Event Horizon (15 page)

Hurtling toward the intersection at forty miles per hour, the SUV slammed into the near stationary pickup, launching the SUV’s front seat passengers through the opaque windshield into the bed of the truck. Bodies tumbled into the intersection, catapulted by the collision. Alex grasped the rifle and ran for the first Jersey barrier, bullets smacking into the mud behind him. A throng of Liberty Boys had emerged from the bushes beyond the wrecked vehicles, firing on the run. He needed to reach the reinforced concrete barrier before the shooting frenzy tapered and they transitioned to more deliberate and inherently accurate tactics.

***

A thunderous metallic crunch forced Ryan to steal a glance at the intersection. A dark blue late-model SUV careened sideways, its hood bent upward from rear-ending an oversized four-door pickup truck. The SUV’s front windshield was missing, along with the driver and front passenger, who he assumed had joined the tangle of bodies next to the pickup. Three tightly spaced holes and a bright red stain in the driver’s side of the pickup’s windshield explained why the pickup stopped in the middle of the intersection. Thirty feet away, his father lowered his suppressed rifle and ran toward the bridge, looking over his shoulder at several men running toward the intersection from the turnpike.

Ryan tugged Chloe’s hand to force her along. Progress across the exposed intersection had been stop and go since the shooting started. She had dropped to the mud several times during their trek across the exposed intersection, the crack and hiss of near misses short-circuiting her legs. He just needed to get her behind the Jersey barrier and out of immediate danger. Ryan slid his right arm under her left arm and shoved her forward, pushing against her back. Bullets ricocheted off the barrier in front of them as they edged toward the temporary reprieve of the one-foot-thick, steel-reinforced concrete barricade.

She sank to the pavement behind the wall, placing her back against the concrete and burying her face in her knees. Her body twitched uncontrollably, and Ryan couldn’t tell if she was hyperventilating or crying. He pressed his forehead against her pink ball cap and held her tightly, wishing he could soothe her. The maelstrom of incoming fire intensified, showering them with concrete fragments. Chloe flinched at every sound. There was nothing he could do for her right now, other than get her to the other side of the bridge.

He yanked the pistol from his waist and started to lift himself, but froze. This wasn’t a day at the range with his father. The supersonic snaps filling the void above him represented lethal projectiles travelling over three thousand feet per second. Rising above the top of the barricade exposed him to a fickle domain ruled by chance and ever-slimming odds. Ryan had learned all about this world after he announced his intentions to follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue a commission as a marine officer. A weekend camping trip materialized, during which his father unveiled the realities of combat and dispelled the myths. One of those realities pressed down hard, locking him in place. He grimaced, fighting against it.

“Combat is all about odds,”
Alex had told him
. “Ninety-nine point nine percent of ordnance fired on the battlefield never reaches its intended target. Long odds until you consider the sheer volume of projectiles fired in a battle.”

He tried to stand, but his legs refused. He had to break out of this paralysis. His dad would be devastated to find him cowering behind cover. The thought of his dad in the sights of every gun south of the bridge spurred him into action.

Ryan popped up and scanned right, finding a target aiming a rifle at the bridge from the riverbank. Three rapid trigger presses placed ordnance close enough to break the shooter’s concentration, forcing him to seek concealment in the thick underbrush. His dad hit the pavement next to him, slamming his back against the concrete. Ryan dropped down, not seeing any point in pushing the “long odds.” The intersection swarmed with heavily armed militia. Remembering another Captain Fletcherism, he slid past Chloe to take a new position along the barrier.

“Appearing in the same place twice during a gun fight is bad for your health.”

***

Shards of concrete stung Alex’s hands as he vaulted the barrier and landed next to Ryan, who had just fired Alex’s pistol at the riverbank. Ryan scooted past Chloe and rose to fire three aimed shots directly into the intersection. A sharp scream from the intersection penetrated the earsplitting chaos.

“They’re all over us!” yelled Ryan.

Alex unclipped the HK416 from his sling and handed it past Chloe to Ryan. Chloe quivered against the obstacle, face buried in her knees and hands covering her ears.

“Spare mags in my cargo pockets! Lay down some fire while I launch our flares!”

Alex scrambled to open the dump bag containing the flares while Ryan rapidly fired two-round salvos at the militia. He felt Ryan’s hands clawing at the rifle magazines in his left cargo pocket before he had unscrewed the top and bottom end caps of the first flare. His son burned through the rest of the magazine in seconds. Incoming gunfire struck the top of the barrier and the side of the bridge, spraying them with painful fragments. They needed to move to the next barrier, but he didn’t dare risk running toward the marines without sending up the flares. He prepared the second flare and turned to face the opposite side of the bridge.

Ryan stopped firing and ducked behind the barrier to reload. “They’re getting too close! I can barely stick my head out!”

“Just buy me a few more seconds!” said Alex, aiming the flare at a seventy-degree angle in the direction of the marines.

He withdrew the safety pin and depressed the trigger, launching the aerial rocket. The flare sailed skyward and disappeared in the rain. He heard a faint pop a few seconds later.

Fuck.

Alex had forgotten that the parachute flare travelled nearly a thousand feet before igniting and drifting back to the ground. He wasn’t sure if it would drift down far enough to be seen through the gray curtain of clouds and precipitation before extinguishing. Firing another flare seemed pointless, but he aimed the next one skyward and fired it with the same grim result. Swallowed by the impenetrable squall.

“What happened to the flares!” yelled Ryan, changing magazines.

“Into the clouds! Stand by to leapfrog to the next barrier. I’ll cover you and Chloe with the .308 from here. You lay down fire for me. Focus on the closest shooters. Three-round salvos. Go!”

Bullets snapped overhead as Alex and Ryan swapped positions at the end of the crumbling Jersey barrier. Ryan pulled on Chloe, but she didn’t budge.

Wrong time for this!

Alex leaned around the corner and found a target crouched behind a thick tree in the traffic island. He centered the crosshairs on an exposed shoulder and pressed the trigger. The rifle bit into his shoulder. He scanned over the barrel for more targets, locating a shooter at the corner of the pool building. The 6X scope brought the man into focus; a .308 bullet dropped him into the mud. The volume of fire against Alex’s edge of the barrier intensified, forcing him back.

“You have to get her moving!” he said, sliding in the mud to the other side of the barrier.

“It’s only twenty-five feet, Chloe,” Ryan said to her. “You can do it. My dad and I will protect you. We have to go, Chloe! You have to run!” pleaded Ryan, tugging furiously at both her arms.

Alex fired two shots from his new position, connecting with one of them before the Liberty Boys adjusted their aim and started to pulverize the corner. He pressed his back into the concrete and examined the rifle scope. Small miracle. The scope was attached to a quick-release mount. He flipped the levers and discarded the scope, raising the front and rear flip-up sights. That was better. He rose to his knees and braced the rifle’s hand guard against the concrete, firing the rest of the magazine in two-round salvos at the militia squad that had taken cover behind the destroyed vehicles. The level of incoming fire dropped significantly for a few seconds.

Alex dropped below the barrier and processed the situation. He could suppress the militia and hand Ryan the rifle, giving his son a few seconds’ head start. It might be enough to get him to a safer position. The Liberty Boys would focus their initial fire at the barricade, giving Ryan a few additional seconds to reach cover. No other scenario worked.

“Get to the next barrier and cover me! I’ll carry her,” said Alex.

“You can barely run! I’m not leaving her!”

“Get to the next barrier! That’s an order! I’ll unload the HK and give you the time you need to get in position to cover our withdrawal. It’s the only way,” said Alex, tossing the .308 into the mud.

Alex reloaded the HK416 with one of the magazines from his back pocket. He passed the three from his right cargo pocket to Ryan, who stuffed them in his pockets, shaking his head.

“Dad, I’ll carry her. You shoot,” said Ryan.

With Chloe on his back, Ryan would move at less than half of his potential speed. Alex was willing to fight and die behind the first barricade, but the high volume of fire required to momentarily quiet the militia guns would burn through the HK’s thirty-round magazine in seconds. Ryan and Chloe would be caught in the open during the first magazine change. Only one scenario produced a guaranteed survivor if Chloe refused to run. Glancing at her shell-shocked, inert form, he didn’t see a ten-meter dash anywhere in her near future.

“That won’t work! You go first and get ready to cover us!” said Alex.

“You’ll leave her here!”

“I won’t leave her,” muttered Alex, stunned by his son’s accusation. “I don’t get to walk off this bridge without both of you.”

“Then let me carry her.”

“Ryan—”

A red glimmer in the sky east of the bridge caught his eye. He craned his neck against the harsh concrete and watched a red parachute flare break through the murky ceiling, swinging wildly for a few seconds before extinguishing. The parachute landed on the northern riverbank, nearly three hundred feet away. A green flare appeared further downriver, visible for a brief moment. Red tracers streaked past on both sides of the bridge before he could turn to Ryan, followed by the thunderous pounding of heavy-caliber machine guns. Alex pulled Chloe and Ryan flat against the pavement as the air filled with the sharp, staccato crackle of automatic machine-gun fire. The deafening roar continued for a few seconds before Alex lifted his head far enough off the ground to see that the tracers raced north to south.

Hello 1
^st
Battalion!

“Those are marine guns! Lift her up and haul ass. I’ll be right behind you!” said Alex.

Alex crested the top of the concrete block and stared at the carnage for a moment. The municipal building’s red brick façade crumbled into chunks of brick and mortar under a hail of tracers, each red streak representing four steel-jacketed bullets. Large and small projectiles punctured the thin metal on both sides of the pickup truck and SUV, hammering the men seeking cover from the onslaught. A geyser of blood erupted above the pickup truck’s hood, followed by a headless body toppling into the mud. A group of panicked men scrambled away from the vehicles east of the traffic island as tracers ricocheted off the metal. The marine gunfire intensified, tearing into the men as they crossed open ground. He felt a solid tug on his shoulder.

“Ready to move,” said Ryan, holding Chloe in a fireman’s carry.

“Right behind you,” said Alex, firing at the few targets of opportunity left by the marines.

He found it difficult to keep up with his son, who effortlessly carried Chloe to the next barrier. Ryan paused near the next barrier, waiting for instructions.

“All the way! All the way!” said Alex, pushing Ryan forward.

Two bullets struck the face of the barrier, stopping him from immediately following. He scanned the intersection through the ACOG scope, searching for a shooter the marines couldn’t see from their firing positions or vehicles. The bridge rose a few feet higher than the north bank, possibly obstructing their view of low-profile targets directly in front of the first barrier. He focused on positions close to the ground, spotting movement under the front end of the pickup truck. With all of its tires flattened by machine-gun fire, the front fender sat several inches above the mud, providing a perfect firing position for anyone willing to burrow their way through the filth.

Alex centered the tip of the red arrow on the darkness beneath the bumper and fired twice, unsure if his bullets struck a target. Smoke erupted from the same spot, spitting several bullets back. Alex pressed the trigger once before the projectiles reached the barrier, shattering concrete and grazing his right cheek. He dropped to one knee, clutching his face with his left hand and firing indiscriminately with the other. More rounds hit the barrier, forcing him to crouch. Ryan cried out less than a second later. This wasn’t working.

Chloe lay on the pavement next to Ryan, who struggled on one knee to pull her toward the next barricade. Bullets snapped overhead, but Alex ignored them. He had to get the kids out of the open. He waved at the nearest marine M-ATV for help, but the gunner kept firing the roof-mounted M240B in long bursts. A few seconds later, three marines in full battle gear appeared at the end of the bridge, running in their direction. Alex rushed across the exposed hardtop and helped Ryan drag Chloe behind the wall. His son had been hit in the leg, but he couldn’t tell how badly. A primeval tunnel vision channeled all of his focus and physical energy into pulling Chloe out of harm’s way. He instinctually knew it was the only way to get his son out of the kill zone. The marines slammed into the concrete before he could check Ryan, firing fully automatic bursts across the bridge.

“Ryan!” he yelled, scrambling around one of the marines to reach his son.

“40 mike mike! Send it!” yelled a short, stocky staff sergeant.

The marines grabbed the pistol grips beneath their rifle-mounted M320 Grenade Launcher Modules and filled the air with hollow thumping sounds. A pair of hands grabbed his collar and stopped him.