the Second Horseman (2006)

by Kyle Mills

  Of course, the operation had not gone entirely to plan -- they never did. Catherine and Brandon were still on the run, probably somewhere in Jordan. Worse, they had one of the warheads, making it necessary to revert to a contingency placement strategy that, while suboptimal, would still leave Israel and the Occupied Territories completely uninhabitable.

  In the end, Hamdi was certain that their escape would prove to be little more than an annoyance. They had been powerless to stop the deployment of the warheads, which were all now in place with timers counting down. And there was no reason to believe that Catherine had any knowledge of his involvement.

  It was unstoppable now. Inevitable. In three weeks the world would be a very different place. A place where the Jews were scattered and marginalized. A place that he would have the opportunity to mold.

  "So this is real," President Morris said. His back was turned and he was standing in front of the large window that looked out over Washington.

  "There is no way to be completely certain," Hamdi responded. "But all evidence suggests that it is."

  "And you believe that they will make good on their threat."

  "I do."

  The president finally sat, pointing to the only other man in the room. "What's the CIA's position?"

  Paul Lowe folded his arms in front of his chest in a mannerism he displayed only when he was in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Hamdi. "If they've really got the nukes, they're going to do everything they can to make sure they're detonated. Unless someone stops them, Israel is going to take a hit --"

  "A hit? Jesus Christ, Paul! We're talking about their complete destruction! We're talking about an environmental disaster that could affect the entire region. Hell, the entire world. How are we going to stop this?"

  "I don't think there's anything we can do," Hamdi said. "We're talking about a terrorist cell that we have absolutely no information on. None of our informants have ever even heard of them --"

  "They're out there somewhere, Edwin. And that means they can goddamn well be found."

  "Yes, sir. They're out there. But spread out and underground. And what if we did manage to find one of them before the detonation? It's unlikely he would have any information beyond where he'd hidden the warhead he was directly responsible for. As for finding the ringleader . . . Well, our history with Osama bin Laden is instructive regarding the chances of that happening."

  Morris's face had continued to redden throughout the conversation and he seemed on the verge of one of his infamous outbursts, but instead, he just turned his attention to Lowe. "How the hell did we miss this, Paul?" "Prior to your administration, building an intelligence network to track loose nukes in the former Soviet Union wasn't a top priority. We've been making progress, but it takes time to put that kind of infrastructure in place. At this point, we believe that the warheads were purchased from a Ukrainian organized-crime group, but we have very little information on that group or exactly how they got hold of the weapons --"

  "Time," Morris interrupted. "The one thing we never have." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I talked to the Israeli prime minister this morning. So far, they've managed to control the panic and they're organizing evacuations of their major cities, as well as creating task forces to search for the warheads. Jordan and Egypt have agreed to accept the Palestinians and, for the time being, give them refugee status. They aren't being as generous with Israel's Jews."

  "I've spoken to my contacts there," Hamdi said. "And from what they tell me, they'd be willing to allow the Jews to move through their countries and leave from their ports. However, they will only accept them unarmed and in civilian vehicles."

  "So we need to get probably ten million people over the border in the next three weeks and they want to frisk every goddamn one of them?"

  "I believe the searches will be perfunctory, sir, but nonnegotiable. Neither country is anxious to have millions of armed, displaced Jews inside their border. During the cold war, I think we would have taken a similar position if the entire population of the Soviet Union needed to pass through the U. S."

  Lowe actually nodded at that "They want guarantees from both the U. N. and us that the Israeli Jews will be immediately removed and that we will side with the Arabs should there be any clashes."

  "I think this is reasonable," Hamdi said. "Even generous, based on their history. The Arabs are also concerned about the current mobilization of Israeli forces and the possibility that they could be used as an invasion force."

  "The Jordanians, Egyptians, and Syrians are putting everything they've got into strengthening their border positions," Lowe added. "And they're requesting U. N. support. The fact that the Israelis haven't ruled out retaliation is making things worse."

  "Yes," Hamdi agreed, becoming increasingly mesmerized by the chaos he had created. "Lashing out blindly would be incredibly counterproductive for the Israelis at this point. Every Arab nation, as well as the Palestinian government, has condemned this act."

  "They've pointed out problems with radioactivity, and the destruction of AlAqsa, and the Palestinian homeland," the president corrected. "That's hardly what I'd call a condemnation."

  "Hatred of the Jews is very potent in that part of the world. No government can come out too strongly against this act until they see how popular it is with the common man -- particularly in light of the fact that they are allowing the Israelis to cross their territories."

  "And by all indications, it's pretty popular," Lowe said. "We're seeing massive celebrations breaking out all over the Middle East."

  The president fell silent for a few moments. "I can't help thinking what could have happened if they'd gotten those nukes into the U. S. Our ten largest cities . . . gone."

  "Yes, sir," Hamdi said. "We should use this as an opportunity to strengthen the policies of peace you've been pursuing as well as our commitment to controlling the loose-nuke problems. If Israel, with its minimal borders and history of police state tactics, can't keep this from happening, we can't expect to, either."

  Morris stared at him for a moment and then started slowly clapping. "We're looking at the complete destruction of a country and the deaths of God knows how many people and you're still calculating the angles."

  Hamdi kept his expression completely impassive. "This is a horrible tragedy, sir. But if these people are destined to die or be displaced, we should do everything we can to see that some good comes from it. One of the most dangerous and contentious situations in history is going to simply cease to exist in three weeks and we need to be prepared to exploit that reality -- for the good of everyone."

  "How?"

  "I understand that we're already mobilizing virtually all our resources to help with the evacuation. That's the right action. But we have to go out of our way to try to be evenhanded -- to put as much effort into the problem of Arab evacuation as we do Jewish evacuation. We need to be focused on making it appear as though we value an Arab life just as much as a Jewish life."

  The president leaned over his desk, a brief flash of anger crossing his face. "We do value an Arab life as much as a Jewish life."

  Hamdi cursed himself silently. The power of being at the center of this particular moment in history was making him incautious. "I misspoke, sir. My apologies."

  Chapter FORTY-EIGHT

  "This isn't a plan, Catherine. This is no plan. We need to think this through. Come up with something --"

  Brandon grabbed hold of the truck's dashboard as the front wheels dropped into a rut and jumped back out, causing a cloud of dust to billow through the missing doors and into his eyes and mouth.

  "It's the only plan," Catherine shouted over the whine of the struggling engine. "And you know it. We don't have any idea who to trust in the American government and we sure as hell can't trust the Arabs. But we know for sure the Israelis don't want their country destroyed."

  "That's not exactly the same thing as trusting them, though, is it?"

  She glanced over at him.
"I told you not to come, Brandon. This isn't your fight, and even if it was, there's nothing you can do. You should take Richard's money and run.

  You earned it."

  "Damn right, I earned it!" he yelled, more for his own benefit than Catherine's. "Damn right . . ."

  He settled back in the seat and squinted through the windshield at the bizarre scene outside. It wasn't the devastated barrenness of the desert that was so fascinating -- he was actually starting to get used to feeling like he was on Mars. It was the narrow line of cars and pedestrians extending into the horizon. He watched a young woman and her two children walking behind a tiny car stuffed with possessions. Then a pickup overflowing with a family that seemed to encompass four generations -- each hiding from the sun beneath a dusty umbrella. And on and on.

  Catherine swerved right to avoid a donkey with what looked like an antique writing desk strapped to its back and nearly got bogged down next to a soldier tracking the procession of refugees from a sandbag-protected machine-gun emplacement. Another hundred yards took them past a group of U. N. soldiers trying keep everyone moving peacefully forward. They gave the truck a quick glance as it bounced by, but didn't seem particularly interested. They had more important things to worry about than two people speeding toward a country that was now well beyond security concerns.

  "There's got to be a better way, Cath. If we just stop and thi--"

  "We've been driving for hours, Brandon. What have you come up with?"

  She was right. He'd thought about it from every angle and come up blank. Now he couldn't help feeling like anything that happened to her was his fault. He was supposed to be good at this.

  "I'm sorry," she said, unwisely taking a hand off the wheel and squeezing his leg. "I know that if you had a couple of months you'd probably figure out how to break into the prime minister's house and drop this thing in his living room. But we don't have a couple of months."

  It seemed as though she hadn't so much as blinked since they'd left Amman. She was completely consumed by the idea of either putting all this right or dying in the attempt. The problem was, she didn't seem all that concerned with which.

  "But like you said," she continued, "it's not much of a plan. And that means that there's nothing you can do to help --" "Are you trying to get rid of me?" The truck hit another series of ruts and she had to put her hand back on the wheel.

  "You can get away, Brandon. You can live out the rest of your life. I don't want to be responsible for something happening to you. Can you understand that? It would be . . . It would be too much. To know that you . . ." Her voice faded.

  "I'm just as responsible as you are for this. If I hadn't gone to Ukraine, the warheads would still be in that cave. . Maybe I can't live with that, either."

  He wondered if that was true. Or if he really was just there for her. Not that it mattered. Most likely, they'd be dead in an hour with nothing at all to show for it. Just a pointless heroic gesture that would quickly be swallowed by a mushroom cloud. And while that wasn't really his MO, what was the alternative? Get out of the truck and walk back to Amman with endless scenarios of her death running through his head? Watch the destruction of an entire country from the comfort of his South African mansion, knowing that there had been a chance that he could have stopped it if he'd just had the courage to try?

  "There it is," she said, releasing the accelerator and letting the truck drift to a stop.

  The checkpoint was nothing more than a narrow opening in a tangle of razor wire that went out about fifty yards on either side, ending in sand drifts deep enough to bog down any vehicle short of a tank. There were two machine-gun positions dug in on either side, but the guns were pointed away from them and toward a similarly armed Israeli checkpoint about a hundred yards farther down the road.

  Catherine pushed the scarf she was wearing off her head, revealing her long, dark hair. "So there's nothing I can say to convince you to turn around and get out of here?"

  "That you're going with me."

  She shook her head. "I can't, Brandon. You know that."

  "Yeah. Then I guess I'm staying."

  He wasn't really surprised when she let out a long breath and sagged a bit in her seat. She didn't want to face this alone any more than he would have.

  "Any ideas?" she asked, peeling off the rest of the hotel manager's wife's clothes. A group of men walking by slowed a bit, only to be disappointed by the cargo pants and billowy white shirt she had on underneath.

  "Not really," Brandon said, studying the checkpoint. He pointed to an open section in the razor wire where an entire family was lying face down in the dirt while a group of well-armed Jordanian soldiers searched their Lexus. The next car was only about a foot behind, as was the next car, and the next. "We're not getting through that way. And we can't swing wide -- it'd give too many people too much time to shoot us. Besides, we'd just get stuck in the sand."

  "So straight through the razor wire," she said, tying her hair in a knot behind her head.

  "I guess so. Go slow at first, though. We're in a military truck, and with the position of the sun, those guards are going to have a hard time seeing through the windshield. Don't give them any reason to get fired up -- I mean, at this point, what harm can anyone do to Israel?"

  She nodded and started forward, leveling out her speed at a nonthreatening ten miles an hour as they closed in on the checkpoint.

  "Figure out what path you're going to take and concentrate on that, Cath. Remember it, because you're probably going to have to do some of it blind. I'll worry about the guards. Wait for my signal."

  They continued forward, getting surprisingly little attention at first. When they made it to within a hundred yards, though, one of the guards pulled his head out of the Lexus and turned to watch their approach.

  "It's too many people," Catherine said.

  "Too many guns. We're not going to make it." There was nothing in her tone that suggested she wanted to turn around. It was more of a resigned observation.

  "Just keep it steady," Brandon said, sticking a badly shaking hand out of the truck and holding it over the roof in greeting. The guard didn't wave back, but he didn't reach for the rifle slung over his shoulder, either. At fifty yards, the other guards abandoned the Lexus and began ambling in their direction.

  "You're sure that bullets can't set off that warhead."

  Catherine shrugged. "I'm pretty sure."

  "Well, then I guess you might as well floor it."

  The acceleration was more violent than he'd expected and he grabbed the edge of his seat as she swerved right, aiming for a section of razor wire as far from the guards and machine gun emplacements as she could get.

  The quickest of the guards already had a bead on them and Brandon watched for the muzzle flash, praying his half-assed theory was right.

  Nothing.

  Two more men managed to get their rifles off their shoulders and aimed, but they didn't fire either.

  The razor wire ripping apart on their hood sounded a bit like shattering glass and Brandon leaned toward the middle of the truck to avoid getting cut.

  "Why aren't they shooting?" Catherine shouted, as they came into range of the Jordanian machine gunners.

  "They think we're Arab terrorists!" Brandon yelled back, grabbing the wheel and aiming them at a similar line of razor wire on the Israeli side. "Get down!"

  The sound of gunfire started and a moment later the windshield exploded, filling the air with shards of glass. Brandon crammed himself as far as he could beneath the dash, trying to hold the wheel steady with one hand and to pull Catherine down with the other. She hung up for a moment and by the time she managed to work her way to the floorboard, she was bleeding badly from a series of gashes across her forehead.

  "Keep going!" he shouted. "Hold on! We've got --"

  The front of the truck suddenly dipped and he was slammed forward as the back wheels came off the ground.

  It all seemed to happen in slow motion, just like everyone s
aid: the truck beginning to tip, his sweaty hands sliding from the wheel, the increasing momentum as he fell backward. Despite the realization that he was going to end up on the ground with the truck on top of him, he managed to remain surprisingly calm. Mostly he felt regret. Not sharp. Just kind of nagging.

  When the truck finally hit, though, he wasn't under it. The cab skidded along on its side and he could feel the sand building up behind him, pushing him toward Catherine. It was then he noticed her hand gripping the front of his shirt and realized that it had kept him inside.

  The increasingly familiar sound of bullets hitting metal grew loud enough to drown everything else out. It seemed inevitable that the gas tank would be hit, enveloping them in a ball of fire. Or maybe a bullet would penetrate the vehicle and make its way through Catherine and then into him . . .

  But the old truck held. Whatever weapons the Israelis were using couldn't penetrate the heavy steel it had been constructed from. Eventually, someone realized that, and everything went silent.

  "Americans!" Brandon shouted, though not as loudly as he'd hoped. His second try was better. "We're Americans! Don't shoot!

  We're Americans!"

  He used his sleeve to wipe the blood from Catherine's forehead as she tried to blink it from her eyes. "Told you it would work."

  Chapter FORTY-NINE

  "Kind of dicks, aren't they?" Brandon said, motioning with his head toward the angry-looking soldier sitting across from them.

  "Brandon, don't make things worse than they already are, okay?"

  He and Catherine were sitting next to each other in the back of an Israeli army truck, speeding along in what most people would agree was the wrong direction. He stretched his legs out and rested them on a wooden crate, prompting the kid guarding them to start shouting and shaking his rifle. Brandon's Hebrew was pretty much nonexistent, but the meaning was still clear: Don't use the thermonuclear weapon as an ottoman.