Kingdom Come

by David Rollins

  I took a moment to reassess. The fighting up in the rocks was almost done, the shooting sporadic. From the shouts of “Allahu akbar” coming down from the heights instead of tracer, it wasn’t hard to guess who’d won. Pretty soon they’d be withdrawing to their vehicles. We couldn’t be here when they did, and neither could the Scorpion, dead or alive.

  “Okay,” I said, unwinding the scarf from around my head, “time to rejoin the air force and bug –”

  I didn’t get to finish the sentence. I heard a zip that ended in a wet slap and, out the corner of an eye, I saw Bo’s head get turned inside out and completely disappear in a small geyser of spray.

  “Bo,” I said, confused about what I thought I just saw. And that’s all I know because my own world was suddenly filled with a blinding flash of white light and …

  ***

  “That’s a confirmation on Vincent Smith from DC, alias Kareem Al-Waleed,” said Ronan. “Ninety-five points of ID.”

  “Nanaster’s scope lingered on breather number one, confirming the kill. Nice. A good clean shot. She pivoted the scope a few degrees and picked up Ronan’s target breather, Vincent Smith. A scarf obscured the man’s face. Nevertheless, the screen informed her that there were indeed ninety-five points of identification confirmed. Magic what technology can do these days. “Take the shot, Ronan,” she said, her voice low.

  “Roger that.”

  But as Nanaster watched, Smith removed his headscarf, revealing his face.

  Nanaster blinked. It’s not possible. It’s, it’s you! “No!” Nanaster yelled suddenly, slapping her hand on Ronan’s barrel as it jumped with recoil.

  “What the hell?” Ronan was incensed.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” Nanaster peered into the scope, squashing her eyeball up against the lens, unsettling the instrument on its tripod, the image dancing around the black hole inside the scope that framed the image. Smith had fallen, but that’s all she knew, as a vehicle and people’s legs obscured whatever had happened to him. Did we kill him? Shit, did we fucking kill him?

  “Boss, you blew my shot,” Ronan complained, showing more annoyance than he probably wanted to.

  Nanaster, still hunting around the area with the scope, said, “Fuck, Ronan, I damn well hope so.”

  “What’s … what’s happened?”

  “There’s been a terrible mistake,” Nanaster snapped. “Ours … SAD’s … I don’t know. Kareem Al-Waleed from DC, right? Formerly known as Vincent Smith?”

  “That’s him.”

  Al-Waleed alias Vincent Smith. Oh my god! “Bravo team! Stand down. Immediately! Confirm!”

  “Standing down, Sam,” snapped Gunny Eldrich, Wilson’s spotter. “What’s up?”

  “We just shot and killed two Americans,” she said. “Our kind of American, not the bad kind. On me, warp speed. Bring up the DPV. Do it now. We’re going down there.”

  ***

  Men were fighting and dying on every display. It had been impossible to tell who was who, but as the fighting progressed, it was evidently ISIS that was grinding out the upper hand.

  “It’s safe to say this has been a useless exercise,” said Chalmers sitting back, hands behind his head.

  Schelly took her eyes off the displays for a moment. “Why do you say that?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  “Quickstep brought us to Petrovich and the Scorpion.”

  “We don’t know that. Not yet.”

  “Your Phoenix team is advancing on the jihadist’s vehicles. Are they going in to mop up now? Is that what’s happening?”

  “Major, I keep telling you … “

  “Chalmers?” Epstein said, weighing in.

  “Madam Secretary,” he assured her. “I swear to you, this is nothing to do with me.”

  Schelly pictured a man caught in bed by his wife in the act of fucking his mistress, denying that he is fucking his mistress.

  Up on the displays, a spreading white light that was so hot it seemed to fuse the very pixels of the screens themselves into molten glass suddenly and silently obliterated the entire hillside.

  Schelly’s mouth was agape in horror.

  “Orders. Direct from the commander-in-chief,” said Bunion. “No more Scorpion, no more war. Good job everyone.” He stood and thumbed a text on his phone as he walked from the room.

  Fifty-four

  Ronald V. Small @realSmall

  Burger King does the best fries and everyone knows it. Deal with that, Fake News.

  Phoenix Four raced to the convoy of ISIS vehicles, into the teeth of the distinctive smells of a hard-fought desert battle that rolled outward from the source: the smells of explosives, broken rock, dirt, urine and shit. Nanaster’s heart was in her mouth, a lump constricting her throat. No way. It just couldn't be …

  The DPV took air over the crests, as did the dirt bikes. The firefight all but concluded, the fighters would be coming down out of the hills at any minute and there was no time to lose, but the Phoenix unit’s approach would be tricky. The American force on the ground there wouldn't know who Nanaster and her team were. There was a real risk of blue on blue incidents. Nanaster’s only choice as they sped across the desert was to fire off an M125, a distinctive star cluster flare used by the US Army, which would also alert ISIS to their presence. The flare was duly fired high into the black night, and five bright green stars began to float slowly earthwards on parachutes. The signal was the best Phoenix Four could do. It was the only thing they could do. Nanaster hoped like hell it was enough.

  Ronan was the best wheelman she had ever worked with, an experienced racer in Southern California before he’d enlisted. He took the approaching berm at an angle, but found some raised ground that wouldn’t send the vehicle over the edge fatally unbalanced. The following drop into the wadi was sickening, but the landing was textbook, and soon the convoy of parked ISIS vehicles was in sight. And so far, they had attracted no incoming fire.

  “There,” said Nanaster, pointing at the utility. “Pull up short.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  A little further and Ronan hit the skids. The other guys on their bikes slid to a halt beside the DPV, but Nanaster was already running.

  “Stop!” said a voice from the shadows.

  Nanaster didn't need to be told twice.

  “You got two M4s aimed at your head,” the voice drawled. “Saw your flare. You got ten seconds. Talk.”

  “Major Sam Nanaster, Special Activities Division, CIA. We’re here to help with the evac. You got casualties?”

  “You know that, or are you asking?”

  Nanaster thought about her answer, and decided there was no point making things more complicated. “Asking.”

  After a few seconds of consideration, the voice replied, “We, we got no damn passwords to exchange and our comms are all gone to shit, so we’re gonna trust you. But it’s a conditional trust until I say otherwise.”

  “Fair enough,” said Nanaster. A man rose from the shadows and walked toward her. She asked him, “Got a name and rank, soldier?”

  “Sergeant Alvin Leaphart, United States Army, Special Operations Group. And yeah, we got casualties.”

  Leaphart looked her over and then signaled to the shadows. One of them stood.

  “That’s Sergeant Jimmy McVeigh, US Army,” Leaphart told her.

  Nanaster followed the sergeants to the man down. There was no light to see by, but he was clearly not an ISIS fighter and neither were his two surviving men. A huge relief swept over her when she felt his pulse. It was strong, but the head wound was bad. How bad, it was difficult to tell. The round had creased his skull, and no doubt it was cracked. Her next hope was that there’d be no lasting brain damage. She looked down on him, read his nametag. “Cooper.” Where had the intelligence come from that led their team to this point? They had just killed a US serviceman, and almost killed another. How could such a terrible error pass through the system? Nanaster was at a loss.

  The voices of the ISIS fighters carrie
d on the night air were getting louder and closer. Time was short.

  “Let’s get him off the ground.”

  “Ma’am, got an old ambulance back there,” said McVeigh. “No medical supplies to call on, though.”

  “Let’s take him there. We’ve got a full medical kit.”

  Nanaster’s men lifted Sergeant Bo Baker’s remains and followed Sergeant McVeigh. She bent down and took a handful of the wounded man’s webbing.

  “Stop,” said a woman’s voice. “We carry him.”

  Nanaster looked up. The woman in the niqab. The accent … distinctive. “You’re Russian,” she said, somewhat confused.

  “Da,” the woman replied. Her face was no longer obscured, the niqab’s hood removed. It was a beautiful face, even angelic, but also strangely fierce. Nanaster stood back as the Russian, and a monster of a human being whom Nanaster recognized as the man this niqab-wearing Russian woman had been pointing a gun at not five minutes ago, took hold of the wounded man’s shoulder. Three males who looked Syrian, and who acted like they were part of this team, took the wounded man’s legs and all of them carried him gently down into the wadi where the depression provided some cover.

  And then, suddenly, the whole side of the hill disappeared in an explosion that was almost volcanic. The enormous percussion shook the earth and knocked everyone to the ground. The heat flash was unbearable and Nanaster, on her knees, found herself panting, starved of oxygen, the smell of her own singed hair in the back of her mouth. She thought she had been spirited through the gates of hell itself.

  Almost as quickly the heat was gone, moving out across the desert with the shock wave. Nanaster managed to lift herself up. Jesus, Hellfire missiles. Their signature was unmistakable. Someone sitting in the comfort of an air-conditioned control booth who-knew-where had fired them. Had the intention been to save them, or kill them? If it was to save them, the wadi had done that, along with the line of vehicles, a shield which was now mostly burning. Up on that hill, survival would have been impossible.

  ***

  Several vehicles were spared from the explosion, protected by the lay of the land and other vehicles that had taken the brunt. One of these was the ambulance. The Russian woman wouldn't let Nanaster anywhere near Cooper while she cleaned the dirt and the blood away from his face and head.

  Are they lovers? Nanaster wondered while she prepared a shot of antibiotics, and another of morphine should it be required. She climbed in the back of the ambulance to administer the drugs and looked down on the man’s face. Her heart stopped beating – his eyes were open. Was there recognition in them? He stared up at her.

  His Adam’s apple worked up and down as if loading words into his throat like cartridges racking into a twelve-gauge. But then he slipped back into unconsciousness, the words left unsaid.

  Fifty-five

  Ronald V. Small @realSmall

  Air Force One now has a putting green WITH REAL GRASS! Next president, you’re welcome!

  It was a nice day, but not for a funeral. No day is good for one of those when the person being sent off is a man in the prime of life, which has ended violently and to no purpose. A detachment from the United States Army 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Bo’s outfit, came to see him off. There were a lot of folks there on that sunny day, standing on the hill at Arlington National Cemetery. I didn’t know many of them. Bo was married, but they hadn't gotten around to having kids, so I guess that was something. I introduced myself to his wife, whose name was Jo. Bo and Jo. BoJo, they called themselves. Every couple needs a name. Jo was pretty – tall and shapely with intelligent eyes and a great booty. It’s a funeral, but you still take note of these things. Well, I do.

  Seven men fired into the sky three times, drilled to within an inch of their lives to do it right. They did it right. Not sure that’s the kind of send-off I want when it’s my time. I’d rather folks get drunk and tell jokes. Bad ones. The kind I tell, apparently.

  Okay, so I’ll confess here that I didn’t feel great about the way this operation had gone, and I was mulling it over as I stood in the sunshine with Sergeant Alvin Leaphart and Sergeant Jimmy McVeigh, listening to the preacher talk about God and sacrifice and His bountiful blessings and all the associated bullshit about resurrection and so forth. Religion, what got us into this mess.

  The Russian president was dead, killed by ISIS so the official story went. There was no concrete evidence of US involvement, other than a desperate attempt to rescue him that had failed. He had a great big fucking funeral, though – horse-drawn gun carriages, booming cannons, a million flags at half mast, parades up and down Moscow streets, thousands of mourning citizens and a legion of unknown women who wished they’d had the chance to kick him square in the nuts. Or maybe cut them off. Petrovich would be pleased to know that his funeral is now a YouTube video.

  The Russians got their general back. General Yegorov had suffered a little wear and tear that he would no doubt have nightmares about for the rest of his life, but he was otherwise okay. My team pulled him from a cave while they were mopping up the last of the Scorpion’s followers. I was seeing stars at the time. The Kremlin also got its Cheget back, but the significance of its return was purely symbolic. The entire Russian nuclear launch system had to be ripped out and a new one installed. They’re still working on that. And still threatening us with a pre-emptive strike. Better hurry. North Korea might beat them to the punch. Or China. Take a number, right? I wouldn't be at all surprised if the outfit that won the tender to design and install Russia’s new system was a dummy CIA company. Thinking about it, is there any other kind of CIA company?

  And, on the subject of the CIA, Associate Deputy Director Bradley Chalmers send me a get-well card. We both know he hoped infection would set in. And it still might. There’s a small titanium plate and other bits and pieces of hardware in the space between my ears now. I’m hopeful of being able to receive radio transmissions if I tilt my head just so. Chalmers – he has a lot of explaining to do, something he has so far neatly sidestepped. I don't like where he is, sitting up there high on the totem pole, but I can't do anything about it. Although I am hoping the universe gives me the opportunity sometime in the future to push him off because, where he’s sitting at the moment, it’s a hell of a long way to fall.

  Bringing the Scorpion back alive, I am told, was a blot on my copybook. He was meant to die on that hillside and a lot of people were surprised when he was flown to the States cooked medium rare, but still among the living. It had been my intention to end his days, I had even cocked my weapon to put a nine-millimeter full stop on his life, but, as they say, shit happens. Currently, there’s a fight over what to do with him, where to imprison him. And, as I personally foretold, there are a bunch of people bleating about his civil rights. Gotta laugh. Nevertheless, the Mahdi, as he was but is no longer being called, has been paraded around the media in bandages and prison orange, and because of this has lost all his shine in the Islamic world. The so-called army of the faithful on the Turkish border melted away almost immediately news of his capture was splashed around the globe. The Turks were thrilled to get their tanks back.

  Meanwhile, the imams have been telling anyone who’ll listen that Al-Aleaqarab was an imposter because the apocalypse he promised didn’t happen. But don't you worry about it, they insist, the real one will be along any time soon. Why? Because it is written in the Qur’an. Seems everyone loves a good Chicken Little story, apparently even Mohammad.

  As for our commander-in-chief, the less said the better. I really don't want to think or talk about him, just like I don't want to think or talk about the guy who killed John Lennon. Some people don’t deserve consideration. And also, around here, you never know who might be listening.

  Last on the list of details, the phone SIMs we recovered from the Scorpion’s fighters on the hill overlooking the warehouse were turned over to the Military Intelligence and the NSA. Don’t know what they contained, and will never find out.

  The
preacher finished his sermon about the awful choices God has to make, taking those we love to a better place. And it made me think. Let’s say there is a God. He has to have one fucked-up sense of humor, right? He set up three competing religions on the one patch of turf, and then gave one of them all the gas. Laughing all the way to the pearly gates, I’m sure. If that doesn't tell you what we’re dealing with, you’ve got no sense of the ridiculous.

  But, my mind has been wandering. Back to Bo’s funeral. “Amen,” said the preacher and this was repeated by most of us standing around the coffin, which was then lowered into the ground. Jo picked up a handful of dirt and sprinkled it on the casket. A line of people followed her example and then we were left to our own devices.

  “Major,” said Sergeant Leaphart. He saluted me, I gave him one back, and then we shook hands. “I’d do it all again, boss,” he said. “Well, maybe not all of it.” There was a motion at the mound of dirt inside the ropes. “What I mean is, if you decide to go round again, put in a word for me.”

  “Me too, boss.” Sergeant Jimmy McVeigh saluted and we shook. He asked me, “You gonna come to the wake?”

  I’m not a fan of wakes, at least not until I discover where the good scotch is stashed. “I’ll be there.”

  “We’ll have a drink then,” he said.

  “More than one, I hope.”

  “Yes, sir. Thanks, Vin.”

  First names. A serious break of protocol between enlisted man and officer. It made me feel good.

  We stood there for a moment. “This was a tough break, sir,” Alvin reassured me. “Not your fault.”

  I knew that, but when one of the guys in your unit gets whacked you ask yourself what you might have done different. Especially when, as I said, Bo lost his life to no good purpose. McVeigh, Leaphart and I couldn't shake, because we’d already done that, and doing it twice would feel weird, so the parting at the graveside felt awkward. I stood there, watching people go and just thought about stuff.