Armageddon

While it was the rule rather than the exception, Brea

“Jed, what’s up?” she asked.

“I need you to go to a secure phone,” he told her. “Can you get to the embassy? It’s at Teck Guan Plaza in the city.”

“I guess. This about the planes?”

“I’ll call you there in a half-hour.”

“Give me an hour.”

“Okay”

“THEY WERE DEFINITELY SU-27S,” BREANNA TOLD JED WHEN she reached the embassy. “But beyond that I don’t know anything else. They were over Malaysian air space the entire time, and the standing orders for Jersey’s training flights are that they be conducted either over Brunei or over international waters”

“Would an American crew have picked them up if they took off from that airstrip you found?” Jed asked.

“I don’t know. Deci thinks so, but the routines we were ru

“Could they have hit the freighter?”

“No way. Just no way. We might not have caught them at the precise moment of attack, but we sure would have seen them earlier. Besides, I doubt they would have returned after an attack. To get back around—no way”

Jed asked her questions about the Brunei air force and the defense ministry in general. It was Brea

“Their attitudes—they’re not very serious,” she explained. “Not even about counter-insurgency. They have trouble getting fuel and supplies. I think that the sultan is trying to turn things around, and certainly Mack is, but there are a lot of other people who are more interested in other things.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Jed. She could hear him stifling a yawn. “What’s going on, do you think?” she asked. “Were the planes and the attack on the merchant ship related?”

“I don’t know. So far it doesn’t fit together. The Malaysians have a pretty serious insurgency problem. Islamic terrorists have been trying to overthrow the government for years. But Brunei hasn’t been targeted by the terrorists, at least not seriously. Their base of operations has been too far away.”

“The people who tried to kidnap Zen and I a few days ago were supposedly terrorists,” said Brea

“Could be,” said Jed.

“I’m due to leave for Dreamland in a couple of days. You want me to put together a brief on the military situation here when I get back?”

“Be a good idea,” said Jed in between another yawn. “If you come up with anything in the meantime, let me know”

“Will do. Now get some sleep.”

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

2011

Sahurah waited for nearly an hour before he was picked up. Two scooters drove up and stopped; the man on the first turned to him and nodded his head. Sahurah took that as the signal to get on and he did so without comment. He held on as the bike whipped through the city streets, turning down alleyways and then doubling back, carefully eliminating any possibility of being followed. Finally it stopped in the middle of a street four blocks from the spot where he had started. As Sahurah slipped off, a battered Toyota drove up behind him. For a moment, Sahurah feared that the government had decided to arrest him.

The window on the car rolled down an inch. “Come,” said the man.

Sahurah walked slowly to the vehicle, opened the door, and got inside. There was another man sitting next to him, middle-aged, someone he had never seen or met before. The car began to move, driving along the narrow road out of town and then climbing up the hill to the cliffside highway. Even at night, the view of the ocean as it spread out north was spectacular, an inspirational hint of God’s expansive universe, but Sahurah did not take the chance to glance toward it.

“What happened?” asked the man.

“The imam is the only one I will address. He instructed me”

Sahurah pressed his fingers together so they would not tremble. Only a few weeks ago he would have felt anger rather than fear at being tested this way. How weak he had grown in such a short time.

The man took a pistol from his pocket. “What if I shoot you?”

That would be a great relief, Sahurah thought to himself. But he said nothing.

The man nodded and put his weapon away. “I was told you were a brave man, brother. I am impressed.”

ROUGHLY AN HOUR LATER, THE CAR PULLED OFF THE shoulder of another road overlooking the sea. Within a few minutes, three cars passed, then two pickups with men in the rear. Finally, a battered black taxi pulled next to them. The imam sat in the back seat; the Saudi visitor sat next to him. Sahurah was told to sit next to the driver, and did so without comment. They drove for a while, taking a dirt road that tucked through the jungle and then doubled back to a promontory over the water. The driver stopped and got out of the car.

“Report now,” said the imam.

Sahurah told him everything that had occurred.

The Saudi murmured something Sahurah could not hear. The imam answered, and then both men were silent.

“You have done very well,” said the imam finally.

He leaned forward. Sahurah felt something press him in the side. He turned and looked down, and saw that there was a small pistol in the imam’s hand.

“Take it,” said the imam.

Sahurah reached across his body with his right hand and took the pistol. It was a small, lightweight gun, a semi-automatic that fit easily in the palm of his hand. It occurred to Sahurah that he might take the gun and hold it to his head.

“Kill yourself,” said the imam.

Surely he had willed his leader to say that.

“Sahurah? Did you hear me?”

“To shoot myself?” he asked. “Will I be denied Paradise?”

“To die as a soldier of jihad is to be made a martyr, if you are under orders,” said the imam. “No matter the circumstances.”

Sahurah knew that suicide was a sin, but he also knew that there were conditions when death was not considered suicide. He had done nothing to prepare himself, however—his body was not clean or properly prepared, and he worried that perhaps he would not find Paradise if he complied.

But he must obey. More importantly, he wanted to. He wanted to be finished with this tiresome, trying world, where he could not cleanse himself of evil thoughts and failures. He wanted to be beyond weakness and lust.

“Are you afraid, Sahurah?” asked the imam.

Sahurah put the gun to his mouth and pulled the trigger. When nothing happened, he realized he had pushed too lightly, and pressed again.

And again.

He felt the imam’s hand on his shoulder. “You are our bravest soldier, Sahurah,” said the imam gently. “Give me back the gun. From this moment on, you are to be honored with the title of Commander. How does that make you feel?”

Sahurah stared at the weapon in his hands. He felt cheated, but he could not say that. A finger of pain began clawing up the back of his neck.

“Your future is the future of us all,” added the Saudi in Arabic. “You will bring great glory to the soldiers of God.”

Dreamland

9 October 1997, (local) 0830

Zen was working now. Sweat poured down his back, drenching his undershirt beneath the flight suit. A crowd of onlookers—including three congressmen and their staffs, along with some Pentagon and army VIPs—were watching from only a few feet away as he worked his Flighthawks through an exercise designed to demonstrate the future direction of aerial warfare. It was an all robot engagement—Lieutenant Kirk “Starship” Andrews and Lieutenant James “Kick” Colby were at the sticks of their own U/MF-3 Flighthawks, trying to keep Zen’s Hawk One and Hawk Two from getting past them on the test range to the northwest. They were doing a reasonably good job of it, too; Kick’s Hawk Three was closing in on Hawk Two, with Star-ship’s Hawk Four right behind. A large flat screen directly behind Zen showed the positions of all of the Flighthawks, and even provided a score as calculated by the computer.