Apocalypse Burning Read online

  Goose remained silent. He knew other Rangers in the room were listening to the conversation. He didn’t want that fact discussed here because it would drive down morale, but he wouldn’t lie about the eventuality either.

  “I came here this morning because I felt a … need … to speak with you,” Baker said.

  “What do you need?”

  Baker shook his head. “It’s not about what I need or the church needs, First Sergeant. I felt called here to find out what you needed.”

  Goose stared at him.

  “More and more these past days,” Baker said, “I’ve been getting strong feelings about things I’m supposed to do. I’m paying attention to those feelings.”

  “What things?” Goose was thinking maybe he needed to alert Captain Remington that they could have a problem on their hands. So far, none of Baker’s churchgoers had caused any serious problems. Sure, there had been occasional fights between soldiers concerning religious issues, but they fought over meals and postings as well.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me, First Sergeant. Believe me.”

  Goose’s doubts in Baker’s psychological stability cleared up instantly, once he looked in his eyes. He did believe the big corporal, but he couldn’t for the life of him understand why. These were battlefield conditions. Soldiers got stressed and had mental breakdowns. Even when they survived, a lot of them had to work through differing levels of post-traumatic stress syndrome. That fact was part of a professional warrior’s life. But he’d never seen a saner man than Baker was right now.

  “I don’t know what prompted me to come here to see you,” Baker said, shrugging. “Maybe it was the fact that since yesterday I’ve noticed you coming by at least a half-dozen times. At the church and at my postings. It seemed reasonable to think that you wanted to talk to me. However, I was willing to wait. I didn’t think it was my place to seek you out.”

  “But you did.”

  “That changed twenty minutes ago.” Baker smiled. “I could no longer put off speaking with you. The … feeling … got too strong. I didn’t even have a clue what we might talk about. Not until I saw you with that Bible in your hands.”

  “I was just reading, trying to relax.” And that wasn’t an out-andout lie. Goose had been struggling to relax. How could he not, knowing what he did about the involvement of the Rangers and what was truly at risk in the battle for Sanliurfa?

  “The book of Revelation, with all its prophecies of doom, isn’t the most relaxing reading material,” Baker said.

  Goose hesitated. “No, it’s not. But that wasn’t exactly a lie. I wanted to know more about what was coming, what things are going to be like after the Rapture.”

  “Because you think it’s already happened?”

  Think, Goose thought to himself. Not believe. World of difference. He said, “I’ve had to admit to myself that it’s possible.”

  Baker looked Goose in the eye. “I know your son was one of those who disappeared, First Sergeant, and I hate reminding you of the pain I know you must feel, but you need to remember that loss in order to give you a better understanding of what you’re going through.”

  Baker was poking at what it felt like to lose Chris. Anger surged up inside Goose. He barely managed to grab on to it and throttle it back down before it escaped him and he did something he’d regret. Baker was definitely stepping across the line when he brought Chris up.

  “All those people who disappeared,” Baker said, “your son among them, where do you think they went?”

  Goose slowly shook his head. “I don’t know.” Facts, he reminded himself, deal in facts. The fact was that he had hoped Icarus would help him find a way to bring those people—and Chris—back from wherever they had gone. But Icarus had pointed Goose to the Bible, to the book of Revelation, and to what had to be the only answer.

  “That many people,” Baker said, “and all of the children. Those facts alone are staggering. Think what it means.”

  Goose kept his silence.

  “Your friend Bill Townsend was among those who disappeared,” Baker said. “You know what kind of man he was: a believer. I visited with Bill on a number of occasions.”

  Goose didn’t know that.

  “Bill tried to help me get my faith back,” Baker said. “But after my wife and my child were killed in an awful car wreck, I felt bereft of God. I felt certain that He had deserted me and no longer cared about me.” The big man’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “But that day in the river when I was asked to baptize John Taylor, then after him all those men who came forward, when I was able to hold up the RSOV that had fallen from the mountain path, and finally when the earthquake came and washed the Syrian armored units away, I knew God cared.”

  Seated there in the makeshift barracks, Goose heard again the familiar lines of the Twenty-third Psalm.

  “God saved us that day, First Sergeant,” Baker said with childlike intensity.

  One of the nearby Rangers cursed, then said, “Why’d God save us, Baker? So we could end up as targets in a shooting gallery for the Syrian army?”

  Other men joined in, some of them supporting the cutting remark the Ranger had offered, while others argued with them.

  The first speaker pushed himself up from his bed and crossed toward Baker. He was tall and lean and carried his assault rifle over one shoulder. A bloodstained bandage covered his right cheek. Another covered his right eye.

  “In case you ain’t exactly got a clue as to what’s going on,” the soldier said, “we ain’t exactly saved. If I’da asked God to save me, I’da sure asked Him to move me right on outta this place. Or at least to keep the Syrian army from breathing down the back of my shirt.”

  Goose recognized the man with difficulty. Covered in layers of fatigue and dirt, the military men were starting to look alike.

  Vaughn Turner was a redneck from East Texas. He was an aggressive soldier, following in the footsteps of a military father, but he had a problem with being too outspoken.

  “I know what’s going on,” Baker said. “I’ve got a clearer idea of what’s going on than you do.”

  Turner cursed again.

  “Private.” Goose stood up. His voice assumed the tough no-nonsense tone of a trained sergeant. He felt the familiar and painful throb in his knee.

  Conversation in the barracks came to a swift halt.

  Turner realized the change at once. He pulled himself together, coming to attention. “Yes, First Sergeant.”

  “You want to tell me if my eyesight’s failing, Private?” Goose barked. “Because I see one more stripe on that man’s shoulder than I see on yours.”

  “No, First Sergeant.” Turner kept his eyes forward but couldn’t keep all the anger from his tone. “Your eyesight is fine, First Sergeant.”

  “Outstanding,” Goose replied, pulling his arms behind him and stepping up to the private. “I guess I can put off that visit to my optometrist then.”

  “Yes, First Sergeant.”

  “You still owe your unit rack time,” Goose said, sticking his face within inches of Turner’s and watching the younger man pull back. “Your fellow Rangers expect to have a well-rested fighting machine at their side the next time they step into a post with you.”

  “Yes, First Sergeant.”

  “Then I expect you to deliver on that.”

  “Yes, First Sergeant.” Turner whipped a salute up immediately. “Permission to return to my rack, First Sergeant.”

  “Granted, Private.” Goose returned the salute.

  Turner about-faced and flopped back into his bed.

  Glancing back at Baker, Goose said, “This isn’t the place for this conversation.”

  Baker looked at Goose. “Maybe we could finish it somewhere else.”

  More than anything, Goose wanted to tell Baker no, that he was finished with the conversation. He wanted to be finished with all the confusion and the pain. He wanted to put that Bible down and never pick it up again.

  But he couldn’t. Ic
arus’s conversation rolled through his mind like a ship at sea, tossing and turning and twisting at the mercy of an unrelenting storm. Even as he stood there, he thought of another media piece on Romanian President Nicolae Carpathia’s stunning presentation at the United Nations in New York City.

  The Antichrist.

  Icarus’s accusation echoed in his head. The memory of it wouldn’t go away.

  According to the book of Revelation, everything over the next seven years, minus a few days if the Rapture had truly happened, would turn on events controlled by the Antichrist. Using deceit and fear, the Antichrist would pull most of the world into turmoil and away from God, away from the redemption offered by Jesus Christ when He had died for the sins of anyone who would seek His Father through Him.

  “You feel the pull too, don’t you, First Sergeant?” Baker asked in a quiet voice.

  Goose looked at the man. He wanted to deny the words, but he couldn’t. “There are things,” Goose said hesitantly, “that I need to know.”

  Baker smiled gently. “I understand. I see that in you, First Sergeant. Come on. There’s a small shop not far from here. We can get coffee there.”

  Goose picked up his gear, slid his helmet onto his head, and looked at the Bible that Baker held out to him.

  “Take it, First Sergeant,” Baker urged. “You’re going to need His Word. The time we have ahead of us is not going to be easy. You’ll need everything you can get. But mostly you’ll need to know what’s coming.”

  Aware that most of the men in the barracks were watching him, aware too that how he reacted to Baker was going to set the tone for stories that were told among the soldiers throughout the city, Goose hesitated. Then he was immediately ashamed. His father had never been ashamed of his beliefs. His dad had never stopped questioning things that happened that he thought should not have.

  Goose took the Bible and found a place for it in his chest pack as he followed Baker out of the room.

  United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post

  Sanliurfa, Turkey

  Local Time 0617 Hours

  Descending the steep wooden steps into the cellar, Captain Cal Remington ran his flashlight beam around its stone walls. The space beneath the burned-out shell of a family-owned restaurant was larger than he’d expected, but the low ceiling took away some of that sense of space.

  “Captain,” Dean Hardin called out of the darkness. “Over here.”

  An electric torch flared to life and illuminated the dogleg turn to the left. The harsh white light also illuminated Hardin and three other Rangers standing around a man in a nomad’s robes and burnoose seated in a straight-backed wooden chair.

  Hardin and the Rangers wore full combat dress stained by dust and hard use. They all had NVGs—night-vision goggles—as well, so they could see in the dark cellar.

  Remington’s flashlight was probably blinding his men. He flicked it off and opened his eyes wide so they would more quickly adjust to the light.

  The man in the chair looked frightened. Blood flowed from his swollen nose into his mustache and beard. His right eye was closed, and his cheek was discolored and scraped from some kind of abrasive impact. Despite the lines of pain and fear on his face, he was young, maybe in his midtwenties. His swarthy skin and exotic attire made Remington place him as one of the locals.

  The cellar floor was hard-packed earth. The room smelled like an open grave, a scent Remington knew from personal experience, but had trace odors of sprouted potatoes and rancid flour mixed in with the rot. Naked wooden beams shored up the hardwood floor above the cellar. Shelves in various states of disrepair occupied the space in the center of the room.

  Remington figured that the restaurant had fallen on hard times years ago. But it had survived, only to be bombed out by Syrian artillery. Hardin had found the place and used it for his own purposes. Remington had been around the corporal long enough to know not to ask what all of those purposes were. He looked at the man seated in the chair.

  “Please,” the man said fearfully, “I have done nothing. I swear to you. I have done nothing. You must let me go. I will sing your praises to Allah.”

  Even under the circumstances, the man’s English was pretty good.

  “Who is he?” Remington asked.

  “Abu,” Hardin answered. “Got a last name I can’t pronounce.”

  “Alam,” Abu said. “I am Abu Alam. I am nobody. A gnat on a camel’s rump. I assure you, sir, whatever was done was not done by me. I offer you a thousand apologies.”

  “You’re sure this is the guy?” Remington asked. He already knew what Hardin’s answer would be, but sometimes it helped to throw more fear a captive’s way.

  “Yeah.” Hardin spat tobacco juice between his boots, then covered it over with dirt he scraped from the floor. “I’ve been trading with him over the last few days. Almost since we got here. Reason I noticed him, he was selling used American goods and making change with American currency.” He spat again. “You know, Captain, we left a lotta dead men behind us when we retreated from the border.”

  Surprise lit Abu’s face. “Those things! Those things—” He stood up from the chair.

  Moving inhumanly fast, Hardin slapped the man back into the chair. Abu hit with enough force that he would have fallen over backward if Hardin hadn’t put a foot on the chair’s seat between the man’s legs and pushed the chair back down.

  Abu covered his face with his hands and screamed. Unfortunately for him, his shriek wouldn’t penetrate the massive stone-lined walls. Besides being a place that guards wouldn’t go, it was the reason Hardin had selected the place.

  “Abu,” Remington said.

  The man stared at Hardin fearfully.

  Opening the flap on his holster, Remington took out his sidearm and shoved the barrel against Abu’s forehead, resting it between his eyes. Hardin and the other Rangers stepped back. Their hands automatically went to their assault rifles. If Abu tried to reach for the pistol, Remington knew his Rangers would kill the prisoner before he could even close his fingers on the weapon.

  “No,” Remington ordered as Abu’s eyes widened and he started to move.

  Abu froze. He sucked in a rattling breath.

  “Now do I have your attention?” Remington asked. He pushed so hard against the pistol grip that the barrel of the gun was beginning to bruise Abu’s flesh.

  “Yes,” Abu whispered.

  “The minute I lose your attention,” Remington said, “the minute I know you’re lying to me, I’m going to pull this trigger and walk away from here.” He paused, letting his words have their effect. “Do we have an understanding?”

  “Yes.” Tears slid from Abu’s eyes and mixed with the blood on his face.

  “Corporal Hardin,” Remington said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How do you think Abu came by those American supplies and the American money?”

  “Two options, sir,” Hardin responded. “Either he took those things from the American dead we left behind—which makes him a carrion feeder who needs to be eliminated—or he got those goods trading with the Syrians who took them from our dead, which makes him a danger to our men who needs to be eliminated.”

  “Abu?” Remington asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Where did you get the money and the items?”

  Abu swallowed hard. “From trading, Captain.”

  “Trading with who?”

  “Other traders. Men the corporal has traded with besides myself.”

  Remington knew Hardin always connected with the local black market whenever they were in the field. The Ranger captain also suspected Hardin managed illegal enterprises in the United States as well. Until Goose had caught Hardin stealing from a dead marine after the planes and helos had dropped from the sky the day of the disappearances, Hardin had always stayed one step ahead of any legal entanglements. A lot of Hardin’s luck these past few years, though, had been due to Remington interceding on Hardin’s behalf.

&nbs
p; “What about the Syrians?” Remington asked. “Have you been trading with them as well? The Syrian military?”

  Hopelessness filled Abu’s sad eyes. “Yes, Captain. Yes, I have.”

  “Good,” Remington said. “I’m not going to ask if you stripped the corpses of American fighting men to take their goods.”

  Desperately, Abu tried not to show his evident relief.

  Remington filed the information away, though. If Abu had been on hand to steal from the dead military men, he’d been working the trade routes often.

  “I’m not even going to ask if you’ve been giving the Syrian military information about our operations here,” Remington said.

  If he hadn’t been in obvious pain from the beatings he’d gotten, Abu would have looked ecstatic. “Thank you, Captain. You are most gracious and wise.”

  “What I am going to ask you for,” Remington said in a calm, level voice, “is information about the Syrian hard sites.”

  Abu started to speak.

  Remington cut the man off, talking slowly and softly. “One lie, Abu. Just one. And they won’t find enough of your skull to drink out of.”

  “Captain, I have not been everywhere among the Syrians.” Abu swallowed again.

  “But you have been among them?”

  “Yes.”

  Remington reached into the pocket of his BDUs and took out a folded map. “Do you know how to read a map?”

  “Yes. Though I am no scholar.”

  “I don’t need a scholar,” Remington replied. “I just need a guy who can speak and point. You can do that, right?”

  Abu nodded. Nervously, he wiped at the blood streaking his face. He only succeeded in smearing it.

  Remington shook the map open with one hand, using his other hand to keep the M9 in place against Abu’s forehead. “The Syrians have a fuel dump. A place where they’re stockpiling gasoline and diesel to supply the armor they’re pushing north.”

  The existence of the supply line was a no-brainer. The distance between the Syrian-based command post and Sanliurfa necessitated a new staging point, as did the fact that the Americans and Turks and U.N. forces had booby-trapped their own fuel stores in the city. When the order was given to evacuate Sanliurfa, Remington would make sure that no fuel would remain in the city, even if he had to leave the city burning like Nero’s Rome. He didn’t plan to leave any useful equipment behind either. He knew his enemy would be unwilling to place their supply lines in plain sight of a potential fly-by discovery by an American or Turkish pilot. The Syrian command would want their fuel stores hidden.