Arc Light (96 page)

“Honey . . . oh, honey.” He started to tell her how many favors he had called in to get the leave and how Harkness, his brigade commander, had approved the request in stony silence. David decided to let it drop, however, as his mind drifted back to his battalion, to his men who had not had the luxury of a two-week leave at home. David had called Moscow once while on leave, and Barnes had told him of the attempted looting of the battalion food stores. Two of their sentries had been wounded. They had been lucky, but the Russians
had not. Fourteen civilians dead, another thirty wounded. All of them hungry. Most of them college students from Moscow University nearby their encampment above the Russians' former strategic command bunker in the Ramenki District.

There would be mass rioting that winter. Food riots. It had probably already started. And it was David with his M-1 tanks and other soldiers like them in the American Sector of Moscow who would have to stop the rabble. Russia was awash in the light weapons that remained around after the war and Russia's arming of the Provisionals, but they were no match for ceramic armor, 120-mm cannon, and heavy machine guns. David worried about sniping, but his greatest concern was not for his men but for the angry crowds of the starving who out of desperation might rush his soldiers. They had no rubber bullets, and their tear gas worked poorly in the cold. It was an old problem for armies charged with maintaining civil order. You either did nothing or you slaughtered the defenseless in numbers that within seconds of an order to fire could mount into the hundreds, even thousands.

David kissed Matthew one last time. The baby squirmed impatiently, oblivious to his father's presence. He leaned over and kissed Melissa, whose face immediately contorted to suppress her tears. She bit her lower lip and looked up, and then stood on her tiptoes to kiss his mouth and face over and over, leaving his cheeks smeared with her tears.

“I love you with all my heart,” he said, and then he left.

Walking to the cab, he began the transformation in his mind. Civilian to soldier. Soldier to civilian. Now, civilian to soldier again.
It wasn't supposed to be this way,
he thought. His mind roamed back to his life just before the war. Everything had seemed so normal. It was as if history's steady and stable progression had turned on a dime and swept him down a course that he would never have imagined possible. Was history's course so volatile, or was it just unpredictable?

By the time the cab's door closed, however, all such thoughts were gone. He looked out the window as the taxi backed onto the street and saw his wife and child as if through a lens, waving at them mechanically as he busily walled up those parts of him that were vulnerable to the crippling emotional pain. The pain was unavoidable, like bullet wounds or burst eardrums, but it could be managed. It could be managed.

“Where to, Colonel?” the driver asked.

The question hung there, unanswered, and after a moment the cabbie looked back over his shoulder. David completed the strenuous task of his transformation and issued his first order.

For their willingness to take a chance on a first novelist, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my agents, Jay Garon and Nancy Coffey of Jay Garon-Brooke Associates, Inc. For the patient editorial care of Michael Korda at Simon & Schuster, who turned my manuscript into a book and me into a writer, I am forever indebted. And for my earliest readers Boyd Carano, Vladimir Matlin, Larry Campagna, and Charles Frost (Lt. Col., USAR), and the men and women of the Army Reserve's 417th IMA Detachment, who wargamed the book and provided insightful commentary and advice, I offer my thanks for all your help and encouragement.

SIMON & SCHUSTER

Rockefeller Center

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, New York 10020

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

places and incidents are either products of the

author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any

resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,

living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1994 by Eric L. Harry

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce

this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

SIMON & SCHUSTER AND COLOPHON ARE REGISTERED

trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Designed by Edith Fowler

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Harry, Eric L. Arc light / Eric L. Harry.

p. cm.

1. Imaginary wars and battles—Fiction. 2. Twenty-first century—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3558.A6753A89 1994

813'.54—dc20

94-12215 CIP

ISBN 978-1-4767-0262-9

ISBN: 978-1-4767-3769-0 (eBook)