The battle was over, Baranyk realized. He was doomed, flanked like his army at Kiev. Only this time the murderers used words, not shells, and they smelled of soap and after-shave. Holy Father. How would he explain this to his men?
Wait, he thought. There is still one surprise. It would be a wild bluff, but Pankov had no way of seeing Baranyk’s cards.
The general leaned forward. “We have been sighting alien ships. Extraterrestrial little blue lights.”
Pankov gave Fyodorov a revealing, worried glance. “There is an American general who thinks he can talk with them, bring the aliens into the war,” Baranyk said. “It may be difficult for the aliens to understand combat. It may be impossible for them to understand neutrality.”
The point hit home. Baranyk saw Pankov’s composure crack, saw the uncertainty beneath.
“Look up at the sky, Pankov. Keep looking at the sky and ask yourself if there is something more lethal riding there than your aging ICBMs.”
IN THE LIGHT
Down the gentle slope of moist St. Augustine, at the end of the pier over the lake, Jerry Casey’s Pa was squatted, tying a fishing lure. Taking a breath of the rain-freshened air, Jerry walked down to him, his feet bouncing on the weathered boards of the pier.
“Hello, Pa,” he said.
His Pa glanced up and smiled. The eyes, the nose, the mouth wavered a little, as though seen through wet glass.
“Sit down,” his Pa told him.
Jerry squatted, too, and stared into the lake. In the clear water the fish hung suspended, like sleek helicopters in air. A few yards away, reeds clattered in the breeze. A landing mallard splashed down near them, making the fish dart. “Nice here,” Jerry said. There were ferns growing near the dock, maidenhair ferns with chartreuse coin leaves.
“Yes,” his Pa told him, grinning a strange, loose grin. “I like it a lot. You want to go out on the boat, Jerry? Would you like that, you think?”
“Sure,” he said, so surprised by his Pa’s question, he nearly forgot to breathe. His Pa’d never called him Jerry before. He’d always called him “boy,” as though he could never remember his name.
“Get in the boat, Jerry.”
The reeds were clattering so hard, it sounded like rain. Glancing behind him, Jerry saw a little rowboat bobbing in the water.
Then they were in the boat in the middle of the lake, by the reeds. “Go ahead, Jerry. Jump right in.”
Cool water rippled into Jerry’s shirt, ran its calm hand through his hair. He thought he remembered dust and heat and people dying, but the memory was faint. He pushed his face underwater and watched the gold and red fish glide around the mossy rocks.
“Come on!” his Pa was calling, standing up in the boat moored yards away.
Jerry was in the boat, and his Pa was grinning that strange, fluttery smile from ear to incomplete ear. It was as though all those years with Pa he’d spent living with a stranger. This was the man he knew. Pa was like someone out of a television family on afternoon reruns, as familiar as Cosby or Beaver Cleaver’s dad.
“Would you like to tell me about America?” his Pa asked in a television dad’s voice.
“Maybe later, Pa, if you don’t mind, that is.”
Pa’s smile broadened, grew wobbly around the edges.
“No, Jerry. I don’t mind that at all. Say, would you like a sandwich?” He opened the top of a cooler.
Jerry froze in horror. Now it would all be spoiled, the pretty day, the lake, his Pa’s good mood. Jerry expected his Pa to pull a beer out of the ice. Instead he handed Jerry a Coke.
“Here,” his Pa said. “You like that, don’t you?”
“Yeah. “ Jerry pulled the pop-top off and drank. The Coke fizzed and burned down his throat.
“Have a sandwich,” his Pa said, handing him a foil-covered packet. “I know growing boys get hungry.”
Jerry took a bite. Ham and swiss with pickles on it, his favorite. The taste awakened a beast in him; he pushed his face into the sandwich and grunted like a starving dog. When he looked up from the empty foil, crumbs dropping from his face, he saw his Pa watching him.
They were in the cabin. A fire crackled in the hearth. Outside, rain was falling, tapping against the panes.
“Here,” his Pa said, pushing a plate across the scarred wood of the kitchen table.
Chicken-fried steak with gravy. Nuggets of okra, crisp just the way he liked. A mound of mashed potatoes, a big slab of pumpkin pie.
“Go ahead, Jerry,” his Pa said, sounding now like the man in Father Knows Best. “Go ahead and eat.”
Jerry ate until his sides ached. He ate until he had to loosen his belt. When he was finished, he sat back from the table and watched his Pa watch him.
“Let’s go outside,” his Pa suggested. “Would you like to do that, Jerry? Would you like to go outside, son?”
They were standing on the porch, and Jerry saw that the rain had lightened to a fine mist. The tag ends of the shower were dripping off the roof, pattering on the stair boards. The air was aromatic with pine.
Jerry was surprised to see someone else there with them.
Down the slope near a tumble-down, corrugated metal boathouse stood a man in a flight suit. A lost look on his face, he turned and walked up to the trees.
“Would you like to meet that pilot, Jerry?” his Pa asked.
“No, Pa. Not right now.” Truth was, Jerry didn’t want to share his new Pa with anyone. Not anyone. He wanted to hoard his Pa’s love like something expensive and special, put it in a cotton-filled box and store it away.
“All right,” his Pa said. “Not today. You don’t have to meet him today. But I want you to meet him sometime. It’s important, or I wouldn’t ask.”
“Okay, Pa.” Jerry saw the pilot looking at them. Then the man turned and disappeared into the dark forest.
Resentment emptied out of Jerry like sand through a funnel. Cool, moist happiness filled the space. He found himself grinning for no real reason.
“I think I’m beginning to understand fear,” his Pa said, turning. To the rhythm of the dripping water, his Pa’s face was changing. Jerry fought the urge to put out a hand and still it.
“I’d like to learn about sorrow now.”
Jerry stopped smiling. Around him, the lawn became hushed, only the rustling of the reeds moved the air. Love swelled in him like an ache. His new dad was so gentle, so fragile, that the lightest touch could mar him. He wasn’t like any man Jerry had ever known.
“Oh, no, Pa,” Jerry whispered fervently. “I seen it all, and you don’t want to know nothing about it.”
BARCELONA, SPAIN
Careful not to drop his briefcase or bump his cast against the doorjamb, Colonel Wasef made his way into General Sabry’s office. The rotund general stood up. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Wasef looked down at his plastered right arm. All day long his mind had played a tedious back-and-forth game of tennis with a ball of credulity. One moment, he would believe himself whole and reach for something; another moment, the broken arm was such a towering reality, it took up most of his world.
“Yes, sir. I’m well enough.”
Perhaps he wasn’t. He’d lost the LDV, and he’d accused the general’s only son of treason. Glancing up at Sabry’s round, concerned face, he wondered if the man would ever forgive him.
“Please. Please.” Sabry pulled a chair up next to the desk. “Sit down.”
Wasef took a seat awkwardly, trying to keep his heavy elbow off the armrests.
“We believe the last KH satellite is disabled,” Sabry said.
As a man who sometimes pulls his dreams with him into day, Wasef experienced a brief and confusing flashback to the battle. The robot vehicle was turning, its arm raised like the most maladroit of baseball pitchers
. The sight had been so ludicrous, Wasef almost laughed. Then he saw the dark shape of the mortar rush toward him. Here in the sunlit calm of the general’s office, the memory was so strong, it almost made him flinch.
“Are you in pain?” the general inquired.
Wasef opened his eyes. “No, sir.”
“Just to you will I admit I have some whiskey.” The general grinned. “Do not pass that information on to the Shi’a or the Saudis. Above all, do not tell those arrogant Saudis. If you would like a drink here in the privacy of my office, however, I would be glad to pour you one.”
Wasef began to lift his right arm in a gesture of refusal, but the weight of the cast stopped him. “No, sir. Please do not trouble yourself.”
The general’s smile faded with worry. “Even without the laser, we must make the assault. Not to act now would draw out the war another six months, and we can’t afford that. An Iranian pilot put a missile into a mountaintop yesterday. Through his idiocy the planned route is impossible. We must use the road south of Andorra.”
Wasef, cradling his cast with his left hand, nodded. “If we move at night, we can cross the mountains undetected. There are rarely Allied flights there, and the French, I believe, are not yet alarmed.”
“We?” Sabry asked.
Wasef blinked, suddenly adrift. “Yes, sir. The artillery and tank battalions I am to lead.”
Sabry frowned. The scowl was so unlike him that Wasef was frightened. Allah be merciful. Gamal has told his father.
“I am not sure about you,” the general said.
Wasef was sweating now. The room was not air-conditioned, and the afternoon sun blared through the window like atonal music.
“I fear you are too ill,” Sabry said.
Taking an unsteady breath of relief, Wasef shook his head. “No, sir. I am perfectly fine. I do not hold a weapon myself. There should be no fear that I am not capable.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes, sir. I will lead them.”
“Good, then. Tomorrow I will begin my push up through Gerona to Perpignan. This should draw the attention of the French.” He chuckled. “In the meantime you will travel from Pons to Seo de Urgel. From there take the southern route to Mont-Louis and then to Prades. Prades will enter onto their flank, and we will have them trapped between us.”
Sabry brought his palms together, squeezing the air as he planned to squeeze the French. “And it will be over,” he whispered.
He stared at his hands in awe, then suddenly looked at Wasef. “Colonel?”
“Sir?”
“I have not yet thanked you for taking care of my son.”
* * *
When Wasef left the office, his briefcase under his left arm, he found Gamal waiting in the foyer of the building.
The captain approached and fell in step with the colonel’s quick stride.
“Did you tell my father?” he asked anxiously.
Wasef darted a glance at the boy. “No. Will you?”
They reached the sidewalk and the fierce sunshine. Wasef turned left. The boy trotted to catch up. “Colonel, I swear to you. I thought I was hitting the Keyhole.”
Wasef halted. Gamal looked at him questioningly. “You did,” Wasef said, ashamed that he hadn’t remembered to tell the boy himself.
Wasef had not realized how tense Gamal had been until he saw him relax. “Would you care for a cup of coffee?” he asked. They went to a small sidewalk cafe with brightly colored art nouveau columns. And with red and salmon geraniums blooming in narrow planters. Everywhere he went in Spain, there were geraniums, as though the plant were the national flower.
Taking a seat in the shade, Wasef slipped his briefcase onto a black wrought-iron chair. Gamal slouched down next to him and propped his elbows on the much-mended cotton of the tablecloth.
“I was afraid that you would tell him I was a traitor and that he would believe you,” the boy confessed. “He loves me. That is something my father cannot help. But he trusts you, and that is a different thing.”
The waiter came and asked for their order in insolent Catalan. Wasef responded in the same language, much to the waiter’s displeasure.
“They hate us,” Gamal said when the waiter had gone. “It is natural. All conquered peoples hate their conquerors.”
“Is it natural for us to hate so much, too?” Gamal asked, his eyes bright, his face intense. “The Allies are infidels, and the poor displaced Israelis less than dust The Syrians are thieves; the Palestinians stupid; the Kuwaitis lazy. Why do we hate so much, do you think?”
The waiter brought their coffee, putting the small cups down so hard, the dark liquid slopped onto the tablecloth.
“I don’t know,” Wasef said.
“It is because we are still tribal,” Gamal said, glancing around to make sure no other Arab was in earshot. “In this modem world, we are still tribal. Islam preaches brotherhood, but there is no brotherhood in us.”
Wasef brought the cup to his mouth. The coffee was so sweet, it made his teeth ache.
“My father is uncomfortable when I speak of this,” Gamal told him.
Wasef could understand why. He took another cautious sip.
“You see,” Gamal said, “to my father, Arabs are good, Egyptians better, and family the best of all. If you told him I was a traitor, he would believe you. He would send me away, then tell you to keep silent. If you did not keep silent, he would ruin you. Even though he loves you more, he would ruin you. My father believes in family.”
Wasef struggled to keep the rage and heartache from his face. It was true, all of it. What Gamal told him came as no surprise. “Perhaps we should talk of other things,” he suggested.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” Gamal asked, still fretting at the question. “Haven’t you ever stood back and seen what we are? Arabs live in little boxes of loyalties: family and country and religion.”
“I’m reassigning you,” Wasef told him.
Gamal blinked his large, spaniel eyes. “Why?”
Wasef kept his gaze on his coffee cup. “The laser is destroyed now. Best that you stay in Barcelona. I will assign you to a division here.”
“I want to go with you to Prades.”
With a start, Wasef looked up. So once more the general had revealed strategic secrets to his son. But, then, Gamal was family.
“There is no laser for you to use,” the colonel told him.
“I want to see combat.”
Was the boy mad? It was one thing to think unorthodox thoughts. Wasef himself often did. But it was dangerous to voice them. And stupid to walk purposefully into the line of fire.
“Stay in Barcelona, Captain Sabry,” Wasef said. “Stay here and live so that you may become a great astrophysicist.”
Gamal flushed with embarrassment. “I think I will not be an astrophysicist anymore. We fight together, don’t you see? Iranians and Jordanians. Saudis and Iraqis. This is more than simply the Pan-Arabism we have been awaiting. It is a true Muslim brotherhood.”
“If you will not be an astrophysicist, what other career do you choose?” Wasef asked, curious.
Gamal blushed a shade darker. His gaze dropped to the coffee cup cradled gently between his hands. “One day I want to be President of the United Arabic States.”
CRAV COMMAND, TRÁS-OS-MONTES, PORTUGAL
Gordon tried his best to keep his eyes open while Pelham was speaking. Even blink too long, he knew, and he’d drop off to sleep. He felt his body begin to sway and caught himself with a startled flinch before he toppled to the concrete floor.
“We want you to come down the mountain,” the colonel was saying, jabbing a pointer at a map. Dully Gordon watched the red tip of the pointer zip back and forth across the roads like a crimson bee.
“We’re holding Alfarras,�
�� the colonel was saying.
Gordon frowned in concentration.
“The road should be safe till there.” Pelham gave the map a critical glance, and tapped it with the pointer. “Then cross-country it north of Lerida and head up to Zaragoza to the British air station, and we’ll fly the CRAV out.”
There was a long pause. Then the colonel shot in a whiplash voice, “You reading me here, sergeant?”
Gordon popped his eyes wide. “Yes, sir. Alfarras to Zaragoza, sir.”
“Good,” Pelham said, a smile breaking across his face.
“Because, with GPS down, you’ll have to remember this map. And I thought you were dozing off on me.”
“No, sir. Wide awake, sir.”
“It was good hunting you did,” Pelham said, putting the pointer away. “Very good hunting.”
Gordon remembered the scream of the Arab captain, the colonel disappearing from behind the machine gun as abruptly and decisively as a tin duck in a shooting gallery. Were they dead? Gordon wondered. He couldn’t help hoping they were; and he couldn’t help praying that what he’d done to them hadn’t hurt too much.
“But the secret to keeping alive in battle is discretion, son, not valor,” Pelham told him, his face suddenly somber. “Without functioning missiles, you took one helluva chance.”
Bullshit, Gordon thought. The colonel could have taken him out of the goggles anytime. And discretion didn’t mean diddly in the face of destroying that laser.
The colonel nodded for no apparent reason. He glanced back at the map and then studied Gordon. “We’ll have the CRAV refitted and back in the field again within a week. Mr. Ishimoto has promised us that.”
“Thank you, sir,” Gordon said. At last the colonel had got to the heart of the matter: downtime. A week. Gordon could live CRAV-less a week.
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