The War After Armageddon (19 page)

As Harris dragged himself back toward his room, the deputy G-3 ambushed him, excited. There had been two rear-area attacks. That hardly seemed a surprise to Harris, who’d expected more raids and sabotage by now. Proud of himself, the deputy Three told the general that he’d sent out a message by land line, warning all subordinate units to increase their security posture.

Harris almost told the lieutenant colonel that his message was all well and good, but what about the units still not up on land line? Instead, he just folded his arms over his body armor, pressing it into his sweat-damp uniform. The deputy Three was a talker, and Harris knew he wasn’t going to get off lightly.

The poor bugger’s just trying to do his best, the general reminded himself.

“And lastly,” the deputy Three said, “the division surgeon from the Big Red One reports thirty-seven confirmed cases of amoebic dysentery.”

“Navy food,” Harris responded. “Good night, Bruce.”

He walked off to his office-bedroom. Wondering at the kind of sensibility that would build a mansion-sized home such as this, then furnish it with bare, dangling bulbs.

His aide stood up as Harris entered. He looked the general over and asked, “Want me to hold this stuff until morning, sir?”

“No, John.” He dropped onto his cot a little too heavily and immediately began unknotting his left boot. “Sing me to sleep.”

The remark, often repeated, was a private joke that Harris never explained to his aide—who simply accepted it as a peculiarity of the general’s speech. Harris long since had thought, without satisfaction, that the two of them resembled Saul and young David. And Saul’s was not a role Harris wished to play.

Well, better than Abraham and Isaac, Harris told himself. Or blind Tobit.

As the general drew off his boots and socks, the major said, “Sir, the big out-of-area headline is that the Turks demolished St. Sophia’s in Istanbul. Blew it to rubble.”

Harris looked up. And?

Major Willing continued, reading now: “With the Imperial Russian Expeditionary Force fighting in the Galata District of Istanbul, Turkish army engineers destroyed St. Sophia’s, St. Irene’s, and at least a dozen other Byzantine-era structures. In Moscow, Czar Grigori and the Orthodox patriarch denounced the Turkish actions as a crime against humanity and vowed that those responsible for the wanton destruction—”

“You know, John,” Harris interrupted as he loosened his belt to make his uniform comfortable enough to sleep in, “when I was a lieutenant—back when Turkey started down the path to extremism—there was a bestseller and a follow-up movie in Turkey predicting a U.S. invasion that would ultimately be repelled
by Russian intervention on Ankara’s side.” Harris grimaced. “So much for the ability of the creative consciousness to predict the future.”

Recalling many a history text he’d plowed through in years past, he added, “I always wanted to visit Istanbul. And Aya Sofya. The greatest surviving monument of the first thousand years of Christianity. I couldn’t go, because of my security clearances.” He sighed. “Now it’s gone.”

“You always say you don’t care about buildings and archaeological sites, sir.”

“That’s not exactly right, John. I just don’t think they’re more important than living human beings. But I might’ve made an exception for St. Sofia’s. It must’ve been impressive—you know the history? What happened on the day it fell to the Ottomans?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, we’ll save that for another time. But Sim Montfort and every legislator behind him is going to have a field day with this one. Anything in the summary about the Russian and Armenian forces in eastern Anatolia?”

“I didn’t see anything, sir. Not today.”

“Our alliance talks with the Russians?”

“Sir, there might’ve been something in the MOBIC news releases. Do you want me to check?”

Harris waved the thought away. It all could wait. He lay back on his cot. “Excuse me, John. You see before you a general in decline. What’s next?”

“Sir, the only other major item is on China. The Army of the Han Messiah has taken Chongging. And the Beijing government bombed Hong Kong again.”

“Well, I suppose we’ll be eating General Tso’s chicken on the spot if we finish with the Jihadis in time. Onward Christian Soldiers.”

Harris saw his aide wince.

“Don’t worry, John. I promise I won’t say such things in public. Any domestic news get through?”

“Yes, sir. The Nevada National Guard and the Mormon Militia
have been sent into the Providential Communities to quell the rioting.”

“Rioting over?”

“The USG press release says the riots are being staged in support of the Jihadis we’re fighting.”

Harris snorted. “More likely over bad food and worse treatment. John, one day we’re going to be unspeakably ashamed of ourselves for what we’ve done to our own citizens. Again.”

“Sir, some Muslim-Americans
were
terrorists . . .”

“Less than a hundred, John, less than a hundred. And we put—what, four million people into camps in the desert? Shame on us. What else?”

Harris caught the hesitation in the air.

“Nothing really significant, sir.”

“Come on, John. You’re my aide, not my censor.”

“That law passed. By a better-than-two-thirds majority. Declaring the United States . . . Let me check the final wording, sir . . . ‘a Christian, God-fearing nation and Providential Asylum for the Jewish People’.”

Harris studied the flies on the ceiling, fighting the thought that the Lord of the Flies was triumphant. After a bit, he said, “I’ll miss the First Amendment. And the exiled children of Israel had better look out when we start using the word ‘providential’ on their behalf. In the dictionary, it comes just before ‘provisional’.”

“Sir . . . May I ask you something? Kind of personal?”

“Majors don’t ask generals personal questions. But I suppose we can make a war time exception. Shoot.”

“You
are
a Christian believer. Right, sir?”

“Hoping Jesus will have me, and trusting in His mercy. What’s the question behind the question?”

“Why has this amendment bothered you so much? I mean, I’m just trying to understand . . .”

Closing his eyes, Harris said, “A nation that’s Christian in its heart doesn’t need to write it into law. Now go get some sleep yourself.”

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

“We’ve got a parasite inside the Jihadis’ fire-control system,” the briefer said. The room with the portable screens bore the smell of weary men, of stale breath, sweat, and burnt circuits. “We were able to penetrate them at the corps level. The bug is programmed to activate at 1 ID’s LD time. When the first blue vehicle crosses the line, all Jihadi indirect fire assets netted for autocontrol will reprogram to impact three thousand meters short, with a thirty-degree left deviation.” He paused to make eye contact with the G-2 and the deputy G-3, who was sitting in for his sleeping boss. “We estimate it will take them fifteen to max thirty minutes to identify the problem and a minimum of two hours to fix it.”

“Morphing parasite?” Val Danczuk, the corps intelligence officer, asked.

“Yes, sir. That’s why we’re pretty sure we’ve got two hours.”

Danczuk turned to the deputy operations officer, wondering if Mike Andretti hadn’t made the right decision by catching some
sleep. You could run on empty for only so long. “View from the Three side?”

“Two hours should get 1 ID into the Afula defenses. If they’re going to get there at all. What about the drones?”

The briefer shook his head. “Sir, we still haven’t been able to penetrate their network.”

“So the drones, like the poor, will always be with us?” the deputy G-3 said.

There was a slight pause, a half-moment of held breath, before the briefer responded. Mocking Scripture wasn’t safe, even in the Army’s inner circles.

“Sir, for now the only option on the drones is to continue working the spoofers against them,” the briefer told him.

“Which has not,” the deputy Three said, “been a raging success.”

“Best we can do, sir. We’re trying.”

The deputy shook his head and turned to Danczuk. Question mark on his face.

“We’re working it, Bruce. We all want to crack that particular code. But two out of three isn’t bad—indirect fire down and, if things go the way the we think they will, at least a brief window of safety from the antitank defenses.”

“I wish we had air, sir. Where’s the zoomie?”

“He turned in,” one of the staffers said.

“Christ.” The deputy G-3 held up his hands in mock surrender.

“Okay,” Danczuk said, eager to wrap up the briefing, “anything else?” He scanned the tired faces. Even the night-shift officers looked beat. Not much sleep to be had while the headquarters moved ashore.

“Well, I have one last question,” the deputy G-3 said. “Anybody here from commo?”

A major raised his hand.

“We going to be able to talk any better tomorrow?”

The major shook his head. “Sir, we’re doing the best we can. We’re getting jammed on every microfrequency. It’s a miracle we can talk at all. At least they’re getting intermittent comms at company and below.”

The deputy Three looked at Danczuk, who outranked him by one grade. “Sir, I feel like I’m in Korea with my great-grandfather.”

“Well, don’t get frostbite,” Danczuk said. He was getting tired of the deputy Three’s swagger. The man was far more subdued when his boss was present. “All right. A-Shift, get some rack time. B-Shift, back to work.” He looked at an officer who’d been sitting quietly against the wall. “Major Kim, if you still need to talk to me, hang back. But no epic poetry tonight.”

The younger officer nodded. Val Danczuk regarded him as the brightest analyst and reconnaissance officer on his staff. Even if he wasn’t a Steelers fan.

When the room had cleared, the G-2 said, “Watcha got?”

“Mind if I shut the door, sir?”

“Shut it.”

The major closed the door. It was ill-set and had to be forced. Like everything else in this rathole, Danczuk thought.

Major Kim spread a half-dozen imagery culls on the table in front of the G-2. “Sir, I’d like you to take a look at these.”

Danczuk glanced at them. Same target in each one, although the angles and shadows were different: a tented complex in a grove. Some hardstand. The main facilities bore the Red Crescent signature.

“Okay, Jim. Help me out. I’m too tired to play Twenty Questions.”

The major leaned in close enough for the G-2 to smell the last rations the younger man had eaten. “Sir, this site’s in the Upper Galilee. Way up, almost to the old Lebanese border. And if it’s really a field hospital, I’ve got three questions.”

“Which are?”

“The Jihadis have been taking serious casualties. But look at the imagery. We’ve got drone shots and two angles from the DSI-40 satellite. We got those this afternoon, when the downlink punched through for a couple of hours. The other shots are from this morning or yesterday—and there’s an infrared from less than three hours ago.” The major backed off slightly. “Where’s the ambulance traffic? Except for the shadows and the angles, the shots are virtually
identical. Hardly any movement. Look at this one: exactly two ground personnel visible. But they’ve got fully manned guardposts down this road.” He pointed with a pen. “There. And over here. And here.”

“Second question?”

“If it’s a field hospital, why isn’t it closer to a main road? Why tuck it off a single-lane side road in the boonies?”

“Third question?”

“If it’s a hospital, why is part of the site camouflaged?” He pointed again. “What looks like trees over here is ghost netting.”

“Chinese?”

“Made in India, sir. Tech transfer from Dassault. If we’re reading the wavelengths right.”

Danczuk nodded. “And?”

“Sir, the J’s are short of ghost netting. It’s a prime commodity. Why use it on a hospital? Which you shouldn’t be trying to hide at all? And by the way, there’s no sign of air-evac activity in any shot. No sign of any patients at all.”

“And Major Jim Kim’s analysis would be?” Danczuk asked. Afraid he knew damned well what the answer was.

“Sir, I believe this is a nuke field-storage site. I believe they’re prepping nuclear munitions in that main tent complex, although I can’t say how many. Just look at those generators. Those aren’t for a hospital. And we don’t know what’s under the ghost netting. Could even be launchers, it could be—”

The G-2 held up his hand. But he didn’t speak immediately after cutting off his subordinate. He gave him a pay-attention stare first.

“Jim . . . You’re a first-rate officer. Best analyst I’ve got. You read that on your efficiency report. Your pre-landing estimates could be used as models at Ft. Leavenworth. But I need you to listen to me now. Unless you have proof—
proof
—and more than a hackles-up hunch about this, I don’t want to hear another word spoken about it. And that’s an order. Not a word. Not to anybody.”

“But, sir . . . General Harris—”

“You’re not listening. I want you to go on receive now. And this is strictly between us. You’ve got a great career ahead of you in MI.
If
you don’t fall into the trap that’s taken down more intel officers than straight-ahead bad calls ever did. Don’t get on a hobby horse. Don’t go into target-lock mode.” He gestured toward another man whom they both could envision beyond the room’s mottled walls. “We’ve got to protect General Harris on this one. Nukes are turning into
his
hobby horse. And every damned agency in D.C. agrees that the Jihadis have no nukes left. Based on the codeword evidence, I agree with the National Intelligence Estimate on this one.”