The War After Armageddon by Ralph Peters Read Free Book Online Page B

the hardest part of his job.
    Why wasn’t anything moving? The beach was getting as crowded as a stadium lot on homecoming weekend. Soon even the blind missiles wouldn’t be able to miss.
    He’d sent his XO forward, on foot, to find out what had blocked the road. But for all they knew, the stoppage might be a dozen clicks up the line, on the high ground. The XO could be walking for a while.
    And then what? Cavanaugh could talk intermittently to his companies lined up ducks-in-a-row and to those still afloat, but brigade forward had disappeared into the hills and the electromagnetic spectrum.
    Old Flintlock Harris had trained them for this, for the day the make-it-easy technologies would fail them. But no amount of training could lessen the sheer frustration. You grew up in a force accustomed to talking secure to anyone, anytime, and now, the inability to reach over a ridge for information made you want to break things.
    Well, they’d get to breaking things soon enough.
    He wished he’d marched up the road himself, instead of sending the XO. Just to have the illusion of accomplishing something. But Cavanaugh knew his place in the great scheme of things: The commander had to remain where he could exercise maximum control over his unit.
    To the extent he controlled anything.
    His earpiece crackled and made him jump.
    “Bayonet Six, this is Five.” The XO.
    “Whatcha got?”
    “Tank retriever lost its brakes. Not one of ours. Went over theside dragging an M-1. Then a drone hit the goat-rope on the road. Big ammo fry. They’re clearing it now.”
    “Estimated time to movement?”
    “Christ if I know. It’s a mess up here. I’d guess at least thirty mikes.”
    “Roger. Stay there and hitch a ride with Bravo as they pass. Break, break. Bravo, you copy?”
    “Good copy. We’ll watch for him.”
    “All right. Break. Net call, net call, this is Bayonet Six. When we get this unscrewed, I want march discipline back in force. Keep your distance from your buddies, no snuggling up, no matter how slow you’re moving. If the drones come again, I don’t want any sympathy detonations. Out.”
    Cavanaugh saw two GABs that had been holding a thousand meters out begin to head toward the beach. Others appeared to be jockeying for a place in line behind them.
    The beachmaster had to be crazy. There was no room for the rest of his battalion until the road opened. He wasn’t going to have them lined up hub to hub on the beach as if it were inspection day in the motor pool.
    Cavanaugh strode down from the roadway and across the rutted dirt strip that led to the beach. It struck him out of the blue that he had not had anything to eat since the middle of the night. Without slowing his pace, he fished a ration fruit bar from his pocket, tore it open, and chomped on it as if biting into a living thing he meant to kill.
    The GABs were coming in, all right. God
damn
it. Somebody with a stopwatch trying to keep to a schedule that no longer made any sense.
    On most days, he loved being in command. On others—not least, today—he felt like an impostor. Pat Cavanaugh realized full well that he would not have gotten his early promotion to lieutenant colonel or a prompt command billet had it not been for the migration of so many field-grade officers to the MOBIC side.
    He’d never considered such a move himself. Cavanaugh was allArmy. As for religion, he went to Mass on most Sundays and checked that block. He believed that he believed in God, he had doubts about the Vatican, and he had meant his marriage vows to a wife who dumped him for one of his Leavenworth classmates who switched to the MOBIC side early on and got a double jump, from major to colonel. He hoped Mary Margaret was happy. And eating ground glass.
    She’d blindsided him utterly. And Pat Cavanaugh was determined that no one would ever do that to him again.
    His kids. With that shit-faced ass-kisser. And
his
wife.
    Whenever he came up against the MOBIC types, they made him