by Ralph Peters
“The first strikes should hit at 1600,” General of the Order Simon Montfort said calmly. “I’ll be at your headquarters before then. To assume command.”
* * *
Lieutenant General Gary “Flintlock” Harris summoned his key officers to his briefing room. He told them what Montfort had said.
“I don’t believe him,” Mike Andretti, the G-3, snorted. “It’s all bluff. More of Montfort’s holy-roller bullshit.”
But Val Danczuk, the G-2, had come in with a stoned-by-something look even before Harris laid things out.
“It’s true, Mike,” Danczuk said. “About the president, anyway. We just got the word. I was going to tell General Harris first, then let him—”
“Fuck, goddamnit,” the G-3 said. “I won’t work for that phony, sanctimonious, cocksucking sonofabitch. I just won’t do it.”
“Easy, pardner,” Harris told him. “When I’m gone, it’s going to be up to you and the rest of the old team to do whatever damage control you can. To maintain the Army’s honor. And keep it alive. As long as there’s an Army and they don’t change our oath, the country we grew up in is still there, just taking a little nap.”
“Where are you going, sir?” Harris’s aide, Major John Willing, asked.
“To Nazareth.”
“I’ll go with you,” the aide said. Then the others began to speak.
Harris cut them off. “I’m going alone. It’s better. All of you are going to be needed here. All of you.”
“Stay with us, sir,” the G-3 said. “We’ll all stand together. He won’t be able to command the corps.”
“A mutiny won’t help,” Harris said. “We’d just play into old Sim’s hands. I need you to stay here and obey his orders. The legal ones.”
“Then at least don’t go to Nazareth, sir. There’s nothing you can do down there. And you know it. He’s just going to rub your face in it.”
“No, Mike. You’re wrong. I don’t know that there’s nothing I can do. On the contrary, I’m going to do everything I can. To see that the United States Army isn’t stained with the blood of tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. If Sim wants his massacre, it’ll be over my dead body.”
After an embarrassed silence, Val Danczuk said, “I hope that’s just a figure of speech, sir.”
Harris smiled. “Me, too.” Then he turned to his aide. “John, have them get my helicopter ready.” Addressing all of them again, he said, “Thank you. For everything. Now leave me alone for a few minutes.”
* * *
When his subordinates had gone, Harris got down on his knees and prayed. For the mercy of Christ. For strength. For forgiveness of his sins. Then he asked the Lord to protect his wife and daughters. And his country.
After that, he wrote his wife a letter. It was shorter than he would have liked. There was so much to say. But there was little time now. And words were inadequate messengers.
He packed some essentials into a rucksack, leaving his kit bag behind. Just before he stepped through the door to head for his helicopter, he paused and said, “Forgive me.”
He wasn’t sure for whom the words were meant.
* * *
When Sarah Colmer-Harris saw the banner headline on the day of her daughter’s funeral, she vomited on her bathrobe:
CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS SLAIN BY NUKES
General Harris Betrays MOBIC to Muslims
OFFICE OF THE EMIR OF AL-QUDS AND DAMASKUS,
FORMER PRESIDENTIAL PALACE, DAMASCUS
General Abdul al-Ghazi led his officers down the ornamented hall-way, shoving aside the functionaries hastily packing files for evacuation. After disarming the final set of guards, he and his trusted subordinates burst into the ceremonial office of the emir.
“In the name of the caliph and sultan, I place you, Suleiman al-Mahdi, under arrest.”
To al-Ghazi’s surprise, the emir-general displayed little concern.
He merely looked up from the document on his desk and asked, “What are the charges?”
“Unauthorized use of the sultanate’s final reserve of nuclear weapons. And consorting with the enemy.”
Al-Ghazi thought he saw a smile alight on the emir-general’s lips. Then it flew away again.
“Those sound like contradictory charges, General. Let’s begin with the second. What do you mean by ‘consorting with the enemy’?”
Beyond the filigreed windows and their treasures of stained glass, a bright sun cooked the world. The huge room was cool and shad-owed. It made al-Ghazi feel awkward. And unexpectedly small.
“You’ve communicated and even met personally with General of the Order Montfort, the chief of the Crusaders, the man responsible for the massacre of the Faithful at Jerusalem.”
“But I’d hardly deny that! Really, General al-Ghazi, I should be praised, don’t you think? I met with that infidel dog only to trick him. And see how it worked! The Crusaders have been shattered. Montfort himself is dead somewhere on the battlefield to which I lured him. Burned, as if by the fires of Hell.” This time, al-Mahdi smiled unmistakably. “If I led the infidels into false negotiations that brought them to their destruction, shouldn’t that count as the highest art of generalship?”
Unsure of himself, al-Ghazi raised his voice. “You had no right to use nuclear weapons, no authority. Only the caliph and sultan can give that permission. You’ve handed the Crusaders the excuse they wanted to destroy our cities. Their arsenal is huge, and ours is empty now. Millions of the Faithful will die.”
“General al-Ghazi, is your faith so weak? Do you really believe the Christian god is stronger than Allah? Or worse, that He is the same? Do you believe that old heresy, that we’re all ‘People of the Book,’ that the Revelation of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, counts for nothing? Allah is the only god. And He has turned from the Christians, given them up to Shaitan. Look at them! They worship hollow statues and crosses! What kind of worshipper drinks the blood of his Lord?”
“You didn’t answer the charge. They’ll destroy our cities. This city.”
“And what are a few cities, or a hundred cities, if the True Faith triumphs in the end? You know the verse from the Holy Koran: ‘This world is but a sport and a pasttime.’ The weak must be purged, by fire. And then the faithful will rise up, from Dakar to Djakarta, and the sword of Islam shall rise with them.”
“You betrayed the sultan.”
Al-Mahdi sat back in his great leather chair. “You weary me. How could I betray myself?”
“What?”
“You haven’t heard? Oh, my dear General al-Ghazi! Our beloved caliph and sultan, Hamid III, was called to Paradise and his eternal reward. During the night. An unexpected, but, I am told, a peaceful, merciful death, Allah be praised! Humble creature that I am — the least of Allah’s creations — I’ve been acclaimed his replacement.”
“By who?”
“By the army.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“Really? Perhaps you should ask these loyal officers who brought you to me!”
Unsettled — alarmed now — al-Ghazi looked around the room. His deputy had a pistol trained on him. The other officers, his officers, did nothing.
“It’s always an error,” al-Mahdi said, “for soldiers to mix them-selves up in politics. And when they do, there must be consequences.” He reached for a buzzer on his desk and pressed it. “I want you to hear something.”
The room fell silent, opening its ears to the uproar of the terrified city beyond the compound’s walls. Panic was contagious.
Then the scream began. Resounding from another room, somewhere along the hallway. It was a scream of unearthly power, pausing only to gasp for air. It was a muezzin’s call from Hell.
Al-Ghazi swallowed hard.
“Your cousin,” the emir-general said, “Colonel al-Tikriti, has been a poor secret policeman. And in war time, failure must be punished. I’m having him flayed alive.” Al-Mahdi looked al-Ghazi in the eyes. “Of course, worse thi
ngs can happen to a man.”
Al-Ghazi reached for his holster and snapped it open. Before he could extract his pistol, his deputy shot him. Other bullets punched his flesh as he toppled, and he struck the marble with an astounded smile: He hadn’t intended to shoot al-Mahdi. It was too late for that. He had hoped to kill himself.
Fallen and bleeding and unable to move, he could only hope that he had been mortally wounded.
ASSAULT COMMAND POST, SHQIF ARNUN (BEAUFORT CASTLE),
IN THE FORMER LEBANON
For the first time in his career, Major General Monk Morris felt he had lost irretrievably. He even caught himself gnawing his finger-nails, a child’s habit broken at the Naval Academy.
He stepped back into the communications shelter.
“Have you reached them?”
The captain on the radio set shook his head. “No, sir. We’re trying, but the jamming’s back full blast.”
“Keep trying. No Marine gets left behind. We have confirmed receipt of the withdrawal order from everybody else?”
“Yes, sir. Everybody. They’re moving.”
“Keep trying to reach Maguire. Those are good Marines.”
“Yes, sir.”
The deputy operations officer approached Morris. “Sir, we’ve got to break this thing down and move ourselves.”
Morris flicked two fingers at the man, his personal gesture of approval. It looked like the blessing of a lazy priest.
“And sir?”
“Yes, Jack?”
“Sir, Dawg Daniels went down over Quneitra. A drone got him. His wingman called it in.”
Morris closed his eyes. But only for a moment. “His exec’s got the throttle?”
“Yes, sir. We’re bringing all the returning aircraft into the field outside Tyre. The SeaBees patched up the runway. Enough to get them down.”
Morris nodded. “All right, Jack. Boots and saddles.”
His subordinate looked at the general in astonishment. Then he smiled. Tentatively.
“Sir, you’re talking Army.”
Morris smiled back. “I know. It’s just a phrase I picked up from someone I admire. Think I’ll keep it.”
“I guess we did have Horse Marines. Back when.”
“A little before my time. I’m going to step outside for a few minutes.”
The day was hot and clear, with sudden dust devils playing pranks on the stillness. The ruins of the old Crusader fortress rose above the mobile headquarters, dwarfing it. The fanatics were in charge on both sides now. Again.
“It just never fucking ends,” Morris said out loud, to no one.
TWENTY-FOUR
NAZARETH
Their faces held him. His vision wasn’t too far gone for that. Waiting in the long and nervous line for the last of the water — one plastic two-liter bottle per family — a woman furred with moles hardly looked as if her life had been an endless joy. And yet she held her child in her arms. Some man had found her winning enough for that. The instant her eyes met his, she looked away, down, shuffling a few inches forward, as if to escape his scrutiny, a woman eternally ashamed in the eyes of the world. Behind her, an old, un-shaven man stood open-mouthed, spectacles askew on his wet-tipped nose. His eyes wandered over the world, unable to rest, as if misery might come from any direction. A baggy jacket and stained cloth cap didn’t speak of a life of triumphs. Next came a man still of fighting age, his expression hard and ready to take umbrage. Harris sensed that the man would have been glad to see him dead.
Was that reason enough to kill him in cold blood?
An almost-pretty girl with gleaming hair held her little brother by the shoulder. Still young enough to imagine that all troubles were temporary, she appeared keen for life and full of expectations. Wide as a sofa, another woman pawed the sweat off her forehead, unsettling her black scarf as she quarreled with a bald man who would have run away had he not been her husband. The next segment in the human caterpillar read a book as he bumped forward, riveted by some useless idea, a caricature of the eternal intellectual as he swept unkempt gray hair out of his face. Children scooted up and down the line, too young for patience or to take thirst seriously, ignoring the calls of worried elders afraid to step out of line and lose their place. After shouting at a boy who marched up and down in a goose step, a mother eyed Harris as if he might draw a gun and shoot the child.
Was that really what they expected now? Or just what they were used to?
Harris was unequipped to romanticize them. He wasn’t able to assign them virtues that no random assortment of humans ever possessed. He didn’t need to ponder eternal verities to understand, viscerally, that every innocent heart in the crowd was outnumbered by those given to common selfishness.
They were human. Just that.
“Remind you of anything, Pat?” Harris asked the lieutenant colonel beside him.
“Germany, sir?”
“Yes. The Turks in that dockyard. Oh, the skins are a little browner now. And the weather’s hotter. We could use a little German rain. But I see the same faces… people who woke up utterly screwed. Wondering why all this is happening to them.”
At the head of the line, where the last pallet of water bottles shrank with alarming speed, two soldiers dragged an obstreperous man from the crowd and spread-eagled him against a wall.
“I’ll check that out, sir,” Pat Cavanaugh said.
Harris smiled. “Sorry for the half-assed philosophizing.”
“It wasn’t that, sir,” the younger man said quickly. “It’s just… The troops are a little prickly. Everybody’s fuse is short. I don’t want anything getting out of hand.”
As he watched the battalion commander march off, Harris turned back to the succession of faces. There was, in the end, a quality of disbelief about the crowd. For all their fears, their worried stares at the dwindling supply of water and their caution around the foreign men with guns, the human collective believed that, somehow, everything would work out: There would be enough water and, no matter what became of the others, the breathing, feeling, sweating “I” would be spared. It was the oddest thing, how the tribulations of the group reassured the individual.
It had to be biological, Harris decided. Long before his own experience in Germany — that inexplicable country — when Jews and Gypsies and queers and stubborn priests had waited in line for the gas chamber, tidily divided by gender, they must have felt the same narcotic hope, the identical mad conviction that “I will be saved.”
Harris didn’t know what to do anymore. He had briefly contemplated leaving the city, since he saw that he was only giving Mont-fort and his ilk more ammunition to use against the Army — the wicked general who cared more about protecting Muslim fanatics than about his own countrymen.
Yes, that was how Sim would present it.
But the faces captivated him. Doubtless, there were fanatics among them. Killers who needed to be shot for the common good. Pat Cavanaugh had been nervous about more stay-behind snipers seeded in the crowd. But the faces parading in front of Harris just looked thirsty and scared.
“This can’t happen,” he told himself. “We can’t do this. Sim can’t do this.”
And then he realized that, in his own rejection of what the future held, he had joined the line of optimists at Auschwitz.
Yes, Sim Montfort would do it. Wasn’t a people person, old Sim wasn’t.
Harris knew the arguments, beginning with: They’d do it to us if they had the chance. But the problem always unraveled when you got down to who “they” were. Would that woman whose face bore a constellation of black moles pull the trigger? The adolescent girl with the hopeful eyes? The dreamy joker with his nose in his book?
These weren’t the people who pulled any major triggers. Or precious few minor ones. It was the people like Montfort… or Harris himself… or Gui or al-Mahdi… who gave the orders to the flunkies who pressed the fatal button.
Harris had no moral qualms about killing his country’s enemies. He still believed
that Washington’s impossibly legalistic treatment of terrorists back when had played into the hands not only of the terrorists themselves but also of men like Gui and Montfort. In the real world, far from the cloistered study, some men and even women were your mortal enemies, and you had to kill them first.
But you couldn’t just “kill them all and let God sort them out.” Because you weren’t God. And no God worth believing in would want you to do it.
Sometimes, in one of his funks, Harris pictured God as a slumped, disappointed old man, propping up His gray head with one hand, eyes downcast.
Anthropomorphism. Harris understood the silliness of it. God was unimaginable to any human being. But what if that lay at the heart of the problem? The need men felt to imagine a comprehensible God, to measure Him. But God was unimaginable and immeasurable. So they did what men did: They cut the problem down to size and painted a stern old man on the church’s ceiling.
Standing in the shabby heart of Nazareth, Harris wondered if Jesus — when he was the age of that young girl waiting in line — had foreseen what would take place on this day in His boyhood home. Had He seen anything beyond the cross but Heaven? Was every man and woman in that fetid line lulled by his or her own vision of paradise? Of a Heaven above the clouds, or a happy marriage, or an answer to all of life’s questions hidden in a book?
Harris could have wept. At his helplessness in the face of all before him. But he didn’t weep. Instead, he pivoted on his right heel and set off after Pat Cavanaugh. To be with his own kind.
He was going to stay in Nazareth. That was a given. He wondered if it might be useful to talk to the crowd, to get up on a vehicle and say something, anything.
He couldn’t very well reassure them.
Tell them to flee? To get out of Dodge? That was the best practical advice he could offer. Even though they had nowhere to go.
He longed for the con ve niences of his youth, the easy communications, even the scrutiny of the media. Where were the cameras now? His nation’s enemies, when they shot down every satellite they could and corrupted the rest, had only assured that their deaths would go unrecorded. They had robbed his kind of the ability to talk freely across oceans but had failed to understand the resilience and ingenuity the West applied to warfare when it sensed its back was against the wall.