The War After Armageddon

Followed by his forward staff, Harris jounced down to the dock and pushed beyond the cordon of soldiers and sailors that kept the command ship from being stormed by desperate human beings. He walked fast, with his face set hard to warn off anyone with a complaint or petition. He had no time now for the dead-eyed women picking the lice from their children’s hair, or for the shattered fathers struggling to put together a few words of beggar’s English. Most were ethnic Turks, their pride broken, as recognizable by their somber looks as by the olive tinge to their pale complexions.

The wind filled his nostrils with a smell that made him think of concentration camps.

A few hands reached toward him, some voices called. But these were people who had learned fear and learned it suddenly. Only those who had lost their last grip on reality cried out for his attention.

Even aboard the ships putting in — most of them contracted freighters — there wouldn’t be enough of anything. The makeshift showers wouldn’t suffice, nor would the medical care. The entire effort had been cobbled together so swiftly that even the rules of engagement remained in dispute, with the EU reps venomously obstructionist.

Europe, the continent of peace.

Harris saw a thin girl in a headscarf standing up amid the thousands huddled on the gravel. She wore jeans, an orange sweater, and a red plaid cape, and she watched him as if he were an alien being. He figured her for a rape victim. Given the Muslim obsession with chastity, rape had been a common sport in the retaliatory pogroms.

He refused to think too much. There would be time for thinking later on. He had to keep his head and make things happen.

His pace quickened to a range-walk. Flipping his headset to “talk” he said, “Rodeo Six Alpha, Trailmaster Six. We okay?”

The voice did not respond so quickly as he would’ve liked. Then the captain, who had struck Harris as solid since the day they docked, repeated, “You’ve got to see this…”

“Your location in five.”

The sea of refugees parted as he advanced.

He turned a warehouse corner and passed a plot used as an open-air latrine, as foul as anything he had ever smelled. Before him, at the railhead, a half-dozen Bundesgrenzschuetzen sat on the ground by a line of boxcars. The German border police no longer had their weapons, and they looked extremely unhappy. U.S. Army Infantrymen stood over them with their rifles ready.

Harris ordered himself to maintain his self-control, not to judge before he had the facts. But young Captain Cavanaugh would need a damned good explanation for this one.

Wiping his face, the captain trotted toward him. Harris realized the man had been crying.

“What going on, captain?”

“Sir… You’ve got to see this.”

“You told me that. Twice. What do I have to see?”

“You’ve just got to see it.” The captain turned back toward the rust-colored boxcars with the white letters “DB” on their sides.

“Sergeant Z,” the captain called. “Help me.”

The sergeant shouldered his rifle, reluctantly, and moved toward the first boxcar.

They opened the door. And the stench hit everyone like a fist. Even the Germans winced.

The corpses rose almost to the middle of the car’s interior. Men. Women. Children. Stiff. Wide-eyed. Mouths agape. Even a day or two into death, they retained their Turkish pallor. Hands had literally clawed themselves to the bone in their last, desperate moments.

As Harris watched, a woman’s corpse broke from the mass and began to slide, accelerating as it dropped to the ground. Dead bones broke.

One cold raindrop struck Harris on the lips.

“They thought it was funny,” the captain said. His voice had broken to a child’s tone. “Somebody closed all the air vents. They suffocated. And the Krauts thought it was funny.”

Harris allowed himself a long look. He needed time to master himself.

When he felt ready, he strode over to the Germans. Half of them looked worried. The rest smirked.

“Who did this?” Harris asked an Oberleutnant, the highest ranking figure he could see among them.

“I don’t speak pig English,” the officer said. With quite a good accent. He made a spitting sound. “Ihr sind doch alle Rassenverraeter.”

A Feldwebel spoke up. “We have nothing to do with this. They are dead a long time. Days. We only make the Sicherheitsdienst here. Nothing with the trains. Da ist die Bahnpolizei verantwortlich.”

“They knew,” Cavanaugh said. “They knew. They were laughing about it.”

The German officer decided to speak English, after all. He snickered and said, “Maybe Osama bin Laden is in there. Was meinst du, Herr Brigadegeneral? Nach dreissig Jahren! Maybe you should look. If you Americans love these Dreck-Muslimen so much. But you have no right to take away our weapons. It is against the agreement. I will make a protest.”