Ralph Peters (69 page)

In the early morning hours, Taylor and Tucker Williams found themselves alone over disposable cups of coffee that really held only heated, disinfected water with a bit of brown color added.

"
George,
"
Williams said,
"
you need to catch a little rest. Those dark circles are going to be getting caught under your boots.
"

Taylor nodded.
"
I just have to go back over the ammo up-load figures.
"
He sighed as though the years had finally overtaken him.
"
Christ, I feel like a brand-new butterbar locked in a supply room that just failed the IG. Old Manny picked a hell of a time to get himself killed.
"

"
I'm sure he feels bad about it too,
"
Williams said.
"
Listen, George—where am I riding? With you in the command bird? Or do you want me in another ship, just in case?
"

"
You're not going, Tucker.
"

Williams blustered like a character from an old cartoon.
"
What do you mean, you sorry sonofabitch? Whose goddamned idea was all this, anyway?
"

"
You're not going.
"

"
The hell I'm not. You're going to need me, George.
"

"
No,
"
Taylor said matter-of-factly,
"
I'm not going to need you. One more shriveled-up bird colonel won't make a lick of difference tomorrow.
"
He glanced automatically at his watch.
"
Today, I mean. Nope, I don't need you, Tucker. But the Army needs you. And the Army's going to need you more than ever after all this is over.
You're
going to have to finish what you started. Cleaning up all the shit.
"

"
Don't give me one of your speeches, George.
"

Taylor waved a hand at his old comrade.
"
No speeches. I just hate to think of the U.S. Army having to do without both of us. Wouldn't be a decent scandal for at least ten years.
"

The two men sat quietly for a moment. The words between them had not been as important as the absolutely clear but unarticulated understanding that left no room for further argument: Taylor was the mission commander, and
he had decided that Williams was not going. Therefore, Williams knew that he was not going. The rest was merely a ritual.

Williams knocked back a slug of the bad water masquerading as coffee.
"
George,
"
he said seriously,
"
you don't sound like you think this one's going to be very clean.
"

Taylor twisted up his dead lips as though he were chewing a cud of tobacco.
"
Truth be told, I don't know what the hell to expect. Too many variables.
"
Then he grinned.
"
So I'm just doing what comes naturally. And we'll see what happens.
"

The old intelligence colonel laid a hand on his friend's forearm.

"
George,
"
he said,
"
you take care. I'd miss you, you know.
"
He chuckled.
"
I haven't seen all that much of you over the years. But I always knew you were out there. I always said to myself, 'Tucker, they may call you crazy. But you ain't half as crazy as that sonofabitch Georgie Taylor.' It was always reassuring.
"
He fretted his hand on the cloth of Taylor's uniform.
"
I'm just not ready to assume the mantle of the U.S. Army's number one damned-fool lunatic.
"

"
Don't underestimate yourself,
"
Taylor said with a dead man's smile.

Williams shook his head and casually withdrew his hand.

"
Well, do me one favor,
"
he told Taylor.
"
Just don't fuck it all up, okay?
"

Taylor looked at the worn face beside him. Veteran of so many mutual disappointments, of so much trying.

"
Not if I can help it,
"
Taylor said.

For the first time in days, Noburu's dreams did not wake him. This time it was a bomb.

At first, everything was unclear. He woke from haunted sleep as if his bed had convulsed and coughed him up. Unsure of his state, he sat upright in a waking trance, gripping the darkness as if falling. Was he dreaming this too?

The last echo of the blast receded, leaving an emptiness
quickly filled by the noise of automatic weapons and the muffled but unmistakable sound of human cries from the far edge of reason.

Noburu reached toward the light just as the intercom beeped. The message began without the usual ceremonious greeting.

"
They're coming over the wall,
"
the voice warned. Volume turned down, the intercom had shrunken the voice and it sounded oddly comic: a midget in terror.

Noburu hurried into his trousers.

"
—a bomb—
"
the voice went on.

Noburu grasped his tunic, shooting an arm down its sleeve.

"
—the gate—
"

Conditioned by an eternity of mornings, Noburu took up his pistol belt, strapping it on over his open uniform blouse.

Machine guns sputtered beyond the headquarters walls. Storm tides of voices swept forward. The floor pulsed underfoot as dozens of men hurried along nearby corridors.

"
—local guards deserted—
"

Another blast. But this one was distinctly less powerful.

Akiro burst into the room. The aide's brown eyes burned.

"
Sir,
"
Akiro barked. But the younger man could think of nothing further to say. He had been sleeping. Noburu noted that his normally precise aide had neglected to do up the fly of his trousers. It struck Noburu as odd that he still had the capacity to notice such details with death already brushing its cold fur up against him.

Noburu crossed to the wall where heavy draperies covered a window of bulletproof glass. He touched a button offset from the meaty fabric and the curtain parted.

Nothing to be seen. The fighting was around the other side of the compound, and despite the bluster of automatic weaponry, from Noburu's bedroom a man could see only the nighttime peace of the city cuddled around the bay. Beyond the moraine of buildings, the sea lay naked under voluptuous moonlight. It was a powerful and romantic view, and the background noise of combat seemed gro
tesquely inappropriate, as though the wrong sound track had been supplied for a film.

It occurred to Noburu that Tokyo would much prefer this view of things, but before he could smile a firebomb traced across the dark sky, tail on fire. It struck a balustrade a bit below Noburu's lookout point and flames spilled backward over a terraced roof.

"
Come on,
"
Noburu told his aide.
"
And pull up your zipper.
"

Noburu jogged out through his office and into the corridor, with Akiro close behind, trying to reason with the older man.

"
Sir,
"
Akiro pleaded,
"
you must stay here. You must remain where we can guarantee your safety.
"

Only when the closed elevator doors temporarily blocked his path did Noburu turn any serious attention to the younger man.

"
Nothing is guaranteed,
"
he said calmly.
"
Least of all, my safety.
"

The sliding doors opened with a delicate warning chime. Inside stood Colonel Piet Kloete, the senior South African representative on the staff. Two of his NCOs stood beside him. All three of the men were heavily armed. Kloete himself looked ferocious with a light machine gun cradled in his arms, while the other two soldiers had loaded themselves down with autorifles, grenade belts, a light radio, and ammunition tins for Kloete's machine gun. Noburu could not help admiring the appearance of the South Africans. He knew that he had reached an age where he would frighten no one, where a pose behind a machine gun would most likely amuse an enemy. But the South African colonel was at a perfect point in his life, his body still hard. The gray along Kloete's temples resembled reinforcing wires of steel.

"
The roof,
"
the South African said to Noburu.

"
Yes,
"
Noburu said.
"
The helipad. The best vantage point.
"

He entered the elevator. When Akiro tried to follow, Noburu barred the aide's way with a forearm.

"
Go down to the operations center,
"
Noburu com
manded.
"
Gather information.
"
He looked at the younger man. The perfect staff officer was out of his depth now. Akiro did not look frightened. He merely looked mortally confused. An orderly man from an orderly world, waking barefoot in a hissing jungle.
"
And get yourself a rifle,
"
Noburu added.

The doors kissed shut. During the brief ascent, the muted sounds of battle surrounded them, yet the combat remained unreal, almost irrelevant. Voices bubbling down into an aquarium.

"
Truck bomb,
"
Kloete said casually. He boosted the machine gun until he had a sounder grip on it.
"
Fuckers took out the main gate.
"

The doors parted. Noburu went first, stepping gingerly through the short dark tunnel that led out onto the helipad.

"
Bloody fuck-all,
"
one of the South African NCOs spat, stumbling against something audibly metallic.

As the little group emerged from the concrete shelter of the passageway, the night wind off the sea splashed in through Noburu's unbuttoned tunic like ice water and rinsed back through his hair. Brassy flares dripped from the heavens, lighting the compound and the nearby quarter of the city. Lower down, tracer rounds wove in and out of the darkness, while the block of buildings just beyond the barracks complex burned skyward. Apparently, the first assault had been beaten off. There was little human movement in evidence at the moment. Noburu strode briskly across the helipad to gain a better look. The South Africans trotted on ahead, booted feet heavy under the burden of their weaponry.

"
Machine gun,
"
Kloete cried,
"
action.
"
His voice carried the legacy of old British enemies, insinuated into Boer blood and transported now to the shore of the Caspian Sea. Kloete spoke in unmistakably British phrases, muddied by an Afrikaans accent.

The South African's long-barreled weapon began to peck at targets Noburu's aging eyes could not even begin to distinguish.

The body softened, the eyes failed. While the mind remembered youth too well.

As Noburu hunkered down behind the low wall along the edge of the roof, blossoms of flame spread out from under one of the guard towers, a construction that housed sentinels in a bulb atop a long, narrow stalk. Now the tulip came to life. Its base uprooted by the blast, the tower shivered, then seemed to hop, struggling to keep its balance. Finally, the construction's last equilibrium failed and the tower fell over hard, slamming its high concrete compartment down onto the parade ground.

The shouting came before the sound of the guns. Screaming unintelligibly, the Azeris rushed back in through the wreckage of the main gate. The big steel doors had been blown completely off their hinges, and the masonry of the wall looked as jagged as broken bone. Black figures dashed forward, silhouetted by flames. Other shapes dropped over the wall where long stretches of wire had been tom away. The lead figures opened fire with automatic weapons as they ran.

Fresh flares arced. Inside the compound, a crossfire of machine guns opened up. A few of the remaining guard towers laid down a base of fire on the far side of the wall, but other sentry perches remained silent and dark.

Screaming. Falling.

Surely, Noburu thought, these dark men were shouting about their god. No other words would have the power to propel men into this.

The garrison's machine guns swept the invaders off their feet. As Noburu crouched forward to see, a shower of spent shell casings nipped against his cheek and chest, their temperature scalding in the night air.

"
Crazy buggers,
"
one of the South African NCOs said to his mate. The man swapped out magazines and leaned back over the low wall that ringed the roof.

"
Action left
,
"
Kloete cried. His subordinates followed the swing of the machine gun with their own weapons.

Noburu peered into the darkness, trying to follow the red streaks from his companions' weapons, seeking a closer glimpse of this new enemy.

Down on the parade ground, the flares revealed tens of dozens of bodies. Some lay clustered, others sprawled apart. Here a man moved over the cobblestones like an agonized worm, while another twitched, then stilled. Snip
ers went to ground, then suddenly blasted at the headquarters building, drawing concentrated fire in response.

Noburu had believed that the assault was over, when a fresh wave poured screaming through the gate. Outlined by the inferno across the road, one figure carried a banner aloft. His head had the grossly swollen look of a turbaned man at night. All around him, his followers shrilled.

Noburu thought he heard the word distinctly:
"
Allah.
"

"
Allah
"
and then a pair of ruptured syllables, repeated again and again. He knew that his hearing was not much better than his eyesight, and that he might only be imposing the word on their voices. But it felt right. He watched as rivets of machine gun fire fixed the flag bearer to a wall, then let him drop.

Another shadow scooped up the banner.

Kloete cursed and called for another tin of ammunition.

Noburu briefly considered drawing his pistol. But he knew it would only be an empty gesture at this distance, like spitting at the enemy. And he was tired of empty gestures. This was a younger man's fight.

During his career, he had been acutely aware of being a part of history, and he had possessed the gift of casting the moment into the perspective of books yet to be written. But this. This was like being part of someone else's history. When madmen with flags and a god's name on their lips swarmed into the sharp teeth of civilization. This was the stuff of bygone centuries.

The machine guns methodically built up a barrier of corpses where once the steel gates had served. But the Azeris simply climbed over the corpses of their brethren at a run, continuing on to martyrdom.

A dark form raised a hand to hurl something, then toppled too soon. The grenade's explosion rearranged the pile of corpses into which the man had fallen.

"
Terrebork,
"
Kloete shouted without taking his cheek off the side of his weapon,
"
bring up more ammunition.
"

One of the NCOs mumbled a response and scuttled off toward the elevator.

"
Crazy,
"
Kloete said loudly, his voice half-wonder, half
-
accusation.
"
They're crazy.
"

But the automatic weapons made in Honshu or on the

Cape of
Good
Hope did good work. The assault again dwindled into a sniping between a few riflemen amid the landscape of dead and wounded and the defenders of the compound's interior.

Kloete unlocked the housing of his machine gun to let the weapon cool. He rolled over against the wall.
"
Shit,
"
he said. Then he noticed Noburu. The South African snorted loudly.
"
Long way to travel just to shoot your colored,
"
he said. He grinned, teeth white against his powder-grimed face.
"
Funny, I don't remember this part in any of the briefings.
"
He looked at Noburu with the impolite stare of someone who knew exactly how far things had gone awry, as well as who was to blame.

Noburu said nothing. He simply looked at the hard angles of the man's face. Kloete's skin was burnished by the ambient light of the fires, and he resembled a hardcase private as much as he did a colonel.

"
They're all gone, you know,
"
Kloete continued. He tapped along his tunic pockets, then drew out a crushed pack of cigarettes. In the background, desultory gunfire continued.
"
Your local nationals,
"
he said, settling a bent cigarette between his lips.
"
All of our little security force allies. Save for a pair of shit-scared officers, who're bloody worthless anyway. Gone over to
those
crazy buggers.
"
He tossed a spent match over the wall in the direction of the mob.
"
Took their bloody weapons and jumped. Good thing we had Japs in some of the towers.
"
He narrowed his eyes at Noburu.
"
Japanese, I mean.
"