Apocalypse Crucible

full-fledged war zone again.
Danielle adjusted her borrowed helmet and stood. Her knees quaked, but she kept her legs steady under her. She pushed her fear aside, telling herself again and again that she’d chosen to be here, that standing up now and reporting was all she needed to do to rocket her career into the stratosphere. That was what she had always wanted. All she had to do now was do her job and live through the fight.
She checked her satellite phone, patting the reinforced shell that protected the device from harm. According to Gorca, who worked as her technician and outfitter, that shell was proof against everything but a direct hit. After being in the field with her since the retreat from the Turkish-Syrian border and seeing the chances she took, Gorca had also felt compelled to remind her that she was not as impervious as her gear, despite the body armor the U.N. Peacekeepers had loaned her.
Cezar glanced up at her.
“Is that camera all right?” Danielle demanded.
“Yes.” The young man nodded and held the camcorder protectively. “I think so.”
“Get up. We’ve got work to do.”
Looking past her, Cezar nodded at the torn corpses and body parts that lay strewn across the street. “Maybe now, maybe time not so good. Plenty time to film after attack.”
Frustrated and furious, worn down from trying to get the story of the Sanliurfa’s military occupation on the air in the middle of a raging battle and from controlling her own fears, Danielle reached for the young man. She knotted her fist in the bright Hawaiian shirt he wore under the Kevlar vest. He looked at her in shocked surprise. She got her balance, set her feet, and pulled him upright.
Danielle stood five feet nine inches tall in her stocking feet. She’d spent years working out at the gym to keep fit so she’d look good on camera, not to mention so she’d have the energy and stamina to keep pace with her high-pressure job. She was stronger than most men expected her to be. A lot stronger.
Cezar almost flew to his feet. A few inches shorter than Danielle, the young man was skin and bone, more emaciated than lanky. He wore his hair in dreadlocks, fastened by multicolored rubber bands. A bout with chicken pox had left his face pitted. She loosened her grip on his shirt and surveyed him critically. He hardly looked worth her effort. Still, he had a great eye when he was looking through a camera lens.
“Get that camera up and running,” Danielle ordered. “I want footage shot here and now, bits that we can cycle into the live broadcast we’re going to be doing in a few minutes.”
“All right, all right.” Cezar stripped the lens cover off and powered up the camera. A belt of batteries hung around his narrow hips. Light spewed from the camera as he started shooting. A bright oval of it fell across the soldier’s corpse. With the disappearances of so many people around the world, the gloves were off when it came to broadcasting the harsh reality of the violence in Turkey. And OneWorld NewsNet had never been a media empire that felt the need to stint on the gory drama of any situation.
Empty brass cartridges suddenly rained down over Danielle and rattled against the pavement under her feet. She flattened herself against the wall and looked up, spotting the Ranger standing at the edge of the building cradling a Squad Automatic Weapon in his arms.
That’s a SAW, she reminded herself, not a Squad Automatic Weapon.
Only a newbie calls them that. Getting the military nomenclature right was important. After years of war coverage on CNN and FOX News, the world audience had become familiar with military aircraft, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and hardware. She knew a lot, but she was also aware that she was continuing to learn. She didn’t want to make a mistake now.
She tapped the speed-dial function on the sat-phone and snaked the earpiece up to her ear. The phone rang once before it was answered.
“Yes?” The voice at the other end of the connection was dry as ash. The deadpan tone was uninflected, neutral, and impossible to place. The owner of the voice was a man named Radu Stolojan. At least, that was the name Danielle had come to know him by. She wasn’t convinced that it was his real name, just as she wasn’t convinced that the man ever needed to sleep. Whenever she called, he was there, always aware of her situation.
“This is Danielle Vinchenzo.”
“Of course it is,” Stolojan replied. “This is your appointed line.” If he heard the artillery fire blasting into the city around them, he gave no indication.
“The Syrians have just attacked the city.”
“I know. I watched them approach.”
“And you didn’t think to call?” Danielle choked back a curse. She’d been interviewing military cooks who worked to feed the armies that had gathered inside the city. The attack had caught her by surprise.
“There was no need to call,” Stolojan replied smoothly. “I knew that if the Syrians chose to attack, you would know soon enough. You are in the middle of the fight, after all.”
Danielle cursed as she stared at the corpses lying across the street. A rapid burst of gunfire—from a .50-caliber machine gun she guessed from the way the targets jerked back under the drumming impacts—knocked two marines from the rooftop of the building across the street. Two stories below, both men smashed against the pavement. Neither man moved. If the armor-piercing bullets hadn’t killed them outright, the fall finished them off.
A trio of U.N. soldiers, distinctive in the bright blue helmets they wore, broke cover and raced out into the street. They dragged the marines back, securing holds on their load-carrying harnesses. Before they made the distance, the makeshift barricade that choked the street two blocks away and rendered it impassable to vehicles suddenly erupted. A huge rush of flames blew cars and tractors into the air while others skidded forward.
The