The War After Armageddon

by Ralph Peters

  “You’re no theologian, Gary. You know not of what you speak.”

  “Do you? Do you, Sim? Do you bear the love of Jesus Christ in your heart? Do you truly feel the solace of His mercy? You call yourself a Christian, but you’d just as soon cut out everything in the Bible between the Book of Joshua and the Book of Revelation. You’re no Christian, Sim. And your kind aren’t Christians. No man who could order the massacre of every human being in Jerusalem — then in Nazareth, for God’s sake — could ever claim to be a Christian.”

  Montfort sat back and crossed his legs again. A cock crowed in the distance.

  “And what about the home front?” Harris drove on. “What about the United States of America? What would Jesus have to say about your political antics, Sim? Remember that bit about ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s’? Remember that part? Or ‘My Kingdom is not of this world’? Did I get that right? Did I miss the footnotes? Isn’t it enough that the American people are still overwhelmingly Christian? Do we really have to become an official religious state? Like Iran used to be? Or the Sultanate of Baghdad now? Didn’t things work pretty well for us over the past two and a half centuries? What were we denied as Christians?”

  “The United States was, is, and shall be a Christian country. We have lived in error for many generations, but now we must accept our role as the New Jerusalem.”

  “Well, you did a fuck of a job on the old Jerusalem.”

  “Don’t mock, Gary. Don’t mock what you don’t understand.”

  “I understand that Jesus Christ brought love and mercy into this world.”

  “And we crucified Him. We had our chance. We failed Him. Now He returns with a sword.”

  “Con ve nient. Show me that passage in the Gospels.”

  “Luke 22, Verse 36, ‘he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.’ But you haven’t answered my questions, Gary. Tell me, please. Instruct me: After fourteen centuries of warfare between our faith and Islam — begun by a conquering, bloodthirsty faith and continued unto this day by its spawn — after all the Christian suffering, the enslavements, the relentless bloodshed, the hatred, the captivity of our churches… haven’t we had sufficient proof that we can’t coexist? That it’s us or them? Would you prefer it to be the Muslims who prevail? Should we just surrender? Would our enemies lay down their swords? To put it in secular terms for you, religions are competitors in a great struggle for survival. Religions can’t cooperate, not really. It’s not in their DNA. God tells us all that there can be only one path to salvation, one truth, but we refuse to hear. In our vanity and pride, we think we know better. ‘All religions share a universal spirit.’ Do they, Gary? Do they? You love to cite the Gospels. Well, where does Christ say, ‘Choose the faith you find con ve nient, they’re all the same to me’? You know better. As a Christian yourself, if a confused one. Christ tells us, in the clearest words He ever spoke, that those who do not believe in Him cannot be saved. He damns them. Or do you think He was just in a bad mood that day?” Montfort swept a hand back over his shining hair. “For fourteen centuries, we tried to find a way to live in peace with the forces of the Anti christ. For fourteen hundred years, we wandered aimlessly in a spiritual desert, bereft of comfort because we denied our purpose. And now, at last, our wanderings are over. We have been touched by the fire of God’s Word: There is only one true faith, and there shall be only one true faith, and this land will be purged with fire.”

  “You sound like Charlton Heston in one of his lesser roles. What are you telling me, Sim? That a billion-plus dead Muslims won’t be enough? That the Hindus are next? And after them, the Buddhists? Then the Jews? Before you get started on the Catholics?”

  Montfort waved his concerns away. “This is a struggle between God and Satan. Our faith is that of the One True God. Mohammed was the messenger of Satan. Allah is Satan. Islam is the faith of Satan, of the Anti christ, and must be expunged for this world to be redeemed.”

  “And the Jews? How about the Jews, Sim? You’ve made them a lot of promises. Where do they fit in?”

  Montfort fidgeted in his chair. “The Jews aren’t a problem.”

  “You’re really going to hand everything back to them? To re-create Israel? With what’s left?”

  “The Jewish people will receive justice.”

  “Sim, if I were a Jew and I heard you say that, I’d run for the trees.”

  “Don’t try to create further dissension. Please, Gary. I’ll get down on my knees if you like. Join us. Before it’s too late. We’re doing God’s work. Men follow you. As they follow me. Together, we could do great things.” Montfort leaned in closer than he had yet done, close enough for Harris to imagine he smelled scorched breath. “It’s not too late for you to see the light.”

  “I see your light, Sim. It comes from burning heretics at the stake.”

  “Don’t wait too long, Gary.”

  “I’m still waiting for that cock to crow again. A second time. And a third.”

  “Rhetorical flourishes don’t suit you,” Montfort said. “You never had a mind for subtleties. You’ve always been a practical man. Al-beit with some mushy idealism thrown in. It would help you if you behaved practically now. If you can’t believe, Gary, just go through the motions. Faith will come.”

  “Isn’t that a Catholic regimen, Sim? Sounds odd, coming from a good old Protestant boy like you. Although I do recall you were a great one for skipping chapel at VMI. I suppose you hadn’t yet traveled the road to Damascus.”

  Montfort sighed. “Speaking of roads, I’ll have to get on the road myself. Figuratively speaking.”

  “Careful of those helicopters, Sim. They fall out of the sky. Unexpectedly.”

  Montfort stood up. Harris followed. The MOBIC commander was almost a full head taller. Charlton Heston, indeed.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Montfort said. “I’ve had a report that a CHART disappeared. In or around Nazareth. Could you look into it for me?”

  “You’re not supposed to have any CHARTs in my area of operations, Sim. You know that. As a matter—”

  “Just trying to do my duty as a Christian,” Montfort cut him off. “I didn’t think you’d mind. But see if you can find them, won’t you, Gary? For old times’ sake? The officers and men selected for our Christian Heritage Advance Rescue Teams are a little too courageous for their own good. I worry about them.”

  “Wheels within wheels within wheels. You really are amazing, Sim.”

  “And one other thing. I’ve got an order for you from General Schwach. You’re to detach one armored brigade and put it under my command to reinforce my corps. And not a depletedbrigade, either. One that hasn’t been shot up, that hasn’t been overcommitted. I’ve also got authorization to assume the primary responsibility for the advance into northern Galilee and beyond, once my corps elements have reached your sector. Which should be any moment now.”

  “All right.”

  Montfort’s eyebrows tightened. “Not even one word of protest? You’re making progress, Gary.”

  “You can have your brigade, Sim. And you’re getting one that hasn’t taken any significant casualties. I’m chopping Avi Dorn’s outfit to you. From the Israeli Exile Force.”

  “But—”

  “Come on, Sim. What did you expect? You’ve been working some scam, some deal, with Avi. I’m not that stupid. I figure it’ll be easier for the two of you to coordinate things when he falls directly under your chain of command.”

  “I expected—”

  “A U.S. Army brigade? Sim, you’re not prejudiced against the Israelis, are you? After all those speeches you made back home? All those interviews? On your way out, just tell Mike Andretti where and when you want Avi to link up with your people. I’ll let Mike know I blessed it.”

  The confident, studied impassiveness that ruled Montfort’s features had disappeared again. For an interval of suspended time, the MOBIC commander looked as if he would fill the room with sulfur simply by breathing.

&
nbsp; “Anything else?” Harris asked.

  “Goodbye, Gary.” Montfort did not extend his hand. Slowly, as if wearing ankle weights, he crossed to the door. But halfway through the portal, he turned back toward Harris.

  “Yes. There is something else. I’m told you’re going blind. I’m concerned that you might be unfit for command.”

  “I see you, Sim. Clearly.”

  “And one other thing, Gary,” he said. “Did your wife ever tell you I fucked her?”

  SEVENTEEN

  HEADQUARTERS, III (US) CORPS, MT. CARMEL RIDGES

  Flintlock Harris sat back down after Montfort left. Drained, he brushed back his hair with his hands, pulling his eyelids open. Trying to think clearly. His body yearned for sleep, but his mind paged from thought to thought, unable to staple them together.

  Bored flies drifted past the lamp. The dead air smelled of backed-up drains. One room was much the same as another in Sim Montfort’s Holy Land.

  At any moment, John Willing would bring in the paperwork that absolutely had to be signed before Harris could go to sleep. The general dreaded the thought of straining to read anything smaller than a billboard. But paperwork was as much a part of soldiering as the rest of it.

  Montfort knew. About his eyes. Enough to make that remark. Who else knew? How would Montfort use the information? Had he used it already? Was it already in the “Fire Harris” file back in D.C.?

  On the other hand, old Sim was rattled. Badly. If Harris heard one clock ticking, Montfort heard another. The Christian general who threw away his regiments of believers. How much time did Montfort have? The impatience, the unaccustomed insecurity, was obvious. An assassination really wasn’t Montfort’s style. It wasted too many resources, left too many debts to others, revealed too much. Sim had overplayed that one — and lost the hand. Badly. Harris was confident that his competitor wouldn’t try any similar stunts soon.

  The down side was that Montfort, turning hasty on the battle-field, might drag them all down with him. With just one big mistake. Despite Sim’s rapid conquest of Jerusalem, Harris wasn’t ready to write off al-Mahdi as a military commander. Or al-Ghazi, for that matter. Sim would push as hard as he could now, running against a stopwatch only he could hear. And when a leader did that, it was all too easy to lose sight of the enemy’s counterdesigns.

  Harris could picture the MOBIC corps charging into a classic Middle Eastern trap, the kind that Muslim armies had used for over a thousand years, first luring the opponent on, and then, when the attacker found himself overextended, sweeping in on his forces from the flanks. He scribbled a note to Van Danczuk to send Montfort the study the G-2 shop had done of historical patterns in Jihadi warfare. And to mark it “urgent.” Montfort and his men were Americans, too. Troublesome, even revolting, as their differences were, they were still on the same side.

  Harris replayed the MOBIC commander’s tirade about the centuries of evidence of Muslim viciousness and all the chances the Jihadis had been given. The damned trouble with Montfort, the brilliance of the grift he worked, was that he always started with an ounce of truth. Then he wrapped it in a ton of bullshit. And it worked. Because old Sim told people what they longed to hear.

  He’d been doing that since their days at VMI.

  Harris didn’t buy Montfort’s logic, of course. But he had to admit that Sim forced him to think. What alternatives did he have to offer? In place of Montfort’s vision of hypergenocide? What strategy could he lay out as a substitute? Just an endless muddling through? More of the same? A succession of wars that only bought time at a terrible cost in blood? Was it true… irrefutably true… that religions were programmed for violent competition, that ac-commodation was an illusion for soft-minded dreamers? Was it, in the end, us or them? And not just on the battlefield?

  Harris dreaded what the coming days and weeks and months and years would bring.

  Old Sim was right about one thing, though: Right now, they had a war to fight.

  So what was to be done? Harris asked himself. What could he do to bring victory on the battlefield? Without sacrificing the fundamental humanity he still ascribed to his country? And without delivering that country to his own faith’s Jihadis?

  Keep it rigorous. By the book. Don’t make any big mistakes. Keep the Army clean. Prevent the MOBIC command from grabbing the Marines. Deliver the goods.

  Okay. Sim and his boys were about to assume the leading role in the attack. Given the new determination the Jihadis were showing, that promised to be a bloody mess. Especially given Montfort’s evident impatience. Harris hoped that his old acquaintance, the man who’d succeeded at virtually everything he’d ever undertaken, wouldn’t fall into the trap of overconfidence now. The combination of overconfidence and impatience had defeated no end of generals in the blood-soaked terrain in which they found them-selves.

  Harris rose. Stiff. Old. He bent to rummage through the kit bag his aide had placed by the foot of his bunk. His body seemed to him a rusty machine, hammered into action. Fishing out an emergency ration stashed for times like this, the general sat back down and began to eat a foil packet of chicken a la king. Cold. The spoon came up with solid white grease. But Harris didn’t care.

  Where was Willing? He was usually so prompt. Had he fallen asleep himself? Or was he in the field latrine with the runs? Like half the G-3 shop.

  A weary fly scouted the ration pouch. More from an insect’s sense of duty than from real interest. Harris’s shooing gesture was equally halfhearted.

  How much sleep could he allow himself? The window of his room had been blackened and blastproofed by his security detail, but Harris sensed the sky lightening beyond the walls. Three hours? He knew he needed four to keep on functioning on overdrive. But he didn’t want to miss his own morning briefing. And rescheduling it just screwed everybody else.

  Everything was on track. He could let Mike Andretti run the show. They’d come get him if any critical issues came up.

  Or would they just let the old man sleep? He could hear the G-3 saying, “He’s been through a lot.”

  Harris didn’t want anybody’s pity. Three hours. He’d make do with that.

  If Willing didn’t turn up soon, he wouldn’t even get that.

  Killing a billion people. Sim was certainly ambitious. And utterly mad. But history was made by madmen.

  Would his own kind really attempt such a thing? Or was Sim more interested in the process, in the ambitions a lengthy struggle might fulfill? How much did Montfort really mean? Even now? And how much was sheer calculation?

  With the acid clarity at the end of a sleepless night, Harris realized that Sim Montfort was a great man and he was not. Montfort certainly wasn’t a good man. He reeked of evil. But Montfort was, undeniably, a great man. And Harris knew that he lacked greatness himself. He was a competent soldier and a first-rate commander. As dutiful as anyone could ask. And honest. Or so he liked to think. But there was no greatness in him, and he recognized, ruefully, that a part of him was jealous of Sim Montfort.

  But it was only a small part of him. The rest of Lieutenant General Gary “Flintlock” Harris just wanted to see the mission he’d set himself through to the end: The preservation of the U.S. Army and the defense of the Constitution of the United States.

  He laughed at himself. With a weary, broken laugh that ended with a sour burp of grease. Who did he think he was? To assign himself such grand ambitions? Flintlock Harris, Savior of the Army and the Constitution?

  Putting it in those terms made him feel like a fool.

  Had he been as vain, in his way, as Sim Montfort?

  And yet. Somebody had to do it. Didn’t they? Who else would have even tried? Poor old Schwach? Who was left to fight them, on both fronts? Here, in the shooting war. And in dubious battle on the plains of the Washington Mall, if not Heaven.

  So many had fallen by the wayside. So many of his comrades had just quit. There was so much darkness now. And not just the shade that was slowly eroding his vision, but the dar
kness that infected souls and defined entire ages.

  Harris scraped out the last lumps and smears of chicken a la king, streaking white grease across his knuckles. Then he stood up, defying his joints again. He dropped the foil envelope into the burn bag meant for all his trash, classified and unclassified, and, a bit cranky, turned toward the door to look for his aide.

  Just then, Major Willing knocked at last and came into the room.

  “Sorry, sir. I dozed off.”

  “What have you got for me, John?”

  “I pared it down, sir. But these can’t wait.”

  Harris held out his hand for the papers. “Get some sleep. Tell the adjutant — whoever’s on duty over there — to have a runner wait outside my door.”

  “Sir, the document with the blue tab has to go straight to the Three shop.”

  “Have them send a runner, too. I hate to say it, but there are times I miss my old computer. Now get some sleep.”

  “Yes, sir.” But the aide didn’t leave. He looked at the floor, then looked back up. “Sir… I’m glad you—”

  “Me, too, John. Now get some sleep.”

  But as the aide was leaving, Flintlock Harris had a moment of weakness.

  “John?”

  “Sir?”

  “How are we doing on long-range comms?”

  “Back to Washington?”

  “To the States.”

  “We had some open channels earlier, sir. I can check.”

  “Before you turn in, see if they can get my wife on the line.”

  HEADQUARTERS, 2-34 ARMOR,

  600 METERS WEST OF PHASE LINE LONG BEACH

  As the world emerged from the darkness, restoring the contrast between solid forms and empty space, Lieutenant Colonel Monty Maxwell felt a relief so intense it was almost joy. The night had been hellish. But they’d made it through. Most of them. Even though the lightening sky to the east promised only another day of combat, Maxwell felt an unreasonable confidence that things would be better now.