“Stop here,” Goose ordered.
Tanaka ground the big vehicle to a halt.
A single road running north and south bisected Glitter City. Everyone who arrived there was on their way somewhere else.
“Off,” Goose yelled. Raising his voice was almost unfamiliar after being accustomed to the headsets. He unbuckled and jumped to the road.
Flames crackled around the broken and battered husk of a van that had been gutted and made over into a small restaurant on wheels. A Turkish man had operated the van, parking somewhere within the vicinity of Glitter City every morning and selling the borek and doner kebab lamb rolls his wife made every night. The borek—thin rolls of pastry filled with cheese, minced meat, or spinach and potatoes—was one of Goose’s favorites and he’d always stopped by the man’s van when he was in town. The menu had also included pilaf, baklava and kadayif pastries, and thick, dark Turkish coffee.
Although the man spoke only rudimentary English and Goose spoke no Turkish at all, they’d communicated well enough to conduct business. During those times, Goose had also seen the man’s two sons, looking perhaps eight and ten, who worked inside the van with him. Both boys had been bright and energetic, their eyes shining and quick, picking up English words and phrases like sponges. Every time they had seen Goose and other Rangers in uniform, the boys had yelled, “Hoo-ahh,” just like a Ranger, letting Goose know that the van had evidently become a favorite feeding place for the 75th.
The man lay on his back, half covered with sand and rock from a nearby explosion that had left a ten-foot-wide, three-foot-deep crater in the ground. Blood covered the man. One arm was missing and one leg half gone. He stared sightlessly at a sky that couldn’t be seen through the dust and smoke hanging in the air.
Goose walled himself away from the panic and fear that vibrated within him. Soldiers knew fear, but they also knew control.
A few feet away, the oldest of the two boys lay in a crumpled heap.
Heart thumping in his chest, Goose crossed to the boy. He knelt, eyes scanning the surrounding area as his personal combat radar, developed through training and on battlefields in the Middle East and Africa, kicked into life. Cupping his left hand around the boy’s small shoulder, Goose pulled him over gently.
From the slack way the boy moved, Goose knew immediately he was dead. As the body came over, the metal shard that had pierced his chest showed, standing out from his flesh nearly a foot.
Goose’s mind screamed. Images flickered behind his eyes, scanning visual data into his brain, contrasting the boy’s slack, dead face with the grinning kid he had seen only a couple days ago. The boy couldn’t be dead; he had been too alive to be dead like this.
It isn’t fair, Goose couldn’t help thinking. God, there’s no way You can make this right. Children are not supposed to die like this.
But children did die. Goose had seen it in countless other operations. Children were always some of the first to die when war touched civilized areas. They were too weak and vulnerable to protect themselves, and they were so unskilled in taking care of themselves. Professional soldiers died in those circumstances. Goose had seen them. What chance did a child have?
“Sarge.” Bill Townsend’s calm voice came from behind.
Goose didn’t answer, drawn into the dead boy’s dark brown eyes that were cold and distant and lifeless now. The Syrians had known there were children in Glitter City, and women, too. And they had brought their war to those innocents just the same.
“Sarge,” Bill said again.
Trapped by the violence before him, feeling guilty because he hadn’t managed to stop the PKK terrorist from placing the sat-phone call, Goose had to struggle to tear his attention from the dead boy. He couldn’t help thinking about his son, Chris. How would it feel, he wondered, knowing that Chris would never again offer a hug or a smile or a turn at one of his favorite video games? Goose banished the thought. It was unthinkable.
Goose glanced at Bill. “He’s dead.”
Bill nodded. “I know. A lot of people are.”
For the moment, the SCUD shelling seemed to be on hold. Goose knew that starting up the second wave would take almost an hour and a half. In addition to being terribly inefficient as WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, SCUDs took a lot of reload time.
“Then let’s save the ones that are left,” Goose said, more for his own focus than his team’s. “This boy had a brother. If we can, I want him found.”
Bill nodded.
Goose glanced back at the dead boy. “This isn’t right, Bill.” His voice caught at his throat.
“He’s in a better place, Sarge,” Bill stated quietly and politely. “That’s what you have to focus on.”
“It’s hard.”
Bill was quiet for just a moment; then he said, “Not if you believe, Sarge. It only gets hard when you have doubts.”
A kernel of anger exploded inside Goose. His voice came out sharper than he intended. “Then I’m a doubter.”
“I know, amigo. I’ll pray for you. Acknowledge that and work on it, but never accept it.”
For a second, Goose thought his anger was going to spill over onto Bill. He barely restrained it. He knew Bill was right, but believing he was right was another thing entirely. Acceptance was a small thing to talk about, Goose knew, but it was a chasm in spirituality.
“Hey!” someone called. “Marines!”
“We’re Rangers,” Dewey Cusack called back automatically.
“We’re the 75th.” The Ranger hailed from Kansas, a corn-fed country boy with an easygoing manner and a fierce pride in his unit.
Goose stepped forward, the M-4A1 still clenched tight in his fist. He peered through the haze of dust and smoke, brushing at the mask of wet sand that impeded drawing his breath through the kerchief.
“I need help,” the speaker
