A Boy and His Corpse (18 page)

             
Dammit, Mr. Rovas. What happened after I left?

              “I’m calling the Vice-President,” Tom Mitchum said.

              “No!” Rosewater shouted, much louder than he wanted to.

              “He needs to get out of the air and get over here. We need to discuss this.”

              Rosewater walked over to his advisor, and put his hand on his shoulder. He used the same calm, reassuring grip he used when he pressed Proletariat flesh.

              “Tom, please take a seat,” Rosewater told him. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

              The advisor stopped pushing buttons on his phone. He stared deeply into the President’s eyes and sat down.

              “It can’t be real,” a blond reporter said on TV. The banner at the bottom of the screen now read: “Breaking News: Afghanistan Possibly Under Attack”.

              “What’s going on?” Tom Mitchum asked.

              The President exhaled. Where should he begin?

James

              James sat in the backseat of the jeep with Mort. He turned and looked out the back at the other jeep. Taylor Gint aimed his camera squarely at him as two other cameramen directed their lenses to the mostly flat terrain. The third member of the camera team sat behind the wheel.

Nimruz Province wasn’t what James typically thought a desert should look like. In other words, it wasn’t like Arizona or Nevada. The air wasn’t as stifling and the sand was a bit “sandier” if that made any sense. There were even some dromedaries walking along the side of the road. It was kind of nice. A light breeze calmed his nerves, and for a moment, it made him think of his last memories with his family. They had taken a road trip and a similar breeze had drifted through the car. But that peaceful feeling dissolved when he remembered where that vacation eventually led him to— Mandolin Arsenal, the bane of his existence.

              James scowled and leaned in forward. “Why’d we leave the main road?”

              The entity looked back and smiled.

              “We’re heading to a cave,” he said, driving with only one hand as he rested his elbow on the back of Herbert’s seat.

              “What do you mean?” Herbert asked. “You said we were going to Pakistan.”

              “We are.”

             
“Then what’s all this junk about going to a cave?” Herbert asked. The sand crunched underneath the jeep’s tires. “Raad doesn’t live in a cave. He lives in a mansion just like all the other dictators.”

              “Yes, but he’s probably not there right now,” the entity said. “He’ll likely be at his secret hideout now that we announced ourselves. Don’t you see? We’re drawing him out of his mouse hole.”

              Herbert crossed his arms and grimaced.

              “I’m sorry. Why did we announce ourselves again?” James asked. “I still don’t get that part of your plan. It seems…foolish, if you don’t mind me saying.

              “It’s not foolish at all,” the entity said. “It’s actually the smartest thing anybody could have possibly done.”

              “You mean dumbest,” Herbert said. “They’re going to be waiting for us now, armed to the teeth. That’s
if
we even make it there.”

              “Oh, we’ll get there alright,” the entity said. “It’s all about the show.”

“About that,” James said. “Is that nutjob behind us part of the Undead Militia, too?”

“Who, Taylor?” The entity asked, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

James nodded.

“Yeah. He’s an interesting guy. Mr. Rovas had him on speed dial just in case he had to expose the Undead Militia for some reason. It’s a little fuzzy in my mind as to why he thought that was a good failsafe, but he did. So I decided to give him a call. He got to the base soon enough, less than half an hour after my call, camera in tow.”

“This plan still doesn’t make any sense,” Herbert said. “Raad’s going to know we’re coming. We’re probably going to get ambushed by the Taliban.”

“Raad thinks too highly of himself to not blow us away on National TV, now that he knows we’re coming. He’ll likely get all of the Taliban to come outside the cave and help him.”

              “You’re just guessing,” Herbert said.

              “Speculating, Herbert. Speculating. There’s a difference. Raad isn’t the paranoid type like some of the other terrorists you’ve taken out. He likes attention. He thrives on it. You should have seen him laughing his ass off after the Tel Aviv incident. If you had studied him more rather than focusing on your waning health, you would know that by now. Raad likes to make a big show of things, which is why I like him.”

Herbert scowled.

“Besides, this will all lead in well with your Undead Wrestling league, or whatever it’s going to be called. And isn’t that what you want for your son in the long run anyway? For him to be happy?”

“What are you getting at, Satan?”

Satan?!
James knew the entity that had taken over Alan was some evil magic, but he never imagined they were dealing with the Devil himself. He stared at the back of the entity’s head without blinking.

“First, please call me Lucifer. I detest the name Satan. It’s ugly. Secondly, after we take out Raad, everybody is going to want to see what else the two of you can do. You’ll have the whole world’s eyes on you before you even have your very first show.”

              James saw the hairs on the back of Herbert’s neck bristle.

“I don’t trust you,” Herbert said.

              “Your loss,” the Devil said.

              There was a great silence in the jeep until James bolstered up the courage to speak up. So what if it was the Devil? He didn’t seem all
that
tough.

              “And what about me? You’re going to keep your promise to me, right?” James asked.

              “That depends. Are you going to keep your promise to
me
?”

              “What do you mean?”

              “You told me that you were going to kill Armand Raad for me when you got the opportunity. Does that offer still stand?”

              It was James’s turn to scowl. Not because he minded the prospect of killing the man—he just killed five people in less than 30 seconds a few miles back and he had no remorse at all. No, it was because he knew, just like Herbert, that this entity, this Devil, had something up his sleeve.

If only there was a way I could get Herbert alone so I could talk to him in private.

              “I always keep my promises,” James said and Herbert spat out the side of the jeep.

              “Like the ones you kept to my boy?”

              “Look, I never promised Alan anything.”

Herbert never turned his face. “When this is all over, I’m going to put you
and
your family in the hospital.”

James balled his fists. “Listen, Herbert, because I’m only going to tell you this once. You can threaten me all you like, but don’t you
dare
threaten my family.”

“It’s not a threat, it’s a promise.”

             
Careful, James. You still want him on your side
, a voice in his head told him, but James was never one to follow his own good advice.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like you were actually around enough to know what kind of ‘promises’ I made to your son in the first place.”

             
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was only out protecting
the country
,” Herbert said, and as he said it, a look of pure hatred settled in his rheumy eyes. “But I don’t have to explain myself to the likes of you. Like I said, as soon as this is all over, watch your back.”

              “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,” James said. He was tired of arguing. He leaned his arm against the side of the jeep and rested his cheek against his palm. “Wake me up when we get there.”

              The moment he closed his eyes, though, he found himself being shaken.

“Get up, we’re here,” the Devil inside Alan said.

              “Huh? What?” James said, but the moment he opened his eyes, he was wide awake.

Through the front windshield James could make out the mouth of a cave, but it was what he saw out the side of the Jeep that made him catch his breath. Four hundred men. And every last one of them carried an AK-47.

             
What have I gotten myself into?

              “It’s show time,” The Devil said again.

He started to glow, and Herbert followed suit.

Herbert

              “I swear, if anything happens to my boy,” Herbert told the Devil.

              “Then it will all be your fault because you didn’t try hard enough,” he said. He turned his head and looked back to James. “You ready?”

              Herbert also looked back and saw James through his green vision. James nodded.

              “You don’t look ready,” Herbert said. “You better bolster up some courage or you’re not going to make it out of here alive.”

              “Yeah, lighten up,” the Devil said. “We’re just going in to kill some heavily armed terrorist. No pressure.”

              “Hey!” a man said in the distance. Everybody in the jeep turned back to look. Stepping out of the mouth of the cave and peeling through two armed men was a slim man with swagger. He had a megaphone at his mouth and wore sunglasses. His hair was combed back and his teeth, even from this far away, looked too white. He wore a suit and tie, even though desert air had to be more than 100 plus degrees today. It was Armand Raad in the flesh. Herbert imagined he would be taller. They were about the same height.

“Okay, let me do all the talking,” the Devil said. Turning around, he shouted to the cameramen behind them.

“Make sure you get all this,” he said.

Taylor Gint nodded and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger again.

The Devil turned back around, cupped his hand around his mouth and spoke. His voice resonated as if he had a megaphone of his own. “Hello.”

Another person came out of the cave. This one was a small, dusky teen who looked to be the same age as Alan. He wore a t-shirt and jeans and had sunken in eyes and trembling lips. Raad said something to him and gave him the megaphone. The teen then spoke for him. 

“Why are you here?” The interpreter asked with barely an accent at all. “Why do you threaten me and my people?”

“I don’t threaten your people,” The Devil said. For less than a second, Herbert actually felt a sense of false pride in his son.

This is what I always truly wanted.

“I only threaten you for what you did to Tel Aviv.”

The interpreter translated for Raad who nodded and said something else. The boy continued.

“Nobody in Pakistan or its surrounding countries sent the bomber into Tel Aviv,” the teen said. “We are not behind this.”

Herbert let his magic seep back into him. The Devil gave a sideways glance and Herbert shrugged.

This could take a while
, Herbert let his eyes say.

“Be that as it may,” the Devil said, turning his attention back to the discussion, “somebody has to pay for what happened. And you have ties to the Taliban, isn’t that right, Mr. Raad? In fact, if my eyes don’t deceive me, aren’t some of the people standing outside your cave rather famous members of the Taliban?”

Raad whispered something to a long-bearded man to his right.

“Keep in mind that all of this is being televised,” the Devil said, throwing his thumb back to all the cameras behind him.

Raad looked to the cameras and whispered into the man’s ear again. When he was done, he spoke to his interpreter again. The teen spoke for his President.

“I have seen the black magic that you are capable of and have brought men from all over as a precautionary measure,” the teen stopped and Raad said some more words to him. “Who are you?”

“It does not matter who we are. What matters is that we represent the United States of America, and we don’t take kindly to those who attack our allies.”