Two more ladders came, and SEALs with Bull Pups soon checked over the wall.
“Bancroft, come in,” Hunter said.
“Yo, Cap. See the tank yet?”
“Not yet. You’ve got the con at the front gate. Keep three or four men on the wall and the MG’s ready at the gate. I don’t think you’ll have much business there.”
“Quiet so far. They’ve taken away about twenty wounded who had trouble walking. More blood drying on the street out there.”
Hunter climbed one of the ladders and watched the rear street. There blocks down he saw a tank come around the corner and head for the compound. “Ronkowski, did they ram the wall with the tank or use the big gun to punch a hole?”
“The gun, a one oh five I think it carries.”
The tank was four hundred yards off. “Let’s see if we can hit his tracks and put him dead in the water,” Hunter said. He pulled up his own Bull Pup and sighted in on the tank. Two other twenties fired before he did. He watched the target. One round was low, another went over the rig. He watched the tank turn sideways for a moment. He fired. The round hit the turret and might have done enough damage to stop the big gun from swinging around. Another round slammed into the tank and exploded on the running gear but the tracks were not damaged.
Two more rounds zeroed in on the side of the tank and the last one blew the tracks off the big rollers. The tank could only drive in circles with one tread off. They watched as the turret swung the big gun around, but it stalled and couldn’t come around far enough to aim at the compound. The top of the tank opened and three men scrambled out and looked at the tread. Hunter laser sighed in on the tank and fired. The air burst staggered two of the men and put the third down. The men limped off behind the tank.
“Watch them, Tran. If they move it, let me know.”
They took the other two ladders back to the front wall.
A half hour later, darkness took over the scene. Hunter put two men on ladders at the front wall with thermal imagers. They are hand held gadgets about four inches square with a screen. Firemen use them to find people in smoke filled rooms. You point the front at an area and if any humans or large animals are there, it reacts to the body heat and shows with a white image on the black screen at the back of the box.
“You men with the TI’s. If you see any suspicious men wandering up toward the wall put a warning shot near them. If they keep coming, blast them into hell.”
“That’s a wilco, Cap.” Lawrence said.
Lt. Ronkowski looked at Hunter. “Wilco, what’s that?”
Hunter grinned. “Not used much anymore. It was big in the army in World War II. It means Will Comply. Another service short cut. We got used to using it after seeing some old war movies.”
“Cap, I’ve got a runner,” Lawrence said.
“Coming toward the compound?”
“Affirmative.”
“Take him out.”
They heard a three round burst from the 5.56, then another three rounds. As the lead messengers hit the rebel one set off a hand grenade he carried blasting a thunderclap of sound and a flash of light as hand bomb exploded.
“Splash one,” Lawrence said.
A moment later another grenade went off just inside the compound wall, down fifty feet. Lawrence turned his thermal imager that way and saw a man running away from the wall.
“Saw that one, but no shot,” he radioed.
In the next half hour three more men tried to throw grenades into the compound near the front gate, and all three were nailed before they could launch the hand bombs. One must have already pulled the safety pin, because when his dead hand relaxed from the grenade, it exploded in a Fourth of July flash of deadly sparklers.
After eight o’clock the rest of the night was quiet. The SEALs ate MRE’s. Hunter took ten of his men off the line and put them down in a barracks like room where the Marines also slept. Bancroft took the first watch with five SEALs until midnight. He had four men on the wall and one on the machine gun, but he didn’t expect any action.
At midnight Hunter took the watch with four new men on the wall and one on the MG.
Hunter setup the SATCOM and contacted the admiral in his office. It was about one a.m. Hunter’s time. He had no idea what time it was in DC.
“Home Plate, this is your mid reliever,” Hunter said.
The admiral came on sounding wide awake. “Mid reliever. Heard from State that you are still under attack. How is it going?”
“Repelled one attack, and killed a tank with designs on the rear wall. Outside of that just some fraggers. Expect more action with sunup. It’s about oh one hundred here.”
“Do you need anything?”
“A couple of tanks and a regiment of Marines would help, but I think we can outlast them. Only one minor wound so far.”
“From what we hear the rebels are on the run in three areas from the local army. They may pull back some of their firepower.”
“That’s good. Any new orders?”
“Stay the course, and don’t take any chances.”
“Aye aye, Admiral. Out.”
Hunter shut down the mini SATCOM. It was a miniaturization of the old SATCOM that was the size of two loaves of bread. This new one was four inches wide, two inches thick and about six inches high. It would do everything the large one did. Encrypted all messages, and transmitted in a hundredth of a second burst, so anyone trying to fix the signal by triangulation would have a nightmare. It also came with an optional self destruct device so if it was not operated properly with a password, it would blow into a hundred pieces. It sent its signal directly to a satellite which beamed it down to the receiver. Hunter could talk with more than twenty different contacts. This one was the frequency for the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff.
He put the set away and stared out the front gate. No action was good action.
By 0830 Hunter’s team was sleeping and the fresh crew was on duty with Lt. Bancroft in command. He had shooters on the ladders and the boxes on the front wall, so he had eight weapons over the wall and the two machine guns in place. They waited.
It was just after 0900 when a car came around the corner three blocks away and drove slowly up one block and stopped about two hundred yards from the gate. A man got out and used a bull horn. He spoke perfect English.
“Good Morning Marines in the embassy. I come in peace. I come directly from President Afwerki to confer with you about the defense of your embassy.”
Bancroft looked at Marine Lieutenant Ronkowski.
“Not a chance. Our ambassador talks with the president daily by phone. No way he would send someone in an old car like that.”
Bancroft moved to the edge of the gate and used his parade ground voice to bellow his response. “Glad to receive you. Walk forward with your hands in plain sight.”
“I am not a terrorist. I come in peace.”
“Leave the car there and come to the gate. Welcome.”
“My legs are bad. War wounds. I can’t walk that far.”
“Leave the car and walk forward, or turn around and leave,” Bancroft shouted.
The man threw up his hands, and stepped back in the car. It was still for a moment, then gears clashed and the car leaped forward spinning wheels as it careened straight for the front gate.
“Car bomb,” Bancroft barked into his mike.” Twenties, blow him off the face of the earth.”
CHAPTER TWO
The ten year old sedan charged down the street leading toward the embassy. A twenty mm round hit beside it, then another slammed into the concrete ahead of it, The third round hit the windshield, penetrated and exploded inside the car setting off a secondary explosion that blew out windows in three of the nearby houses and knocked down two trees in the yards. The explosion took place fifty yards from the compound wall, but the men on the ladders had to hang on to keep from being blown off. A withering storm of hot air rocketed away from the blast, and then a few second later the flow reversed as air rushed back int
o the partial vacuum that the huge explosion had created.
The sedan had vanished. Only part of the front bumper lay on the street fifty feet from the compound wall. In the street a hole six feet deep and twice that wide had been created.
“Holy shit,” Dengler said from his spot on the wall. “Glad that sucker didn’t get to the gate.”
“Nice shooting men,” Bancroft said. “Keep watch, they could follow it up with another attack.”
Hunter ran out of the safe door and found Bancroft.
“What the hell was that?”
Bancroft pointed out the gate to the hole in the street and the streamers of smoke coming from parts of the up thrust dirt and paving.
“Early Fourth of July. A car bomb that didn’t quite get here.”
“A twenty get it?”
“Right through the windshield.”
“Wonder what they’ll try next?”
Lt. Ronkowski came running up with six of his Marines.
“What the hell?”
Bancroft told him the story.
“Didn’t figure they had that much explosives. Must have stolen it from some army unit. Wonder if they have any RPG’s or mortars? Now would be a good time to use them.”
“You said they weren’t well equipped,” Hunter said.
“Mostly rifles and guts. Tough way to go against a pair of machine guns.”
It was almost noon before the rebels showed up again. This time they came with a line of four cars side by side driving slowly up the street. Behind them Hunter could see fifty to seventy five men crowding close behind their protection.
“Poor man’s tanks,” Nelson Foster said from the wall. We take out the cars first, Cap?”
“At a hundred yards we open fire with twenties contact rounds on the cars. We stop them. Go for the gas tanks. Then we laser over the cars for the ground troops. Once we stop the cars, the easy riders down there may cut out for the safety behind the houses.”
Lt. Ronkowski stationed two of his Marines on the boxes so they could shoot over the wall. That put eight weapons on the wall and the two machine guns.
“Hold your fire,” Hunter said. “They’re about a hundred and fifty yards. Another fifteen seconds or so.”
They waited.
“Fire,” Hunter said and he heard five of the 20mm weapons go off with their familiar bark. He looked past the machine gunners at the cars. One of the middle rigs took a round in the engine and stopped. The others rolled forward a moment before another one caught a 20 mound in the side and the gasoline tank exploded, showering burning gasoline over some of the men crowding behind the rigs. The other two cars made it almost twenty feet more before they caught half a dozen rounds from the twenties and rifle rounds and slewed to a stop.
Twenty black men in civilian clothes, charged past the smoking cars toward the gate firing their weapons as they came. Both machine guns chattered out deadly bursts of twelve rounds and six of the first line went down screaming. More 20 mm rounds hit in front and among the runners and the shrapnel blasted into them killing many and wounding most of the rest.
Four of the original group made it through the screen of hot lead and got within fifty feet of the wall. Both threw grenades before they tasted the wrath of the machine gunners and died on the spot. The grenades came close but missed the gate and exploded harmlessly against the block wall.
The fire fight was all over in twenty seconds.
“Cease fire,” Hunter said. “Let the stupid bastards pick up their dead and wounded.”
Sergeant Philbin came from the embassy and talked with Ronkowski. The Marine went over to Hunter.
“Philbin tells me that the ambassador just got word from the President that two of the rebel strongholds have been smashed by the army and the remnants of the militants are running for their mountain hideout. The commanding general said he would send a company of infantry to defend the embassy, but he doesn’t think there will be any more organized resistance. The rebels have abandoned the Swiss and British embassies that they had captured. Looks like this crisis is about over.”
“This bunch won’t fight much anywhere else,” Hunter said motioning out the front gate. “Ronkowski, does the embassy have a doctor or a nurse on board?”
“We have a nurse who is as good as most doctors.”
“We have a man who needs some stitches.” He looked around and saw the medic. “Foster, get McNally into the nurse and get his leg stitched up. We may need him again.”
“Roger that, Cap.”
Hunter used his shoulder mike. “Rattigan. Dig out the SATCOM from the barracks and set it up. We could be on the move before sunset.”
Hunter sent the rest of the SEALs back to the barracks like building where they had slept. They cleaned weapons, resupplied their ammo vests, and took a break. Lt. Ronkowski and his Marines manned two ladders on the front wall, one on the back wall, and the two machine guns the SEALs left in place.
Rattigan had trouble getting the six-inch fold out disc antenna for the SATCOM angled properly to pick up a satellite. At last he locked on it and called Hunter over.
“Home Base, this is your closer.”
“Closer, what’s the report?”
“We’re in the bottom of the ninth here, Admiral. Looks like we’ll get a clearance to evac within the next three or four hours. Can you alert the choppers?”
“I’ll put them on alert now. Give me a go when you’re ready for them.”
“That’s a Roger. Closer out.”
Hunter used his shoulder mike. “Mo, find me.”
A minute later Mohammad stood in front of his commander.
“You three leave any brass upstairs at those windows? Go check it out for sure. And close the windows. Leave it like you found it.”
“Yes sir,” Mo said and then looked for Tanner. The two headed for the third floor.
Hunter went back to his personal radio. “Anyone have any wounds or injuries that Foster needs to look at? Sound off.”
There were ten seconds of dead air. “Then I guess everyone is duty ready for our twenty mile hike we take before the choppers get here.”
“Cap I’ve got a sore knee,” someone said.
“Bad scrape on my leg,” someone else chimed in.
“Got this terrible bad case of the hiccups, can’t stop,” a third voice said.
Hunter grinned. “Okay, we’ll cancel the hike. Maybe if we wash up and mind our manners the cooks here will get us some chow.”
Three hours later, the President’s Platoon boarded two Seahawks and charged across the peaceful fifty miles of Eritrea heading for the destroyers just off shore. The birds refueled and then flew north to meet the carrier that was steaming south to meet them. A day and a half later the President’s Platoon landed at Andrews Air Force Base just outside of Washington. From there it was a quick trip in a van to their quarters at the Farm in Virginia.
It was the second day of the five day leaves for members of the President’s Platoon. Nelson Foster, the platoon medic, settled in at the James Wyatt Memorial Free Clinic in one of the poorest sections of Arlington, Virginia. He worked there as a volunteer whenever he could. This time he was at the receiving desk, signing in people and doing triage on them and assigning them numbers. Some would have long waits. The critical and serious problems always had to come first.
He looked up in surprise at the two young black men who burst through the outside door and pushed aside three people waiting at his desk. One held up the other with one arm, and his free hand gripped a Glock 9 mm pistol aimed at Nelson.
“We got to see a doctor right now, asshole. No shit about get in line. My buddy took a round to his chest and he’s bad. Move it motherfucker, or I’ll start blasting whoever is nearest me. Get us to an operating room right fucking now.”
Foster came to his feet and his five-ten didn’t come close to the over six foot size of the gunman.
“Take it easy with the piece. You’re moving, right this way, through this doo
r and I’ll get you to the doctor. We don’t have a real operating room here. This is a clinic…”
“Shut the fuck up or I’ll give you a new hole in your head. My man here is hurt bad. You get him fixed.”
Down the hall Foster saw Dr. Claremont. He called to the doctor who looked up and spotted the gun. Dr. Claremont was as black as the gunman. He hurried up.
“Trouble?”
“My buddy took a round in his chest; you got to save his life, Doc.”
“We have no real operating room here. He needs a hospital. Bring him in here and we’ll call an ambulance. Until it gets here I’ll do what I can.”
In the one room that could be used for an operation, a nurse spread a clean sheet on a long table with hot lights above it. They eased the wounded man down on the table and Dr. Claremont unbuttoned his shirt.
“Yes, lucky. The round missed your heart, son, but probably clipped a lung. You breathing okay?”
The kid on the table couldn’t be more than fifteen. He tried to nod but his eyes kept closing.
“His name is Somestuff, you just fix it for him doc,” the gunman said. He leaned in closer to watch the doctor. He was too close, the gun hand to one side. Foster reacted as he would on a mission. He slammed his left fist down hard on the gunhand wrist, dumping the Glock on the floor. In the same instant he powered his right fist into the side of the gunman’s jaw and slammed him away from the table and down on one knee. Foster followed with a sharp kick to the man’s chin. His head snapped back and he collapsed on the floor unconscious.
Dr. Claremont looked at Foster in amazement. “Good Lord, I didn’t know I had a karate expert on my team.” He returned to the patient as a nurse hung a bottle of saline solution and they pumped in some antibiotics.
Foster grabbed a roll of tape and fastened the gunman’s wrists together. Then did the same thing to his ankles. He rolled the still dazed gunman to the side of the room.
A nurse came in and smiled at Foster. “The ambulance will be here in about five minutes.” They knew him as Nelson at the clinic. The nurse smiled again. “Goodness, Nelson, do you go up against a man with a pistol that way all the time?” Her name tag read “Shirley.”
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