Caliphate

the Moros pulling out what she couldn't help thinking was a laughably small penis. In fact, she did laugh and was rewarded with a light kick to the head. That made her see stars and wretch yet again.

'Goodbye, John; I loved you,' she whispered. 'Anytime now, Captain. Anyti—'

She barely caught the flash as a huge thermobaric bomb detonated a few hundred meters overhead.

They found Hodge's lost soldier in among a group of Moros. That much satisfaction the men and women of her platoon had; at least their comrade hadn't been roasted alive. They found Hodge, herself, apparently raped, with her skin—where it had been exposed—dried and scorched and her body blue where it wasn't scorched black. (In fact, there had not been time for rape but the soldiers couldn't know that.) Her luxurious strawberry blonde hair was gone, except for a blackened, crispy residue next to her scalp. Her eyes . . . well, the less said about those, the better; Fuel Air Explosive did bad things to soft eyes.

The company set up a wide perimeter around the site. Within that perimeter, military police gathered DNA samples of every Moro body found. Those samples would be used in every village they cleared out. Adults who matched as being family of the ambushers would be killed, in every case.

It had long since become that kind of war.

Hamilton, suited but with his helmet off, grieved beside Hodge's body, arms wrapped around shins and rocking erratically. Yes, the lieutenant had responsibilities that he was neglecting but Thompson gave him a pass on those for a while.

Thompson still didn't say, 'I told you so.'

He did say, however, 'I'm sending you back with the body. I'm allowed to send someone back and your platoon sergeant can handle things well enough for a week or ten days.' That was being tactful; the platoon sergeant needed no lieutenant and would do better without having one whose nose he had to wipe.

Hamilton stopped his rocking and shook his head, 'No. Being gone for a week or ten days would be a week or ten days I wouldn't be killing the people who did this. All in all, I'd rather be killing Moros than drinking in a bar in Iowa. She was from Iowa, you know.'

'I knew.' Thompson didn't bother to mention that 'the people who did this' were already dead. He knew Hamilton knew that and he knew Hamilton meant the People, the entire People, ranged against them in the field. 'You're still going. Her parents deserve to hear what happened from someone who loved their daughter, too.'

Sergeant Pierantoni came up, with three other troopers, one of them with a stretcher over one shoulder. 'We've got a landing zone hacked out, Captain. All the other bodies have been brought to it. She's the last one.'

'Give Lieutenant Hamilton a minute alone with her,' Thompson said. 'And come on.' With that, the captain led the party a few score meters away.

Hamilton, once he'd been left alone, started to reach over to brush the burnt stubble from Hodge's scalp. His hand stopped of its own accord millimeters from her. He couldn't bring himself to touch her, not the obscene ruin she'd become. No more could he stroke her face. Instead, he just spoke to the corpse.

'I'm sorry; I can't touch you because this isn't you. I'll punish them for this, Laurie. I promise I will.'

He knew the pain he felt was as nothing to the pain he would feel once he really, deep down, came to understand she was gone and was never coming back. And how will I feel when I realize I wasn't man enough to kiss her goodbye?

Then, however hard it was to do, Hamilton leaned over and kissed Hodge's forehead. As he backed away, tears fell.

'God, what a shitty world.'

Camp Stotsenberg, Philippine Islands, 18 July, 2107

'Sit. Drink. That's not a request.'

The O' Club for the camp was in a large plastic foam building, set off away from the troop billets lest the soldiers see their officers drunk and silly. Local hires did the maintenance, keeping the grass trimmed and the jungle at bay. The building itself was formed by blowing up a large, Quonset hut shaped balloon and then spraying it with the foam. Once the foam hardened, the balloon was removed and sections were cut away for doors, windows, and air conditioning units, which were installed as kits. Furniture came disassembled in shipping containers, it being the job of the troops to assemble it. The foam came pre-tinted for the natural environment. In some cases, of course, no tint was necessary as white, snow-white, was the dominant color.

The method had many advantages—cheap to heat and cool, more durable than canvas, and bugs loathed the taste of the foam.

'Sit, I said.'

Hamilton, just returned from Iowa, looked at the table around which sat Thompson, Miles and Fitzgerald. An amber bottle graced the center, standing out against the starched white tablecloth. Hamilton couldn't see how much was left in the bottle. It didn't matter anyway; the club had plenty more where that came from.

'Yes, sir,' Hamilton answered Thompson's command, pulling out a chair and taking a seat.

Miles reached over and took the glass from in front of Hamilton, while Fitzgerald uncorked the bottle. Into the glass Miles plunked several cubes of perforated ice. He then held the glass out for Fitzgerald to fill before setting it down in front of the company's junior lieutenant.

'How was the funeral?' Thompson asked.

'Bad,' Hamilton answered, ignoring the glass. 'I had to lie to her parents, and her brothers and sisters, her aunts, uncles, cousins, high school friends. 'I'm sure she went quickly, without pain.' 'No, no . . . she wasn't raped.' Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain to parents why the coffin has to stay closed?'

'I do, actually,' Thompson said. 'And, as it turns out, she wasn't raped. I got the forensic report while you were gone.'

'That's something anyway,' Hamilton said, wanting to believe but not at all sure his commander wouldn't lie to him to spare his feelings.

Thompson, no dummy, caught the doubting tone in Hamilton's voice. 'I'll let you read it, if you think you're up to it.'

'Maybe later, sir.'

'Drink up, Lieutenant,' Thompson said.

'Drink to forget?' he asked.

'No, son. We don't drink to forget. We drink to remember.'

Interlude

Erfurt, Federal Republic of Germany,

1 February, 2005

The sounds of the concert still echoed in their ears even as Gabi's and Mahmoud's eyes were etched with the pyrotechnic display.

Rammstein was in town.

'I'm not so sure I liked what you've shown me of the inner soul of modern Germany any more than you liked the sermon at the mosque,' Mahmoud said, as they walked to his small car parked not far away.

'Surely you're not one of those who see neo-Nazism in a harmless concert.' Gabi gave his hand a half-mocking squeeze.

Mahmoud shook his head. His face looked . . . confused. 'No, no . . . not neo- Nazis. This . . . that, goes back much further than the Nazis. I didn't see Triumph of the Will in there; for one thing it wasn't orderly enough. For another it was too . . . primitive.'

'Then what did you see, lover?'

Mahmoud hesitated, still thinking and still trying to frame his thoughts in words. 'Did you study your own history in school, Gabi?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Hermann? The Teutoberger Wald?'

'That, yes,' she admitted.

'That's what that music makes me see. I saw Roman legionaries sacrificed over flat rocks. I saw them nailed to trees. In the fires of the concert I saw them being burned alive . . . in the Teutoberger Wald.' He chewed his lower lip for a