Fires of Midnight

by Jon Land

  “That’s one route of access to us covered, Blainey.”

  “And I’ve got an—”

  “Hey,” Susan Lyle called from near the stairwell that spiraled up to the school’s second floor. She was holding a large glass jug in either hand. The strain of lugging them had turned her face beet red. “I thought you might be able to use these.”

  Blaine gazed briefly at Johnny before speaking. “What are they?”

  “This,” she said, looking to her right, “is ammonium hydroxide. Doesn’t like oxygen. Mixing the two makes lots of problems for whoever’s around.” Susan looked to her left now. “And this is sulfuric acid. Doesn’t like water. Soon as they mix …”

  “We get the idea,” McCracken told her. “Kid still holding his own?”

  “For now, but until he regains consciousness we won’t know how deep the damage goes. Serious electric shock is known to, well …” Her voice faded out at the end, almost breaking.

  “What is it?”

  “It should have … been me. The charge … He dove in front of it.”

  “You saved his life. Makes you even.”

  “Not if he doesn’t recover.”

  “Blame Fuchs.”

  “That won’t help if he dies.”

  “You’ve got to make it help, Doctor. It’s how you get through.”

  “We were talking about me, not you.”

  “Lessons of experience. Figured I’d share them.”

  Wareagle’s eyes shifted to the wall-length window that ran along part of the hallway, attracted to it like a dog to a sudden scent.

  “They’re here, Blainey,” was all he said.

  “Is there anything else I can do?” Susan asked both of them.

  Blaine looked at Johnny before responding. “As a matter of fact, there is.”

  As promised, forty men had joined Sinclair across the street and out of sight from the Longwood Central Middle School. It had been twenty minutes since he had made his call to Fuchs, but according to the men he had posted at discreet distances around the building, no one had exited. That meant McCracken and the others were still inside, either seeking refuge or preparing for the inevitable battle.

  Sinclair had planned for the latter. Each of the men dispatched from Group Six was wearing a flak jacket. Almost all carried M-16s, some of which were equipped with sniper scopes. A few carried the M-79 version, which combined the M-16 with slide-loaded grenade launcher mounted beneath its barrel. Others wore fragmentary and percussion grenades hanging from their belts or vest straps. Since this encounter was going to be fought on the move in restricted and limited confines, there was no reason for any weapons packing more firepower than these.

  Colonel Fuchs had drawn Group Six’s security personnel from the top government pools of former soldiers who were battle-hardened. Many had seen duty in covert operations coordinated by the CIA. Others had done stints as mercenaries in whatever country could pay them the most. The men arrived geared up and already divided into groups in response to Sinclair’s specifications. He gathered the individual commanders at his car because it contained a direct link to Colonel Fuchs back at Group Six.

  “Colonel?”

  “Here, Sinclair.”

  “Sir, I am about to order the commanders to move their units into position. Gentlemen,” he continued, holding the mike so Fuchs could hear, “move to your strike points and report in over C band on your walkietalkies when you are in ready position.” C band was a private, scrambled channel McCracken could not listen in on, assuming he had a communicating device with him. “No one goes farther until you hear so from me. Is that clear?”

  Five nods told him it was.

  “Under no circumstances is there to be deviation from the parameters of the plan as I have expressed them. I know who we’re dealing with here. You do not. My orders are in the best interests of this mission.”

  The nods came again. Sinclair was glad there hadn’t been adequate time to brief the men assigned to him in more detail on Blaine McCracken and his Indian friend.

  “Move out,” he ordered, and the commanders scattered back to take their units.

  They were back in the science lab, Susan Lyle again hovering over Joshua Wolfe while McCracken and Wareagle completed the task of assembling the pipe bombs by wedging the dried, flammable twine down into the gunpowder. Before leaving the storage room, they each wedged four into their belts and checked the cigarette lighters Blaine had also found, ironically, in the nurse’s office not far from the first-aid kit Susan had quickly discarded.

  They joined Susan as she was checking Joshua Wolfe’s pulse.

  “Wait until you hear the first blasts, Doctor,” Blaine reminded when she was finished.

  “Don’t worry about me. Just make sure you get back.”

  “Count on it.” Blaine moved toward Johnny. “Let’s go to work, Indian.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Unit One, report,” Sinclair said into his walkie-talkie.

  “Unit One in position. Building front.”

  “Unit Two, report.”

  “Unit Two in position. Right rear flank.”

  “Unit Three, report.”

  “Unit Three in position. Left rear flank.”

  “Unit Four, report.”

  “Unit Four in position. Holding at east perimeter.”

  “Unit Five, report.”

  “Unit Five, in position. Holding at west perimeter.”

  “Snipers, report.”

  “Red in position.”

  “Blue in position.”

  “Green in position.”

  “White in position.”

  Sinclair nodded to himself, pleased at the execution. “Units Two and Three, begin your approach.”

  At the back end of the school building closest to the street, sixteen black shapes darted forward into the night, eight on each side. The style was classic military advance, groups of two seizing ground and providing cover for the next pairs to rush ahead. The process continued until all members of both groups were in rushing distance of their selected access point.

  “Unit Two prepared for entry.”

  “Unit Three prepared for entry.”

  All timing now, Sinclair reflected as he steadied the walkie-talkie against his lips. “Move when ready.”

  A pause followed.

  “Unit Two in.”

  “Unit Three in.”

  “No resistance.”

  “No resistance.”

  Sinclair breathed easier. “Close on building front,” he ordered. “Unit One, begin your approach.”

  The seven members of Unit One scrambled forward, ultimately seizing positions on either side of the main entry doors leading directly into the building’s lobby.

  “Unit One prepared for entry.”

  “Move when ready,” said Sinclair.

  Unit One’s commander hand-signaled a soldier holding an M-40 grenade launcher. The soldier lunged out directly in line with the glass doors and pumped out two rounds in rapid succession. The first was a standard charge that blew out the doors, frames and all, and sent glass cascading through the lobby. The second poured coarse gray smoke in after it that would totally obscure Unit One’s charge into the building.

  “Unit One going in,” reported its commander softly and then whipped a finger through the air, signaling his troops on.

  McCracken waited at the top of the stairwell, holding his breath against the noxious smoke rising upward and trying not to cough. He knew the soldiers had expected bullets to meet them, the coarse smoke meant to camouflage their entry.

  It did its job. Blaine felt more than saw their shapes sliding through the lobby, but he had no intention of using bullets on them. Instead he raised the glass jar of ammonium hydroxide Susan Lyle had provided overhead and hurled it over the railing into the center of the lobby. The glass shattered on impact and, as the freed contents mixed with air, the effects were immediate. Blaine still could see almost nothing, but the sounds were enough to
tell the story. A cacophony of gagging, coughing and choking echoed as the toxic vapors entered the enemy’s throats and noses. By the time Blaine grabbed a pair of the pipe bombs from his belt, his own eyes and throat had started to burn. He lit the makeshift fuses and counted the seconds. Beneath him, shapes were struggling up from their knees, gloved fingers groping for their faces. Some were trying to stagger blindly from the building.

  Blaine tossed the first pipe bomb between that group and the door, the second into the congestion of smoke where the heaviest concentration of men was still centered. The explosions were dizzyingly bright, thanks to the phosphorus, and the screams told him the rest of the contents had done their job as well. Blaine backed off, covering his eyes and trying to swallow the pain that had started to rack his throat.

  “Ground Leader, come in!”

  “Unit One, what hap—”

  “They hit us! They hit us hard! Grenades! Bio shit!”

  Sinclair felt a vise grasp his innards. “They don’t have any—”

  “I got men down! I got casualties here! It’s a fucking mess!”

  “Units Two and Three, building front is your target. Confirmed presence in building front,” Sinclair reported, playing it by the numbers when something inside told him retreat would have made for a better option.

  “Sinclair!” Fuchs’s voice barked. “What’s going on? Sinclair, can you hear me?”

  Before he could acknowledge, a wash of bright orange flames blew out a section of the school’s long, single-level wing in a horrific blast that swallowed the screams behind it.

  Unit Two had followed the left-hand corridor from the back of the school building toward its front, two-level wing. As the troops approached the double doors leading onto the last stretch of hallway sloping to the lobby, the unit leader signaled two men ahead to take the lead. The rest hung back until this pair had yanked the double doors open, at which point they were to pour through in a single file with random spacing to negate the effects of an ambush.

  The resulting pull on the heavy twine attached to the handles on the double doors toppled the acetylene tanks waiting at the head of the corridor. They smacked into the heavy books stacked beneath them, knocking off the valves Johnny Wareagle had all but removed. The vast contained pressure vented with a whoooooooosh and the tanks shot forward like a missile, their volatile contents freed to mix together. When some of the first troops through reacted instinctively by firing their M-16s, the heat and muzzle fire created the spark needed for combustion.

  The blast shook the entire school building and carved a huge chasm out of the corridor, with flames reaching out from it. The ceiling came crashing down onto the blue-hot flames that quickly turned to orange. The walls along the immediate stretch of hall to the main lobby buckled and cracked, the screams of the victims all but lost in the lingering rumble. A backwash blast of hot wind reached McCracken on the second floor and nearly toppled him as he continued to struggle for breath. He steadied himself briefly against a wall and then moved off.

  “Unit Two! Unit Two, come in!” Sinclair barked into his walkie-talkie.”Unit Two, are you there?”

  The sight of flames engulfing the midway portion of the school’s long corridor gave him his answer. Whatever McCracken had hit them with had knocked the whole unit out.

  “Ground Leader! Come in, Ground Leader.”

  Sinclair pulled the walkie-talkie back to his lips. “This is Ground Leader, Unit Three.”

  “What the fuck’s happening? Something big just hit this building.”

  “Where are you, Unit Three?”

  “Approaching main wing, almost to the library.”

  “Exercise extreme caution, Unit Three. Repeat, ex—”

  “What the hell is …”

  “Unit Three!”

  “Jesus … Open fire! Open fire!”

  “Unit Three, what’s going on in there?”

  Sinclair heard the screams, and the walkie-talkie shook in his hand.

  Safety goggles fastened tightly in place, Johnny Wareagle continued to spray the contents of the fire extinguisher atop the sulphuric acid he had spread evenly across the hallway. He had waited until the approaching troops’ feet were all sliding through it before pinching the handle and letting the stream go.

  The effects surprised him with their suddenness. White clouds of what looked like steam rose, carrying the noxious vapors with it. Johnny heard the hissing above the enemy’s footsteps and ducked back into a doorway leading into the library for cover.

  The approaching troops began to stagger, clutching at their eyes, digging into them in horrible agony. Their screams were high-pitched at first but turned raspy fast as the acid compound burned away all their mucous membrane layers. From within the library, Johnny watched some claw at their faces as if to scratch their ravaged flesh away.

  A few from the rear recovered enough of their bearings to fire wild sprays through the library windows, trying for a bead on Johnny. He lit one of his pipe bombs and hurled it at a trio lunging for the doorway. It struck the floor, rolled, and ignited in a white-hot flash that blew two of the men backward. Books and shelving toppled. One of the men was still screaming when the third twisted through the doorway, firing a constant stream from his rifle. Johnny hit the ground and rolled away from the spray, at the same time firing his Desert Eagle pistol until the clip clicked empty. The third attacker keeled over, blood staining the glass of the door behind him.

  Wareagle jumped back to his feet and rushed for the library exit door on the other side.

  “Unit Three! … Unit Three!”

  When it was obvious there wasn’t going to be a reply, Sinclair knew he had no choice but to play his last cards.

  “Units Four and Five, come in.”

  “Unit Four here.”

  “Unit Five here. Do you mind telling us what—”

  “Back wing of building has been compromised. Concentrate all efforts on main wing, first and second floors. Move in now!”

  Sinclair was glad he had prudently held back two units of six men each. If these final two units could only manage to flush the opposition outside, McCracken and the others would make easy targets for his four snipers.

  “Sinclair!” blared Colonel Fuchs’s voice through the microphone he’d returned to his stand. “Talk to me, Sinclair!”

  “Sir, we’ve encountered heavier than expected resistance.”

  “Don’t lose them, Sinclair. Don’t let them fucking out of there!”

  “We’ve still got them, sir,” said Sinclair, not as surely as he had intended.

  The advantage, he told himself, still clearly belonged to his forces. He had positioned his snipers in the cover of the woods which surrounded the school on three sides, watching for the expected flight of his targets. They weren’t going anywhere fast, which meant they weren’t going anywhere at all.

  Upstairs McCracken had just opened the stairwell door when he heard the quiet shuffling of men who knew how to move in near silence. Several of the footsteps had started up the stairs in his direction.

  Blaine let the door close slowly, SIG-Sauer in hand. He had this clip and one more to go, along with two remaining pipe bombs. He backtracked quickly down the hall, reached the junction with the adjacent corridor and swung onto it.

  Johnny Wareagle was waiting there, back pinned tight against the tile in the near blackness. The only illumination came through classroom windows in the form of stray beams from outside security lights. Johnny leaned against a spot on the hall the slivers could not reach.

  “Twelve men, Blainey,” he reported. “Armed as the others were.”

  “Trying to trap us?”

  “Or flush us outside.”

  “Snipers?”

  “It’s what we would have done if the situation were reversed.”

  The first of the figures emerged from the stairwell onto the second floor at the far end of the hall.

  “Looks like we’ve got to alter the strategy, Indian. Can you han
dle the snipers?”

  “Given time.”

  “How much?”

  “Depends on their spacing. Ten minutes, if the spirits are kind.”

  “Get going. And stay clear of the building.”

  “Blainey?”

  “It’s time to do some flushing of our own.”

  Johnny gave Blaine two of his remaining three pipe bombs and disappeared into the nearest classroom to make his exit through a window. He might draw some sniper fire upon himself, but McCracken knew Johnny would melt away into the night before the shooters could home in; he’d witnessed similar demonstrations time and time again.

  Pressed in the recessed frame of a classroom door, Blaine heard a second group of the enemy approaching from the head of this hall as well. They were converging on him from both corridors, then, which left only the stairwell behind him at the junction of the two halls for escape. McCracken waited as long as he dared before flicking a flame out on his lighter and touching it to both fuses of Johnny’s pipe bombs simultaneously.

  Then he darted out and rolled them toward both concentrations of the enemy.

  “There!” Blaine heard a voice scream out as he slammed through a door onto the stairwell. A barrage of automatic fire traced him as he lunged down the first set of steps, the gunmen giving chase.

  The pipe bombs exploded simultaneously before he had covered half the flight, earlier than expected. There were a few screams, but not enough. A few men downed, the rest still able to fight.

  He reached the bottom of the stairwell and twisted toward the front wing’s back hall, ready to head for the science wing where Susan Lyle would be preparing his final surprise.