Fractured: V Plague Book 15

by Dirk Patton

  “They’re pushing in,” I yelled to Sherman, wincing when the Hind began shredding ground to our rear. “You go left!”

  I didn’t wait for an acknowledgement. Scrambling across the rocky terrain, I headed to the right, following a low ridge of rocks. Rachel and Dog came with me, her behind as he tucked in tight against my side. The gunship was turning again, slowing as he lined up for a run directly on our position. Looking around frantically, I didn’t see anywhere that would shield us from the high velocity slugs that were about to come our way.

  The pilot stabilized the big helo and I was staring directly at the four-barrel gun attached to its chin. With nowhere to go and no way to fight back, I lay there, waiting for a flash from one of the muzzles that would be the last thing I’d ever see. The Hind accelerated, beginning its attack run. I could see the pilot and gunner through the windscreen and had no doubt they could see me.

  Both helmeted heads suddenly snapped to the side, then the nose lifted as the gunship danced sideways. Coming into a hover over the highway, it rotated to face a point beyond my location in the desert. First one, then quickly a second opaque spot appeared on the armored glass, both directly in line with the pilot. It took me a second to realize someone was sniping them.

  The Hind’s guns spoke with a ripping sound, sending a steady stream of fire at their attacker. The helo remained in a hover, the pilot confident in the protection of the heavy armor, and continued to fire. The downwash from the giant rotor was fierce, even as far away as I was. Dust filled the air, obscuring the ground and the van only a few dozen feet beneath the aircraft’s belly.

  Ripping a loaded magazine out of my vest, I quickly thumbed out rounds, sending them tumbling onto the sand. At the halfway point, I grabbed the tracer bullet that was there as an indicator of how much ammo remained. Tracers are embedded with a chemical compound that is ignited when fired. They burn briefly to mark a bullet’s path, but they also burn very hot. That was exactly what I needed.

  Whipping my rifle up, I dropped the magazine and yanked the charging handle back. The chambered round spun away and I shoved the tracer in and let the bolt slam forward. Sighting in on the red fuel cans strapped to the racks on the rear doors of the van, I pulled the trigger.

  A green streak raced out and punched into one of the cans. Fire bloomed at the back of the van as the gasoline ignited. Flames engulfed the rear of the vehicle, then I threw myself on top of Rachel and pulled Dog close. It wasn’t a moment too soon as there was a thunderous explosion an instant later, followed by a wave of heat that washed over my back.

  I was deafened and couldn’t tell if the Hind was still firing. Raising my head, I looked to see if my idea had worked. The van was a shattered inferno, the flames whipping wildly in the downdraft of the gunship’s rotor. The helo was tilting sideways, slipping away as burning fuel that had been thrown up by the explosion dripped from its undercarriage.

  Slowly, the angle of the cant increased and the pilot began to lose control. The engines bellowed and the whole aircraft shuddered, then with no warning the tail rotor disintegrated, throwing shards of titanium and sending the Hind into an uncontrollable spin. It whirled around the axis of the main rotor shaft for a moment, then the nose dipped and it plummeted to the asphalt, the entire airframe collapsing on impact. It was so close to the hellish inferno of the van that within seconds I could see the paint on its side begin to bubble.

  “Stay here!” I barked to Rachel and leapt to my feet, running parallel to the road.

  I quickly covered a hundred yards, which got me past the worst of the heat from the fire. Taking a breath, I dashed out of the brush and pounded across the road. No fire came my way, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still Spetsnaz on the ground and hunting us. I leapt a shallow drainage ditch and threw myself to the ground behind a small pile of rocks.

  Crawling forward, I angled to the north, pausing when I spotted a shape thirty yards to my front. A Russian soldier had taken position behind a bush, intently watching something in the area where I’d left Rachel and Dog. Moving cautiously, I found a better angle on my target and settled the dot in my scope on his head. A few seconds later I pulled the trigger.

  The suppressed rifle was quiet. Inaudible over the roar of the fire that was beginning to consume the crashed Hind. Gunfire sounded to my right as another enemy popped his head up and fired on a position behind a large boulder. The same location I’d seen the injured SEAL take cover. I swiveled to target the Russian and his lifeless body disappeared into the brush an instant later.

  Two Russians confirmed down by my hand. Sherman had told me his men had confirmed three kills. Five out of action. But a Hind can carry up to eight troops. Were there three more of the bastards running around out here? I had no way of knowing.

  I was about to move again when I heard several suppressed shots from the other side of the road. They were answered with two short bursts of Russian fire, then things went quiet. I gave it a few seconds, then crawled backwards, keeping the protection of the terrain between myself and the location of the firing. Reaching a shallow channel carved by running water, I dropped into it and headed east. Uphill.

  Without a radio, I had no way to communicate with my team or the SEALs and find out if there were any Russians still alive. I had to assume we were still under attack and was working my way behind them. It took ten minutes to reach a point where I could turn north and move into their rear.

  The bad thing about this was that it had given them time to move and take up new positions. I hadn’t heard any additional weapons fire, suppressed or otherwise, but that didn’t mean a damn thing. In these kinds of battles, it’s not about haste. We’re not standing there, slugging it out, or charging across a battlefield to meet the enemy head on. That’s easy, even if it is scary as hell.

  The winners of this engagement would be the ones who exhibited the most patience and cunning. Getting in a hurry would cause mistakes and give away both your position and intentions. Slow and methodical would win the day. Well, that and a little luck. Sometimes, that’s what it all comes down to.

  And luck was on my side this day. As I crept along the side of the ridge, continuing to move north, I picked up the sound of a bush rustling that wasn’t consistent with the movement caused by the wind. Someone had either gotten sloppy or was in a hurry.

  Freezing in place, I slowly turned my head, but could only see a narrow slice of the slope. Good concealment can also mean you can’t see the enemy, either. An inch at a time, I wormed my way forward, pausing frequently to listen and look. After almost fifteen minutes, I saw my target.

  He was a Spetsnaz sergeant, painfully dragging himself up the hill. A blood trail marked his passage, coming from bullet wounds in his left shoulder and leg. With only one functioning arm, he would reach out and grasp a rock or branch and use it to drag himself forward a couple of feet. Then he’d rest for a few seconds before doing it again.

  I thought about capturing him. Interrogating him. But what was the point? All he’d know was that he and his team had been sent to kill us. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the trigger and drilled a round through his skull.

  It was half an hour later, time I’d spent prowling through the brush, before I was reasonably sure we’d gotten all of them. Unfortunately, I’d also found a lot of dead SEALs. Hoping I wasn’t being too hasty, I slowly stood and looked down at the road, ready to throw myself to the ground if I saw any movement that didn’t feel right.

  12

  Carefully, I picked my way down the slope, keeping count in my head of the bodies I found. American and Russian. The news wasn’t good. So far, I hadn’t come across anyone that was still alive.

  Ahead, the van and crashed gunship burned furiously, sending a thick column of dense, black smoke high into the late afternoon sky. This was going to be a problem as it could be seen for miles. I might have been in the middle of the outback, but there had to be someone that would see it and contact the authorities.

  Em
erging from the thickest brush, I glanced to the north and paused when I saw two massive trucks. Both were the incredibly long road-trains that are common in rural Australia. These two had been heading south and had come to a stop a couple of hundred yards away from the flaming wreckage that blocked the highway. It wasn’t a stretch to think the drivers were already on a radio or satellite phone, calling the police.

  Leaping across the ditch that bordered the pavement, I hurried across, raising an arm to shield my face from the blistering heat coming off the Hind. If the truckers hadn’t already called this in, I was pretty sure the sight of a man armed with a rifle running across the road would spur them to action, but there was nothing I could do about that.

  Pushing into the scrub, I brought my rifle around at the sound of movement in the tall grass to my side. Moving cautiously, I zeroed in on the sound and came to a stop, looking down at an injured Spetsnaz. He’d been gut shot, at least with two rounds, and was writhing in pain as he weakly clawed at his abdomen.

  Blood soaked the front of his uniform blouse and he’d been lying there long enough that ants had already found him and were starting to swarm in a feeding frenzy. He was pale from loss of blood, sweat beaded on his face. When he realized I was there, he looked up at me and sighed. I shot him in the head and moved on without a second thought, adding his corpse to my mental tally of bodies.

  By now I had grown seriously concerned about Rachel and Dog. Between the gunship and the ground troops, the Russians had hit us hard. My only hope was that she had done what I’d told her and stayed in shelter. It’s not safe being a non-combatant in the midst of a battle, but at least you don’t draw attention to yourself.

  Circling a row of trees, I broke into a jog when I saw Rachel kneeling over a figure on the ground. Dog, standing watch over her, saw me coming and flicked his tail in greeting but didn’t take his attention off the surroundings. When I reached them, I dropped to a knee on the far side of Commander Sherman.

  He was flat on his back, pain filled eyes staring up at me. Rachel had removed his vest and shirt, exposing three bullet wounds in his chest. She’d done the best she could with the small med-kit he carried, but nothing short of a trauma center was going to save him. That much was obvious, even to me.

  “My men?” he asked, his voice whispery and weak.

  I shook my head.

  “One unaccounted for,” I said, reaching out and grasping his hand. “The rest are KIA. Got a missing Russian, too.”

  “Got that motherfucker,” he muttered, flecks of blood staining his lips.

  He cut his eyes to the side and I looked in that direction to see a Russian soldier lying face down behind a bush.

  “Find my man,” he said, then passed out.

  “Anything you can do for him?” I asked Rachel.

  “Nothing with what I have,” she said. “He needs a hospital. Did you find Nitro and the guys?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Stay with Sherman. I’ll be back.”

  Telling Dog to stay with Rachel, I pushed deeper into the brush. I found Bunny’s body first. The ground around it was carpeted with spent brass. In succession, I came across Goose and Monk’s corpses, both shredded by the Hind’s Gatling gun. Looking around, I headed for the only high point on this side of the road.

  Nitro had gone after the SEAL sniper and I was pretty confident that would be where he’d found him. Since he wasn’t already up and wandering around, I was afraid of what I’d find. But I had to know.

  Approaching the crest of the low rise, my concern progressed to near certainty. Either Nitro or the SEAL had made the shots on the Hind that had saved me from a strafing run. Had distracted the pilot and gunner long enough for me to set off the fuel tanks on the van. But before I’d brought it down, the gunship had unleashed hell on their position.

  No vegetation remained on the top ten feet of the rise. It had been reduced to splinters as the heavy, high-velocity slugs tore through, the debris now carpeting the churned up red soil. On the back side of the low hill, I found Nitro and the SEAL. Neither of them had escaped the fury of the helicopter, their bodies nearly unrecognizable. I sank to a knee next to my friend, reaching out then stopping with my hand hovering in the air. There wasn’t a square inch of his corpse that wasn’t covered in blood.

  Before I got too lost in memories, I forced myself up and started to turn away. Pausing, I looked down at Nitro a final time, not happy I was leaving his body behind. Or any of the other Americans for that matter. But I had no choice. There was nothing I could do. At least the Australian authorities would most likely be here soon. The dead would be collected and treated with respect. Scavengers wouldn’t get to them.

  Before I left, I knelt again and checked Nitro’s pockets. Found the cross that had apparently meant a lot to him. When I held it up, most of one of the arms was missing, having been blown off by a shell from the gunship. Blood dripped off the smooth gold. I shoved it in my pocket as I stood and hurried to where I’d left Rachel and Dog.

  “We have to move,” I said as I ran up, my voice rough with emotion. “Cops are going to start showing up.”

  “Nitro and the guys?” she asked, but her face told me she already knew the answer.

  I shook my head and knelt next to Sherman.

  “Not leaving him here,” I said, working my arms beneath him.

  “What do we do with him?” She asked, reaching out to help.

  “Let’s leave him with the truck drivers. Get them to do what they can, but we’ve gotta get the hell out of here, and fast.”

  “How? Where do we go?” Rachel asked, grunting with exertion as she helped me lever Sherman off the ground.

  Sherman had told me their C-130 was a little over a mile away and I knew they’d come in on foot from the east.

  “Their plane,” I said as I stood up with the SEAL’s weight on my shoulder. “Let’s go. We’re out of time.”

  Hurrying through the brush, panting from the exertion of the extra weight, I stepped onto the pavement and moved as fast as I could toward the two stopped road-trains. When we were still a hundred yards from the closest one, the driver swung down from the cab. He started to back away, ready to run.

  “Help!” I shouted as loud as I could.

  He hesitated, then the driver from the second truck appeared at his side with a rifle or shotgun in his hands. I couldn’t tell which at this distance.

  “Help us!” I shouted again before he decided it would be a good idea to raise the weapon in our direction.

  They stood there, watching us approach. I was puffing like a steam engine from trotting with close to two hundred pounds on my back and didn’t have the air to keep shouting, so Rachel took over. A woman’s voice seemed to allay some of their fears and they slowly walked forward to meet us.

  “Are the cops coming?” I panted as I reached them.

  “Aye. I called ‘em,” one of them answered.

  I stopped and started to lower Sherman to the asphalt. The unarmed driver hesitated, then helped me so the wounded SEAL was placed down as gently as possible.

  “You!” Rachel barked as she knelt over Sherman. “Call them back and tell them there’s a man who’s been shot in the chest. We need a medical flight or he’s going to die!”

  The man with what I could now see was a shotgun didn’t move, just stood there gaping.

  “Move your ass!” Rachel shouted.

  A beat, then the driver turned and raced for his truck.

  “You!” she said, grabbing the other driver by the wrist and pulling him down. “Hold here and here. Keep the pressure on and maybe he’ll survive until help arrives. Don’t let off. Do you understand?”

  The man bobbed his head up and down, pressing on two bullet holes in Sherman’s body like Rachel had showed him.

  “What the ‘ell’s goin’ on?” he asked, voice shaking.

  “Classified,” I said, standing and grabbing Rachel’s arm.

  The clock was ticking and we needed to get the hell
out of there before the police began arriving. Turning to face east, I took off at a run. Rachel stayed close behind and Dog took up position at my side. There were now three trucks stopped on the north side of the flaming wreckage and I caught a glimpse of the armed driver in the cab of his, speaking into a radio as he gestured with his free hand. I didn’t see the third driver.

  13

  We slowed to a fast jog once concealed by the brush on the east side of the highway. The sun was setting at our backs, shadows growing long as we picked our way up the slope. A few yards below the crest of the ridgeline, I paused and looked back at the road below.

  The flames of the wreckage were as furious as ever, shooting high into the air. The thick, black smoke had cast a pall over the entire area, turning the last rays of the day a red the color of blood. It fit the scene. And my mood.

  Another road-train, this one traveling north, had arrived and come to a stop with a battered SUV behind it. From my elevated position, I could just make out a set of emergency lights far to the north. I couldn’t tell if this was police or fire, but it was a single vehicle and seemed to be coming fast.

  Passing over the top, I led the way down the back side of the hill toward a broad valley that stretched out to the base of a mountain range far in the distance. Shielded from the dying light, the ground at our feet was dark and we had to move carefully to not turn an ankle on an unseen rock.

  “Why did we survive?” Rachel asked in a haunted voice.

  “That’s just the way it goes sometimes.”

  We were quiet the rest of the way to the valley floor. I’d hoped to spot the C-130 while we had the advantage of elevated terrain, but had failed to see the large aircraft. I nearly faltered when I realized my error. I should have searched Commander Sherman’s body for a radio that could communicate with the flight crew. I was certain he’d have one with him, but hadn’t thought to look. Now it was too late. There was nothing for us to do but continue on and hope we found the plane.