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  There was always something special, if strained, about Ari's relationship with Benyamin. It wasn't that they shared a birth mother. Both of their father's wives had always treated all the boys the same, as far as Ari could tell, except that Yael—Tetsuo and Shlomo's mother—seemed to go out of her way a bit more for Benyamin than anyone else, watching out for him, just as Benyamin watched over Ari.

  "Just take it easy," Benyamin said. "It'll all be over in a while. For a while. It's true what they try to teach you in school: relax while you can." He beckoned Ari over to the side of a road and leaned against a tree, loosening his own pack straps. Benyamin had had the squad reclaim their gear from the wreckage of the bus; their bus hadn't burned, so while the packs had been scattered, it was all intact.

  Benyamin muttered something into his mike, then dug into his buttpack, coming out with a dull black canteen. He took a short drink, then passed it to Ari. "Take a swig."

  The water was warm and brackish, but it was good.

  "Look," Benyamin said, his face grim as death. "There's no point in pretending. You're in deep shit. You and Slepak. You both froze, first time out. I'll see what I can do, but this isn't good. Just remember that you caught the fringe of a blast. You don't remember much after that."

  "Benyamin, I—"

  "You shut up." Benyamin's grip on his sleeve was numbing. "You just shut up, shithead. Your way didn't work out, so you do it my way. There's no other options. The big three don't count. You can't claim battle shock," he said, extending a finger, "not on your first time out. You can't claim that you weren't ready—" another finger "—because Kelev was operational. You can't claim a gross physical injury, because you don't have one. You don't have a defense, so you just do it my way. Understood?"

  "Yes."

  "Very good." Benyamin smiled. It was a report. "So, I'll fix it, best as I can. Zucker owes me—he'll remember that you had a dilated pupil when he examined you. You don't remember much—just that you're a bit confused about what happened. Tetsuo'll be down later today, and I'll talk to him first thing tomorrow, have him square things with Galil."

  "I didn't know they were friends."

  "They're not. But Galil knows that Shimon respects him. So does Peled." Benyamin looked like he was about to say more on the subject, but he shook his head. There was a lot about Tetsuo that nobody spoke of.

  Benyamin pulled a foodstick from his pack, unwrapped the end, and bit in. "Shit, I wish we had the Sergeant here—Uncle Tzvi's better at handling things than anybody else I know. You're stuck with me—but I think I can pull it off. Shimon may or may not buy the story, but there won't be a lot of time to think about that, not right now. He's not going to overrule Galil, Peled and Tetsuo, not unless he's damn sure—which he won't be. Not with me, Laskov and Lavon vouching for you.

  "So you just keep low and stay in the middle of the pack—you don't come in first or last in the morning run, you don't go to the head or the foot of the mess line. You turn invisible and blend in. My guess is that you'll have another chance to prove yourself within a few days. Figure we settle in at Camp Ramorino tonight, the rest of the regiment gets in tomorrow or the day after, and—"

  "Eh?"

  Benyamin shrugged. "Think about it. We got hit by some deep-cover Freiheimer saboteurs, folks who've probably been making life miserable behind the lines. Interesting that we never got a briefing on that, eh?

  "Now, granted, they didn't have enough men, didn't have enough equipment, didn't have enough warning to do the job: a dozen more Freiheimers, half a dozen rocketeers and ten minutes more of getting ready, and we'd all be dead.

  "I'll bet that there's another couple of squads of sabs within a couple hours of here. Probably in hiding now. For now. Ready to hit the whole regiment, which they would have if we'd waited for the other two groups to get down before moving out of the port."

  Benyamin nodded toward the forest. "They're out there somewhere, and somebody's leaking information. Shimon doesn't like stabs in the back. Like Uncle Tzvi says: Lesson time. What do you think he's going to do—what would you do, General?"

  Ari thought it over for a moment. "I'd commandeer helo transport for the other training detachments—I mean, the battalions—and not have them take a direct route. If we can't get enough helos—"

  "Which we can. The Albatro," he said, pronouncing the foreign word with careful correctness, "can carry thirty. A Casa division is supposed to have twenty of them integral. Figure we'll have the rest of the regiment at Camp Ramorino by sundown tomorrow. Which gives you a short while to get your head out of your ass and into business, General." Benyamin's eyes went all distant and vague, just like the Sergeant's would when he was lecturing. "This was some sort of ratfuck, and the old man doesn't like ratfucks. Which means he's going to try to get some of our own back.

  "It's not a matter of revenge, although maybe there's a bit of that, too. But it's pretty clear that the Freiheimers just spent a whole squad of deep-cover saboteurs trying to kill some of us." His voice, in contrast to his words, was tired and flat, almost uninfected. "They must have thought that was worth the price, and Shimon's going to prove them right, one way or another. Just business, mind, nothing at all personal: the rule is that you don't fuck with Metzada." There was no smile on Benyamin's face, and none in his eyes. "Get your shit together, little brother. Two weeks, and we're back in it; you get another chance to prove yourself. If you're lucky."

  "And if I'm not?" He didn't mean that. He meant, And if I can't?

  Benyamin looked him in the eye and answered the unvoiced question. "Then you're no son of my father, brother."

  CHAPTER 7

  Yitzhak Galil: Staff Meeting

  A Casa private held the door as Skolnick wheeled Galil into the back of the conference room, behind the last line of tables.

  Outside, a triphammer pounded like a well-drilled mortar team: Wham. Wham. Wham. A long pause. Then: Wham. Wham. Wham. The sound was somehow reassuring.

  Galil's right leg throbbed redly, painfully with every pulsebeat, which didn't worry him: Local trauma techniques were good, although Casa cosmetic surgery was for shit.

  A fair deal: a week to ten days, maybe, until Galil would be back on his feet, and he would have two more puckered scars to add to his collection. The right leg seemed to attract fire for some reason or other. That and his left arm. Why was that? Some sort of cosmic coincidence. Nah. If it had been his head that attracted fire, it would only have happened once.

  The aftermath of a night in the hospital was like a medium hangover: his teeth tasted of slime and ashes, a headache sawed at his skull, his stomach would rebel at anything except the blandest food, and an irregular, painful twinge had taken up residence in the back of his neck.

  But he was alive, and that was what counted.

  "I guess we should have come in the other way," Skolnick said. The other early arrivals were at the bottom of the banked conference room.

  Too far away—the room was large enough to be a refectory, back home. Wasteful for a staff meeting.

  No, it wasn't. This wasn't Metzada; space wasn't at such a premium.

  Galil started to lever himself out of the wheelchair, preparatory to hopping down the stairs, but desisted at Skolnick's grunt.

  "Sit tight, Yitzhak." Skolnick took the rifle off Galil's lap and slung it across his back, then picked up one side of the wheelchair while Meir Gevat took the other.

  The two of them carried him down three landings to the bottom level; Support/Transport/Medical Command's David Pinsky pulling out a chair so they could slide his wheelchair up to the edge of a table.

  "Ever think of going on a diet? You're fucking heavy, Captain," Gevat said as he lowered the wheelchair to the tile floor, although the full-breathed ease with which he spoke proclaimed his words a lie.

  Imposing on them didn't bother Galil; it wasn't much of an imposition. Nueva's point ninety-one standard gee was only seventy-six percent of Metzada's one point two; with the two of them splitting
the load, Gevat and Skolnick were barely carrying more total weight here than they did at home, stark naked.

  While Gevat took his seat next to Asher Greenberg of Regimental Heavy Weapons, Skolnick flipped Galil's rifle to safe, popped the magazine out, then opened the bolt, showing Galil that it was empty.

  All the other early arrivals were armed, too, although nothing had been said about that in the meeting announcement. The regiment had made up its collective mind that all of Casalingpaesa—or perhaps all of Nueva Terra—was a war zone.

  Skolnick slammed the bolt home, then inserted the magazine and laid the weapon across Galil's lap. "Loaded; chamber clear," he said, as though Galil hadn't been watching.

  "I have eyes."

  "Shit, Captain, don't try that on me. I been around for awhile." Skolnick chuckled. "If I hadn't reported, you know damn well you'd have complained about my weapons discipline."

  "Who ever said life was fair?"

  "Not me." Skolnick tapped at his earphone, then brought his thumb up to his lips, miming puffing for a freak.

  Galil nodded; he would call when the meeting was over. Skolnick left, bounding lightly up the steps.

  Across the aisle from Galil, Meir Ben David sat stropping his Fairbairn dagger. He was unshaved, but he looked rested.

  At his glance, Ben David set down his honing leather and rubbed a thumb against his stubbled cheek. It sounded like sandpaper. "Well," the sapper said, picking up the leather again, "the choice was another ten fucking minutes of sleep, or a shower and shave. I'm happy with the choice." He considered the edge of the dagger. "Nice call yesterday, by the way."

  "The helo?" Galil asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Thanks."

  "Your people did pretty good, too."

  "True enough," Galil said.

  Kelev One was shaping up nicely, Galil decided, and the platoon seemed to think that Galil was doing acceptably. You couldn't tell—and it didn't matter—whether or not the troopies liked the CO, but it was easy to know when they thought he was good at his job. There was an informal network that got Galil's bed made, took care of his laundry and meals, and now made sure that he didn't have to push himself anywhere.

  But that wasn't an expression of affection, any more than was Ben David's careful treatment of his Fairbairn knife. It was respect for a piece that did its job: a knight that always jumped one down and two across; a rook that moved squarely along the ranks and files. The consensus was that Galil had better things to do with his time than worry about making his bed and doing his laundry.

  A bit of a compliment. A suggestion that he was doing his job well.

  Which, with some reservations, Galil decided he was. Better than he'd done in Third Platoon of A Company in the Sixth, Galil thought, shaking his head. It was five years ago, but a day didn't go by without him remembering how badly he had screwed that one up.

  Not this time, though. He'd played the last game fine; best to figure out what the next game was.

  The conference room held ten tiers of three tables each, a theater apparently intended to hold a battalion comfortably, although Galil had never seen any need for a lot of battalion meetings. A commander couldn't micromanage anything even the size of a company, much less a battalion, and while green platoon leaders and company commanders usually kept their fingers in too many kettles, no good battalion commander was stupid enough to try. Metzada didn't give battalions to anybody who hadn't outgrown a psychological need to bog himself down in detail, the sort of idiot who would busy himself with minutiae instead of looking at the big picture.

  But, of course, this conference room hadn't been built to a Metzadan design. The locals were fuckups, as usual, and from the foundations up.

  Galil snorted. Then again, if the locals weren't always fuckups, they could fight their own damn wars by their own damn selves, and Yitzhak Galil's children would have to learn how to eat rock.

  Others wandered in and took their seats: Peled and most of his instant battalion staff; Lieutenant Colonel Horem Bar Yosef, the adjutant and liaison officer; wiry, rawboned Ezer Laskov, the S2; Colonel Yehoshua Sadok, who held the senior spot in S4, along with his long-time assistant, Senior Master Sergeant Yossi Bernstein. They were a funny pair: Sadok short and pudgy, thin hair slicked back over his balding head, Bernstein a head taller, his curly brown hair always uncombed and unruly.

  Doc Zucker was conspicuous by his absence, but the chief medician had been up until 0500, supervising the care of the wounded.

  The delegation from Third Battalion arrived en masse, and quietly seated themselves along the wall, Colonel Rabinowitz coming over to exchange a few quick words with Peled and the adjutant.

  Sidney Rabinowitz, now, he looked like something out of an advertising brochure: he was tall and muscular, but not overmuscled, size 40 Long khakis fitting him as though they had been tailored. His nose and chin could have been carved from stone, and he wore the triple oak leaves of a full colonel like the kings of old must have worn their crowns.

  The only trouble with Rabinowitz was that he was always complaining, and Shimon couldn't dismiss his complaints because they were always to the point. Right now, he was probably fussing about the size of his instant battalion: it was under-strength, built out of one training detachment and some spare specialists from Harari's special training group.

  No sense of proportion, that was the problem with Sidney. In another few minutes they'd be reconfiguring for cadre. Why bother?

  It was easy to tell who hadn't been involved in the firefight yesterday: they were all in clean, crisp khakis, none of them displaying the bandages and chalky complexions of the wounded.

  Ebi Goren strutted in, half a dozen officers from Second Battalion following closely on his heels. The trim little man nodded a curt greeting to all, then joined Peled, Rabinowitz and the adjutant over to one side of the room while the rest of the Second Bat delegation took seats.

  There was a certain something to the officers Goren had with him. All were junior for their jobs—there wasn't even a lieutenant colonel among them—and that probably meant that Ebi Goren, with one reasonably well-organized aggressor/defender company and two 250-man training detachments, had skimmed off some of the young studs from Ag/Def for his command staff, even though that meant some captains and majors would be taking direction from junior officers.

  Captain Yitzhak Galil strongly approved, although he wondered how strongly he would have approved if he were wearing oak leaves instead of bars.

  As the others from Second Bat took their seats, one detached himself from the group and came over to Galil.

  Galil had never liked Tetsuo Hanavi. For one thing, Tetsuo was too damned pretty: tall, his blond hair curled tight against his head, his chin too sharply chiseled. For another thing, he was a Hanavi of the Bar-Els, a member of one of the leading families of Metzada, destined—if he proved competent, granted; Galil tried to be fair—for at least the triple oak leaves of a full colonel, possibly even for stars on his shoulders.

  "Yitzhak," Hanavi said. "How's the leg?"

  "It'll do," Galil said. He pointed his chin to where Goren was still deep in conversation with Peled and the others. "What's Ebi got you doing?"

  "Err, I'm not working for Ebi." Tetsuo Hanavi smiled. "As of this morning, I'm assistant S3, regimental, working for Natan."

  S3? Plans and Operations? Galil tried to keep his disgust off his face. Of the four Hanavi brothers, there was one asshole, one competent line soldier, one green coward—and what to do about Ari Hanavi was something that Galil didn't consider settled, not by any means—and Tetsuo.

  But while he'd apparently been a decent enlisted striker—his Uncle Tzvi wouldn't have put him in for OCS if he hadn't been—he'd never commanded a company, or even a platoon. Each of the triple bars on his shoulder had been earned as a staff officer.

  Galil didn't have anything against staff officers; shit, some of the most able logisticians couldn't command with smoke in their eyes and bullets whizzing a
round their ears. Galil was sure Tetsuo would have been fine where he was originally slotted, as an instructor in Military Law. But . . . Tetsuo Hanavi as assistant S3 for the whole regiment? Operations was too important, far too critical, to be left to somebody who didn't have the experience of command.

  That was what bothered him. The fact that everybody knew that Tetsuo Hanavi was fucking his brother Shlomo's wife had nothing to do with it.

  Galil would talk to Shimon about it. He—no. No, it didn't matter.

  Galil chuckled to himself. Shit, he had just mentally chided Rabinowitz for doing what he was doing right now. This reconfiguration as a combat regiment was just temporary. This wasn't yesterday. Right now it was more of an exercise than anything else. They'd be back to cadre in a while.

  Besides, Natan Horowitz was an operations wizard; an assistant ops officer's main job would be staying out of his way and keeping the coffee and tabsticks coming.

  Leave it be.

  "Congratulations," Galil finally said. "Good slot."

  Tetsuo Hanavi shrugged. "It'll do." His grin threatened to split his face open. "You sure your leg's okay?" he asked, throwing his hip over the corner of the table. Hanavi pulled a pack of tabsticks out of his blouse pocket and offered Galil one; Galil shook his head.

  "I told you: it's fine." And how's your brother's wife?

  "If you want to switch slots until you're better, it can be arranged. I've already talked to Natan, and to the adjutant. No problem with either of them if it's okay with Shimon, and with you."

  Galil snorted at the transparency of that maneuver. "Thanks. I'm happy where I am." Yitzhak Galil wouldn't give up a real command even for a permanent staff job, much less a temporary one. Not voluntarily, and he would put up one hell of a fight before submitting to any involuntary reassignment.

  "As you like." Hanavi stuck a slim tabstick between his lips and puffed it to life, then held it and considered the coal for a moment. "I heard there was a . . . problem with my little brother yesterday."