But Glide shook her head. “She’s a lot better than me.”
With obvious reluctance, Angriff let Nipple tend to Santos. He stood and finished reloading.
Walling pulled those soldiers manning the west barricades first. Working as a counterattack squad, they cleared the southern perimeter by killing the Sevens who had broken through. He had eighteen troops and ordered them to rally around Angriff’s Humvee and to put suppressing fire on the abandoned perimeter. With Imboden covering him with the GAU, Walling next pulled back the northern troops, and then the eastern. Running through the firefight, by a miracle his only new wound was a graze to his left forearm. Finally, when the living had pulled back, Walling himself ran to join them.
From underneath a burning truck, a Seven who had feigned death raised his lever-action Winchester and fired, striking Walling in the left shoulder. The colonel staggered but did not fall. He continued stumbling toward the knot of friendly troops surrounding the Humvee. Several men rushed to help him. The Seven pushed down on the lever to reload his rifle and Angriff caught the movement in the shadows under the truck. Before the Seven could get off a second shot, a fifty-caliber action express round took off the left side of his face.
For a few seconds, silence fell among the drifting smoke. Angriff took the opportunity to reload the second Desert Eagle and then brought it to port. Surrounding his Humvee were the forty or so surviving men and women of his headquarters company. The wounded lay beside the Humvee, while the rest stood or knelt between them and the Sevens. Colonel Walling propped hmself against a front tire and held an oily rag against his bleeding shoulder. Corporal Imboden moved the GAU back and forth looking for targets. Nipple still worked on Private Santos, who was conscious enough to cry.
As the little band waited for the final attack, above them flapped the double-pointed flag of the 7th Cavalry.
1838 hours
All Sati Bashara could see was smoke and flame, even though they had moved within two hundred yards of the perimeter. Specks of carbon floated in the cloud hanging low over the roadway. Besides the smoldering wreckage strewn on Highway 169, flames also engulfed a truck on the eastern side of the perimeter. The Bradleys were silent but not on fire.
He turned to Haleem. “Go forward and tell them to finish this. Night is coming and we have wasted too much time here already. Tell the men to attack and not to use those vehicles as cover; we need to save as many as we can. Now go!”
As his friend took off running down the scorched pavement, Bashara nodded in satisfaction. He hadn’t expected such a bloodbath as the day had brought. There had been no evidence those infidels, whoever they were, would fight so hard or so well. The Emirate’s losses had been terrible.
But the loss of life didn’t bother him as long as they had won. Spreading the New Prophet’s word at the point of a sword meant casualties, and those who survived were now hardened combat veterans. As for the fallen, they were in paradise, and what more could any man ask?
Haleem was back in less than three minutes. Hands on knees, he gulped the hot, dry air. “They’re going to attack shortly. I told them that any man who stayed behind cover would be considered a traitor to the Emir and would be executed.”
“Excellent!” Bashara said. “You are growing to be a valuable leader within the Emirate, Haleem. I am very proud of you.”
1842 hours
“Here they come!” somebody yelled. Angriff and his entire command stiffened and looked for targets.
The crowd of Sevens surged forward over the lagered vehicles. The first men came into view and exchanged shots, but a new sound froze both sides. It was a high, piercing screech that grew louder and louder at it approached.
Angriff recognized it immediately. “Down! Everybody on the ground! Now!”
He helped Imboden unbuckle from the gunner’s straps binding him to the GAU, then knelt and covered both Nipple and Santos with his body. Angriff knew the sound of incoming 155mm artillery shells when he heard them.
1842 hours
Sati Bashara didn’t know the sound of incoming artillery rounds. The first explosion was fifty yards to their left. The ground shook and he winced when it went off, filling the air with the zipping sound of shrapnel. The second shell hit thirty yards to their rear and drove them to their knees. Another hit was even closer.
There was a meaty thwip sound and Haleem staggered forward. He cocked his head, and with a quizzical expression touched his neck. Blood covered his hand.
“Sati?” he said, and then collapsed.
Shells fell in clusters and it seemed the entire world was exploding. Dirt clods rained on him. Bashara took off the scarf tied around his head as a sweat band and wrapped it around his friends’ neck. By himself, he manhandled Haleem into the passenger seat of the Z-28. All around him shells ripped into cars, trucks, SUVs, and men. He couldn’t see the highway leading back east, the way they had come, for the smoke. More shrapnel struck the Z and cut the back of his right hand.
For a brief moment, Bashara wondered what to do. He couldn’t stay there and he couldn’t go back. To go forward meant death. So, as the ground quaked and steel splinters peppered the Z-28, he steered the big sports car off the highway and into the desert. Heading south, he floored it.
The psychological effect of a heavy artillery barrage on the Sevens was instantaneous. In the parched desert soil, the 155mm shells left craters four feet deep and ten or twelve feet across, with a shrapnel radius exceeding a hundred yards. Shells rained for more than a minute.
When the barrage started, the Sevens surrounding Angriff and his company panicked and fled. Some headed south on foot. Most scrambled back to their vehicles and fled the shelling to the west, toward Prescott. They hadn’t gone far before they ran into the leading elements of the re-deploying Marine companies. A few cars tried to turn around, a few tried to fight, but after two pitched battles in one day, the majority of the Sevens had had enough. They poured out of their cars and trucks with their hands in the air.
The backlog of cars on the eastern side of the perimeter tried to withdraw back the way they had come, despite artillery shells chewing up the highway. But a rhythmic roaring indicated the helicopter gunships had arrived overhead, ready to shoot anything that moved. In the fading light many of the Sevens got away, some down I-17, others across the desert. Apaches and Comanches searched for targets long after dark.
1851 hours
“She gonna make it?” Angriff asked.
Nipple’s eyes cut sideways to meet his. “Maybe.”
“It’s just you and me right now, so tell me something. Not general to subordinate; person to person. It’s obvious I piss you off. Why? What have I ever done to you?”
“That,” she said with emphasis. “That right there. The fact that you fucking have to ask.”
Chapter 46
Now mount we our horses,
Now bare we our brands,
Now haste we hard, maidens,
Hence far, far, away.
Battle Song of the Valkyries
1859 hours, July 29
Fires burned all around them as the Marines entered the lager and surrounded their commanding general. Corpsmen tended the wounded until the ambulances arrived. Angriff ordered a Dustoff team for Santos. He stayed behind, organizing the pursuit of escaping enemy units. The Humvee wouldn’t start, so once night fell, he commandeered a LAV to take him back up Badger Mountain, escorted by a full platoon.
Norm Fleming waited outside headquarters when Angriff climbed down. “Are you hit?”
Angriff’s uniform was stiff with dried blood. “That’s not mine.”
“Well, you did it,” Fleming said. “You stopped them.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Angriff said. “They did. Those kids. Those are some brave people. Fill me in on what I’ve missed.”
“Let’s go inside so I can show you on the map.”
Angriff waved him off and walked over to the edge of the crest, facing Prescott. Black smoke
plumes dotted the valley below, both in the city and extending far to the north and west. Fires burned from the suburbs of Phoenix into Prescott and beyond. Night made details hard to distinguish, except where the Klieg lights burned.
Fleming handed him a squeezer of water. “The Chinese were already withdrawing under pressure when you went down the mountain. That continued, but it never became a rout. We followed at a safe distance, but I didn’t want to let them know how weak we really are. They left fifty-seven tanks and other armored vehicles behind, not counting most of the tanker trucks.
“The Marines followed up west of Prescott, ensuring the Chinese didn’t double back. Then they raced back and blocked the road leading to the refugee camp. Right now all Army units are holding their positions just in case the Chinese haven’t had enough.
“As for the army of this Hull character, few of their men were killed or wounded. The updated figure on prisoners is over a thousand.”
“Norm, I know we’re all beat, but I don’t want any unit standing down yet. Nobody rests while there’s the slightest chance we’ve still got wounded out there.”
“That order went out half an hour ago.”
“Good. That’s good.” Angriff pulled a half-smoked cigar from his breast pocket and flared a match. Once he had the coal going, he took a moment to enjoy it.
In the camouflaging darkness, Fleming eased three feet further away.
“Remember what it’s like, Norm? After a battle? There’s happy reunions going on down there. Friends slapping each other on the back, and grim silence for the faces they’ll never see again.”
“We’ve got a happy reunion right here.”
“So we do.”
The Battle of the Highway, as it became known, might or might not have saved the brigade from destruction. But most members of the 7th Cavalry thought it had. It grew in the telling and was soon ranked beside the Alamo and Thermopylae. Angriff laughed that off as hyperbole, yet there was no doubt that at the least, it saved the brigade from much higher casualties.
The combination of the last-second artillery barrage, counterattack from the west, and the growing swarm of helicopter gunships had crushed the Sevens. Angriff ordered the pursuit cut short two hours after full darkness settled in. He also recalled the gunships. Despite their night-vision gear, there was no profit in having tired crews chasing individual cars all over the desert.
All through the night, the Sevens streamed southeastward. Some even passed through Phoenix and were never seen again. There was no cohesion, nothing like the army that had marched west. They were just a mob scattered over a wide swath of desert. When they tallied their total casualties, they’d lost ten thousand men and two hundred fifty vehicles of various types, including the only three working Abrams and half the Bradleys.
0601 hours, July 30
Angriff left a five A.M. wakeup call for the next morning, but Norm Fleming changed it to six. Too exhausted to care, he slept in the blood-covered uniform.
When he awoke, his head throbbed and every muscle in his body burned like fire, but he acted like he’d slept for twelve hours. He was grateful for the extra hour of sleep, but he didn’t mention that, either.
When Sergeant Schiller brought him a breakfast tray with hot coffee, smoked ham, and fresh eggs, however, he said something. “Where the hell did we get this?” He inhaled the intoxicating smell. “Are these actual eggs?”
“That they are, General. And real ham, too. Compliments of General Patton’s well-stocked personal pantry.”
At the first bite Angriff closed his eyes and enjoyed flavors he hadn’t tasted in half a century. “I’ll bet the common people didn’t eat like this.”
“Not even close. Patton had a large herd of pigs, chickens, turkeys, some cattle, goats… you name it, he had it. He and his men ate very well, but the rest of the people, not so much. I hear they ate a lot of corn and pumpkin.”
“Dairy cattle?”
“You’ll have to ask Colonel Schiller about that, sir. He’s taking inventory as we speak.”
“Your brother seems like quite an efficient officer.”
“That he is.”
After finishing his meal, Angriff handed the tray back and wiped his mouth on a rag. “My God, I’d forgotten what real food tasted like. Thanks, J.C., I needed that. Do I have a spare uniform?”
“Not here, General; they’re back at Prime. That’s my fault.”
“Shake it off, J.C. I’ll make it. Hey, check on the condition of one of our wounded, will you? A private named Santos; she’s in Supply.”
Schiller looked down.
“She didn’t make it, did she?” Angriff said.
“Still touch and go, but she’s not dead. The doctors said your stitches gave her a fighting chance.”
“Stitches? I didn’t give her stitches. That had to have been Nipple.”
“The psycho?… I’m sorry, General, that slipped out.”
“It’s all right, J.C. I called her that, too.” Angriff remembered the vicious look Nipple had given him the day before, and her cryptic words about why she didn’t like him. In most ways she acted crazy. And yet she’d stitched up a gushing throat wound in the middle of a firefight. There was something stranger about her than mere insanity. He would have to ask Green Ghost for more info.
Pushing up from his cot in the MCC, Angriff opened the one door in his tiny room and exited out the back into fresh skies and a cool breeze. The charred scent of burning rubbed tainted an otherwise perfect dawn.
Surrounded by the least-damaged Marine company, Bravo, Angriff drove back to the site of the Battle of the Highway. At the center of the charred ring of vehicles stood his Humvee. He counted 38 bullet holes, a few of which had hit the engine. Repairs would require towing back to Prime.
“How did I live through that?” he asked no one in particular.
Despite a huge bandage on his wounded shoulder and his left arm in a sling, Colonel Walling was on the scene supervising the recovery effort. “I asked myself the same question, General. If you find an answer, will you let me know?”
Angriff smiled. “B.F., every survivor of every battle fought since the beginning of time has asked the same question. And whether you’re a man of faith or not, the answer is always the same: it just wasn’t your time.”
Four trucks were write-offs and four more needed extensive repairs. All three Bradleys were salvageable, but would need rebuilding. Eight people from the headquarters company had died defending the highway, with seventeen more wounded. Six of those were critical, including Private Santos.
Black vultures flapped away as Angriff stepped outside the lager’s skeleton. Circling overhead, the birds waited for the humans to leave so they could resume feasting on dead Sevens. Hundreds of bodies surrounded the scorched lager, along with dozens of burned-out vehicles. The reek was unbearable. Flies swarmed in thick clouds.
Angriff took an hour inspecting the battle site. No detail escaped his experienced eyes. From the clothing the Sevens wore, to their weapons and even the mixture of fuel in their vehicles, he wanted to know everything. Once finished there, his convoy headed down Highway 169 to its juncture with Interstate 17. Walling accompanied Angriff. They passed abandoned cars and trucks, some shot up, some undamaged. It reminded him of the Highway of Death during Operation Desert Storm, albeit on a smaller scale.
The convoy veered right to tour the Marine positions. Angriff started with the far left flank. Sully, Embekwe, and Task Force Kicker had held the line just long enough for Dennis Tompkins’ scratch force to seal the breach. They’d spent the night manning the main line of resistance, minus Sergeant Schiller, in case the enemy came back.
Tompkins joined Angriff and Walling as they exited the Hummer. “Morning, General. I heard you got in on the fun yesterday.”
“Who told you that?”
Tompkins shrugged. “News like that gets around. Ain’t every day the commanding general stops an army with a pair of pistols.”
“Is t
hat what they’re saying? Hell…”
“You’re a hero, General, whether you like it or not.”
“No, not me,” Angriff said. “The heroes were on this hill, and all the others like it.”
“Amen to that… they named this one Last Stand Hill.”
And Angriff found the name too fitting for comment.
By early afternoon Angriff, Tompkins, and Walling were at the courthouse in Prescott. The immediate concerns were to secure the city and protect against counterattacks. Even though Hull was in custody, they knew Norbert Cranston had slipped away with a large contingent of followers and disappeared into the Prescott National Forest. They also had to guard against the Chinese regrouping and coming back. Angriff deemed that unlikely, given the brigade’s dominance of the skies, but was taking no chances.
Casualties overwhelmed the medical staff. Besides the brigade’s own wounded, they also treated the thousands of released prisoners, many of whom needed immediate medical intervention. All needed water and food.
The citizens of Prescott had no idea what had happened, who the newcomers were, or what would happen next. Rounding up Hull’s LifeGuards and their bully-boy partners, the Security Police, was a priority. LAVs with loudspeakers drove the streets and spread the word of Hull’s ouster, but it all took time.
After inspecting the damaged courthouse, Angriff and his entourage were preparing to move out when a heavy equipment transport passed in front of them towing a battered Abrams. It had a bulging phallus painted on its side and the name Joe’s Junk written below it. Black burn marks bubbled the paint in many places. Jagged steel peeled back from the front left corner. A smear of blood trailed down the left side of the hull.
Standing in the Storm Page 29