by Joe Buff
“Jesus,” Jeffrey’s father said under his breath. Streaks and puffs of dark smoke drifted everywhere outside.
The friendly troops worked their way past Jeffrey’s car, closer to Ilse’s. Now Jeffrey saw they wore thick flak vests and ballistic-ceramic battle helmets, and talked to one another by tactical radio with microphones next to their lips.
Jeffrey looked around. He saw a young woman lying on the sidewalk, curled up and clutching at her abdomen. There was a lot of blood, and she looked pregnant.
One of the friendly troops shouted something. Jeffrey read his lips. “Grenade!”
The man aimed a grenade launcher at the ladder truck. The launcher was clipped beneath the barrel of his rifle. The launcher and rifle kicked. There was another tremendous concussion—against the side of the fire truck.
Jeffrey saw his chance. He unlocked the door and dashed from the car.
“What the—” the bodyguard shouted. Jeffrey couldn’t hear the rest. Ricochets screamed; rifle reports were much louder outside the car; the smell of burning things was awful. There was more blood on the woman’s dress already, and Jeffrey needed to drag her behind good cover and stop the bleeding fast. The bodyguard opened his door enough to take aim across the top of the town car. He emptied his Uzi at the ladder truck. Hot spent brass flew everywhere.
A man in black ran up to Jeffrey with his rifle held at port arms. In that fleeting instant Jeffrey saw that a wire ran from the rifle to a computer pack on the soldier’s thigh; he also wore a keypad strapped to his forearm; there were tiny disk and rod antennas on his shoulders over his flak vest.
With his left hand the soldier grabbed Jeffrey by the front of his uniform, throwing him backward into the car and slamming the door.
The soldier screamed to Jeffrey’s driver. “Go! Go! Clear out of here!”
Jeffrey landed with his head in his father’s lap. His father looked down at Jeffrey and his expression seemed to say he wasn’t sure if his son was very brave or incredibly stupid. Jeffrey sat up and refastened his seat belt.
Bullets continued to snap in all directions. The attackers were putting up a stiff resistance. The friendly counterattack began to slow down—the closer the engaging troops got to the fire truck, the more lethal was the return fire from the assassins dressed as firemen.
“How the fuck are we supposed to clear out of this?” The bodyguard cradled his smoking Uzi, and now the stink of burning inside the town car was very strong.
Jeffrey saw what he meant. On the near side of the street was a row of apartment buildings, beyond a line of parked cars. On the opposite side of the town car sat all the abandoned and shot-up cars in the other lane of traffic on the two-way street. Beyond those were more parked cars by the other sidewalk—that most had near-empty tanks because of the fuel shortages was the only thing that kept the whole street from becoming one huge gasoline-fed conflagration.
Beyond that far sidewalk, Jeffrey saw a wrought-iron fence. Beyond the fence the ground dropped off too steeply.
“Hold on,” the driver said. He did something with the gearshift.
He began to make a broken U-turn, forcing other autos out of the way. The transmission protested, but gradually the town car worked itself sideways. The car backed up, smacking into cars parked on the same side of the street, in front of the buildings.
The driver floored the accelerator, in very low gear. He aimed at the narrow space between two cars left in the street. The town car elbowed them aside, but then the engine stalled from the effort. More smoke from everything burning stained the windows with oily yellowish soot. More bullets smacked and pitted the window glass. It was becoming harder and harder to see outside. Jeffrey caught glimpses of another wave of men in black, except these sported white armbands with big red crosses, and their helmets bore red crosses in circles of white. They carried not weapons but heavy satchels of combat first-aid supplies. These men crouched near the wounded, opened their satchels, and went to work fearlessly under fire.
Jeffrey’s driver restarted the engine and backed up, very hard. Jeffrey and his father were thrown around against their seat belts. The driver changed gears and pressed down on the gas. The town car lurched forward, smashing into two parked cars on the opposite side of the street. There was a screech of smoking rubber, and for an endless moment the armored town car didn’t move.
Then the two parked cars were shoved up onto the sidewalk and out of the way.
The town car flattened a stretch of the wrought-iron fence. The car began to run downhill, accelerating. Jeffrey looked back. The tires—designed to be bullet resistant—were throwing up divots of grass and clods of earth. Jeffrey saw the car with Wilson and Ilse following him, looking banged up but intact.
The cars rumbled down the slope at a frighteningly steep angle. Bushes were dragged under the car and spat out behind. The noises of shooting receded, but the fight they’d left behind seemed barely diminished. Jeffrey spotted people in the park, hiding behind pathetic cover, benches or sapling trees. Some of the people had children with them, or dogs.
The cars leveled off and made a tight turn and accelerated; the going was very rough. They were on a path in Rock Creek Park—here the park comprised the sides and bottom of a wide and deep ravine. Both town cars continued along the pavement of the walking path as fast as they possibly could. Rock Creek was close beside.
Jeffrey heard sirens now. On the opposite side of the ravine, a parkway paralleled the creek. A parade of police cars, fire engines, ambulances was trying to catch up with Jeffrey. But they were out of reach. To Jeffrey’s immediate left was the twenty-foot-wide creek, water churning in its rugged course. The creek was lined with stands of trees too old, too sturdy, to smash through.
Jeffrey’s driver pressed on hard. Outside the battle-scarred windows, tree trunks and overhead branches went by in a blur. The cars zoomed under the high archways of road bridges carrying cross streets above the park. They reached a place where the ravine’s bottom narrowed, and the sidewalk they’d been using came to an end.
“Shit!” the driver shouted. He slammed on the brakes and the car slewed sideways. Jeffrey’s bodyguard yelled into his radio; the voice that answered from somewhere safe was maddeningly calm.
The way ahead was blocked by thick felled trees. Behind the trees were men in green Park Service uniforms. The men were unpacking rocket launchers.
They expected this to be our escape route all along…. The first wave didn’t get us, but this one will. We’re sitting ducks.
To the right was the rising embankment, hopelessly steep. To the left, still, were trees and creek, an insurmountable barrier. Just behind Jeffrey’s car, the one with Wilson and Ilse, with their own driver and bodyguard, also fishtailed to a halt.
If the armored town cars tried to turn around they’d just give better broadside targets. If they tried to flee in reverse the rocket launchers couldn’t miss.
“Make a stand right here!” Jeffrey’s bodyguard said. He reloaded his Uzi with a long and heavy ammo clip. The driver pulled another Uzi from its mount under the dash.
Both men pulled out pistols. The driver turned to Jeffrey and his father. “You know how to use these?”
“I think so,” Michael Fuller said. “Which thing is the safety?”
Great, Jeffrey told himself. My dad’s a bunch of help.
Jeffrey took one of the weapons. He recognized a nine-millimeter Beretta, a standard military-issue weapon.
But the bad guys have assault rifles and rocket launchers.
“When I yell ‘Go,’” the bodyguard said, “everybody pop their doors and roll out and start shooting. Some of us might make it.”
Jeffrey knew it was useless, even before the new wave of attackers opened fire.
AK-47 bullets came at the town cars in short but terrifying bursts. These attackers were firing green tracer rounds so their victims could see the rounds in flight as they passed. They peppered the side doors of Jeffrey’s car. Four grown men w
ere pinned in Jeffrey’s auto. The bodyguard’s plan to shoot their way out would be suicide.
Whoever they are, these attackers know exactly what they’re doing. They’re just too good.
Behind this deadly incoming suppressive fire, Jeffrey saw an attacker kneel and take aim with a rocket launcher. The man seemed to point it right at Jeffrey, right through the dirty, punched-up armored windshield of the car. The warhead’s antitank shaped charge would fill the car with a supersonic jet of white-hot gas and metal vapor, cooking everyone alive.
Somebody important really wants me dead.
Policemen on the parkway stopped their cars. They were trying to shoot at the attackers with whatever light weapons they had. Some of the attackers shifted their fire in that direction.
Jeffrey’s father made eye contact and took a deep breath, and let it out. “Whoever thought we’d buy it, both, like this?”
Jeffrey felt deeply violated, and angry. Not because he would die. He’d always known that someday—in combat or in old age—he would die. He felt enraged at this latest defamation of the nation’s capital, at the heartless sacrifice of civilians so a gang of paid assassins could get at him. Jeffrey also felt guilty. People are dying here because of me.
The attacker with the rocket launcher exploded. A solid wall of bright red tracers poured at him out of the sky. There were brilliant flashes from the automatic-cannon rounds. The rocket launcher’s warhead and propellant fuel burst in half-blinding secondary detonations.
Above the pounding of his heart and the roaring in his ears, Jeffrey heard the noise of powerful turbines and the steady beat of military-helicopter rotor blades. He looked up in time to see two army Apache Longbow gunships racing by. More bursts from their chin-mounted Gatling guns pulverized the attackers’ position, mutilating the barricade of fallen trees.
“That’s it,” the bodyguard said. “We got air support! Let’s move it!”
Jeffrey’s father looked doubtful. “Can’t we just get out and ford the stream?”
“Negative! There could be snipers anywhere!”
The town cars started up again. The ride was terribly rough. Both cars wobbled and bounced on their torn-up tires. Smoke was coming from under the hood of Jeffrey’s car.
How many more attack waves has the enemy prepared? How much more can this vehicle take?
Still both autos pressed on hard, forward along the ravine beside the creek. The Apache helicopters flew top cover, and the crowd of emergency vehicles kept pace along the parkway. Now there was no clearance between the creek and the embankment. The town cars tilted sideways, their damaged suspensions complaining. They threatened to lose all traction and smash against the heavy trees still lining the creek.
The parkway crossed overhead, and now the road was on Jeffrey’s right. Both town cars veered onto the road, swerving through panicky oncoming traffic. They got into the right lane and Jeffrey’s driver stepped on the gas. Suddenly the right rear tire of his car disintegrated altogether, from too much shrapnel damage, and the car sagged down on the wheel rim.
The driver just kept going. A steady shower of sparks and smoke was left in the wake of Jeffrey’s vehicle; the grinding noise of steel on the roadway was nearly unbearable. The smoke from under the front hood was getting heavier and heavier. The front windshield was gathering an ever-thicker coat of soot and oil and dirt. There were countless bullet pockmarks. The bodyguard had to open a window and stick out his head to help guide the driver as he steered. The car was hard to control and kept weaving onto the grassy shoulder.
“Watch for land mines!” the driver shouted.
“I’m trying to!” the bodyguard yelled.
“Terrific,” Jeffrey’s father mumbled.
Jeffrey looked behind again.
The other car still followed, but had had to drop back so the driver wouldn’t be blinded by the smoke from Jeffrey’s car. Jeffrey and his father began to choke on all the fumes.
“We’re almost there!” the driver said.
The ravine grew broader and both side slopes became less steep. The town cars emerged from the park and jumped the curb and skidded to a halt. In front of them, barring further progress, was the wide Potomac itself. In an open area beside the river sat a huge Marine Corps transport helicopter. Both army Apache gunships orbited vigilantly overhead.
Heavily armed marines had already formed a perimeter. They motioned for everyone to get out of the cars.
The noise of the Marine Corps helo was painfully loud, even with its engines just on idle. The stink of the turbine exhaust added to all the other burning smells. There was grit in the air, blown by the spinning main rotor blades; the small tail rotor spun much faster, in a blur. The entire helo was painted in camouflage, a blotchy pattern of matte dark green and black and brown.
“Those men, the attackers,” Michael Fuller shouted in Jeffrey’s ear. “They looked liked Russians!”
Jeffrey nodded. “Former Spetznaz probably! Special forces, in the pay of the Axis now!”
Michael Fuller hesitated. “Is it always like this?”
“Is what like what?”
“The combat!”
Jeffrey looked his father right in the eyes. “Welcome to my world!” Jeffrey reached out a sweaty, smoke-stained hand. Jeffrey’s father shook it; Michael Fuller’s hand felt like an ice cube.
“I’ll see you, Dad!”
Marines hustled Jeffrey and Wilson and Ilse to the helo. The crew chief handed them cranials and floatation vests. The cranials were collapsible flight helmets. They opened like a clamshell, had built-in hearing protection, and came with big padded eye goggles. Jeffrey and Wilson and Ilse quickly got ready for the flight.
So close to the aircraft, conversation was impossible. The crew chief used sign language to show each of them where to sit. They climbed inside the helo. The seat frames were made of stark aluminum tubing, and the seat backs and bottoms were simple thick black vinyl sheets. Shoulder straps came over each shoulder. They clipped into the buckle of a belt that covered both thighs. Jeffrey pulled all the fittings very tight.
The helo was an SH-60 Seahawk. The transport compartment had seating for ten. On board were Jeffrey and Ilse, sitting side by side facing forward at the rear of the compartment. Wilson sat up front, facing Jeffrey. The only other passengers were the crew chief and his assistant, who slammed the door.
The engine noise grew stronger, even through the soundproof ear cups of Jeffrey’s helmet and the insulated padding of the fuselage walls. The vibrations through the seat and through the floor rose to a heavy rapid shaking. The Sea-hawk took to the air.
The helo rose quickly and headed out over the Potomac. The Pentagon was a huge gray squatting presence up ahead, the oblique perspective from the helo making the five-sided building seem oddly elongated and flat.
Jeffrey saw a thinning pillar of black smoke, rising from where the first ambush broke out.
They flew past Theodore Roosevelt Island and over bridges; the interior of the aircraft had a metallic, oily, hot-plastic smell. Then the helo was rushing along the Potomac, closer to and then right past the Pentagon and the airport, at 150 knots, at barely a hundred feet above the river.
The Apache helos flew armed escort. Jeffrey could see their Gatling guns pivoting in their chin mounts, scanning both banks of the river, cued to sights mounted on each gunner’s special helmet. Each Apache’s pilot sat above and behind the gunner in the long and narrow two-man combat helicopters.
Jeffrey tried to slow his pulse and just enjoy the ride and savor life. He’d hated the feeling before of just being a passenger, of having to huddle passively while others fought and died protecting him. He wasn’t used to this, and it galled him. He much preferred to be in charge, both of himself and of the ones who did the fighting and killing and dying.
The engine sounds swelled louder, and the rotor vibrations got more rough, each time the helo banked steeply right or left to follow the river. But the steady vibrations were reassuring.
There was no incoming fire from either side of the Potomac. The direction of the golden sun, low on the horizon now to the right, confirmed for Jeffrey that the helos were heading south.
Then Commodore Wilson caught Jeffrey’s eye. The muscular black man gave Jeffrey a sidelong glance and pointed at Jeffrey’s chest, then shook a finger. Jeffrey looked down and saw why. His Medal of Honor was gone. It must have been torn off when he tried to get out of the town car to help that wounded pregnant woman lying in the street.
CHAPTER 6
A half-hour flying time south of Washington, Jeffrey’s helicopter banked again, hard left and then hard right, along a wide curve in the Potomac near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Now that he was coming down from the emotional highs of combat and survival, he felt drowsy and thirsty and couldn’t really concentrate on organized work. That would come later—all too soon, when he rejoined his ship.
For now, buddy, just enjoy the ride.
The helos still followed the river, the Seahawk with its passengers and the Apaches with their Gatling guns. The Potomac began to open out and formed a broad tidal estuary, lined by scenic inlets and coves. Beyond the houses and occasional towns on both sides of the water, rolling southern pine forests stretched to the visible horizons. The forested terrain was sometimes sliced by roads, or railroads, or rights-of-way for high-voltage power lines. Once Jeffrey saw a freight train, with eight diesel locomotives and an endless stream of cars. The diesels were painted olive drab for camouflage—it was their straining exhaust plumes that gave them away.
Jeffrey’s Seahawk turned right and again headed south. Out of both sides of the aircraft, suddenly, he saw Chesapeake Bay. The water reflected the blue of the sky, shading to green in shallower places. Yellow-white sand beaches, grassy salt marshes, and tree-studded swamps rolled past as the helo kept up its high-speed dash. The two army Apaches continued flying escort, one close to each shore of the huge and elongated bay.
Civilian marinas were closed for the war’s duration, and Jeffrey saw no pleasure craft at all. The lowering sun cast a pink and melancholy glow on the deserted beaches, the sandbars, the marshes and abandoned cottages, and the many cargo ships moored in the sheltered bay; Jeffrey was sure these ships were waiting to sail in the convoy to Africa. Now and then he could see the three helos’ shadows cast on the water. The shadows appeared to pursue him, each one dark and insubstantial, sometimes far off and sometimes close. Jeffrey felt as if he were being chased by the ghosts of the dead.