The Coward's Way of War (49 page)

The President scowled.  The remains of the RSAF – and a dazzling collection of private aircraft, including some very rare models – had been pushed into launching suicidal attacks on the American positions.  Most of them had been shot down before they came near their targets, but a Hawk training aircraft had somehow managed to evade the overworked defences and slam right into an American frigate.  The aircraft had been carrying plenty of high explosive and the resulting explosion had sunk the ship with all hands.  A handful of other ships had been damaged by suicidal attackers, while ground forces had shot down a pair of jumbo jets that had attempted to fly towards Kuwait and crash into military bases there.

“That does leave us with an important question,” she said.  She already knew the answer, but it had to be asked publicly, just to make sure that everyone was fully informed.  “Why are those runways still functioning?”

“It was decided that we would overrun those airports and use them as bases to fly in reinforcements,” Spencer explained, calmly.  “We have most of those airports under observation by SF soldiers and any more suicidal aircraft can be tracked and shot down before they get anywhere near our people.  Hell, we had a jumbo jet shot down near their capital by an SF team.”

The President nodded.  “Good work,” she said.  “What about the overall situation?”

Spencer grinned.  “Between us and the Iraqis, we have overrun and captured King Khalid Military City,” he began.  “That has opened up a line for dispatching overland forces to Mecca, which the Iraqis intend to do once they get their forces reorganised.  We still intend to assist them to move their infantry through the air, but if that fails we will have another angle of attack.  3
rd
ID and supporting units are meeting up and reorganising before the drive on Riyadh begins. 

“Once we broke though the main defence line, the main body of the Saudi Army scattered, leaving us dealing with hundreds of tiny attacks by insurgent-like forces.  They are not very well trained or prepared for their missions and most of them have been swatted without causing us to slow down.  The attacks are poorly coordinated and barely planned, if at all.  Some attacks were clearly carried out by Saudi SF troops and caused more damage, although we’re still ahead of them.  So far, though, we have not done more than sealing off most of the Saudi cities we have enveloped, so that may change in the future.  Military operations in urban terrain tend to be nastier than fighting in the open.

“Along the coastline, the Marines and the landed reinforcements carried out their part of the operation.  Special Forces secured the oil wells and ports, which were passed over to Marine and Airborne units, who also focused on securing the three cities along the Persian Gulf Coast.  Al Jubayl, Ad Dammam and Dharan have ports and oil facilities.  From there, they pushed out and took control of the roads and established a defensive perimeter.  They also took a major airport and pressed it into service for Harriers and helicopters.  We have faced considerable resistance, but after the early bombardment and the military assault that resistance has composed of insurgents, which we dealt with under the new ROE.  Any building that is used as a military point of operations is considered a legitimate target and destroyed.

“Our troops advanced northwards and eventually linked up with the 3
rd
ID, where they began reorganizing for the push against Riyadh.  We expect that that stage of the operation will commence in a week, but we will be maintaining air and SF attacks to keep the Saudis off-balance.  We will also be supporting the Iraqi assault on Mecca.

“Overall, casualties have been heavier than I would wish,” he concluded.  “We have lost roughly five hundred men so far, including at least five in a blue-on-blue incident.  We have also lost around forty combat aircraft in various battles, although loss rates have been tapering off sharply as the Saudis lose the ability to control their air defences.  We have no accurate casualty figures for the enemy, but we believe that it must run into the thousands.  Unfortunately, the Saudi armed forces are a very mixed bag and we don’t know if we are going to face a determined and well-trained unit, or one that breaks and runs at the first sight of American tanks.”

There was a long pause.  The President winced inwardly as the silence grew longer.  She had promised herself that she would write to the families of the dead soldiers, yet each one was a personal blow against her, a reminder that a young man would be alive if she hadn’t sent him to war.  The Presidency, she’d been told when she’d had her final meeting with her predecessor, was a harsh mistress.  Sending young men into war was the least of it.

“There is an issue I wish to raise,” Allen Ross said.  The Secretary of State looked nervous.  “There has been an official complaint filed against American soldiers for shooting enemy forces who were trying to surrender.  Is there any truth to that report?”

Spencer’s lips tightened.  “The problem with taking surrenders, sir, is that the enemy have a habit of pretending to surrender and then throwing grenades or opening fire when American troops get so close that not even untrained morons could miss,” he said.  “When one person renounces his surrender, his comrades – who may or may not have known what he had in mind – may be killed as well.  Pretending to surrender is not a legal ruse of war, if only because it makes it harder to surrender in the future.”

“That wasn’t what I was talking about,” Ross added.  “The report specifically states that American units have been displaying black flags and refusing to accept surrenders, even when they are offered.  I ask again; is there any truth to this report?”

Spencer stared at him for a long moment.  “That practice has been ordered discontinued,” he said, flatly.  “Brigade COs have been ordered to stamp on it sharp and remove those flags.”

“But if American forces are refusing to accept surrenders…”

Spencer cut him off, sharply.  “Sir, with all due respect, you have no idea what it is like to be out on the sharp end,” he said, coldly.  “The men and women of our armed forces are not machines.  We did not put them through Boot Camp to create soulless killing machines.  Those men and women know that their country has been attacked by a cowardly weapon of mass destruction and that their friends and family have been threatened, perhaps killed, by the virus.  They are at war against men who are
defending
the system that gave birth to the plague.  Our men are not interested in taking prisoners.

“We have
never
fought a war when the very fabric of our society was frayed, even during the civil war.  The men we have sent to war
feel
what has happened to their homeland and want revenge.  Frankly, I am surprised that we haven’t had a thousand nasty incidents by now.  We are working on the problem and we will deal with it, but soldiers are not machines.  You cannot fix a balky human by rewiring his body.”

“But this is damaging our international standing,” Ross protested.  “How much support will we get if American troops commit atrocities?  We have smashed mosques and hospitals, forced men and women to strip before they went into POW camps…”

“We have what support we need,” Spencer growled.  “And if they think that greeting surrender with some caution is…dehumanising, they should have thought about it before they started using offers of surrender to lure our men into traps.  And as for the mosques we hit...well, they were being used as military strong-points, which turns them all into valid targets.”

The President held up a hand.  “Enough,” she said.  “We do not need to care, any longer, about world opinion.  We will take what precautions are required to ensure the safety of our fighting men.”

Scott Rudziński looked up from his seat, where he had been concealing a grin.  “Is there any sign that the Saudis are willing to surrender their country?”

“None,” the President said.  “They have said nothing, but a constant outpouring of propaganda and exaggerated claims of military success.”

“Mostly nonsense,” Spencer injected.  “If they’d killed every American they claimed to have killed, they would have slaughtered the entire army several times over.”

There were a handful of chuckles.  “That does leave us with the hostages,” Rudziński warned.  “What are we going to do about them?”

“We have assets on the ground looking for them,” CIA said, tightly.  “So far, we have not been able to locate them; the Saudis have them stashed away somewhere, well-hidden.  One might hope that they will have enough sense not to mistreat them…”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Spencer said.  “They’re getting desperate.”

“And if they die, it could harm political support for the war,” Ross said.  “Madam President…”

The President laughed.  “Allen, the vast majority of the American people wants us to nuke Saudi, along with its entire population,” she said.  “The political support for this war is not going to fade.”

***

Four hours later, Nicolas and his support team from Project Wildfire briefed the President.  “
We only have what we can draw from media reports,” he explained, “but outbreaks of Henderson’s Disease have clearly taken place in Saudi Arabia.  There may be thousands of infected people becoming ill over the next few days.”

The President frowned.  “It’s only a problem if it affects us operationally,” she said.  “Is it
likely to do so?”

Nicolas blinked.  He was a doctor by training and saw the world in terms of helping people, or as many people as could be helped.  “American and European troops have been vaccinated, so they won’t be infected by Henderson’s Disease,” he said.  “We shipped the Iraqis enough vaccine to cover their own soldiers so they should be fine.  The problem, though, is that the disease might wipe out much of the Saudi population.  It won’t spread so well in the heat, but their public health service is horrifyingly bad.”

“That is very much a fifth-order concern at the moment,” the President said.  She looked tired, a woman who desperately needed sleep.  If he’d been the White House physician, Nicolas would have recommended sleep, perhaps even a sedative.  “I need to know about your work on EXODUS.”

Nicolas nodded slowly, displaying a map of New York in front of the President.  It was an odd map, marked almost as if the city had been divided into a multitude of tiny kingdoms, the areas where the NYPD and the National Guard held an uneasy peace blurring into the zones where gang rule was the order of the day.  Some of the stories leaking out of the gang-ruled zones were horrifying, yet the police and military didn’t have the firepower to go after them.  Far too many of the reserves had been deployed to Saudi Arabia. 

“The city of New York,” he said, as the President studied it tiredly.  “We believe that upwards of four million people remain in the city, despite the deaths from Henderson’s Disease and the insurgency.  The early outbreak of the disease has slain its first victims, but the disease is still spreading, if slowly.  The vaccination program has been significantly delayed by the gang warfare and outright terrorism.”

He paused to allow the import of his words to sink in.  New York City had had over eight million people living within the city before Henderson’s Disease had broken out.  Half the population was now either dead or had fled, either directly through Henderson’s Disease or through the knock-on effects and insurgency.

“We have revised EXODUS to allow us to make a concentrated assault on the disease,” he continued.  “We have shipped additional supplies of vaccine into the bases surrounding the city and devoted additional manpower” – mainly composed of criminals who had been offered time off their sentences in exchange for hard labour – “to building and stocking refugee camps.  We are now ready to proceed with the next stage of the operation.

“The vaccine will be sent into the city under armed guard and personnel will start vaccinating the population.  Once the announcement is made, no one will be able to use a government-run soup kitchen or any other government facility without being injected.  We know that the vaccine is ineffective when a person is already infected with Henderson’s Disease, but it takes effect very quickly if a person is clean.  The aim will be to vaccinate everyone remaining within the city.

“The civilians who have been vaccinated already – and have the cards to prove it – will be invited to leave the city and go into one of the quarantine camps.  Once the newly-vaccinated people have been confirmed clear of the disease, they will be sent out to join the first group of people.  We will continue doing this until the city has been completely cleared of people.  Army officers and Civil Affairs units” – it seemed absurd to use them in the United States – “will begin organising the refugees and distributing them around the country.”

He paused.  “As the operation continues, we will tighten the noose around the city and destroy or strand the gangs if they try to fight,” he concluded.  “If everything goes well, eventually New York will be deserted and Henderson’s Disease will die out, because there will be no one to catch and carry the virus.  There will be far fewer deaths in the future.”

“A great many people are going to die,” the President said, quietly. 

Nicolas hesitated.  “Madam President, we may lose a third of our population – perhaps more – by the time this crisis is over,” he said.  “There’s very little we can do about that.  The only thing we can do is keep going, keep vaccinating and eventually Henderson’s Disease will die out.”

He looked up at the overall map of the United States.  Outside the cities, the vaccination program had been a reasonable success, although there were some groups that had refused to be vaccinated for various reasons.  Acting under emergency powers granted by the government, the army had forced them to take the vaccine, if only by holding them down and shooting them with an injector gun.  The farmers would survive to keep feeding the United States.  Over the years, the remainder of the country could be built up again…

It wasn't all sweetness and light.  There had been massive anti-Arab riots since the news had broken about Saudi Arabia, with hundreds of innocent people lynched by outraged mobs.  It had just been another pointless outbreak of violence, one that might help spread Henderson’s Disease further.  Other outbreaks of violence had been directed against bankers, federal agents and other groups, for all kinds of reasons.  The war on the southern border was rapidly growing out of hand.  Mexico was becoming a charnel house and the refugees, many of whom were dying as they stumbled towards the United States, had to be stopped.

And, bad as it seemed in the United States, the situation in other parts of the world was far worse.

“I understand,” the President said, tartly.  She took the top document and signed it with a flourish.  “And once we deal with New York, we have to deal with the rest of the country, every other city in the nation.  We will have to repeat this operation time and time again.  We will lose millions to save millions more.”

“Yes, Madam President,” Nicolas confirmed.  “There is no choice.  The cold equations demand that we save what we can.”

He hesitated.  “There is something odd that I was meaning to bring to your attention,” he added.  “Why didn’t the Saudis vaccinate their own population?”

The President frowned.  “I don’t know,” she said, sharply.  She didn’t sound interested.  With a war to fight and a country falling apart, there was hardly time for abstract issues, but Nicolas felt that this one was important.  “Why
didn’t
the Saudis vaccinate their own population?”

“I don’t know either,” Nicolas admitted.  “It makes no sense.  What’s the point of trying to wipe out the entire world if it includes your own people as well?  Who is going to repopulate the world if the entire human race dies?”

The secret to effective policing is the s
ame as effective counter-insurgency; it’s called maintaining boots on the ground.  A population alienated from the police force will eventually grow to conceive of the police as an army of occupation.

-Sergeant Al Hattlestad

New York, USA

Day 43

“So, Jarhead,” a voice asked.  “What news of the war?”

Al ignored the speaker, rubbing his eyes as he drank his unsweetened coffee.  It barely woke him up these days, but with the crisis on, there was still no time to rest.  He’d slept in worse places while he’d been in the Marines, yet it was sheer grinding horror that was getting to him.  Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the dead girl’s face in front of him, beckoning him into the darkness.

“Ah, come on,” the voice said.  Al looked over at Lieutenant Kutz and scowled.  The Lieutenant was overweight and generally regarded as a boob who’d been promoted because of political considerations.  He was regarded as a lazy slob by many of his fellow officers, yet – the system being what it was – he somehow continued to pollute police stations with his presence.  “I’m sure you know more than me about what’s going on in the desert, with rag-headed sons of bitches being blown apart by US Marines and...”

Al swung around, caught Kutz by his lapels and picked him up bodily.  “You weren't there,” he hissed, his face so close to the Lieutenant’s that he could smell the doughnut in his breath.  “You know fucking nothing about fucking war, do you understand me?  There are men out there fighting and dying to avenge what was done to our country and all you can do is crack wise about killing enemy fuckers!”

He shook Kutz, somehow unsurprised that the Lieutenant seemed incapable of resisting, or even trying to assert his authority.  “You should be carrying your weight over here or getting the hell out of the way,” he snapped.  “You should...”

“That’s enough, Sergeant,” Captain Macomb said, flatly.  His voice brought Al back to reality and he dropped Kutz onto the ground.  The Lieutenant fell over backwards and landed on his ass, staring up at Al as if he’d just grown an extra head.  “You too, Lieutenant; I don’t have time for brawling among my people.”

“Captain,” Kutz protested, pulling himself to his feet.  “I want that...
asshole
up on charges!  He assaulted a senior officer and...”

“I said
enough
,” the Captain said, somehow not raising his voice.  “There’s a briefing in the main hall in an hour, gentlemen and ladies; I expect you all to attend, without having killed each other.  Lieutenant, you’re with me.”

He swept out of the room, Kutz in tow.  Al watched him go, shaking his head and wondering what had happened to them all.  The Captain had a military background too, although it had been in the regular army rather than the Marines; it wasn't like him not to chew out a subordinate who had fucked up...and there was no question that Al
had
fucked up.  Losing his temper like that was unlike him.

But perhaps it hadn't been unexpected.  The NYPD had never really been intended to serve as a semi-paramilitary force, even though it had added SWAT teams and other specialist units to its roster.  The force was running hot and on the brink of collapse, with entire sections of the city declared no-go zones and left under the control of the gangs.  It reminded him far too much of Iraq, where the Americans had only been able – at least at first – to bring order to the areas under their direct control.  The remainder had been dominated by a kaleidoscope of hostile forces, sometimes allied against the Americans, sometimes fighting their fellow Iraqis at the same time.  The comparison was unwelcome, yet it was chillingly accurate.  New York City was falling into the darkness.

He ignored the stares from some of the other officers and headed for the showers, silently praying that there would be warm water this morning.  Several male and female personnel were showering together, too tired even to care about being so close to naked members of the opposite gender.  Al stripped down, uncaring himself, and stepped under the shower, allowing himself a moment of relief as warm water cascaded down and washed away his tiredness, for the moment.  It wouldn’t be long before the demands of his body caught up with him again. 

Breakfast was being served in the dining hall.  The building had once been a school before the NYPD had taken it over and turned it into a temporary precinct house and barracks for its men.  The gangs had firebombed some police stations and overrun others, stealing weapons and supplies and leaving dead policemen in their wake.  Others had been turned into miniature fortresses, defended by heavy weapons and a combination of policemen and National Guardsmen.  Al picked at his breakfast slowly, watching the news displayed on the big screen at the head of the room.  It didn't look good to his eyes.

“...In response to the war on Saudi Arabia,” a blonde-haired reporter was saying, her voice calm and unmoved, “there have been massive uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza City.  Palestinian spokesmen have been claiming that the Israelis have deliberately spread Henderson’s Disease into the Palestinian territories and intend to exterminate the refugee population.  Israeli spokesmen have pointed to the constant flow of traffic between Egypt and the Occupied Territories as a more probable cause of the outbreak and have warned that attacks on Israel will be punished.  Elements of the Israeli Army have been deployed into Gaza with orders to put a stop to the uprisings, with units of the IAF recalled to drop bombs on the insurgents.  Israel further claimed that Iran and Syria have been supplying weapons into Palestine and are warning of harsh responses if the two countries do not stop encouraging their enemies.  There has been no response from either government.”