Wrath & Righteousnes Episodes 01 to 05 (56 page)

“Yes, it is, my little brother. And not only is it possible, but it is possible
now.
”

“But my brother, I don’t—”

The king raised his hand, indicating for the other man to be still. “Yes, yes, I know what you are going to say. But what if, what if there was a way, a final way to destroy the United States? What if there was a way we could get the entire world to hate them as much as we do? What if we could get the world to hate Israel
and
the United States? What if we could unite everyone against the most powerful nation on earth? And what if we could even get their own people to hate and resent their own government?

“Can you imagine such a war? The entire world united against the great whore and her little sister, the Israeli pigs. Imagine it, brothers! Then, if you can truly imagine it, if your minds are strong enough to contemplate that it can be done, then consider what I have told you and stand up and follow me!”

The king turned suddenly and walked out of the room.

The underlings watched in silence a long moment, then stood and followed the king.

One of the king’s private helicopters was waiting on the asphalt at the end of the circular drive on the east side of the presidential palace. It was a monstrous machine, American made, with deeply tinted windows and black paint with gold trim around the cockpit and along the smooth tail. Two powerful engines sat just behind the midsection, their chrome exhaust ports glinting in the afternoon sun. A set of small steps had been extended from the aft cabin door, and a line of military guards stood at attention on both sides of a narrow stretch of deep blue carpet that extended from the steps. Two military pilots were waiting, one of them watching the palace anxiously. As the king emerged, he nodded to the other pilot. The other pilot hit the start button, and the twin turbine engines started to turn. The pilot moved the throttles to idle, jet fuel poured into the combustion chambers and the engines caught, emitting a sudden roar from the jet exhausts. As the engines rolled up, the rotors started to turn. By the time the king was climbing in the cabin, the helicopter was ready to go.

The king’s brothers and advisers followed quickly, half a dozen steps behind. They hurried into the cabin and sat down on the reclining leather seats situated throughout the interior of the helicopter. A steward lifted the collapsible steps and quickly disappeared behind the forward bulkhead. The massive helicopter lifted into the air before the men even had a chance to buckle themselves in. It turned immediately east, flying over the palace grounds, pushing a swirl of leaves and biting sand through the hot air.

Overhead, a flight of two Royal Saudi Air Force F-15s circled at fifteen thousand feet. The lead pilot, one of the king’s four dozen cousins, kept a close eye on his radar while his wingman, half a mile behind and to his right, watched the low-flying helicopter make its way east.

Turning to his window, the king glanced up at the sky, thinking of his brother lying at the bottom of the sea. In his death, his brother had taught him one final lesson. Never fly in a helicopter without fighter escorts overhead. The king searched the sky carefully, eager to know that his escorts were there. But he couldn’t see the fighters. They were too high and too small.

Fifty minutes later, the helicopter landed on an unmarked landing pad in the middle of the Al Hufuf weapons storage facility. It was a peculiar complex—high cement and concertina-topped walls, layers of security with wire, and guard towers every fifty feet or so. And there were dozens of military police, some in the open, some hidden behind protective walls. But inside the triple fences, there was not much to see: a few low brick buildings, open sand lots, roads large enough to support heavy convoys, two rows of cement bunkers half-buried in gravel and sand, a small supply building, and not much else. But looks were deceiving. Most of the facility had been built underground and the complex was much larger, and far more important, than it looked from above.

A small military escort was waiting, five military Humvees surrounding two black Mercedes SUVs. The king rode alone in the first vehicle. The other men crammed into the second SUV. The convoy rode through the military compound to the headquarters building, a long, single-story brick building. The men got out, entered the building, and took the elevator ten stories below ground.

King al-Rahman stood before the group in a small conference room. Behind him, a 28-inch television emitted a pale, gray light. Reaching under the table, the king tapped a button that activated the video equipment, and the television screen came to life, showing a live video feed from one of the nearby underground bunkers. The bunker was a large room and brightly lit. Cement floor. Cement walls. No visible entry. No guards. It appeared spotless, almost sterile, with not a smudge on the floor or speck of dust in the air. Sitting in the middle of the room were five lead-plated crates. The king’s men stared at the screen. They did not understand.

The king broke into a sinful smile as he looked at the television. “Our deliverance,” he muttered lustily. “Our great gift to our people. Our great gift to the world.”

The men didn’t respond, their eyes wide. And though they didn’t understand yet, all of them sensed an overwhelming power in the air.

Their world was shifting right under their feet. They could smell the revolution in the air.

The king moved until he was standing next to the screen, his face eerily illuminated by the subtle light. “The objects you are looking at,” he explained in a low, even tone, “are five nuclear warheads. Fifty-seven kilotons. One-hundred fourteen million pounds of explosives each. There are five. Look at these warheads and do the math in your head. Then tell me, my brothers, that we can’t bring our enemies to their knees. Look at those weapons and tell me we can’t do what we want.”

The men fell into a stupor. It was not what they had expected to be shown. Things were moving far too quickly! A smell of sickness seemed to seep into the air.

“Where did you—” the foreign minister started.

The king waved him off. No time to go through that. It didn’t matter anyway.

The minister leaned against the back wall, his face turning dark gray. His mind raced, trying to absorb the terror of it all. The dead king. The crown prince. Both of them killed by Al-Rahman! A new king now among them. A new direction. A new track. And yes, King al-Rahman was a strong man, but he was as mindlessly ambitious as any man in the world. And now this, now these weapons. It was a terrifying thing! He sucked a deep breath, giving himself time to think.

The room was deadly quiet. The men only stared. It was all they could do. After a full thirty seconds of silence, the oldest prince finally breathed. “When?” he asked dryly.

“Soon,” Al-Rahman answered. “A few weeks. Maybe less. There are a few things yet to do, and the timing is critical.”

The younger prince shook his head. “No, King al-Rahman!” he muttered in fear. “You will destroy the kingdom. You will destroy Medina and Mecca! I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it is suicide.”

Al-Rahman moved toward him, his lips pulled back in a sneer, his hands clenching, his breathing labored and fast. “Haven’t you heard anything I’ve been telling you?” he demanded. “Haven’t you understood anything?”

“But brother, if you attack the United States, their position is clear. They will retaliate. They will kill us. They will destroy the entire Middle East. They will not absorb a nuclear detonation on their country and not retaliate.”

King al-Rahman looked at him, his eyes on fire. “Oh, my brother, my dear brother, if you only understood. If you only knew what I know now, if you could only see what I see. It has all been so long in the making. And we are not alone. We have many allies; men are on our side, men that you don’t know about, unseen advocates and sponsors. There are many who will be working to ensure we succeed.”

The younger brother shook his head. He was growing more scared, even angry. He trusted his brother, but he was not a fool. And he resented being dragged here, to this underground hole, to be shown a row of weapons that, if used, would only guarantee the kingdom’s destruction.

His heart skipped, the spit in his mouth turning suddenly sour. “Brother, you know I love you,” he started to say. “But if you do this thing, if you attack the United States, then we are dead men. You must certainly know that. This
isn’t
good news. These weapons are not our salvation, they are our destruction, I’m sure.”

The king glared at him a moment, angry thoughts rolling around in his head. The young prince looked away cautiously, seeing the emotion in his brother’s eyes. “King al-Rahman,” he mumbled, forcing himself to look at the king once again. “I trust you. You know that. I would die for you, my brother, you know that I would. Give me a knife, say the word, and I would thrust it deep in my heart. I would cut out my own intestines if you commanded me. But I have to tell you, dear brother, I simply do not understand what you’re thinking. I do not know your plan, but I am certain of this—if you choose to use these weapons, if you detonate an atomic warhead anywhere in the United States, they will find out who did it, and we will all be destroyed.”

King al-Rahman stared into his eyes, then shook his head and showed a sudden smile. “Yes,” he answered tartly, “without the right preparations, we
would
be destroyed. If it was us against them, then I would be a fool.

“But you see, Prince Mohammad, there is something more that we can do. Preparations. Arrangements. And before we use these weapons—
and we will use them, my brother
—we are going to change the world in a magnificent way. We are going to realign every ally, every enemy and friend. We are going to change the geopolitical world in a very fundamental way.

“Then, when we have completed our work, it won’t be us against them. It will be the United States against the world; it will be the United States against the Middle East, the Arab nations, every Muslim on earth. It will be the United States against most of Europe and Asia. It will be the United States against China and South America as well. It will be the Americans and their lapdog Israelis against the rest of mankind. And
they
will be the criminals.
They
will be the ones who are feared. It will be the Americans and the Jews who will be hated and despised.

“When we are finished, the world will not only support us, they will see justice in our cause. Then they will not only allow it, they will help us see our enemies destroyed.”

Sam sat with Bono at the end of the dining hall table. It was early morning, and the two had just come back from patrol. Although they were not on the same team, they had been on the same mission, patrolling on the western edge of Baghdad, where there had been reports of insurgents recruiting from among the poorest neighborhoods. Both men were exhausted, their faces blacked with camouflage and dirt. The patrol had been fruitless, and all they had found were two dead Chechen soldiers, easily identified by their Russian boots, who had been bound, their faces covered, and then shot in the head. They were finding more of this kind of thing now, and it gave them a some hope. If the terrorists were killing each other, that clearly made their job easier; more, though, it indicated the growing divisions between the various terrorist groups. Although bound by their common hatred for the United States, they also hated each other, and it wasn’t unusual to find the results of their fratricide.

Sam rested his arms on the table, sipping a 20-ounce bottle of imported water from some unpronounceable desalinization plant on the eastern shore of Qatar. It tasted like saline solution, but Sam had grown used to it. It was cold and wet, and that was all he required anymore.

The chow tent was a little cool—it had been a cold night—but it was growing warmer as it became more crowded during the change of patrols, some on their way in, some getting ready to go. Bono was wolfing down a huge pile of scrambled eggs and dry toast. He kept his fork moving while Sam sipped his drink. They didn’t talk much until Bono was nearly finished with his powdered eggs.

“You hear about the Lizards?” Bono asked, referring to one of the other combat teams.

“What’s that?” Sam looked up.

Bono laughed as he leaned across the table. “A couple of their guys were working one of the checkpoints leading into the airport. Some fool comes speeding toward them, doesn’t even slow down. They fire warning shots, take out his tires, you know that routine. At the last second, the guy steers the car toward them, opens the door and bails out, even as the car is racing forward. The Lizard guys drop behind their cement bunkers, expecting a huge explosion; I guess little ol’ Lieutenant Ramirez has got to change his underwear tonight. The car screams toward them, hits the cement barricade, and . . . that’s it. No car bomb. No big explosion. Nothing. The guys come out from behind the barricade, wondering why they aren’t dead. They see the Iraqi running away, but he’s gotten too far for them to shoot. Then they see the money scattered all around.”

“Money?” Sam wondered.

“Yeah. A couple hundred thousand. Cash. U.S. bills.”

“What? Why?”

Bono shook his head. “No one knows.”

Sam thought a minute. “So some crazy guy goes careening toward the checkpoint, refuses to stop, gets his tires shot out, steers toward the barricade, jumps out, and runs away, leaving behind a couple hundred thousand dollars in cash to spill on the ground?”

Bono nodded and smiled. “Yeah. That’s what I was told.”

“They don’t know what—”

“They don’t know squat, my good friend. Just another day in this paradise we all call home.”

Sam shook his head in disbelief as a stranger approached them and sat down at Bono’s side. Although there was plenty of room at the table, he sat close to them. Bono looked up and nodded, then turned back to his eggs.

The man was dressed in dark jeans, heavy boots, and a tan jungle shirt. He appeared to be in his mid-forties, with short black hair and skin tanned from too many days in the sun. The stranger caught Sam’s eye, nodded his head in greeting, and turned back to his coffee, blowing over the hot brew. Sam studied him while he sipped. Who was he? Definitely not one of the U.S. civilian contractors. Too lean. Too relaxed. Those guys all drove around with a target on their foreheads, and every one of them was as skittish as a chicken in a yard full of wolves. Support staff from the civilian affairs office in Baghdad? Maybe. But if he was, he was new to the country. It would take him a couple weeks to get that scared look in his eye, the darting pupils, the constant swivel, the unremitting suspicion that most of them couldn’t hide.
Got to be CIA,
Sam thought.
Plenty of them around.