Terror At Dawn

TWENTY-THREE

Hamish pulled the thin T-shirt away from his body, stretching it and then letting it snap back. The movement of the air over his skin at least gave the illusion of a cooling breeze, though nothing could be further from the truth. With the humidity hovering around ninety percent and the temperature still higher than ninety degrees, there was no way the sweat on his body was going to dry.

Given a choice, Hamish preferred the dry baking heat of the interior where he’d grown up. Although temperatures could soar dangerously high before you realized it, the fact that you were sweating reminded you to stay hydrated. Here, the climate defeated the body’s natural cooling mechanism.

But it wasn’t like he had a choice, was it? The orders from the mullah had been clear — every man over the age of fourteen was to report to the nearest military commander for mobilization. The very young and the very old were left behind to watch over the women. Hamish felt a pang of envy that he tried to shut away. Even the youngest male child had authority over any woman he might see. With the older men gone, he would have been a veritable god in his house, his every whim obeyed. His mother would not have dared to give him those long, deep stares that she sometimes gave him when he tried to exercise his God-given authority over her. She would not move so slowly, but quickly, like she did for his father. And his sisters — well, without being more specific, it would be a long time before either one of them saw the outside of the house.

And for more reasons than just petty vengeance, he assured himself. It was not right that they should be out in public, even clad in their heavy veils and burquas. There were too many bad influences about, foreigners who roamed the streets as though they had a right to be there, imported from other countries to do the hard labor and distasteful tasks. Not so many now as there had been before, before the days of war with America. But still, sufficient.

Sufficient to ruin lives.

His oldest sister’s face flashed into his mind, the way he remembered it when he was young. Dark hair, darker eyes, skin so translucent that it seemed impossible it could contain a body like his. Indeed, he was convinced that her body was nothing like his, not with the dirt and grime and sweat that clung to him and the other men every day. She was faintly scented, always cool and gentle. When his mother was not available, it was from her that he sought comfort. Nothing had been the same since she had left.

Since she had died.

She had been outside the house, coming home from the market, with his two other sisters. Their mother had not gone that day, and he blamed the old woman for what had followed. The evil crone would have known to stick to the busy streets, to have been home before evening started. As it was, as the sky grew dark, the family had started to worry.

Finally, just before full darkness set in, his two younger sisters stumbled into the door. Their burquas were torn and a shocking expanse of skin showed. They had lost their veils, and pale white ovals of faces stared out at him from the black robes. His youngest sister had a bruise showing on one cheek, and the other had a split lip, a few drops of dried blood still on her neck and hand.

The two girls were rightly terrified of being punished, and it took a while to get the story out. Finally, when his father had forced the details from them, he picked up his gun and left, taking Hamish’s two older brothers with him.

They had left him in charge, but there seemed to be precious little he could do to maintain control. He was outnumbered now with the older men gone, and the appearance of the servants on the scene served only to add to the cacophony. He tried to shout, to be heard above the screaming, but his mother had rounded on him, stared at him for a moment, then, without speaking, slapped him smartly across the face.

He had never seen a woman strike a man, nor even heard a woman raise her voice to one. The shock stopped him where he stood, and he could do nothing except stare in disbelief as his mother gathered up his sisters and the female servants and retreated to the women’s quarters. The door shut firmly behind them.

For a few moments, he felt like crying. His sisters — one missing, two clearly hurt, all the men gone — and now, to be barred from whatever else was going on. It was almost too much for a nine-year-old boy to take. His eyes filled with tears and he felt the beginnings of a sob shake his body.

But what if his father came home and saw him like that? The humiliation and pain he suffered at his mother’s hands would be nothing compared to what would happen then. So, he regained control of himself, forcing his features into the stern, angry mask he’d seen so often on his father’s face, and settled down to wait. The more he thought of it, the more he convinced himself that he had sent the women to their own quarters to deal with things. Yes, that’s what his father would have done. The memory of the stinging slap across his face retreated.

Two hours later, his father and his brothers returned. They brought with them the lifeless body of his older sister. He almost started to cry again when he saw her hanging limp and lifeless over his older brother’s shoulder, a rag doll who apparently weighed no more than a sack of grain. His brother pushed open the door to the women’s quarters and tossed his sister’s body inside. Then he shut the door behind him and returned to stand by his father.

“What happened?” Hamish managed, his voice coming out far higher than he would have liked. Under the stern cold gazes from his brothers and his father, he made an effort to lower his voice. “Is she really dead?”

There was no need to answer that question. He’d seen dead bodies often enough.

All three fixed him with that stern stare. No one spoke. Finally, his father said, “Her name will never be mentioned again.” With that, he walked to the women’s quarters, pounded on the door, and told his mother and the cook to get his dinner. All voices behind the heavy door ceased. The two women came out, moving slowly, their faces averted from men. They slipped quietly into the back, ghosts — the way they should be.

Later that night, Hamish got part of the story from his other brother, who was only three years older. The twelve-year-old was clearly shaken by what he’d seen.

They had gone to the marketplace, to the alley where the younger sisters had last been. His sisters had been walking down the way when a group of soldiers had suddenly come upon them. They’d tried to get past, but had been grabbed, touched, their veils stripped away from their faces. The strangers, pale men with loud voices talking in an unknown language, ran their hands over the sisters, laughing and snarling at one another. The girls instantly froze.

Mistaking lack of resistance for some sort of acquiescence, the soldiers had dragged them up a flight of stairs and into a dirty room with a few blankets strewn across the floor. There, the girls had finally started to fight back, screaming in protest. The bruise and the split lip were the results.

His older sister fought the hardest, and it had taken two men to hold her while a third ripped off her clothes. Grabbing the opportunity, his younger sisters had fled. The men, occupied with his oldest sister, had not followed. The younger sisters had made their way home, shamed for all the neighbors to see by their condition, running as fast as they could to get off the dark streets. It was a miracle they had not been picked up by a patrol.

“My sister — why did they kill her?” Hamish asked, his voice agonized. At nine, he was just barely beginning to glimpse the possibilities inherent in the difference in the sexes.

His brother turned away, his face an immature imitation of his father’s. Hamish felt tears well up again and panicked. It would not do to let them see that, no. Never.

He concentrated on his father’s face, letting it replace his sister’s in his memory. The high, hard cheekbones, the strong nose and full beard. He felt comforted by the strength he saw there, by the absolute surety. Around his father, there could be no weakness. No doubts. And especially, no crying. That was one reason the women had their separate quarters, wasn’t it? Because they were given to those displays of emotion that distracted men from the important things in life.

With his brother, he returned to the main area of the house where his father and brother were. Hammish approached, cleared his throat, and said, “I sent the women to their quarters,” his voice more unsteady than he would have liked initially, but firming it as he spoke. “They were too loud.”

A faint trace of amusement flashed across his father’s face, followed by an approving nod. “You did well.” He turned to his brothers, and said, “Wash. We will pray.”

So whatever those men had done to his sisters was too despicable to be discussed. Hamish decided that was it, and turned to follow his brothers to wash.

Three years later, he realized how wrong he had been. Their neighbor had come running over, asking for help. He had no sons of his own, only three daughters. The oldest one was gone, last seen in the company of a foreigner. He thought he knew where they were.

Without discussion, his father had summoned Hamish and his two brothers to join him. They proceeded to a poor outlying neighborhood, one where the houses were crowded close together, the rooms often rented to strangers. The smells were unfamiliar, the looks of the women far too bold. Hamish felt himself growing angry as they stared at him.

Without knocking, the men opened the door to a house and proceeded upstairs. Hamish brought up the rear. As the rear guard, Hamish was unable to see what initially happened. All he heard was a high, thin scream, followed by his neighbor’s voice shouting. His brothers crowded into the room, his father lingering in the doorway to watch for anyone who followed. He summoned Hamish to him with a slight flick of his finger, then shoved him into the room.

His older brother had already grabbed the foreigner and jerked his head back, but the stranger was muscular and was fighting. His younger brother clung to one arm, trying to pull it back, and Hamish grabbed the other one. His neighbor crowded in, then suddenly drew his knife and slashed the foreign man’s throat. Then he plunged the dagger into the man’s heart. His brothers let the body drop to the floor.

Hamish stared, dumbstruck. Blood, so much blood. The body on the floor twitched, and air bubbled out of the ruined throat, forming a froth. There was a sudden stench, as the man’s bladder and bowels let go. There was one final convulsion, and then all the joints relaxed into unnatural angles.

Then his brothers and his neighbor turned to the daughter. She was much easier to hold than the man had been, although fear and certain knowledge gave her strength and she fought them. Years of tradition fell away in the face of imminent death, and she screamed, kicked, and fought back, scratching at their eyes with her fingers.

Her struggles seemed to merely give the men strength, exciting them in some way that Hamish only felt an echo of. His father shouted encouragement from the doorway.

After a brief struggle, they held her spread-eagled on the bed. The father withdrew the bloody knife from the man’s heart and advanced on her, rage consuming his face. He touched the knife to her throat, holding it there. She froze, a small animal caught in headlights. He spoke quietly, his voice dripping venom. The words were seared into Hamish’s memory.

“You are dishonored. You are no longer of my house. You are no longer of my blood. By your actions, you are consigned to burn in everlasting hell. Let your fate serve as an example to others.” With that, the father pressed the blade home slowly, puncturing skin. Blood welled, cascading down her throat and to the bed as he bore down. She jerked, trying to escape the sharp metal blade separating her flesh, but it was no use. All she did was twist the knife, making the cut wider.

Her father stared into her eyes, vengeance in his face as he watched her panic. An ugly smile curved his lips. She groaned, air rushing out of the ruined throat, trying to speak or scream or pray — Hamish would never know.

With one final movement, the man pressed the dagger up. It rammed through her throat and under her chin, reaching up higher behind her face to the brain. He saw her open her mouth to scream, and caught a flash of the blade deep in her throat. Her father gave the knife one final twist, then jerked it out of her throat.

Her body spasmed, the death throes giving her strength to toss his brothers away. She convulsed again, then rolled over on her side, her fingers slightly curled in protectively toward her palms. Her nails were red where she’d made contact with his brothers’ faces, and one brother sported long, bloody welts.

Hamish’s father picked up the stranger, staggering under the burden. Hamish’s older brother took the girl, slinging her over his shoulder as he had their sister. The lines of her body against his and the unnatural way her arms tangled, her head lolled, it all brought it back to Hamish. Once again he was seeing his brother carrying his sister across the room and tossing her dead body into the women’s quarters. And in that moment, Hamish knew.

It had not been strangers who had killed his sister. It had been his father.

Later, after they returned home, with the keening echo of what he remembered from his own house in his mind, Hamish tried to pray. The horror was so fresh, but he mustn’t think of that. It was the right thing, the only thing — his father would not be mistaken about something like that, would he? No, it was not possible. Therefore, it was Hamish who was the weak one, the unworthy one.

Back at their own house, as though sensing his thoughts, his father turned to him. “It is our law,” he said, answering the unspoken question. “Women are weak, foolish things. This is an example to them all of what will happen when they violate Allah’s natural order. It is the only thing that will stop them.”

Hamish clung to the explanation, forcing it to make sense. There had to be some meaning behind what his father was saying.

Hamish was not a stupid boy, and he was still young enough to think for himself. The questions that arose in his mind could not be ignored.

How had his sister dishonored herself? In a way, he could understand the neighbor’s situation. The daughter had left willingly, had known what she was doing and what the consequences were. But, from every account, his sister had not. She been forced and then abandoned. The disgrace was not of her own making, not unless you counted her failure to choose a path wisely as a mortal sin. So, were the two situations different? Didn’t Allah emphasize an individual’s responsibility for his own actions?

And if women could only be controlled by showing them consequences of their actions, then why hadn’t had that worked in his neighbor’s case? They had lived next door for years and all knew what had happened to Hamish’s sister. Why had that not served as a sufficient example to the other daughter? Surely she had known what would happen if — when — she was caught.

And yet she had gone anyway. She had risked everything, her life, her family’s honor, everything, to leave with that man. Why?

In time, the complexities of daily life drew Hamish away from thinking of the two incidents. Life returned to normal, and he never asked his father those questions that bothered him, knowing immediately that it would be dangerous to do so. Yet, in odd moments when he was alone and caught the glimpse of a woman moving a certain way, one with particularly translucent skin, he thought again of his sister and her death.

Two years later, the call came to join the militia. Hamish, convinced now by the passage of time and the daily influence of their way of life, no longer wondered about his sister and her neighbor. Instead, like every other male over the age of fourteen, he obeyed the mullah’s call and went to war.

Barry Hart glanced up and to his right and left, confirming that the Tomcat escorts were in place. There was something about being armed with only HARM missiles that made any jet pilot feel oddly vulnerable. Having to depend on someone else for defense against enemy air was no picnic, either. In his heart, every pilot was convinced that he could do the job better, harder, and faster than any other jet jock. It was that self-confidence that kept them alive, that gave them the ability to climb into the cockpit each day. Because the day you quit being invulnerable, the day you quit believing you were, and started believing that things could go wrong for you, too, was the day you got dangerous in the air, not only to yourself but to your squadron.

Still, there wasn’t much help at this time. There were enough of those nasty little bastard SAM sites along the coast that he had a full load-out of HARMs and no room on the wings for antiair missiles. The Tomcats, he reflected, probably weren’t too damned thrilled about it, either, riding herd on him and his load of weapons instead of flying high and tight looking for other fighters.

“Forty-five seconds,” his RIO said, updating the information on his HUD. “I got nibbles but no bites yet.”

On his HUD, Berry could see the arcs of yellow and green radiating out from the suspected shore stations, updated with the latest satellite imagery, calculated to a fine degree, and absolutely worthless until they had a hard hit. It was one thing to run the numbers for the atmospheric propagation and figure out how far out the radar site could detect you, then target you, and then reach out and touch you. Twenty minutes of computer crunching couldn’t hold a candle to two seconds of tickle, or the first-rate indications that his RIO was reading on his own sensors.

“They’ll get their chance,” Barry said, letting his fingers run lightly up the stick, feeling the familiar shapes below them, his fingers automatically curling around to stroke the weapons-release button and weapons-selector switch. So familiar, as familiar as the smooth round curves of his wife’s body, the delicate bones of her ribs, and the sweeping curves of her body below that. And so it should be — his fingers had known the stick a lot longer than he’d known his wife.

“They’ll get a chance,” his RIO answered. And that, Barry hoped, was the God’s absolute truth. Because all they need was a solid tickle, a good, hard hit from a radar looking for them, and then the fat lady sang.

The antiradiation missiles slung beneath his wings were the latest in technology. They were fire-and-forget weapons with some features that would’ve astounded pilots of only a few years back. They had their own sensors that were wired into the aircraft’s avionics, working as independent receivers. In addition to the data that they generated on the ground, the small electronic brains received a continuous stream of data from the aircraft’s threat-detection system, which itself was continuously updated by the carrier, the Hawkeye, and the intel weenies as new intelligence became available.

At the moment of release, two things happened. First, the seeker head locked on to the designated signal, memorizing the location in relation to where it was and heading directly for it. Second, it began exchanging data over the airwaves with the carrier itself, slipping into the LINK just as though it were an independent aircraft. While in flight, it could be retargeted by either the watch officer on the carrier or by Barry.

Once it was clear of the Tomcat, the missile would make certain of its bearings, then descend rapidly to a preprogrammed altitude above ground — or sea, in this case. From there, it would home in on the site, hopefully sliding under the radar envelope and using terrain to hide itself. The altitude could be preset or altered from the cockpit, allowing for maximum flexibility in cases of high sea states. The lowest possible setting was nearly five feet, and any sea state at all could easily result in waves knocking it out of the air.

“Got it,” his RIO snapped. The new target appeared on Barry’s HUD. “Just where she’s supposed to be.”

“Range?” Barry asked.

“Release in three seconds,” his RIO answered. “Two, one — release!”

Barry toggled the weapon off, feeling the aircraft jolt slightly as it left the wing. It shot out in front of them, then arced away, a slender white streak against the dark blue sea.

“Fox One, Fox One,” Barry snapped over tactical.

“Looks good,” the E-2 Hawkeye commented from overhead, overseeing the engagements a safe distance away from the shore stations.

“Damned right it does,” Barry muttered. Nothing worse than having a critique offered by somebody who was well out of harm’s way.

“Come left ten degrees,” his RIO suggested. “I think I’ve got another — yes, there it is.” He toggled another target onto the HUD, adding, “Your dot.”

“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” Barry said. “With the other fishermen standing on the bank afraid to get their feet wet.”

There was a moment of puzzled silence from the backseat. Barry’s fondness for homespun metaphors was exceeded only by his willingness to combine them in new and interesting ways, often to the confusion of his listener.

“Well, their bank is going to get a little crowded after we’re through,” his RIO said finally, having deciphered the mixed metaphor and simply trying to go with it.

“That’s right,” Barry said. “Bank walkers, all of them.” Leaving his RIO to puzzle that one out, he toggled off another weapon.

“Torpedo in the water, torpedo in the water!” Greenberg said, drowning them out. “Two torpedoes — no, three! Probable targets, carrier and cruiser.” Even as he spoke, the tactical circuit was springing to life as the symbols he entered on a screen classifying the new contacts as torpedoes were immediately transmitted to everyone in the data link. The cruiser began a series of sharp evasive maneuvers, intending to throw the torpedo off track. The carrier began its own long, slow turn, popping out noisemakers and decoys in the water like confetti.

“Targeting solution — now,” Greenberg snapped, sending the data to the TACCO, who promptly entered the point and sent it to Rabies.

“One fish away — two,” Rabies reported, toggling off two torpedoes. “Greedy little shit, isn’t she?”

“For now,” Greenberg said, his voice grim. “But the carrier’s blasting out so much noise off the water from her propellers and her noisemakers that I’m having a hard time holding contact on passive sonar. Recommend we go active immediately.”

“Concur,” his TACCO said crisply. They activated the dual-purpose sonobuoys, the ones capable of both passive detection and active ranging. Each one had a small sonar transmitter in it as well as a receiver — the transducer. They started pinging, and immediately acquired contact on their target.

“I got her!” Greenberg reported. “She’s heading for the drilling rig, sir. The torpedoes are in active mode, search pattern now — man, she’s putting out some noise! No way our fish will miss her!”

Rabies chewed his lip thoughtfully. Once the torpedoes acquired the contact, they would head for it at speeds in excess of forty knots. Minisubs themselves were not capable of much over ten knots, if that. Still, the torpedoes were mighty close to the drilling rig, and there was always a chance that they would nail one of the supports to the rig rather than the submarine.

“You keep an eye on them,” he ordered, aware that it was unnecessary, but feeling he had to do something. “They head under the drilling rig, you pull the fish off. You got it?”

“Yes, sir. I got it.” Greenberg’s answer was almost offhand, as he was already working the intercept solution himself.

Two hours into his watch, Hamish was already exhausted. The constant stress, the midnight alerts, and the imminent prospects of being attacked, coupled with little food and less water, were enough to do anyone in. The Stinger missile on his shoulder, the business end resting on the sandbag wall behind him, was increasingly heavy. It had not seemed to weigh that much when he’d first hefted it onto his shoulder, but over the hours, its weight had increased geometrically.

He patted the canteen at his side, and thought longingly about taking another sip of the water. But the thirst would be worse later on, and he’d better save it for then. Besides, the temperature of the water was near one hundred degrees now, and it would be better to wait until he went below and it had cooled off a bit. No point in wasting it.

Not that it was that much cooler below. The hasty construction of the series of antiaircraft posts along the coast had left little time or resources for creature comforts such as air-conditioning. The emplacement was little more than an antiaircraft battery position, surrounded by sandbags, with a control station hastily installed in a concrete-walled dugout below. In theory, the control station below was sufficiently fortified and reinforced to withstand most attacks, but nobody really believed it. Placing it all in the dugout did keep the computers somewhat cooler, and provided a little shelter from the sun for the crew.

For not the first time, Hamish wondered exactly why he was standing this watch at all. With the radar in operation, surely the detection would come first from that, not from the naked eye, wouldn’t it? He had started to ask the question, but in his top sergeant’s expression saw his father’s face. Hard, cold, tolerating no disagreement or questions. It was, Hamish thought, what he hoped he would look like to his own sons one day.

Again he patted the canteen, reassured by its weight that it was almost full, and wondered if somewhere down the coast one of his brothers was at that moment doing the same thing. He thought longingly of his younger brother, younger by only fourteen months, who was still at home.

It is an honor. An honor and your duty to serve. Hamish tried to make himself believe that.

Sweat was gathering in his eyebrows, trickling down his forehead, and stopping there, waiting until it gathered sufficient mass to break the surface tension. Every five minutes, he was rewarded with a deluge of hot, salty water in his eyes. He ran a hasty, damp hand across them, feeling absurdly like a windshield wiper. It didn’t seem right that his own sweat would sting him that much.

Suddenly, a horn sounded. He heard an excited jumble of voices rise up from the bunker below him before the trapdoor leading down to it slammed shut. What was it — what had they seen? He scanned the sky frantically, searching for a target, hoping against hope that the antimissile missiles in the battery would do what they were supposed to.

Then he saw it, lower on the horizon that he would have thought. Had his eyes not been staring at exactly the right position, he would have missed it. If it had been anywhere else, it would have taken longer to find. He raised the binoculars to his eyes, searching the sky for it, dropped them long enough to find that it had moved significantly, then refocused.

There was a small puff of smoke and a sliver separated itself from the wing. A contrail tumbled behind it, stark and startling against the clear night sky, illuminated by the full moon.

They’ve launched. They launched a missile at us! His mouth went dry and he felt his fingertips tingle. He raised the Stinger to his shoulder, focusing the eyepiece first on the missile, then on the aircraft.

They had been hastily drilled in the basic operations, but the Stingers were too scarce to be used for practice. Hamish had never actually fired one.

One hundred yards away, the radar dish came to life, rotating back and forth as it searched for its target. From the little he had picked up from listening to the radar technicians, he knew that it was now locked on the other aircraft, working out a targeting solution.

Get it! You have to! And when the aircraft is overhead—

Suddenly it occurred to him that his instructors had been oddly vague on this particular point. The Stinger, he knew, was on its own once it left the launch tube. Nothing he could say or do would influence its track. Even if he were to drop dead the moment after he fired it, it would still continue on.

And so what if they hit the aircraft? The missile is still heading here.

All this sprang through his mind in a matter of seconds, and it went against every bit of training he’d been given. It should have been so obvious — just as the knowledge of how his sister had died should have been, had he bothered to look at the facts and to ask the right questions.

The battery of missiles beside him erupted into flames and fire, and two missiles shoved themselves out of the launch tubes on a piston of compressed air, their tail ends a mass of smoke and fire. They seemed to hang in the air for a microsecond, and then picked up speed so rapidly they almost vanished before his eyes. He held his fire, waiting — was it possible his Stinger could hit one of their own missiles and undo the very thing they were trying to accomplish? Another question that had not occurred to him before this moment.

Unfortunately, Hamish had no more time to worry about unanswered questions. Perhaps it was a blessing that the radar and the missile launch distracted him from what was about to come, sparing him those moments of certain knowledge that he would die.

When he finally turned back to face the missile, it was to find that it was only a few hundred yards away, a distance it covered in less than a second. Its hungry seeker head slammed into the antenna, detonating with a shock that radiated into the ground. The impact was physical as well as aural, shock waves radiating out from it, smashing into his eardrums with a pressure gradient that popped them like a balloon. The pressure slammed Hamish into the sandbag side of his post with sufficient force to dislodge three rows of sandbags. He lay on his back sprawled across the coarsely woven sandbag fabric, and instinctively tried to pull himself into a sitting position. But just as he did, the wave of the blast reached him, carrying with it shards of metal and cinder block, a deadly hail. The shrapnel drove through the sandbags, knocking off more of them, and sending them tumbling down to the desert below and returning the sand to its natural environment. The shrapnel passed even more easily through Hamish’s body, the first fragment slicing the edge of his neck, the next five penetrating his chest and exiting through the back. Hamish sucked in air, his mind still processing the sight of the missile just a few hundred yards away, still wondering whether or not he would live. The answer was, unfortunately for him, no.

He lay sprawled on the pale sand, the blood from his wounds no longer flowing vigorously since his heart stopped. Although the first piece of shrapnel had not entirely severed his head, his subsequent trip through the air had enlarged the jagged gash, virtually decapitating him. Had Hamish been in a position to observe himself, he would have noticed that he looked peculiarly like his sister the night his father had brought her home for the last time.