“You think the Lord waited for Victoria to be with him before he sent the Russians?”
Jeremiah nodded. “The thought crossed my mind a few times.”
“Mine too.”
Ben rolled his neck to stretch it out. The pum pum pum of the falling mortars had all but disappeared.
Less than a month after the funeral, Zedekiah had stopped the tribute and ordered the rest of the nation to do the same. A month after that, Russian troops crossed the northern border. The first cities fell in a couple days. The Russians sent their demand for unconditional surrender to which Zedekiah responded by closing the gates to the wall surrounding the capital. Help from the Chinese never came. Ben knew it wouldn’t. The advisors didn’t seem to care, lost in the madness of the self-declared righteousness of their cause. Even the horror of the first few months couldn’t dissuade them or Zedekiah from their path. God in his mercy made sure Victoria didn’t live to see the siege.
“His ways are above mine,” he said as though Jeremiah had heard the rest of the conversation in his head.
“What’s that?” Jeremiah asked, emerging from his own quiet reflection.
“I was thinking about how God spared Victoria. As bad as she suffered, it was nothing compared to what she would have gone through.”
Jeremiah’s lips jutted forward and a sound somewhat between ‘mm’ and ‘mm hmm’ came out. He interlaced his fingers and cracked the knuckles.
“You think they would have admitted their error once they saw what happened,” Ben continued.
“You mean Zedekiah and his band of self-serving fools?”
Ben nodded. “They remind you of someone else?”
“The rest of mankind,” Jeremiah said. “Me included.”
“Not you,” Ben corrected.
“There but for the grace of God go I. If he hadn’t chosen me, hadn’t sustained me, I have no doubt I would’ve fallen for the same lies.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, my friend. The way I see it, you made a choice. The same one we all have. You took the wise option. To serve God and not man. To understand that the potential suffering brought on by obedience pales in comparison to the misery of going your own way.”
Jeremiah stared at the wall without seeing. “Perhaps,” he said. “But in the end, it was only through his strength that I endured. Besides, I ended up here.”
“You’re alive.”
“Would it be better if I wasn’t?”
“As you told me many times,” Ben said, “he hasn’t finished with us yet.”
“Yeah,” Jeremiah said. He tried to rub the arthritis out of his left elbow. “I imagine it won’t be much longer. Either the Russians finish us off and put an end to me or old age will.”
“I’m not so sure about that. You’ve still got a few good years left in you.”
“Is that a prediction?” Jeremiah said.
“Do I look like a prophet to you?” Ben asked.
“I’m not sure I’d recognize one if I saw one,” Jeremiah replied.
Silence settled between them. Even the battle outside had waned, an occasional flash on the monitors the only sign it persisted. From the back room, the hum of a conversation rode the silence. Ben pointed towards it with his chin.
“Did you think Maraina would have been the one who survived this long?” he asked. “All things considered, I figured she should have gone first.”
“Why’s that?” Jeremiah asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe because she was the main one pushing the rebellion. I assumed God would get her out of the way. Just another example of how I don’t know the mind of God.”
“I always thought Jason led the failed charge downhill.”
Ben shook his head. “It was Maraina the whole time. She manipulated Jason for her own gain. It took me a while to figure it out. But it was clearly her sending us off the cliff. Well, her and Zedekiah. In the end, he made the choice and dragged the nation willingly along with him.”
“What did she do to convince them?” Jeremiah asked. “I was always curious about that.”
“It’s a bit of a sordid story.”
“I’ve got time.”
“If you really want to know,” Ben said. “The Chinese approached her during Jehoiakim’s administration. Got her on the payroll but didn’t give her an assignment. After Zedekiah was installed, they pulled some strings to get her into a lead advisory role. I haven’t determined how, and at this point, it really doesn’t matter. Regardless, the amount of money flowing into her bank accounts dwarfed any amount she could’ve earned legitimately. She was careful, though. She didn’t live extravagantly, saving her money, I suppose, for an early and lucrative retirement. That is, there weren’t any outward signs of the bribes she received. A part of me wants to believe she did it for patriotic if not misguided reasons. Wishful thinking when I look back at the totality of the evidence. Not in doubt is the fact she was a covert and highly successful Chinese agent. She played the part well. Insecure, timid on the outside. Inside, a ravenous wolf.”
“She recruited Jason Modesta first. It didn’t take much to convince him. A few nights in bed and an appeal to his baser side got him on board. He never received money from the Chinese but succumbed to the promise of power. Regardless of what he told Zedekiah, he wanted the presidency and thought the Chinese would deliver. Zedekiah found out. Better said, he knew from the beginning. Which is why Jason was executed a few months into the siege, after it became apparent the Chinese wouldn’t save us. Zedekiah would have done it regardless of the outcome. Jason didn’t realize it until the moment the rope tightened against his neck.”
“As to the rest of the nation, you know the drill. Maraina’s contacts in the media made it seem like a Russian defeat was a forgone conclusion. Sermons delivered from the pulpit proclaimed God would deliver us. A deceived nation – deluded by their own willingness to be deceived – joined the lemming bandwagon. You stood alone against them. The tide of patriotism and lust and sin and rejection of God was too strong.”
“And here we are.”
Jeremiah listened to see if Ben would continue. A few minutes of silence lingered before he began again.
“He invited the ambassadors to a dinner at the Presidential Palace. Their wives and children too. I assumed it was to formally request an annulment of the treaty between the two nations. That’s what Jason told me anyway.” Ben shook his head over and over. His thoughts grew distant as though by concentrating hard enough he could change the past. “I don’t know why I listened to him, why my radar didn’t work that day.”
“You were there,” Jeremiah said more than asked.
Ben nodded.
“You never told me.”
“I never told anyone,” Ben said. His hands worked frantically, digging into cuticles until they started to bleed. A moan shuddered from his chest and stuck in his throat. “I ran to the soldiers and tried to grab their arms. Mel knocked out the teeth of two of them. We both thought it was a coup until we saw Zedekiah sitting at the front and laughing. Like a child who stole a smaller kid’s bike and dared him to take it back. Like the devil himself delighting in his perverse version of joy.”
A knot formed, but he forced himself to continue. “They took their time. There was so much blood. They sliced her throat and her head fell back. A red smile.”
“And the screams. She wouldn’t shut up. They kept telling her to shut up, but she couldn’t stop. The blade entered her shoulder. She dropped her doll, the doll which danced in her hands a few minutes before. He held her hair with one hand and stabbed her. He stabbed her. She fell and curled into a ball. Her blood went everywhere. I could still hear her gurgling when I lifted her into my hands. The look on his face was disgust. Disgust that I stopped him.”
“Mel and I grabbed a woman who had two kids with her and ran out the side door. They were waiting outside as well. Three shots. I still hear the sound as their bodies hit the floor. Mel was cursing them, roaring at them. I guess they recognized who it was, or maybe they were so taken aback by the presence of that snarling lion that they left us there. I don’t remember much else.”
“It was only later, on my second week in jail, that I heard they set fire to the embassy and the oil tankers, shut down the ports and ordered the extermination of anyone who looked Russian. The Chinese initially followed through on their promise to help, although, I think the brutality of what Zedekiah did gave them second thoughts.”
“The Baltimore campaign convinced Zedekiah of his success. Two Russian outposts, forty soldiers each, strung up on poles as a warning. The Russians waited a week to respond. We lost five-thousand men the first day. That many or more each day for weeks. Only when Zedekiah realized the magnitude of his error did he let me and Mel out of jail. I guess he needed all the allies he could get. I wouldn’t have helped him except the Russians had put a price on my head. It didn’t matter to them that I tried to stop the massacre, especially after they captured Ibrahim and he put the blame on me. As if that would save him. They broadcast his execution. Twenty minutes until he bled out, his skin lying beside him.”
“Somehow we managed to push the Russians out of the city and seal the gates. Our perimeter defenses and air force, along with the Chinese military opening up an eastern front, held them off for a few months. When the Chinese folded, the Russians returned and set siege to the city. I’m convinced they could’ve wiped us out in a couple weeks, maybe a month, but they wanted to take their time. Like we did to their women and children in the banquet hall.”
“You remember those first few months. How we started to run out of supplies. The people treated it like a joke, as though we held off the Russians by the might of our arm and the integrity of our cause and all of our temporary suffering would disappear in a moment. The newspapers and tv shows beat the drums. Preachers praised whichever god they thought might serve them at the moment. Six months in, when the food ran low and the spring rains didn’t come again, you would’ve thought they would’ve grasped the futility of the situation. They didn’t. It only got worse.”