Cold Allies (17 page)

“I think I’m beginning to understand fear,” his Pa said, turning. To the rhythm of the dripping water, his Pa’s face was changing. Jerry fought the urge to put out a hand and still it.

“I’d like to learn about sorrow now.”

Jerry stopped smiling. Around him, the lawn became hushed, only the rustling of the reeds moved the air. Love swelled in him like an ache. His new dad was so gentle, so fragile, that the lightest touch could mar him. He wasn’t like any man Jerry had ever known.

“Oh, no, Pa,” Jerry whispered fervently. “I seen it all, and you don’t want to know nothing about it.”

BARCELONA, SPAIN

Careful not to drop his briefcase or bump his cast against the doorjamb, Colonel Wasef made his way into General Sabry’s office. The rotund general stood up. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Wasef looked down at his plastered right arm. All day long his mind had played a tedious back-and-forth game of tennis with a ball of credulity. One moment, he would believe himself whole and reach for something; another moment, the broken arm was such a towering reality, it took up most of his world.

“Yes, sir. I’m well enough.”

Perhaps he wasn’t. He’d lost the LDV, and he’d accused the general’s only son of treason. Glancing up at Sabry’s round, concerned face, he wondered if the man would ever forgive him.

“Please. Please.” Sabry pulled a chair up next to the desk. “Sit down.”

Wasef took a seat awkwardly, trying to keep his heavy elbow off the armrests.

“We believe the last KH satellite is disabled,” Sabry said.

As a man who sometimes pulls his dreams with him into day, Wasef experienced a brief and confusing flashback to the battle. The robot vehicle was turning, its arm raised like the most maladroit of baseball pitchers. The sight had been so ludicrous, Wasef almost laughed. Then he saw the dark shape of the mortar rush toward him. Here in the sunlit calm of the general’s office, the memory was so strong, it almost made him flinch.

“Are you in pain?” the general inquired.

Wasef opened his eyes. “No, sir.”

“Just to you will I admit I have some whiskey.” The general grinned. “Do not pass that information on to the Shi’a or the Saudis. Above all, do not tell those arrogant Saudis. If you would like a drink here in the privacy of my office, however, I would be glad to pour you one.”

Wasef began to lift his right arm in a gesture of refusal, but the weight of the cast stopped him. “No, sir. Please do not trouble yourself.”

The general’s smile faded with worry. “Even without the laser, we must make the assault. Not to act now would draw out the war another six months, and we can’t afford that. An Iranian pilot put a missile into a mountaintop yesterday. Through his idiocy the planned route is impossible. We must use the road south of Andorra.”

Wasef, cradling his cast with his left hand, nodded. “If we move at night, we can cross the mountains undetected. There are rarely Allied flights there, and the French, I believe, are not yet alarmed.”

“We?” Sabry asked.

Wasef blinked, suddenly adrift. “Yes, sir. The artillery and tank battalions I am to lead.”

Sabry frowned. The scowl was so unlike him that Wasef was frightened.
Allah be merciful. Gamal has told his father.

“I am not sure about you,” the general said.

Wasef was sweating now. The room was not air-conditioned, and the afternoon sun blared through the window like atonal music.

“I fear you are too ill,” Sabry said.

Taking an unsteady breath of relief, Wasef shook his head. “No, sir. I am perfectly fine. I do not hold a weapon myself. There should be no fear that I am not capable.”

“You are sure?”

“Yes, sir. I will lead them.”

“Good, then. Tomorrow I will begin my push up through Gerona to Perpignan. This should draw the attention of the French.” He chuckled. “In the meantime you will travel from Pons to Seo de Urgel. From there take the southern route to Mont-Louis and then to Prades. Prades will enter onto their flank, and we will have them trapped between us.”

Sabry brought his palms together, squeezing the air as he planned to squeeze the French. “And it will be over,” he whispered.

He stared at his hands in awe, then suddenly looked at Wasef. “Colonel?”

“Sir?”

“I have not yet thanked you for taking care of my son.”

* * *

When Wasef left the office, his briefcase under his left arm, he found Gamal waiting in the foyer of the building.

The captain approached and fell in step with the colonel’s quick stride.

“Did you tell my father?” he asked anxiously.

Wasef darted a glance at the boy. “No. Will you?”

They reached the sidewalk and the fierce sunshine. Wasef turned left. The boy trotted to catch up. “Colonel, I swear to you. I thought I was hitting the Keyhole.”

Wasef halted. Gamal looked at him questioningly. “You
did,”
Wasef said, ashamed that he hadn’t remembered to tell the boy himself.

Wasef had not realized how tense Gamal had been until he saw him relax. “Would you care for a cup of coffee?” he asked. They went to a small sidewalk cafe with brightly colored art nouveau columns. And with red and salmon geraniums blooming in narrow planters. Everywhere he went in Spain, there were geraniums, as though the plant were the national flower.

Taking a seat in the shade, Wasef slipped his briefcase onto a black wrought-iron chair. Gamal slouched down next to him and propped his elbows on the much-mended cotton of the tablecloth.

“I was afraid that you would tell him I was a traitor and that he would believe you,” the boy confessed. “He loves me. That is something my father cannot help. But he trusts you, and that is a different thing.”

The waiter came and asked for their order in insolent Catalan. Wasef responded in the same language, much to the waiter’s displeasure.

“They hate us,” Gamal said when the waiter had gone. “It is natural. All conquered peoples hate their conquerors.”

“Is it natural for us to hate so much, too?” Gamal asked, his eyes bright, his face intense. “The Allies are infidels, and the poor displaced Israelis less than dust The Syrians are thieves; the Palestinians stupid; the Kuwaitis lazy. Why do we hate so much, do you think?”

The waiter brought their coffee, putting the small cups down so hard, the dark liquid slopped onto the tablecloth.

“I don’t know,” Wasef said.

“It is because we are still tribal,” Gamal said, glancing around to make sure no other Arab was in earshot. “In this modem world, we are still tribal. Islam preaches brotherhood, but there is no brotherhood in us.”

Wasef brought the cup to his mouth. The coffee was so sweet, it made his teeth ache.

“My father is uncomfortable when I speak of this,” Gamal told him.

Wasef could understand why. He took another cautious sip.

“You see,” Gamal said, “to my father, Arabs are good, Egyptians better, and family the best of all. If you told him I was a traitor, he would believe you. He would send me away, then tell you to keep silent. If you did not keep silent, he would ruin you. Even though he loves you more, he would ruin you. My father believes in family.”

Wasef struggled to keep the rage and heartache from his face. It was true, all of it. What Gamal told him came as no surprise. “Perhaps we should talk of other things,” he suggested.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Gamal asked, still fretting at the question. “Haven’t you ever stood back and seen what we are? Arabs live in little boxes of loyalties: family and country and religion.”

“I’m reassigning you,” Wasef told him.

Gamal blinked his large, spaniel eyes. “Why?”

Wasef kept his gaze on his coffee cup. “The laser is destroyed now. Best that you stay in Barcelona. I will assign you to a division here.”

“I want to go with you to Prades.”

With a start, Wasef looked up. So once more the general had revealed strategic secrets to his son. But, then, Gamal was family.

“There is no laser for you to use,” the colonel told him.

“I want to see combat.”

Was the boy mad? It was one thing to think unorthodox thoughts. Wasef himself often did. But it was dangerous to voice them. And stupid to walk purposefully into the line of fire.

“Stay in Barcelona, Captain Sabry,” Wasef said. “Stay here and live so that you may become a great astrophysicist.”

Gamal flushed with embarrassment. “I think I will not be an astrophysicist anymore. We fight together, don’t you see? Iranians and Jordanians. Saudis and Iraqis. This is more than simply the Pan-Arabism we have been awaiting. It is a true Muslim brotherhood.”

“If you will not be an astrophysicist, what other career do you choose?” Wasef asked, curious.

Gamal blushed a shade darker. His gaze dropped to the coffee cup cradled gently between his hands. “One day I want to be President of the United Arabic States.”

CRAV COMMAND, TRÁS-OS-MONTES, PORTUGAL

Gordon tried his best to keep his eyes open while Pelham was speaking. Even blink too long, he knew, and he’d drop off to sleep. He felt his body begin to sway and caught himself with a startled flinch before he toppled to the concrete floor.

“We want you to come down the mountain,” the colonel was saying, jabbing a pointer at a map. Dully Gordon watched the red tip of the pointer zip back and forth across the roads like a crimson bee.

“We’re holding Alfarras,” the colonel was saying.

Gordon frowned in concentration.

“The road should be safe till there.” Pelham gave the map a critical glance, and tapped it with the pointer. “Then cross-country it north of Lerida and head up to Zaragoza to the British air station, and we’ll fly the CRAV out.”

There was a long pause. Then the colonel shot in a whiplash voice, “You reading me here, sergeant?”

Gordon popped his eyes wide. “Yes, sir. Alfarras to Zaragoza, sir.”

“Good,” Pelham said, a smile breaking across his face.

“Because, with GPS down, you’ll have to remember this map. And I thought you were dozing off on me.”

“No, sir. Wide awake, sir.”

“It was good hunting you did,” Pelham said, putting the pointer away. “Very good hunting.”

Gordon remembered the scream of the Arab captain, the colonel disappearing from behind the machine gun as abruptly and decisively as a tin duck in a shooting gallery.
Were they dead?
Gordon wondered. He couldn’t help hoping they were; and he couldn’t help praying that what he’d done to them hadn’t hurt too much.

“But the secret to keeping alive in battle is discretion, son, not valor,” Pelham told him, his face suddenly somber. “Without functioning missiles, you took one helluva chance.”

Bullshit,
Gordon thought. The colonel could have taken him out of the goggles anytime. And discretion didn’t mean diddly in the face of destroying that laser.

The colonel nodded for no apparent reason. He glanced back at the map and then studied Gordon. “We’ll have the CRAV refitted and back in the field again within a week. Mr. Ishimoto has promised us that.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gordon said. At last the colonel had got to the heart of the matter: downtime. A week. Gordon could live CRAV-less a week.

“Dismissed,” Pelham said softly. “Be back here at 0700 to get the CRAV on the road.”

Gordon saluted, walked out the door, and trudged up the stairs into the twilight. His stomach told him to stop by the mess hall; his body told him to crawl into his bunk.

After an instant’s indecision, he obeyed the directive from his aching muscles. He limped up the stairs into the barracks. The moment his head touched his cot, he was asleep.

IN THE LIGHT

In the cone of light at the end of the pier, minnows sailed the green, translucent water. Jerry watched his Pa bring the rod up, snap it down. The line purred as it was cast. With a hollow plunk the sinker submerged into the dark lake.

Jerry took a breath. The evening air smelled of silt and stagnant water and clean rain. Beyond the clattering reeds a thin eggshell of moon rose.

“I like it here,” Jerry said in a low voice, careful not to scare the fish. It was important not to scare the fish. It was important to his Pa.

At his feet his Pa hunched, a half-lit, motionless boulder. “Sit down,” his Pa said. “Dangle your feet in. I know growing boys like that.”

Obediently Jerry took a place by his Pa. The water was cool on his toes; against his hip his Pa’s body was soft mud. Jerry looked around the lawn to the cabin, the boathouse, and wonderingly up into the cherished spongy face. His Pa’s nose dimpled in for a queasy moment, then swelled out again, as though it couldn’t decide whether to be a nose at all.

“Fishing,” his Pa said. “You like fishing, don’t you, Jerry? You see? I know all about you. I know what you like.”

Of course he did, Jerry thought. He was the perfect Pa.

Jerry turned and saw a man in camouflage staring at them from the bank. After a moment, the soldier walked down the pier to them.

“Hi,” Jerry said.

“I’m dreaming,” the man said. He was blond, with a weak chin and dazed blue eyes. Jerry noticed that the camouflage pants were tucked into high-top Nikes, He also noticed that if he stared at the soldier hard enough, he could see the trees and the lake right through him, as if the man were a ghost image on a TV screen.

“Who’re you?” Jerry asked him.

The soldier didn’t reply. He was frowning out across the lake, as though listening to the gossip of the clattering reeds and wondering what to make of it.

“Who’s that, Pa?” Jerry asked.

His Pa jerked the rod. There was a click-click-click from the reel as it turned. “Who?” his Pa asked.

Jerry pointed at the soldier. The man stared at them, his eyes dazed and sleepy.

Pa turned around. “I don’t see anyone. You growing boys,” he chuckled in an indulgent television-dad voice, “you’re always teasing your fathers.”

When Jerry looked again, the soldier was gone and the pilot was making his way down the shadowed grass.

“That other boy. Why don’t you go talk to him?” his Pa asked. “Go see if he wants to play.”

Jerry found himself standing in the dark grass by the pilot. The man grabbed Jerry’s elbow and hung on. “You’re real,” he said in astonishment. “I met someone else tonight. A sergeant. But when I talked to him, he went away. Are you going away, too?” His voice was high and frightened.