And Into the Fire

by Robert Gleason

  She and her friends entered the compound. They were facing concrete steps—so steep and vertiginous they looked as if they touched the stars. But they only led to the mountain summit, on which was perched a fortress-like mansion.

  “There must be a thousand steps,” Rashid said.

  “Nope, 663,” Elena said.

  “And we’ll be monitored every step of the way,” Jules added.

  “He’s a dead shot with a .300 caliber, bolt-action Winchester mag,” Elena said.

  “It’s a sniper rifle,” Jules explained.

  “He has one on a tripod facing down these steps in the event of unwelcome intruders,” Elena said, “such as nosy reporters.”

  “He just shoots around them, scaring them back down the mountain,” Jules said, “which is why Elena and I will lead the way. He knows us.”

  “I can’t guarantee he won’t take a few potshots at me,” Elena said as she and Jules started up the mountain.

  Three steps up, a rifle shot blew a baseball-sized chunk of concrete out of the steps two feet to Elena’s right.

  Reluctantly, hesitatingly, Adara and Rashid took up the rear.

  “Just his way of saying ‘good to see you,’” Elena said.

  “I would hate to see him really antisocial,” Adara said.

  “Oh, you’ll see that, too,” Jules said.

  They continued up the steps with Rashid counting them out one by one until Adara slapped him in the back of the head. After the first hundred, all the breath had run out of him anyway, and he was heaving and wheezing. Then the sky cracked open and rain poured down on them. Still, they continued upward.

  As they neared the summit, Elena began counting out the last two dozen concrete steps. They were now facing the mansion’s massive stone porch and its heavy oak door with a huge brass knocker in the shape of a rhinoceros head.

  “Can you stop a minute?” Adara said, panting. “My pulse is ringing in my ears.”

  She sat on the porch’s floor.

  “Mine’s hammering in the high hundreds,” Rashid said, sitting down next to her.

  “Lazy sluts,” Elena said.

  She bounded up the porch steps and banged the knocker hard.

  The door opened a couple of inches.

  “As I live and barely breathe,” John C. Jameson said and stepped outside onto the porch.

  He was big—six two, over 220. Decked out in a short black karate gi, he looked fit. His eyes were brown, his hair the same color but lighter. Pressed against his right thigh, he had a nickel-plated .45 magnum semiautomatic Desert Eagle—the most powerful semiautomatic pistol made.

  “Hi Jamie,” Elena said, using his old nickname. “The prodigal girlfriend returns.”

  Jules noticed the magnum was cocked but not locked.

  “Let us in,” Elena said. “We need to talk.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “For old times’ sake,” Elena said.

  “That’s a joke, right?” Jameson said.

  “Come on, Jamie. It’s me, Jules. We’re soaked to the bone.”

  “We got nowhere else to go,” Elena said.

  “You can go to hell,” Jamie said.

  “We just came from there,” Jules said.

  “I know,” Jamie said. “You’re all over the news.”

  “Then you know you have to let us in,” Jules said.

  “Do the words ‘aiding and abetting’ mean anything to you?” Jamie asked.

  “‘Life without hope of parole’?”

  “It’s not what you think,” Elena said.

  “Thirteen agents dead in a mall parking lot?” Jamie asked.

  “They dealt the play,” Elena said.

  “Too bad you didn’t leave anyone alive to testify to it,” Jamie said.

  “We can testify to it,” Jules said.

  “Not to me. I’ve had some ring time with you two in case you forgot.” He stared at Elena a long angry moment.

  “You’re a hard man, Jamie,” Elena said.

  “Only in the heart.”

  “But you’re going to help us, right?” Jules asked.

  “With every survival instinct in my brain blinking red?”

  “Please,” Elena said. Her eyes looked like they were tearing but maybe it was just some rain drizzling down her face from her hair.

  Jamie shook his head. “You got a lot of chutzpah, coming up here like this, like you care, like we’re long-lost buddies.”

  “I do care,” Elena said. “I never stopped caring, and if you don’t help, they’re going to kill us.”

  “It’ll improve your character,” Jamie said.

  “Just listen to us,” Adara said, pushing her way to the top of the stairs between Jamie and Elena. “You don’t like what you hear, we’re out of here, like somebody fired a gun. I swear.”

  Jameson let out a long exasperated sigh. Slowly, reluctantly, he opened the door and let them in.

  Their shoes were soaked, so they took them off by the door. Elena led them through the vestibule. Along the walls were glass-enclosed bookcases filled with pre-Columbian statuary. They then entered the living room. The size of a basketball court, it had a twenty-foot ceiling and black shag carpeting so thick the fibers reached their ankles. The furniture was polished blond oak and white, overstuffed leather. Tables were everywhere, most of them overflowing with computer monitors and keyboards. Three ninety-six-inch HD flat-screen TVs were hung on the interior brick walls.

  Jamie brought out a stack of thick white bath towels and several terry cloth bathrobes. They discreetly slipped out of their wet clothes and slipped on the bathrobes. They then sat on big stuffed leather armchairs in front of a huge fieldstone fireplace. In its massive, fire-blackened maw, oak logs blazed. The four guests pulled the chairs as close to the hearth as they could get. They needed the heat to dry their clothes and skin.

  Elena brought them glasses and bottles of Rémy and Saint-Emilion to warm their insides and a couple of coolers filled with iced Heinekens.

  Jameson sat on a stuffed leather armchair. His feet were up on a hassock. They all sipped drinks and listened to Elena explain their situation.

  “Now,” Elena concluded, “you have heard just about everything.”

  “In nut-cracking, skull-crushing detail,” Jameson said.

  “Do you understand our problem?” Elena said.

  “You’re saying that ISIS—which is famous for decapitating its enemies and stringing their heads from lamp posts and electrical towers—has joined forces with Pakistan’s biggest terrorist group, and with the help of the Saudis’ American ambassador, Shaiq ibn Ishaq, and the ISI’s General Jari ibn Hamza, it is now in possession of nuclear weapons.”

  “Exactly,” Adara said.

  “Now they’re sending teams armed with nukes to the U.S.,” Jameson said. “They’re going to incinerate a couple of major cities and at least one nuclear site.”

  “And that’s just round one,” Elena said.

  “And their reason?” Jamie asked.

  “To drag the U.S. into a full-scale, all-out war against Dar al-Islam, starting initially in the Mideast,” Elena said.

  “They say they ‘yearn for the End of Days,’” Jules said.

  “They aren’t very tightly wrapped,” Adara explained.

  “Correct,” Elena said.

  “And you say since the president of the United States is in the pocket of Shaiq,” Jameson continued, “he will not go against him?”

  “He will not acknowledge this coming cataclysm,” Jules said.

  “He’s blinded by Shaiq’s money,” Elena said.

  “And his own avarice,” Jules added.

  “Instead,” Jameson said, “Shaiq, the president, and his pet snake, Conrad, see you as the threat.”

  “So much so that Shaiq and the president each sent a team of shooters after us,” Elena said.

  “Whom you unceremoniously dispatched in that D.C. mall parking lot,” Jameson said.

  Elena and J
ules stared at him, quiet.

  “What do you think?” Adara finally asked, breaking the silence.

  “That you four want to kick the hellgate off its hinges and hope I’ll help you,” Jameson said.

  “Shaiq and General Jari want to do that,” Rashid said. “These women just want to stop them.”

  “Who says you guys are needed?” Jameson asked. “These nuclear installations already have security forces in place.”

  “You’re talking low-wage, part-time rent-a-cops who couldn’t deter a team of cheerleaders,” Elena said.

  “High school cheerleaders,” Jules said.

  “Hasad’s last e-mail said that ISIS and TTP had people working in the plant,” Elena said. “They’ll have insiders helping them every step of the way.”

  “You claim they can infiltrate these plants at will?” Jameson said.

  “Piece of cake,” Jules said.

  “So what do you want from me?” Jameson asked.

  “You created the best computer security systems in the world—systems designed to resist every possible hack attack known to God and man,” Elena said. “Your firm installed those systems for half the nations on the planet—systems that protect their military establishments, their energy grids, their telecommunications networks, their intelligence agencies.”

  “Which means,” Jules said, “you know how to circumvent your own systems and how to penetrate them.”

  Jameson stared at them, silent.

  “Come on,” Elena said. “You don’t trust these assholes any more than I do. I can’t believe you didn’t install back doors into those systems just in case you ever wanted in.”

  Jameson’s face remained expressionless, empty of any affect or connotation.

  “We need Jari’s plans for the attack,” Jules said, “and we need to know what Shaiq has on President Caldwell.”

  “Should I throw in the combination to the Fort Knox vault as well?” Jameson asked.

  “You could throw in some operating capital,” Elena said.

  “For what?” Jameson asked.

  “Somebody has to stop these bastards,” Elena said.

  “And how do you plan on doing that?” Jamie asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” Elena said. “All of it’s illegal.”

  “You guys are full of good news,” Jameson said.

  “‘Good news’ is our middle name,” Jules said.

  “Will you recognize these terrorists when you see them?” Jameson asked.

  “Sure,” Elena said. “They’ll be wearing robes, riding camels and reading the Koran.”

  “And when you find them?” Jameson asked.

  “We’ll kill them,” Elena said.

  “Think of it as bridging the cultural divide,” Jules said.

  “And no one in Washington can help you?” Jameson asked.

  “Looking for that D.C. daisy chain to do anything,” Jules said, “is like looking for cherries in an El Paso whorehouse.”

  “Say all this is true. You really think Caldwell and his cronies would conceal evidence of an impending terrorist attack on the U.S.?” Jamie asked.

  “It’s happened before,” Elena said. “If Caldwell and Conrad are anything like Bush and Cheney, they are probably hoping for it. You know what Bush-Cheney did the summer before 9/11? They had the CIA’s top anti-terrorist officials pounding on the table and yelling at them, ‘The terrorists are coming here. We’re going to be struck hard, and they’re going to kill a lot of people.’ One of the CIA’s major antiterrorism officials told them, ‘The roof has fallen in!’ Yet the Bush people did nothing.”

  “And then, when 9/11 hit, Bush and Cheney benefited from it,” Jules said. “The attack even got them reelected.”

  “And got them the Patriot Act,” Elena said.

  “They almost pulled off a hostile takeover of Iraq’s oil industry,” Jameson said.

  “It’ll be worse this time,” Jules argued. “General Tommy Franks, who led the Iraq invasion, told me once in an interview that after the first nuclear terrorist strike, our Congress will rip the constitution to shreds and hand the country over to a military despot.”

  “It’s not impossible,” Jamie had to agree. “The Roman senate gave Caesar Augustus total power in the name of stability and peace.”

  “Of course, they got neither,” Elena pointed out.

  “They got two or three centuries of conquest and empire,” Jules said.

  “‘Perpetual war for perpetual peace,’” Elena said.

  “‘The savage wars of peace,’” Jules added.

  Jameson stared at them a long moment. “I guess the question now is, how are you guys feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been rode hard and put up wet,” Jules said.

  “My stomach’s starting to think my throat’s been cut,” Elena said.

  “We’ve been up for forty-eight hours,” Adara explained.

  “And in the same clothes,” Rashid said.

  “You smell like it,” Jameson said. “Why don’t you take four of the rear bedrooms—any ones you want—and clean up. They each have a bathroom, towels, and toiletries. The refrigerator’s full of beer and deli stuff. You’re safe here.”

  “But not for long,” Elena said. “Caldwell and his crew have been on us like white on rice, like cold on ice.”

  “Like stink on shit,” Jules said.

  “You’re full of good news,” Jamie said.

  “I’m not going to piss in your pocket and tell you it’s raining,” Elena said. “Help us, and you could get hurt.”

  “I could get hurt getting oral sex,” Jamie said.

  “Just so you aren’t getting it in Leavenworth,” Jules said.

  “Then I better come up with a game changer,” Jamie said evenly.

  “If you don’t,” Elena said, “Caldwell and buddies change it for all of us.”

  “Let me start by getting you that intel you asked about,” Jamie said.

  “That would be a great start,” Elena said.

  “Among other things,” Jules said, “I hear the head in Leavenworth is really bad.”

  PART X

  Therefore shall [Babylon’s] plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire. And the kings of the earth shall bewail her, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more …

  —Revelation 18:8–11

  1

  I’m sick of playing hostage to their fortunes.

  —President George Caldwell

  The president and William Conrad sat in the Oval Office on overstuffed chairs upholstered in black silk. Between them was an end table of Western Red Cedar, on which sat a liter bottle of Rémy Martin Napoléon 1738 Accord Royal Cognac.

  “Thirteen dead shooters in a D.C. mall?” the president asked. “All of them head shots and two women did all that?” the president asked, unable to get his head around it.

  “Yes, and we were supposed to ambush them, not the other way around.”

  “What happened?” the president asked.

  “Our guys never saw it coming,” Conrad said.

  “Where did you find these clowns?”

  “They weren’t clowns,” Conrad said. “They were our best.”

  “Then Elena’s even better at this shit than we’d imagined,” the president said.

  “And now she’s split,” Director Conrad said.

  “And taken that New York reporter, Jules Meredith, with her?” the president asked.

  “It seems so,” Conrad said, “but we can’t find hide nor hair of either of them.”

  “We have no clues at all?”

  “Like they vanished into the void.”

  “But not before Meredith leaked that piece to The Huffington Post,” Caldwell said.

  “She quoted an unnamed CIA source as saying that Pakistani agents told us about an ISIS/TTP alliance, whi
ch is preparing nuclear strikes against the U.S.”

  “She connected me financially to Shaiq ibn Ishaq,” Caldwell said. “But Meredith doesn’t have any proof to back that claim up, does she?”

  “No,” Conrad said. “But she knows which rocks to look under.”

  “Any minute, Meredith could be back online, exposing our offshore, tax-free accounts, further connecting us to Shaiq.”

  “We have to take them off the board,” Conrad said.

  “We tried before,” the president said. “All we got were thirteen dead shooters.”

  “For us, their disappearance is the difference between freedom and prison.”

  “I don’t know,” the president said.

  “Suppose they put you in a cell with an eight-hundred-pound, muscle-bound, tattoo-freak psychopath?”

  “I’d have to reconsider my position on gay marriage,” the president said.

  “Then there it is,” Conrad said. “We have to find those women—fast.”

  “When you do,” the president asked, “can I call in a napalm strike?”

  “I’m ready to nuke the bitches,” Conrad said.

  “Let’s do it,” the president said. “I’m sick of playing hostage to their fortunes.”

  “I’m talking war to the knife, sir,” Conrad said.

  “Then let’s blow up their fucking shit,” the president said.

  2

  Eyes empty as void, unreadable as God.

  When Elena came out of the bathroom into the bedroom, she had towels wrapped around her hair and her body. Jameson was waiting for her with a plate full of ham and Swiss on rye and a half dozen Heinekens in a bucket of ice. He opened a bottle for her, then took a swig of his own.

  “I still have a lot of your clothes here,” Jamie said. “I gave Jules and Adara some of them. I gave Rashid some of mine.”

  “Thanks.” She began eating a sandwich.

  “What’s your take on Caldwell?” Jameson asked.

  “This country’s about to go up in flames,” she said, drinking a beer, “and all he’s probably thinking about is how to make another dirty buck off the Saudis.”

  “I had some business dealings with him before he took office,” Jamie said. “We used to say ‘he’d take the dimes off a dead man’s eyes and put back nickels.’”