The pastor released his hammer from his belt, gripping the worn shaft and thrusting it into the air.
“Pastor. They’re closing in,” Peter hissed. He crouched behind the sandbag wall.
The pastor let his voice command the choirs of angels. It was loud and clear and held no fear of death. “Fear not, God’s Chosen people. For heaven awaits all who stand before the wrath of Legion.” More tan vehicles lined up. He knew guns were pointed their way but held his place. I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but I fear no evil.
He waved his hammer at Colonel Jackson’s soldiers. The rusted carpenter’s tool held in place over a military vehicle. He let his voice come out as a shout. They all must hear this. “Captain Steele demands we hold for three minutes.” His mouth formed into a snarl as he watched the soldiers drive forward, whipping up dust. “I say let’s give him ten.”
He held his carpenter hammer up in the air and Peter began shouting behind him. “God wills it.”
“God wills it!” the pastor shouted. His eyes went from brother to sister down the line of his people. “God wills it. Now send them back to hell!” He let his hammer fall to his side. At four hundred yards, the Humvees opened up. Smoke exploded from their barrels. Fast, furious, and terrible du-du-du-du-du-du thunder clapped from turret guns. The .50 cal cut into his line. Peter dove to the ground. Sand spurted into the air as the bullets thudded into the layered sandbags. Brother Herman’s head was too far above the bags and it disappeared. His body collapsed onto the ground, and his neck squirted ruby colored blood into a pool at the pastor’s feet.
“Fire! Fire!” the pastor screamed. He watched the enemy press closer. The enemies’ bullets whizzed and whistled by him, but none could find him.
“Father, please,” Peter pleaded. “Take cover.” He leaned onto the sandbags and his AK-47 pounded out bullets into a Humvee.
The sandbags stopped most of the bullets. The densely compacted sand was an effective means of protection as long as his people didn’t expose themselves to the large-caliber rounds thundering their way. When they did, his men fell, missing arms, shoulders, and heads, yet the line held.
He walked down the line, the battle raging. Bullets were breaking through the bags. They could only maintain their integrity for so long. In some places, his men fell. He was brazen and unafraid. His body glowed with God’s warmth. Leaden smoke engulfed his line like a morning fog. “Fire! Fire for the Lord!”
Bullets winged and twanged and whizzed past him. He turned his face to the sky. God is with me.
Men were exiting the Humvees. Using their doors and timber as cover, they continued to rain hell upon the pastor’s line. “Fight for our Lord!” he screamed.
The ground erupted in the center of his line. Sandbags and his people flew in the air. He turned, watching his people writhe on the ground. Vince picked up his arm with his other hand. His unblinking eyes stared right at the pastor for a moment in shock. Bullets cut him in half and his torso fell from his legs. Another bomb exploded the pastor’s line. They were literally blowing his line into pieces.
“Hold!” he called out. He waved his hammer in the air, thrusting it at the enemy, but he couldn’t even hear himself over the roar of battle. The gunfire heightened, deafening him. In a slow-motion moment, the earth beneath him disappeared and his body was engulfed in a weightlessness. His body was in flight along with chunks of earth and debris.
Minutes seemed to pass. The sky appeared above him then his body crashed into the hard cold field. The whole world rung in his ears. The clouds parted above him. He felt as if he were immersed in flames. His mouth barely moved. “Take me, O Lord. I am ready.”
The ringing in his ears turned into the glorious trumpets of the Lord. His voice came out in soft whispers. “The Lord has come. Deliver us from evil.” He raised a bloody hand in the air. Red blood ran down his finger and onto the handle of his hammer still gripped in his hand.
“Your servant has come home.”
Peter’s curly head shadowed over him. He was yelling something. The pastor felt himself being lifted like a child off the earth. Peter jostled him as he ran across the ground, trees bouncing around him, as his eyes dimmed.
STEELE
Black Hawk Hill, IA
Steele shifted to the other side of a tree for a better view. He squinted, trying to peer through the branches and trees of the forest. He placed his left hand on his chest, feeling both Thor’s hammer and, below that, his counterterrorism badge beneath his shirt. He wore the necklace for his friend Jarl. He wore the badge out of some nostalgic superstition that he had grown used to over the years of being a counterterrorism agent.
The cacophony of gunfire dominated the field in front of him, but closest to him, he could hear the shuffling of nervous men and women laying prone and hidden behind trees, rocks, and downed logs.
A quiet anxious cough was emitted here and there. Then came the screams of the dying on the pastor’s line. His followers were in the process of breaking. Craters appeared where once men and sandbags had been. Piece by piece, men and women sprinted for the forest surrounding Black Hawk Hill.
It would be a dangerous two hundred yards for them to run. He knew it when he had asked them to hold the line, but his plan would never work without drawing Jackson’s men in. Without the Chosen sacrifice, the battle would be a slaughter and Steele’s forces would be on the receiving end of it.
The Chosen ran down the gravel road that twisted right along Black Hawk Hill and cut through thick timber that made good white-tailed deer hunting this time of year.
He glanced to his left. Gwen’s contingent of Iowans was closer to the fighting stretching down the sloping left flank. She knelt with her grandfather’s shotgun in one hand. John leaned on a tree next to her along with Sheriff Donnellson.
Donnellson had a camouflaged hunting jacket over his brown sheriff’s uniform. He pushed his brown cowboy hat up on his forehead. All the able-bodied men and women of Hacklebarney had turned out. Most held shotguns and hunting rifles. Steele even thought he saw a couple with compound hunting bows. Steele didn’t know if it was the pride of not being left out or if it was not backing down on their word, but they had come when called, covered in hunting camouflage and with a grim determination to fight.
Steele’s force was over half of the Sable Point volunteers. The rest of the volunteers were with Tess, hopefully still alive. Harvey, Trent, and Larry knelt closest to him, hidden in the trees. Every now and then Trent would place his optics up to his eye and stick his tongue out as he squinted with the other.
“I could probably take a few shots from here,” Trent said quietly. The goateed hunter glanced back at Steele.
“Sit tight. They’ll be on us quick enough.”
“What are they doing?” Frank asked softly. His black-and-gray beard jutted out as he watched the firefight with intensity.
The Iron Drakes overlapped on the Steele’s volunteers’ right flank stationed in the center of the line. They would be the linchpin in their defense as the road curved deeper into the forest at this point.
Frank peered out, pointing at the pastor’s collapsing line. “I thought you told him to hold for three minutes. The idiot’s been standing up for almost eight.”
“I did.”
“Well, he’s really selling it.”
“He’s going to kill himself and all his people.”
Pockets of people ran from his line. He could see the Chosen wavering. A series of concussive explosions shattered the rest of his line. They made a run for the trees. Bullets cut down the slowest, punching through their backs and out their fronts. Anyone still alive ran for cover.
“Too many bodies are still there,” Steele said to himself. The pastor’s stand, while admirable, had chewed up his followers. Humvees gunned it for the broken line. It was as if they raced to see who could be the first through the breach.
From a distance, the M2 .50 caliber machine guns hammered out gunfire into the trees an
d the backs of the pastor’s men alike. Steele clenched his jaw as three of the Chosen were shot from behind before they could make it into the relative safety of the forest.
“Keep coming,” Steele whispered as he watched the Chosen soldiers die. The farther into the trees they ran, the safer they became.
The remainders of the pastor’s men flooded and weaved through the trees up towards Steele’s line. Peter’s curly-haired head bobbed as he weaved through the trees, carrying a fallen man in his arms. The gray-haired man was limp in his arms. Steele was amazed at the speed in which the beefy man moved. Peter struggled up the hill and collapsed to his knees after passing through Steele’s volunteers. His chest pushed up and down furiously, and he went on all fours, fighting for air. The pastor lay motionless, his clothes drenched in brown dust and bloody dirt.
“Is he?” Steele asked.
Peter closed his eyes. “No. He lives.” Steele turned back to the enemy racing his way.
Humvees drove through holes in the sandbag line; others drove up and over the collapsing wall. Sand exploded from the bags as Humvees whipped through the meager line. A single Humvee stopped. A soldier jumped out and fired his gun point-blank into the back of a crawling man. They were already savoring the taste of victory. Keep coming, you bastards. Keep coming.
Steele blinked back the carnage, swallowing his anger.
“Hold your fire,” Steele said to those around him. He touched Larry’s shoulder gently. “Pass it along. Turrets first.” Larry bent near Nathan and his men played telephone with his orders. Steele turned toward Frank. “It’s about time you go back to your line. Turrets first.”
Frank slapped his Iron Drakes patch twice and jogged off at a crouch. The Iron Drakes had a bone to pick with Jackson, and Steele wanted them at the center where the fighting promised to be the fiercest. He watched the man fade through the gray trees.
Down on the Iron Drakes’ right flank, Steele could barely make out the ancient biker War Child and his War Machines. They were armed with AK-47s, M4s, and at least one Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun. Where they had acquired such firepower, Steele did not know. All were interspersed throughout the trees, weapons trained on the forest road.
The road cut into the hilly timber near the lower portion of Black Hawk Hill, and if Jackson wanted to give chase, he had to lead his men into the forest. That’s where Steele’s forces waited.
He watched the road with intense focus, knowing that threats hastened his way. The first Humvee slowed down before entering the forest. A bit of intuitive caution overrode the surge of bloodlust against a defeated enemy. The driver must have seen some of the men running through the trees ahead and sped up again. A second Humvee gunned it close to the first, tailgating behind. The turret gunner showered bullets into the trees, hoping for a random hit. It was followed by the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Humvees. Steele peered back at the sandbag line. More Humvees followed through in a column. Guns swiveled on turrets, searching for easy victims to annihilate with giant .50 caliber rounds.
Steele peered at the smaller Sauk and Fox Hills on either side of the sandbags. He wondered if the Red Stripes and Seven Sisters were ready for what was about to happen.
One of the last Humvees passed the sandbag line then came the oversized McCone people mover. The giant airport lounge bus with retrofitted steel-plating over the windows bulldozed the gap and came to a halt.
Camouflaged soldiers climbed down from the back and they spread out, approaching the forest. They marched brazenly over the field, putting bullets into the fallen. A minute passed until the dismounted soldiers neared the forest edge. That was his cue.
Steele touched Trent’s shoulder. The first ten Humvees were already past their portion of the line. War Child will have fun with those.
The goateed hunter glanced back at Steele. Steele nodded. Trent licked his lips and took aim through his scope. Soldiers on foot were entering the woods now, passing between trees like a line of deer hunters “pushing” deer in a fall hunt. In a few minutes, they were within a hundred yards of Gwen’s line. More Humvees passed his position.
Steele’s arm jabbed out with a knife hand in the direction of the enemy Humvees. “Unleash hell.”
Trent’s single bolt-action rifle sounded off with a crack. There was a momentary pause. The man in the turret seemed to stare straight at Steele, but it was too late for him. He jerked and blood poured from his neck. He slumped onto his .50 cal machine gun, head dipping forward.
Gunfire thundered. Steele’s line rained lead into the Humvees. Boom. Pop-pop. Crack. Pop-pop-pop. All manner of gunfire erupted at once in a clamorous encore of battle. The soldiers in turrets unloaded bullets into the trees, not knowing where the shots came from, but that enemies were lurking nearby. There was nothing that massive amounts of bullets couldn’t stop in their minds.
Leaning against a thick oak, Steele put his affected arm against the tree and placed his M4 carbine to his left shoulder. It didn’t feel right, but he ignored it and worked the trigger with his left hand. The recoil was worse than with two hands, but he was satisfied as a turret gunner directing fire against Gwen’s line fell atop the weapon mount.
Gun smoke began to blanket the forest in a thick white smog, the dense sulphur smell of gunpowder dominating the air. Steele ducked low and moved down the line. “Keep firing!” he screamed as he dodged between trees.
MAUSER
Black Hawk Hill, IA
The inside of the Humvee stunk like Jarvis’s rotting fingers and unwashed men. Mauser was in the lead Humvee of four, sitting on the edge of Black Hawk Hill in a fallow field. Gunfire vibrated the air from the other side of the hill, like a thunderstorm raging only a hilltop away.
Mauser’s radio had been buzzing with communications from the soldiers on the other side.
“—Sir, we are taking heavy fire—” the radio cut out.
A man breathed into the microphone. “Spencer is down. Oh shit. He’s fucked up.”
Captain Ogden’s voice came on the radio. “Keep throwing out smoke screens. Third Platoon provide support. Second Platoon push closer to the front.”
For the last few minutes, the radio chatter had gone from hooting and hollering about getting some to concern as the forward units took casualties and the resistance grew stiffer. It made Mauser’s gut churn like waves beating an old dock. If he cared about living, he would be worried, but he had surrendered that part of himself a long time ago. He clicked the radio to the channel he had for his unit. He held the radio microphone to his mouth and depressed the side.
“Yates, what do you think?” Yates sat in a Humvee directly behind him.
Yates’s voice came through the radio. “We should be up there already. Fuck Jackson. Our guys are getting crushed out there.”
“We’re still waiting on the go ahead from Jackson.”
Anger-seethed in Yates’s voice. “Copy.” The radio clicked off. What Yates hated the most was losing men. It drove the man into a rage.
Once the gunfire started coming from the hill, Mauser would have been up to the top, but Jackson was holding him to help wrangle up any survivors instead of putting him in an overwatch position. The gunfire did not let up like a jackhammer on a busy street.
Mauser tapped his hand on his SCAR-H nervously. Every few seconds, he would lean close to the dash and glance up the hill, trying to see the men on the top through the dying leaves and graying trees.
“Sounds like a lot of fifties are going.” Low raised a lip as he strained his eyes. “You think there’s more of them up there?”
Mauser scratched at his face. His beard itched terribly today. “I can’t imagine there being that many insurgents, but it’s possible they all clustered here.”
Jarvis leaned in the middle of the Humvee console. “Finally. We can put them all under at once and be done with it.” He took a grenade off his vest. “A couple of these should fix the cocksuckers up.”
“How you gonna get your fingers then?” L
ow asked.
A hurt expression crossed Jarvis’s face. “There’ll be fingers left. I mean, on some of them.” He pulled at his necklace, judging how much space remained. “Always room for a few more.”
Mauser looked over his shoulder and snapped. “Get that nasty thing out of my face.”
Jarvis sat back in his seat. “Fine. You got no respect for the number of kills I got.”
Mauser shook his head and glimpsed worriedly up the hill again. We should be moving.
“Mauser, what’s your status?” Jackson’s voice came through the radio. Mauser’s eyes studied every inch of the hill, taking in the fall trees.
“Once the gunfire started, we moved up within range behind,” he stopped reading and glanced at his map. “Black Hawk Hill.” He held the radio away from his ear and waited.
Venom spit from Jackson’s tongue. “This fucking rebel thinks he set up a nice little ambush. It ain’t gonna work because you’re about to ruin his day. Move up the hill and take them from behind.”
Mauser stared back up the hill. The dying forest could hold anything. Steele had made the mistake by not protecting his flank. It was Mauser’s turn to exploit his weakness.
“We’re on it, sir.”
“Move your ass, soldier. We’re counting on you to break this stalemate.”
Stalemate? Mauser tossed the microphone down and clicked on his radio attached to his vest. “You heard the colonel. Let’s move!” he yelled at the soldiers in his Humvee. Doors slammed and his men converged near the edge of the hill.
Yates jogged up, M4 across his chest, his team at his back. Campos held his M249 SAW. Jarvis and Low joined them, checking the status of their weapons. Low threw a helmet atop his head haphazardly. Bengston’s squad was the last to join.
The gunfire grew fiercer now. The gunshots were becoming more furiously rapid. The battle had gotten closer together.
“Our men are in an ambush. They need us. Let’s finish this for the Legion. On the double.”
The Departing (The End Time Saga Book 4) Page 42