Wrath & Righteousnes Episodes 01 to 05

by Chris Stewart

  “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. And with the silence, the king knew.

  “You have failed me,” Al-Rahman 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!” Al-Rahman sneered in disgust. “A little four-year-old boy. I didn’t ask you to take over the Iranian 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, and 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 wasn’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 desperately considering how he might save his neck, the king thinking 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 Iran 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 knew 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 it delivered 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.”

  Al-Rahman 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 the child killed.”

  “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 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.”

  Al-Rahman nodded slowly. “That is good, General Mamdayh. Now, go back! Search every mountain. Search every rock! Search every blade of grass if you have to. You have taken too long already! I want to see results now. I want to see a body. I’ll give you three days General Mamdayh. That is all you will have. Three days to find this young boy and his mother, and kill them. Then report back to me.”

  The general was silent.

  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.

  It would take months to search the mountains up and down the coast of Iran.

  He didn’t have enough time.

  Which meant he was dead.

  * * *

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

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

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

  A helpless, hopeless feeling sank into his dark heart. He thought of 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 already been made. 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.

  * * *

  Lucifer watched as the general suffered at his desk. Looking upon the broken mortal, Lucifer was neither distraught nor pleased. Another man. Another misery. That was all the general was to him; another failed human standing at hell’s door.

  The only thing that concerned Lucifer was the lack of a result. And for this, he was very angry, his breath so hot it almost misted in the air. The mortal could die or live, Lucifer really didn’t care, but the fact that the mortal not been able to locate the prince was almost more than Lucifer could bear.

  Fools, they were! Idiots, all! How could they be so incompetent?! How could another mortal fail him yet again?!

  If only they would try a little harder to listen to his voice! If only they would try a little harder to feel his spirit near. If the general had only taken to the promptings that his angels had planted in his mind, he would have found the boy already and the prince would now be dead.

  Hovering over the distraught soldier, Lucifer seethed in hopeless anger. He’d have to find another useful mortal. Another path, he’d have to go. But that didn’t worry him particularly, for if there was one thing he had learned it was that there was always another myrmidon willing to do his work. Some did it for passing pleasure. Some did it out of anger. Some out of pride or for revenge. Some did it because they were bored and there was nothing else to do. Some did it because they hated. Some did it because they loved. Either way, it didn’t matter. Plenty of mortals would help him if they could.

  So he leaned toward the general.

  “Abdullah will kill you!�
�� he breathed into the general’s ear. “He will tear you apart; a finger, an ear, a piece of flesh at a time. He will prolong the suffering until you beg for death! So come unto me, mortal. Embrace me. Fall into my cold and waiting arms. Come into my world, for there is no hope for you here. Walk into the black eternity that is ready for you now. Walk into the shadow where there is never any light.”

  He was finished with him now.

  * * *

  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 while at 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 what looked like a smile of relief, as if the life he expected could not be worse than the one he had left.

  THREE

  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 new king to the bone. In the old days, his ancestors had lived in terror of the storms. But Al-Rahman 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 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 forty-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, they were only for decoration, 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 to question that?

  Did it bother King al-Rahman that his kingdom developed, funded, taught, spread, and advocated Wahhabi 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. Al-Rahman 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 advisers, his brothers, his few friends, the king made his personal feelings very clear: Allah had given the royal family religion as a means of controlling their people. That was its only purpose. It meant nothing more. The only thing Allah truly cared about was keeping the kingdom pure to sustain the royal family, the chosen vessels on earth.

  Wahhabi 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. Allah had provided other means to keep his children safe from the great influences of the world.

  And King al-Rahman would use every one of them.

  The new king stood at a tall window, twenty feet from ceiling to floor, and looked out on the city that 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 colors 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 the only man on earth that Al-Rahman 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.”

  Al-Rahman 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 and smoking cigarettes. “Have you got any whiskey?” he asked impatiently.

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

  Al-Rahman hesitated.

  It had been twenty-four hours since the Iranian general had chosen to kill himself. What a coward! What a woman! The king cursed to himself.

  The old man watched Al-Rahman carefully, studying the look on his face.

  Al-Rahman shrugged in frustration. “He failed me,” he said.

  “He did more than that. He failed us all.”

  “He said he would find him.”

  “Yet the young one still lives.”

  Was there anything the old man didn’t know? No. There really wasn’t. He had learned that before. “It is a disappointment,” he answered slowly. “I needed him. He deserted me. There is nothing I can do about that now.”

  The old man nodded slowly. He didn’t accept it so simply—that was clear from the look in his eyes.

  Al-Rahman looked at the old man, though he tried not to stare. There was something about him, something strange and powerful. He still looked old, that was true, but he looked healthier somehow. Last time they had met, he would not have given the old man a week to live. Yet here he was once again, sitting with him in this room. And not only was he here, he looked better. Not younger, but recycled. Freshened and new, as if, through some mi
racle, he had been granted more time.

  It was unnatural. Abnormal.

  And Al-Rahman wanted to know how it was done.

  But there was a lot about the old man that the king wanted to know.

  Once, years before, after too many questions, the old man had taken his hand and squeezed it so hard that it hurt, all the time looking him straight in the eye. “It is better if you don’t know too much,” he had said. “It is better for you and it is better for me. Let’s just do our business. That is all that you need.”

  Through the years, Al-Rahman had accepted that he would never know about his friend. But looking at him now, with his renewed energy, he was certainly curious as to where he had been.

  The old man looked at him, and then took his hand. “You have been an efficient learner,” he said in a raspy voice. “From the first time we met, that wonderful day on the beach, I knew you would be one of our stars. From that first night outside the embassy building, when you told me to kill your countrymen, I knew you would be someone our team could count on. I would lay my life on the table for you, Abdullah, and I know you would do the same thing for me.”

  “Yes,” Al-Rahman answered. “I would die for you.”

  The old man stared at him, his dark, sullen eyes boring into the king’s soul. Al-Rahman held his gaze the best that he could, but he finally looked away.

  “You are frightened,” the old man mumbled. “I can see it in your eyes.”

  “No,” Al-Rahman answered. “I am careful, that’s all.”

  The old man shook his head. “You are hesitating. Always thinking. Waiting for the exact time to move. You can’t do that, Abdullah—you have to move now. We’ve been waiting for this moment a very long time. You must make a decision. Be willing to act. There will be no sign from heaven. Nothing will fall from the sky. You have to take a breath, be committed, and stay with the plan. And you must do it now. It is time that you move.”

  “But I was thinking—”

  “No more thinking, Abdullah, it is time to act!”