Rocks parceled the saltwater into irregular cavities, none deeper than two feet.
Seeing some large pieces of wood on the northern shore, Zen began crawling toward them. By now his hands were covered with small scrapes and cuts. The grit on the rocks ate at his skin as he went, and he had to stop every few minutes to gather his strength and let the stinging subside.
The first piece of wood was too well wedged in the rocks for him to pull away, and he had to settle for some smaller pieces, sticks actually, that had landed nearby. He wedged them in his flight suit and crawled along the shoreline to a piece about as long as he was. There was another piece, thicker but shorter, beneath it. All of the wood was bleached white and appeared to have been there a long time.
The sun had begun to set. Zen decided it would be faster and easier for him to swim back. He dragged the wooden sticks with him but soon realized he couldn’t hold it and swim at the same time. Returning to shore, he sat himself upright and reached down to his pants leg, thinking he could tear off some of his flight suit to use as a crude rope. But the flight suit was too strong to rip, so he had to resort to his knife, poking it gently against his calf and auguring a hole.
His lower leg had turned deep purple, covered almost completely by bruises.
The color shocked him. He couldn’t feel anything there, but thought his legs must have been badly damaged in the crash. Deciding they needed whatever protection they could get, he pushed the pant leg down and instead undid the top portion of his flight suit so he could use his T-shirt. This was easy to rip, and he soon had the sticks tied to his wrist.
Swimming on his back, he had no trouble at first; the heavy eastward current was mitigated by a long length of stone that 132
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jutted from the atoll and formed a protective arm. But as he tried to turn toward the west beach where he’d left Breanna, he found the current hard to fight. Within seconds he was being pushed away from the island. Turning over, he began swimming with all his strength, pushing through the swells as they beat rhythmically against his face. He managed to push himself back to the edge of the island, clinging to a rock until he recovered enough strength to pull himself up onto shore.
By now the sun had set. In the fading twilight, he dragged himself up the hill, trailing the wood behind him. He’d gotten no farther than halfway before it was pitch-black and he could barely see in front him. But he wasn’t about to stop. He felt his way forward, pushing up slowly and trying to be gentle on his legs.
It seemed to take hours before he found himself moving downhill. The sticks made a scratching sound that was almost funny, or at least struck him that way.
Tchchhhh, tchchhh, tchchhh—a witch’s broomstick dragging along the ground because she was afraid of heights.
Tchchhhh, tchchhh, tchchhh—the Jolly Green Giant, ripping his pants as he walked.
Tchchhhh, tchchhh, tchchhh—the sound seemed outra-geously funny, and he began to laugh. He was still laughing when he reached the rocky part of the atoll, where the shadows made it almost impossible to see where the tent was. He stared at the darkness, hoping to find some hint of the spot before pushing down. Thinking he finally spotted it, he set out, only to reach the water ten minutes later. He dragged himself back up in a diagonal without any better luck.
“Bree!” he called before starting a third pass. “Bree—hey, babe, where’s our tent?”
There was no answer. Though he hadn’t expected one, he felt disappointed.
“Bree? Bree!”
Nothing.
Zen resumed his crawl. The sticks tumbled and occasion-
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ally snagged alongside him. They were no longer amusing, and he even thought of letting them go. But he kept dragging them, and finally found the pile of rocks he had set at one edge of their shelter.
Breanna was still unconscious inside. He put his head next to her face, close enough to feel her breath on his cheek. He thought she was breathing better, more deeply.
“Hey, Bree. You awake?” he whispered.
She didn’t answer.
Zen laid the wood out near them. It was wet from having been in the water, and he was too tired anyway to try and start a fire; he’d do it in the morning. He made a broadcast on the radio but got no response. He repeated it again and again, but still no one answered.
It was amazing how long it had taken him to get the wood.
He thought about it, trying to analyze what he might have done faster and better. Exhausted, he tried another broadcast, then crawled under the shelter, curled himself around his wife, and fell asleep.
Southeastern Iran,
near the coast
1800 (1900, Karachi)
“THE UNITED STATES AND SEVERAL OTHER MEMBERS OF
the United Nations have launched a massive diplomatic effort aimed at both sides, trying to convince them the futility of war—”
General Mansour Sattari flipped off the television. Somehow, the Americans had actually succeeded. The Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons had not exploded. The Americans had vaporized them without a trace!
The end of war—or so the idiotic news commentator said.
“It is good that you turn that drivel off,” said someone behind him.
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Surprised, Sattari turned and found Jaamsheed Pevars standing in the doorway. Pevars’s face was ashen.
“I don’t trust the western media,” Sattari said. “It is full of lies.”
Pevars waved his hand, as if warning the general away from something. Then he turned and walked from the room.
Sattari followed.
Jaamsheed Pevars was the country’s oil minister, and usually a most happy fellow—but then who wouldn’t be if he could divert a portion of Iran’s oil revenue to his own accounts? While he served the black-robed imams who ran the country, Pevars was enough of a maverick to back several alternatives, including Sattari.
The fact that the two men had gone to school in England together was, to Sattari’s way of thinking, more a coincidence than a help, but it had made a certain level of intimacy possible between them.
“The American super weapon will change everything,”
said Pevars when they reached the small but luxuriously fur-nished office he kept near the front of the building. “The black robes are quaking in their shoes.”
“What?”
“How does one go to war with a nation that can pulverize your weapons in midair?” Pevars shook his head. “One of the imams has already asked if you were involved.”
“Me?”
Pevars shrugged. “Perhaps word of your son’s operation leaked.”
Sattari knew there was only one possible source of the information—Pevars himself. Undoubtedly, he had leaked word out when things looked to be going well, hoping to capitalize on the connection. Now his braggadocio and con-niving meant trouble.
Not for Pevars, though. He was able to slither out of everything.
“How did the black robes find out about this?” demanded RETRIBUTION
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the general. “What do they know? The submarines? The aircraft?”
“Who knows what they knew? They seem to have heard … rumors.”
Sattari felt his anger growing. Rumors? Pevars was the only possible source.
“If the Americans have a weapon like this,” Pevars continued, “the balance of power will shift again. The Chinese—
pffft, they are nothing now.”
“I would rather die than join an alliance with the Americans,” said Sattari.
“Who said anything about an alliance? An alliance? No, that is not possible. Peace, though—that is a different story.”
Sattari choked back his anger, trying to consider what Pevars had said. Peace with America—what did that imply? An oil agreement possibly, the sale of petroleum at some guaranteed rate.
Pevars would not be concerned about that.
Did the black robes intend to offer someone up as a chip for a new business agreement?
“I have information from the fisherman,” added Pevars.