Wrath & Righteousnes Episodes 01 to 05 (95 page)

At 4:43 a.m. local time, the improvised communications center inside the rusting
Ab Tayyib
got the highly encrypted strike instructions. The exact altitudes, flight azimuths, trajectories, and yield settings for the warheads had already been programmed into the flight computers, but still the captain reviewed the final flight instructions very carefully, comparing every line of code against the numbers burned into his memory.

His first officer hovered over him, his hands moving nervously.

“Praise be to Allah,” the ship captain finally said.

The first officer forced a quick smile, though inside he had to hold down a cry of grief.

He didn’t want to die. No man really did. But he would die now, he knew that, and though he had been preparing for this moment since he was a child, the reality of having just a few hours to live still left him cold.

He thought of his wife. He thought of his children. Would they know? Would they remember? Would they honor his death as much he hoped that they would?

The
Choun Ohmonee
was a smaller ship than the
Ab Tayyib,
but more seaworthy, faster, and ten years newer. Flagged in North Korea, a society more secretive than any other nation in the world, it hadn’t gone through the painful exercise of re-registering and re-flagging to hide its movements and identity, though it had been renamed as a concession to the Arab masters.

The arming and deployment of the
Choun Ohmonee
had been a straight-up operation. No subterfuge or deception had been involved; it simply loaded up the missiles at the military port in Cho’ong Jim, then headed east across the open Pacific toward the United States.

Now, sitting off the western coast, it waited for the same message as its sister ship to the east.

Mary Shaye Dupree held the sleeping girl’s hand while speaking to her softly. She wiped her brow, which was pale and clammy, then pushed aside a stray strand of dark hair as she caressed her cheek. The girl’s face was bony, her lips tight, her thin hair matted to the side on which she slept. Azadeh noted the intravenous line sticking into the child’s left arm and the monitor attached to her middle finger, but she wasn’t certain what they were for.

When the child didn’t wake, Mary leaned across the mattress and kissed her, tucked the soft blanket around her neck, stood, and turned to Azadeh, motioning toward the hall. Closing the bedroom door quietly behind her, she walked with Azadeh into the living room again.

“Her name is Kelly Beth,” Mary said as they sat down. “I adopted her when she was just a toddler, which was some six years ago now.”

“A toddler?” Azadeh wondered.

“I’m sorry—a young child—not a baby, a little older.”

Azadeh nodded, understanding. “She is very sick?”

“Yes. Very sick.” Mary turned her eyes to toward the window. It had started raining and the day had turned gray. “She isn’t going to live, I don’t think. I used to hope. I used to pray. But I don’t think any of it mattered.”

Azadeh studied her hands. “She has a sickness?”

“Cancer. Inoperable bone cancer.”

Cancer
. One of the very few English words that Azadeh would have recognized even as a child. It translated to
saratân
in Farsi. She nodded sadly. It was a dreaded word, a deadly sickness, a sickness that, based on her experience, didn’t offer much hope. When someone got
saratân
in her small village back in Persia, that person was almost certain to die. No such thing as insurance. No real money to speak of. No good doctors. Those with
saratân
might die in a short time or a long, they might die in a lot of pain or maybe quickly, but they almost surely wouldn’t live.

“I’m sorry,” she offered quietly.

“We caught it really late,” Mary continued, her voice pained and measured now. “I know that it was my fault. I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life. But at the time, I just didn’t understand, I didn’t realize, I had never dealt with anything like this before. She hurt all the time, deep in her legs, and I took her to the doctor, but the people down at the clinic, you know, they’re inexperienced and way overworked. It wasn’t their fault. I think they did the best that they could, but by the time I got a referral down to Cook County Hospital, there wasn’t a lot they could do. They tried a few things, some new things, they experimented with some new drugs and procedures, but like I said, we were—you know—way too late to help her. . . .” Mary’s voice trailed off.

Azadeh watched a single tear roll down each of her cheeks, which Mary quickly wiped away. It pained Azadeh to see her suffering, and she instinctively wanted to reach out and take her by the hand.

Someone moved down the hallway outside their front door. The rain dribbled against the kitchen window, trickling down from the fifteen stories overhead. The old refrigerator hummed. But other than that it was silent as Mary stared across the empty space. “I love her,” she finished. “I would have done anything for her. I would do anything now. If there was
anything
I could do . . . .”

Azadeh reached out and took Mary’s hand, holding it inside her own. “I’m so, so sorry,” she repeated.

Mary coughed, then turned to face her. “The good Lord, He is out there. I have to learn to trust Him. It will all be OK.”

Azadeh nodded back toward the bedroom. “
Insha’allah.
If it is God’s will.”

Mary nodded. “
Insha’allah.
God’s will.”

Azadeh was a sensitive girl by nature, and her upbringing had only made her more so. She knew that Mary wanted to talk about her child. “Tell me her name again,” she asked.

“Kelly Beth.”

“Kelly Beth. That is beautiful. If you were to translate my middle name, Ishbel, from Farsi into English it is very close to Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Kelly Beth. Two good names. Very similar.” Azadeh paused a long moment, looking off. “My last name, Pahlavi, goes back many, many generations in Iran. It is royal blood. And my given name, Azadeh, means ‘Freedom is my oath to God.’” She folded her arms, almost defiant, and her eyes flashed. “I have always been very proud of my names,” she said.

Mary smiled and touched her shoulder. “Ishbel is almost the same as Elizabeth?” she asked.

“Yes, very close.”

“That is beautiful.”

Azadeh nodded down the hallway toward the bedroom. “How old is Kelly Beth?”

“Almost ten. She will be ten next month.”

“Then we will celebrate her birthday.”

Mary pressed her lips together. “If she makes it that long.”

“You said that she is—I do not remember the word—she is not your own . . . flesh? Your own child?”

Mary stood and walked into the kitchen. There was a small coffeemaker beside the sink, and she poured herself a cup. “Would you like some?” she asked Azadeh as she lifted the half-empty pot.

“No, thank you.”

“You do not like coffee?”

“Not American coffee. It is too weak. Like water. We have a much stronger drink. I miss it. It is good. But,” she laughed a little, “very bad for you, I think. It stains our teeth and makes us, ah, quick to temper. I am glad to be away from it, I think.”

Mary brought her cup back and sat on the couch, folding her legs underneath her to keep her feet warm. “I adopted Kelly Beth when she was just a child. Her father had abandoned her before she was even born. Her parents never married. Her mother was strung out. Do you know what that means, Azadeh?”

Azadeh shook her head.

“Oh, that is so beautiful,” Mary laughed with delight. “You don’t know what
strung out
even means. You’ve never had to fight it. You’ve never had to watch what it can do to those around you. That is very good, Azadeh.” She reached toward the young woman and patted her knee. “We want to keep it that way, girl. We’re
going
to keep it that way.”

Mary leaned back against the couch and sipped the warm coffee. “
Strung out
is when you have ruined your life on hard drugs. Heroin. Cocaine. You know about them?”

Azadeh squinted as she thought. “No,” she finally said.

“That’s all right, baby, we can talk about that later. Let’s just say that Kelly Beth’s mother wasn’t able to take care of her anymore. She didn’t want her baby, at least not sufficient to keep herself healthy enough to care for her. I had a chance to take Kelly Beth and help her. It was supposed to be only for a couple of weeks, a couple of months at the longest, but it went on and on, and it ended up that I was able to adopt her, you know, make her my child.”

Azadeh nodded.

“Her mother is dead now,” Mary concluded. “No one knows about her father. No one even knows who he is.”

“I understand,” Azadeh answered. But the truth was she didn’t. It was all so strange. So different. There was much to learn in this new country, and she felt lost and insecure.

For a moment she almost wished she were back in Khorramshahr. It had been hard there, but she had understood it, unlike so much of this new home.

King Al-Rahman walked into the Great Hall. The thirty-foot ceiling towered over his head and the room was dark, illuminated mostly by a row of dim lights along the ancient walls. Four huge, wrought-iron chandeliers hung from enormous beams that crossed the ceiling, but the room was built deep inside the palace, and there were no outside windows or natural light. The thick walls, heavy brick and ancient mud, stifled every sound from outside. Four overstuffed leather couches were arranged around a circular depression in the floor, part of an old fire pit. A low oak table trimmed with gold sat where the fireplace used to be.

Al-Rahman moved to the center of the room. His eight brothers fell silent and the room seemed to suck them up, making them feel even smaller than they were. Al-Rahman raised his hand, indicating for the ministers to sit down, which they did, dividing themselves up among the four couches.

Al-Rahman studied them without saying anything, assessing the mood in the room. Yes, they were some of the most powerful men in the world, but each of them stared up at him with dark, submissive eyes.

The king knew that some of his brothers were furious at his sudden rise to power. Some resented the death of their father and their oldest brother, the crown prince. Most suspected that Al-Rahman had killed them, but they couldn’t prove it, even if they had wanted to. None of them did—far better to leave that filthy stone unturned—but they resented the fact all the same.

They also realized that Al-Rahman had turned the kingdom away from their father’s path toward democracy. None of them were disappointed by that, though some might have wished it hadn’t been so bloody. And though they were grateful the king had secured their royal power, they were also furious about the nuclear attacks in Gaza and Washington, D.C. The entire world had been thrown into utter chaos. Things were so messy now, so much more difficult to control.

As the eight ministers took their seats, Al-Rahman almost smirked. If they had any idea . . . any idea what he planned to do.

“Brothers,” he started slowly, “let me get right to the point.”

The princes watched him carefully. They hardly seemed to move as a heavy air settled over the room.

Al-Rahman paced, his eyes cold and sullen, his skin tight, the hollows of his cheeks deep and dark. He seemed to cast a spell upon them as he moved, drawing them in to his world. “Some of you are wondering,” he started, “so I will tell you. Yes, I killed our father. Yes, I killed Crown Prince Saud. I killed his wife, Princess Tala. I killed their children. I killed them all.”

The men sat in stunned and open-mouthed silence. Not a sound penetrated the ancient walls. Only their breathing and a few croaking swallows could be heard in the enormous room.

“I killed them,” Al-Rahman went on, “but that is not everything you need to know. I also arranged for the nuclear attack in Gaza. I arranged for the attack on D.C. as well. And we are just beginning.” The king glanced down at his watch. “The most deadly attacks will take place a little less than three hours from now.”

The senior prince bowed his head. Al-Rahman watched him carefully, then went on. “Believe me, dear brothers, I have just started my work. I killed our father. I killed our brother. Now I will kill you as well. You are either with me or against me. There is no middle ground. You either join me or I kill you. It is as simple as that.

“What’s it going to be? You have two minutes to decide.”

The senior prince stood up, his face contorted with rage. “Join you?! You’re a madman! You killed my father. You killed my brother. I will never—”

Al-Rahman reached under his robe, took out a Colt .45 from a shoulder holster, and shot his younger brother in the head. By the time he hit the ground, the senior prince was already dead. The sound of the gunfire echoed through the enormous chamber and then was swallowed up again. The air filled with the acidic tartness of burnt gunpowder, and blood began to seep from under the dead prince’s head.

King Al-Rahman took a step back, eyeing the other princes in the room. They stared at him aghast, too shocked to speak or move. “Don’t underestimate me,” he told them as he fingered the warm barrel of his pistol. “I am totally committed to my course. This isn’t something I dreamed up in the past week or so. This goes back much further. I have been planning this for years.”

Standing before his brothers, the king thought back to his first meeting with the old man, so many years before. He thought of their introduction on the beach, the airplane trip to the city, sitting in the Mercedes outside the United States Embassy in Paris, learning he had to kill the people inside the embassy before he could take the next step.

He could hear the old man’s voice as it hissed in his ears. “
Commit now to join us! Tell me to kill your countrymen. Prove to me we can trust you. Now what are you going to do?
”

It was a good test. Al-Rahman knew that now. Catch them off guard. Make them decide! Who were they? What were they? What was really in their hearts? Would they kill or would they hesitate? Would they wash their hands in blood?