The War After Armageddon

by Ralph Peters

  “Roger on the first. We’ll see about the second. Any word from the rear on Sergeant Brodsky?”

  “Comms are still down, sir. Last I heard, they thought he’d lose the second leg, too.”

  Cavanaugh shook his head. Staring off toward the body bags again, unable to keep his eyes under his command. But the sergeant major wasn’t having any of it.

  “Come on, sir. This is what we signed up for. You need to eat some chow. Hell, I’ll give you my cheese pack…”

  A shot. Followed by an echo. It punctured the odd stillness of terrified human beings, hiding behind closed doors in their thousands. Framed by the groans of military vehicles in the far streets and the relentless sounds of war beyond the ridges.

  “That was downtown,” the sergeant major said. His even tone still managed to communicate that it wasn’t good news.

  “You stay here, Sergeant Major,” Cavanaugh called. Already running for his track. “Let’s go, Hotel-1. Boots and saddles.”

  Bratty barked, “Sergeant Rodriguez. Back up Bayonet Six with your squad. Move.”

  Two Bradleys snorted down the hill, deeper into the unkempt city. Cavanaugh had already paid a quick visit to the old center, with its Biblical memories, while positioning his companies and refining their sectors. A wretched place, it didn’t excite any feelings of piety in him. Only repulsion.

  In the dead heart of the old town, Cavanaugh spotted a new-model light armored truck. There were none in his battalion’s inventory.

  “Specialist Quandt,” he told his driver over the intercom. “Butt-fuck that guy. I don’t want him going anyplace until I find out who he is.”

  “Roger, sir.” The driver pivoted the big armored vehicle to the left, closing off the narrow street.

  Cavanaugh saw two more of the brand-new vehicles. And a V-hull truck.

  A pair of soldiers popped out of a doorway, weapons up. Not his men.

  Cavanaugh had to get very close — snuggled right up behind the line of vehicles — before he could see the black crosses in the fading light. Black crosses, on the left breast of the uniform tunics.

  Sonofabitch, he thought to himself. Then he warned himself to keep his temper. But he jumped down from the Bradley’s deck like a paratrooper landing ready to fight.

  Both MOBIC troops were ju nior enlisted men. Cavanaugh had no intention of wasting time on them.

  “Where’s your commanding officer?”

  The two soldiers looked at him sullenly. Insolently. Then the corporal said, “Major Brown’s reclaiming the site of the Annunciation. For our Lord, Jesus Christ. And Christians everywhere.”

  “Post one fire team here,” Cavanaugh told Sergeant Rodriguez, who had just come up behind him. “Then cover my six.”

  “You got it, sir.”

  Cavanaugh plunged ahead. Striding up the lane. Toward the site where the Church of St. Gabriel once stood. He’d stopped by earlier. Briefly. The rubbled lot had been turned into an open-air latrine, and the below-ground cavity where Mary’s well lay hidden was a cesspit.

  A short block up the hillside, Cavanaugh found a squad of MOBIC soldiers unspooling white tape printed with black crosses, cordoning off the area.

  None of them paid the least attention to the corpse lying in the center of the plaza. The dark blood on the paving slabs shone fresh. The dead man was an elderly Arab.

  Cavanaugh tightened his grip on his carbine.

  Two MOBIC troops glanced up at his approach. Then they dropped their spool of tape and rushed toward him, holding up their hands like old-fashioned traffic cops.

  “Stay where you are. Don’t enter this site.”

  “Get out of my fucking way.”

  The scattered MOBIC soldiers alerted. They began to close toward the center of the plaza. Slipping their rifles from their shoulders. An officer hurried toward Cavanaugh.

  Cavanaugh heard Sergeant Rodriguez and his men entering the plaza behind him.

  As the officer approached in the weakening light, Cavanaugh read his rank: a major.

  “What do you think you’re doing here, Major? No one’s authorized to enter this—”

  “I’m in charge here, Colonel. This is now a reclaimed Christian Heritage site, praise the Lord. You’re violating a sacred area.”

  “It’s a fucking latrine. Who the fuck are you?”

  “Major Josiah Makepeace Brown. The commander of CHART 55. And you have no further authority here.”

  “How’d you get here.”

  “The Lord showed us the way.”

  “He tell you to shoot that old man?”

  “The heathen?”

  “Yeah, the heathen. The old man. Him. Which one of you shot him?”

  “I did.”

  “Why? Jesus Christ, he was probably just coming to take a leak.”

  “You don’t believe that those who profane this holy ground, who sow filth amid the lilies of the field, need to be punished?”

  “You shot an old man. And I don’t see any goddamned lilies. You have no right to be here.”

  The MOBIC officer maintained an infuriatingly calm voice. As if speaking to a child. But there was an unmistakable threat in his tone, too.

  “Colonel, you and your men will have to leave. Immediately. Or I’ll be forced to arrest you. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and the Military Order of the Brothers in Christ.”

  Cavanaugh broke the major’s jaw. It was an awkward punch, with the fist forming only after it left the handgrip and trigger-well of the carbine. But Cavanaugh was comfortable doing a dozen reps on the bench with 280 pounds. He didn’t aim with great precision, but the blow landed perfectly, and the jaw snapped with the sound of a broomstick broken over a thigh.

  The MOBIC troops weren’t well-trained. When the major fell, a few began to point their weapons, but Cavanaugh’s men, outnum bered three to one, quickly disarmed them. So roughly that Cavanaugh had to tell them to ease up. He even began to worry that one of his men would pull a trigger. All of the day’s anger, the rage at the sight of the crucified soldiers, had transferred onto the MOBIC troops, who were hated by the rank-and-file for their priviliges and the preference they got in equipment and promotions.

  “Hey, sir,” Sergeant Rodriguez said. “What do you want us to do with these shitbirds?”

  Cavanaugh turned to the next-ranking MOBIC officer, a first lieutenant. “You. Get that body out of the square. Put him over on that bench.”

  The lieutenant turned to give orders to two of his soldiers.

  “I said ‘you’,” Cavanaugh told him. “Take one man to help you, Lieutenant.” He looked down at the major, who lay on the ground moaning. Cavanaugh wondered if he’d screwed up. But it had felt good. Almost as good as decking his wife’s new, smite-the-Moabites, bullshit husband might have felt. And his orders covered him.

  No. That was bullshit. He wasn’t going to hide behind orders. He’d called it, and he’d stand by his call.

  Cavanaugh faced the distinctly unhappy group of MOBIC soldiers. He was tempted to have them tied up and to leave them just where they said they wanted to be. In the middle of the mounds of shit that covered the site of the old church.

  “Treat that body with respect,” Cavanaugh snapped at the lieutenant and the MOBIC soldier helping him. “Then I’m going to give you fifteen minutes to get out of Dodge.”

  The lieutenant turned his face toward Cavanaugh, features vivid with fear. “Sir… Can we wait until daylight? Please, sir? It’s getting dark, and we might not be able to find our way back now… We could get shot in the dark by mistake.”

  Cavanaugh extended his wrist and looked at his watch.

  “Fourteen minutes,” he said. “The Lord will show you the way.”

  FOURTEEN

  ARAQAH, FORMER WEST BANK

  The Arab girl was pretty enough to make Sergeant Garcia jumpy. Fourteen, maybe fifteen. Muy caliente. And walking around like she knew it. So much, he figured, for all that Muslim modesty stuff.

  “You,” Ga
rcia told her. “You understand me, right? You tell your mother that all of you got to stay in that one room. Understand? Nobody comes out, unless they ask permission. And it’s okay now. We’re done searching in there.”

  The girl stared at him. Absolutely no emotion on her face. Like some hard little high-school bitch back home.

  “You tell your mother,” Garcia continued, “that nobody’s going to hurt anybody. You’re safe. But you all got to stay in that room until we leave.”

  He hoped they’d be safe. He understood how his Marines felt when they looked at the girl. He felt more than he wanted to feel himself. Skinny, yeah. But the good kind of skinny. The bend-me-every-which-way kind. She could’ve been from some high-class Latino family back home.

  And that little mustache. Like a smudge of ashes.

  “Go in there now,” Garcia said. “Tell your mother what I said.”

  After an insolent few seconds, the girl turned toward the room where her mother and little brother waited. But first she let Garica and the other Marines watch her expression turn from a blank to sheer snottiness.

  Garcia read the air in the hallway. “I don’t want anybody hassling her,” he said. “Everybody got that? No conversations, nothing. That’s jailbait. And I mean it.”

  “They get married when they’re, like, six years old,” Cropsey said.

  “Yeah, well you want to marry her, you come back when all this is over. All right. Corporal Gallotti, your squad has the roof and the first guard rotation. Make sure you got visual with Third Platoon and no dead space you don’t know about. Corporal Banks, your squad’s in the shacks out in the courtyard. Suck it up. Every-body else is in here. Max four to a room. In case any shit goes down. And get some sleep. There’s orders coming down, and we’ll probably be moving out at zero-dark-thirty.” He paused. Examining the tired, dirty faces. “And one more thing: No souvenirs. No breaking shit, either. Show some respect.”

  Some murmurs. But nothing to worry about. For the moment. They were tired. Crashing. Like meth-heads at the end of a long run. The Marines began to disperse, guided by the surviving NCOs.

  “Cropsey, Larsen. Polanski,” Garcia called. “You’re in here. With me.”

  He wanted to keep an eye on Cropsey. Garcia still wasn’t sure how to handle him. Best fighter in the platoon. Natural-born killer. But he needed to be kept on a tight leash.

  Sergeant Ricky Garcia didn’t want any more trouble. Just a little sleep. The past twenty-four hours had sucked, from the second the clock started ticking. First the new lieutenant. Next, the new lieutenant getting himself killed. Then two more firefights with stay-behinds and a death march, followed by the company commander reaming him because the dead lieutenant, who Garica had pegged as right off the block, had been the nephew of some general. Even after Garcia explained what happened, backed up by Corporal Gal-lotti and Corporal Banks, Captain Cunningham had left him with a line that burned his ears like battery acid:

  “As platoon sergeant, it was your job to look out for him.”

  How could you look out for an asshole the size of the Central Valley? Garcia asked himself. But the words still ate at him. Because he wanted to be a good platoon sergeant. The best. To show them all.

  And he wasn’t sure he could do it.

  He dropped his gear on the floor. When he slipped off his body armor, his uniform was sealed against his chest and back with old sweat. He wanted to take off his boots and leave them off but decided it wasn’t a good idea. He settled for changing his socks and dusting some powder between his toes.

  The room smelled of piss and insecticide. Low couches lined three walls. Other than that, there was only a crap rug, some Mr. Raghead portraits hanging a few inches from the ceiling, and a table with a tinwork top that reminded him of border-town Mex crap. Could’ve been some junkie’s room, he decided. After he sold off everything anybody would buy.

  “Where you going, Polanksi?”

  “To the shitter. It’s outside, Sergeant.”

  “Take your weapon. And put your body armor on. You think you’re at the swimming pool at Lejeune?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  The lance corporal slung his weapon over his shoulder, then stumbled over a fold in the rug. Clumsiest Marine in the platoon. And maybe the dumbest.

  Cropsey flopped down on the cushions in one corner. Cradling his weapon. Larsen had his trousers down to his knees, inspecting the prickly heat on the inside of his thighs. Garcia broke out the chili he’d saved from his last ration pack. It didn’t need heating. His pocket had warmed it just fine.

  Suck-ass, rat-hole country. Who’d want it? He wondered if he should tell the old lady who owned the house to lock her door. Just in case.

  Did the Mussies even have locks on their inside doors?

  “Yo, Sergeant Garcia,” Larsen said. Messing with a pimple on his thigh. “I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “You ever think… that maybe those MOBIC guys have it right? That we can’t really live with these people? That it’s us or them?”

  “Those MOBIC fucks don’t have anything right.” Garcia leaned back and closed his eyes.

  “But what if it really is us or them?”

  “Larsen, you need to get some sleep. You want to talk philosophy, go to college.”

  “I just meant… Maybe they have a point. You know?”

  Garcia sat up. Tired and short-fused. “You want to know what I think of those MOBIC shitheads? First, they aren’t Marines. That’s strike one. Second, they’re just loco gangbangers. I grew up around fucks like that. ‘Hey, you’re either in our gang, or you must be in some other gang, and you’re the enemy, and we’re going to mess you up.’ I had enough of that shit back home.”

  “But there’s a difference,” Larsen pressed on. “They’re defending our Christian faith.”

  “Who says?” Garica was getting angrier than Larsen, who was fascinated by his own reddened skin, realized. “Just who the fuck says? Where does Jesus say, ‘Kill everybody who isn’t with the program, who isn’t in my gang, who isn’t running with the J-Town Disciples?’ Those MOBIC pukes are gangbangers. Plain and simple. Except the drug they push doesn’t come from some lab in a house trailer in Barstow.”

  Without opening his eyes, Cropsey put in, “Come on, Sergeant G. You got religion like a bad case of superstition yourself, man. That tattoo of the Virgin Mary on your arm and everything.”

  “It’s the Virgin of Guadalupe.”

  “Same difference. It’s still the Virgin Mary.”

  “Well, it is, and it isn’t.”

  “No, man. It is. The Virgin of Guadalupe is the Virgin Mary. As she appeared to some Indian dude back at the Alamo or something.”

  “It wasn’t at the fucking Alamo.”

  But Cropsey had taken over the conversation. “At least the MOBIC guys don’t take any shit from the rags. You got to give them credit. And you heard what they’re saying around battalion. How the J’s have been crucifying prisoners.” Cropsey sat up, grinning. “You know what I think? I think we ought to interrogate that girl. She speaks English. We could ask her where all the men went. Where her daddy is. You could scare her with the Virgin of Guadalupe. You and me, Sergeant G. Good cop, bad cop.”

  “Shut up and go to sleep.”

  “Come on, Sergeant G. You telling me you wouldn’t like to fuck that little bitch’s brains out?”

  Garcia rolled to his feet. “That’s it. Outside. Now. This is two days in a row you’ve used up your shit ration. And you. Larsen. Either see the corpsman, or stop playing with yourself. Cropsey, move. And put your armor back on.”

  Polanski came back in from the hallway, blocking the doorway just as Garcia was dropping his body armor over his head.

  “Stop dawdling, Polanski. Clean your weapon and go to sleep.”

  “I was cleaning my boots, sergeant. The out house has turds all over it.”

  “Just clean your weapon and go to sleep.”

  Weapon in
hand, Garcia led the way under the dangling lightbulb in the hallway and out through the drapery that served as a front door. He wondered where the electricity was coming from. It was hard to believe that anything still worked in the entire country.

  Just outside, in the fading heat, Garcia turned on Cropsey. Keeping his voice low. And making a note that it was time to turn out all the inside lights, to go blackout.

  The evening had gone the color of his mother’s favorite sweater, a soft purple. What did you call it? Lavender? The blotches on her face had been the same color just before she died.

  “What’s your major malfunction, Cropsey? What is it, man? You don’t like the Marines? You don’t like sergeants? You don’t like Hispanics, maybe? Or maybe you just don’t like me.”

  “I love you, Sergeant Garcia. It’s just that I’m afflicted with moral dilemmas and quandaries. I think I’m being traumatized by war.”

  Garcia wanted to hit him. But he didn’t. Instead, he changed his tone of voice.

  “Come on, Cropsey. What’s eating you? You afraid of something? If you weren’t such an asshole, you could be a great Marine.”

  Cropsey just stared at him. Pale eyes in a fading face as the dark came down. As insolent as the Arab girl.

  “We’ll settle this another time,” Garcia told him. “Meanwhile, I don’t want to hear one more word about that girl. That’s an order.”

  Cropsey shrugged.

  “You clean your weapon?” Garcia asked him. He wanted things to be normal. As normal as they could be in war. And he felt that Cropsey was getting the better of him.

  “My weapon’s always clean, Sergeant.”

  “Then go in and get some sleep.”

  Cropsey pivoted and pushed aside the drapery.

  Just in time for both of them to see the girl. She was standing at the doorway of their room. With a grenade in her hand.

  For an instant, her eyes met Garcia’s. Then she tossed the grenade into the room and ran.

  Cropsey began to swing up his weapon, but Garcia pulled him to the ground. Just before the explosion.

  The blast blew out the light and thickened the air with dust and smoke.