Standing Before Hell's Gate

by William Alan Webb

  “That tree’s not gonna stop them, Johnny.”

  “I know.”

  “It won’t even slow them down.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “Then why?”

  “You know what we’ve got waiting down the road. This will make them less careful.”

  “It’s a trick? You tore down one of the ancestor trees as a trick?”

  All he could do was nod.

  Deak fought back tears. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  #

  Chapter 65

  Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.

  Groucho Marx

  San Ysidro, New Mexico

  1307 hours, April 30

  What was once the town of San Ysidro had never been more than a scattering of small homes, farms, barns, and utility buildings lining Highway 4 after it branched off from Highway 550, so it surprised General Muhdin to find signs of recent habitation there. In most settlements, the first thing to be repurposed was sheet metal, but in San Ysidro he saw lots of it, corrugated or otherwise. One of his men found an axe with a sharp blade and new handle, which would have been the first thing taken by scrapers, and in one outside hearth, the ashes still glowed orange from the last fire.

  All of the people had fled and he felt sure they’d gone north to Shangri-La, taking with them all livestock and food. After a cursory inspection by his advance patrols, he forbade any looting on pain of death. Not that he cared even a little bit about respecting the people’s property, but time was of the essence and any delay could mess up the timing of his three-pronged attack plan.

  Speed was his friend. His army wouldn’t encounter serious defenses until it moved north of the old town of Canon, where the hills flanking the road came right up to the shoulder, making ambushes easy. There he’d have to slow down and send out flankers to prevent that from happening. The closer he came to Jemez Springs, where Shangri-La itself was said to be, the stronger the resistance he expected.

  The Emir had allowed him to use one of their last two working Abrams tanks, along with one of the four Bradleys that made the trip. Sati Bashara had two of the Bradleys and Gollins the other one. Muhdin also had 25 vehicles of various makes, from SUVs to pickup trucks, all with some version of a heavy automatic weapon mounted on top. One Chevy Tahoe, for example, had a square hole cut in the roof with a metal pole and brace supporting a 50-caliber machine gun salvaged from a disabled Humvee at the Texas National Guard Armory in San Angelo. Nearly a hundred cavalry flanked the Bradley where Muhdin stood in the commander’s hatch.

  As he stared at the crumbling ruins of an old store, the Bradley’s radioman touched his leg. “Blessed general,” the man said, his bearded face split in a smile, “General Gollins reports traps and heavy resistance in her sector.”

  Muhdin understood the man’s pleasure, but couldn’t let his face reflect his own satisfaction at his fellow general’s difficulties. “I shall pray for the success of the men under her command, and for the souls of those who are lost.”

  The smile vanished from the radioman’s face. “Yes, my general.” Crackling from the radio speaker sent him back inside for half a minute before he reappeared. The smile was back. “General Bashara reports driving the enemy from Los Alamos in heavy fighting. Four enemy killed and five captured. He requests instructions on what to do with the prisoners.”

  Muhdin considered a moment. Bashara was the closest thing he had to a rival, and it didn’t help that the young man was the Emir’s nephew. Worse, he was competent and smart. But Muhdin was responsible for the overall attack plan, so he needed Bashara to be successful.

  “Tell him it’s his choice. If they refuse to join us, he may execute them or use them to shield his own men. But whatever he does, the attack must continue without pause.”

  Passing the last dilapidated structure in old San Ysidro, Muhdin felt a growing excitement as his plan began to unfold. The first hints of doubt didn’t arise until they neared Jemez Pueblo and he heard a distant shot, followed by a fusillade of gunfire. Then came a period of silence, followed by a single shot. There was only one radio available for those leading them down the highway, so he had to wait five minutes until a rider sped toward him from the front of the column.

  “Blessed General,” the man said, giving the official salute of a fist over his heart with head bowed, “the enemy ambushed us. A sniper shot Usama Mohammad from behind a tree. We returned fire and when no more shots came from the infidels, four men went to investigate.” He hesitated, obviously not wanting to deliver bad news.

  “Continue.”

  “Yes, my general. They found no sign of the enemy, but two men fell into a covered pit. Inside were sharpened wooden stakes. Ali died when a point went through his neck, but Khalil still lived. It was terrible to see, my general. He fell face forward and it drove through his chest and out his back, yet he still lived. He cried and begged us to help him. Our sergeant, Burhad al-din Rahal, saw that we could do nothing for him and sent him to Allah with a bullet in the back of his head. It was the merciful thing to do.”

  “I decide what is merciful!”

  The man bowed his head.

  “Tell Sergeant Rahal that I approve of his difficult decision. What happened to the first man who was shot?”

  “Usama died, my general. The bullet struck his thigh and cut the artery. There was nothing we could do.”

  “Allah’s will be done. Were the human shields in place?”

  “Yes, my general. The infidel waited until they had passed.”

  “I see.” Muhdin thought for a moment. “Who is in charge of your sharika?” Company. “Is it Captain Deak?” The man nodded. “Tell him to use the shields on both sides of the column, not only in front. Do you understand?”

  “I do, my general.”

  “Go.”

  Muhdin scowled. One infidel rifleman fired one shot and killed three of his men, while delaying the column by more than fifteen minutes. He prayed that wasn’t a harbinger of things to come.

  #

  Chapter 66

  That we are blessed to take from unbelievers what we need is a central pillar of our faith.

  From The Revelations of Nabi Husam Allah, Chapter 3, Verse 5

  Los Alamos, New Mexico

  1328 hours, April 30

  Rolling hills covered with pine trees flanked Highway 501 as Regiment Rasūl moved out of Los Alamos headed southwest, closely followed by Regiment Ayyub. Sati Bashara rode in a Bradley near the head of the column, with his best friend and chief lieutenant Haleem preceding him in a motorcycle sidecar. Wounds received the previous year had left Haleem partially crippled and dragging his right leg, but Bashara valued him enough to provide him with scarce transport.

  The bodies of the prisoners captured in Los Alamos hung from a stand of trees near the road. Haleem had counseled that they be used as human shields and Bashara had preferred doing that, but his men had been too angry at their losses in taking Los Alamos. Between gunfire and carefully laid traps, he’d lost more than 100 men killed or wounded, including forty who took refuge in an old office building when they came under automatic weapons fire, only to have the entire building blow up around them. He’d tied the prisoners’ hands behind their backs and allowed his men to kick and stone them to death, after which they had been hung by their ankles from tree branches near the roadside. That allowed others to vent their anger by spitting on the infidels or throwing things at the corpses. One became so damaged that its left leg split in two, leaving it hanging by the right ankle. The left foot slipped out of the ropes and fell to the ground, where it rolled downhill and stopped on the shoulder, attracting flies.

  Rasūl Regiment was the youngest regiment in the Sword of the Prophet. Most of the men had not been part of the previous year’s campaign into Arizona. They tended to be impulsive and impetuous in their eagerness to impress, so Bashara put them in the lead. The Ayyub Regiment, on the ot
her hand, had only men who’d fought the summer before and were veterans. Anticipating traps and ambushes, he’d decided the best way to blood the Rasūl was to let them trigger a few fights and lose more men. The survivors would be the warriors he wanted, while the weak would be winnowed out like overripe fruit.

  Wildlife had gone quiet. The only noises came from the sound made by thousands of feet shuffling on the asphalt, the low murmur of men talking as they marched, and the engines of the vehicles. Horses whinnied as Bashara kept his messengers close by on either flank.

  Half an hour and another mile later, a volley of gunfire rippled from ahead, sharp, deep reports that sounded different from his men’s mixture of AK-47s, M-16s, and hunting rifles. Seconds later, he heard his own men shooting back.

  “Driver, go! Hurry!”

  The Bradley lurched ahead, passing the motorcycle on the right and forcing soldiers onto the shoulders to avoid being run down. Men ran toward the sound of the guns and slowed him down as they were forced off the road. The cavalry and the other Bradley followed him. Shooting continued, but now he only heard the guns of his own men.

  When the Bradley rolled up on the point of contact, Bashara spotted a line of bodies lying in the road. He counted nine, at least two of them rolling on the pavement in pain, but no medical helpers were in sight. At least fifty riflemen knelt in a roadside ditch, pouring fire into a line of trees at the crest of a fifty-foot-high ridge.

  “Cease fire!” he yelled. “Cease fire! Cease fire!”

  It took a dozen more tries, but eventually all of his men stopping shooting.

  Crawling toward him in the ditch, so as not to expose himself to fire, came Captain Istvan Mateescu, commander of the lead company. “Get down, my general! It is not safe!”

  “Stand like a man and come here!”

  Mateescu hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at the ridge.

  “Come here, qayid siriya!” Company commander.

  Mateescu closed his eyes and stood up. When no shots rang out, he walked quickly to stand before Bashara and saluted with fist over heart and head bowed. “I am y-your servant, my general.”

  Bashara lowered his voice so only Mateescu could hear. “I should have you shot, you coward! Were you trained to have your men cower in the dirt when facing infidels?”

  “No, my general.”

  “Then why are they?”

  “I… I…”

  “How were you trained to handle this situation?”

  The company commander thought for a moment, and Bashara made a mental note to replace him at the first opportunity.

  After what he felt was long enough, Bashara answered his own question. “You leave one third of your men in place to provide suppressing fire, then have the others attack up the slope using whatever cover is available. Is this not what you were taught to do?”

  “It is, my general.”

  “Then why didn’t you do it?”

  “I felt casualties would be heavy.”

  “So? The man who dies at the command of our beloved New Prophet is with Allah before the first fly lands on his corpse, and isn’t that what all of us strive for?”

  “It is, my general.”

  “Then by sending them into the attack, if they are killed, are you not fulfilling the purpose of their lives?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Then why didn’t you do it?”

  Mateescu’s head sank to his chest. “I was afraid, my general.”

  Behind Mateescu, Bashara saw all of his men riveted on their interaction. Even if they couldn’t hear the words, their expressions showed they understood the content. More men watched from the road and the opposite ditch.

  “Lead them now, Istvan. You can do it. Go up the hill and bid them follow. The infidels have obviously gone, but we must be certain. Do this thing yourself and show them your bravery.”

  Mateescu looked up with tears in his eyes. “Thank you, my general.”

  Bashara watched as Company Commander Mateescu rallied his men and led them up the rocky slope. As they went, he positioned men behind strategically placed trees and taught them to leapfrog upward, so that if someone opened fire on them, they could respond immediately. Within fifteen steps, Bashara could tell they all remembered the winter’s training, and they began to look like a military unit.

  Arms folded, he saw Mateescu go over the ridge top first, look around down the opposite slope, and then wave his rifle overhead as an all-clear sign. The Company Commander grinned and Bashara knew his pride had been restored. Mateescu took a step to the left, and a small explosion sent his body flying forward to roll down the slope toward the road.

  His men hit the ground as shrapnel rained on them. Mateescu came to a stop against a large pine tree. The back of his robe was shredded and smoking, turning red with blood. The company tibs, short for musaeid tibiyin or medical helpers, ran to his side. After examining him, one of them looked at Bashara and shook his head.

  “Where is the lieutenant?”

  “I am here, my general.” A young man with a wispy brown beard stood up and saluted.

  “Mulazim Latif Gerges, am I correct?”

  “You are.”

  “You are now Company Commander Latif Gerges. See to your men and move toward the infidels with all possible speed.”

  “As you command, my general!”

  #

  Smoke rose on the horizon, a tall column of black that hung in the still desert air. Even with binoculars, Johnny Rainwater couldn’t see the burning building to his south, but he didn’t need to see it to know what it was. Sevens always burned Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, and based on where the fire was along Highway 4, he knew it had to be Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church.

  He had anticipated that.

  Now, if they would only fall for the trap…

  #

  Chapter 67

  Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

  William Shakespeare

  West of New Mexico Highway 4

  1427 hours, April 30

  The shadows of midafternoon stretched far down the slope in front of him as Platoon Sergeant Dajuan Wiseman lowered his binoculars. “That’s a battalion at the least,” he said, turning to face Alpha Section and Platoon Commander Hakala. “Hard to tell from here, but it could be a regiment.”

  “Yeah,” Hakala replied. “Hell, it could be a division for all we know.”

  They stood on a ridge facing east, toward the settlement that Billy Two Trees and Qadim both identified as Jemez Pueblo. A knot of infantry hurried north in the distance down old New Mexico Highway 4, with the tail end of a much larger group disappearing behind a mountain.

  “What do you want to do?” Wiseman said.

  “Let me interject something, Loot,” said Tosen Ecker, the vehicle commander of the other LAV-25 in Alpha Section. “I think we need to consider the operational status of the Destroyers.” Marine nickname for the LAV-25.

  “What does Whitworth say?”

  “He thinks Alpha Two may have a worn bearing.”

  “Can that be fixed in the field?”

  “Yes, but it’s time-consuming.”

  “How much time?”

  “Hard to say; it depends. With enough help, it could only be two hours, but it could also be two days.”

  From down the reverse slope, Billy Two Trees shouted up at them. “We’re gonna be late for dinner!”

  None of the Americans turned to him, but Wiseman commented, “He’s got a point, Loot. We’ve got maybe four good hours of daylight left. Whatever we’re gonna do, we need to do it.”

  Hakala nodded. After turning north off Interstate 40, they’d literally raced up Highway 371, then east on 57 and over side roads and open country, averaging nearly thirty miles an hour for six hours. The crews were tired and hungry, and the point about the mechanical state of their machines was a good one. Each LAV carried four Marine riflemen, and they needed to stretch their legs. Plus, and not least, since he neede
d to use the head, he knew everybody else did, too.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” Hakala said. “Platoon Sergeant, establish a perimeter. Crews, see to your machines, refuel, check your filters, and make sure everything’s good to go. Alert Whitworth to any issues. Have him check Bravo Two for that bearing. Hit head in shifts and have your men eat something when they can. I want a report on all Destroyers in half an hour.”

  #

  “Qadim!” Hakala motioned the young man to meet him atop the ridge. He’d been speaking to Billy Two Trees, but trotted up the slope at Hakala’s call.

  “Tell him about dinner!” Billy yelled after him.

  Once Qadim stood beside the lieutenant, the American officer said, “What’s his issue?”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Billy. Is he… right in the head?”

  “I still do not understand. Billy is Billy.”

  “Never mind.” Hakala pointed toward the distant road. “Help me understand what’s going on over there.”

  Shading his eyes, Qadim focused where Hakala pointed. “We are too late.”

  “Are we? Is that Shangri-La?”

  “No, that is Jemez Pueblo. The town is north of there.”

  “Town means Shangri-La?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will they fight?”

  “The people? Oh, yes, but we are few. There are many traps, though. I have personally helped dig many tunnels and pits. Some will have rattlesnakes in them, others sharpened stakes. One may even have a cougar, if they could catch one. There are many places where black powder has been buried. It is hoped this will discourage invaders.”

  “Black powder?”

  “Yes. We make it ourselves. We also make our own weapons, mostly single-shot rifles. Automatic weapons are few, but those we make are very accurate, even if they are muzzle-loaders.”

  “You’re armed with muzzle-loaders? Like a Civil War musket?”

  “I know of the Civil War from our schools, but not much about their rifles, so I cannot say. We do have a few modern weapons. There are also three cannon made by the armorers. I think you call them mortars.”