by James Tarr
“Not when you’re running an aux feed like this,” the broadcast engineer said. “Once you hit Play, provided no one else is actually broadcasting on the channel, the song will go out.”
“Cool,” George said. He tapped the arrow-shaped Play icon, then chose ‘Repeat’. The phone’s battery charge was at 67%, so it should last for a good long time. He made sure the volume was at max.
“What are you doing?” Ed asked, walking up.
“Serenading the Tabs,” George said with a smile. “Go on, get out of here,” he told the two broadcast engineers. “You don’t want to be anywhere near here.” The two men traded a look, and the phone’s owner looked at it wistfully, but they headed out without another word.
Ed leaned over the control panel and looked at the phone. “‘When the Levee Breaks’?” he asked.
“Always loved that song,” George agreed. He twisted his head to the side, and his neck popped loudly. “Let’s go stack some bodies. Everybody bailing from this position, get the fuck out, double-time. And fill your canteens real quick if you can. They’ve got running water here, remember? We’ll see you when we see you. Suicide Squad, form up on me!”
Mark shot him a dark look. “That’s not funny.”
George shrugged. “It is what it is. How long do you think it’ll take the Tab cavalry to arrive?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Staff Sergeant Wayne Dietz was the ranking NCO in the assault force, and the commander of KICKASS, one of the two Toads roaring north up Cass Avenue in the middle of the platoon, heading toward the TV station under siege by the terrorists. Ahead and behind him were four IMPs and fourteen Growlers, most of them up-armored. With the two Toads that was twenty vehicles and upwards of ninety men, the biggest assault force he’d seen in years, and nearly half of the immediately available fighting force on the base. Colonel Parker had finally, finally, let go of their leash. It pissed him off that so many of the Growlers didn’t have any armor at all, but the up-armored ones kept blowing their trannies, and there were no replacement armored windows available..
Dietz flipped the channel to talk to just his crew. “Slow down Richards, I don’t want you running over any of our own guys.” All of his guys were excited, and scared. They’d been stationed in the city for months or years, depending, and taken incoming fire on their infrequent patrols, perhaps lit up a few rebels when they were dumb enough to stand and fight, but this looked to be the best chance for serious combat most of them had ever seen. Richards, his driver, was somewhat new, only having been in the city six months. He was replacing Dietz’ previous driver Kirby who’d killed himself. Just about all the soldiers around him were draftees, but Kirby had hated the city, hated the Army, and hated himself. Dietz was just glad Kirby hadn’t taken anybody with him when he’d decided to check out.
His gunner, Kirkland, had been on the crew for eight months, replacing Jensen who had just disappeared one day. Dietz suspected Jensen had deserted, but he hadn’t left a note, and was never captured or found dead as far as he knew, so that was just a guess. Jensen hadn't been happy and had been very vocal about his unhappiness, but very few of the draftee soldiers were actually happy. The city was a shithole, and what made it worse was the boredom—they were a tank crew, but they were always so short of fuel and ammo, and the CO so terrified of losing another tank (not that that was likely to happen), that they rarely left the base more than once a week to patrol.
Shit, eight months as gunner and Kirkland had only ever fired training rounds out of the main gun prior to the dust up several weeks earlier where he’d banged a round at fleeing guerrillas. He or the green loader, Wilson, had somehow accidentally loaded a depleted uranium sabot round instead of HE, so rather than racking up some easy kills on the guerrilla dismounts all they’d done was scare that crap out of them. Dietz was still pissed about that. He’d made his crew run laps until they'd thrown up and then run some more. Then he’d run them through drills until they hated him even more than usual.
None of them had ex-wives, they had no idea what real hate was like.
At least he didn’t have to deal with elective gender pronouns anymore. Dietz snorted at the memory of that debacle.
For the first year or two of the war (depending on when you believed it started) the Army was kicking the enemy’s ass. Then things started to go…not so good, to put it mildly, and the government reinstituted the draft. They were, of course, only drafting men. The problem with that? The law was, at the time, you could be whatever gender you wanted, and overnight a huge chunk of the draft-age males in the country (some said it was as high as twenty-five or even fifty percent) declared they were now “female”. Almost as quickly the government decreed that your gender was determined by the reproductive organs you had at birth—ovaries meant you were female, and testes meant you were male, and they ignored the outrage and screams of “genderqueer hate”, “transphobia”, “intersex denial”, and everything else. The Army had been a shitshow for a year or two after that, but what army filled with fresh draftees wasn’t?
There was nothing like actual combat experience to get men tuned up, so he was glad for this opportunity. He wasn’t worried about the guerrillas. There was no risk of them digging tank traps along Washboard, and they’d be unarmored and on foot, probably hiding inside the buildings. The closest thing to armor he’d ever seen the guerrillas fielding was a tow truck with steel plates welded around the cab. That was early on in the war, and one hit from his main gun had turned it to airborne scrap. He still smiled at that memory.
Dietz was standing up in the open hatch, helmet and goggles on and electronic muffs over his ears, listening to the excited radio chatter. There was an M240B machine gun right in front of him if he needed it. He preferred to have his head out of the hatch. While staying buttoned up inside the tank kept you alive, you couldn’t see shit through the ISU, at least not in comparison to the standard Mark 1 eyeball. If they started taking some serious incoming fire he’d button up, but he didn’t think that was likely. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that the doggies generally didn’t want to tangle with tanks. Maybe at the start of the war, but they’d learned better. Now, they ran whenever a Toad showed up. They didn’t have anything which could even dent its armor.
“Seriously, Richards, slow the fuck down. My only real worry is that the assholes are going to realize they screwed themselves, and take off before we get there and have a chance to fuck them up, but if you even scratch the paint on that Growler I will kick your ass.”
He heard Richards’ gulp over the radio. “Yes Sergeant.”
Strangely, Toads used up nearly as much diesel per hour just idling as they did roaring down the road. In fact, even though it weighed over sixty tons a Toad could keep up with an IMP. However, because they were a mixed troop of vehicles the ranking officer, Major Keira Lunis in the lead IMP, was having them keep their speed under thirty miles an hour.
Lunis was on the radio, communicating with the two troop leaders, S/Sgt. Dietz in KICKASS and Sergeant Major Nichols in CHAOS, the other Toad, callsign Foxtrot One-One. “I want elements of Charlie to break off at Amsterdam and advance north up 2nd Avenue,” she told them. “Three Growlers and an IMP. They’ll be heading right toward the Fisher Building and should get us early eyes on. I want the rest of Charlie to circle around to the west, take up a position a couple hundred yards west and north of the target building. I want eyeballs on all sides of that building, I don’t want them escaping out the back door.”
“Charlie One-One to Foxtrot Actual, where do you want us?” Dietz asked the Major. He had a tablet out and was studying the digital map as they powered up Cass Avenue. All of this should have been planned out before they left the base, but none of them wanted to miss the opportunity to trap the guerrillas in the Fisher Building. Seizing the TV broadcast facility might be a great PR stunt, but if they were still in there when the Army rolled up in force it would mean they would be trapped. That building was so easy to surround.
>
“Charlie One-One, how about you stage at 2nd and Baltimore. You can provide overwatch for those advance units.” Dietz checked his map. Baltimore was two blocks south of Washboard, and he’d have a direct line-of-sight to the Fisher Building less than a quarter mile away.
“Charlie One-One is a roger on that.”
“Foxtrot units One, Two, Three, and Four, position yourselves at Cass and Washboard. I want two Foxtrot units to circle around to the east and sit on the northeast side of that building.”
“Foxtrot One-One to Foxtrot Actual, Lothrop Street there is the border of the Blue Zone and blocked off to vehicle traffic. Those units will have to go out wide if they head to that side.”
“Shit, roger that. Okay, I want Foxtrot units at Washboard and Cass, Washboard and Woodward, and…Woodward and Bethune, just north of the Blue Zone border. We’ve lost contact with all friendlies on Washboard, so keep your eyes open. Be advised command is reporting enemy radio traffic at that location. Encrypted.”
The armored force, spread from one side of Cass Avenue to the other, proceeded north across the bridge over the I-94 freeway and began to slow down. Washboard was just half a mile ahead.
The advance force of three Growlers and an IMP increased their speed and raced ahead. Dietz could see them in the distance as they turned left on Amsterdam Street. “Charlie One-Four can see the target building,” everyone heard over the radio. “Can see a smoke column. Moving to position. Will advise.”
The four vehicles roared down the narrow street, old brick industrial buildings to either side. 2nd Avenue at Amsterdam was wide, with a small grassy median. The four vehicles made the turn and rolled north, passing under a double railroad bridge. As soon as they were through the Fisher Building was directly in front of them.
“Charlie One-Four is eyes on and approaching,” the IMP Commander called out. He’d been standing in the roof gunner’s spot, behind the Mk19 grenade launcher, but decided discretion was the better part of valor—he ducked in and closed the hatch. Beside the vehicle gunner and driver there were six soldiers in the back of the APC, geared up and ready to fight. The vehicles slowed down as they drew close, finally stopping, four abreast, on 2nd Avenue just short of Washboard.
“Charlie One-Four, Foxtrot Actual, be advised we are in position at Second and Washboard with eyes on. There is a disabled Growler on the north side of Washboard, and another on the south side. We see several friendly KIA.” He looked out through the blocks that made up the IMPs narrow windshield, then moved close and peered upward. Where was the TV station, was it the eighth floor? His eyes ran up the building. He didn’t see any freshly broken windows, although there were a few covered with plywood. He clicked his radio. “No visible enemy movement, although I’ve got a lot of civilians running around.”
Suddenly the IMP rang with the sound of metal rain. He looked around and spotted muzzle flashes from the lobby of the Fisher Building. One of the men with him yelped from nerves, but the Commander remained calm. The personnel carrier was armored for this very reason, and the rifle fire wasn’t much of a threat to the up-armored Growlers either. “Charlie One-Four has enemy contact,” he said calmly into the radio, excited but not scared. “Taking small arms fire from the ground floor of target building, unknown number of hostiles.” The number of incoming rounds doubled in number, and he peered upward through the driver’s view slot. “Also, taking incoming fire from...” he counted with his finger. “Looks like the eighth floor.” He glanced up at the closed gunner’s hatch, thinking of the grenade launcher up there. “Permission to return fire? We’ve got a Mk19 ready to go, over.”
“Foxtrot Actual, all units. Remaining Charlie and Foxtrot units moving into position, thirty seconds out,” he heard Major Lunis say over the radio. “Charlie One-Four detachment, maintain your position and remain eyes on, give us call outs on the tangos. Stand by, but do not return fire, I don’t want them scared away just yet.”
“Charlie One-Four is roger that, command,” the IMP Commander said, staring out and up at the building. “Be advised—” His next words were cut off as there was a giant roar outside the vehicle. The entire IMP rocked and the driver instinctively ducked.
“What the fuck was that?” somebody yelled.
“Grenade,” the Commander said, not scared, not yet, but slightly more concerned. “We can be eyes on from a little farther back. Bobby, back us up.”
The driver had time to put the IMP into reverse, then there was an incandescent flash and roar inside the vehicle. The IMP rocked on its wheels, then settled, rolling ever so slowly backward. From the outside it appeared nearly undamaged, just a narrow spiral of smoke trailing from the top deck, but every man inside it was dead.
“High-rises suck for combat,” Morris had told the squad leaders bluntly during the mission briefing. “‘Death trap’ I think is an apt word. First you’ve got to assault up them. Trust me, I could teach you four excellent ways to proceed tactically up a stairwell and all of them suck if there’s a Tab at the top with a gun. You’re going to lose people even if you do everything right. And then, once you’re up there, you can either wait for them to come kill you, and eventually they will, or you head downstairs, where they’ll be waiting for you. But high-rises have certain advantages, which I hope to make great use of. I also want to give you every advantage I can, which means not putting everyone in the same goddamn building waiting to be surrounded. Surprise and stealth, remember? But not necessarily in that order.”
He stabbed down at the map, at the cluster of buildings in the New Center Area. “All things being equal no good commander who has any sort of experience leading armor should get anywhere near buildings, tall or short, without having them be completely cleared by infantry. However…” He smiled. “We are not in a fresh clean war, are we? Correct me if I’m wrong, but you gentlemen have barely had any RPGs or rockets in this war, and for the last few years you've had just about zero.”
“Just a few RPGs,” Ed admitted. “And 40mm grenades, when we’re lucky, but those don’t do shit against armor, just Growlers. I don’t think I’ve seen a rocket in six or seven years.”
“Right,” Morris went on, “so they are not going to expect any sort of capable or concerted anti-tank response. And having you seen as seizing the broadcast facilities, perhaps over reaching, they may take this as an opportunity to crush you. Up here, you haven’t had armor since the start of the war. Most of the time you haven’t had any weapons which will do more than scrape the paint off a Toad, so other than a tank trap, which at this late date are very rare, they haven’t had much to worry about. The current Tab commander is paranoid about losing what few tanks he has, though, which is why he doesn’t roll them out on you more often. That, and a lack of fuel. We’re hoping this will seem juicy enough he’ll send them out, and those Toad commanders, they’re not used to backing off. They should roll right up on you. Or close enough. Along with, hopefully, a lot of IMPs and Growlers. We’re hoping their overconfidence will provide what we like to call a target-rich environment.”
“That’s military slang for being outnumbered,” Ed pointed out.
Morris nodded. “You’re not wrong. We will kill some of them, we will definitely take out some of their vehicles and armor, the only question is, how many? It depends on how hungry and overconfident we can make them. That is where the stealth and surprise come in. The goal is to make them think all of your forces are in Nakatomi here, the Fisher Building. They’ll come roaring in and set up a perimeter while they decide whether or not to go in on foot or just wait you out. Because of all the tall buildings they’re going to have to be somewhat close enough to see what’s going on and, at some point, assault the ground floor. Hopefully whatever perimeter they set up will be right around or even, God willing, underneath where most of your troops actually will be.”
“And then? Brooke asked.
“And then,” Morris replied with a mean smile, “cry ‘Havoc’ and let slip the dogs of war.”
&nb
sp; Morris was thinking of this exchange as he stared out the south-facing windows of the A. Alfred Taubman building, otherwise known as the chin in the New Center Area face. Positioned on the eleventh floor he had great visibility south along both Cass and 2nd Avenue. He wasn’t alone, he had three of his men with him—Conrad, Bill, and Seattle as they’d chosen to be known for this mission, the three men who’d been manning the doorway of the sports complex, waiting for the dogsoldiers to arrive.
Conrad and Bill were positioned at the southeast corner of the building and had the best view up and down Cass. Morris and Seattle were on the west side of the building, looking down 2nd Avenue.
“I’ve got a big smoke column down south, sir, you catching this? Over.” Conrad said. They were using a separate channel to communicate while still monitoring the other units. They’d heard every word in the exchange between Eagle Eye and RoadRunner, including the fateful last message one minute earlier, “Eagle Eye. Eagle Eye. 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.”
Morris lowered his binoculars and raised his radio. “Roger that. Seattle, you keep an eye west. Just because I think they’ll come up Cass or Woodward doesn’t mean they won’t surprise us. And stay back from the windows, all of you,” he said for the third time, “I don’t want us spotted. Over.” He’d found himself crowding the glass, so he knew his men had to be doing the same thing. Seattle was at the northwest corner of the building, which had been abandoned years before.
“Yes sir.” There was a pause. “You think they’re going to wait to head up here until they clean up their mess down there? Over.”
Morris shook his head, even though no one could see it. “Whatever happened with Alpha is over,” he said curtly. “I can’t see Parker missing out on the chance to trap our people in Nakatomi.”