The noise, there was so much noise. It was overwhelming, a chorus of voices screaming out in pain and anguish.
Then it hit him. The only one not screaming was Clara. He bent over, his own pain forgotten, and cradled her face in his hands. “Clara? Oh my God, Clara!”
Her eyes were half shut, the perfect orbs that haunted his dreams rolled back under her eyelids. Her mouth was slack.
He bent over, moaning, trying frantically to escape the moment that he knew was careening toward him. It wouldn’t be long from now, not long at all. It bore down on him with an awful inevitability that frightened him beyond all reason.
Clara’s face was unmarked, the smooth clear skin still flushed by the blood that had moments before pounded in her veins. There was not a mark on the front of her, and he felt cold dread growing at what he must do.
Gently, no longer calling out her name, he rolled her slightly onto her side. Warm wetness flooded through his fingers. He moved his hand up her body to the base of her neck, then down her back. Mangled tissue slipped under his fingers, evidence of the deadly impact she had taken from behind. The noise in the room receded as his future crashed in on him.
General Arkady heard the news first from Colonel Zentos. His command post monitored the police frequencies, and although the early reports were confused and incomplete, Arkady knew immediately what he was facing.
“How many casualties?” He asked, his voice cold and hard.
“At least twenty, sir. There are no exact figures yet, but it looks like the front half of the café was obliterated by the bomb.”
“Is anyone claiming responsibility?”
The chief of staff shook his head. “Not yet. But it’s early still.”
General Arkady stood. “A cease-fire — surely they must now see the futility of it.” He pounded one hand on his desk, and shouted, “It is one thing to kill another soldier. But to attack innocent civilians, to bring this war to the very streets of our city — no, I will not allow it. I will not.”
“Was it the Macedonians?” Zentos asked.
Arkady turned to glare at him. “Who else would do this? Greeks killing Greeks — who else would possibly commit such an atrocity?”
Zentos thought he knew the answer to that particular question. Wisely, he kept his thoughts to himself. “Until someone claims responsibility, General, I think that—”
Arkady placed both hands on his desk and leaned across to glare at the colonel. “I do not need your thoughts at this time. What I need is for your actions to mirror your supposed commitment to me. The rebels have struck at the very heart of our city, and you talk to me about proof?”
The colonel kept silent, aware of the danger. Still, Arkady’s reaction puzzled him. It wasn’t the general’s way to be worried about casualties, particularly not civilian ones.
“I want those reporters,” Arkady raged. “Let them see the brutality of Macedonia, let them understand how they fight their war. And the UN would have us work out a settlement with these terrorists? Never. Not as long as I’m in command.” He paused for a moment, and continued in a different tone of voice, “Your SAR mission — when is it scheduled?”
Zentos was slightly taken aback by the change of subject, but said, “Tomorrow afternoon, General.”
The general nodded. “Bring me results, Colonel. Or suffer the consequences.”
Tombstone studied the chart outlining the disposition of the UN forces inside Greece. The troops were concentrated along the border, with most of them assigned to Tavista Air Base. “Lot of firepower for one air base,” he noted. “How are they handling the logistics?”
“Pretty well, so far,” Batman answered. “They’ve assured us that their maintenance facilities are more than capable of handling our Tomcats. We’ll have to take some extra fly-away boxes in for the Hornets, but most of the consumables are interchangeable with the Tomcats. O-rings, cotter pins, that sort of thing.”
“They’ve got a major rework facility co-located there,” Coyote supplied. “The Tomcats should be fine for anything up to and including an engine change out.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Tombstone answered. “In fact, let’s hope all we end up doing is flying nice, quiet surveillance missions.”
Both Batman and Coyote looked doubtful. “I don’t think so,” Batman said. He shuffled through the message traffic in front of him, selected one, and passed it to Tombstone. “You heard about that American couple that was killed in the bombing?”
Tombstone nodded. “They weren’t the only ones. Lot of local folks were injured, too.”
“Yeah, but they’re the ones getting the big publicity push,” Batman said. “And the Greeks are making the most of it. They know exactly which buttons to push with us.”
“How so?”
Batman gestured to Lab Rat. “Fill the admiral in.”
Lab Rat stood and pointed a clicker at the computer in the back of the room. A full face photo of a Greek general officer flashed onto the screen. “This is General Dimitri Arkady, chief of staff of the Greek Army and current commander of the UN forces. UNFORGREECE, it’s called. He’s a hardliner and he’s been looking for an excuse to push this entire conflict to a military resolution. The terrorist bombing was just what he needed. He’s calling for preemptive retaliatory strikes against known and suspected Macedonian forces.”
“Hell of a peacekeeping mission,” Coyote said, his face twisted with distaste. “Peace through superior firepower.”
“It’s gone further than we originally thought,” Lab Rat said. “Intelligence reports indicate he’s already got the first two strikes planned and weaponeered. And he’s making a big push in the international media about how it’s a duty he owes to his great friends the Americans.”
“How’s that playing out?” Tombstone asked. Pamela Drake’s face flashed through his mind, and he felt a wave of grief surge through him. Whatever differences of opinion they’d had, and no matter that he was completely content married to Tomboy, Pamela had been more than just an acquaintance. A fiancée for several years, dangerously close to being a wife.
Pamela would have been able to cut through Arkady’s bullshit. He could see her now as clearly as though she were in the room, hammering the general with tough questions, spiking follow-up questions into the broadcast. How would she have slanted this story? he wondered.
“Most of the media is going along with it,” Lab Rat said. “They know how to hook their American audiences.” He shook his head. “We think we can go anywhere in the world and be safe. Hell, we can’t even go downtown after dark in some American cities.”
“But it’s going to be hard to back him into a corner over this one,” Tombstone observed. “We’ve used American civilian casualties overseas too many times ourselves as a justification for military action.”
Lab Rat nodded. “Exactly our assessment. When he’s taking the same position we’ve held in public so many times, it’s going to be difficult to counsel moderation in the UN.”
Tombstone stood and stretched. “So you’re telling me I’m stepping into a hornet’s nest, right?”