When Totems Fall

by Wayne C. Stewart

  What... two-hundred-twenty-eight... no, maybe two-hundred thirty warheads.

  He lifted his head, staring forward with the realization.

  It was a crap shoot.

  A total and complete crap shoot.

  Sure, we "win", but only because we have a few more bombs and a little better range. Nobody can drop these things out of the sky, so it's only a matter of time before everybody gets their throats cut wide open as the last few hundred years of human civilization bleeds out on uber-radiated ground.

  The unfolding drama of launch scenarios played out furiously in his mind's eye. Flight time, detonation, casualty numbers, environmental and worldwide economic impact. Reactions of nuclear partners on each side. Every American launch countered by a devastating return volley from Beijing. Of all the visions he had been called upon to foresee in his military career, none carried the weight that this one did. It was an apocalyptic nightmare, unleashed in his head and gaining speed and ferocity with every new second. If there was one time in his life Zeb wished he had a normal brain, this would be it.

  FIFTY THREE

  A single, electronic beep woke Zeb from his vivid visualizations and their deeply disconcerting outcomes.

  C:>inserttext>Do You Fear God?

  C:>|......

  The aggravating question begged for a response. Any efforts made toward answering it gave him only more pause. Facing death—there was nothing new about this to him, but the weight of so many others' fates? This was something wholly different. Far too substantial to carry on his own. As the cursor blinked on screen, the burden only increased exponentially.

  From his position a few feet away Loch surmised a moral confusion growing in Zeb. He didn't like it. Not at all.

  "Hey. What are you doing, Dalton? Keep your head doon. Do your job."

  Loch's inquiry and the sense of command it carried snapped Zeb back to attentiveness.

  Typing: Repeat last transmission, please.

  Beep.

  C:>inserttext>Do You Fear God?

  C:>|......

  Zeb, surprised by the repeated—and to his mind nonsensical—line, paused again before proceeding. His inaction sent an undesired signal, bringing a swift, practiced movement in response.

  Loch drew his sidearm, aimed squarely at Zeb's head.

  The HK15 was chambered, cocked, and ready. The sergeant flipped the safety off, the subtle click signaling that events in the room were moving well past the point of no return.

  Sanchez' reaction, five feet behind Zeb and to his right, came equally as swift.

  Her pistol was brandished now as well, trained immovably on the Scotsman's face, a harrowing red dot staining the place between his eyes where a small but lethal hole would open, were she to proceed. Without flinching she commanded a reason for his sudden, unexplained actions.

  "What the hell are you doing, Loch? Loch, dammit, answer me!"

  "Shut uuup! Shut uuup! Put your gun down, noooow! Or I splatter him all aboot this lovely place."

  Loch seethed, speaking through clenched teeth. His tone, though quiet, shouted that he despised the man's very presence.

  "I knew you wouldn't haaave what it takes. It's all one big, recurring theme for you, isn't it?!"

  "Fifteen men," Loch shook, spitting venom with his words. "Your weakness. Your softness killed fifteen good men. Soldiers. Warriors, far better than you ever will be... Lieutenant."

  Sanchez tried to grasp what was happening, to garner some basic reconciliation of the conflict taking place only a few feet away.

  "Zeb, what on earth is he talking about? Give me one good reason to not blow this psycho-soldier away, right now. Just one. C'mon."

  Dalton uttered one word.

  "Fallujah."

  "Thaat's right," Loch said, disdain dripping from every syllable. "Or didn't your new friend let you in on the tragic tale?"

  __________________________________

  The City of Mosques was not a peaceful place. American and Coalition forces arrived in strength in the Spring of 2003 only to find that moderate Iraqi civic and religious leaders had already abandoned it en masse. Much of the general populace followed suit, leaving a power vacuum into which the insurgency quickly coalesced and organized. Most of what remained at this point were hardened, militarized masses and few friendly factions with which to collaborate. Not much to do in the way of winning hearts and minds. Mainly enemies to engage and destroy. This ethos of armed resistance and constant chaos was made only more dangerous with the final official actions of their former leader, Saddam Hussein. Upon releasing every last criminal and degenerate from Abu Ghraib Prison—just thirty minutes east of town—his "pardons" flooded the area with an even more violent substrata. The sum of these factors added up to a hostile, unstable setting in which the U.S. Military was expected to establish order as well as win the goodwill of the people. Six weeks in the whole thing exploded.

  The crowd of nearly two hundred Iraqis stood outside the gates of the local secondary school, demanding it to be opened and courses reconvened. At first a concerned neighborhood response born out of fears that temporary military occupation of the grounds might become the new normal, the protest had transformed from there into a tragic hailstorm of screams, bullets, and death. American personnel from the 82nd Airborne, stationed on the rooftop, had opened fire. Seventeen dead. Another seventy mortally wounded. Naturally, each side claimed they were fired upon first.

  Two days later—April 30, another group returned to protest the heartbreaking event, to make their voices heard. Gunfire erupted again and two more Iraqi lives were lost. From there Fallujah devolved into a tempest, one that would remain just under the boiling point for the next eleven months. As with water in a pot, the constant heat and agitation ultimately produced an expansive, volatile reaction.

  __________________________________

  "Only a few weeks later," Zeb said. "We went in. After the Blackwater incident."

  Dalton, trying his best to tell the story, desperately wanted to avoid re-living the nightmare personally.

  "Operation Vigilant Resolve," Sanchez noted.

  He paused, nodding his head.

  "The guys were just protecting a food delivery," Zeb went on. "The insurgents trapped their vehicle and pulled them out. One by one they shot 'em and then burned them, right there on the road. That wasn't enough. Afterward, they dragged their charred bodies through the streets and then strung them up on the spans of a bridge across the Euphrates."

  "Blackwater Bridge," Sanchez breathed, remembering the grisly tale, passed among the majority of the occupying force at one time or another.

  "Yeah," Zeb confirmed. "That would be the one."

  Zeb didn't move, his gaze unaltered. In his mind, in his emotions, he was back in that hot zone, the hell he had run from for the better part of a decade. His voice lowered.

  "Officially I was Army Signal Corps. In reality I operated as a special strategic asset, embedded with whoever needed my odd skill sets the most. The truth is, I never even attended OCS. My rank was all a part of the deal and for the most part kept under wraps."

  The revelation that Zeb wasn't really an officer, much less even a lowly lieutenant, wasn't news to Loch. He'd been brought into the know back at Clark. Yet it only underscored his dismissal of this man's place in his Army. With trigger finger still in place the barrel of his pistol was leveled, ready, only a few feet away from Zeb's head.

  Dalton continued, committed to getting it all out now.

  "That day—April 6, 2004—I was assigned with a patrol from 1st Marines. They showed us pictures from the bridge... all part of our op prep. A solid week of hot intel told us this local Al Qaeda commander ran the show in the Hai al Askiri District. As a direct report to al-Zarqawi we knew that if we took him out, we'd climb right up their org chart in no time."

  "But that's not how it went doooon, now did it, LT?"

  "No, it wasn't," Zeb admitted. "My job was to get us through the labyrinth of side stre
ets and rooftops, the hidden corridors of the district. I must have reviewed every square inch of the place a thousand times. Satellite and ground imagery. Maps, utilities, schematics. I had it all down cold. When a piece of data: people appearing around a corner, snipers overhead, wind change, anything adjusted, I could tell where it might lead next and then what to alter in our operational approach."

  Zeb broke, his head dropping an inch or so, his voice weakened and hollowing now with every word.

  "It wasn't enough."

  One more, deeper breath.

  "The gates to the courtyard flew open," he whispered. "It was dusty, like every other space in the city. Wind, sand. Another private wasteland with a fence around it. We were on target, on clock. The plan was to be exposed to the roof line for about seven seconds, that was all."

  Another slight pause. Zeb was visibly choked up, so shaken by the haunting, unforgiving images.

  "Couldn't have been more than seven, maybe eight years old...

  ... came out of a dark corner of the house. So fast. Though way too much weapon for his little body, he leveled the AK47 right at my chest. I froze. I had visualized this scenario more than enough times to know what to do. I just couldn't get myself to pull the trigger."

  In great pain, Dalton kept going.

  "... neither could Strickland.

  He stepped in front of me, shoved me through the open window a foot or so to my right. The squad's attention moved for the slightest, briefest second. By the time I'd rolled over twice and come to a stop in the empty room against a rickety chair, it was over. In the instant of my hesitation and the courage of a young marine, the courtyard had become a shooting gallery from above. Everybody. All of them gone. That quick."

  "I waited in the shadows," he heaved, words thick with regret. "Their bodies just lay there, empty of life, absent the spark of their personalities, their stories, their... lives."

  Dalton wiped his eyes as his voiced trembled.

  "Either the enemy didn't know how many we were or they didn't care. Two hours later I had made my way back out, to our outpost, alone."

  "Oh my Lord, Zeb," Sanchez broke in. "I had no idea."

  Beep.

  C:>inserttext>Do You Fear God?

  C:>|......

  The sniper glimpsed this last transmission drawing itself again. Assuming it was only adding to Zeb's upheaval, she tried to prod the near-catatonic, motionless Dalton into action.

  "Zeb. Zeb, what do we do!!?"

  Sensing he was losing control, Loch took one step closer with gun hand shaking slightly, unbound anger overwhelming his usual steadiness.

  "You want to know a secret, Dalton? I was sent along with you for this very moment. Some very important people didn't think you'd do what needed to be done, either. This isn't some kind of child's game we can walk away from because we dooon't like the way it went down. Pretend it never happened? Who are you kidding?! The Chinese took this plot of land because they want more. They want our resources. Our people. They will not back off. They will not give it up."

  Not finished yet, Loch's face flushed a deep red, veins in his neck and forehead throbbing viciously.

  "And do you think the rest of the world will find us to be level-headed, applaud us when we go baaack to our normal, everyday lives? No, this is an invitation for others to attempt more of the same in the future. Our only response, the only one securing peace, is to show strength nooow."

  "So yes," he declared. "We will strike. We will strike first. We will strike haaard... "

  Beep.

  C:>inserttext>Do You Fear God?

  C:>|......

  This time, Dalton barely heard it. Still the recurring, incessant visual and all it represented only ratcheted up his already unmanageable emotions.

  Four words.

  Yet they served as a focal point for a lifetime of pain, disappointment, and disillusion.

  His father. The shame and anguish. His young, tender faith crushed against the hard, jagged rocks of the misdeeds of another, someone so trusted. Everything that mattered, ripped away from him, turning him toward bitterness and detachment from bigger things, critical things. His soul was a caldera, finally spilling over its ridges and violently reshaping everything in its path.

  Dalton couldn't keep it in any longer.

  Beep.

  C:>inserttext>Do You Fear God?

  C:>|......

  Loch pressed in toward him, using the weapon in his hand to emphasize each part of the final, unequivocal directive.

  "... you will complete this mission, soldier. You will finish this job, regardless of the sacrifice."

  Beep.

  C:>inserttext>Do You Fear God?

  C:>|......

  As excruciatingly difficult as it was, and with monumental effort, Zeb moved his fingers.

  "Do you hear me, Dalton?" Loch screamed, no longer trying to maintain any sense of decorum. "Dalton?!!"

  Shots rang out.

  The small, enclosed space became easily overwhelmed by their report off the aging, concrete walls. At first, Zeb struggled to register the sound as real. That is, until his chest warmed and a circular stain grew slowly over his right pectoral muscle group.

  Dull, aching. Fibers and nerve endings frayed. Dense fluid filled his lung; impossible to push through. Respirations slowing, his heart beat unevenly. Dalton's system was off-balance. Too much of the precious deep red liquid was making its way to the outer surface of his skin. Coughing uncontrollably, spraying crimson onto the workstation in front of him, Zeb's field of vision constricted.

  Smaller.

  Smaller still.

  Black.

  EPILOGUE

  Ten Days Later: Critical Care Unit,

  Harborview Medical Center—Seattle, WA.

  "Hey, I hear they keep busted up old signal corpsmen in this place. Is that true?"

  Zeb moved his head ever so slightly, responding to the question floating in from the doorway. Sanchez leaned there against the industrial metal frame, encouraged by the sight of Dalton on the mend. Though he didn't look great at the moment, his present state was certainly an improvement over how she'd seen him last. The heavy, uneven beard growth and tangled mess of hair would do for now. His body was taking care of business. Dalton was weak yet lucid. His voice: quiet and scratchy.

  "I... don't remember. Can't remember what happened, Sanchez."

  Pausing, clearing his vision.

  "Nobody around here will tell me a flippin' thing. Every time I wake up somebody puts more sleepy-juice in my pic line."

  Zeb coughed, his words trailing off raspily as they exited his worn and weary throat. Jessica took two steps into the room, approaching his bedside. Offering him the top end of the plastic straw protruding from his water bottle, Zeb took a sip and then sat back into the bed's elevated position, exhaling heavily for the effort. He tried again through dry, cracked lips.

  "Tell me what happened."

  Turning a folding chair backwards and leaning in beside him, Sanchez recounted the last time they had seen one another. The sniper recon didn't ease into it. Not at all.

  "I killed him, Zeb," she confessed. "I killed Loch."

  "Three shots fired. The first one was mine… and the last. I couldn't let him get the drop, didn't know how much time he would give you. I had to. I tried to wait him out. He gave me no choice."

  Her voiced slowed, quieting as she talked, the regret of taking another soldier's life resonating in her now softening tone.

  "You were bad. Blood everywhere, body slumped over the keyboard. I got you to the floor and did what I could to slow the bleeding."

  She stopped again, the image of Zeb's limp torso and ashen face still etched on her mind.

  "I have no idea how but your pulse—barely there—evened out. Best I could do was dress the wound with some shreds of your shirt. Barely made a difference. Then there was nothing left but the waiting."

  Her pace quickened.

  "And then the good guys showed up. I m
ean, they took two whole days and you stunk pretty bad but they came to get us. Some kid straight out of Ranger school busts down the door and looks so surprised to find us alive."

  Zeb, smiling some now as his partner regained her mojo, attempted a question again.

  "We did it... really?"

  "Yeah, I guess we did, Dalton. Whatever you typed just as you were hit did the trick."

  Sanchez wanted to probe more but wasn't sure the time was right. She took the chance.

  "I gotta ask. What was it you keyed in before you went down?"

  Zeb nodded his head in a "yes" motion, his warm amber eyes communicating so much more to her than the physical gesture or single word ever could. What he didn't try to explain at the moment was the two other quick sets of line commands he had punched in after replying to the odd query on the screen. Although the actual triggers restoring nuclear controls to the U.S. military, they were also a reduced set of directives leaving American forces at a virtual deadlock in warheads to the Chinese.

  Zeb had gambled on a stalemate.

  Sanchez stepped in again.

  "Well, that cued our unknown friend on the other side that we wanted to stand down. And that sent the diplomats into overdrive. Everyone decided they had little stomach for either WWIII or Armageddon. They recognized the opening and took it. The Chinese began their pullout within forty-eight hours. Amazingly, they were gone in another thirty-six."