LITMIR.BIZ

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with her Secret Service men. Those years were a time of optimism, of stirring speeches, of meeting and greeting thousands of hopeful Americans. It seemed like a lifetime ago now.

      Susan sighed. Her mind wandered. She remembered the day of the Mount Weather attack, the atrocity that had catapulted her out of her happy life as Vice President and into the raging tumult of the past few years.

      She shook her head. No thank you. She would not think about that day.

      Through the looking glass, on a small dais, two men and a woman stood. Photographers milled around like gnats, snapping pictures of them.

      One of the men on the dais was short and bald. He wore a long robe. He was Clarence Warren, Chief Justice of the United States. The woman’s name was Judy Lief. She wore a bright blue suit. She was smiling ear to ear and holding a Bible open in her hands. Her husband, Stephen, placed his left hand on the Bible. His right hand was raised. Lief was often thought of dour, but even he was smiling a little.

      “I, Stephen Douglas Lief,” he said, “do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

      “That I will bear true faith…” Judge Warren prompted.

      “That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same,” Lief said. “That I take this obligation freely, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office which I am about to enter.”

      “So help me God,” Judge Warren said.

      “So help me God,” Lief said.

      An image appeared in Susan’s mind – a ghost from the recent past. Marybeth Horning, the last person to take that oath. She had been a mentor to Susan in the Senate, and something of a mentor as Vice President. With her thin, small frame and her big glasses, she looked like a mouse, but she roared like a lion.

      Then she was shot down and killed because of… what? Her liberal politics, you might say, but that wasn’t true. The people who killed her hadn’t cared about policy differences – all they cared about was power.

      Susan hoped the country could move past that now. She watched Stephen on the TV monitor, embracing his family and other well-wishers.

      Did she trust this man? She didn’t know.

      Would he try to have her killed?

      No. She didn’t think so. He had more integrity than that. She had never known him to be underhanded during her time in the Senate. She supposed that was a start – she had a Vice President who wouldn’t try to kill her.

      She pictured reporters from the New York Times and the Washington Post asking questions: “What do you like about Stephen Lief as your new Vice President?”

      “Well, he’s not going to kill me. I feel pretty good about that.”

      Then Kat Lopez was at her side.

      “Uh, Susan? Let’s get you over to the microphones so you can congratulate Vice President Lief and give him a few words of encouragement.”

      Susan snapped out of her reverie. “Of course. That’s a good idea. He can probably use them.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      11:16 p.m. Israel Time (4:16 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)

      The Blue Line, Israel-Lebanon Border

      “Listen not to the liars, to the unbelievers,” the boy of seventeen whispered.

      He took a deep breath.

      “Strive against them with the utmost effort. Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them.”

      The boy was as battle-hardened as they came. At fifteen, he had left his home and family and joined the Army of God. He had crossed into Syria and spent the past two years fighting street-to-street, face-to-face, and sometimes hand-to-hand, against the apostates of Daesh, what the westerners called ISIS.

      The Daesh were unafraid to die – indeed, they welcomed death. Many of them were older Chechens and Iraqis, very hard to kill. The early days of opposing them had been a nightmare, but the boy had survived. In two years, he had fought many battles and killed many men. And he had learned much about war.

      Now he stood in the black dark on a hillside in northern Israel. He balanced an anti-tank rocket launcher on his right shoulder. In his younger days, a heavy rocket like this would drill into his shoulder and after a short time, his bones would begin to ache. But he was stronger now. The weight of it no longer made much impression on him.

      There was a small stand of trees around him, and very nearby, a group of commandos were on the ground, watching the roadway below them.

      “Let those who fight in the way of Allah sell the life of this world for the other,” he said, very low, under his breath. “He who fights in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, he shall receive a vast reward.”

      “Abu!” someone whispered fiercely.

      “Yes.” His own voice was calm.

      “Shut up!”

      Abu took a deep breath and let the exhale slowly come out.

      He was an expert with the anti-tank rocket. He had fired so many of these, and he had become so accurate with them, that he was now a very valuable man. That was something he had learned about war. The longer you lived, the more skills you amassed, and the better you became at fighting. The better you became, the more valuable you were, and ever more likely to remain alive. He had known many who didn’t survive long in combat – a week, ten days. He had met one who died on the first day. If only they could last a month, things would start to become clearer to —

      “Abu!” the voice hissed.

      He nodded. “Yes.”

      “Ready? They’re coming.”

      “Okay.”

      He went about his business, relaxed, almost as if he were just practicing. He hefted the rocket launcher and unfolded the stock. His placed his left hand along the length of the barrel, lightly, lightly, until the target came into view. You didn’t want your grip too firm, too soon. The index finger of his right hand caressed the trigger mechanism. He put the gun sight near his face, but not to his eye. He liked to have his eyes free until the last moment, so he could acquire the entire picture before focusing on the details. His knees bent slightly, his back ever-so-slightly arched.

      He could see light from the convoy now, behind the hillside to his right, approaching along the road. The lights reached upward, casting strange shadows. A few seconds later, he could hear the rumble of the engines.

      He took another deep breath.

      “Steady…” a stern voice said. “Steady.”

      “Lord Allah,” Abu said, his words coming quickly now, and louder than before. “Guide my hands and my eyes. Let me bring death to your enemies, in your name and in the name of your most beloved prophet Mohammed, and all the great prophets in all times.”

      The first jeep came around the bend. The round headlights were clear now, cutting through the nighttime mist.

      The boy Abu instantly became rigid under the weight of the heavy gun. He put his right eye to the sight. The vehicles in the line appeared, large, like he could reach out and touch them. His finger tightened on the trigger. The breath caught in his throat. He was no longer a boy with a rocket launcher – he and the launcher melded together, becoming one entity, a killing machine.

      All around his feet, men moved like snakes, crawling toward the roadway.

      “Steady,” the voice said again. “The second car, you understand?”

      “Yes.”

      In his gun sight, the second jeep was RIGHT THERE. He could see the silhouettes of the people inside it.

      “It’s easy,” he whispered. “It’s so easy… Steady…”

      Two

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