The Four Kings (2 page)

Four young adults were standing in the center of the Oval Office, comfortably standing on the plush area rug bearing the Presidential Seal. Their arms were crossed, their legs comfortably spread apart, their feet firmly planted.

The dazed White House staff congregation only had a few seconds to size up their unexpected visitors. Two men. Two women. In their twenties. All looking very determined, as if they wanted to take over Washington. They were slim and wore monotone shirts with matching black pants. One wore red; the others wore blue, yellow, and purple.

The young woman in purple crisply ordered, “Secure the doors.”

“Wha –” the president began to ask, completely astonished.

As if on cue, all the doors and exits around the office slammed shut. The politicians gaped in wonder and the president didn’t know how to respond.
How did they do that?
Everyone in the room could hear banging and shouting noises from outside as Secret Service agents futilely mounted a rescue operation through the thick tension surrounding the situation.

Walker’s campaign director stood up, mouth wide open, and faced the invaders.

The young man dressed in red grinned like a madman. Then, he tossed his head back and shouted out loud: “We are the Liberators!”

Chapter Two

The White House team sat shell-shocked, their eyes glassy. It was as if a wand had been waved, with sparks flying out, altering them into a bunch of schoolboys, totally in awe.

The young woman in blue approached the president. She seethed with anger as she called out in a cruel, mocking voice, “Mr. President, why aren’t you out with your constituents? Why are you all holed up in here?”

A plastic card magically appeared in the female wizard’s hand. The president, aghast, instinctively patted his lower left jacket pocket and found it empty. He paled; that missing card was an object of the utmost national security, that containing the nuclear codes. He knew he was in trouble. Trembling, his eyes betraying fear, he stood up, and weakly pointed his finger at her. Unable to think, Walker foolishly opened his mouth as if to speak.

Instantly, he disappeared.

“Good work,” the man in yellow said as the woman in blue handed him the crucial plastic card. This innocuous item contained the power to unlock the nuclear might of the United States.

“Get out of here!” The furious vice president shook his fist at the four individuals. Panicking, he glanced at the spot where the president once stood. “Where is he? What did you do with him?”

Ignoring the second in command, the man in yellow said, “I’ll take this, thank you very much.”

Immediately, a briefcase zipped through the air from behind the president’s desk directly into the hands of the male wizard while the White House team looked on in stunned silence.

All at once, they comprehended the impossible: magic was at work. And now this maniac had the
nuclear football
, the briefcase that conveyed the secret codes to launch nuclear missiles from within the United States.

The executives were sweating out of fear. Always having savoured being at the center of power, they’d idly daydreamed being in scenarios of peril inside the Oval Office, with assassins or terrorists lurking. They’d save the president and the country with bare hands, knuckles flying around. Then they’d be national heroes, being interviewed on the news. That was a fantasy; this was real. Their old dreams of vigilante justice on behalf the president crumbled into dust.

More banging and shouting on the doors to the Oval Office.

Someone had to stand up to these arrogant bastards. The communications director got up and started running toward the four people, ready to strike them. He yelled, “You’re not going to get away with this!”

Before he could get very far, the woman in purple stretched out her hand and instantly, a thick glass dome trapped all the White House folks. The communications director bumped full force into the glass, staggered backwards, and then crumpled to the floor.

The wizards knew it was time to move into the decisive phase,
right now
. “Have you contacted the others?” the woman in blue asked.

“Yes,” replied the man in red. “Proceeding according to plan.”

“Where’s the president?” yelled the vice president from within the encasement. Apparently there was no problem hearing through the shiny glass. “Answer me right now!”

“The president,” said the woman in blue calmly as she strolled near the dome, “is now fraternizing with his constituents on the streets in downtown Columbus, Ohio.”

“Which is where he should be anyway,” added the man in red, shrugging. “Rather than laying his grubby hands on disgraceful bribes.”

“You won’t get away with this!” yelled the vice president. Realizing he was in no position to bargain, he paused. “Is he safe?”

“Rest assured he’s in no danger,” the woman in purple said in a sultry voice. “That is, unless his angry citizens wish to avenge themselves due to his inexcusable incompetence.”

The vice president’s face grew red. “You bastards!”

The man in yellow closed his eyes and focussed on the codes within the briefcase, seemingly blocking out everyone around him. Even without his touch, the gears within the crucial attaché began whirring and clicking. His three companions watched intently.

“Aha!” he cried out joyfully. The briefcase clacked decisively. He opened his eyes and whispered out, “Just imagine, the fate of the world, all enclosed in one tiny briefcase.”

The man in red nodded. “Do it.” The young women glanced at the briefcase expectantly. The White House aggregation reacted with stunned glances. There was silence.

The man in yellow broke into a wide, playful grin, with a maniacal look in his eyes as he snapped open the briefcase in front of him. “Come to Papa.”

He then pressed the red button – the button that was the first step to a full-blown nuclear calamity.

Chapter Three

“Oh my God,” the chief of staff said in a muted voice.

“Shh!” the woman in blue said, waving her hands at them in one swift motion. Suddenly, everything fell silent. The White House staff officials yelled from within their glass prison until they were blue in the face, to no avail. Their throats became hoarse from exertion.

A voice sounded out from within the briefcase. “Awaiting confirmation.”

The man in yellow confidently imitated the president’s voice perfectly. “Major Attack Operation Emerald Water confirmed. Authorization: Arthur Kellogg Walker, President of the United States.” He crisply read out loud from the card. “Code zero one, four, three, nine.”

“Confirmed. Awaiting authorization from Secretary of Defense.”

“I know where he is,” said the woman in blue. She placed her hands on her forehead, her brow furrowing. Then she held out her hand, and another plastic card instantly appeared in it. As he was handed the card, the man in yellow assumed a totally different voice, precise in his delivery. “Major Attack Operation as ordered by the president confirmed. Authorization: Albert P. Nyenhuis, Secretary of Defense of the United States, Code G, zero nine, seven, four, nine.”

“Understood and verified,” the voice from the briefcase said somewhat uncertainly. “Mr. President, are you sure?”

“Hurry,” pleaded the man in yellow, articulating perfectly back into the president’s voice although he had a wide grin on his face, “There’s no time. Now.”

There were a few seconds of delay until the disembodied voice came back on. “Aye, Aye, sir. Nuclear missiles now launched. God save us all.”

“Thank you,” said the man in yellow, who never broke a sweat. He glanced at the glass dome that trapped their enemies, who all seemed mortified and resigned. A few were anxiously trying to get their cell phones to work through the dome. Some were weeping.

“Call upon the others,” the woman in purple commanded. She nodded at the man in yellow. “You go, as planned.”

The man in yellow acknowledged her direction, and then disappeared.

“Everything proceeding according to plan,” the man in red clasped his hands, unable to contain his enthusiasm. “I just heard from Dmitri. The missiles from Russia are also confirmed launched. Jyoti confirms that the missiles from India and Pakistan are on their way.”

Despite the magical veil of silence, the animated gestures of the trapped White House officials distracted the wizards. “Let us out!” several pleaded, banging on the inside of the glass enclosure. The vice president repeatedly slammed his linebacker-like shoulder into the thick wall, suffering numerous bruises in the process. Panic shined out from his eyes.

Through it all, the woman in purple held her arms up to the ceiling, as if embracing the open sky. She opened her eyes wide and grinned from ear to ear. “The fun begins – now!”

Chapter Four

Thousands of glistening agents of death, nuclear-tipped missiles, slickly emerged from various spots all over the world, en route to their task of annihilation and widespread destruction of hundreds of millions of people. Sleek, shiny, and formidable, they appeared as volleys of fat arrows, all lined up together in a semi-circle arc into the stratosphere.

Suddenly, dozens of young wizards appeared, and as if acting upon instinct, flying close to the missiles tracking them. At various moments, they all raised their arms while airborne. The observer on Earth didn’t know that these wizards were about to alter the insane decades-old Cold War doctrine called “mutually assured destruction,” appropriately titled “M.A.D.” for short.

Dozens of military and espionage experts, all employed and sworn to top security by the nuclear powers on Earth, closely monitored the progress of the missiles from underground bunkers. No amount of special training could keep the observers from having overanxious heart palpitations, hyperventilation, clenched teeth, and white knuckles as they tracked the deadly weapons.

By now, these strategists knew that most of the missiles would be beginning their murderous descent to several heavily-industrialized and populated spots on the planet.

However, to the extreme surprise of the nuclear experts, the missiles kept going in one direction – up.

“What the hell?” exclaimed several of them, in their own languages.

The missiles, defying the laws of gravity, continued up, up, up into the sky, now more than fifty miles above the Earth’s surface, without once falling into an arc pattern.

Minutes later, a security chief said, “Now passing three hundred kilometers! They’re in the exosphere!”

Around the world, several of his military colleagues muttered to themselves, some swearing, many of them praying. All had their eyes transfixed to the radar screens. The exosphere was the last outermost layer of the Earth’s atmosphere – the final realm on the way to deep space.

On and on, the missiles continued their relentless climb with the wizards in hot pursuit just as tenaciously.

Shifting her eyes to track the data, one analyst covered her mouth. “Shit. Shit. Now passing one thousand kilometers.”

“If they blow now,” her colleague asked her, “Will any damage to Earth result?”

“I don’t know,” admitted the analyst, “We’ve never faced that hypothetical situation before.” She shook her head. “The max is twelve-hundred kilometers above Earth. This has got to be a record!”

All over the world, humanity perceptibly relaxed, still in a state of suspension and disbelief, as the missiles, mile-by-mile, steadily escaped the embrace of the Earth’s atmosphere. “How high can they go?” was the question on everyone’s mind.

As if in a trance, all the nuclear specialists sat in silence, eyes glued to their screens. More minutes passed. Five. Then ten. Then fifteen more.

Halfway around the world, one expert glanced at her supervisor. “Do you think they’ll ever blow up?”

Ashen faced, the supervisor said, “I don’t know. But Earth’s safe. They’re out of our gravity.”

Exhausted, their heads and hearts aching, the humans eyeballed their radar displays, following dozens of red dots as they slowly, painstakingly, edged up closer to the top of the screens. Continuing to mutter to themselves and to one another, the panic lessened to the point that some starting joking about the bewilderment they all felt. A sharp sense of humor was necessary to defuse the thick air of foreboding that hung like a tarp pinned to the ground by relentless rain.

A quarter of an hour passed. “Two thousand kilometers and continuing,” someone said.

“Outer space,” another muttered, “They’re accelerating.”

As that point, the twenty-five wizards carefully following the agents of death nodded to one another. They had changed the paths of the missiles so that they were all travelling close together.

“Now,” the leader said, although it was futile, there being no sound in space.

In tandem, as if they were setting off fireworks, they blew up all the missiles, one-by-one. There were no spectacular fiery explosions, since there was no oxygen in space. Instead, the wizards saw the missiles disintegrate in front of their eyes.

Back on Earth, the stunned nuclear specialists, shaking their heads, all started walking away from their monitors, using the “red phone” to call the presidents and prime ministers of their respective countries.

“Missiles all destroyed. Earth’s now safe from nuclear war.”

Chapter Five

A deeply upset Arthur Kellogg Walker walked rapidly into the Roosevelt Room, situated within the West Wing of the White House.

“Mr. President,” the guard saluted him. The president didn’t even glance at him once.

The Secretary of Defense stood up to greet him, but was unceremoniously rebuffed. “Mr. President, are you okay?”

President Walker snarled. “I’m fine. Let’s get on with it.”

The entire Joint Chiefs of Staff were aggregated around the cabinet table. All of them expressed distress and anxiety, although they hid it well. It came with the job.

The president seated himself at the end of the table. He glanced around quickly, and then said, “I’ll get right to it. We’re in crisis. We’re under attack by magical beings, who’ve invaded not only the United States, but all other superpowers around the world.”