The War After Armageddon

The colonel twisted his mouth. “I’ll never understand what we wanted in this pit. All right. Looks like my boys are empty and itching to go. I’d appreciate that escort.”

“Yes, sir. And any more water you can send…”

The colonel held up his hand: Cease. “You don’t even have to say it.”

“Sir? How’s General Harris doing? With everything that’s happened?”

The colonel from corps grinned, as if too tired to laugh out loud. “He doesn’t know how not to do the right goddamned thing. And he doesn’t know how to stop fighting.” The grin disappeared. “It’s a shitty combination these days.”

After the colonel and his trucks had gone, Cavanaugh rounded up his command sergeant major. They walked downtown, with a dismounted fire team out front and a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle moving behind them in overwatch. Except for the grind of the tracks and the engine whine, the near world remained so quiet you could hear the rustle of scrap paper in the street when the hot day breathed. Even in the distance, the sounds of war had been reduced to the distant throb of vehicles and intermittent shots. The big guns were silent, and the sky was clear. But Cavanaugh didn’t trust any of it.

He knew the war would go on. He wished he were going with it. He couldn’t beat down the forebodings he felt about the city cowering and waiting on every side of him: Nothing good was going to happen here. He knew it in his bones.

Maybe, he told himself, his wife had been right to bail out on him. He was a walking bad-luck charm.

“You can just feel them in there,” Command Sergeant Major Bratty said, gesturing with his carbine toward the shut-up houses. “Wondering when we’re going to lower the boom.”

“Well, it’s better than it was yesterday. For what it’s worth.”

“Not much, if you ask my opinion, sir.” As if reading his battalion commander’s mind, he added, “I can’t see any happy ending to this story.”

They walked on in silence, entering the valley where a child bride had been startled by the Angel of the Lord, where Jesus played childhood games — did the bully next door beat him up? — and where generations of souvenir vendors fed their families off the insatiable faithful.

“I figure,” Cavanaugh said, “that the next riot won’t need a sniper to start it. I’m thinking about handing the Rangers the water-distribution mission.”

“Don’t do it, sir. We need those bad boys with rifles in their hands. Maybe break ’em out by platoon to provide security for our people? While we work the distro?”

“Sounds like a plan, Sergeant Major. I wasn’t thinking. How’s the hand, by the way?”

“Still pissing me off. I just bought me a sixty-year-old Gibson Hummingbird in mint condition. You drinking enough water, sir?”

“Plenty,” Cavanaugh said. But he reached back for his canteen.

Ahead of them, the rumps of two Bradleys framed a crowd. Most of its members were males who had decided to sit down and scratch their beards. They filled the concrete-and-asphalt amphitheater where the web of roads converged in the center of town. The sit-in had the feel of a protest waiting for something specific to bitch about.

“I’m thinking,” Cavanaugh said, “that maybe we should only hand over the water rations to the women.”

The sergeant major pondered the idea, then said, “The men would only take it away from them, anyway. And probably beat the shit out of them, on principle.”

“You’re right. Again.”

“Let them figure it out, sir. I wouldn’t be surprised if they push the women forward on their own. Playing the sympathy card. They just wouldn’t like it if we did it.”

“I wonder what became of that poor sonofabitch we found sitting by the crosses.”

“The guy we almost shot? The SF type? Or FAO, or whatever he was?”

“Yeah, him. The guy who looked like Mr. Shit.”

Bratty sighed. “I don’t think you have to worry about him, sir. Bunch of docs drawing pro-pay are going to have fun patching him up. At least his ass is out of here. Unlike some other posteriors I know.”

MONTEZUMA FIELD, CYPRUS

As Dawg Daniels rolled his F-18 from the apron onto the runway, flight control in Akrotiri came back up on the net.

“Flight Leader, this is Base Alpha… You are not cleared for take-off. I say again, you are not cleared for takeoff… Any combat aircraft leaving your location will be regarded as hostile and will not be allowed to return to base… I say again, any Marine combat aircraft taking off will be regarded as hostile… You will not be permitted to land upon your return. Acknowledge, Flight Leader.”

Dawg Daniels glanced over his shoulder at the line of fighter-bombers moving in a conga line behind him, curling back along the apron, each carrying a maximum load of ordnance. Monk Morris hadn’t ordered him to fly, but had laid out the situation and let Daniels make his own decision.