The War After Armageddon

Harris smiled. “That’s what I do for a living, Real-Deal. Beats working. Try to get some sleep yourself, all right? I don’t want to see a thousand-mile stare at tomorrow night’s briefing.”

“Which will be where, exactly?”

Harris smiled. “In the Land of the Bible, as our MOBIC brothers put it. Now, march, soldier.”

Flintlock Harris signed nine papers, then dismissed his aide and walked two bulkheads down to his stateroom — which reminded him of a room in a motel bypassed by the Interstate in the last century. The moment he shut the hatch, he let his shoulders sag. And he closed his eyes where he stood, touching them lightly, as if probing for damage.

After washing his face and brushing his teeth, Harris took off his uniform blouse to sleep. He kept his trousers on, though. In case he had to move fast. But before he dropped onto the bunk, he got to his knees, just as he had done since his childhood.

His prayers were never long, but always earnest. This night, he was as brief as he had ever been and didn’t even pray for his wife and two daughters. He just said:

“Dear Lord, give me the strength to see what’s right and the strength to do what’s right. Help me be a just man. Amen.”

MT. CARMEL RIDGES

A male form emerged from the burning house and ran toward the Marines.

“Peace! Peace!” he cried. “America good!”

“Halt!” Sergeant Garcia yelled. “Stop!”

The man kept running through the darkness, shifting his course to head straight for Garcia and repeating, “America good!”

“Halt!”

Garcia pulled the trigger at the same instant the suicide bomber detonated himself. He felt the shock wave, but the bomber had not gotten close enough to do any damage. Garcia hoped.

“Everybody okay? Check your buddy.”

No casualties. This time.

“Drink some water. Everybody. Now. If you’re out of water, piss in your hand and drink it.”

Bad enough to lose good Marines to the Jihadis. Garcia wasn’t going to lose them to dehydration. But the fact, which he did not broadcast, was that his own camelback was empty. He figured most of his men were in the same boat.

Drink it, if you got it.

They had flanked the Jihadi positions on the ridge as mortar rounds, then serious artillery fire, thumped down on the houses the Mussies had turned into rent-a-forts. In the flame-scorched night, twisted rebar scratched the air, and the block-shaped buildings looked like the faces of junkies with their teeth knocked out.

The street bums back home. So far gone on one drug or another that even their families didn’t want any part of them. Could’ve joined that outfit, too. One more road Garcia had never gone down. No gang tattoos, either. Just the Virgin of Guadalupe. And she’d done okay by him so far. Patron saint of the Marine Corps. From the Halls of Montezuma. The brass just hadn’t figured that one out.

“Larsen, Cropsey. Take the flank. Move out!” Garcia pointed toward the backside of the ridge.

The Marines worked forward, maintaining good combat intervals. No one fired at them. But Garcia had his street sense turned on. There were still bad guys up in that mess, behind the remaining walls. Armed and dangerous. The human body was loco. You could trip on the sidewalk and die, or live through an artillery barrage dumped on your head.

“Sitrep?” he heard through his headset. The captain. Solid again. Mr. Annapolis.

“Rounds on target. Moving in now.”

“Re sis tance?”

“There’s gonna be. It smells like it smells.”

“Keep moving. Battalion needs that ridge cleared.”

And I need an ice-cold Bud, Garcia told himself.

“Roger. Moving now.”

He waved at the remainder of the two squads he’d rounded up and brought this far. Several streets away, Corporal Gallotti’s squad was still laying down look-at-me fire. Less of it, though. Which was righ teous. No need to waste ammo. Anybody left alive in those buildings was going to play dead until he had somebody in his sights point-blank. Unless his nerves got him. Then he’d fire too soon.

Yeah, triggerman, Garcia thought. We’re coming. Just give me a sign. Squeeze one off early. Just one.

The Marines worked their way forward, with Larsen and Cropsey acting as flankers where the ridge dropped off toward Indian country, the two of them disappearing into the shadows. Twice, Garcia held back when he wanted to bitch at the way his Marines were moving. Perfection wasn’t in the cards. They were all five-o’clock-Sunday-morning tired, running on pure nerves.

He was getting jumpy, thinking too much, he told himself. When it was down to the bone like this, you didn’t get through by thinking. The streets had taught him that much. You had to trust what you felt.

Cold Bud really would do the trick, though. Or a rat-piss Corona, for that matter.