Arc Light (59 page)

He was a reasonable man, Chandler realized, exhausted to the point of resignation to the loss of life. His eyes were red and his eyelids puffy. And there was a ring along the edge of his face and under his chin. The red indentation fit the size and shape of the standard-issue gas mask.

“We'll take care of the body, sir,” the captain said. “What's the man's name?”

Chandler didn't know, he realized suddenly, he hadn't even asked. The colonel huffed a big sigh, his patience wearing thin, and again eyed the sky in the direction of the earlier raid.

“The dead man's name, sir. What was it?”

“I don't know,” Chandler said.

The captain nodded. “Okay, we'll get it later. Right now we have to get your people processed.”

With the mention of the word “processed,” the colonel said in an arrogant voice, “My name is Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell. I want immediate transport to V Corps Forward Headquarters.”

The captain pulled out a spiral notebook and a pen. “What's your command or MOS, sir?” he asked, but without waiting for the answer yelled, “Rodriguez! Take care of the enlisted personnel.” He turned back to the lieutenant colonel.

“What the hell difference does that make!” the colonel shouted. “Civil Affairs! Now, what kind of transportation do you have?”

“Sir,” the captain began patiently, “the processing back Stateside is totally screwed up, so we've been ordered to disregard assigned billets and fill certain high-need postings unless the individual is an officer and is already posted to a unit command or has a specialty in a listed field. Since you . . . since neither one of those things applies to you, sir, I need to ask to see your orders, please.”

“Listen to me, you little
f-f-uck,”
the colonel said through clenched teeth. “I am a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army! I was specially assigned to V Corps
Headquarters
by General Atkins himself! Do you know who he is?”

“No, sir.”

“No, of course you don't,” the colonel continued. “He is the deputy liaison officer to the House Armed Services Committee, and
I am here on his
express
orders! So I don't give a flying fuck what piddly-assed list you and your staff have generated!
You”
—poking the captain's chest with fingers again—“get me to V Corps Forward!”

The captain then did something unexpected: he ignored the colonel. “Major, how about you? What's your post?”

Chandler started to answer, but Mitchell beat him to it. “How
dare
you! I'll have your bars for this. Your career in the army is
over—finished!”

“Choppers headed in!” one of the soldiers shouted from the Humvee, a radio handset to his ear under his helmet, and the captain glanced over his shoulder at the man before responding to the colonel. “V Corps Forward Headquarters,” he said with a sudden liveliness in his eyes, “is in a bit of a spot right now. We're havin' some trouble gettin' stuff through to 'em—supplies and things like that—but I've got some favors owed me. Are you airborne qualified?” he asked, raising his notepad. “I can check the board and see when our next air defense suppression mission goes in.”

Mitchell fell into a quiet but obviously surly mood.

“Fourth Infantry Division,” Chandler said after a pause during which the two men stared at each other. “Division Intelligence.”
Am I a protected species?
Chandler wondered as he waited for the captain to scan his list. In the background Rodriguez was yelling,
“Armored and Armored Cav on my left, Infantry on my right, everybody else just back on up!”

“May I see your orders, sir?” the captain asked Chandler.

Chandler handed them over along with his ORB, his Officer Record Brief, and his military biography, which he had brought along for delivery to his commanding officer. After a few moments' study, the captain said, “Armor School. You had any Armor postings, sir?”

A job interview,
Chandler thought,
on a bombed-out runway on the border of Ukraine. For a job for which I'm not qualified. Just ask what's left of the man lying under the poncho for references,
Chandler thought, but then said, “One, straight out of O.C.S.” The captain fumbled with Chandler's orders to find it.
Then on to law school on the special deal I wangled from the recruiters desperate back then to make their quotas.

The captain was obviously rereading Chandler's resume, some of it out loud. “ ‘Intelligence Analysts School,' ” he said. “ ‘Armor School at Knox—3 of 136.' ” Finally the captain said, “Very impressive, sir. If you'd step over there”—he pointed to a small group being counted off—“they'll take care of you.” Chandler saw that Barnes and Bailey were already standing at the group's fringe.

Chandler put his orders back into his pocket and walked off in a daze as the colonel resumed his tirade. The chop of helicopter rotors could be heard, growing louder as the aircraft approached. The sound grew until the first of a long line of twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook transports meandered out from around the burned-out building and nosed up to decelerate.

Passing the enlisted men's “processing” area, the soldier named Rodriguez was listening impatiently to the protests of a small group of Chandler's men who apparently were objecting to being split up.

“No, you dumb motherfuckers!” Rodriguez shouted to the four protesting men, to be heard over the helicopters.
“You
're goin' to the main corps staging area.
He's
goin' straight to the FEBA.”

As Chandler passed, the lone man whom Rodriguez had singled out, a medic with a red cross on his armband, was shaking hands with his friends and picking up his gear.

“Just follow the major there!” Rodriguez yelled at the medic from behind Chandler.

“To the FEBA,”
Chandler thought.
The Forward Edge of the Battle Area.
From around the main line of Chinooks swung a different helicopter, a Blackhawk, apparently not a part of the large formation of transports. The helicopter landed just ahead, and Chandler's group, including Bailey and Barnes, was directed to it at a run by an NCO. In the door, a gunner swiveled a six-barreled mini-gun up safely away from the troops on the ground. He then jumped to the concrete and lay down on his back to peer up at the bottom of the fuselage. He wiggled the ragged metal that hung loose and pulled it back to peer inside. The side of the helicopter was pockmarked with holes.

Chandler and his guide turned one last corner and went down some sandbagged steps guarded by two sentries, rifles at the ready. There was a machine gun across the open space of a small square in the town dug in behind still more sandbags. Everywhere there were burned-out vehicles, military and civilian, and blackened buildings with holes of all sizes punched into them.

Half buried into the ground, the door that the private opened unveiled the hectic pace that Chandler had anticipated. As he walked in he sensed that he was in his new home. Maps on tables and easels. Radio operators, seated, chattering into their communications nets with officers pacing behind their backs while they transcribed messages on small laptop computers. Men and women rushing to and fro carrying pieces of paper, the currency of all office jobs.

One man in this room was the brigade commander—only one. It was on his shoulders that the onus fell. As Chandler followed the
private, who had dropped his gear by the door, it became clear who that man was.

Standing with one foot propped up on the seat of a wooden chair was a large man with short hair almost completely gray.

“I don't give a shit
what
you do with them,” the brigade commander was saying. “I'm just warning you: if any reporters set foot in this CP, I'll have them arrested and you shot. You read me?”

The man to whom the colonel spoke, about half the size of the towering brigade commander, shook his balding head. He lifted his glasses up with his fingers so that he could rub his eyes, and in that position said, “Colonel, I understand what you're saying, but . . . this is not something that anybody has any choice about. The orders came in from—”

“I know who they're from, you little shit! I can read!
Look, just keep 'em away from me, you got that?”

The balding man guessed wrong. “I'm just trying to do my job, Colonel, just like everybody—”

“Get outa here!
I don't have time for this shit!”

The motion in the room had paused as people watched the scene. The colonel turned his attention to Chandler. The other two men left, looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes as they headed for the door.

Chandler snapped to attention. “Major David Chandler, reporting for duty, sir.”

The colonel looked him over briefly. “At ease, Major.” They shook hands. “Colonel Harkness” were the only words of greeting that he spoke. “Lemme see your orders,” he slurred. He paused only briefly at the posting page and went straight to the resume. After a quick read and a nod, he rolled the orders and biography up and held them in one hand like a baton. Chandler assumed that they were his now.

“Here's what I want you to do,” Harkness said. “You know what's going on here, Major?”

“No, sir.”

“We were supposed to go on the offensive yesterday and be about forty miles east of here well into Ukraine, but a few hours before our attack was to begin the Russians launched a spoiling attack that caught us in the middle of staging—all strung out in road formation. It was a mess. We've been trying to recover ever since, and most of the fighting has been taking place on
this
side of the border back in
Slovakia,
not on the Ukrainian side. Right now I don't know who it is that's surrounding who, but the situation is stabilized. I'm now getting orders to begin the advance and let the Czechs and Slovaks finish the Russians off. Not a very damn auspicious beginning,
and certainly not the way those Command and General Staff College studs at corps had it all planned out.”

Harkness stopped suddenly and looked around. “Got your personal equipment?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, good.” Harkness was tired. His face was old close up, although at the rank of colonel and in command of a brigade he had to have been in his mid-forties. His eyes were red and puffy from lack of sleep. The softness of his voice when he made the last remark and his concern over Chandler's personal needs indicated that, in quieter times, he probably was a good man to work for.

“Okay,” Harkness resumed. “You're going to assume command of the now forming 2nd of the 415th Armor.”

Harkness shuffled through papers on his desk as Chandler fell dumbstruck. He had to dissect the sentence completely before the meaning truly sunk in.
“Command”—battalion commander,
he thought.
Not staff officer—commander.
And the job for a lieutenant colonel at least six years, maybe ten, his senior. The colonel looked up. Chandler felt his mouth hanging open and closed it. He swallowed to wet his throat and licked his parched lips. Harkness stood straight up and stared now directly at Chandler, waiting.
Where do I begin?
Chandler thought.
Is now the time to tell him? Is he the one I have to tell?

“Major, what part of my order did you not understand?” Harkness said finally, his tone low and measured.

“I'm . . . I'm sorry, sir,” Chandler said. “It's just—I specialize in Intell. I was supposed to be assigned to 4th Mech—to Division Staff.”

“But you have had Armor training?” Harkness asked, and Chandler sensed that pressure was building behind the dam of Harkness's patience.

“Well, yes, sir . . . but I mean”—Chandler cleared his throat and tried to regroup—“I've been to Armor School, but. . . but it was a while ago. And I haven't held a field command since, well . . . ”

The dam was nearly full now, Chandler realized. Harkness rubbed his head, his hand passing over the short hair, and he looked away from Chandler while he bit his lower lip. Finally he turned back and said in a voice that surprised Chandler with how even it was, “Listen, Major. I don't need a staff officer here. I need a battalion commander, because I need a battalion, you understand? We're patching the 2/415 together out of the division staging area. We lost the entire battalion's personnel at some nuked air base back in the States, and I'm taking all individuals with armor training and plugging them in to raise a battalion. Now, let's start this thing over.
You,”
he said pointing, “are going to command
my
battalion for
me.
I'd do it myself, but I've got two or three other things to take care of,” he said, waving his hand in a broad sweep around the room. “Okay?”

Chandler said nothing.

“Okay. Sergeant Estavez!” Harkness yelled. “Take the major down to the rail yard. Your men should be there—some of 'em, at least. We'll get you up to a full complement in the next coupla days. You've got ten days to get them rolling.”

It was Chandler's turn to grow angry. “Do . . . do you mean, sir, that you want me to take a group of people, throw them together into units with every specialty filled, break equipment off of railcars, load everybody up with the right combat loads, and roll an armored battalion into combat in
ten days?”

Chandler's anger had grown as he realized the absurdity of the proposition.
Get somebody else to lead those men to slaughter,
he thought.

Harkness just stared at Chandler, his jaw set. “The men are from cannibalized platoon-size units, for the most part,” Harkness replied. “They've been thrown together back at some screwed-up processing centers in the States and they're missing some billets, but they're regular army. And the equipment is prepositioned top-of-the-line stuff from NATO stocks in Germany, ready to roll with combat loads. Plus, a good number of the men have had several days of work on the stuff with some pretty good NCOs bustin' their tails. It should all be broken out and serviceable. You should even have time for an exercise or two, although I can't give you too much fuel right now and you've gotta assume constant air and special operations threats.”