The War After Armageddon

Danczuk dropped his eyes, and the enthusiasm drained from his voice. “Sir… We’re getting a lot of reports of atrocities… pretty ugly stuff.”

“Which side?”

“Both. But mostly the MOBIC forces. A lot of it’s unconfirmed… but it sounds as though a lot of civilians are being killed.”

“Not just collateral damage?”

“No, sir.”

Harris moved as if to slam his hand down on the table but restrained himself before he’d gotten a third of the way through the motion.

“Sim Montfort doesn’t want peace. That’s the goddamned thing. Old Sim really is on a crusade. And it isn’t going to make any part of this easier.” He turned to Andretti. “Mike, I don’t want RUMINT taking over. No copycat behavior. You make it damned clear through ops channels that we’re here to fight armed enemies, not civilians. I don’t want any contagion. There’s not going to be any killing for Jesus in this sector.”

“Got it, sir.”

Harris turned back to the G-2. “And the answer to my standard question, Deuce?”

“You mean nukes, sir?”

“Nukes.”

“Sir, we still have no indicators for the presence of nuclear weapons. Nothing. No probable hide sites. No special security. No support vehicles…”

Harris smiled. Glancing at the other three men. “I know you all think I’m off the reservation on this one. But I just have a gut feeling that there’s a few stray nukes out there. And not just tactical nukes, either. So pander to the old man’s obsession.”

He looked back toward the G-2. “Keep watching it for me, Val. Take it seriously. Okay? All right, then. Let’s talk STARK YANKEE. What hasn’t made the evening news?”

Danczuk glanced around as though a spy might’ve slipped into the room while they were speaking. “Sir… General Montfort doesn’t seem to worry much about blue casualties, but he’s extremely worried about equipment readiness. The breakdown rate is high and—”

“How high?”

“Sir, I don’t know. Not exactly.”

“Find out.”

“Yes, sir. The worst problems are with the MOBIC’s armored systems, the NexGen tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Basically, everything heavily digitized, anything that came out of the Future Combat Systems initiative over the last twenty years, is next to worthless in this environment. The digital shielding fails. The comms just melt down. And the electronic armor’s a joke.”

Harris had practiced control of his temper for decades. So he managed to keep his voice level, although its tone wasn’t kind. “Well, isn’t that grand. Those sonsofbitches pulled every lever in the United States Government to draw all of the latest combat equipment from the Army and Marine inventories. Left us with the shit that should’ve been retired after we left Iraq, for God’s sake. And now who’s fucked for breakfast?”

“Sir… My point is that, if the breakdown rate’s as bad as it sounds…”

“They’re going to need gear. And it’s going to have to come from somewhere. And we’re ‘somewhere.’ Got it, Val. When their new toys break, they’re going to want the old ones they tossed our way.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harris looked toward the G-3 again. “Mike… You see my point? As to why it’s essential to grab Afula as swiftly as we can? I don’t want to throw away lives. But we can’t waste time. We’ve got to keep hitting the Jihadis while they’re still reeling. I need the Dragon Brigade to winkle out the last buggers dug in around Meggido tonight.”

“1-18 Infantry has the mission, sir. Good unit. They’ll do the job.”

“Tonight, Mike. Come first light, I don’t want one more antitank missile hissing down toward that crossroads.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay,” Harris continued. “That imagery the Marines downlinked makes Afula look tough. We’d all rather bypass it and come in from behind. Nobody’s crazy about doing a Charge of the Light Brigade down the Jezreel, with the Jihadis up on those heights around Narzareth. But we don’t have the time. And the Afula defense is just mobile systems for the meantime. They haven’t had time to prep the ground, to really dig in. They weren’t expecting customers that far back in the shop, so we’re facing a hasty defense with some pretty good anti-armor equipment. But I don’t see any serious revetments or any concrete being poured.”

“Sir… I understand the mission. But you saw the imagery. It’s like they’ve gathered up every antitank system in their inventory. And then you’ve got the killer-drone problem.”

“Understood, Mike.”

“And you saw the Deuce’s spreadsheet on the EM spectrum.”

The G-2 leapt back in. “Sir, when we plot all the jamming and counterjamming, wideband, pinpoint, you name it, and then layer on the digital predators and spoofers… The spread sheet’s almost all black.”

“It cuts both ways,” Harris said. “If we can’t talk or bring precision fires to bear, neither can they.”

“They’ll be defending. And they’ve got first-rate loophole technology on their antitank systems. Any gaps in our jamming or spoofing, and that’s all she wrote.”

“Mike, we’ve been through it. The mission stands. 1 ID gets all the supporting fires the corps can bring to bear.”