Kingdom Come

by David Rollins

  “How much longer will he live?” the Scorpion asked the doctor with a gesture at Petrovich.

  Thalib went forward, removed the stethoscope from around his neck, fixed the buds to his ears, and listened to the pulse behind the ankle. “He may live another day, but not unless he has water. He has lost a lot of blood. Also, Lord, some diluted vinegar would be a tonic.”

  “If we take him down?”

  “He may live, but equally he may die. There is no way to be sure. Perhaps he has reached the point of no return.”

  The Scorpion considered this. “See that he drinks your tonic. And what of these two?”

  Thalib did not listen to their hearts. “These two put you at risk with their stupidity. They are young and strong, Lord. They will live many days.”

  “They have been punished for nine hours or more, yes?”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  “Then they can be killed – a knife through the heart. I would make it quick so as not to make them suffer unduly.”

  “You are most merciful, Lord. Strike them not between the fourth and fifth rib, but up through the belly.” Thalib demonstrated on his own gut. “Enter here, under the rib cage, then thrust up through to the vena cava.”

  One of the men, the tall one, Jalil, opened his eyes and, between breaths, said, “Thank you, Lord.”

  “Do not thank me, dog,” the Scorpion growled. “You will not be going to Paradise.” He turned to the doctor. “I will kill them before afternoon prayers.”

  ***

  Captain Sam Nanaster. That was the name jotted on the slip of paper, but according to the databases that Schelly had access to there was not, and never had been, an officer commissioned in any of the four services by that name. Apparently, though, Captain Nanaster was now working for the CIA, leading a team running around Syria whacking US citizens. Or, more to the point, whacking US-born jihadists.

  The slip Epstein had passed her also included a series of digits: the exit code for the United States, the country code for Syria – 963 – and an eight-digit number series. Schelly dialed the numbers and heard the familiar tones of a satellite phone out of range, plus the standard recorded voice informing her of such. She dialed again. Same result.

  Great. Now what?

  A satellite phone didn’t necessarily mean instant communications with someone anywhere in the world, despite the sales and marketing BS. Russia had a virtual armada of satellites parked above Syria, but the US did not, and none of the civilian call providers had geosynchronous communications satellites covering Syria and northern Iraq. To get a connection, the phone on the ground had to have a line of sight connection to at least one satellite. It was for this reason that Quickstep 3 was uncontactable except for two ten-minute windows.

  The CIA Phoenix team, however, would undoubtedly have 24-hour radio communications with some off-the-grid CIA signals base in the region, but not even Epstein had access to that.

  Schelly stared at the map and wondered what the hell was going on. She dialed another number because, what the hell, there was nothing else she could do.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Simmons speaking.”

  “Colonel, Major Schelly here.”

  “Oh Jill. Just about to call you. You beat me to it.”

  “What’s up, sir?”

  “Your boys are about to get squeezed by Russian forces. There’s a company-strength unit headed their way.”

  The bottom dropped away from Schelly’s guts. “Where is Quickstep 3 now, sir?”

  “Coming up on the designated area.”

  “The Predator is still with them?”

  “Indeed it is.”

  “Sir, can I get a live feed patched through to the president’s Situation Room?”

  “You get the authorization, Major, I’ll get you the patch.”

  ***

  “We’re here, boss,” Bo said, his concentration fixed on the Raven’s control box. The unbroken plain of the Hamad for once had a little more going on than usual. The ground ahead was rough, broken and gouged by numerous deep wadis. For another, there were people here. And goats, lots of goats.

  “Okay,” I replied. “Pull over.”

  The pickup and the ambulance stopped on a slight rise, the last of the hot, dry flat desert and the start of the hot, dry lumpy desert. I jumped down from the pickup’s bed, along with Jimmy, Alvin, Igor and Mazool. Taymullah and Bo climbed out of the cabin. Natasha, who had been driving the ambulance, closed its door and walked over with Farib.

  “Okay,” I began, “we have fifteen square miles of terrain to search. Bo has set up a grid pattern in quarter mile increments. The Raven will circle above and provide lookdown overwatch for a mile-and-half radius all around. We don't want any surprises.”

  This received unanimous nods.

  “The area has a number of villages and the drone tells us there’s a fair bit of animal husbandry going on – goats and goatherds. Where possible, we stop and ask if anyone has seen our unit. The story is that we’ve become separated, insha Allah, Allahu akbar, que sera, sera, and so forth. Our long-lost unit is Al-Aleaqarab’s, so we’ll be flying ISIS jolly rogers. Taymullah, we’ve got a few of those lying around, right?”

  “Nem fielaan,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Nem fielaan. I am sorry - yes.”

  “Right. Mazool, what’s your acting like? I need you to be our leader, driving out front.”

  “The leader would not drive.”

  “Farib, Taymullah, which of you two speaks enough English to translate for us ignorant Americans in the second vehicle?” The two Syrians glanced at each other. Taymullah raised a hand. “In that case, Farib, you drive for Mazool. Taymullah, you’re with me in the ambulance. The rest of you, cover up with kitchen towels and make like ISIS fighters – be aggressive arrogant assholes and take as many slaves as you want.”

  Jimmy smirked.

  “Mazool, a reasonable plan?”

  He shrugged. “What of the Russian?” He was looking at Natasha.

  “What about her?”

  “She cannot fight jihad with men.”

  “We’re an equal opportunities unit,” I told him.

  “No. Women cannot fight with men.”

  Taymullah walked over with some black cloth draped over an arm, and handed it to Mazool.

  Mazool insisted, “She must wear this.” He held it up. A niqab. “She can be your wife.”

  “You’re scaring me,” I said.

  “She can be a slave.”

  “I was joking about that.”

  “I am not,” he replied.

  Natasha came over, sensing she was being discussed.

  “We’re all going to a fancy dress party,” I told her, pointing out elements of my own Ali Baba costume. “The theme is 6th century chic. What do you think?”

  “You want me to wear this?” She screwed up her nose at the robe Mazool held up, and then took the fabric and smelt it. The look on her face said this was probably a job for Tide Odor Rescue. “Nyet.”

  “You’ll put it on if we need you to put it on,” I said. “That’s a commandment.” I could have said, “That’s an order,” but I was warming to the whole slave thing. Then, feeling guilty about how much I’d enjoyed that, I told her, “It’s not just for your safety, Natasha. It’s for ours too.”

  “Like all men, you are pig,” she replied.

  “A pig,” I told her, this being a good time and place.

  “Major, none of us speak Arabic,” Alvin pointed out. “What if we are stopped? We can't just say Allahu akbar every time we’re asked a question.”

  I didn’t see why not. That seemed to be the only words Islamic terrorists knew. Care for a cup of coffee with cream and sugar? Allahu akbar.

  “You are American jihadists,” Mazool said, “new to the fight. Say, ‘Assalamu alaikum’ when you meet someone. It means, peace be upon you. If they say this to you, reply with ‘Wa alaikum assalam’, which means upon you be peace.”

  “
Get in first and you won’t have to remember the reply,” I suggested.

  Alvin and Jimmy repeated the words to fix them in their heads.

  I said, “Do we say that before or after we start shooting?”

  “What if we find Scorpion?” Natasha asked.

  “I’m glad you asked,” I told her, “because that’s simple. One,” I held up a finger. “First we enquire nicely about returning President Petrovich, and then two …” I held up a second finger, “We kill him or arrest him, whichever is easiest at the time. To save confusion in the short term and everyone a pain in the ass in the long term, the former is the preferred option. Next?”

  “And after that?” Mazool wondered.

  “You go back to Latakia with the thanks of not one but two grateful nations – America and Russia – and we skedaddle for Turkey as fast as our turbocharged Toyota can take us. You can keep the ambulance.”

  Bo informed me, “Boss, we’ll need structured breaks. Got four batteries for the Raven. Each takes forty-five minutes to charge off the vehicle for twenty minutes of flying time. So we can have the Raven in the air more or less continuously, long as we time it right.”

  “Well, just let us know what you need and when you need it.”

  “Yessir,” he replied. “Where do you want to start the search?”

  “We’re at the south end of the designated search area. We don't know where the Scorpion is gonna be, but he’s eyeing off Dabiq where this motherfucker of all battles is supposed to happen, so we can reasonably assume he’ll be traveling east, heading for that. Who knows, maybe the Scorpion has already left. So, I say we skirt the circumference of the search area, come at it from the east, put ourselves between Dabiq and the search area, and work our way further east.” No one had any objections to this line of thinking. “Everyone needs to stay locked and loaded. But no one …” I shifted my gaze to Natasha, “and I mean no one, goes kinetic unless I give the signal.”

  “What is signal?” she enquired.

  “You’ll know it when I give it.”

  A short while later, once Bo had landed the Raven, swapped out the battery for a fresh one and relaunched it, and with black flags flying, we started the search going from village to goatherd, looking for the Scorpion. The ambulance bounced over terrain more suitable to a four-wheel drive. Of course, almost none of the people we asked had seen shit, the earth apparently swallowing the Scorpion whole, though one goatherd said he had heard he’d gone this way, pointing east, and another thought he’d gone that way, pointing west … Meanwhile, one wadi looked like every other wadi. This was a good place to get lost in and, if it wasn’t for Bo’s drone, we might have done exactly that.

  So I settled in and had a talk to Natasha, who was feigning sleep in the back of the ambulance. She was lying on her side, one breast almost falling out of her flight suit, the zipper too low for anyone’s good. “Hey, Natasha, you awake?” I asked her. “Natasha …” A couple of heaving breaths, which almost popped that breast completely free, and her eyes fluttered open. “Um …” I said and pointed in the general direction of her chest. While she reorganized things, I said, “Igor and I had an interesting chat.” Interesting how the word interesting has become a major weapon in the armory of the passive aggressive.

  “That is nice for you,” she said, waving at a persistent sand fly orbiting her face.

  “You and Petrovich, and the bodyguard detonating a grenade were the general topics of discussion.”

  “And?” she said, opening her hands out with a shrug of her shoulders, hitting me with a little passive aggression of her own.

  A worthy interrogation technique back when I was in the OSI: the suspect sits in a chair in one corner of the room while the interviewer begins question time sitting more or less in the opposite corner, but on a chair on casters. As the interrogation progresses, the interviewer gradually inches forward, toward the interviewee, building pressure, not just with the questions but with proximity to the suspect so that, ultimately, the special agent is suddenly in the suspect’s face when the big question is asked. The pressure of this two-pronged attack cracks open the nut, an admission of guilt spilling forth. In the back of the ambulance, however, the only object on wheels was the gurney and that wasn’t going anywhere. So I improvised and changed positions, sitting on one end of the bench with Natasha down the other end.

  “Tell me,” I continued. “How come the grenade blew a hole in the side of the Hind, but you and Igor escaped without so much as a scratch?”

  “Yes, I think about this also,” she said, the volume of her voice raised above the ambulance’s labors as it ground over the rough terrain in low gear. “He hold grenade like this, in front of him.” She demonstrated, her hand in front, close to where her belly button would be. “He wear … how do you say – armor.”

  “Body armor.”

  “Da. Body armor. Igor, General Yegorov and I, we sit beside president. When Geronosovich stand, we are behind him, like so.”

  I guessed that made some sense. Russian body armor was a quality item. If the grenade detonated with the armor between the explosion and the spreading anti-personnel fragments, that could explain why some people survived the blast while others didn’t. If Geronimo’s intention was to kill everyone, he made a mistake there. Perhaps he thought the grenade would kill the Hind first and the ensuing crash would tidy up the loose ends.

  I brushed a couple of sand flies out of my face and came in a little closer. “You told me Arkady Geronosovich was a terrorist.”

  “Da, terrorist. He blow up vertolet … gelikopter.”

  “Terrorist?” I said, sliding in closer still. “No, I don’t think so. And I don't think you and Petrovich were lovers.”

  “Igor tell you this?” she asked, a furrow down the middle of her perfect forehead.

  I had moved in for the kill, sitting beside her, angled toward her, the big question that needed to be asked locked and loaded. I even had a theory, which I was prepared to test. “Why would you say you were having an affair with Petrovich if you were not? And why would you claim the president’s bodyguard was a terrorist if he were not?”

  Natasha was breathing hard. I knew this because I was practically sitting on top of her. I was about to spring the big one on her. At the same time I was also considering that that zipper of hers must be made of titanium to withstand the intense pressure behind it. At this precise moment she leaned forward and kissed my mouth hard, her tongue lashing out and wrestling mine to the mat. I pulled back, breaking the suction, which is when she grabbed my hand and placed it on her breast.

  Wow. I should have used this interrogation technique on her sooner, when we weren’t bouncing over wadis. “That’s enough,” I said. ”After you’ve told me everything – the truth – then and only then can you have your way with me.” No, actually, that’s what I thought. In truth, what I said was a stumbling, “Um … What … What are you doing?” My hand was still on her breast when I said it because, well, it was a hell of a breast. She smiled at this reaction of mine, as if she’d won a kind of victory. Perhaps she had. I got my hormones back under control at that point, removed my sweating paw and told her, “Geronosovich didn’t yell Allahu akbar before detonating the grenade, did he?” There it was, the big question. It wiped away her smile, which had become more of a smirk. I was about to press the point and suggest an alternative parting statement when she was saved by Bo, whose voice in my ear said, “Coming up on a village, boss. Over the next rise. Something’s going on there.”

  Dammit! Serzhánt Novikova and her zipper would have to wait. The niqab was on the floor. I picked it up and handed it to her. “Put this on,” I told her. “No argument. If anyone asks, you’re Mrs Cooper – lucky you.” To Taymullah, I said, “Stop here.” I switched on the comms and told Bo, “I’ll come to you. Let’s take your toy in for some close-ups.”

  A short while later Taymullah and I walked over to the Toyota, the Syrian teenager’s back covered in flies – fat, well fed
ones. “What have we got?” I asked Bo as I arrived. He offered me some space under a towel, out of the sun, so that I could get a little contrast on the drone’s control screen. “What’s going on, do you think?” I asked him.

  “Dunno, Major,” which, translated meant, “You’re the officer. You tell me.”

  Men and women were running down the narrow street, following a donkey pulling a cart. “What’s in the cart?” I asked. “Take a look.”

  Bo bought the Raven and its camera in closer. There was nothing to see. At least, nothing we could see. Whatever it was, it was covered in a dirty blanket and clearly distressing the village.

  “We need to do down there and find out what’s up,” I said.

  We parked the vehicles, flying black flags, on the edge of the village. I left Jimmy and Bo behind along with Farib, Igor and Natasha, while Alvin, Mazool, Taymullah and I strolled the main street, a dust-blown track that stank of goat with top notes of human shit. Many of the women were wailing. The fact that there were women on the street, mixing with men, was unusual. The wind was up and the flies were fierce little fuckers, biting any and all exposed skin. We saw a tight group of men consoling several sobbing women whose age was indeterminate, because, like all women, they were shrouded in full black niqabs.

  I instructed Mazool, “Find out what’s going on.”

  Two teary-eyed young boys caught my attention, standing beside a couple of morose adults whose AKs drooped at the ground. The taller boy, who I guessed was probably around ten years of age, had a nasty open wound on his cheek playing host to a herd of sand flies. They were gathered at the edge of the ruptured flesh, drinking like horses bent over at a trough. The boy’s smaller companion had a much larger, even more grotesque sore on his leg, and more flies. That had to be the wasting disease Major Schelly had briefed me on – leish-something-or-other – carried by sand flies. This village fit the major’s profile like a glove. Was the Scorpion close? If so, how close?

  Mazool returned, coughing the dust and the flies out of his lungs. “The deceased is a boy, brother to those two,” he said after spitting noisily on the ground and then indicating the kids I’d already noted being eaten alive. “He was shot in the back of the head and buried under rocks. He had been missing for several days. Many of his goats came home without him. The village searched for him. His father and brother found the grave.”