Holman glanced at the large analog clock mounted above the main combat console. Not the accurate digital clock at each computer console or warfighting station, but the twelve-dollar Navy supply variant with huge numbers, two dark hands, and a red second hand. A clock that was in every compartment of a warfighting ship. Ten minutes to nine. How was Thomaston holding out? Had that been an explosion they had heard before losing contact with the retired three-star general, or just an unexplained burst of static arriving with the rising sun?
Leo Upmann turned to Admiral Holman. “Sir, if we are going to do it, now is the time.”
“You’re right, Leo. This is our window of opportunity. Launch the Marines. Then check with radio and see if they have heard anything from Thomaston. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Thanks, Admiral. That definitely improved my morale.”
Holman grinned and patted his shirt pocket, surprised to discover no cigar.
CHAPTER 14
Thomaston picked himself up. Holding his M-16 across his chest, he ran, zigzagging across the compound to kneel beside the destroyed Civil War cannon. Gray dust blocked the view of the front gate. He could see the fighting. Militiamen standing on makeshift platforms fired over the top of the armory wall. To his left, several others lay on the ground, shooting into the dust cloud surrounding the gate. He reached up and slapped his left ear. A ringing sound inside his head seemed to be blocking out the sounds. Concussion, he thought.
A southern gust of wind blew the cloud from the gate toward him. The dark Ford SUV previously blocking the front gate lay on its side, flames leaping from the windows and around the chassis. The front of the armory was exposed. A huge gap lay open where the chain-link fence and car had been.
Samson Roosevelt slid beside him on his right, the young man’s M-16 blasting into the cloud of dust. The weapon was firing, but the noise was muffled. Thomaston raised his weapon. He blinked several times, trying to clear the blur from his vision.
Retired Lieutenant General Daniel Thomaston saw Samson’s lips moving. He pointed to his ears and shook his head. What if this didn’t go away? He stretched his lower jaw, rotating it back and forth. His ears popped.
“—General,” Samson said.
There! The noises were slightly muffled, but he could hear them now. “What’d you say, Samson?”
A fusillade of bullets passed over their heads, sending them ducking behind the cannon debris.
What he wouldn’t give for just one rocket-propelled grenade launcher—shit, what he wouldn’t give for some grenades. These rebels only had M-50s and a mortar — which was giving him hell — not to mention they outnumbered him about five to one. Other than that, it’d been a nice day.
“Sir?” Samson asked, touching the general lightly on the shoulder.
“What was that? Sorry, my ears are still ringing.”
“General, we can’t stay here. The front gate is gone. Mariah and French are wounded. They’ve been taken to the park.”
Thomaston stared at the young man for several seconds. His vision seemed okay now. Moisture ran down his cheeks. He saw the look in the man’s face. Probably thinks I’m crying. He reached out and touched Roosevelt on the arm. “It’s nothing,” Thomaston said, reaching up and touching his eyes. “Slight concussion from that last mortar.”
“Roger, General,” Samson said in a voice that told Thomaston a slight doubt existed.
Well, Samson Roosevelt wasn’t the only one scared. He gripped his M-16 tighter. It was decision time. This was why the Army had paid him the big bucks. The Afro-topped young man waited, his eyes alternating between the front gate and Thomaston. Thomaston looked along the south wall. In several places, mortar rounds had demolished the barbed wire. Mortar hits in three spots had opened the perimeter to the attackers. How many militiamen did he have left? He’d started with thirty-two. Four were dead. He had seen a couple wounded limping to the rear. Some manning the wall had treated themselves and refused to leave. The enemy was going to breach the walls. They could do it any time they wanted. He’d lost count.
Apparitions appeared through the settling dust around the gate. Samson raised his M-16 and sent a burst across the front. Africans fell.
“Sir, what should we do?”
“Get everyone back to the vehicle park, Samson,” Thomaston ordered. His mouth was dry. How long before these assholes overran the armory? He looked up at the clear afternoon sky. Where in the hell were the Navy and Marines? Damn you, Holman, where in the hell are you?
Samson raced across the yard to the far side of the south wall where eight or ten, Thomaston could not recall, fought. Spurts of dirt exploded into the air as enemy bullets tracked the youth’s run.
Daniel Thomaston fired into the fading dust cloud. If enemy infantry was moving toward the gate, the burst should keep their heads down for a few seconds. He ran forward to where Mariah and French had defended the right side. Pressed against the wall, Thomaston worked his way along, ordering the remaining defenders toward the rear of the burning armory building. Glass exploded from a top-floor window sending shards of tiny fragments raining down on the compound. A piece of glass struck the side of his face, opening an inch-long gash. Flames shot out of the window, sending a fresh wave of dark smoke rolling upward.
Two groups of townspeople dashed past. Samson trailed. He would have made a great sergeant, Thomaston thought, if he’d been in the Army and had a proper haircut. Samson turned, crouched slightly, and fired several semiautomatic bursts into the cloud of dust masking the front gate. The young man reached up, unclipped the magazine, letting it drop to the ground as he slammed in a fresh one. Yeah, one hell of a sergeant.
Thomaston looked both ways and realized everyone was gone but him. Looking over his shoulder at the gate, he took off toward the edge of the building, keeping away from the heat of the conflagration. Samson dove behind a slight rise in the ground that stretched from the edge of the building to the north wall. The man rolled once, coming to a stop with his stomach pressed onto the ground. He began firing past Thomaston. Thomaston glanced behind him again as he ran. Rebels were flooding through the front gate. Their weapons were firing blindly into the armory. The dust had blinded them, he realized.
The M-16 jerked as Samson fired at rebels so close together they bumped and jostled in their headlong rush to get inside. Thomaston saw retired Sergeant Major Craig Gentle rushing toward him and Samson from the vehicle park. Another fifty feet and Thomaston would be at the rise.
Gentle dove onto the ground, scrambling on all fours to crawl up alongside Samson. Thomaston changed direction, heading toward the two men from an angle, dodging to keep from putting himself between them and the rebels. A bullet was a bullet, and it didn’t matter whether it originated from a friendly weapon or an enemy. If it hit you, it did the same amount of damage. Only difference was you usually got an apology from your own people.
Other men and women started to appear on the rise. God, he hoped none of those defenders on the ridge accidentally shot him. Gentle and Samson swept their weapons back and forth, racking the packed mob that was growing in size as more and more of the combat-crazed fanatics fought through the front gate. About eight other townsmen and militiamen formed a row on each side of Roosevelt and Gentle. A bullet whizzed by his ear, so close he felt the heat as it passed. Thomaston didn’t know whether it was an enemy bullet or one from his own men and women. It wouldn’t matter where it came from if it hit him.
Thirty feet! Nearly there, he said to himself. Suddenly, his whole body slammed forward. He flew through the air, tumbling end over end. The row of defenders passed beneath him. He landed with a thud that rocked his teeth and knocked the breath from him. He rolled a few times and stopped. Through closed eyes that failed to respond to his urge to open them, he heard the shouts of others running toward him.
He was facedown. He wanted to push himself up, but his hands refused to move — motionless, numb. With much effort, Thomaston twisted his head to the side
. Two townsmen grabbed him under the arms and started dragging him toward the rear. He heard Gentle shouting orders. The firing line was retreating — a fighting retreat to the vehicle park. His eyes opened partially. They were trapped now. No way out and nowhere to go. Their survival depended on the Navy and Marines. The men dropped Thomaston at the bumper of one of the school buses that made up the left side of the defenders’ square. What a dumb move on his part! He glanced toward the rear of the armory. They needed to blow a hole and make a run for the jungle and rain forest along the southern edge of Kingsville. Many, if not most, would die, but it was the only chance he saw for anyone to live. He should have listened to his instinct and taken the southern route last night.
Gentle stood with legs apart, facing the enemy. Thomaston’s breathing eased, sharp tingling sensations working their way down his body as feeling returned. Gentle, in his usual polished sergeant-major style, was shouting orders, repositioning fighters, and cursing the enemy in the fighting retreat to the parking area. Fire from overlapping M-16’s slowed the enemy’s advance. More Africans appeared through holes in the walls.
Sharp needlepoints of pain followed the tingling sensation of feeling returning to his arms and legs. The two men picked up Thomaston again and pulled him into the center of the perimeter built from SUVs, a school bus, and two pickup trucks. They laid him on a tarp someone had draped across the top of the burning-hot pavement. It provided little insulation, and no shade from the mid-afternoon sun. Air simmered above the gray pavement. The only clouds in the sky were from the burning building and exploding ordnance. “God,” Thomaston mumbled softly. “A rain shower would be appreciated — and a thousand Marines.”
The acrid smell of gunpowder, its sharp tang mixed with the moisture-sapping dryness of the smoke from the burning building, filled the air around the man-made perimeter.
“Daniel, what have you done to yourself?” Reverend Jonathan Hew asked, easing himself down into a cross-legged position beside Thomaston. The man had a smile planted across his face. He lifted Thomaston’s hand and ran his own hand up and down the right arm.
“Nothing,” Thomaston said, his voice dry and raspy. “Water, Reverend, would be appreciated. Just a little water and I’ll be all right.”
Reverend Hew was up and gone a second or two before returning with a small plastic bottle of warm water. This time he squatted beside the general. Thomaston shakily turned the bottle up and drank the whole thing in three gulps. Combat and heat. Two things known to kill a soldier who wasn’t careful. The sound of gunfire erupted to the right, opposite where Gentle and Roosevelt moved slowly backward, delaying the advance and holding a retreating line.
“General, you lay right there until you feel better,” Reverend Hew said, patting Thomaston on the shoulder. “God works in mysterious ways, brother.”
Thomaston pushed himself up on his elbows. “It’s not God who scares me, Preacher. It’s his followers.”
“Daniel,” Reverend Hew said, putting his hand on Thomaston’s shoulder as the retired Army Ranger lieutenant general pushed himself upright. “God’s watching over us. He has his own plans, but I think He would feel more comfortable with those plans if you remain alive.”
Thomaston rotated his shoulders and stretched his neck, checking his body. Satisfied he was okay, he stared at the shorter, gray-haired man with the familiar spreading middle-age stomach who had led the town in their spiritual needs. He reached over and patted Reverend Hew on the shoulder a couple of times. “Reverend, you tell God, if that’s his plan, I concur wholeheartedly.”
The sound of combat drew nearer. He wiped his eyes again, clearing away the pollution of combat.
“God will endure, Daniel.”
“Reverend, if you expect God to intervene, then you have more confidence than I do.” He pushed off the bus. His body ached, but it was nothing a ton of Motrin, a case of beer—maybe two, and his hammock wouldn’t fix.
Gentle, Samson, and the others backed into the square perimeter. The wounded Harold French, his leg bandaged, leaned against a nearby Ford Explorer, firing his M-16 over the hood. The idea that this giant of a man wanted to die crossed Thomaston’s thoughts. There was only French and his son Mahmoud, who was killed yesterday by the rebels. Thomaston’s face tightened as he understood that for Harold French, there was nothing left to live for except killing those who had killed his son. Every person has a trip wire that when crossed, sent men to their deaths.
A woman, firing an M-16 from beneath the wheels of the lead SUV, jerked backward several feet. Blood poured from wherever the bullets had hit her. Thomaston could tell with one glance that she was dead.
Short overlapping bursts from the defenders stopped the rebels at the rise along both sides of the building. How long they could hold them there, Thomaston didn’t know.
“I need my M-16,” he said.
Someone shoved a rifle into his hand. “Here, General, take Seams’s. He won’t need it anymore,” the unidentified townsman said, pointing to several tarps in the rear that covered the dead.
Thomaston joined the defensive fire. The number of enemy on the rise was increasing. There was nothing to stop them from entering the armory, and there was no back door for Thomaston and the others to flee. Few recognized the terminality of life when it was fast approaching, but for Thomaston, he knew this was their Alamo. Somewhere out there, rescue waited. Probably waiting for him to call. A call that would never come, for in the burning building, Beaucoup’s radio helped fuel the blaze.
Another defender flew backward as a bullet caught her. One of the ladies ran up and with the help of a young boy, pulled the wounded girl to the rear.
The enemy was going to ground, diving for the sparse cover that being horizontal gives.
“General,” Gentle called from a few feet away. He held up an M-16 magazine. “Sir, we’re down to two each — maximum.” He looked over the hood of the Ford SUV, raised his gun, and fired a quick three-shot burst at an Arab standing near the corner of the building. The man jerked like a puppet as Gentle’s blast hit him.
Several windows on the armory building exploded simultaneously, raining more glass down on both defenders and attackers. Black smoke roiled from the building and flames shot from the windows. Even a hundred feet away, the heat from the inferno raised the ambient temperature. The good thing was the terrorists were closer to the fire.
Shooting tapered off as more enemy appeared along the rise, falling to the ground and shooting at the defenders. He could surrender, but he recalled other surrenders to promises of safety. They could die fighting, or they could die like sheep in a slaughterhouse. If they were going to die, then he wanted to take as many of the enemy as possible into whatever afterlife there might be.
“Hold your fire,” Thomaston ordered, raising his hand. A single shot came from the attackers, as if someone had used his hand as a target. If so, they missed.
Thomaston used the pause in the fight to assess the situation. Across the front of the nearly square defensive perimeter, two Ford SUVs were butted up against each other. A school bus covered the right, and two pickup trucks made the south side. A similar arrangement formed the east side — their rear. The women and children had moved outside the vehicles making up the back line. Behind them were more disabled vehicles, and then the east wall. They were trapped. The east and south walls were intact. What was good in slowing the attackers was just as good in keeping the townsfolk trapped. There was no escape. They had two options to survive. One, the Marines arrive, kick ass, and take names. He looked up at the sun. Mid-morning, he figured. The other was to hold out till night and make a run for it. If he surrendered, none of their lives would be spared. These fanatics lived for the moment when they could kill Americans.
“We can’t hold out much longer, sir,” Gentle said quietly.
“You think, Craig, you can breach that east wall and fight your way south to the tree line?”
“Why, General? So I can then fight my way to what lit
tle protection the jungle is going to provide south of us?” He shook his head, paused, and then added, “Maybe at night I could. But now? Daylight? I doubt it.”
“It may be the only chance some of these people have.”
Gentle nodded. “I know you’re right. But whoever goes that way most likely will die.”
“If they stay here they definitely will die.” Thomaston pointed to the growing number of enemy in front of them. “You see what they’re doing?”
The repeated shouts of “Allah al Akbar” replaced the sounds of gunfire.
Gentle looked. “Yeah, they’re working up their religious fever to charge. Looks as if they are waiting until—”
“More of them are inside the armory.”
“We could blow a hole in the back wall. It would be smaller than the front gate, making it slower for us to get out of here. Then we might be able to make it the quarter mile to the jungle before they run outside, man those armed pickups, and shoot us down. Other than that, it looks good.”
Thomaston nodded. “Don’t hold back, Sergeant Major. Tell me what you really think,” Thomaston said with a trace of humorous sarcasm.
“Not a snowball’s chance in hell, General. Most of these folks are out of shape, overaged, and non-combat-able.”
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