The Secret Weapon

by Bradley Wright

  King closed his eyes and let his mind go quiet. The wood was crackling. The heat was beginning to make him sweat. For some reason Bentley came to mind. Had she escaped her kidnapper and made a run for it? Did she use Althea’s passport to do so? It seemed unlikely that Bentley would have had another woman’s passport, but he’d seen crazier things. Maybe she had been planning to use Althea’s identity the entire time.

  He pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the gun resting in his hand. On getting ready to shoot.

  Three gunshots from a pistol finally broke the silence. King spun to his right around the fire and shot three times at the first man he saw. The gunfire from the terrorists came heavy. None of it was aimed at him, so he had to make Sam’s distraction count. He fired twice more at the man down the road, who finally dropped. He moved his weapon to the next man who was turning his automatic rifle in King’s direction. King squeezed the trigger three more times, hitting the man somewhere in the chest. Then he saw two men running in Sam’s direction.

  He heard her fire a few more times, but the men kept running. King shot twice more at them, but before he could hit either of them, the slide locked back on his Glock. His magazine was empty. He jammed the gun down in his pocket and ran around the fire in Sam’s direction. If he ran at the right angle, he might be able to catch up to the shooters in between houses. Sam flashed by in the gap between walls; she was firing behind her as she ran. King hit a sprint in two steps. As he entered between the two houses, a man came running right in front of him. King dove and missed the first man, but managed to get his right arm hooked around the man’s waist who was running behind the first, taking him down to the ground.

  The man rolled over and popped up to his feet. Thanks to the light of the fire from behind him, King could see the man point his gun at him. King rolled and kicked the inside of the man’s left thigh, knocking him off balance. The man’s shots went wide, thumping into the ground right beside King. The gun was so close that King’s ears were ringing from the blasts. He popped up to his feet and managed to get his hands around the barrel.

  Pop-pop, pop-pop-pop!

  He heard shots off to his right and behind him. His hearing was still off, but it sounded like a pistol. King pushed the man’s gun away from him as he kicked down on his kneecap. The man buckled and King was able to rip the weapon away from him, smash his nose with the butt of the AK-47, then turn it around in his hands and hold down the trigger until the man clutching his knee fell over dead.

  The AK clicked and the magazine was empty. Other than the crackling of the wood in the fire, there wasn’t another sound for miles. Then he heard a man groaning out in front of him on the other side of the house, somewhere out in the dirt road.

  King began walking in that direction. He dropped the AK, took his Glock out of his left pocket and his only spare mag out of his right. He slid it in place and racked the slide.

  “Sam!” his shout was loud in the silent village. “Sam!”

  “I’m okay.” Her voice was several yards behind him.

  He was relieved to hear her. It had been her pistol that had made the other gunshots a moment ago. He walked around the last house and into the open road. In front of him, on his right, was what looked like a small outdoor market. The dirt road turned into wood planking beneath some tables and a tent. Through the legs on one of the tables, he saw a man disappear into the floor, pulling a door shut over his head.

  Saajid wasn’t dead.

  King scanned the perimeter. He didn’t see any other movement. There were a few figures standing in the doorways of the houses now. King imagined if this monster had a family, they were probably watching. He kept his gun at the ready. Sam had caught up to him and walked along with him on his right.

  “I think it’s him,” Sam whispered. “I thought I hit him in the head. Must have been a little low.”

  They both walked around the tables set up on the wood-planked floor, over to the door on the floor, beside some baskets used to hold fruit. As King kneeled down, they saw blood on the wood beside the door. Sam was right, she had hit him. But now he couldn’t help but feel as though they were getting ready to step down into a hornet’s nest.

  King felt Sam’s hand on his arm. When he looked up at her, she was looking off into the distance. She pointed to her ear, then back behind them. King tuned in, and he could hear what she was talking about. There was a faint sound of a vehicle kicking up dust. Someone was coming.

  Saajid had called for backup.

  It was time to end this before Saajid could wriggle his way out of it. Hundreds if not thousands of lives depended on it. King took the handle of the half-hidden door in his hands. He could hear what now sounded like a large truck rolling closer and closer. He pulled open the door and pitch black stared back at him.

  Pure evil awaited them below. Facing it was the only way to keep it from spreading up above. King looked back up at Sam, and she gave him a nod.

  They were ready.

  45

  King looked back and watched Sam lower the door behind her. There was still an orange glow from the fire visible through the cracks behind her. She walked down the steps and sidled up to him. He then turned back to the darkness. There was no more crackle from the fire to be heard, no wind blowing through the trees, just the sound of King’s own heartbeat thrumming in his ears.

  The hallway they were walking through was only about six feet wide. The smell was wet dirt, and the temperature was a few degrees cooler than outside. King was hoping his eyes would adjust, but no matter how long he was down there, he wouldn’t be able to see in such darkness. He stepped forward slowly. One foot in front of the other. His gun held firmly out in front of him—finger on the trigger. He was staying low, as if that would somehow protect him if bullets began to fly.

  King put his left hand out and felt for the wall. He dragged his fingers along until the wall disappeared. He moved to his left into the void and began to feel around. His hand came across something wooden. It felt like a dresser, maybe a desk. He ran his hand along the top of it. It was smooth, and it was strange to feel something so modern down in what seemed like a dug-out cave. His fingers ran over a book; he could feel the hardback cover give way to pages. He continued on until he felt something metal. It felt like the base of a lamp. He followed the metal upward until his hand hit a chain. He pulled it, the light came on, and to his surprise, his eyes found a fully functioning office. Even more surprising was that he was alone in the room.

  Sam hadn’t followed him in.

  Panic moved through him. He was standing in an office that reminded him of his father’s office from the early ’90s. Cherrywood furniture everywhere. It was like he had walked down into a cave and gone back in time. It disoriented him for a moment as he tried to process what he’d found.

  He heard a door slam and a woman scream. It wasn’t Sam, but that didn’t make it any less harrowing. King moved back out into the hallway where he could finally see. Ahead there were two more doors and also an intersection with another hallway.

  “Put it down or I’ll shoot.”

  He heard Sam’s voice, but it was muffled. She must have made it inside one of the doors. King knew she had to have heard something she thought was dire, otherwise she would never have moved in without him. King rushed forward and pushed open the first door past the intersecting hallway. It was a bathroom, and it was empty. He ran forward to the only other visible door and pushed it in. When he entered the room, he saw one of the most terrifying scenes he’d ever witnessed. The room was cast in the yellow light of a small candle. Immediately on his right was Sam. She was holding her gun out in front of her, ready to fire. It was what she was aiming at that took his breath.

  Saajid Hammoud was standing against the back wall, holding a large knife to the throat of a young boy. Saajid was wearing a white traditional thobe, a black turban on his head, and his white beard glowed against his dark tan skin. His eyes were wide—mad with rage. Blood covered his white
garment, probably from Sam’s bullet on the street. King and Sam were staring at a man who had lost his mind. On the floor, at his feet, was a woman lying on the ground, blood running from her throat. In the corner a young girl was in a fetal position, whimpering softly.

  “I said put it down, or I will shoot you,” Sam said again.

  King tucked his gun at the small of his back. “Do what she said, Saajid.”

  Saajid moved his wild eyes from Sam to King. “It’s you, isn’t it? You killed my brother. You had Anastasia, Gregor, and Andonios killed, didn’t you?”

  “Put down the knife.”

  “I won’t let you kill any more of my family. I’ll take them with me to the next life myself.”

  “Saajid, put it down,” King said. “Your family doesn’t have to die for your bad decisions. They can still live a happy life.”

  “Where? In America?!” He spit on the ground. “I’ll never let you corrupt my family! At least in death they will remain pure!”

  King’s approach wasn’t working. If there ever had been any humanity inside this man, it was gone now. King would have just shot him, but the way Saajid was holding his own son—holding him up by the back of his shirt with the knife under his chin—King was afraid that when Saajid dropped dead, the knife might kill the boy anyway.

  “Just put the knife down, Saajid!” Sam shouted.

  King could hear the truck now right above them. Perhaps it was Saajid’s strategy to hold out until his backup arrived. If it was Saajid’s men, King and Sam were dead. What he couldn’t do was let Saajid kill these children. The look on the horrified boy’s face was enough to take years off a man’s life.

  King took a step forward. He was hoping that being unarmed would give Saajid the notion that he had a chance at killing King.

  In his periphery King heard a crash. He jerked his head around and watched Sam fall face-first onto the floor, a vase clattering down around her. He turned and punched the woman running at him in the forehead so hard he thought he broke her neck. She dropped as fast as Sam had. Both were unconscious.

  King spun back toward Saajid just in time to get a forearm up to stop the knife from sliding into his neck. He saw the boy jump over Sam and dive into his sister’s arms. Both of them were safe. Now he could focus on Saajid.

  Saajid was a small man—tall but wiry. The complete opposite build as his brother. And unlike Husaam, Saajid would not be able to put up much of a fight.

  King grabbed Saajid’s knife hand by the wrist. He bent it in such a way that it cracked in half. Saajid screamed in pain, and the knife dropped to the floor. The right hook King landed to Saajid’s jaw knocked several teeth out of his mouth as the impact pushed him back against the wall. The kids in the room screamed. They had no idea that their father was a maniac. A man who’d already killed hundreds, if not thousands, in the name of extremism. They only saw their father getting destroyed. And when King realized they had probably just watched their mother get killed right in front of them, he paused before he made his next move.

  King knew exactly what those children were thinking. He had been in their shoes, over fifteen years ago. And though he didn’t know it at the time, his father was a maniac as well. King had never recovered from watching his mother die. It was the very reason he was standing in the middle of a foreign country, putting his life on the line, so that his fellow Americans wouldn’t ever have to experiences situations exactly like this. Though it had brought King years of endless pain and suffering, the tragedy he witnessed on his own front lawn was the reason he could keep more bad things from happening to innocent people. And it was probably the only way these children wouldn’t grow up to be like their father. So he knew that for them there was still hope. But he couldn’t make it worse. They didn’t need to see what he was about to do. Because it was going to be worse than any nightmare they would ever have otherwise.

  Sitting in the corner opposite his children, Saajid was trying to stop the blood that was running from his mouth.

  Meanwhile, Sam was coming to.

  “Are you okay, Sam?”

  She rose to her knees, looked slowly around the room, and nodded.

  “Can you get them out of here?” King said, gesturing to the children.

  Sam stood and gathered them in front of her. They didn’t fight her. They didn’t want to see what was about to happen. The woman King had knocked out rolled over on the floor. She was still disoriented.

  “That’s Jamila Salameh, Saajid’s sister,” Sam said, shuffling the kids out into the hallway.

  King picked up Jamila under her arms and placed her on the floor by the wall next to her brother. Though he didn’t want to do it, he was going to have to say things to them that he would never do, trying his best to convince them that he would.

  King just hoped it was enough to make both Saajid and Jamila stop whatever destruction they had planned next.

  46

  King moved over to the bed and took the blanket that was lying on top of it. He walked over and covered the dead woman on the floor.

  “Who is this?” King said as he pointed to the woman.

  Saajid and Jamila both stared back at him.

  “You had so much to say out by the fire, Saajid, what happened?”

  Saajid spit more blood on the floor.

  Jamila decided to be his mouthpiece. “What you have done here, there is no reason for you to feel proud of yourself. It means nothing.”

  King walked over and stood in front of them. “I’m fully aware that you mean nothing. It’s your brainwashed followers that concern me now. Tell me what else you have planned.”

  Jamila laughed at him. King recognized that he had something in common with these terrible human beings. It seemed that like him, they weren’t afraid to die. He assumed that because they had caused so much death, they were desensitized to it all. The way they interpreted their holy book, they likely believed they would be rewarded for all of their “work.”

  “Never,” Jamila said.

  King looked at Saajid. His black eyes were focused on King’s, as if trying to will him to fall over dead. “If you don’t tell me what the next plan is, I’ll kill both of your children, right in front of you.” The words tasted sour as they exited King’s mouth.

  “If you knew anything about me,” Saajid said, his words coming out stilted, probably from a broken jaw, “and if you knew anything about my faith, you would know that threatening me with my children would make no difference. We willingly sacrifice for our god. You wouldn’t know anything about this.”

  “You’re right,” King nodded. “I wouldn’t. My God would never ask me to make that sacrifice.”

  This was the first time he saw a reaction. There was a look in Saajid’s eye that suggested he wouldn’t tolerate King questioning his faith. It was his button.

  King began to push. “Furthermore, my God wouldn’t ask me to live in solitude while I did it. If what you believe is so righteous, why do you have to hide from the world?”

  King realized once again that he had more in common with this terrorist than he thought. He too had been living in solitude for the past year; he too had been hiding from the world.

  Saajid sat up. “Because the world doesn’t understand. Most of my own people don’t understand. They take the word of God and twist it to whatever fits what feels good to them. And Allah’s word says that this type of behavior must be punished!”

  “And you think murdering people is the way to do that?” King said. “Have you ever thought that maybe it is you who is twisting the words of your god to fit what you want? To feel powerful? To impose your beliefs on others as if you are God yourself?”

  Saajid rose to his feet.

  King pulled the gun from the small of his back. “Tell me what you have planned, or I’ll kill your sister right now.”

  Saajid’s daughter came running back into the room. “Our people won’t do anything in America without him telling them to!”

  “Aaleyah!” S
aajid shouted. He lunged forward, but King stepped in front of him and threw his shoulder into Saajid’s chest. Saajid whipped backward and crashed to the floor.

  “I heard him say it earlier, before he hit my mother,” Aaleyah continued.

  “Aaleyah, stop!” Jamila shouted.

  King looked back at the girl. There was resoluteness in her eyes. She’d seen her father do enough; King could tell she was ready to end this too. King had no choice but to believe her. And it didn’t matter if he didn’t, because Saajid wasn’t going to reveal his plans regardless. King just had to trust those plans would all fall apart without their leader.

  Sam pulled the girl back out into the hall while King pulled Saajid up to a sitting position, pressing his gun to his head.

  Saajid looked into King’s eyes. “Now who is playing God?”

  Sam came back into the room. “I hear people above us. We have to go!”

  As the words left her mouth, a pop and a hissing sound rang out in the hallway behind them, followed by the children’s screams.

  Tear gas. King knew it immediately. What also calculated instantly was that it wasn’t Saajid’s men. It had to be the crew that Deputy Director Rodgers had sent from Athens. They knew Sam was here, so he didn’t think they would just come in shooting, but he couldn’t take that chance. He sprinted past Sam and the kids in the hallway. He closed his eyes and dragged his hands along both sides of the wall to guide him.

  “Americans!” King shouted. “We’re Americans!”

  The tear gas was getting thick, and when he shouted, he took some in. His throat and eyes began to burn, and he was coughing as he tripped over the first step. He heard the door open above him. “Sam Harrison is down here!” He coughed again as he held up his arms. “I have Saajid, don’t shoot!”

  Through watery eyes he saw the four men lower their guns.

  “Get Sam and the children out. I’ll get Saajid!” King said in between coughs.