The Crisis (48 page)

“What did you say?” he mumbles.

The Arab speaks, looking away from the sobbing woman. “Nothing, my brother. You have done justice here, nothing more. Behold how the Pruner deals with those who aid the Crusaders, even those of his very flesh. God is great indeed!” He turns, lifting up his hands, and a chorus echoes him, but not as loud as the gusting, whirling wind.

“Now, as God is the guarantor of every good thing, let us discuss among ourselves how we will achieve the victory of Islam.”

 

 

W
ATCH your step,” her aide said. “I told you not to wear heels.”

The heat and the dust made her throat close and her eyes water. She'd been to the Mideast many times. But as Blair Titus came down the C-9's ramp it all began to swim. Too little sleep, too much travel. She reached for what she thought was a railing. Too late, she realized it was only a flimsy stand holding up a plastic dust barrier. It toppled, and down she went.

When they lifted her from the concrete, Margaret on one arm and a trooper from the back of the plane on the other, blood trickled down her shin. “I'm all right, let go,” she said, shaking them off, furious. What if this
had been some foreign capital instead of a military base? Maybe her aide, annoying as she was, was right. Heels weren't worth the trouble.

On the other hand, heels and a slit skirt, a button unbuttoned on a blouse, had paid off before.

When she tried her footing her knee held and she hadn't broken a heel. The sky was so bright she couldn't meet its gaze. The wind chapped her lips and dried her tongue. Margaret picked up Blair's briefcase and carried it along with her own. Twenty yards away a general and a colonel held a salute. She limped to them and made her handshake double firm.

“Ms. Titus? Cornelius Ahearn.”

“Of course, General. Good to see you again.” The colonel's name was Pride, apparently an eyeman for General Leache. She shook his hand too, introduced Colonel Margaret Shingler, USMC. Then looked around. “Did my husband make it?”

“Commander Lenson's out of cell range, but we got word to him and he'll be here in a couple hours.” Ahearn bent to examine her knee. “I'm eager to get you briefed in. But let's see to this first.”

They steered her into a noisy terminal, through plastic sheeting and steel construction scaffolding into an infirmary. A corpsman cleaned her knee, stanched the bleeding, taped on a dressing. “A bad scrape, but you don't need stitches,” he said, handing her a tube of antibiotic and an extra dressing. Limping slightly, she followed the general into the JOC.

“I understand you're to be congratulated.”

“It's not official. But thanks.” She'd thought Force Management would step into the slot. And you could never count Policy out. There were the armed services secretaries and the CEOs of major defense corporations too. She actually wasn't sure how the secretary had decided the job was hers. It would be a challenge. Weatherfield was known for burning out subordinates, because he himself did so little actual work. Then he'd turn on them when they did something he didn't like. It might be a no-win situation, but not one you walked away from. For one thing, she'd be the first woman in the slot.

“We had a tour planned,” Ahearn said with that courtly smile. “But if your injury precludes—”

“It's not an injury. Just a scrape. I'll change shoes, though—I can see Jimmy Choos aren't the best thing for a combat zone.”

His smile froze. Too late she remembered this wasn't yet an actual combat zone. Or, at any rate, hovered between a permissive environment and one that might become dangerous very swiftly. She muttered an aside to Shingler, who winked, squeezed her arm, and disappeared. “What I meant is—the tour, yes, most definitely. I'm interested in transport, and of
course, your relationship with the provisional government. Will we be able to meet with Dr. Dobleh?”

“All set up, later today, in town. But first let's show you our little operation here.”

 

HE took her through the JTF complex and mess hall, waved at prefab billeting and contractor-furnished cubic behind the terminal. She asked about power and water and the runway extension, about base security and what percentage of his construction went to Ashaaran contractors. He offered a drive along the perimeter but she said she'd rather see how things were going in the field. Soon they were climbing into an SH-60 and having earphones and a throat mike fitted. Then the escort ships lifted off and their own turbines chorused in heavensong and she was accelerating toward the angels.

Despite the glare through the Perspex the abrupt cold was a relief. So was Margaret's absence. She had to decide whether to keep her or return her to the Corps. She had nothing against her aide's sexual preference, but it would've been simpler without the woman having fallen for her.

Oh well. From two thousand feet she admired the city sprawled in a checkerboard of dun-colored fields. Coastal plain, but drier and more blasted-looking than any she'd ever seen. Ahearn pointed out the waterless writhe of the Durmani River, and beyond it, the blue marble of the Red Sea. Lateen sails, and a gray hull that must be one of Dan's PCs. He hadn't been on hand to meet her. But she hadn't given him or Ahearn much warning.

Weatherfield had asked her to look into Ashaara. “Can we do any good there?” had been the way he'd put it. “That's always bad, the first dead GIs. Those who don't say Vietnam say Somalia.”

And she'd said, “The president wanted to make a difference in East Africa. He's got to support us when the tab comes due.”

Weatherfield had looked incensed, as if she'd reminded him of something he was supposed to do and hadn't. As the first African-American secretary of defense, maybe it had to do with Africa. Or maybe not. But all he'd said was, “Find out if they can get the job done with what they've got. It's either that or pull out. And let me know before you talk to anyone else about it.”

“That's the port, below,” Ahearn's disembodied voice in her earphones. The pilot banked, aiming her gaze straight down on a teacup of muddy brown sea tucked under the battlements of an ancient-looking citadel. Cranes reached toward her. A black-hulled ship lay alongside, pallets rising from cavernous holds.

The general was reeling off statistics: offload rates, tonnage deliveries, the bottlenecks they'd reamed out one by one. “The shipping channel, off to our right. Your husband buoyed the shoals for us. He's been a big help.” As she murmured a response the horizon scrolled up and precessed clockwise. Please God, not to hurl. “At your three o'clock, the road to Nakar. That dust cloud's the Thunder Run going out. I've had to cut the number since the ambush at the roundabout, and added light armor escort and air cover. That decreased wastage from bandit attacks, but hurt daily tonnage. Net's about the same, but the bad news is, we still have refugees streaming in.”

She noted a Cobra, a speck hurtling in a weaving dance. The tubby hull of a light armored vehicle shook out a curtain of concrete-colored dust. “Meaning?”

“Meaning we have to cut the individual ration on folks who are already borderline. A hundred calories less a day, we'll see malnutrition diseases again.”

The turn steadied and the nose pitched down. The pilot never kept the same course for more than five seconds. The intel on the Maahdist insurgents hadn't mentioned shoulder-fired missiles, but she and Ahearn would be high-value targets. Far ahead, miles away across terrain seamed with what looked like lava flows, rose mountains. She looked at her watch, wondering where Dan was and if there'd be time before the Dobleh meeting to spend with him. She did want to see the next item on her agenda, though.

“The Darew camp,” Ahearn said. “We can skip this if you want—”

“I don't want to spend more than twenty minutes on the ground, but I definitely want to see a camp. That's why we're here, isn't it?”

“Absolutely right,” the general said. But was there doubt in his tone? “That's why we're here.”

 

SHE'D felt skittish, but how could she with four armed marines between her and people who gazed as inexpressively as if she were walking past in another dimension. She'd visited camps in Bosnia, but those had been vacation resorts compared to this sapping heat, this stink of dung, this smoky, eye-stinging, all-pervading grit. She watched listless children being treated for skin diseases. Old women squatting in the dust, shrouded in faded black, didn't look up as she passed. One of the feeding staff held out a bowl of corn mush. She had to gulp for all she was worth to get one spoonful down, but the moment she set it aside a bony hand flickered and it was gone.

She asked the Italian staff about disease. They said their main concern
at the moment was TB. They had antibiotics, but were seeing more and more drug-resistant cases. Diarrheal diseases were already epidemic, and pneumonia, meningitis, and urinary tract infections—a minor annoyance in the West, but a major cause of death in Ashaaran women, with their butchered genitalia—were barely contained. Isolation was impossible. At any time there could be a disastrous outbreak of typhoid or cholera, and barbed wire wouldn't keep it in.

After half an hour they trudged toward the aircraft, the marines walking backward with them. She caught other sentries on a hill, scanning with binoculars while holding scoped rifles.

“No question, they need help,” Ahearn said, looking at her.

She nodded. No, there was no question of that.

The question—as always—was, how badly did the United States want to give it?

 

BACK at Rowley, she and the JTF commander conferred in his tent. The flap was closed and the fan was loud enough for privacy. She passed on Weatherfield's doubts. “That's what worries him, and the president just now,” she told him. “Iraq has us tied down. If that develops badly, it'll suck in all our forces. Iran can make real trouble. And our reading is, they want very much to. Syria, Lebanon, Yemen—we have challenges all along the arc of crisis.”

The general played with his glasses, flipping them as if the missing fingers weren't missing. With those moves, he could have earned a living as a card sharp. She waited for him to say something about Dan. About the submarine he'd hijacked from Iran the year before, ratcheting tension close to war. But he just sighed. “What I'm hearing, between the lines, is a pullout.”

“We're not there yet. A little personal input, Corny. I came to DoD from the Hill, and maintained my contacts. Bankey and Telfair are responsive to our concerns about Ashaara. There's been a lot of coverage of the famine. We've been approached about having Angelina out here—”

Ahearn grimaced. “I can't act as a tour guide for superstars—”

“I'm not asking you to do a thing anent her, General. What I'm saying is, both Hill and West Wing interest follows media coverage. We can deplore it, but that's how democracy works. Can you give us a peaceful transition to Dobleh with the forces you have? In the face of this Assad, and now this so-called Maahdi—”

“Calls himself Al-Khasmi—”

“—What
ever
. Look, I can sit out there in your JOC and have your staff brief me up the wazoo on metrics and prognostics, and I won't come out
any the wiser except that we need to rebuild the Ashaaran army. State will tell me Ashaara needs more development aid. Ag will say we have to revive the agricultural sector. But it all costs money. I've got to tell Dobleh tonight to what extent we'll support his government after the elections—”

“Do you mean his elections? Or ours?”

“General, if we lose this November, the opposition'll write off East Africa so fast your boots'll be here while your ass is on a C-5.” She bent to check the dressing. The scrape had stopped bleeding, so she pulled the old bandage off, taped on a new one. She caught him eyeing her thighs. Even him . . . “Can I level with Dobleh? That our commitment's paper-thin? Can he handle that?”

“He might. I wouldn't say it in front of anyone else, though.”

“I'm not stupid, General. If you can't hold the lid on, we're going to have to leave Dobleh, Assad, and this al-Maahdi to duke it out. The UN and European Union can pay the warlords to protect whatever NGOs have the balls to stay, but we'll have to live with another failed state, and maybe, another haven for terrorists. Well? Can you?”

Ahearn took a deep breath. He flexed his remaining fingers. And for a long time, did not reply.

 

WHEN the van braked Dan jerked awake, groping for his sidearm. The bulky vest made it hard to reach. Then he relaxed. They were back inside what the troops were calling the Blue Zone, the airfield and the administrative center of the city down to the terminal. In front of the Cosmopolite Hotel, and safe.

She was here. He couldn't help the excitement, as if someone had tromped the pedal on his heart. He cased the street, traded gazes with the GrayWolfer at the lobby entrance, and rolled out.

The Cosmopolite was a dump compared to the Burj al Arab, but it was the city's sole halfway-modern hotel. Five stories of reinforced concrete and bronze-tinted glass, most of it still intact. Twenty yards of fearsome heat, brick, and concrete radiating up even fiercer than the sun beating down, then the doors hissed shut. Overhead fans were turning, music was playing, lights glowed in the bar. After an expensive effort by a German engineering firm, power had come back on two days ago. From noon until midnight, life could be almost normal.

“Blair Titus's room?”

The desk clerk shrugged. “Don't know,
signore
.”

A ten-dollar bill changed his attitude. “I'm her husband. There should be a key for me.”

Instead there was a note:
C'mon up, sailor
. He was crossing the lobby to the stairway when he noticed the hum of elevator motors. Tempting, but one trusted the Ashaaran power-distribution system only so far. He ran up all five flights.