He contemplated Diane’s comment for a moment. Frankly, it wasn’t an angle he had considered before—the disappointment they would experience if the good guys never showed up.
“You speak to anyone who’s ever done time in any kind of prison,” John said. “They’ll be the first ones to tell you that hope is a dangerous thing to lose.”
Chapter 41
John lay down to sleep, his armored and tactical vests draped over a chair by his bedside. Next to that were his AR-15 and the tactical holster with his S&W M&P .40 Pro. Walking around town with his pistol by his side, John couldn’t help feeling more like a lawman from the Old West than the mayor of a twenty-first-century town.
He glanced next to him, awed by how soundly Diane was always able to sleep, even on the cusp of danger. The same had been true on Willow Creek Drive just as it was true this evening. It was normally on nights like this that the bad memories came back to play. John closed his eyes and let himself drift off into the past.
Back in Iraq, John was going over a mission checklist for a series of armored spearheads into Baghdad. They were calling them thunder runs and several of his men weren’t thrilled with the prospect. The concern was they were going to be targets in a shooting gallery. The strategy was to test Baghdad’s defenses before committing the entire force. If they were successful, it would demonstrate to the Iraqi people that Saddam was no longer in control. State-run media was reporting that U.S. forces were being repelled on all fronts and the top brass was anxious to prove otherwise.
A young soldier appeared next to him. “Lieutenant Mack?” he asked, wringing his hands.
“That’s me,” John replied, hardly taking his eyes off the checklist he was working his way down.
“The name’s Senior Airman Holland. I’m gonna be your new JTAC.”
Then John did look up. A veritable child stared back at him. Red hair, freckles. Only thing he was missing was an English private-school uniform.
“How old are you?” John asked him.
“Nineteen, sir.”
“Where’s my other JTAC, Lewis?”
“I believe he’s in medical, sir.”
“Medical? How was he hurt?”
“I’m not sure I should say.”
Grimacing, John handed Holland the clipboard and stomped off. To his knowledge, Lewis hadn’t been on another mission since Nasiriyah, which left John wondering whether some of his fellow soldiers had taken matters into their own hands and punished the JTAC for the friendly fire incident.
John entered the Combat Support Hospital, a sprawling series of tan-colored tents—some still being erected—and went to a nurse sitting behind a desk. The place was cool compared to the grinding heat outside and smelled vaguely of bleach.
“May I help you, sir?”
“Yes, I understand you have a Christopher Lewis admitted.”
She typed something into the computer and the expression on her face changed at once. “Hmm.”
“What is it?”
“My apologies, sir, but I’m not at liberty to say.”
John sighed, drumming his fingers. “Fine. Can I at least see him briefly then?”
“You’ll need to check with one of the doctors at intensive care. Down the corridor,” she said, pointing. “Then take your third left.”
John followed her directions and entered the intensive care unit. Laid out before him were a number of beds separated by wraparound curtains. Paper name tags hung from the fabric. When he came to one reading Lewis, Christopher, John glanced around, waiting for a doctor to stop him and, finding none, pushed his way inside.
Lewis lay before him, hooked up to machines that pinged and beeped. He had two black eyes and a deep red mark around his neck.
The young JTAC’s eyes peeled open. There was no breathing tube in his mouth which meant he should be able to speak, at least theoretically.
“I just heard you were here,” John said, trying to piece together what had happened from the little bits he’d already seen. “How you feeling?”
Lewis’ eyes dropped to his feet. “Not much of anything, lately. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
John looked at his legs, which were positioned at a strange, lifeless angle. It didn’t look comfortable. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I couldn’t take it anymore, sir.”
A flashbulb went off in John’s head. The friction mark around his neck, the paralysis. Lewis had tried to hang himself and only managed to paralyse himself.
For a moment, John didn’t know what to say. “The friendly fire incident. Is that what led to this?”
Lewis didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to.
“You shouldn’t have taken that all on yourself,” John told him in vain. “The fog of war, Lewis, that’s the nature of the beast. We made the best call we could under the worst kind of circumstances.”
“Pulling the trigger’s the easy part,” Lewis said, struggling for breath. “Learning to live with it, that’s another thing entirely.”
John’s head fell into his hands. “I wish you’d come and talked to me first before you did something rash. If anyone was to blame it was me.”
“I just couldn’t take it anymore,” Lewis repeated. “I kept seeing their faces and how their loved ones would look when they got the news.”
There was nothing pretty about fratricide and it was even more horrible when the chain of causation led directly back to faulty technology. The failing radios along with Charlie Company’s disappearance from Blue Force Tracking had played a major part in the tragedy. Not to mention the fact that they’d repositioned further north than they were meant to be, disobeying orders. Of course, those were merely words and would do little to ease the waves of guilt and sorrow Lewis was no doubt feeling. This was also a perfect example of how the human mind could make a bad situation so much worse. In some cases, there was still a tough-guy culture in the armed forces which stigmatized soldiers who went for grief counselling.
John studied the marks on Lewis’ neck. Normally when a soldier decided to take his own life, finding the means to do the job wasn’t difficult. A pistol was usually the weapon of choice. For Lewis to choose hanging made John wonder if it wasn’t an attempt to cry out for help that he was too afraid to ask for directly. Emerging from the fog of war, Lewis had likely entered another kind of fog which made critical thinking nearly impossible. John only wished he could have done more.
He laid a hand on Lewis’ arm. “If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”
The pain in Lewis’ eyes was nearly overwhelming. “There is something, John,” he said. “But they’d arrest you for murder and I wouldn’t want to destroy someone else’s life.”
The implication was clear enough. Lewis wanted someone to finish off what he had started and the realization hit John like a boot heel to the gut.
That was when a noise began tugging for his attention. Was it a patient going into cardiac arrest a few beds over? No, the sound was staticky. A formless voice blaring intermittently.
John’s eyes snapped open to the dim awareness that he was back in Oneida, lying next to Diane. Down the hall, the sound came again. It was emanating from the radio room. Someone with a heavy accent was trying to contact them in Chinese and then Russian. He didn’t know enough of either language to understand what they were after, but one thing was clear. The enemy had arrived.
Chapter 42
Henry was asleep at the console when John rushed in.
The message came through again.
“Wake up,” John shouted to his comms officer.
Henry twitched in his chair and then sat bolt upright, rubbing his eyes. He and Rodriguez had been doing shifts of twelve hours each and exhaustion had clearly gotten the better of him. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen—”
“The radio transmission. What are they saying?”
Diane came in, pulling a robe around her. Soon Emma appeared, followed by Captain Bishop, who had
fallen asleep in the conference room across the hall. They all stood in silence, assessing the situation.
The message blared over the radio again.
Henry listened. “I don’t speak a lick of Chinese and my Russian’s almost nonexistent. But I believe they’re asking for the Chairman.”
Jacob Golosenko was his real name, one of many Russian fifth columnists sent to suppress local populations and hold key strategic locations. The advancing Chinese likely wanted to make contact to ensure the town was still in their control. Unfortunately for them, the Chairman’s body was currently rotting in a pit on the outskirts of town.
“What should we say?” Henry asked.
“How much Russian can you speak?” John asked him.
“Not nearly enough to be convincing, I’m afraid.”
“Heck, it’s worth a shot,” Captain Bishop shot from the doorway, still rubbing his puffy eyes.
“Tell them the Chairman is coming,” John ordered.
Henry nodded and drew in a deep breath. “I’ll do my best.” He activated the mic and spoke, trying to mask his voice since it wouldn’t be another minute before he had to play the role of the Chairman as well. John crossed his fingers, praying the Chinese would buy it.
After several moments of tense silence, the radio crackled to life and a short reply came back.
“What’d they say?” John asked.
“I think they said to tell him to hurry up.”
Henry’s hands were shaking when he gripped the mic again and held it to his lips. “Well, here goes nothing. Это председатель. Продолжай.”
Long static, then: “Что такое слово безопасность?”
Henry looked up at John. “They want the security word.”
John’s heart was beating in his chest, his mind racing a million miles a second. “Ah, nuts, that could be anything.”
They sat there for a minute before Henry spoke into the mic.
The enemy’s reply came shortly after that and the fear that bloomed on Henry’s face made one thing perfectly clear. The enemy wasn’t buying it.
“What’d you tell them?” John asked.
“This whole time I kept picturing that scene from the 1965 war movie with Henry Fonda.”
“You mean The Battle of the Bulge?” John said.
“Yeah, it kept ringing in my head the whole time, so when they kept asking for the password, I said the first thing that popped in my mind. I told them ‘nuts’.”
•••
The entire town swung into high alert after that. Reinforcements were rushed to each of the major choke points. Others were ordered to beef up the various perimeter rings around Oneida. A handful of spotters were positioned a few hundred yards past the main defensive line along major roadways to warn of enemy movement. The army had brought a number of tactical radios to supplement the few John and the others were already using. Spotters on the cell tower would also play a crucial role, acting as the commander’s eyes. Rodriguez arrived just as Captain Bishop sprinted out to join his unit over on Alberta Street.
“General Brooks is on his way to coordinate the defense from here,” John told Diane. “I need you to lead as many of the non-combatants as you can down into the storm drain. Take some food and warm clothes with you.” He turned to Emma. “Go with your mom and help her.”
Emma’s eyes started to water with fear.
He cupped the side of her face. “Don’t worry, honey,” John said, feeling the lie begin to press against his lips. “We’ll be fine.”
John went outside and watched as they faded away in the distance, praying silently they would be safe. Making empty promises before a battle was like holding the hand of someone suffering from a grave illness. You didn’t wanna lie, but hope and faith were all they had.
Then, from out of the early morning mist, an impossibly tall figure moved quickly in his direction. A moment later John saw that it was Reese arriving on horseback.
“You certainly cut it down to the wire,” John said when the sniper reached him.
Reese dismounted and withdrew his Remington 700 from the saddle bag, slinging it over his shoulder. “I’m real sorry I wasn’t able to get them back, John.”
“No need to apologise. At the end of the day, those kids are my responsibility, not yours.”
“Well, now that that’s out of the way, let me tell you, things ain’t pretty in the occupied zone. If you thought the Chairman was a bully, try picturing millions just like him tearing people from their homes.”
“What’s happening in those camps has to be stopped.”
Reese raised a knowing eyebrow and nodded. “In time, if we can survive that long.”
“We just got off the radio with Chinese troops who were looking for the Chairman,” John said. “They’re on their way to take back the town. And they should hit the outer defenses any minute now.”
“So that’s why everyone’s running around like headless chickens?”
“That’s right.” John motioned to the cell tower in the distance. “Think you can head up to the top platform and work your magic?”
“Not sure if I’d call it magic,” Reese said. “But I’ll be happy to do my part. What direction you expecting them from?”
“General Brooks thinks they’ll be hitting us from the west.”
“But you don’t?”
“I’m not a fan of putting all my eggs in one basket. All I can say is be ready for anything.”
Chapter 43
The call came in from a forward observer along Highway 27 South at 6:05 AM. Concealed along the crest of a small hill and outfitted with a radio, he was meant to give advance warning of any threats heading toward Oneida from the south.
“Overmountain, this is Dragonfly, over.”
Rodriguez was in charge of communications from the walkie-talkies. “Read you loud and clear, Dragonfly, go ahead.”
“Tell the boys manning the Cecil bridge they’re about to have company.”
“Roger that,” Rodriguez replied. “Can you give us any details on strength and composition?”
“Must have been at least five mechanized platoons. Maybe a dozen Type 99 and 96 tanks and twice that many ZBD-08s.”
John and General Brooks were in the room, listening intently.
Rodriguez got back on the radio. “Dragonfly, this is Overmountain. Let us know the minute you see anything else.”
“Will do,” came the reply.
“We’ve got the artillery ranged for that whole area,” John said, his heart beginning to hammer in his chest. He felt the desire to be in those foxholes right alongside the men there, and would have been if he wasn’t needed at headquarters to help coordinate the defense.
Rodriguez radioed in to the other spotters to the west, north and east. Each of them reported back that the coast was clear. Already it was starting to look as though the Chinese forces had been south traveling along I-40 heading toward Knoxville when a few platoons were diverted north to ensure that part of Tennessee was still in enemy hands. When moving entire divisions, it made far more sense to utilize interstates rather than the much smaller highways that crisscrossed the country. The forces moving up against them now might only be the tip of a much larger spear.
The radio crackled again. This time the voice on the other end belonged to a young, but experienced lieutenant named York in charge of the Cecil bridge. “Enemy spotted,” he said. “I don’t think they’ve seen us yet.”
General Brooks moved in and snatched the mic out of Henry’s grasp. “Listen here, Lieutenant, if you can hit that first tank on the bridge and stop it dead, then the artillery on Owens Ridge can knock them out one by one.”
“Understood.”
A series of tense minutes went by. John felt his hands bunch into tight fists. No one said a thing. Then word came back.
“Sir, we got a problem,” York told them, sounding nervous and a little rattled. “Our AT-4 guy got taken out by one of the fighting
vehicles in the rear before they could get a shot off. The enemy’s about to cross the bridge. Do I have permission to blow the bridge?”
Brooks swore. Their best chance was to block the column of tanks and kill them one by one.
“We’re taking heavy fire now, sir.”
“Blow it,” Brooks shouted. “Blow it now.” He turned to Rodriguez. “I want artillery three hundred meters on either side of the bridge, right away.”
“Calling it in,” Rodriguez replied.
“Wait a minute,” John protested. “That’s awfully close to our men, isn’t it?” Horrifying images of Nasiriyah were bubbling back to the surface.
Rodriguez paused, unsure what to do.
“You heard my order, Comms Officer,” General Brooks barked. “Now do it.”
“Roger that.”
A second later came the echoing boom from a detonation as the Cecil Bridge blew up. Then the staggered sound of the howitzers from Owens Ridge as they fired their 155mm shells.
“The bridge is gone, sir,” York said. “Three tanks and one fighting vehicle destroyed. But we’ve still got two tanks on our side of the river causing havoc—”
Then the sound of deafening explosions as the artillery shells rained down.
Silence for a moment and John’s heart leapt into his throat.
Then York’s voice again. “Enemy tanks on this side of the river destroyed, but that might have been too close a shave. Please adjust your fire. We may have friendly casualties.”
John prayed that wasn’t the case. Tension gripped his entire body.
“The enemy column on the western side of the river is backing away,” York reported. “We’re now blowing the southern IEDs.” An explosion sounded. “Three more down. The remaining five Chinese ZBD-08s appear to be tucking tail and running.”
“Great job, Lieutenant,” General Brooks said. “Looks like we got ’em on the run.”
Rodriguez’s radio crackled a moment later with a report from the spotter along Highway 27. “Overmountain, this is Dragonfly. I’m seeing what looks like a full armored brigade heading your way and these boys sure are in a hurry.”
Warlords Page 16