Return to Honor (21 page)

After presenting Kamil with the American President, Hujr was treated royally. Escorted in Kamil’s private staff car, Hujr was whisked away and kept apart—which Hujr interpreted as being kept “aloof”—from the rest of his ALH comrades-in-arms. Even Ghazzali, as his mentor and the undisputed ruler of the ALH, was not permitted access to him. Food, drink, and the exciting pleasures of this drugged nymph kept Hujr entertained.

Kamil had explained that an unprecedented promotion was in store for him; the glory and honor due him for pulling off the kidnapping would have no equal. Kamil had even hinted that President-for-Life Ash’ath might have a royal appointment for him. The President’s personal man-at-arms, perhaps? If this was so, then Hujr would be on call for any nefarious task that Ash’ath deemed necessary.

Hujr knew that he had done well, and for him to single-handedly kidnap the leader of the most powerful nation on earth—he realized the kudos were well earned. After all this time of being an underground hero, living with harassment and even fear for his life, it was finally time to step up and collect his reward.

And it was to be in
this
life, not as a martyr, that he would enjoy the bounty. Hujr was a practical man. The prospect of martyrdom did have its appeal, but because of his unorthodox upbringing it didn’t have the deep-rooted allure it would for a native Do’brainese. Hujr’s bitterness toward the West certainly fueled his hatred, but it did not drive him to accept blindly the doctrines of the Jihad. If there was a way to enjoy the privileges of this world without making the ultimate sacrifice, then so much the better.

Hujr took a long pull on the water pipe and allowed the smoke to fill his lungs. The euphoria again rolled over him, and, expelling the drug, he reached down and pulled the giggling boy on top of him.

General Kamil strode down the corridor and paused before the guarded room. A man followed him, dragging a limp, dead body, and stopped behind Kamil. A single Do’brainese militiaman, smartly decked out in a sand-brown uniform with red tabs, snapped rigidly to attention.

Two more militiamen were at either end of the passageway. Their weapons were drawn and pointed at the door where Kamil stood. Their orders were to shoot if any attempt was made to escape. Hujr could not slip away from the chamber unharmed.

I shouldn’t be here
, thought Kamil. If that dung-eating Ghazzali had taken his orders seriously, then this puppet Hujr would be as dead as his stupid assistant, Du’Ali.

Ghazzali had wanted Hujr to live, but Kamil knew the Do’brainese half-breed was too undisciplined—too cocky—to trust. The fool flitted from place to place like a dilettante, always enticed by the highest bidder for his allegiance.

There was also the chance that he might sell out, even to the unspeakable American devils, if the price was high enough.

After hustling the American President into his personal staff car, Kamil had collared an enlisted driver to transport Montoya to the airport. The man knew better than to try to identify the general’s clandestine passenger—for all the driver knew, it was another one of Kamil’s lovers being whisked out of the country, or a government accomplice being paid off for some unspeakable deed.

Leaving strict orders that he be notified as soon as the plane carrying the ALH delegates and the President departed, Kamil raced back to the compound where Hujr was being held. Once the plane was clear of Do’brai airspace, Hujr and his assistant would be hailed on board the plane as martyred heroes; simultaneously, back at Do’brai, Kamil would announce to the West that he had captured and killed the ALH terrorist who had kidnapped the President. With Hujr dead there would be no one to dispute the fact that Do’brai was still loyal to her western allies.

To get rid of the rest of the evidence, Kamil himself would ignite the fire that would destroy Air Force One and the passengers on board. Only he and President Ash’ath would carry the true knowledge of what had really happened.

Kamil nodded to the militiaman behind him; the dead man’s body lay at his feet. “Leave the corpse here. After Hujr dies, we’ll take both bodies to the airport.” As far as Kamil’s troops were concerned, Hujr would simply be executed as the terrorist who had captured Air Force One. Not even his own men were privy to the truth; the kidnapping was far too important for any leaks to occur.

Kamil grunted at the militiaman still standing at attention by the door. The guard saluted and backed up. As Kamil reached for the doorknob a shout from the rear of the corridor stopped him.

“General!”

“What is it?” Kamil growled, turning.

The messenger ran up breathlessly and, without rendering a salute, gasped, “The airport, General. The airport is under attack.”

“Attack? By whom?”

“I do not know, General.” The messenger bent over, trying to catch his breath. “We have lost contact with the pilot and crew of the 787 plane that was supposed to fly out. There are garbled reports of gunfire all around the airport. That is all I know.”

“Ifrit!
Get back and call a general alert. Every man available is to converge on the airport. I will headquarter at the control tower.”

He gave the messenger a shove; the man stumbled down the hall and disappeared around the corner. Kamil pointed at the armed militiamen at either end of the corridor. “All of you, come with me.” He kicked open the door and took aim with his gun. A nude boy was lying on top of Hujr. He screamed as the door crashed open.

Hujr swung him around toward Kamil. General Kamil’s gun cracked three times in succession. Hujr and the boy lay still, blood gushing from wounds in each of their bodies.

Kamil tried to pull off another two rounds, but his pistol clicked empty. The boy twitched slightly. Cursing, Kamil started to reload his weapon, but when Hujr didn’t move, he turned from the room.

“You.” Kamil motioned with his eyes at the militiaman who had guarded the door. “Put another bullet through both of them. Make sure they are dead, then join us at the airport.”

“Yes, General.”

Running down the hall, Kamil withdrew a cartridge from his belt and reloaded his pistol. As he turned the corner with the remainder of the militiamen, the one guarding the door entered the room, keeping his rifle pointed at the bodies.

The boy lay limp to one side; blood oozed from a small wound in his back. The man was still.

As the guard approached, he thought he heard a noise. He stopped and frowned. Was it his imagination? The boy should be dead. He moved back to the door and listened in the hallway, but he didn’t hear a sound. Kamil and the troops had left, leaving no one around.

He pulled up his weapon and moved toward the two to finish them off.

Ojo-1

The engines started like a charm. Gould performed automatically, like a machine.

The TAV ran through its computerized checklist, the screen finally flashing green when all systems indicated a go.

He punched on the JATOs, giving no warning to the passengers in back. He didn’t care who was back there; all he wanted to do was to get back home. And start over.

Delores dead.…
and the first time he had found someone he really cared for.…

But he couldn’t think of her now. He had to concentrate on what he was doing. With the TAV filled to the max, he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

He pushed her from his mind. He tried to convince himself that there would be a time and place to grieve, a time and place to think about it. Why did it have to happen like this? It just wasn’t fair.

The runway looked clear. Through the IR canopy, the nine thousand feet of asphalt looked like a long, shimmering ribbon. To his right the horizon was bathed in a dull glow, which grew brighter with every passing second. The sun was rising.

He decided to keep the canopy on IR until he took off, just in case those Do’brainese crazies decided to throw another truck his way. Another suicide attempt and he’d be dead, along with the President and those fearless young marines who had rescued the chief executive.

To his left, Delores’ TAV burned as a yellow-white glow. A funeral pyre, belching an orgy of streaming flames, demarcated Delores’ grave. Even the smoke showed up on the infrared-sensitive canopy as a rising cloud of brilliant, turbulent heat.

He could almost hear Delores now: “Okay, hotshot—so you’re not a fighter pilot after all, but just a rotorpuke who should be out flying helicopters. You don’t even have the gonads to get the hell out of here.”

No, she’d never say that—she was too good to put herself above
anybody,
himself included.

But what would she do? She’d get the hell out of Dodge, that’s what she’d do. She wouldn’t be feeling sorry for him if he had died instead of her; at least she wouldn’t be letting it get in the way of what she had to do.

Before running up the JATO units, Gould grabbed the intercom and made the announcement for the passengers to strap in. That’s the least she would have done.

Depression near the Do’brai airport tarmac

Outside the TAV, the marines gathered the weapons of the eleven who were on board. They moved to a shallow depression to the south as the TAV’s engine noise began to grow.

With a sudden explosion, blue fire burst from the JATOs as the units ignited, and the craft rolled down the runway. The roar washed over the marines. They covered their ears to block out the white noise.

Powered by its external JATO engines, the TAV lifted off the ground and clawed into the sky. The craft seemed to crawl forward, moving upward with a sagging gait. It barely advanced but grew perceptibly smaller in the distance.

As it flew from sight it made a sudden nosedive, picked up speed, then shot up into the sky as the scramjets kicked in. Within seconds the pop of the scramjets’ ignition reached them.

The sky was just starting to show a tinge of red along the horizon. In the desert silence the burning TAV smoldered at the runway’s middle, belching white smoke along with the black.

The dry air smelled sweet, strange.…Krandel hadn’t noticed it before, but the place was almost serene. If he had been here any other time, it would have been pleasant.

Half a mile away sat the 787. It was quiet, too, and it was hard to fathom that only a short time before all the shooting and chaos was centered about that jumbo jet.

They prepared their spot in the depression and sat in a circle with their backs to one another, watching through the dawn, keeping an eye out for the troops they knew would come.

Through his growing pain from the wound, Krandel finally felt a part of the unit. The unspoken camaraderie bound them together. They sat, alert, ready to finish the job.…and still they kept the hope that their brothers would be back and would not forget them.

Camp Pendleton, California

The waves rolled to the shore, crashing onto the beach not twenty feet from where the children played. Maureen Krandel put down her book and squinted into the setting sun. She held up a hand to shield her eyes. Justin and Julie squealed with pleasure as they ran to and fro on the sand, playing tag with the water as it came, then receded into the ocean. A red bucket and a bright yellow shovel dropped by Justin lay near the water, where the waves grew perilously near.

The two and a half hours in the sun started to show on the children: They both wore white T-shirts, and they had plenty of sunscreen on their faces, but the beet-redness from a sunburn still showed on their skin. They got their fairness from their mother, and no matter how much protection Maureen tried to bestow upon them, they could never hide completely from the sun.

It was the same way with her husband—not with the sun, but with his devotion to his job. No matter how much she tried to protect him, his job doggedly sought him out, enveloping him and always taking him away. After he had left their home she had spent an hour on the phone with the other wives. None of the other spouses knew what was going on, and none of the marines she had called wanted to talk about it.

In desperation, she tried to contact General Vandervoos, but his phone lines were tied up. Camp Pendleton was closed tight, and no information, no matter how mundane, was leaking out.

The news media were as much in the dark as she—no news of any sort surfaced on the TV. She couldn’t imagine what it was, but she was certain that it wasn’t “just an exercise,” as her husband had tried to convince her it was.

He was gone; for how long she didn’t know. As to where and why, they were only incidental to the one question she feared most: Would she ever see him again?

She realized that, with his job, he might be called away at any time. And although she didn’t fully understand the true nature of what he was doing out there, the possibility existed that he would be away for a long time.

What’s a long time? At least in war, one could be conditioned against seeing her husband for months on end. But in peacetime? A
day
could be a long time—if she wasn’t ready for it.

The marine camp was mum on when he’d be back. She just prayed that he
would
come back.

Her meanderings were interrupted by Justin’s shrill screams. The plastic shovel he had used while playing in the sand had floated out into the ocean. Julie was holding him back, preventing him from going after it; turning her head, the girl yelled for Maureen to help her.

The yellow shovel bobbed up and down as it slowly moved away, spinning as the turbulent waves rocked it. Maureen stood and called the children back to her. As they approached she gathered them into her arms and started crying.

Ojo-1

The President groaned when shaken awake. “Sir, we’re over the worst of it. Our ETA into Dulles is in twenty minutes.”

The President shook his head. The whole trip—the capture, the rescue, those awful g’s when the ramjet had lit, and now this weightlessness—seemed a nightmare.…except for those marines.…

“We have contact with the National Emergency Command Center, if you want to speak with them.”

“Yes.…put them on.” In the weightless environment the marine swam to the cockpit and came back, unrolling a line of wire and a pair of headphones as he held the webbing.