The War After Armageddon

SIX

Every living thing got out of his way. Nasr limped and staggered up the lanes of Nazareth, dried blood lurid on his clothing. His face was so swollen it limited his field of vision. The people he encountered stared at him for an alarmed instant, then quickly looked to the side and veered from his path. Only the children, silent under the sound of the distant guns, kept their eyes on him: the bogeyman.

Yet, more than a few of the local children were little bogeymen, deformed by radiation in the womb. During the Great Jihad, Nazareth had lain within the fallout zones of Haifa to the West and Zefat to the north.

Nasr was in no condition to feel much sympathy. He kept thinking of the old Army expression, “a world of hurt,” repeating it to himself almost hypnotically. Although he’d taken a round in the hip in Nigeria, the only part of his body Nasr had worried about in the past had been his knees, which had gone a few hundred jumps beyond their warranty. Now everything seemed to hurt. His testicles ached so badly that he imagined himself walking like a sailor in an old cartoon. His ribs punished him with every breath. Back and front, right and left, everything seemed to be broken. Pains flashed through his abdomen, as regular as warning beacons. His head was the least of it. That was just a matter of weird vagueness, as if a few inches of the air around his skull had become a no-man’s-land.

The doctor had pawed his ribs and shrugged. They might as well have called a cleaning woman, because just about all the doc did—if he actually was a doctor—had been to clean up his face a bit, splint two broken fingers together with all the skill of a Cub Scout, then offer him a glass of orange juice. When Nasr tried to drink it, the acid burned his smashed-up lips and the inside of his mouth like liquid fire. He spit up blood.

Another miracle of modern medicine. Avicenna, call home.

“I’m going to make it,” Nasr told himself as he climbed a narrow alley that reeked of cooking grease and urine. “I’m going to fucking make it. Been through worse than this.”

But that was a lie. He’d never been through worse. And he wasn’t going to make it.

They knew who he was. That one single thing was clear to him. He’d imagined that he was the Invisible Man, Mr. Cultural Affinity, blending in seamlessly. Pride of Man, he told himself, oh, pride of Man. He’d been a horse’s ass. They all knew who he was.

As he watched, a bearded man grabbed a falafel sandwich from a boy—who fought to get it back as the thief danced about to avoid his victim’s hands, all the while stuffing the food into his maw.

No one interfered. Everyone was afraid. Weary. Famished. In despair.

Welcome to the club, Nasr thought.

He’d never believed that despair was in him. But he had a fullblown case now. He veered between disgust at himself and troughs of indulgence when he tried to cata log his damaged parts. For the first time in his life, he slipped into self-pity. And he hated himself for it.

Nasr stumbled, but righted himself. A bout of dizziness stopped him for a moment, and then he trudged on. Not certain he was doing the right thing. But unable to think of anything else.

They knew. His first impulse had been to avoid returning to the closet of a room he’d rented on the western ridge. But that was stupid. If they knew all the rest, they certainly knew where he was bunking. And the transmitter wasn’t there, anyway.

He climbed a few more steps, through a played- out avalanche of garbage, and stopped again. There was no obvious alpha pain. Everything hurt. The doc had given him a small handful of pills. For the pain, he said. But Nasr feared taking them. He had to stay clear. As clear as possible. To think.

It hurt to breathe. But when he tried to fuel himself with shallow breaths, the dizziness threatened to drop him. And he couldn’t halt the flashes of remembrance, the vivid recollection of a fist coming down into his face or the precise feel—the instant replay—of a boot going into his ribs.

“You’re getting soft, Ranger,” he told himself. “Never make it through Dahlonega. Forget that SF tab, sissy- boy. You’d wash out of the Q Course in a week.”

Sarcasm didn’t give him the boost he needed.

What the hell did you do when you knew—when you knew—that they were only waiting for you to make your transmission before they killed you?

They’d never spare him. That was clear. They didn’t have it in them to let him off with a beating.

Did they know he knew?

Now that was a question requiring a bottle of single malt.

Nasr began to walk again, imagining himself marching, but aware that his every movement was a mockery of his past being. Pride of Man, pride of Man…

Who wanted what? That was the thing he needed to figure out. The old man hadn’t recognized him on his own. He’d been put up to it. But by whom? Where did one scheme end and another plot begin? The old man had threatened to spoil the game that was going so well for the rival team—the team that wanted Nasr to keep on transmitting as the American forces approached. At least one more time.

Had the security boys who beat him up been in on either deal? Or were they just stupid Arab cops doing what they did best?

When the badge-flashers in clean khakis dragged him out and pushed his parts back together, their head honcho had been all too profuse in his apologies and his insistence that a mistake had been made, that everyone was sorry. Arabs were never sorry for violence. Nasr knew that. He was one of them. Christian or not.

“Get over that self-hatred thing, bro,” his best friend had warned him years before. Nasr had thought it was a nutty thing to say. But he got the point now.

Didn’t listen. Didn’t take his vitamins. Bad, bad boy. Had to be the number-one grad in every Army school. Just to prove… what, exactly? That a Maronite Christian could do more pushups than Presbyterians?

So they wanted him to transmit. But what did they need him to say? The only news from the Nazareth home team was that educated refugees were being bussed in and dumped. Thousands of them. Bad Guys X wanted him dead right now, but Bad Guys Y wanted him to tell mama first.

He stopped again and shook his head. Instinctively. As if the act would clear his thoughts.

All it did was hurt his neck.

Ain’t no lucky lady going to share my Arabian nights for a while, Nasr told himself. No, sirree. Mr. Pulp Face. And check those teeth. Bad dentistry.

What was his duty? To transmit. Were they capable of monitoring and breaking the transmissions? The techies said no way. But what were the techies going to say? They believed in technology the way the MOBIC pukes believed that Jesus was God’s Little Gangster.

When I get a three-day pass, I’m gonna kick old Jody’s ass.

Or maybe not. Not going to kick anybody’s ass. Not now. Maybe never again.

Self-pity stinks. Got it, sir. But dying hadn’t been a near-term goal. Even Fayetteville was looking good now. Unlike his enemies, Nasr didn’t regard death as a promotion. He’d dutifully attended St. Michael’s and St. George’s right through high school. For his mother’s sake. But he hadn’t exactly come to terms with the after-life. SF studs didn’t get killed. They did the killing.

The artillery fire swelled again, landing several clicks away. Echoing through the urban canyons. His team wasn’t shelling the city. Just kicking up dirt around it. Because we’re the good guys. Nice to everybody. You betcha.

He thought of the struggle his father had endured the year before to prove that, although Arabs, his family had always been Christians. Since time immemorial, sir. Since that dude fell off his horse on the way to Damascus.

Christian Arabs didn’t have to go into the Providential Communities in Utah and Nevada that the government had established for Muslims, citizens or not, after the Jihadis popped nukes in L.A. and Las Vegas. But it was up to you to produce the paperwork.

Nasr saw his father, sitting on the goddamned couch, the previously undisputed tyrant of the family, with tears rolling down his cheeks, telling his newly promoted-to-major son, “I tell them, I say to them that my son is an officer in the United States Army, that he is in the specialty forces with the green beret. But they only try to trick me with questions about the Book of Revelation. They are men of tricks, like the dev il.”

And Nasr had set out, yet again, to prove that he was not only as good an American as anybody else, but a braver and better one.

Well, not much longer. Fucking Jihadis. They’d gotten what they wanted. The new crowd in Washington just didn’t get it. All the Jihadis cared about, when it came to Muslim emigres, was preventing them from assimilating into Western societies: better dead than freely wed. In the post-nuke panic, his government had done the Jihadis’ work for them. Weren’t going to be any mixed marriages now.

What did it matter? The world was going to shit. Nasr figured it was some old blood instinct telling him that the killing had barely started.

He marched uphill, going like a crippled old man pretending to be a soldier. He intended to allow himself thirty minutes. No more. Thirty mikes. To sit down. And calm down. Then he would go straight to the transmitter. And do his duty.

If he truly was a Christian, Nasr considered, Nazareth wouldn’t be such a bad place to die.

He stopped. An emaciated cat took one look at him and scrammed. Nasr laughed out loud. It hurt. Awfully. But he couldn’t stop laughing.

A good place to die? Nazareth was a fucking pit. No wonder even Golgotha looked better to Jesus.

He hardly noticed that his laughter had faded into tears. Yeah, a world of hurt.

Just as Nasr moved to put one foot in front of the other, to march, he heard a sudden noise that didn’t fit. Followed by answering noises.

Bending his entire torso, Nasr looked up. Just in time to see a lone U.S. jet racing westward. Gunfire, missiles and, doubtless, every djinn in the Middle East chased after it. Before disappearing over the ridge, the aircraft jerked as if hit. But it kept on going.

They were flying. His guys. Americans. It seemed unreasonably important to him, as if the jet had been on a mission just to do a fly-by for his benefit.

Nasr swelled with pride.

“Talk to me,” Lieutenant General Harris said.

There were only four officers left in the ship’s secure compartment: Harris, his G-2 and G-3, Col o nels Val Danczuk and Mike Andretti, and the general’s aide, Major John Willing. Beyond the sealed hatch, only three others in the entire corps were cleared for access to STARK YANKEE products, the counterintelligence operation the U.S. Army had opened against the Military Order of the Brothers in Christ.

Even seated, the G-2 was the tallest of the four. Every chair seemed a throne to him.

“Sir, it’s just remarkable,” Danczuk said. The eagerness in his voice was almost juvenile, utterly at odds with the dignified look of the man. “Even the reports coming through standard channels have MOBIC elements fighting in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Lieutenant General of the Order Montfort’s lost most of a division killed or wounded. But they just keep on attacking.”

Harris shook his head in disgust. And not just at the sour smell of the compartment. “The Jihadis are getting a taste of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of fanat i cism. It’s plain as day where al-Mahdi called it wrong: He didn’t take Sim Montfort’s speechifying seriously. Just the way we refused to listen to what the Islamists said thirty years ago. And al-Mahdi counted on Americans being stingy with their blood.” The general readjusted his posture in his chair, trying to soothe a back getting worse with the years. “I suspect al-Mahdi’s in shock at the moment. But he’ll recover. And then Sim’s going to have a real fight on his hands. What else?”

Danczuk dropped his eyes, and the enthusiasm drained from his voice. “Sir… We’re getting a lot of reports of atrocities… pretty ugly stuff.”

“Which side?”

“Both. But mostly the MOBIC forces. A lot of it’s unconfirmed… but it sounds as though a lot of civilians are being killed.”

“Not just collateral damage?”

“No, sir.”

Harris moved as if to slam his hand down on the table but restrained himself before he’d gotten a third of the way through the motion.

“Sim Montfort doesn’t want peace. That’s the goddamned thing. Old Sim really is on a crusade. And it isn’t going to make any part of this easier.” He turned to Andretti. “Mike, I don’t want RUMINT taking over. No copycat behavior. You make it damned clear through ops channels that we’re here to fight armed enemies, not civilians. I don’t want any contagion. There’s not going to be any killing for Jesus in this sector.”

“Got it, sir.”

Harris turned back to the G-2. “And the answer to my standard question, Deuce?”

“You mean nukes, sir?”

“Nukes.”

“Sir, we still have no indicators for the presence of nuclear weapons. Nothing. No probable hide sites. No special security. No support vehicles…”

Harris smiled. Glancing at the other three men. “I know you all think I’m off the reservation on this one. But I just have a gut feeling that there’s a few stray nukes out there. And not just tactical nukes, either. So pander to the old man’s obsession.”

He looked back toward the G-2. “Keep watching it for me, Val. Take it seriously. Okay? All right, then. Let’s talk STARK YANKEE. What hasn’t made the evening news?”

Danczuk glanced around as though a spy might’ve slipped into the room while they were speaking. “Sir… General Montfort doesn’t seem to worry much about blue casualties, but he’s extremely worried about equipment readiness. The breakdown rate is high and—”

“How high?”

“Sir, I don’t know. Not exactly.”

“Find out.”

“Yes, sir. The worst problems are with the MOBIC’s armored systems, the NexGen tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Basically, everything heavily digitized, anything that came out of the Future Combat Systems initiative over the last twenty years, is next to worthless in this environment. The digital shielding fails. The comms just melt down. And the electronic armor’s a joke.”

Harris had practiced control of his temper for decades. So he managed to keep his voice level, although its tone wasn’t kind. “Well, isn’t that grand. Those sonsofbitches pulled every lever in the United States Government to draw all of the latest combat equipment from the Army and Marine inventories. Left us with the shit that should’ve been retired after we left Iraq, for God’s sake. And now who’s fucked for breakfast?”

“Sir… My point is that, if the breakdown rate’s as bad as it sounds…”

“They’re going to need gear. And it’s going to have to come from somewhere. And we’re ‘somewhere.’ Got it, Val. When their new toys break, they’re going to want the old ones they tossed our way.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harris looked toward the G-3 again. “Mike… You see my point? As to why it’s essential to grab Afula as swiftly as we can? I don’t want to throw away lives. But we can’t waste time. We’ve got to keep hitting the Jihadis while they’re still reeling. I need the Dragon Brigade to winkle out the last buggers dug in around Meggido tonight.”

“1-18 Infantry has the mission, sir. Good unit. They’ll do the job.”

“Tonight, Mike. Come first light, I don’t want one more antitank missile hissing down toward that crossroads.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay,” Harris continued. “That imagery the Marines downlinked makes Afula look tough. We’d all rather bypass it and come in from behind. Nobody’s crazy about doing a Charge of the Light Brigade down the Jezreel, with the Jihadis up on those heights around Narzareth. But we don’t have the time. And the Afula defense is just mobile systems for the meantime. They haven’t had time to prep the ground, to really dig in. They weren’t expecting customers that far back in the shop, so we’re facing a hasty defense with some pretty good anti-armor equipment. But I don’t see any serious revetments or any concrete being poured.”

“Sir… I understand the mission. But you saw the imagery. It’s like they’ve gathered up every antitank system in their inventory. And then you’ve got the killer-drone problem.”

“Understood, Mike.”

“And you saw the Deuce’s spreadsheet on the EM spectrum.”

The G-2 leapt back in. “Sir, when we plot all the jamming and counterjamming, wideband, pinpoint, you name it, and then layer on the digital predators and spoofers… The spread sheet’s almost all black.”

“It cuts both ways,” Harris said. “If we can’t talk or bring precision fires to bear, neither can they.”

“They’ll be defending. And they’ve got first-rate loophole technology on their antitank systems. Any gaps in our jamming or spoofing, and that’s all she wrote.”

“Mike, we’ve been through it. The mission stands. 1 ID gets all the supporting fires the corps can bring to bear.”

“Afula may still have a lot of civilians down in the cellars,” the G-2 said. “It looked like the Jihadis are forcing the locals to remain in place in the major population centers.”

“Got it. And I’m not looking for a bloodbath. That’s Sim Mont-fort’s line of work. But we can’t worry about collateral damage on this one. A quick win will save plenty of lives later. Afula’s the key to everything else—I’m not sending anybody through those high-radiation valleys to the north if there’s any way to avoid it. And if the Jihadis are going to fight from towns—well, that’s a course of action they’ve forced on us. Just give General Scott everything he wants. But, Mike,” Harris said to his operations officer, “before we get off this tub, make double-ass sure your people understand that the FRAGO goes out to the Big Red One by 1700, with the completed operations order to General Scott not later than 2100. Scottie’s going to need all the time we can give him to pull this together. To say nothing of the brigade and battalion staffs.”

Harris swept his forefinger across his nose, back and forth, once. “They’re still trying to get themselves unscrewed after getting ashore. I’d hate to be a battalion S-4 or BMO out there tonight. And Three? Chop Avi Dorn’s brigade to the Big Red One for this operation. Avi’s bitching about not getting into the fight. Tell General Scott to get Avi’s ass in it.” He thought for a moment. “But not as the main attack. Supporting attack or just a demonstration to the north. Avi’s not going to have a lot of time on the ground to get organized. And we’re not going to be accused of using the Israelis as cannon fodder.”

“Tempting, though,” the G-3 said.

“Mike… I don’t ever want to hear you say anything like that again.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harris shook his head. “I hate this. Every action we take… we have to weigh the politics of it. Why go to Afula before those battalions even know what continent they’re on? Because if we don’t, not only do the Jihadis dig in and make it tougher—our MOBIC friends get on the first open link back to Washington and start wailing, ‘We took Jerusalem, and the Army and Marines haven’t done a damned thing… Give us their equipment now, and we’ll do the rest.’ I mean, Christ. I was talking to the commander of Quarter Cav yesterday, before he went ashore. He’s got M-1 hulls that date back almost fifty years. Past a certain point, all the upgrades just don’t help anymore. And the MOBIC boys, having utterly miscalled it by grabbing the hot, new gear only to find out it isn’t worth a monkey’s nuts, are going to go into gimme mode. The whole business makes me sick.” He sat back.

The G-2 looked at him, then looked at each of the others. “Sir… You know it’s more than that. More than just the equipment, I mean.”

Harris waved a paw at the problem. “I know, Val. I know. Look, this is a shitty war. There’s nothing between here and the Himalayas that’s worth a single American soldier’s life to me.” It was his turn to inspect the other faces in turn. “But we’re not fighting for all this crap about taking back the Holy Land. We’re fighting to save the United States Army. And the Marine Corps, for that matter. We’re all that stands between God’s little fascists and control of our country.” He swiveled toward his aide. “John, what’s the exact wording of the oath they take?”

The aide, whose purpose it was to sit, listen, and have things ready before the general knew he wanted them, leaned toward the table. “The part about ‘allegiance to the Military Order of the Brothers in Christ in service to the United States of America,’ sir?”

Harris cocked his fingers like a pistol. “Bingo. You all got that, gentlemen? We pledge ourselves ‘to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.’ They pledge to the MOBIC ‘in service’ to the United States. The dumbest lawyer in Lubbock could drive a herd of longhorns through that one. Call me paranoid, but I believe that Sim Montfort and his crowd see us as every bit as much their enemies as the Jihadis are. They’re just taking on their enemies in order.”

“Yes, sir. That’s why we’re working STARK YANKEE.”

“And I wish the hell we didn’t have to. Disgusts me. Everybody spying on everybody. It just goddamned makes me sick. That we’ve all come to this.”

The G-3 said, “Well, the Jihadis—”

“Mike, that’s just an excuse. We’ve done this to ourselves. And I don’t know how we’re all going to get through it.”

“By supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States,” the G-3 said.

“Until they change the Constitution. Which they mean to do. Or maybe they’ll just manage to change our oath. Listen up, all of you. The Army and Marines have to come out of this looking pure, efficient, effective, and indispensible. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but my gut instincts tell me that Sim Montfort’s going to make a big mistake at some point. And we’re going to save the day when he does. Go Army, and Semper Fi.”

The G-3 smiled. “The ‘fog of war’ might have something to say about that, sir.”

“To hell with the fog of war. War’s clear. It’s peace that’s foggy. And one more thing, Mike. Before I get back to Val and we wrap things up: Make sure the MPs understand that their number-one mission is protecting the landlines we lay. We haven’t seen a flurry of roadside bombs yet. Largely due to the element of surprise, I suspect. But, frankly, I’m not that worried about their stay-behinds planting shaped charges and the like. Oh, it’ll happen. But I want the MPs focused on preserving our communications. The Jihadis are smart enough to realize that our wires and cables are more important to us than a handful of vehicles. And—just by the way—I’d be wary of booby traps if I were an MP inspecting a break in a fiber-optic line. Did they get all their Signal Corps attachments, by the way?”

“Yes, sir. The MPs are fully task-organized.”

“Okay, Mike. Val, you’re on again. Talk to me. Anything new from your man in Nazareth?”

“No, sir. I would’ve reported it to you. Nothing since last night. I was expecting an update today, but his channel’s been quiet.”

“One brave sonofabitch. Not a job I’d want. SF?”

“Yes, sir. And a Foreign Area Officer.”

“Well, let’s hope we get to pin a medal on him. While he’s still breathing. But listen up. If his reporting’s accurate… if they’re pushing refugees into Nazareth from the rear area… there’s obviously a purpose. Only the purpose isn’t obvious. What do you think, Two?”

“Sir… I can’t be sure. It strikes me that they may be planning to hold on to the city by generating images of suffering refugees… getting the world involved. We’ve got the media ban in effect on our side—except for the MOBIC-approved correspondents—but the Jihadis have been working the media for fifty years. And the world media love them. When L.A. and Vegas went down, a couple million people may have died, but a thousand journalists made their bones off the hysteria. And you saw how quickly they bought into the idea that we’d nuked our own cities.”

“It wouldn’t have surprised me if Sim Montfort and his crowd had nuked Las Vegas. ‘Sin City’ and all that.” Harris smiled. “I didn’t say that, of course. All right. So what indicators should we be watching, Val? In addition to anything we hear from your man in the sacred carpentry shop?”

“I’d watch the rations, sir. We should be seeing supply trucks going in with those buses. If they mean to feed those refugees and not just stage-manage a humanitarian disaster.”

“Three? Any ideas?”

“Val may be right. Or they may be planning to just kill them—and blame us. Humanitarian disaster, plus. Great images for America-haters everywhere.”

Harris turned to his aide, something he found himself doing more often these days. Probably the damned loneliness, he told himself. The only human being he could really talk to was his wife. And she was far away and a low priority on the comms account.

“John, how about you? Any ideas why they’d be packing Nazareth with their brethren from deep in the heart of wherever?”

The aide choose his words carefully. As he always did. “Well, sir… while you all were talking… I was thinking, ‘What if the Jihadis want us to kill them? What if they’re counting on it?’ I mean, Col o nel Danczuk’s source said he thought they were all from the Arab intelligentsia. What if the Jihadis want us to solve a problem for them?”

Harris’s eyebrows tightened toward his nose. Which happened only on the rare occasions when he was truly surprised.

The aide slipped back in his chair, as if retreating. “Just a thought, sir.”

Lieutenant Col o nel Pat Cavanaugh was tired of sitting on his ass trying to make sense of broken transmissions while two of his companies were in the fight, another was getting ready to go in, and a fourth was licking its wounds.

“Give me a yell if anything comes in,” he told his operations officer. And he stepped outside his command track. The enlisted men assigned to the battalion’s tactical command post had almost finished erecting the ghost netting over the vehicles. Cavanaugh pitched in. It wasn’t the kind of work a battalion commander was supposed to do, but he needed to use his muscles. Just for a few minutes.

The Jihadis were recovering from their initial surprise. He could feel it. No matter what the S-2 said. Despite the artillery barrage from Hell, antitank snipers were still popping up around Megiddo, appearing amid the rubble just long enough to launch a vampire ATGM and keep the highway intersection closed. Alpha Company had taken a nasty hit when it went in too fast, and now Jake Walker and Charlie Company had the lead, with Bravo in support. Trying to root out the Jihadi “martyrs,” so the corps could move forward.

Jake had been the big surprise of the day. Cavanaugh had worried about him back on the beach, when the captain seemed all nerves. But as soon as they came under fire, Jake Walker had turned into the alpha dog among the company commanders. Now Cavanaugh worried that the captain would employ Charlie Company too aggressively.

And Cavanaugh didn’t want any unnecessary losses. The battalion was already down three M-1s, four Bradleys, and a half-dozen support vehicles, just from drone attacks and the Megiddo sniping. And those were just the combat losses. Maintenance problems had caused vehicles to grind to a halt in the middle of an attack. They were just too damned old.

He had to remind himself, yet again, that he was the battalion commander, not a company commander. His instinct was to go forward and take charge of the direct-fire fight. But he wasn’t going to let himself do that.

Anyway, he was going to give Charlie and Bravo another hour to clean out the Megiddo rubble. Then maybe…

A V-hull carrier pulled off the trail just short of the tac’s perimeter. Cavanaugh went on with his work, walking a pole up to a steep angle as a buck sergeant made sure the netting didn’t bunch. Cavanaugh was anxious to get the netting plugged into the generator so it could go “full ghost” overhead. They’d already had to jump once, after a Jihadi artillery barrage came danger-close.

Had to clear Megiddo. Before the Jihadis really got their shit together. But there was no easy tactical solution. At least, none that wouldn’t be a bloody mess.

From the corner of his eye, Cavanaugh glimpsed two figures walking from the V-hull toward the tac. Behind them, a squad of soldiers dismounted and spread out in a tactical array.

Only when one of the approaching figures took off his helmet did Cavanaugh recognize the brigade chaplain.

The other officer was the brigade engineer.

Odd pair, Cavanaugh thought. He stopped fussing with the camouflage net. He couldn’t imagine what Father Powers was up to. But he felt a stab of deep pain the instant he recognized him.

The priest made him think of Mary Margaret. His wife who was not longer his wife. Except in the eyes of the Church. And his own.

He’d gone to the chaplain to talk when, after so many months, Mary Margaret would not leave his thoughts. Her and the kids. And the fuck-stick, double-promotion, live-in boyfriend the law said was her husband now. After crying his eyes out in front of the priest, Cavanaugh had been so embarrassed that he hadn’t been back to Mass for three months.

Surely, it wasn’t about that? Not now?

When the two men were within conversational distance, Cavanaugh said, “Put your helmet on, Chaplain.”

The chaplain smiled, but did as ordered. “I understand that war’s a horrible thing, Col o nel Cavanaugh. But I don’t know why it has to be so damned uncomfortable. Got a minute?”

Cavanaugh looked at the priest, then at the engineer, and back to the priest. “Sure. What can I do for you, Father?”

They stood in softening light, with the slanted rays of the sun gilding the dust that floated around them.

“Well, actually, sir, the visit’s about what Jerry here and I might do for you. I was listening in on the situation reports back at brigade, and as best I could make out, you’re having trouble with hunter-killer teams up on Megiddo.”

“That’s right,” Cavanaugh said. Hoping that the chaplain wasn’t going to lecture him about violating a holy site. “They’re all over the place. We take out one team, and another pops up.”

“Do you have a tourist guidebook, sir?”

Cavanaugh always felt a bit odd when the chaplain called him “sir.” But the chaplain was only a major. When he wasn’t in front of an altar or in a confessional, Father Powers observed all gradations of rank.

“No,” Cavanaugh said, baffled. “I didn’t bring a guidebook.”

“Well, if you had—if you’d brought yourself a good one—you’d know what I saw myself during a pilgrimage I made before the world went mad. There’s an ancient tunnel that runs under the tel to a water source. It’s deep. Well, it struck me that any imagery of the rubble might make the entrance appear to be just another shell crater. If a big one. And the lower exit’s hidden. You’d have to be looking for it and know what you’re looking for.”

“And you think these antitank teams and the snipers are sneaking in and out of that tunnel?”

“That I do, sir. It’s deep enough to withstand quite a bombardment.”

Cavanaugh was excited. “Father Powers, I wish to hell you were my S-2.”

“Well, perhaps not ‘to hell,’ sir. As I was saying, then: Major Sparks here has brought you his best sapper team—since none of his fine robots seem to be working—and enough explosives to blow shut any tunnel in the world. He thought his team might—”

“Just hang on. Hang on a minute. Let’s look at a map. Nate,” he called to his S-3. “Come over here.”

When the operations officer didn’t hear him, Cavanaugh waved his hand. Frantically. That got the ops officer moving.

“Map!” he yelled. “And the recon photos.”

The chaplain looked at Cavanaugh. “And with your permission, sir—given that I’m the only one of us who’s actually been to the place—I thought I’d tag along. After all, it’s my job to help our soldiers find the way.”

Cavanaugh’s first impulse was to say “Absolutely not.” But it occurred to him that, apart from possibly incurring the brigade commander’s wrath, there was no practical reason why the chaplain shouldn’t go. Just might save a number of lives to have him along, given that he’d actually been on the ground.

“Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways,” Cavanaugh said.

“That He does, Colonel. That He does. Now, I’ve briefed Jerry here about the ins and outs, literally speaking. He can explain things to Major Gascoigne. And I’d appreciate a private word with you.”

Cavanaugh didn’t have time for private words. Not now. With so much to do, now that he had an idea what he was doing. But he felt he couldn’t deny the chaplain’s request. Given the gift the man had delivered.

Grudgingly, Cavanaugh nodded toward a grove that had been designated as a sleeping area. Soldiers were stringing concertina wire just out of grenade range.

“Pat,” Father Powers said, changing his tone and even his posture, “I’ve been thinking about our last conversation.”

“I’ve been meaning to come to Mass, but—”

“This isn’t about attending Mass. Now, would you just listen to me?”

“Yes, Father.”

“You told me that you’d never marry again.”

“I can’t. Can I? In the eyes of the Church—”

“Pat, it’s in times such as these that a man thinks hard about his beliefs. If he’s any kind of man and any kind of believer. Yes, in the eyes of the Church, Mary Margaret’s still your wife, will be, and shall be. But you know, I begin to suspect that the eyes of the Church and the eyes of God may not always see identical visions.” He gestured toward the sounds of war beyond their little sphere. “In the middle of all this, we have to remember that we serve a loving, forgiving Savior. Christ’s mercy is endless. Pat, you’ve got to let go of her. She’s not coming back to you, and not all the cardinals in the Vatican can bring her back. Live your life, be a good man. And if you meet the right lady… Well, trust your conscience, and don’t hide behind doctrine. Cowards do that. Trust me, I know. And you’re no coward. Well, that’s all I had to say, then. We’d best go back and serve the God of Battles.”

As they walked back toward the command post, Cavanaugh said, “And you really don’t mind us blowing up that tunnel? It must be a Biblical site, thousands of—”

“Sir, if I could, I’d destroy every stone that men have ever fought over in His name. He wants us to look Heavenward. And we revel in our shit and call it holy. Speaking of which—have you designated a latrine area yet?”