He slid off the bed and found he could walk with much less pain than expected. It was probably the drugs, but it didn’t matter. He was not sitting this one out.
Langer stepped over to the pile of his clothes, which someone had been nice enough to wash and fold, and started getting dressed.
“You’re not leaving,” said a nurse from the doorway, shocked that he was upright. “You’ll open your incision and bleed out.”
“Ma’am,” Larry Langer replied. “Where’s my gun?’
Banks and his team heard the thunder of the artillery battery from nearly two miles away. It was coming from what appeared to be an open field along County Road 20 about two miles west of 231. An excellent place to set up – everything they needed to shell was within the eight-mile range fan.
“Let’s go!” he said, as the artillery let go another volley. Every minute that passed brought more steel death down on Jasper. They moved out fast on a beeline for the firebase.
Cannon had set up his team on both sides of Route 231. The intact PSF cruiser sedan they had captured was parked on the shoulder, and a uniformed PSF officer sat on the hood. There was a fair amount of military traffic, which would ignore the slacker PSF officer. Kunstler wouldn’t. This was the MSR, the main supply route. The PBI Inspector had to pass through here some time.
To the south, as he waited, Cannon could hear echoes of the battle for Jasper.
Davey Wohl’s mission was to slam the door shut behind the attack force, and that’s what his guerrillas did. They moved down out of the hills and woods to converge on the south side of the bridge over the White River on Route 231. That was the door.
The second infantry company tried to cross and was turned back by the volume of fire. The enemy dismounted and the forces shot at each other across the river. The PRA soldiers were not particularly motivated to cross 100 meters of open bridge roadway under the guns of dozens of shooters with scoped rifles.
Davey Wohl moved from position to position, ensuring his people were properly using cover and concealment. He didn’t count on the PRA employing snipers too.
The 7.62 millimeter round caught him in the back of the neck crossing Route 231 to get to some of his troops. Two of his men were wounded trying to drag him back in. But no PRA soldier crossed the bridge that night.
The roadblock was at 231 and 8th Street, not far from the courthouse square. The block was a set of logs fitted together and wrapped in razor wire. The tanks could smash the logs, but the wire would tangle in the gears of their tracks. Cardillo saw it and immediately ordered his force to turn off eastward at 9th Street.
While the Crusader Company tanks were fighting through the ambushes on the way to the center of town, Turnbull had driven over and gotten ahead of them. Now he was waiting there for the armor to come, praying his plan would work.
The AT-4 light rocket launchers had made three mobility kills on the M1s along 231 – the guerrillas fired them close, right at the treads, since the rockets would bounce off the depleted uranium composite armor of the sides and the turret. If you got a mobility kill, the tank was still a mighty dangerous pillbox – but it was just that, a pillbox. The guys in it had to come out eventually to eat.
Turnbull paced across the rooftop with several other insurgents, who were preparing their weapons. It was dark, and that gave the armor something of an advantage with its night vision gear. The tanks made the turn and roared under them.
Turnbull waited.
“Come on,” he whispered.
An explosion, a big one. He could hear the gears and track grinding below. Turnbull peered over the edge.
One M1 directly below him was up on the sidewalk, smoking. The one behind it, with the commander in the cupola blazing away with his .50 cal, was pulling around it.
“Now!” Turnbull shouted. Lights came up from the high schools portable floodlights hooked to a generator. The entire road below was illuminated like daylight, and that disoriented the tankers for a moment.
The street was covered by dark objects. The lead tank dodged them, but the next didn’t. The mine exploded under its body, lifting the tank and blowing out its treads. It stopped. When the commander tried to get out of the hatch, someone shot him.
Turnbull leaned over with his M4 and began spraying the gunners standing in the turrets. Then the rest of the guerrillas arose, with their Molotov cocktails lit, and threw them down on the tanks below.
Flames erupted on the tanks, on their engines, their turrets, their tracks, and on the street itself. One of the fire bombs went into an open hatch and detonated inside. That tank veered left into the abandoned hardware store across the street, stopping about 20 feet inside it.
Cardillo watched his lead tank get taken out and immediately knew it was an anti-tank mine. He screamed it into his intercom, and his driver dodged the two mines lying in the street to his front. He went for his machine gun again, but flaming objects were raining down on him, and he knew what they were too. Just before he ducked into the hatch and pulled it closed, he saw the tank behind him detonate a mine.
Inside his tank he could hear the faint sound of bullets hitting the exterior armor. The guerrillas were on the roofs of the buildings surrounding them. The tactical response was obvious.
Eliminate the buildings.
“Target, right, HEAT!” he shouted and the loader slammed a 120 millimeter shell into the breech. The turret spun.
“Fire!”
The building buckled and collapsed under Turnbull’s feet, or at least it felt like it did. The roof split and Turnbull fell ten feet to the second floor in a cascade of dust and debris, along with some other fighters Unfortunately, so did some of the unlit Molotovs, which rolled inside and fell, spreading gasoline throughout the second floor.
“Oh, hell no,” Turnbull said. “Get out!” he yelled, and ran to the shattered side window facing the alley. It was another ten feet down. He jumped.
The building shook apart from a second HEAT round as he leapt, and the wall fell inwards behind him. He hit the ground hard, but instinctively executed a passable parachute landing fall. The meat of his buttocks and thigh took the brunt of the fall, and felt like it. But he didn’t break his ankles and he could still move.
Cardillo, from inside his tank, ordered the second round into the building where the guerrillas were. That took it down. No more Molotovs.
He keyed the mic.
“Quebec One-Seven, this is Crusader Six! Fire mission! Fire mission! Over!”
“Crusader Six, this is Quebec One-Seven, go!”
“My position! Troops in the open!” He read out his grid coordinates. The cannon cockers acknowledged.
Three M1s were either burning mobility kills or parked inside a building along 8th Street. There was one tank that had gone ahead and another still on Route 231. That one was shooting anything that moved not only with its coaxial and turret machine guns but with its main gun.
The ground shook as the tank fired, and Turnbull could hear the groan of collapsing buildings. Guerrillas were running all around and firing, but with no organization or purpose.
Turnbull pivoted and there was a ghost standing before him. A ghost with a .357.
“Larry? What the hell?”
Langer smiled, but the front of his shirt was drenched with blood. His incision had ripped open.
“I ain’t never walked away from a fight before,” he said. “Ain’t starting now.”
“You’re bleeding out,” Turnbull shouted. “Go back to the damn hospital!”
Langer shook his head. The ground shook as the main gun fired again. A guerrilla position in an empty coffee shop exploded.
“Shit,” Turnbull said as he saw he had little choice, and sprinted toward the tank,
The senior sergeant on the firing line of M119s understood what the fire mission meant. The tanks must be in the midst of being overrun or they would not call for artillery on their own position. What the hell was going on down there? The gunners had been firing mis
sions in support of the infantry nonstop since sundown.
The Jasper fight had priority – they were rejecting missions left and right from the units near the bridge. Three guns could only do so much. But they could do something.
He shouted out the next mission and felt like he was punched in the gut. He staggered back and felt another punch. Except it was a .308 round from Banks’s M14.
The gun bunnies scrambled, trying to grab their weapons, but the guerrillas were past the sentries and to the gun line too quickly.
With most of the artillerymen dead or running, Banks took out his radio and made the call.
“Gandalf, this is Orc,” he said. It still annoyed him, but he persisted. “Mission accomplished. I say again, mission accomplished. They are black on arty.”
Bullets zipped around him, pinging off the pavement and the armor of the tank ahead of him. Its gunner was blazing away to the west, and Turnbull was coming from the east. If the guy at the machine gun turned around, Turnbull would be shot in half.
Turnbull was at a full run and dropped his M4, then leapt on the tracks of the Abrams and pulled himself up onto the deck of the tank.
The machine gunner was still firing at targets to the west as Turnbull stood up and drew his .45 from his thigh holster.
He aimed it and fired at the man’s head. The gunner dropped into the tank and Turnbull reached the pistol inside the hatch and fired again and again, stopping only when it clicked empty. He pulled it out and inserted another mag, and peered inside.
Thanks to the floodlights, he could see nothing was moving in there.
Turnbull breathed hard and looked up at the 120 millimeter barrel pointed directly at him. The other tank had gone to the end of the block but had come back. They saw him with his gun on the tank containing their dead friends.
I’d do me too, thought Turnbull, and he waited for the HEAT round.
Langer stumbled forward from the alley with something round and black in his hands, right toward the other tank. The tank was buttoned up, so he was in their blind spot until he crossed in front of the coaxial 7.62 millimeter machinegun that was mounted parallel to the main gun.
But by then it was too late. Larry Langer, who had watched Turnbull eliminate the tank that was demolishing his town, had summoned every last bit of strength to pick up one of the anti-tank mines and slam it, contact detonator first, onto the side of the cannon’s barrel.
Larry was gone; there was only smoke and flame, and Turnbull took that opportunity to leap down to the street. The smoke cleared and the smoothbore gun was no longer smooth in any sense of the word. It was a curled, charred twisted abomination. The tank itself was still. The guys inside were almost certainly still alive – the Abrams was unparalleled in terms of crew survivability – but they no doubt got their bell rung.
Turnbull caught his breath, supporting himself with his weapon. He shook his head. Only Larry Langer would take on a tank hand-to-hand and win.
Guerrillas were moving past him now. This part of the battle was done. But there was still most of an infantry company in the north of town.
Turnbull let out a sigh, picked up his M4, and began trotting north.
Kunstler slammed the black Blazer’s door behind him, but the PSF slacker sitting on the cruiser’s hood did not even react. There was work to be done – this area was nowhere near pacified, and this man was just sitting there, on the side of the road.
“You!” Kunstler shouted, approaching the cruiser from behind. The officer just kept looking off into the distance. He probably just did not have the stomach to do what needed to be done to ensure a truly human and caring future. Fine. If he could not serve as an active participant, he could serve as a cautionary example.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Kunstler walked past the car toward the hood where the man was sitting.
“Waiting,” the man said without turning.
“For what?”
“For you.” Now Ted Cannon turned around. Kunstler saw him and gasped. He drew his Beretta and aimed.
Cannon sat, quietly. Kunstler looked him over, the gun still aimed at Cannon’s chest.
“Funny that you’ll die in a PSF uniform when you hate them so much,” Kunstler said.
“It’s a little funny.”
“I always hated cops. Fascists. Oppressors. Me? I serve the people, culling out vermin like you.”
“I have to say, you sound pretty fascist.”
“Get off the car,” Kunstler said, and Cannon slipped off and onto his feet.
“You know how I know you’re not a cop?” asked Cannon.
“I suppose you’ll tell me,” Kunstler said. He decided this would be Cannon’s last sentence. He was getting bored, and there was work to be done.
“A real cop would have checked the back seat.”
Kunstler pivoted as Eli sat up inside the cruiser holding his Mossberg, smiling as he unleashed the swarm of double aught.
The two dozen prisoners from the command post were zip-tied in the courthouse square, having been brought back by truck. The courthouse itself still smoldered from the artillery hits. A 105 shell had taken out the Ruth Bader Ginsberg statue from the waist up.
The guards were mostly teenagers and old folks. A woman who had to be in her seventies stood guard with a single barrel break action 12-guage; the rest had either deer rifles or M4s.
There were a lot of M4s to be had.
Turnbull checked into the command post in a storefront on the edge of the square. The adrenaline was still running through his blood and he knew it was only a matter of time before he crashed.
“Motrin,” he said to the medic. He was handed two 200 milligram tablets.
“Don’t toy with me.” The medic handed over two more and Turnbull swallowed the 800 milligrams dry.
“Situation?” he said. Dale showed him the maps, old AAA paper jobs with yellow Post-Its representing insurgent units and red ones representing People’s Republic Army and other forces.
Several townsfolk were talking into radios and taking notes, then stepping forward to tell Dale’s battle captain, Becky the waitress, the information. Then she would have her ops sergeant, a high school friend of Carl Hyatt’s, move the Post-Its. No one touched the maps but the ops sergeant.
Dale walked Turnbull through the current status of the Battle of Jasper. The red Post-Its were in disarray and were scattering north with no perceptible rhyme or reason.
“They’re running,” Turnbull said aloud. Dale looked at the map as if to confirm that it was really true, then went back to his work.
“Becky,” one of the radio operators shouted, excited. “There are more tanks coming, lots of them, dozens, on I-69 and 231!”
The command post froze. Everyone understood what that meant. They had barely survived the first time.
Turnbull’s mind raced. Dozens? How long could he try and hold out as a rearguard while the rest of the townspeople ran for the border?
Not long. It was over. The silence itself was almost audible.
He and most of these people had held off a brigade, and now they were all going to die.
The radio operator saw the confusion he had caused, and he clarified.
“No, you don’t understand. They’re coming north,” he shouted.
Becky came over. “North?”
“It’s the US Army. They’re coming. They’re pouring over the border! They told our people they’re heading to I-70!”
I-70 ran east-west across the state through Indianapolis. Half of Indiana was turning red.
The command post broke out in cheers. Townspeople hugged and laughed.
Turnbull was quiet. Dead to alive again in a heartbeat.
Back to the fight.
“Dale, cut some teams south to set up rendezvous with the US forces. We want the passage of lines through our guys coordinated so there’s no fratricide. Dale nodded. Turnbull headed to the door.
He still had unfinished business.
Two in
surgents lifted the zip-tied lieutenant colonel roughly to his feet. His hair was high and tight, and there was a blood-stained bandage around his right thigh.
Turnbull looked him over, and he stared back hard.
“I’m guessing you were Colonel Deloitte’s three?” Turnbull said, abbreviating the term “S3,” or operations officer. The TAC-CP was overrun and the staff was captured. The prisoners had not been treated pleasantly, but they hadn’t been shot either.
The PRA officer said nothing.
“Some of the troopers told us already, so it’s not a secret,” Turnbull said. “I’ve got some questions.”
“I’m not telling you shit,” said the lieutenant colonel. He seemed resigned to his fate, but determined to go out with his pride.
“If you worked for Deloitte, if he let you work for him, I wouldn’t expect anything less. I worked for him too.”
“So you’re the infiltrator?”
“Not anymore. In a couple hours half the US Army will be coming through here and taking everything south of Indianapolis. This isn’t Indian Country anymore. It’s red. So now I’m not infiltrating anything anymore. I’m a citizen.”
The officer said nothing, taking it in. Pretty soon the insurgents would turn him over to the US Army. He’d probably get a choice, go home or go red. If Deloitte relied on him, he was probably squared away. Hopefully, he’d go red.
“I don’t need to know any operational stuff. I wouldn’t disrespect you by asking,” Turnbull said.
“So what do you want to know?”
“I want to know what happened to Colonel Deloitte.”
The lieutenant colonel’s eyes narrowed, now displaying a different and deeper anger.
“They came in and arrested him,” he said. “Then the PBIs took him outside. He looked them in the eyes the whole time. The Colonel said ‘God bless America,’ then told that bastard to go to hell.”
Turnbull was silent for a moment, his fist clenching and unclenching.
Indian Country Page 29