Our War Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Craig DiLouie

  Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

  Cover art by Trevillion and Shutterstock

  Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Edition: August 2019

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: DiLouie, Craig, 1967- author.

  Title: Our war / Craig DiLouie.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Orbit, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019000763| ISBN 9780316525268 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316525275 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780316525251 (ebook) | ISBN 9781549171536 (downloadable audio book)

  Classification: LCC PS3604.I463 O97 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019000763

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-52526-8 (hardcover), 978-0-316-52525-1 (ebook)

  E3-20190705-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  MAP

  EPIGRAPH

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  DISCOVER MORE

  BY CRAIG DILOUIE

  For my children, with hope we leave the world a better place for you.

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  And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

  Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

  Oh, say! does that star-spangled banner yet wave

  O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

  —American national anthem

  ONE

  Every week, Hannah asked when the war would end.

  Soon, Mom always said, which her child’s mind translated as, Longer than you want.

  The war had taken her home, friends, and family. If it didn’t end soon, it might take everything.

  Ten months ago, Hannah and her mother arrived at the refugee camp set up at the Indiana Convention Center. They’d settled in Hall D, a vast space sectioned off by metal pipe and dark blue drapes into rooms ten feet square. Rough living, the days suspended between tension and tedium, but it was safer than outside.

  Now Mom sat on her cot and inventoried their weekly aid package. Spam, rice, cheese, beans, sugar, powdered milk, soap, cooking oil. The bland basics of survival.

  Before the war, she’d been an accountant. Now she added up calories, while Hannah counted the hours to their next meager meal.

  Mom licked her finger and dipped it in the sugar. “Taste test?”

  They used to bake together in their kitchen back in Sterling. Cookies and cupcakes and scones. Hannah helped out, knowing she’d be the official taste tester.

  She licked the sweetness. It only made her hungrier, but she didn’t ask for more. She already received more than her fair share of the food. Once a plump woman, her mother had wasted away to gauntness.

  “We have enough to get us to Friday,” Mom said. “Except water.”

  “Okay.” Hannah looped a belt through three plastic gallon jugs.

  “Why don’t you stay here and play with your friends?”

  Mom always said this before they went outside. The streets were dangerous now with muggers, bombs, and rebel snipers who’d infiltrated the city.

  “I want to go with you,” Hannah said.

  She’d already lost Dad and Alex. If Mom went without her, she’d go out of her mind waiting. She hated being alone.

  Mom understood all this. “All right, honey.”

  They left their tiny room and closed the drape behind them. People traded rations and gossip in the aisle. A couple was having a loud argument. The air smelled like pee and frying Spam. Smoke from cooking fires hazed around the dead ceiling lights high over their heads.

  Mrs. Bevis yanked her drape aside. “Did I hear you’re going out for water?”

  Mom pursed her lips. “You did.”

  “Because my back is still killing me.” She was already holding out her jug.

  Hannah took it. “We can fill this up for you, Mrs. Bevis.”

  “My waste bucket is getting full too.”

  “Some other time,” Mom said before Hannah could say anything.

  The old woman shot a look down the aisle. “Listen to them. Arguing again. They go at it all day and then again all night.”

  Mom said, “Well, we should get going.”

  Mrs. Bevis regarded her with a judgmental frown. “Don’t let me hold you up.”

  They walked down Aisle 1500. War news droned on a portable radio. A swarm of kids ran laughing through laundry hung on lines spanning the aisle. Hannah sometimes joined in the fun but more often stayed close to Mom, an oasis of warmth and love in a world that had otherwise turned against her.

  “Mrs. Bevis told me the war will be over by Christmas,” she said.

  “It’s more like a hope than a prediction,” Mom told
her.

  More code that grown-ups used. “Okay.”

  “It can’t go on forever, honey. It’ll stop one day, and then we can go home. We’ll all be together again.”

  Mom always talked about Hannah’s dad as if he were still alive and as if her older brother, who’d disappeared, had made it back to their house in Sterling.

  “I can’t wait,” Hannah played along.

  “Until then, we’re doing okay. All we have to do is keep going.”

  Outside, bright sunlight washed the cold street. Dirty snow covered the ground. Bicycles zipped around dead cars. Gunfire crackled at the front line a few miles away. A band of militia walked past, hard men and women wearing ratty uniforms and carrying rifles.

  The water tanker was three blocks east. They waited in line until they could fill their jugs. Hannah shuffled her feet to stay warm and read political graffiti covering the wall of a nearby building. FREE INDY, THIS GUN KILLS FASCISTS, RESIST.

  At last, it was their turn to fill their jugs from the spigots, and they started home.

  Mom gave her a sly smile. “If Christmas is coming, you know what that means.”

  “Hooray for me,” Hannah sulked.

  “You only turn eleven once. I’m going to make you a cake.”

  Hannah understood grown-ups told white lies to protect their kids, but this was going too far. “We don’t have any flour or butter. We barely have any sugar.”

  “Then I’ll have to make something out of nothing.”

  She shot Mom a warning look. They’d once had an imaginary dinner, where they’d pretended to eat a sumptuous feast. “Okay.”

  “It’s a real thing, honey. I got a recipe from another mom.”

  Hannah believed now. The women at the refugee center were like mad scientists when it came to making new meals from the monotonous aid packages. They knew how to turn rice, vinegar, water, and powdered milk into cheese.

  “What’s in it?” she said.

  “It’s best if you don’t know.”

  Hannah laughed. “Like a hot dog.”

  “It’ll be yummy,” her mother assured her.

  “I can’t wait.” She was still smiling. “It’s gonna be awesome.”

  “When the world goes back to normal, we can have a proper birthday party.”

  The grown-ups always talked like that, how nothing was normal, as if the war was an embarrassing mistake. But this, talking about a birthday cake. This felt normal, even after everything she’d lost. Something out of nothing.

  “I love you, Mom—”

  Blood sprayed across her cheek.

  Bikes crashed in the roar of the rolling gunshot. The street emptied.

  Mom shuddered on the blacktop.

  Hannah blinked in shock. “Mommy?”

  “Sniper!” a woman shrieked.

  A large man scooped Hannah like a football as he charged past. She screamed and clawed at the air as Mom dwindled with each step.

  The man set her down behind a burned-out bus but kept a tight hold of her arm to prevent her from bolting. Other people had sought safety here in a gasping huddle.

  Crying, Hannah watched her mother struggle to rise.

  “Stay down,” the man hissed. “Don’t move.”

  Mom freed herself from the belt and its heavy water jugs. She heaved onto her elbows. She started to drag her body off the road.

  Hannah was wailing. “Mommy.”

  Their eyes locked. A smile flickered across Mom’s face.

  The second shot rammed her back down. The crowd screamed.

  Hannah howled with them. “MOMMY!”

  Nothing out of everything.

  TWO

  The Canadian Air Force transport plane trembled on air pockets at fifteen thousand feet.

  Gabrielle Justine sat clenched in her metal chair attached to the bulkhead. She wore a blue helmet, flak jacket, parachute, and around her neck an oxygen mask. To her left, tarpaulin-covered wood crates filled the cargo hold. Twenty tons of milk and cheese. Cold air whistled through the compartment, bringing a strong whiff of fuel and canvas.

  Corporal Kassar smiled at her from his seat on the opposite bulkhead. Goggles and a dashing red scarf complemented his uniform. The other crewman chewed gum while reading a paperback.

  “You’re UN, right?” the corporal shouted over the propeller hum. “UNICEF.”

  She didn’t trust herself to speak. She nodded.

  “But you’re from Quebec,” he added. “Your accent.”

  Gabrielle spoke French as her first language. “Yes.”

  “Here to help the children. Very noble. First time in the jungle?”

  Booms sounded far below. They were getting close now.

  Gabrielle turned to look out the nearest window. From way up here, Indianapolis appeared peaceful through a smoky haze. Indy, the locals called it. The crossroads of America.

  Then she spotted the scarred ground marking the contact line, battlefields and trenches among houses and strip malls. The city and its population of some nine hundred thousand people had been under siege for nearly a year.

  No sane person would come here by choice.

  The gum-chewing crewman called out without looking up from his paperback, “What’s the difference between a smart and a stupid American?”

  Kassar rolled his eyes at the old joke. “The smart one is watching the war on TV in Canada.”

  Gabrielle flinched as light flashed on the ground.

  The crewman set down his novel and threw her a sharp look. “The same joke now goes for Canadians, it looks like.”

  Two years ago, the Democrats retook Congress and impeached President Philip Marsh. After the Senate convicted him, he refused to leave office, and in the end, it was the bulk of Congress that fled Washington, DC. The military wavered as massive protests swept the country. Armed groups seized government buildings and TV stations, triggering a civil war.

  When UNICEF put out a call for field operatives to go to America, Gabrielle quit her safe job buried in a humanitarian relief organization and took a contract. In Indianapolis, she’d evaluate the needs of the city’s children. It promised to be hard work, and dangerous. But worthwhile.

  Her friends worried she’d lost her mind. Her parents had begged her not to go. Dad told her she was smart and young and had a long life filled with choices ahead of her. She was already helping children at her current job. Why risk life and limb?

  She could do more good in the field. She wanted to take part in history. Gabrielle gave him every answer except the truth, which was long ago, if a single man hadn’t taken a risk on her behalf, she’d be dead.

  She was tired of helping from a safe distance. It was time for her to pay it forward, take her own risks, and try to make a difference.

  Now that she was here, she wondered if she’d made the right decision.

  Gabrielle sighted the sprawling airport. So close. Then the plane tilted and cut off her view. “Why haven’t we started descending?”

  Kassar grinned. “Because we don’t want to get shot down.”

  He leveled out his hand and angled it toward the deck. The plane had to maintain altitude to avoid ground fire and then plunge for a rapid landing.

  She grabbed onto the canvas webbing and prayed. “Dieu nous protège.”

  The C-130 Hercules dropped out of the sky.

  “Here we go,” the corporal said.

  Alarms shrilled from the cockpit. The plane screamed in its descent. Corporal Kassar reached into the folds of his scarf, found a talisman, and kissed it for luck.

  “Hey, UN,” he said.

  Gabrielle stared at him, unable to speak. The airframe was shaking.

  “Hey!”

  “What?!”

  “Are you seeing anybody?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Can I take you to dinner sometime?”

  “No,” she said. “Maybe. I don’t know!”

  Anything, she prayed. Just let me survive this.

&n
bsp; Her stomach lurched as the transport plane leveled out. Giant wheels slammed asphalt, carbon brakes screeching. Gabrielle gaped out the window at the blessed ground. Armored personnel carriers flashed by on the tarmac. Hesco walls surrounded the airport like a medieval town.

  She prayed again—this time that she hadn’t made a huge mistake coming here.

  THREE

  For a half hour, they huddled behind the abandoned bus as gunfire popped in the distance. Apartment buildings loomed over boarded-up retail stores. Surrounded by water bottles, Hannah’s mother lay facedown in the empty street.

  Get up, Hannah prayed.

  The shooting stopped.

  “We got him,” said the man who saved her. “I think we’re safe now.”

  Nobody moved.

  “Screw it,” a woman said. “I’ll go first.”

  She snatched up her discarded bike and started pedaling. She didn’t look at Hannah’s mother lying in the street.

  The onlookers tensed, but nothing happened.

  The man turned to Hannah. “Do you have somewhere you can go?”

  She began to cry. Mom lay in the road, and nobody was doing anything. They didn’t care. They were all leaving.

  “Oh, man,” he said. “I can’t. I mean, I’m not…”

  “Mom,” she screamed. “Mom!”

  Willing her to get up, though she knew she wouldn’t.

  “Mommy!”

  A wailing ambulance turned the corner and screeched to a halt. Men in blue jackets jumped out. After checking for a pulse, they took hold of Hannah’s mother by the armpits and feet and tossed her on a stack of other bodies inside.

  To Hannah, it was as if she were being taken out like trash.

  “Don’t touch her like that! Hey!” She ran into the street as the vehicle sped off.

  Only a red stain on the road remained. The rest of her mother was headed to a mass grave at the American Legion Mall. Exhaust hung in the air like a ghost.

  “Are you all right? You shouldn’t be out in the open like this.”

  The man who’d saved her was gone. A skinny woman with a bandage taped over the left side of her face towered over her.

  Hannah wiped her eyes and shied away. She wasn’t supposed to talk to people she didn’t know. One couldn’t trust anybody or anything these days. People were always looking over their shoulders for a reason. They slept with one eye open.