The War After Armageddon (24 page)

Major Nasr wet himself. He couldn’t even rise from the bed to stagger to the cabin in the yard. He struggled to rise, at least to a sitting position. But it was a no-go. The effort of the night before had drained him of all the juice he had left.

He had slept. Hard. But the penalty was that his body had locked up. As if it were encased in a hard, jointless shell. The lobster man. Through the slits of his swollen eyes, his smashed hand with its broken finger really did look like a claw.

When he coughed and spit up blood, it hurt his entire torso, his neck, his head. Kidneys, groin, ribs, indefinite organs that had never complained before. The sheet was raw with sweat and lumped with clots of maroon blood.

He could hear, though. With at least one ear. The sounds of battle had come much closer. Not just artillery, either. He believed he could hear the crack of main-gun rounds.

“Pussy,” he told himself. “You cunt. Get up. Get
up
. You gonna lay here and piss your pants all day?”

Yes, he was going to lie there and piss his pants all day. And all night. As long as he continued to live.

The owner of the house hadn’t dared look in on him. At least, the owner hadn’t done so while Nasr was awake.

Was he awake? He wasn’t even certain if he was conscious with any consistency.

The bastards who had beaten him were artists, he decided. How else could they have done so much damage without killing him?

He tried to straighten his leg, to free it briefly of the cooling piss-wet and grime. But he couldn’t even do that.

I’m not going to cry, he insisted. Yesterday, I was weak. But nothing can make me cry. I’m not afraid. Not anymore.

Lies, lies, lies. A spasm wracked his lungs, and he barked up a clot of dark blood. Bright red blood chased it. Despite all the will he could muster, tears came to his eyes.

Get a new body at Ranger Joe’s. Next time I get down to Benning. One size larger, please.

Benning. The all-you-can-eat chicken at Country’s Barbecue. Goodbye to all that. Iron Mike was made of flesh and blood, after all.

He tried to think rationally, asking himself if he had left any part of his mission undone that he might still accomplish.

Nasr laughed at himself. Hurting his jaw, his smashed lips, his rib cage again.

You can’t even get up to piss. Who’re you trying to fool?

Me. Just me. Please help me, Jesus. I’m sorry for all the wrong things that I’ve done. I need your help now. Here. In Nazareth. I’m out of juice, and I need your touch to bring me back . . .

He was afraid to pray properly. Afraid that it would be a prelude to death.

With an effort that stole energy from elsewhere in the universe,
he cocked himself up from the bed. Halfway. Just far enough to notice that he’d pissed blood.

There were people he would’ve liked to have seen a last time. Most of them women. It hadn’t been a bad ride, after all.

Jesus, I need you now. Holy Mary, Mother of God. Help me.

The door opened. Instead of spirits, Nasr saw a compact man in a perfectly pressed uniform. A col o nel. In the Jihadi regulars, the Blessed Army of the Great Jihad. The col o nel wrinkled his nose.

Yeah, I stink, Nasr thought. Come and have a lick, you cock-sucker.

When the col o nel spoke, without advancing from the doorway, his English accent was plummy. Oxbridge, Knightsbridge, and contract bridge.

“Dear me, Major Nasr, you’re looking the worse for wear. Would it be a great bother for you to get up now, do you think?”

No bother at all. I was just relaxing.

When Nasr didn’t move, the col o nel said, “You’re really looking rather peaked. We’ll see about some assistance, shall we?”

The col o nel clapped his hands and made way. Two underlings, also uniformed as regulars, excused their way past him and made for Nasr.

He couldn’t put up any re sis tance. The best he could do was not to break down in tears when they lifted him. It felt as though his every bone and sinew were coming apart.

The officer spoke in Arabic. Telling his subordinates to go gently, that they would suffer themselves if they did Nasr any further damage.

“I suppose,” the col o nel told Nasr, “I should have brought a nurse along. Thoughtless of me.”

As the men carried Nasr down the corridor, only one of his feet dragged. The other leg curled back, as if in an elbow cast.

Outside, the bright sun shut the slits of his eyes. The enlisted Jihadis really did try to be gentle with him. It didn’t help much. When they put him in the back seat of the sedan, he imagined himself imploding, collapsing into a mound of gristle and bone fragments.

“Your forces are doing rather well,” the col o nel told him, once he had settled himself on the seat beside Nasr. “We Arabs never do seem to get the knack of this sort of warfare. Of course, we have our own repertoire.” He tapped the back of the front seat with a swagger stick, and the car proceeded to grind down the broken alley.

“We haven’t much time,” the col o nel told him. “I expect your forces to arrive in Nazareth in a matter of hours. Perhaps sooner. And it would hardly do for me to be here.”

Nasr was so crumpled that he barely saw over the ledge of the car door, giving him a child’s view. The houses were shut up tight.

“The refugees,” Nasr said. He had to repeat it several times before he could make himself understood.

“Oh, they’re still here,” the col o nel told him, once he’d deciphered Nasr’s mumbling. “Down in the old city. I’m afraid we’ve had to shoot a few, to make them understand they’re not to leave.”

“Why?”

“Just riff-raff, really. The ‘intelligentsia’ of the Middle East. No feeling for Islam. No sense of faith, of purity. We see them as something of a fifth column. Impossible to reform.” The col o nel half-turned toward Nasr. “They’re our gift to you. Perhaps you can build your new Middle East with them. As your president wished to do, when I was a lad. One must never give up hope—isn’t that so?”

As the car threaded its way through the labyrinth of Nazareth, Nasr glimpsed crowds of civilians crammed together in the lower streets.

The noise of war ruled the world beyond.

The car turned south. On the main road.

“I really must apologize to you,” the col o nel said. “In advance. In war time, one finds oneself compelled to do things that don’t really square with the old conscience. Allah will forgive me, of course. Nonetheless, I find it embarrassing.”

Nasr didn’t find it embarrassing. Nor did he have another word for what he saw when they pulled up to a stretch of the road where empty lots on either side had become the site of an artificial forest.

“Get him out of the car,” the col o nel told his subordinates.

They came around and drew Nasr into the warm sunlight.

This? Was this the way it would end? Would there be a special dispensation for this?

They held him up in a mockery of standing. Before him, Nasr saw dozens of crucifixes. Each bore an American soldier or Marine.

“Deplorable, I know,” the col o nel told him. “But we feel we need to make a point. Not least, given what your MOBIC fellows have gotten up to in Jerusalem.” He brought his face close to Nasr’s, braving the stench. Nasr saw a youngish man, handsome, with skin the color of coffee with milk.

“The message is that there will be no quarter. From this day forward. This is a war of extermination. Do you think this display sufficient to drive that home?” He backed away. Slightly. “We’re not complete barbarians, you understand. Unlike your ‘Military Order of the Brothers in Christ.’ Is it really Christ’s message they carry? I’m surprised, really. But what I wanted to say was only that we’re not animals. We killed these men before we nailed them up. No need to gild the lily.”

Nasr let his head sink. He could bear the sight no longer. The crows were already at some of the crosses. Crows and flies.

“I suppose I should’ve mentioned it earlier,” the col o nel resumed. “Bad form on my part.
You
have nothing to fear. Nothing more, I should say. You’re not going to share the fate of your comrades. We need you to do us a last favor. If you don’t mind.”

The colonel clapped his hands. Nasr heard a car door slam behind his back. A moment later, an NCO stepped up, snapped to, and saluted. After which he handed the col o nel Nasr’s transmitter.

“It seemed unjust,” the col o nel said, “to make you climb those streets again. Frankly, you don’t quite look up to it.” He switched to Arabic and told his men to place Nasr on the far side of the road. They dragged him across the asphalt but sat him down almost tenderly on the curb.

The officer stood over him. The man’s shadow dulled his polished brown shoes.

The col o nel set the transmitter down in front of Nasr, then dropped to his haunches to look Nasr in the face a last time.

“You’re a brave fellow,” he told Nasr. “One respects that. Even
in an enemy. Now, I think I shall be going. Might get sticky, were I to stay. Peace be unto you, Major.”

And he walked off. Car doors slammed. Engines gunned. Nasr closed his eyes and listened as the vehicles turned around and sped off.

When he thought he could bear it again, he took another look at the forest of crosses. And he began to count them. When he was done, he managed to pick up the transmitter with his good hand and cradle it in his lap.

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

Harris strode back into the command cell. Before he got a good look at the general’s face, the ops sergeant working command comms said, “Sir, I’ve got General Stramara on—”

“Three,” Harris snapped. “Take it. Just tell Stramara to get moving.” He turned to the comms crew again. “Get me General Scott.
Now.
”

The general hovered. It didn’t make things go faster. But he didn’t want anyone to get a dead-on look at his face. It might betray too much.

After a flurry of attempts, a captain told him, “Sir, General Scott’s on a latrine break. He’ll be—”

“Get him off the can. No. Give me the handset. General Harris here. Listen. I need to speak to General Scott. I don’t care if you have to run wire out to the shitter. Get him on the line.”

The routine noise of the ops center had faded to hospital-ward-at-night level. They’d all worked together long enough to read the ruling mood.

After a reasonable wait that pushed Harris to the brink of fury, the 1st Infantry Division commander came on the line. Harris cut the other man’s apology short.

“Scottie. Fire mission. Which unit of yours is closest to Nazareth, to the road into town from the south?”

“That’s in the Fourth BCT sector. I’ve got 1-18 covering—”

“Pat Cavanaugh’s unit. Is he the closest to the road?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve got Quarter Cav screening and holding on to the India-Echoes, with—”

“Jump the chain. Get on the horn with Cavanaugh yourself. Tell him to get on that road and get into Nazareth. Fast. I have reason to believe the road’s not mined. I need him to accept maximum risk.” Harris paused to choose his words. “And tell Pat he’s absolutely got to keep his men under positive control. Weapons tight.”

“The Jihadis may still have—”

“Trust me on this one. I want 1-18 going into town with their weapons on safe. The line doggies are going to be tempted to shoot things up. The officers, too. 1-18’s mission is to penetrate the city until . . . until they reach the scene of a reported war crime. They’ll know it when they see it. That’s all I can say about it for now. Just tell Pat Cavanaugh to secure the scene of any suspected war crime, to push out his perimeter and send patrols into the city. With restrictive rules of engagement.”

“But, sir, we’re in—”

“Just follow my orders, Scottie. And tell Cavanaugh to report directly to you. Get him on your net, and keep everybody else off it. You’ll understand soon enough. And frankly, you’ll wish you didn’t.” Harris took a deep breath. “Maximum risk, weapons tight. Get Cavanaugh moving.”

JEZREEL VALLEY, SOUTH OF NAZARETH

1-18 Infantry had spent much of the day taking stray Jihadis prisoner and shooting up vehicles fleeing the main battle. Pat Cavanaugh had lost one Bradley to an antitank missile, with four KIA and the rest of the squad and crew burned and busted up, but breakdowns had been a worse headache than battle damage. He’d been living vicariously by listening in on 1st Brigade’s net during the attack on Afula.

Now things were getting surreal. With a tank platoon leading Jake Walker’s Charlie Company up the Nazareth highway in a
hedgehog formation that straddled the median strip, Cavanaugh had positioned his own track as the ninth vehicle. Standing up in the commander’s hatch, he watched the M-1s in the lead traverse their turrets as they scanned for targets. Although they knew—and hated—the order that they weren’t to fire unless fired upon.

Had the Jihadis just quit? War crime? What was that about? No details. Just the Scotsman himself on the other end, telling him to move out like the wrath of God was on his ass. Accept maximum risk. Weapons tight. A few hours before, the valley had been a slaughter house. Jihadi combat vehicles and supply trucks were still smoldering in the road. The M-1s had to slow and push them aside.

They rolled past an intersection where a ruined rest stop and service station looked like relics of a lost civilization. Which they were, Cavanaugh figured. Ahead, the road rose up through a saddle crowned with once-white buildings.

Nazareth. He wondered if he’d feel anything special, any hint of the sacred, when he actually entered the city. Word was that the place was a pit, an Arab town spared by the Ira ni ans in the great nuke duel because of its Muslim population. And its lack of importance.

He lifted the visor of his vehicle commander’s helmet. The brighter world and the rush of air stung his eyes for a moment. But the wind of movement soothed his skin.

Almost as good as a shower. Or maybe not quite.

“This is Bayonet Six,” he said into his helmet mike. “Perfect ambush site as we get up into that saddle. Make sure everybody stays alert.”