Kingdom Come Page 9

  ***

  There was more motorized traffic on the road and it was moving east, away from Latakia, in a hurry. There was almost no room on the road for vehicles headed in the opposite direction, towards the city, and a great reluctance to clear out of their way. Ortsa kept his palm planted on the horn, but it made little difference. All people cared about was putting as much room between themselves and what they’d left behind, which was mostly deafening, earth-shaking and lethal.

  Thunder shook the Beemer. More jets passing overhead. And even lower, beneath them, were many helicopters. Everything was heading in the one direction. Al-Aleaqarab tilted his head and peered at the sky out the side window.

  “Announce that you have rescued us from the crash and I guarantee that you will live,” said Petrovich, his voice firm and commanding.

  “Keep your mouth shut, Mr President,” the Scorpion replied, “and I guarantee I will not remove your head from your shoulders right here and now.” The aircraft appeared to be converging on the outskirts of the city. The Hind that had been blown out of the sky, The Scorpion reasoned, must have had time to call in the problems with the first helicopter before it was reduced to a ball of flaming metal. Those coordinates would be ground zero for a thorough search. He had wanted to enjoy firsthand the panic spreading among his old foes, but it was evident now that the risks of such an indulgence were too great. The Russians had mobilized with impressive speed. Two more Hind gunships covering a third transport helicopter flew by at treetop height. The Scorpion watched them pass. Spetsnaz. Large numbers of them would be deposited on the ground to secure the area and question possible witnesses. The Russians would make countless martyrs as dawn came to the battlefield, chief among them his fighters left behind at the warehouse, close to the burning helicopter wreckage. Russians would soon be manning checkpoints ahead and, as the frantic search widened, also behind, cutting off retreat.

  Ortsa, sweating anxiously, watched the sky up through the windshield. In the ZPU, the jihadist in the passenger seat was hanging out the window, also looking skywards, his apprehension clear.

  “Are you afraid of dying, Ortsa?” The Scorpion asked.

  “No, Amir. When I die, I will be in Paradise. Finding a death that’s most pleasing to Allah is what concerns me. And in the meantime, we have the most valuable property in Islam. I wish to make good Allah’s purpose in this, whatever it is, but I am sure it is not to hand him back to the Russians.”

  “What I could do with a thousand jihadists like you, boy,” the Scorpion said. “You will find martyrdom if Allah wills it.” The president seemed smug, emboldened by the presence of so many Russian aircraft nearby. It was clear that a change of plan was required. “Signal our escort, Ortsa,” the Scorpion commanded. “We will turn to the east.” It would soon be light. He examined his prisoners. “Let us see if you have anything to take pleasure in when the sun rises.”

  Thirteen

  Ronald V. Small @realSmall

  I love Germany. Greatest country in Europe besides our friends in England. I have many golf courses in Scotland, which is part of England.

  “Weight divided by height,” President Ronald Small muttered to himself as he finished the calculation on his phone, “equals 31.6 …” He checked the scale. “Obese?” Obese? Me? No way! He yawned as he stood and examined his image in the full-length mirror installed beside his portrait, a far slimmer and more flattering version of himself, and held up his shirt. I can’t even see my own dick. It’s all those lunches and dinners. You sit down every day with some foreign bum from a place you’ve hardly heard of, make nice and eat, and you’re gonna pay for it bigly. And all the time the jokes from nasty washed-up two-bit actors. He sucked in his gut and regarded the figure in the mirror. That so-called washed-up actor, Whatshisname, with the stupid wig. What did he say on that show the other day? Small relaxed and a white, gray-haired hairy bulge slid over his belt. Said I was having a baby. Said it was too bad with the changes I’d made to the federal court I couldn't get an abortion. And then those media assholes get a hold of it and the next day it’s all over the Internet. And then nasty jokes get made about the jokes. No respect. It’s very bad. You’d think people had something to get on with, like maybe working for the good of the country.

  There it was again, the knock on the door, sharper this time, more urgent. Dammit! Small shook his head. Twenty minutes peace in the Oval Office at the end of the day to do a little putting practice, that was the deal. Everyone agreed to it. Not too much to ask. Another knock.

  “Mr President?” said the muffled voice on the other side of the door.

  “What!” he called out. And then, sighing heavily, “Come!”

  The door swung open and people surged in like fish through a net suddenly holed. “It’s my private time and you all know that. The day is done. All I ask for is a lousy twenty minutes. This better be good.”

  Secretary of Defense, Margery Epstein, early sixties and pencil thin, with a voice like a coffee grinder, the legacy of a long-time diet of Johnny Walker and Chesterfields, stepped to the front of the scrum. Her makeup was Kabuki thick, applied so that it would last the day without too much maintenance, wearing down layer by layer like an archaeological dig. “Mr President,” she announced, “you’re not going to believe this.”

  “There’s a UFO parked over the roof.”

  “The Russians, Mr President.”

  “The Russians have parked on the roof?” Small said without humor. Experience told him something unpleasant was about to land on his desk. The Russians … Something nuclear? An accident, maybe? No, there were a whole set of protocols for that kind of thing. This, he sensed, was something else.

  Epstein exchanged a glance with the asthmatic Secretary of State, Edward Bassingthwaite, and Andy Bunion, the short, permanently red-faced National Security Advisor known behind his back as Rumpelstiltskin, or Rumples for short.

  “Do you want me to guess?” Small said, his impatience showing.

  “Sir, the Russians have lost Petrovich,” Director of the CIA, Reid Hamilton, announced, concern pushing his thick gray eyebrows together so hard it seemed the hairs were tangled.

  “What? What do you mean ‘lost’?”

  “Mr President, this could be a game changer,” Bunion interrupted. “In a good way.”

  “Well, I’d love to agree with you, Andy, just as soon as I know what the hell you’re all talking about. Did he wander off at the mall or something?”

  “Mr President,” Hamilton continued, “NSA has intercepted traffic on multiple levels, government and military, that Russian President Valeriy Petrovich has gone missing in northern Syria.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, sir.”

  The president grinned. “Is it my birthday?”

  “Your birthday?”

  Epstein, Bassingthwaite, Hamilton and Bunion stood before the president like children who had lost their tongues.

  “Well, no, but…”

  Small suddenly got up out of his chair and busted a churn-the-butter move, cleared his throat and did his best to project concern. “Has this been announced in their media, or anywhere else?”

  “No, sir,” Bassingthwaite advised him. “Our guess is that they’re hoping to locate him before the Kremlin is forced to make any kind of announcement.”

  “Do we know what happened?”

  “We believe his helicopter came down on the outskirts of the city of Latakia,” said Bunion.

  “That’s in the north of Syria, near the Turkish border,” Hamilton added, knowing that his president’s sense of geography was more a Monopoly board view of the world defined by the number of hotels he had once owned there, and he had never owned hotels in Syria. “Petrovich was making a surprise visit to the battlefront to review Russian armed forces.”

  “Then I guess Valeriy was the one who got surprised. You’ll never catch me doing anything so tremendously stupid. When did this happen?”

  “Around 2 am, local time
in Syria. 7 pm our time.”

  Small grunted, looked at his solid gold Patek Philippe. Seven minutes past ten. Just over three hours ago. “And it’s not some kind of stunt?”

  “By whom, Mr President?” Bassingthwaite enquired.

  “The Russians. Who else?”

  “Sorry, sir. No, sir. Not a stunt,” the SECSTATE assured him.

  “Unlikely,” said Epstein, backing up her colleague, somewhat surprised that POTUS was accepting this news with such a light heart.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Small told Epstein. “Geniuses can do that – read minds. Einstein could read minds. Did you know that, Madam Secretary?”

  “No, Mr President,” Epstein replied, clearing her throat. “I didn’t.”

  “He was a tremendous mind-reader. There’s a lot you don't know. You’re thinking I’m pretty relaxed about this, right?”

  “Yes, Mr President,” Epstein agreed.

  “I knew that. Well, we want Russia to play ball with us on a number of trade and defense deals. And anyone who knows anything about how to structure a great deal will tell you – and if there’s one thing I know it’s how to make a fantastic deal – you gotta have leverage.”

  “What leverage do we have here, Mr President?” asked Hamilton, apparently at a loss.

  President Small underlined the point with the usual hand gestures. “I’ll tell you once you’ve told me everything we know about this. Do we have intel of our own?” the president asked the room. “Of course we do. Give me the headlines, no need to dig around in the weeds. We have the most fantastic intelligence in the world, everyone knows that.”

  “Yes, sir. We have a SPIREP from assets –“

  Exasperated, the president stopped him. “A what? Spare me the initials for things, General.”

  “Acronyms, sir?”

  “Don't try and seem clever by using words no one knows. What did you say? Acro … acro … You want to use words everyone knows – that’s clever. Now, can we get on with it? You people were handpicked to make me look good. That’s your job, but so far you’re not giving me confidence. Next time come into my office better prepared.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bassingthwaite wheezed.

  “We don’t have much, but it’s something, Mr President,” Bunion told him. “Yesterday evening, local Syrian time, we received a Spot Intelligence Report from our assets on the ground over there that two Russian Hinds had crashed outside Latakia – as I said, that’s on the Syrian side of the border close to Turkey – the very vicinity in which, it turns out, we believe the Russian president has gone missing. It’s yet to be confirmed, but I’d bet that Petrovich was aboard one of those helicopters.”

  “And you think he may have been killed in the crash.”

  “We don't know as yet, but it’s a real possibility, sir,” said Epstein, relieved that the president was at last joining the dots.

  Bassingthwaite, mopping his face with a hanky, added, “The thing is, Mr President, the Russians will make it our problem.”

  “Why do you say that, Ed?”

  “History, Mr President. That’s what they do.”

  “Despite that,” said Epstein, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they ask our help to find him, assuming he is still alive. As I said, we’ve got people incountry. Not many, but more than the Russians do, and they know it.”

  Bunion agreed with a grunt.

  “Back to leverage.” The president made a steeple with his fingers beneath his chin. “Let’s see if we can’t find a way to turn this to our advantage. You know, when the stock market goes up, people make money. When the stock market goes down, people make money. You with me? Up, down, it doesn't matter. You can make money out of bad news too, no problem. If the Russians ask for our help, we’ll provide it. We’re America, the greatest country in the world. But there will be payback. That’s the way it works.”

  “Our concern is that it could have been one of the anti-Assad groups we secretly support who shot these choppers down,” said Hamilton.

  Bunion paced, arms folded. “Just think where this will go if our missiles took him down. The Russians will have a field day.”

  Small had an answer. “If that turns out to be the case, it would be a shame, because you know President Petrovich and I have an understanding.” Or I should say had an understanding. Right up to the time he said I wasn’t the genius he thought I was and that I “Forest Gumped” my way into the White House, blundering across the right thing to say at the right time. He called me a five-year-old. And plenty of other nasty things besides. And all because my people wouldn’t support his claims in the Baltic States. So I called him President Golum because, let’s be honest, there’s an incredible similarity there with that bony head and those ears. “But America has to come first and if it looks bad for us, we’ll just take a leaf out of the Russian handbook on handling bad publicity, and deny, deny, deny.”

  SECDEF Epstein gave the president the glimmer of a smile.

  “Meanwhile, what of those people you mentioned? Are we talking, like, Special Forces or whatever? Personally, I like the SEALs. Can we change their mission? Give them a new one? Get the SEALs to go take a look at least?”

  “They’re not SEALS, sir,” Bunion replied. “And we’ve lost contact with the team who made the report. Communications with small units on the ground there are always difficult.”

  “I’m sure you can fix the problem, Andy. You know I have the most tremendous faith in our armed forces. The American military is the best in the world – everyone knows it. Those SEALs are one of the many reasons. No doubt you’ll all keep me well briefed on developments." The president picked up his putter by the handle and gave it a flick so that it spun rapidly in his hand, and sized up the SECSTATE. “What’s your BMI, Ed? Do you know? I would say that, technically, you’re obese. Mine? We’re talking the high side of normal. I think it’s something I should tell the media. Body image is important, right? Gonna get my press secretary onto it.”

  Fourteen

  Ronald V. Small @realSmall

  ISIS, you don't scare us. You are a failed movement. If you were a TV show, you would be axed. Russia will make you pay unless you release my very very good friend.

  It was 0725 hours, but no one told the sun that. It beat down on the open dusty field like it was noon, the air thrumming with insect joy. Whoever had selected this RZ had chosen well: over a hundred square yards of open space with plenty of room to accommodate whirling helicopter blades, shielded from prying eyes on all sides by groves of adolescent olive trees, the gaps between them filled with low scrub, and no poison ivy for a change.

  The area was accessed by a minor dirt road, which fed onto a slightly wider dirt road that was empty of the usual traffic hereabouts – refugees and horn-honking jihadists shooting people whose stuff they coveted. “Who bought the picnic basket,” I asked, taking in the idyllic surroundings. All we needed to complete the picture was a babbling brook.

  “Good idea, boss. A meatball sub and a Bud coming up,” said Bo, holding the map in one hand while he scoured the sky with a pair of compact binocs in the other.

  “Where is helicopter?” demanded Natasha.

  Behind her, Farib popped the top off a hissing, steaming radiator. Boris stood by to piss into it.

  “It’ll be a CV-22 Osprey and give it a minute. We’re early and the US Air Force is always on time,” I told Natasha. That was mostly true, unless poop had hit the rotor blades for a reason that couldn't be communicated to us because our radio was literally shot. In all of recorded history, to my knowledge, there wasn’t a single Special Operations mission that had gone off without a hitch. Whatever could go wrong, did. That was something you could always rely on.

  Alvin handed me a packet of cheese and crackers from what was left of our MREs. “Sorry, boss,” he apologized. “The Bud is warm and the meatballs are cold.”

  I ate the cheese.

  0729.

  Duly relieved, Boris retired under a tree and swishe
d the flies out of his face with a small olive branch.

  Natasha stood around with her arms folded, either looking up into the sky or glaring at me like it was my bad that her president was in Shitsville.

  Mazool and Farib were cleaning out the ambulance while Taymullah worked under the vehicle, legs protruding from beneath the front bumper. Better him than me, given what was leaking out of the radiator.

  0731, nothing.

  And, of course, once the appointed time came and went, Natasha became impressively impatient. Her attitude pretty much fell off a cliff once 0830 rolled around. But Jimmy, Alvin, Bo and I knew something was wrong long before then. Our tilt-rotor’s no-show probably had something to do with the many contrails overhead. And you didn't have to be a combat air controller to know those trails had everything to do with the fate that had befallen President Petrovich.

  “What now, American?” Natasha demanded, glaring at me, making the word “American” sound like “asshole”.

  Fair question, tone aside, so I told her, with more patience than she deserved, “Gimme five and I’ll get back to you.”

  “No! You kidnap me. I wish to do duty for President Petrovich, but you stop this.”

  I said, “Please back the fuck off so that we can work through how to get outta here.” Or at least that’s what my face told her.

  “Americans!” There was that euphemism again. She spat on the ground, but I suspected the preferred target was me.

  “See up there?” I said to her, and motioned overhead at all the white crosshatching the blue. “That’s your people. By now, both crash sites have been secured and there’ll be Russians all over them – Russians on top of Russians on top of Russians; a babushka doll of Russians. What could you – or us – possibly do that they’re not?”

  Natasha glanced over at Igor, who was still sitting under an olive tree, swishing, out of earshot. She took a step closer to me and said, quietly, “Look, you want to know why must find him?”