House Divided

As it happened, the time was right. In fact, the plane was twenty minutes late.

“That’s it,” Hashan said. “That’s the one.”

He took one final drag of the cigarette, then flicked it away with his thumb and forefinger. He stood and threw off his heavy, scratchy wool blanket. He allowed himself a few seconds to admire the jagged hillsides all around them, and the taller mountains just to the west salted with white snow. Two seconds, maybe three – there wasn’t much time. Already he could see the black speck moving through the sky, growing in size, coming their way.

He hefted the brown and green rocket launcher from the ground where it lay. It was a beautiful thing – a Strela-2, Russian-made surface-to-air missile system, liberated from the personal stockpiles of the recently departed Western stooge, Muammar Gaddafi.

Hashan moved quickly through his pre-firing preparations. The Strela could be reloaded, but not in the field. He was only going to get one try at this, so he’d better be ready. He removed the covers and extended the sights, then mounted the tube on his shoulder. He activated the power supply to the missile electronics and waited a few seconds for the power to stabilize.

The launcher weighed heavily on his bones – he had made the boy carry it here.

Hashan’s sixty-two years settled more heavily onto him than the rocket itself. He’d fought many wars in many places, and he was tired. Being sent here felt more like a punishment than an honor. Yesterday, he had hiked through these trackless mountains with this young local boy as his guide, and they had spent the night with no food, and no fire, huddled together on the frozen ground for warmth.

The journey had been difficult, but Hashan had been cold and hungry before, many times. Taking down jetliners with old Soviet shoulder-fired missiles was even more difficult. You must be an expert to do it, which Hashan was, but even then…

Even then…

He shook his head. Silly old man. Allah was the one who sharpened his sight. Allah steadied his hands. Allah guided the missile to its target.

Hashan was too tired even to pray. An image passed through his mind – Allah bathed in bright light, beckoning him to Paradise. He sighed. It would have to do. The Perfect One knew everything, including his most inadequate servant’s intentions.

“Give me strength,” Hashan muttered under his breath.

He positioned his right eye behind the iron sights, steadied the tube with his left hand, and applied half trigger with his right. It happened almost automatically, as if the launcher was doing it by itself. Hashan could now see the plane clearly enough – a big boat of a thing, like a fat bumblebee moving slowly left to right, coming down for a landing at the airport twenty miles south of here. The winter sun glinted off its cockpit windows as it approached.

It didn’t matter what Hashan saw. The missile would decide if the shot was clean. Suddenly, a light appeared in his iron sights and a low buzzer went off. The missile had acquired an infrared signature from the plane. Hashan aimed the launcher in front of the plane, leading it just a bit. He planted his feet and fully depressed the trigger.

The missile left the tube with a WHOOOSH, the force of it rocking Hashan’s slender frame. He watched it go, the front and rear fins popping out instantly. It seemed to fly away in slow motion, and he almost imagined that he could see it spinning.

“God is great,” the boy said beside him.

Hashan nodded. “Yes.”

That much was true, no matter whether the missile found its target.

* * *

Congressman Jack Butterfield of Texas lounged in a first-class window seat, simultaneously sipping a vodka tonic, watching the mountains pass below them, and listening to white-haired English billionaire Marshall Dennis prattle on beside him about some hedonistic misadventures he’d enjoyed in Ibiza as a young man.

“That’s a riot, Marsh,” Jack said, and he meant it. The whole trip had been a riot so far. This was the party plane. They had all started drinking in an airport VIP lounge before they left Gatwick. Everyone had roamed about the cabin at will for the duration of the flight, as though they were at a flying cocktail party.

And the young redheaded stewardess had just served him another drink, even though they were landing. Jack’s eyes followed her as she moved up the aisle and stopped at the Egyptian Consul General’s row. Boy oh boy, Jack would love to have a few misadventures with that stewardess.

He needed to think of a reason to call her back here.

“If it’s okay with you,” Jack said, “I probably won’t share that story during the unveiling.”

“Oh, I doubt a single person would be surprised,” Marsh Dennis said. “I’ve been the sporting type my entire life.”

“I know you have. Believe me when I say I’ve followed your – ”

Just then, the plane banked hard and lurched violently to the left. A voice came over the airplane’s public address system. Jack recognized it as the Oklahoma drawl of the pilot, an old US Navy vet Jack had briefly met when coming aboard. But the voice was different now. The man spoke fast and loud.

“Flight attendants! Prepare for emergency landing.”

Someone two rows back gasped.

The pretty red-haired flight attendant had fallen across the Consul General’s lap. The plane was banking so steeply, she was nearly upside down, her legs in the air. She could not regain her feet.

Jack Butterfield turned to Marsh Dennis. Everything seemed to slow down and take on a surreal cast. Marsh’s bloodshot eyes had opened wide, nearly round with sudden fear. For the first time, Jack noticed the deep lines in Marsh’s face – long, narrow slot canyons that undulated down his cheeks.

Jack glanced down at his own hand, holding his vodka drink in a plastic airplane cup. He hadn’t spilled a drop of it, despite the commotion. He felt a moment of absurd pride about that – he’d been drinking a long time. Hell, he was a Texas man.

“Hard stick right!” someone shouted over the speakers. “Hard right, I said. Oh God, it’s tracking us!”

Jack looked around for his seatbelt. He found it, clipped it in, and cinched it tight.

A moment passed.

“Prepare for impact,” someone said.

Impact?

Beside him, Marsh Dennis placed his weathered hands on top of the seat in front of him.

Somewhere behind them, far back in the main cabin, a sound came. Congressman Jack didn’t understand the sound. It was so loud, it was beyond his understanding. It was like a thunderclap, multiplied by a thousand. An instant later, the flight trajectory changed drastically. The plane was falling – a sickening plunge. A rushing sound came… there was nothing to compare it to.

Things went flying by now, sucked backward. The pretty redhead was one of those things. Her drink cart was another. After that, another person went – a fat man in a suit.

“Crash positions!” a booming voice shouted.

Jack screamed, but he couldn’t hear himself. He dropped his drink and clapped his hands over his ears.

The cabin of the plane was like a narrow tunnel in front of him. When it flipped upside down, he closed his eyes tight. In the midst of his terror, no thought came to him, only a dim awareness that whatever happened next, he did not want to see it.

* * *

“Here it comes,” Liz Jones said.

She stood with her advance hospitality team in the international VIP passenger greeting area in Terminal 1 at Sharm El Sheikh Airport. Her team all wore black and gold Dennis Hotels Worldwide uniforms. She wore a tan business suit.

The windows here were four stories high, giving a commanding view of the surrounding mountains, and the desert approach to the airport itself.

She felt a trickle of nervousness run down her spine – this one was a major deal. A planeload of heavy hitters was coming in, including Sir Marshall Dennis himself, and most of them were going to be roaring drunk by now. But Liz could handle it. She knew that about herself. She had run with the big dogs, all over the globe, for years and years.

“Let’s look sharp, everybody,” she said.

Suddenly, a young man in her group, a guy from Ireland, gasped. Then a young woman screamed. Now more people all over the lounge were screaming.