The ranging shot blossomed fifty yards to the east of the field. The fireball consumed a house and blew the adjacent structures into kindling as the sound of the explosion reached him. He glanced at his map of the campus as he fumbled with his radio.
“Fire base—Nathans, adjust fire. You are close. You just took out a bunch of frat houses. Adjust fire, up 50, left 50.”
“Adjust fire, up 50, left 50, out,” Poy came back immediately.
“Affirmative,” he replied.
“Adjusting fire, two shots out.”
“Two shots out, copy.” He put his radio down. “Come on, Poy, just walk those rounds across the street and you’re money, Marine.”
This time, he had the confidence to keep his head up during the incoming flight of the shells. The first one impacted near the middle of the field and threw up a massive funnel of dirt amid the fireball. The second round hit the western edge of the admin building a second later. Bits of construction—he hoped they were bricks, not pieces of occupants—sprayed the area.
“Fire control—Nathans, you are on target—west end of target building hit. Fire for effect.”
“On target—copy,” Poy came back. “Fire for effect, out.”
“Fire base, Gypsy One. Five rounds, each gun.” Skirjanek was back on the air. “Then cease fire.”
“Fire for effect, out. Five rounds, each gun, and then terminate fire mission, out.”
Nathans brought up the butt of his rifle and tried to use his scope to see through the smoke and dirt hanging in the air. The Rotunda and its wings blocked his line of sight to the nearest of the makeshift trenches that had been dug around the admin building. The portions that he could see stretched along the sides of the Madison Bowl and across the back of the field. Poy’s first ranging shot must have landed a lot closer to the adjacent road than he’d first thought; there were several unmoving bodies across the road from the destroyed and burning frat houses.
The front of the admin building was seven hundred yards from his position, the farthest edge of the bowl almost nine hundred. He had a great view of the anthill that Poy’s shells had kicked over. The defenders were starting to stick their heads back up; others appeared to be in shock as they stood around staring at the missing chunk of the building they had been all set to defend. Someone waving a piece of white cloth stuck over the end of a rifle caught his attention along the far edge of the grassy bowl. One of his trench mates shot him a second later.
He was thinking that a normal artillery battery would have already fired, but they would have had extra guns with shells already loaded and would have just needed minute adjustments. Both of Poy’s guns, all of them in other words, would need to be reloaded, and he didn’t exactly have a trained crew to work with. He was still watching the enemy when he thought he heard the distant, deep boom of the howitzers. It was a second and a half later before his ears picked up the incoming rounds. He could see several of the defenders yelling at their colleagues to get back down. Like that was going to help.
His scope picture was jarred as the two shells landed almost simultaneously. When he pulled back from the scope, he saw that one had overshot the bowl and plowed into the courtyard of a modern-looking building across the street. The other had landed just behind the admin building, and what was left of a pickup truck was in the process of spinning out of the sky. Nathans smiled to himself; two down, eight to go. This was so much better than having to shoot people; but his head went back down to the scope to find targets. Somebody would be trying to hold them together. There was always somebody.
He spotted just that someone screaming into a radio. The target stood up; he cursed to himself, as she walked along her section of the trench line. He imagined he could hear her words of encouragement, or given what they knew about these people, maybe they were threats. Training took over; he sighted in between her shoulder blades and waited for Poy to fire again. No sense in advertising himself, not yet.
*
She’d brought just three others with her. Karen had come, of course. If there was one person absolutely devoted to her, it was Karen. Two of her personal guard had led the way down the stairway into the basement; Ben Pierson, the oldest member of her security detail, and Terry, whom she realized in embarrassment she had never really spoken to. She didn’t even know his last name, and that wasn’t like her.
They’d just reached the musty-smelling basement that was far older than the renovated brick mansion above, when the ground pulsed under their feet.
“What the hell was that?” Karen cried out as dirt and dust filtered down from above and was knocked into the air from the floor.
“Artillery, I think,” Ben said.
“You think!” Karen could be a bitch sometimes, but that’s why they had worked so well together.
“We’ve got to go.” Ben ignored Karen. “Now, ma’am.”
“We need Marks,” she said, hating the words as she said them. “He knows the way.”
Ben was already moving down the hall covered in linoleum tiles that appeared to be fifty years old. He stopped at a metal door, slid back a bolt, and jerked it open. She walked through the doorway of the storage room where they’d jailed Steven. He was sitting on his cot, with his back against the brick wall. One arm was handcuffed to a pipe coming out of the wall.
“You waited longer to run away than I thought you would.” He didn’t even sound smug or frightened to her.
“You can lay on the ‘I told you sos’ all you like,” she pleaded. “Right now, I want you with me. I always have; I think you know that.”
He just smiled back at her and shook his head. “God, you’re good.”
“Steven!”
“They have artillery,” his eye brows arched in what might have been surprise. “That tremor you felt was a ranging shot. I’m surprised they haven’t fired yet.”
“I need you!”
“No . . . you need me to lead you through the tunnels, get you to the rig you’ve got fueled and waiting for your escape.” He looked behind her towards the others. “She ever mention that to any of you? She’s had a getaway planned since before the people shooting at us even showed up.”
“That’s not—”
There was a shrill, earsplitting whistle just before the doorjamb she was standing in was propelled at her. A pain exploded in the middle of her face, and she heard something snap in her head. It all happened in slow motion, but the lights went out with a suddenness that her stunned brain noted even before she hit the floor.
She lay there, stunned, for what seemed like hours. She thought she could feel the earth moving, pulsing repeatedly at slow intervals like there was a massive heart beating somewhere deep beneath them. She cried out and opened her eyes, blinking at the thick air-dirt mixture that coated her wet eyes and covered the inside of her mouth and throat as she sucked in a breath. Someone was screaming in the darkness. She thought it was her for the briefest moment, until a rib-racking cough exploded out of her bruised chest. There wasn’t any air! In a panic, she sucked in another lungful of the earthen cloud that was hanging around her.
Someone was shaking her. There was a dim light dancing around above her head.
“Ma’am, can you move?”
She thought she recognized Ben’s voice. He almost sounded like he was underwater. No, it was water she could hear and feel pooling around her.
“I can’t see!”
“Your face, ma’am . . . hold still.”
“What’s wrong with my face?” Her panic rose as she felt another tremor through the floor and heard another explosion. She felt more dirt trickle out of the ceiling.
“Hold still, there’s a broken water pipe here. I’m going to lift your head up.”
The cold water felt better than anything she could remember. And she could see again, sort of, at least out of one eye. Ben pulled her slowly to her feet and held onto her for a moment to make sure she wasn’t going to fall as he swung his flashlight around.
She caug
ht skewed snapshots as she tried to follow the beam. The doorway had partially collapsed. There was a pair of legs sticking out from under a pile of bricks that had almost blocked the hallway, and she could see a pale arm waving at them from the far side of the blockage.
She grabbed Ben’s arm and directed the beam further into the storage room. Steven’s very still body was held up by the handcuffs; the side of his head and most of his shirt were covered in blood.
“Shit!”
“Ma’am?”
“He knew the way . . . the tunnels run underneath the whole campus.”
“Where’s the vehicle parked?”
“I . . . near the stadium, I’m not sure. He took care of it.”
“Do the tunnels reach that far?”
“I don’t know!” she yelled, and wanted to say more but was racked with another round of hacking.
“Breathe through your shirt.” Ben pointed the flashlight up at his own face; he was holding the collar of his shirt up over his nose. He turned away and was looking for something on the ground.
“Don’t leave me here! Please!”
He didn’t answer her, but when he turned back around, he put a flashlight in her hands. It was wet and sticky. Ben coughed and then shook his head and moved her flashlight out of his face. She felt bad; she needed him and didn’t want to anger him. Nothing terrified her more than the thought of being alone.
“Come on, I know where the tunnel starts in this building, and the stadium is south of here.”
“Which way is south?” She didn’t like the way her voice sounded. She couldn’t breathe through her nose, and even holding the collar of her blouse up over her face sent sharp waves of pain through her head. Ben didn’t answer her, just turned and started climbing across the pile of bricks that had buried the top half of Terry in the doorway.
She almost rolled down the far side of the pile. She would have if her slide hadn’t been stopped by Karen, whose shallow hiss of pain almost made her jump out of her skin. Her flashlight beam swam over Karen’s face. The woman looked untouched except for a trickle of blood coming out of the corner of her mouth.
“Lisa! Help me . . . I can’t . . . feel my legs.”
The beam of her flashlight revealed Karen’s lower half, buried in the pile of bricks. She could see blood soaking through the dirt near her waist.
Lisa felt her head nod once in a decision that had been near instant. “We’ll get you some help. Just hang in there.” She reached out and gave the woman’s hand a squeeze, and then moved to the edge of the pile of bricks until she could stand in the hallway beyond. She could feel Karen’s eyes burning a hole into her back. For the briefest of moments, she was grateful for the darkness.
“Don’t leave me here!”
She ignored the cry and set one foot in front of the other, towards Ben’s flashlight hanging in the darkness.
*
Chapter 31
“Gypsy Two—Gypsy Actual—kickoff is go.”
It was about time, John Bruce thought. As far as he was concerned, Poy had produced the slowest ten-round artillery salvo in the history of modern warfare. He had to smile though; he knew the defenders had just endured the longest six minutes of their lives.
“B troop roll,” he called out. Mason’s two Bradleys were rolling past him as he popped the lid of his own and raised himself back up. “Remember, don’t get in a pissing match with them. Use your TOWS—spot, shoot, and scoot their Bradleys. Dismount your people as soon as you can; light up the heavies with Javelins if you get a shot. We’ll let Tommy deal with the tanks and help as we can. Target all enemy vehicles and hardpoints.” The order was for his own nerves; he had to stay focused. They’d gone over and over the tactical plan a dozen times. Mason knew what he had to do.
B troop had a little farther to go than his two Bradleys in the pincer movement they were pulling off. They’d both roll north to either side of the lawn; Mason’s team on McCormick until they passed the Rotunda and bent east toward the enemy. He’d parallel them on Hospital Drive until cutting across the manicured lawns and hitting them from the opposite direction. He counted to thirty in his head.
“A troop, roll, get us to the anthropology building!” He grinned to himself. The building was perfectly situated to give him some cover, and if it still stood, an elevated position to put out his own hunter-killer team. Uwasi was one of the best Javelin operators he’d ever worked with, and without a doubt, the best the Gypsies could muster.
He lowered his seat as the Bradley jerked into motion; he wanted to stay “outside” for as long as possible. He had his protective glacis to hide behind, but he doubted Nathans was the only guy out there with a long rifle and a scope.
He switched to his internal-only channel. “Come on, Tasker, kick it in the ass!”
He nodded in appreciation as the Bradley’s engine gunned and they wound up to thirty-plus miles an hour as the buildings swam past on either side. Tasker was from somewhere up around DC and had worked remodeling kitchens less than a year ago. The story would have been similar for the majority of those fighting today, but the people who had come south with Jason were a step above where they had been six weeks ago. He just hoped it was a big step.
His Bradley, and the one following him, commanded by Henry “Naks” Nako, jumped the curb and plowed through a bike rack as they left the road and hugged a line of what looked like dorms. He thought he saw more than one face looking back at him through the windows. All he could hope was that they were civilians, in hiding like the ones who had approached them. He didn’t want to imagine what this day was going to turn into if they had everyone shooting at them.
Trey was aware at the periphery of his senses of Bruce’s Bradleys rolling past on his right; he’d heard Mason’s team roll behind him a moment before. “Gypsies—Nathans, be advised, two Abrams active. One in the middle of bowl, the other anchoring southeast corner of defensive perimeter. One Bradley destroyed, another damaged or abandoned. Others at corners of perimeter. One rolling north inside the bowl. Gypsy One, your approach has been spotted.”
Yep, he was sure of it. Skirjanek’s column, led by Tommy in his tank, was rolling up the train tracks through town; they’d be near the top of the far edge of the bowled area within a minute. He watched as one of the friendly Bradleys stopped and disgorged two Javelin teams. He lost sight of the four soldiers as they disappeared into the backyards of frat houses that still stood in the artillery savaged block of houses across from the eastern edge of the bowl. He tracked his scope back to the northernmost enemy tank, sitting in the middle of the grassy depression; he could only see it because it was in line with the half of the admin building that had collapsed.
There was a target standing behind the tank, talking with the crew inside on the “grunt” phone. He noted his breathing, ignored the puddle of sweat that his position had become, and ranged the target at 645 yards. He missed having a spotter, but they only had so many Marines to go around. The other half of his sniper team had died five months ago in The Hole, accidently, while cleaning his handgun.
The shot felt good, and he had time to refocus his sight lock just as the target was spun around. He’d just winged the guy, but he’d been hit in the arm with a .50 caliber bullet. He could see his target lying in the torn-up field, his free hand trying to stop the bleeding at the remaining stump of an arm below the shoulder. The tank’s grunt phone was left hanging, unused. The crew inside the enemy tank would have to rely on their own eyes for the moment.
He swung his sight picture up to the northern edge of the bowl, and could see Tommy’s Abrams “track” left out of the rail bed and start to roll between two wooden-framed frat houses. The enemy infantry in the opposing line could see them coming. One soldier in particular looked to be a leader; at least the man was screaming orders. 710 yards; he took up the trigger, focused, and fired. The man fell back, and he went looking for another target just as a bloom of fire erupted from the front of the enemy tank. The sound of the sho
t rolling across the campus reached him a moment later.
Drew winced as the frat house directly to his forward left erupted in a blossom of fire. Tommy was directly ahead of him in his Abrams and had departed the rail bed. Salguero’s tank had been squeezing between the Delta Upsilon frat house ahead and another he couldn’t yet identify when the Delta U house came apart riding a wave front of wood shrapnel. He was “down” in his command hole, but he’d had the turret open. He triggered his hatch and got it closed by the time the frat house had stopped pelting his Bradley.
He cursed his stupidity; there was no doubt the enemy Abrams had fired an older HE round, High-Explosive rather than the anti-tank (AT) penetrator rounds that Tommy was loaded with. It wasn’t the ammunition of choice if you were trying to kill a tank, particularly another Abrams, but it would have put a serious hurt on them in the much more lightly armed Bradley. Particularly so, if said Bradley’s commander had been more worried about situational awareness than his own crew’s survivability and had the hatch open. It didn’t make any sense to him, but he had no idea what kind of tank ammunition Charlottesville had managed to scrounge.
“Elliot, weapons free. Fire the TOWS the second you can lock that tank or an APC. Don’t wait for an order.”
“Affirmative, sir.”
“Javelin teams, Gypsy One,” he called out to the two, two-man Javelin teams he’d dismounted during the approach. “Hammer that tank as soon as you are able. Direct fire mode!” The enemy Abrams was too close for them to utilize the far more effective “top-down” attack mode wherein the missile would climb for altitude before plunging down on the top of the turret, or onto the engine deck where tank armor was thinner and more vulnerable.
A Javelin was capable of disabling an Abrams in direct mode, if it got lucky, and if the target in question wasn’t cheating with active-reactive armor packs. Poy’s video shots of the enemy tanks hadn’t captured any indication of the extra defensive measures. Two missiles might mean they could get lucky with an engine kill, or maybe they could de-track the beast. He doubted if the Javelins would “kill” the tank unless they got very lucky; for that, the best tool was another Abrams.
Seasons of Man | Book 2 | Reap What You Sow Page 32