The War After Armageddon (17 page)

As they were wrapping up the corps-level changes to the next day’s plan, Major General Scott took a call from his division on the land-line. When the 1st ID commander came back into the plans cell, Harris said, “Scottie, I thought you’d be on your way back to your division by now. They’re probably enjoying your absence much too much.”

“Yes, sir. May I have another minute? In private?”

“Let’s go.”

Instead of putting his body armor back on and stepping outside again, Harris led his subordinate into his makeshift office, a bedroom that smelled more of sheep than of people.

“Talk to me.”

“Sir, I just got a summary of the debriefings on the Megiddo fight. The man who actually got the charge into that tunnel was the 4th Brigade chaplain. Apparently, he’d been there on a pilgrimage a while ago. Back before. The platoon leader said they were pinned down and the chaplain took off at a run. After three previous attempts had failed.”

“Hell of a chaplain.”

“He was killed. He must’ve dived right into the tunnel’s entrance with the charge.”

Harris shook his head. But he said nothing.

“Sir,” General Scott continued, “if the other debriefs confirm his actions, I’d like to submit him for the Medal of Honor.”

“No.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t waste your time, Scottie. Put him in for a Distinguished Service Cross. That should get him at least a posthumous Silver Star.”

“But—”

“Congress isn’t going to award anybody in this corps a Medal of Honor. The MOBIC supporters on the Hill would kill it. Especially since they haven’t yet amended the law, and MOBIC troops aren’t eligible, by my reading. Oh, they’ll change the law, once they figure that one out.” The corner of his mouth twisted. “Sorry if I sound cynical, Scottie, but between our new SecDef and this Congress, they’ll make sure we’re just a footnote to the MOBIC annals of the brave.” He sighed. “Now go back to your division and gird your loins for battle.”

General Scott made a wry face. “ ‘Girding loins’ always sounded goddamned uncomfortable to me. I’ll have Charlie Kievenauer write the chaplain up for a DSC.”

1-18 INFANTRY FORWARD MAINTENANCE SITE, MT. CARMEL RIDGES EAST

“With all due respect, sir,” Command Sergeant Major Dilworth Bratty told the battalion maintenance officer, “I’d like to see more security out.”

“Can’t do it, Sergeant Major,” Captain Butts said. “Can’t spare any more mechanics. Bayonet Six wants these tracks up by zero-dark-thirty.”

CSM Bratty understood. But he didn’t like it. For all the activity down along the road, 1-18’s forward maintenance site seemed exposed. An elephants’ graveyard of broken-down tanks, infantry tracks, V-hulls, and recovery vehicles, it flickered with shocks of light as walking-dead mechanics plunged through blackout curtains. The noise was at the demolition-derby level.

Bratty stood in silence before the BMO. Giving the captain his disapproving command-sergeant-major face. Calculated to give any officer through the grade of major an irregular heartbeat. Even when the officer couldn’t see it properly.

“Tell you what, Sergeant Major,” the BMO said suddenly, “I know you’re right. Tell Sergeant MacKinley I said to free up two more men and put them out on perimeter with the others. Any word on the XO?”

“Mr. Culver believes it’s dysentery, sir. I blame the Navy food. One of life’s great disappointments.”

“He’s going to be pissed as hell at missing the war. So . . . I guess I’ll be seeing more of you, Sergeant Major.”

“Yes, sir. Colonel Cavanaugh’s asked me to look after the maintenance side of things. Until Major Lincoln’s back up and running.”

“He holding up okay? Bayonet Six?”

It wasn’t a question for a captain to ask a battalion command sergeant major about their commander, but Bratty realized it was meant sincerely.

“Lieutenant Colonel Cavanaugh’s just fine, sir. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get with Sergeant MacKinley and—”

A volley of rocket-propelled grenades whooshed through the night. In quick succession, three of them found targets. The blast and dazzle shocked.

A rush of air tried to push Bratty over. Automatic weapons fire pursued the explosions.

When the BMO didn’t react instantly, Bratty yelled, “Sir! Go back and get folks organized. I’ll hold here.”

But there was no time. Tracers hunted them like flashlight beams. Muzzle flashes approached at a run.

The captain dropped to one knee and raised his carbine.

Good. That was fine. Fighting was better than floundering. Bratty dashed into the maze of vehicles occupying the level bits of ground. He grabbed a running soldier. Unable to recognize the man in the dark, the sergeant major shouted, “Get
down
. Right here. Shoot any bastard in front of you.”

He found two mechanics paying out rounds behind the front of a V-hull. Beyond them, a soldier lay still, glistening with blood in the rips of light.

He heard the voices then, calling on Allah.

“That you, Sergeant Major?”

“Just keep shooting.”

Bratty leapt across the dead soldier and nuzzled the wheels of a tank whose track had been stripped. Lifting his carbine and crossing his fire with the bursts from the two soldiers he’d just passed. He thought he downed a Jihadi. The wildness made it impossible to be sure.

The J’s hurled grenades. Hollering their hey-look-at-me cries of “Allah!” and “Allah is great!”

More firing. Behind him. Various calibers. The Jihadis had made it deep into the site.

Bratty scrambled back to the two soldiers. One was reloading, the other aiming and shooting single rounds.

“Osterholz?”

“It’s me, Sergeant Major.”

“Who’s with you?”

“Bracey.”

New man. But he was fighting.

“Both of you. Fix bayonets. Stay here and hold. One of you cover the rear at all times. But don’t shoot to the rear unless you’re damned sure of the target. You fixed for ammo?”

A blast in the center of the work site hurled wreckage into the sky. It looked like a volcano erupting.

As soon as the metal thunked back to earth, Bratty ran toward the explosion’s ghost. Fixing his own bayonet.

Rounding the front of a Bradley, he nearly collided with two Jihadis trotting ahead of him. He gave each one a burst in the back and kept moving.

“Rally on the high ground,” he shouted to any soldiers who might be listening. “Rally back on the high ground.”

Face to face with a Jihadi bronzed by firelight, Bratty shot first. The J’s finger locked on his trigger, spraying errant rounds.

Correcting his path to avoid being silhouetted by flames, Bratty passed a soldier whose head had been hacked off.

Meeting a pack of J’s, he almost fired. Before he realized that two of his soldiers, taken prisoner, were in the center of the group.

Bratty dropped to one knee and fired four perfect shots. As if he’d been the demonstrator on the rifle range at Ft. Bliss.

A hammer blow pitched him forward.

“Look out!” one of the soldiers cried. Late.

Bratty rolled to the side and thrust up the bayonet.

His attacker backed off at the sight of the blade. He’d slammed Bratty with an unloaded grenade launcher.

Bratty pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

The Jihadi swung the launcher at Bratty’s carbine, knocking the bayonet from his path.

One of the soldiers who’d just had his ass saved grabbed a dead Jihadi’s rifle and shot Bratty’s attacker.

“You okay, Sergeant Major?”

“Get the fuck away from me. Get out of the line of fire.”

The soldiers moved. But they were unsure where to go. Shaken.

“Police up their ammo.
Do it
. Hurry!” Bratty jacked a new mag into his carbine.

The firing didn’t slacken. But there were no more blasts.

“Follow me.”

He nearly led them into a crossfire. With rounds pinging off the armored flanks of deadlined vehicles.

“Get back.
Move.”

The two soldiers trailed him back to the display of Jihadi corpses. Bratty’s shoulder seemed to pull him toward the ground, and his arm obeyed orders only sluggishly. The Jihadi had given him a good whack.

Something broken?

Find out later.

“Stay
down
,” Bratty said. “Okay. We’re going in behind those guys back there. We’re going to roll them up. But when I stop, you stop. Nobody runs out into friendly fire, understand?
Understand?
”

“Yes, Sergeant Major.”

“You. Hanks. On my left. Burton, on my right.”

The soldiers obeyed. Willingly. Glad of clear orders. But Bratty could feel that they were still jittery.

“Let’s go.”

The general chaos had settled into local patches of disorder. They headed toward the loudest exchange of gunfire.

The light of a burning Bradley helped them out as they maneuvered. This time, the J’s were silhouetted. With all their attention fixed on the targets to their front.

“Halt. Fire. Give it to the fucks.”

Bratty and one soldier dropped to their knees. The PFC to his left stood as he aimed and fired. Bratty clicked his weapon onto singleshot mode and picked his targets. In the confusion, the Jihadis didn’t realize they were being fired on from the rear for what seemed like a very long time. Although it was only seconds.

Voices shrieked in Arabic. Some of the J’s were closer than Bratty had realized. A half-dozen rose to charge them.

The PFC went down.

Bratty aimed his rounds as long as he could, but events moved at lightning speed. He rose and led with his bayonet. Still firing.

Weapons swung through the air. Bratty shot one man in the face, then parried another who was using his weapon as a club, out of ammunition. The melee became a hypermotion tangle of killing. Abruptly, Bratty sensed that he was fighting alone. He kept on slashing with his bayonet, while managing to work the weapon’s butt plate into an approaching jaw.

Screaming “Allah is great!” a Jihadi raised a sword and brought it down.

Bratty got his weapon up to block the blade. In time. It cost him two fingers.

With magical clarity, he watched the stubs of flesh fly toward the firelight. Time to sell the old Gibson Hummingbird.

Pumping blood, he yanked his weapon around to shoot his attacker. The last of them. But his trigger finger was missing. When he managed to get another finger in place, the magazine was empty.

The Jihadi cut the air with the sword again. Somehow, Bratty managed to cling to the slimed carbine, to slap it up to meet the blade. Then, with all the strength left to him, he jammed the stock into the Jihadi’s neck.

The man staggered. Before he could lift the sword again, Bratty plunged his bayonet into the center line below his ribs.

The Jihadi looked at him in astonishment. Open-mouthed. Bewildered that life was what it was, and no more.

Bratty had stabbed him so hard that the command sergeant major couldn’t extract the bayonet before the Jihadi collapsed. The dead man pulled the weapon and Bratty after him.

Shoving his boot into the dead man’s rib cage, Bratty yanked on the carbine. His hand slipped. The weapon was slick with his own blood. Coated with it. Two stumps where his right index finger and middle finger had been leaked blood at an impressive rate.

“Shit, goddamnit,” Bratty said.

He managed to free the carbine in time to reload and shoot a restless wounded man in the face. It wasn’t a night for random acts of kindness.

Except for sporadic shots, the firefight was over. The voices calling out spoke English now. His side had won. No.
Prevailed
. The mess around him hardly counted as a win.

Bratty sat down with his back to a shot-up tire. Clumsily, he dropped his ban dage pack into the dust. After he got it open, he balled up the cloth and pressed it against the stumps of his fingers.

A sergeant major without a goddamned trigger finger. The stuff barracks jokes were made of. And his guitar-picking days were over. He’d never really hated the Jihadis before. He just did his duty and enjoyed doing it well. But now that they’d taken two of his fingers, and his trigger finger at that, he damned them to Hell.

He could already hear the jokes. “What do you call a sergeant major who has to pull the trigger with his pinkie?” “How does a sergeant major lose his trigger finger?” The possibilities were endless.

Captain Butts walked up to him. The last firing had ceased.

“Taking it easy, Sergeant Major?”

“Just relaxing my ass off, sir. You?”

“Never been better. I enjoy these quiet nights.”

“Shit, sir.”

“Yeah. Shit.”

They looked at the dead Jihadis and the two dead Americans. With burning vehicles as a backdrop.

“I hope you downloaded those suckers,” Bratty said.

“You were right about the security, Sergeant Major.”

“Nothing to do now, sir, but keep on marching. Any sense of how many—”

“Jesus Christ! Your fingers. Medic!”

But the lone medic still alive was busy. Bleeding from the fore-head himself, the BMO knelt down and used his own ban dage to tie off Bratty’s stumps as best he could.