Harris sat alone in the briefing room, face buried in his hands. Waiting for the first casualty reports. His fire-support officer had already assured him that none of the seven reported nuclear detonations had struck within the corps’ lines. But there would be casualties, nonetheless. Harris told himself he could have pushed harder, forced the intelligence system, done more about his hunch about the Jihadis’ nuclear reserves. But he hadn’t done it. And now the two or three nuclear weapons about which he’d worried had turned out to be at least seven. An unknown number of his fellow Americans, MOBIC members or not, had died because he hadn’t done his duty.
He should’ve seen it coming. He knew that. All of the indicators had been there. Every goddamned one. He couldn’t blame it on the G-2 or anybody else. He was the commander. Any failures rested on his shoulders, and his alone.
And this was a great failure, something terrible.
Major John Willing knocked on the door. The aide’s knuckles had the familiarity of a personal ring-tone.
“Come in.”
“Sir, Colonel Andretti has some more data from the fire-support cell. And a number of land-line reports have come in — the radio’s are still out, though.”
“Send him in, John.”
“Sir… The G-2’s with him. Want me to hold him outside?”
“No. Send them both in. And come back in yourself. I may need you to run some messages.”
“Yes, sir.”
How the mighty have fallen! Harris thought. Unable to force his mind beyond the cliché.
The G-3 came in twitchy, as if he’d just been transfused with a quart of espresso. The G-2 zombie-walked behind him.
Before the Three could report, Val Danczuk said, “Sir, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t listen and now—”
“Forget it, Val. Done is done. We’ve still got a war to fight.”
“Yes, sir,” the G-2 said. His voice was dull, almost dead. Harris decided to deal with the man later. And to sack him, at least temporarily, if he couldn’t get a grip on himself.
“Mike?”
“Looks like we got off pretty light, sir.”
Harris rapped the table. “Don’t jinx it. Just give me the details. Whatever you’ve got.”
“Winds are from the north-northwest. Any fallout’s headed down the Jordan Valley and toward Amman. I guess the Jihadis didn’t care about their own—”
“Al-Mahdi did what was smart. He fought to win. And didn’t count the costs. Go on.”
“We’ve got some drones up with radar-imagery capability and some backup infrared. Nobody knows what’ll work and what won’t, but we’ll try to assess how badly the MOBIC corps’s been hit. No comms out there. Oh, and we’ve registered four more nukes. All out of sector.”
“Where?”
“Colonel Tinsley’s gizmos read two down south near the Jordan River crossing sites. East of Jericho. And two in Jerusalem. Strategic chatter between the MOBIC rear CP and Washington suggests the J’s hit the Temple Mount with a ground burst, followed by an air burst.”
Harris snorted. “If they can’t have it, MOBIC won’t have it. The Holy of Holies is going to be a hot zone for a long time. What about our guys?”
“Like I said, sir: Things don’t look that bad. EMP problems, of course. We’ll have to sort all of the comms out — and see what else is still working down in the line units, if any of the electonics survived. Other than commo, our biggest problem right now is with MOBIC survivors stampeding back into our lines. They’ve lost all sense of organization. They’re just terrified. But neither of our lead divisions reports any catastrophic losses. Or
“We’ll have radiation casualties. Especially in 1st ID, given the fallout pattern. They’ll catch some of it. But the effects won’t be immediately evident. Everybody’s going to feel fit to fight and ready to go. But they won’t be. So listen, Mike. Get with our decon folks and see how fast they can shift the gear they’ve been using up north on the Marines down to our forward brigades. And I want an assessment by… say, 0600, of which units might’ve been heavily exposed to fallout. They’ll need to stand down. Complete rest. I don’t even want them opening their own ration packs. We’ll do it for them. And we need to round up those MOBIC survivors. They’ve got a much bigger radiation problem than we do. The poor buggers are going to be dying for years, slow and ugly. If they overexert themselves now, they’ll die in a matter of weeks.” Harris looked at his G-3. Sternly. “We’re not going to let that happen, if we can help it. They’re Americans, too. Get them under positive control. Then I want them to receive the same care our own soldiers do.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, that’s part one. Part two: Mike, I want both the 1st Cav and 1st ID to task-organize down into battle groups with all the combat units that had no radiation exposure. I’ll accept maximum risk to our front — if the J’s want to counterattack through hot zones and what’s left of the MOBIC forces, let ’em. We’re going to attack. To the north. We’ll adjust Marty Rose’s left-hook plan on the march.”
