Figuring we’re still jumpy about dead civilians.”
“
“It’s like that defensive position at Megiddo. They’re testing us. Seeing how far we’ll go.”
“I can understand that. But what about the reports of civilians being bussed
“The reports might be wrong. Val Danczuk’s relying on one special operator we’ve got in place up there. In Nazareth. The overheads don’t necessarily corroborate his messages about bussing in civilians. Those buses could’ve been full of troops. But we’re watching it.” He smiled. Wryly. “Val’s the most forward-leaning Two I’ve ever known. Problem is restraining him when he starts painting scenarios with invisible colors.”
“Sir?”
“Monk, can’t you call me ‘Gary’? When we’re not onstage?”
“Marine habit. And, to tell you the truth, you never struck me as a ‘Gary’.”
“It’s the only name I’ve got.”
“Except ‘Flintlock’.”
Harris shook his head. “Never cared for that one, myself. Always sounded like a cartoon character to me.”
They marched through the last stretch of shade, and Monk Morris changed the subject: “You didn’t really mean that, did you? About being afraid of Sim Montfort?”
Harris stopped and looked into the other man’s eyes. As deeply as he could.
“I meant it.”
The two generals stepped out of the trees into glaring light. Beyond an empty parking lot, a ruin crowned the mountaintop. Beside the ruin lay a pile of corpses. The bodies were naked. The stench announced that the dead had been rotting for days.
“Welcome to Mukhraka,” Harris said.
Someone had taped out a perimeter around the ruins. Harris’s lead bodyguard was deep in an argument with two men in Army uniforms.
Then Harris spotted the black crosses sewn onto the left breasts of the officers who were giving his point man a hard time.
“What the hell?” Harris said. He looked at Monk Morris.
“I have no idea,” the Marine said. “We didn’t have any MOBIC troops with us. Just the two liaisons at headquarters.”
In the background, other soldiers wearing the MOBIC black cross puttered in the ruins.
Harris strode up to the scene of the argument. A MOBIC major, supported by a captain, waved a finger in the face of the Special Forces sergeant first class who was second-in-command of the general’s personal security detachment.
“What’s going on here?” Harris demanded.
Before his NCO could speak, the major turned on the general. “This is a Christian heritage site. It’s been reclaimed. No one can enter without authorization.”
“Do you know who I am?” Harris asked. In the quiet voice he used when truly angry.
“Yes, sir. You’re Lieutenant General Harris.”
“And who are
“Major Josiah Makepeace Brown, commander of Christian Heritage Advance Rescue Team 55.”
“There are no CHARTs authorized in this corps sector at present.”
“We have authorization orders from General Monfort.”
“Lieutenant General Montfort does not command this corps. I believe you’ll find him a couple of hours south of here.”
To Harris’s bewilderment, the major wasn’t the least bit intimidated, but seemed to be talking down to him.
“You’ll have to take this up with General Montfort, sir. We have our orders.”
Harris was tempted to arrest the lot of them. He was angry enough. The team’s presence was a violation of painstaking agreements and published orders. But you had to pick your battles. And Harris didn’t believe for an instant that Montfort had slipped CHARTs into his area of operations just to preserve Biblical heritage. The atmosphere was paranoid enough to make him wonder if his old classmate were trying to draw him into an act that could later be used against him.
“Major,” Harris said, trying a different approach, “we all have our missions. My mission is to defeat the Jihadi corps facing us. I’m sure you’ll agree that the Jihadis are our mutual enemies. We’ve come up here to have a quick look at the terrain because we have to refine the next phase of our operation. Now, if you don’t mind, we’re going to spend about ten minutes up on that pile of bricks where the church used to be.”
“This is the site,” the major announced, “where God used the Prophet Elijah as his instrument to shame the priests of Ba’al and slay them.”
“And we’re trying to slay the Third Jihadi Corps. May we pass, Major?”
The major eyed them as if he were a drill sergeant examining two suspect recruits. “Are you both Christians?”
Again, Harris restrained himself. “Yes, Major. We’re both Christians.”
“Your bodyguards will have to remain outside the perimeter.”
The SF sergeant jerked his head around. Harris made a sign for him to keep quiet.
“That’s fine. Whose bodies are those?”
“The monks. They were living up here secretly, even after the forces of the Anti christ conquered this dwelling place of the Lord. The local infidels protected them. Probably for mammon. But a Judas betrayed them. We found them.”
“Piled up like that?”
“No. Crucified.”
Morris said, “I would’ve liked to knock that little prig’s teeth down his throat.”
“Not worth it, Monk. Pick your battles. That CHART’s bait. Although I’m not quite sure what Sim Montfort’s fishing for. But look at this.”
They had picked their way past the toppled statue of Elijah and climbed as high as they could on the remains of a staircase hugging a scorched wall. Harris truly didn’t intend to stay long. The Jihadis would have observers watching the site from across the valley — they would’ve been crazy not to keep an eye on such a vantage point. And Harris didn’t intend to become anyone’s free target.
But he had needed to see this. And he wanted Monk Morris to see it, too. The splendor of the Jezreel Valley.
“Well, fuck me,” the Marine said, with a short, sharp whistle. “Nuclear war, rampage, and neglect,” Monk said, “and it is
“Always has been,” Harris said. “God knows, it shouldn’t be. So much blood has been spilled down there for so many centuries that the whole place ought to sink under the weight of all the death.”
“Well,” the Marine said, “we’ll see how much more weight we can add.”
And yet, the scene before them was strangely unwarlike. Despite the thousands of military vehicles dug in or creeping about and the distant eruptions of smoke, a stillness wrapped the mountaintop, a sense of standing briefly apart from time. The artillery fire and the complaints of hundreds of gear boxes shifting on mountain roads might have been echoes from a parallel world.
“You know, Monk, I’ve never believed that God cared about dirt, that He valued one patch of soil more than another. Years back, when I was a lieutenant, I read an article that said America was blessed because God didn’t lay claim to any real estate in our country. I always thought that was true, that we were lucky to be free of the need to tie God down to some patch of dust like Gulliver.” He looked away from the splendor before him, lowering his eyes to the rubble. “Now here we are.”
“People are always going to find something to fight over, sir. That’s why we’ve both got jobs. If it isn’t about the name you give God, it’s about what you called their sister.”
