47 Echo

by Kupfer, Shawn

  “Good. Take the rest of the explosives and find a pillar that looks like this one on the western side of the building. Do exactly as I’ve done here. Run.”

  Gabriel grabbed the backpack from Nick’s hand and took off running—for a big guy, the kid was fast, and it was only a couple of seconds before he was out of sight.

  Nick finished setting his charges about thirty seconds later and set off after Gabriel. “Mike, Pete, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah,” Michael’s voice came through the helmet speaker.

  “How’s your progress?”

  “We’re done. I think. Heading for the west side of the building. I see Gabe, but not you.”

  “I’m on my way there now. Gabe?”

  “Another minute, man.”

  “Fast as you can. Chris, can you guys bring that big-ass truck around to the west side?”

  “I think we’re gonna beat you there.”

  “Right. Ask Neal what the effective range on these detonators is.”

  “Hold on…he says half a kilometer.”

  “Should be fine. Oh, there you are,” Nick said as he spotted the Razor idling next to Gabriel.

  “Charges set,” Gabriel told him.

  “Everyone back on the bus!” Neal yelled through the open driver’s window of the Razor, pointing to the sky behind him. Nick didn’t look—he didn’t have to. In the clear night, he could plainly hear the sound of many, many helicopter blades getting very close, very quick.

  Nick stood at the Razor’s open doorway, first pushing Gabriel, then Peter, then Michael through. He had just made it in and slammed the door behind him when the first bullets started hitting the vehicle’s metal skin.

  “Fuck. Fuck. We’re dead,” Gabriel whispered.

  “Calm down, kiddo. These things can take a direct hit from a five hundred-pound missile. We’re fine.” Neal laughed, rocketing the Razor away from the building.

  Nick counted to ten then pressed the button on the detonator remote. Through the back portal of the Razor, he saw the bottom of the hotel belch fire for a half-second. Then the entire building collapsed in on itself. Through the smoke and the dust, Nick saw the black shadows of helicopters scanning the ground with searchlights. In seconds, he guessed, they would be after the Razor again, firing on it until it reached the airport, but for now it was quiet in the vehicle.

  The quiet lasted all of six seconds—then the ground started to shake and fire flashed outside the Razor’s windows.

  “What the fuck is that?” Peter yelled.

  “Rockets. They’re trying to get a lock on us,” Neal said, slamming down on the accelerator.

  “Are those bigger than five hundred pounds?” Gabriel asked as the two Aryans in the gun turrets opened up, firing round after round into the sky.

  Chapter 5

  Death Comes Ripping

  The airport was only two miles away, and Neal didn’t let off the accelerator once on the drive there. Several more rockets exploded near the Razor as it drove, but none hit the vehicle directly. As they approached the airport, Nick looked over Christopher’s shoulder at one of the many screens on the vehicle’s mammoth dashboard—an infrared image showed the airport, crisscrossed by moving red lines.

  “What’re these?” Nick asked, tapping the lines.

  “That’ll be gunfire. A lot of it.”

  “Cut the chatter, 311. Get Captain Sayed on the comm,” Neal spat.

  “CO 1-8 Echo, this is Razor 4-7 Echo. Do you read?”

  Sayed’s voice crackled over the speaker in the center of the dashboard. The automatic weapons fire was so loud, it was almost impossible to hear him.

  “Go for CO one-eight!”

  “Sayed! Neal. What’s your status?”

  “Encountering heavy resistance. Razors have set up at the end of the runway, covering the C-5 airlifts! We’ve taken a lot of casualties, Jimbo. We could use some help.”

  “Roger that. We’re thirty seconds from your position. Unfortunately, we’re not alone.”

  “I’ve got SAMs set up for your welcoming party.”

  “SAMs?” Nick whispered to Christopher.

  “Surface-to-air missiles.”

  “We copy. Coming to you now. If you could knock a few of these choppers out of the sky, I’d appreciate it.”

  Nick saw five spots on the infrared display flash. Before Sayed could even finish saying “rockets loose,” the entire unit heard a series of loud explosions behind the Razor. A half-second later, bright orange flashes lit the inside of the huge armored vehicle.

  “Ooh, shit. That got ‘em,” one of the Aryans in the turret yelled.

  Neal slammed on the brakes.

  “All right, Echo! Grab your guns and roll out! Captain Sayed is now in charge, so listen for his orders!” Neal threw open the door to reveal Captain Sayed and twenty other convicts huddled down, firing to the north. “Move!”

  Nick was still loaded with his gear from the demo mission, so he was the first out the door. He took up a position between two convicts—Army, he noticed, and simply started shooting his M4 in the same direction they were. It didn’t take long for him to see what they were shooting at—several hundred men in dark green uniforms rushing toward them.

  Well, this isn’t how I thought I was going to die, Nick told himself, shrugging and pumping as many rounds as he could toward the oncoming masses. He expected to be afraid, but he felt nothing. Where the thoughts and feelings normally lived in his head, there was nothing but a smooth, constant dial tone. Adrenaline, he guessed.

  “They’re not wearing body armor!” the Army soldier next to Nick yelled in his ear. “Aim for center mass! Take out as many of these motherfuckers as you can!”

  As soon as the convict next to him finished his sentence, he jerked back and hit the ground, bleeding from the head. Nick kept firing, stepping on the dead soldier’s weapon with his left foot—he had the feeling he’d need it very soon.

  The dark and the smoke made it hard for Nick to see what he was supposed to be shooting at. Christopher took the place of the dead soldier and whacked the side of Nick’s helmet. A visor slid down over Nick’s eyes, and suddenly everything was lit up in brilliant green hues.

  Night vision, Nick realized. He had a much easier time aiming and burned through three clips in the next minute. He knew he’d taken out at least a dozen enemy soldiers, but he didn’t seem to be making a dent—wave after wave of them just kept coming, and the waves were getting closer to the small emplacement of soldiers taking cover behind the massive Razor.

  Nick grabbed the dead soldier’s M4 from the ground and tossed his in its place. He fired until the clip ran out, then turned to the Army soldier on his right.

  “We got any more SAMs?” he shouted above the gunfire.

  “Two!” the soldier shouted back.

  “Where?”

  The soldier jerked his head to the right, past Christopher. Behind one of the Echoes from the 18, Nick saw a canvas bag with two dark green cylinders poking out of it. Nick smacked the side of his helmet again, raising the visor. As he lifted one of the cylinders out of the bag, he noticed it had instructions printed right on the weapon.

  “Well, that’s convenient.” Nick smirked. The Echo in front of him turned slightly.

  “What are you doing? There’s no incoming aircraft!” the Echo yelled.

  “You’re correct there,” Nick said, smacking the side of his helmet to activate the night vision again. He lifted the missile launcher to his shoulder and turned back to the oncoming hordes of Russian soldiers. He held his breath, aimed at the center of the detachment, and pressed the trigger button.

  There was less kickback than Nick expected as the missile zoomed out of the tube toward the advancing Russian detachment. Through the night vision, Nick saw a few of the Russian soldiers start to scatter, but they were too close—there wasn’t enough time to get out of the missile’s way.

  The explosion almost shorted out the helmet’s night-vision visor. As the g
reen flash subsided, Nick saw a huge, smoking hole in the ground, surrounded by dead Russian soldiers. The twenty or so the explosion hadn’t killed were heading away from Nick and his unit as fast as they could.

  “Whoa. That was interesting,” Christopher said, standing from his crouched position and slapping Nick on the shoulder.

  Lieutenant Neal appeared from next to the Razor, his hand on the side of his helmet. Nick caught a glimpse of Sayed, who was waving two of the Aryans from the 21 over to him.

  “We’ve got incoming Russian Armor, and it’s fucking big,” Neal told them.

  “How soon?” Christopher asked.

  “It’s going to be here in about a minute,” Neal replied. “I’m going to need some of you to take the Razor and keep it busy.”

  “Looks like we’re elected, Chief,” Christopher said, looking over to Nick.

  “Three of the C-5s are away!” Sayed yelled. “Two more and we’re out of here!”

  Nick shrugged.

  “I’d rather be inside the Razor than out here,” he told Neal.

  “No. Jimbo, I do not want that man inside the Razor,” Sayed yelled, stalking over to Neal and Nick.

  The occasional bullet still whizzed by, but Sayed didn’t seem to mind. The two Aryans he’d been talking to—the same ones who’d manned the turrets on the Razor—flanked him on either side.

  “Captain, I understand you have a problem with this man. I do. But he’s the best man for the job.”

  “Besides, it’s a high-risk mission. Pretty good chance I’m gonna get killed.” Nick smirked.

  “Hadn’t thought of that. We still have business, little man,” Sayed warned.

  “Hey, we both live through this, we can settle up after,” Nick told him.

  “Oh, you can believe we will.” With a dismissive wave of his hand, Sayed turned to the two Aryans behind him.

  “You two are on turrets in the Razor. Three-eleven is in charge—you listen to him like you’d listen to me or the Lieutenant, you got it?”

  “Got it, sir.”

  “Load up. We’re burning time we don’t have,” Neal ordered. Christopher threw open the door to the Razor, and everyone piled in. Chris took the wheel and started up the twenty-four-cylinder engine. Nick took the seat next to him as the two Aryans climbed into the turrets.

  “I’m gonna need the position on the Russian Armor,” Christopher told him. “Center screen. Pretty much idiot-proof.”

  “That’s fortunate,” Nick said as he tapped the center screen. A remote-camera image of six rolling Russian assault vehicles popped up on the screen, highlighted in the now-familiar night-vision green.

  “Where are these images coming from?”

  “Unmanned drone. See that blue button on the left of the screen? That’ll send the armor’s position to the nav system.”

  Nick pressed the indicated button, and the Razor began to roll.

  “ETA, twenty seconds,” Nick read from the screen. “What do you think our chances of survival are?”

  “Six of them, one of us? Just by the straight math, approximately not good.”

  “Pretty much what I thought. So what do I do here?”

  “Left screen’s the targeting system for the rocket pods. Pretty simple—drag the crosshair, double-tap to fire. Might want to start doing that…right now.”

  The Razor’s cameras showed the six Russian assault vehicles—a small line at the top of the targeting screen identified them as TX-49 Heavy Assault Vehicles. The targeting crosshair appeared, and Nick dragged it onto the lead assault vehicle’s cockpit. He quickly double-tapped the crosshair and saw the rocket enter the camera view. A second later, it exploded against the front of the lead TX-49.

  As the explosion cleared, Nick saw that the rocket hadn’t even put a dent in the Russian vehicle. All six of the Russians opened fire at the same time, rocking the Razor violently on its suspension. The Aryans up top opened fire as well, but they weren’t doing any damage that Nick or Christopher could see.

  Suddenly, the Razor stopped dead. The engine wasn’t running.

  “Shit. That’s not good.” Christopher sighed.

  “What the fuck is going on down there, man?” one of the Aryans yelled from his turret.

  “Just shut up and keep shooting!” Christopher yelled over the large-caliber bullets pinging off the Razor’s skin.

  “Not to repeat that guy, but what the fuck is going on, Chris?” Nick asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s like it just stopped working. Diagnostics aren’t saying anything, but the damn thing doesn’t want to restart.”

  “Are we…out of gas, maybe?”

  “Don’t be stupid. We’re not out of…oh, shit. We are out of gas. Switching to reserve tank.”

  A half-second later, the Razor rumbled back to life.

  “We have about twenty seconds until those TX-49s hit the airstrip and have a clear shot at our birds. Any ideas?” Christopher asked.

  “Yeah. Back up, fast as you can. We’re not going to get anywhere trying to go straight at them—it’s like two guys in full body armor throwing pebbles at each other.”

  “Why back up?”

  “Trust me. Just back up.”

  Christopher shrugged, put the huge Razor into gear, and slammed his foot on the accelerator. With a lurch, the massive vehicle shot backwards. Nick already had his targets locked in and fired every one of the Razor’s twenty-three remaining rockets.

  “You, uh. You missed,” Christopher mumbled, pointing to the targeting screen, which was blinking red.

  “No he fucking didn’t,” one of the Aryans said with a laugh. “Raise your blast shields, man.”

  “Those fifty-cal rounds will tear right through the windows without the blast shields,” Christopher argued.

  “You hear any rounds, man?”

  Christopher listened for a second—the bullets had, indeed, stopped banging against the Razor’s hull. He reached down and hit a few buttons, and the blast shields in front of the Razor’s windshield slid open.

  Through the clearing smoke, Christopher could easily make out six Russian TX-49 Heavy Assault Vehicles, buried nose-first in the ground just before the concrete of the airstrip.

  “What the fuck did you do?” Christopher asked, shaking his head.

  “Took the ground out right in front of them, is what he fuckin’ did.” The Aryan laughed from the turret.

  “Just kinda surprised they didn’t think of it first,” Nick admitted.

  A hatch on the rear of one of the TX-49s opened, and a man with an assault rifle started to crawl out.

  “Hey, redneck! You wanna keep these guys inside their little cars?” Nick yelled to the Aryan.

  “On it, Chinky!”

  A short burst exploded from the front turret, bouncing the emerging Russian clear out of the back of his vehicle. The Aryan sprayed a few more bullets at the motionless assault vehicles to encourage their occupants not to get out.

  “Razor 4-7, this is CO 4-7 Echo,” the radio jumped to life.

  “Um, yeah. This is them. Uh. Razor 4-7 Echo,” Nick said.

  “Last C-5 is away. Looks like you neutralized that Russian Armor.”

  “Got ‘em pinned down for the moment, sir.”

  “Set the turrets to keep them that way, then haul ass back here. Our chopper is skids up in three minutes.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Redneck! You got a name?” Nick yelled back to the turrets.

  “Shaw!”

  “Right, Shaw! You know how to set those turrets to automatic?”

  “On it!”

  “Once you get that done, grab your boy and your shit! We’re out of here!”

  “Right on!”

  A few seconds later, Shaw and the other Aryan dropped out of the turrets, slinging their M4s over their shoulders. Nick heard the .50 caliber turrets fire off a few rounds, then again three seconds later. He kicked open the Razor’s back hatch and waved his three crewmen out, then followed at the rear. />
  “Choppers are just outside the main terminal. We’d probably better, you know…run like hell,” Christopher suggested.

  Without a word, all four Echoes took off as fast as they could. A few Russian ground troops were still scattered around the airstrip, and bullets bit into the concrete around the four as they ran. Nick fired a few blind bursts from his M4 as he ran, but he doubted he hit anyone. The three Echoes in front of him also fired sporadically, but none of them were stopping to actually aim—they were probably hoping, as Nick was, that their bullets would deter the remaining Russian troops from converging on them in any sort of numbers.

  Almost a half-mile away, Nick saw two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters with their rotors spinning up. “Run faster!” he yelled to his crew.

  “Razor 4-7 crew, this is CO 4-7 Echo. We have visual on you. We have incoming Chinese artillery, so you might want to hump it,” Neal’s voice sounded in their helmets.

  “Right,” Nick panted. He hadn’t had to run for as long as he could remember.

  Shaw took a tumble in front of Nick. Without slowing down, Nick hooked his arm under the young Aryan’s and hauled him to his feet.

  “Run much, redneck?” Nick grumbled.

  “Think I busted my ankle,” Shaw spat.

  Nick glanced down as the two of them hobbled toward the choppers and saw blood trailing from Shaw’s left foot.

  “Nope. Think you got shot in it.”

  “Fuck. Isn’t that awesome.”

  “Can you run?”

  “If I ain’t runnin’, I’m dyin’.”

  Nick was surprised by how little Shaw actually slowed down, even though the young Aryan was almost hopping on one foot. Two hundred yards from the choppers, Shaw collapsed again. This time, he was out cold.

  “Fuck, redneck. You’re really getting on my nerves,” Nick grumbled as he tossed his M4 to Christopher. “Keep running for the choppers!”

  Nick leaned down and picked up Shaw’s unconscious form, then threw the man over his shoulder. The redneck was heavier than he looked, but Nick still managed to run as he headed for the choppers. Ahead of him, he saw Christopher and the other Aryan make it to one of the Black Hawks, which immediately lifted off.