The War After Armageddon

The explosions in the Jenin assembly area continued for an hour after the last of the Crusader planes had departed. No one had been prepared, too much had been done in haste. Stocks of ammunition rent the earth and tore the sky as they exploded. Vehicles burned, and men burned as well. A blackened man with no arms ran about madly, white teeth gleaming where his lips had been, until he dropped over dead.

“We have been betrayed,” Colonel al-Masri told his deputy. It was the only idea that came to him. Saying it aloud made him feel better.

MONTEZUMA FIELD, CYPRUS

A lone F/A-18 landed on the strip at the old British airfield on Cyprus. And then there was nothing.

Major Jenks climbed out of his cockpit, followed by his weapons systems officer. Down on the apron, the two of them just bent over, hands on their knees. As if about to vomit.

One aircraft out of seven. Lieutenant Colonel Randall “Wicked” Wilkes, the group’s XO, decided, with galling bitterness, that the blue-suiters had been right. It was impossible to send manned aircraft into that electronic stew.

Wilkes watched as Jenks sat down on the tarmac and buried his face in his hands. The XO decided to give him one more minute, after which he would tell him to get up, grow up, and act like a Marine.

One crew out of seven. Jenks was a lucky bastard. Him and his goddamned buddy on the self-pity express.

Then a miracle occurred. Four dots appeared in the heavens. Moments later, four F/A-18s flew over the airfield in perfect formation, taking a victory lap. They disappeared, reappeared, and came down one after the other, clean as if they were landing at an air show.

“Get on the link to General Morris,” the XO shouted. Then he lowered his voice again. But he couldn’t stop smiling. “If we’re up secure, tell him we’ve got five crews back out of seven. We’re in business!”

Now if only Dawg Daniels would show his ugly mug.

MT. CARMEL RIDGES

“Welcome to the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, Colonel. Glad y’all could drop in.”

The young officer’s face was streaked with camouflage paint that sweat and wear had smeared. He nonetheless qualified as one of the top five most-beautiful human beings Dawg Daniels had ever seen — and the only male on the list.

“We picked up your buddy, too,” the lieutenant continued. “He broke his leg.”

“Well, we’re not supposed to lose our jets.”

“Yes, sir… Sir, if you don’t mind me saying… y’all flying like that… I mean, God bless you.”

Daniels took a deep, wonderful, glorious, gorgeous breath. “We Marines have never been accused of an excess of intelligence,” he said. “I’d be grateful for a drink of water, if the Army has any to spare.”

SIX

NAZARETH

Every living thing got out of his way. Nasr limped and staggered up the lanes of Nazareth, dried blood lurid on his clothing. His face was so swollen it limited his field of vision. The people he encountered stared at him for an alarmed instant, then quickly looked to the side and veered from his path. Only the children, silent under the sound of the distant guns, kept their eyes on him: the bogeyman.

Yet, more than a few of the local children were little bogeymen, deformed by radiation in the womb. During the Great Jihad, Nazareth had lain within the fallout zones of Haifa to the West and Zefat to the north.

Nasr was in no condition to feel much sympathy. He kept thinking of the old Army expression, “a world of hurt,” repeating it to himself almost hypnotically. Although he’d taken a round in the hip in Nigeria, the only part of his body Nasr had worried about in the past had been his knees, which had gone a few hundred jumps beyond their warranty. Now everything seemed to hurt. His testicles ached so badly that he imagined himself walking like a sailor in an old cartoon. His ribs punished him with every breath. Back and front, right and left, everything seemed to be broken. Pains flashed through his abdomen, as regular as warning beacons. His head was the least of it. That was just a matter of weird vagueness, as if a few inches of the air around his skull had become a no-man’s-land.

The doctor had pawed his ribs and shrugged. They might as well have called a cleaning woman, because just about all the doc did — if he actually was a doctor — had been to clean up his face a bit, splint two broken fingers together with all the skill of a Cub Scout, then offer him a glass of orange juice. When Nasr tried to drink it, the acid burned his smashed-up lips and the inside of his mouth like liquid fire. He spit up blood.

Another miracle of modern medicine. Avicenna, call home.

“I’m going to make it,” Nasr told himself as he climbed a narrow alley that reeked of cooking grease and urine. “I’m going to fucking make it. Been through worse than this.”

But that was a lie. He’d never been through worse. And he wasn’t going to make it.