and despair. “Master,” he whispered as he crawled to his side.
Lucifer turned toward him, his eyes cold as wet stones. Balaam looked away, unable to look into Lucifer’s dark eyes. Normally, Balaam wouldn’t have bothered Lucifer, but this was important. Maybe very important. Balaam had identified one of the great ones who had the power to change the world. So he whimpered one more time. “Master . . . .”
“What are you doing here?” Lucifer sneered.
Balaam almost quivered from the rage in Lucifer’s voice. It hurt him, burning like a hot knife in his chest. “Master Mayhem!” he pleaded, his head almost touching the ground, “I have located a girl. She is only a child, but I know her, I can feel it, she is important to the Enemy’s plan. She will do things, she will accomplish things, that haven’t been done before. But . . . ” Balaam hesitated, suddenly feeling unsure, “but if we destroy her, Master, before she is able to make a difference, it will help us over time.”
Lucifer seemed to hesitate then stared deeply into Balaam’s eyes, bent on reading his thoughts. Balaam almost quivered, the knife cutting deeper into his chest, feeling the power of Lucifer’s cold stare. “Yes,” Lucifer finally answered when he was finished rummaging through Balaam’s mind. “Yes, we must destroy her. Now how do you propose we do that?”
Balaam thought desperately, his mind racing. Lucifer was asking for his opinion! He wanted to know what he thought! It was a glorious moment of recognition. He could share with Lucifer some of the magnificent things inside his head.
Then he froze, his heart thumping!
His mind went utterly blank.
Nothing. He had nothing.
What was he going to say?
Lucifer glared at him, waiting.
Balaam’s mind raced through a dark fog.
Lucifer snarled, then turned away. “It is as I thought,” he muttered. “You bring me a problem but no answers.”
Lucifer stared at his feet as he thought, then turned back to Balaam, gesturing over his head. “There is another angel who works this village. His name is Roth. He is slow, weak and lazy, but he might be the only choice I have. I want you to find him. Talk to him. Tell him I need him to kill her. Tell him he will do this for me and I will reward him graciously.” Lucifer cocked an eye to Balaam before twisting the knife. “Tell him that I trust him.” He waited as he smiled.
The words cut so deeply Balaam had to catch his breath.
“But tell him not to fail me,” Lucifer went on, “or his punishment will be swift and sure. And you know about that, don’t you, Balaam? You know about my wrath. You can warn him of my anger as well as anyone.”
“Yes Master, I will find Roth,” Balaam muttered, trying to hide his disappointment and disdain. “Yes, Roth will do it. I will tell him Master. I will do anything you say.”
TWELVE
The morning broke orange and yellow over Washington, D.C. As the sun rose, the winds shifted to a light breeze from the Chesapeake Bay that smelled of brine and wet marsh weed, humid and cold. Traffic started early as it always did in the city, the legions of government minions and private sector bloodsuckers heading into the district to fight their unending battles over government money and power. On the surface, everything looked as it always did; a steady stream of airliners took off from Reagan National Airport, the Metro line ran on time, and the I-495 Beltway had bumper-to-bumper traffic, same as it had been for more than forty years.
Nothing had changed. But there was change in the air, a tension and expectation that had finally risen to the surface after bubbling underneath for a generation.
The continuing economic uncertainty had stirred the pot of insecurity and resentment, the great American machine never throttling up to full power. Instead, it had limped along until it had created a new normal of expectations very far below what generations of Americans had anticipated before. Bit by bit, one disappointment and frustration at a time, the American Dream had slipped away until it had been redefined to mean nothing more than med
iocrity among all the turmoil in the world. And it didn’t end there. The sputtering economic system that seemed to be always standing on the edge of a cliff was just the beginning of . . . something.
And more was coming. People sensed it in their bones.
Washington, D.C., was a tense city. It had always been high strung, for the people who lived and worked there were by their nature ambitious and cutting edge. But over the past several years, it had changed from nervous to neurotic, the growing global tension having completed the transition from uneasy to scared. The truth was people who lived and worked in Washington, D.C., knew they were the primary target, the most likely to burn, and they seemed to have grown used to the stress of the bull’s eye on their backs. How many other American cities had so many police barricades? How many had surface-to-air missile batteries hidden on the tops of their buildings or secret “sniffer” units that scanned the highways and ports, searching for the telltale radiation emitted by a nuclear device? How many other American cities had already suffered an anthrax attack, revived their underground shelters or had their hospitals drill regularly for a mass-casualty attack?
Such was business as usual in Washington, D.C. But something even more was astir now, a dark expectation that had been building for years. The people felt the pressure growing, a dark, rising cloud that was ready to burst, until there was an almost fatalistic acceptance that it was only a matter of time. A week, a year, maybe longer. Disaster was coming. It was just a question of when.
* * *
General Brighton woke early, showered and dressed quietly while Sara slept. When he sat on the chest at the foot of the bed to pull on his shoes, she stirred and held out her hand. He stood and came to her, kissing her on the cheek, then sat next to her on the bed.
“The boys are going rock climbing this morning,” she told him, glancing at the bedside clock.
Brighton nodded. He had heard them getting breakfast downstairs.
“You were up late," she then said.
“I had some papers to review.”
“I think I heard your phone ring. Did you get a call on the secure telephone?”
“A couple of them, really.”
“Anything important?”
Brighton almost laughed. “Everything is important.”
Sara nodded, understanding.
“Prince Saud called from Riyadh. He wants to get together when I’m in Saudi Arabia.”
“Prince Saud? How is he? You haven’t seen him in a long time.”
Brighton paused, thinking of the strain in his old friend’s voice. “He seemed a little anxious,” he answered. “But I can understand that. He’s sitting on a powder keg, and most of the people around him are striking matches and tossing them on the floor.”
Sara sat up and brushed her blond hair from her eyes. Brighton watched her and wondered how she could be so beautiful, even in the morning, even barely awake.
“And the absolute secrecy of the kingdom only makes things worse,” he went on. “They are private and protective to a ridiculous degree. It’s like looking into a dark well, trying to discern what is happening in their world. You drop a rock and listen, hoping to pick up a bit of information from what you hear echoing back. But it’s difficult . . . no, impossible, to really know what’s going on. Prince Saud opens up from time to time, but believe me, those times are very rare.”
Sara’s blue eyes, pale and shining, narrowed as she thought. “Prince Saud is a good man. I have always said that, and it’s not because I’m overly impressed that he’s the crown prince.”
Brighton nodded, knowing that was true. With an advanced degree in philosophy, and having lived in some of the most sophisticated capitals of the world, Sara moved comfortably among the elite. She had met presidents, ambassadors, senators and kings, but she was hard to impress and unafraid to speak her mind, even to argue, if the opportunity presented itself. He remembered a reception at the White House about four months before when she had had a strained disagreement with the French president’s wife over the inherent difference in the nature of boys and girls. Raised a traditional Catholic (meaning she actually believed what the Church taught) and educated in private schools in Boston, she had become what she called a motherhood feminist, a vocal advocate of homemaking as a legitimate career.
Sara watched her husband. He looked worn out, even more so than usual. “Anything going on at work?” she asked sympathetically. “You look a little tired.”
Brighton didn’t answer. The truth was, something was always going on at work. Always. Forever. It would never change. He felt like the kid holding his thumb in the dike. He only had ten fingers and there were hundreds of holes, gushing cracks in the dam, all of them spurting powerful streams of dark water. He could move to the worst breaks, but more popped up every day. Pakistan was in shambles. Russia was moving into Chechnya again. North Africa was on fire. Syria hanging by a thread, its leader shooting his own people as if they were at war. Lebanon, the same. Oman. Yemen. Bahrain. Egypt had been taken over by Islamic fundamentalists, all in the name of democracy, an irony so fresh it would have been hilarious if hadn’t been so sad. The Arab Spring of years past was now a distant memory. Their friends in Europe had abandoned them, then sat back and laughed, hoping the Yanks would finally fail. Argentina had just reelected a socialist government that immediately announced they had developed the first nuclear weapon in the Western Hemisphere outside of the United States. The new Brazilian government was courting ties to Cuba and Venezuela, the bastions of communism that sat at their door. And North Korea! North Korea! He hardly had time to even think about that! Afghanistan was a mess. No, it was much worse than that! After years of near-civil war, the people appeared incapable of governing themselves. The Mullahs in Iran were growing bolder, taking courage in the mess they had helped create in Iraq. According to the Threat File, they were only months away from testing their first nuclear warhead, maybe a year, if they were lucky. Would the United States have to go in? Would Israel act on its own? Then there was Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, the Fetaheen—all of them spewing more bloodshed and hatred toward the United States than any one nation could absorb. Israel, their only democratic ally in the area, was isolated and terrified, the United Nations demanding sanctions for their refusal to honor the 1967 boundaries, an order which would have resulted in national suicide. Their enemies didn’t grow weaker—they grew stronger. There was no way to reason with them, absolutely no common ground. General Brighton sometimes felt they were more likely to reason with a snake than negotiate with these radicals, for a snake, if it were to see an option that would benefit its position, would at least consider the move. But not these people. Brighton had seen it enough to be completely convinced. They cared not about improving their position, their people, their children. They only cared about one thing and that thing was death. Death to their enemies! The glorious death of a martyr. Death in the jihad.
To the radical Islamist, the Americans weren’t human, they were jahili. Barbarians, subhuman. Decadent and soulless. Without value to God. They had rejected the one True God and so were worthy of indignity and death. And whereas Westerners found value in most cultures or societies, it was not so for the Islamists, who considered Western culture completely devoid of value, populated by savages with whom they could not coexist. Which explained why it was acceptable to kill their children. They were not innocent. They would grow up to be barbarians. Was a young scorpion less deadly than the mother who gave it life? Was there any law that insisted they couldn’t kill their enemies until they were strong enough to fight?
Brighton had seen such thinking illustrated a thousand times before. They were not true Muslims, for Muslims didn’t believe in such hate. No, the men he fought were not religious in any way. They were nothing but religious hacks, evil men who had hijacked a religion to further their cause, men who were as likely—even more likely—to kill their fellow Muslims as an American if it furthered their cause.
Brighton understood n
ow that this wasn’t a contest of religions or philosophies. At its core, it wasn’t even a battle between cultures or nation-states. It was a battle for freedom. It was simple as that. Good against evil, black against white.
And it was a battle they were losing. At least that’s how he felt.
Of course, he believed in God. He believed in mercy and redemption. He believed in faith, optimism and hope in the future. But this was beyond that. He had read the Threat File. He knew they were in trouble. Which is why he didn’t sleep at night.
Give him another day, another small victory, another chance at hope and he would regain his optimism. He had been down before and he had always scratched his way back up. But his faith was growing fragile. The battle had worn him out and he was getting scared.
Brighton thought quickly of a copy of an instant message the CIA had intercepted just the day before, an exchange between two Iraqi brothers who had forced their younger sister to participate in an uprising in the Iraqi central town of Ramadi. The message was crude and halting, and translated loosely, but the meaning was clear:
Al-Anbari: All of the people in the area have started to move. I put our sister in the crowd and thrust my AK-47 in her hand. I see other mothers push their children into rioting crowd. I didn’t think that the people in this area were so heroic. And she was only nine!
Wrath & Righteousnes Episodes 01 to 05 Page 8
