[Zamastan]

PRESIDENT FOLEY SAKZI

February 4th, 2020

Clouds hazed the recesses of memory. The feeling of smoke fogged the perceived sense of vision, as a strobing, pulsing red glare glowed through the thickening cover. Hands pounded against the glass shield of the box, smearing their fingerprints along the surface. The muffled screams of high-pitched voices shuddered the glass, and a crack emerged as the hands turned to fists. The glass suddenly shattered, the fists disappeared, and the mist pooled into the completely crisp black floor. Foley looked around in the void. There was nothing. Clenching his fists in reaction to the loneliness, he felt a squishing texture, looked down and saw blood covering his palms. Pouring from the crevices in his fingers, red liquid dripped obsessively to the floor.

A sudden flash of light, and before him stood a tall, stoic looking man with a gut. With a beard, rugged and torn suit, and a pair of sunglasses with a broken lens, Van’a Kamoni stared at Foley with a fire in his hatred filled eyes. Kamoni raised his left arm, producing a pistol with the chamber pointing directly in between Foley’s eyes. Foley couldn’t move. He felt himself overcome with dread. Foley squeezed his blood soaked hands closed, and Kamoni tightened his gaze. A blast of light, and Foley jerked back.

Foley sat up quickly, panting. He must’ve shouted in his sleep, as his wife Hannah was rolling over, palm to her face, murmuring.

“Foley, what is it?”

Foley steadied himself and slowed his breathing. Light calmly filled the room through the blinds of the Presidential Mansion’s bedroom window. Looking around, he noted that the faces of his children, Karina and Mylon, remained the same on their family portrait hanging across the room and over their dresser. Nothing had changed. The world was still the same. Just another nightmare.

“Nothing, Hannah,” Foley responded, softly. He lifted the sheets above his legs and swung them over the side of the bed, stretching his arms behind his head and cracking his spine. He let out a satisfied sigh and sat still, patiently looking towards the window. The air was warm today.

Hannah reached out and traced her fingers along Foley’s back, tapping gently against the two bullet scars that sat there as a present reminder of Foley’s injuries in the Battle of Amstelveen in 2004. “You had another nightmare, Foley.” Hannah looked at her husband. She was growing more and more concerned for her husband.

“It’s nothing I can control, sweetheart. I don’t dwell on them.”

“You whisper in your sleep.”

“I know.”

Hannah moved forward and sat next to her husband on the bed. “You’re whispering the kid’s names.”

Foley remained stoic. He didn’t know he was saying their names. His face didn’t show it, but he was struggling to keep in a protrusive frown.

Hannah breathed in, opening her mouth to say something, but paused, and sighed instead. She rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Foley.”

The two of them sat still in the warmth of the sun’s soft beams. Rarely did these moments reveal themselves to the Sakzi family.

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Thirty minutes later, President Foley Sakzi was seated in the situation room of the Zian Presidential Mansion. His generals and lead intelligence officers surrounded him, clamoring with papers and documents, as General Avery Reynolds and General Chase Lyons appeared on the monitor in front of them on a live feed from their headquarters in Vulkaria. An icon flashed next to Reynolds’ box, and the military men halted their quick paced organization and stood at attention as Reynolds began to speak.

“Mister President, our intelligence teams may have picked up on a trail regarding Van’a Kamoni.”

Foley again showed no overdramatic expression, but a shiver ran down his back and his hairs stood on end under his suit. “Elaborate, General.”

“Sir, we detected and began surveillance on a contingent of pickup trucks moving from Monza to Vilnotra. We know that Kamoni likely has compounds and safehouses across the coastal region of the conflict zone, but this convoy was not carrying heavy weapons, any viable shipments of crates or boxes, and no visible extensive insurgent presence. It just appears to be multiple vehicles with one or two riders each. Minimal security, no obviously visible target. Except for this…”

A screen image enhanced, showing a moving video of drone footage. Two pickup trucks were pulled off to the side of the road, and a man appeared to be relieving himself into the brush in the ditch. On the other side of the vehicle, four men with heavy firearms visible stood still and patient.

“This individual seen taking a “break”, sir, brought up curiosity. The drive between the two cities is short, only a max of ten minutes without interruption. We became suspicious when we noticed that there was no security in the convoy except for this one specific vehicle, which had at least four heavily armed men and one unarmed, slightly overweight individual who was apparently important enough to stop the convoy so he could do his business.”

“You think that man is Kamoni?” Foley asked, voice raised.

“We think, yes,” Reynolds replied. “His figure matches recent descriptions we’ve received from sightings of him. In addition, the weapons the four bodyguards are holding appear to be silver plated, which is part of his known preference for customization in his personal guard and armament.”

Foley leaned back, and for the first time in what seemed like a long time, he smiled. If this was Kamoni, the Zamastanians could finally have a hit on their long-time biggest enemy figurehead. Maybe it could also quell some of his nerves. “Did you track the convoy to any place in particular, General?”

“Yes, Mister President. A compound in Vilnotra. It’s on a cliff face overlooking the Bay of Kas. Before the 2017 insurgency started, it belonged to a multi-millionaire oil tycoon. Now, it’s a heavily fortified home.”

“Keep it monitored around the clock. I want drafts for an assault on my desk by noon.”

“Yessir, Mister President.”

“Dismissed, men.”

As Foley stood and left the room, entering the long hallway of the Mansion towards the front rotunda, he felt heavy. Kamoni was in his grasp. Now, all he had to do was not screw it up.

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The clouds came back, and Foley was standing on the top of a rock piercing through the endless void of darkness. On a rock adjacent to him stood his oldest child, his daughter Karina. Karina was looking down into the void, shedding tears. Foley reached for her, but the distance only grew further with each strain of the muscle to extend his fingers to her. Karina peered her head over to her father, and Foley’s heart sank. Van’a Kamoni materialized from the mist on the rock behind her, and with an evil, blood soaked smile, pushed his arm forward. Karina lost balance and began to plummet into the void. Foley was helpless to do nothing but watch and scream empty screams.

Foley slapped himself hard. He hadn’t even fallen asleep, he was at his desk in the Gaviria Room. Rubbing his palms into his eyes, he excluded a large moan and slumped back into his seat, rocking back and forth aggressively.

His phone buzzed, and it took a moment for Foley to react and open his screen. A message on the secure line from one of his generals showed a new surveillance image from the compound in Vilnotra. The man in the image was smoking a cigarette, wearing a ragged suit with a tear down one sleeve. Sunglasses, a fedora, and cargo shorts leaned against an armored sedan, his gut stuck out from underneath the unbuttoned garb. Kamoni.

“I’m going to kill this guy,” Foley growled under his breath.

[Zamastan]

February 5th, 2020

The strong Redeemer pine branches that extended over the Mansion’s rotunda from the trees only allowed wisps of light to seep through from the sun. Foley wandered down the pavement, birds chirping occasionally within the leaves. A small and gentle push of the breeze rested against his head. It was quiet except for that. No honking or bustling from the Tofino streets, everything was supernaturally quiet. Foley began to grow confused. From behind the sturdy base of a tree several dozen meters away, Hannah emerged. She was wearing a white, fleeced dress. She looked beautiful. But, she was alone. And the only person on the expansive Presidential lawn aside from Foley.

“Hannah,” Foley quizzed his wife softly, “where is everyone?”

Hannah turned around, looking at her husband. She cocked her head to the side, appearing confused. Suddenly a deafening blast, and Hannah’s dress ripped open in a flash of red. As blood pooled from the wound in her chest, she stared at her husband in horror as she crumpled to the ground. Behind her, Van’a Kamoni stood with a pistol raised at Foley, a smirk crossing his face.

Foley snapped awake. Another nightmare.

He went to the sink and splashed water in his face, rubbing a heated towel over himself to dry off. Looking back into the bedroom, Hannah was sleeping deeply under the sheets. Foley smiled sadly to himself. He knew that Kamoni would haunt him forever, but he wondered if it would ever leviate once the man was killed.

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The helicopter was in flames. After having been shot down by a M.L.F. shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, the helicopter plummeted into the ground and six of the ten soldiers aboard had been killed. The helmet footage from the battle was ferocious, as Zamastanian soldiers on the lines near the crash site rushed in to save their wounded compatriots and fight off the advancing insurgents. As tragic as the shootdown was, the heroism on display would serve to motivate the country. Foley clicked off the screen from the pad on his desk and stood, looking back at the window of the Gaviria Room and towards the skyline of Tofino. He had always stood for his people, and would always fight for them. He knew the sacrifices of his countrymen all too well. The bullet fragment lodged in his chest pained him everyday, and though the world could not see it, he winced when he spoke. Yet, he was a powerful speaker. Today, he was going to speak again.

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“My countrymen, fellow Zamastanians,” Foley bellowed from his podium on the steps of Congressional Hall, “we are here to commemorate those we lost on the second of January.” A crowd of thousands was gathered before him in the park, with the expanse of the Bay behind them and the shimmering glass of the highrises surrounding the capital complexes. “We lost hundreds, the world lost thousands, yet we never lost hope. We, the Zamastanian people, never lost dignity, pride, honor, or our valor.”

“As our brave men and women fight the enemy in Vulkaria, we fight the ideologies of violence and oppression here. We overcome the adversity of terror every day that we are alive. Our society is the cornerstone of freedom. We have the foundation of righteousness on our side.”

The crowd erupted in a roar. Zamastanian flags fluttered and waved over the thousands of heads. Signs punched into the sky, some saying “Long Live Zamastan”, others saying “Keep Up The Fight”, and mottos of patriotism and support spread across the masses.

“On these steps have stood the greatest fighters against oppression. Tomias Hapson, Marvin Gaviria, both slain in this spot,” Foley paused, gesturing to the small stone plaques to either side of the podium, “reminders of the men and women who have given their lives for freedom,” gesturing to the statues of soldiers towering in the park, “and the everlasting example of the bravery we have on our side.”

Fole knew how to work the crowd. From the podium, he heard a man in the audience shout “Thank you, Mister President!”

“As we remember those we have lost, we honor their lives. We honor them for the walks of life they came from, their roles they played in the lives of their loved ones and the people they touched, and we will never forget them. Today, we unveil their memory and keep it sanctified amidst the heroes of this park.”

A large tarp fell from the covered statue, and it revealed the thirty-foot marble obelisk inscribed with the names of the 125 victims who died in Zamastan on January 2nd, 2020.