Kingdom Come

by David Rollins

  Is the physio one of ours? Bassingthwaite wondered. “Well, anything we can do to help, just ask.” The leather armchair sighed as the secretary of state settled noisily into it while pretending to sip the vodka. “And Mrs Rodchenko?”

  “As demanding as ever. But we are not here to talk about the wrecks that are my skeletal system, or the resistance to my wife’s needs. Of course you have seen the video …”

  “Yes, yes. Appalling. If there’s anything we can do, you will let us know. It is times like this that true friends stand up for one another.”

  The ambassador examined the vodka in his glass, moving his hand in a manner that made the rocks spin. “We are confident that the situation will be resolved quickly.”

  “Oh, so you know where the terrorists have taken President Petrovich?”

  “Our military has assured us that Russia’s first citizen will not remain long in the hands of these scum.”

  Rodchenko’s statement meant the opposite to Bassingthwaite’s ear, honed as it was by a lifetime of diplomatic service – it was the word assured. “I am well aware of the sensitive nature of this situation for the Kremlin, and, forgive me for reading between the lines here, Ambassador, but perhaps you are less than certain of your president’s whereabouts.”

  “We have the best people working on it.”

  In short, your people have no fucking idea, do they? Certainly Rodchenko appeared to be rather more stressed than a man sure that this emergency would end soon, and well. “What do you know of the situation that the media does not yet know?” Bassingthwaite enquired.

  “Are you saying that your intelligence is running behind the media? Come, come, Mr Secretary. Your intelligence is omnipotent. I suspect you knew of this situation before even we did.”

  Bassingthwaite smiled and tried his best to inject some warmth into the expression, while his mind went to the fact that CENTCOM did have a team in the area. “We both know that our intelligence agencies don’t know everything – Hollywood fiction. 9/11 should have dispelled that.”

  Rodchenko shrugged and polished off his vodka.

  “Freshen that for you, Mr Ambassador?” Bassingthwaite asked, aware of the answer before he asked the question. At least some things are known quantities. He got up, went to the bar and poured the last of the bottle into the Russian’s glass, adding fresh rocks.

  “We have secured the sites of both crashed helicopters,” said Rodchenko.

  Both? Well, that’s something we didn't know. “That was fast. Do you know what caused these crashes?”

  “Terrorism,” the ambassador said with a hint of irony. “Investigators are en route to determine the factors that brought them down. When they have answers then perhaps we will share. Or perhaps not – neither of us are good at that.”

  Bassingthwaite examined the Russian as he sipped his drink. Rodchenko was being cagey and that suggested there was more going on here. “We have known each other for many years, Mikhail Ivanovich, which is why I am invoking our longstanding mutual cooperation and friendship to say –”

  “No bodies were recovered from the aircraft accompanying our president’s helicopter. However, several bodies were identified at the scene of the second crash – the president’s helicopter. One of these was missing an arm.”

  “Lost in the crash?”

  “No. It was amputated by a shotgun blast. There was a skirmish at the site. After the crash, the survivors were attacked.”

  “By ISIS,” said Bassingthwaite.

  “It is reasonable to assume is was ISIS, because it is they who have our president. The man who lost an arm –”

  “Wait … They shot it off?”

  “To remove the Cheget chained to his wrist.” The ambassador examined his glass. “Even in distasteful circumstances, I still enjoy this vodka.” He took a mouthful and pushed it from one side of his mouth to the other. He swallowed. “You know of the Cheget?”

  In fact, Bassingthwaite had gone into a momentary state of mild paralysis in order to process the enormity of this development.

  “Mr Secretary?” Rodchenko prompted him.

  “Mr Ambassador, I –“

  Rodchenko cut him off. “Tell me … What part did the United States play in these unfortunate events?”

  That caught Bassingthwaite completely off guard. “What? I’m sorry? Did you say –”

  “The hand of your CIA is all over this. Who shot down our helicopters? Our own experts believe it is unlikely that these two Hinds should be targeted and taken out by jihadists. Only two aircraft have been lost to ground forces in the entire conflict – these two. What are the chances that the very helicopter transporting our president would be targeted? It doesn’t, as you Americans love to say, add up.”

  “But, but this is ridiculous. We would never –”

  “No, no, of course you would never seek to take advantage.” The ambassador’s words dripped with sarcasm.

  “We would not deliver the President of Russia into the hands of killers. You know that. That’s crossing a line. I wouldn't lie to you.”

  “Our spheres of influence, they constantly overlap. It is again almost like the old days. And now with our two presidents trading insults like schoolboys …”

  Oh God! “No, c’mon.” Bassingthwaite shook his head vehemently. “What you’re suggesting … it’s utterly unthinkable.”

  “The attempt to assassinate our president was cover. It was the codes, wasn’t it? You wanted them.”

  “The codes?” The Cheget. “Look, that’s absolute madness.”

  “We agree, then. Complete madness.” Rodchenko levered himself up off the couch with the usual grunt and placed the empty tumbler on a side table. “You will hear from me again once our investigators are satisfied they have enough evidence to take to the United Nations.”

  “Mikhail Ivanovich –”

  “Do not Mikhail Ivanovich me. The Russian Air Force has placed an unofficial no fly zone over Latakia. I would advise your air force of this. We do not want further incidents between our countries at this delicate time.”

  “I can assure you, Mr Ambassador, there wasn’t a first incident. So how can there be a further incident?”

  “Good day, Mr Secretary,” said Rodchenko, swaying slightly on uncertain knees. “One last thing. You should know that we have raised our alert level to ‘Danger of War’.” He walked to the door, opened it and picked up his private secretary on the way out, while Bassingthwaite stood in the middle of his office feeling like a man on a holed rubber dinghy circled by sharks. “Danger of War” was the Russian equivalent of DEFCON Two, and meant its nuclear arsenal was being readied for launch.

  “Fuck.” Bassingthwaite tossed back the vodka he had been determined not to drink, and reached for the phone.

  Twenty-four

  Ronald V. Small @realSmall

  Terrorists! You have no idea what you are dealing with. We have so many great options. And some of them are nukes.

  The figure, dressed all in black, stood behind three men of varying age who were kneeling in the dirt, their bruised heads bowed, their clothes torn, scorched and bloody. The horizon was empty and lifeless, the desolate plain endless and baked the color of kiln sand. Wind ripped and snapped at the loose-fitting clothes of the figure in black. It seemed that the world was empty, save for the captor and the captured kneeling at his feet. Then the figure in black unwound the scarf obscuring his head, revealing a man in his forties with a scarred face and grizzled red beard patchy with scarred skin and gray hairs. He removed the black gloves covering his hands – raw hands, mangled and misshapen – and, raising a long knife blade that caught the brutal sun, he pointed it at the camera and spoke in heavily accented English. Arabic subtitles dissolved onto the bottom of the screen. “My name is Abu Bakr Al Aljurji. I am known as the Scorpion. I stand before you with no concealment so that you, the faithful, may know the face of deliverance.”

  President Small leaned in a little closer to the monitor. “This assh
ole. Wow. I mean, he’s like for real, right?”

  No one said a word. The video would answer the question.

  “As you can see, I have captured a Roman Caesar, one of his supreme generals, and a bodyguard. Allah delivered them into my hands.”

  The film cut to a close-up of President Petrovich who ground his teeth, far from meek. He was on his knees, bent forward, his wrists tied behind his back and trussed to his ankles. Beside him, head bowed, was General Yegorov, clearly in pain. He leaned heavily against the Spetsnaz bodyguard, now identified by the CIA as Lieutenant Vladimir Leonov – thirty-two years of age, a qualified sniper.

  The terrorist continued, “Only by the will of Allah could such a thing come to pass. Caesar and his general will be released when the armies of Rome arrive at Dabiq to fight the holy warriors of the caliphate. The age of the Mahdi is upon us. This I swear on the blood of a non-believer. I call on all true Muslims to submit. Wage war against the kafirs. Shoot them, stab them, slaughter them, for they defile the world’s purity with their unholy ideas.”

  Abu Bakr Al Aljurji adjusted General Yegorov so that he no longer leaned but sat up straight. Satisfied that the Russian would not topple over, he kneeled behind the bodyguard, positioned the blade under his chin and began sawing it back and forth across his throat as he held the man’s head in the crook of his arm. The bodyguard’s eyes popped wide open and his mouth opened in a silent scream. He offered no resistance, blood gushing from the ever-widening slice. It began to spurt in thick pumping streams, the video cutting to another view of the dying man, his body convulsing. The Scorpion kept sawing until the head came away in his hands, the fountain of blood ebbing quickly. He tossed the severed head on the ground and it rolled to a stop in front of a camera lens, big and grotesque on screen, the muscles exposed in the neck slaked with desert grit but still fibrillating. The video focused on this image for several long seconds until the screen went black.

  “Jesus …” exhaled the president. “That’s disgusting. I’m disgusted. That is why we need to wipe these people off the face of the Earth. This guy, the Scorpion. A seriously bad dude. Seriously. Why haven’t we taken him out already?”

  “There were a lot worse on the list ahead of him, Mr President,” Admiral Rentz informed him.

  “I can believe it,” said the president, still coming to grips with what he’d just seen. “This is really bad. It’s terrible. We need to smoke his ass.”

  “We have to find him first, sir,” DCIA Hamilton said, hands clasped in front of him. Hamilton had seen the Situation Room in the basement of White House West Wing humming on many occasions, the room alive with people, its many video monitors and computer feeds spewing out information from assets stationed all around the globe. But today the room was almost empty. This was Russia’s crisis. But for how long would it remain so?

  “Well, what are we doing about that?”

  “At present, nothing, Mr President,” Bunion told him. “We don't know exactly where he is, on top of which the Russians have placed a no fly zone over the area.”

  “Did we agree to that?” asked Small, the bags under his eyes blowing up like pasties, a familiar tell for his stress levels.

  “No, Mr President,” Bunion continued. “We figure they did it to keep us out.”

  “Why would they want to keep us out? Maybe they’ve got something to hide.”

  “In fact, Mr President,” said SECSTATE Bassingthwaite as he walked in, “they believe it’s because we shot Petrovich’s helicopter down, or at least had a hand in it.”

  “Stop,” said President Small, infuriated by Bassingthwaite’s sudden appearance. “You’re late. Why are you late? I’m a busy man, you know that. I don't have time for you to be late.”

  “It was unavoidable, Mr President. I just had Ambassador Rodchenko in my office and he –”

  “I didn’t hear an apology for your lateness. I think I’m owed an apology.”

  “I’m sorry for being late, Mr President,” said Bassingthwaite, appearing chastened as he took a seat.

  “Okay. In the future, don't be late.” The president waited, visibly impatient for the secretary of state to settle. “Now, did you say Rodchenko said we had something to do with this? He accused us?”

  “Yes, Mr President.”

  Small was suddenly livid. He thumped the table with his fist, but not too hard. “Where do these people get off attacking us like that? It’s tremendously disappointing.” A sudden thought seemed to occur to Small and his tone went 180 degrees in the other direction. “We didn't, right? We, er, we didn't have anything to do with shooting Golem down?”

  “No, sir,” said Bunion. “We don't breathe unless we have your signature on it. That’s the way it works.”

  “Good. I don't like mistakes.” Small returned to his former bullishness. “Can we make a deal with this Scorpion? How much would it take?”

  “Mr President, bargaining with ISIS has proved futile in the past. All these fanatics are interested in is fulfilling their prophecy from the Qur’an. We know how their minds work. Unless Petrovich can be rescued, he’s as good as dead.”

  “You’re saying there’s nothing we can do … Well, Petrovich was becoming difficult anyway, right?” He checked Bunion for reassurance.

  “A little vacuum in the Kremlin might be a good thing, Mr President.”

  Small grinned, his blue-white teeth sparkling against pale lips.

  “Now if we could just organize for Chinese Premier Xi to be dropped into Syria too, that would free up a little space in the world,” Bunion added, feeding off the boss’s mood, enabling his whims, especially if he could use them to nourish his own agenda.

  “See if we can arrange it, Andy,” President Small asked with a chuckle.

  “There is a complication, sir,” Bassingthwaite said, his mood far more subdued.

  “Oh c’mon, Eddy, why the long face?” asked Bunion and grinned at the president.

  Bassingthwaite was reluctant to be the bearer of bad news, the president having a habit of blaming the person who delivered it, but he had little choice. “According to Ambassador Rodchenko, the terrorists have…” Bassingthwaite’s throat tightened and he felt both hot and cold. “Sir, ISIS has acquired the authority codes for the launch of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.”

  “What?” Bunion couldn’t help himself. It just came out, his voice cracking in the middle of it.

  “Most of which is still aimed at the United States, as you know,” the SECSTATE continued. “The Russians recovered a body from the crash site of one of the helicopters. The terrorists shot the man’s arm off to recover what the Russians call the Cheget, a briefcase chained to the deceased’s wrist that contained the codes.”

  “The Cheget is the Russian version of the football that travels with POTUS,” Admiral Rentz explained to the president.

  “Are you … are you saying the terrorists now have nukes?” asked Small, all color drained from his face. “Is that what we are talking about here?”

  “Mr President, it sounds a lot worse than it is,” Bassingthwaite ventured, taking two shots from his puffer.

  “Well it sounds real bad to me.”

  “The secretary of state is correct, Mr President,” the admiral soothed. “The Cheget carries the Russian presidential authorization codes for a nuclear strike, not the actual launch codes for the missiles themselves. So we've caught a break there.”

  “What does that even mean?” asked Small, blinking back his own confusion.

  “ISIS can’t launch missiles at us, Mr President, nor do they have access to them.”

  “At least that’s something, right? Am I right?” said Small, relaxing somewhat.

  Rentz answered, “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank god. Still, this is crazy.”

  “Loath as I am to extinguish this ray of light,” said Epstein, her voice rasping more than usual, “but merely having these codes gives ISIS a lot of power, especially when they also have the Russian president.”
/>   Small frowned. “But, if I’m hearing correctly, the codes are worthless, right?”

  “Technically, yes – and the Kremlin will have changed the codes already,” the admiral pointed out.

  “But it will be our spin against ISIS’s,” said Hamilton. “We can raise any number of experts who’ll say the codes are useless for the reasons pointed out, but now the terrorists know the form of the codes. And no matter what we say, you can be sure the media and the Internet will dredge up any number of experts who’ll assert that merely having the codes will give ISIS vital clues that could help them hack into the Russian nuclear command and control computers. Whether it’s true or not, this is an enormous psychological windfall for ISIS, Mr President.”

  Epstein squared up to the president. “Sir, we just sat through a briefing with the best minds we have on this and the consensus is that the situation will play directly to the percentage of the world’s Muslims on the edge of being radicalized. Coupled to the news of the president’s capture, having the nuclear codes in their possession will turbocharge the terrorist’s recruitment message. We could potentially see millions of newly radicalized Muslims arriving in northern Syria to fight the armies of Rome – the West, us.”

  “I suppose we could just let them, Mr President,” said Bunion with a smirk. “You need two sides to make a war, right? What if one of them doesn’t show up?”

  Small nodded, an eyebrow raised, impressed with this reasoning.

  “It’s not as simple as that, Andrew,” Hamilton countered. “How many recruits do you think will choose to make a contribution to the ISIS war effort by wearing suicide vests to their local Walmart?”

  Bunion’s smirk vanished.

  “Mr President,” Epstein continued, “this is about the End of Days battle. Apparently it’s foretold in the Qur’an. Getting their hands on Petrovich and the Cheget are like gifts from heaven. As the Scorpion said, ‘Only by the will of Allah could such a thing come to pass.’ This is exactly what ISIS needs to reinvigorate its cause and kickstart the flow of volunteers for jihad.”