The War After Armageddon

He thought he spotted the general the lieutenant had warned him about. Across the plaza, up past the head of the line, talking to a soldier with the posture of a drill instructor. As Garcia watched, the soldier who was not a general took off his helmet, wiped down his face and the webbing inside the headgear, then put the helmet back on. Crisp as a saltine cracker. Yeah, the guy had been a hat. Officers never got it that perfect. Garcia wanted, badly, to be a DI. Next tour, if possible.

Right now, though, he pictured little bugs drilling into his arm and roaming around. You’re imagining shit, man, he told himself. But he pushed up his left sleeve and started scratching at the tattoo again. Once he started, it was hard to stop. He decided that, after checking up on Gallotti’s squad, he’d walk over and talk to the company’s last surviving corpsman. See if he had some lotion or something.

Suddenly furious at himself, Garcia stopped scratching. He looked up from the inflamed Virgin and yanked his sleeve back down. Then he picked up his carbine and scanned the scene down in the plaza. To make sure he was good to go to the next location, that everything was straight.

He spotted the general and the had-to-be-an NCO making their way along the line of rags waiting for water. As he watched, a man stepped from the crowd and threw himself at the general.

The explosion that chased the flash seemed huge, its noise trapped between the buildings crowding the plaza. Next came the screams. And burning freaks running out of the smoke. Followed by shots. Not the sound of friendly weapons.

Another bomb exploded on the other side of the road, near the water point. His own kind were shooting back now. In the next room, a machine gun opened up, sweeping the crowd.

“Cease fire!” Garcia yelled. “Cease fire!” He ran into the room, yelling, “What the fuck are you shooting at? Cease fire!”

He had to wrench the weapon, its barrel already hot, from the private wielding it. His buddy watched. With murder in his eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing? Who told you to open fire?”

“They started it.”

“You ever heard of fire discipline, Keogh? You see any clear targets out there? They’re fucking civilians, man.”

“Like that bitch who got Larsen and Cropsey?”

Garcia shook his head. Furious at the insolence. On the verge of throwing a punch. Holding himself back only by using the kind of discipline that had saved his ass on the streets of East L.A.

Firing erupted from another room.

“You,” he told the private. He shifted his attention briefly to the man’s buddy. “And you. Just stay here. Stay at your posts. And you don’t shoot again unless you have a clear, no-bullshit target with a weapon in his hand. Do you understand me?”

The machine gunner looked at him sullenly and said nothing. The other Marine looked away.

Garcia still wanted to throw a punch. Instead, he ran to the next room and repeated the scene. With a screaming, crying world in the background. Pierced with gunfire.

“We don’t shoot women and children,” Garcia yelled. “You understand me?”

They stopped firing. But it just felt like a pause. They didn’t understand anymore. Garcia got it. In his guts. It had all gone too far. Too many Marines had gone down ugly.

No excuse, sir. Leaders didn’t quit. Ricky Garcia didn’t quit.

He poked his head back into the room where the machine gunner and his buddy stood at the windows. Vigilant. And mean. Just waiting for an excuse. Garcia didn’t say anything this time. He just wanted to let them know he was paying attention. And he took off to see if Corporal Gallotti was doing okay. Pounding down the steps, beating his anger into the dirty concrete.

The odd thing was that his mother was with him now, looking out for him. He realized what the dream had been about. His mother didn’t want him to kill kids and shit. Or people like her. That wasn’t what she wanted at all. She had come to let him know it was all right.

Before Garcia reached the bottom of the stairs, he heard the machine gun open fire again.

EPILOGUE

How could I know these things? I didn’t know all of them, of course. Some had to be imagined. But I saw much myself. I am John Willing, former aide-de-camp to Lieutenant General Gary “Flintlock” Harris and the man who betrayed him. I was the one who reported all of his actions, plans, and weaknesses to General of the Order Montfort’s agents. I believed that I was a hero, doing the Lord’s work. I did my duty as an officer secretly enlisted in the Military Order of the Brothers in Christ.

I have long wondered if General Harris suspected me toward the end.