The War After Armageddon

“And if I don’t follow your orders? What are you going to do? Kill me, Major?”

“No, sir. We’re trying to keep you alive. Our MOBIC friends intend to kill you. That helicopter is going to explode twenty minutes into its flight, over open water. Theoretically, with you aboard. Now I need you to move out sharply, sir. Or Sergeant Corbin and I will have to drag you along. And flight control might spot us. Even if they don’t kill you, you’ll never make it back to your command.”

“What about the crew? You don’t think they’ll notice all these shenanigans? You’re asking me to take a lot on faith, Major.”

“The MOBIC crew has been… incapacitated. It was a volunteer suicide crew, by the way. That’s a special-ops crew you’re looking at, our guys. They’re going to take off, set the autopilot, then bail out once the bird’s out of sight of land. They’re just going to get a little wet tonight.”

“And what am I supposed to do, Major? After I climb into your truck? Assuming you’re not full of shit and pulling a MOBIC stunt yourself?”

“We’re going to put you aboard an LOH-92 out at our black site. The radar cross section’s hardly bigger than a seagull. It’ll be just you, the pilot, and a long-range fuel tank strapped on — which will make you look like a particularly fat seagull. We’ll get Sergeant Corbin back down to you later. But the first thing, sir, is to get you back to corps. General Montfort’s already on his way to take Command.”

“Even if this isn’t complete bullshit, how did you—”

“You need to move out, sir. Right now. As for how we cracked this, let’s just say there’s at least one former Special Forces officer who wishes he’d never jumped to the dark side. And more than one who’s sick at what he sees going down these days.”

Harris shifted to get out of the vehicle as ordered. Trusting his instincts. And not seeing much of an alternative.

Sergeant Corbin released his grip on the general’s upper arm. “Got to move, sir,” the NCO said. “Major Szymanski’s telling you the truth.”

Harris stopped. Turning back to the major one last time. “Who else knew? That I was going to be killed?”

After a second’s hesitation, the major said, “General Schwach.”

NAZARETH

Seconds after he found the bodies in the darkness, Command Ser-geant Major Bratty came under fire.

“Action, right!” he shouted. Turning into the ambush. His battle instincts raced far ahead of his conscious thoughts.

Instead of ordering the fire team that had dismounted with him to charge the gunmen, Bratty yelled, “Aimed fire only. Two targets. Three o’clock. Between those high-rises.”

He wasn’t sure his headset was functioning, given the renewed jamming, but the whirr of the Bradley’s turret reassured him. The automatic cannon began pumping out rounds, putting on a fire-works display. Ripping into the building facades adjacent to the gunmen’s positions. The dismounted soldiers swelled the volume of fire, streaking the night.

This is pure bullshit, Bratty decided. In less than a minute.

“Cease fire! Cease fire! Now!”

The shooting trailed off, then stopped. Leaving a no man’s land of silence beyond which the war hammered on.

Just as Command Sergeant Major Dilworth Bratty expected, there was no more incoming fire. And not, he figured, because the Bradley gunner had found the targets.

“Sergeant Tisza,” Bratty said into his headset mike. “Dismount the rest of your squad. Charlie Eight, close on Charlie Seven and kick out your dismounts. I want a three-sixty perimeter set up. And don’t hug the Bradleys. Break, break. Bayonet Six, do you copy?”

Nothing. The jamming was so fierce that Bratty couldn’t reach his battalion commander across the narrow bowl that cradled the old city. He tried to relay a situation report through the battalion Three, but that was another no-go. No comms beyond the two Bradleys he’d brought along.

Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing, Bratty decided. He needed time to think this one through.

He got to his feet and walked toward the bodies again. “Just checking out the corpses in the moonlight,” he sang to himself, “and thinking of the Sheikh of Araby…” Now that would be a mighty fine country song, he decided. G-major. Strum it and gum it. Then he remembered his missing fingers and that he wouldn’t be picking any guitars in the near future.

He sauntered. Upright. Daring anyone watching to take a shot at him. As he expected, nobody pulled a trigger. The gunmen who’d splashed a few magazines in their direction were long gone. Just howdy, folks, then adios.

Sergeant Tisza came up beside him.

“Pretty limp-dick ambush, Sergeant Major,” the buck sergeant said.

“That wasn’t an ambush. That was a pull-the-trigger-and-scoot, half-assed, hearted-hearted pretense at an ambush. And they get a no-go for authenticity. Fuck it. You take the left side of the road. I’ve got the right. Count the bodies as you go.”

“We haven’t checked to see if they’re all dead.”

“They’re all dead,” Bratty told the buck sergeant.