The War After Armageddon (41 page)

The MOBIC soldiers were unbearably arrogant, with their black crosses and their taunts. Maxwell had no difficulty understanding why more than a few of his tankers felt compelled to land a punch as the afternoon heat thickened toward evening.

But it wasn’t an acceptable situation. Maxwell pulled half his staff from the TOC to troop the line and help keep his Dreadnaughts in order. The MOBIC officers made little effort on their side. Maxwell got splashed by a half-full can of chili that struck his body armor from behind. The MOBIC officers lolling nearby claimed to have seen nothing.

“We’re preparing to fight the infidel,” a captain told him, “and you’re worried about table manners.” Without adding “sir.”

For Maxwell, the series of confrontations culminated in an exchange with a MOBIC battalion commander, a young-looking lieutenant colonel with a thick black beard and bloodshot eyes.

“I’m trying to keep my men under control, for Christ’s sake,” Maxwell told the officer after tracking him down. “I need you to get your guys to knock off the bullshit. We’re supposed to be fighting the J’s, not each other.”

The MOBIC officer looked at him dismissively. From head to foot, then back up again. As if a down-market first wife had walked into a society wedding. “When you address me, you will not blaspheme. And as near as I can tell, you and your men haven’t been fighting much of anybody.”

Maxwell wanted to deck him. Instead, he said, “I’m not looking for love, brother. I just want your soldiers to stop the heckling.”

“They want to fight. That’s all it is. And soon they will. Again. We’re going to finish the job you couldn’t do. Perhaps you should humble yourself and learn.” He touched the side of his face, where his beard began. “God has been with us. The evidence is before men’s eyes. Who’s been with you, Colonel?”

Maxwell walked away. Wondering if there was any difference left between the fanatics on either side.

But there
was
a difference, he realized: the age-old difference of my-kind-against-yours, the closing of ranks against those who prayed differently or had gotten different shades of prehistoric suntans. The thought didn’t appall him or even irritate him. That was, he realized, just the way humanity did things. What bothered him was the immediate behavior of the MOBIC Mujjies toward his troops—who he wanted to protect and spank at the same time.

When he and his adjutant broke up another incipient brawl, Maxwell ignored the MOBIC troops involved, turning his back to tell his men, “Knock it off. We’re better than that. We’re soldiers. Now get back to your own vehicles.”

As they walked away, a MOBIC soldier transgressed against his faith long enough to shout after them, “Cunts!”

Now the sounds of war had resumed. The MOBIC forces had, indeed, plunged back into battle. They certainly weren’t cowards. Maxwell was willing to credit them with that much. The Muslim fanatics had finally conjured men who were their equal in their distaste for mercy.

As the dust faded and the light turned gold between the olive trees, a great roar of battle rose in the east. As much as Maxwell disdained the MOBIC forces, he couldn’t help feeling left behind. And wronged.

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

As the twilight darkened, so did the mood in the headquarters. No end of tasks remained to be carried out: Units had to be resupplied, convoy routes deconflicted, communications shortfalls remedied, plans written, and orders issued. Yet, as the MOBIC forces passed through the corps’ lines to take over the offensive, the air went out of the balloon. And as the reports of impossibly swift progress by the MOBIC lead elements mounted, officers responsible for directing the actions of divisions sank into their chairs, newly aware of their accumulated weariness. The NCOs who made things happen found they had nothing more pressing to do than make a fresh pot of coffee or take an extended trip to the latrine. Radios still crackled, and field phones rang. Printers sawed, and screens glowed. But the network of commandeered buildings and camouflaged tents breathed in the sourness of mourning, as if an unexpected death had occurred and could not be explained. Taking down another report from the front, a captain summed up the collective mood when he put down his headset and demanded of the universe, “What the fuck is going on?”

Flintlock Harris wanted to know, too. As soon as the briefing room door shut on his inner circle—G-2, G-3, and his aide—he said, “Talk to me. Explain how Montfort’s doing this. And let’s go reverse order: Blue situation first, then Val can brief what little the J’s seem to be doing.”

Colonel Mike Andretti swept his pointer up over the wall map, settling the tip just north of the Sea of Galilee, then tracing a jagged line down over the western ridge that protected the body of water.

“Sir, the MOBIC forces are advancing all across the front. It’s as if they’re just out for a Sunday drive. We’ve got unconfirmed reports that their advance-guard elements have already seized several points along the crest of the ridge—they’re already looking down into the Sea of Galilee.”

“And ready to walk on water,” Harris grunted. “Mike, the Jihadis were giving it all they had to hold the line against us. Now they’re just folding their tents and running at the first sight of the MOBIC. Which is the opposite of what you’d expect—they should be fighting to the death against Sim Montfort’s crowd after Jerusalem.” He looked at each of the three other men, then asked, half rhetorically, “Are they that scared of the black-cross boys, or what?”

“Sir,” the operations officer continued, “all I can tell you is that the MOBIC nets we’re monitoring report light resistance. At most. They’re practically road-marching into Upper Galilee. Our own forward elements report MOBIC vehicles lined up nose-to-asshole as far as they can see. No tactical intervals, no march discipline. Just piling on.”

Harris shook his head. Vehemently. “This just makes no sense. It stinks. But I don’t know what the hell I’m smelling.”

“Maybe we just wore them out,” the Three said. “Maybe Montfort just got lucky on the timing. Could be they were ready to crack just when the lead MOBIC units hit them.” The Colonel’s stance remained aggressive from sheer habit, but his eyes were unsteady and frazzled.

“I don’t believe that,” Harris said. “Even Sim Montfort isn’t that lucky. The J’s are up to something. And I wish I knew what it was.
Val?” He turned to the G-2. “You’re up. Give us the enemy situation. If there still is one.”

“Sir, as I briefed earlier, it appears they’ve transitioned into an operational retreat. If not a strategic one. The intel’s far from perfect, but we’ve got indicators that units that were slugging it out with us at dawn are already on the highway to Damascus. With some elite elements possibly located
east
of Damascus—but that’s based on intercepts only. As far as imagery goes, we’ve got some limited satellite coverage and some drone shots from the Golan and points east that just make no sense at all—the Third Jihadi Corps has units dispersed by individual vehicle, just spread all over the place. No sense of defensive perimeters. It looks like they just blindfolded the drivers and sent them off in different directions. It doesn’t match alGhazi’s command template.”

Something quickened in Harris. Something down deep. But he couldn’t yet put a name on it.”

“And?”

“Well, sir, it’s not much of a way to wage a war. Or fight a battle. It really does look as if they’ve just given up, as if they’re quitting. Running.” The G-2 glanced at the map, then reached into his pocket. Only to find his pointer gone. Tracing a line on the western Galilee ridge with his index finger, he said, “All those entrenchments they were digging as fast as they could? The defensive positions all along the ridge? We got a burst transmission through from a special-ops recon element up here, on the high ground behind Tiberias. They report a few stray Jihadis just hanging out and playing with their dicks. And all those vehicles in defensive positions? All those tanks? Junk. Shot up stuff. Old crap left over from the end-of-Israel fighting. Stripped for parts. It looks like the Jihadis had planned some kind of ruse before they decided to take their ball and go home.”

Harris jumped to his feet before the intelligence officer finished speaking. Rushing around the conference table, he shoved first the G-3, then the G-2, out of his way. He had the map memorized. But he needed to see it, anyway. To
know
.

“Show me where that report originated.
Exactly
where. Show me, Val.”

“Yes, sir. The recon team’s overwatching this stretch of road and the crest beyond it. By Kefar Hittim.”

Harris no longer cared whether anyone knew how badly his vision had deteriorated. He pushed his nose up against the map, as if sniffing the G-2’s finger. Then he shoved the colonel’s hand away. Staring at the map. With his soul plummeting into the earth.

“Fuck,”
he said. Bitterly. Almost quietly. Then he swung himself over the nearest table, running for the door. “Let’s go. Everybody. Come on.”

“What do—”

“Mike. You get everybody you’ve got working every comms channel that’s up. Issue a STRIKEWARN. The J’s are going nuclear.
Soon
. You, too, Val. Use every channel. Forget the protocols.”

He was shouting. And running. Officers loitering in the hall leapt out of the general’s way. Too stunned at Harris’s tone to decipher his meaning immediately.

As Harris led his war party into the ops center, he barked, “I want every armored vehicle buttoned up. Get ’em in defilade. Every dismount gets into a ditch or takes shelter on the western side of the strongest nearby building. Move,
move.
”

Harris grabbed the liaison officer who’d arrived from the MOBIC corps. Seizing the colonel’s upper arm. As if arresting him. “
You.
Get on the horn and tell your people they’re about to get nuked. They need to pull back, disperse. Immediately.”

Unsettled for an instant, the MOBIC colonel quickly mastered himself. His alarmed expression reorganized itself into a sly smile.

“General Harris . . . Surely, you don’t expect us to believe any such nonsense. If the infidel enemy can’t stop us, do you think
you
can? With some concocted story? Are you
that
embarrassed by our success?”

“Fuck you,” Harris said. “Get General Montfort on the line.”

“General of the Order Montfort is incommunicado.”

“Well, he’s going to be deep-fried like fucking falafel if you don’t listen to me.”

The operations center had come to life around them. It was a
rare officer or NCO who recalled the format for a STRIKEWARN off the top of his head and the babble of voices reduced the transmissions to a common message:
Take cover, the J’s are going nuke.

“I can’t disturb General Montfort,” the liaison officer said.

“Well, who
can
you disturb?”

“I won’t be a party to this.”

“I’m giving you a direct order.”

“You have no authority over me.”

“Listen. For Christ’s sake, man. We’re all on the same side. I’m trying to save your comrades, your buddies . . . your whole goddamned corps.”

The MOBIC colonel looked at Harris dismissively. “You can’t stop us now, General. Your time is over. I’ll file your report in the morning.”

Exasperated as he had never been in his entire life, Harris said, “You really think I’m staging this—all this—to get you to retreat for a couple of hours?”

The MOBIC colonel just smiled.

“Even if you think I’m crazy,” Harris continued, “will you at least report what I’m telling you right now? And let General Montfort judge? Morning’s going to be too late.”

“As of 2100, our attacking forces switched to radio silence. I’m not authorized—”

A terrible roar tore the night, overpowering the common sounds of war, a distant thunder akin to the voice of God.

Harris sat alone in the briefing room, face buried in his hands. Waiting for the first casualty reports. His fire-support officer had already assured him that none of the seven reported nuclear detonations had struck within the corps’ lines. But there would be casualties, nonetheless. Harris told himself he could have pushed harder, forced the intelligence system, done more about his hunch about the Jihadis’ nuclear reserves. But he hadn’t done it. And now the two or three nuclear weapons about which he’d worried had
turned out to be at least seven. An unknown number of his fellow Americans, MOBIC members or not, had died because he hadn’t done his duty.