Dogsoldiers
Page 48
“Yeah?” The other soldier popped his head out of the apartment where Renny had set up.
“Cover that stairwell, call out if the Tabs show up on foot. There’s a Growler out there somewhere.” The young man didn’t bother responding, he just jogged off toward the stairwell Harris and his few remaining men had climbed. Weasel ran down the hallway in the other direction and pushed open the stairwell door to listen. He couldn’t hear anyone coming up the stairs, but he could hear the newcomers in the apartment nearby.
“Backblast area clear! Ears!” someone shouted, then the RPG fired.
“I can’t see, these fucking trees. That go over the slats? It’s not moving. Hit him again, just to make sure. You’ve only got one left.”
“There’s guys bailing out of the back! Fire! Fire!”
The roar of a second RPG being touched off shook the building, and Weasel heard the explosion outside. There was coughing inside the room, and the dust which filled it rolled out into the hallway.
“It’s dead, IMP’s dead, but we’ve got Tabs on foot, in the building and across the street. Don’t see the Growler. We’re out of rockets.”
Weasel was in the front stairwell which had a glass wall looking out on West Grand. It was very exposed, but he liked being able to see, and if the Tabs came up the back stairway they’d have to run by him to get at Renny or the other soldiers. The IMP was just out of view to the left.
He stared down the stairwell and flipped the selector on his MP5 to full auto. “Fucking finally,” he said quietly, with a smile. He hadn’t been happy at all, being stuck far from where he expected the action to take place. Even though sniper support and security was a serious responsibility, and Weasel’s MP5 was perfectly suited to close-in work, he was pretty sure he’d been stuck guarding the old man with the big gun specifically because he’d been pissed at the guy for taking the shot on the convoy and nearly getting them all killed. Whatever the reason, Weasel had just nodded and done what he’d been told, because the Captain was the Captain, and he hadn’t made a bad call yet.
Now, the chance for Renny to take a few shots and slip quietly from his perch were over, and Weasel couldn’t have been happier. This was the kind of shit he lived for. One-on-one with Tabs, inside a building, loaded down with more ammo and grenades than he’d ever had in this war? Thank you Jesus. He turned his head and shouted, “I need you guys to help secure these stairwells and help repel fucking boarders. Don’t worry about the elevators, they don’t work.”
“A tunnel?” Parker said dubiously, standing in the center of his operations center, which was a madhouse. His troops had entered the apartment building just south of the aircraft hangars a few minutes before, only to find it empty of terrorists. They’d found a handful of bodies in the attached parking garage, but that was it.
“Yes. They collapsed it behind them.”
“Where does it go? Sewers?”
Cooper responded. “That’d be my guess.” At least they knew how the tangos had breached the perimeter.
“I thought we demolished all of those,” Parker said. “Didn’t General Block do that early on?”
Cooper shrugged. “I know he bombed or collapsed certain sections of it. I don’t think you can render an entire city sewer system inaccessible.”
“Apparently fucking not.”
“Colonel, I’ve got word from the hangars,” Chamberlain called out.
Parker was pretty sure he didn’t want to hear the news, but instead spat out, “Tell me.”
“We’ve got one Kestrel that looks like it is airworthy. All the rest are damaged or destroyed. However, the functional bird is at the back of the hangar, blocked in. It’ll take some time to drag the others out of the way to get it out, and in the air.”
“Well, don’t waste time then, do it.”
As he’d been having that conversation the radio traffic exploded. He listened in, but it was hard to understand exactly what was happening on the ground. Cooper moved over to stand by the communications officer, and conferred with two Sergeants as he listened in on the chatter. Parker waited, as the radio traffic flew back and forth, many of the soldiers stepping on each other’s transmissions. Finally, Parker heard a broadcast in the clear, and it made him sick.
“Foxtrot One-One to Command, Foxtrot One-One to Command, Foxtrot Actual is down. Repeat, Foxtrot Actual is KIA, as is that vehicle. Taking heavy fire from surrounding buildings, grenades and RPGs and Molotovs. We’ve lost a track but are still mobile and combat effective. Three additional Growlers from our detachment down.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Cooper moved over to the illustrated map, zoomed in on Washboard.
“It was an ambush,” he said bitterly. “They suckered us right in.” He pointed to 2nd Avenue at Washboard, and moved his finger as he moved around the map. “From all reports we’ve got an IMP, a Toad, and several Growlers destroyed here, and on the far side of the building an IMP and several more Growlers out of commission. Our troops are now on foot inside this building, Cadillac Place, rooting out the terrorists. We still have tangos in the target building but who knows how many, it’s obvious now they were just the bait. Elements of Charlie are in contact with tangos here, an apartment building, on the west end of Washboard, asking for reinforcements. Unknown numbers inside. Elements of Foxtrot are circling around to the north from the east side. From their GPS Foxtrot One-One is here, on a side street off to the east.” He looked at Parker. “Rough guess? We’ve lost almost half our vehicles, and maybe as many men.”
Parker was chewing at his lip. “We all should have known better,” he admitted. “Couldn’t take our eyes off the TV station, and they pulled us in too close and RPG’ed us from the rooftops. Fuck.”
“Sir, there were some reports the guerrillas weren’t just using RPGs, they had rockets of some kind.”
“I doubt that, not that it matters. And I can’t imagine they have too many RPGs left, I bet they’ve blown their load.” He pointed at the map. “We seem to have them boxed in. South, west, north, east. But we’re stretched thin, real thin.” He looked at Cooper, and Chamberlain. “Send in two more platoons.”
“Sir,” Cooper said, cautioning.
“What, you want them here, pulling security? Didn’t seem to make much of a difference here, the fucking ARF grounded my whole air wing minus one. I can walk on dead soldiers from this building to the hangars. And then they just sneak out a tunnel like the Viet Cong? Leave two tanks here, send the rest, and every IMP we’ve got not pulling guard duty at a gate, and at least ten more Growlers full of troops. We’ve got that many left, right? They want a fight, let’s give it to them. We know where they are, that they’re in the buildings.” He stabbed at the map with his finger. “Let’s surround them, and kill them. I don’t care if you have to level every building there, I want to wipe out these vermin for once and for all.”
His S2 and S3 exchanged a look. “Yes sir.”
“And get that goddamned Kestrel in the air!” he roared.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
George spotted the Toad as it emerged from the railroad tunnel on 2nd Avenue. It was roaring up the incline, straight at them, and he only had eyes for its huge main gun. “Oh shit. Toad! Displace, displace, displace!” He ran out of the office and hooked right, heading down the hallway at a full sprint, Kelly right behind him, both of them passing Quentin as he charged out the doorway of his conference room.
The building exploded around them and George found himself on the carpeted floor, coughing in the dust-laden air. He’d run nearly to the end of the hallway, where he’d told the men to stash their heavy packs. Quentin was on top of Kelly and rolled off, spitting and groaning.
George got to his feet and investigated to see if he was bleeding anywhere, then checked on his men. “You alive? Everybody got all their limbs?” They were safe where they were, probably, and George took his time checking for wounds and catching his breath. Satisfied they were whole George walked past them and stopped.
Twenty feet further the outside hallway wall was sagging, and past that, out toward the street, appeared to be…nothing. No office. No more desk, or chairs, or windows, and half the office floor was gone. He could see down into the floor below and the office there. George stayed back in the hallway, behind cover, so he wasn’t visible to the Toad.
In the center of the blast damage the hallway floor tilted downward. Mark was in the hallway on the far side of the blast zone. He’d been a little slower carrying the SAW, and George saw one of his legs below the shorts was bloody. He was standing, but seemed to be favoring the leg.
“Is it bad?” George called out through the swirling dust.
“I’ll live,” the big man shouted back. He pointed at the listing floor between them. “I don’t trust that.”
“Right. Meet you down on six. Move before that fucker decides to fire another round up here.” George turned and ran back to Quentin and Kelly, who’d gotten to their feet. “Grab your packs and let’s go. Where’s the nearest stairs?” He grabbed his bouncing radio as he jogged down the carpeted hallway. “Tower is displacing, heading down to six.”
“Holy shit, Tower is still alive?” Seattle said in wonder at the transmission, staring at the big crater in the face of the Fisher Building. Morris joined him in his corner of the building, and looked down at the burning and wrecked vehicles on the west side of Cadillac Place. “Sir? Is it time?” he asked the Colonel.
“Looks like it,” Morris said. “Follow me.” He jogged to the other end of the building. Bill was at the northeast corner. From that position Morris believed he could see all the vehicles on Cass Avenue Skybox East had destroyed except for the IMP, which was out of sight beyond the corner of the building. Everything he could see was on fire, the street was still a kaleidoscope of flame, with the vehicles merrily ablaze. The burning tires were sending columns of coal black smoke high into the air.
“Secondary?” Bill asked. He traded a look with Seattle. They’d worked together as a scout/sniper team for two years assigned to Morris’ unit. That meant, more often than not, infiltration and clandestine intelligence gathering, but when they had to pull the trigger they were damn good at it. This mission had promised to be a little bit of everything.
Morris nodded. “Secondary. Good luck, gentlemen. Call out when you’re in place.” Bill shrugged into his pack, grabbed his long rifle, and then headed for the stairs with Seattle at a fast walk.
“All Skybox units, all Skybox units, this is Almighty Actual,” Morris said into his radio, staring at Cadillac Place. “You’re blown, your position is blown, displace to your fallback positions if possible.” He paused, then added. “Good work. All units, all units, we are putting up eyes in the sky. Repeat, we are putting up the eyes in the sky, and will keep you updated on any enemy reinforcements spotted.”
Morris jogged through the building to the southeast corner. Conrad was there. “I heard you,” he said to his CO. He had the controllers for the two drones booted up and began punching in commands. The drones were on the roof, having been placed there before the party started, but Morris hadn’t wanted to put them airborne until the fighting commenced. Even though their feeds were encrypted, they were still detectable by the Army. At this point, though, that hardly mattered. “You send them out to the secondary?”
“Yeah.”
Conrad finished punching in the coordinates and hit the Auto-Pilot. The drones took off within a few seconds of each other and proceeded to their preprogrammed coordinates. One headed half a mile southwest, one half a mile southeast, and they both climbed to one thousand feet. It took them just over a minute to get into position. Between their positions and their elevation, they should spot any incoming military vehicles within a mile of the New Center area. The drones would stay on station, using their GPS for positioning, until given new commands or until their batteries died, which shouldn’t be for at least ninety minutes.
Morris pointed at the tablet, which currently showed a splitscreen view of the feeds from both drones. The 1080p image-stabilized cameras had more than enough resolution for their needs. “That’s your job, right there, you’re early warning. Call out anything you see.”
“You think Parker’s going to send more troops? We kicked his fucking ass.”
Morris nodded. With most of the Army’s helicopters and half this initial ground force destroyed, the mission was already a qualified success, but Morris firmly believed in kicking a man when he was down. Besides, even with their immediate losses, the Tabs still had enough armor and men to run the city, and the war wouldn’t be over until the enemy was defeated or destroyed, everywhere. “That’s exactly why he will. And it’s not like he can let us be and give up the only part of this city that doesn’t look like it’s been nuked. But he’s not going to let the next wave of armor get anywhere near buildings that haven’t been cleared. His drones are probably already overhead.”
Conrad shrugged. “We’re in the buildings, which they already knew. So they’ve got to drive in close to drop soldiers off to clear the buildings. Or they drop them off a quarter mile out and they advance on foot. Either way sucks for them if we’re still above them.”
“My guess is they’re going to stand off a quarter mile or so and pound every likely spot in every building around here with grenades and main gun rounds from Toads and belt-feds while the troops advance on foot. It’s what I’d do.”
Conrad looked up at him. “So…time to get away from the windows?” They knew it was likely to happen sooner or later.
“Yeah. Center of the building. Will you still be able to communicate with the drones?”
“They’re programmed to stay on station even if they lose communication with the base.” He grabbed his pack with one hand and carried the combination drone controller/viewscreen with the other, and followed the Lieutenant Colonel down the hallway and into an interior office. “Little static, but not bad.” He pointed at the screen. “Look.” There, on the screen, were two very small figures. Bill and Seattle, exiting the south side of the building and heading southeast.
The endemic military was sure to have at least one drone overhead already. He didn’t feel like pulling out the sheet with the satellite coverage, but most likely there was a camera bird overhead as well. So he had to assume Bill and Seattle had been spotted, but hopefully two men alone wouldn’t merit much attention. Maybe the drone operators would even suspect the two men were bailing from the fight, retreating while they had the chance. As long as they didn’t look too closely at the rifles the men were carrying.
Even though he was supposed to be on the lookout for additional incoming military, Conrad kept one of the drone’s cameras trained on Bill and Seattle as they made their way a quarter mile south, eventually entering a six-story office building on Cass avenue. A minute later, Bill’s panting voice came over the radio. “Almighty, Outlier is in position, over.” Which meant they were on the sixth floor of the building, looking south.
“Almighty is roger on that, Outlier. We’ve got eyes in the sky, but keep us updated. Fireworks are your call.”
“Outlier copies, over.”
Conrad looked up at Morris. “Travelling by those tunnels seemed to work great. I guess now we find out if the combat engineers earned the rest of their money.”
Morris pointed at the drone camera feed. “Swing that one over farther to the west. That freeway there is practically a tunnel and I don’t want to miss any vehicles using it.”
“I thought we had the best seat in the house but all we’ve been doing is sitting out the war,” Brooke growled. From their perch in the New Center One building, all Cambridge West had done was listen to the combat unfolding as the Tab cavalry arrived. Other than the nose of the first IMP destroyed on 2nd Avenue they hadn’t even been able to see any of it. They were in the center of everything, but all the action was happening around the periphery.
“You want to move?” Robbie asked her dubiously. “Where? There’s probably more Tabs coming.”
“Cambridge East has Tabs in the building. Cambridge East has Tabs in the building.”
“Let’s go,” Brooke said. She called out to the three men with her, “We’re backing them up, sounds like they’re having problems.” She pointed. “Stairs. Walkway over to the hotel is on the second floor.” The dogsoldiers grabbed their gear and charged for the nearby stairwell. She grabbed her radio. “Cambridge West is on the move to you. Hold on.”
Ed was in the center of the Fisher Building lobby talking to Hannibal. They were standing on the first step down to the lower level, using the marble walls for cover. They’d both heard Brooke’s call out.
“Should we back her up? Send some guys?” Hannibal wondered.
Ed chewed his lip for a bit, then shook his head. “Let’s wait a bit. We bitchslapped them, but there’s still Tabs all around. I don’t want to pull guys out of here just yet.”
“If they push through Cambridge….” Hannibal said warningly.
Ed nodded. “You have at least one guy on the second floor, watching the walkway to New Center One?”
“Yeah. And on the ground floor. And you put one of your guys down below, making sure none of those guys who made it into Skybox are sneaking over through the tunnel?”
“Yeah.”
Hannibal had been in charge of holding the north and east sides of the Fisher Building. So far, his men had done nothing but nervously listen to others fighting. He looked all around the beautiful lobby. “I thought they were going to push harder on this building.”