by James Tarr
“Eagle Eye, Eagle Eye,” he shouted into his radio, not really able to hear his own voice, and then the tank fired its main gun again. He flinched, and started jogging into the parking garage, waving the others to follow. “All elements of RoadRunner that can make it to you are en route. Don’t wait for us. Repeat, DO NOT WAIT. It’s Plan B for us.”
Thor burned through another magazine, trying to keep the troops near Echo pinned, and then glanced down. Smoke was pouring out of both hangars. The troops of RoadRunner were massed in the center and then started running back toward the apartment building.
“They’re coming back. Covering fire,” Thor said into his radio. The SAW, silent for a time as the gunner loaded it with a fresh belt, opened up again. Thor got a new magazine into his rifle, let the bolt fly, and fired a few rounds over the heads of the dogsoldiers on the ground as they ran toward him. There were maybe two dozen bodies scattered on the ground between the hangars and Echo, but most of the Tabs had taken cover inside the building and were firing from there. Most of the soldiers working at Echo were officers, not combat troops, which meant they hadn’t been wearing armor. “Eagle Eye, get ready to displace.” Bullets from the soldiers returning fire were hitting the bricks of the apartment building like raindrops, but few of them seemed well-aimed.
As the last of RoadRunner began crossing the street Thor heard the huge whine of a turbo diesel and, probably unwisely, stuck his head out of the window frame to look left. “Shit. Toad! Toad!” he shouted, then got on the radio. “Eagle Eye, displace. Displace!”
He heard a heavy machine gun open up below them, then the tank’s main gun fired and the whole building trembled. Grabbing his pack off the floor—it was a lot lighter without the two Spikes—Thor shouldered it as he headed out of the apartment. A dogsoldier was halfway down the hallway at the stairwell. “I think we’ve got Tabs down there,” the man said worriedly.
“Well, we’re not taking the elevator,” Thor barked. He paused and moved to the side and counted the bodies moving past him. “Go, go,” he spat when the last man passed him. He charged forward, only to see the half-dozen men paused on the first flight down.
“What are you doing?”
“There are Tabs down there,” he was told.
“Well no shit.” Rifle up he charged down the stairs, going around and around, two stories, three, then he ducked back as a hail of what sounded like pistol fire bounced off the ceiling near his head. The men pounding down the stairs behind him skidded to a stop.
“Told you,” he heard. Then there was a huge explosion above them. The Toad had just taken out the rooms they’d occupied with its main gun. The men looked up, then back down at Thor.
“Violence, Speed, Momentum!” Thor shouted over his shoulder, then plucked a grenade off his chest. He pulled the pin, let the lever fly, counted to two, then leaned around the next corner and heaved the grenade. He heard two dull thuds as it bounced off the cement walls, then the entire concrete stairwell shook as it exploded. He charged down the stairs, rifle up. One and a half floors down he found two men dead from the blast, but when he went to step past them rifle fire from below whanged off the walls and steel railings. Thor stuck his rifle around the corner and fired a few quick shots
“Eagle Eye, Eagle Eye,” he heard over the radio. “All elements of RoadRunner that can make it to you are en route. Don’t wait for us. Repeat, DO NOT WAIT. It’s Plan B for us.”
“Shit,” someone said.
“We can’t stay here, we need to fucking go.”
There was a fusillade of gunfire below them, individual shots and full-auto bursts, rifle and pistol fire and shouts. Then, nothing. At least, from inside the building. Outside he could hear steady fire, perhaps still directed up at their perch on the seventh floor.
“Eagle Eye, you up there?” someone shouted up to them. “Stairway’s clear.”
“Golf ball?” Thor yelled, nearly deaf from the gunfire.
“Fucking Felix!” the person yelled back. “Fucking move your ass!”
“Good enough for me.” They pounded down the stairs to see the first floor stairwell covered in Tab bodies and two-thirds of RoadRunner in a defensive perimeter at the rear of the lobby. “Down down down, go!” Thor yelled, stabbing his hand like a spear.
He followed a line of backs as the dogsoldiers headed down the stairs into the parking garage. It was clear, for the moment, and they made a beeline for the hole in the wall. They could only enter the narrow tunnel one at the time and had to take off their packs to do it. Thor and the other soldiers kept their rifles trained on the door they’d entered. It seemed like it was taking forever. The gunfire outside was decreasing. He was guessing the military would be doing a dynamic entry into the building, in force, at any second.
Finally, there were only a few dogsoldiers left. Thor slowly backed up to the tunnel, then turned around, shrugged out of his pack, and handed it up. Then he was offered a hand and was pulled up into the hole by Randa.
“Go, don’t wait for me,” Thor said. He scooted backward, rifle in one hand, dragging his pack behind him with the other. The tunnel slowly curved until finally the opening into the parking garage was out of sight. It seemed an eternity before his boots hit the edge of the trunk line.
Thor dropped his pack down. From the far end of the earthen tunnel he could hear shouts and the pounding of boots on pavement. He pulled the pin on the grenade he was holding and tossed it as far down the tunnel as he could. Then he jumped down into the sewer line and dragged his pack off to the side before the grenade detonated. Dirt flew past him. He used his flashlight, but there was too much dust in the air, diffusing the beam, to tell how fully the tunnel had been collapsed. He grabbed a second grenade and threw it after the first, just in case, then stood to the side with his fingers in his ears as it detonated.
He shouldered his pack with a grunt. Between the two Spikes, and the five magazines he’d burned through his load felt decidedly lighter. He dug out a canteen and began walking north, following the bobbing lights of the dogsoldiers ahead of him. He could only hope the grenades had collapsed the tunnel enough that the obstruction couldn’t be removed easily, he really didn’t have the energy for a running gun battle in the sewer.
Harris and six other soldiers jogged through the parking garage, heading for the south side. Heavy full-auto fire erupted behind them, making them flinch and drop and dive for cover, but none of it was directed their way. At the southwest corner of the parking garage, on ground level, they found the two vehicles they’d been told were there—a full-size Tahoe SUV, and a mid-size pickup. Old, dusty, and battered, but in one piece, and none of the tires were flat. The keys were right where they were supposed to be, inside the rear bumpers.
“Anybody that’s got a grenade launcher or a Spike, sit where you can use it!” Harris shouted. He had neither, and got behind the wheel of the pickup. His hearing was starting to return. He heard roaring engines and saw IMPs and Growlers race by the parking garage on either side, backing up the Toad. “Hang the fuck on.”
He backed the truck up, then headed west, toward the closest exit. The Tahoe was right on his bumper. They roared through the exit and into the adjacent parking lot, which was encircled by a tall steel fence. Harris cut the wheel left, angling for the driveway out. He never got off the gas, and the pickup went briefly airborne as he flew across the seven lanes of Michigan Avenue. Four hundred feet to the left was one of the checkpoints leading into the base, and a quick glance showed him it was manned by an IMP, two Growlers, and a lot of soldiers. Heavy weapons opened up on their two vehicles, but he didn’t slow down, he just sailed across Michigan, the gas pedal floored, and slammed into the chain link fence on the far side.
The fence was flung away, and the pickup fishtailed briefly in the gravel lot beyond. Harris kept it under control, kept his speed up, and slammed into the identical fence on the far side. It went up and over the hood, spider-webbing the windshield and spraying him with small particles of glas
s. The pickup bounced over the curb and he yanked the wheel left. They were southbound in the northbound lanes of 3rd Avenue, out of view of the checkpoint troops still firing at them. Harris checked his side mirror—the Tahoe was still back there. He didn’t need to check his rearview to see if the doggie was still in the bed of the bucking pickup, the man was motherfucking him at full volume.
The city’s Public Safety Headquarters was on their right, but it was barely occupied, and most of the military troops were stationed on the north half of the base. Harris flipped it off anyway. He pushed the pickup as hard as he could for a block and a half, then stood on the brakes and took a wide right turn onto Howard Street, which ran behind the huge parking garage servicing the PSH. Three hundred feet ahead of them the street ended in a wall of jersey barriers, dragon teeth, and concertina wire.
Engines straining, the two vehicles raced to a stop fifty feet from the barricade which encircled the military base. For the moment, they were completely hidden from view, but Army troops had to be on their way. Harris doubted they had more than a minute.
“Somebody tell me we still have some fucking explosives left!” Harris shouted out the open windows of the pickup.
Two dogsoldiers got out of the SUV and fired their grenade launchers at the obstacle in front of them. Two of the jersey barriers were blasted into pieces and flung into a tangle of concertina. Then the man in the back of the pickup let loose an RPG, and the explosion flung puzzle pieces of concrete and threads of razor wire into the air.
“That’ll have to do. We’re going off-roading!” Harris shouted. “Hang on.” He floored the pickup, then slowed down as he approached the debris field. The pickup bounced violently up and down as he crawled over the remnants of concrete barriers and through shredded concertina wire. One strand wrapped itself around his rear axle and he could hear the shrieking of metal, but ignored it.
He turned right, onto the service drive behind the parking garage, and waited for the SUV to catch up. It had a more difficult time traversing the jumbled concrete blocks, and for a second appeared to be high-centered, but then it tilted forward and they were clear.
Harris grabbed his radio and changed frequencies. “Almighty, Almighty, and everybody else out there, elements of RoadRunner oscar mike to your AO, ETA five.” He paused. “Alpha mission at least ninety percent accomplished, repeat ninety percent.” He was pretty sure it was one hundred percent, but just in case….
Harris punched it, and almost immediately the entangled razor wire cut through his right rear tire. He didn’t slow down—if they had to ride on rims, so be it. Three hundred feet ahead was a ramp off to the left, angling downward, and the two vehicles accelerated toward it.
Three seconds later they roared down the on-ramp on the Lodge Freeway, one of the approved travel corridors through the city, kept clear of debris, the driving surface decently maintained. In that area it was below ground level, and they were instantly out of sight of any troops inside the military base.
Not quite three miles ahead was the exit for West Grand Boulevard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
By the time Ed made it up the wide stone steps to the lobby the two soldiers by the southern entrance were dead, mown down in a burst of fire from the charging dogsoldiers. Half the group was taking cover by the main door there, the remainder spreading out through the lobby, checking the other entrances. A few of the people who’d been in the lobby had screamed or shouted, but then they’d just run away.
As Ed passed one of the circular green marble columns, heading toward the south entrance, a double blast shattered all the glass in the entranceway. The men had tossed two grenades under the Growler idling right outside, and the Tabs inside had died before understanding exactly what was happening.
Ed waved at the dogsoldiers and pointed out the doors. “Get their attention!” he shouted. They knew exactly what he meant. Several of the men pushed through the doors and, using the destroyed Growler as cover, began engaging the soldiers on the far side of West Grand Boulevard in front of Cadillac Place. Some Tabs the far Growler as cover, and at least one soldier began firing at them from the lobby of the distant building.
Lydia flinched again at the crump of the explosion upstairs, then the scrawny woman let go of her arm. Petal’s eyes had been on her watch the whole time, but they flicked upward. “Now you can go.”
Lydia took a deep breath and nodded. “Give me thirty seconds,” she repeated to the crowd of dogsoldiers still crouched in the gloom of the tunnel, then turned, pushed open the glass door, and strode through the Concourse.
Her neck muscles felt like vibrating wire, and she kept wanting to break out in a run, but forced herself to maintain a steady walking stride—not rushing, but also not moving slow.
On the far side of the Concourse she pushed through the glass doors and entered the tunnel heading southeast toward the Cadillac Place building. It curved gently to the left, and she was halfway through it before the doors at the far end slid into view.
She fought a renewed impulse to break into a run and tried to keep her stride steady, her face neutral. As she neared the bank of doors she didn’t immediately see anyone, but there was a lot of glare off the glass. She could hear gunfire, but it was distant.
The doors into the underground level of the Cadillac Place building were secure. She grabbed the ID badge on the lanyard hanging from her belt and briefly panicked, wondering if the soldiers might have disabled the locks once the shooting started. But when she held the card against the reader the lock buzzed, and she pushed the door open.
She paused in the open door and looked around the space. Sometimes there was a soldier stationed—or hiding out from his superiors—in the lower level, but the subterranean lobby had been clear of them on her way over, and it was clear upon her return. She pulled the pistol from her waistband and held it down along her leg in a sweaty hand, hearing impossibly loud gunfire upstairs.
Lydia had walked down the tunnel; the men of Kermit and Yosemite had jogged as fast as they’d been able under their burdens, and she’d been standing there just ten seconds with the pistol in her hand when they appeared in the tunnel behind her. She waved them on, and when the first soldier reached the door she was holding open she moved to a second locked door and opened that, then a third, so the men could flood out of the tunnel more quickly.
“Give us a minute, we’ll call you up,” Barker told her, panting from the stress and exertion. Lydia nodded.
The men of Kermit and Yosemite pushed up the stairs toward the ground-floor lobby of the Cadillac Place building. The gunfire grew louder as they did. They came up behind and to the side of the four soldiers stationed in the building as they fired across West Grand Boulevard at the dogsoldiers in the Fisher Building. The soldiers’ shooting had scared away any civilians, so there was no one to warn them. The four Tabs fell where they stood, only one of them reacting fast enough to even turn toward the guerrillas coming up behind them.
“Theretherethere!” Barker shouted. He’d spotted a Tab on the far side of the boulevard, hunkered down behind a jersey barrier, hidden from the Fisher Building but completely exposed to their position. One of his men with a scope on his rifle steadied it against a door frame and took the man down with one sixty-four-yard headshot.
Barker and Chan scanned the boulevard left and right but didn’t see any other Army soldiers, and the immediate lobby of their building appeared to be clear, at least for the moment. The lobby around them was an exquisite display of neoclassical architecture, a fact which was wasted on every man there.
“Grab that chick!” Barker shouted to one of his men, pointing down the stairs, then got on the radio. “Nakatomi, Nakatomi, this is SkyBox. Your front door is clear, at least for right now.”
“Nakatomi, Nakatomi, this is Cambridge,” Brooke’s voice over the radio was clear. “We are in position east and west. Go do your thing. Shit—!” The radio transmission cut off, but not before they heard a burst of automatic fire. B
arker and Chan exchanged worried looks.
Brooke nodded to young Robbie and left him at the mouth of the tunnel, then followed Rico with the rest of Sylvester to a nearby stairwell. They trudged up from the basement to the second floor, the long-vacant building dusty and echoing and dim, then moved down a short hallway. They stopped at a set of glass doors, on the far side of which were more plywood panels screwed into place. On the far side was the pedestrian walkway leading to the New Center One building.
“It’s all ready to go,” Rico said, gesturing at the wood panels. “You can rip two of them off real easy, they’re barely held on.”
“What about at the other end?” someone asked.
“Same thing. Just kick ‘em and they’ll pop right off, the two on the right. But then you’ve got the whole building to cut across. There’s usually at least one soldier wandering around either the first or second floor, sometimes a lot more. And there’s gonna be a lot of people.”
“Right.”
Brooke was as tense as she’d ever gotten, her stomach cramping. So much was riding on this, it wasn’t just a simple assault on a building. She checked her watch. “Any minute now.” The rest of their squad checked their weapons for the twentieth time and shuffled nervously.
They all paused as they heard static erupt from their radios. Brooke cocked her head, listening intently, and just a few seconds later heard a double click.
“That’s Robbie, he’s on the way. They’re on the way!” she said, a little too loudly. She nodded at the plywood sheets. “Pull those fucking things off.”
By the time Sylvester’s young runner arrived from the tunnel mouth the plywood sheets were on the floor. One of the men helped him into his backpack, then the squad was surging into the walkway. They jogged over Lothrop Street, nothing moving and nobody visible on the street beneath them, and stacked up on the far side. Rico had stayed behind and disappeared from view.