Countdown: The Liberators-ARC (55 page)

The Hummer pulled up behind him. "Jump in and get on the machine gun," Rattus said. "Watch out you don't step on the Brit."

"What?"

"Jump in and get on the machine gun," the medic repeated. "We've got company coming, and I have a cunning plan. Ever hear of Joshua Chamberlain?"

"A cunning plan? Little Round Top?" Fulton rolled his eyes, saying, "Why don't I just blow my brains out now?"

"Just get in."

"What about Fletcher?" Fulton asked.

"Wahab's getting him."

Buckwheat bolted at a crouch for the Hummer. As he did, he heard the on-board radio say, "Rattus, Biggus; we're ninety seconds out. We can see the burning aircraft. We can also see what looks to be a loaded truck convoy leaving the city heading west. One of the gunships is going after the convoy; the other's yours. Where do you want it?"

***

Biggus practically strained his neck, twisting his head to keep an eye on everything that was going on in the air and on the ground, as the medevac bird loitered. For all practical purposes he was playing FAC, or forward air controller. He may have been a little rusty, but he did have some limited experience at it.

From the radio came Rattus's words, "We're just behind the topographical crest. The bad guys are mostly along the northern military crest. That's about seventeen or eighteen hundred meters south of the airfield."

Biggus put the mike to his lips and asked, "Can you give us a marker?"

"We'll give you lights for ten seconds, both vehicles, in thirty."

"That'll do. Then what?"

"You'll probably need more than one pass," Rattus said. "When you've expended your load, or as much as you need to, let me know. Then we're gonna charge, right over the top, all guns-such as they are-blazing. We'll meet you at the airstrip, west of the burning aircraft."

"Roger," Thornton said. It sounded pretty desperate to him but, then again, they did have the hurt limey. So . . .

Biggus gave orders to the other two. After hearing a couple of "Rogers," he shut up and watched.

As the armed aircraft to his north made its first pass, all he could say was, "Awesome."

The aircraft carried fourteen of what were called "S-8, 80mm" rockets, seven under each wing. The rockets were the mixed lot Victor Inning had provided; two per pod carried flechettes; three were high explosive; one was incendiary. The first one set to fire from each pod was illumination. One of these, from his right pod, the pilot to Biggus's north fired first.

Four seconds after the flash of the rocket's ignition could be seen, a two-megacandle flare blossomed over the truck convoy, slightly off center and to the north. In that four seconds the CH-801 had closed its range by two hundred and forty meters, give or take. In the next several seconds, the pilot let loose one entire pod, walking them up the road at and around the seven trucks. Most missed. In fact, all the high explosive and incendiary rounds missed. The flechette rockets, on the other hand, each of them spitting out two thousand thin, finned, steel darts, didn't have to be all that on target. Close was good enough where "close" was defined as two and a half truckloads of human flesh reduced to twitching, screaming, moaning, bleeding, gagging, puking, shitting lumps of meat . . . in a fraction of a second.

As the pilot turned away-safer that was than passing over a convoy of armed men, even if their drivers were jinking like mad-to line up for another run, his door gunner, Manuel, let loose with a long, two hundred round burst of machine gun fire. Manuel didn't hit much either. But his tracers did add to the overall ambience.

Buckwheat noticed that the fire snapping over the ridge slackened, indeed almost ceased, right after the northern sky lit up from the flare.

They're watching the fireworks, he thought. That, and probably shitting their pants. Now's the time, now, for the other strike to go in.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

"A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!"

-Judges 7:20, the Bible, New International Version

D-Day, Rako-Dhuudo-Bandar Cisman highway, Ophir

Reilly listened to the reports from the scouts: "Scout Four . . . SitRep . . . fourteen tanks, moving east on the road . . . two groups . . . four tanks leading then ten more about four hundred meters after . . . dismounts riding on top . . . five or six, maybe seven, per." "Scout Two . . . same . . . just reaching the bend at Checkpoint Five." "Scout One, I make them at Checkpoint Four."

So far, so good, he thought. Fourteen tanks with a gap of four hundred meters . . . mmm . . . call the column one point one klicks long. That'll fit in the kill zone. Why only fourteen though? There were supposed to be up to twenty-four. He called the TOC, back on the ship, to ask.

Boxers voice answered, "When the UAV went over the lager there were ten still there, most with people working on them."

"Roger." Okay then, ten down for maintenance. Par for the course.

Then he heard, "This is Scout Two. Two more tanks, no dismounts on top. A klick and a half behind the others."

Shit! How did the UAVs miss that? Two tanks a kilometer and a half behind would put them out of the kill zone when he initiated the ambush. He didn't want to face one tank in a fair fight, let alone two. There's a solution, but . . . man, that sucks.

"Scout one, Alpha Six," Reilly sent.

"Scouts." Snyder's voice sounded worried. Ah, he understands the problem, too.

"When we initiate, I need you to engage the follow-on tanks."

There was a pause while Snyder formed a reply. That reply was, "Are you out of your fucking mind? We've got machine guns. That's it."

Reilly's voice stayed calm and firm. He understood perfectly well how Snyder felt. "I know. I don't expect you to kill anything. I just want you to button them up and make them think they're in the kill zone, too. And don't lose track of them when they roll off the road."

The answer to that was long enough in coming. "Wilco." I will comply.

D-Day, MV
Merciful

Boxer burst into the TOC and said, "Shit! We missed two tanks."

"What are you talking about?" Stauer asked.

"The UAV passed over the tank column a few miles from the lager. It couldn't count the tanks in the column but counted ten in the camp. So we figured fourteen tanks Reilly would have to face and continued on to the town. On the flight back the pilot swung over the lager again and counted eight. So he followed the road for a while and found the other two, few enough he could count them, racing to join the rest."

"Will they catch up before Reilly's kill zone?"

"No. They'll still be out of it by the time Reilly has to engage."

"Ah . . . fuck. Get me Reilly on the horn."

D-Day, Rako-Dhuudo-Bandar Cisman highway, Ophir

"Yes, we identified the problem and I've got a handle on it, boss," Reilly answered. "Yes, it's a shitty, greasy, sloppy handle, but I've got a handle."

Man, I hate being nagged.

Sergeant Abdan reported in, "First tank entering the KZ."

Reilly finished up, "And I got to go now. Busy, doncha know. Send the dustoff our way, would you? We're probably going to need it."

The radio spouted, "Alpha Six, One-Six. First tank at Checkpoint Three . . . "

Lana, wearing NVGs, watched the long steel snake slither through the kill zone with a mix of eagerness and fear. Some of the fear was for her life and health, true. More of it, though, was in the form of, Lord, God, don't let me fail.

In this she wasn't so very different from any of the others peering in at the sight of the massacre they hoped to make.

Though she didn't have to whisper-the tanks made more noise than she could hope to-still she did. "Gunner . . . eleven o'clock . . . gunner . . . ten o'clock . . . gunner . . . eleven o'clock."

With each command, Viljoen deftly spun the traversing wheel that also held his firing button. A certain tone crept into her voice, that same combination of fear for self and fear for self-image.

"Relax, Lana," Viljoen said. "It's . . . well, I won't say it's a piece of cake, but I will say you're as ready and as able as anyone I ever served with."

"Well, thanks a lot, lover," Dumisani piped in.

"I never served with you in combat, you black bastard. You were on the other side." Viljoen hesitated for a moment; he wasn't normally the maudlin sort. Then he added, "Dumi, if you were ever down range of my gun . . . I'm awfully glad I missed."

"What are you talking about?" the Zulu said. "You hit my tonsils every time."

"Asshole!"

"And sometimes that, too."

Lana couldn't help herself; she started to laugh.

Which was the point of the exchange, Viljoen thought. As Dumi understood. As he understands damn near everything.

***

Reilly felt his heart pounding with the sheer wicked joy of impending combat. It had been a long time, and every minute since the last had seemed like a pointless eternity. From behind the screen his driver and James had thrown up, as if through a veil, he watched the foremost approaching behemoth grow closer . . . and closer . . . four hundred meters . . . three hundred . . . two hundred.

"Guns up!" he sent over the general frequency. He couldn't see it but somehow he felt eight major antiarmor systems rising from the ground. A quick glance left and right showed Nagy's engineers manning machine guns and RPGs.

"One-six up . . . ATGMs up . . . Mortars, hanging."

One-fifty. One hundred.

"Company . . . FIRE!"

Major Maalin, riding in the fifth tank back, the one right after the gap, scanned left and right. He couldn't see a lot; the moonlight cast shadows on the low scrub and rocks that tended to conceal more than the moon illuminated.

Of course, if I could just have convinced uncle Gutaale that being able to see at night was at least as important as having a twenty-fourth tank . . . but, noooo, he wanted the image more than the reality.

Nominally, Maalin's command consisted of one large, very large, tank company, and two infantry companies that were in theory going to get wheeled armored personnel carriers someday. For now, the company he had with him made do with riding on top of the tanks. Yes, it would sting if the tanks' guns fired.

The major had lost cellular communication with his uncle's office nearly an hour ago. There were broad patches of the country that the phone service simply couldn't reach. Indeed, if his cantonment hadn't been atop a hill, Maalin rather doubted he'd have any service at all. Certainly the town to the west and lower down, Rako, had no service at all.

And, of course, the tanks' radios didn't reach. And didn't I complain about that, too? "One less tank, uncle," I said. "One less tank and we can get night vision devices, longer range radios, and even some more training ammunition." But, nooo, he didn't understand the importance of those things.

And can he or his flunkies give me a spot of reconnaissance? A little intelligence on what lies ahead? No. That's why I have one tank platoon forward; maybe they can find out something at not too great a cost.

I swear . . .

Maalin's silent complaints stopped when he saw two bright flashes, perhaps two kilometers away, or maybe three-it was hard to tell at night and no one had ever taught him the flash-to-bang formula anyway.

For several seconds, he couldn't see anything related to those flashes. Then he saw something, two smaller ones that seemed to be nearing him. Those lights danced in bright circles. He was about to call for evasive action-a "Sagger Dance," western armies would have called it-when there was a much larger flash ahead, followed in just over a second by a substantial boom. Half a second after that something flew by his head, spitting small flames out the side.

What happened to that-missile, it must have been-Maalin didn't know. He was too busy trying to make sense of the fire that seemed to come all at once, from everywhere. He heard sharp cracks all around his tank, and the sound of bronze ricocheting from steel, as the infantry he had boarded started to fall and crumple around the turret.

Shit, he thought.

Then another explosion, close by, went off by the side of the road. He saw the infantry on the tank ahead simply swept off, as if by a large broom. The tank commander, who had been riding unbuttoned, came apart in shreds of cloth and flesh. When Maalin heard the same kind of explosion behind him, he didn't even look. Since he was alive and some of his infantry still on his tank, he knew the one behind him had been similarly brushed off.

Directional antipersonnel mines. Those, too. Fuck.

While Dumi was still bringing the Eland up to hull down from turret down, Lana saw one of the missiles fired by Harvey's antitank section fly by a few hundred meters to her front before it buried itself in the rocks with a thunderous crash.

"Shitty Russian workmanship," she muttered, before breaking into the routine, "Gunner, HEAT, Tank, Eleven o'clock."

The gun crested the edge of the wadi, Viljoen made a minute correction to range and elevation, and then the road in front of her lit up with the strobelike muzzle flashes of her gun, and five others.

She was mesmerized by the display.

"Hit!" Viljoen said. There was no response. "Lana! HIT! Reload!"

"Wha . . .? What?"

"Reload, dammit."

"Ah, shit, sorry," she said. Automatically, she dropped her commander's seat a few inches, and bent to extract another round from the rack behind her. The few seconds she'd wasted meant she couldn't vacuum load but had to take the time to ram the shell all the way in.

"Up," Lana called, then stuck her head back out the commander's hatch just in time to see Viljoen smack another hollow charge shell into the engine compartment of the tank he'd first hit. The thing erupted in flames. Almost immediately thereafter, a great burst of fire emerged from all around the enemy turret, which sailed into the air like a rocket, fire blossoming all around and underneath it.

"That's a kill," Lana announced, as once again she stooped over to feed Viljoen's greedy gun.

She managed to get her head up again in time to see that at least four of the enemy tanks were burning. In the firelight, silhouetted, she saw dismounts racing toward her.