“God save us from ourselves. Here, come with me.” Kat dragged the translator away and hovered over the anxious insurgents loafing around the penthouse. She spoke to them directly, without glancing at the interpreter.
“So, what’s with all the bitching? Keep your trust in the man next to you and stick to the plan, and you’ll be fine. I guarantee you this won’t be like the other missions.”
Kat could only pray the translator conveyed the right blend of mild displeasure, yet supreme confidence from her tone. The nerve of these green fighters, puke-green in the case of one teenager in the corner, was brittle enough.
Despite fighting on a daily basis since the first moment of the invasion, Prince Saud’s enormous guerrilla army boasted few combat veterans. The prince did his best to hide the casualty rate, but it was an open secret. Fewer than 2% of new recruits survived the first skirmish with their high-tech foes. Numbers, bravery and spirit just weren’t enough, if not backed up by skill and organization.
None of the insurgents spoke to her, but one teeny warrior kept grumbling in Arabic. A few others began to nod along in agreement. Kat zoomed in on her prey and flipped the switch for drill sergeant mode… but the ass chewing just wouldn’t come. The boy was younger than her daughter. Kat couldn’t summon the anger she required.
“Do you have a question?”
Her ‘terp did a great job conveying the boy’s macho arrogance. “Why do we have to double up on targets? There are enough of us to shoot every vehicle at once. Let’s fire one volley, kill them all at the same time and be done with it. That’s how we did it in Call of Duty.”
Kat planted her feet in front of him. She crossed her arms over her chest, forcing the boy’s eyes to drift up and meet hers. “Because in combat, two is one and one is none.”
She grinned at the wannabe insurgent’s blank face. “Look, so many things can go wrong. You might have a malfunction or you could hit your target at the wrong angle and fail to penetrate the armor. Hell, and I know this is a long-shot with this group of hardened warriors, but you could just simply miss.”
Kat ran a gentle hand over the boy’s smooth, beardless chin. “And once you expose your position, we don’t want them blowing your pretty little face off while you reload, now do we? Do you want this to be the first and last time you were ever touched by a woman that hasn’t changed your diapers?”
Even the interpreter laughed as the teenager’s brown cheeks turned black.
“Okay, so let’s recap one more time. We’ll keep this operation ultra-simple.” She jabbed her stick at eight tin cans on a sand table mockup in the middle of the penthouse while the interpreter hovered close.
“We have four teams of two rocket men apiece, true, but we’ll hit only one target at a time. Alpha Team will strike the lead vehicle from the southwest, which is the front right of their convoy. Once the enemy returns fire, Bravo Team smacks them from the northwest, or the rear of the convoy, from the enemy’s perspective. Only when we see the ISIS fighters dismount and take cover on the east, their left side, will Charlie and Delta teams open fire from the east. That’s why they have all the machine guns.
“Recap: Alpha and Bravo pins them in place and draws their fire, then Charlie and Delta slams their flank. If there are any alien drones escorting the convoy, don’t waste your ammo on them. Focus your fire on the vulnerable supply trucks and the human dismounts. Any questions?”
She waited long enough for her translator to catch up.
“Remember the automatic abort triggers. If there’s even a hint of enemy aircraft operating nearby, you drop your weapons and hide. Don’t run, you’ll only attract attention and die tired. Most importantly, if the entire convoy doesn’t come to a complete stop for the fake car bomb, then we will not execute the ambush. Just walk away. Unless they’re sitting still, it’s a waste of ammo and lives to attack. Even a trained soldier has only a 50/50 chance of hitting a laterally moving target with an Rocket Propelled Grenade, and let’s face it… none of you fellas are Rambo.”
The point might have been lost, since all the young men whooped at the Rambo reference, despite the translator’s pleading.
“Right. Anyway, no matter what happens, remember the real objective: live to fight another day. This will not be an epic battle for the history books. Hit and run is the name of the game. Every rocketeer fires one round and falls back. Each machine gunner fires only a single belt of ammo. Every rifleman empties two magazines. One during the ambush, and the other covering the withdrawal. Oh, and shoot in five-round bursts this time! What’s the count again?”
They all chanted “One fuck a’ you, stop, two fuck a’ you!” in English. If she had at least taught them how not to blaze away on full automatic until the barrel shot at the sun, then maybe her time hadn’t been completely wasted.
“Excellent, but don’t get carried away. I cannot stress that enough. In all honesty, if we take out just a quarter of their vehicles, I’ll call this ambush a resounding success. This is no heroic struggle to the death. They have the numbers and the technology to kick our ass if we let them. So let’s not give them the chance. It’s elementary insurgency warfare. We sting them and then we run before they can hit back. No one stands and fights unless you need to cover a wounded man’s retreat. And you will take care of every injured man. No one gets left behind under any circumstances. Any questions?”
The fear was still there, maybe even stronger now that the adrenaline was pumping, but Kat smiled anyway. She smirked as the men traded teasing barbs and macho boasts. Fear was in the air, all right, but not all because of the enemy. These guys worried about something far worse than death. They were terrified of failure. About shaming themselves and letting their comrades down.
If any of them survived the next hour, they’d make one hell of a team.
Major Nurasi came up behind Kat and butted into her back-clapping musings. He spoke in English for the first time since Kat met him.
“With all due respect to my prince for requesting your advice, you are making a terrible mistake. I’m going to modify your plan. We will use a real suicide bomber to stop the convoy. That’s much more reliable. I have plenty of brave martyrs willing to serve.”
Kat put on a show for the confused fighters. They couldn’t understand the English conversation, but they sure could read their commander’s scorn. She kept her tone neutral and even crossed her hands behind her back, forcing out a respectful “parade rest” stance. Captain Dore would’ve been proud.
“Sir, I do not doubt the courage of your warriors, but it’s a simple question of resource economy.” She caved in to her frustration and rolled her eyes. Captain Dore could have talked these amateurs into doing what he wanted while making them think it was their idea, but she didn’t have the temperament for such games.
“Look, it’s downright stupid to piss away your bravest people left and right. Even if we kill the entire enemy force and only lose one suicide bomber, then we’ve still lost. They have a huge pool of conscripts to draw from, but we don’t. Do you think loyal, courageous fighters grow on trees? It’s one thing to risk your people for an objective, but it’s something else to intentionally kill them for a short-term advantage. Get your head out of your ass! If you insist on doing this, then I’m done. I won’t support your stupidity.”
They stood there, staring each other down, for a good thirty seconds. Kat was just about to storm out when the insurgents jumped to their feet and stood at attention.
Prince Saud glided through the apartment’s door with a chrome-plated AK-47 in his arms. Though Kat was positive he’d never fired a gun before in his life, he somehow came across perfectly convincing in his camouflage outfit and spotlessly clean tactical vest. The prince seized every man in sight and kissed his cheeks.
Kat couldn’t understand the flowery phrases he sang in Arabic, but it must have done the trick. Even her interpreter stuck out his bony chest and swelled with pride.
The boy wiped away a tear and tried to
explain. “The prince said… um, well freedom for us has a religious connotation…”
Kat clapped him on the back. “Don’t bother. I get the idea. Might as well strike while the iron’s hot.” She donned her battle-rattle and prepared to join the fighters marching out. Their egos were so bulged-up that she was surprised they could fit through the door.
Prince Saud swooped to Kat’s side before she left. He held her hand, like an equal male acquaintance, and guided her to the window. “Sergeant, there is some time yet. Let the men get in place. I’d like to consult with you a little more. Please calm my nerves and go over your plan one more time with me.”
“Uh, sure, sir.” Kat launched into an abbreviated report, all while rubbernecking out the window to make sure the teams moved to their correct positions. For the first time in days, the prince seemed only half-interested in what she had to say.
After a few minutes, a messenger came inside and whispered in Prince Saud’s ear. The assistant tried a little too hard to avoid glancing at Kat. The prince muttered something curious in Arabic. He beamed at the response and switched to English.
“I have some good news for a change, Sergeant. We passed the word of your escape down the grapevine when we first took you in. Well, we’ve finally received a response. There’s a large NATO detachment in Egypt that desperately wants you back. They’re sending an extraction team tonight. Congratulations. You’re going home.”
Kat shoved down her excitement. “Thanks, but I bet home is a long way off. I guarantee you they’ll just debrief me and toss my ass back into the fight somewhere else. Speaking of which, the scouts are signaling the convoy is in sight. We need to focus on the battle at hand. Your boys are eager, but I’m worried about their fire discipline. I need to get over there and take personal command of the bait element. No offense to Major Nurasi, but I don’t believe he’s ready to handle such a time-sensitive maneuver.”
“No, Sergeant. I’m afraid we can’t risk you.” Prince Saud rested a soft hand on her shoulder. “You’ve done your best to teach them. Such a remarkable job in only a few days, really, but now they must stand on their own two feet.” The prince politely, yet firmly spun her around. She twisted her head and spotted a Land Rover pulling up to the outpost. Two of his bodyguards waited in the front seat.
“These men will escort you down to the beach. The extraction team is coming at midnight. I’ll try to see you off later, but if I’m too busy, please accept my gratitude for all you’ve done. Go with God, Nusaybah.”
Kat collected her gear, but quickly dropped it. Nothing belonged to her. She frowned and shook the prince’s hand. “Okay, then. I guess that’s it. Well, thank you, but what does Nusaybah mean?”
“It’s a name. Nusaybah was the most famous female warrior of Islamic folklore. She even saved the Prophet himself from certain death during the great Battle of Uhud. As the legend goes, a dozen times was Nusaybah wounded, yet she survived every injury and returned the favor to her foes ten-fold.”
Kat hadn’t blushed in years, but a tinge of color flushed her face. “You honor me, Prince Saud bin Salman. I hope I can live up to her example.”
The monarch looked away. “I pray you don’t have to. In the end, she had to sacrifice all her children on the altar of war. That was the one wound she never recovered from.”
Hwy 441 Border Control Point
15 miles northwest of Gainesville, Florida
“This was a mistake. Neil’s a good guy, but he’s way out of his depth. I should have gone over and negotiated personally.”
Rand raised her binoculars over the border checkpoint’s concrete and sandbag parapet yet again. She scanned the empty highway for the tenth time in the last twenty minutes. Just a few miles down the road began the Department of Homeland Security’s jurisdiction. Or occupied territory, depending on which side you asked.
Dixon plopped down on a water cooler between Rand and a Minuteman machine gunner. “Actually, it was a stroke of genius. Neil knows enough of our situation to understand the stakes, but he’s sure not a details guy. If they kidnap him, what can he give away? I get confused simply talking to him. Sweating Neil for information would be just as much a torture for the interviewer.”
“How the hell can you be so glib?”
“Because Heinrich’s people requested a liaison on the open net. They’re not the types to screw around with penny ante murder.”
Colonel Brown, head honcho of the consolidated High Springs/Commune “Minuteman” militia force, stepped behind Rand. He looped his hands into his privately owned body armor and stretched his back.
“He’s right. The DHS is in the wholesale slaughter business. We watched the entire battle from here. They didn’t just drive the Warriors of Christ off. No, it was a rout. They took prisoners, though. Took them all the way down the road. There’s a mass grave just south of Alachua.”
Rand slunk back down to cover and rapped the back of her head against the sandbags. “I can’t believe the End Timers gave up everything. They’re just as numerous and ruthless as Heinrich’s goons.”
Brown grunted. “Yeah, but their supply lines must have been stretched to the limit. The Warriors expanded too far, too fast. They didn’t just lose the city. As far as we can tell, they’ve abandoned all control over the I-75 corridor down here in Alachua County.”
For weeks, the endless back and forth struggle for control of Gainesville had kept the two big kids on the block occupied. Neither side could afford to open another front with a third party. That strategic calculus was turned upside down this morning though.
“There’s your boy now, or at least his car.” Brown snapped his fingers at two of his men. They both partially exposed themselves and trained their weapons on Neil’s racing sedan. Someone else blared a vehicle horn and flashed a strobe light.
“Why are you stopping him? Let him through!”
“If that’s really him, he can dismount 100 yards away and jog over. I’ll risk pissing him off before I risk a car bomb getting past. I’ve seen it before.”
Rand licked her lips. “Of course, yeah, in the war.”
Brown shouldered his rifle and snickered. “I meant last week at the grocery store down the street.”
Neil got the message without anyone needing to fire a warning shot. He came huffing up to the checkpoint a minute later, sweating far more than the short hike warranted.
Rand jumped up as he snagged a water bottle from the cooler. Neil might have gotten a little water down. Hard to tell, since his shaking hands dumped most of it on his shirt.
“Well? What did they say? Did they make a counteroffer?”
“Rand, that was no negotiation. I tried making the trade deal you said, but they wouldn’t hear me out. They just wanted to show off their guns.”
He collapsed in the dirt, but then bounded right back up again. “We need to get out of here! Homeland Security demanded unconditional surrender by dawn. They were quite firm about the deadline.”
Rand cocked her head. “Whose surrender do they want? High Springs or us? Did they make any threats?”
Neil threw up his hands to the west. “Everyone! Heinrich’s gang claims authority over everything from here to the Gulf Coast. We either give it to them, or they’ll come and take it. They didn’t even bother blindfolding me like you said they would. The whole point was to let me see everything they had. If they were trying to scare me, they did a damn fine job.”
No one budged, so he grabbed Rand. “You don’t understand! Our little force is nothing. Boys playing army. They’ve got hundreds of fighters, maybe thousands. All sorts of hardware too, and I don’t just mean rifles and shotguns. They must have raided a National Guard armory or something…”
Dixon crossed his arms and locked eyes with Colonel Brown. “If they say dawn, I guarantee you that means they’ll attack at midnight. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have plenty of night vision and thermal sights. Shit.”
Brown studied his map and nodded. “All right. Then
we strike at nightfall. Gives us two hours to get ready. Major, send an Op Order: standby to execute Operation Chromite. Recall all patrols and have them rally here. We’ll need all hands on deck. Assemble every officer and senior NCO for a command huddle in 15 minutes. Go ahead and kick out the sniper and forward observer teams as well. I want real-time intel on the target in 30 minutes.”
Rand shrugged Neil off and huffed as the militia staff hustled about. “What target? Where’s everyone going? What exactly are you up to, Colonel?”
“We haven’t just been sitting idly by on the border and playing with ourselves. We’ve made contingency plans. It was always clear what would happen if one side or the other gained an upper hand in the city. We’re a lightly defended target. Of course the winner would turn on us. Simply put, we’re impossibly outnumbered. Our only chance is to strike first, out of the blue. We’re going to Pearl Harbor their asses so hard it’ll take them days to recover.”
Brown dropped a plastic overlay over his map and pointed to a red circle. “Heinrich’s commanders likely assume we’ll either dig in or fall back into High Springs, but I’ve got other ideas. They’ve turned this high school here, just to the west of the interstate, into a major forward operating base. One great big barracks and supply dump. We take that place out of the equation and the enemy has no teeth left. If the Feds are still interested in fighting after that, well, they’ll have to strip men and resources from their other battlefronts. That should buy you plenty of time to contact the other towns and drum up more reinforcements.”
Rand waved her hands over his map. “Are you out of your mind? You want to provoke them even more? We need to split your fighters up and guard all these roads and fields leading home as quickly as possible. Maybe if the Department of Homeland Security can’t find an easy route west, then they’ll back off and find someone else to pick on.”
Brown grunted. “With all due respect, Rand, don’t be so naïve. You haven’t seen them fighting. This is a real army we’re facing, not some gang of highway robbers. We don’t have the manpower to defend even a quarter of the border. Just too many approaches. If we don’t hit first, if we don’t take the initiative, then we’re screwed.”
The Caliphate Invasion Page 24