“If they don’t send in a whole tank corps to deal with us.”
“The mayor’s not gonna like a plan that drags her town into a lot of death and carnage, Major,” said Chief Braydon, who was sitting nearby and listening as Tyce presented his plan.
“Well, I don’t see we have a choice. We can see this as an opportunity, or we can see this as a problem. In either case, the Russians will most certainly come to Parsons.”
“I’ll be honest with you all. We don’t want any Russians here, and we don’t want you here, either. We can manage just fine by ourselves. Off the grid and unnoticed is our preference.”
“Chief, unless I’m missing something, we’re at war. We have been invaded. We’re all already involved.”
“And so now it’s martial law?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But that’s what you’re implying. I think if you intend to turn Parsons into a war zone, Mayor Susanna needs to be informed.”
“We won’t fight in the city. And that’s fine, you can inform her once we’ve worked through the plan. We don’t have a lot of time to sit around talking about it, though. In ten hours, Russians are going to be crawling all over the place, and I don’t think they’ll treat you all any different than they’ll treat us.”
“Why don’t you leave that kind of figuring up to me and the mayor? You don’t have a right to endanger the citizens of the town.”
“Damn it, Chief.” Tyce’s blood was boiling, and in a rare display his temper flared. “What are you not understanding? We are at war. Our country has been invaded.”
“That’s so. But it sure as shit ain’t every man’s duty to fight back. We ain’t all warriors.”
“But we are all at war—”
“Is that it? That’s what you want, Major? Citizens dying left and right?” He shook his head and looked around the room at some of the citizens who had now joined Tyce. “You can have your mix ’n match army. Just remember, some of us are here to serve the people, not to serve in war.”
“First, that’s not the implication, either, Chief.”
Wynand interrupted. “You want a free-for-all, Chief ?” He pointed to Tyce. “How about you, Major? Because that’s what’s fixin’ to happen.” Wynand laughed a wicked laugh. “Suits me just fine. Every man for hisself.”
As things started to heat up, three of the chief’s deputies came over from the dispatch room to listen in. Tyce’s Marines and soldiers started to pull to one side of the room, some with unslung weapons. This didn’t go unnoticed among the deputies, who also pulled back to the side of the large office, their hands instinctively going to the tops of their holsters. Even Trigger seemed to know they had a bit of a Mexican standoff, and he started barking and growling at the chief. This made matters worse.
“Control your mutt,” the chief shouted.
“He’s not a mutt, you asshole. He’s a combat fighting dog, and apparently he’s got bigger balls than you.” said SSgt. Diaz.
The chief snarled and started to unholster his pistol.
Tyce could see things were quickly escalating out of control. This would end badly for all. Knowing full well he needed public support, and certainly support from the town of Parsons, he sighed heavily and took a different tack.
Holding up his hand and pushing his carbine around behind him in a disarming gesture, he said, “Okay. Look. We are in this together. We, meaning Americans, have a duty to our country. Your duty is different from mine and my men’s duty, but we cannot allow the Russians to win the day by taking over the city of Parsons and forcing all of us to retreat farther into the mountains. Sheriff, there are no good paths forward. The war is about to come to your fair city, like it or not. But I have an idea. What if we set up for a hit-and-run?”
“What good does that do? You’re still planning on killing Russians in my backyard, and you can’t tell me that they won’t hold me and my citizens responsible for your actions.”
“Not if we do it right. I just might have an idea on how we can both get what we need from our initial encounter with them.”
“I’m all ears, Major, but whatever we decide, it’s still gotta go to Mayor Susanna before I say yes.”
“We have some time. Let me go over the idea. If you and the mayor don’t like it, me and my troops will skedaddle from Parsons, and you won’t have to worry about us. The Russians, yes, but not us.”
“Okay, but it better be a big ol’ whopper of an idea.”
The tension in the room seemed to ease, and the troops and the deputies returned peacefully—albeit still a bit on edge—back to the board to hear Tyce’s plan.
CHAPTER 17
Parsons
Three minivans stopped abruptly about two hundred meters in front of a checkpoint the Marines and police had set up on Route 72, just north of Parsons, to query local traffic. The Marines stiffened and moved to cover, but the police deputies, inexperienced in warfare, moved too slowly. When the first burst of 7.62mm rifle fire blasted into their midst, everyone dove behind their hasty barricade of cut logs and abandoned cars.
One deputy wasn’t fast enough and took two rounds as he dove for cover—one to the thigh, and the other to his neck. He was dead before his body hit the ground. The gun battle that followed was fierce and fast. Not having anticipated this confrontation, two of the three vehicles accelerated backward and hightailed it back to the north. The other was riddled with bullet holes. Wisps of grey smoke indicated something was smoldering under the hood.
* * *
The sudden sound of gunfire was audible all the way back in Parsons. The chief and Tyce jumped to their feet. A few frantic moments followed as the radio operators tried to establish communications. It was only a few minutes, but it seemed as though time passed in slow motion, like a lifetime before the firefight ended.
Tyce was about to bolt out to his Humvee to check for himself when the radio call finally came in. It was a weary-sounding Marine. Tyce glanced at the duty roster they had drawn up on the chief’s dry-erase board to see who it was. The whole board was covered with names of seasoned NCOs. Men he and the others had trained alongside for a good bit, and now were getting to know by name. The report was two casualties: one killed in action, a police deputy, and one Marine wounded in action.
Tyce grabbed the radio handset. “Did you get all of them? What was their disposition and strength?”
The NCO’s weary voice came back again. As with many of Tyce’s men, this was his first real gunfight, and he was apparently suffering from the immediate fatigue that overcame most once the shooting stopped.
“No, sir. We got one carload, but the other two got away.”
“Damn!” said Tyce, looking at his watch. It had only been four hours and they just weren’t ready. “They found us already. No time for anything fancy. We gotta punch ’em hard.”
The chief stared back at him in wild-eyed disbelief. Maybe he never actually expected the Russians to materialize in any force. He certainly didn’t expect them to be there before the time line they’d predicted.
Tyce was a little more resilient to the ever-shifting tides of battle, “Possibly a routine forward reconnaissance patrol checking the roads, but damn it,” Tyce said again to the chief.
He calmed his tone, then got back on the radio. “Okay, copy. I understand two enemy vics escaped and are now headed north along your route . . . Route 72?” Tyce said.
“That’s affirm, sir.”
“Vics?” asked the chief.
“Short for ‘Victor.’ It’s a military term for ‘vehicle.’”
Tyce turned to the chief’s ready reactionary force. They had consolidated two half belts of .50 caliber rounds and about half a magazine of M16 ammunition for each of the four-man vehicles. The quick reaction force, called the QRF, included a police deputy squad car with two deputies. Tyce would add everyone else he could get ahold of at short notice. He hadn’t seen Ned’s men in a while. He sent someone to track him down and send him to the comm
and post.
“Chief, I want to send out the QRF and anyone else we can grab. Nothing too willy-nilly or we’ll overwhelm ourselves with confusion, and we’ll brief them on the fly. You got any thoughts?”
“Let’s send ’em. But I want to go with my officers. This is all new territory for them . . . and for me. Just in case they’re actually some crazy-ass civilians, you’ll want me there to calm the thing down.”
“Agreed. There’s bound to be something coming to investigate what we did to their men. We need to try to overpower them and buy us some more time. I’ll go with my vehicle. If you take the lead, I’ll take middle. I’m betting you and your boys know the roads a hell of a lot better than we do. Especially at night.”
The men grabbed their flak jackets, rifles, and helmets.
“Men, get ready, right now. Hasty ambush. North side of town.”
Captain Blake rushed in and Tyce pointed at him, “You ready?”
“Born ready.”
“Find me an ambush site, trooper. Someplace north of town that favors us. I’ll pin the Russian reactionary unit down, you close with them and destroy them, copy.”
“I’m good, sir. Me and my boys can handle it,” answered Ned.
Tyce grabbed Gunny and gave him instructions to get ready to pack up the whole show. Whatever happened next, there was one thing for certain; their rest and recuperation time had come to an end.
The chief’s men had riot gear, and what they still needed, especially flak jackets, Tyce supplied. They were equipped and out the door in less than three minutes. A few minutes later, every man had checked his guns, mounted up, and they were off. Tyce hoped to hell it wasn’t just a bunch of locals taking advantage of the situation to settle some old scores. The last report was not very reliable, something about gun-toting minivans was about all that he understood.
“Well, Major, looks like you got your ambush. And a lot sooner than you wanted it, and on the wrong side of the city. I sure as shit hope you don’t blast half the town away in the process. Mayor Susanna will have your ass in a wicker basket,” said the chief as they departed the station.
* * *
The Russian captain watched the first of his vehicles taking the mountain curves with speed and a smooth precision. It had taken him less than forty-five minutes to get his men moving, and another two hours to close in on Parsons. In the lead was an armored personnel carrier called the BTR-90. He could see the BTR’s turret, its 30mm cannon on top scanning the hillside ahead for trouble. He highly doubted there was anything in these backwoods that could stop a BTR, one of Russia’s premium assault vehicles.
The captain in charge of this reactionary force was actually a sapper, one of the engineers that was supposed to go find mines or plant them. The West Virginia district command had sent out an alert when one of the reconnaissance patrols had called in that they’d been shot at. Not exactly what they thought they would be doing during the American invasion. But hey, at least he wasn’t sitting in their headquarters—the West Virginia University Coliseum—building shitters and mess tents, waiting for something to happen.
As for all the soldiers in his distributed battalion from the 30th Sappers, the invasion of America and Morgantown was boring. The town was squeezed between rivers and a low mountain range, and there hadn’t been much action yet. No real resistance. The only thing they’d done since they’d off-loaded from the transport aircraft at the municipal airport was a few patrols and a lot of sitting in the Coliseum waiting to be called out to assist any of the infantry units that were in the process of rounding up potential dissidents.
Now, finally, it looked like something might have happened. The intelligence provided by their combat operations center said there might be a few overly patriotic cops or some rogue U.S. Army reservists in the hills. Someone got in a shootout and one vehicle was missing. Although from the confused reports, it was more likely the missing vehicle and soldiers had gone too far into the hills and outrun their radios and their fuel. It had already happened a few times, causing unnecessary excitement back at his HQ.
Fuel seemed to be scarcer than they had been briefed in their planning. They’d been told all they needed to do was to go find “the guy with the keys” and they could use the fuel everywhere. Trouble was . . . most of the fuel guys were in hiding, and the gas stations they were able to break into didn’t have enough for their thirsty military vehicles. So much had been used up just driving around the confusing U.S. city streets and country roads. So far, America was a lot bigger than the captain had expected.
Suddenly, a light flashed ahead, around the bend. Looked almost like a lightning strike at first, but then came the familiar pop-pop of gunfire.
Ah, so the hillbillies and woodsmen want to play, huh? Thought the captain with a disparaging smile as he reached down to unlatch his AK-74 rifle from its holder. With his other hand, he grabbed the radio and transmitted back to base.
“Headquarters, headquarters. This is reactionary element leader. I’m at sector ekho-three,” he glanced at his map which had been broken into zones, “correction, ekho-seven and have sight of some resistance. We will sweep it aside and radio back.”
“We understand. Do you need any assistance?” the response was weak and barely audible, such was the height of the mountains blocking his radio transmissions, but he got the gist of it.
“Nyet.” He’d fought some pockets of resistance before. Twos and threes with shotguns, mostly. Mountain men who thought they could put up a good fight, but once they received the withering fire his men could lay down, they surrendered or ran in fear. “It is more of the American hillbillies. I will establish better communications once we are mission complete.”
* * *
Night became day as the BTR sprayed the opposite hill with 30mm, high-explosive incendiary cannon fire. The volume of fire was impressive. Tyce watched as red and yellow bursts slammed into rocks, sending flashes of sparks that sprayed into the pines and set them on fire. Four more vehicles raced up, one troop truck and three GAZ Tigrs, and formed a line beside the BTR. Each vehicle was up-gunned, and the Russians in the turret ring began spraying the hill with their own machine guns. The Marines and soldiers on the far hill slowed their rate of fire, and then ceased altogether as the incoming Russian fire became too much for them to answer.
The radio in Tyce’s Humvee came to life. “Um . . . Commander, Commander, this is Main.” Tyce’s first thought before answering was I organized things at my temporary command post pretty well, but I am not the commanding officer of the 150th regiment, nor have I been assigned a call sign across the units, so no one knows what to call me on the radio. But since his was a composite unit, he was, for all intents and purposes, the acting commander of the regiment. At least, until the colonel could be found.
“Main, this is Dragoon-six, send your traffic.” He erred on the side of using his usual call sign from his old Marine reconnaissance unit versus making the assumption that he was, indeed, the regiment’s boss. He figured that some of the army guys might take offense at a Marine simply assuming he was their commander, and not just in the interim. He knew that there were egos involved and protocol to deal with, in spite of the ongoing Russian attack.
Anyhow, not a lot of time to worry about these things, he thought, but no one will know who’s-who in the zoo if I don’t figure it out.
“Copy, Dragoon-six. The hospital . . . um . . . commander is here, and she wants to know why she wasn’t informed about the inbound casualties.”
The radio went silent, then Victoria’s voice came on the radio. “Hey, Racoon six. This is some real fucked-up bullshit back here. Need to know the nature of your casualties so we can get the operating room ready. Your main CP here tells me you have one fallen Angel and one priority medevac, is that correct?”
Tyce realized in his haste that they had indeed neglected to let Commander Remington and her navy surgery team know anything they were up to, including the inbound wounded man. He’d have to remembe
r to keep her informed in the future. Men could lose their lives if the medical personnel were not prepped for action, and keeping them up to date was firmly Tyce’s job. He also made a mental note to try to teach Commander Remington some radio network etiquette, or “netiquette,” as it was often called affectionately. She seemed to enjoy using profanity and was pretty liberal with the jokes. Maybe she thought it made her sound tough, but it was not how Marines spoke on their radios. As the old saying went: “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”
“Copy, our Main should be able to fill you in. We’ll keep you better informed. We are setting up now. Dragoon-six, out.”
“STP six copies.” Victoria was using the call sign “STP” for shock-trauma-platoon and the number “six” which was used to designate a particular call-sign as the commander, in this case, Victoria.
Makes sense, thought Tyce. Lots of protocol I’ll have to sort out with her later.
But right now, he was trying to hang on to the dashboard as his Humvee driver, seemingly determined to hit every bump and pothole, raced behind the chief’s cruiser.
Maybe it was a combination of the chief’s knowledge of the roads, or maybe the initial firefight had damaged their vehicles enough to slow them down, but just when Tyce considered giving up the chase, the chief radioed from the front.
“Hey, Marines. We’ve got two vehicles coming around the bend in our headlights. Gunny says we should hit them with the sirens and the searchlight. I suspect they’ll try to accelerate or open fire. Now’s your chance.”
Assault by Fire Page 11