The War After Armageddon

So much had happened in the five years since he looked into that boxcar that the world in which he now led troops to war seemed unrecognizable. Dreamers had changed the world, but their dreams were grim. The great American effort to evacuate Europe’s Muslims had turned into a debacle. None of the states from which their ancestors had come would accept the refugees. Islamist firebrands declared that all that had transpired in Europe had been an American plot to oppress Muslims. Overcrowded ships lay at anchor in the Mediterranean or in the smack-down heat of the Persian Gulf. Arab governments took their cue to blame Washington for the suffering, unwilling to welcome Muslims who had lived in Europe amid liberal ideas. American counterarguments were mocked. The global media accused the United States of making pawns of the refugees. When a riot aboard a converted cruise ship turned deadly, the European pogroms were forgotten as if they had been an embarrassing soccer match. All agreed that Washington was the true enemy of Islam.

When the refugees were landed by force in Alexandria and Beirut, in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheikhdoms, the local governments let them perish on the docks until, with tens of thousands dead and headlines blazing, they belatedly opened their arms to their fellow Muslims “to save them from America.”

But the Islamists had gone too far at last. Obsessed with their dream of reestablishing the caliphate, they provoked the rise of a wildfire reaction among Christians. The Reverend Dr. Jeff B. Gui, an evangelist from Arkansas, mesmerized millions with sermons bewailing “the captivity of the ancient Christian heartlands.” While Muslims raged and demanded the restoration of their medieval empire of the sword, ever more Christians remembered that almost all of the cities that had cradled Christianity were now in Muslim hands: Alexandria, the great school of the faith, as well as Antioch, Damascus, Ephesus, Tyre, Tarsus, Philadelphia, Smyrna, Nicea, Constantinople… these daughters of the church cried out to be redeemed from the ravishes of the Anti christ. According to the Reverend Dr. Gui, it was time for a crusade.

The movement spread with a rapidity that left secular critics agape, from Nashville to Nairobi, from Little Rock to Warsaw. When The New Yorker ran an article mocking the Reverend Dr. Gui’s message and his credentials, the managing editor was shot down in the street, and the gunman was acclaimed as a Christian soldier by millions of Americans. Muslim extremists had conjured demons they could not put down.

At that fateful moment, Iran launched a barrage of nuclear missiles at Israel, killing two million people. On the same day, nuclear devices exploded in downtown Los Angeles and on the Vegas Strip. Islamists proudly claimed responsibility.

That was the beginning of the Holy War. With elections looming, American politicians from both parties rediscovered their religious roots. Even Princeton recollected its Presbyterian heritage. Clinging adamantly to his peace policy, the president refused to respond to the attacks. He lost his reelection bid by the greatest landslide in American history. The Reverend Dr. Gui took his oath of office as vice president.

At the new administration’s behest, Congress authorized funding for a religion-based reorganization of the National Guard as the Military Order of the Brothers in Christ. Regiments of young men and women lined up outside the church halls used as MOBIC recruiting centers. When a call went out for officers and NCOs from the active-duty military to staff the new corps and divisions, devout Christians and opportunists volunteered by thousands. Six months later, the Army and Marine Corps were ordered to sign over their latest weapons systems to the now- activated MOBIC units and to rearm themselves from reserve stocks.

“We must give the best weapons to those who yearn to take the fight to the Anti christ,” Vice President Gui announced.

With bewildering speed, the Military Order of the Brothers in Christ and their supporters had gotten their crusade against Islam, an invasion to retake the Biblical heartlands from the infidel. And as the favored MOBIC forces battled toward Jerusalem, Lieutenant General Flintlock Harris had the mission of taking Damascus with what remained of the Army and Marines.

TWO

MT. CARMEL RIDGES, EMIRATE OF AL-QUDS AND DAMASKUS

Tracers streaked down the alley, but the shooting inside the house stopped. Sergeant Ricky Garcia heard the snap of a magazine going home.

“Ground floor clear.” Freytag’s voice. Hoarse.

“Coming in,” Garcia shouted.

“Going up.”

Garcia had lost his night-eyes several streets back, and the interior of the house was a filthy mist. Cordite and smoke cut his sinuses.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Freytag and Corporal Kovack. Just stay out of their way. Raise the lieutenant. Find out who’s on first.

Garcia thumbed the crud off his mike and pushed the black bead to his mouth. Huddling near the doorway. Covering the street. Guns up. All the time.

“Clear one,” Freytag yelled. Boots thumped overhead. “Go, go, go.”

“Cease fire!” Kovack yelled. As if deafened and unable to hear himself. “There’s women—”

The blast upstairs blew Garcia back through the front door. His rifle let off a round as he landed, bucking, with the muzzle inches from his eyes. Stunned, he lay on the ground like a tossed sea bag. For second after second. Many seconds. No idea how many. Then the fear buzzed him, and he patted himself down.

No wetness. Vital parts accounted for. Everything seemed to work. Tracers wasped overhead, the Jihadis shooting wildly. No fire discipline. The fucks deserved to die.

When he tried to get up and crawl back through the doorway, he was unsteady, even on all fours. Like the end of the worst drunk of his life. More tracers chased each other down the alley. He remembered, suddenly, that there should be noise to go with those lights. All he could hear was head-under-water emptiness.

Garcia flattened himself, weapon close, and counted to ten. Then he tried to make it through the door again. Arms and legs back in formation. Small miracle. The fog of dust inside was so thick he could only breathe in gasps.

“Corporal Kovack? Freytag?”

He shouted the words but couldn’t hear himself. An echo, though. Strange. More underwater follies.

“Yo? Anybody?”

He knew. No way any Marine was walking down those stairs alive. Then he realized there were no stairs anymore. Not above the first three or four. A new hole in the roof sucked in the starlight. Right through the swirls of plaster dust.

Garcia kicked something soft. Didn’t want to, but he reached down. A torso. Weight-lifter muscles. Nothing else. Just a rib cage and guts in bloody uniform cloth. Fresh meat from the butcher’s counter.

Somewhere in the mess, a kid began to wail. The buggers could live through anything. Hadn’t he? As a kid?

“Get your own fucking daddy,” Garcia told his fellow survivor. And he slipped back outside, almost in control of his balance now. Another concussion. He didn’t need a corpsman to tell him. Christ. How many could you take? End up punchy like the old guys at the gym. San Sebastian.

One more time, he scraped the minimike with his thumbnail. Like that was going to make it work. Right.

Movement. Not Jihadis. Marines.

He realized he could hear gunfire again.

One of the Marines raised his rifle.

“Belleau,” Garcia called. Hoping the other guy’s ears were in better shape than his own.

“Wood.” Gotcha, Devil Dog.

One Marine rushed across the street, keeping low, while the other covered him. Just like in training. Okay. The sprinter turned out to be Corporal Banks.

“Sergeant Garcia? Where you been, man?”

“Where’s the platoon commander?”