DARKNESS OF THIS WORLD

WRATH & RIGHTEOUSNESS

[Episode Two]

CHRIS STEWART

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used factiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locals or persona, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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CONTENTS

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Coming in Episode Three…

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,

but against principalities, against powers,

against the rulers of the darkness of this world…”

Ephesians 6:12

ONE

Karachi, Pakistan

The Palestinian moved through the crowd easily for he was comfortable here. Although he was not among his own people, the sounds and scents were the same. He felt the constant press of flesh against him, the movement of the crowd, the chatty voices of women and the terse growls of men, too busy, too arrogant, too grand to respond to their wives. He smelled the tang of old bodies and felt the gritty dirt on his feet. He felt the uneven pavement beneath him and the white hot, oppressive glare of the sun, wringing great drops of sweat from under his arms and around the small of his back. Everyone sweats in Karachi; they sweat to keep cool, and they sweat to survive. No one was clean in Karachi. It was just the way it was.

The Palestinian moved around a brown and rusted cement hole in the sidewalk, one of the public toilets that was built without the benefit of even a curtain for privacy. He moved through the crowd, working his way toward a small open-air market half a mile down the street. In the distance, he heard a series of gunfire and a replying series of gunfire, but he paid no attention for it was almost a full block away, and gunfire in Karachi could be heard daily. In any given day, six people lost their lives to petty thieves, gang wars, drug runners, hate or revenge. The slave trade that flourished on the outskirts of the city fed the dangerously high murder rate, but also a significant contributor to the local economic machine. Teenage Afghan, Chinese, India and Pakistani captives were harbored in Karachi before being shipped off to brothels throughout the Pacific Rim. Even as he walked, the Palestinian passed a group of three teenage girls bound together. For thirty dinre he could have bought any one of them.

Stopping on the corner, the Palestinian waited for the traffic. He glanced quickly around him, turning his back on the street to look in the direction from which he had come. To his side, a roughly mortared brick wall sported an old movie poster. Tom Cruise smiled at him, his long black hair drooping over his eye. The Palestinian frowned, and turned around. A break came in the traffic and he crossed the street.

Ten minutes later, he sat down at a wooden table at an outdoor café. The owner moved toward him, then recognized his face and instead turned for the kitchen. Seconds later, he emerged with a mug of hot cheka tea in hand.

“Amid,” the owner said as he placed the small cup on the table. “God be blessed, you are safe. It is good to see you again.”

The Palestinian, a tall man with dark eyes and enormous ears, nodded to the restaurateur. “How is your fish?”

“Very fresh, Sayid,” the owner lied.

The Palestinian grunted and pointed to his plate. The restaurateur nodded and moved through an open door and into his kitchen.

Minutes later, the Palestinian was eating his meal: a charcoaled slab of sea trout, with its head and bones still intact, and a bowl of white rice with hot mustard sauce. The crowd thronged around him, moving up and down the street. An occasional automobile passed by, forcing pedestrians onto the narrow sidewalk and around the small tables of the outdoor café. A group of children played in the street, gleefully chasing each other. A mule pulled a decrepit wagon with one wheel on the sidewalk and the other on the street.

Halfway through the Palestinian’s meal, a Pakistani man emerged from the crowd, approached and sat down without saying a word. In contrast to the Palestinian, who was dressed in a traditional flowing dakish, the Pakistani was dressed in black slacks and an open white shirt. Neither of the men was distinguishable in the crowd.

As the Pakistani sat down, Amid looked up and held his fork to his mouth.

The Pakistani lit up a cigarette. “Amid Safi Mohammad, how is your meal?” he asked.

Amid Mohammad didn’t answer, but pushed in another forkful of fish. The Pakistani watched him chew, then leaned forward in his chair. Mohammad pulled away as he caught the whiff of cologne. He studied the Pakistani, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Brother, I have to disagree with you on this meeting place,” he said in a heavy voice. “I don’t believe it is wise.” The Palestinian paused and glanced to the sky, almost as if he expected to see an American satellite hovering there. His eyes darted down the street. “The rats have eyes, eyes like spiders, they can see everything.”

The Pakistani nodded. He appreciated his fellow warrior’s fear. But they were in his territory now, and he was not concerned. This was his city, his territory, his tribe controlled everything and he knew every movement of the American spies. His crew had identified every one of them and kept each under a close watch, and yes, the Americans got around, but he also had evidence that they were not watching today.

He dramatically crushed out his cigarette. “Mohammad, you have to trust me,” he answered knowingly while nodding almost imperceptibly to the roof of a squat cement building on the other side of the street. “The Great Satan has many eyes, but this is my lair. We are safe here, I assure you, my people are near. That is, of course, unless you allowed yourself to be followed . . . ,” the Pakistani’s voice trailed off. The accusation was clear.

“No, no,” Amid Safi Mohammad quickly replied. “I was careful. I followed your instructions to the letter.”

“All right then.” The Pakistani sat back and picked at his teeth. “Now, let’s get it done.”

Amid Mohammad pushed his dirty plate aside. “This will be our last meeting. Our work is almost complete.”

“Good. I agree. It has been a dreadfully long year.”

“You have done very well, doctor. My people are pleased.”

The Pakistani only nodded. If Mohammad only knew! If he had any idea what the Pakistani had gone through! For more than eighteen years, he had lived on a knife’s edge, a simple breath away from being discovered. He wanted this over. It was time to relax and enjoy his money. He took a deep breath and forced a thin smile. “The arrangements for the final delivery have been made,” he said. “All we have left to do is to transfer the money.”

The Palestinian nodded. “How is your memory?” he asked.

The Pakistani frowned. “Not good, as you know.”

“Then get a pencil.”

The Pakistani reached quickly into his pocket and pulled out a small pencil. He grabbed a napkin as the Palestinian started to speak.

“The payment will be deposited into an account drawn on the Soloman Bank of Malaysia. The account number will be forwarded to you by private messenger later tonight. The withdrawal instructions and authentication codes are authenticate zulu, one, four, whiskey seventy-nine—that’s seventy-nine, not seven nine—then today’s date and my birthday.”

The Pakistani scribbled furiously.

“The money will only remain in the account for three minutes,” the Palestinian continued. “That’s three minutes, Dr. Atta, not one second more. If you haven’t transferred the money out of the account within the three-minute window, we will repossess it and move it ourselves, and if that happens, it is over. Our business is done. We will have the hardware and you won’t have anything.”

The Pakistani looked up and frowned. “That will not be necessary,” he answered defiantly. “I will make the transfer, don’t you worry about that.”

The Palestinian glanced down the street. “I’m not worried, Doctor Atta, but the instructions from my client are clear.”

The Pakistani nodded. Amid went on. “Our people at the bank will be monitoring every transfer. Once the money has been deposited into this first account, you will immediately move the money into another account at the same bank. A second messenger will provide you with the specifics pertaining to this account. Once again, the money will remain there three minutes. Three minutes to make your transfer or we take possession again. From there, you will move the money into twelve separate accounts drawn on various banks in the Philippines. After that, you are on your own. We wash our hands of the paper trail.”

The Pakistani looked up from his paper. “And the messengers?” he asked.

“Same men as before. You will recognize them both.”

The Pakistani sat back and pulled out another cigarette. “Fifty million?” he confirmed.

“As we agreed.”

“And the final installment?”

“Upon delivery of the last nuclear warhead,” the Palestinian wet his cracked lips.

The Pakistani tightened his fingers around the butt of his brown cigarette. Suddenly, without reason, he began to sweat like a pig. He pressed his lips together and folded the paper napkin into a small square. He studied his client. “So that is it?” he concluded.

The Palestinian nodded. “I believe that it is.”

“We will not meet again.”

“There is no reason.”

“So tell me, before we separate, I would dearly like to know. Where did you get your money? One hundred million U.S. dollars is not a small sum. Who is your financer, I’m dying to know.”

“A poor choice of words, Dr. Atta. Be careful what you ask for or you might get your wish.”

The Pakistani scowled. “I have provided you with nuclear warheads, not an easy thing to do. I am taking an enormous risk, more than you could ever know. I control many generals, but I do not control every one. I have put my neck in a noose here. Don’t I deserve to know who is financing this operation?”

The Palestinian pushed himself away from the table. “Too many questions is not a good thing. The money will be delivered. That is all you need to know. We want the last warhead by Friday. Now our business is done.”

The Palestinian dropped a couple dirty dinres on the table and moved for the street.

• • •

Two days later, a rusted container ship loaded with barrels of refined kerosene, lubricants, and refurbished electrical generators, left the port at Karachi bound for the Straits of Hormuz. It only took three days to reach the port of Ad Dammam, the huge Saudi port on the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf.

On the burning pavement of the seaside dock, three large but non-descript crates were loaded onto the back of a two-ton army truck. The truck pulled away from the warehouse and turned to drive south. Overhead, two helicopters followed its path.

That night, the third, fourth and fifth nuclear warheads were placed in an underground storage facility on the Saudi air force base of Al Hufuf.

• • •

Twenty hours after the last warhead was delivered, Dr. Abu Nidal Atta, deputy director, Pakistan Special Weapons Section, principal advisor on national security to the Pakistani president himself, didn’t wake up after his customary afternoon nap. When his wife couldn’t rouse him, she immediately called for his personal doctor. He arrived within minutes, but it was already too late. The doctor’s heart had ruptured. There was nothing he could do.

An autopsy was requested by the physician, but the president of Pakistan turned down the request. Following local tradition, the body was cremated before sundown that day.

• • •

Prince al-Rahman smiled when he was informed of the news. He waved his advisor out of his office and immediately picked up the phone. “Get my money back,” he commanded. “I want every dime.”

TWO

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

A little more than four hours after taking off from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, Major General Brighton’s C-20 lined up on final approach at Riyadh’s civilian airport. Upon landing, he met the local staff and immediately went to work, attending endless meetings, conferring with the ambassador and his military staff, the CIA station chief, and six others involved with trying to keep the kingdom from falling off the cliff. He slept four hours that night, then got back to work.

Late that afternoon, after completing his official assignments within the kingdom, Brighton stood on the balcony of his suite of the grand Al Faisaliah hotel, waiting for his car to pick him up and take him to his appointment with Prince Saud. Standing next to the glass rail that surrounded the balcony, he looked down upon a city that glistened in the brilliant setting sun.

Riyadh sits in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula. It’s an exceptionally modern city, with a stunning architectural mix of glass high-rise buildings and ancient desert mosques. The skyscrapers ascend like something out of a children’s drawing book: sweeping arches, enormous space-saucer shaped coliseum, forked skyscrapers made of steel, glass and glistening chrome. The streets are tree-lined and well-lit, and swept daily to keep the blowing sand at bay. Desert browns, whites, and pastels are the dominant colors, and though the city is considered one of the modern wonders of the world, traditional Arab influence can be seen in the arched doorways, dome-topped mosques and caliph-inspired city center. Enormous highways sweep through the city, the cement having been laid over the trails where Bedouin camels used to trek.

The capital city of the kingdom, with a population of almost five million people, Riyadh was derived from an Arab word meaning place of garden and trees. Ancient wadis run through the center of the city and the surrounding soil is fertile and rich. Powerful electric motors pump fresh water from deep underground aquifers to keep the manmade oasis green and desirable.

To the west and south of the city, the terrain rises gradually for four hundred miles until it suddenly juts upward at the rocky Midian Mountains. To the east, the land descends through the Summan, gradually transforming from barren desert to rangelands to the fertile crescent that borders the Persian Gulf. A constant wind blows from the desert and the flies seem to swarm when the night cools down, especially when the date trees are bearing fruit. To the south lies the Rub’el Khal—the Empty Quarter—a land so bleak and brutal few humans have ever trekked across its sands; a land so desolate the Saudis were more than happy to give most of it to Yemen and Oman.

Overhead, the sky is almost always a deep gray-blue, a huge open saucer sitting over the land; cloudless and so deep in color it seems as if one were looking at the edge of space. The air is clean and clear, and the lights from the city can be seen for hundreds of miles on a clear desert night. Spring storms can bring violent rain, and the sandstorms can be deadly if one is caught in the open, but for three hundred and forty days a year the weather is monotonously predictable. Hot and dry in January, searing hot the rest of the year.

Like the city, the entire Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a bewildering example of contradictions and extremes.

Much of the nation is an entirely inhospitable desert, yet the oases that dot the country are lush, wet and brimming with life. The cities are bright, beautiful and more contemporary than any in the world, but beyond their city limits, the Bedouin nomads live much as they have for almost two thousand years. The Royal Family jets around the globe, meeting with Hollywood celebrities and foreign heads of state, headlining cultural conferences and human rights events, while the women in some localities are not even allowed to learn how to read. The Saudi infrastructure is modern in every way, but the Kingdom still denies basic freedoms of expression and many human rights. The Qur’an teaches love and peace, emphasizing the need for discussion and the give-and-take of discourse, yet the royal family allows no opposing political parties; indeed there are no political parties in the kingdom at all, and the royal family was certainly not a party, but a close-knit, manipulative and fortified group of relatives who guard their family secrets above everything else.

It is as if the government straddles two ice floes that are moving apart; one foot in the West and one foot in the desert, preaching progress and equality while denying the same. Any expression of anti-government activity is unthinkable. Women cannot drive or even appear in public without a male family member as escort. Use of corporal punishment is the rule. In fact, the punishment for various offenses is precisely prescribed in Saudi law—beheadings for rape, murder, sodomy, or sorcery; amputations of the feet or hands for robbery; and public lashings for offenses such as public drunkenness.

All of the media, including the eight daily newspapers, are owned and controlled by one prince or another. The government maintains the Royal Decree for Printed Material and Publications with a list of topics that are prohibited to be written about or discussed. The Saudi Communications Company controls the backbone network through which access to the Internet must pass, and the list of approved sites is very short indeed. The mutawwa are tasked with enforcing the Wahhabist interpretation of Islam by scouring the culture for immoral teachings or immodest dress. Every public facility, including Western businesses like McDonalds or Starbucks, must enforce a kind of sexual apartheid, with separate entries and facilities for women and men. The men’s sections are lavish and comfortable, while the women and family sections are often dilapidated and neglected, sometimes not even offering seats.

It is appalling to those who aren’t familiar with the culture. But it is the way it’s been in Saudi Arabia for hundreds of years.

Until now.

Now there were a very few of those who felt it was time to make a change. A few men within the royal family who felt it was time to turn the monarchy over to the forces of democratic power.

His Royal Highness, King Faysal, Monarch of the House of Saud, was one of those men.

King Faysal knew it would take several generations for the transition to be complete, but he was convinced that democracy and the teachings of Islam were not mutually exclusive ideals, and it was time for the kingdom to take the first step. Which meant it was time for the monarch to give up much of his family’s great power. It was a radical heretical and insane idea! But King Faysal had already begun. Over the past twenty years, he had reined in the mutawwa, set up civil courts with professional judges, authorized city councils outside of the influence of royal patronage, and, for the first time, named men to senior government positions who were not his nephews or sons. The next step was to free the press. A national assembly would follow, though that was still ten or fifteen years away.

Fighting two hundred years of tradition, the courageous king had instituted the first steps of reform.

But to say there was resistance among the princes would have been a colossal understatement, for they knew what they would lose. All of their money and power was at risk. They were the richest family in the world. It was a lot to give away.

The king understood their anger, for he wasn’t a fool. Still, after a long life of laying the foundation, King Faysal intended to accelerate the transition to democracy by appointing his first son, Crown Prince Saud bin Faysal, to take his place on the throne, and Crown Prince Saud bin Faysal would be the last king, for he had already made a covenant with his father to complete the transition to democracy.

The only problem, of course, was that there were other sons.

And they were far from convinced that Crown Prince Saud should be king.

• • •

On the outskirts of the great city, at the end of a tree-lined road that abruptly stopped at a cement barricade, behind a wall with hidden towers and razor wire, was one of the three dozen homes the Crown Prince of the House of Saud had. The future king was a large man with dark eyes and broad shoulders and short, curly hair. He was fourty-seven, but looked younger, though there were days he felt very old. With a degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the crown prince was decisive and sharp-tongued with his subordinates, but warm and easily manipulated by his family and friends.

The prince sat quietly at the end of an enormous mahogany table. To his side, sat the American general. They were the only two men in a room so large it could have accommodated a group of a hundred or more. Brilliant tapestries, some five hundred years old, hung on the walls. The floor was imported Italian tile, the doorframes were rare and unnamed woods shipped from the Indian forest. The ceiling moldings were gold plated. Crushed glass had been mixed with the pastel paints on the walls, giving the room a brilliant radiance from the desert sun that reflected through the twenty-foot windows.

The general stared for a brief moment, taking in the beauty of the room. The prince didn’t notice. He had a lot on his mind. He needed a smoke and he fidgeted nervously as he tapped on his pack of American cigarettes. Moving his chair across the tile, the prince leaned his arms on the table. “Coffee?” he offered.

The general shook his head.

“I’ve got some beautiful teas I’ve brought in from Oman. The leaf is so thick, it will, how do you say it . . . knock your feet off.”

The general smiled. “I think you mean knock your socks off, Prince Saud, and no tea, but thank you.” He smiled again, knowing the prince was teasing him now.

“How about a Coke then, General Brighton?”

“Yes. That’d be great.”

“Diet? Caffeine free?”

“Regular Coke is fine.”

“Oh, you crazy fool!” the prince scolded, trying to hide the smile on his face. “Get you away from Sara and you really cut loose! Next thing you know, you’ll visit my kingdom and take home another wife!”

The general shook his head adamantly. “You know Sara. I don’t need to say any more.”

“Yes, yes, General Brighton,” the prince finally smiled. “If all men were so lucky! And frankly, good friend, I don’t understand how she fell for you. You are like a Bedouin camel herder who married a princess. Despite all your failings, God has smiled on you.”

Neil only nodded. The crown prince was joking, but he knew it was true. “And how is Princess Tala?” Neil asked.

Saud nodded happily. “Beautiful as ever! And did you know we were expecting another son?”

Neil smiled happily. “Congratulations!”

Prince Saud clapped his hands in a gesture of gratitude, then touched a hidden button under his desk. A young Indian man hurried into the room holding a silver tray over his head. He poured soda for the American and tea for his master, then laid out a silver tray of sugar cookies and pastries and hurried from the room.

The crown prince studied his friend and smiled with satisfaction. “How long has it been, Neil?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Crown Prince Saud,” Neil replied. He never called the prince by his first name. “Sometime just before the fall of the Prince Basser. We saw each other at the U.N. Liberation Conference. That’s been, what, almost a year now?”

The prince grimaced slightly at the use of the word Liberation. Well, maybe. Depending on who one was talking to. He sipped at his tea. “You are too busy now, Neil,” he said over his china tea cup. “We never have time to talk! I used to see you regularly until you earned your first star.”

“Life has picked up a little, there’s no doubt about that.”

“And you have grown so quiet, my good friend. Tight-lipped and secretive. Are you never going to tell me about what you do now?”

“Your Highness, you already know. I work for the NSA. Long days, piles of paperwork, endless meetings, buckets of mindless reports, huge egos and office politics more bloody than war. There, that’s my job. Not much excitement, I assure you of that.”

The crown prince huffed in sarcastic reply. “I think that’s not true, my good friend. Not now. Not in these times. Not with the battles raging against rising tides. You’re the military liaison to the White House national security advisor! You are the tip of the sword. Everything runs through the NSA! Every proposal, every war plan or decision is vetted through you. It is a very important position. High visibility. Very fast track. You personally brief the president almost every week. I’d say, my good friend, you are on your way to the top. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Doesn’t that have a good ring?”

The general didn’t answer, but picked up his glass and took a drink of his soda.

“I think you are involved in quite important decisions that you can’t talk about,” the prince prodded. “Which was exactly why I brought you here,” he quickly thought to himself. “If you will just listen! If you will read between the lines. If you will think and remember what I tell you today!”

The prince tapped the pack of cigarettes as he thought to himself. “How are your sons?” he then asked. “Twin sons! Allah has blessed you. How old are they now? They must almost be men!”

“Luke and Ammon turned nineteen last winter, and Sam, do you remember our adopted son? He’s in the Army. I’m proud of them all. “

The prince smiled happily. “I am happy for you and Sara. You are good parents, I think, even in your old age.”

Brighton laughed. “Remember, Your Highness, I am two years younger than you, and you don’t seem to be slowing down in your parenting despite your old age. Didn’t you just tell me Princess Tala was about to have another son.”

“Yes, well, it is one of the responsibilities of a king. I’m just doing my job.” Both men smiled before the prince continued in a much more serious tone. “As the crown prince of the House of Saud, the royal line runs through my veins, leaving me the obligation to produce future kings, and though I have eight daughters, I have only three sons. All of my younger brothers have more sons than I do. It leaves me in a position of weakness, I’m afraid.”

The crown prince peered at the general, an intense look on his face. “Listen to me, Neil! See the look in my eye! I can’t say it out loud, so remember my words. I have only three sons. My brothers have many more. My oldest son will be the next king, but only IF they let him live!”

General Brighton watched the prince carefully as an uncomfortable silence developed. The prince was worried about something. He sensed it and frowned, not knowing what to say.

The prince stared at him a moment, then sipped at his tea. “Is this room also bugged,” he wondered? “Do they listen here as they listen everywhere?”

Brighton pushed his chair back from the table to cross his legs, then brushed his hand through his hair. “You know, Prince Saud, for a short time we had the most exquisite decoration hanging over our fireplace at home. A silver-and-gold emblem of the House of Saud. Two crossed swords and a palm tree. It was simply the most beautiful thing we ever owned.”

“You enjoy it?”

“Of course!” Brighton answered as he thought of the gift from the prince. Three hundred thousand dollars worth of gold, silver, diamonds and pearls! (He had been forced to appraise it before turning it over to the government.) He shook his head. “It was too much, my good friend!” he said.

“Are you kidding? To celebrate the coming of age of your sons? It was too little, I assure you, and it was but the smallest token of my affection for you and your wife. When a son reaches adulthood, it is reason for celebration. I just wanted you and Sara to know I was thinking of you.”

The general sipped his soda. “Thank you again, Your Highness. Still, you are too generous, and of course, as you know, I had to register the gift with the Pentagon Ethics Division. They actually own it now. It is property of the U.S. government. They let me keep it for awhile, but it is not really mine. Conflict of interest. I hope you understand.”

“I understand, I understand. I even suspected that might be necessary. When you retire, I will send you another one just like it that will truly be yours.”

“Your Highness, perhaps it would be better . . . .”

The prince waved a dismissive hand. “Please, Neil, it is a tiny thing to me and I want to do it, OK? Now instead of worrying about the complications of gifts and ethics, let’s pretend for a while, OK? Let’s pretend we’re fighter pilots again. Let’s pretend we don’t have the weight of the world on our shoulders. Let’s pretend time hasn’t changed us and the world is more simple and less dangerous, like it was before. Let’s pretend we are back at fighter pilot school, back when you weren’t so impressed that I came from the royal family and I was more impressed with your flying, and please, will you not call me Your Highness? When it’s just you and me, and no one else is around, can we go back to the way that it once used to be? Let’s go back to our call signs. I’ll call you Gameboy and you call me Sultan.”

The general laughed at the memory of when they were young pilots learning to fly the F-15, a couple young lieutenants slicing the air like thunderbolts through the skies. They felt like Greek gods! They had the power of flight! Nothing could destroy them! They were invincible!

Both men smiled as they relived their private memories. Then the prince spoke, “General Brighton, over the years, you have always been a good friend. We see each other so rarely, but it always seems like nothing has changed.”

The American general nodded. “I was thinking the same thing on my flight over. It’s been, what, more than twenty years since we first met at Eglin. Remember that place, Prince Saud? I used to complain about the heat. You complained about the cold. Playing golf until midnight with those stupid glow-in-the-dark balls, then staying up to study until 3 AM. Life was simple. Those were truly good days.”

“We didn’t have so much responsibility, that’s for sure. Now here I am, the crown prince, and you, one of the youngest generals in the Air Force. We both carry heavy burdens. It’s not quite like the old days when the only thing we worried about was crashing into each other or running out of fuel.” The prince fell quiet, then added, “You know though, I have pretty much proven I am a better pilot than you.”

The general had to laugh. “Are we really going to have this conversation again?”

“No, no really, Neil. Think back to when we first met. As I recall, you made a pretty big deal about how American fighter pilots were the best in the world. I took exception. Now I think it’s time to lay down our cards and see what we have.”

Brighton looked down and pressed the dark blouse of his Air Force blues. “You know, Prince Saud, we’re never going to settle this until we strap on a jet and call ‘fights on’ in the air.”

“No, no, no, that’s not true. We have twenty years’ worth of flying to back up our claims. Now, let me see, how many enemy fighters have you shot down?”

“Not fair, Saud! I was working on the staff during the war. No one was more disappointed than I was that I was not flying!”

“Yes, my sympathies, OK. Now back to my question. I had two confirmed kills. Really had three, but the gun camera jammed so I couldn’t confirm that last kill, and you know the rules, no gun camera footage, no kill. Either way, I’m not selfish. I’ll let the other one go. So let’s see, that’s two, really three, as I just said, and you have, ah, how many enemy jets have you shot down in your career . . . ?” The prince’s voice trailed off but his eyes twinkled brightly.

The general shifted in his seat. His face remained calm, but he clasped his hands. The competitor inside him started to rise.

The prince looked for the white knuckles. He knew his friend well. “OK, OK, let’s not talk about that,” he said. “You’re right, that wouldn’t be fair. I mean, it’s not your fault you were forced to be a staff boy when the big show came to town. Let’s take another measure, ah, flying hours. I’ve got almost three thousand. More fighter time in the Eagle than any other pilot in the entire Royal Saudi Air Force.”

“Got you there, Saud,” Brighton replied. “I’m pushing almost three thousand five hundred flying hours.”

“Really? That is impressive!” The prince settled back in his chair. “But you know, of course, that I’m not including any of the time I’ve logged as an F-15 instructor pilot. Can’t count sitting in the backseat, watching some lieutenant jerk the control stick around. That’s not real flying, keeping some insane student pilot from killing himself! Real pilots do it. Watching doesn’t count! Now Neil, you’re not including your instructor time, are you, because if I were to do that, I’d be up around three thousand six hundred hours.” Again, the prince smiled. Game and match!

The general struggled a moment, then shook his head and laughed. “OK, you win, Your Highness. But let me add, even if I could beat you, do you think I would be so foolish? Show up the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, the next in line for the throne! Can you image the diplomatic crisis such a lapse of judgment would create! So I will hold my tongue.”

The prince shook his head, then stared at his glass. A still silence followed and the lawn sprinklers could be heard from outside.

“Prince Saud,” Brighton said, “it’s good to be here, and it’s always enjoyable to remember old times with you. But I know there’s a reason why you invited me. I can see there’s something on your mind.”

The prince lowered his eyes, then looked again at his friend. His face was suddenly serious and Brighton could see the deep crow’s feet that lined his dark eyes. The prince pushed up from his seat. “Come, let’s walk,” he said.

THREE

Along the Potomac River, northwest of Washington D.C.

It would be their most difficult climb. In fact, it probably was impossible to make it to the top. It wasn’t that the rock was too high, or the way the granite jutted outward to create an inversion near the top, a jagged ledge that thrust into space. Nor was it because the face of the rock was so sheer. The thing that was going to make the climb so challenging was that there were so few protrusions to place their feet on or cracks to grab a hold of. It would be exhausting to make it to the ledge, then crushingly difficult after that.

Still, they looked up in hunger at the challenge.

At least one of them did.

Luke and Ammon stood at the bottom of the rock, the sun shining behind them and warming their shoulders with its early morning light while several birds sang around them; sparrows, mockingbirds and robins calling to each other from the trees that lined the riverbed. The air was crisp and smelled of dead leaves and wet sand. The Potomac River ran low as it always did in the fall and swirled behind them, the water twenty feet from the shoreline where the sand and brush met the rocky cliffs. Above them, a sheer wall of rock rose up from the river, the remnant of some geological aberration that had piled the sand and sediment then crushed it into stone before a million of years of running water cut the softer sediment away from the harder rock.

Luke reached out and touched the cold wall. It was wet and slimy from a small crack that wept from the underground aquifer. The water ran clear and formed a mossy trail that ran down the stone. He pressed his finger into the moss then tasted his finger as he looked around the falls.

The Great Falls of the Potomac is one of the most spectacular natural landmarks on the entire east coast. Above the falls, the Potomac narrows from a wide and meandering river to a powerful ribbon of water that cuts through the Mather Gorge with incredible force. The river drops nearly eighty feet in little less than a mile, crashing over a series of twenty-foot waterfalls and cascading rapids before splitting into multiple frothing fingers running through the rocky channels that make up the lower part of the gorge. For the past ten thousand years, the Potomac has cut through the bedrock, eroding the falls and the riverbank into a moon-like terrain while leaving rock formations that are sheer and jagged and perfect for climbing.

Luke pressed the mossy dribble of water again then moved a few feet to his right, where the stone was dry and bare. Ammon glanced at the trail that led from the riverbed up the side of the steep bank.

“Is there anything in the world that is better than this?” asked Luke.

“Ahh, let me think. Got one. Girls. Yeah, girls are definitely better that this.”

Luke shook his head. “I mean other than that.”

“Ahh, steak. Yeah. Both steak or lobster is better than this.”

“OK. Two things.”

“Yeah, and sleep. Sleep is much better!”

“Be quiet, OK? This is great. Winter’s coming. This might be our last time to climb before it gets too cold.”

“Wait, I’m not finished . . . television’s better . . . yeah, I think I’d rather watch televison than get up at five in the morning just to climb rocks.”

Luke looked dismayed. “OK, I’m sorry I dragged you out here, all right!”

Ammon smiled and cracked his brother on the back. “Just kidding you, dog. You know I’d rather be here with you than anywhere in the world.”

“A little early for sarcasm.”

“Just trying to get things going, you know, lighten things up a bit.” Ammon smiled again and picked up the rope and climbing harness.

Luke studied the wall, lifting his head to the top of the cliff almost fifty feet overhead. Near the top, a sheer ledge jutted outward from the wall at a sixty-degree angle. He studied the cliff for handholds, then pointed to a trail of tiny cracks leading up to the overhang. “I could climb up to that ledge,” he said, pointing to where the rock jutted outward from the sheer wall.

“Yeah, and then what?” Ammon asked.

Luke studied the overhang. “It looks like there might be a few holds,” he took a few steps back, “there . . . .” he pointed with his right arm, using it to guide Ammon’s eyes toward a tiny crack in the rock. “If I could reach behind me for two feet or so, I could jam my hands in that crack.”

“Yeah. Then all you’d have to do is hold on to that ledge with your teeth.”

Luke glanced at his brother. “You don’t think I can do it, do you?”

“No, Luke, I don’t think anyone can do it. You’ll be reaching out a full arms length above and behind you while hanging on with only one hand . . . no, correction, you’ll be hanging on with only your fingers. I don’t care how strong you are, no one could reach that far behind them and get their hand into that crack. Not while hanging on the wall anyway.”

“But I could if . . .”

“Even if you do reach the crevasse, Luke, what are you going to do then? It’s a vertical fissure; it runs up and down the rock, not across. You’d have to jam your fist in there then let go of the wall and pull yourself up by only one hand. No one could do it, not even you, Luke.”

Luke kept his eyes up while he nodded. “You’re probably right,” he said in disappointment.

“Of course I’m right.”

“Probably no one could do it.”

“It’ll probably never be done.”

“Certainly no one’s ever done it before now.”

“Certainly not.”

Luke continued staring above him. “Cool,” he muttered under his breath.

The outcropping was a little more than forty feet up the wall. Forty feet. Four stories. A long way to fall. He lowered his eyes from the ledge and surveyed the scattered pile of boulders and rocks that had been strewn by the river at that base of the wall. Some were as big as his fist, some the size of small tables. All would hurt equally if he were to fall.

Ammon nudged his brother and pointed twenty feet to their right. “There’s our spot,” he said. “See that, there’s a good crevasse we could jam our feet in, and plenty of handholds. We could climb the first forty feet there, then move to our left, come in above the overhang and go up from there.” He took a step back. “Once we’re above that ledge, it’s easy climbing from there.”

Luke looked up and saw where his brother was pointing. “Yeah, that’s a pretty good plan. But you know, Ammon, I’d really like to try climbing up here.”

Ammon grumbled. He knew what his brother was thinking. “Luke,” he said, “let’s not waste our time. There’s no way you’re going to get over that ledge. Look at it, Luke! It juts out at least six feet, and there’s nothing to hold onto. So you’re going to make me climb up the back side of the cliff to secure the rope, you’ll spend twenty minutes climbing the rock and who knows how long trying to get over that ledge, then you’ll have to give up and come down. By then you’ll be too exhausted to try anything else. So we’ll waste an hour for nothing. Come on man, let’s just climb over there. There’s enough cracks that I won’t have to go up the backside to secure the rope, we can use the fissures to secure our own nuts, set our own safety devices as we climb. You can climb first, then I’ll take a shot. We’ll both get in a good climb before we have to go.”

Luke was still studying his path up the rock to the overhang. “If I can get a good grip on the crevasse, I could pull myself to the edge of the overhang. Then I could hold onto the lip, swing my legs up and pull myself over the top.”

“Come on, man. You don’t have to do this, OK. All you’ll do is waste our time.”

“I know I don’t have to. But I want to try.”

“Let’s just . . . .”

“I know what you’re going to say, let’s just climb over there. But you know what I was thinking, Ammon?”

Ammon grunted and didn’t answer as Luke pulled on his thin leather gloves.

“I was thinking about Sam. If he were here, you know what he would do? He’d want to see if he could climb over that ledge, and if he didn’t make it today, he’d come back tomorrow, and again the next day, and the next day after that. He’d figure a way to get up and over that ledge! You know that he would. He’d try a thousand times if he had to, but he’d figure a way to get over that outcropping up there.”

Ammon shook his head. “Sam’s a stubborn fool.”

“Stubborn? Maybe. I guess. But is stubborn bad? Because when I watch Sam put his mind to something and never give up, it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, you know.”

Ammon shook his head again. “I just want a nice, normal gut-wrenching climb. I want to get a good workout, then get back to school. You, on the other hand, want to prove something to yourself. You want to prove something to Sam, and he’s not even here.”

“I don’t have to prove anything.”

“Then let’s climb over there where it isn’t so dangerous and we won’t be wasting our time!” Ammon shot back in exasperation.

Luke was strapping his climbing harness on. “I’m going to try it here, Ammon. Now will you go up and secure the rope, or are you going to make me do it?”

Ammon huffed in frustration, then picked up the rope and started up the trail that led up the backside of the cliff.

• • •

Balaam and Roth stood very close to the brothers, their faces contorted in burning jealousy and hate. Lucifer stood beside them, but he stayed out of the way. After their failure to destroy the girl in Persia, he knew his servants were desperate for even a small victory. So he kept the pressure on them, throwing glares of suspicion and belittlement in their direction. “Let them work,” thought Lucifer. “Let them compete with each other. Keep them motivated by jealousy and desire to push the other out of the way.”

Balaam turned toward the mortals, his eyes narrowing with fear. These young men had the power to threaten them. So they had to be destroyed.

Glancing toward Lucifer, Balaam caught a glimpse of his own ugliness reflected in Lucifer’s dark eyes and stepped back. Like Lucifer, Balaam was pale and deadly, a corpse suspended in the air, his face so lifeless and dreary he couldn’t stand the sight of himself. He was hideous and he knew it, but he no longer cared. But unlike Lucifer, who could still hide his repulsiveness if someone was willing to believe in his lies, Balaam was dark, cruel and ugly, and pretended to be nothing else.

Lucifer walked in a circle around the young men, listening to them talking while thinking to himself. Balaam watched him carefully, but remained still.

Lucifer was dressed in his normal garb; braided sandals, a red sash and a flowing gray robe, dark as smoke but with a light sheen, as if there was some unseen power there. His hood fell over his shoulders and his hair flowed down his neck. His feet were as worn and sullied as any vagabond who walked the earth.

Balaam studied Lucifer from out of the corner of his eye, noting the growing strength of his shoulders and his powerful arms. Lucifer’s dark hair seemed to shimmer and his eyes burned with fire. He stood in great arrogance, almost reeking in power while basking in the glory that his hateful lies had produced. The world was more evil than it had ever been; more brutal, more carnal and more sinful, and the more the world bathed in evil, the more powerful Lucifer had become.

But there was growing good among the shadows—these young brothers, for example—and Balaam was troubled. Like tiny points of light that penetrated the darkness, the great spirits had arrived to make their mark on the world, and they too were growing powerful, more pure and more clear. That made Balaam wonder . . . .

He kicked at the ground with unease.

Lucifer turned to look at him suddenly, as if he had read his mind. “You see them too, servant Balaam?” he asked in a deadly voice.

Balaam nodded slowly.

“You think they grow stronger? And you think that I grow weak?”

Balaam swallowed and bowed. “No Master Mayhem,” he pleaded in a trembling voice. “You are the Great Master, king of this world!”

Lucifer dismissed him with an angry wave of his hand. “That is right, Balaam. I am the king of this world! I am its glory and splendor, its magnificent power! And I am still rising! My day is soon to come! And as my glory grows, the veil between my angels and this world will come down. A few see me now, but in time all will see. I will stand in my dark glory before them and they shall see me as I am! I appear unto a few now, but the time is soon coming when I will appear unto all. I will step forward in power and claim this world for my own! And then they shall know, and their mouths shall confess, that it is my glory that burns bright in this land!”

Balaam nodded eagerly but said nothing, his gut crunching into a tight ball as he lowered his eyes, knowing they would betray him if Lucifer saw. Balaam wanted to believe, he wanted it desperately, but he felt in his heart that it simply wasn’t true. He felt his gloom rising as the final battle approached, the day when he would be stripped of his power and brought to his knees, when Lucifer’s kingdom would be shattered and his minions destroyed.

The Deceiver watched Balaam, noting that he kept his eyes down. “Do you believe me, Master Balaam?” he sneered.

“Master Mayhem, I want to believe!”

“If you ever had faith in me, Master Balaam, then you’d better have faith in me now. You are tied to my future. I am all that you have. So when you pray to me, Balaam, you had better believe your own words!”

Balaam began to tremble in terrible fear. He had seen Lucifer angry, and the last thing Balaam wanted was to feel Lucifer’s anger now! Balaam quivered, then dropped to one knee. “I believe, Master Mayhem!” he cried in a loud voice.

The Deceiver grunted in disgust, then turned away once more.

Lucifer moved a step toward the brothers and faced them, looking them straight in the eyes. They moved and talked around him, completely unaware that he was standing so close that he could plant thoughts into their minds.

Staring at them, the vaguest of memories came flooding back. It was lost in fog—it had been so long ago—but as he concentrated, it came to him.

Long ago . . . another place . . . they stood in a dark stairway in Lucifer’s old world. It was black and suffocating, and smelled of rot and wet soil. A cold rain pelted the rock structure and the wail of Lucifer’s followers lifted through the air.

A few of those who fought against him stood before him at the top of the stairs. Lucifer stepped toward them, cursing as he moved. “I will remember what you have done here!” he screamed. “I will curse you forever if you cast me down to earth. So look at me! Remember me! Because I will remember you!”

Lucifer’s eyes burned with emotion as the memory flooded back.

Then he looked at the two brothers, his eyes red with hate. Looking at them, he realized the power that they held. The things that they would do! The men they would become! The people they would touch and the lives they would change!

He fumed, his eyes burning. But what could he do to stop them?

“If I could, I would kill them,” he sneered to his slave. “I would torture them, beat them and cause them great pain. I would make them cry for mercy, then beat them some more. Give me a chance and I would teach them everything I know about misery and despair!”

Balaam only watched Lucifer. Balaam had heard it all before.

Lucifer fumed a long moment, pacing side to side. Then he suddenly stopped and smiled weakly, exposing his teeth.

He peered at Luke for a moment.

Each mortal had a weakness and he remembered now what failings these young mortals had. Sometimes Ammon wasn’t careful, and Luke had too much pride. So that’s where he would begin. “I may not be able to hurt them,” he hissed, “but maybe I can get them to hurt themselves. If we can distract them, if we can convince them to be careless, then that might be enough.”

Balaam slowly nodded. Careless. Yes, careless. It was a tool that had been used against the young so many times before.

The Deceiver muttered angrily as he walked toward Luke. “He is young. He is foolish. There might be a way . . . .”

Balaam watched Ammon pick up his rope and begin to walk up the trail.

“Stay with him,” Lucifer commanded. “Try to distract him. Do anything that you can. Make him act foolish. Concentrate on his anger. Shout distractions in his head!”

Balaam bowed and followed Ammon as he walked up the trail.

Lucifer watched them go, then moved toward Roth. “Play on his pride,” he commanded as he pointed to the younger brother. “His pride has the power to destroy him if you work him just right.”

Roth nodded, then bowed and ran toward the mortal.

Positioning himself near Luke’s head, Roth leaned toward him, whispering into his ear. “You’re the best. This will be easy. You’re good enough, there’s no reason to be careful anymore.”

FOUR

The two men stood and walked through an open glass door looking out on a garden that stretched for acres behind the villa. They walked through the garden slowly, following the rock path that led to a gushing waterfall.

“The world is changing, General Brighton,” the prince said as they walked. “Indeed, in many ways it is too late. Too much has changed already! You now have many enemies throughout the world.”

Brighton glanced sideways at the prince. “Our friends are few, but that has always been the case,” he answered calmly.

“No, Neil. This is different. From the east to the west, you are nearly alone. Europe hates you now unlike ever before.”

“Old Europe, perhaps,” the general interrupted. “But the new Europe, the emerging Europe, they are on our side.”

The prince shook his head. “Maybe. It doesn’t matter. Not now anyway, and what I said is still true. Most hate you now for your strength and the effect you have. They see you as a soaring eagle. None of them can stand to see you so powerful, and the effect of your decisions! I don’t know if you realize how much influence you have. Your economy sneezes, and nations catch pneumonia. You go into the Great Recession and people starve throughout the world. You languish through a recovery no one believes is real, and more people die from the economic shock that started on your shores. You develop a foreign initiative and entire governments fall. You institute a new policy and by the time it reaches your allies, it is the tip of a whip that snaps at their heads. You are so powerful, but yet so naïve. Like a clumsy giant, you wander across the globe, crushing everything under your feet without looking down. Is it any surprise so many would like to see you brought to your knees?”

Brighton considered a moment. “Perhaps. But a gentle giant is a better description, I think, and all this talk of the United States seeking world domination is completely absurd! Just the ranting of societies who have failed and need someone to blame. Some people despise us, we know that. Much of Europe. Many Middle Eastern nations. Dictators and tyrants. We have enemies. But there are a few who seem to be in our camp.”

“Hmm!” the prince scoffed. “I wouldn’t be so sure. There are enemies rising, many foes in the world, and this is very important, Neil, so you must listen to me! There are many kinds of enemies that one needs to fear. Those you know and can identify, they are the very best kind. You see them, can study them, can counter their moves. But there are other enemies, far more deadly, those who plot in secret places but hide in the light. There may be friends, even loved ones . . . .” Prince Saud’s voice drifted off.

General Brighton watched him a second, seeing the sadness on his face.

Friends. Even loved ones. Why was he so afraid?

“There are those,” Saud continued, “who harbor secret hates and ambitions, those who have taken to the darkness and feel comfortable in it now, those who seek to destroy freedom or anything else that is good.”

The general turned to his friend. “What are you saying, Prince Saud?” he asked nervously.

The prince looked around, then stared for a moment at the sky. “I am saying there is great danger lurking. Great danger to me and great danger to you.” He lowered his face to look into the general’s eyes. “My father intends for me to transform the kingdom. You know that, we have discussed it, but there are many who would stop me. I don’t know how far they will go.”

“You’ve got to be more specific,” Brighton prodded anxiously. “Are you talking of your neighbors? Syria? Iran?”

“Those would be too obvious! You’re not listening to me, Neil! I’m talking of my family. I’m talking of your friends!”

The prince shook his head in frustration. Was it so hard to understand?

“General Brighton, do you believe that I support the concepts of freedom?” Saud asked. “Do you believe that my goal is to move the kingdom toward democracy and closer ties with the West?”

“Yes, Prince Saud, I believe that is true.”

“Do you believe that I am your friend?”

“I know that you are.”

“Do you believe that I am a friend of the United States as well?”

The general paused. That was more difficult. The prince had many allegiances, many voices demanding his ear. Many opposing forces were hanging on him as he balanced on the tightrope and nothing was ever simple when it came to the tug and pull of international relationships. After thinking a moment, Brighton replied, “Yes, Prince Saud, I believe that you are a friend to the United States.”

“Do you believe there are those who would like to see our friendship destroyed, those who would see the kingdom rise up and become an enemy of the United States?”

Brighton needed to be cautious. Although this was a personal conversation, he still represented his government and he had to choose his words carefully. But he had always been honest with the prince and he would be honest now. “There are some in my country who think that has happened already, some who believe, and with some evidence I might add, that fundamental Islamic groups carry far too much favor within the kingdom.”

The prince considered before he answered, “There is no doubt that is true. But there is a fine balance, a delicate subtlety we must seek daily. Have we made mistakes? Yes we have, and my father has taken steps to remedy any errors that might have been made. But that’s not what I’m speaking of. I’m not talking of radical terrorist groups. I’m talking of others, some within my government, some from opposing nations, some within your own country, who would like nothing more than to see the relationship between our two nations destroyed.”

“I understand, Prince Saud. We see those forces at work daily.”

“Do you see those forces within your own country? Do you see them within your own government? Can you see them, Neil, because believe me, they’re there!”

The general was silent, then sadly nodded.

“Then listen to me, Neil. Take this moment and freeze it in your memory so you’ll remember what I say!” The prince took a step forward and narrowed his eyes. “I believe we are approaching the crossroads of a mighty war. And I’m not talking about a clash between religions or clash between nation-states. This isn’t Muslim against Christian, Islam against Jew, and it isn’t a war between democracies and totalitarian regimes. I’m talking something far deeper and far more deadly now, a clash between two fundamentally different sets of beliefs; a clash between groups who defy normal cultures or rules. Our enemies are not contained by borders and when this is over we will find them everywhere.

“I’m talking about a fundamental conflict between those who believe in basic freedoms and those who would make all men their slaves. I’m talking about ruthless enemies who seek to destroy all free nations and free ways of life. I have seen a glimpse of the future and you’ve never had a nightmare that compares with their plans.

“We are rushing forward, heading for what the Qur’an calls the Great War, and this war will be different than any we have ever fought before. It will be a war against an enemy that holds no territory, defends no population and respects no moral law. Such an enemy cannot be deterred. It can only be destroyed.”

The prince stopped, moving his eyes down the path, then turned back to Brighton. “This enemy seeks your country’s destruction above anything else. As long as you stand, then you stand in their way. So they have to destroy you. But in order to destroy you they will come after me first.”

Brighton looked away as he thought, his eyes clouding with dread. He had never heard a government leader speak so frankly of his fears. And though he kept his face stoic, inside his gut grew tight.

• • •

The call came through on his satellite phone, a phone that could reach him anywhere in the world.

The younger prince, handsome and thin, flipped the phone open and quickly punched in his security code. “Yes,” he said simply when the call was linked through.

“Sayid, Crown Prince Saud is meeting with the American general,” a deep voice replied.

“Where?” the prince demanded.

“His personal office.”

“You are listening?”

“Of course, Sayid.

“Has he said anything to the American officer?”

“Nothing of note, Sayid, only small talk.”

“He hasn’t warned him?”

“No, Sayid, God be willing. But they have walked into the garden where we are no longer able to listen.”

Prince al-Rahman pulled anxiously on his chin. “Where is Princess Tala?” he asked.

“She is preparing to leave the mountain. They will be on their way in just a few minutes now.”

“And the children are with her?”

“Sayid, they are.”

Another moment of silence, this was longer and more uncomfortable. “Your team is in place?” the younger prince demanded.

“They are ready to move.”

“All right, Khilid. You know what to do.”

FIVE

It took Ammon ten minutes to climb the trail that led up the backside of the riverbank to the top of the rock. As he walked, he became angry, thinking of Luke. He was always so prideful, so conceited! It was never enough just to have fun; everything had to be a grand competition. Proving who was toughest, who was strongest, and he had to always be the best.

Balaam walked beside him, shouting and sneering, planting angry thoughts into his mind. “Why is Luke always like this? He’s just wasting your time, trying to climb this impossible rock!”

Ammon moved up the trail, using his hands to pick his way up the steep path that led around the backside of the cliff. The trail was littered with broken rocks and he slipped back a time or two, grabbing the brush at the side of the trail to keep from falling back.

“What a waste of a morning,” he mumbled, “standing at the bottom of the cliff, holding the rope so Luke could prove what a great climber he is.”

“I really should be studying,” he thought. He had a test in a couple hours. But no, he was going to spend the morning watching Luke climb an impossible rock. What a waste of time. He should have stayed in bed.

The longer he climbed, the madder he got, and the madder he got, the more distracted he became. Balaam continued working beside him, whispering scornful, angry, irrational, emotional, envious thoughts in his ear. “Luke is better than you are. You know that and he knows that too. He’s just rubbing it in, just trying to prove it again. The only reason he’s doing this is to make you feel like a loser. He just wants to bug you, to put you down a notch or two. Why can’t he just give it a break? It’s always me! Always me! Everyone look at me! Aren’t you growing sick of it? Will he ever change?”

Balaam kept it up, a constant barrage of vile thoughts in Ammon’s head. And the more Ammon heard it, the angrier he became. The thoughts were illogical and selfish, but Lucifer’s temptations rarely made any sense. Yet still people listened. Driven by emotion, the human heart sometimes doesn’t let the human head think.

Ammon climbed, his head down, the bottled up emotion building inside.

Yeah, he loved his brother, sure, and they got along great most the time, but once in a while he could be a jerk.

He suddenly realized he was at the top of the hill. He stood there a moment, catching his breath, glancing at the beauty around him. He wanted to take in the view, to enjoy it for a moment, but he knew that Luke would be waiting impatiently at the bottom of the cliff.

“Always about Luke!” Balaam sneered into his mind again.

Looking around, he saw that because the wall had not been climbed before, there was no anchor that he could use to secure the climbing rope to. For a moment he thought of tying it to a nearby tree then changed his mind. Taking out a stainless steel anchor and undersized hammer from his backpack, he located a small crack in the rock, placed the bolt inside and secured it, driving it deeply into the crack at the top of the cliff. Finishing his work, he pulled on the anchor to check it, jerking it back and forth.

The rock around the bolt began to chip away and he leaned over to take a closer look.

Balaam leaned toward him, knowing this was his chance. Intent on his work, his eyes grew dark and mean. “Don’t worry about it,” he hissed. “How many times have you done this? A thousand. Maybe more! Has a bolt ever broken? No! Not once. Not a single time has one of the bolts you set in rock pulled away. So why are you worried? Luke is waiting! You’ve got to hurry! Why are you being so cautious! You’ve done this so many times before!”

Ammon jerked on the bolt a final time.

“IT’S FINE!” Balaam screamed.

The bolt seemed to hold so Ammon clipped a carabineer through the anchor and screwed the safety clasp to ensure it couldn’t open. Then, standing, he turned and glanced over the top of the rock. It was a long way to fall, and he felt a little dizzy. Truth was, he wasn’t keen on heights. One of the reasons he loved climbing was to tackle the gnaw of fear.

From where he stood, he couldn’t see Luke, who was hidden from view underneath the ledge. “Luke,” he called out, swinging the rope in his hand.

Luke stepped away from the wall to where Ammon could see him. “Rope,” Ammon called as he let it fall. Luke caught it, trying not to let it touch the ground where the sand would weaken it and make it less safe.

Ammon ran his end of the rope through the carabineer then secured it to his climbing harness and brake. He pulled on his gloves, then looked over the edge of the cliff.

“Ready!” he called down to Luke.

Luke checked the rope through his own harness, then tightened the slack. “Go for it,” he called back.

Before backing over the cliff, Ammon looked one last time at the bolt he had driven into the crack.

“It’s fine,” Balaam whispered, this time soothing instead of urgent. “It’s fine. No need to worry. Come on, go for it!”

Ammon didn’t move. He focused on the tiny cracks in the rock around the stainless steel bolt.

“Luke’s waiting!” Balaam sneered. “He’s looking at you, wondering what you’re doing. He’s not a boob. He wouldn’t worry. He wouldn’t freak out like this . . . .”

Ammon knelt down and brushed the dirt away from the bolt. The sandstone was weak and crumbling from a thousand years of rain and wind, but the bolt seemed to be firmly driven into the rock. Standing, he pulled against the rope, giving a final jerk.

“It’s OK!” Balaam whispered quickly, keeping a steady chatter in his ear. “Go on. Have some fun. The bolt will fine. What are the chances anything will go wrong?”

Ammon nodded, agreeing with the whispered thoughts in his head, and because he was young, naïve, angry, distracted with thoughts about school, and hadn’t been hurt by inexperience before, he trusted the evil whispers and didn’t check the bolt carefully.

He stood at the edge of the cliff. “Rappelling!” he called down.

“Rappel on!” Luke called back as he braced for the pull of Ammon’s weight.

Ammon turned and walked off the top of the cliff. It was a sheer drop below him and he easily bounced his way down, rappelling to the ledge ten feet below the top of the rock. Hitting the overhang, he moved to the tip of the ledge, then pushed forcefully out and away from the wall while feeding out ten feet of rope. The rope tightened, then swung him like a pendulum into the wall and he bent his legs to absorb the shock.

Above him, the bolt slipped, moving against the cracked stone. But Ammon didn’t feel it as he swung into the side of the cliff. He pushed again. His weight jerked the rope and the bolt slipped again, pivoting thirty degrees. A small crack spread in the rock.

But still the bolt held.

• • •

Ammon stopped his descent directly under the ledge. Hanging there, he looked over his head, his body off balance, his torso hanging back.

The outcropping had more handholds than he could see from the ground. And the ledge wasn’t quite as steep as it had appeared. The crevasse they had looked at might provide a pretty good grip, if Luke could reach it, which was a very big if, for it was a good three or four feet away from the face of the cliff. Ammon examined the overhang for thirty seconds or so, then let off more rope, bouncing from the rock as he made his way down. The last of the descent was almost a free fall through space, for the overhang kept him away from the wall and he had to balance himself carefully as he moved to the ground.

Luke was waiting, an anxious look on his face. “What do you think?” he asked quickly.

Ammon stared up at the overhang as he loosened the straps on his harness. “I’m not sure about the bolt,” he answered, ignoring the intent of his brother’s question. He jerked on the rope and suspended his weight on it by dropping to his knees as he pulled.

The rope held firm and Luke waved at the air. “Come on, Ammon, the bolt is secure. In all the times that we’ve done this has a bolt ever broken away?”

Ammon looked up, keeping his weight on the rope. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “It just didn’t feel right. Sandstone is notoriously weak, you know that Luke, and though I found a good crevasse, part of it broke away when I drove the bolt in.”

Luke hesitated. “Come on, Ammon. It’s fine. You just don’t want . . . .”

“No, Luke, really. I just want to be sure.”

“Come on!” Luke persisted. “Nothing’s going to happen. You’re turning into Mom, always worrying.”

Ammon ignored him as he jerked again, suspending all of his weight. The rope held firm and Luke huffed impatiently.

“All right,” Ammon finally said. “It seems to be OK.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Luke answered. “Now what about the overhang?”

Ammon looked up. “It’s going to be even harder than it looks,” he answered, lifting his arm and pointing as he talked. “There, you see that,” he motioned toward the leading edge of the overhang, “that crevasse you’re counting on to provide a handhold, it looks to be only a few inches wide, just enough to get your hand in and get a good grip. But it’s a lot wider than that, Luke, I’d say five inches or so, and it slopes downward much more than it looks like from here. You’re not going to be able to use it for a handhold like you thought that you could.”

Luke studied the small fissure and said, “But it’s got a pretty good lip there that I could hold to.”

Ammon nodded. “You could try. That’s all I can say. But listen, Luke, why can’t we just move down the rock fifteen feet or so?” Ammon pointed to his right. “Its got better handholds, it’s even, and we wouldn’t have to mess around with that overhang which is just going to make you fall.”

“So what if I fall? That’s what the safety rope is for.”

Ammon flipped the climbing rope in his hand, eighty meters of nylon and cotton. Designed to stretch under pressure, it was a good rope, expensive, and had saved both of their lives many times. He pulled on the rope as he studied the wall. “One more thing,” he continued, still hoping to talk Luke out of trying this climb, “because the rope has to extend over the edge, it will hang away from the wall. That’s going to make it harder for me to keep a proper tension on it. No big deal, I can handle that, but if you lose your grip and fall, the ledge will leave you dangling five or six feet away from the wall. Which means you’ll have to trust me to lower you to the ground.”

“No big deal, Ammon. It won’t be any harder than you repelling down.”

Ammon hesitated, then tried one last time. “I just think it’s a waste of time to try and climb over that ledge,” he concluded. “You can’t do it, Luke. No offense, buddy, but no one can pull themselves over the top of that ledge. No one. Can’t be done. So I’ll sit here for an hour and watch you try, then you’ll be exhausted and come down, and that will be it.”

“But you’ll hang with me, right? You’ll give me a chance?”

Ammon watched his brother. “You’re not going to pull a Sam on me, are you? Because both of us know what Sam would do. He’d hang on the wall and keep trying to pull himself over that ledge until he either starved to death or we pulled him down. He wouldn’t give up as long as he had any strength. He would literally fall from exhaustion before he would quit. Now, you’re not going to do that, are you? Because I really have to get to my lab this afternoon. If I’m going to be here all day holding the safety rope for you, then tell me now so I can go and buy me some lunch and a couple sodas before you get on the wall.”

Luke smiled. “I’ll give it a reasonable try. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll admit defeat, come down and we’ll try somewhere else.”

“I’m serious, Luke, I’m not going to stay here all day,” Ammon warned. “I’ll tie the rope to a tree and leave you if you drag this thing out.”

“Got it,” Luke answered.

Ammon nodded, checked his harness, then flipped the rope, moving it a couple feet to his right in order to position it where Luke wanted to climb.

• • •

As Ammon released his weight and flipped the rope, the bolt he had driven into the rock reseated itself and cocked again to the side. The rock had cracked from the pressure of Ammon ‘s weight, weakening the sandstone and causing microscopic fractures where the bolt had been set.

• • •

Luke moved to the base of the fifty-foot sandstone wall. Ammon stood behind him, the safety rope secured to his harness. The rope ran over the top of the wall, through the carabineer he had secured to the bolt then back down the wall where Luke had tied the other end to his climbing harness. Luke glanced behind him. “Belay on?” he asked.

Ammon flipped the rope to make certain it curled on the small carpet he had laid out behind him, then pulled out the last of the slack. “On belay,” he answered.

Luke moved to the wall. “Climbing,” he said.

“Climb on,” Ammon replied.

Luke stretched his hands over the rock, feeling for the tiny crevasses and finger holds that a non-climber would have never seen. His gummed-soled shoes were like fly paper, giving him an extraordinary sense of security against the rock. He stretched, reaching over his head and pulled himself up, using his feet and legs to support his weight as much as he could to help save his upper body strength for the ledge. As he climbed, he was extraordinarily aware of his body and used every part; his knees, his elbows, his fingers and palms, he even forced his chest against the rock in order to evenly distribute his weight. He easily climbed the first fifteen feet, using tiny protrusions as handholds and forcing his feet into thin cracks. Halfway up the rock, the wall became suddenly smooth and he had to hang on a tiny ledge while he searched for the next handhold. Scratching over his head, he felt for a crack that he could hold on to.

Ammon watched, all the time looking up. He kept the rope tight enough to break Luke’s fall, but not so tight as to interfere or help support his weight. He watched his brother search in vain for a handhold, then called up, “Luke, there’s a place to put your foot a couple of feet to your right.”

Luke stretched out his leg and tried a place or two, but couldn’t find anything that would support his weight.

“Higher up,” Ammon shouted. “If you can get your right foot on that tiny ledge beside you.”

Luke stopped and scowled down at his brother. “You must mean this ledge beside my ear!” he shouted in sarcasm.

“Come on! It’s not that high. You can do it, buddy, if you get your knees high enough.”

“I’m not a contortionist Ammon. How many people could lift their feet above their chest?”

“You’re exaggerating, Luke. Now come on, you can do it!”

Luke stared at the tiny ledge by his waist, hesitating. He lifted his leg a time or two, measuring the height, but his other foot almost slipped. He looked at Ammon. “Would you like to come and demonstrate?” he called down.

Ammon started to answer but Luke ignored him. After several more minutes of searching, he descended the rock a couple feet, moved two arm lengths to his right, then started climbing again. There was a better route there, with handholds enough for him to sink his fingers onto. Fifteen minutes later he had climbed up to the overhang that extended out over the face of the cliff.

“How you feeling?” Ammon asked as Luke studied the overhang directly over his head.

Luke took his free hand and dipped it in the chalk bag strapped to the back of his harness. “Little tired,” he called back. “That wore me out, getting stuck halfway up. Took a lot longer to get up here than I thought it would.”

Ammon glanced at his watch. Luke had been on the rock for almost thirty minutes. He knew Luke had to be exhausted. A less experienced climber would have fallen a dozen times by now. A beginner wouldn’t have made it ten feet up the wall. But Luke was just getting started. The most difficult part of the climb was directly over his head.

Luke craned his neck back as he held on with his fingers, his feet turned sideways to fit on a one-inch crack in the rock. Above him, the face of the cliff jutted outward at a sixty-degree angle, extending behind him for five feet or so. His hands trembled and his calves were beginning to cramp from the constant strain of holding his weight on his toes. He had to move quickly to find a way to get over the ledge or he wouldn’t have any strength left to pull himself up.

He searched in frustration, dribbles of sweat pouring down the side of his face.

• • •

Roth stood in the air beside him. “You can do it!” he whispered into the exhausted man’s ear. “Ammon doesn’t think you’re strong enough, but you know that you are! Samuel could do it. Is he that much stronger than you?”

Luke passed an exhausted hand over his eyes as he thought.

“Sam has always been stronger,” Roth hissed bitterly. “He’s better at everything! But you know you can do this. Now prove that you can do this.”

Luke looked down. His brother stared up. He clenched the fingers on his left hand against the tiny cracks in the wall, then leaned back. He clung there, suspended, barely hanging on the cliff. He moved his hand across the overhang, feeling for the crack they had identified from the ground, searching for anything he could sink his fingers into. His shoulders ached, his arms trembled, and his neck muscles cramped.

“Luke,” Ammon warned. “Be careful up there.”

“I’m okay,” he shouted.

Luke moved a few inches away from the wall and the safety rope went slack. “You got me!” Luke called as he glanced down.

“I got you!” Ammon answered as he put pressure on the rope to tighten it up. Bracing himself, he planted his feet and leaned back, anticipating Luke’s fall.

Luke gathered his strength and reached back again. He put more weight on his toes and his leg muscles cramped with excruciating knots. He stretched out his fingers and lifted one leg. He . . . couldn’t . . . quite . . . reach . . . it! He huffed in exhaustion, then shifted his weight to his left foot, and lifted up on his toes again. He clawed overhead and behind him. He could see the crack there, but it was two . . . inches . . . too . . . far.

Two inches. Might as well be two feet. He wasn’t going to make it.

• • •

“Jump!” the dark angel told him. “Let go of the wall. You can do it, Luke! You have the rope to catch you. Jump! You won’t get hurt even if you fall!”

• • •

Luke stretched out again, almost at the end of his strength. He extended his fingers. Just . . . a . . . few . . . more . . . inches! He dropped his head and looked down, relieving the cramps in his neck, then gathered his strength and repositioned himself on a tiny ledge on the cliff.

“You got me, right?” he called down to Ammon.

Ammon looked worried. “Come on, Luke,” he answered. “Let’s call it quits.”

Luke shook his head. Not when he was this close!

He looked back up and stretched a final time for the handhold he had been reaching for.

It was simply too far.

He only had two choices now. It was jump or climb down.

He made his decision and swallowed hard.

He braced himself against the wall as he gathered his strength, then leaped for the rock while twisting in midair, extending both hands, stretching them as far as he could reach over his head.

He grasped the crack with the fingertips of his right hand, and he hung there, suspended, his feet swinging wildly through the air. He flailed with his other hand, forcing it against the crack in the wall, scratching and pawing desperately for something to grab.

Ammon braced himself below him, waiting to absorb the weight of his fall.

Luke almost screamed from the pressure on his arm. The adrenaline shot through him and he clawed like an animal with his free hand. As he pawed at the rock, tiny pieces of sandstone and dust tumbled into his eyes. Hanging by one hand, he scratched with the other, then felt a tiny crack in the rock. Stretching, he grabbed it with all the strength he had left.

He was slipping. He was exhausted.

He caught his breath as he hung there, four stories above the ground, then moved his right hand for a better handhold. He pulled himself upward and moved his left hand. Inch by inch, hand by hand, he moved upward toward the tip of the ledge. Another inch, another handhold, he moved on the overhang.

His arms ached. It was agony. He could hardly breathe. His fingers trembled with exhaustion and his shoulders knotted in pain.

He wasn’t going to make it. He couldn’t hold on any more. It took everything he had just to hang on the rock. He was growing lightheaded. His entire body was shaking and his arms were cramped in pain.

Just a few inches more. But he did not have the strength.

It was time to let go. He had tried, he had failed. Now his body was done.

He huffed in pain and disappointment, then reached desperately for the rope, while hanging by one hand.

The instant he put weight on the rope, it started sliding through his fingers. He watched in terror as it snaked from the overhand above him and through the air, falling toward the rocky ground so far below. As they passed in front of his face in slow motion the carabineer and safety bolt flashed in the sun. The rope fell with a light whisp before the metal devices clinked against the hard rocks below.

• • •

Ammon saw the rope fall and almost threw up on himself. The bolt had broken free from the crevasse! It couldn’t be! His mind flashed and he rushed to the wall. He legs turned to jelly and his gut crunched in a sick knot of dark fear.

He glanced up at his brother who hung from the edge by one hand. “Oh God!” he frantically whispered. “Please, don’t let him fall!”

He dove on the rope in a panic, as if it could help him now. He laced it through his fingers, finding the bolt. The carabineer was still attached and he grimaced in pain, then stared at it blankly, a disbelieving look on his face. He turned for the trail, rope in his hands, and started to run, then stopped. He did not have enough time! Luke could not hang on long enough for him to get to the top of the rock and secure the rope again!

He looked up in horror.

He did not want his brother to die!

Then the bitter truth hit him like a baseball bat in his chest. He exhaled in pain, almost doubling over with guilt. He clenched his teeth and looked up, his eyes wide in gut-wrenching fear.

He thought the bolt was safe. But he hadn’t been sure.

His brother was going to die. And it was his fault!

He looked up, his mouth agape, his throat too tight to scream. “I’ll catch you, Luke!” he tried calling, but his voice only croaked.

• • •

Luke knew he was dead. He simply couldn’t hang on. He had drained all his energy, every ounce of his strength. His fingers were slipping and his arms cramped in pain. He tried desperately to hang on, but there was nothing more he could do.

He felt his grip slipping and he closed his eyes for the fall.

Time stopped, the world froze in place. He heard his heart beat and felt each pull of breath in his chest. He thought clearly and precisely as his mind raced ahead.

He opened his eyes and looked below him where Ammon was waiting in terror, his face sick and grim. It seemed as if he was trying to call to him, but his voice didn’t come. His brother reached up as if waiting to catch him when he fell. The rope lay curled at his feet, completely worthless now.

Lifting his head, he looked up to the overhang. He was so close. Just another few inches. But he simply did not have the strength. He was hanging by one hand now. His fingers slipped again, and he held on by his last knuckles.

He listened to his heartbeat. Then he started praying. “Please, I do not want to die.”

He closed his eye. Numbing pain in his arms. A sickening fear in his chest. “I don’t want to die!” he cried again.

“Then fight!” something told him.

He opened his eyes and looked around.

“Fight! This is your choice!”

The voice was so clear, it was as if someone had whispered in his ear. He blinked in confusion, feeling sudden strength in his arms.

“This is not your time,” the unseen voice whispered. “You have more work to do. Now, are you going to fight so I can help you or are you going to let go?”

Luke tightened his grasp on the rock.

“Look to your right! There is a firm handhold there.”

Luke turned his head and saw a large protrusion in the rock he had not noticed before. How could he have missed it? Was it really there before? He reached out and grabbed it. It fit like a glove in his hand and he curled his fingers around it, a perfect handhold. He felt a sudden rush of strength and he reached with his other hand. Another crack in the rock provided another handhold and he moved slowly upward on the ledge. He reached the edge of the overhang and hung, still suspended, then started swinging his legs while pulling himself up with his arms. He got one knee up and clawed at the overhang with his feet while pulling up with his arms. His other foot brushed the rock and he felt another rush of strength. He pulled one final time and his feet caught the top of the ledge. With strength beyond his own, he heaved himself over the top, then collapsed in a heap of quivering flesh.

He couldn’t move his fingers. He couldn’t move his arms. He was so numb and exhausted he barely had the strength to breathe. His head dropped to the side and he saw bloody scratches on his arm. His stomach turned to water, bitter and tart, and he rolled to his side and threw up a gush of clear fluid. Then he lay back, exhausted, barely able to think.

Below him, he heard his brother’s desperate sobs.

• • •

Ammon had fallen to his knees, then rolled onto his side. He pulled his arms to his chest and held himself tight while great tears of horror and relief rolled down his cheeks to dribble across his neck.

He had almost killed his brother. The whole thing would have been his fault! He shuddered again as his face went pale. A cold sweat drenched his face, his lips almost turning blue.

God had saved him! He had reached down from heaven and pulled Luke up and over the ledge. Ammon had watched it. There was no doubt in his mind. Someone had saved him, someone from above.

He looked at the rope that lay curled at his knees, one end still attached to Luke’s harness, then picked up the bolt and carabineer and felt sick again.

He sobbed with emotion, overcome with guilt and relief.

He had almost killed his brother! How could he have gone on if Luke had fallen? Would he ever get over this moment? Would the dread ever pass?

He felt sick and alone. And he knew in his heart he would never be the same man again.

• • •

A long moment passed. How long, Ammon didn’t know, it felt like only a few seconds, but it could have been much longer. He finally pushed himself to his feet, untied the rope from his harness and ran up the trail to the topside of the rock. Looking over the ledge, he saw Luke waiting there, leaning against the cliff, his arms hanging weakly at his side. Ammon looked down at his brother a moment before Luke noticed that he was standing over his head.

Ammon couldn’t speak. His mind was a haze.

“Hey, that was kind of exciting.” Luke said with a smile.

Ammon shook his head. “I’m so sorry . . . so sorry . . . .”

“What for?”

“The rope. The bolt! It was my fault.”

Luke shook his head and waved a dismissive hand, barely lifting it from his lap. “Come on, Ammon. Don’t go soft on me, brother. It’s one of those things. Anyone who climbs knows that it could happen. There was no way you could know. Just one of those things.”

“I should have known the bolt wasn’t sure. The rock was starting to crack. I should have stopped you.”

Luke pushed himself up, leaning into the rock. “That’s a crock! There was no way you could know. Now don’t go girly on me, brother! Besides, I’m OK. And now I can say I made it over the ledge. Without a safety rope even! Let’s see Sam beat that!”

Luke smiled, but his voice trailed off and both of the young men were silent.

After a moment of quiet, Luke said, “I heard something.” His voice was solemn, almost reverent.

Ammon’s eyes narrowed. “I saw something,” he replied.

“I felt such strength.”

“It was as if a hand lifted you up and over the ledge.”

They both fell still for a very long time. Then they looked at each other and Luke lowered his eyes. “Can you secure the rope? I want to get off of this ledge.”

Luke stood weakly. He barely had the strength to gather the rope from where it dangled over the side of the overhang, coil it up loosely and throw it up to Ammon, who secured it to the tree before pulling him the last ten feet to the top of the rock.

The two young men drove in silence the entire way home. “Should we tell Dad when he gets back from his trip?” Ammon asked as they pulled into the drive.

Luke shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Maybe someday, but let’s not mention it for now.”

SIX

The prince’s family was returning to the city. There were two young teenage boys and a daughter who had just celebrated her tenth birthday. Princess Tala hurried them forward and they moved smartly into the long limousine, a black BMW with bulletproof windows; steel rails in the side doors, surrounding the battery and the radiator; blast-proof metal plates welded underneath the floor; and run-flat tires.

Princess Tala, first wife of Crown Prince Saud, followed her children into the limousine’s backseat. She moved carefully, her hand subconsciously protecting her stomach. She was just weeks away from delivering her third son, another prince for the kingdom, and she had developed a habit of resting her hand on her abdomen as she walked. Dropping into the back seat, she adjusted herself, smoothing her white dress and blowing away a stray curl of hair from her eyes. Tala was slender and beautiful, with deep green eyes and rich chestnut hair hidden under a silk scarf and thin veil. She sat gracefully, every move elegant, her eyes soft and wide like her ancestral mothers, the ancient Egyptian queens. Her dark skin was perfect and flawless, and the sight of her long neck and green eyes revealed enough beauty to command the attention of any man.

The Crown Prince had chosen wisely. Tala was a princess in every sense of the word. Which was both a great blessing and a weakness. Depending on how long she lived.

The three children sat across from their mother in the long sedan, their backs facing their bodyguard and driver. The princess nodded to the men in the front seat and the convoy began to move down the circular drive that led from the villa to the front gate that protected the grounds. The Royal Family’s modest summer palace, a mere forty-five rooms and three pools, fell behind the line of cars, and the princess sighed deeply and looked out her bulletproof window to see the receding summer palace.

Built on the highest peak on the western side of the mountains that looked down on the Red Sea, the summer palace was a refuge from the brutal hot desert below. Here the mountain air was cool and tangy with the smell of juniper and pine. Ancient Joshua trees lined the private drive, their heavy branches hanging over the pavement and breaking the sunlight into shadows that flickered through the windows of the passing cars. The princess glanced back at the retreating villa with sadness. She spent more time here than anywhere else in the kingdom and it was always hard to leave. To her, all of the other palaces, magnificent as they might be, were no more than hotels where she might spend a few nights. This palace felt like home, the one place she was truly comfortable, and she would have stayed here forever if the Crown Prince would allow it.

Tala’s daughter watched her peer through the back window as the stone villa grew smaller. She knew her mother was happier here than anywhere else in the world. In this matter they agreed. “When will we be back?” the little girl asked as the villa fell behind a line of conifer trees.

“Soon,” her mother answered. “But we have other obligations. Our lives cannot be only pleasure, we have other things we must do.”

“Can we come back next week?” her daughter asked.

The princess cocked her head and smiled. “El-Tasha, if we came back next week, what would you do about school?”

“I would rather be here on the mountain than go to school. Did you know I saw a mountain goat yesterday! It was way up on the cliffs. You should have seen it climbing, I thought surely it would fall. Can we come back next week and see if it is still there!”

The oldest son eyed his sister. “She’s just looking for an excuse to get out of her studies,” he teased. “El-Tasha would rather sit on a rock in the middle of the Euphrates surrounded by eel snakes than go to school.”

El-Tasha shook her head. “That’s not true!” she answered. “I like school. Sometimes. Well OK, I don’t like the academy, but that’s not the reason I want to come back . . . at least it’s not the only reason.”

The oldest son laughed again and Tala turned to him. He had the dark eyes of his father and was filling out in the chest. He looked so much like his father, it was almost uncanny, it was like a younger prince Saud sitting there. although he was just fourteen, he looked older. Something about the future responsibility of the kingdom made a boy grow quickly and the princess could almost see the subtle weight of the kingdom begin to settle on his shoulders. He was the next link in the transition of the kingdom. He’d been told to prepare from the time he was a child. Difficult as it was for him to comprehend, he was doing his best.

Princess Tala patted his knee then glanced through the bulletproof window at the road ahead.

A twelve-foot brick wall surrounded the mountain retreat. The only access to the villa, which was set back half a mile from the security wall, was through a heavy steel gate. Thick trees lined the road and the convoy of five vehicles sped along the hardtop toward the gate. The first vehicle in the convoy was a black military van containing the heavy weapons and surface-to-air missiles. A black SUV followed the black van with the royal family’s personal bodyguards. Princess Tala and her family were in the third car, the long BMW limousine, followed by another SUV with her physician, the family pediatrician, a personal assistant, secretary, trainer and masseuse. The chief of security rode in the last vehicle, a heavy truck crammed with military officers and security police.

From his vantage point in the convoy’s rear, the chief of security could watch their progress while observing the road ahead. After years of training (and some painful experience), the chief had grown accustomed to riding in the back of the convoy where he could more accurately observe the situation and measure the threats.

The chief shifted uncomfortably in the front seat of the truck. As head of security, the princess and her family were completely his charge and he would happily give his life if it were ever required to save them. The truth was, if harm were to ever come to the princess, Prince Saud would have him killed anyway. Better to die with honor than to die in disgrace. And though he had always felt pressure, he felt it increasingly morew. The radicals in the kingdom had grown bolder and more vicious. Like a dog crazed with hunger, they smelled the sweet tang of blood.

The chief moved anxiously to the edge of his seat as the convoy passed through the main gate and onto the descending mountain road.

The road leading down the mountain was smooth and well kept, but it was also cut with deep switchbacks and very steep grades. There were few guardrails or retaining walls and the security chief knew the road was a dangerous place. From the compound at the top of the mountain the road descended more than six thousand feet, turning and dropping along sheer canyon walls. The terrain was rocky and steep and the trees gradually thinned out as the road descended until the landscape merged with the barren desert floor.

The convoy moved quickly, the drivers braking expertly at each curve in the road before accelerating again. The princess watched the road tensely, then pulled out a cell phone. She punched her husband’s private number and the call was relayed to a central switchboard in Ad Damman where a sophisticated GPS tracking system kept constant tabs on the location of the crown prince. The switchboard automatically transferred her call to the palace on the outskirts of Riyadh.

Prince Saud’s personal assistant answered the phone, his voice all business. “Yes, Princess Tala,” he said.

“Is Crown Prince Saud available?” the princess asked.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, Prince Saud is in a meeting.”

It never occurred to either the princess or Prince Saud’s assistant that he might offer to interrupt. One did not interrupt the prince. Not even his wife.

“Is he still with the American general?” Tala asked.

“Yes, Princess Tala.”

“General Brighton, as I recall?”

“I believe that is right.”

“Do you know how long he will be?”

The older man huffed. “No, Your Highness, I do not.” Princess or not, she was still a woman and the affairs of the heir to the kingdom were not her concern. “I will have him get in contact with you at the first opportunity,” Prince Saud’s assistant offered.

“Tell him we are leaving the mountain and will meet him in Riyadh.”

“I will tell him,” the man answered and the princess ended the call.

“Are we going to see father tonight?” her oldest son asked. Princess Tala nodded and all of her children smiled.

The limousine sped slowed for a particularly sharp curve in the road. The princess reached for the handhold over her window then felt her child kick, a strong thump against her abdomen, sturdy and swift. Placing her hand on her belly, she smiled. “Be still, my young prince,” she whispered. “We are almost there.”

• • •

The five assassins had concealed themselves in the brush on the uphill side of the road just before one of the last switchbacks. Behind them, on the other side of a crest in the mountain, their helicopter hovered, keeping out of view. The men were dressed in identical black uniforms, leather boots and thin gloves. The fingers had been cut out of the gloves to allow them to maneuver their weapons with precision and their faces were concealed behind black masks.

The team leader listened to the earpiece he had shoved in his ear. “Two minutes!” he hissed to his team. He glanced down the line. The men were expertly concealed, spread out twenty feet to his left and right. The gun-blue barrels of their Soviet-made weapons protruded from the brush.

The team leader listened again, then gave his final instructions. “Call ready,” he whispered into the microphone at his neck.

“Two’s ready,” the second sniper positioned to his right replied.

“Two, you’ve got the first truck in the convoy,” the team leader instructed. “Repeat to me your instructions. You have number one.”

“I do. Two has the lead truck.”

“The first vehicle has the .50-caliber machine guns and missiles. You’ve got to take it or this whole thing is off. Understand, Two? We’re depending on you!”

“Got that, colonel!” the other sniper replied.

“Three, you take the second vehicle, a black SUV,” the team leader continued. “The target is in the third car, a BMW limousine. Repeat that . . . target is in the third vehicle. Leave that car alone!” The lead assassin scoffed in his mind as he thought of the lone BMW limousine. No decoys or deceptions. Which car contained the princess was almost comically clear. Fool of security! He was worthy of death.

He glanced at the two men to his left. “Four and Five, you’ve got the last two vehicles in the convoy. It is just like we planned it.” He looked down the line. “Any questions?” he demanded.

His men remained silent and the team leader crouched lower in his hole then glanced down the line, checking their positions a final time. He saw the four barrels of the RPG-7 shoulder-launched missiles protruding from the brush and smiled. The RPG-7, a recoilless, shoulder-fired antitank weapon, was effective against fixed emplacements or moving targets. It has a five-hundred-meter range and could penetrate most conventional armor. Proven repeatedly in combat, RPG-7s had been successfully employed against armored vehicles, bunkers, and American helicopters.

Taking out these lightly armored vehicles would prove easy to do.

The sniper nodded with approval, then turned back to the road.

“All right then, my brothers,” he said into his microphone. “Prove yourselves worthy or die in the cause. That is the only choice you have now. You must not let me down.”

Twenty seconds passed. The convoy came into view. “Praise be to Allah,” one of the soldiers whispered and the team leader glared. This wasn’t about Allah! This had nothing to do with religion or faith in God. This was about power. And the kingdom. And the man they would have as their king!

• • •

The convoy was nearing the bottom of the mountain. There were two more sharp curves below them, then a straight line to the electronically controlled gate that blocked access to the road. The line of cars decelerated for a curve, the vehicles bunching together as they slowed.

Inside the limousine, Princess Tala laid her head back and closed her eyes. Her daughter was asleep now, the two boys playing an electronic game. The BMW bounced lightly as it hit some gravel then pulled into the sharp turn.

• • •

“Stand fast!” the lead assassin whispered into his microphone, sensing the evil eagerness in the air. The vehicles were almost directly below them, not more than eighty feet away. “Two, are you ready?”

“Ready!” the second assassin replied.

“Ready . . . ready . . . NOW!” the team leader screamed.

The four RPG-7s fired in a hiss of white-hot smoke and flame. The missiles trailed forward, reaching their targets in a fraction of a second and the four vehicles exploded in bright orange and yellow flames. The lead truck rocked up on its front wheels, crushing its bumper against the asphalt then nearly rolled onto its back. The black SUV with the doctors simply disappeared, swallowed in a fireball of black smoke and orange flame. The other two vehicles exploded a hundredth of a second later. The heat was so intense it started melting the asphalt, the oil-based road catching fire and spewing black smoke. The second assassin reloaded quickly and fired again at the lead vehicle, which was instantly blown in two, secondary explosions bursting from its cargo bay and blasting the air.

The black BMW limousine screeched as the driver slammed on the brakes. The road forward was completely blocked by a fiery wall of melting steal and flame. The limousine didn’t move for a moment, the driver momentarily confused, then he threw the car into reverse, the tires screeching as he began to back up until he crashed into the hulk of the burning car behind it. The men in the limousine’s front seat jumped out with guns in both hands and tried their very best against evil desperate men. They failed valiantly.

Another explosion rocked the hot air as the gas tank in the last car burst into flames. A single soldier stumbled from the second automobile, his clothing on fire. He rolled in the dirt then fell still, his arms reaching out, his face slowly baring his teeth as his lips were burned off. Fire and thick smoke billowed from the burning vehicles, the flames curling around the shattered windows and half-open doors. A single soldier crawled from the largest truck, pulling himself on his belly toward the ditch. The lead assassin fired. The barrage of heavy machine gun fire nearly cut him in two.

The assassins had already picked up their other weapons and, with a machine-gun fire burst through the air, jumped from their hiding places and ran down the hill. Behind them they heard the dull whop, whop, whop as their evacuation helicopter crested the saddle in the mountain and swooped toward the rising smoke. The assassins reached the road in a matter of seconds and came to a quick stop. Charred bodies, burning tires, blackened pieces of metal and melted weapons were scattered everywhere. The air was heavy with the stench of burning flesh and fuel.

It was a perfect hit. Not a soldier was left living. It was all that they could ask.

The team leader turned to the black BMW, the only vehicle in the convoy that had not been destroyed. The royal family was in there. He started to move.

• • •

Crown Prince Saud put a hand on Brighton’s shoulder. The waterfall gushed around them, cooling the air with its mist. Then he heard hurried footsteps approach from behind a cluster of palm trees and looked over to see his personal aide running toward them. “Your Majesty!” the servant was crying as he ran.

The prince took a step toward him. The servant came to a stop and bowed quickly, touching his forehead with his fingers. “Your Majesty!” he repeated as he lifted his head. The prince saw the panic in his eyes and his heart slammed in his chest. The servant grabbed the prince and started pulling him up the path. Behind him, other palace guards began to race into view. “Your Highness, come quickly!” the servant hissed.

“What is it?” Saud demanded.

The servant’s eyes bulged. “A Firefall!” he whispered.

Prince Saud’s knees grew weak. He knew the code. Firefall! An assault upon his family. “When?” the prince demanded.

Several bodyguards appeared from out of nowhere and started pushing him up the trail, pressing close, protecting him from all sides. Prince Saud reached out to the servant. “What is going on?” he cried.

“Princess Tala hit the panic button!” the servant told the prince. “That’s all that we know. Now, please, you must come with us, NOW!”

• • •

Princess Tala sat upright, her jaw tight in horror, her eyes wide and glaring in gut-wrenching fear. She reached under her seat and hit the panic button again. Her daughter was screaming in terror and the princess reached over and pushed her head toward the floor. Dropping to her knees, she fell onto the floor beside her. Peering over the seat, she looked out the front of the car and saw the bullet-shattered bodies of the men who swore to protect the princess and her children with their lives.

“Get down!” she screamed as she turned to her sons. The oldest one stared blankly past her, looking through the back window at the carnage behind, where a burning body hung out of the front windshield of the trailing car. Princess Tala smelled the smoke and felt the tremor of a smaller explosion behind them. She felt the car rolling backward then suddenly bump to a stop as the searing heat and smoke began to seep into the car.

The princess glared at her son, her eyes terrified. He reached for the door handle. “We’ve got to get out!” he cried.

“No!” Tala screamed as she slammed the locks on the rear doors. “Whatever is out there, they can’t get in! We must stay inside the vehicle. It is the safest place we can be!” She reached for her crying daughter and pulled her close, then thrust her fingers under her seat and hit the satellite-monitored alarm again. She heard the dull whoop of an approaching helicopter and almost cried in relief before realizing the helicopter could not be friendly. She pressed against the front window, desperate to see through the blood and gore, then heard voices and saw shadows approaching through the smoke to the side. She pushed her daughter down and lowered her head.

“Get on the floor!” she commanded her terrified sons.

The children dropped to the floor and Princess Tala positioned her body to protect them from the horror that was walking toward their car.

The horror stopped at the door, and rapped the bulletproof window with something metallic, then stepped back. Princess Tala raised her head and barely peered through the glass. She saw the walking horror pointing at something cradled in his arms.

Tala focused on what he cradled: a RPG-7 rocket tube. Her eyes traveled up the tube and saw it was loaded with a rocket-propelled grenade. The dawning realization and terror drained all rational thought from her brain, leaving her unfeeling and calm. “Don t you dare touch my children!” she tried screaming but nothing came out.

The walking horror took a step toward her and pulled off his mask. Tala pulled a quick breath and her heart nearly burst.

No! It couldn’t be!

She looked into the dark eyes of one of her husband’s brothers!

He smiled at her, stepped back thirty big steps, waved at her, and shouldered the RPG-7.

“Please, Allah, save the kingdom!” were Princess Tala’s last words.

The rocket-propelled grenade did not miss.

• • •

The garden came alive with security forces and military police. Like ants from an anthill, they seemed to appear everywhere.

General Brighton took a step toward the prince, but a bodyguard pushed him back. The prince stared at him with glaring eyes. “It has started,” he whispered hoarsely as his bodyguards pulled him away.

“What’s going on, Prince Saud? What is a Firefall?”

“Stay here!” the prince demanded. “Don’t move from this place. Don’t move a foot or they might shoot you. I have little control over any of them now. When I can, I will send men who will escort you back to your compound. Go with them and do exactly what they say! I must go, I must go!” The prince turned and disappeared down the path.

• • •

Twenty minutes after leaving his palace, Prince Saud’s motorcade screamed through the gates at King Khalid International Airport outside of Riyadh. The line of black Mercedes and American SUVs rolled onto the tarmac where his aircraft was parked. A huge 747-400 taxied by, but the motorcade didn’t hesitate to race in front of it, forcing the Air Saudi airliner to come to a sudden halt. Prince Saud’s personal jet was waiting near the taxiway, its four engines running. Mobile stairs had already been positioned next to the aircraft and the prince took them two at a time. The side door was closed and the aircraft began to taxi the instant the stairs were pulled away.

Inside, the prince’s chief of staff was waiting to give him the news. Saud listened while staring straight ahead, then dismissed his staff. Pushed up from his chair, he walked to his private office at the back of the jet.

Later that night, Crown Prince Saud was escorted into a large chrome and tile morgue in the royal family’s private hospital in Medina. What remained of the bodies of his murdered family were placed on steel tables and positioned side by side. He walked to them, crying, then demanded to be left alone. The physician nodded and bowed before leaving the room.

The crown prince fell to his knees between the four gurneys where his family had been laid. He wept for three hours, crying out to Allah, cursing and pleading and begging to die. He made outrageous promises if Allah would bring them back, then fell in exhaustion and slept on the tile floor. Sometime later, the physician carefully entered the room to see the prince kneeling by his wife’s body again. He held her hand tightly as he looked down at the floor.

“Get out!” the prince hissed and the doctor withdrew.

• • •

Lucifer watched Prince Saud suffer from the upper corner of the room. Lucifer stood still, his arms limp, his eyes staring down. He smiled as he watched, almost laughing with glee, the pleasure of the prince’s suffering causing a cold glint in his eye. He was gloating just a little, a rare moment of evil joy.

He had accomplished by himself his act of murder, for killing the family was far too important to leave to any of his slaves. But his work was not yet finished. There was one more thing he had to do.

Lucifer knew he had to get the prince while he was desperate, before he had any time to think. He had to get him while he was consumed with bitterness, before he had a chance to settle down. So he moved quickly beside the mortal and began to hiss in his ear.

• • •

The prince remained in the room for almost twenty-four hours. When he emerged, he was unshaven, smelly and frayed as old cloth.

He knew who had killed his family. They were not far away. And they were not finished with their killing. There was more they had to do.

So he had come to a decision.

Then he had figured out a plan.

Forget everything he had ever promised his father about freedom or democracy. Forget all of his dreams. It was a different world now. A new battle. A new war.

Although brothers had escaped injury, there would be no unwounded soldiers in this war.

And it didn’t matter where it led him, he would have his revenge!

SEVEN

It was almost six hours before Major General Neil Brighton’s military aircraft was cleared to takeoff because of the emergency hold put on all air traffic in and out of King Khaled Riyadh International Airport. As he waited for clearance to leave the kingdom, the general fidgeted anxiously in his seat. As the evening sun settled, his C-20 was finally cleared for departure, the first aircraft in a long line of civilian traffic that was cleared to takeoff. The aircraft quickly climbed to thirty-nine thousand feet and leveled off. Brighton undid his lap belt and settled back in his seat. A young servicewoman dressed in her Air Force skirt and blue sweater served the general a light dinner, then brought him a secure telephone and encryption cable to so he could plug his laptop into the aircraft’s satellite communications system.

“Anything else?” the servicewoman asked after helping him plug in.

The general shook his head. “No thanks, Sergeant Rice.”

“You look tired, sir.”

“Maybe a little.”

“I’m sure you’re eager to get home.”

“Always eager, Sergeant Rice.”

“We’ll be changing crews at Ramstein, sir, but I’ll make certain they bring on some hot oatmeal for your breakfast. And fresh grapefruit juice and oranges. Did I forget anything?”

Brighton shook his head and thanked her, then turned on his laptop and started typing everything he could remember from the meeting with Prince Saud. He closed his eyes, trying to remember every word. Then he concentrated on the chaos he had witnessed. Firefall? What was a Firefall? What was going on?

He had witnessed something important, but he did not understand.

It was a six-hour flight to Ramstein where they would refuel and change pilots for the long flight back to the United States. As the aircraft approached the Mediterranean Sea, the air became heavy with humidity and haze. Looking down, Brighton could see a solid cloud layer forming beneath him, and ahead there were growing lines of thunderstorms, huge angry monsters reaching up to sixty-thousand feet. The shadows from the thunderstorm cells cast purple, gray and blue hues across the lower layers of white. He saw the first bolt of lightning flash from one of the cells. He knew the small jet would have to weave its way between the storm cells and the pilot inside him wanted to climb into the cockpit and push one of the young captains aside. Fighting the temptation, he turned back to his work.

Behind him, his two aides fell asleep while the security officer stared out his window on the other side of the cabin. Another flash of lightning lit up the interior of the cabin and the security officer grabbed his armrest in a death grip. Brighton felt the aircraft begin to climb, trying to get a little higher to get over the storms, then turn a few degrees to the north.

Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair.

He thought of the stark-raving terror that had fallen across the crown prince’s face, the guards milling in confusion around him, the tension in their voices, their weapons and radios, their determined urgency as they had pulled the prince away.

He knew it was likely he would never know what had happened today. The flow of information out of the kingdom was extremely tightly controlled. And the doings of the royal family of the House of Saud was the most highly guarded secret of them all. Personal information was completely nonexistent. He knew there would be nothing in the press, nothing over the wires, nothing in any intelligence reports.

But something had happened, something dangerous and deadly. He knew it, he felt it somewhere deep in his bones. He thought of the warnings the prince had given, the most frank and disheartening conversation with a world leader he had ever had, then sat back and shivered from a fear he didn’t understand.

EIGHT

Prince al-Rahman stood at the window of his Dhahran penthouse atop the Royal Saudi Oil company headquarters and gazed out on the ports of the city. The office was an enormous room filled with leather and rare woods from the far corners of the world. Racks of various game animals hung on the wall, some of them legal, most of them not, many of them endangered African animals shot by the Prince himself. He was good with a knife and he was good with a gun, the blood of his warrior ancestors running thick through his veins. He loved to track game, he was good at it, and he loved to kill. He loved to butcher his meat—gutting the animal and smelling the blood—there was something about it that was appealing to him. Like his Bedouin ancestors, he hungered to hunt though he never brought the meat home, but left it on the prairie for other scavengers to feed.

To Al-Rahman’s right, a large plaque hung on the wall that was engraved with words from the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, sometimes called the Covenant of Hamas:

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it . . . .”

. . . .

“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jews will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslem, O Abdulla, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.”

. . . .

[S]o-called peaceful solutions and international conferences . . . are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.

. . . .

There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad.

The prince loved the words from the Covenant. They inspired him by reminding him of his comrade’s convictions to improving the world through the spread of jihad.

As for himself, his battle was anything but a holy war. Indeed, it was very unholy, he would freely admit. He was not into God or religion, leaving such concerns to other men.

Al-Rahman stood at the floor-to-ceiling window. His younger brothers stood behind him, letting him think. The setting sun cast long shadows across the city, casting the office in a natural glow. He peered out the window to where the gray-blue waters of the Persian Gulf glimmered in the setting sun. The city was busy, the port alive and bustling with men, equipment and machines. Enormous oil tankers moved toward the sea docks where they would take on their loads of rich Saudi crude. After filling their enormous holds, the tankers would turn for various ports in the West and East where the Saudi oil would help to quench the insatiable thirst for energy that drove the economic machines of the world. Prince al-Rahman glanced down and imagined the reservoirs of oil that lie ten thousand feet under his feet, huge underground pools that stretched a hundred miles in every direction. A quarter of the world’s known oil supply lay under the Arabian sands; four hundred trillion dollars worth of underground liquid gold. And the oil guaranteed not only the wealth of the Royal Saudi family, but the wealth of their subjects, providing each Saudi citizen with one of the highest standards of living in the world. For generations ahead, their wealth and well-being was assured.

But not if . . . But not if . . . .

The prince shuddered in anger and raised his eyes to the coast.

Once loaded with oil, the tankers would steam out to sea, passing huge cargo ships on their way to Saudi ports. Al-Rahman turned to the docks on the east side of the city and watched the multicolored container ships unloading their wares; luxury cars, electronics, food, soda, clothing, frozen meat, furniture, steel, plastics, wood and cables, heavy equipment, office supplies, golf clubs and boats, cotton balls, medicine, cement, and scientific equipment. The list of imports was as long as the docks that paralleled the sea, for his nation imported almost everything they needed to survive. He was reminded again that this was where the cycle was complete. Oil for cash. Cold cash for things. Oil revenues in exchange for the beautiful things of the world.

The kingdom was in order. There was peace and prosperity. His subjects were well-fed and happy. It was as it should be.

So why did his idiot father insist on screwing it up?

He turned quickly and examined his two younger brothers, weak men whose only assets were that they always did what he told them to do: two evil and cold-hearted babies who hated the thought of losing their power almost as much as he.

He studied their faces; twentyish, handsome, identical dark hair and mustaches, fine teeth and round shoulders. Yet they were so needy, so dependent, it was almost comical. Neither of his younger brothers had worked a day in their lives and it disgusted Al-Rahman that they were so incapable of taking care of themselves. They didn’t know how to drive, how to cook, or even how to make their own beds. They hardly knew how to get dressed without their valets selecting their clothes and neither could draw a bath without screaming in frustration when the water flowed too hot or too cold. And they certainly didn’t know how to fight, that’s what their bodyguards were for, though they seemed to fight and scream at each other at the drop of a hat.

Still, Al-Rahman had learned his younger brothers weren’t entirely stupid. Indeed, they had proven that they were capable of learning if they were motivated enough. And the plans of their father had motivated them now.

“Are you here alone?” Al-Rahman asked the younger of the brothers.

The youngest prince had recently taken to traveling with a young woman he had met in Greece, dragging her around like a security blanket. It seemed she was always around, lurking in the next room and Al-Rahman didn’t like it. He would have to get rid of her soon.

His youngest brother snorted. “Of course I’m alone. I’m not stupid,” he replied.

Al-Rahman eyed him with a cold-hearted smile. Yes, he was stupid. And when he started a sentence with “Of course,” one couldn’t presume that was necessarily what he meant.

Al-Rahman turned away from the window and sat down at his gold-accented, mahogany desk. His brothers watched him carefully, sitting on the edge of their seats. Al-Rahman lit a cigarette while they waited, took a long drag, then leaned back and held the smoke in his lungs.

The older prince smiled almost sadly. Sometimes he wished his brothers could be more like him. But they weren’t. Motivated by short-term pleasure and money, they couldn’t see beyond the next day. So he would use them, then kill them. It was the order of things.

Al-Rahman glanced at his cigarette, letting the smoke drift from his nose. He bit on his lip, feeling a piece of stray tobacco there. “Did you show her your face like I told you?”

“Yes, brother, I did.”

“And what was her reaction?”

The younger prince shot an anxious look toward his brother. “I’m not certain. It happened pretty quickly.”

“Did she die quietly?” he demanded. “Did she say anything?”

The younger brother lit his own cigarette and pulled a nervous drag. “She said something . . . I don’t know, something about Allah and the kingdom.”

Al-Rahman smiled. That sounded like Tala, always praising Allah. “All right, brothers,” he concluded, “you did a good job. That will be all for now.” Finished with them, he wanted them out of the room.

The two princes stood up together. The youngest one turned for the door, then glanced back to Al-Rahman. “And Crown Prince Saud?” he wondered quickly.

Al-Rahman waved an impatient hand. “That is not your concern.”

The younger prince stared at his brother. “You know our father, the king, will figure this out. That will not be a good thing. We have to be ready to defend ourselves.”

“The king is a coward,” Al-Rahman shot back. “He will not do anything.”

“But he still holds great power . . . .”

“Which is exactly my point! He holds to the same power that he wants to rip from our hands! He plans to dismantle our kingdom and turn it over to them.” Abdullah shot an angry hand toward the west. “But does he pay the price of his decision? Of course not! We do! He waits until he grows old, enjoying a life of great ease, then commands his oldest son to take our kingdom apart. But I will not allow it.” Al-Rahman cursed. “I swear that on his grave! It is he who betrays us! He is disloyal to Mohammad, and disloyal to me! He has been planning our destruction since before we were born!”

The older prince slapped both hands on the table, then pointed a finger at the younger men. “Remember this, my brothers,” he hissed a final time. “We are trying to save the kingdom. That is all that we do. We are trying to save the kingdom from this selfish king, save it from his stupid son!”

The youngest prince lowered his head in subjection as he backed toward the door.

• • •

The door swung close behind them and Al-Rahman touched a button on his desk to lock it. Seconds later, a side door to his office swung back. The old man stepped into the office. He walked painfully, shuffling between the chrome handles of a walker and it seemed to take him forever to make his way to the couch. He sat down wearily, then looked at the prince.

The old man’s skin was so thin and waxy, he almost looked dead. Al-Rahman noted the sick eyes and hollow face then glanced to the side door that led to a private study, knowing the old man’s doctor was waiting there. The old man coughed deeply, bringing up the collected phlegm from his chest.

Al-Rahman waited for him to spit, then reported. “They are dead,” he announced.

“Good,” the old man answered weakly. “You have made me proud.”

Al-Rahman waited, unconsciously gripping a gold pen in his hand.

“Now we must take care of Crown Prince Saud,” the old man struggled to breathe as he talked. “Then we will be ready to take the next step.”

The prince relaxed his grip on the pen. After all of these years, it was what he had been waiting to hear. “I have your permission then?” he asked quickly.

“Yes, yes, of course. Do what you will. But remember, Prince al-Rahman, you must do something first. If you don’t take care of all the offspring, then you will leave us a mess. You’ve got to cut out all the cancer or it will kill you one day.” His eyes seemed to narrow. “The crown prince has another wife. Another son.”

“I will take care of them.”

The old man coughed again, then took a crackling breath. The prince knew he was dying—he had but a month or so to live. Al-Rahman thought back on that spring day in Monte Carlo, a little more than eighteen years before. Through sheer force of will, the old man had done what he promised, living to see their success. And here it was, so close. Everything was in place. In a very few weeks he would pull the trigger and the final war would begin.

“When will you do it?” the old man asked between gasping breaths.

Prince Al-Rahman thought a long moment. “Soon,” he finally answered. “He’s still mourning over the bodies. He’s been there for hours. By now, of course, he knows that it was me. And he will act, I am sure; a few days, a few hours. We just killed his family, do you think he will wait? But he has a mountain to sort through before he can do anything. If he can’t trust his brothers, then where can he turn?”

“Before he turns against us, he will see to his last son. He will take care of his heir and ensure he is safe. And he will do it alone; he won’t trust anyone else. He knows there are snakes in the nursery and he will want to kill them himself. Until then, he is vulnerable, so we have a few hours.”

The old man rasped, and then warned him, “Crown Prince Saud is no fool. It would be a mistake to underestimate him. So be careful, al-Rahman. We’ve come too far, been far too patient, and we’ve worked too hard and sacrificed too much to let this slip through our fingers this late in the game.”

The prince pressed his lips. “Yes,” he answered simply. “It is a dangerous time.”

“Then take care of Prince Saud before he turns his attention to us.”

Al-Rahman started to answer when the personal phone at the side of his desk buzzed quietly. He picked up the receiver and listened, then grunted a few instructions and hung up the phone. The old man peered at him and Prince Al-Rahman smiled. “Crown Prince Saud is on his way to the airport,” he said.

“Where to?” the old man questioned, a hint of concern in his voice.

“I don’t know,” Al-Rahman answered. “But we are going to find out. He has requested his private helicopter. They are completing the pre-flight now.”

NINE

Princess Tala and her children were buried in a secret and private funeral at the royal family’s ancient cemetery on the outskirts of Medina. Only Crown Prince Saud, his father and a few trusted kin stood over the dark graves as the gold-plated coffins were lowered into the dry ground. There was no press release, no public offering, no notification to the world that the princess had been killed and incredibly, word of the assassinations didn’t leak to the international press.

When it came to interfamily homicide there was good reason to be silent. The kingdom had been thrown into chaos. And it was about to get worse.

• • •

Seven hours after the private funeral, the Crown Prince of the House of Saud was moved to one of his personal helicopters that always stood on alert. The helicopter’s blades were spinning when the crown prince showed up and the helicopter took off in the darkness without turning on its navigational lights.

The prince watched through the window of the American-made Sikorski S-92, a four-bladed executive helicopter that had more gold and leather than could be found in any executive suite looking down on midtown Manhattan. The highly modified cabin, originally designed to seat seventeen passengers had been modified into a six-passenger configuration, with opposing leather couches running down each of the sides of the cabin, a fully stocked bar, a small office and lavatory and two massive reclining chairs just behind the bulkhead wall. The carpet was a deep maroon and so thick it felt like one was standing on grass. Highly polished teak and mahogany accented the trim, and the seats were white leather, soft as velvet, and emblazoned with the royal flag.

Crown Prince Saud watched in silence as the warm waters of the Persian Gulf passed underneath his helicopter, but the night was so dark it was nearly impossible to get a sense of their speed. The winds had picked up, moving down from the north and the ocean was white-capped with rippled lines of foam reflecting the light of the yellow moon. The helicopter flew east, toward the Iranian border, and with each passing mile the emptiness inside him grew more dark and intense. He leaned against the helicopter’s starboard window and felt the vibration of the rotors spinning over his head. The helicopter passed the first of the many offshore oil rigs that dotted Iran’s western shore and he knew they would soon be “feet dry” over land. The Crown Prince could imagine the view from the cockpit—the miles of whitecaps below them, the enormous oil derricks casting shadows under the moon, the deep black sands and rising foothills of Iran’s western shores, the moon in the pilot’s faces and the enormous saucer of stars overhead. He glanced at his watch. A little after one in the morning. They had been in the air for an hour and would soon land.

The prince took a breath and turned in his seat. The helicopter was silent except for the sound of his second wife crying, a soft and heartbroken tremble that she tried to hold in. The prince looked lovingly at her and she wiped her eyes quickly to hide her tears. He reached out and took her hand and held it to his chest then placed his other hand very gently on the four-year-old boy who was sleeping beside her. “Do you want our son to live?” he asked simply.

The young princess nodded and squared her shoulders in reply.

“Then be strong,” the prince demanded, his voice strained but firm. He pressed her hand against their sleeping child’s head. “Be strong for him. Be strong for our family. Be strong for the kingdom. Be strong for me.”

The princess wiped her cheeks as she stared at her lap.

The prince saw a vision of the four charred bodies, their barely recognizable faces peaceful now in death. He glanced at his last son, a four-year old who slept on his young mother’s lap. His face too was peaceful. The prince’s heart broke again.

His family. His honor. Their future. Their king. That was all that mattered. The prince knew that was true.

He studied his young wife, reading the pain in her eyes. She looked as if she were dying, as if she were already dead. She looked so lonely, so abandoned. “Are you certain?” she pleaded. “Is there no other way?”

The prince shook his head. “I have decided. We will discuss it no more.”

The young princess sat back, her eyes fearful and wet. Her lower lip trembled. She was trying to be brave, she was trying to be strong . . . but this was so unexpected and so frightening. She looked straight ahead, her face strained with fear.

“Why can’t I go home to my family?” she muttered. “Why can’t I stay in Saudi Arabia? I know nothing of Iran!”

“Which is why we must do this! Are you so blind you can’t see? Your life is in danger and so is my son! Now quit crying of your suffering! Would you rather be dead? Would you rather I have to bury him like I buried my other children?”

The princess stroked the sleeping boy’s face. “But my husband . . . Iran? Why not the southern providence? My people are from that region. I want to live among them and . . . .”

“That’s right! You want to live! So you must do as I say!”

“But it is so far away!”

“Pray it is far enough!”

The princess fell silent knowing she should not say any more.

Prince Saud leaned his head back and stared blankly at the darkness. She glanced at him quickly and saw the trail of his tears.

Minutes passed, then the prince leaned toward her. “You are strong, Ash Salman,” he whispered firmly. “There is a determination, a wisdom inside you which is rare in my people. You have already shown more courage than most men I know. I will not leave you alone. I do have a plan! But there is a scourge in the kingdom. We suffer a deadly disease. It will take me some time to hunt my enemies. This threat, these assassins, I know who they are, but I don’t know how deep it goes or who is involved. It will take me some time to figure out who I can trust and who I should kill. And until they are dead, I need to know that my last son is safe. It is he they are after, for he will be the next king. So until this the danger passes, you must hide.”

The princess took a deep breath then turned back to her window to watch the darkness outside. The helicopter passed over the Iranian border and climbed to five-hundred feet. She saw a dark ribbon wind along the foothills to the south—the Khorramshahr highway that ran to the heart of the oil fields. She tried to remember the map she had studied the night before. The tiny village of Agha Jari Deh was but a little farther inland.

The helicopter leveled off, then descended.

The mountains rose up to meet them.

The princess was almost there.

• • •

Rassa Ali Pahlavi lay still in his bed, awake but unmoving. The bedroom was cool in the mountain air. Something had woken him, something far in the distance, the low sound of beating rotors passing over a hill. He lay there and thought, then pushed himself out of bed and pulled on a thin shirt and dark trousers.

He walked silently out of the bedroom. Moving into the kitchen, he set a blackened copper kettle on the stove and turned on the propane, setting the flame on high. He moved carefully, making no noise, knowing the walls that separated the kitchen from Azadeh’s bedroom were paper-thin. The water boiled quickly under the oversized flame and he sprinkled in two measures of black tea, stirred quickly, then poured the tea into a ceramic mug and held it tight, letting it warm his hands. He sipped once. The tea was bitter and he pressed his lips appreciatively as he sat down at the table.

A beautifully framed embroidery hung on the wall, an angular inscription consisting of three words; Allah, Mohammad and Ali. The name of Ali in the embroidery identified his household as a member of the Shi’a, or Shi’ites, those Muslims who consider Ali the legal successor to Mohammad. All around him were other reminders of his religion, along with verses from the Qur’an designed to chase evil away.

But evil was coming! Rassa felt a cold chill. Something was coming. He had felt this before.

Studying his meager surroundings, he felt restless and on edge. He sipped at his hot tea, seeking its warmth. Standing, he walked quietly to Azadeh’s bedroom and pushed the door open a crack. She was sleeping soundly and he sat down in the kitchen again. Picking up a copy of the Qur’an, he repeated the cleansing phrase, “In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.” Cleansed, he started reading, choosing at random a verse.

“It is righteousness to believe in Allah and the Last Day; and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to be firm and patient in pain and adversity, and throughout all periods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the God-fearing . . . .”

He read the verse again, then looked up in thought.

“To be firm and patient in pain and adversity . . . .”

He thought of the sound that had startled him out of sleep. A helicopter. On the western side of the hill.

Helicopters flying toward the village? That was never good news.

“Pain and adversity.” His village had had their fair share.

• • •

Crown Prince Saud unstrapped his seat belt and moved to the small door that separated the passenger cabin from the cockpit and pulled it open. He was met by the dim, multicolored lights of the cockpit; four eight-inch computer displays, a terrain-following radar, and rows upon rows of digital gauges and multifunctions switches. The two pilots sat side-by-side, both of them Saudi air force colonels, old friends, trusted and worthy, their faces an unearthly green in the reflected cockpit lights. Saud stood in the doorway and studied the ALQ-162 defensive/countermeasures CRT, an automated system that searched out ground threats—ground-to-air radars, shoulder-fired weapons and other heat-seeking missiles. With the exception of the Operations Normal symbology, the screen was a pale, silver blank. Satisfied, he raised his eyes to look through the cockpit window. The world appeared crooked, for the pilot had rolled the helicopter into a steep bank. The horizon tilted across the windscreen at an uncomfortable angle, the moon and stars filling the right window, the coastline and lighted highway filling the left. His head spun a moment and he adjusted his weight to balance himself, then turned to the copilot, who gestured to the north. “Agha Jari Deh,” the pilot said, pointing to a tiny collection of mud and brick houses nestled tightly against the rising mountains.

The prince watched anxiously. Even in the moonlight, the village was surprisingly small; so small, the helicopter would overfly it in a matter of seconds. There was only one road leading to the village and except for those who traveled to its market the village was almost completely unknown.

Saud studied the passing huts and small homes. It was so small. It was perfect. Allah had prepared a way.

• • •

The helicopter rolled level and began to slow down. The copilot lifted his hand to the helicopter’s collective grips, which controls the helicopter’s ascent and descent, and pressed his radio switch to answer a radio call. “Transportation is waiting,” he announced to the prince.

Saud nodded and watched as the helicopter turned to line up on a grassy field, two or three kilometers south of the village. The circle of grass appeared as a dark bowl against the reflective rocks of the mountains. The village was quiet, less than a dozen lights shining to the north. He picked out the headlights of the waiting vehicles as the helicopter descended through three hundred feet and slowed below one hundred twenty knots. A powerful whoop emitted from above his head as the blades slapped the air, taking less of a bite as the aircraft slowed down. The pilot switched on the landing light and the tips of the spinning blades reflected the powerful lamp. Saud nudged the pilot on the shoulder, then stepped out of the cockpit and closed the door. Moving to the princess, he sat down at her side. In the dim light of the cabin, he saw a single tear glisten on the edge of her chin. She stared ahead, unmoving, her determination building inside. The prince didn’t speak to her as he slipped her lap belt on.

The helicopter landed with a bump on the uneven field and the pilot brought the twine turbine engines to idle and disengaged the rotors. Saud stood and worked the exit door, which dropped into the darkness, the folding steps exposed as the door slipped into place. He turned back to the princess who was waking their son. The three of them stepped out of the aircraft and into the cold mountain air.

• • •

Rassa heard his neighbor’s dog. The Afghan Hound bark urgently from behind the fence that followed the narrow trail that led up to the mountains. He stood up and moved to the window and looked out on the courtyard that surrounded his backyard where the moon cast deep shadows that wavered as the clouds passed overhead. The air was calm now, and cold, and he saw no movement in the dim light. Twenty seconds later he heard the sound of an automobile engine and the soft crunch of tires against the rock and gravel outside.

A sudden chill ran through him. He thought of the whoop of the helicopter blades and the roar of the turbine engines. Out here, in the most remote parts of the country, where the warlords and tribal chiefs ruled, a helicopter could only mean one of two things; warlords from the south, coming up to collect recruits for their bloody turf battles, or the jihadist—the lawless Islamic fanatics who had adapted to the presence of Western forces in Iraq by hiding out in the Iranian deserts where they planned their battles against the Great Satan and Jews.

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, Rassa felt his heart sink. He had seen many men disappear, pulled away in the night. Some had been suspected collaborators. Some had been hauled off to fight. Many were never heard of again. Fewer still returned to their homes.

He listened to the sounds of the car doors shut, then soft footsteps on the porch. He glanced in a panic to the bedroom door, thinking of his daughter, Azadeh, then considered the old rifle stuffed behind the ancient cedar armoire in corner of the room, a beat-up Lee-Enfield .303 that had been used by his grandfather during the First World War. The rifle was his own deadly secret, for to have a rifle, any weapon in fact, in Iran was strictly forbidden. Yet Rassa made no move toward it. If they were coming for him, be it the warlords or mullahs, it would be dangerous to fight them, especially with Azadeh in the next room.

So he waited, unmoving, listening to the footsteps outside his door. The wooden door rattled on its hinges but Rassa didn’t dare to move.

TEN

Rassa finally pulled the door open and peered out onto the dimly lit porch. Two middle-aged men stood in the darkness; both of them strong and well-dressed in dark western suits, though traditional turbans were wrapped on their heads. The nearest man blocked the doorway with his massive frame and moved one hand to his hip, exposing a thin, leather holster. The second man stood slightly behind the other and off to the side. Rassa glanced past the first guard to see two dark cars parked on the road, their engines idle, their headlights off. Without explanation, the bodyguards pushed into his home and swept through the room. Rassa stood speechless until one of them paused at the back bedroom. “Is Azadeh in there?” he asked Rassa in a deep tone.

Rassa moved toward the hall. “Who are you?” he demanded, his eyes flashing with rage.

“Is she in there?” the bodyguard repeated.

Rassa tightened in panic then shook his head. “You do not want her,” he hissed, his voice husky with rage. It was the voice of a fighter at the edge of a war. “It is me you have come for! Leave her alone!”

He took a quick step toward the guard while glancing at the holster underneath the dark suit. If they had come for Azadeh then he would die in their way.

The leader ignored Rassa and nodded to the bedroom. “Check it out,” he said.

The smaller guard nodded and slowly pushed the door open. Stepping into the room, he pulled a tiny flashlight from his pocket and flashed it inside. He saw the sleeping girl, her head buried on the side of her pillow. He swept the light quickly, taking in the simple bed, small chest, and white wicker drawer. A small collection of colorful dresses, silken hajib headscarves and full burkas were hanging from a rope tied across the far corner. A golden headband had been neatly arranged on top of the dresser. On the floor next to the bureau was a pair of sandals and leather shoes. He studied the room carefully, then stepped back and closed the door.

Rassa was waiting at the door, a look of rage on his face. He relaxed his glare only slightly when the guard closed the door. “Who are you?” he hissed. “What are you doing here? I have nothing to hide! I have nothing you want!”

The two guards didn’t answer as they nodded to each other. The larger man moved to the front door, pushed it open and raised his right hand. The automobiles turned off their engines. Rassa heard the car doors open, then the sound of soft footsteps. He waited, then moved to the center of the kitchen, placing himself between Azadeh’s bedroom and the front door.

A young woman entered the room, her dark eyes bewildered and red. She was dressed in a dark burka and leather sandals, and she pulled a deep blue shawl tightly over her shoulders. She moved to a position beside the wall, then pushed her burka back, revealing a long mane of dark hair. Another man followed, dressed in an exquisite dark suit. Rassa saw him and stepped back, sucking in a quick breath of air. The intruder walked into the room with the confidence of a king, his shoulders square, his head high, his eyes constantly moving with suspicion but still clear and sure. Rassa dropped to one knee as the prince moved through the room, the social chasm between them demanding he bow with respect.

The prince moved toward him and extended his hand. Rassa stood and the prince pulled him to his chest, kissing both of his cheeks in a display of respect.

Rassa dropped his eyes in confusion. What was this man doing here?

The prince stepped back and took in Rassa, measuring his appearance from his head to his feet. The woman remained near the doorway, her eyes dull with fright. The prince turned back to Rassa and gripped him by his shoulders. “Rassa Ali Pahlavi,” he asked, “do you know who I am?”

“You are Crown Prince Saud, oldest son of King Fahd bin Saud Aziz, monarch of the House of Saud, grandson of King Saud Aziz, future Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, keeper of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina.”

Prince Saud nodded. Good. That was good. His cousin might have been raised in one of the most remote villages in the mountains, but clearly he was not an illiterate fool. He had read. He remembered. And he was aware. Some of the prince’s own citizens would not have recognized him and only one in a hundred Iranians would have known who he was. He nodded with approval, then motioned toward the young women. “Do you know her as well?” he demanded.

Rassa kept his head low, afraid of meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, I do not know who she is.”

The prince nodded again. That was good as well. She mustn’t be recognized if their plan was to work. And he had doubted she would be, not here in the Iranian mountains, so far from their home.

The royal sons were rarely photographed inside their own country, and it was strictly forbidden to photograph their children or wives. This wasn’t England after all, with their maniacal fascination with the royal family. This was the House of Saud, the Kingdom of Arabia, Keeper of the Holy Cities. Theirs wasn’t a monarchy of fairy tales and magic castles, a kingdom of tabloids, gossip and family secrets revealed. The House of Saud was a kingdom of power, the kingdom of Allah on earth and paparazzi were simply not tolerated in their press. The royal wives and their daughters led luxurious but anonymous lives. It had always been thus and it would always be so, for it would have been demeaning to Allah and Mohammad for the women of the royal family to live public lives.

Which meant the princess could stay here if she would not be recognized.

Prince Saud nodded to the princess. “You do not know who she is?” he repeated.

“No, my Sayid. Should I recognize her?”

Prince Saud watched Rassa closely as he searched for any shadow that he was not telling the truth. Did he truly not know her? Would his eyes give him away?

Rassa’s face didn’t change. He did not know who the princess was.

The prince breathed a shallow sigh of relief.

It might actually work.

He studied Rassa again. His men had been investigating his cousin for almost a year, and there was little about Rassa that the prince didn’t know. And though the final plans had been laid some months before, when the prince first became convinced they might actually come after his family, this was the first time he had seen him and he wanted to take his measure.

Rassa held the prince’s gaze, never looking away. This man might be a prince, but this was his home. And no man was his master, a least not in this place.

Over the years the prince had learned how to measure a man. He had learned to distinguish between his enemies and friends, measuring secret ambitions and hidden desires, to recognize those who loved him and those who wished to bring him harm. Staring into Rassa’s eyes, he saw no guile in him. This was a good man, straightforward and honest and for the first time in days, the prince began to relax.

He took a step toward Rassa. “We are not strangers,” he said. “One of my grandfathers, your grandfathers, they were cousins I believe.”

Rassa nodded. The genealogy was not unfamiliar to him. “That was many generations back. Maybe even five hundred years.”

“Yes, but the bloodlines of royalty are extremely pure. We are far more closely related than you might at first guess.”

Rassa thought for a moment, getting past his surprise and fear. “Our forebears were enemies,” he added after reviewing the genealogy in his mind.

The prince smiled. “Yes, they traded a share of their men’s lives in battles, there is no doubt about that. But they were not unfriendly, I think. They were sheiks fighting for their kingdoms and to protect their gold, but when the day was over, I suppose they were friends. That was business, that was then, and of course this is now. So you and I, we are family. And the bonds of our ancestors that tie us are far stronger than any blood that has been spilt in the past.”

Rassa paused, then answered sadly.

“When the battle is over,

And the evening winds come,

When spear tips glint in the twilight,

And the skirmish is done.

Then I hope I am standing,

And brother, I hope you are too

For on the other side of the war ground,

I will be thinking of you.”

The prince stood without moving. The ancient sonnet was familiar. Then he frowned, his eyes narrowing with heartsickness as he repeated the verse.

“Then I hope I am standing,

And brother, I hope you are too

For on the other side of the war ground,

I will be thinking of you.”

He stole a glance at his woman, who stared at him in grief.

Not this time. Not his brothers. They only wished he was dead. He stood in mute silence, then suddenly shook his head.

Rassa stood close by, waiting, as Crown Prince Saud looked at him.

“Rassa Ali Pahlavi,” he began, “I have come to you because I need your help. My life is in great danger. My wife is in great danger too. And the only son I have left is outside in my car.

“I am bringing him to you for protection. I bring him to you so he will live and one day be king. But his life is in great danger, for there are many around us who would not have it be so.”

The room was deadly silent. Rassa gazed at the prince in disbelief, his mouth growing dry. Prince Saud nodded to his bodyguards, who motioned to each other and walked quietly from the house.

ELEVEN

The men were seated on the wooden floor, their legs tucked underneath them as they leaned against cotton cushions. A cup of chai sat between them, thick as molasses, sweet as sugar, and strong enough to give an almost instant rush of energy. The smell permeated the room, warm and syrupy, and a thin wisp of steam rose from their porcelain cups. The young princess sat silently beside her husband. She reached out her hand and he squeezed it, then let it go.

The bodyguards took up positions outside the small home and Rassa could hear their footsteps through the thin glass windows as they moved around the house and through the courtyard. Rassa realized they were keeping to the shadows, never revealing themselves as they moved from the corner of the small house to the line of trees on the north and west sides.

The prince turned toward Rassa and folded his arms. “I’m going to ask you a question,” he said.

Rassa’s back stiffened and he drew a tight breath.

“Do you understand why you are here?” Prince Saud asked in a low voice.

“Why am I here?” Rassa answered, a puzzled look on his face.

“Yes. Do you know why you’re here?”

Rassa stared at him blankly, confusion narrowing his brow. “I am here, Crown Prince Saud because . . . well because this is my home.”

The prince shook his head. “No, Rassa Ali Pahlavi, that is not what I meant. Why are you here? Why did God give you life? For what purpose were you born?”

“The purpose of life is to surrender my will to Allah,” Rassa answered automatically, repeating the words he had learned and repeated every day since he was no more than two.

The prince nodded impatiently. “Yes, Rassa, of course. But think beyond the Qur’an. I want you to tell me more.”

Rassa thought in bewildered silence. “Your Majesty,” he whispered, his voice trailing off. He looked at his chai, keeping his eyes on the floor. He finally shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know what to say.”

The prince leaned toward him. “I have spent most of my life studying the holy teachings of the Qur’an,” he said. “I am both by nature and training a deeply religious man. I have responsibilities to the kingdom, but more, I have responsibilities to Allah. Because of this, I have spent my life studying with the masters; the best educated Muslim philosophers anywhere in the world. And this is what I have come to believe. The Qur’an teaches that each man has a reason for living. Allah fates certain things, and he has brought me here, Rassa, to speak with you tonight. He has a purpose for you, Rassa and I know his will.”

“Whatever you ask, I will do it,” Rassa trembled in reply before he quickly added Insha’allal. If it is God’s will.

Saud lowered his voice. “My kingdom stands on the edge of a precipice,” he whispered. “We look over a terrible and deadly abyss. There are those within my country, even those within my own family, who want us to fail. There are those in my councils who crave a final battle with the West. There are those who believe we have a sacred obligation to join the jihad and are willing to do whatever it takes to make their dreams come true.

“They are dangerous. Extremely dangerous. They are a secret band of brothers, bound by blood oaths and lies. And they are not driven by a dedication to Allah! They are not driven by religion or a vision of a greater Islam!! They are driven by power! They are driven by hate! They are evil and deadly men who want to conquer our world.

“And like the shadows that spread when the sun sets, they grow even darker as the evening comes on. Yet no one notes their growing power, for the darkness settles so slowly it is nearly imperceptible. But their influence is spreading. I’m the only thing that stands in their way. And I am afraid.”

Rassa stared openmouthed. It seemed impossible! The most powerful man in Saudi Arabia! One of the most powerful men in the world! He could not understand it! But as he gazed at the prince, Rassa saw a cold look of fear.

Prince Saud dropped his eyes and a shadow crossed his face. “Early this evening I buried my family,” he explained. “My first wife and our children. A daughter. Two sons. Another son who was not even born yet also died in his mother’s womb.” He shot another pained look at his second wife, then slowly went on. “The only son I have left is outside in the car. I have brought him to you, Rassa, because you are my kin. I have brought my wife and child to you because I need you to keep them safe. There is nowhere in the kingdom that they could not be found. But here,” he gestured, “in these mountains, in this tiny village in Iran, they will be safe for a few days. And that’s all I need; a few days to destroy my enemies, that’s all I’m asking for right now.”

Rassa bowed in submission then gestured to his simple house. “But Sayid,” he questioned, “look at my home. It is unworthy of the princess. It is unworthy of your son.”

“My poverty is my pride,” the prince quoted the Qur’an in reply.

“But I am a simple man, Your Highness. A simple man who is trying to survive on my own.”

“Which is why this will work. They will never suspect! And Rassa, this isn’t a decision I came to rashly. I have thought this through. And I know in my heart this is the right thing to do.”

“But Sayid,” Rassa argued, “a young prince! In my home!”

“Listen to me!” Saud answered quickly, his voice growing strained. “You are Rassa Ali Pahlavi! The royal blood runs through your veins as it has run through your fathers for almost two thousand years! You cannot dismiss that! And they can’t take it from you! We share royal blood, Rassa! That is why I came to you!”

Rassa was silent and the prince pointed a finger. “They will be looking for him,” he prodded, his voice stained from fatigue and fear. “They will search through my kingdom, they will turn every rock, every reed, every reel. They will follow my movements, always searching for clues. But they will never suspect that I would dare take him out of the kingdom. And to Persia no less! They would not dream I would do this. And that is why this will work.”

Rassa didn’t respond. He did not know what to say.

Prince Saud watched him then stood quickly. He was finished explaining. It was time that he go. He nodded to the princess and she moved to his side. Turning to Rassa, Prince Saud made his final point. “The time is soon coming when Islam will rise from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire,” he said. “It will rise and reclaim its rightful position of leadership in this world. For more than one thousand years, while the West rutted through the dark ages and wallowed in decay, the people of Islam stood as the military, economic and spiritual leaders of the world. And yet from the day Napoleon marched into Egypt, we have reacted like a stunned bull. One shot and we fell in a quivering heap to our knees. But the time is soon coming when we will rise again. There will be a Pan Arabia! But it will take a new way of thinking. It will take a new world. A new kind of leader to lead us there! A new king is required, someone who can purge Islam of the poison and lift it again as a symbol of wealth and peace to the world!

“I am that man, Rassa. I am going to change the world. And my son will follow in my footsteps. So we must keep him safe. Now do you understand?”

Rassa nodded gravely then pushed himself to his knees. “I will do as you command,” he whispered as he bowed at the prince’s feet.

The prince put his hands on his shoulders and lifted him up. “You must speak of this to no one!” he demanded. “Do you understand how important that is? You will call the princess a cousin who is visiting from Riyadh. Tell no one I have been here or we are both dead.”

Rassa kept his eyes low as he nodded his head.

“Do you understand that, Rassa? Do you see how important our secrecy is?”

“I understand, Sayid.”

The crown prince gripped his shoulder, then looked at his wife. He nodded to the princess. “Go and get him,” he said.

The princess left the house and returned with her son. The small boy stood shyly, holding tightly to his mother’s hand. He had round eyes and dark hair and he looked around wearily. His father knelt before him and pulled him to his chest. Looking up, he nodded sternly to Rassa, looking him straight in the eyes. “Keep him safe,” he demanded as he let his son go. “It will only be a few days, a week at the most before I come back for him. Keep them safe and I’ll reward you beyond your wildest dreams. But if any danger befalls them, then I will hold you responsible. This is your charge, your great purpose and you simply can’t fail.”

Rassa bowed. “Sayid,” he replied.

“It could be dangerous for you, Rassa.”

“Sayid, I will serve.”

Prince Saud pressed Rassa’s shoulder, turned sadly to the princess and reached for her hand. “I will come back for you, Ash Salman,” he whispered, leaning his mouth to her ear. “I will not leave you, not a day, not an hour, more than I have to. But for now we must do this. We must do this for our son.

“Now stay here. Be strong! Take care of my child and I will call for you soon.”

The princess nodded, her face firm and proud. Saud leaned over and kissed her cheek softly then turned and walked out the door, leaving the young mother standing with the child prince in her hands.

• • •

Rassa stared at her blankly, a dumbfounded look on his face. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. He opened his mouth, then shut it. Better to not sound like a fool. The young princess let her eyes drift to the floor. Her young son looked sleepily around the bare room. “Mother, why are we here?” he wondered. “Why did father go?”

The princess knelt. “Abd Illah, your father has gone for something very important. We are going to stay here for a few days.”

The prince reached up for his mother, pulling into her arms. “I want to go with father. Why did he leave us?” The young boy started crying. The princess was not far from tears herself.

Then the bedroom door opened and Azadeh walked into the room. She shot a knowing look to her father and he realized she had been listening. “Azadeh,” he asked her, “how long have you been awake?”

She ignored the question as she walked to the princess and her son. “Princess Ash Salman,” she said as she bowed deeply with a graceful sweep of her arms. “My name is Azadeh Ishebel Pahlavi. I am Rassa’s daughter. Welcome to our home.”

The princess stared at her hopefully. Azadeh took the young prince’s other hand and said, “We don’t have a lot to offer, but anything we have is yours. It is an honor to have you with us, and we will do all we can to make your stay comfortable.”

Rassa took a step toward Azadeh. “How much did you hear?” he whispered quickly.

“Everything,” Azadeh answered. “I woke up when they knocked at our door.”

“Then you understand?”

“I understand the princess has had a very long day. I understand the crown prince is in danger, and so is this child. Now we will make them safe and comfortable. We will treat them as our own.”

Azadeh turned to the princess. She looked so young and vulnerable. An instant bond formed between them and the princess smiled wearily. Azadeh took the young prince and moved toward her bedroom door. “You are tired,” she said. “Come. You two have my bed. I will sleep here by the fire. Come. You are tired. We will talk in the morning. It will seem brighter then.”

Rassa watched in grateful amazement as Azadeh took care of their guests. She got clean sheets and clean towels and placed a bowl of warm water by their bed. She offered them tea and a biscuit, which both of them declined, then shut the door behind her, leaving them alone in her room.

Rassa smiled at Azadeh in gratitude. “Thank you,” he said.

• • •

Rassa waited until the others were asleep and the house had grown quiet, then slipped out the back door and through the yard, heading toward the center of town.

He found his friend Omar in the backroom of one of the dark warehouses he owned along the old docks on the river. Although it was after three in the morning, he knew Omar would be about his business. His friend often worked at night—some things were best done in the dark, and why should he sleep when there was cash to be made?

Walking through a side entrance of the old warehouse, Rassa paused for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the light and listened to Omar berate one of his lieutenants in the next room. Above him, in a hidden attic, Rassa knew he would likely find a cache of hand-woven Persian carpets on their way to illegal transport to Europe and the United States. He also knew Omar made more money on one pirated shipment of rugs than he made farming in a year. But he didn’t envy Omar’s money. He would have died from the stress.

Rassa knocked on the door before stepping into the room. Omar stood up to face him, his huge frame filling the semidarkness. “Rassa!” he demanded, “what are you doing here?”

“I need to talk with you,” Rassa answered.

Omar glanced over his shoulder. “Could it wait?” he said.

“No, Omar, please.”

Omar considered his friend then shot another look toward the back of the room. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

• • •

The moon was just dropping behind the plains to the west and the lamps along the docks cast a dull, yellow glow. “What do I do?” Rassa questioned after he had explained everything.

Omar gazed at Rassa, then shook his head in disbelief. His young friend was in deep water, in way over his head. The question now was, did he know how to swim?

Omar shook his head intently. “You’ve got a problem,” he said. “And the truth is, good friend, you are too naïve to realize how big it really is.”

Rassa looked at him, his eyes wide. “Just tell me what to do!” he pleaded.

“You have no choice,” Omar answered without giving it any further thought. “The crown prince will not be trifled with. You must do as he asked. He is so desperate, he has played his last option, and that option, unbelievably, has led him to you. But you are also in danger. Are you wise enough to see that? The prince has powerful enemies, Rassa, he lives in an unforgiving and cruel world. It is harsh. It is mean. It is dog-eat-dog, or brother-kill-brother, then throw away the bones. It’s a world that is difficult for you to understand. There is no good and no bad, only the weak and the strong. It is survival of the fittest and not a thing else.

“Now, is Prince Saud the strongest? We don’t know yet. But those men who seek to destroy him will seek to destroy you as well. So if I have any advice for you, friend, it would be to stay out of sight. Keep your eyes open. The question is, did they follow the prince? One wouldn’t think he would be so careless, or unlucky, but we really don’t know. He was desperate, and his enemies are fearless and very powerful. So don’t sleep too soundly, Rassa, not for a few days. The first forty-eight hours will be critical. If they are coming for you, I think they will be here by then.”

Rassa looked confused. “But you don’t think they would hurt . . . .”

“Absolutely they would. They are after the young prince, and you stand in their way. That makes you their enemy. The main question—really the only question—you need to consider is whether they will find him. How determined are they? How far will they go? Can Prince Saud protect his family? Did they follow Prince Saud? Do they have spies around?”

Rassa stopped and looked out on the river and slowly shook his head. “I would never do anything that would endanger Azadeh,” he said.

“You are past that, Rassa. Everyone is in danger. You must accept that now.”

Rassa didn’t answer, but started walking again.

Omar watched him a moment, noting the slump of his shoulders and the drag of his feet. His friend was in trouble. So Omar committed to help. He would keep his eyes out, keep his own men in the square. He would watch the roads and highways and see what popped up. And he would warn Rassa if the wrong men showed up.

TWELVE

The Sikorski S-92 flew low and fast over the water. The moon was setting in the western sky and a band of thick sea fog was developing below it. The moonlight cast shadows across the top of the fog, creating an illusion of flying over a landscape from the moon, endless miles of smooth and barren nothingness that stretched into the darkness of space.

Crown Prince Saud sat alone in the luxurious cabin. The lights were turned down and though his eyes were closed, he was not asleep. His body was numb with heartbreak and fatigue, but sleep was far from him. He was in too much pain. Over the past forty-eight hours he had lost everything he had ever loved; his wife and three children and his son yet unborn, his second wife and his last son, who were hiding now in Iran, his kingdom, his power, everything of any value to him—it was slipping away, a fistful of fine sand. He felt a blackness settle over him, a suffocating blanket of defeat, and he stared out at the darkness and sucked in a sudden, deep breath.

The helicopter vibrated around him, a smooth hum that developed from the rotors spinning over his head, a comforting vibration that settled into his bones. At the front of the cabin, one of the flat-screen TV monitors had been tuned to Arabic All News, but the sound was turned down and the prince paid no attention. The TV screen cast silver shadows through the cabin, causing his face to reflect in the oval window by his seat.

As the helicopter flew toward Saudi Arabia, the crown prince plotted in silence, his mind determined, the rage and grief mixing like a black storm inside. He wasn’t thinking clearly and he knew it, but he didn’t care any more. Patience was for cowards. It was time to act! Prince Abdullah was the one who killed his family. He knew it, he had known all along. His private intelligence officers had warned him. Now he had to move quickly to protect what little he had left. His father. The kingdom. It all was in danger. They were not finished with their killing. Al-Rahman would strike again.

Unless he acted quickly to take him down first.

He balled his fists as he thought, his arms taut, his temples pounding with each heartbeat. He plotted in the darkness of the cabin and the darkness of his soul.

The enormous helicopter flew west, moving toward the low fog and the night grew thick and full as the moon fell toward the horizon. The Saudi coast began to shine in the distance, a silver shadow in the starlight where the fog broke and the seas hit the shores.

• • •

The American-made F-15 Eagle fighter flew in a shallow circle at twenty-three thousand feet. At this altitude, the stars were clear and bright and the light of the moon glinted off the Eagle’s composite wings. The pilot, a senior colonel in the Royal Saudi Air Force, had been in the air for almost an hour and was running low on fuel. In another fifteen minutes, he would have to return to base, which meant his career, and maybe his life, would be over. Prince al-Rahman had been very clear. Complete the mission, or die. And the colonel wasn’t stupid. He knew his life was at stake.

He glanced nervously at his fuel readout, a sick knot in his stomach, then scanned his radar again. He had the APG-63 radar looking down, skimming the ocean below him, searching for his target. Why he had to shoot down the helicopter—who it was and why it was flying over the Persian Gulf toward Saudi Arabia at three in the morning—he didn’t know. Bandits. Terrorists. A rebellious OPEC minister from Oman, an Iranian businessman who had crossed the young prince, he hadn’t been told. And it didn’t matter. All he knew was his instructions came from Prince al-Rahman himself. And one did not disobey the royal family, especially this prince. He was ruthless and cunning and, many speculated, on his way to the throne. So a smart man such as he would attach himself to the winner and ride with him for all he was worth, a calculation which made the situation before him very simple. Shoot down the helicopter and earn his first star. Fail and be shot. It was easy to be motivated with his life on the line.

The pilot flew the fighter aggressively, whipping the controls as he desperately searched the night sky. His digital fuel readout clicked again, decreasing to eighteen hundred pounds. The radar found nothing. The sky was empty and dark. The knot in his stomach grew. His readout clicked off another fifty pounds and he went through the numbers again in his head. Five hundred pounds of fuel to get back to base, a couple hundred pounds to fly his overhead approach, three hundred pounds for emergency reserve, two hundred to land. He had nine minutes, maybe ten, before he would have to turn back to base.

His palms had already sweated through his gloves, wetting the controls. “Shoot down the helicopter or die trying,” the prince’s brutal instructions sounded again in his head.

The truth was, he didn’t mind the thought of dying in combat. He’d give his life happily for the Kingdom of Saud, but he bitterly hated the thought of dying because he had run out of gas or worse, having the prince shoot him because he had failed.

He cursed, punching an angry fist on his knee.

Where was the target? What was he going to do? He glanced at his fuel gauge, then cursed once again.

Rolling the fighter up on its wing, he scanned the expanse of dark ocean almost five miles below him, staring through the side of his Plexiglas canopy. He counted no less than six oil tankers moving through the Persian Gulf, each of them trailing a long line of sea foam that shimmered in the moonlight. A couple enormous cargo transports moved parallel to the tankers, heading in the opposite direction toward the ports at Al Kawayt and Abadan. To the west, a bank of thick sea fog had developed and he watched as it drifted toward the Saudi coastline a little more than fifty miles away. He flew his aircraft north and then east, keeping it constantly banked up on her side, and the enormous oil derricks along the Iranian coast slipped into view, their dark towers rising over the shimmering waters of the Persian Gulf. He rolled the nimble fighter level then jerked the stick to the right and pointed the nose toward the Saudi coastline.

His radar swept across the horizon, hitting a couple targets, civilian airliners moving toward Riyadh and Al Manamah, but it was almost three in the morning and the civilian airline traffic was light. He commanded the look-down, shoot-down radar to search low once again, knowing the helicopter would stay near the water. His radar reflected a deep green shadow on his facemask as he focused on the screen. Nothing. Empty airspace. No helicopter there.

He shook his head in frustration. The sweat had moved from his armpits to soak the flight suit on his back.

“Kill the helicopter or die.” His instructions were clear.

But he couldn’t kill the helicopter until he found it first.

He glanced at his fuel gauge as it clicked through fifteen hundred pounds. He reached up and adjusted his radar out to eighty miles. The Saudi coastline cluttered the display and the phase-array system sought to cut through the radar energy that bounced back from the rocky coastline. The computer automatically adjusted the beam to cut through the ground clutter and the radar display was cleaner on the next sweep.

Then he got it. A quick hit almost sixty miles away. It was low and moving quickly toward the coastline, just above the fog. He commanded his radar to hit the target again. It measured the distance and ground speed difference between them and began to click in his ear.

Target. Helicopter. Fifty-six miles off his nose. He yanked the fighter twenty degrees to the right and hit the afterburners for eight seconds to get a quick burst of speed. The Eagle accelerated very quickly, reaching almost Mach one. Lowering the nose, he armed up his missiles and the targeting computer instantly began to growl in his ear.

He had a lock on the target. In ten miles he would shoot. Ten miles. Fifteen seconds. From here, it was easy. His mission was almost complete.

• • •

The Crown Prince had barely drifted to sleep when the Sikorski suddenly reeled on its side. Then he felt his stomach lurch as the helicopter fell toward the ocean. His eyes flew open, his heart slammed and the adrenaline surged through his body. The helicopter lurched again and nosed over. The airspeed picked up and he heard the building noise of the airstream slipping over the cabin faster and faster. The helicopter rolled left and then right and his stomach turned again. He caught a glimpse through the window and saw the sea shimmering but a few feet off the left side. They were right on the water, no more than four or five feet in the air. He cried as the aircraft lurched, then started climbing again. A sudden burst of light, bright as the sun and moving off the left side, cast a freak shadow under its light. The ocean lit up like at noonday as the flare burned across the night sky.

The helicopter’s defensive counter-measures were kicking out anti-missile flares!

The crown prince knew what was happening.

And somewhere inside him, though he didn’t acknowledge it yet, a small voice whispered that he was soon going to die.

Grabbing the side of his chair, Prince Saud stumbled toward the cockpit door. The helicopter lurched again and he was knocked to the floor. The aircraft rolled on its side to almost ninety degrees and he slid like a doll across the carpeted floor, smashing his head against the conference table as he slid by. He felt the warm blood in his eye, but wiped it away and struggled to his feet again. The helicopter groaned around him, vibrating and shaking like an amusement park ride. They were exceeding their main rotor speed limit, he could tell by the screeching sound. He reached for the cockpit door and jerked it open just as the helicopter rolled again, throwing him to the side. Cursing, he crawled back to the cockpit and pulled himself to his feet.

He saw the amber caution lights and heard the warning horns. The two pilots were in a panic, one of them rolling the aircraft left and then right. He heard the warning system growling, warning him of an imminent attack. “Coming around!” the pilot screamed as he rolled the helicopter again. The prince’s eyes shot to the defensive display and his heart turned to a cold rock in his chest. A fighter had locked on with its radar and was about to attack. “Who is it?” he screamed to the copilot on his left side. The Saudi colonel turned to him, his eyes wide with fear. “F-15,” he cried. “He is lighting us up with his radar!”

The night illuminated again as the copilot spit out another bundle of phosphorous flares. The flares ejected from behind the main rotors and lifted into the night, trailing above and behind the helicopter in a white-hot trail of heat designed to pull away any heat-seeking missiles. The copilot reached to punch the flare button again, but the prince slapped his hand back. “Stop it,” he screamed. “That is not going to help!” He jammed a finger toward the threat display. “He’s hasn’t fired a missile yet. And when he shoots, it will be a radar-guided missile, not a heat-seeker anyway. All you’re doing is lighting us up like a flashlight, showing him where to shoot.”

The copilot only nodded, ready to panic again. The pilot flew the helicopter like a madman who had been shot in the eyes, jerking it left and then right, rocking her up on her side. The prince saw the ocean rise up to meet them as the pilot rolled the helicopter again. The rotor blades slapped the ocean and the helicopter lurched to the side. The pilot panicked and climbed and the helicopter shuddered toward the night sky.

The prince braced himself, grabbing the top of the pilot’s seats, then looked at the counter-measures display. It was an APG-63 radar. Yes, an F-15. Forty miles behind them. Closing very fast.

His mind raced as he considered their options. They were over the water. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to land. The helicopter’s spinning rotors would bounce back enormous beams of the radar energy to the F-15’s receiver. They had no guns, no weapons, only a few counter-measures. He grimly shook his head. He was a fighter pilot. He had targeted helicopters from an F-15 before. A helicopter, over the water, against an F-15 with its missiles and guns

He swallowed, almost crying.

Abdullah was about to kill him. Then he would kill his son. There would be no freedom for the kingdom. All of his dreams were dead.

The pilot continued flying like a crazy man, breaking right and then left, climbing and descending, trying to break the lock on the radar that was tracking them from behind. But the helicopter was enormous and no more stealthy than a Mack truck. The missiles couldn’t miss it. They had maybe a few seconds left to live.

Saud’s brain slowed down as a sudden calm filled his mind.

He was going to die. He knew that already. But he might yet save his last son, if he could just reach his friend.

He turned to the panicked copilot and tore the radio headset from off his head. “Tune up the VHF,” he screamed.

The copilot stared at him blankly, his eyes glazed with fear. “The VHF frequency?” he repeated.

“Give me control of the VHF radio!” the prince cried again.

• • •

The Saudi fighter pilot checked his airspeed and altitude. Five-eighty knots. Fourteen thousand feet. The target was forty-one miles in front of him, almost straight off the nose. He watched as it rolled left and then right, a lumbering giant in its final dance of death. As if any of it mattered! It could rock, it could roll, it could climb or descend—his radar couldn’t miss it now that it was locked on. He lifted his eyes and scanned the darkness. Searching the open ocean, he saw a tiny trail of white light burning across the water. He squinted, saw another trail, then laughed to himself. The idiot pilot was shooting flares! He smiled under his mask. A real genius! He hadn’t even fired his missiles. It was pure panic down there.

Then he startled, his mind racing.

What kind of helicopter carried anti-missile flares?

His heart stopped, his mouth growing dry.

No civilian helicopters would carry defensive systems . . . maybe a government aircraft . . . no, none of them . . . except for maybe the royal family!

He almost threw up in his oxygen mask.

He was about to shoot a member of the royal family!

He didn’t know what to do!

The firing computer continued to growl in his helmet. He was in firing range. The system was armed and ready. Radar locked. Ready to fire.

Am I about to shoot a member of the royal family?

Then Prince al-Rahman’s words shot like electricity through his mind, “Shoot down the helicopter or I will kill you myself.”

He wondered for half a second, then pushed the thought from his head. Royal family? Maybe it was. But what did it matter? His instructions were clear. If he failed, Abdullah would kill him. He didn’t have any choice.

“Insha’allal,” he whispered as he decided what to do.

He checked the distance and radar lock, then moved his left hand across the throttles, flipped off the safe switch and fired two advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles into the night air. The missile engines fired together in a trail of white smoke and flame and accelerated before him, then began to track downward toward the target.

• • •

The helicopter copilot reached for the radio console and flipped the selector to manual. The crown prince leaned over the center console and changed the frequency to 122.5 MHz, which is the emergency channel. Every U.S. aircraft in the air was required to monitor this frequency. The prince pulled on the headset and jerked the microphone to his lips.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,” he said into the mike. “This is an emergency call for any U.S. aircraft. Mayday, Mayday, does anyone read?”

The prince released his broadcast button and listened, but the radio was silent. “Mayday, Mayday,” he repeated. “Any U.S. aircraft, this is an emergency!”

The helicopter pilot cried out and pointed toward the threat display. Two missiles had been fired and were tracking them. Twenty miles and closing. The pilot screamed in panic. He rolled the helicopter and climbed then threw the nose toward the ocean again. The copilot reached up and released another five bundles of burning flares. The missiles continued tracking toward the helicopter, accelerating as they descended through the night air. The pilot racked the helicopter into a tight left turn, pulling back toward the missiles, trying to throw them off his tail. The copilot saw the missiles turn toward them, then slowly bowed his head.

Prince Saud watched the missiles track toward him. In seconds they would strike. Yet he felt no panic. No fear. His mind was peaceful and calm. He was empty as a basket that had been turned upside down, the emotion having been drained from his body and his soul. He thought of Tala and his children. He believed they were waiting, and he was ready to go to them now. He knew it was over, but he was prepared to die. He’d done everything he could to win the battle. Now the war was left to someone else.

Then he thought of his son and the last thing he could do. He pressed the transmit button and started broadcasting again.

“Mayday, Mayday,” he said over the radio. “This is an emergency call to any U.S. aircraft in the region. This is Saudi Crown Prince Saud bin Faysal with an emergency message for Major General Neil Brighton of the national security staff. Neil, my friend, all of my family is dead. I have one son who is living and you must rescue him. The Agha Jari Deh Valley . . . you will find him there. He is there with my . . . .”

The missile hit the helicopter in the left engine bay. Prince Saud felt the fire and heat but only half a second of burning pain.

• • •

The F-15 pilot saw the explosion lighting up the night sky, a yellow fireball with a billowing white and black core. He saw the smoke rising as the scattered pieces of the helicopter began to rain from the sky, pelting the ocean in a hailstorm of smoking metal and burning debris. The fireball disappearing quickly as the pieces fell. Then he smiled, satisfied, and turned his jet back toward his home.

His mission was successful. Looked like he would get his first star.

THIRTEEN

The hallways of the Pentagon are a wide, windowless and wondrous maze of interconnecting spokes and rings that start at the center courtyard and work their way out from there. They are crowded and dull and brightened only by the colorful assortment of Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines uniforms. The Pentagon has its own Metro station (one of the largest and most crowded in the city) as well as several cafeterias, its own shopping mall, bank and mail delivery operations. The services the Pentagon offers are equal to those of any small city—which, of course, is exactly what it is. More general and flag officers work in the Pentagon than any other single place on earth, most of them housed in the executive hallway along the outermost ring on the northwest side of the Pentagon. The building is always crowded and there is a sense of urgency that simply isn’t replicated in any other government building, with the exception of the White House or perhaps the CIA. Those who walk the Pentagon halls know they are the sword of the nation, the tip of the spear, and they are willing to die for their country and to keep their people free.

Major General Neil Brighton had a small annex office along the outer ring of the Pentagon, one hallway over from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was an understated and private affair, a single room with no reception area, secretary, or staff. A place to think where he came to get away from the ringing phones and constant meetings and appointments that plagued his White House office. Inside the wood-paneled room, he had a small desk set against the back wall where he could turn in his chair and look out a large window onto one of the huge parking lots that surrounded the Pentagon. In the distance, the buildings of Washington, D.C. rose, punctuated by the Washington Monument’s pearly white spire sticking up in the air. Unlike his White House office, which was decorated with pictures of him with two presidents, a vice-president, the secretary of defense, several senators and congressmen and various foreign leaders. The walls of his Pentagon office were decorated with his real love, which certainly wasn’t politics, but fighters and fighting men. There were pictures of him as a lieutenant standing in front of his first F-15, pictures of him flying in formation along the Korean DMZ, over the Egyptian pyramids, and the Brandenburg Gate of the old Berlin Wall. There were pictures of him as a captain and a major, always in olive or desert camouflage flight suits, posing in front of a fighter jet. There were pictures of him with his squadron mates in various locations around the world; deep sea fishing in the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea, riding camels in Iraq, eating sauerkraut at Lelas, and fighting wars in Kuwait, Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. A stranger could trace the general’s career by looking at the pictures on the wall, from his flying days as a lieutenant to his first staff job at the Pentagon, the wing commander at Langley to another staff job with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was here that the transition to a political animal became complete—where he started having more pictures of him with ambassadors and presidents than military friends.

The general had been back from his trip to Saudi Arabia for less than a day. The sun had set over the Washington, D.C. and the parking lot lights had clicked on. Brighton sat alone in his office and stared out the large window, lost in his thoughts. Then came an urgent knock and his aide pushed back the door. “Sir,” a colonel said as he rushed into the room.

Brighton turned wearily. “What you got, Dagger?” he asked.

Colonel “Dagger” Hansen took a quick step toward his desk. “Bad stuff in Saudi.”

Brighton stood immediately. “What is it?” he asked.

“Crown Prince Saud bin Faysal is dead, sir. His helicopter was shot down a few hours ago.”

Brighton’s knees almost buckled and he took a quick breath. He felt like he had been hit in the stomach and he almost grimaced in pain. “Are you certain?” he demanded. “How do you know it was him?”

“We know,” the colonel answered. “And that’s not all, sir. The news gets much worse. Now come, I’ll explain while we walk. The National Security Staff is assembling in the Situation Room and the president wants a briefing in an hour.”

Hansen turned for the door and Brighton followed. The colonel explained what he knew as they jogged down the hall.

• • •

Twenty minutes later, Major General Brighton was sitting at the Situation Room conference room table, surrounded by national security staff. He read the transcript of the radio call:

Mayday, Mayday . . . this is an emergency call to any U.S. (UNREADABLE) in the region. This is Saudi Crown Prince Saud bin Faysal with an emergency (UNREADABLE) for Major General Neil Brighton of the (UNREADABLE). Neil, my friend, all (UNREADABLE) . . . I only have one son (SIGNIFICANT UNREADABLE) . . . living? You (UNREADABLE) (rescue/rescued/resist??) him. The Agha Jari Deh Valley. (SIGNIFICANT UNREADABLE) . . . He is there with my . . . .

Brighton checked the time of the transcription, then the time the interception took place. He studied the UNREADABLE portions of the transcript, trying to fill in the blanks, then turned to the communications specialist on the NSC staff. “Who picked up the message?” he asked.

“One of our receiving birds out of Baghdad,” the staff member answered.

“It wasn’t broadcast to any particular receiver?”

“No, sir, it was not. It was a call in the blind. A couple dozen other U.S. aircraft reported hearing the broadcast, including several receivers inside of Saudi Arabia. The reconnaissance aircraft had its recorders activated and was able to get the transmission, but the helicopter was so low it impeded the range of the broadcast. As you can see, there are significant portions that are unreadable.”

“It wasn’t broadcast using Have Quick secure radio?” he asked.

“Negative, sir,” the young lieutenant replied. “No secure means of encryption were employed. Quite the opposite, the radio call was broadcast on the civilian guard frequency. It was the crown prince’s intention to get the message to as many people as he could, hoping it would eventually make its way to you. Clearly, that was his intention. He mentions you by name, that much of the broadcast came through loud and clear.”

“But if he was trying to send me a message, why not use his satellite radio?”

“Time, sir, or lack of it. It takes a couple seconds to synch up to a satellite. And when Prince Saud made this radio call, he was already under attack. It was amazing he had the presence of mind to get this much out. We’ve gone back and looked at some of the reconnaissance information from one of our Looking Glass IIIs. When this radio message was broadcast, the crown prince’s helicopter was deep into evasive maneuvers. Missiles had already been fired. They were six, maybe eight seconds from impact. The broadcast was terminated when the missiles impacted the target.”

Brighton sat back and thought, imagining the chaos in the helicopter in the last seconds of the prince’s life as they tried to evade the inevitable. He considered the courage and calm the prince had displayed. He was a good man. A friend of America. He was going to miss him deeply. The world was not as good without him, as well as much less safe.

“And the unreadable portions of the transcript?” he then asked, pushing his personal anguish aside.

“We’re still working on that, sir. There were a couple times when Prince Saud slipped into Arabic, so our translators have been going over the recording, trying to complete the transcription, but as I mentioned, the helicopter was low and portions of the transmission didn’t come through. It might be this is the best transcription we ever get.”

The general laid the transcript on the table and stared at the far wall. The staff worked busily around him, but his mind drifted back. The crown prince had warned him. But did he have any idea he was so close to death? A sudden chill ran though him. How much did the prince really know? He thought of the codeword. Was this Firefall?

He turned back to his staff. “Who was with him in his helicopter?”

An intelligence officer stepped forward. “So far as we know, he was alone.”

Brighton shook his head. The Crown Prince of Arabia. Alone. In his helicopter. In the middle of the night. Out over the water. It was more than unusual, it was completely absurd. Turning to the transcript, he read it again. “I only have one son.” He looked up from the transcript and stared again into space.

Colonel Hansen moved to the conference table and sat down as a small group of staff members gathered around them. The colonel’s face was taut and he nervously wet his lips. “Sir, we’ve been poking around since we intercepted this message,” he said. “Our consul in Riyadh has been trying to talk with King Faysal, but hasn’t been able to get through. However, the king managed to send us a message. We are still trying to confirm its authenticity, but it appears to be real.” Hansen paused and wet his lips again.

“Yes?” Brighton demanded.

The colonel looked around anxiously. “I’m sorry sir, but we think Crown Prince Saud’s family has also been killed.”

“Killed?”

“Assassinated. A political hit.”

“His family?”

“His sons from Princess Tala, Prince Saud’s most senior heirs. And maybe Princes Tala and their daughter as well, all of them killed a little more than forty-eight hours ago.”

Brighton’s face drained of color and he blinked his eyes suddenly. He shook his head in doubt. “I don’t believe it,” he said.

“I’m sorry, sir. I know you and Crown Prince Saud bin Faysal were good friends. It’s a kick in the gut, especially with his family . . . .”

“I don’t believe it!” Brighton repeated, his voice growing sour. His thoughts came to him slowly, thick tar in his mind. “Why would anyone kill his family? With the security that’s around them, I don’t see how they could!”

His staff members stared at him, none of them willing to reply. Hansen tapped a finger on the table, pointing to a line on the transcript. He didn’t say anything, but his growing impatience was becoming clear. “I’m sorry, sir, but it happened,” he finally said. “I know he was your friend, but the old guy was bopped off, along with his wife and kids. We know they’ve been killed. Now we have to figure out what it means, why it happened and what’s going to happen next.”

Brighton turned toward him and Hansen tapped the transcript again, the surety of his action enough to cast Brighton’s disbelief aside. “We are seeking confirmation, turning over every stone,” the colonel continued, “but from what we are hearing from our friends at the Israeli Mossad, as well as our guys in Syria and Iraq, it looks like one of King Faysal’s sons is making a move.”

The general’s face drained of color.

A power struggle in the kingdom! It was impossible to overstate the danger this would create. The instability in the Persian Gulf would send the price of oil through the roof. It would cripple western economies at a time when they were already on the edge. The hard cash it produced would be used to breathe money and life into al Qaeda and several other terrorist regimes. It would destabilize the entire region, including the fragile Iraqi government, while bringing out all the snakes and spiders in Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. It could shut down the Persian Gulf to international shipments of oil while increasing the opportunities for nuclear proliferation in the most dangerous part of the world. It would mean the military forces in Israel would be on hair-trigger alert. It would mean . . . . He felt a sick knot in his throat.

He took a deep breath. All right. It was here. He would deal with it . . . they would deal with it . . . they would do what they had to do. He rubbed his face, then his hair, then took a deep breath. Staring at the transcript, he started thinking clearly for the first time since walking into the Situation Room. “The prince’s son,” he wondered, “the Agha Jari Deh Valley?” A light began to flicker inside his head.

“Princess Tala?” Brighton asked. “She was killed, along with all of her children.”

“Yes, sir. That is what we have been told.”

“But there were no other assassinations?”

“Not that we know of right now.”

“You know that Prince Saud had another son. He had a second wife. Another child.”

The colonel didn’t answer. That was something he didn’t know.

“His enemies are trying to kill Prince Saud’s heirs,” Brighton said. “He is claiming stake to the kingdom . . . .”

“Sir?” Hansen questioned, then stopped and let Brighton think.

Brighton shook his head in frustration. Then it hit him like a slap on the head. “Get me a map,” he demanded.

A map was laid out before him and one of the specialists pointed at the crash site in the Persian Gulf. “Was the prince’s helicopter fly east or west?” Brighton asked.

“West, sir. Toward Saudi Arabia.”

The general considered, thinking of what the crown prince had said, the warning in the garden, the fear in his voice. “Where is Agha Jari Deh?” he asked. Hansen pointed at the map. The general drew a line with his finger between Saud’s personal heliport in Riyadh . . . the border . . . across the Gulf to Iran . . . through the mountains to Agha Jari Deh. The line was almost perfectly straight. He swallowed hard. “He hid him!” he said.

Hansen looked at him, not understanding.

Brighton pointed again. “He was hiding his last son, his last heir. He took him to Iran.” His voice was so certain, no one dared argue with him.

Brighton moved toward an illuminated map on the wall. The small group of advisors followed, Hansen staying at his side. “Prince Saud knew it was coming,” Brighton explained. “He tried to warn me.” He pointed to the small village with his finger. “He was over the Persian Gulf, on his way back from where he had hidden his son in Iran.”

Hansen stood in silence, then cracked his knuckles. Brighton turned away from the wall map.

“If we know it, the killer knows. If we know where Prince Saud was going, then the assassin knows it, too. He has to kill the last son to ensure the kingdom doesn’t fall to Prince Saud’s heir. If that’s the case . . . .”

Hansen started nodding.

“We’ve got to help him,” Brighton said as he turned to his aide. “What’s the closest Special Operations unit?”

“You know how thin we are in Special Forces, sir. All of our Spec Ops units are committed to ongoing operations. I’m not sure if we have anyone available . . .”

“There’s got to be someone!”

“Special Forces are stretched to the point of breaking three hundred and sixty-five days a year. None of them are idle. And we’ll have to use an SF unit. This isn’t the kind of mission we can send someone else.”

“Find someone!” Brighton commanded sternly. “I don’t care what you do or how you do it. Find us a unit we can task. We’ve got to get them to Agha Jari Deh before it’s too late. We’re looking for a young boy, four, maybe five years old. And Princess Ash Salman will be with him. Agha Jari Deh looks like a tiny village. If Saud took them there, then we can find him. But we’ve got to move quickly. If we picked up the radio broadcast, then Prince Saud’s enemies inside Saudi Arabia certainly picked it up as well. They will be moving. They are moving now. We have to get there before they do.”

Hansen turned to an Army liaison who had been standing with the circle of advisors a few feet away. The army colonel stepped forward. “We’ve got a Delta Team R&Ring in Germany,” he said. “They were supposed to get another couple days’ rest, but we could load them up and get them in-country if we had to. If we can get airlift from the Air Force, they could have them in Iran within twelve hours or so.”

Dagger turned to Brighton. His face was suddenly even more intense. Sam’s unit was in Germany. That was the Delta unit the colonel was taking about. He was ordering his son into combat. It was a lousy thing to have to do.

“Sir?” Hansen prodded.

“Do it,” Brighton said. “Coordinate with the Chairman, the SecDef, and the CINC to get the orders in place. We need their support to authorize a mission into Iran. The president will have to pull the final trigger. I’ll lay the groundwork with him. Meanwhile, authorize all support and combat SAR assets. Who knows what our Deltas will run into once they get there. This is going to be a very dangerous mission, with no time to plan or prepare. Move other SAR assets if you have to. We can’t leave these guys out there without support. If anyone gives you pushback, send them directly to me. Emphasize to the Deltas that this is a rescue mission only. They need to avoid a firefight if possible, but they need to be ready. We might meet up with hostiles and we have to be prepared to accept casualties.” He stopped and scanned his staff. Most were scribbling notes. “I want the talking papers within an hour so I can brief the president.”

The army colonel nodded and moved toward his console. Hansen went with him, all the time talking in his ear. Brighton looked at the other members of the staff. “Any questions?” he demanded. No one spoke. “OK, get at it.”

The group sprang to life.

• • •

Prince al-Rahman listened to the young communications specialist intently, boring his dark eyes into him. “You are certain?” he demanded, his voice deadly but calm.

“Sayid, yes I am.”

“He said the Agha Jari Deh Valley?”

“I am certain, Prince Abdullah, that is what he said.”

“That’s in Iran?”

“Yes, my Sayid.”

Prince al-Rahman closed his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. “My older brother has been murdered,” he said carefully. “I need to know everything. I need to know every detail of the radio call. Now, try to remember! Did he say anything else?”

The young soldier didn’t move as he thought intensely. “I have told you everything,” he finally answered. “Everything that I can recall.”

“His helicopter was shot down?”

“It seems that way, Sayid.”

“And there were no survivors?”

“No, my Sayid.”

“No survivors . . . no survivors . . . ,” Al-Rahman’s voice choked with pain. He forced a look of grief and deep sadness that pulled the corners of his lips into a tight frown. His eyes teared, his lip trembled, it was a spectacular display, with just the right mix of rage, shock and sadness at his brother’s death. Every head bowed in respect for his pain. Always emotional, his fellow Arabs recognized Al-Rahman needed a private moment to grieve.

The young prince wiped his hand across his eyes, then dismissed his staff with a wave of his hand. “Leave me,” he whispered. “I need some time alone.” His aides left without comment, the last one closing the heavy door to his office.

The room was silent a moment before Al-Rahman lifted the phone. “He went to Iran,” he said when his chief of security picked up the line. “Agha Jari Deh Valley.”

A long moment of silence followed. “Iran?” the general finally said.

“Yes,” Al-Rahman answered, “Now I want you to go and get him.”

“Sir, Iran is not a friend, they are an enemy. We have no assets in Iran.”

“I don’t care what you do or don’t have. We may not have Saudi assets in the country, but many powerful Iranian officers are indebted to me. Start with General Sattam bin Mamdayh. Get him on the phone. He’ll know exactly what to do.”

“Prince al-Rahman,” the general began to plead, “we have eliminated Prince Saud. His son is no threat to us. By the time he is old enough, it will be far too late!”

“You will do as I tell you. I want all of his children killed!”

“But Sayid, he is but a child. He poses no threat to you. Why can’t we just let him be?”

“Because he will grow up, you fool! Because he knows who he is! He will remember his father and he will come after us. And his mother is with him. Do you think that she won’t act? Are you stupid, my friend, or have you just lost your mind? I want all of them killed. None of Saud’s children can live.”

“But my Prince, if you will just consider for a moment . . . .”

“I want them dead!” Al-Rahman screamed like a madman into the phone. “Now, are you going to do it, or do I need to have you replaced? There are others who will follow my orders, general. You are not irreplaceable. Now you either bring me the son or I’ll mount your head on my wall like the female sheep that you are. Choose now, but choose wisely, for I am not in a good mood. And I don’t want to hear anymore whining about how he is just a child!”

• • •

As director, Iranian Internal Special Security Forces, Iranian General Sattam bin Mamdayh was one of the hundreds of powerful and evil men who either owed Al-Rahman, feared him or were dependent upon his money.

When Prince Al-Rahman called the general on a secure satellite phone, he got right to the point. “I need your help,” Al-Rahman instructed. “And I need it now.”

“Anything,” the general answered. “I will do what I can.”

“There is a small village on the west side of your country, not far from the sea. Agha Jari Deh. Are you familiar with it?”

The general thought a moment. Yes, he was familiar. There was a young man who lived there, a grandson of the traitor Pahlavi, friend of the Great Satan himself. All of the Pahlavi offspring were under surveillance by his men, though Rassa Ali Pahlavi had spent a meaningless life of herding and farming, so far as he knew.

“The grandson of Pahlavi lives there.”

Al-Rahman breathed upon hearing the name. “Are you certain?” he demanded, his voice strained and tight.

“Absolutely,” the general answered. “I have observed him myself. He is a dirt farmer, a peasant; my dog lives better than he. He lives in a shack I wouldn’t stable my horses in. He is nothing, I assure you of that.”

Al-Rahman was silent, his breathing heavy. “Pahlavi,” he repeated like it was a bad taste in his mouth. “Pahlavi, grandson of the Shah . . . .”

“You know of him?” the Iranian general wondered.

Al-Rahman didn’t answer. A long moment passed in silence, the phone humming softly between the two men.

Al-Rahman was impressed. It made perfect sense! His brother was brilliant. He never would have looked anywhere outside of Saudi Arabia. If his brother hadn’t made the mistake of making the desperate radio call . . . if his people hadn’t heard it . . . all might have been lost.

The Iranian broke the silence. “You know him, Al-Rahman?” he repeated.

“I know him,” Al-Rahman answered. “He is a distant cousin, if you traced our lines back many generations.”

The general filled the phone with laughter. “I could kill him,” he offered. “I could send him to prison or I could bring him to you. Tell me what you’re after. What do you want me to do?”

Al-Rahman answered quickly. “There is a boy. No more than four or five years old. He is a problem for me. I want you to eliminate the problem. Can you take care of that?”

The general snickered, drawing his own conclusion in his mind. A young lad? Sent away? One of the prince’s wild oats. And now the princess didn’t want the competition around her legitimate sons. How many times had he seen this? It was the same everywhere. “This will be easy!” he snickered. “I will see it is done.”

“Yes, you will,” Al-Rahman answered. “And you will do it today.”

“I’ll have one of my personal units up there within a few hours.”

“Yes, that is good. Before the sun goes down.”

“Sayid,” the general snapped. “But you realize, of course,” his voice softened now, “this task you have asked of me, it is outside the official responsibilities of my office. I do this as a favor. A personal favor to you.”

“I understand, Sattam bin Mamdayh.” Al-Rahman knew how the game was played.

“I do it at great personal risk and sacrifice.”

“I understand that.”

“Then perhaps we could talk when I have completed this task.”

“Yes, that will be fine.”

“I will report my success.”

“And, general,” Al-Rahman added before he hung up the phone. “I don’t need to state the obvious, but we don’t want any leftovers. We don’t want any talkers. No eyes. We don’t want any children spouting wild tales to their friends. It would be better if there were no witnesses to tell of this tale; this Pahlavi, his wife, his kin. When you take care of the child, you need to take care of them. Otherwise we will have residuals, if you know what I mean.”

The general only snorted. “I know, Prince Al-Rahman, how to do my job. You let me take care of your problem, then we’ll talk again.”

FOURTEEN

A distant thunder rumbled down from the mountain and the air was heavy with the smell of rain. Azadeh and her father were working in the kitchen, preparing their evening meal. The young prince was asleep, nestled under the covers in Azadeh’s bed. The princess worked beside Azadeh, helping to peel potatoes before dropping them into a boiling pot of salt and chicken.

Rassa heard his name being called from the backyard and he stopped, then grabbed Azadeh’s hand. Azadeh held still and the princess watched them, her eyes growing wide. She had been in their home for less than twenty-four hours, and though she and Rassa had hardly spoken she didn’t have to speak to understand the fear in his eyes.

Rassa moved to the back window. The sky was dark with heavy clouds. The back courtyard was slippery with mud and the animals were hunkered down under the olive trees that lined the back wall. Rassa saw a flash of movement as Omar Pasni Zehedan pushed his enormous frame over the back fence. He stopped and looked around, then ran toward the back door.

Rassa moved to meet him on the porch. Azadeh followed her father, but the princess stayed back. Omar, soaked with perspiration and out of breath, stood at the foot of the stairs, his curly hair hanging in front of his eyes. He was puffing and sweating despite the cold air.

“Rassa,” Omar said, his eyes darting around. “There are soldiers in the village. They are looking for you.”

Azadeh felt her heart crush as she gasped for breath. She reached for her father, but he pushed her aside. Moving onto the back porch, he drew the door half closed. Azadeh ignored his unspoken instructions, staying close enough to hear.

“What soldiers?” Rassa demanded.

“I don’t know,” Omar shot back. “I don’t recognize their uniforms. Special Security Forces I think, but I’ve never heard of the unit and I don’t know where they’re from. But they are asking for you, Rassa, and they are only minutes away.”

Azadeh moved to her father’s side and grasped his hand. The princess had heard and she backed against the far wall, then turned and ran to the bedroom where her son was asleep.

Rassa turned to Azadeh. “Listen to me,” he told her, “we’ve got to get out of here.” He fell suddenly silent. Too late. The crunch of heavy trucks on wet gravel could be heard from the front of their house.

Rassa turned to Omar. “Thank you for the warning, but you can’t help us now. Go. Get away while you can!” Without waiting for an answer, Rassa slammed the door in Omar’s face.

Azadeh looked up at her father, her eyes wide with fear. He pulled her close and she felt him shudder. “Stay here,” he whispered.

Azadeh pulled on his fingers, not letting them go. “Don’t leave me,” she begged him but Rassa pulled away.

“Stay with the princess,” he told her. “Get into the back room!”

• • •

The rains had quit just twenty minutes ago and a heavy mist hung from the orchard, dripping and wet, moist fingers that sifted through the trees but never quite reached the ground. The fog moved silently, almost as if it were alive, searching for something among the tall leaves. The surrounding mountains cast shadows through the thick underbrush, bringing on darkness before the sun had fully set. Far in the distance, somewhere east of the river, the roll of thunder echoed back through the trees as the rain squall moved away, pushing up the mountains to the east.

The army trucks sloshed to the center of the road and stopped. After years of Soviet oppression, Rassa recognized the sound of the trucks. Soviet-made APC-30s. Heavy. Armor plated. Twelve troops apiece. He listened and counted. At least three . . . maybe four trucks came to a stop outside his house. Two full squads. Fifty troops. He sucked in a quick breath.

Azadeh moved to the back bedroom and huddled with the princess below the window. The young boy remained sleeping in his mother’s arms.

Rassa moved to the front door and glanced through the lace curtains. Two trucks had rolled to a stop in front of his house. One was farther up the road, one at the base of the hill. The road was deserted, all of his neighbors having rushed into their houses, though he knew they would be watching from behind their curtains, too. The soldiers spilled from the trucks and Rassa studied their uniforms: black combat fatigues, dark berets, flak vests and high, leather boots. He pulled away from the window as the soldiers approached. He shot a terrified look to Azadeh’s bedroom, his mind reeling in fear.

• • •

The soldiers weren’t truly soldiers; at least most of them weren’t, but brutal mercenaries who worked for their commander as his personal army of secret police, an off-the-books unit that reported only to the general and nobody else. The conscripts were commanded by cruel, glaring and arrogant officers.

The senior officer, a captain, emerged from the second truck, swatting the flies and smoking a thin cigarette. He was a squat man, with a thick neck and well-muscled thighs. His nostrils flared as he breathed and his glare was intense. His job was simple. Do what the general told him; nothing less, nothing more. And never ask questions.

The captain stuffed his hands into his front pockets, then barked out an order, pointing to Rassa’s home. “Empty the house. Bring them all out here!”

His soldiers jumped at his voice. They moved to the door and blew it off its hinges with a burst of machine gun fire then rushed into Rassa’s house. The kitchen was empty. They moved through the room, opening the small armoire, spilling the dishes from the counter and knocking the chairs to the floor. They ran to the first bedroom and kicked the door back. No one was there. At the end of the hall, the bathroom was obviously empty. Which left the last bedroom. Four men gathered around the door, their guns at chest level. Their leader gave a quick signal and one of the soldiers kicked in the door.

They burst though the doorway and looked quickly inside. The bedroom was empty. The bed covers had been thrown on the floor. The window was open and a cool breeze blew the curtains back.

• • •

Omar grabbed the princess and pulled her over the brick wall. She held to her son, grasping him in her arms. The boy cried and the princess pressed her mouth to his ear, whispering to him silently, “Don’t be afraid. Go to sleep!”

Rassa followed, and then Azadeh. All five were over the back wall.

Omar glanced at the stranger and the young child in her arms. “The princess, I presume?”

Rassa nodded, pressing his body against the rock, then started crouching toward the old barn.

“There,” Omar hissed as he nodded toward the trail that led up to the mountains.

Rassa stopped and looked up at the rain-shrouded peaks that rose over the village, studying the rocky trail that disappeared in the cold mist. He heard voices, then the crash of gunfire as the soldiers shot the front door. He threw a desperate look toward Omar. “You have to save them,” he said. He nodded to the princess and her son who was clutching to her arms. “Take them,” he whispered. “Go to the mountains. You know that trail as well as anyone. The mist is heavy. It will hide you. Now go! Get away!”

Omar didn’t hesitate. He motioned toward the young stranger. “Come,” he hissed and she moved to his side. Omar reached for her young child and took him in his arms. Crouching, he ran through the orchard and slipped behind the barn. Rassa listened for a moment, hearing their footsteps fading away as they moved up the rocky trail. Then he turned to Azadeh. “Stay here!” he said.

“Please don’t leave me, Father.”

“Do as I tell you. Stay here. Out of sight.”

“Father, you can’t leave me!”

“It is the princess they are after; the princess and her son. They don’t want you or me. I think that we will be all right.”

“But Father . . . what are you going to do?”

There came a loud crash from the house as one of the bedroom doors was kicked open. They heard the banging of footsteps and then the soldiers curse.

Rassa turned back to Azadeh. “I have to give them time to escape.”

“But Father, if you leave what am I supposed to do?”

“Stay here, like I told you. Everything will be OK. They aren’t going to hurt me, it is the royal family they want.”

Rassa glanced toward the mountains. Omar and the princess had disappeared in the mist. Another crash sounded from their house, this time from Azadeh’s bedroom. More cursing, more yelling, and Rassa stood up. He glanced quickly to Azadeh. “I love you,” he said. “Stay here. I’ll be fine. But stay out of sight.”

Rassa jumped the fence to his courtyard, then ran toward the house. Azadeh peeked over the fence, then started to cry. She reached out toward him, but she didn’t call his name.

Azadeh crouched against the wall a moment, then sprinted to the orchard and hid in the mist. She heard her father’s footsteps and the guards calling out, then a warning shot being fired before the guards dragged her father down.

• • •

The guards worked quickly. They were brutal, but well-trained, and they knew what to do. First, they searched Rassa’s house, tearing it almost to pieces, knocking holes in the walls and tearing up the floors, looking for a hiding place or a secret trap door. Other soldiers gathered Rassa’s neighbors, everyone who lived on the hill, herding them like sheep into a circle. The guards stood over them, sneering at their countrymen, ready to shoot the first one who dared to move. Other guards spread out. It only took minutes to search every house on the hill. They found Azadeh hiding in the orchard and they dragged her to the circle of cowering villagers.

Azadeh looked down on the village. The streets were deserted. The market was empty and every shade had been pulled. “Soldiers in the village!” The call had gone out. The village looked like a ghost town. Everyone knew what to do.

Azadeh cried in her heart. “Please, help us!” But Azadeh had lived long enough to know that help would not come.

The captain of the guard approached Rassa. “Name!” he demanded.

Rassa swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Rassa Ali Pahlavi,” he said.

The captain nodded, his brown teeth protruding from receding gums. “The woman!” he demanded. “We want to know where she is!”

Rassa stared at him blankly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The captain smiled a sick grin. “Someone came here last night,” he demanded in a raging tone. “They brought a young woman and a child. That much we know. Now tell us where they are if you have any hope to live.”

Rassa shook his head weakly. “I don’t know, my Sayid.”

The officer turned to the group of women and children that had been herded into the circle. He studied them carefully. Most of the women were old, the young ones having left the village for a better life somewhere else. A few children cowered at the back of the crowd, the older women gathered around them like mother hens. The foreigner was not among them. And neither was the child.

He turned to the captives. “All right,” he said. “We are looking for a young woman and a boy. It is very important we find them. Do any of you know where they are?”

The villagers were silent. The silence was heavy and long.

“If you do not help us find them, we will have no alternative.”

Again, only silence. The villagers kept their heads low.

He turned back to Rassa as he considered what to do.

His instructions from the general were simple. Find the woman and child. Make sure they were dead. Who they were or why they had to die did not matter, for he was not even curious. Following orders was all he had been trained to do. And he had seen what had happened to other officers who had dared question the general’s commands. It was ugly, painful and far too long had they lived the process.

He would not make the same mistake. He would not think too much. Find the targets and kill them. It was a fairly simple job. But there were only a couple ways that he could do it. He thought awhile, then turned back to Rassa. Although he kept his head low, Rassa stuck out his chest. “Rassa Ali Pahlavi,” he said, “you know why we are here?”

Rassa shook his head in terror. “No Sayid,” he lied.

“We will find them, Rassa. They have to be here somewhere. We will tear down your entire village if we have to. All of your friends will suffer if you don’t tell us what we need to know.”

Rassa lifted his eyes. “Sayid, I swear . . .”

The captain swung violently, striking him on the head. “Don’t lift your eyes to me, pig!” he screamed in a rage.

Rassa forced his head down to his chest. The officer stepped to the side, clearing a visual path between the terrified man and the group of huddled women and children. “Rassa,” he asked, “do you have any family in this crowd?”

Rassa shuddered visibly, his shoulders slumping now. He looked across the clearing toward the huddled group from his village. Azadeh cowered, seeking refuge behind the wall of human flesh, but she still caught his eye and Rassa turned away. “I have no family, captain,” he lied again.

The captain snorted. “We know you do, Rassa Ali Pahlavi. We just don’t know who it is. But it doesn’t matter. We don’t care. You see, Rassa, there are other ways that we can do this. Now this is your last chance. Where is the man-child?”

Rassa lifted his eyes, knowing it mattered not what he said. The officer had made his decision and his fate was now sealed. He knew from experience, from watching others die, that there was nothing he could say now that would change the outcome. Yet he felt almost calm, as if a blanket of peace had settled over him. He lifted his head and looked at the captain, staring him right in the eyes. “Look around you,” he taunted. “You can see he’s not here. And I doubt you will find him. He is gone. You have failed.”

The captain snorted in rage, then turned and screamed to his sergeants, “Tie this man to the tree!”

Four of the conscripts came forward and pulled Rassa by the arms, dragging him through the wet mud as he struggled to stand. Lifting him by the neck, they threw him against the nearest tree. The groups of villagers were quiet as Rassa was tied and bound.

There was no trial, no words, not even a condemnation of death, nothing to mark the decision that had already been made. The captain walked to the army truck that had carried him to the village. Reaching behind the front seat, he pulled out a small leather flask. He had come prepared for something new, something different today. The liquid sloshed in the flask as he approached the condemned man. Pulling the soft cork, he doused Rassa with diesel fuel. After soaking his hair, head, shirt and trousers, he poured the last cup of fuel around on and around Rassa’s bare feet.

A young lieutenant came forward, his rifle in hand. “What are you going to do?” he hissed under his breath.

The officer didn’t answer.

The lieutenant stepped between the captain and Rrassa. “This was not our instruction,” he said.

The captain reached into his trouser pocket. “Step aside, lieutenant,” he sneered, “or you will find yourself also tied to the tree.”

The captain pulled out a small box of matches, then heard a faint cry of despair. Turning, he saw a wide-eyed girl. He smiled at her happily, cocking his head to the side. “Your father?” he mouthed to her.

Azadeh stared in terror, then nodded her head.

The captain extracted a match from the box and struck it against the knife sheath strapped to his thigh. The wooden match sizzled to life and he let it burn a moment, staring at the flame, then looked at Azadeh and dropped the match at her father’s feet.

The fuel was slow to catch for the diesel had mixed with the rain and soaked into the mud. Several seconds passed before anything happened. Then a thin stream of black smoke began to billow from the ground. A yellow flame flickered, quickly catching Rassa’s clothes.

Azadeh screamed. An old woman cried from the back of the crowd. Rassa took a deep breath and turned away from his daughter. The flames caught at his trousers, then the coattails of his shirt. Deep yellow, almost orange, the flames began to lick higher. Every eye, every head, was turned to the fire now. Smoke began to waft through the low trees.

Rassa cried out in anguish and Azadeh bolted from the crowded, running desperately toward him. A conscript stepped forward, but she pushed through his grasp, tears streaming down her face as she ran toward the tree. Tripping on a low stump, she fell at Rassa’s feet. “No, Father! NO! You promised you would not leave me!” she sobbed.

The fire grew higher and she was forced to back away from the heat. The flames crackled and burned, reaching ten feet into the sky. She reached again for her father, leaning into the flames. “I want to come with you!” she cried. “Don’t leave me, Father. Please, I want to be with you.”

Rassa looked at her, let out a faint scream, then closed his eyes. The officer watched, a satisfied evil smirk on his face. The fire burned with a bright yellow flame.

Azadeh rolled onto her back, swallowing the sickness inside. The captain looked down and their eyes met briefly again. She lay there, unmoving, tears brimming her eyes, then moaned once in anguish and curled into a tight, little ball. She pulled at her knees and her eyes slowly closed. Her breath became heavy, as if she were asleep.

The captain turned to his men. “All right,” he yelled. “There is a young boy in this village. Our instructions are clear. Find every boy in the village who is younger than five. Round them up and shoot them, then let’s get out of here.”

• • •

Thirty-nine children were murdered in the village that evening. Those who opposed the soldiers saw their homes and property burned. Those who fought them were murdered along with their sons. Those who sought to hide their children were eventually found. The carnage was sickening to even the most bitter heart, the smell of death and smoking buildings filling the dim, evening air.

The Iranians were working through the last few blocks of the village when they heard the echo of helicopter blades bouncing off the steep mountain walls. They looked up to see American Blackhawks coming over the hills to the south. Black machines. Door gunners at the ready. Twin machine guns protruding from each open door. Their escorts swooped before them, Blackhawk gunships that were armed to the teeth. One of the gunships let off a quick burst, sending .50 caliber bullets bursting into the ground around one of the APCs.

The Iranian captain froze, his mouth open, his eyes wide in shock. He wiped the blood from his hands, then shading his eyes. Some of his men gathered around him as his mouth grew tight with fear. “American soldiers,” one of the conscripts cried. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

The officer didn’t move. Americans! In Iran! This was their homeland! Their homeland! It simply couldn’t be!

The conscript screamed again, his voice piercing the air. The sound shook the captain into action. “Go!” he cried. “They are Americans! We’ve got to get out of here!”

The spell broken, the NCOs turned to their soldiers and started shouting instructions. “Load up. Leave your gear. Evacuate the area. NOW!”

The Iranian security forces in their special black uniforms, those brave men who killed children while in their mother’s arms, the highly trained soulless attack dogs of General Sattam bin Mamdayh who had so valiantly walked and strutted among the civilians barking orders just a few minutes before, fell into a panic as the American helicopters passed over their heads.

The killers ran to their armored carriers. The engines started, spewing diesel fumes, and the troops ran up the small ramps into the machines. The sound of helicopters beat against the canyon walls as the U.S. helicopters set up to land. The APCs revved their engines and lurched away, moving toward the narrow road that led through the mountains, away from the village to the plains in the west.

FIFTEEN

Army Special Forces Captain Samuel Brighton moved slowly through the village dressed for battle: black fatigues, tan leather boots, leather gloves, full flak gear, belts of ammunition, a first aid kit, grenades, radios, GPS receivers, emergency rations, binoculars. He wore a Velcro nametag, but no other insignia identified him as being from the United States. The sun had set now, and the light had grown dim. He looked slowly around him, feeling the contents of his stomach rise to his throat. He had seen combat and death, he had seen destruction and loss, he had seen blood and horror in close up and gory detail, he had seen men that he loved blown to bits before his eyes, but he had never in his life seen anything equal to this. He had never imagined such a scene straight from hell—the burning buildings, the smoke, the smell of spent rifles and blood. And the carnage concentrated on the children! His mind tumbled and reeled.

He held a gloved hand to his nostrils and prayed he would one day forget. He counted the bodies, most of them young boys. Young boys and their mothers. It was a gut-wrenching sight. His heart ached, twisted in two. He stopped and looked down, hearing a muffled cry at his feet. A young mother, her face revealed from the thin veil that had been pulled away, held a child who had been shot in the chest. The boy was no more than three, with tangled hair and fat cheeks. He appeared to be sleeping, but Sam knew he was dead. His mother rocked back and forth in the grass that lined the road and sang to him softly between her deep sobs. Sam didn’t speak Farsi, though he understood a bit, and the tune was familiar, for he had heard it before. She sang slow and in rhythm, so he picked up most of the ancient words.

“I have loved you so deeply

I have held you so tight

Go to sleep little baby

Rest in God,

Close your eyes.”

Sam turned away, gripping the handle of his rifle, the barrel pointed up, his thumb on the safety. He turned his back to the young mother, listening to her cry. He wanted to help her, to comfort her if he could, but what does one say to someone holding a dead child in her arms? How does one explain something so utterly evil, so utterly useless, so utterly cruel?

All the dead children? How could he ever explain?

But he wanted to listen; he wanted to hear her soft cry. He wanted to remember the pain she suffered, he wanted to share it and keep it, like a hot flame on his chest.

Whoever shot these children, he would find them one day. He swore that he would. He didn’t know when or how, but he would find them one day. Then he would remember this tormented mother and the song that she sang.

A soldier didn’t fight battles for personal reasons or revenge; it was a job, a duty, defending freedom was a call. But this scene of carnage, it drove him. He was a different man now.

Finally, he turned and walked toward his team leader who was making his way from a small field on the south side of the village where the helicopters had set down. The other captain came to a stop before him and the two men stared grimly, measuring the displeasure in each other’s eyes. “Report?” the team leader asked, his voice businesslike.

Sam shifted his feet. “A lot of dead babies.” He gritted his teeth. The other officer was his best friend, a man he trusted with his life, but he was angry at him now, and it showed in his eyes.

The leader nodded to his right, toward a hill on the western side of the village. “It started up there,” he said. “The locals said there were soldiers . . . .”

“I told you!” Sam shot back, his voice seething with rage. “Bono, I told you I saw old Russian APCs. We could have gone after the soldiers and taken them down in their tracks. But no! That’s not our mission, you said! We are here for the child. Well, what is our mission now? You want us to bury these children? Is that why we’re here? We could have taken the soldiers, but what can we do now?”

“Sam,” the leader answered calmly. “I’m not the enemy here.”

Sam took a step back and sucked a deep breath. He pressed his lips and looked around, then slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he answered. “That was out of line. I was venting on you, Bono, and there is no excuse for that.”

The leader watched him closely. “Apology accepted,” he said, but his voice still firm. “And I made the right decision,” he continued. “We did the right thing. This isn’t an op. It’s a rescue mission only. We could have gone after the APC, but they were already pulling away. What were we going to do, chase them all the way to Tehran? And we did do some good here, we interrupted their work. More importantly, we followed orders. Now come on, get a grip, we don’t have much time. Let’s do what we can, then beat cheeks out of Dodge. We’re still in enemy territory, in the middle of a freakin’ foreign country, let’s not forget that.”

Sam moved his automatic rifle to his other hand. “Roger,” he answered. And though his eyes still burned with rage, it was directed at the carnage around him, not at his friend. He slipped his hand down the butt of his rifle, bringing the short-barreled machine gun to his chest. “And the boy we are looking for? What do we do there?”

The captain worked the wad of gum in his mouth, a stony look on his face. “Any suggestions?” he wondered.

Sam hunched his shoulders around him. “It’s possible he might still be alive.”

“Yeah. Possible. Not likely from the looks of it, but possible perhaps. But who is he, where is he? I doubt we’ll ever find out. We don’t have the men or the time to sort this thing out.”

Sam snorted in disgust. “Freakin’ mess,” he said.

The captain nodded gloomily, then cocked his head to the hill. “Your squad is almost finished sweeping up there,” he said. “Have them talk to the people. Find out what you can. I’ve got Alpha squad working the other homes near the square. Let’s get an estimate on the damage, then get out of here. I’ll give you five minutes, then I want your squad in the helicopters so we can get in the air.”

Sam pressed his jaw. “Aye, aye,” he said.

“Five minutes,” the captain warned him as he walked away. “Not one second more. I want your squad ready when the helicopter blades roll.”

• • •

Sam jogged to the burned-out homes on the hill. The smoke hung low in the trees, heavy and still, like a deep gray and black blanket that had nowhere to go. The air was deadly still and the thick smoke burned his dry eyes.

His squad had done everything they could to clean up the mess. The medics had treated a few of the wounded, but the Iranian attackers had been good, if not kind. They were efficient with their weapons and almost all of their targets had been killed. The children proved an easy target, for their bodies were fragile and they didn’t fight back.

Sam jogged to his waiting squad, who stood grim-faced and angry, their eyes dull with rage. The shock was universal. None of them were prepared to see such a thing.

“OK,” Sam said, turning to his Farsi interpreter. “Anything to report?”

The sergeant tucked an unlit cigarette between his lips. “The stories are pretty consistent,” he said. “Four APCs moved into the village sometime late this afternoon, probably not more than an hour, maybe an hour and half, before we got here. They asked for Rassa Pahlavi—that’s his house over there.” The interpreter nodded to a small cinder block and mud house to his right. “The Iranians were looking for someone, a young woman and a child.” He stopped and cleared his throat, knowing the Iranians had beat them to the target and then continued. “When Pahlavi didn’t help them, the soldiers freaked out. This is where it ended, with what you see here.”

Sam wet his lips, then turned and surveyed the area. All the villagers had retreated into what remained of their homes. They were as terrified of the U.S. soldiers as they were of the Iranians assassins. “Did you notice?” he asked the sergeant while motioning to the remains of the village below.

The interpreter hesitated. “Yeah,” he replied.

“All of their targets were children. All of them boys.”

The other soldier was silent. It was painfully obvious.

“Which meant,” Sam continued, “that they didn’t find who they were after.”

The interpreter swallowed. “So they made a sweeping generalization. All the male children must die.”

Sam shook his head. “A rather harsh method to accomplish their mission.”

“But effective,” the sergeant muttered in a cynical voice. “You’ve got to give them that. When it comes to the mission, these guys are a dedicated bunch.”

Sam wiped his face in frustration, then turned back to his men. “This Pahlavi,” he asked. “Any information on him?”

The interpreter nodded toward a smoldering tree. “That’s him over there,” he answered. “They burned him alive.”

Sam took a step to the right and his shoulders slumped as he looked at the smoking tree. The lower branches had been scorched, all of the leaves burned to ash. The corpse lay in a heap at the base of the tree “Anything else?” he demanded as he looked away.

“No, Sam, that’s all.”

“All right then, let’s go. There’s nothing more we can do and the Honcho wants to get out of here. Move to the helicopter. Let’s get out of this hell.”

“Roger,” the soldiers muttered. They all wanted to leave. There was too much death, too much darkness, too much destruction and despair. And it seemed to be for nothing. None of it made any sense! His team gathered their gear and moved down the hill in a run. Sam watched them go, standing alone atop the hill.

A slight wind picked up, blowing up from the valley and lifting the smoke to the tops of the trees, bending it over the branches like the long, misty fingers of an enormous, dark hand. Sam turned his face to the breeze, hoping the wind would remove the stain from his memory and the smell of smoke from his clothes. He closed his eyes and listened, feeling the breeze on his face and the weight of his gear pressing against his shoulders and chest. The radio receiver beeped in his ear as the other squads announced they were ready to go. He pulled out the earpiece and let it hang at his neck. He needed a moment of silence, a moment of prayer.

He bowed his head slowly. “Dear God,” he began, then paused for a time. He wanted to say something, and he felt that he should, but try as he might, he didn’t know what to say.

He didn’t feel like praying. He felt like kicking someone’s head in.

He paused, then finally mumbled the only thing he could think of. “Please help them,” he muttered, then lifted his head.

Turning, he started to walk down the muddy road. He had only walked twenty paces when something spoke in his mind. He tried to dismiss it, but the feeling remained. He paused, then peered back at the smoldering tree.

She crawled from the high grass on the other side of the road. She was young, wet, and muddy, with long hair and a tan dress. She moved toward the body at the base of the tree, and knelt beside it, holding her hands over her mouth. Watching her, he saw her shoulders heaving and heard her muffled cries.

“Go to her,” an unseen voice seemed to say. “She is your little sister and she needs your help.”

Sam stared in frustration. “But what could I do?” he thought in desperation to himself.

The voice didn’t answer and Sam didn’t move. The sound of the helicopter blades began to beat from behind him as the pilots spun the rotors up to operating speed. He turned to the landing zone to see that his squad had loaded up in the helicopters and were ready to go. He heard his name being called through the tiny radio earpiece that hung at his neck. “Captain Brighton,” his team leader called him. “Sam, let’s go!”

He eyed the helicopters, then glanced back at the girl who wept by herself in the mud.

“Go to her,” the voice repeated.

The helicopter blades spun, ready to lift in the air. Bono moved to the side of the lead helicopter and stared up at Sam. The leader motioned to his radio and pointed to him. Sam slipped in the earpiece and heard the captain’s voice. “Sam, come on, man, we’ve got to get out of here.”

“Please, Sam,” the voice pled. “I can’t do this alone!”

Bono’s voice broadcast again into his earpiece. “Let’s get out of here, Sam! Come on, man, let’s go!”

Sam reached for the transmit button. “Stand by,” he said.

“What are you doing up there, Sam?”

“Stand by!” Sam replied.

He turned away from the helicopters and looked at the girl near the tree. She kept her head bowed and her hand at her mouth. Sam took ten steps toward her and she finally looked up, her eyes wide with fear. She started to back up, pushing herself through the mud and Sam lifted his hands, holding them away from his body in a gesture of peace. She cowered, her head low, almost bowing to him.

Sam took another step forward and she slowly raised her head. She looked at him and his heart seemed to wrench in his chest. She was so young and beautiful; vulnerable as a piece of ash in the wind. Her eyes were brimming with tears, which left a small trail on her cheeks.

Sam caught a sudden breath. The feeling so strong it was like a kick in the chest. “I know you,” he said.

She watched him intently, then cocked her head. Her face softened and she quickly wiped a rolling tear from her cheek. Sam saw the pain and desperation and he felt his heart wrench again. He felt breathless and hollow, his chest growing tight.

He moved to her slowly and she backed up in the grass. She kept her eyes low, too terrified to look at his face. Sam stopped a few paces from her, then knelt down at her side.

He shot a quick look over his shoulder. His boss and two soldiers had come up the road and were watching in silence from twenty paces away. They didn’t move toward him, letting him talk to the girl.

Sam moved a few inches toward Azadeh. “I’m sorry,” he said. He spoke slowly in English, hoping she would understand.

She forced herself to stop weeping and lifted her eyes.

And Sam saw it, a flicker of recognition, as if she knew him too!

He gestured to the charred body. “Your father?” he asked, locking her eyes with his.

She nodded in despair, then turned away from the tree.

“Where is your mother?” he asked her.

She only stared back.

“Mother?” he repeated.

Azadeh shook her head.

“You are . . . alone?”

“Now . . . I am.”

Sam leaned slowly toward her and reached for her hand. “Look at me,” he told her.

Azadeh kept her head low and Sam lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “Khorramshahr,” he asked her. “Do you know where I mean?”

She backed away from him slowly, her face uncertain with fear.

“A refugee camp,” Sam repeated, pointing with one hand to the north. “Khorramshahr,” he repeated. “Go there. They will help you.”

Although she nodded slowly, Sam could see she did not understand.

“Khorramshahr!” he repeated. “If you can make your way there . . . .”

“Sam,” Brighton heard his friend’s voice. Bono had moved to his side and he placed his hands on Sam’s shoulder. “Sam, we have to leave. Come on, man, let’s go.” He pulled on Sam’s shoulder, then put a hand under his arm, lifting him up and pulling him toward the road.

“Khorramshahr!” Sam repeated. “I will have someone waiting, they will be looking for you.”

Azadeh backed away in fear, moving away from the other officer who was pulling on Sam’s arm. Sam reached for her desperately as he was pulled to the road.

“Khorramshahr,” he called, but she disappeared in the grass.

• • •

Forty seconds later, the helicopters took to the air, flying over the village to keep away from the rising mountain peaks to the east. Sam sat at the open door in his helicopter, his feet hanging over the side. And though they flew directly over the village, the smoke was too thick to see if she was still there.

SIXTEEN

Azadeh remained hidden in the grass until long after the sounds of the helicopters had faded away. By then it was dark and the smoke had cleared from the air, though the sky overhead was still obscured by high clouds. The night turned cold. Her muddy clothes clung to her skin and she started to shiver. Forcing herself to her feet, she walked in a daze toward her gutted house. Their furniture, their dishes, their books and their clothes, everything they owned had been tossed through the windows and the broken front door. She peered at the scattered belongings, then passed into her home, her teeth chattering from the cold and despair.

She walked to her bedroom, her eyes adjusting to the light, and looked around desperately, feeling a sudden sense of panic. Her room was in tatters, her mattress and clothes on the floor, but under the broken dresser she saw the golden headband. She picked it up quickly and shoved it deep into her pocket, then fell on the mattress and buried her head in her arms.

She was alone. Completely alone. She had no mother, no father, no family, no friends. Even the house wasn’t hers, a woman couldn’t own property, so the house would be taken and sold, and she would left on the street.

“Father,” she whispered in her crushing despair. “I want to come with you. I want to be with mother. How can I survive by myself?”

In that black moment, Azadeh felt all the pains of her world: the aloneness of her breaking heart, Satan’s evil laughter as he cackled in her ear. She felt the agony of spirit as she remembered the past; the happy days with her father, the warm home, the warm bread, and the sadness of knowing that it was all gone. She felt a crushing doubt and deep anguish as Satan and his angels laughed at her.

Did any of it matter? Was there any sense in the world? Was there any good, any love, any devotion at all? Her father had spoken of hope, he had used the word faith, but none of it mattered, for it all was gone. None of it made any difference. None of it was real.

The only thing that was real was the darkness and the tattered remains of her home. The only thing that mattered was that she was alone.

“Please, Father,” she whispered, “please don’t leave me here by myself.”

She wept in the darkness for a very long time. “I did everything you’ve asked me. I have tried to be good. But now you have left me. So tell me now, Father, what am I supposed to do?”

Then Azadeh rolled to her knees and started to pray, a universal reaction to what she had been through, a human reaction, not Muslim, not Christian, but something deeper, more permanent than the religions of the world, a reaction from her spirit that hovered within.

“Great Allah,” she prayed as she pushed herself to her knees. But that was as far she went, as far as her teachings could take her. She didn’t know what to say or how to ask any more. “Dear Allah . . . dear Allah . . .” she repeated again.

Then her mind started drifting, thinking of her father again, the best example of love she had ever known in her life. But she didn’t think of his burning or how he had died: she thought of his living and how she wanted to see him again, she thought of her longing to look in his eyes, to feel his arms round her and see his kind smile. But mostly she thought of the words he would say. He had a way of making her feel better, of making her feel strong, like life was worth living and everything would be okay.

“You were always proud of me, Father,” she cried to herself. “You made me feel better. Can you comfort me now?”

• • •

Rassa Ali Pahlavi knelt beside his daughter at the side of her bed. He stroked her face lightly, feeling the softness of her cheek. And though he looked at her sadly, the hurt in his own eyes had passed, the pains of the mortal world could not touch him any more. The world didn’t hurt him, he had completed his mission and passed his great test. “I am proud of you, Azadeh,” he whispered in her ear. “You are strong, you will make it, and God will be at your side.”

He stroked her face gently, then looked up at the sky. “I love you, Azadeh,” he repeated. “And we will be waiting, watching and caring for you.” He stroked her cheek lightly, then gently kissed her brow.

It was time that he left, at least for a short while. Sashajan was waiting. And there was other work he had to do.

• • •

Azadeh felt a soft touch on her temple and she opened her eyes. And though she didn’t see her father, she knew that he was near. Then an unseen voice whispered to her, “Your father still lives. He still loves you. He cannot stay with you, but I can, and I will comfort you now.”

Then she felt a warm, soft and gentle blanket falling over her soul. It was. It wrapped completely around her, from her head to her feet, and kept the piercing arrows of Satan from touching her heart.

She slipped away into sleep, where a deep comfort waited. She slept peacefully through the night, dreaming of a better world.

SEVENTEEN

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Prince Al-Rahman, now the oldest prince in Saudi Arabia, sat in the center of his office, an opulent and oval-shaped room with gold-plated walls, mural ceilings and diamonds imbedded in the molding around the windows and floors. His desk was huge. Three computers and a row of telephones were positioned to his left. An one hundred forty-inch flat screen television was tuned to CNN, was built into a wooden console to his right. A wall of tall windows, twenty feet high, looked out on the expanse of desert to the east. The sun beat through the windows, forcing the air conditioner to run constantly.

Prince Al-Rahman noted his reflection in the glass. Although he was middle-aged, he was still strikingly good-looking and well manicured. He was also as cold, hard and evil as any man in the world. More, far more, he was the future king, patriarch of the world’s great family, a great empire builder like the sultans before. He knew that he was chosen. That was obvious to him now. His father didn’t believe him, nor did all of his kin. But he had proven them wrong. And he would prove it again.

• • •

There was a soft knock at his office door and, after a respectable pause, one of the most recognized and wealthiest people in the United States was escorted into his office.

“My friend, good to see you.” The prince extended his hand. The venerable American walked toward him and shook it firmly. “Abdullah,” he greeted him, his voice raspy and thin.

The Crown Prince studied his guest. He is growing tired, the Saudi thought as the man approached. He looked wrung out and defeated. We need to keep a close eye on him.

He pointed to an arrangement of couches and leather chairs and the two men sat down. Black coffee was ready, and the prince poured for his American guest.

“You are ready?” the American asked as he sipped at his coffee.

“Yes, my good friend.” The prince sat back and relaxed against his leather chair.

The two men gazed at each other, each playing his best poker face.

“Before we get started, I’ve got something to show you,” Abdullah began. He opened a packet and threw half a dozen photographs on the table: mothers wailing in front of a smoky wall, children in various poses of death, small boys, even babies, all of them shot in the head or the chest. The American picked up the photos, his face unemotional. “Ugly work,” he offered. It was the only thing he would say.

Al-Rahman held another collection of photographs in his hand and he tossed them on the table as well: American helicopters. U.S. soldiers. Weapons. Hard faces. Smoke and burning houses. The Americans walked through the village and stood over the dead. Although grainy and tilted, the images were clear.

“This is the story I want you to put out,” Abdullah said. “U.S. soldiers are to blame for the assault on Agha Jari Deh. They were looking for al Qaeda. When the villagers didn’t cooperate, they punished them. We have witnesses. Testimony. Everything you will need. Al-Jazeera will run with the story when I give them the word. You take it from your side. You know what I want.”

The American studied the photos. “They’ll deny it, of course.”

“Of course they will. And eventually they’ll prove they weren’t involved. But the damage will be done. The truth doesn’t matter that much anymore. Those who hate the United States will believe it, not matter what evidence is eventually revealed. The New York Times will front page the story for weeks. It will weaken the administration and divert them from their work; there’ll be hearings in Congress, special investigations, the whole bit. And remember, all we’re after is another chip in the wall, another crack in the foundation, another scandal to weaken your country, and this will give us that.”

The American picked up a photo showing a dead child on the street. A U.S. soldier stood behind him, smoking a cigarette while talking to his comrade and pointing away. The image was clear enough, he could read their nametags. Sanchez and . . . Brighton? Maybe Bingham? Either way, it didn’t matter, they were about to be famous, their images slapped across every newspaper in the world.

“I’ll get some people on it,” he said, tossing the photograph on the table. “When will the story break?”

“Later in the afternoon tomorrow.”

“That isn’t much time.”

“It’s a big story. It’s My Lai again. U.S. military atrocities make very good press so it will be hard to sit on a story, if you know what I mean.” Abdullah’s voice was curt and sarcastic, but he smiled as he spoke.

The American sipped at his coffee. A few moments passed in silence. “On the other matter, you know, I’ve been thinking,” he finally said. “Asking around, getting a few opinions, talking in the abstract, of course, but trying to get a feeling for how this will be received. And I have to tell you, Your Majesty, that I believe you are walking on very tenuous ground.”

“We know we are. But you will take care of everything.”

The American was clearly uncomfortable. “I don’t know, Your Highness. We can do many wonderful things, we’ve done miracles for you in the past. We are very powerful, our partnerships span the whole of the globe, our friendships very personal, our contacts cultivated and nurtured through the good and the bad. But there is, after all, only so much we can do, and this plan is far more than we had ever envisioned. Destroy an entire nation! How would you suggest we manipulate the political consequences of that?”

“We won’t destroy them. We will move them. There is an enormous difference, my friend.”

“But they will not be moved.”

“That is their choice. If they stay, they will die, but I cannot choose for them. We can’t make them be reasonable, though Allah knows we have tried.”

“They will not go away. They have nowhere to go. And even if they did, even if they were given other options, they would choose to die in their homeland. They have made that very clear. It is that important to them.”

“Again I will say it; I cannot choose for them.”

The American sat back in frustration. Although he had sanctioned human suffering many times, this was crossing the line! He pressed his lips together and his heart beat in his chest. “How many people will die?” he asked in a low voice.

The crown prince adjusted in his seat. “It is not your concern.”

“But Prince Abdullah, if you really want us to represent you, then you must. . .”

Abdullah lifted a hand to cut him off. “I would be careful not to confuse our relationship or overestimate your input. You are to advise and represent, not to interfere or give counsel when it is not asked of you.”

The American understood and bowed his head.

“All right, then,” the prince continued, “now, if it would make you feel better, I will tell you that it probably won’t be as bad as you think. Two of the nuclear weapons are tactical in nature and are relatively small. What we are proposing isn’t much different than what has been done before.”

The American shook his head. “How can you say that?” he cried.

The prince leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. He spoke with indignation, his voice sharp and on edge. “Dresden,” he sneered, “twenty-five thousand civilians firebombed. London; two hundred thousand; twenty thousand dead in a single attack. Leningrad; three hundred thousand civilians killed in combat, another half million starved. Berlin; two hundred eight-nine thousand killed in the last month of the Bolshevik advance alone, and who knows how many in the months before that? And let’s not forget what your own nation has done. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Poof!” The prince brought his fingers together and blew them apart. “A hundred thousand gone. Poof! Just like that.

“So get my point? This is nothing new. War isn’t for the weak. And we’ve seen this many times before.”

The American frowned and swallowed. The prince’s eyes flickered yellow and his co-conspirator pulled back. Something stirred inside him! Where had he seen that evil flicker before? He swallowed again, forcing himself to relax. “I would like to know how many people will die,” he said before he lowered his eyes.

The prince shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe twenty-five thousand in the initial attack. Perhaps another twenty from the radioactive fallout.”

The American looked at his coffee and tried to steady his hands. “And your target is Jerusalem?”

The crown prince sat back and laughed. “Jerusalem!” he snorted while shaking his head. “Do you think I’m stupid? Don’t you understand me yet?” The Crown Prince whistled in disgust. Did this man understand anything?

The American started in confusion. “But if not Jerusalem . . . ?”

The prince waved an impatient hand. “My target is Gaza.”

The American almost choked. “Gaza! You’re kidding! It doesn’t make any sense! That’s a Palestinian area! A hundred thousand refugees live in Gaza.”

“I know they do. And those who die will die as martyrs. Allah will receive them unto his own.

“But Israel is the nation that you want to destroy!”

“No, my good friend, we want to destroy the United States. But to do that, we have to sacrifice Gaza. Israel will be the second step. Once we have destroyed these two nations we can turn our rage on you. And by the time we are finished, a hundred million of your people will lie dead in your streets. Your nation will lie in ruin.” Abdullah’s voice had risen to a rasp and his face seemed to darken like a shadow across the moon. “The world will be changed forever,” he almost seemed to hiss. “Leaving it ripe to be taken. And that, my friend, is why you and I are here.”

COMING IN EPISODE THREE…

READ IT NOW! www.mercuryink.com/wrath

The crown prince scoffed an angry huff of his breath. Democracy and Equality. What had gone through his father’s mind? Were these the tools Allah had intended for his kings? Were these the concepts the Great Prophet had taught? No. Not a one. And surely his father knew that. Which made him a heretic. No, he was much worse than that, for a heretic could sin in ignorance, a heretic could be foolish or blind. His father had not been deceived; he had knowingly chosen his path. He might have been a traitor, but he was no fool.

• • •

Behind the Great Master, his servants cowered in the shadows of the morn. Master Mayhem was foul now, and it scared them to be near him when he was in such a bad mood. Each day he grew more bitter, more quick to attack. So they stood as far away as they dared, out of sight, in the shadows, but always within earshot, knowing that he might call them and that they had to be ready to move.

• • •

What motivated the partners at the New York law firm Danbert, Lexel, Taylor and Driggs now was not money but power—the ability to influence the events of the world. The ability to call virtually any man on earth, be he president or prime minister, CEO or head of an illegal cartel, and have him be willing not only to talk to them but then to do what they wanted. Power was their heroin. Power was their meth. It was 100 percent addictive, 100 percent pure. And over the years, each of the partners had learned one vital truth: Power could drive a man to do things he would not ordinarily do. It could change him. Distort him. It made him different inside, altered in subtle and yet irreversible ways until he was no longer comfortable in his old world.

• • •

As Sam cursed bitterly, the black angel hunched beside him, kneeling, his arms at his side, his mouth pulled into a tight and hideous frown. His teeth flashed, the only white on his face, for his eyes were as dark and lifeless as the black hole in his soul.

“You hate them,” Balaam whispered in the soldier’s ear. “These people are all idiots. Savages. Animals. They aren’t capable of freedom. They’re too stupid, too weak. They aren’t like you, so clever, so capable, and so strong. You are so much better than they are, so much smarter and good. Look at them all. Take a look at this place! Is there anything worth fighting for here? Is there any good in this land?”

• • •

The man holding Azadeh tightened his grip on her throat. It was clear from the rage in his eyes that he was going to shoot her. He jammed the blunt end of the pistol into her temple, moved his finger for the trigger, and pushed her head down by his hip so that he wouldn’t get splattered when he blew out her brains.

• • •

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