Hero

by Joel Rosenberg

  Mordecai Peled had set up a worktable next to the door and was hunched over a haphazard pile of maps and tech reports.

  Peled looked even more tired than Galil felt: his lined face seemed to sag, particularly around the eyes, and his shoulders tended to hunch.

  Poor bastard. It would have been kinder to stick a pistol in his ear.

  Shimon Bar-El cocked his head to one side, as though he was trying to figure out what Galil was thinking, then shrugged, as though it wasn't worth the effort. "Prezzolini," he said, "the general running Second Division, knows his shit. Good soldier; he's doing the mech assault through Sector Three right. I think."

  Peled nodded. "Classic armored cav tactics—smash through, then let somebody else clean up the mess behind you." He straightened. "You don't need to know the details, except where." He tapped a map, fingernails on the paper like ticks on a drumhead.

  "Don't worry about it, Mordecai. Yitzhak won't be talking to anybody." Shimon Bar-El turned back to Galil. "The Freiheimers have been patrolling heavily all through here," Shimon said. "The Casas can't keep an OP manned, and I don't want them going in blind, or without good, accurate arty prep. Since we're going to be clearing the town—call it Trainville—after they crash through, I need some idea of the local order of battle so we'll know what kind of clearing job we're facing."

  Peled tapped the map again. "Three observation posts scattered across here, each with a Casa forward observer."

  Shimon took another puff of his tabstick and shook his head. "Not enough, Mordecai. I've called for six posts. Six FOs."

  "Yes, General." Peled's lips whitened. "Each OP has about a ten percent chance of being discovered, even assuming that the Casas are up to sneaking around the woods at night. With six posts, General, it's about a fifty percent chance that at least one is discovered."

  "So minimize the chances of discovery, but give me the six." Shimon turned to Galil. "Double some of them up, Yitzhak. We're attaching them to us, so they're under your orders. Put the worst FOs in three of the distant posts, and put your best teams up close. We'll pass fire orders from those through Greenberg, and Deir Yasin—I'll have them liaise with divisional arty."

  Galil nodded. It meant that, once the assault started, the wrong people—the Casas—would have priority of mission, but that was to be expected.

  Shimon pursed his hps. "Another thing. You're going to figure a lot of this out yourself, so I may as well tell you straight out: they're doing it right. Diversionary assault in the center sector—and there'll be heavier arty prep over there, to keep the Germans sure of their clever guess that the Casas are going to try to punch through in the wrong place.

  "At zero minus one hour, your Casa FO takes over and he spots for the arty while they start rolling the tanks. The tanks punch through the right flank; rest of division bypasses the town, while we secure it. They're buying the real estate; we have to take it."

  Yitzhak Galil looked at Shimon Bar-El, long and hard. "How sure are you of all this?"

  Shimon Bar-El waved away the possibility that he was trying something tricky. "Sure enough to tell you I don't want you captured. And that you'd better locate your own exit-pill. Understood? Soft touch, Yitzhak. That's what I need from you—a nice soft touch. You get your people in there, and you keep them watching and waiting until you get further word. Then you report, spot, and get your heads down. Things have to roll through. Got it?"

  "Got it."

  "Anything special you want?"

  Yeah, he wanted to say. I want that Ari Hanavi the hell out of my platoon.

  But Shimon Bar-El already knew everything that Galil did; if Shimon wanted the asshole out, the asshole would already be out. Should have drummed him out of the family along with Slepak. Would have, if Ari didn't have connections that poor cowardly bastard Slepak didn't.

  On the other hand, this was Galil's command.

  "Damn it, yes, Shimon. Give me two good sharpshooters from Ebi's battalion, and give him the Hanavi brothers. You're talking about me going in with about thirty people, and six of them are Casas. I've got to be able to count on my people, and Ari Hanavi just doesn't measure up."

  "I understand he had a head injury. Is that his fault?"

  Galil didn't answer.

  Shimon Bar-El toyed with a stylo. "Mordecai? You got an opinion?"

  "Shit, I don't know." Peled shrugged. "I'm just the chief of staff—"

  "Don't," Shimon Bar-El said. "Don't do that again, Mordecai, or I swear I'll relieve you on the spot. You're a full colonel, you were my deputy, and you flinched on a green light. I had to fire you, and you know it. Our friendship, if there's anything of it left, doesn't mean anything. Your hurt feelings don't mean anything. The question in front of us is whether or not the regiment is better off if I do what Yitzhak wants, and nothing else."

  Yitzhak Galil felt like he used to when his parents had argued in front of him.

  "Very well, sir." Mordecai Peled drew himself up straight. "Then I'd say that we're marginally better off with two sharpshooters in the main force, and not in an OP. The Hanavi kid's scores are good; odds are he'll do fine."

  "So be it," Bar-El said. "Request denied."

  Shit. Well, if it had to be done, Galil would do it himself. "When do we go in?"

  "One squad in three days, to lay the groundwork and site the OPs."

  Galil stood. "Then I'd better get some rest."

  "No. Not you, not this time—Doc Zucker says you need the full five days to heal. You'll do that here. Skolnick can handle this."

  "I choose who goes in first, not you." Galil shook his head. "You've already overruled me on personnel; don't try to micromanage my platoon, General. Recon squad goes in three days—the rest of us follow two days later?"

  "Right. You've got five days to train your people. You think maybe a quick review of OP selection and setup is in order?"

  "Yeah. It'll be a change from urban assault." Galil was already on his feet.

  "How are they handling it, by the way?"

  "In truth, not bad. I caught some of them with a cheap trick today, but they're pretty good." Galil shrugged. "If they do as well in OP, I'll be happy. I'm going to keep it simple and light. They're in good shape, and OP is a matter of endurance more than anything else. Two, three days of reasonable work, then let them rest." He tottered off toward the door.

  "Good. Yitzhak?" Bar-El's voice stopped him.

  "Yes?"

  "Who are you sending in?"

  "Skolnick." Yitzhak Galil smiled. "But it's my call, not yours."

  Of the six Casa forward artillery observers assigned to him, two were absolutely useless—stumbling oafs who hadn't been able to go through the forested areas of Camp Ramorino without tripping over their own putzes.

  The only thing Galil could think to do with them was stick them in an out-of-the-way OP, with their radios under the control of the two Metzadans, and with the firm hope that they wouldn't get caught.

  Not that they'd stay caught: Sapirstein had specific orders on that score, and the only phut gun. If necessary, their bodies would be captured. Let the Freiheimers make corpses talk.

  Orders might be orders, but Galil was taking only a minimum of shit.

  That left four Casas that might be able to tell their left foot from their right, and could be reliably expected to call in the arty into roughly the right hex, if everything went right. If they didn't panic, if the radios were still working, if, if, if. . . .

  He shut off the reading light and pulled up the screen.

  The rain hammered down at the windshield, coursing off in manic rivulets.

  It was dark in the cockpit, the faint glow from the instruments and the almost invisible flicker of the windshield display barely relieving the inky blackness.

  He pulled the copilot's helmet down on his head and turned the screen back on. The cabin sprang into relief, the dim light of the helo's instruments flaring like a red beacon, the windshield display becoming a twisting net of paths and flas
hing crimson sources.

  The pilot sitting next to him looked like some enormous insect, wires coming out of the top of his helmet like antennae, the oversized lenses of his night goggles riding high on his forehead, the screen in front of his face flat and blank from this side.

  Beyond the rain-streaked window, the enhanced night was harsh whites on black, skeletal trees poking bonily from rolling, corpse-white hills.

  "Thirty seconds to Site One," the pilot announced, his voice clear in Galil's ears. "No lights. Do you still wish me to dip and bypass? Or can I just bypass?"

  "Dip and bypass," Galil said. "Maybe they're at Site Two."

  The idea was simple: the helos would simulate dropping them off at one or more sites before and after actually dropping them off. If there were Freiheimer observers out there, they'd have only a twenty percent chance of guessing where Galil's people had been left.

  Of course, it did make the chances of the helo getting blown out of the sky a lot worse, which was why the Casa pilot hated it.

  The pitch of the blades deepened as the helo slowed. Galil shut the screen off and patted the panel the helmet was plugged into, wishing he could take it with him. The Freiheimer watchers in Menadito would have night goggles. Granted, not the super-light models that you could use on other worlds, but that was an advantage for the defenders: they could afford the thirty kilos of circuitry it took to process a starlit image into something usable. Galil couldn't afford to haul it—there was already too much mass in his Bergen.

  The helo settled toward the ground, dropping rapidly until Galil could feel the surge as it went from true flight into transitional lift, riding almost like a skimmer on the cushion of air between the rotor and the ground.

  Too soon, the helo started to move.

  "No. Give it thirty seconds." It would take at least thirty seconds to disembark, if this was for real.

  "Capitano—"

  There was another helo two minutes behind this one, also half-empty.

  "Count it out. Twenty more seconds."

  With a muttered curse, the Casa pilot pushed the cyclic forward, jerking up on the collective. The nose dropped and the helo moved forward, quickly picking up speed as it climbed.

  There was a phut gun in his thigh holster, but Galil didn't reach for it. Galil knew which part was which, but he couldn't fly a helo, dammit, and the Casa knew it.

  "We spent long enough there," the Casa said. "Site Two in five minutes."

  The helo roared through the night.

  Shit. This asshole wasn't going to fake stops at the other sites—he was just going to drop them off and fly his ass back to safe airspace.

  Maybe that could be fixed. Galil punched for the cabin intercom. "Anybody here checked out on a helo enough like this?" he asked, hoping that the Casa pilot couldn't understand Hebrew. It was a good bet.

  There was a moment of silence, then: "Laskov. I can fly it, although I don't know how well. Hang on a sec." There was a long moment of silence. "I've got the most flight time in a helo, but Edel has more simulator time."

  "You take it. Orders: you're going back with the pilot. Make sure the bird fakes stops at Sites Three and Four. Hoist a drink for the rest of us."

  "Yes, adoni. Will do."

  Galil could tell that Laskov didn't like it—trading off more time in the air for the safety of being relieved of the OP mission—but he was reliable. It cut Galil's strength by one man they might not be able to spare, but this pilot was too tentative to be trustworthy. It was a bad bet that the Casa was willing to play target, to fake landing at other sites in the hope of keeping the Freiheimers ignorant about if or where Galil's commando had been dropped off.

  Ahead and below, five lights blinked on in a T-shape. The night outside was wet, but Galil's mouth was dry.

  "Set it down there," he said.

  The Casa pilot flared two meters off the ground, hovering in ground effect.

  Galil exchanged the wired-in copilot's helmet for his own, zipped up his ex-suit, then velcroed his khakis over it. "Set it down."

  "Never mind that," the pilot shrilled. "We're here. You get out, out, get out."

  "I said, set it down." Galil reached forward and snapped the power off, slamming the edge of his hand down on the pilot's wrist—hard enough to bruise, not quite hard enough to break—when the Casa reached for the starter. Choking, the engine died. The helo splashed down, hard, on the dark, wet ground, half-knocking the wind out of Galil.

  He snatched up for the intercom microphone. "Kelev One Twenty. Go."

  The Casa pilot was grabbing for the starter; Galil slammed his elbow into the side of the pilot's head. The Casa subsided long enough for Galil to unbuckle the pilot's holster and relieve him of his automatic.

  Galil kicked the door open, tossed his Bergen out, and launched himself into the dark and the rain.

  The ground squished under his feet, and he slipped on a slimeleaf plant. He hit rolling, his mouth full of bile. If Skolnick and his scouts had been found and tortured into giving out the drop zone, here was where the bushes would open up with autogun fire, cutting Galil and his commando into little bloody chunks.

  "Am Yisroel chai," a voice called out of the night. The people of Israel live. It was a password, and likely to choke in a Freiheimer throat.

  As the two squads moved off into the dark to secure the perimeter, Skolnick, his face black with paint and slick with rain, his arms held high over his head, came out of the trees, stepping over a clump of deathly white cadapommidor.

  Ari Hanavi brought his rifle halfway up, but Benyamin caught the muzzle, forcing it down.

  Galil clasped hands briefly with Skolnick.

  "Perimeter secure. We're clear—a patrol passed down the road half an hour ago," Skolnick said. "Got the OPs picked out and assigned."

  "That's my job," Galil said.

  "You think you can do better in this shit?"

  "Sorry." Never apologize, never explain—except always apologize when you're wrong, or the troops will think you don't know what you're doing; always explain when they don't understand, or they won't know what they're doing.

  Behind Galil, the helo's right-hand door slammed shut after Laskov. The engine stuttered back to life, the rotors, which had never quite stopped rotating, speeding up.

  "Faceplates down," Galil said, obeying his own order.

  The engine screaming in protest, the helo pulled straight out of the mud, spun quickly around, dropped its nose and lifted off into the rain and the dark.

  Galil pushed his faceplate back up, shouldered his Bergen—damn, the thing seemed to gain mass by the second—and followed Skolnick off into the trees.

  It always happened, even after years in the field. You feel like everyone and everything is looking at you, aiming at you. The night has a million eyes and each one is looking at your back through a set of crosshairs.

  But the night was silent, and dark. He waited.

  There was a low whistle to his left, somewhere off in the rain; it was immediately answered by another from the darkness, and then another, as the fireteams counted off.

  So far, so good. Galil pulled off his helmet and ran his fingers through his hair.

  The other helo roared down out of the rain, quickly disgorging its three fireteams as it hovered above the flattened grasses.

  Thirty seconds later it was back in the air.

  Galil gave the short whistle that meant prepare to move out, with the two-minute suffix.

  He wiped the rain from his face. His exsuit and boots did a fine job of keeping most of his body dry, but his hands and face were bare, and cold. Galil's bladder was tight. He unzipped his khakis, and then his exsuit, and pissed against the nearest tree. As he fastened himself up, he caught one of the Casa lieutenants, a gangling man named Andreotti, grinning at him.

  Asshole. "If you've got to go, go now," Galil ordered. "From here on in, you barf, piss and crap into a plastic bag." The whole idea behind an OP was to dig a hole and pull it in after you
. Nothing was expelled from the OP unless necessary.

  The rain eased, just a little. It was time to get moving.

  Galil would have whispered; "Move out," but they all knew their jobs. They moved out, across the slimy floor of the forest.

  His exsuit had kept him dry through the night, the fabric breathing enough so that he wasn't swimming in his own sweat. But that didn't do anything for his feet; by the time the sky to the west was graying toward dawn, each step was agony.

  Galil should have argued with Shimon about who went in first: Skolnick had spread out the other four posts too far along the hillsides, and had sited the last two OPs too near each other. That last was understandable, though: Galil would have been tempted to situate himself so another post could give him covering fire. It was the right move for almost everything except an observation post.

  Still, Skolnick had picked out a good spot. Flat on his belly on the slick melfoglia leaves, Galil could make out most of the town square and the chewed-up ground to its north, where the Freiheimer tanks huddled in the dark, waiting.

  He had seen worse places for an OP.

  "Go," he whispered. He gestured at Benyamin Hanavi and Lavon to cover them. Not that a couple of phut guns could make any difference if a Freiheimer jumped out of the bushes, but there wasn't much you could do.

  Skolnick and the rest of his team crept off to the east, quickly vanishing among the trees.

  Galil gave a single quiet hiss. All of them shrugged out of their Bergens and propped them up against the base of a bifurcated tree stump, quickly covering them with the spare blackscreen-backed camo net.

  Not a bad match, Galil decided, although it might be visible in the daylight unless it was properly covered.

  Carefully, gingerly, Yitzhak Galil worked his shoulders and arms, trying to loosen them at least a little. Their tendons were stretched as painfully tight as his nerves.

  "Let's get to it," he whispered.

  Galil wanted badly to take the first watch himself, but it was better practice to give it to somebody else. Get himself real tired, so that he could sleep during his offshift.