The War After Armageddon

raised a dark eyebrow. “Don’t stumble in front of the Juggernaut.”

“Sim… How can you do it?”

“What?”

“All of it. Specifically, ordering American soldiers to massacre defenseless civilians.”

“Are they defenseless? Or even civilians?”

“They certainly look that way to me.”

“Gary, Gary… Why do you refuse to understand? This isn’t Iraq. You’re not a lieutenant. Multicultural playtime’s over. This is total war. Us or them. The end game.”

“The End of Days?”

“In a sense. Not in the cheap sense.”

“What’s going on, Sim? Really? You’re not stupid. I’ll credit you with a better mind than I possess — not that that’s the world’s highest accolade. So, I ask myself, why would Sim Montfort do exactly what the Jihadis want us to do, what they’ve set up?”

“What’s that? Exactly?”

“Come on, Sim.”

“You’ll have to explain it to me.” Montfort crossed his legs and sat back. He was and had always been a handsome man, but his looks were the lucky kind that photographed better than they fairly should have, the sort of features that made a comprehensive impression that blinded you to the imperfect details. Had he been an actor, he would have disappointed the fan who finally saw him up close.

It struck Harris that the parts didn’t really fit. The jaw was too strong, as if drawn by a cartoonist. The eyes that burned so intensely were too close together when viewed straight on. And Montfort’s forehead, below the widow’s peak of still-black hair, was too low. To Harris, it made the other man look as if his skull were weighted down and sagging into that big jaw. Sarah had noted it, too. Most women saw Montfort as distinguished, but Sarah had labeled him “the Cro-Magnon glamour-boy.”

The others, women or men, never seemed to see Montfort in detail. That was part of the man’s genius, Harris realized. Montfort had undeniable charisma and bulled through life on the strength of the total package he delivered — or, more accurately, the external trappings he constructed and fortified. People reacted to Montfort the way men reacted to women with cascades of long blond hair, falling uncritically for a commonplace.

Montfort was, in short, the most brilliant con Harris had ever encountered.

“All right, Sim. I’ll explain it to you. But first, I’ve changed my mind. I’ve got to reach closure about your attempt to assassinate me.”

“I never—”

“Save it. And with suicide volunteers, too. Good Lord, Sim — what’s to choose between you and our enemies?”

“Between Christ and Mohammed?”

“Save that, too. We may get to it later. Right now, I have an intellectual dilemma to resolve: This shabby little plot to kill me says either that you’re afraid you lack the leverage to have me removed, that your support back in Washington is more tenuous than you thought — watch those casualty figures, Sim — or that you just got impatient. Now, that would worry me. Impatience, I mean. Because it would establish a pattern. Impatient to get to Jerusalem, you throw away so many good Christian lives… Impatient to have your way in every last regard, you arrange a death for me straight from the handbook on how to get rid of African presidents- for-life. Just doesn’t seem like you, Sim. You’ve always played a controlled game. Admirably so… from the standpoint of tactics, if not objectives. So which was it? Eroding political support? Hard to believe, given your chumminess with our vice president, the Reverend Doctor Gui — by the way, will Air Force One go down with the president aboard? Was tonight just a rehearsal for the big game?”

“That’s treasonous.”

“Sim… I don’t think you want to get into a pissing contest with me on the subject of treason.”

“If you really intend to make something of these nonsensical allegations, Gary… file your charges with General Schwach.”

Harris smiled. But said nothing.

“Otherwise,” Montfort went on, “let’s talk strategy. I’m delighted that the report about your helicopter going down proved unfounded. After all, you and I go back a long way. Differences aside.”

“We can’t put those differences aside anymore. And the he li cop — ter did go down. I just didn’t happen to be on it. Your own people betrayed your plot. They’re not all with you at the altar rail, Sim.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“We’ll see.” Harris drew a finger across his nose, banishing an itch. “Maybe it’s both, Sim? Maybe your power base is eroding, and you’re impatient. That would make sense.”

“This is getting us nowhere.”

“Where do you want us to go, Sim?”

“You need to get some sleep. We’re all tired. You’ve had a difficult day.”

“And you’ve had a disappointing one. But I’m not tired at all. Surviving an assassination attempt ups a man’s natural caffeine content. But back to Nazareth: What do you want to do, make some sort of grand entrance over a carpet of corpses? Montfort the Conqueror, instead of Mehmet the Conqueror?”

His old acquaintance’s crossed legs interested Harris. Montfort would never have sat that way in public. Now, the narrow, broken X of Montfort’s lower limbs seemed like a defensive obstacle that the MOBIC commander had emplaced between them. Without realizing how much of his discomfort the posture gave away. Montfort had put so much effort into controlling his facial features that he’d failed to discipline the rest of his body.

“All right. Nazareth,” Harris continued. “I’d blame al-Mahdi, not al-Ghazi, for that par tic u lar plan. Al-Ghazi’s a soldier. Al-Mahdi’s an opportunist — oh, a great believer, too. But still, an opportunist underneath it all. Like you, Sim.” Harris couldn’t resist smiling. “I suspect the two of you would get along famously if you ever met. But back to the plan: bussing in thousands of members of the Arab intelligentsia. Including some from beyond the borders of the Emirate of al-Quds and Damaskus. Shove ’em out front, a gift to the Crusaders, a clever blood sacrifice. We’re supposed to slaughter them, Sim. And you know it. You’re a smart man. Al-Mahdi wants them dead. Because his vision of Islam’s future really is a return to the past. The people won’t need doctors or professors. Just their mullahs. And, of course, Suleiman al-Mahdi.” Harris inched forward. Until his rump was almost at the edge of his chair. “I wonder, Sim, if that doesn’t reflect your movement’s view of America.”

“That’s ridiculous. And insulting. It’s absurd.”

“Well, I’m willing to sound absurd, Sim. Because the world’s gotten absurd. Absurd and bloody. So bloody no incense of theirs or ours will ever cover the stench. But stay with me now, Sim: Al-Mahdi wants us to do his dirty work for him, so he can get a two-fer. Surely, you see that. First, those annoying intellectuals are exterminated. No more global community of conscience or anything bothersome like that. Second, he gets to rally his fellow Muslims, in the Arab world and beyond, by blaming us for killing them. It all makes perfect sense, once you crack the code.” Harris looked at the broadshouldered man in the other chair. “But what I don’t get is why a clever man like you would fall in with his plan — when it only strengthens the enemy. After all, those people in Nazareth are the closest thing we’ll ever have to allies in this part of the world.”

“We have no allies here. We never had any. And we never will.”

“But come on, Sim. You’re a genius at using people. Why wouldn’t you want to use all those scientists and surgeons al-Mahdi’s crammed into Nazareth? You could always dispose of them later.”

“Gary, you refuse to understand.”

“What?”

“The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

“Get what over with?”

“Their destruction.”

“Who? Those poor bastards in Nazareth? And their families? Win the war by murdering some dentist’s wife?”

“Not just the ones in Nazareth. All of them. Every Muslim.”

Harris snorted a one-syllable laugh. “Give me a break, Sim. That’s crazy.”

“Why?”

“You can’t kill over a billion people.”