The general looked at the darkening sky and said, “Word is that this weather will hold overnight but that a cold front is passing through tomorrow. You and your people have enough blankets and heaters out here?”
“Yes, sir. We’ll be fine. Thank you, sir.”
“I got something for you,” the man said, reaching into the large field jacket pocket that draped over his thigh. It was a closed, folded palmtop that he opened and powered up. After a couple of beeps he handed it to her.
The frozen image of Stephie’s father filled the small plasma display. “Just bring it back when you get through,” he said, turning to leave her alone. She sank onto the lip of her fighting hole and put her coffee mug onto a flat sandbag. She hit “Play” and her father came to life.
“Hi there, sweetheart,” he said with a smile. “I’ve heard about your new assignment. I have to admit that I’ve been sleeping a lot better since you got it, although there is no place that’s really safe anymore. Your mother has been calling me almost every other day since she found out that you and I E-mail each other. She’s pretty perturbed that I don’t give her your address.”
Stephie laughed.
“Your stepfather got a job working for a defense plant in Michigan. They’ve settled in Dearborn, and I told them I’d pass along their new address.” Stephie got a pad and pen and wrote down their address and phone number. “She was relieved when I told her that your platoon had been pulled back off the line.” Stephie clenched her jaw and frowned and wondered once again just how Third Platoon had managed to draw such light duty.
Her troops, however, clearly didn’t mind at all. Quite the contrary — all they cared about was that their short-term lease on life had been extended. But Stephie had grown to hate the easy job. She had begun taking an ATV up to the line to look for John and the rest of Charlie Company. Sometimes, they were in their positions. Other times, they were in the shit. Each time, she found them, however, they were fewer in number. John had received a battlefield promotion to captain by Lieutenant Colonel Ackerman, now battalion commander.
There was no such opportunity for upward mobility at brigade HQ. No career advancement due to the death in combat of your immediate superior. Up to the rank of lieutenant colonel — battalion commanders — casualty rates were high. Battalions were sometimes overrun, but not so the brigades commanded by full colonels or brigadier generals.
“Anyway, you’ll be happy to know I followed your security advice,” her father said. “In fact, I’d guess they quadrupled or even quintupled the White House guards. The place is crawling with Secret Service agents who look more like infantrymen than bodyguards. So I’m okay, honey. I just hope you stay that way too. I’m thinking about you. Praying for you. I can’t wait to see you in person again. Maybe I’ll take a trip soon to visit the troops, you never know.”
He grinned, but it was a sad expression.
After he signed off, Stephie said, “Good-bye, Dad.” She kissed her fingertips and pressed them against the display.
With a sigh, Stephie drained the last coffee and rose to return the mug and computer to the brigadier general who resided at the center of their defensive positions. The brigade staff’s night shift was arriving through the barbed wire gate fresh from sleeping bags, and were being met by a dozen drowsy office workers heading off to bed. The men and women stood under the camo netting just outside the polyurethane tent getting updates about the jobs being handing off.
Stephie frowned at the sight. Her platoon was on duty twenty-four hours per day. Lying in the rain. In the snow. In the open.
Out of the twilight came a howling that sounded like death itself. A ferocious popping noise erupted from the direction of the brigade radio transmitters 700 meters away. The staffers ducked and began shouting. Some ran in stooped sprints for ballistic shelters holding their helmets clamped to their heads. Others dropped where they lay and crawled aimlessly or curled into fetal positions.
Stephie walked up to them as the distant rocket barrage fell silent. It was a hit and run, quick strike against pinpointed radio emissions. The rumbling echoes were replaced by the laughter of Stephie’s third platoon. Her infantrymen sat heads-up in their fighting holes drinking coffee and pointing at their favorite panicked staffer.
“Would you mind returning these to the brigade commander,” Stephie said to a woman who lay prone at her boots. The captain arched her neck to peer up under the brim of her helmet, then rose and brushed the dirt from her uniform. “Thanks,” Stephie said as she handed the palmtop and mug to the captain.
The general emerged from the tent and took a look at the tower of smoke that rose above the trees across a pasture. “All right,” he shouted to his staff and to Stephie, “let’s pack it up and relocate!”
Shit! Stephie thought as she headed out to the perimeter. Instead of relaxing that evening, they’d have to dig new fighting holes, string wire, lay mines, run fiber optic for the Intranet, and then pick it all back up again by first light, maybe sooner.
When she gave the order, one of her men said, “Shit!”
“Shut the fuck up and get moving!” Stephie snapped. “And quit teasing brigade staff, goddamit!”
Lieutenant Wu was awakened by a gentle shaking of his shoulder. He had been so deep in sleep that it took several moments for him to claw his way back to the surface. In his nightmare, he had been lying in a mass grave filled with Chinese and American soldiers and civilians. He gasped for air and sat upright as the dirt rained down on his face.
After a few blinks of his eyes and arches of his brows, he found himself in filthy battle dress and boots on a bare mattress in the bedroom of the modest home. He had been so tired when he crashed there that he didn’t recognize anything.
General Sheng’s aide, Colonel Li, stood over Wu, whose head ached instantly. A dry cough in the frigid air sent daggers through his skull. His mouth tasted of the fear and nausea from the slaughter the day before.
“We have to talk,” Colonel Li said.
Wu rolled his boots to the floor and paused to. take a painkiller. The aid stations dispensed them freely to lines of troops who formed every morning for sick call. Most just took the pills and returned to their units without further attention to their variety of ailments, which ranged from an accumulation of minor scrapes and bruises to gaping emotional wounds.
Wu knew why Li was there, and Wu would fight not to be recalled from combat. But part of him longed to be ordered back to Sheng’s headquarters. Ordered back to Beijing. Ordered to go anywhere away from the carnage, which left him sick, and demoralized, and desperate for air.
The two officers walked through the house past exhausted soldiers, who had scrambled to slouching attention. Li, dressed in crisp and clean battle dress, seemed uncomfortable under their sullen stares, and they marched out the front door into the dawn of a new day.
The bracing blast of cold air caused Wu to zip closed his jacket and sleeves. He briefly removed his helmet to don a wool cap. The rolling lawns and street were dotted with craters two meters in diameter dug by heavy 155 mm or 175 mm artillery. The trees around the holes were stripped bare of bark. The houses were windowless. A single American armored fighting vehicle was being dragged off the street by a Chinese tank recovery vehicle, which beeped like a garbage truck as it slowly backed up.