by Joe Nobody
But it didn’t matter. He wasn’t trying to put down the attackers – he only wanted to keep them away. Bishop concentrated on maintaining the shots on a horizontal plane with his adversaries. Recoil was extremely difficult to manage one handed – barrel travel completely beyond his control. Still, round after round left the M4’s muzzle, the 68-grain hollow points booming supersonic at 3600 feet per second.
Spray and pray, went through his mind as he continued to pump hot lead at the three men as fast as he could pull the trigger.
And Bishop could pull a trigger.
Two rounds a second slammed into the junk cars, sidewalks, light poles and tree trunks the hunters used for cover. Sparks flew, metal protested, and the air crackled with snapping death.
The men advancing on his position realized the difference between the pistol and rifle bullets. They all knew their target’s sidearm was useless at more than 50 meters. The rifle, even with unsteady aim, was a different story. It didn’t matter if the round impacted three feet away. If the lead slammed into the ground where a man was about to step, he hesitated before lifting his boot. It a bullet tore into a car fender and spewed shrapnel right past a man’s head, he thought twice before exposing his face.
Even the mere chance of being hit by Bishop’s seemingly inaccurate fire slowed their advance. Caution took time, and that’s all Bishop was hoping for – buying time until help could arrive.
Firing two rounds a second bought Bishop 15 seconds, and then his bolt locked back – the rifle empty.
Ejecting the vacant magazine wasn’t hard. Fishing the full mag from his back pocket was clumsy.
He flipped the weapon upside down, and while holding the hot barrel between his boots, shoved the full box of pain pills home. He turned the weapon right side up and punched the bolt-release, relieved when a round seated in the chamber – he was back in business. “You’re a beautiful girl,” he whispered to the rifle.
He poked his head around the tree and saw exactly what he expected – the enemy had utilized the time for a reload and was trying to advance.
Up came the barrel and back went the trigger, over and over and over again.
They had only managed to travel two blocks from their hideout when Mitchell noticed movement at the front of the church.
There he was - the man they’d been hunting. Mitchell’s relief was short-lived, his stomach flipping when their target climbed aboard the golf cart. Shit, the deserter thought, he’s going to get away.
When Bishop had pulled out and turned directly at them, Mitchell began yelling at his team, hastily ordering them to reposition for an ambush.
Mitchell had fired the warning shots at Bishop’s ride, hoping the man would surrender or give up. The guy’s reflexes were good, his choice of cover a lucky break.
Shaking his head in disgust at both his team and the luck of the man they were hunting, he had waved his men forward to press their advantage. The three pistol shots had been worthless bullshit.
When the rifle rounds began snapping over their heads, the former sergeant knew it was a different story.
The first half-block wasn’t so difficult. Enough cover existed that it didn’t take a war hero to move forward. That situation soon changed, however. Suddenly, Mitchell and his men were looking at 75 meters of open ground between them and the target. Even a bad shot like the guy hiding behind the tree could do some damage if they tried to rush.
“Pull back!” he shouted. “Every fucking rifle in this town is probably headed this way by now. Pull back to the rally point.”
Nick was helping Diana work on a priority list for the community when their conversation was interrupted by distant popping noises. The obvious gunshots caused both to pause, both hoping it was someone target practicing or scaring off stray dogs.
Nick’s eyebrows arched when the random pops became a fusillade of rapid, steady fire. A minute later, the radio squawked with activity. “Nick, Bishop’s been ambushed. I can see he’s still moving but don’t know if he’s hurt. We’re chasing the three guys that jumped him.”
Nick launched down the church steps two at a time and almost ran over Kevin who was standing by the front doors holding his weapon. The father’s first inclination was to hold his son back, but he decided the extra pair of eyes might help.
The two hustled into a cart and soon found Bishop’s parked buggy, complete with bullet holes. Nick spotted a pair of legs sticking out from behind a nearby tree.
Rushing over, Nick was relieved to find his friend’s eyes open. “You okay, man?”
“Yeah… I am hurting from the old wound, but didn’t get any new ones. That lady never said she was married, I swear I didn’t know….”
Nick laughed, glad Bishop’s cornball sense of humor hadn’t suffered. “If Terri heard you say that, you’d be hurting a lot worse, buddy. Do you want me to take you back to the church?”
“Naw… just let me rest for a bit. Go find those bushwhacking-fuckwads, and put’em down for me, bro.”
Nick’s radio sounded again. “Nick, we’ve chased them to the old Berber house out on West Popular Street. They turned on us and shot Cory.”
“On my way.”
Nick turned to Kevin and said, “Stay here, and protect Bishop. Help should be coming. If you don’t recognize the responders, warn them off first.”
Kevin nodded and immediately took a knee beside Bishop, his head scanning right and left.
The route to the old Berber place led past the hotel where the contractors were staying. Deke and two of his men were walking down the sidewalk, all three loaded up with a full kit.
“Need a ride?” Nick asked, pulling up beside them.
“We heard the gunfire and thought we’d better see what was happening. Mind if we tag along?”
Nick said, “We can use all the help we can get.”
Deke, Nick, and two contractors arrived, the golf cart riding low in the back from the weight of heavy men and their equipment. Deke’s team immediately moved for cover, an old habit developed to stay alive when arriving at a hostile encounter.
Nick found four of his own men huddled in a ditch, two of them working on Cory’s bleeding leg while the fourth kept watch on a distant house. Joining them behind the embankment, Nick’s first concern was the wounded man. The former Green Beret’s practiced eye scanned the injury and immediately ascertained the patient would make a full recovery. After patting Cory on the shoulder, Nick peered over the crest and asked, “What’s the situation?”
Cory, grimacing in pain, motioned with his head, “We saw them running out this way. No one has lived in the Berber house since before the explosion. I was behind them on the cart, and they turned around and let loose with a bunch of rounds.”
“And…”
“I made it to about 100 yards from the house when they opened fire. I flipped the cart over trying to dodge their shooting. Tony helped me get back.”
Nick glanced up the driveway and saw the black wheels of a golf cart sticking into the air. He moved his focus to the home where the shooters were holed up and sighed. Whoever was in the house had picked a good spot. There was no cover for 150 yards in any direction, only open, barren desert, and patches of random weeds sprinkled with low cactus. The home was of block construction with small windows and shingle roof. He couldn’t detect any movement.
“Deke, what do you think?”
The contractor had been evaluating the property since arriving and answered quickly. “This one’s a bitch. I would go with a standoff if you’re not concerned about the occupants. There’s no way you get close to that place without somebody getting killed.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. There’s no one in there I give a shit about other than having a healthy curiosity why they started shooting for no reason.”
Glancing at Deke, Nick pointed to the right. “Any chance your team can make it around and cover the rear? You know once we open up, they’re going to make a run for it.”
�
�Got it,” was the reply, quickly followed by the three Darkwater men moving out.
Nick turned to his crew and asked how much ammo was on hand. The answer wasn’t good. “Tony, take Cory and get him back to the infirmary so they can do a proper job on that leg. Find Bishop at the church, and tell him I need to borrow his .308 and all the ammo he can spare.”
A few minutes later Nick’s people had their injured man loaded onto the cart and were speeding back into town.
While he waited, Nick watched the progress of Deke and his two men. Staying over 400 meters away from the home, the trio moved as well as any team he’d ever seen. Bounding from cover to cover, no two men ever moved at the same time, and their order was completely random. No wonder these guys gave Bishop hell at his ranch, thought Nick.
The sound of an electric hum and crunching gravel signaled the return of the golf cart, Tony parking the vehicle where it couldn’t be seen from the distant home. Three more of Alpha’s volunteers piled out of the electric ride, the men brandishing weapons and bags of ammunition.
Nick scurried back to meet the newest arrivals, smiling as Tony lifted an AR10 rifle from the seat. “He sent six full magazines, 20 rounds each,” the man reported.
Hefting the rifle, Nick grunted, “I’ve got to hand it to Bishop, the man has excellent taste in firepower.”
Pulling a white towel from the cart, Nick stuffed a corner in the barrel of the rifle and tested his white flag. Looking around at the curious men, he said, “Here goes nothing,” and began walking toward the Berber homestead.
He hadn’t made it 100 yards when a shot rang out from the house, the round puffing the desert sand in front of the big man. Turning immediately and running back to the ditch, he commented, “Fuck those guys.”
Nick uncapped the 24-x scope mounted atop the rifle and began scanning the distant holdout. While he still couldn’t detect any movement, the magnified optic allowed for a detailed examination of the premises. Making sure the weapon wasn’t loaded, he swept right and zoomed in on Deke’s team, verifying they were in position. Despite the double-check that no round was in the chamber, Nick didn’t center the crosshairs on any friendly, a habit of safety developed long ago when using a weapon’s optic to scout.
Tony whispered, “Are we going to rush the house, Nick?”
Shaking his head, the big man answered, “We’re all going to stay right here… all safe and sound while I rain down pure hell on those stupid shits inside that trap.”
“I don’t understand? Won’t they just stay in the house?”
“Walls don’t stop bullets, Tony. Not even brick walls. As a matter of fact, a medium caliber rifle like this one will turn those walls into shrapnel.”
“Really? That bad?”
“Watch. They won’t be able to hole up in there forever, taking pot shots at the respectable citizens of Alpha.”
Nick inserted a magazine into the big rifle, tugged once to make sure it was secure, and then slapped the bolt release. A round entered the chamber, and the rifle was ready to fire.
At his current distance of 450 meters, Nick made an educated guess at the bullet drop. Speaking quietly to Tony, he narrated his scouting. “So if I’m in that house, I’m trying to peek out the windows and make sure someone is not sneaking up on the place. Only the east-facing window has a view of both the front and side of the house, and that’s where I’d put one man. I’d do the same in the back.”
Nick paused for a moment to adjust his position and then continued. “So if I’m watching out that window, I would also want to cover the front door – just in case. That means I would be facing the front of the house, or on the north side.”
Nick’s view through the crosshairs was enlarged to the point where he could see old paint peeling from the window frame’s exterior. There were ratty looking, off-white curtains covering the opening, and one pane of glass was cracked.
“Going hot,” he said to everyone within earshot.
All eyes were on the distant structure when Nick sent the first round. A puff of dust appeared on the exterior wall a little low of where Nick had predicted a man would be hiding. Nick adjusted his aim and started firing in earnest.
Round after round ate at the blocks as Nick walked the shots around the home. After the first two shots in the vicinity of the window, Nick adjusted his aim and sent high velocity lead slamming into the wall at four to six inches above the floor.
Nick paused to change magazines, Tony taking advantage to ask, “Why are you shooting so low, Nick?”
With a grimace, Nick responded, “If you were in that house, wouldn’t your ass be hugging the floor? Why waste the ammo firing above their heads? This way, we might injure one or two of them so they know we are serious, but not so much that we can’t figure out what they are after.”
After reloading, he paused and looked around at his team. There were a few bolt-action deer rifles, one shotgun, and an AR15 among the group. “Start putting rounds into that window – hit the curtains,” he ordered. “We’ll see if a little smoke helps those guys decide they’ve had enough.”
“Smoke?” asked one of the shooters.
“That lead coming out of your barrel is hot… damn hot. Just about any cloth, like those curtains, will ignite if enough rounds hit it.”
Serious amounts of lead started pummeling the hapless structure. While the hunting rifles couldn’t fire nearly as fast as the semi-automatics, they were chambered in a larger caliber, each shot causing more and more visible damage.
Damn, thought Nick, as he watched his team pummel the structure. That has to be pure hell inside those walls.
Sergeant Mitchell had been in a few firefights before, but those encounters were with American units that always held the upper hand. Now he knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a hopeless situation. Their attempt to interrogate that Bishop character had been an epic-fucking-fail and now they were pinned down inside this death-trap.
A choking cloud of dust filled the air while splinters and shreds of concrete flew everywhere. The sharp, snapping sounds of lead striking the exterior wall joined the constant rattle of debris striking the floor.
It was practically impossible for Mitchell to breathe or open his eyes. Bits of stinging mortar and shredded plaster were flying everywhere, the larger chucks causing pain as they struck his prone body. As the rounds moved away from his position, he took advantage of the brief pause and yelled for the closest private, “Get to the back of the house – now!”
The man didn’t move. As Mitchell crawled past, he noticed a growing pool of purple underneath the body and knew one of the bullets had found its mark.
His other man was pinned down next to the window, frozen motionless by either fear or the swarming, stinging storm of incoming fire and the blizzard of deadly shrapnel it created.
Belly crawling toward the rear of the house, Mitchell found a spot that seemed to afford some protection, at least for the moment. As he adjusted his position, there was a slight give in the floor under his elbow. Curious, he felt around the wooden strips and detected a thin seam.
Mitchell pulled his knife and inserted it into a straight, obvious cut in the wooden planks. Prying with the blade, he was soon looking down into a small root cellar, the area just big enough to hold his body, about three feet deep. Praise the lord, he thought. I don’t like close places, but I’ll do anything to get out of this death trap.
A few moments later, Mitchell pulled the trapdoor closed over his head and relaxed.
Nick went back to spreading his shots at floor level, working the impact randomly to deliver maximum terror to the inhabitants. Three minutes later, a curtain began smoking, quickly followed by visible flames. Nick adjusted his aim to the window, waiting on someone to show up and extinguish the burning cloth. No one did. Come out, he thought. Get out of there and surrender. Burning isn’t a good way to go.
He waited until the entire opening filled with a boiling black smoke, licks of red flame filling t
he now-glassless frame.
“Cease fire,” he ordered. “They’re dead.”
“What?” asked a surprised Tony. “How do you know?”
“If anybody inside that house was alive, they would either be pouring out the doors or trying to put out the fire. I know – I was just inside a burning building. They’re dead or unconscious, which is one and the same about now.”
“Shouldn’t we go try and pull them out?”
“No. I’m not risking a single man on that shit. They could have raised a white flag and surrendered. They had plenty of time.”
Nick waved his team forward, and the men began a cautious movement toward the residence. Taking random turns, each would jog 15-20 steps and then go prone. By the time they were close to the structure, the blaze had spread to the roofline and flames showed clearly in three windows.
The team eventually halted their approach, the spreading inferno confirming Nick’s prediction of zero survivors. Turning away in disgust, he faced the men and experienced a vision that was dark and troubling - medieval. A ring of men surrounded a burning home… human flesh inside… the reflection of the flames shining off the attackers’ eyes, flickering reflections illuminating weapons of war.
Nick’s mind visualized the Berber home as a castle, his team the victorious pike men and knights from an age long past. The haunting scene could have been a village in Vietnam, or an earthen hut in the path of a conquering Khan. How many times has the vanquisher stood and watched a foe’s stronghold burn to the ground? We’re all thinking the same thing. Wondering what it would be like to be inside of that inferno – what it would feel like to be dying in such a way. The primitive, raw darkness of the event was disturbing.
Deke moved to Nick’s side, his perception and experience giving insight to Nick’s thoughts. “Shit like this happens too often,” the contractor commented, “but you did it the right way. There wasn’t any other option.”