The Beginning of Sorrows

by Gilbert, Morris

  Colonel Nix burst out laughing, something he had not done for many days now. “Lemme guess. This is where the burros are?”

  Con grinned tightly. “You got it, sir. Donkey’s End.”

  “Remind me to give that boy a commendation. Smart and a sense of humor, too.” Nix leaned back, his chair squealing in protest, his eyes roving over the map. He grew somber. “So, Con, are you talking about going on to the ranch? In one operation?”

  Con answered uncertainly, “Sir, the team and I have made alternate mission plans, and I decided to present them both. Plan One is to just go as far as—er—Donkey’s End, capture some of the animals, and bring them back to the base. Also, of course, we’ll be on an alert for any intelligence and/or communication possibilities with civvies or whoever’s out there. Plan Two is to pick up the burros, and then proceed on to the ranch. We think they might still have some kind of communication capabilities with the Man and Biosphere Directorate. At least that’d be a start. And I do think we could bring back at least a hundred horses. Maybe twice that, if we’re lucky.”

  “The mean Greenies aren’t going to give ’em to you, you know,” Nix grumbled. “Blasted tarantula-kissers.”

  Con shrugged carelessly. “Sir, of course I’m well aware that civilian goods may not be confiscated by the military without adequate compensation. But these horses, sir, are not civilian goods. The MAB has ensured that. They’re America’s resources. That makes them available for conscript in a national emergency, for the good of the common defense.”

  “Sounds right to me, but you better get ready for some cryin’ and sobbin’,” Nix asserted. “Assuming you can confiscate them. Horses are kinda hard to draft, you know, Captain. You can’t just walk up to a herd of mustangs and order them to surrender themselves for the good of the common defense.”

  Con’s mouth twitched. “No, sir, I know that. But I was raised on a cattle farm in Alabama, and we always used that as an excuse to keep horses. In fact, my parents and grandparents are still licensed, and between their two farms they still have about twenty horses. I can bring you back some horses, sir. Now the burros—” He made a wry face and shook his head. “I don’t know anything about them. But Sergeant Mitchell says he and his grandfather used to wake up every morning and start the fight with their mule. Says the two of them won by early afternoon. Most of the time. He’s pretty sure he can handle the burros.”

  Nix was amused. “Okay, if you got a cowhand and a mule driver, you might be able to come through. But there’s just one more thing we gotta talk about, Con. You’re telling me you can go over the Sangre de Cristos—and the San Juan range, in winter?”

  “Over the Sangre de Cristos, yes, sir,” Con answered sturdily. “But through the San Juans. Sergeant—”

  “Mitchell found a passage,” Nix completed for him.

  “Uh—sir. It’ll mean an extra travel day or two, but it’ll keep us from having to go over Wolf Creek Pass.”

  “You don’t wanna try that on foot in wintertime, son, not even Fire Team Eclipse,” Nix said in a low voice. He stared at the map a while longer, then sighed deeply. “Two weeks there, two weeks back, at the very best. A month, maybe a month and a half . . .”

  “Yes, sir. Unless the lights come back on. Then we’ll commandeer the nearest car or truck or bicycle or whatever we can get our hands on and double-time it right back here, sir.”

  Nix swiveled again to stare out the window. “They ain’t comin’ back on, Con. Not for a while, anyway. So permission is granted for you and Fire Team Eclipse to undertake this mission. Go ahead and go the distance, Captain Slaughter. Plan Two. I’ll have you some written orders in an hour.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Con said sincerely.

  Nix was silent for a long time, his back to Slaughter. “Wish I could go with you, Con. I surely do. But my duty is to sit here and wait . . . for whatever comes. And something’s coming, you know. This is no natural phenomenon and this is not an accident. Something’s coming along behind it, oh, yes sir, and it ain’t good . . .”

  Con didn’t know what to say, so he stood at attention until finally Colonel Nix said quietly, “You remember the Airborne Creed, Con?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Good. You’ll need to remember that creed, Con. Especially this: In battle, I fear no foe’s ability, nor underestimate his prowess, power, and guile. I fight him with all my might and skill—ever alert to evade capture or escape a trap. I never surrender, though I be the last. Remember that, Con. You stand by it. Even if you’re the last.”

  Fire Team Eclipse was once again a team on the move. But this time they weren’t soaring, powerful and indestructible, high above the ground. They were making a journey in a way that men had done since the beginning of time: each man by his own strength, carrying his own sustenance, using his own eyes and ears and cunning to find the way. It was a little bit exhilarating to all but Lieutenant Deacon Fong, who still mourned for his beloved Apache. He hated walking. He hated marching. In fact, he hated everything about being bound to the earth. But it was unthinkable to him to either complain to his team, or to contemplate not going. They were a team, with or without a helicopter. He was just like an arm, or an eye. They wouldn’t be Fire Team Eclipse without him, just as they wouldn’t be whole without any other member of the team.

  And now, incredibly, that included two lost Jews. It never occurred to either Colonel Darkon Ben-ammi or Colonel Vashti Nicanor not to go on this mission with the team. They simply did the military courtesy, following correct protocol, and alerted Colonel Nix that they would be going with the team, and that was that.

  After all, Fire Team Eclipse was the only home they had now.

  They were traveling in a steep southeasterly line, crossing the barren plains that led up to the Wet Mountains, which they were going to barely skirt around the southern end. The morning was crisp and fine, the sky clean, the sun pale but cheerful. The tip of Vashti’s nose was cold, but otherwise she was fairly comfortable. American military clothing was expertly designed for all kinds of climate. The cold-weather Syntex underwear was light but very warm. They wore solid black “battle dress uniforms” of rip-stop Ty-canvas, which was sturdy and of a slightly heavier grade than summer BDU’s. Over this they all had long, roomy desert camouflage waterproof ponchos. Vashti secretly thought that the mottled light tans and beiges of the desert camos were the least flattering to her complexion, but there was nothing to be done about that.

  Lieutenant Ric Darmstedt slowed down his long-legged step to fall in with her. “You going to make it okay with those boots, Colonel Nicanor?” he asked. He wasn’t just making light conversation; long hikes with less than perfect boots could cause very serious problems. And on a mission of this type, it could mean problems for the whole team, not just Vashti’s discomfort.

  “I assure you, I’m fine, Lieutenant Darmstedt,” Vashti replied a little stiffly. “I would have thought I had proved by now that I won’t hold the team back.”

  “Huh? Hold us—but I was just worried about you, Colonel,” Ric assured her. She snapped her head back to look up at him, and could see he was telling the truth.

  He always told the plain truth. He was like that. It unsettled Vashti sometimes. “Oh. Thank you, Lieutenant. I’m fine,” she said awkwardly.

  “Good. ’Cause I’m not. I’m staggerin’ already, and we’ve come, what—fifty feet? Who knew we were gonna have to march over half of America with packs like this?” Ric declared. “One hundred and seventy pounds for combat drops isn’t really too bad, all you gotta do is waddle onto the plane. But this—”

  “Weighs about thirty pounds and you know it, Lieutenant,” Vashti said with amusement. He was indulging her, she knew, because she’d insisted on carrying the same as everyone else, and it was harder on her than anyone. That was just a fact. Darmstedt was just trying to make her feel better ahead of time, because it was almost certain that she’d have to have some help near the end of their planned ten-hour marches. S
he dreaded it, but she knew it was inevitable. But she was going to carry this pack until she couldn’t take another step. Then, she knew, Ric Darmstedt would carry it for her, and probably try to do it so the rest of the team wouldn’t notice. “Don’t worry about me, Lieutenant Darmstedt. Not yet, anyway. Ask me again after lunch.”

  He nodded, understanding perfectly.

  They walked steadily, not pushing it. This hike was going to take careful pacing, and Con Slaughter wasn’t having anyone overexert themselves and then have to hold up the entire team to wait for someone to rest up. He’d planned frequent stops during the day for rest and long halts at night for sleep. In this climate, at this altitude, carrying these loads, even he and Ric Darmstedt were going to have a tough time.

  Colonel Ben-ammi dropped into step at Vashti’s other side. He looked as if he were enjoying himself. Ben-ammi was such a big man, with such a natural strength, that his paunch and his lack of enthusiasm for an exercise regimen weren’t really disadvantages to him. He was like an ox plodding along, never flagging. “This is a beautiful American morning,” he pronounced grandly. “Not too hot, not too cold. Just right. Like the Three Great Bears.”

  “Uh—” Ric began, then shrugged. “The Three Great Bears, yeah. So you must be Goldilocks, huh, Colonel Nicanor?”

  Vashti looked utterly bewildered. “Who are the Goldilocks?”

  “Didn’t your parents ever tell you fairy tales?” Ric demanded.

  “Yes. They told me that all of the evil trolls and goblins and monsters are tall blonde Germans,” Vashti replied innocently, looking up at Ric Darmstedt’s Aryan features and hair.

  “Now that is a fairy tale,” Ric said gravely. “I’m a good guy.”

  The sun climbed, and Vashti’s nose warmed up. The Wet Mountains materialized to their right, ghost-hills of gray shimmering in the distance. The ground they traveled was flat and hard, covered with short, rough brown grass, small dull rocks, and an occasional spiky succulent hugging the ground. The team, instead of walking in a straight formal line, meandered back and forth with one another, talking in quiet voices. Except for Con Slaughter, who took point and didn’t talk to anyone. Sergeant Mitchell stayed close behind him, because he had the compass and was checking their course. Sergeant Valdosta stayed close behind him because that’s what he’d always done, stuck close to his captain and watched his back.

  Vashti was watching Mitchell thoughtfully. “The compass, I understand, has proved that the blackout is not due to solar flares? That a solar flare of the magnitude it would take to cause this widespread blackout would certainly affect the electromagnetic field of the earth?”

  “That’s correct, ma’am,” Ric Darmstedt answered. He walked with her a lot.

  “But—suppose the compass is affected, and we don’t know it?”

  “Because we’ve got three, and we check ’em all against one another. If they didn’t read the same, then we’d know something’s whacked.”

  “Whacked,” Vashti repeated thoughtfully, cataloging the word. She liked learning American idioms.

  “Whacked,” Ric repeated solemnly.

  “So—so what is it?” Vashti murmured, returning to the same question that almost every person all over America was asking over and over. “Is it some sort of other natural phenomenon? Is it sabotage? Is it an attack? By whom? And why?”

  “Colonel, if I had the answers to those questions I would inform you immediately,” Ric intoned.

  “You would? Really? Even though—” Vashti stopped, shocked. She had actually been about to say, Even though I’m Mossad. The first rule in covert operations was that you never admitted being a covert operative, not to friends, not to family, not under any circumstances. Even when you knew they knew, you just never, never discussed it. What was the matter with her? Was she losing her mind? Some sort of trauma reaction? She stumbled a little, and Ric quickly grabbed her arm to steady her. Still bemused, she yanked it away. A tightness came over his features, but quickly he smoothed it out.

  He shifted his backpack, making a great show of it, then sighed theatrically. “I think maybe my pack’s heavier than everyone else’s,” he groused. “Just because I’m bigger and in better shape than everyone doesn’t mean I’m gonna carry—”

  “Hold up!” Con called harshly, stopping quickly mid-stride.

  “What’s up, Captain?” Ric called.

  “Can it, Darmstedt! Don’t you hear something?”

  “Yeah, I hear my lungs bursting—”

  “I hear it,” Vashti said, her dark eyes searching the sky. “Planes.”

  Deacon Fong, who was slogging along rather dejectedly with Colonel Ben-ammi, suddenly became animated. “Choppers, maybe?”

  “Maybe . . . ,” Darkon muttered, his eyes searching due south.

  “There, Captain!” David Mitchell pointed.

  Sure enough, coming out of the south, headed northwest, was a formation of planes. Deac, who had the sharpest vision of the team, said in wonder, “It’s the Luftwaffe. Must be from Kirtland.

  They’re Tornadoes.”

  Valdosta had already dumped his pack and was rifling through it. “Flares—I got flares—”

  “No!” Con shouted. The noise of the Tornadoes’ engines was becoming very loud, and their signature high-pitched scream was indeed deafening.

  “No is right!” David shouted, eyeing the planes with growing trepidation. “They’re sure flying low, Captain, almost like they’re—”

  “In attack formation,” Con finished. “Everybody down! Now! Hit the deck!”

  They had done this drill about a hundred times since they’d formulated this mission. But none of them had truly thought they’d have to hide from air surveillance, and all of them were a little stunned. Still, they followed orders without question, and moved fast.

  They threw their packs down, shed their ponchos, then lay down flat in the sand with the packs at their heads. Quickly they threw the heavy ponchos over themselves, pack and all, and scrabbled some sand up over the edges. Now they were invisible to a quick surveillance with the naked eye at least.

  Deacon Fong, pilot in blood and bone, reveled in the sound of aircraft actually in the air again. Maybe it’s over! he thought exultantly. Maybe I’ll get my baby back!

  Both Vashti and Darkon had the same images burned into their minds, and they brooded on it: the ancient Iron Cross glittering on the black fuselages of planes.

  David Mitchell still felt a flicker of hope at the sight of something electrical actually working, but within moments his sense of foreboding had drowned it out. Wait a minute—Tornadoes? Of course, dimbulb! The spray! They sprayed everything . . . that has to be an antidote, or preventive, or something . . .

  Prevent . . . then they knew?

  The Germans are behind this?

  Dear Lord, is it war?

  The hard, cold ground beneath them shuddered. A few seconds later, the sound waves reached them.

  They’re bombing the base! Ric Darmstedt started, jerked so hard that he almost dislodged his poncho. They can’t do that! he absurdly thought.

  But by the force of the shaking ground and the continual bass reverberations of explosions, he knew the truth, and it almost made him ill. They were doing it, and probably with the same stern, methodical German precision with which they (and he, though he didn’t realize it) performed all other tasks. Ric was only two generations removed from having been born in Germany. It suddenly hit him that if he had been, he probably would have been up there, bombing defenseless American soldiers. The thought sickened him.

  Rio Valdosta was a simple man, and a good soldier. His last order from his commanding officer had been to conceal himself, so he was doing that, and he wouldn’t move so much as a little pinky until he was ordered to. Otherwise, considering that Rio Valdosta was also a warrior, a man whose blood ran hot, a man who did not have a lust for killing but certainly did have the skills for it, he would have jumped up, grabbed Slaughter’s 12-gauge, and taken the head off
one of those fine flyboys as they whizzed by only a couple of hundred feet above. He probably could have done it, too. He wanted to, real bad. But Rio just bowed his head and made a vow. Every German I meet from now on is crow feed. ’Til I’m dead and cold, they’re gonna pay!

  Captain Con Slaughter was becoming more furious with every thud heard and felt. It took every ounce of his will not to leap to his feet and start running back to the base. So terrible was the struggle within him that he literally trembled. We can’t do anything, we can’t stop it, we can’t protect anyone. If we tried, we’d die—or be captured. Never surrender, that’s what he said. Never surrender . . .

  The carnage was complete.

  Fire Team Eclipse, as one, stopped walking when they saw the first dead body. He wore a cannon-cocker’s patch, and he still had a 9 mm Beretta clenched in his hand. He had run far before they’d strafed him; he lay just at the edge of the base perimeter. They gathered around him in a ragged circle. Captain Slaughter and Sergeant Valdosta looked enraged. Lieutenant Deacon Fong’s face was expressionless, but his nostrils were white with tension and his jaw was like flint. Lieutenant Ric Darmstedt’s smooth and handsome face was so chalky he looked ill. Sergeant David Mitchell looked grief-stricken.

  Colonel Darkon Ben-ammi, in spite of the fact that he cared for these men, was still a New Zionist, and still was Mossad. He was sorry for the deaths, and appalled by the viciousness of an unannounced act of war against defenseless men, but he could not stop himself from observing these elite American warriors in their first combat situation. So far, he reflected, they are stricken, but controlled. That is good . . . for me and for my country. The real fear didn’t strike him until he realized that his country’s strongest and most feared ally in the whole world had been brought to its knees, just as these men had been.

  Colonel Vashti Nicanor had been in combat before—from the comfortable height of thousands of feet above the ground. That was the best thing about being a fighter pilot. You didn’t have to deal with the dirtiness of death, the shock, the uselessness, the tragedy. She stared at the dead soldier, a man she had never seen before, and felt a soldier’s pity for a comrade, but her revulsion was even stronger. She was the first to turn away.