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.
“That hurt?”
“Naw. It just pisses me off, sir.”
“You and me both.”
“I was talking about my fingers. But I’m pissed about the rest of it, too. Go and get this clusterfuck organized. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Roger.”
“Sir? You know what this means, don’t you?”
“It means Bayonet Six isn’t going to have many of his down-for-maintenance ponies back in the race tomorrow.”
Bratty nodded. “And it means that the J’s are working our weaknesses, sir. They’ve cracked the code that our repair sites are prime targets, that we’re fighting with over-the-hill vehicles that are higher maintenance than a rich man’s junkie daughter.”
The BMO smiled. Or tried to. “What would you know about rich men’s junkie daughters, Sergeant Major?”
“Plenty. I married one.” Bratty shrugged. His shoulder hurt as if a steel plate had dropped on it. “That was a couple wives back. Just before the waitress with the broken heart. Pitch ’til you win, Captain.”
“You’re right, though,” Captain Butts said, standing up. “They’ve figured out our weak spot. Unless they picked us by dumb luck.”
“They didn’t.”
“I suppose I’ll have to figure out new security arrangements.”
A soldier in mechanic’s overalls jogged up to them, paused for a second at the sight of the spread of corpses, then said, “Sir?”
“Just a sec, Hunsicker. Sergeant Major? You know you’re going to take some razzing about that trigger finger, don’t you?”
Harris had resolved to get five hours of sleep. To keep himself alert. But the night dragged on. No matter how willing he was to delegate authority, there were issues only the commanding general could resolve and others that demanded his emphasis. The 1st Cavalry Division commander wanted to relieve one of his brigade commanders just hours before the division was scheduled to come ashore. A medium-tonnage transport ship loaded with old Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and critical spare parts had been hit by multiple kamikaze drones and sunk. Artillery units were expending 155mm HE rounds at twice the projected rate. He had to review and sign off on the daily summary of events before it could go to Cyprus, to his next-higher headquarters, Holy Land Command, HOLCOM or, as the troops had instantly nicknamed it, “Hokum.” With HOLCOM’s embellishments — and deletions — it would go to Washington. If comms were up.
Harris had taken the document into the room designated as his office, where the staff had set up a cot for him. Sending his aide to collect any global intelligence summaries that had made it through the jamming, the general sat down, put on his reading glasses, and labored over the document.
The work was painful. He had to bring the text irritatingly close to his face. His eyes burned. The docs said it was a result of the corrosive fumes he’d been exposed to in the Nigeria campaign, and they warned him “not to put undue stress on your eyes.” But a general had to read. When he asked about the future, the military doctors sought to avoid telling him what he already knew: Before he reached age sixty, he’d be blind. Sarah’s brother, a civilian ophthamalogist, had told him the truth.
Perhaps he should’ve retired already, Harris thought. But he was vain enough to believe that he was the best man to fight this last campaign, to stand up to the madness rising around them all.
Sarah had taken the verdict on his future better than he had. At least outwardly. He often wondered what she felt inside about the prospect of a blind, aging husband. Anyway, he loved her. And wished he had a better future to offer her.
If he had received one great blessing in his life, it was Sarah. He loved his daughters dearly. But what he felt for his wife soared beyond the emotions he felt for any other living thing.
After the girls, only the Army came close.
He hated to think of the incompetencies that would come with the loss of vision. No more camping in the Tetons or Cascades. He wouldn’t even be able to get in a car and drive down for a newspaper. Worst of all, the black wall would keep him from looking at the woman he loved. And he had
By the light of two field lamps, Harris corrected the draft document. The casualty figures made him pause. Not least because he knew they would be even higher the following day.
Was that priest at Megiddo included in the KIA column? Or had his death come too late to make the count?
Harris initialed the report and gave himself a moment to think about the priest and his sacrifice. His thoughts were such that it would not have done to mention them to anyone aloud. Not now. When everyone played politics for God and spied for Jesus. But he longed to talk to someone — he realized he would have to be careful not to take up too much of Monk Morris’s time with bullshitting.
Harris couldn’t get the priest out of his head. For all the wrong reasons.
It struck him that, when all was said and done, the priest had been a suicide bomber. On the side of the angels, but, nonetheless, a suicide bomber. Deserving of the Medal of Honor he couldn’t receive in the current political climate. Magnificently heroic. Self-sacrificing. Admirable. And a suicide bomber.
What else could you call it? Oh, he’d limited himself to a military target. And his sacrifice had saved many lives. Given. But how different the thing looked when the man with the bomb, rushing to his death, was one of your own.
Harris never succumbed to the notion that all men were alike. The Jihadis were barbarians. But based on the initial reports from the Jerusalem Front, he wasn’t sure the MOBIC troops were much better. It had been bad enough when the militant fanatics had been on one side only. Now, the fanatical excesses and threats in which Islamic extremists had indulged over the decades had finally provoked a like response. To Harris, the war in which he was leading the U.S. Army’s remnants made no geopolitical sense. It wasn’t like the Nigeria Intervention. It was a massive crime of passion.
But his role was to fight his country’s war, no matter what he thought of it. And to ensure that America’s Army survived, however starved and battered.
No more time for reveries, he told himself abruptly. But he thought, again, about the fate awaiting him in five years. Perhaps sooner. It was already too painful for him to read the history books he loved. He’d never had time for
