Sic Semper Tyrannis

by Marcus Richardson

  “Camera’s not showing shit. All right, pop the hatch, let’s have a look-see.” Hughes jostled for position as the soldiers got to their feet. He did one more visual check of his men and then hit the hatch release button. The lights went out and a green flashing light lit the crew compartment.

  “Stay frosty, people.”

  The sound of hydraulic pumps and seals releasing crackled over the speakers in the War Room just as a pencil-thin beam of light appeared on the screen and began to widen into an all-encompassing white.

  MAJOR HUGHES RUSHED OUT of his Stryker rifle up and at his shoulder. He took three steps off the ramp and scanned his immediate surroundings. Seeing no threats, he moved to the side of the big APC and took a knee to get his bearings. Behind him, he could hear his men fanning out and securing the area around their vehicle.

  The driver had parked in the intersection of 5th Avenue and Washington Square North, pointing the nose of the Stryker right at the Washington Square Arch. Hughes found himself on the right side of his vehicle, facing west. The apartment buildings that lined the street on the north side had been partially burned to the ground. Soot-covered rubble blocked the road further west where one had collapsed.

  Hughes keyed his throat mic. “Seeker 2-1, Actual. I got bodies in the street up Square North. How copy?”

  “Five by, Actual. We’re out and in position. East is clear.”

  “Get across the street into the park, let’s see what we can find.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Anybody got a visual on what’s causing that noise?” Hughes asked as he watched his team leapfrog across the trash-littered street into the park.

  “Negative,” replied one of the men. “But someone sure did a number on the arch. There’s two cars sticking out of the damn thing. Stinks over here.”

  “That’s ‘cause these bodies been here since the summer, man. Shit…”

  “Cut the chatter—”

  “Hey! I got foot mobiles to the east!” called out a voice behind him. Hughes spun around to see one of his vehicle commander point east from the hatch on top of his Stryker.

  A car full of people careened around the corner of University Place. A hubcap flew off the left front tire and continued to clatter across the street. Hughes jerked his head back to the right to peer down the street and his rifle followed a split second later.

  The car fishtailed as it approached, tires squealing. Arms of various colors were flailing out every window. Three more cars followed in pursuit, guns popping in the distance. A bullet ricocheted off one of the Strykers and whistled over Hughes’ head. He ducked around one charred corner of the arch.

  “Cover!” he yelled.

  His team scattered and sought defensive positions. The men that had been in his Stryker gathered around the base of the Arch. Captain Summer’s squad fanned out into the parkland nearby, hiding behind trees and walls.

  “Permission to engage!” said the Stryker commander.

  “Granted! Give those civvies some cover,” ordered Hughes. Rules of engagement be damned, there was a car-load of people fleeing for their lives from three groups of men with guns. He knew his squad was tasked with finding and rescuing the pilot, but his orders to not engage the enemy outside of those parameters had chafed him from the moment he’d read them.

  Hughes leaned around the corner of the Arch in time to see the .50 on top of his Stryker erupt in an ear-splitting rattle of fire and lead. The first of the pursuing cars stopped as if it had hit a brick wall. The hood crumpled under the computer targeting system’s relentless assault. In less than a second, the car exploded and collapsed on the ground in a flaming heap. The turret on the Stryker swiveled to the next car, which swerved around the first and crashed into a brownstone townhouse.

  Hughes shifted his gaze to the third car. That driver whipped his car out of the line of fire and pulled a U-turn in the middle of the street. The engine raced and he left black marks in the road as he exited the area. The Stryker sent a few rounds downrange and shattered the car’s rear window.

  DANIEL GASPED AND LEANED forward over the conference table next to President Suthby. “What’s happening? What’s causing that static?”

  “Some kind of interference, sir. It’s not on our end,” said a technician in the shadows behind the group.

  “Sssh!” hissed the President.

  Major Hughes’ helmet-cam rolled around the corner of the Washington Square Arch. Less than a block away, the car full of refugees had crashed into a street lamp. The result was a tangled, broken mess of metal and flesh.

  “Sir!” Captain Summers grunted off-camera, aiming his M-4 down the street towards the accident. The barrel of the weapon appeared on the left of the screen. “Do we render aid?”

  Static blurred the screen, partially obliterating Hughes’ reply. “—two men, but make it quick. We’re not here to engage the enemy,” replied the major. The image on the screen focused on the smoking hulk of the car wrapped around the light post. Two people had been ejected through the bloody, shattered windshield. A third—or what looked like part of a third person—hung from the rear passenger window. Debris and broken glass covered the intersection. Hughes’ camera could pick out at least five bodies and pieces of bodies spread out around the crash site.

  The President heard shots fired in the distance. They sounded like firecrackers. The screen shifted as Hughes crouched and ordered commands for his soldiers to take cover. After a moment, when no attack came, he spoke, “They’re just shooting—” More static broke through. Then it cleared and the screen shifted back to the car crash and the two soldiers cautiously picking through the wreckage.

  “Any survivors?” Hughes yelled.

  “Negative, sir!” replied one of the soldiers. “God, what a mess.”

  “Fine. Get back here,” Hughes said and waved at the two men to return to the main group.

  “Sir! I got a lock on the seat transponder!” said a new voice off-screen. Major Hughes jerked his head around to find the soldier who had spoken.

  “Where?”

  A soldier with his rifle on his back and carrying a black box strapped to his chest pointed south. “That way, about half a click. Good signal strength, sir.”

  “Let’s move out, ladies, we got a pilot to rescue!” Hughes called out. The image panned down as he thumbed the fire selector on his rifle.

  “Keep an eye out for cars, people. Can’t tell who’s who right now,” called out Summers’ voice.

  MAJOR HUGHES WATCHED HIS soldiers move out using two-man elements. They covered both sides of main north-south path through the park. Two men jogged up the left side of the path covering their field of vision. Across the way another two man unit did the same, covering the way in front of the team across the path. The entire unit leap-frogged this way across the park, never encountering a single soul. Every now and then gunfire and screams echoed on the wind. It was tense progress and by the time they reached the southern edge of the park, Maj. Hughes was sweating and ready to blast the first thing that moved.

  Where the hell is everyone?

  “Hold up,” crackled Captain Summers’ voice in his ear. “We got the ejection seat. Retrieving the data recorder now.”

  “Got a blood trail here,” said another voice.

  He saw everyone in front of him take a knee and scan their flanks. Maj. Hughes took a quick look and seeing no threat, jogged up the path from his position in the middle of the column to find Summers at the front. He found his XO crouched behind the brick wall facing Washington Square South Street.

  “What’s up?” he whispered as he took a position with his back against the wall.

  “Paulie found the blood, sir. She was here all right. Lots of boot tracks. We’re thinking something like five or six guys got her.”

  “Shit,” said Hughes. “Do we know what direction?”

  Summers nodded. “Southeast,” he said, motioning with his hand caddy-corner across the street. “Blood trail leads that way but
stops at the street. My guess is the Russians got her and moved her to a vehicle.”

  “God damn it,” hissed Hughes. “If we’d been given the green light earlier we might have had a chance at finding her.” He leaned against the wall and adjusted the grip on his rifle. Now where do we go?

  “Listen,” Summers said, holding up a hand.

  Hughes was silent for a moment. He heard the chirping of birds in the trees around them, another faint scream in the distance and…there. Something was making a repeating sound, carried ever so faintly on the wind. It was there, then it wasn’t.

  “A drum?” he asked in a hushed voice.

  “I think so. It’s getting louder. The natives are getting restless.”

  Hughes ignored the dry humor. “Any contact with HQ?”

  Summers frowned. “Not since before we left the Strykers. Whatever that Russian thing is that brought down our pilot, it’s killed our comms above squad-level.”

  “Line-of-sight only,” muttered Hughes. “This day just keeps getting better.” He shifted his weight and paused. He heard something new.

  “Voices. You hear that?”

  “Yeah,” whispered his XO. “Kinda echo-y. Like someone talking on a loudspeaker.”

  “Sirs, look,” said a soldier on the other side of the park entrance. He pointed down the street to the south past a sign that proclaimed the next block belonged to the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

  Hughes stood up enough that his head crested the wall. He saw a pickup truck speeding towards them, only one headlight shining through the smoky gloom.

  “Cover!” said Summers.

  It was too late---the speeding truck had already closed enough for one of the passengers to spot the soldiers. The truck swerved towards them and the horn began honking. Hughes watched, incredulous, as the truck slowed and turned broadside so that a few of the figures in the truck bed could brandish weapons. Gunfire erupted and rounds began to chip away at the brick wall.

  The soldiers scattered and sought cover, dodging bullets. The eagle-eyed corporal across the entrance to the park jerked and tumbled to the ground. He thrashed about and screamed until his partner dragged him out of the line of fire.

  “Return fire!” bellowed Hughes. He squeezed off a three-round burst. His squad’s M-4s fired back with resounding barks, causing the men in the truck to duck and jump out on the other side. Compared to the distant firecracker pot-shots, his soldiers sounded like they were carrying field artillery.

  One of the men to his rear let loose with the squad M-60. Hughes ducked back around the wall to make sure his men were behind adequate cover. To his horror, he saw another soldier, face-down in the middle of the path leading back into the park. A pool of dark red was spreading from under him.

  The heavy-weps sergeant stepped up past the body of his trooper and brought the big Browning automatic to his shoulder. “Rivers, Trent! Get Immelsen behind that tree! Move!”

  “Summers, get someone across the street—flank ‘em!”

  “Sir!” The squad’s XO moved off into the bushes and took two soldiers with him.

  Hughes turned back to see the casings fly around Sergeant Rykes as he thundered away at the rebels. The noise from Rykes’ M-60 was intense and the truck quickly transformed into Swiss cheese. One black skinned arm popped up over the truck and fired a pistol blindly, jihadi style. A round struck Rykes in the chest and he staggered backwards before he fell to the ground in a stream of curses.

  “Rykes!” screamed Hughes. He turned his attention back to the truck and poured three-round bursts into the crew cab to keep the occupants nervous. “Someone check on him!” he called over his shoulder.

  “He’s okay!” replied a voice behind him. “Vest took the round.”

  Hughes refused to let up the pressure on the truck. Most of the rebels had taken refuge on the far side of the bullet-riddled vehicle. The passenger in the front seat hadn’t been lucky enough to move. Blood smeared the inside of what remained of the shattered window. The damned horn continued to honk. It almost sounded like a pattern—some kind of code.

  “Oh, shit,” Hughes muttered with realization.

  “We got company!” yelled Summers over the radio from across the street. He crouched in a doorway. “Comin’ in from the south!”

  Two more cars appeared in the smoky haze, speeding down the street guns blazing. Rebels were being drawn to the gunfight like sharks to blood.

  “Major! We got trouble on our left flank!”

  MAJOR HUGHES, HIS BACK to the wall, turned to his right and took aim at the late model Ford Crown Vic heading towards their embattled position as it picked up speed. Hughes must have spotted the driver. He squeezed off a controlled three-round burst and the windshield exploded. The car swerved to the right and crashed headlong into the Skirball Center. A handful of rebels screamed as they fought each other to escape the wreckage.

  The President and his senior advisers watched with no small amount of a satisfaction as Hughes directed more fire into the side windows of the car.

  Static filled the screen again.

  “Damn it all,” muttered the President.

  The image returned, but look like a 1950s TV broadcast. Static snow danced across the screen. The President could feel a headache in his future. The camera shook as Hughes got to his feet and moved along the wall toward the stalled car. He paused to fire a few more rounds with his M-4 and in the process, risked a look over the wall at the intersection.

  The street thugs had set up their cars in a loose “Y” formation anchored on the shot-to-hell pickup. They crouched behind the shelter of the “V” of the Y. Summers and his team were still across the street. Hughes could see they were in danger of being flanked. Once the other cars had arrived on scene, Summers’ mission to get behind the truck had been nullified.

  In a brief break in the gunfire one of the rebels behind the bullet-riddled pickup truck lobbed a flaming bottle towards the park entrance.

  “Molotovs!” Hughes called out, but it was too late. The bottle clipped the top of the wall, exploding in a fireball and spreading a blanket of flames over a soldier positioned nearby. The gooey flames dropped with a splash down on the doomed man, containing him in a gelatinous hell.

  “Napalm?” screamed Hughes. “Summers! Get out of there! Everyone, pull back!”

  “Jesus. Homemade napalm,” muttered the Chief of Staff of the Army. President Suthby waved at the man to be quiet. It was like watching the most realistic movie of all time. He didn’t want to miss a second of it because some General wanted to have a running commentary.

  “These assholes are acting like guerrillas, not street thugs! What the hell is going on?” someone shouted off-camera.

  “Where the hell are the Russians?” muttered the Air Force General.

  The camera depicted the beginning of an orderly retreat by most of the Americans. Hughes pointed at a soldier nearby. “We need to give Captain Summers a chance to get back across the street. Grenades—on three!”

  The static-filled view on the screen swiveled down to show Hughes’ hand as he ripped a fragmentation grenade from his vest. He looked up at the other soldier and nodded. They both pulled pins.

  “One,” he said and looked down at the grenade in his hand.

  “Two…” The camera panned back up to look at the other soldier who nodded, arm cocked and ready to throw.

  “Three!” Hughes grunted and the camera jerked as he lobbed his grenade with expert aim towards the pickup truck, joining another in the air. The grenades bounced just in front of the truck then disappeared under it before exploding. The back of the truck lifted into the air, buoyed by the explosion of unused napalm bottles. Rebel fighters flew in every direction. The shockwave knocked everyone down within thirty feet.

  Hughes was blasted over as he cursed. The camera image blurred and shook until at last it focused on the smoke-filled sky. Bits of flaming debris coated in napalm rained down.

  “Christ,” Hughes
grunted while struggling to his feet. “The hell did they have in that truck?”

  Captain Summers appeared in the field of view as Hughes got to his feet and helped a wounded soldier up. He began to drag a screaming soldier with him.

  A few men held the line and provided covering fire with a steady stream of rat-tat-tat triple bursts. The surviving rebels in the street had regained some composure and began to return fire. More and more of the rebels dropped to the street as the soldiers began their withdrawal.

  “Go, go, go! Back through the park—head for the Strykers. All units, head for the Strykers!”

  “Why don’t they just call the tanks?” asked the President without taking his eyes off the wall-sized screen.

  “Uh, I think they call it a fighting vehicle, sir, not a tank,” said Daniel.

  “Whatever, why the hell don’t they just radio for them to come help? They’re armored, right?” He squinted at the static in an attempt to follow the action.

  “Well, sir, they’re having communications issues, sir,” said the Chief of Staff of the Army. “Major Hughes mentioned line-of-sight earlier. That means they can only communicate with someone they can see. It’s a side effect of the Russian jamming device, I’m afraid. Like the static we’re seeing. Our people are trying to come up with a work-around.”

  Something bounced off Hughes’ helmet, causing his head to jerk forward and the image to fill with static again. The President saw the image clear as Hughes spun to his left and faced down a side path shadowed by smoke and trees. A few kids screamed defiance and threw bits of trash and rocks at him.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he screamed.

  “Fuck you, Whitey!” one of the youths hollered, lobbing a piece of wood.

  The President could tell by the voice it was a girl. “Good Lord, she’s just a child!” he lamented.

  “This is getting out of control,” muttered the Admiral.

  “We gon’ kill you all!” shrieked the image of a boy next to her as he threw rock. It sailed harmlessly past his head as Hughes ducked, skewing the camera image on the large wall screen. The President gasped as the rock appeared to fill the screen before it disappeared. A chorus of anti-Whitey screams and curses rained down on him along with rocks and sticks and broken bottles.