“Reload one through eight and fire missile batteries nine through sixteen!”
“Engage the rail-gun on the targets in the yellow zone. Bring the forward missile intercept laser to bear on targets in the red zone and engage.”
“Aye, Commander. Rail-gun, yellow zone. Engaging forward laser, red targets.”
“Maintain aft laser on yellow targets.”
“Aft laser, yellow, aye.”
The ship shuddered multiple times as intercept missiles left their launchers. On the tactical display, the intercepts sped into the vast wave of missiles at the five-mile mark. With each impact, an inbound threat disappeared from the display. He felt a rhythmic thumping of hypersonic projectile launches and heard the hum of heavy-duty motors somewhere deep inside the ship as the missile launchers and the rail gun were continuously reloaded. Lights dimmed frequently as the front high-energy laser fired repeatedly.
ETA three minutes, thirty seconds.
The ensign’s voice rose with excitement and panic. “Sixteen missiles in the Red Zone! Engaging short-range intercept missiles!”
“Steady now,” Eckels said. “Ready close-in guns.”
“Standing by.”
“Release chaff, all sectors, engage guns.”
“Aye, Commander. Decoys out. Firing close-in deck guns.”
A high-speed rumble swept through the ship as multiple deck guns fired off two-second bursts at the four incoming missiles, engaging just enough to hit specific targets.
It was then that Carl realized one of the enlisted people, a young black woman who looked barely out of high school, was operating the deck guns with some kind of high-tech joystick. It reminded him of a video game controller. She sat two stations away to Carl’s right. She was jerking the joystick and pressing the red firing button repeatedly, but she was panicking, missing her targets. She was talking to herself.
Carl stepped over to her just as she cried out.
“There’s too many. Too close! I can’t—”
He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Yes, you can. Just take a deep breath and hit this one.” He pointed a finger at her display. “Now!” Her targeting reticule covered the missile and she pressed the button. “Now this one.” He tapped the screen again and she destroyed another inbound missile. “Now these four, left to right. Real fast!”
The young woman hit all her targets, the last one a mere twenty yards out. Even deep down in the ship, they all heard the ping of debris off the ship’s armored skin. The shooter took another deep breath and shuddered.
Carl said, “Well done, young Sista. Well done.” He tapped her left shoulder and added, “You see that woman over there? The president?” The shooter looked over and nodded. “She’s why you’re fighting.” Carl raised his voice so everyone in the room could hear him. “This is the most capable ship in the navy, and you’re stationed here because you’re the best of the best. We’re going to take some hits, but just stay calm and keep doing the best you can…for your president.”
Carl stepped back over next to Mallory and saw his image appear again in the lower right corner of the vertical monitor in front of him.
Commander Eckels glanced at Carl. “I’m still waiting for the admiral’s surrender.”
The ensign said, “Two minutes ten until the rest of the second wave arrive.”
“Johnson,” Eckels said, “That was only the first wave and the leading edge of the second wave. We won’t survive the next wave.”
“Yes, we will.”
Chapter 40
Lenore’s acrylic face shield shattered. She’d juked her head at the last moment, knowing the killer had her dead to rights, and stumbled sideways from the impact. The man holding Lisette shot her again—another headshot off the left side of her helmet.
A ringing sound exploded in her ear and she felt, rather than heard, herself scream in pain.
He shot her again, this time high in the back.
When the impact pitched her forward a step, she dug in her heel and spun, aiming her sidearm at the same time.
Then he shot her in the gut.
The bullet bounced off her armor but knocked her breath away, and her legs wobbled and buckled. She found herself on her knees in the mud again, holding the gun at her side.
The killer expertly stayed hidden behind Lisette, gazing through her hair so Lenore couldn’t get a shot. He pointed the gun right between Lenore’s eyes and she waited, even as she heard the sound of boots sloshing through the mud and water.
“Sixteen!” came the merc’s identifying call out of the smoke.
“Seventeen!” said another.
The killer started to shift his aim, probably by instinct, but must have also instantly realized his mistake. In the millisecond before he shifted his attention back to Lenore, she saw a tiny sliver of the man’s nose next to her daughter’s cheek, and that’s what she fired at.
It was a snap shot in desperation with no time to aim. She just raised her gun and fired. The gunman screamed and grabbed his face as he and Lisette fell to the ground. He started to sit up and aim, Lisette still in his grasp, but surprisingly, her daughter elbowed the man right on his bloody nose. He screamed again, and Lisette rolled off him. Seventeen finished him off with a triple tap to the head and another to the chest.
Lisette ran to her mother and Cummings pulled off her damaged helmet. They hugged while Sixteen approached and stood guard during their tearful reunion.
“Boss, that was the baddest motherfucking fast-draw I have ever seen, bar none!”
Lenore nodded and sucked a deep breath as her daughter helped her to her feet. “Check on the civilians and mop up.”
Sixteen and Seventeen pressed south in the gully where only sporadic shots could be heard. They hollered their number designations periodically and were answered by the numbers assigned to the civilians.
Footsteps approached again from the north, and Lenore spun around to keep her armored body between the footsteps and Lisette. She aimed into the smoke.
“Nineteen!”
“Good for you,” Rebecca’s voice answered. “I forgot my fucking number!” She stumbled out of the smoke
“You’re injured.”
“It’s nothing. I got nicked in the leg.” She limped so badly, one foot dragged, carving a groove in the mud.
“Let Seventeen look at it. He’s a field medic.”
“Let’s get to the truck first. I don’t hear any more gunfire, so I assume it’s over. But I’d like to get the hell outta here, just in case.” Rebecca looked at Cummings’s shattered face shield. “So this is how you and Carl spend time, huh?”
“We don’t spend—”
Rebecca held up a hand as they moved upstream. “Just kidding. But if a fellow saved me and took a few bullets for my daughter, I’d probably keep him around.”
Cummings stopped walking. “He told you?”
Rebecca just shrugged with a side cock of her head. “He called me a while back. Told me a lot about you and the government.”
Lisette said, “Carl’s not nice. He’s scary.”
“Yeah?”
Lisette nodded. “He tied us to a table and threatened Mom.”
That stopped Rebecca in her tracks. She glanced from Lisette to Cummings. “He did?”
“You remember?” Cummings said.
Lisette nodded and looked at Rebecca. “He blamed Mom because his son died.”
“I was responsible,” Cummings said. She shook her head sadly. “I killed Mark.”
“No, you didn’t, Mom.” Lisette hugged her mom. “He doesn’t blame you anymore.”
“He didn’t tell me all that, but it’s gotta be tough to deal with for both of you.” Rebecca looked at the girl. “Do you hate him for what he did to you?”
Lisette shrugged.
“He keeps saving you.”
Lisette nodded.
Lenore said, “Let’s move.”
They met up with the others, and Cummings was relieved to learn the
y only had two casualties—Merc Six and the Twin Otter pilot. All the mercs had their fair share of scrapes and bruises, and even the civilians were plastered head to toe in mud and dirt.
“Let’s get safe,” Lenore said.
Sixteen replied, “Copy that, Boss. I wonder how Zero is doing?”
Lenore growled, “I hope he blasts these Atlas fuckers off the face of the planet.”
Chapter 41
Carl looked at the commander, then glanced at the president. To the young ensign he said, “Is this your first real combat?”
The junior officer nodded.
“First time is always the hardest.” Carl looked at the camera again. “Come on, Admiral. You didn’t think it was going to be this easy to take me out, did you?”
Silence.
“You’ve seen my file. You know the FBI sent a full squad of counterterrorist troops after me, and I defeated them with four mercenaries and a drug-addict computer jock. Then the TER sent their top assassination team after me, and my mercs killed all of them and I cut the head off that motherfucker while he was still alive! Do you seriously believe I came out into the middle of the fucking ocean without a backup plan?”
The channel remained silent.
Carl shot the commander a look of irritation.
She half-shrugged in return and gave him a look that said I told you so.
He leaned forward against the acrylic top of the tactical display desk, looked down as if exasperated, and glanced sideways at Mallory. Then he peered up at the camera under heavy lids because he knew it gave him a sinister look when he wanted to intimidate an opponent. “Look, Admiral, I know you’re sitting comfy out yonder on your big-ass boat. You’re probably laughing at us, sipping coffee, and thinking you’re untouchable, but my patience grows thin. I have three nukes in my arsenal, and I’m going to shove two of them right up your ass.”
The console under his fists beeped and new indicators began to appear on the vertical screen a short distance ahead of the fleet.
Carl glanced at Commander Eckels. “What the hell? What the fuck is that?”
She turned to her left. “Ensign?”
“They’re ours, Commander. Contact parameters confirmed. They are modified Harpoon extended-range anti-surface missiles.”
Eckels grimaced. “Submarine-launched ship killers. If any one of them hits us, it’ll blow us clean out of the water.”
The beeps stopped, and Carl counted sixteen ship killers. “Well, fuck me sideways,” he muttered. He glared at the camera. “Admiral, surely your ship has verified that this is an authentic channel and the signal is in fact coming from the USS Kestrel Andrus.”
He turned sideways and indicated the president who still stood beside him with concern in her eyes. “And you can see Shirley Mallory standing beside me.”
The channel remained silent.
Carl looked over at Eckels. “Can we engage all those ship killers?”
“You mean, if we survive those two hundred plus remaining missiles?”
“Yeah, that.”
“Ship killers have end-of-trajectory evasive maneuvers programmed into their terminal guidance packages.”
Carl nodded. “Yes, I’m familiar with that technology. I intend to use it myself.”
Eckels seemed to simply dismiss his statement. “Fully functional, we could hit them with the rail gun and long-range missiles, but our defensive capability will be severely compromised after the next wave…if we have any capability left at all. Our missile batteries will be empty and our ammo bunkers will be virtually depleted. Our rail guns, if they’re not empty, won’t be able to track them fast enough through their terminal maneuvers.”
Carl pounded the table with his armor-gloved fists hard enough to crack the acrylic. “Fuck you, Admiral! You cannot kill my president!” He paused a beat, then shouted at the camera again. “Merc Three, escalate!”
Chapter 42
Grainger Koll listened to the encrypted military comm channel in his private office. He heard the one-sided threats from Carl Johnson to the silent Admiral Montmarkle. He pressed a button on the desktop intercom.
“Thaddeus Leak here, sir.”
“Any word from the ranch assault team?”
“Negative, sir. All channels are quiet. Our civilian satellite feed is obscured by a massive smoke cloud over the area from the missile strikes.”
“Let me know as soon as you regain contact.” He pushed the intercom button again and leaned back in his chair. Somehow he’d known there would be no further contact from the ranch team. The last thing he’d heard over the channel was screams of pain and explosions, then silence.
Grainger spoke to the empty room. “How the hell did a bunch of civilians with three mercenaries and a washed-out FBI agent overcome a well-armed team of over two dozen professional soldiers for hire armed with cruise missiles and drones?” He took a deep breath and swallowed the bitter pill of defeat. “You trained them well, Mr. Johnson.”
On his second monitor, a shout erupting from the speaker grabbed his attention.
“Merc Three, escalate!”
Grainger narrowed his eyes. It wasn’t like Carl Johnson to lose his cool like that. He watched a missile separate from the tiny helicopter. Two fighters peeled away from the formation en route to the USS Kestrel Andrus and headed toward the helicopter.
“What the hell is he doing now?” He went into the control room. “Zoom in on that object.” He pointed at the monitor and in less than a second, the helicopter filled the huge screen, moving slowly over a canvas of blue ocean. Its main rotor looked like a see-through disc with concentric circles where the outer edges of the spinning blades were painted with navy markings.
“No, magnify the missile that just left the helicopter.”
In another second, the digital optics of the satellite refocused on a fast-moving object. He recognized the old Soviet design.
Not possible, Grainger thought. Not fucking possible! Hell, even I can’t procure nuclear missiles!
To Thaddeus Leak, Grainger said, “What’s the trajectory of that missile?”
The monitor expanded to show the four-hundred-mile-wide swatch of ocean with the fleet at the extreme right side of the view and the USS Kestrel Andrus at the left. The helicopter was about a third of the way to the fleet, and its missile was rapidly closing to intercept the fleet’s huge mass of missiles that were well past the halfway point and closing rapidly on the Kestrel Andrus. A dotted vector line extended from the missile to the mass of the second wave of missiles from the carrier group. Speed and time-to-intercept data moved with the helicopter’s missile.
He pulled out his cell and sent an encrypted text to Admiral Montmarkle.
I THINK HE HAS A NUKE. TARGET IS THE FIELD OF INBOUND MISSILES.
Five seconds later, Grainger’s phone signaled a reply.
IMPOSSIBLE. HE’S BLUFFING.
Grainger fired off his own reply. BLUFFING IS NOT HIS M-O. TAKE PRECAUTIONS. Then, turning to his Senior Admin, he said, “Mr. Leak, if that’s a nuclear missile, will we lose the satellite when it detonates?”
The young man shook his head. “I’m pretty sure the detonation will be too low in the atmosphere for the EMP to damage the satellite electronics or any mainland systems, but it will very likely overload the optics if we’re looking right at it.”
“Time to intercept?”
“A little more than a minute.”
Grainger nodded. Admiral Montmarkle was on her own, whatever she decided to do. “Turn the satellite away. Refocus on the ship immediately after we have confirmation of a detonation or no detonation.”
He turned away from the monitor as the field of view of the satellite began to move away from the ocean battle, so he didn’t see the second missile leave the helicopter just seconds before the hapless aircraft was blown to bits by missiles from the two fighters.
Chapter 43
“Merc Three, escalate!” Then Carl said, “Close that goddamn channel!”
&nb
sp; Everyone in the CIC looked at Carl and after looking around the room, meeting everyone’s gaze briefly, he focused a sinister smile at the commander, the only person who seemed to understand what he’d done.
He felt President Mallory staring at the left side of his head.
“What did you do, Carl?”
He turned to face her. “How do you combat an opponent who possesses overwhelming power, force, and confidence?”
Commander Eckels told her ensign to track the new indicator and leaned on the command console in the center of the CIC. She gazed at Carl from across the acrylic console surface, then nodded down at the tactical display.
“Captain Johnson, what is that?”
“I’m no longer a captain, Commander, at least not in a military sense. Military people respond to authority, so I just used that old title to mess with the admiral’s head. Maybe she’s thinking I was a Senior Air Force Combat Strategist or something. Maybe she’s thinking I went to Air War College. Maybe she’s thinking I’m some kind of highly trained tactical genius or sump’n.” He glanced at the president. “Air War College is where the air force sends its officers to learn advanced war-fighting strategy.”
Mallory nodded. “I know what it is.” She waved at the wall screen. “So, all that shouting and losing your composure—”
“Head fake.”
Eckels slammed her palm down on the tactical display. “What. Is. This. Indicator?!” she said, pointing at a new blip on the acrylic tabletop display.
“You know exactly what it is, Commander.”
A single blue triangular blip had separated from the southbound indicator that was the destroyer’s helicopter. Merc Three was a little more than a third of the way toward the carrier group. The new blip was on an intercept course with the field of missiles in the remainder of the second wave.
Carl spoke softly to the ensign across the room. “With the commander’s permission, would you please reopen the comm channel with the admiral? Audio only this time.”
“Do it,” Eckels said. “And quickly!”
American Terrorist Trilogy Page 94