The War After Armageddon

Garcia gave his sleeve another furtive kiss. He’d taken a lot of grief about the tattoo. But he was still alive. Half the punks he went to high school with were dead. Before the Day of the Dead came early.

He tapped the bottom of his magazine, making sure he had a tight lock. Nervous habit. Everybody had one. Trick was not to let people see it.

They moved up between black trees, trip-me stumps, and small boulders. Everything in this world seemed disordered, messed up. Crazy people. Who started all this. For what? The nuclear blast hadn’t reached his hood in East L.A. But the radiation did. He’d been on Okinawa. His family had been home.

Now the Jihadis were going to get their shit handed to them.

The machine gun sent another burst into the night. Exploring. Limited field of vision from where he was hunkered down, Garcia figured. Dude was probably shit-scared. No matter what he believed in, he had to be scared in a hole like that. The hunted, not the hunter. Death comes knocking.

We’re coming, amigo, he told his invisible enemy. Your old pal Ricky Garcia is coming to the party. Just for you.

Larsen reached the rear wall of the building, with Cropsey just behind him.

Garcia whispered into his mike, still worried about friendly fire. He told the Marines down in the street, “We’re up his ass. Just hold his attention.”

Larsen edged along the rear wall of the line of ruined houses. Garcia wondered how many more Jihadis might be inside, just waiting for a Marine to walk up and wave.

Only hand signals now. Time to stay real quiet.

Lit by starlight, Larsen leapt past the rear door. Then he crouched, ready to fire at anyone who appeared from the far side.

Garcia waved Cropsey forward. The lance corporal crunched down like a boxer who liked to hit below the belt. Weapon jutting out at crotch level.

The machine gun fired. Different sound from behind. Like being the safety NCO on the range. Better than being in front of it.

Cropsey looked back for the go-ahead to enter. Garcia put a finger to his lips, then signaled “Go!”

One piece of luck: They didn’t have to break down any doors. The rear entrance gaped, blown out by the mortars and artillery.

Cropsey was good. Garcia had never known an Anglo kid who could move like that. He was already inside, quiet as the confessional on Saturday night.

Garcia checked the grenades, then moved forward.

Inside the masonry house — what was left of it — a burst from the machine gun rang impossibly loud. Still no sign of any back-up protection for the gunner.

Garcia signalled Cropsey to clear to the bottom of the stairs. The kid had it figured out. Without being told, he hugged the right wall. In case any friendly fire came in the front.

Nice and quiet. Nice and easy. Cat-foot the rubble. Take it nice and slow.

Garcia wasn’t sure if he hated what he was doing, loved it like sin, or both. But he wasn’t tired anymore. Zooming on body chemicals. Aware of every breath sucked down in the world.

Then he heard it. A voice speaking Arabic. Whispering. Not the way a man talked to himself or cursed, but the way he spoke to someone else nearby.

Shit. But better to know it now.

Cropsey was looking at him. Kid had it figured out, too. But he needed to be looking everywhere else.

Garcia motioned for him to be ready. Then Garcia put his rifle on burst, switched it to his left hand, and gripped the first grenade.

Carefully, he thumbed out the pin, keeping the lever clasped death-grip tight to the curve of the metal. And he started up the stairs. Back to the wall. Ready. But already dead, if any fuck was watching from a back room up there.

Again, he heard a whisper in Arabic, followed by a rip from the machine gun.

One last split second prayer to the Virgin. And Garcia stepped up high enough to peer over the lip of the second floor.

His head struck something, and he froze. Unsure if the noise amplifed inside the helmet was equally loud to anyone else.

Silence.

Were they onto him?

The hand that held the grenade was sweating. Bad shit. Didn’t want it slippery when he threw it.

Artillery fire had torn loose an iron railing, leaving it dangling over the staircase. A twist of its metal had scratched his helmet.

Don’t let this goddamn-it-to-death grenade cook off. Please.

He heard more Arabic whispering. Too loud for them to be worried about anyone hearing.

He saw the pattern now: Whisper, then shoot. When the machine gun kicked out the next burst, he used the noise and its echo to scoot under the railing.

A wedge of exterior light shone through a doorway, leading his eye to the blown-out window frame where the machine gun perched. But he couldn’t make out the gunner or his companion, who were out of his line of sight and and wrapped in darkness.

As Garcia placed his foot on the next step, it creaked.

He threw the grenade over the railing, hoping it would go through the door and not bounce back at him. Then he fired toward the front room, double bursts, as he plunged for cover.