by Mel Odom
They crammed in tight against a sundries shop as the jets passed overhead again. Cannonfire hammered the building across the street. One of the structures tumbled down in a loose heap of debris.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it out of this one.” Gary breathed rapidly, on the edge of panic.
Danielle grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “You stay with me. Do you hear? Stay with me, and we’re going to be fine.”
Gary nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.
“The army’s got helicopters on the other side of the city. We can get out of here in one of those. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I hear you.”
“Good.” Danielle took a shuddering breath and hoped what she told him was the truth. She hoped he at least believed it more than she did, because her belief wasn’t so strong. “We need to find Goose.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s our story.” More than that, Danielle wanted to make sure he’d been let out of confinement. “We stick with our story.”
15
United States 75th Army Rangers Outpost
Harran
Sanliurfa Province, Turkey
Local Time 0647 Hours
“Take cover!” Goose watched the fighter jets return for another sweep. He waved the soldiers following him into defensive positions against the supermarket they’d jogged to.
As the jets neared and opened up with their cannons again, the antiaircraft gunners replied with bursts of fire. Rounds chewed into three of the jets. Goose’s sharp eyes spotted the canopy cracking on the lead jet just before the aircraft dove for the ground. Another jet streamed black, oily smoke from one engine and no longer moved as easily in the air.
The lead jet spiraled into the city and headed for the supermarket where the Rangers had gone to cover. The scream of descent rattled through Goose’s ears.
“Get down! Get down!” Goose put his right hand on top of his helmet and ducked his face into his left shoulder while he held onto the M-4A1. He thought of himself as the smallest target in the world and did the same for the other Rangers. The jet couldn’t hit them. The payload on board wasn’t going to—
The jet slammed into the building across the street. Even though he knew better than to look, Goose peered over his forearm anyway. The aircraft drove down into the three-story building like a great nail driven by a huge hammer. The building shattered and fell apart. Rock and mortar were strewn across the street. Several chunks thumped against the supermarket and shattered the plate glass windows filled with advertisements. Flames wreathed the ripped and broken fighter jet.
A moment later, just as Goose thought everything was going to be all right, the remaining ammunition in the jet cooked off. Several explosions tore through the building’s corpse and threw more debris into the air and across the street. The next few seconds became a whirling nightmare of potential death.
Once the ammunition was expended, Goose peered at the torn body of the fighter jet. Black smoke curled into the sky. The pilot could not have survived the destruction. He just hoped no one had been inside the building.
“Anybody hit?” Goose asked.
The men quickly acknowledged that none of them was wounded.
None of them believed it was possible either. With the storm of flying death that had taken shape around them, everyone was surprised to be alive.
“All right.” Goose stood. “On your feet, Rangers. We got a job to do.” He ran, giving the fallen jet and the gutted building a wide berth in case there were any more surprises. His bad knee ached with the strain but felt solid enough to push it as long as he didn’t try any sudden turns.
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0651
Remington left the Hummer in front of the building he’d chosen as his command center. Sandbags reinforced the walls. Machine-gun teams surrounded the building. The soldiers standing guard immediately stood at attention and briskly saluted.
The captain performed a quick return salute and stepped through the doorway into the cooler atmosphere of the nerve center. The window-mounted air conditioners hummed in the background, echoed by the rapid-fire pop of the generators that powered them. The computers needed the cooler environment. Screens lit up bluewhite in the background.
Lieutenant Archer stood in front of the tactical board in the center of the room. The tactical board was acrylic and unpowered. They worked on it with marker pencils in case the power went down.
The lieutenant was a rawboned man with a neat mustache and an impeccable manner. Captain Sanderson of the British army stood nearby. He was aloof and in his forties, and he served as the liaison for the United Nations forces that had been driven back to Sanliurfa as well. Normally a liaison job would fall to a junior officer; Remington suspected the UN command had chosen to assign Sanderson because he was a man with rank equal to Remington’s.
Archer spotted Remington bearing down on them. The lieutenant turned quickly, dropped his clipboard under his left arm, and saluted crisply. “Sir.”
“At ease, Lieutenant.” Remington stopped at the nearest computer and gazed at the screen. “We have satellite recon again?”
“Yes, sir. The satellites just came back online.”
Remington let out a sigh of relief. At least Felix’s word was good.
On the screen, Remington stared at the advancing line of Syrian troops and cavalry. Tanks, armored personnel carriers, and artillery rumbled rapidly over the broken terrain headed into Harran. All of the tanks, APCs, and howitzers were Soviet made. The equipment was decades old but still serviceable and deadly.
“How far out are they?”
“Twenty, twenty-five minutes,” Archer said.
“Have we got our birds in the air?” Remington walked behind the line of techs at their workstations.
“Yes, sir. I scrambled the helos as soon as you ordered them in.”
On one of the screens, a line of fifteen helicopter gunships flew nap-of-theearth across the scrublands toward Harran. Six wide-bodied UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters outfitted for medical transport and rescue trailed behind.
“What about the fuel convoy?” Remington stared at the computer screen a moment longer, then checked the marker board out of habit.
“En route as well.”
“Have you got an ETA on the helos arriving in Harran?”
“Five minutes after the Syrians, sir.”
Remington cursed.
“Pardon me, Captain.” Sanderson stepped forward and imposed himself. “If I may speak.”
“Quickly.” Remington remained deliberately brusque. He and the United Nations troop commanders hadn’t quite worked out their pecking order. The UN officers had a better knowledge of the Turkish army, but the UN forces were appreciably smaller than the Ranger troops.
“Forgive me if I’m out of line, but aren’t you risking a lot by sending in those helos?”
“There’s a lot at stake, Captain.” Remington fixed the other man with a scathing glance. “In case you didn’t know it, I have a lot of Rangers in Harran. The United States Army isn’t in the habit of discarding men.”
“No, sir. I understand that. But it seems to me you’re risking a lot more by deploying those helos. We’re not exactly in our fighting prime here. Those machines could be hard to replace.”
“Maybe you’d feel differently if you were in Harran right now.”
“Those men knew the risks when they went there.”
Remington glared at the British captain. “I knew the risks when I sent them there. They’re there because I put them there. And I’m going to do my best to get them out of there.”
“Yes, sir, I understand that. But we’re not at liberty to squander hardware resources—”
“Enough.” Remington turned from the man. “If you want to go talk to your people about squandering resources, go ahead. I’m not going to squander Rangers that are the finest fighting men a
live in this miserable corner of the world. If you can’t contribute something that will help me get those men out of there, keep your mouth shut—”
“Sir—”
“—or I’ll have you escorted out.”
Sanderson’s ruddy complexion deepened as he frowned in displeasure.
“Are we clear?”
“Positively crystal.”
“Outstanding.” Remington turned to Archer. “Keep this board updated.”
“Yes, sir.” Archer drew his marker and set to work.
Remington addressed the communications officer. “Get Swindoll for me.”
On the screen, the Syrian army relentlessly moved forward.
United States 75th Army Rangers Outpost
Harran
Sanliurfa Province, Turkey
Local Time 0708 Hours
“What are you doing out here?” Lieutenant Swindoll demanded.
Goose was suddenly conscious of the attention he drew from the soldiers around the lieutenant. All of them were familiar faces, but only some of them appeared friendly.
“I came to help, sir.” Goose met the young lieutenant’s gaze.
“You were supposed to remain under house arrest.”
“That didn’t seem to be something that would help in the current situation.”
“Sergeant.” Swindoll drew himself up and turned on Goose. The lieutenant dropped his hand on the pistol at his hip. “You were given orders to remain under house arrest. Men were assigned to keep you there.”
“They tried.”
“Begging the lieutenant’s pardon, but Sergeant Gander didn’t get here on his own.” Theissen stepped forward. “He had help.”
“You did this?”
“Sir, I—several of us—believe Sergeant Gander needs to be out here. With men that are prepared to fight and die in the next few minutes.”
“I hadn’t expected this from you, Sergeant Theissen.”
Theissen grinned but little of the effort was humorous. “Truth to tell, I didn’t expect it from me either. But I gotta admit, I’m a little proud of myself.”
For a moment the tension held. Lieutenant Swindoll was loyal to Remington. That much was immediately obvious. Several other men were as well. All of them were afraid, and most of them were young and inexperienced and still believed that an officer was the only one who could get them out of a bad situation.
“You got the Syrian army headed this way, sir.” Goose worked to sound respectful. “You’re going to need every man you can muster. This … this is where I belong.”
That simple truth hung on the hot, dry air.
“Goose.” The voice coming through Goose’s headset belonged to Remington. Goose knew the captain had been monitoring his com channel; hearing from him now was no surprise.
“Yes, sir.”
“Go to our private frequency.”
Goose did. As he flicked the headset, he watched surprise widen Swindoll’s bloodshot eyes.
“I’m here, sir.”
“Don’t talk. Just listen. You know the kind of jam we’re in. We can’t hold Harran. We’d never planned on it. Of course, we’d never planned on getting caught with our pants down either.”
Goose took his binoculars from his BDUs and slung the assault rifle. He stepped up onto the nearest Hummer and stood on the rear deck. Training the binoculars due south, he saw the line of dust in the distance that marked the advance of the Syrian army.
“I’ve got helos en route.” Remington’s voice remained calm. “The problem is that they’re going to arrive there probably three to five minutes after the Syrian army does.”
Perspiration trickled down Goose’s stubbled face as he realized what Remington was about to ask the Rangers to do. Three to five minutes wasn’t much of a commute, but it could be a lifetime on a battlefield when forces were engaged.
“You know what I’m going to order you to do, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s not another way around it.”
Goose knew that a lot of the men with him were probably going to die. Maybe he’d die too. “I know that.”
“If you try to retreat, they’ll roll over you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What I need you to do, Goose, is to hold that position. For three to five minutes.”
A lifetime.
“Long enough for the helos to arrive.” Remington spoke calmly, as if he were ordering a drink in a bar. “They’re equipped with M139s. When the helos drop their payloads, that should buy you some time to retreat.”
“Yes, sir. But after three to five minutes, there may not be a clear division between us and them.”
“Understood. It’s the best I have to offer. I don’t want to lose those men.”
“Neither do I.” The dust line in the distance grew taller and nearer.
“Then let’s do the best we can to bring them home.”
“Yes, sir. You’ll have to clear this with Lieutenant Swindoll.” Goose was acutely conscious of the lieutenant’s grim stare.
“I will. You just work your magic, Goose. Buy those helos time.”
“Yes, sir.”
16
United States of America
Fort Benning, Georgia
Local Time 2315 Hours
Megan stared at the pile of papers on the desk before her. She felt overwhelmed. No matter how much she did, there still seemed to be an incredible amount yet to be done. She was beginning to believe that every time she took her eyes off of the papers they duplicated themselves.
God, help me, because I’m not going to be able to do this on my own.
She took a deep breath and reached for the top sheet on one of the stacks. The paperwork wasn’t going to do itself.
Someone knocked on the door of her office. Feeling guilty about the relief she felt at the distraction, Megan looked up.
Sue Davis stood in the doorway. She was in her early thirties and married to one of the Rangers currently assigned to Germany. Thanks to the level of technology they both had access to, she was able to talk to him on a regular basis.
Megan waved her into the room and stood to greet her.
“You’re working late. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No. Just up to my ears in paperwork. Have a seat.” Megan waved toward one of the chairs in front of the metal desk.
Sue wrinkled her nose. “I guess the military doesn’t really do much in the way of creature comforts. That desk doesn’t exactly scream success.”
Megan sat and smiled. “I don’t think it’s supposed to.”
Sue was a real estate agent in Columbus—a very successful real estate agent. She was also a super mom, somehow managing to handle three rambunctious kids while her husband was out of the country. In addition to the real estate job, she was a homeroom mom and soccer coach. She looked tired and her clothes were a bit rumpled after a long day and a late evening in the office, but her brunette hair was neatly cut, and her business suit looked fitted, though Megan was pretty sure Sue had done the alterations herself.
“When I saw you were still here, I thought I’d come by to check on you.”
“I appreciate that, but there’s no need. I’m handling everything.”
Sue hesitated, started to say something, then stopped. She tried again a moment later. “I still get up every morning thinking about Micah.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “I still … miss him … very much.”
Seeing the woman’s pain brought Megan’s back to the surface as well. She was conscious of Chris’s photograph sitting on the corner of her desk. He was smiling and happy, and he looked so much like Goose with his wheat-colored hair and blue eyes that her heart felt like it was breaking all over again.
“I know.” The words came from Megan’s throat like broken glass. Micah had been—still is, Megan corrected herself—Sue’s youngest child. He was eight years old, and he’d vanished like Chris and every other child younger than thirteen.
S
ue blinked away her tears without touching them so she wouldn’t ruin her makeup. “I still catch myself setting out his plate for breakfast. Makes me feel crazy, you know.”
“You’re not. It just means you’re thinking of him.”
“You’d think I’d remember that he’s not here anymore.”
Megan hesitated. “This … isn’t easy to get used to.”
“Not even when you believe in God?”
Megan met the woman’s eyes with her own. “Not even when you believe in God. I believe—no, I know—that Chris is in heaven right now. Just waiting on me to join him. And I will be there soon because I know God has touched me and washed me of my sins. But I still miss my son.”
Sue nodded. “I can’t …” Her voice broke and she tried again. “I can’t … help but be mad at God.”
“Being mad at God is all right. I was mad at Him too. After I figured out what had happened. Being mad is normal.”
“It doesn’t seem very smart to be mad at Him.”
“Not on the face of it, no. But by being mad at God, you’re acknowledging Him. It’s like when you fight with Stan over whatever you fight with him about. You know he’s there, and you know he loves you. But you’re mad at him anyway.”
“It just seems there could have been a better way to do this.”
Megan was quiet for a moment, thinking about her words before she said them. No matter how she felt about them, they still needed to be said.
“Do you know what’s coming, Sue? what the next seven years are going to entail?”
“I do.” The other woman’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “I have to tell you, I’m scared. I’m scared for me and I’m scared for Robby and Taylor.”
Those were her older son and daughter.
“We’re going to see horrible things.” Sue’s hands knotted in her lap. “I’ve started going to church here on base Sundays and Wednesdays. Not all of the churches are talking about the Tribulation. That really surprises me, you know?”
“I know.”
“Not everybody believes. Not even now.”