Spiders from the Shadows

TWENTY-ONE


Offutt Air Force Base, Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command, Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska


The officer came for Sara and Sam. It was late at night, but none of the family was asleep. Instead, they lay awake inside the tiny office they’d been mostly confined to since they’d been rescued from the rooftop in East Chicago, talking quietly in the total darkness about the future that looked so bleak. The Army colonel opened the door, the thin beam of his penlight intruding in the night. “Lieutenant Brighton,” he said.

Sam sat up on his sleeping bag and looked at him.

The colonel shifted his eyes. “Mrs. Brighton?” he asked gently.

Sara was sitting with her back against the wall, her knees pulled up, her arms around her legs. “Yes,” she answered simply.

The colonel moved into the room, his light flashing a narrow beam of white that illuminated his outline as a shadow behind it. “Will you please come with me?”

Sara stood up. Sam stood up beside her. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“Secretary Marino needs to see you.”

Sara looked down at her other sons. “What about them?”

The colonel moved the thin beam of light. “Guys, if you’ll just stay here?” He said it like it was a question, but it was clearly a statement. Luke and Ammon nodded at him. “OK sir,” they said.

The beam of light moved again. Azadeh had been sitting next to Sara. She remained on the floor, her eyes down. The colonel stared at her a long moment, started to say something, then changed his mind. Turning, he motioned to Sam and Sara while glancing at his watch impatiently. “Please hurry,” he urged them, his voice on edge. “The Secretary is waiting. Believe me, guys, it’s really hit the fan.”

Sam took his mother by the arm. “Come on,” he said.

Sara glanced down at Ammon and Luke again, patted Azadeh on the shoulder, and followed the officer to the door.

They walked down the hall. Sara caught a look at Sam as he moved. He looked both relieved and excited.

This was what he’d been waiting for.

* * * * * * *

Sam and Sara followed the colonel into the Operations Center. It was a large room stuffed with computers, video screens, telephones, encryption equipment, and open work stations. The lighting was dim and a white DEFCON sign was illuminated in the front corner. The floor sloped gently downward and rows of theater chairs lined both sides of the central aisle. A large projection screen and elevated stage took up most of the front wall, with multiple smaller monitors on both sides of the main screen. Brucius was talking with some military aides at the front of the room. Six officers waited in the chairs, a few civilians scattered among them.

The colonel led Sam and Sara through the metal doors at the back of the room, gestured to Brucius, then disappeared. The two of them waited, looking around anxiously. Time passed and no one spoke to them. Brucius continued huddling with his aides, his face tense. Ten minutes passed. Finally a young lieutenant colonel broke away from Brucius, came to the back of the room, asked Sam and Sara to follow him, escorted them to the front row, and invited them to sit down. Brucius caught Sara’s eye as she moved forward and nodded at her.

A three-star general moved to Brucius’ side. “We’re ready, sir,” he whispered at his ear.

Brucius immediately stopped talking to the officers and turned around. “OK,” he said. He turned and walked toward Sara, leaned over, and kissed her cheek. “Sara, are you OK?”

She nodded quickly.

Brucius gave Sam a quick look then turned back to Sara. “Your other sons, the Iranian girl, they’re doing all right?”

“They’re fine, Brucius. A little cabin fever, maybe. A little nervous, but doing fine.”

“OK. Good.”

Sam kept his eyes on the Secretary as the man interacted with his mom. Brucius was trying to show concern, but Sam could tell his heart wasn’t in it. His mind was far away, the creases on his forehead deep and furrowed. “Let me show you what we have here,” he finally said.

Brucius nodded to the control console at the back of the Operations Center. The room grew darker and the large screen on the front wall flickered with a grainy light.

Every eye turned toward it. A broken image filled the screen. It jumped and halted, then came back in a grainy black-and-white video. As they watched, the Army general started to explain. “This is from a micro-drone we were able to get into Raven Rock a few days ago.”

Sam nodded in amazement. He’d never worked with the micro-drones, never even seen any of their intelligence products, but he’d heard the Black Box guys were close to pushing some of the early models out of testing and into the field.

The general saw Sara’s puzzled look and gave a brief explanation. “A micro-drone is a tiny, robotic, remotely controlled, reconnaissance machine. Some of them, like the one we were able to slip inside Raven Rock, are no larger than a fly. Amazingly effective, very difficult to identify or locate, their only drawback is a very short life span. Issues with expanding their battery capabilities are still being worked—”

“How did you get one into Raven Rock?” Sara interrupted. The look on her face indicated she already knew.

The general hesitated.

“James snuck it in for us,” he told her.

Sara nodded. “All that stuff we heard, then, the statement he@ergap made on the television broadcast?”

“Clearly he was drugged or operating under duress.”

“Have you heard from him since he got into Raven? Do you know—”

“Please, Mrs. Brighton,” the general interrupted. “We are really tight on time right now.”

Sara glared at him, then turned to Brucius. “Is he OK?” she demanded.

Brucius looked strained. “We don’t know.”

She sat back, her face determined.

Brucius watched her, then offered the only thing he had. “We’re trying to get in touch with him.” He wished he had a better answer. It was important. It would matter a great deal when she found out what he needed her to do.

“Do you have allies in Raven Rock who can help you?”

“No, Sara, we don’t.”

She nodded grimly. “OK, go on.”

Brucius waited a second, then continued. “Not only was James able to get the drone into the presidential working area, we actually got it in position to monitor their final meeting. Because of this, we learned much more than we ever could have hoped for.” He stopped and eyed her carefully. “If you believe in God or heaven, and I know you do, then He must be on our side here. Getting the drone inside the presidential conference room was, to say the least, fortuitous. Getting it there when we did was nothing short of a miracle. If you’re praying or counting sacred beads, keep doing it, please, for it has been enormously helpful, as you’re about to see.”

The general stepped forward, motioning toward the image on the screen, which was frozen on pause. “We’re going to show you selected video from inside of Raven Rock; then we’ll answer your questions,” he explained. He nodded and the video started playing. The grainy image showed the inside of a conference room, a dozen men around a large table, more standing at the wall. Fuentes was standing in front of the conference table, an old man at his side. At first there was no sound; then the audio started coming through. Sara watched carefully as the other men around the table came into view. Some of them she recognized. Most she didn’t know.

When she saw King al-Rahman standing by the old man, she sucked a breath and frowned.

* * * * * * *

Two hours later, Brucius summed it up for them. “OK, so this is what we know.

“First, they’re going after Israel. We don’t know when or how, but they’re going to destroy it, that much is very clear. That by itself would be reason enough to stop them—but, as you’ve seen, there is much more.

“They’ve also set up agreements to carve the world into spheres of influence, allocating who and what among themselves. Abdullah will control the Muslim world. Europe will be split among the others. Fuentes and his buddies will keep the Americas, a couple of goons we’ve never heard of having their way in Mexico and South America; Xian Cheng is left with China. I could go on, but I think you know. Bottom line—we’re going to end up with six men controlling the entire world. They have military agreements between them that say, in essence, “Hands off! What I do in my sphere is none of anybody’s business. Stay out of my affairs.” Through these military non-compete agreements, they’re essentially promising never to intervI want to be like you tro fingerene militarily outside of their own spheres. Suffice it to say, I don’t think anyone’s going to be filing any human rights violations against any of the others. They’ll reign with blood and money. What else is there in their world?

“China has promised to provide nuclear expertise, technology, and hardware to Middle Eastern countries, making them impervious to attack. Once that is done, who would dare to go after them when they can destroy the world in retaliation? Give him a year and King Abdullah will have consolidated the entire Muslim world into a caliphate that controls eighty-three percent of the world’s oil fields.”

Brucius stopped. They’d seen the video. They’d heard the leaders talking. Everything he had just told them, they already knew.

He began to pace before the stage, his face intent. Stopping in front of Sara, he looked into her eyes. “I need your help to stop them.” He shifted his eyes to Sam. “I need you both.”

Sara started to answer but Brucius cut her off. “Before you say anything, I want to be very clear. I have to know you really understand. I’ve been sworn in and impeached. I am not the president. I’m not even Secretary of Defense any longer.” He gestured to the men in the room around him. “Everyone you see here, everyone who is helping me right now, is guilty of treason. All of us could be tried and hanged. Do you understand that? Is that clear? As of twenty hours ago, everything I’ve done here is illegal. I can’t call upon military units to support me. Not any longer.” He knelt down before Sara and lowered his voice. “All of the power lies within the walls of Raven Rock. A few men, those you have been watching on the video here, control everything right now. To them, we are nothing but a group of power-hungry rebels who have to be crushed. I need to know that you appreciate what is happening, what you are getting yourselves into.”

Sara shot a look to Sam. He nodded back at her. “We understand,” she said.

Brucius’ shoulders relaxed. “Let me say it a final time. Neither of you is bound to help me. I don’t have authority to ask anything of you, and you’ll be taking an enormous risk. The painful truth is, in private moments, I realize we’re almost certainly doomed to fail. If that happens, it could mean death or at least prison.”

He waited, giving them time to think.

Sara leaned forward. “How long have you known me?” she asked, her voice so determined it sounded almost hard. “How long have you known my husband? Is there anything about us, anything from all those years of experience that would lead you to believe I wouldn’t do anything you asked me? If not for you, then for my country, which is what you represent right now. Our entire future, the presidency, our government, the Constitution, all of it is hanging by a thread. I’m not so naïve or foolish that I can’t see that. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you.”

Brucius watched her carefully.

“Now quit apologizing and tell me what you need,” Sara concluded.

Brucius took a deep breath and shook his head in a gesture of appreciation that bordered on disbelief. Shifting his weight, he turned to Sam. “You understand I have no authority to give you any orders. I’m no longer the Secretary of Defense. I have no right—”

“I understand,” Sam shot back. “Come on, sir. Let’s get the party rolling.”I want to be like you tro finger

“But how, Brucius?” Sara demanded. “How can we possibly help you? What can either of us do?”

He glanced at the floor a moment, steeling himself, then lifted his eyes to look at Sara. “I’m going to send you into Raven Rock.”

She stared at him dumbfounded and shook her head. “No, Brucius, no. Look what happened to Davies. The same thing would happen to me.”

He leaned into her intently, his hand upon the arm of her chair, his jaw square. “Daniel Jefferson is down there. If you can get to him and bring him out, we can turn this thing around.”

Sara almost shuddered, the fear growing deeper in her eyes. Daniel Jefferson. The last surviving member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Brucius looked up at the nearest aide, who gave him a quiet nod. “There may be other options, but we can’t count on them,” he told her. “Until we know for certain, we have to assume that what they told the nation was true. Jefferson is the only living member of the Supreme Court. But he knows you, Sara. He knows your husband. If you can get to him, he’ll listen to you. He had no idea what was going on out here. You’re going to go in and tell him, and you’re going to bring him out.”

Sara didn’t answer, her shoulders sagging as she closed her eyes.

Brucius turned to Sam. “And you, soldier. We have to stop King Abdullah. He’ll never rest until Israel is a heap of rubble, and his attacks upon our country cannot go unanswered. The future demands that we do something. But we have only two options: retaliation or justice. Those are the only two paths we have. Retaliation doesn’t help us. Justice is what we seek.

“Even as we speak, the king of Saudi Arabia is on his way to Iran, into the Zagros mountains, to find and kill the only person in the world who has a claim upon his crown. You’re going to meet him there. You’re going to find him. You’re going to bring him back here, where he’ll stand trial for what he’s done.”

He paused and stood back, his eyes intent. Much of the power was gone out of his p