If just. The strongmen hold Tommy down on top of the ammo can. They grip his shoulders and press his face onto the stump. Tooth Fairy. How medieval of you.
“I have visual. Repeat, I have visual.”
“Take the shot!”
No need to tell Nos twice.
The axe lifts into the air and catches the sun on its edge. The raiders put all their weight on Tommy to steady him. The man with the axe pauses, looking for room to swing. Tommy eases his struggle, as though he realizes a clean cut would be better for everyone. He submits to the ammo can. Nos feels a rise of anticipation. The swaying bird drags his scope away from the target. Can’t miss.
The Tooth Fairy nods to the axeman.
Nos’ muscle memory takes over—stock firmly into the shoulder, cheek positioned behind the scope, eye focused on the axeman.
Nos pulls.
And nothing happens.
What the shit?
The rifle jammed.
“Fuck!” he shouts, cranking the bolt. Too late. Too fucking late!
And then another gunshot breaks the air. Nos gets back behind the scope just in time to see the axeman wobble and fall.
Who the hell fired that shot?
No time to ask. The shitfight is live, and Nos scans for more targets and splashes a round into a strongman’s torso, giving Tommy a hair of room. Tommy takes a second to realize he’s alive, and he wriggles away with his hands still bound and runs for it like a duck on dry ground.
Nos scans for the Tooth Fairy, but he’s gone, maybe inside one of the Humvees. Nos follows Tommy as he runs, gunning down anyone in his way like an offensive lineman.
“The friendly cleared for TOW launch?”
The militia charges the base, forgetting about Tommy. He runs under the cover of trees, out of Nos’ sight.
“Clear!”
The missile fires. A forty-pound projectile steered by a hair-thin copper wire burns through the hull of a Humvee and blows it to scrap. Hopefully the Tooth Fairy’s ride. Chunks of sharp metal spray and level about a dozen surrounding militias.
The hit barely dents the mob as it rages headlong, screaming war cries. Not afraid to die. Nos puts them down, one at a time, as fast as he can. Nothing to do but work.
More missiles from the Little Birds clear patches in the hoard, quickly filled by more men, like trying to stop a flood by dropping a few lit matches. The frontlines crash into the walls of the base as the birds work on their rear, where the gunmen are intermingled with women and children. The minigun mows down lines of them.
Trails of thick, black smoke from RPGs cut up through the sky and explode mid-air. Nos traces the lines of smoke to the source and takes out huddled strongmen loading more rockets. Some women stand in front to shield the barrage and are gunned down for their effort. Wince later. Cry later.
He hears the thunderclap. The tail rotor wails to a wretched grinding halt. The whole Little Bird hacks and wheezes. The chopper keeps moving forward and then stalls, shudders, hiccups, and starts to spin.
Going down.
The great world whirls around and around.
Chapter 10
Cry Later
Naomi hears the sounds of war getting louder and louder. Her Pa is out there fighting, like always. But this time she doesn’t even know who he’s fighting, hasn’t seen their faces. The are only sounds. Big, horrible sounds.
The dogs like the noise even less. They pace and pant and scurry at each boom, like the booms are inside their heads. They are normally so tough and fearsome, but they know this danger is beyond them. They hop up on their hind legs and paw at Naomi and Leila’s knees craving an answer. The only answer is thunder.
The room is big and bland and stinks of sweat and people. Leila strokes her hair. It doesn’t help her, but she doesn’t tell Leila to stop, because maybe it helps Leila.
A woman hands her a bowl of hot, mealy food, but it looks gross, and she isn’t hungry. She doesn’t understand why everyone always wants her to eat. Like it’s all they can think of when they’re scared, like if Naomi ate they wouldn’t be scared.
Some women hold hands and sing.
Be with me, Jesus
Be with me, Jesus
A woman comes and reaches out to hold Naomi’s hand. Naomi just stares at it. Leila smiles at the woman.
“You don’t want to sing?” she asks.
“I want Pa.”
***
“Hey Iron, you going to pull the PCLs offline before or after we crash?” asks the co-pilot as the Little Bird plummets. Earth, sky, rotor, trees, and earth spin toward the ground.
“I’m going to mind my own business,” says Iron. “Like you should do.”
Like they crash a Little Bird every day after breakfast.
Iron is pulling the power control levers, yanking the engine offline. The bird jolts and the torque eases. The force of the engines would make the whole craft spin like the rotors, and Iron reacted right on time. Iron knows what he’s doing. Good thing, since that was the easy part.
The spin continues, tossing the bird around like a cyclone.
“Nine-Three going down,” says Iron into his radio.
Nos and the operators scramble inside the bird, flattening themselves on the floor to absorb the impact. Nos grabs the rod behind Iron’s seat, and a violent kick nearly shakes him off like a bull rider. The grip yanks hard on his shoulder, and his feet kick out of the doors. Probably tears his rotator cuff. Hold on.
A D-boy gets hit by a barreling ammo can and loses his grip, flung clean out of the helicopter. Both of Nos’ feet fly out in the air and slap at tree branches as the bird barrels down. They clip a birch tree and crack the trunk in half. They whirl and dive and crunch into the ground nose first. The bird stands for an instant and then topples over on top of its rotor, feet sprawled in the air.
There is a moment of pure quiet. His ears ring. His shoulder hurts like hell. He breathes. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The pain can only mean one thing. Didn’t die.
The others are not so fortunate. The co-pilot is covered in blood, a chunk of metal stuck in his chest. Iron groans in the front seat, making him Nos’ first priority. The ping of gunfire pops at the bird’s hull. He unlatches Iron’s belt and pulls his limp body from the seat. He hefts Iron onto his shoulder and crouches out of the bird. Bullets chase them as he hauls ass to the woods.
He lays Iron down on the ground and spins to return fire. Militias rush the crash site, and Nos puts the first couple down. The others shoot blindly, spray and pray, charging like action heroes. Nos starts with the closest and works outward. He rips holes through their chests. Bullets hiss back at him and he crouches, bursting off rounds that fling out the legs of the charging raiders. Nos fires and fires and his bullets cut through shoulders and slice through necks and send a hand spinning.
He bangs a new clip into his rifle as he fires his Sig with his off hand. The wild men get closer and his pistol fire cuts them down. He flips his fully loaded SR rifle back into position and hacks at the next wave.
There is a lull. Long enough for Nos to hear his ears ringing again. The wounded and dead amass between him and the steaming Little Bird. A fog warms his mind. The raiders switch gears and turn their attention to the helo. They pull the D-boys from the wreckage and plug bullets into their limp bodies. They shoot Wheels in the cock and cut away his ears and loot his gear. Dead already. Least I hope so.
Nos has to get away from that crash site, it draws too much attention. But he can’t move through the warzone carrying Iron. So Nos scoops a pile of dead leaves and covers Iron where he lays, until he’s well-hidden enough that Nos might step on him if he didn’t know better.
Tommy’s last position was about a quarter mile toward base, and Nos hauls back that way. He sets up atop a hill with decent cover, high ground, and surveys the scene though his scope.
The base perimeter is damn near overrun. Little Birds carcasses smokes on the ground. RPGs pound into the blast walls. T
he raiders are cutting through the gates, jumping fences, and climbing the star barriers. Some hit claymores and go flying, but then more fill their place. The observation posts have been seized. Militiamen shoot down at the soldiers from sniper towers. A crowd is trying to break into munitions storage. If they do, the game is up.
Nos clicks his Motorola radio.
“Leila, are you there?”
Silence.
“Leila, come in.”
“Here,” says Leila’s haggard voice.
“Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. Naomi’s fine. Shut up and get us out of here.”
“Copy.”
Easier said than done. He scans the area, hoping to find Tommy. Don’t give a shit about Westbrook, don’t give a shit about this base. Let me get my family and get out of here.
Nos hears a rustling in the woods, right under where the trees make a canopy. He passes by before he returns to look at it again. There, within the tangles of underbrush, is a gun. A sniper. Aimed directly at him.
Nos has the shot, but he hesitates. The sniper pauses as well. They hold each other there at the tip of each other’s guns: a high noon standoff at five hundred yards. Nos figures that no militia could be so well-trained to remain so undetected. Yet he can’t be sure. If he chooses wrong and the sniper takes the shot, it’ll be the last wrong choice he makes. Nos could make the safe choice: pull and end the speculation. The sniper ponders the same behind his painted face. A moment of mortal trust passes between strangers.
Nos lowers his gun. He can no longer see the sniper, but he can guess that the man in the brush does the same. Since I’m not dead.
Nos fans out to get another angle in the maze of sloping hills. He crouches and moves the scope into position again and finally finds Tommy. Substantially less well-hidden than the sniper. Tommy is on the downward slope of a hill with his face in the dirt and his naked white ass up in the air. On the other side of his hill, a Humvee and some strongmen are dangerously close. How the hell is he not dead?
Back on the base, the munitions storage has been broken. The looters blitz the base proper, armed with all kinds of firepower. Nos has a deep, sinking feeling. They broke through.
He tries Leila again on the radio.
“Leila? Leila? Come in. You there?”
But all he gets is white noise.
Can’t panic. Not yet. Have to work. Cry later.
Then the noise of helos rip through the sky. But all their birds have gone down.
Oh, shit.
Chapter 11
Overwhelming Force
Nos turns nine o’clock and sees a spread of Black Hawks, Little Birds, and Apaches flying over lines of rolling tanks and Humvees not a quarter mile away. Another army—this one for real. Was the Tooth Fairy just a preliminary attack?
Nos has no luck with the radio. Maybe Leila and Naomi are done for. Or maybe, this new convoy jammed the radio net.
No time to think. He turns back six o’clock and looses rounds at the militiamen near Tommy. The Humvee turret turns and blasts .50-caliber rounds at Nos. The kid behind the gun is shooting so hard Nos can see his face under the gun, so he puts a bullet through his nose.
His last bullet.
Nos ditches the SR rifle and moves with his Sig. The pounding noise of helo rotors is coming on strong. The .50-caliber gunner is replaced as more rounds hiss and crack overhead and torch the dirt in front of him and level the trees behind.
He hauls toward Tommy when the helos commence firing. He thought it was loud and wild before. Heavy gunfire and explosions break the sound, as if the ordinance that came before was just a knife fight.
Nos keeps eyes on Tommy when a whoosh takes him clean off his feet. Feels like he’s in the air forever, like he might turn and topple on his head like Super Nine Three. He claws at the ground and bucks the force of the fall and lands, face first, a belly flop onto hard earth.
The explosion rocked Tommy, too. Nos sees him rolling down the hill toward him, not twenty yards away. More bodies scatter in between the two of them. Four militiamen are blown by the force of another explosion. The Humvee that had been so intent on killing him is gone.
Nos struggles to reach for his Sig, but the right side of the body won’t move. He hurt it holding onto the spiraling Little Bird, and now shrapnel has torn up his whole right side.
Tommy seems to be doing better. He still can’t see shit, but he’s managed to free his bindings. He’s hurt bad, too, and minus a trigger finger on his right hand. Tooth Fairy got Tommy good.
“Tommy,” Nos calls, but his voice is hoarse.
Tommy is busy looting a corpse for his gun. The four bodies around him don’t move. His right hand must be hurting real bad where they cut off his index finger. He holds it back against his wrist and grips a gun with his good hand from the corpse’s belt.
A hand suddenly grabs his wrist.
“No!” says the corpse. Another corpse lacking the decency to die.
Tommy rips away from his grip and shoots the corpse point blank, a gory spray out the back of his head.
“Tommy,” repeats Nos feebly. He feels the wetness where his blood soaks the grass.
Another body moves. He sits up, and the Tooth Fairy’s face comes into view. The fucking Tooth Fairy. If I could bag him, almost worth it.
Nos wraps his fingers around his Sig. Firing it seems too far to climb.
“Motherfucking double cross,” musters the Tooth Fairy in delirium. His false teeth are gone, and as he flaps his lips his mutterings are nearly inaudible. “Cocksuckin’ motherfucking Kane. Double cross. Kane. Shoulda known. Motherfuck me.”
As the Tooth Fairy comes to, he sees Tommy, wheezing in blindness.
“Tommy Greene,” chuckles the Tooth Fairy. “I knew I’d get to kill you.”
Nos steadies his pistol down the hill at the bastard. His whole right side is numb.
“Bet you wish you had your trigger finger right about now?” the toothless warlord says to Tommy.
“Forgot to mention,” Tommy manages as he squints. “I’m a lefty,” he says, and shoots the Tooth Fairy in the head.
Chapter 12
Lucky Lefty
Tommy can’t see, and Nos can’t believe his eyes. The new helos and tankers are mowing down the militia from the rear. They shred every last Humvee and bomb whole gangs into oblivion. They rope down from the helos and move on into the base and kill the warlord’s men, crushing them between the remaining base troops until they begin to break and run.
Nos watches from his perch on the hill. He hasn’t moved. Tommy has borrowed a pair of pants from a strongman who won’t be needing them. He huddles under the hill, clinging to his gun. Terrible spot to post. Giving up the high ground like that. Tommy had never been much of a soldier.
Nos is shocked by the arrival of the reinforcements. They look like U.S. Military, but they all wear red bandanas tied around their arms. Could Westbrook have called them in? Could they have heard his SOS? How could they mobilize so strong, so quickly? Whoever they are, they’re about their business. They gun down the retreating militias. They execute kneeling prisoners.
Tommy is huddled up and shaking. He still can’t tell the battle has turned. Gunshots sound the same no matter who hits who.
“Tommy Greene!” Nos bellows.
Finally, Tommy’s head turns. He blinks and scans. He can’t see, but he recognizes his brother’s voice.
“Nos?” he says softly.
“Yeah, Tommy.”
The blood from Nos’ wounds is turning the dirt into mud. Nos starts to sink.
Tommy moves closer, squinting like he’s got lemon in his eyes.
“Damn, Tommy. You need some glasses.”
Under other circumstances, Tommy and Nos would have had beds in medical to recover from their injuries, but there are far too many mortally wounded to make room. Nos was bandaged up and sent on his way. He was glad to get out of there, truth be told. The infirmary stank of sweat and sterilizer and ra
ng with moans as bleary-eyed medics agonized from bed to bed. Tommy’s room is quiet, except for his snoring.
Nos has a bad concussion. The pain crushes against his eyes. When he tries to think he feels too drunk for the task, though he hasn’t had a sip. The shrapnel wounds were superficial. They bled a lot, and his arm is patched up.
Tommy fares worse. His face is puffy and disconfigured from the beatings he took in captivity. His right index finger is a gnarled stub, seared over at the first knuckle. Tommy lies in his bed like the dead.
Nos sits bedside as Tommy comes to.
“Were you just watching me sleep?” asks Tommy.
“Wasn’t easy. You’re a sore sight for eyes.”
“Wouldn’t know,” says Tommy, squinting up at his brother. “I see you look the same, with your big gorilla head.”
“Still mad I was born with a chin and you weren’t?”
“Is that what you call that ridiculous thing under your mouth? Thought it was Stonehenge.”
They hold out as long as they can before they start laughing. The chuckle hurts Tommy first. He groans.
Nos stands up and looks over the stacked spines of paperbacks on Tommy’s nightstand. “Quite a mess you got yourself into,” he says. “Worth it?”
Tommy shrugs. “Worth a whore, no less, no more. A good blow, and a good whore, but the blowback was not what I bargained for.”
“You and your terrible poetry.”
Tommy holds up his stunted finger. “My yanks will never be the same.”
“But you’re a lefty.”
“Exactly. Off hand is the best hand.”
“I see you’ve got your priorities straight.”
“Folks may be dying of starvation, but you’d be surprised how many men find the resources to pay hookers. Vital for the local economy.”
“Just doing your duty?”
“Duty. Exactly. Besides, what do I owe the military at this point? Westbrook closed the gates to all non-military personnel. He cut off the locals.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” asks Nos.
“The U.S. military serves civilian leadership. You stop serving civilians, you break the chain of command. If my superior breaks the chain of command, why shouldn’t I?”
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