screen.
“Sir,” he addressed Harris, “we had a solid imagery feed for almost a half hour. The Third Jihadi Corps has definitely been pulling back and—”
“Plan, or panic?”
“I’d say ‘panic.’ The deception worked. They were locked and cocked to defend south of the ridges. Thought we’d come ashore between Netanya and Caesarea, right on the flank of the MOBIC assault. Now they’ve abandoned Hadera, and it looks like they’ll tie in a new forward line of defense on the Megiddo-Qiryat Ti’von line.”
“Main line of defense?”
“Afula-Nazareth-Shefar’am.”
Harris nodded. “You sure they didn’t stop jamming the overhead link on purpose? To show us what they wanted us to see?”
The G-2 took a quick chaw on his lip. Tall and blessed with the sort of good looks that gray hair only improved, Colonel Danczuk looked like a general from the casting office. It amused Harris, who was five-eight and as plain as a church supper, to think that, if you took off their rank and put the entire staff in a line-up, any right- thinking civilian would pick out the Deuce, not him, as the corps commander.
“No, sir,” Danczuk said. “I wouldn’t ever want to underestimate an enemy, but I don’t think this was on purpose. The highways feeding back into the Jezreel Valley looked like a giant clusterfuck.”
Harris turned to the senior Air Force officer in the room. “And you boys still aren’t flying? We used to call that a target-rich environment, back in the days of the horse cavalry.”
The brigadier general reddened. “Sir… We’d like to be flying… We
Harris’s entire corps had just a few more artillery tubes than a division would have fielded a generation earlier. The Air Force was supposed to be the Army’s flying artillery, delivering precision munitions on any enemy foolish enough to fight. Except that now, the smart bombs didn’t work, and the airplanes couldn’t fly.
Harris mastered his temper. Maybe the zoomies would deliver down the road. And the blue-suiter looked sufficiently beaten up. “Yeah, I know. Wipes out your computers. Gonna take up a collection and buy you boys a squadron of old Phantoms from the Paraguayans — Deuce, the Paraguayans still have Phantoms?”
Danczuk took the question seriously. “Sir, I don’t think they ever… I mean, maybe some old F-16s. I can check…”
“Forget it, Deuce.” He turned back to the Air Force officer. “I still love you, Hank. We
“Roger, sir. The tel’s one of the most important archaeological sites in the—”
“And our Muslim friends are digging in
A Navy captain sitting in for the admiral raised his hand. “It’s a protected site. They figure we’ll be reluctant to attack an archaelogical treasure and—”
“Bingo!” Harris said, pointing a gun made of fingers at the captain. The general turned to his senior Artilleryman. “Chris, I want everybody in this room to hear me giving you this order: If the Jihadis use Meggido Hill as part of their defenses, I want you to hit it so hard that there’s nothing left but a smoking hole. Got that?”
“General,” the pol-mil rep from State jumped in, “we can’t do that, that’s one of the most important sites in the entire Middle East… in the world, really…” He looked as if he were fighting seasickness. And probably was.
“Cultural Understanding 101,” Harris said. “On my first tour in Iraq, as a lieutenant, we were under orders never to enter a mosque. Know what that accomplished? It guaranteed that mosques were going to be used as insurgent bases and safe houses and to hide arms caches. Because we failed to take down one mosque at the outset, we turned a thousand of them into sanctuaries.” He snorted. “As for Meggido… two things: First, if they’re really there — you get me confirmation, Deuce — they’re not going to be there long. Our Jihadi friends are going to get an education in what happens when a commander picks a lousy defensive position just because he thinks we’ll be too limp-dicked to hit it. After that, I suspect we’ll see fewer historical sites occupied in the future. Second,” he looked around, wondering, as he always had to now, which of the officers present were reporting to the MOBIC’s internal intelligence unit, “I want everyone to be absolutely clear on one thing: I will not sacrifice one American soldier or Marine to save a single pile of sacred rocks between here and the Pacific Ocean.” He shook his head. “We’re going to
Danczuk shook his head. “Sir, as I’ve briefed—”
“I don’t want ‘as you briefed.’ I want right now. Listen, Val, you’re doing great.” He swept the room with the commander’s gaze he’d mastered over the years. “You’re
“Sir, the DIA and the CIA are both convinced that the Jihadis have no nuclear weapons. The last Ira ni an weapons were expended in the exchange with Israel, and the made-in-Pakistan arms were all detonated during the war with India and in the subsequent terror attacks on the United States. We’ve never seen any indicators of more nukes, sir. None.”
“Yet, the rumors continue.” Harris nodded to himself. “Two, maybe three. Held in deep reserve. Watch it for me, Val.”
“Sir, they would’ve used them on the MOBIC landings down south.
Harris wiped a hand across his jaw. “Maybe. Speaking of MOBIC, what’s the latest you got, Three?”
Colonel Mike Andretti, the G-3 operations officer, swapped places with the G-2. “Two divisions already over the beach, sir. Sounds like a bloody mess, but they’re pushing ahead. The latest situation report — the last one that came through from MOBIC — has their forward elements fifteen clicks up the Jerusalem highway.” The colonel shook his head. “It’s all just hey-diddle-diddle, straight up the middle.”
Harris did what he could to suppress his disgust. Regulars or MOBIC troops, he didn’t believe in wasting American lives.
“Casualties? Any numbers?”
His aide, Major Willing, rushed in. “Sir? General Morris is on the horn.”
Harris jumped up. “Secure or nonsecure?”
“We have him secure, sir. He wants to talk to you ASAP.”
Harris scanned the room. Quickly. “Excuse me, gentlemen. Just hold in place.”
The general hurried to the commo cell next door, footsteps slapping metal. A staff sergeant held out a headset. Harris motioned for everyone to clear the room.
“Monk?”
“Green light. Road’s open as far as Isfiya. Not one hundred percent secure, but I’d call it close enough. We’re pushing down toward Daliyat. First Battalion, Fifth Marines have been tangling with stay-behinds all night. Suicide commandos mostly. One company got hit hard up in a ville. But the Jihadis pulled back their heavy metal. Whatever isn’t broken down by the side of the road.”
“Good work. Great work. Remind me to buy a Marine a beer when this is over. How’s the beach?”
“What beach? Christ, we just put a Marine division-minus over a shingle the width of a sidewalk.”
“When do you think you can get down to Route 70?”
“Recon’s knocking on the back door right now. The Jihadis didn’t expect this one. Even after they figured out that it wasn’t a feint, they didn’t seem to want to risk their armor up here.”
“Their gear’s in even worse shape than ours. Maintenance a
“Well, thank God for lazy mechanics. Listen… sir… from one fancy-pants Marine to one dogface grunt… I had my doubts about this. I wasn’t really sure we could pull it off.”
“We haven’t pulled it off. Not yet. But thanks.”
“We caught them with their pants down.”
