The SPLM had breached the estate’s duracrete wall in several spots. Two Centauro tanks were wedged in the largest opening. Gutted by some species of micro-missile, black soot vented from the hatches, co-axial rounds popping off in the furnace of the crew compartments. Charred shapes curled on the ground beside the huge melting tires. Stuck outside, a third tank tore huge gouts of turf as it jinked back and forth, slamming high-explosive rounds at obscure targets inside the estate. SPLM assault teams cringed on either side of the smaller gaps, kitted to the gills with mimetic camo and hi-tech rifles, officers screaming at them.
I spied figures inside the wall: other rebels darting forward, the stubby tubes of rocket launchers bobbing in their hands. A metallic retching sounded from somewhere to their front, like a dozen car engines backfiring, and the men disintegrated in a wet gust of crimson wind. My pucker factor jumped to eleven.
“Ah, Shi-bal…” Tam swore. “Dhul-Fiqaar’s got Metalstorms.”
Metalstorm Area Denial Systems: remotely operated, multi-barrel launchers capable of turning anyone in the space of a football field into dog meat in under thirty seconds.
I tapped my throat mike. “Poet9, when were you going to tell us Qasr al-Salaam has Metalstorms?”
“¡Oye! I’m looking at the files right now.”
“And?”
“And the place is Death’s Disneyland,” the Mexican replied. “Metalstorms, spider mines, automated turrets. He’s even got a pair of Kashtan anti-air emplacements. Nasty old goat wants his privacy.”
“Nothing says ‘Get the hell off my lawn’ like sixteen thousand rounds per second,” I said. “There a way in?”
Static washed in and out. The jamming was stronger nearer the mansion. “Nope,” came his answer. “Defense in depth, overlapping fields of fire, hardened emplacements… ECM won’t do shit either: the automated systems are all hardwired.”
“Well there goes my smile,” Tam muttered.
“And that’s just the perimeter,” Poet9 added. “Mansion’s a whole separate horror show.”
Nastiness was stacking up fast in my mental ‘Near and Credible Threat’ slot, so much so, I was seriously wondering how Eshu was going to navigate this sea of deep and fatal shit to a happy ending. Then someone shouted our names.
Tam and I turned to see the Ukrainian Legion troops running our way, weapons ready. They were on us in an instant.
We tensed, but suddenly Tam and I were mobbed by wide smiles, dozens of hands clapping us on the back, bears hugs, kisses on each cheek. I swear a couple of them were tearing up. “Ey, drug! Ey!”—Hey, my friend, Hey!
Puzzled, Tam looked at me and mouthed, “What the…?” “
Abruptly one of the starshinas, a tall, unshaven, horse-faced man named Chupalov, wrapped his arms around Tam. “We are very much glad you’re here now,” he breathed, all vodka and desperate geniality. “You will tell them we’re with you, yes?” He pointed farther up the street.
“Tell who?” Tam asked.
“The Major Sajiid,” Chupalov replied. “We are premium soldiers. Heroes of Bowna, very much too important for in there.” He nodded toward the estate wall.
He took a step back and looked us squarely in the eyes, all gravitas now. “You too are premium. Special Forces, yes? Now that you are here, we will be under your command.”
Tam raised his eyebrows, unsure how to answer, but Chupalov yelled something in Russian, and all the soldiers cheered.
“You just got promoted,” I said to Tam.
“Yep, I’m making all kinds of friends in Somaliland,” he replied dryly. “Let’s find Sajiid and get this over with.”
The Muharib mobile command vehicles were hull down in the eighteenth hole sand trap, an armored thicket of aerials, antennas and olive-drab satellite dishes with a putting green lawn. Major Sajiid was inside the center APC, leaning heavily over a map table, tension and fatigue lining his already thin face. He was the dead-tired, perfectly still in the center of a swirling mass of soldiers, technicians, flashing numbers and live feed on a dozen flatscreens. One look, and we knew the SPLM’s elite Muharib Guard was getting their ass handed to them.
The major waved us in. “There’s been some problems.”
“So we heard,” I said. “What can we do?”
The major fixed us with a red-rimmed stare. “Pull off another miracle like Bowna. Can you do that?”
Tam and I stayed silent.
Sajiid grunted. “Worth asking anyway.” He tapped several places on an epaper map. The spots lit up under his finger. “We’re pressing the defenses here, here, and here, but those Dawson-Hull corporate kafir turned the palace estate into a killing ground. Every square meter is covered by automated defenses. Our jamming has no effect, which means it’s probably all wired deep underground. We need to cut a lane through to the main house.”
He sighed. “Allah only knows what we’ll find there… I’m losing men faster than I can think, and I’m not even through the perimeter.”
“Air assault,” I suggested. “Why go through when you can go over?”
Major Sajiid shook his head. “We already tried. Lost four choppers an hour ago. The place has more anti-air and anti-drone missile systems than one of the American aircraft carriers.”
“So what are were doing here?” Tam asked. “Why not seal the place, move on to critical targets like the military bases or the Port at Berbera? Starve the president, then shell him into submission.”
The major shook his head and rubbed his eyes like he was warding off a migraine. Unsuccessfully. “Qasr al-Salaam is the symbol of the Dhul-Fiqaar regime. Secretary Ghotta insists it is too important to bypass. He says we must show our people—and the rest of the world—we have moral superiority in the sight of Allah.”
He nodded down the street, back the way we’d come. “That’s why the media is here. They want live coverage as we oust the wolf from his lair. Professor Hamid announced the war will end with him dead in a ditch or giving a speech from the mansion’s front steps.”
Tam and I really stayed silent.
A soldier rushed up and whispered something in his ear. Major Sajiid paled. When he spoke again, each word weighed a ton. “I’ve been ordered to get to the mansion today. At all costs. It seems Secretary Ghotta is determined that Professor Hamid give his speech before sundown.”
He sagged slightly and dismissed us with a wave. “Get ready. I won’t waste you in the initial assault, but don’t go far. Your number will come up sooner or later.”
My palms started itching furiously. Something bad was about to happen.
Tam cleared his throat. “Eshu International will clear a path for you.”
Major Sajiid’s eyes narrowed.
“I saw the Ukrainian Legion outside,” Tam continued. “They were with us at Bowna. Assign them to us, and we’ll get the Professor to the front steps.”
“You want this, even after I’ve told you what’s in there?” Major Sajiid asked.
Tam nodded. Major Sajiid looked at me.
I kept my composure. It actually hurt my neck, but I nodded too.
The major sucked his teeth and shook his head. “Go then, and may Allah be gracious to you and give you success.”
We left him standing there, sad, tired eyes boring into our backs.
I waited until we were fifty paces down the street. “May Allah be gracious and give us a tactical nuke. What the hell are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking Hester gave us the layout for the whole place,” Tam replied quietly. “Hard-wired defenses mean local control stations, nodes. We blow one or two of them, we clear a path right back to Professor Hamid’s side.”
“You’re going through with this?”
“I’m going to finish it, one way or another.”
Starshina Chupalov and the Ukrainian Legion were milling around smoking cigarettes. They perked up when they saw us.
“I’ll break the news to our comrades,” Tam said. “Go tell Poet9 and the Triplets to get read
y. We’re heading downrange.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO – Molon Labe
Duraal Ravine, Somaliland
Curro wiped the blood from his eyes and peered over the top of the boulder.
The narrow valley in front was calm for the moment; wind whistled through the rocky cliffs, hummed through the girders of the small bridge over the ravine. The charred, rusty vehicle frames poking out of the scrub brush bore witness to some recent, nameless battle. The fires muttering in new wrecks, the fresh bodies spilled across the blacktop were the war’s latest evidence. Bright green and black tiger-stripe mixed with denim and loud prints. Friend and foe were shockingly similar in a bloody, embarrassed sprawl.
Curro could hear the eleven remaining Dhubbato men nearby, catching their breath and reloading.
He stared two hundred meters down the road where the highway entered the ravine. Dark shapes moved in the white glare, framed by the rising cliffs. Bleary heat demons in the midday sun.
Demons… two companies of Duub Cas.
Five hundred elite government soldiers, with their red berets, their tanks, trucks, and armored suits. All coming his way.
Curro and the Dhubbato men had surprised the Duub Cas. Their small convoy had rolled up on the government troops less than thirty minutes south of the camp in a tiny town that straddled Highway Three. No one knew its name. The place was little more than a bus stop, but the Red Berets were bent on slaughtering every living thing in it.
It took Curro a moment to realize, to recognize, what was happening; Bowna all over again. But the men with him, survivors of similar slaughters, knew right away. They opened fire without blinking, bloodied them with their borrowed weapons in their white U.N. vehicles, and the illusion of neutrality went right out the window. The Dhubbato men were ferocious and sent the government troops reeling. But when the tanks, the trucks and the armored walking suits appeared, Curro understood just how many there were.
At least the Duub Cas had stopped killing the civilians.
Curro glanced at the sun and tried to calculate the time. That had been an hour ago?
Now the Duub Cas were right down the road, catching their breath, pausing to think, to regroup. And reload. But there was a lot more then twelve of them, so they’d come again.
A snippet of a hymn ran through Curro’s head.
…when we all get to Hea-ven, what a day of rejoicing that will be…
When he was little, he’d stand next his parents in church and sing as loud as he could. He clapped all wrong, missing the beat, didn’t know all the words, but his papa would smile down at him, and Curro knew with all his heart that Jesus loved him and heaven would be better than he could ever imagine.
Curro sure hoped this song didn’t mean he was going there first.
…of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Je-sus, we’ll sing and shout…
The refugees had clapped and whistled when they left the camp. Two dozen Dhubbato men riding to the rescue; Korfa in the lead jeep, Wonli grinning, manhandling the burly Pandur APC, him up in the turret, wind and sun in his face, waving back at everyone… A cheer had rolled down the long column as they roared by.
Sure, the refugees thought they were Peacekeepers. Who could blame them, three big white vehicles, guns, the body armor? But there was no time to stop, not time to explain, just drive… so the crowds had parted like the Red Sea, and Curro felt like a hero.
That was less than two hours ago.
Korfa was dead, killed a few kilometers back down the highway when he rammed his jeep into a Duub Cas APC. Both exploded.
Curro and the Dhubbato men had retreated from the massive Duub Cas firepower and set up a hasty defense. It had held all of twenty minutes before they were nearly overrun. Korfa’s sacrifice had bought them the chance to break off, run down Highway Three once more, and to set up here in this ravine.
“Rock and roll,” Jace Manner had explained once. “One element stays and fires while the other falls back. Switch, repeat as needed. You keep your enemy’s head down so you can retreat without getting shot in the back. That’s called a ‘delaying action’.”
Delaying action.
Korfa and the others had been little more than a speed bump.
Curro wiped his forehead again and pawed the blood off on his pant leg. It was a scratch from a rock splinter and looked worse than it really was. “You are the weapon,” Tam had lectured him. “A wound, a little blood, means nothing. If you’re functional, you can fight. And that’s what matters.”
Curro patted his vest for a bandage, anything to keep the blood out of his eyes, but all he found was two rifle magazines, the smooth egg of a grenade, and the pack of Beechies gum his papa had given him earlier.
…in the mansions bright and blessed, He’ll prepare for us a place…
He looked back down the road in the direction of the camp. He’d sent two men with a warning and a promise. “Tell my father… Tell him we’ll hold them as long as we can.”
The Duraal Ravine was a perfect spot to make a stand; a natural bottleneck where the highway cut through a scratch of granite hills, barely wide enough for the highway and the bridge over the wadi. Still, Curro hoped they’d run faster.
When we all get to Hea-ven…
Not yet, Curro prayed. Please, not yet.
He choked up and spit dust and the acid taste of gunpowder. His mouth was sand, his head ached, his ears rang with a high-pitched tone. The sun pounding down into this narrow defile made it like being stuck in a toaster. If there was a good place to die, this wasn’t it.
Curro heard a sloshing sound and felt a tap on the shoulder. He turned to see Wonli offering his canteen. “If we’re lucky, they’ll send the tanks first.”
“How is that lucky?”
“If the commander is smart, he’ll send infantry to clear us out first, but a couple good shots could immobilize their armor,” Wonli answered. “Make a sort of roadblock with their own vehicles.”
“God help him be stupid then,” Curro replied. He glanced over his shoulder. “I said we’d give them a half hour.”
“Then pray they send the tanks.”
Curro nodded. “Never thought I’d ask God for that. The Gustav have ammo?”
“Yes.”
“Enough?”
Wonli shrugged. “If Bishaar shoots straight.”
Somewhere on their right, Korfa’s brother Bishaar manned an old Carl G 84mm recoilless cannon. His teenage son Ali assisted him. It was the only anti-tank weapon they had left.
Riddled and smoking oil, the second U.N. jeep had seized up halfway across the bridge. The men had abandoned it, yanking the machine gun off the pintle, grabbing the last ammo cans then scrambling into the rocks for cover. Curro had them set up high on the left, ready to sweep the bridge like a broom if infantry came. It and the recoilless cannon constituted their heavy support.
If the infantry came.
When infantry came.
When the tanks came.
Curro kept talking, anything to keep his mind off the imminent. “The guys I used to work with, Eshu International, said a long time ago a band of Greeks held off a huge enemy army for three days in a pass like this.”
Wonli’s eyebrows shot up. “Three whole days? Impossible.”
“It’s true,” Curro continued. “Three days of hand-to-hand fighting. The Greeks were so fierce, at one point the enemy king sent a messenger telling them they had proved their bravery and worth as soldiers. He wanted the killing to stop. He told them he didn’t want their lives, only their weapons.”
“What did the Greeks answer?”
“‘Molon Labe’. Come and get them.”
Wonli clicked his teeth in approval. “Very brave men indeed.” He paused and looked over at Curro. “I don’t think the Red Berets are going to make us that offer.”
“No.”
“What happened?” Wonli asked. “Did those Greeks win?”
“No,” Curro said slowly. “A traitor led the enemy throu
gh the hills to the rear of the pass. They were surrounded.” He looked into Wonli’s face. “They all died.”
The Somali considered this for a long time. “But they were heroes, yes?”
Curro nodded. “The whole country heard what they did, rose up and threw the invaders out a year later.”
Wonli nodded. “Then they died well.”
The Somali settled down and began to murmur a prayer. “O God, forgive our living and our dead, those who are present among us and those who are absent, our young and our old, our males and our females…” He paused, looked over at his friend. “You do not pray?”
Curro thought for a moment and looked at the rifle in his lap. “I can’t think of any honest ones at this point. This is out of my hands.” He smiled at the Somali.
“You aren’t scared of death?”
“I’m ready to crap my pants. But what’s faith if I throw it away when it’s tested? I trusted in ʿĪsā a long time ago. I’m not going to stop today. Certainly not now.”
Wonli nodded acceptance. “You believe he conquered death for you?”
“I sure hope so.”
A cry went up from their end of the bridge. “Here they come!”
The armored snouts of two Otokar Arma wheeled APCs rolled into the ravine, one on each lane of the narrow highway. Their diesel engines growled, soldiers in their top turrets spraying machine-gun fire wildly. Dark shapes lumbered behind them.
Shift Tense: Eshu International Book 2 Page 26