Apocalypse Burning

by Mel Odom

  His spirits pulsing within him, his mood lightened by the storm, Goose pulled his helmet off and tilted his face up to the sky. Wind tousled his hair and rain pocked his features, cold and hard and heavy as .50-cal rounds. Before his next drawn breath, the rain became a solid curtain that pounded the city.

  “Never,” the owner said, retreating to the open doorway of his coffee shop with both hands over his head, “have I seen such a thing as this. I have lived here all my life, and there has never been a storm like this.”

  Goose weathered the storm, feeling the cleansing power of it. But the rain meant something else too. A smile lit his face as he turned to Baker.

  “What?” Baker asked.

  “It’s raining,” Goose stated simply.

  Evidently caught up in the infectious nature of Goose’s joy, Baker smiled back. He shook his head in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s a lot of dirt between here and the Syrian outpost,” Goose said. “A lot more between that and Aleppo, from where the Syrian army transports are getting staged.”

  “So?”

  “If it rains long enough, all that dirt’s going to turn into mud.” Goose pulled his helmet back on, already drenched in his BDUs but not minding. “Syria needs tanks, APCs, and heavy artillery to take this city. They can’t move those through mud. At least, they won’t want to because they’ll be sitting ducks for the limited air force we have here. Even if they didn’t worry about being attacked, mud is hard on tracked vehicles. Mechanic crews will be working repairs and teardowns the whole way.”

  Understanding dawned on Baker’s face. He held his hands up to the sky, letting the rain strike his palms. “We’re being given some time to heal. Praise God.”

  “Pray that it keeps raining,” Goose advised. “I’ve got to find Captain Remington.” If the rain held, it was going to change a lot of their strategy. He prayed that it would and took comfort in the raindrops drumming the street around him as he flagged down a jeep. Whatever the reason, the Rangers were being given a chance. And Goose intended to make the most of that chance.

  5

  United States of America

  Fort Benning, Georgia

  Local Time 0013 Hours

  “Can’t sleep?”

  Sitting in a patio chair in her backyard, looking out over the fort and play set that her son would never enjoy again, Megan glanced back toward the voice.

  Jenny, one of the young girls living at Camp Gander, stood in the doorway. She looked tired and disheveled in a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt she had borrowed from Megan.

  “No,” Megan admitted.

  “You know,” Jenny said, “I’ll bet the doctor’s office might have something you can take to help you relax.”

  “I’ve thought about it,” Megan admitted. “A couple of the other counselors suggested the same thing. But I need to keep a clear head.”

  “They’ve got stuff that can do that too.”

  “I’ll wait. I can’t keep up this pace forever. I’ll drop soon enough.”

  “True,” Jenny said. “But it would be nice if you dropped somewhere short of the emergency room.”

  Megan offered a smile. “I’ll try.”

  Nodding toward the phone, Jenny asked, “Did you call Goose?”

  “I tried. There’s some kind of storm that’s blown into southern Turkey unexpectedly and is interfering with the phone lines.” God, please let that be it. Don’t let Sanliurfa have fallen. Megan glanced at the small television that had been brought out to the patio area. With all the teens in the house, it was hard to hear the reporters at times. Bringing the set outside had been a compromise she could live with. “I’ve been watching the news but there’s not much coming out of Sanliurfa right now.”

  “I know. All the news on every channel seems to be centered on Nicolae Carpathia. He’s kind of shaking things up. Mind if I join you?”

  “The last I saw you, you were asleep on the couch.”

  “Well, that didn’t last as long as I’d hoped.” Jenny crossed the patio and sat in the chair beside Megan. “Lieutenant Benbow called earlier.”

  “Oh?”

  Jenny nodded. “While you were at the commissary.”

  The trips to the commissary were on a daily basis. At present, the commissary was staying open twenty-four hours a day to meet the needs of the base population and because they’d finally been able to get enough employees to cover all the shifts.

  “I would have told you earlier,” Jenny apologized, “except I fell asleep on the couch before you got back.”

  “Did he want me to return his call?”

  “No. He asked how you were doing. Whether you were resting or taking time to work on the notes he’d asked you to make.”

  Megan gestured to the legal pad on the patio table. The top page was still blank. She couldn’t seem to marshal her thoughts regarding Gerry Fletcher. “I’m trying.”

  “I asked him what was going on, but he wouldn’t tell me. He just asked me to help you out if I could. So I’m going to ask you what’s going on.”

  Megan hesitated.

  “Don’t shut me out, Megan,” Jenny said. “I know you could use a friend right now. God knows I’ve been there plenty of times myself.”

  Taking a deep breath, Megan said, “All right, but we’re going to need coffee for this.”

  “Not coffee. Hot chocolate. Coffee will keep you wired but hot chocolate may get you to unwind. I’ve got some in a thermos.” Jenny vanished into the house and returned in a moment with the thermos, two cups, and two pieces of pumpkin roll. The orange bread wrapped around a creamy white filling.

  “So this is what I smelled earlier.”

  “Yeah. It smells and tastes like it’s hard to make, but it’s really simple. Just have to do it in stages. The hardest part is keeping the pumpkin bread from tearing when you unroll it and reroll it.”

  Megan cut a piece off and ate it. “Cream-cheese filling?”

  Jenny nodded. “You know what makes it even better?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to lie to you and tell you it’s all calorie-free.” Jenny grinned, her smile white in the night’s shadow.

  Despite the somber mood, the fatigue and the anxiety, Megan laughed. They ate in silence for a while, then slowly, Megan told Jenny about the civil lawyer Boyd Fletcher had gotten and all the pressure that was coming down on Fort Benning, which in turn was coming down on her.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jenny said after they’d finished the dessert and Megan had completed the sketch of the day’s events. “Can’t Lieutenant Benbow get this case tossed out? I mean, it’s not like you took Gerry away from his parents. God did that.”

  “Lieutenant Benbow says that General Braddock doesn’t want the post vulnerable to a civil suit.”

  “So they sacrifice you.”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Fight,” Megan answered.

  “But you’re risking the charges the army could bring against you.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You could lose.”

  “Yes.”

  Jenny peered at her with concern. “You could go to jail.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Then why risk it?”

  Megan placed her fork on the empty plate. “Because I can’t get any more scared than I already am, Jenny. That’s what Braddock was trying to do to me today. Scare me into accepting the deal they’ve offered. I can’t do that. If I did, I would be turning away from everything Goose and I have worked for. We didn’t come this far in our lives to not go the distance. I haven’t gone through everything I’ve gone through in my life and my career to start backing down. I’ve fought for myself before, and I’ll fight for myself now.”

  Taking a deep breath, Jenny said, “If it were me, I’d be scared.”

  “I am scared. That’s the point. If I don’t fight back, I’m going to have to live scared for a long time. I did t
hat after my divorce from Joey’s dad. I was afraid of everything. But for the most part, I was afraid of the mistakes I was going to make. Mistakes with Joey. Mistakes with finances. Mistakes with my career.” Megan shook her head. “I can’t do that. I can’t be afraid like that. Not again. Not for something I believe in.”

  “Do you think maybe you could reason with the Fletchers? get them to drop the civil charges? Maybe if they did that, the provost marshal would drop his.”

  “Benbow doesn’t think the Fletchers will do that. Neither do I.” Megan sipped her hot chocolate. “The bottom line is, Boyd Fletcher never cared about his son. Gerry was redheaded, something neither Boyd nor Tonya is. Boyd told Gerry on a number of occasions that he didn’t even believe Gerry was his.”

  “Did he really believe that?”

  “Sometimes. I think Boyd Fletcher mostly thought that when he wanted to distance himself from Gerry more.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  Megan nodded. “Gerry didn’t have a good life. He was a good kid, a bright kid. He should have had better.”

  “But you can’t bring any of that into the trial?”

  “I’m the one on trial here,” Megan said. “Not the Fletchers. Benbow has reminded me of that a lot. Even if I somehow manage to get that past history introduced into court, there’s a good chance it will work against me.”

  “Because you didn’t do anything then.”

  “Right.”

  “That’s so stupid.”

  “But that’s where it is.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Hope. Pray. Trust Benbow to do his job well.” Megan sighed. “I don’t have much control over how the court case is going to go.”

  “However it goes,” Jenny said, “I just want you to know that I’ll be there for you.”

  “I appreciate that.” Megan wrapped her arms around herself as the sudden chill of the night embraced her. “I just wish I could talk to Goose and let him know what’s going on. And I wish that Joey would come home. Or that I knew for certain he was all right.”

  “I do too. I still feel a lot of why he isn’t here now is my fault. He was really angry with me when he left.”

  “It wasn’t you. If Joey was angry with anyone, it was probably me. He’s been angry for a long time. Thinking back on it now, I see that. But I thought I was handling everything all right. I was just hoping that when Goose finished with his tour in Turkey everything would be all right.”

  “He’ll be back.”

  “I hope so. Until then, I’ve got to deal with what’s on my plate here.” Megan looked west, in the direction of Columbus. “I can’t go out there looking for him.”

  Jenny took a deep breath. “I could.”

  “Where would you start?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know any of his friends’ names?”

  “No. Just the people at the Kettle O’ Fish.”

  “Is that restaurant open?”

  “I don’t think so. I tried to call, to let them know where I am because I’m going to need a job when I get off-post again. All I get is the answering machine telling me there are too many messages in the box.”

  “I hadn’t thought of calling there. I didn’t even think about Joey trying to show up for work.”

  “I did. When you’re on your own, the next paycheck is always something you’re concerned with.”

  “You’d be better at tracking Joey down than I would. I don’t think like he does. But it’s safer for you here. Even if you found Joey, I know how stubborn he can be. He won’t come home until he’s ready.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “I’ve been praying for God to look out for him. I’ll keep doing that, and I’ll try to be patient. As long as nothing happens to him, I believe he’ll be back. I’ve seen a lot of kids run away from home. You can’t bring them back at this age and make them stay. That’s up to them.”

  “I know. I just wish I could help.”

  Megan was silent for a moment, her mind racing. “There’s something else I could use your help on.”

  “What?”

  “That book you were reading about the end times—the Rapture and the Tribulation—I read it last night.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I think you were right. I think that what that book talks about is going to happen. Is happening.”

  Jenny nodded. “The whole Antichrist thing is creepy. Thinking that a guy like that can just step into power and control the whole world for a while.”

  “Look at what Hitler did in Germany in World War II,” Megan said. “Before the war, Germany’s economy was flattened. The people lived under horrible conditions. They wanted change, wanted someone to come along and change their lives. Hitler did that. Even before the disappearances a lot of people—here and around the world—were looking for someone like that. Someone to take responsibility for an unstable economy, to tell them job layoffs would never touch them, to tell them how to avoid losing their jobs, their homes, and their families.” She nodded toward the TV, which was muted but still broadcasting. An image of thronging crowds protesting in the streets of Los Angeles filled the screen. “People are more scared now after everything that has happened. They’re scared all around the world.”

  “Nicolae Carpathia could be who we need to keep the Antichrist from power,” Jenny said. “Have you seen that guy and listened to him?”

  “Yes.” Despite her own problems and worrying over her son and husband, Megan had noticed the young Romanian president in the news. Cameras and the media were kind to Carpathia, generating interest immediately. “He leaves quite an impression.”

  “He’s the kind of guy you want to believe in,” Jenny agreed. “And his background. All those things he’s done to improve his own country and now his plans to help out here and across the globe. If Nicolae Carpathia could get enough backing, maybe the Antichrist part would never happen.”

  Megan shook her head. “I think you’ve got to believe everything the writer says in that end-times book. You can’t just pick the good from the bad.” She paused. “I told you I was going to talk to Major Augustus Trimble this morning, but I didn’t tell you why.” She took a deep breath. “These kids I’m responsible for are scared, Jenny. Just as scared as we are. And just as confused. They’ve got just as many questions. The problem is, nobody’s answering those questions. I told Trimble that I believed we were post-Rapture and into the Tribulation.”

  “And he already knew that?”

  “He basically told me I was crazy.”

  “You’re kidding. And he’s the top chaplain at the post? How can that guy not see what’s going on?”

  “He’s convinced that there’s a military reason for all the disappearances. I went there to ask him to get some of the chaplains to start teaching classes about the Tribulation to the kids. They need to know what’s going on. They need to know what to expect and what they’re going to have to do.”

  “But the chaplains aren’t going to do that?”

  “Trimble’s not going to ask them to.”

  “You could ask them.”

  Megan shook her head. “Without Trimble supporting it, I don’t think I’d get far. This is the military we’re talking about. Nobody wants to break rank and file, or buck the chain of command. Trimble’s negative answer pretty much covered anyone else.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “In addition to counseling,” Megan said, “I’m going to start teaching about the Tribulation. What I understand of it, anyway. I’m going to get copies of as many of those books as I can get my hands on, and I’m going to put them in the hands of the kids I know are natural leaders. Kids who will talk to the other kids and help them work through this. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to start doing the same thing with some of the kids here at the house. When you have time. If you think you can. I know it’s asking a lot.”

  Jenny thought about it. “I’d b
e happy to do it, but I don’t know how good I’ll be.”

  “If you’re good enough to start those kids asking questions and searching through those books, you’ll have done everything I could have hoped.”

  “Not everyone we talk to is going to understand or even believe—”

  “But if we can get a few kids talking, we can make this information spread,” Megan finished. “They’re looking for answers, Jenny. Maybe we can’t give them all of the answers, but we can at least point them in the right direction. They can help each other. And us.”

  “Maybe, but you’ve got another problem.”

  Megan raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

  “Trimble’s not going to like you stepping onto his turf.”

  Nodding, Megan said, “I thought about that, and I have to admit that made me hesitate. For all of two seconds. Jenny, that man is a jerk. He’s pompous and he’s arrogant, and he’s afraid of making a mistake. Maybe doing this will light a fire under him. He can decide if he wants to be part of the fire or stand there and get burned.”

  United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post

  Sanliurfa, Turkey

  Local Time 0717 Hours

  The two privates standing in front of the temporary command post in the basement of a government office building near the center of the city stepped forward and confronted Goose. They held their assault rifles at the ready.

  “Privates,” Goose said, looking from one man to the other. They stood under an overhang and were protected from the continuing deluge that slapped into the street behind the first sergeant. He stood soaked to the skin from his brief trip across the street.

  “I’m sorry, First Sergeant,” Private Malone said. “Captain Remington’s orders. No one in or out unless they’re cleared by security.”

  “Including me?” Goose asked. He’d never been stopped at the door before.

  “Yes, First Sergeant.”