Armageddon

I (#ulink_1d86aa1f-b1aa-519a-88b4-1c4fae7b29a1)

Paradise (#ulink_1d86aa1f-b1aa-519a-88b4-1c4fae7b29a1)

Malay, Negara Brunei Darussalam (State of Brunei, Abode of Peace) 6 October 1997, (local) 1302

Breanna Stockard tossed her backpack to the ground, put her hands on her hips, and took a deep breath. The Pacific Ocean spread out before her, a blanket of azure silk. A few white clouds wandered casually in the distance, drifting across the sky like a pair of vacationers easing across a solitary beach. Civilization might lay in the distance – there were oil derricks somewhere offshore, and merchant ships did a brisk trade at the nearby harbor – but from where she stood Breanna had no hint that she and her husband Jeff ‘Zen’ Stockard weren’t the only people in the world.

This is what God looks at everyday, she thought to herself. Paradise.

Breanna took another deep breath. A month ago, she had found herself stranded in the Pacific during a fierce storm, tossed back and forth in a tiny life raft. It seemed impossible that this was the same ocean now.

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe that hadn’t even happened. Ten days here in the wonderful paradise of Brunei – helping train pilots to fly the EB-52 Megafortress ‘leased’ to the kingdom as part of an eventual three-plane arms deal – had purged her of all unhappy memories.

One more week and it might even be impossible to have an unpleasant thought ever again.

Zen had surprised her yesterday by turning up for a weekend visit. They had twenty-four more hours together before he had to return to Dreamland, their base back in the States.

Breanna smoothed out the blanket she’d borrowed from the hotel and spread it down on the white sand next to the path. She dropped her bag and Zen’s small backpack and turned to go back up the path.

‘I’ll bring down lunch, then I’m going to take a swim before I eat,’ she told her husband, who was negotiating the bumps down from the parking area in his wheelchair.

‘Yup,’ said Zen.

‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic,’ she said.

‘Yup.’

‘Jet lag getting to you?’

‘I’m fine.’

She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, then trotted up the hill for the rest of their things.

Before the accident that had cost him the use of his legs, Zen had considered going to the beach a useless waste of time and a dreadful bore. In his list of things to do, it ranked right above lying spread-eagle on Interstate 15 at rush hour.

Now it ranked somewhat lower.

He had tried talking Breanna out of the idea back at the hotel, when Prince bin Awg had called to say he and his family couldn’t join them on the planned picnic. His Royal Highness Pehin bin Awg was nephew of the sultan, a royal prince and government minister; he owned the beach and had insisted they use it. Zen liked bin Awg, the country’s unofficial patron of the Air Force – he had an enviable collection of Cold War aircraft and could talk about them entertainingly for hours and hours. Like many Bruneians, he was also generous to a fault. But his baby daughter was sick and he had been called away on government business. Zen loved Breanna and wanted to spend as much time as he could with her; he just would have preferred somewhere other than a beach.

A Lakers game, maybe.

It wasn’t so much the fact that beaches and wheelchairs didn’t go together. Truth be told, wheelchairs didn’t really fit smoothly anywhere. Much of everyday life in the A-B world – as in ‘able-bodied,’ a term not used by the handicapped without at least a touch of sarcasm – was a succession of physical barriers and dignity-stealing obstructions. Going to the beach was probably no worse than going to the grocery store. And the fact that this beach was a private, secluded refuge meant there were no people to gawk at the geek in the wheelchair – or worse, take pity on him by ‘helping.’

No, what bothered him was deeper than that. There just seemed to be no point, existential or otherwise, in lying on your belly and watching water lap against the sand.

‘My, but you’re a slowpoke,’ said Breanna, returning with their coolers. ‘Need a push?’

‘No,’ he said stubbornly, gripping the wheels of his chair and half-sliding, half-rolling off the hard-packed pathway and onto the sand. Surprisingly, the chair wheels sank only about a quarter of an inch, and Zen was able to pull over right next to the blanket. There he started a well-practiced if inelegant lift, arch, and twist routine, sliding himself down to the ground.

‘You coming in?’ asked Bree, kicking off her shoes.

‘Yup.’ Zen pulled himself up, sitting next to the cooler with the beer. He took out a Tetley’s Draught – an English ale that might be the last vestige of Britain’s influence on Brunei – and popped the top. A satisfying hiss and fizz followed.

‘“This can contains a floating widget,”’ he read from the top of the can. ‘What do you think a floating widget is, Bree?’

‘An excuse to charge two dollars more,’ said Breanna, who had complained earlier about the high price of beer. As an Islamic country, Brunei officially frowned on alcohol consumption, and between that and the fact that the beer had to be imported from a good distance, the six-pack Zen had purchased through the hotel concierge had cost over twenty-five dollars, American.

But some things were worth the price.

And others couldn’t be bought for any amount of money: Zen watched as his wife stripped off her jeans and T-shirt, revealing a red one-piece bathing suit that reminded Zen there were some good reasons for going to the beach after all.

‘Mmmm,’ he said.

‘Don’t get fresh.’

‘What? I’m talking about the beer.’

He ducked as Breanna tossed her T-shirt at him.

Despair’s black hands took his throat, and Sahurah Niu struggled to breathe.

The prince’s wife and infant daughter had not come to the beach. His informants had been wrong.

Sahurah pushed his fists into his arms, struggling to calm himself. It was of vital importance to remain in control in front of his men.

The commander had made clear that he must complete the mission today. They had discussed the possibility of taking other hostages if necessary; clearly that was his course now.

The two people on the beach were Westerners – Australians, he thought, though Sahurah Niu was not close enough to know for certain. Undoubtedly they were guests of the prince, or they would not have been allowed here on the private beach. They would do.

One was in a wheelchair. A pity.

Sahurah was not without a sense of mercy: he would be killed rather than taken.

‘What are we doing?’ asked Adi, the little one. He handled the Belgian machine-gun they had obtained two months before from their brothers across the border. Despite his small size, Adi had learned to handle the weapon and his body well enough so that he could fire the gun from his hip. This was not easily done; the others and Sahurah himself preferred to fire prone, as their instructor had first taught them.

‘We will go ahead with our plan,’ said Sahurah. ‘Tell the others be ready.’

The water felt like a mineral bath, balmy and thick against her skin. Breanna stroked gently across the small bay in front of the beach. The salt water tickled her cheeks, and the sun felt good on her back and shoulders. She took a few strokes parallel to the beach and looked back at Zen, who despite being crippled was a strong swimmer.

‘Are you coming in or not?’ Breanna yelled.

‘Later,’ he said.

‘Oh come on in!’ she yelled.

‘The water is fantastic.’

‘I’ll be in,’ he said, sipping his beer.