Whatever Gods May Be Part 18

"Sure." Pinsof took a gulp of coffee. "For instance, I'd ask you why you think the rules of engagement will be changing." Jamie said nothing.

Pinsof twirled his free hand toward her. "And you'd say..."

"Uh, well, I'd say that it seems to me we're heading for either truce or uptick, and I'm betting uptick."

* 150 *

"Why?"

"Counterinsurgency against the PIA has worked so far because people in the north don't like PIA. That's changing as we go farther south. The Chinese Muslim PIA's home is the Muslim barangays south of Narra and Quezon. Plus we're dealing with Chinese regular army more and more now. The Zhong fight much better than the PIA, and they'll want to hold on to the southern part of the island. So as we get closer to Narra, we're approaching stalemate."

"Hmm." Pinsof leaned his chair back. "Tell me why you think the rules of engagement will be affected."

"Because politically, we can't afford a stalemate and neither can the Zhong, but neither side's wasted enough for truce. So it's going to uptick. Way I see it, major uptick would amount to conventional ops-a devastating, indiscriminate air war over the whole island. n.o.body'll win hearts and minds doing that. But the Zhong want a limit to the conflict, and so do we. I think that adds up to more intense attritional engagements. A moderate uptick with changes in who we hit, maybe, or how hard. I want to know what and when and where and how so I can get my people ready."

Pinsof stared at her. f.u.c.king A, is he setting me up? Jamie bent over her home fries and finished eating them before Pinsof spoke again.

The one time she glanced up from her plate, he was still staring at her.

Oh s.h.i.+t, he is, he's setting me up. But then she thought she heard him sigh, so she glanced up again.

"Wish I could tell you," he said, catching her eye. "Wish I knew." He eased his barely disturbed plate of food toward her and gestured that she should take what she wanted.

Now Jamie stared. At Pinsof, at the breakfast he obviously had no interest in eating, at the sudden informality of the moment. She didn't realize she'd picked up a piece of bacon from Pinsof's plate until it was in her mouth. "Christ, isn't anybody talking about this?" she asked.

"Not to me." He shrugged. "Not officially." She leaned forward slightly. "What about unofficially?" Pinsof studied the hands folded in front of him on the table as if they belonged to someone else, then looked up at her. "Tell me your thinking."

Jamie almost balked. But maybe Pinsof didn't have permission to say what he knew. If she could guess, however, he might nod or...

* 151 *

"Well, my thinking starts with China, where lack of water has caused the old coastal alliances to break down. Now, instead of coast versus interior, it's north versus south. Southern China has water, northern China has encroaching desert. But the northerners control the central government, and the central government's after the south's water, and that's making for lots of internal conflict. Raising h.e.l.l on the Spratly Shelf and Palawan distracts the restive ma.s.ses by pus.h.i.+ng patriotism b.u.t.tons with old territorial claims. Helps relieve Muslim discontent in the northwest, too. But you know, ever since Thumb Peak I keep thinking the Zhong are trying to fool us with one whomping diversion."

Pinsof's eyes flared. "Do you? So what do you think they're diverting us from?"

"From their real goal, which is a thin tentacle of territory down to and including the Balabac Strait. High strategic value for a bunch of reasons."

"And those reasons are?"

"Oh." A test, like in school. Jamie sat upright. "Legitimization of claims to the southeast Spratly Shelf and those new fossil fuel discoveries. China would get control of the southern entrance to the Sulu Sea, too. Also gives their central government a great excuse for a defensive naval presence that could be used to blockade key southern ports like Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou-should the north-controlled central government ever perceive the need."

"So why'd you say the Chinese would want to keep southern Palawan for 'a while yet'? What do you mean?"

"Well, sir, since the Zhong already have Balabac and the airstrip on Bugsuk, I figure they're making those islands into a garrison. For ten years they've resettled bunches of Chinese Muslims to Balabac and southern Palawan, right?"

"Yep. Taking over fis.h.i.+ng, agriculture, businesses, just about everything."

"And now the Zhong say they're protecting threatened ethnic Chinese interests. That's their excuse for backing the PIA, for a military presence on Palawan as well as Balabac and Bugsuk, and for attacking Philippine oil platforms on the Spratly Shelf. But I think they're planning very long-term and antic.i.p.ating reversals."

* 152 *

"Two steps forward, one step back," said Pinsof. "Overall gain of one step."

"Yeah, exactly." Jamie picked up another piece of Pinsof's bacon. "Taking the Spratly platforms as well as Palawan, Balabac, and Bugsuk-that's two steps forward. Relinquis.h.i.+ng most of the platforms and retreating from Palawan is one step back. A very slow step, so we won't realize that they expect to give up Palawan and will sacrifice their Muslim emigrants. All so they end with a couple of important Spratly sites and Balabac and Bugsuk. A territorial claim to Balabac that's widely regarded as legitimate will change the whole balance of power in the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands and the Sunda Shelf all the way to the Java Sea."

"So as we move farther south, the Chinese will send more troops, and those troops will get more aggressive. For a while." Pinsof smiled.

"And during that while, you think the rules of engagement will go all to h.e.l.l."

"Yeah, I do." A tightness around Jamie's head let go at last with the relief of being able to like Pinsof. "And if that's happening, then by now the PIA and the Zhong're making life a b.i.t.c.h for the indigenous populations down there. Which would mean refugees. Probably more than we've seen so far."

Slowly, Pinsof's head moved down, then up. "Last week, a boat with a couple dozen animists fleeing from Balabac made it to Puerto Princesa. Two more showed up there yesterday." Jamie nodded while her stomach corkscrewed and the familiar chill p.r.i.c.kled up her spine. "Kind of like circ.u.mstantial evidence, huh?"

"So, Gwynmorgan, where did your intel for all this ruminating come from?"

"Everywhere. Pieces here, bits there-like a KIMS game-from watching how the Zhong fight, from thinking about their next moves, from reading about them to suss out what the f.u.c.k they want and why the f.u.c.k they want it. From worrying. Lots of worrying."

"Well." Pinsof flashed his gallows grin again. "You ought to know that the stuff you brought up pretty much mirrors the major conclusions of a Pentagon report-cla.s.sified, by the way-that I got about twenty-four hours ago."

"No s.h.i.+t, sir?"

* 153 *

"No s.h.i.+t, Lieutenant." Pinsof winked. "No s.h.i.+t. For a minute there, I wondered if you hacked into my comlink."

"Sorry. All I can hack are mechanical locks." Jamie straightened her back against the a.s.sault of a new chill. "Captain, does that report say anything about Borneo?"

Pinsof squinted at her. "What do you think about Borneo, Gwynmorgan?"

"That maybe the Chinese would like to control both sides of the Balabac Strait, and to do it they might exploit their close ties to Malaysia and move military units into Malaysian Borneo."

"No." Frowning, Pinsof shook his head and stood. "That's not in any report I've seen."

"Well, it's just my ill-considered opinion." Jamie stood too and stretched her taut hands. She had so hoped Pinsof would show her how screwed up she'd been about all of it-the uptick, Balabac, all of it. Now, doomed to the wrong side of the Rubicon, all she wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep. "Thank you for breakfast, sir, and for handing over your bacon."

"You got my bacon because I like the way you think, Lieutenant."

"Out of the mouths of coyotes, sir."

Jamie left the officers' mess with a couple of bottles of lemonade, an appointed time to meet again with Pinsof, and a malicious headache.

* 154 *

Chapter sixteen.

MerCy Jeezus, not again!" Rhys's voice crackled through Jamie's comlink. "Elliott, snipers up on the double!" And then Rhys ticked off the coordinates and directions that two teams from third squad would need to create crossfire.

Jamie checked her shadowscreen grid. Yeah, Marty, just right.

Thank G.o.d you're so wicked good.

EBC148 and marines were moving through an especially viscous August heat toward Narra on Palawan's southeast coast some sixty-five kilometers below Puerto Princesa. They'd have to fight for every building, every street. Ahead of the Three-Eight's infantry companies, its snipe platoon crept into the town to scout and report.

Almost immediately, Gwynmorgan's ghosts, as everyone called them now, discovered that the PIA had pretty much disappeared; mostly Narra was occupied by Chinese Army soldiers. And the town was full of way too many civilians. Why hadn't they evacuated, the surprised officers in the Brigade FOBCOC asked. The snipes quickly discovered the answer: Chinese Army units were corralling groups of civilians and executing them. Rhys had just come upon another roundup.

As third squad's drama played out, Jamie had to relegate it to a corner of her shadowscreen and focus instead on traversing several rooftops with first squad. By the time she hunkered next to Ramirez and again centered her shadowscreen on Rhys and third squad, it was over. The Zhong execution squad commander and two of his soldiers had been shot dead; civilians unharmed. Rhys reported the encounter, finis.h.i.+ng with the words Jamie always wanted to hear: "Zero-zero." n.o.body in the platoon wounded, n.o.body killed.

* 155 *

On several rooftops to Jamie's left, first squad fanned out. She cringed as she watched them. They were getting sloppy. She wagged a finger at Ramirez and clicked up the platoon's NCO frequency. "Gotta keep your people frosty," she barked to her sergeants and fire team leaders. "And hydrated. We're not done yet." They'd been at it for nearly eighteen intense hours, approaching from the northeast through Aborlan. Now, as they slipped deeper into Narra itself, they were dog-tired. But they had hours to go; sloppy wasn't an option. Sloppy caused real numbers to replace the hallowed zero-zero.

Jamie took a moment to upsize the Narra grid on her shadowscreen so she could study the distribution of forty-two bright green dots, one for each member of the platoon, including her. Second and third squads were moving precisely where she thought they should. Soon first squad would be, too.

"Whaddaya say, Ram?" she asked.

Ramirez pointed to a low concrete block structure about three hundred meters in front of them-a school, according to their shadowscreen overlays.

When Jamie gave him a thumbs-up, he comlinked instructions to his squaddies. Two four-person teams would approach the school on the ground. The third team would split into two two-person units and, along with Jamie and Ramirez, provide overwatch from the nearby rooftops.

A hundred meters later, Jamie saw it-the sixth one of the day, but the first time it was happening right in front of her: Some fifteen civilians, adults and children, huddled against a playground wall while four Chinese soldiers belligerently pointed a.s.sault weapons at them. Two already bloodied bodies lay between the civilians and the soldiers.

By rights, somebody else should've taken the shot. But the civilians had little time left, and only Jamie had an unequivocally clear line of sight. It wasn't a challenging shot-no more than a hundred meters. She lifted her E112 to aim at the Zhong leader just as his mouth opened to order the civilians executed .

Worried he'd utter the fatal command, Jamie squeezed off a round even though she knew she'd be firing low, at the target's gut rather than his head. At the very same instant, the man swung left out of her * 156 *

smartscope's field of view. And suddenly the scope filled with a red spray. She thought she glimpsed a child's profile.

"Oh dear G.o.d."

Ramirez, who'd arrived just in time to see the whole thing, also reacted. "s.h.i.+t!"

The high-pitched horror in his voice told her: She'd glimpsed right. Jamie didn't need to scope in to know the kid was dead.

"Oh dear G.o.d," she whispered again. Her head had become too heavy to hold up; her forehead met her rifle b.u.t.t as a wave of nausea watered her mouth and made her sweat.

"Enemy's dispersed," Ramirez said shakily. "All taking off like scared rabbits. Haven't fired another shot." Jamie couldn't move. She squinched her eyes shut against the red spray, but it stayed there, staining the inside of her eyelids, forcing her to breathe in desperate, huffing lunges-in, out, in, out...

"Gwynnie?" Ramirez asked from the other end of a very long tunnel.

She had no hope of being able to answer him.

"Gwynnie," he said more urgently this time, "It wasn't your fault.

If you hadn't squeezed it off when you did, they'd all be toast now." She wanted to agree with him. She tried to speak. But the sound she heard from herself was a strange, garbled "Unnhh." In slow motion, she managed to open her eyes, lift her head, but her eyes wouldn't focus. She couldn't swallow.

"Sometimes s.h.i.+t happens."

Coughing out a breathy "Yeah," Jamie stared at her rifle, at her hands, but kept her gaze from the scene a hundred meters in front of her. "Call it in, okay, Ram?" she rasped. "No editing."

"Sure, Gwynnie."

She listened to Ramirez tell the ops center that she'd just killed a little kid. He finished with her favorite words-"Zero-zero"-but they just didn't sound the same this time.

Still looking at her hands, Jamie asked, "One of your teams there yet?"

"Yeah, moving in right now."

"Ask them to find out who the kid is. Was." v * 157 *

Just don't think about it, okay? Just close your eyes and don't think about it.

But her eyes didn't close. Dim light ruffled at the top of her hooch, quickly pursued by a new burst of cheerful commotion. The bonfire next to the FOB's recycling unit had been lit. In her hammock in the dark, Jamie waited for the metallic clangs and bangs, the heavy thumps and guttural whoops of her snipes' celebration.

Ever since that first time at the Puerto Princesa airport-which Jamie still occasionally blamed for turning her into Embry's b.a.s.t.a.r.d Child-her snipes had made a ritual of beating up on junk metal and burning up junk wood once everyone convened at the Three-Eight's FOB after a major, all-platoon mission. Somehow, Jamie couldn't remember how, leading the celebration had become the platoon NCO's job. Rhys's job now, and this time at the new FOB site in Narra, Rhys had inverted the order of events. This time the bonfire started things- Rhys used it like a call to prayer-and the madcap drumming and dancing would follow.

For the first time, Jamie wondered if any of them comprehended what they were really celebrating: The second zero. No KIAs. For 202 days, Gwynmorgan's ghosts had suffered no KIAs, but on this night, Jamie would not join them. Nor would she click up her comlink to do admin ch.o.r.es or attempt another Mandarin language lesson or pick a video or a flashgame or a book or some music to relax with-that would require an energy, a strength, that had bled out of her with the last shot she fired.

If the night sky had been filled with stars, Jamie might have left her hooch and found an isolated place to sit and just look at them, like she used to when she was a kid. She needed the refuge of stars. Especially tonight. But, confined yet again beneath the Palawan's glutinous cloud cover, she had only the idea of stars, the idea of a tiny point of light where she stashed the good stuff-memories of who Alby might have been, dreams of a life with Marty, the hopes she dared to harbor for herself. On a starry night, she'd pick out one tiny point of light and be able to believe in the good stuff.

When did the light go out? Jamie couldn't remember. It was still there after Culion-wasn't it?-when the nightmares would chase her awake and Marty would be next to her in their hooch and for just a moment she'd gaze at Marty still asleep and feel almost safe.

* 158 *

EBC153 and the clouded Palawan night tolerated no stars and, still, no sleep. Jamie blinked at the obliterating blackness that engulfed her now. It had materiality. It had intent. It had been waiting to separate her from the flickers of the bonfire, from the sounds of raucous snipes, from all the world. Maybe if they'd have just let me be Corporal Gwynmorgan like I'm supposed to, I'd have been with second squad and that kid would be alive and I'd be out there drumming and dancing with Marty, with all the guys, and that kid would be home in bed. Sleeping.

The blackness pressed against her chest as she lay in her hammock.

It stole her breath, wrenched her already aching belly, choked the hope out of her. Hope that maybe someday she and Marty might touch each other again. That maybe the Corps would send her to school and she'd find a nice little place to come home to and-and...

At least everyone in the platoon's alive.

This was the only thing she'd ever done right. But it had been trumped. Killing a little kid trumped everything.

What'd I expect, anyway? If I was good for something, Alby wouldn't have needed the pharma, wouldn't have been driving to Provincetown that day. And Alby'd be alive, too, and I'd have a decent life where I don't have to kill people.

She closed her eyes. As if on cue, a huge metallic jangle sounded- the snipes had begun their drumming-and behind Jamie's eyelids crimson spurted ferociously at her out of the blackness. She flinched, expecting to feel body-heated blood slap her face, but it didn't.

Jamie ripped her eyes open. She would try to keep her eyes open forever.

v "I want you to come with me." Jamie knew better than to make it an outright command.