The vehicle rocked for a moment before coming to a halt on its side. Everything mercifully and unexpectedly quieted, which felt like a huge relief, until he realized Owen wasn’t screaming. Nobody was screaming. Nobody was making a sound in the dark cabin.
Nathan tried to call out to his family but couldn’t form the words, his lungs unable to expel air. He clawed behind his seat, trying to grab one of them, but the harness kept him locked in place. In a blind panic, he ripped at his harness connection points, shaking desperately to get free and reach his wife and son.
“Nathan,” he heard, the words sounding muffled. “Nathan. Use your night vision.”
That’s right! He’d almost forgotten. Nathan patted his helmet, finding the top of the goggles built into it. He pulled downward, sliding them in place over his face. When night transformed into day, David Quinn’s face appeared several inches in front of him.
“I’m going to release you from GIMMS. Sergeant Graves is going to ease you down. We flipped onto our side and need to get out of this vehicle, like, ten seconds ago. Do exactly what we say. Don’t think. Just do,” said Quinn, pulling the handle above Nathan’s head three times.
Graves manhandled him out of the seat, letting him fall gently against the rear driver’s-side door. He craned his head to look into the rear compartment. His wife was out of her seat, getting ready to pull on Owen’s emergency-release handle.
“Careful!” Nathan yelled. “He’ll fall right on top of you!”
Keira pulled the handle, releasing their son into Alison’s arms. Together, they pulled Owen toward the vehicle’s rear hatch, following Quinn. Everything was happening too quickly. Nathan pulled himself up and started to climb through the seats to reach them, but a pair of strong hands held him in place.
“It’s quicker this way. They’ll be fine,” said Graves, pulling him upright until they were standing next to each other, looking up at the undamaged passenger-side door.
“Where are we going?” asked Nathan.
“Anywhere but here,” said Graves, sliding the door latch and pushing upward.
The armored door swung open, and Corporal Reading reached in to grab his hand. Reading pulled Nathan out of the vibrating truck and helped him slide into the wide, uneven ditch blasted into the pavement. Owen, Keira, and Alison crouched in front of him, keeping their heads below the surface of the broken asphalt.
Quinn pushed him toward the driver, who was crouched beyond the others. “All of you, follow Corporal Artigas once he goes. We need to get away from the AL-TAC.”
“Why ain’t they shooting?” hissed the gunner somewhere behind Nathan.
“Because they’re going for the easy kill,” said Graves. “More missiles.”
“Artigas, Graves, Reading,” said Quinn. “Pop your IR smoke and spread out.”
A distant detonation turned Quinn’s head.
“Hurry the fuck up with the smoke,” said Quinn, rolling a cylindrical canister underneath the AL-TAC and crouching next to the group. “When I say run, all of you are going to sprint after Artigas to the end of this ditch. Flatten yourself to the bottom, and don’t look up until I grab you. Whatever you do, don’t poke your head aboveground. Use this mess to your advantage.”
Nathan hugged his family as the trench filled with a thick, acrid chemical smoke.
“Go!” said Quinn, pushing Nathan after Artigas and the others into the chemical fog.
He held his breath and quickly overtook Owen and Keira, grabbing his son under the armpits and pulling him against his chest. “I have Owen! Go!” he said to Keira, who tore herself away from Owen and scrambled after Alison and Artigas.
Nathan followed, shielding the side of Owen’s head from the sharp chunks of asphalt. Several feet into their journey, the smoke completely obscured his vision. They stumbled a few more seconds, until Keira’s hands grabbed them and pulled them down. A swoosh passed overhead, followed by an explosion from the direction of the AL-TAC. Oddly, the blast didn’t pack the punch he expected.
“Alison! Nathan!” yelled Quinn, appearing, breathless, behind them. “One of the Javelins missed! We got a second chance. I want you to stay put and stay down. We have a ten-ton piece of armor protecting our back. Most of One-Three’s Marines survived, too. They’ll hold the other side. I’m taking my Marines back to the vehicle.”
“What? Why the hell would you do that?” yelled Alison.
“We can cover you better from the AL-TAC, and I need to use the satcom system to call the air station. They’ll send a rapid-response team.”
“What the hell are we supposed to do here?” asked Nathan, clutching his son.
“Hold the line,” said Quinn, unslinging his service rifle. “I believe you know how to work one of these.”
“Barrett M470?” asked Nathan.
“A3 model. Full auto if you want it,” said Quinn. “Grab my ammo.”
Alison pushed her way through, nearly knocking Nathan over. “You need to stay right here,” she said to her husband. “He can’t protect us.”
“He has to,” said Quinn, handing him the rifle. “I have to work on the bigger picture.”
A swoosh, followed by a ground-shaking explosion, covered them in chunks of asphalt.
“Captain, we got rockets,” yelled one of the Marines. “Unguided shit!”
Quinn quickly kissed his wife and grabbed Nathan. “You’re my eyes and ears over here—stay low and report any ground movement. Keep your helmets on.”
The Marine captain disappeared into the thinning smoke screen, leaving them alone. Another swoosh passed overhead, detonating with a metal thunk against what Nathan assumed was the AL-TAC. He searched through swirling fog for Quinn, who’d sprinted in that direction. Shit! If Quinn was dead, they were all dead.
“I’m fine!” yelled Quinn. “Keep your goddamn head down. You look like a turtle!”
Nathan ducked below the highway, moments before a powerful bullet tore a chunk out of the broken asphalt next to his head. Snaps and cracks passed close overhead as their unseen enemy zeroed in on his position. He wasn’t sure how he could hold the line when he had no intention of sticking his head up again.
CHAPTER 76
Leeds studied the scene from a few hundred yards away, careful not to expose too much of his body. The surviving Marines had their hands full with his sharpshooters, but he didn’t want to tempt fate. He was well within range of their rifles. From his vantage point in the observation post, he could tell that Captain Quinn had made the best of a bad situation. A few well-placed, infrared-obscuring smoke grenades had sent a $120,000 missile chasing tumbleweeds, leaving the Marines with an intact armored vehicle.
He needed to end this quickly. If Quinn managed to contact Yuma, the night would get extremely complicated. He had several handheld surface-to-air missile systems at his disposal, but shooting down Marine MV-22 Ospreys was something Flagg desperately wanted to avoid. Taking down the convoy would stir up enough controversy—and back-channel trouble.
“Kline,” said Leeds, “time to wake up the men you have in median. Next round of smoke grenades, send them in. Start at the northern end of the demolition line. I think that’s where Fisher and the rest of the civilians are hiding.”
“Copy that. I’ll need you to guide them in. I can’t see past the tactical vehicle, and the Marines have me locked down.”
“I can do that,” said Leeds. “What’s your progress with the stragglers from the lead vehicle?”
“Snipers report four Marines KIA,” said Kline. “Never seen anything like it. Nothing but scrub grass and a few road signs between here and there—and they kept trying.”
“Don’t get weepy-eyed,” said Leeds. “Raven feed shows three more hiding out behind their vehicle. Leave one fifty-cal sniper covering them, and turn the rest loose on the kill zone. We need to wrap this up in the next few minutes.”
“Understood,” said Kline. “I’m contacting the ground team now.”
Leeds pulled the spotting
scope in front of him and settled his view on the median west of the demolished section of highway. Eight men crawled out of concealed holes, keeping low in the sandy depression between the eastbound and westbound lanes.
“Kline. I see all eight of your men. Their target is forty feet east. Demolition charges blasted pavement all the way to the median, so they should be able to toss a few grenades and clean up with small arms.”
Planting one of Kline’s teams in the median had been a stroke of genius. Without them, they would’ve faced a protracted long-range fight and the prospect of sending their own people down from each side, across open ground. Now the whole thing would be over in a few minutes.
The team squirmed closer, the Marines oblivious to their presence. When Kline’s team had closed to within thirty feet, the Marines threw another round of smoke grenades toward the western edge of the perimeter, letting the smoke drift east to give them a short reprieve from Leeds’s snipers.
“Kline,” said Leeds, “halt your team until the smoke clears.”
“Team halted,” said Kline. “I’m going to ready an assault team to move against the Marines holding the southern side of the intact tactical vehicle.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Leeds. “I’ll let you know when the smoke clears.”
CHAPTER 77
Nathan crouched over his son and wife, protecting them from the sharp fragments kicked loose by the ricochets striking the chunks of highway piled around them. He popped his head up again to make sure the flat ground beyond the westbound lanes was still clear of shooters. From what he could tell, all the gunfire came from the ledges and low hills a few hundred yards beyond the highway’s shoulder.
He glanced to the left, seeing another billowy cloud of smoke drifting toward him. Thank God. The volume of gunfire slackened significantly for a minute or two, while the smoke screen obscured accurate fire. Satisfied that the northern flank was secure, Nathan was dropping his head back into the trench when he detected movement in his peripheral vision.
He kneeled on the ground next to his family, not sure what to do. If he looked again, before the smoke arrived, a sniper might drill him through the forehead. Corporal Artigas had taken a large-caliber bullet to the head firing the vehicle’s heavy machine gun from the front passenger door. Nathan had been relieved to hear the vehicle’s big gun pounding away at the hillside. When he glanced toward the vehicle to see the gun in action, the corporal’s headless body dropped into the vehicle. He was pretty sure it was headless. The body had fallen like a rock. Quinn appeared in the same spot a few moments later, pulling the machine gun through the open door. A second bullet struck the door inches from the captain’s head, closing the door on top of him.
A dense blanket of chemical smoke poured into the ditch, rolling east down the highway. Whatever Nathan had seen out there was close. Too close. He had to do something before the smoke screen cleared. Nathan crouched low and whispered to Keira, “There’s something out there. Really close. I’m gonna hop out and take a look while I can.”
Bullets hissed overhead, causing him to duck. Maybe he should yell for Quinn.
“Are you crazy?” asked Keira. “Let the Marines deal with this.”
“I don’t think there’s too many of them left,” he said, pressing Alison’s shoulder. “David’s fine. I just saw him.”
Alison didn’t respond. She stayed crouched against the side of the ditch with her back to the rest of them.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, rising a few inches.
Keira yanked him down again and pulled his face to within inches of hers. Her eyes blazed. “You move fast and stay low.” Both of them were shaking and breathless; when they kissed, their teeth knocked together. “I love you,” she said. “Don’t do anything stupid. Just check and get back in here.”
Nathan tasted blood from their kiss. He bent down and kissed Owen’s head. “Keep your mom safe, buddy.”
His son grabbed his arm. “Don’t leave us.”
“I’m not leaving, buddy,” he said. “You’ll see.”
Having no real plan, Nathan flipped the selector switch to semiautomatic and crawled over the craggy asphalt onto the median. He lay on the rough gravel, peering into the corrosive smoke, his visibility reduced to a few feet beyond the M470 rifle barrel. The screen drifted quickly by. He didn’t want to move, but staying in place wouldn’t help the situation. Shit. He really had no idea what to do, besides aim the rifle in the general direction of the movement he’d thought he’d seen. What if he didn’t see anything? He’d be stuck out here when the smoke screen dissipated. Easy pickings for the same sniper who’d taken Artigas’s head off. He had to do something, and slithering back into the hole wasn’t an option. Not anymore.
Nathan thought of Owen and Keira for a moment, accepting the fact that he might never see them again. With that heavy thought weighing him down, he managed to move his left arm forward along the gravel, followed by his right arm. Before he realized it, he was low-crawling toward the westbound lanes. When his rifle barrel touched the side of the highway, he crawled parallel to the upraised road, his body shielded from the northern hills, and aimed the rifle toward the eastbound lanes—waiting for the smoke to clear.
Dark human shapes slowly materialized along the edge of the eastbound lanes, aiming rifles toward the exploded section of highway hiding his family and Alison. The commando closest to the ditch leaned on his side and cocked his elbow back to grab something underneath him. Nathan centered the M470’s green ballistic reticle on the side of the man’s head and slowly applied pressure to the trigger, but the man moved—rolled onto his back and put his hands together, then separated them quickly. Despite the remaining smoke, Nathan knew exactly what the man had done. He found the man’s head again, and the rifle bucked into his shoulder; the man’s head snapped backward against the ground—the grenade rolling off his chest.
Nathan shifted his aim to the last man in the group and squeezed off a single 6.8mm bullet before the grenade detonated. The blast tore into the closest operatives, showering the line with shrapnel and shoving Nathan against the raised highway bed. Two men farther down the line, and out of immediate blast range, rose to their knees and scanned the area directly behind them. Nathan fired twice at each of their heads, seeing them drop instantly.
He worked his rifle back and forth over the group until nothing moved. A cylindrical canister skidded across the highway toward him, from the direction of the Marines. Why the hell would—
A deafening crack pounded his face into the gravel.
CHAPTER 78
David Quinn threw the smoke grenade, jumped down from the AL-TAC, and sprinted in Nathan’s direction. Fisher had done something incredibly brave but hopelessly reckless—and now he was just lying there waiting to be killed. A loud snap passed next to Quinn’s head, dropping him into a crouch as he ran into the fresh cloud of billowing smoke, bullets chipping away at the pavement by his feet. The volume of gunfire increased when he disappeared into the fog, the gunners situated in the hillsides desperate to hit something. With ricochets smacking the ground and near misses zipping to his sides, Quinn knew it was only a matter of time before he was hit. Reaching the edge of the eastbound highway lanes, he threw himself to the ground next to the dead bodies, yelling for Nathan.
“Don’t shoot. It’s me!” he bellowed, crawling frantically in Fisher’s direction.
A bullet struck Quinn’s helmet, knocking his head forward.
Jesus! Where the hell are you, Fisher?
“Nathan! Answer me!” Quinn yelled, a sharp pain creasing his left shoulder. “Damn it, Fisher!”
“I’m here!” said a voice to his left. “I think I’m hit.”
He scrambled toward the voice, bumping into Nathan, who hadn’t moved from the prone position tucked against the highway.
“We’re exposed here,” said Quinn. “Let’s go.”
“I can’t move.”
“Where are you hit?”
“I
think in the head.”
You think? Quinn ran his hands over the outside of Nathan’s helmet, finding it intact. If a bullet had penetrated the ballistic layering, the entire helmet would be cracked.
“Nathan, I can’t find anything wrong with your helmet. Did you get hit anywhere else?”
If Fisher was paralyzed, they were in trouble. He couldn’t carry or drag him back to the ditch quickly enough to stay ahead of the snipers—and he’d thrown the last smoke grenade to protect Fisher. The screen currently protecting them from aimed fire wouldn’t cover the entire return trip.
“I think one of the bigger calibers hit my helmet,” said Nathan. “I saw what it did to Artigas.”
What? Quinn slapped Nathan’s leg as hard as he could.
“Hey! What the fuck?” yelled Nathan.
Nathan wasn’t paralyzed. Quinn grabbed the back of Nathan’s tactical vest with his free hand and pulled him up, trying to get him on his feet.
“We can’t stay here. The smoke is thinning,” he said, tugging against Nathan’s unwilling mass. “The next bullet will find its mark.”
With Fisher finally up, they ran through the thinning smoke, breaking into the open fifteen feet away from the protective ditch. Quinn caught a glimpse of two helmets protruding above the pavement where Alison should be, before he was knocked backward by a hammer blow to his chest. He slammed into Nathan, who grabbed him under both arms and kept him from falling to the road. Bullets snapped past them and chipped the asphalt as Nathan pulled him toward the ditch.
CHAPTER 79
Keira peeked beyond the edge of the jagged, asphalt-chunked ditch, searching for her husband through the smoke. An explosion had rocked the side of the road a minute ago, throwing gravel and chunks of pavement into the trench. The sounds of nearby gunfire, mixed with screaming and groaning, resonated from the median—until everything went momentarily silent. She’d popped her head up in time to see Quinn barrel across the highway lanes and disappear into a new smoke screen. The shooting intensified a few seconds later, followed by yelling. A bullet struck the pavement inches from her face, stinging her cheeks with tiny asphalt fragments. She ducked and grabbed Alison.
Fractured State (Fractured State Series Book 1) Page 32