Captain Fleet saw what was happening and was angry that he and his crew had not been able to put a stop to the enemy troops. He knew that they at least had been able to stop the heavy tracked vehicles and their bigger weapons. But he wanted one more shot at them. “Crew, damn the SAMs our people down there need us one more time. I’m going to circle around the valley and bring us into position. Do not hit the facility’s main building but let’s put some more fear into these Ridder bastards. You have full control and release on your weapons. Over.”
He stared out his window gauging distances and angles for approach, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked over and found Alina smiling at him. “You know this could be dangerous, right?”
“The second we put on our country’s uniforms, we prepared ourselves to do what was right. If it means giving our lives so that our people down there can live, lass, then I think we will have done our jobs. Let us hope we don’t die, though. Do your job and we will celebrate our victory tonight with a proper drink, and then go somewhere quiet and celebrate again.” He winked at her.
She sighed and said something in her own language. He thought he picked up some cuss words and something about him being an idiot. Then she smiled at him and said in English, “Ok my love, let us be the cavalry, riding in on our white horses.” He loved it when she tried to sound American.
He pulled the aircraft up and swung around in a tight right-hand turn, starting his figure eight maneuver to bring the left side in for a clear attack on Ridder. In the back, M.C. took charge of his men around him. “Men, we are going to be in a very precarious position. Make sure your shots count and keep these assholes off of our guys. Captain Fleet is proving to us that even them damn Brits have balls of steel. We know there are SAMs down there, yet he is coming in low, slow, and in perfect position. So don’t waste our lives or the lives of the men and women down there. Speech is over, now get to fucking work!” He reached into his breast pocket and removed the Cuban cigar he had put there for after the mission was over. Now, he wasn’t sure they would make it back. So he took out his wooden matches, struck one, and it flamed to life he stoked on the big cigar. Then looked at the young kids around him. “If any of you have a fucking problem with this, the door is back there.” He jerked his thumb to rear exit hatch and snorted a laugh.
Chapter 10
Heaven pushed himself to his knees and dusted the debris off of his shoulders and helmet. He looked to the sky and watched as an AC-130 came into view. Finally, we’re going to deal some payback to these guys, he thought to himself. He then remembered Helmut and Hase and began pulling rocks back, looking for his brothers. After removing a couple of rocks and brushing the debris aside he found Helmut and grabbed him by the shoulder. When he didn’t get a response, he snaked his fingers around to his neck and checked for a pulse. He didn’t find one. Frantically he man handled Helmut’s body away from the hole and rolled him over. Helmut looked bad, his skin was gray and cold. Heaven burst into medic mode, roaming his hands over Helmut’s body looking for damage. It was when he checked his neck again that he found the wound. Helmut had somehow broken his neck. Something had landed on it with enough force to break a vertebrae and possibly ruptured his spinal column. Heaven sat back on his haunches and then reached down, putting his hand on Helmut’s forehead. He said a prayer to God to watch over his brother and allow him into paradise.
He whipped his head around when he heard a round of sputtering coughing. He found Hase trying to crawl out of the hole. He had been at the bottom of. Heaven wiped an eye clear and made his way over to Hase. He extended a hand which Hase took, and he pulled him out of the hole and over by Helmut’s body. Hase favored his left leg and held onto his right arm as it hung by his side, obviously out of socket. Heaven helped ease Hase down to the ground and then searched in one of his numerous pockets before pulling out a bottle of water. He opened it and handed it over, then sat by his side. Hase drank it like he was a man that had been crawling in the desert for the last three days. When he finally stopped to take a breath, he noticed Helmut’s body.
“What happened?” he croaked out in his still dry voice.
“After I threw you in the hole, I threw him over you and covered you both with myself. Unfortunately, something must’ve struck his neck. It’s broken. There was nothing I could do for him.” Heaven dropped his head between his knees and let out a breath.
“There was nothing you could’ve done differently, brother. You did it right. Just another Delta dog to guard the gates of Paradise from those attempting to tear it down.” Hase’s voice sounded stronger.
Heaven raised his head again and looked into Hase’s pain-filled expression. “Looks like you didn’t get out of there without some troubles. Let me help put that arm back in and then let me take a look at your leg.”
Hase finished draining the water and waited for the sharp excruciating pain he was about to experience. He had dislocated this shoulder more than once before. Heaven got down on his knees and placed a hand on the front of his right shoulder and the other on the elbow. He looked into Hase’s eyes, searching for the strength that he knew was there. Hase gave him a slight smile and nodded his agreement. Heaven moved quickly moving the arm forward, then back, and finally up, forcing it back into the socket. He knew he had done it right when Hase just about screamed out loud and then relaxed with a sigh. He slowly moved it around and grimaced a little. Heaven moved onto the left leg and ran his hands from the ankle up to the knee. When Hase reached out and grabbed his shoulder and gritted his teeth, Heaven knew he found the problem. He moved it around a little and checked for anything that shouldn’t be there, like a bone sticking out of the skin. When he didn’t find one he stretched out the leg and moved it at the hinged knee. It moved free, so nothing was broken and the tendons and ligaments seemed still intact.
Heaven sat back and rested on his elbows. “Good news, I don’t think it’s serious. Probably just wrenched it.”
The ground moved and an explosion tore the air asunder, making both men drop and cover their heads. Then, all hell broke loose as the AC-130 that Heaven had witnessed earlier opened up on the enemy troops and convoy with all of their weapons. Heaven gained his feet and helped Hase up. They needed to get to the top of their hill, so they could see what was going on. Heaven stayed by Hase’s side and offered help, but Hase waved him away and gritted through the pain. After a couple of minutes, they made the crest and looked over and out into the valley. They first saw that the tanks that had been lined up near the convoy were all smoking craters now. It looked like the AC-130 had gone after the armored vehicles first and had decimated the convoy in the process. They looked up and watched the plane come around again when a SAM leapt into the air and chased after it. Heaven felt a cold dread crawl up into his stomach as he watched the missile eat up the distance slowly. The flares scattered from the rear and side of the AC 130 lighting up the ground and sky. They looked like mini suns coming to life and then burning out quickly. He breathed a sigh of release as the big plane pulled higher into the sky and banked away from the missile. It would live, and that was what they needed, since it was singlehandedly keeping them alive and the much bigger force of Ridder at bay. The F-16 appeared next and dropped its cluster of bombs on the hill where he’d seen the SAM fire from. But then, another missile ignited and shot through the sky, aiming for it. Another narrow miss. Heaven didn’t know how much longer their air cover could stay on station for, but he hoped they could try one more time.
He watched the F-16 rocket through the valley and then pull up and form back on his flight. Then one of the other F-16s broke formation and dived downward. It was able to drop its load of bombs on the rear end of the convoy when a SAM reached up quickly and hit the fighter on the fuselage just behind the cockpit. A fireball erupted in the sky as the million-dollar jet broke into many pieces and plummeted to the ground. Heaven left Hase where he was and ran back to Helmut. He took the man’s .50 caliber Browning sniper rifle. Helmut had alwa
ys carried with him, but had yet to ever need to use it. Heaven knew exactly what he was going to do with it now. He also took Helmut’s pack, knowing that he’d kept extra rounds for the weapon. He tried running back up the hill, but was now loaded down with double his pack’s weight and the heavy sniper rifle. He pushed his body and made it to the top faster than he had thought he could. He dropped the pack next to Hase and extended the tripod under the rifle, laying down with it. He checked its magazine and charged the weapon. He molded his cheek to the stock and looked through the scope, feeling that he was becoming one with the deadly weapon. He zoomed in on the area where he had seen the SAM fire from and within a minute, found a man kneeling down and holding a Man-Portable Air-Defense System, or known as a manpads launcher loaded with a Stinger. The man was waiting for the AC-130 as it circled overhead coming in for another pass. He set the cross hairs just above the man’s right shoulder and slowly squeezed the trigger. The rifle shot backwards with its heavy recoil. But Heaven had fired the weapon before and was prepared. He took it in stride and moved his scope looking for his next target, assured the man would already be dead. Hase had his glasses out and watched the man’s body literally explode. He was sure though that Heaven had hit the manpads launcher as it had exploded into the man. Hase was always amazed at the power of the rifle. He moved quickly, watching as Ridder forces ran for the safety of the facility. They knew the air cover would stop, since they would not fire on their own people.
“Look toward the facility’s door. We have a heavy weapons team and it looks like they have two M 240s,” Hase informed Heaven.
Heaven moved his aim till he saw the men that Hase had pointed out. He aimed at the ammo carrier first and fired. The man’s head and upper torso exploded into a red mist, painting his two friends standing nearby. Before they could react, Heaven fired two more shots and ended their lives. Hase reached into Helmut’s bag and took out five more magazines he’d found inside. That gave Heaven twenty-five more shots, twenty-six, if you counted the round he had just fired from his magazine. He quickly removed the empty magazine and slammed home a new one, hitting the charging handle. By the time he was back on scope, Hase was calling out more targets. He had found two more men holding manpads and loading their Stingers. Heaven ended them quickly and then moved on to the troops who were now trying to aim at him. They had figured out the direction, after hearing the shots and working the angles. He was running low on rounds and had the last magazine loaded when the AC-130 reappeared and opened up, using the Bofors and Bushmaster. Men caught out in the open died a fast, messy death. One second they were there, and the next, only body parts and sometimes just a stain on the ground marked their passing.
Heaven held off firing anymore as the AC-130 continued its pass. Then, he heard the thumping sound and looked up in time to see five Apache attack helicopters appear over the hill next to them. Hase and Heaven ducked down. They were familiar with the Apache, but they didn’t know if they were on their side or Ridders. That was answered quickly when the helicopters fired their 30-MM chain guns, opening up in the direction of the AC-130. The plane moved too fast and was gaining altitude, so the rounds missed it entirely. But one of the demonic helicopters carried a couple of Stinger missiles and fired two off at the plane. The plane fired off more of its flares and threw itself onto its right wing while trying to gain altitude. One of the Stingers missed completely wide, but the other detonated near the left outer wing tip, shredding part of the wing and the outermost engine. Smoke billowed out from it, but it stayed in the air.
Hase was amazed at the damage that the plane could take and still stay in the air. That pilot was a badass, Hase was sure. If he ever had a chance to meet that crew, he would provide them with enough beer to force their livers into overdrive. The Apache fired off its last Stinger, but this one went after one of the F-16s that was shadowing the AC-130. The jet rocketed away under full afterburner and climbed. Heaven, out of the corner of his eye, saw a flash in the sky across the valley, and then the Apache that had fired the Stingers disappeared under a bright flash of light. Then, another one of the Apaches exploded, and then another. A blur of movement caught Hase’s and Heaven’s attention, as two F-22 Raptors flew by. Their sleek grey bodies looked to meld into the sky, no weapons showed on their wings or bodies but instead, they kept them inside. These planes had no way to attack ground units, except maybe their cannons, but even that was hard to do.
Heaven shifted his rifle and tried zeroing in on one of the Apaches. He tried to find a weak spot and decided to take aim on the tail rotor. He steadied himself and fired. He hit his target and the Apache looked close to lose control, but came under control again. Heaven fired again, hitting the tail rotor, and, this time, the rotor came apart and caused the helicopter to wobble before starting to rotate in one direction. It kept spinning and then slammed into the mountainside hard, rolling over and digging its spinning rotors into the ground shattering them and sending their composite material through the air. The body of the helicopter rolled down the hill and caught on fire.
“I think we need to start moving before that last Apache takes aim at us,” Hase ordered as he grabbed Helmut’s pack and slid down the slope after Heaven, who held the large sniper rifle in front of him. They made it halfway down when the hill-top, exploded under the intense murderous 30-MM cannon fire from the Apache. The two men hit the bottom of the hill and moved away as fast as they could toward the garage doors. As they arrived, a side door opened and Apache came out, helping Heaven to carry Hase inside.
Chapter 11
Howser and Hunter had hunkered down during the AC-130s murderous fire and stayed where they were. After they’d witnessed the SAM fire up into the air, they decided to move to a new position. After working their way around the mountain they had been on, they moved toward the left side of the facility and onto a new hillside further away from the Ridder convoy. They hunkered down and watched the situation change quickly, as the Ridder forces ran toward the facility and its opening. They witnessed the F-16 explode when the SAM missile slammed into it and the they saw the AC-130 as it came back down toward the facility.
“Hunter, I think we can probably pop a couple of those guys during the incoming fire and get our licks in too, since they will not be able to pinpoint us with their hands full.” Howser had already refilled his vest pouches with magazines for his M-14 and brought it up to his shoulder, starting to pick targets to the rear of the moving mass.
Hunter followed Howser’s actions and started hitting targets in the rear also. As they started firing, they could hear a big gun firing off in the distance. They continued till the Apaches appeared over the far hill and fired on the AC-130. They looked at each other and without speaking gathered their gear and worked their way around the facility over to the garage side. They had some distance to go, but they were properly motivated and continued to run, ignoring their load weight and the action going on around them. When the F-22s flew over them, they somehow found another gear and gained speed. They felt and heard the explosions of the helicopters on the other side of the facility, but had no idea what was going on, since they could not see from their angle.
As they came around a rise and then entered the ramp, they watched as a door opened on the side of the garage and Apache stepped out to help Heaven with Hase. They reached the door just as it was closing and slid in, surprising Cupcake, Doc and Apache.
“Where the hell is Harry?” asked Hase.
“Didn’t make it,” answered Howser as he looked around. “How about Helmut?”
Heaven looked down to the ground. “Also didn’t make it.”
The team felt the weight of their losses, but jumped back into the moment. They helped Doc and Cupcake secure the door and set up a firing line near the door into the facility. The door behind them opened and Kuppers and Brian came through. They looked beaten, bruised, and exhausted as they stood there.
“Life is shit right now, guys. What’s going on down here?” Brian asked.
Apache stepped up and explained their situation and what had happened to Delta. Brian took the news in stride and explained that Dan was manning the communications room, and that Ridder had taken over the facility upstairs. He also informed them that their air cover was gone and they had no more coming in. For all purposes, they were cut off and in full lockdown. The good thing was that the convoy had been stopped, which meant that they had time to relax a little and breathe.
The door opened again and a couple of corporals came in bringing coffee and some sandwiches. Then, they made room as others came in, carrying a small crate of ammo and magazines. Hours went by and it seemed that maybe everything would be ok, since the firing had died down. Kuppers ordered his men to start taking naps in shifts and use the down-time to clean weapons. The door opened again and a man carrying a piece of paper came over and handed it to Kuppers. He read it and rolled his neck and shoulders, trying to work out the kinks and stiffness.
“It would seem that the other shoe is about to drop. We have lost radio communication completely with the General. Also, some of the ATM teams are still out there and alive. They report a small convoy coming in under a white flag from the south, which is weird since Ridder has been coming from the north. Dan wants some of us to go out and meet them before the Ridder forces in the facility upstairs stops them. Who wants to volunteer?” Heaven and Apache both stood at the same time and raised their hands.
Zombie Theorem (Book 3): The End Game Page 24