“At least you know there is a plan in place.”
Goose nodded and drained his coffee. He placed the empty cup back on the table. “I just wish I had known that God was going to take the children like that.”
“Why?”
Goose looked at the other man as he pulled his rifle over his shoulder, then clapped his helmet on his head. “It would have been easier.”
“What would?”
“If I had known that God was going to take my son from me, that the end of the world was so near, I wouldn’t have brought Chris into this world.” Goose was surprised at how tight his voice got and how much he instantly regretted what he’d said. He could barely remember the world before Chris, and it was almost impossible to imagine the world now without him. He hadn’t been thinking, just speaking with the pain in his heart instead of the love.
Baker dropped a hand on Goose’s shoulder. “God blessed you with your son, First Sergeant. Never lose sight of that. For the few short years you had your son, you were shown God’s love.” He paused. “Without Chris in your life, you would not have become the man you are today. You would not have become the man God needs now to help others learn what is going on. Try to keep that in mind.”
Goose swallowed hard and choked his anger back. “It’s not that easy. I want to be angry. I want Chris back, more than I want to understand.”
“I’ll pray for you.”
“Thank you.”
“And keep something else in mind, First Sergeant,” Baker said.
Goose looked at the man.
“Just remember that when your tour of duty is finished in this world—” Baker smiled through his own tears—“you have a son waiting to welcome you into his arms again in the next. God blessed me with that understanding. I keep that close to my heart every day. Most of us are going to die at some point in this conflict. We’re all on short time. There will be few veterans of this war left in this world at the end.”
Goose nodded, then turned toward the door. The first thing he noticed was the sudden blackness that filled the sky. Amazed, he walked out of the coffee shop, drawn into the rubble-strewn street as were so many others. They all gazed at the sky in awe and fear. It was hard not to think that anything ominous didn’t have to do with the Syrians poised to sack the city as they had so many times in the past.
For a moment, Goose thought the dark sky was from a dust storm blowing in from the south. Turkey had a few of those, and the extra dust, dirt, debris, and particulate matter blown into the atmosphere by the SCUDs, bombs, and artillery added to the already considerable problem.
But the dark masses swirling against the blue sky weren’t dust clouds. Goose smelled the thick, cloying odor of fresh rain coming. The scent caught him as it always did, tickling his nose and tightening his lungs for the briefest of moments. The wind whipped through the street, picking up litter and papers and shingles and sending them scurrying. A chill chased the wind. In seconds, the heat index had dropped ten or fifteen degrees.
The coffee-shop owner, a middle-aged man with sad eyes and a large mustache, joined Goose and Baker on the street. He spoke his native language, then caught himself and said, “I’m sorry. I was just commenting on the rain. It seldom rains this time of year, and usually only a light shower or two when it does. Not a storm like this promises to be.”
Goose nodded. “The weather reports I looked at last night didn’t forecast any rain.”
The wind plucked at Goose’s clothing. The primitive feeling that he’d always experienced but never understood filled Goose. Storms excited him, left him on the edge of breathless and vibrating with energy. Megan and Wes Gander had never understood Goose’s fascination, and would often come out to him as he watched a storm, telling him that he would be safer inside.
But Chris had viewed storms with the same intensity that Goose did. Although his son had watched the wind and the lightning and listened to the peal of thunder coursing across the heavens while safely held in Goose’s arms, Chris had loved the storms as much as Goose did.
Lightning blazed across the dark mass of clouds. In the same instant, rain fell. Thick, fat drops marked the street and the surrounding sidewalks and patios like tracer fire. The drops formed miniature craters in the thick layers of dust and dirt that coated the street. Then the sky opened up and the deluge began.
His spirits pulsing within him, his mood lightened by the storm, Goose pulled his helmet off and tilted his face up to the sky. Wind tousled his hair and rain pocked his features, cold and hard and heavy as .50-cal rounds. Before his next drawn breath, the rain became a solid curtain that pounded the city.
“Never,” the owner said, retreating to the open doorway of his coffee shop with both hands over his head, “have I seen such a thing as this. I have lived here all my life, and there has never been a storm like this.”
Goose weathered the storm, feeling the cleansing power of it. But the rain meant something else too. A smile lit his face as he turned to Baker.
“What?” Baker asked.
“It’s raining,” Goose stated simply.
Evidently caught up in the infectious nature of Goose’s joy, Baker smiled back. He shook his head in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“There’s a lot of dirt between here and the Syrian outpost,” Goose said. “A lot more between that and Aleppo, from where the Syrian army transports are getting staged.”
“So?”
“If it rains long enough, all that dirt’s going to turn into mud.”
