“The forward passage of lines is set to commence at 1800.”
“Going to be some tired
“They’ve requested it.”
Harris pivoted toward his G-4. “Real-Deal? Can we top ’em off?”
“Yes, sir. Although I hate to do it.”
“Well, they’re on our side. And we all need to remember it. But I suspect some of those boys are going to be falling asleep at the wheel by the time they go into action.” He shrugged. “We have enough back-up comms gear to fix those two companies down in 2-34 Armor? Get them back into the net?”
“We’re checking it out now, sir. Lot of that stuff still hasn’t come over the beach.”
“Cannibalize any vehicles deadlined for major components or significant battle damage.”
The G-4 raised his eyebrows. “Going to be a property-book nightmare. And the tactical units will fight it. But I’ll do what I can, sir.”
“Write off any systems you lift as combat losses. Blame me. Just get 2-34 talking again.”
“Roger, sir.”
“Okay, Real-Deal. Now for the major-league question: How do we keep an entire city that’s crowded with refugees and has a poisoned water supply from dying of thirst?”
“Sir, depending on the level and kind of poison, there’s a chance we can use water-purification units—”
“Assume the worst. That the water can’t be processed.”
“Jesus, sir… There just isn’t enough bottled water. Even if we stopped bringing everything else ashore, there’s not enough loaded on the ships.”
“How many water-purification sites do we have up and running?”
“I don’t have a current number, sir. But we don’t have the spare tankers, anyway.”
“Solve it, Sean. Make it personal.”
Colonel Sean “Real-Deal” McCoy gave Harris the polar-bear salute. “Sir, I honestly don’t know—”
“Solve it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Harris turned back to his operations officer. “Mike, what about General Morris’s Marines? When do we get road clearance down to them?”
“Already done, sir. At zero-six. The Marines are road-marching north as we speak, with lead elements putting the pedal down east of Haifa. We’re moving them over the lowest-threat roads, and we’ve got the hot stretches marked to get their attention and keep them moving. Got some potential bottlenecks, though.”
“Vehicle decon? The Marines don’t have much capacity in-theater.”
“Our chem folks have three hasty-decon sites waiting for them up north. Best we can do. Overall, I’d say Marty Rose’s planners did a first-rate job.”
“Just keep ’em moving. Double intervals between the serials, as we discussed. Keep the Mike-Papas on them about maintaining distance. His Marines won’t like it, but Monk Morris will understand. We don’t want units backing up while they’re in the hot zones.”
“Yes, sir.”
A captain slipped into the room and made his way between chairbacks and a parapet of knees to hand a scrap of paper to the G-2.
“Val? Anything hot?” Harris asked his intelligence officer.
Val Danczuk began his answers by saying to himself, in a low but audible tone, “The motherfuckers.”
“That covers a wide array of characters these days,” Harris said. “Exactly which Mike-Foxtrots are we talking about this time?”
“The Jihadis,” Colonel Danczuk said. “They didn’t waste any time. This is an intercept from a radio station in Baghdad, a big regional sender. They’re telling the world that we’re poisoning all of our ‘captives’ in Nazareth.”
Harris whistled. In disgust mixed with admiration. It was the same emotional mix he felt toward Sim Montfort.
General of the Order Simon Montfort focused on the only officer seated at the planning table who didn’t wear the black cross of the Military Order of the Brothers in Christ or the red Jerusalem Cross of his Guardians.
“Forty-eight hours,” Montfort told the Air Force three-star. “You have forty-eight hours. Then you need to be in complete readiness to smite the Jihadi forces with every manned aircraft and drone you have in this theater or capable of flying into this theater. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant General Micah said. “You realize, of course, that there are airspace deconfliction issues, and we need to do our weaponeering based upon specific target pa ram e ters to maximize—”
“The targets will be al-Mahdi’s forces. Wherever they are when I give you the order. Stationary and on the move. We believe that a wide array of high-value targets will be strung out along the highways and secondary routes leading east to Damascus and beyond to the old Iraqi border. Focus your planning on the road network. Use your intelligence resources to identify possible assembly and staging areas. We’ll provide whatever intelligence we develop ourselves. Just be ready to fly. When I tell you to.”
“They’ll be in retreat, you mean?”
“They’ll be marching east. They won’t expect you.”
“How can you be sure?”
