It reached the target in milliseconds, causing an explosion that tore a chunk out of the tree’s base. The pine tree toppled over, delivering yet another round of gaseous hell onto the troops. The Sheriff repeated the process again and again, each time bringing yet another tree down under the guidance of Dicky’s lumberjack skills.
More of the napalm bombs exploded as tree limbs and Russian boots found their respective pressure plates. The soap flakes carried the sticky diesel onto more victims. Gas, fire, and smoke were now covering most of the clearing as more toe-poppers went off.
On the left, Apollo heard an even louder explosion. It came from the front corner of the meadow. Russian boots must have triggered one of the cable spindle bombs, sending out a barrage of copper shards from its center. The homemade claymore mine was a work of genius, its shrapnel tearing through bone and flesh.
One Tannerite charge remained—the one closest to Apollo’s position. He brought the scope to the base of the tree and tagged the center of the bomb with the laser-guided optics. However, before he could bring the reticle to bear, something slammed into his shoulder.
A splash of red hit his face, just as a searing pain tore through his body. He twisted backwards, letting out a grunt-filled scream before landing on his back in a thud.
When he turned his head, he saw the impact point. His right shoulder. Only runny chunks of meat remained. It was mostly muscle and tendon hanging loose in meaty strands, looking like something out of a Clive Barker movie.
Three feet away was an arm lying in the grass—his arm, with the bicep torn apart. That’s when the pain skyrocketed, his eyes registering what had happened.
Before his next thought arrived, dirt and grass exploded within inches of his feet. He flipped over and crawled on his belly, dragging himself with one arm into a natural recess in the terrain.
The pain never took a second off as he fell into the hole head-first to escape the gunshots. The speed and number of bullets increased, pelting the area from what he could only assume was an automatic weapon.
The gunfire must have been coming from the clearing, since the Clearwater crew only had semi-autos. It meant at least one enemy soldier had survived the gas cloud—a straggler, as Bunker put it—and was able to see, despite the blinding Bufotoxin and other chemicals.
Apollo knew there could be more. He had to stop them before more Americans got hurt. He felt around the dirt with his left hand, but the TrackingPoint rifle wasn’t there.
Shit! He must have dropped it when the bullet tore him apart. He didn’t remember seeing it by his severed arm, but it couldn’t have flown far.
Apollo turned to his side and pushed one-handed to raise his body. He crawled to his knees, planning to slink out of the hole and recover the rifle. All it would take was one good arm to aim the weapon. The precision firearm would do the rest.
A smarter man would have stopped to put a tourniquet around his wound, but Apollo’s mind was focused on something else—his friends. If the enemy was able to find him with their rifles, then Rusty and the rest of the gang would soon suffer the same fate.
Apollo made it about two yards before his strength vanished. His face slammed into the dirt, trapping his one good arm underneath.
He could feel the thump of his heart across his body, its pace ever-decreasing, setting his life-force free from the wound in spurts. The Reaper was near, waiting in the shadows, ready to pounce after the final moment of life departed.
Apollo wanted to take in the beauty of the sky one last time. He tried to turn over, but couldn’t find the strength. All he had left was his imagination. Well, that and the memory of a single, magical kiss.
Allison’s face appeared in his thoughts a split-second later. In his vision, she tilted her head and brought her lips to his. Her touch sparked a blissful sensation—one he needed to hold onto forever.
When the air in his lungs withered to a stop, death came, filling his vision with permanent black.
CHAPTER 22
Bunker slid down the saddle to the side of Tango, keeping his profile thin as his ride tore up the incline extending from the trench. When Bunker’s feet landed in the grass along the slope, he took the gas mask from the saddle horn.
“Yaw!” he yelled, slapping the horse on the hindquarters to initiate a gallop. Tango flew up the hill in a flail of hooves, passing Apollo’s sniper hide before he disappeared into the trees at the top.
Bunker slipped the backpack over his left shoulder, then put on the gas mask, with its virgin filter ready to go to work. Not only would it protect him from Albert’s toxic gas, but it would also smoke the smoke, as his DI used to say. Gas masks can be used in a fire, but the filter would clog sooner than normal. He’d have to work quickly, especially now that the gunshots had started.
The sword was of little use. He left it behind, preferring the lethality of the twin 1911s stuffed inside the back of his waistband.
He pulled out one of .45s and took off in a crouched-over sprint, aiming for the path Burt and he had lined with the logs. If he chose the wrong entry point, he’d most certainly land a foot on one of the pressure plates they’d buried beneath the surface.
Bunker figured the rounds tearing up the countryside were coming from his crew. There wasn’t time to verify, not with the tanks on standby. He figured their three-man crews had buttoned up by now, eliminating their exposure to the gas. It would decrease their lateral visibility, but not enough to stop them from bringing the main cannon online. Its infamous autoloader would then take over, prepping the breach with the first round of death and destruction.
He remembered most of the details from training videos. If he recalled them correctly, the carousel held twenty-two rounds of powder and projectile, with a maximum fire rate of eight per minute. The autoloader would spin the roundabout to deliver the next ordnance into position. The 125mm projectile would then be raised level to the breach and rammed inside. The powder charge would follow next, shoved in behind the shell before the breach was closed.
The autoloader is fast and merciless, much like its tank commander, who selects each target for annihilation. Bunker figured the tank boss would wait until the smoke cleared before he gave his Gunner the order to fire. Each time that happened, one of the Clearwater crew would meet their end.
A dead soldier lay at the midpoint of the entry path with a large chunk of his head missing. Someone on the ridge must have taken the man down. Bunker figured the shot came from Dicky or possibly Burt, the others less reliable due to age or other factors.
If it was Rusty, then the young man just popped his cherry and was no doubt dealing with the emotional aftermath.
Bunker picked up the pace, dodging flames along the trail.
When a tall, camo-wearing shadow presented itself, he pulled the trigger on the 1911. The .45 blew half of the soldier’s face apart, sending his body flopping sideways. The Russian’s size eleven boots were the last items to disappear into the veil of smoke.
Another hostile came into view directly ahead, its eyes swollen into a thin, horizontal line. They were bleeding, just like Albert had predicted.
The enemy’s incapacitation didn’t stop Bunker’s trigger finger, or the next bullet from leaving the pistol, tearing apart the enemy’s throat in a swash of red.
Another round sent, another KIA, just as it should be, Bunker thought. Kill or be killed. The math doesn’t get any simpler than that.
He continued his assault, picking off targets left and right—all of them in distress. Everywhere he looked, it was more of the same: Russian blood, burns, blisters, blindness, and body parts missing. All of it due to the manmade booby traps they’d encountered.
When the first magazine ran out of ammo, Bunker changed pistols, working his way to the last known location of the tank platoon. Exchanging weapons was faster than replacing mags, the latter of which he would do once the backup gun was empty.
The exact position of the tank platoon was a guess at this point. The smoke pro
vided the cover he needed, as long as the tank crews hadn’t retreated into a hedgehog formation. If they had, the battle was already over.
Bunker needed them running solo, hopefully in a panic, giving him access to the most vulnerable part of the armored vehicle—the rear grille.
A climb up the tracks was possible, too, but you never knew if or when the driver might spin the tank, turning your ass into what the Marines called a “crunchie.” He’d seen his share of bodies driven into the dirt. Usually only a sponge or mop bucket was needed to clean up the pieces, if they could be found at all.
Bunker would never forget the aftermath of a new recruit who thought sleeping in the recess under the tracks was a good idea. All the kid wanted was some peace and quiet. That he got, until a member of the maintenance crew decided to take it out on an early morning fueling run. The resultant mess was beyond description.
Whether a tank crew panicked or the infantry failed to give them the right of way, the men inside the metal beast didn’t care. All four directions belonged to them—an unwritten rule—and everyone else needed to get the hell out of the way.
Bunker took down three more Russians who wandered into the kill zone. It took four shots instead of three because one of the bodies didn’t go down as quickly as the others.
He pressed on, keeping his eyes scanning for targets. A few feet of visibility were all he had, but it was enough, as long as the filter on the gas mask held up until the effects of Albert’s chemical warfare faded.
Others might have had trouble with the endless screams or the bloody smears of death, but he hardly noticed. For him, self-preservation took care of his mental state—and his focus. Everything else was secondary. Act, don’t think was the mission objective now. If it moves, kill it.
He figured by now the airwaves were jammed with panic calls in Russian. The tank commanders, like everyone else, were blind from the smoke, hoping to receive orders from Command.
The Command personnel had their own issues, hunkered down in the less than airtight GAZ Tigr trucks. The gas cloud had most certainly engulfed them, meaning the staff inside was battling for fresh air.
Some of the officers may have fled on foot, while others tried to back the vehicle up, only to run into the trees blocking the entrance. Dicky’s precision cuts were a thing of a beauty, dropping the soaring pine trees exactly where they were needed.
Combine the trees with Albert’s prowess for cooking up something wicked, and you had yourself the makings of an ambush—a term few veterans got to use, even after years of service.
It isn’t often that assault plans run perfectly. When they do, it’s called an ambush. They are rare, but they do happen, usually when the adversary is caught ill-prepared or they over-commit. In this case, it had been both.
Bunker figured he had run far enough to be inside the minefield’s perimeter. He changed course, turning five degrees to hunt down the first tank.
The smoke lessened with each step toward the middle of the clearing. What had begun as a heavy black cloud was now a fading mist of gray. The mud from the rainstorm must have been the reason why, collecting near the low spot of the meadow.
Mud would temper the brushfire’s advance, decreasing the smoke accordingly. Less smoke meant a dwindling advantage. Bunker needed to complete his objectives before the enemy adjusted.
He continued another ten strides before he spotted the first tank. It was parked perpendicular to his direction of travel, with its main gun low. He figured the Land Rover was its target, its location the Russians’ only known fact. However, the gas cloud may have changed their priorities, shifting from offense to defense.
The other tanks weren’t visible from his position, eliminating his worry about the hedgehog maneuver. The odds of success had just gone up in his favor, he estimated, climbing north of fifty percent.
Bunker ended his jog and brought the backpack around to his chest, with the upper pouch facing forward. He was about to put his hand inside to grab one of the socks covered in axle grease, but stopped when another troop wandered into his field of fire.
The solider stumbled like a drunken zombie, shifting from side to side as if the Earth was spinning too fast to keep his balance. The man’s face had been deeply burned. It looked as though a flame thrower had melted the skin on one side—a gruesome sight to be sure, one Bunker could relate to. His neck scars had mostly healed, but his memory of the pain hadn’t.
Bunker aimed the pistol and fired at the zombie man just as the Russian staggered to the left. The soldier never flinched, nor did he go down. The bullet must have missed, whistling into the forest beyond.
He fired again, this time taking out the soldier’s eye in a spray of red, his camo-covered body hitting the ground hard. His legs flopped to one side, his boots twisting over themselves.
Bunker scanned the area again. This time it was clear. Time to take out the tank.
He knelt down in the mud for cover, putting the pack on the ground. He opened the zipper on the side compartment to liberate the pocket torch Dallas had found in Tuttle’s kitchen.
The tube sock was next.
His fingers went in and wrapped around a glob of axle grease. The ooze covered his hand in slippage, but he was able to lock on and pull the thermite charge free from the pouch. After a quick press to his feet, he slung the pack around his shoulders and ran to the T-72.
When engaging a tank, a rear approach is the preferred angle of assault. The troops have view ports, like a periscope, but they are operated manually and are fraught with blind spots.
In order to stop Bunker’s approach, their eyes would have to be looking directly at him when he broke through the smoke cloud. The odds were slim, he calculated, thanks to the chaos his friends had created across the expanse.
If it weren’t for the blinding chemicals and toxic fumes, the tank commander would have popped the hatch above his seat and jumped on the machine gun, mowing down everything in sight. Including Bunker.
Instead, the commander was likely too busy attempting to break through the overlapping radio chatter. When troops panic, the airwaves congest, just as Bunker needed. Tank platoons are only effective when they can share information and work as a team. That can’t happen if pandemonium takes over.
A single tank is a sitting duck, especially without infantry support to protect its six. Three tanks are only marginally better if they’re spread out and unable to communicate, or locate targets.
Scratch my back is the term used when a tank commander needs assistance from another crew. The coaxial machine gun makes quick work of any would-be hitchhikers, assuming the support tank can range the targets clearly.
Bunker was tempted to plant the greasy sock on the rear-mounted exterior fuel drums. It would have been quicker and made one hell of a fireball, but it wouldn’t be nearly as effective as what he had planned.
The autoloader’s carousel was his intended target, located directly below the turret. Its inventory of explosives would destroy the tank from the inside out, including its unsuspecting crew.
He climbed onboard using the metal rails of the rear protection grille, passing between the two auxiliary fuel drums. He scampered to the main cannon and planted the sticky bomb near the center of the turret.
The mini-torch he carried fired on the first pull of its trigger, sending out a brilliant flame. It glowed orange, fighting for its life against a gust of wind that came out of nowhere, smacking Bunker in the face.
He figured the late afternoon thermals were the reason for the sudden burst, a typical change in the mountains. More flurries would be coming, hopefully in the same direction.
Bunker brought the flame to the sock, aiming for the center as the wind took a short respite. The intense heat burned through the layers of greasy cotton almost instantly, igniting the thermite inside.
He slid back a few feet as the white-hot reaction began to melt its way through the hull. He hopped off the tank and hit the ground running. A good amount of distance w
as needed before the thermite reached the—
BOOOOOM!
The pressure wave threw him forward, his legs somersaulting in front of his head. He landed in a twisted, uncontrolled dive, sliding end over end until he came to rest against one of the dead soldiers. It was the same man he’d shot in the eye.
“Holy fuck!” Bunker said in an uneven grumble, crawling to his knees. It felt like someone had smashed a baseball bat into his spine. He ran a quick body check, but found no blood or holes. Only the lingering ache from the impact.
He coughed as smoke entered his lungs for the first time. It was at that moment he realized the gas mask had been thrown clear. He scanned the area, but couldn’t see it. At least the pocket torch was still in his possession. So were both of the pistols in the back of his waistband.
The slight burning in his throat was due to Albert’s toxic chemicals drifting his way. Distance, time, and wind had weakened their effects, failing to incapacitate his eyes or lungs completely. Even so, prolonged exposure would be an issue going forward. He needed a solution—something to slow it down— even if it was only temporary.
Random echoes of gunfire continued as he searched the one-eyed corpse for something he could use as a mask. There was nothing in the man’s uniform pockets except lint, a picture of a huge, round woman with frizzy hair, and a half stick of gum.
Bunker removed the man’s tactical vest, then took his canteen. That’s when he noticed a pair of holes in the man’s shirt, just under the armpit. One was on the front of the shirt, and the other on the back, clearly an entrance and exit point. The damage must have been made by Bunker’s first shot—the bullet that missed when the man stumbled.
He stuck his finger inside the hole and tore off a long strip of cloth. He poured water on it from the canteen before tying it around his head, making sure it was snug over his nose and mouth. Then he stole the man’s combat goggles and slipped them over his eyes. The thievery wasn’t the best solution, but it would buy extra time.
Bunker (A Post-Apocalyptic Techno Thriller Book 5) Page 16