After America ww-2

by John Birmingham

  Miguel nodded in satisfaction as the official meeting started to break up. He had a watch to stand at two in the morning with Adam and hadn't yet eaten, having not long before come back from tending the horses, a role he had taken over after the death of Atchison. He took a ladle of stew from the big pot on top of the potbelly stove and tipped it carefully into a beautifully delicate china bowl, the sort of thing Mariela would have loved to have back at the ranch, something for good company.

  "Fancy a drink, cowboy?"

  He looked up from his stew, surprised to find Trudi Jessup holding a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  "You found that here?" he asked.

  Miss Jessup smiled. "They have a cellar. Had one, I mean. Awesomely stocked, too. This is a fucking 1990 Echezeaux Grand Cru!"

  Miguel shook his head in bafflement.

  "I have had some Tempranillo now and then, but I am not much of a wine drinker. This is good, then?"

  "Actually, it's corked," said Jessup. "But what the hell. It's an imperfect world. Glass?"

  He shrugged acceptance, and she poured him a solid slug. It had no cork floating in it that he could see, but perhaps she had strained it out. He would have.

  The Mormons were clearing away the leftovers of the meal and drifting off to wherever they had found themselves a bed for the night. The two camp whores were still smoking, but he could see in the window reflection that one of them was grinning wickedly at him. Sofia was staring out into the darkness. Miss Jessup raised the bottle inquiringly, smiling with great warmth. Miguel felt very uncomfortable.

  "My wife…" he said awkwardly.

  She regarded him with a strange questioning look, her head tilting slightly and a weird smile quirking one side of her mouth. Then her eyebrows shot up and her mouth made a surprised little O.

  "Oh! Sorry, Miguel. I didn't mean to give you any ideas or have any ideas about, you know… that. I mean, Jesus. How horrible. I'm not even…"

  Sofia was watching them now, her attention drawn by the exchange.

  Miss Jessup leaned forward, speaking in a lower voice. "I'm not even that into men, you know. I'm not a complete dyke, more sort of… manbivalent."

  Now he was entirely confused.

  What on earth did she mean by all of this? He felt his face beginning to flush as Sofia pushed herself up off the couch and walked over to join them, obviously intrigued by whatever was happening.

  "Well, that is… excellent," he improvised, gulping a mouthful of the expensive corky wine to cover his embarrassment.

  "Oh God," she snorted before descending into a fit of giggles. "Oh, no, I'm sorry. Look, Miguel," she said when she had herself back under control. "I like you. And your kid. She's tough," she said, nodding at Sofia, who was now standing beside him. "And you saved my fucking life, if you'll pardon my language… and you're… different, you know. You'll take a drink, for one thing, and you don't get all pussy-faced when I curse up a storm. I'm just saying I'd like a drink is all, and if we're gonna be on this trail together, I'd like us to be friends. Is that cool?"

  Miguel forced a nervous smile. He thought he understood now. Sofia's smile was softer, more natural.

  "I miss my friends from the camp and the boat," she said.

  "Yes. Okay," Miguel said. "Friends are good. I had two very fine lady friends on the boat that got us out of Mexico," he said. "My wife, Mariela, God rest her soul, she liked them, too. Miss Julianne, a real English lady, and Miss Fifi, who had a neck as red as the merciless peppers of Quetzlzacatenango but a heart as golden as Montezuma's treasure room."

  "Is that a joke, Miguel?" Miss Jessup smiled.

  "It is," he replied a little sadly. "One of Miss Fifi's favorites. But I joke to make well my sadness. She is dead now, I'm afraid."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," Trudi said. "It's a hard world, isn't it?"

  "Yes, Miss Jessup. It is."

  Adam appeared just then, saving him from further entanglement and awkwardness. Miguel saw his daughter searching the room for Sally Gray, but she had disappeared into the kitchen to help with the cleaning.

  "Miss Jessup," said the boy. "Miguel. I'm going to bunk down now. Do you need me to wake you later? I got this new watch today. Found it in the study upstairs. It's one of those that keeps wound up just by the movement of your arms when you walk. It has an alarm, too."

  "That would be good. Thank you, Adam," said the cowboy, wishing he could offer the boy a drink as a way of keeping him with them a little while longer. Instead he spooned up a mouthful of stew.

  Miss Jessup, who seemed to have recovered her poise entirely, reached across and took Adam's wrist between her long brown fingers.

  "That's a beauty, Adam. A TAG Heuer. It'll last you a lifetime if you look after it."

  "You think so?" he asked.

  "Oh, for sure. Hey, I don't suppose you can take a little drink, can you?" she asked conspiratorially, winking at him.

  "Oh, no, ma'am. That would be sinful. For me, that is. You're welcome to, though. And Miguel, of course. He's Catholic. They drink a lot."

  She rolled her eyes and laughed, a warm full-throated sound.

  "Oh, Adam, I was schooled by nuns way back in the last century, so I figured that out a long time ago."

  "Sofia," said Miguel, "would you like a mouthful of wine? Miss Jessup tells me it is very good."

  "Oh, please call me Trudi. You're making me feel like an old schoolmarm with the Miss Jessup thing. And yes, Sofia, it is a very nice wine, if slightly oxidized."

  Miguel was not a puritan. For a few years now he had allowed his oldest child a small occasional glass of wine and water with dinner, when appropriate. Both he and Mariela had always thought it best not to surround the taking of strong drink with too much magic and mystery the way the Mormons did.

  "I'd like that," Sofia said. "We had wine at home sometimes. But I don't know how good it was."

  Miguel allowed her to sip from his glass before Miss Jessup-sorry, Trudi-topped it off. The Mormons were all gone now, although he could hear the sounds of cleanup coming through from the kitchen. Marsha had stretched herself out on the couch under a colorful Navajo blanket and turned away from them. The other two whores were still smoking and muttering together, but they had lost interest in Miguel and Trudi. Adam, who was looking a little excluded, glanced about cautiously before reaching out for Trudi's glass.

  "Perhaps just a sip," he said. "To see what all the fuss is about."

  She beamed and let him take a mouthful, giggling again at the face he pulled.

  "Tastes like cordial syrup or something," he said, apparently unimpressed.

  "Well, officially, it smells like vanilla, orange peel, and cigars and tastes of sweet fruit, smoke, and a balancing acidity with spicy notes in the finish."

  Both Miguel and Adam stared at her as though she were crazy. Sofia seemed fascinated, however.

  "I used to be a food writer," she explained.

  "You wrote recipes?" Miguel asked.

  "Like cookbooks?" the boy added.

  Sofia shook her head and sighed as though on stage. "No," she explained on Trudi's behalf. "I'll bet you used to write for magazines and stuff, didn't you? Like Vogue or something."

  Trudi smiled, but she looked disheartened to Miguel.

  "Yes, Sofia. I wrote restaurant reviews. For magazines and newspapers. Not much call for that sort of skill these days, though."

  "Ah," Miguel said, suddenly understanding. "I knew a man once who worked for McDonald's. I used to manage their herds in Mexico. So you would write stories about eating in such places?"

  "Oh my God, Papa," his daughter said as though he'd fatally embarrassed her.

  Trudi Jessup, however, seemed to give the question a good deal of thought, and whatever she thought, it apparently amused her.

  "Yes," she said after a moment. "That's what I would do. I'd eat in places… like McDonald's… and write a story about it. That's how I came to miss the Disappearance. I was in Sardinia, researching a story for
Gourmet Traveller."

  "I know that magazine," Sofia said. "There were copies on Miss Julianne's boat, after the Wave."

  It wasn't exactly like a silence fell over them. The Wave had long ago receded, after all. But their good humor was subdued a little.

  "I was in Edmonton," Adam said. "On a school trip."

  "Oh," Trudi gasped unexpectedly. "You poor boy."

  Miguel wondered what she meant, and she registered his puzzlement immediately.

  "Don't you understand, Miguel?" she asked. "Edmonton was cut in half by the Wave. The city was madness, they say. Pure killing madness."

  Adam nodded, and the candlelight gave him a haunted look.

  "It was," he said. "It was like a curtain of bright sparkles high in the sky. I saw a pair of police cars and an ambulance cross the Wave and crash into buildings on the other side. Another cop ran past me, shouting for people to get back while she was talking on her radio. The Wave reached out and snatched her."

  Adam shook his head.

  "I saw her eyes… She didn't even get a chance to scream."

  Adam shivered.

  "This is why we drink," said Miguel, taking his refilled glass from Trudi Jessup.

  "Amen to that," she said.

  43

  New York Yusuf Mohammed could think of no prouder moment than this as he stood in the shell of a ransacked department store to meet the warriors of his very first saif. The store, housed in a grand old building, had been thoroughly looted. Every window on the ground floor was broken, letting in the wind and rain and an acrid smell of burning chemicals from the battle that rumbled a few miles to the south. For the most part his men, all Africans like him, all of them converts to the religion of peace, were recent arrivals. Only Tony Katumu, a former Serengeti National Park ranger, had been in America for more than a month. The others-two Ugandans, one Kenyan, and a lighter-skinned Algerian-had all arrived via the Canadian wastes in the last two weeks. They were all seasoned fighters, but they could not keep the look of wonder from their eyes whenever they moved through the city streets. Even as a tomb, New York had the power to overwhelm a newcomer. Yusuf remembered his own sense of insignificance the first time he had glimpsed Manhattan's skyline from a distance. He'd felt as though he was trespassing in a burial ground for ancient gods. A blasphemous thought, of course, that he flinched away from the very moment he'd had it.

  His men-he was still getting used to that characterization, his men-checked their kits one final time before heading out. Around them, in the cavernous ruins of the department store's ground floor, the warriors of the other saif, all of them newly arrived via the overland route from the north as well, were busy with final checks and preparations. They did not look much like an army. No two men were dressed alike, and although most were armed with AK-47s, the rest of their equipment was a grab bag of scavenged body armor, webbing, helmets, packs, and a jumbled bazaar of civilian clothing, bits and pieces of military camouflage, and whatever trinkets each man thought useful or necessary to have. Some carried extra water; some had pockets bulging with energy bars. The men of Yusuf's saif traveled light, at his insistence: their personal weapons and extra ammunition, a fighting knife, two canteens of water and a dozen water purification pills, a map, a small first-aid kit. As the commander of a saif, Yusuf was supposed to have the option of night vision goggles, but there were not nearly enough to go around, and he was comfortable fighting in the dark at any rate. Most of the raids he had carried out as a member of the Lord's Resistance Army had taken place after dark. He also worried about being blinded by bright flashes while he was wearing them.

  "Tony," he said, "I am told you are familiar with the part of the city where we are to fight."

  The former park ranger nodded as he adjusted the sling of his assault rifle.

  "When I first arrived in New York, I was sent down there with four men from Dar es Salaam," he said. "They were bandits, but their clan had negotiated passage and salvage rights in our part of the city in return for providing fighters. I watched over them while they picked over a couple of blocks. But I made my own notes and maps as we had been taught. I know it well."

  "Then you shall lead us down there," said Yusuf, "once we find out exactly where they need us most."

  The Algerian, a wiry brown-skinned fisherman by the name of Selim whose livelihood had been ruined by the Israelis' nuclear contamination of the Mediterranean, grinned wickedly. "They want us to go to hell," he said. "It's just down that way."

  He jerked his thumb as if to point somewhere off to the south.

  The other men all chuckled or grinned. It was nervous laughter. The sounds of battle reached them as a dull volcanic roar rolling up out of the gray distance. Even when the rain fell heavily enough to make conversation difficult, it was still not so loud as to drown out the thunder of the Americans' big bombing raids and the constant crash of their artillery. Yusuf had learned since becoming the commander of his own saif that the island he had been able to see from his dugout on Ellis was the location from which most of the American shelling originated. Governors Island it was called, and the governor of New York, an infidel known as Schimmel, was actually based there, as was the regiment of militia he controlled. They were fighting alongside the army in Manhattan now, and Yusuf had been told that they were not nearly as formidable an opponent as the regular American soldiers he would meet. Indeed, Sheikh Ozal's lieutenants, who had sat him down and all but overwhelmed him with information and details about the battle as soon as he was elevated to the level of commander, had insisted that whenever he found himself faced by a militia unit, he should press forward at all costs, for if the American line was to break anywhere, it would be there. To that end Yusuf had driven his small band of men to distraction, making them memorize the differences in uniforms and equipment between regular U.S. Army units and Governor Schimmel's militia, who were very helpfully dressed in gray camouflage, not green and brown.

  "While we wait, we should look at those photographs of the American soldiers again," Yusuf said, drawing a chorus of groans and pleas from his men.

  "Not again," said Selim. "Please, not again."

  As they burned off nervous energy waiting for their orders to head out to the front line, a strange quiet descended. Yusuf turned around and found that Ahmet Ozal and, even more surprisingly, the emir himself had appeared at the rear of the store. All discipline evaporated as fifty or sixty fighters pressed forward to get closer to their leaders. As sworn members of the Fedayeen Ozal, their first loyalty was to their Turkish lord, but the emir was a legendary figure, almost mythical, and his very rare appearances were always eagerly discussed and fondly remembered by the men afterward. The emir never spoke harshly to anyone. He had a knack of remembering a man's name and the smallest, least important details of his life, if he had met him once before. He was also generous to a fault, often sending out small gifts and tokens of appreciation to the men for their efforts even when his duties precluded him from walking among them. It was rumored that he took no plunder from the city, spending any and all tribute, which was rightfully his, to support the families of his fighters instead. The story of how he had not punished Yusuf for his self-confessed failure of spirit on Ellis Island but had instead rewarded him lavishly for returning to the fold with useful information had spread rapidly through the ranks of the fedayeen. Yusuf, who had expected to be shunned as a coward and detailed into some demeaning or even suicidal role, found himself the object of envy and much good-natured ribbing at having shared the delights of the emir's personal harem, even if only for a day. The man did not simply inspire loyalty. Looking upon him for the second time in a week, Yusuf understood something his enemies never would: The emir inspired love.

  He did not look happy today, however. The dark and somber cast of his features matched almost perfectly the bleak weather and deteriorating news from the front. As the emir weaved his way through and around the trashed store displays, hopping over a mannequin and crunching the broken glass
of an empty jewelry cabinet under his boots, Yusuf could not help worrying that something had gone terribly wrong. His worst fears were confirmed as the emir held up both hands and gestured for the fighters to gather around him and be quiet.

  "My friends, I bring ill tidings," he announced. A troubled murmur ran through the small gathering of armed men. "I have had word from the front. The Americans have cut through our allies…"

  The grumbling turned much darker and uglier, but the emir hushed the angry crowd with a gentle gesture of his hand. "It is only to be expected," he said. "They are pouring everything they have into this battle, and our… allies… are not as well equipped or trained as you. Nor do they fight for a higher purpose. We cannot expect them to bend themselves to God's will and do his hard work when they do not have faith. All they have is their greed. Do not blame them for this. Pity them and forgive them as Allah would."

  Yusuf was surprised to find a tear welling up as his throat tightened. As he listened to the emir, his anger at the failure of the bandits turned to pity and even a little shame.

  "Even so, there is now more hard work for us to do. We are preparing a fearsome defense upon which the Americans will perish like sailors dashed against the rocks by a great storm."

  The mood in the room changed again at that. The fighters became more attentive. Yusuf noted his own men clustering around him and lifting their faces expectantly to the emir, who had climbed atop what looked like an old cabinet in a perfume display.

  "We need time to ready that defense, and I'm afraid I must ask you men to give me that time. It almost certainly means asking you to give me your lives."

  A single voice cried out. "Our lives! Our souls! For you, anything, my sheikh."

  The crowd erupted in a single roar of agreement. Yusuf found himself shouting along with everyone else.

  "There is more," said the emir, raising his voice to be heard above the clamor but not actually shouting. He seemed to have a way of projecting his words so that they reached right to the back of the assembly. "I'm afraid it is not so simple a matter as laying down your lives in battle. There are women and children in the path of the American onslaught."