by James Tarr
A minute later the radio crackled again, and he looked down to see it was the general channel audible to all elements of the assault force. “Almighty, Almighty, and everybody else out there, elements of RoadRunner Oscar Mike to your AO, ETA five. Alpha mission at least ninety percent accomplished, repeat ninety percent.”
“Fuck yeah!” Morris heard Seattle shout, his voice echoing down the empty hallway between the offices they occupied. Morris couldn’t help but smile. Ninety percent meant—probably, hopefully—that all but one or two of the aircraft in the hangars had been disabled or destroyed.
A minute later Conrad jumped on the radio, using the main channel. “All Bravo units, this is Almighty. Enemy units spotted south of your position, heading northbound on Cass, about one minute out. Growlers, IMPs, and at least one Toad. Will advise number and call out location when possible.” Morris couldn’t see them from where he was. There was a pause of a few seconds, then Conrad got back on the radio. “Advance armor elements breaking off, heading west, remainder slowing down. Stand by.”
Morris felt his heartrate jump up twenty percent as he stared south through the dirty pane of glass. The hike through the sewer lines had shown him just how physically unfit he actually was, but he’d made it, they’d made it, he’d heard all the Bravo squads call out they were in place, after a brief fight with the few soldiers stationed in the area. Now it was time for them to go to work.
He didn’t need his binoculars; when the Growlers and the IMP turned the corner onto 2nd Avenue they seemed remarkably close, bright and crisp in the morning sun. “Bravo units, this is Almighty Actual,” he said into the radio. “Three Growlers and an IMP northbound on 2nd Avenue. They appear to be scouts.” He paused. “Nakatomi, this is your show now. Over.”
The plan was to make the Tabs focus on the Fisher Building and to think, for as long as possible, all the dogsoldiers in the area were inside it, and act accordingly. To do this required two things—troops on the ground floor of the building to fight off the initial attempts to enter it, and men up on the eighth floor, where the Voice of the People was situated, to convince the Tabs they were still concerned with sending a guerrilla broadcast out over the airwaves.
The ground floor of the Fisher Building was a sieve—there were four main entrances, two tunnels, a second-story walkway, and then there were myriad windows and doors at sidewalk level leading into the now-closed ground floor stores. They knew they wouldn’t be able to hold the building for very long at all, once the Tabs decided to assault it in numbers, with or without armor support. But that wasn’t the plan. The building wasn’t the objective.
It was the bait.
George stared out through the eighth-floor windows. He was standing in the office of some sort of VOP executive and even though he was sweating under his armor he could feel there was actually, unbelievably, air conditioning operating in the building. Small offices lined the front of the building, connected by a hallway. George was in the center office with Kelly, one of Flintstone’s people, who was armed with an M4/203, a full-auto military carbine with underbarrel grenade launcher. Mark was in the office to their right, Quentin in a small conference room to their left. Their windows looked south, across West Grand Boulevard and down the length of 2nd Avenue past the Cadillac Place building. If they needed to, they could run to either end of the hallway and look east and west down West Grand, but George had a hunch at least some of the Tabs wouldn’t be able to resist driving straight up 2nd toward the old skyscraper.
George’s radio sprang to life. “Almighty, Almighty, and everybody else out there, elements of RoadRunner Oscar Mike to your AO, ETA five. Alpha mission at least ninety percent accomplished, repeat ninety percent.”
“Out-fucking-standing!” Mark shouted, his voice echoing down the hall. George was nervous—hell, they were all scared as hell, he hadn’t nicknamed their all-volunteer group the Suicide Squad for nothing—but hearing that the mission against the Tab’s airfield had been a solid success put a smile on his face.
George took a few deep breaths and wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs. “How long you been with Flintstone?” he asked Kelly, just to say something. Kelly was blonde and looked about twenty. Just a baby-faced kid, from George’s perspective.
“About a year and a half.”
George nodded. Long enough.
“You’re Bodycount, right?”
George made a face. “I hate that fucking name.”
The radio chirped to life again. “All Bravo units, this is Almighty. Enemy units spotted south of your position, heading northbound on Cass, about one minute out. Growlers, IMPs, and at least one Toad. Will advise number when possible.”
George moved up close to the glass and peered to his left, toward Cass. He couldn’t see it. Whatever was happening was out of view on the other side of the bulk of the Cadillac Place building.
“Advance armor elements breaking off, heading west, remainder slowing down. Stand by.”
“They’re cutting over to Second!” George shouted, loud enough for Mark and Quentin to hear him. “Back up from the windows and wait for my signal.” He knew he was repeating something they already knew, but he couldn’t help himself.
A few seconds later Morris himself got on the radio. “Bravo units, this is Almighty Actual. Three Growlers and an IMP northbound on 2nd Avenue. They appear to be scouts.” He paused. “Nakatomi, this is your show now. Over.”
From his excellent vantage point George had spotted the vehicles before Morris was done talking. He took a deep breath and watched the IMP and Growlers roll slowly up 2nd Avenue, straight toward him. It was unnerving, seeing enemy armor coming straight for him and not running for cover. Or shooting. They paused just a few feet short of West Grand, and remained there, four vehicles abreast.
George grabbed his radio. “Nakatomi Ground, this is Tower. Time to chum the water a bit. Please get their attention.”
In the lobby, using one of the thick columns for cover, staring out the south doors at the IMP and Growler far too fucking close for comfort, Ed keyed his radio. “Roger that. Chumming.” Like every veteran dogsoldier he had a natural and well-earned fear of enemy armor, and every cell in his body was screaming at the thought of deliberately provoking an IMP. He was accompanied by four dogsoldiers including Early and Jason, all of whom were using the marble walls to shield themselves from view out the busted doors. He stabbed his hand toward the vehicles. “Light ‘em up! Aim for tires and windshields.”
Using the columns, the security desk, and the wall for cover the men around him opened fire on the vehicles on the far side of the street.
Up on the eighth floor George could hear the gunfire through the glass, echoing off the face of the buildings opposing him. He saw a few sparks as bullets glanced off the front of the IMP, but neither it nor the Growlers responded to the gunfire by advancing closer to the building.
“Tower, engage!” George shouted, not bothering with the radio. He gestured at the window in front of him, and Kelly blew it out with a long full-auto burst with his M4/203. Mark had his SAW set up on a desk, and began firing short bursts down at the vehicles. Quentin, in the conference room, began working the trigger of his S&W AR-15, watching the red dot bounce over the Growlers down below.
The vehicles were not quite two hundred feet from the front of the Fisher Building, and eight stories down, and weren’t moving, either forward or back. “Not getting any closer.” Which had been the hope. “I guess we do it from here,” George said to Kelly. He took a deep breath, adjusted his Springfield AR slung over his back, then looked down at the unfamiliar weapon in his hands.
“I don’t know what that is, but I want it,” George had said not long after Julius had brought them into what everyone called the Guns and Ammo room at the sports complex the day before. And he’d greedily grabbed the item in question.
“That is a Milkor M32A1,” Julius told him. “That thing is almost fifty years old,” he’d said, gesturing at the six-shot grenade lau
ncher in George’s hands. It was, in effect, a giant revolver with a stock and a very short barrel, topped with a pivoting red dot optic.
“It looks new,” George said.
“Well, that one is. I mean the design is old, and proven. What’s new, or newer I guess, are the improved munitions we’ve got for them. Initial versions of what we brought came out over twenty years ago. The original designs were announced and had very cool names, Hellhound and Draco I think, but they never went anywhere, the military never adopted them even though they offered actual armor penetration, something the standard 40mm grenade generally doesn’t do. We found samples, and the schematics, a few years ago, and our engineers developed an even better version—which is what you’ve got there, a dedicated light-armor piercing thermobaric 40mm round.”
“How much armor?”
“Not a Toad, there’s just not enough space in the round. A standard 40mm HE round will take out a Growler, but won’t do anything to an IMP. These rounds, on the other hand, will penetrate the armor on an IMP. Sometimes. Depending.”
“Sometimes? Depending?”
Julius shrugged. “I’m not going to lie to you. It still won’t do anything against the slat armor on the sides, that stuff defeats this just as well as it does everything else. You need to hit bare hull, and the closer to a perpendicular impact the better. If you hit it on a sharp angle, or the IMP has extra bolt-on armor plates on the top, reactive or not, it won’t penetrate. But the great thing, at least from your perspective, is that these grenades have a rainbow trajectory, and you’re going to be firing them from an elevated position. So having them impacting at a solid downward angle against the top deck is a pretty good bet. Upon impact there’s an internal firing pin which hits a detonator that ignites an advanced explosive, and that sends an armor-piercing jet of molten metal into and hopefully through the armor. If it does, there’s a good chance you’ll kill or at least temporarily disable everyone inside that vehicle. It kills with heat and overpressure, generally, as opposed to shrapnel. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a free lunch—because it’s a shaped charge, when you’re shooting at targets in the open, it has a slightly reduced kill radius.” He gestured at the pallet. “We brought quite a bit of it. Maybe more than you’ll be able to carry.
“It have the same drop as a standard forty?” George asked
Julius nodded. “And I sighted in all these myself, at one hundred yards. You see the yardage markings there on the side of the optic, from fifty yards out to three-seventy-five, in twenty-five-yard increments? Those work damn well. Trigger pull’s heavy, but it’s two stage, so you can prep the trigger, get settled, then break the shot clean. If you’ve got the range right and you don’t jerk the trigger, that grenade will drop right where the dot is, they’re surprisingly accurate.”
“You’re definitely the man for that,” Ed said to George. To Julius’ questioning look, he said, “I think the last time George got rattled under fire was before the war.”
“I get rattled all the time,” George said absently, trying to figure out how to swing out the cylinder of the grenade launcher. “I just don’t let it keep me from hitting what I’m aiming at
Julius told them, “About two months ago one of our combat engineers wandered around the Blue Zone, especially the area you’ll be heading, for the better part of a day, measuring distances. He was happy to get out of tunnel digging duty. You’ve got copies of that diagram, and it should be accurate to within plus or minus five yards.” He nodded at the grenade launcher. “Should help a lot with that.”
Staring down at the IMP and Growlers George thought they were closer to seventy-five yards away than fifty, and adjusted the optic’s elevation. He’d dry-fired the weapon until his finger was sore, but he was pretty sure he’d mastered the trigger pull.
George took a step closer to the empty window frame, shouldered the MGL, and put the red dot on the center of the IMP’s top deck. He pulled the heavy trigger almost to the breaking point, took half a second to steady his aim, then pulled the trigger through. The weapon fired with a loud THOOMPF!
The MGL was big and heavy but it bucked vigorously in his hands. George was back on the trigger, getting the dot back on the IMP even as he saw an explosion on its top deck. He couldn’t tell if it had been a good hit or not, so he fired a second time at the IMP, then a third, one corner of his mind aware Kelly had fired his grenade launcher beside him. George moved his aim over and began engaging the Growlers—one round per. Six seconds after firing his first shot, he was empty. Kelly was just firing his second grenade, the single shot M203 much slower to reload. Eight grenades fired in as many seconds.
George let the MGL drop to its sling and grabbed his Springfield. There were Tabs on foot around the now burning and disabled vehicles, using them for cover. A few made a break for the Cadillac Place building. He fired careful, aimed shots, hearing Mark firing bursts with the SAW. A running Tab fell. One of the Growlers was reversing at speed back down 2nd Avenue. The IMP appeared to be dead, one Growler was on fire, and the remaining one had lost a wheel. There were a few bodies on the street between the vehicles.
He grabbed his radio and said evenly, “Skybox, Tower. I think a few made it into your lobby. Three out of those four vehicles are down.” Then he leaned forward and, looking at the burning vehicles across the street, shouted as loud as he could, “Get off my lawn!”
Dietz was just rolling up to the intersection of 2nd Avenue and Baltimore in KICKASS the Toad when Charlie One-Four got on the radio again. “Charlie One-Four is roger that, command,” the IMP Commander said. “Be advised—” Then the transmission stopped.
“Charlie One-Four, repeat your last, you cut out,” Major Lunis said over the comm after waiting about ten seconds.
There was no response, then there was a loud burst of static, then incoherent words. Maybe screaming. “Charlie One-Four? Charlie One-Four, or anyone in that detachment, what is your status, over?” There was no response. “Can anyone get me a sitrep on Charlie One-Four?”
At the moment Dietz couldn’t see shit, because there was a big office building blocking his view. “Go! Around the corner,” Dietz told his driver. They were practically on top of Charlie One-Four’s last known position, just two small city blocks away.
The turbo diesel whined and roared and the tank lurched around the corner and headed north. Dietz stood in his hatch, one hand on the M240B, squinting at the vehicles in the distance. “Charlie One-One is eyes on One-Four detachment,” he announced. “They’ve got at least two vehicles disabled and seem to be taking heavy fire from target building. We are moving to assist.” He could see soldiers hunkering down behind the IMP and one of the Growlers, using the vehicles for cover. “Richards, get us the fuck up there, we need to provide some covering fire. Pull up even with the IMP.”
“You got it, Sergeant.” The Toad surged forward, the engine noise deafening. The troops crouched behind their smoking vehicles heard them coming. The one Growler still mobile roared past them in reverse, its front right tire shredded and flapping noisily. He thought it might regroup behind them, but it kept on going. The soldiers inside were panicked.
“Kirkland! You see those windows blown out of that building in front of us, about ten stories up?”
His gunner took a second to spot them. “Yeah?”
“Put an HE round up there right now!” Dietz had spotted obvious tangos up there, firing down at his men. There was a round already loaded in the main gun.
Firing accurately while moving was actually easy for the tank’s fire control system, but it took a bit longer than when standing still. That said, it was only a few seconds before Kirkland said, “Firing,” and the main gun erupted with a roar and a tongue of flame. Kirkland hit his mark and the face of the building ruptured with a flash and a cloud of glittering dust. The façade of the high rise around the crater seemed to sag. He didn’t see anything moving.
“Right on the fucking money! Excellent! Richards, get us in there.
” As the IMP roared up Dietz began firing the belt-fed over the heads of the troopers in front of him, directly into the lobby of the building across the street, trying to keep the terrorists there pinned down.
“We can’t stay here,” Dietz shouted down at the few men still on the street, some of whom looked like they wanted to use the Toad for cover. He fired another burst, then pointed at the Cadillac Place building on their right. “Get inside, under cover.”
Seattle was on the northwest corner of the building and saw the Toad rolling up on the burning vehicles. He didn’t call it out, he knew Nakatomi Tower had a better view on the oncoming tank than he did. But then the tank fired its main gun and the face of the Fisher Building erupted, a thousand shards of glass catching the light as they fell to the street, along with chunks of concrete and pieces of steel.
“Shit,” he swore. Ignoring Morris’ instructions to stay back from the window he pressed his nose to the glass and looked down. The Toad was firing its belt-fed across the street, attempting a rescue of the few men still trapped by the burning vehicles. The gunfire was echoing off the buildings in all directions. He grabbed his radio. “Skybox West, Skybox West, this is Almighty. You have a Toad right underneath you. I repeat, you have a Toad right underneath you on the street, right now, over.”
“Skybox East, this is Almighty East,” he heard without a second’s pause. “You’ve got a whole traffic jam underneath you right now. Go loud, do not wait, I repeat go loud, it’s never going to get better, give ‘em everything you’ve got.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Kermit, led by Barker, was on the west end of the tenth floor of the Cadillac Place building. They’d watched the battle between the Nakatomi Tower group led by George and the Tab ground units, noses pressed against the windows like kids, frustrated at having to sit it out.
They’d heard the Toad roaring up 2nd Avenue right before they’d spotted it, and that was a second before its main gun had fired, blowing a hole in the front of the building right where George and the rest of Tower had been standing.