That’s when the TOW missile burrowed into and through the front armor of his turret. In his last moments before death, he could actually see the fins of the enemy TOW missile just before it struck. The inside of the T-90 blew to pieces, ripping apart the gunner. In a millisecond, the powerful American penetrator reached the tank’s magazine, detonating the stored rounds like a volcano and blowing the commander up and out of the turret. His body was ejected over two hundred feet, parts of it glowing from the hundreds of embedded and burning metal chunks.
* * *
SFC Garrison looked at the burning tank through his sight a moment longer, glanced at his gunner, who was gingerly touching the broken end of his nose, then pulled himself free from his turret. A choking smoke was emanating from the driver’s compartment.
“Gunner, switch back to the 25 and keep scanning. We’re immobile, but we can still act as a fire-support pillbox and assist the lieutenant’s advance.”
“Roger. Scanning now,” came the bone-weary response from the gunner.
“I’m up and out. Gonna go check on Phillips.” he said, referring to their dead driver, “Warn me if you’re firing.”
“Roger.”
Both men’s voices betrayed their emotions and the post-combat crash. The adrenaline had gushed to all corners of their bodies when the battle began, literally firing every twitch muscle in their bodies for perfect control. But now the adrenaline had ebbed away, leaving Garrison physically exhausted and his gunner light-headed from blood loss.
SFC Garrison stepped onto the cold metal turret, kicking spent 25mm casings off the vehicle as he made his way over to the driver’s top hatch. He opened it up, and white smoke billowed out. From what little he could see, burning chunks of red and yellow metal were still stuck like glue to the sides of the driver’s compartment, and just below lay Private Phillips’s corpse, gutted and unrecognizable.
Garrison tipped his crew helmet back and stepped away from the smoke pouring out of his driver’s hatch, then watched Zane and his Humvees advance pell-mell through the hole in the fence his Brad had helped make. They drove directly past the burning T-90 and made their way toward the central military airplane hangars.
“Fuck me . . .” Garrison muttered.
At least they had helped turn the tide and might now be able to get the vice president out of here.
Mission accomplished, he thought, but at quite a cost. Hope that asshole appreciates this.
He heard muffled shouts from the gunner inside. “Hey Sergeant, better get back in. There’s activity out on the flight line.”
Garrison hopped back into his turret and snapped his crew helmet back into the intercom.
“What do you see?”
“Unsure, but it looks like there’s some helos trying to take off.”
SFC Garrison gulped and took a look through the gunsight himself.
“Jesus . . . those are Mi-24 Hinds.”
“Fucking what, sergeant?”
“It’s a Russian armored attack helo,” he said. He flicked the switch on his radio to broadcast his spot report of a new enemy contact. “All stations, all stations, this is seven-two-seven, I’ve got a SPOTREP. And you ain’t gonna like it.”
CHAPTER 41
Yeager Airport
Tyce heard the short, intense fight and could see dense black and white smoke rising high into the morning sky, lit by flickering flames from the other half of the base. The reports from Lieutenant Zane were ill received. If correct, one or more Russian helicopters were about to be airborne. Most important to Tyce, it greatly increased the risks. And meant more casualties.
Do I call it quits? he thought. When is this thing over and I admit I’ve lost?
There it was again, the creeping self-doubt he’d worn like a terrible demon on his shoulders since his fight in Fallujah, Iraq. He thought over what General Lawton had said to him at Harman: “Trust your instincts, even when things are going badly. Let the military half of your brain take over, and it will find a way through the madness.” Words to live by, and he pondered them a second.
And what about what Victoria had said? He could remember it perfectly. But thinking of her, his mind went to other thoughts. He remembered her soft skin, warm and pressed up against him. What had she said? Ah, he remembered, “Tyce, there’s no room to dwell on the past. You are in command of your own destiny.” All comforting words, but still just words, and they didn’t seem to be helping him think of a solution when his assault was about to fail.
Tyce was struggling not to call Lieutenant Zane constantly to get the latest information on the helicopters. The sun was just beginning to light up the morning sky, hints of blue wiping away the greys. He’d be able to see them himself soon enough. He pulled out his binoculars, but the lights across the service apron still shielded everything on the other side of base from view.
He heard a rustle from behind him. Someone was asking to be directed to his position. He couldn’t take his eyes off the battle to look. A few seconds later, he heard the vice president speaking behind him.
“Hey, uh, Trooper, looking for your commander.”
Crap, not now, thought Tyce.
“It’s me, sir,” said Tyce, reluctant to look up for even a moment to acknowledge his new commander in chief.
“Oh, hey there,” said the VP, coming forward to stand next to Tyce. “We know you told us to stick back behind the woods for safety, but we heard the positive reports back at your command Humvees and wanted to come up and congrat—”
He was interrupted by the whooshing noise of rotor blades and the renewed chatter of machine guns, followed by tracers careening high into the still darkened sky. A few stray rounds chirped and buzzed as they passed over Tyce’s small forward command post.
The VP looked up, his mouth agape in wonderment. His silhouette fully illuminated by the battle and against the wood line, “Oh, is that—”
Tyce grabbed the VP by his borrowed flak -jacket and hauled him down into the small fighting hole.
“Wowzers. Guess we should duck. Heh heh. I’m new to all this, you know.” The VP was clearly wanting to talk to someone in the know, but he couldn’t have picked a worse time.
“Mr. Vice—” began Tyce, but the helicopter sounds were growing louder. Then a call came over the radio.
“Sir,” said Tyce’s radio operator. “It’s the B Troop commander. Lieutenant Zane wants to talk to you.” The radio operator tried to pass the handset to Tyce, but the VP, who was still new to the heavy body armor and was clambering about to catch a glance of the happenings, got tangled up in the pigtail cord.
“Sorry.” said the VP.
Tyce extracted the handset and keyed the mic, his frustration clearly evident in his tone “B Troop-six, B Troop-six, this is Iron Horse-six actual, send your traffic.”
Oblivious to the urgency, the VP continued talking loudly, and Tyce couldn’t hear a word over him. “Should I move? I mean, if I’m in the way, you just—”
Bra-aa-ap!
The loud and continuous sound of a Gatling automatic gun fired a long, full burst. On the far side of the base, a thin stream of light emanated from the sky about five hundred feet up in the air and swept back and forth across the ground like a fire hose.
“Oh, shit!” exclaimed the VP loudly. “Should we do something about that? Or . . . is that our guys?”
Tyce rekeyed the handset, but he knew Zane now had other matters to deal with. “B Troop, this is Iron Horse. Do you need assistance? What’s your situation?”
A youngish voice came over the radio. “Iron Horse, this is Private Miller. We’re getting raked by fire, one of those Russian ’copters made it into the air and is firing at us. We’ve spread out and taken cover in the hangars. Three Humvees are burning. Including the lieutenant’s vehicle. He’s on fire. I don’t think—”
But Tyce didn’t hear the rest of the transmission. The handset was ripped from Tyce’s grasp, again caught awkwardly on the VP as he pulled his body up to get a
better view.
“God damn it, sir!” yelled Tyce. “Get the fuck back to where I put you until this fight is over!”
The VP turned to look at Tyce, a look of shock and anger across his face.
“Hey, you can’t talk to me—”
“Sir.” Tyce’s face was tightened into a menacing scowl, “if you don’t get the fuck back to the woods and out of my CP, I will pistol-whip your fat ass out and throw your unconscious body behind us where it can’t get in the way.”
“You . . . you . . . ” the VP pointed at Tyce, but recoiled in fear as he did so, “don’t you dare threaten—”
Tyce pulled his pistol out of its holster. There was zero time left for this kind of thing. “I’ll shoot you my-fucking-self before you cause us to lose this fight.”
“Listen here—”
Tyce pulled the receiver back and put a round into the pistol’s chamber.
The sheer rage and anger emanating from Tyce was enough, but the addition of threats and now a loaded pistol spurred the VP to scramble out of the hole. He bolted back toward the woods without looking back, still caught in the radio wire, the handset bouncing behind him.
Tyce looked at the radio operator who stared back at him with a newfound sense of admiration for his boss, “It’s okay, sir, I’ll hook up another in a jiffy.”
Tyce could waste no more time. With Zane dead or out of the picture he needed to personally take charge of the situation before things spun out of control. Fortunately, the radioman had the spare hooked back up in seconds and handed it to Tyce, again watching him with admiration and maybe even a touch of fear.
“Okay, copy all B Troop, here’s what needs to happen. Do you still have comms with your remaining Bradley?” said Tyce.
“We do, sir.”
“Good. You all go to ground. You can’t fight that helo alone. See if you can get your Brad up on your internal radio-net and try to talk him onto that helo when it comes back. He’ll be firing at long range from his perch on the hill, but that 25mm cannon should cause havoc. At the least, it might make him pull out and reconsider. Maybe give you all some breathing room. I’ll have the LAVs do the same on this side.”
“What should we do about getting the Hercs?”
Tyce thought about it a second, tapping the microphone against his helmet chinstrap. Things were slipping, and he was getting that sinking feeling again.
He keyed the mic, “Halt the mission to secure the C-130 Hercs, for the moment. Just keep a few guns trained to the skies in case that Hind comes back and keep the men under cover. If you can, go ahead and blast every Russian aircraft still on the ground with your .50 cal or anything for that matter. At the very least, let’s make sure nothing else tries to get airborne.”
And there’s nothing remaining but scorched earth when, or if, we leave, thought Tyce.
“This is B Troop. We copy all and WILCO.” came a new voice.
Good, he thought, glad to have Private Miller run the show, but also glad for someone in B-Troop with some more experience quickly getting to a spot to take charge.
Tyce handed the mic back to his radio operator. He breathed a sigh of relief and looked down. He still had the loaded pistol clutched in his right hand. He holstered it and hopped out of the hole, but staying low, he made preparations to leave, donning his equipment and grabbing his carbine. He summoned one of his HQ sergeants and passed instructions to relay any vital messages to him in his Humvee.
“Aye aye, sir. We’ll run the radios from the HQ and pass the vital stuff,” said the man. Tyce caught him staring with incredulity. He clearly couldn’t contain himself and blurted out, “Holy shit, sir. You do realize you just threatened the Vice President of the United States with a fucking loaded pistol.”
Tyce grimaced at the words as he buckled his equipment belt and grabbed his grenade pouch. That was sure to come back to haunt him, but there was no time to worry about it now. He turned to his Humvee crewmen in an adjacent fighting hole. “Go grab the Humvees, we’re getting into the fight. And call Dragoons. Tell them to peel off two of their LAVs to go with us. We’re going to need ’em.
An LAV crewman heard the call and raced up, “What’s your intent, sir?”
“We’re gonna go secure those fucking aircraft and get the Vice President of the United States the fuck off my battlefield.”
* * *
On the way toward the front gate, Tyce called Victoria on the radio. Tyce had already learned the hard way that he needed to keep her informed, and he still expected her usual temper would be in rare form.
“Alpha-med, Alpha-med, this is Iron Horse-six.”
Her smoky, loud, and brusque voice came back instantly. “Okay, so what the hell is going on... um, six?”
“Copy, need you to send your ambulances up to the front gate. Dragoons will send someone to escort you there. Then, you need to strip off a section and send them into B Troop’s breach point to render aid. Zane has been the hardest hit.”
“Say again your last transmission, Major. I’m trying to copy all this down, and my driver has us all over the road.” A pause, then—“Slow the fuck down, Murray!” she yelled at her driver, forgetting to unkey her radio. “So where exactly am I going, Asher?”
Tyce actually sighed in frustration, waiting for Victoria to unkey the radio and finish her transmission. Tyce actually thought for a moment he’d rather be back in Fallujah, Iraq, where it was just combatants fighting and cross-talking over the radios.
“Alpha-med, use call signs. Everyone else is on this radio, too. And I say again, Dragoons will guide you to the front gate. Just be prepared to treat my wounded.”
Victoria rekeyed and spoke in an even, monotone said, “Alpha-med copies.” Then, still failing to unkey the handset, Tyce, and everyone else with a radio heard her talking to one of her other docs, “You know, this is some real bullshit. We barely even know what the fuck is going on, the grunts don’t tell us shit, and that asshole thinks we can find our way in the darkness . . . who’s he think he is treating us like that . . . I’m going to bust his fucking face open, later.”
Tyce actually felt his face flushing red, but he quickly regained control as they arrived at the front gate to the airfield. Burning wreckage greeted them, and Marines tucked behind cement barricades, weapons pointed both outboard and inboard.
Good, thought Tyce, they took the initiative. The threat is just as much external as it is still internal. If the Russians go for Ned, we’ve got some time. If they don’t go for the bait . . . well, we have a hell of a fight coming.
As yet, the Russians had mounted no internal reactionary units. He supposed most of the experienced Russian infantry on the base had been wiped out in the initial assaults, but they couldn’t be too cautious. The Hind had been driven skyward, but it would return. Tyce was sure of that.
In minutes they had the two LAVs and two ambulances assembled, and together Tyce guided them all headlong into the base and toward uncertainty.
CHAPTER 42
Yeager Airport
B Troop was still spraying grounded Russian aircraft when Tyce arrived. He didn’t believe in retribution, much . . . but he hoped they were getting it out of their systems. It seemed like some small recompense for their fallen boss, as the National Guardsmen were shooting at everything in sight. Tyce had some worries they might hit the U.S. C-130s he needed for evacuating the vice president and his entourage. When he arrived at their sector, though, his worries were alleviated. Zane’s platoon sergeant was there to greet him.
“Did you leave anything that can fly?” Tyce asked the combat scout.
A smile crossed the man’s face when he saw their indomitable leader. “Hey, Iron Horse-six. We hope not. Good to finally see you this far forward on the front lines. The Army has gotten you this far. Figure you can get us the rest of the way?” Tyce had half-expected a good-natured ribbing, especially after what B Troop had just experienced.
“Any sign of that Hind coming back?”
“No, sir, but as you directed, I’ve got SFC Garrison scanning the skies overhead with his thermals. Maybe they moved off.”
“I very much doubt it. The Hind crews are pretty proficient and will take care of their aircraft. That is, if they all got aboard before you started spraying the place. They’ll touch down and get the flight crew to look over and repair any damage they might have taken. They usually even carry a mechanic aboard.”
“We got a few pieces of him—I saw some chunks fall off—but he kept on going.”
“Yeah, Roger that. Keep the perimeter secure, and I’ll bring in the pilots so we can get the VP the hell out of here. Any word on your boss?”
“Yes, sir. We got ’im. What’s left of him, I mean.”
“I’m sorry for that, Trooper.” said Tyce, his gut sank from the deadly reminder of their mission’s risks.
“Sir, if it’s okay with you, I want to put the L-T, that is, Lieutenant Zane in for a Bronze Star with combat V.” he said, referring to his lieutenant, “He was a young kid, but still a fantastic leader. Also, SFC Garrison. His section of Brads won the day.”
“Okay, I’m all in. But for the moment, game faces, okay? This thing ain’t over until the fat lady sings.”
“Guess that makes the Hind the fat lady then, sir.”
* * *
More than fifteen minutes later, Tyce was beside himself with worry. It had taken them over an hour to completely secure the airfield, and they were just now beginning to get the big Lockheed turboprop planes fired up.
Too long, and no more word from Ned. We’ll see that reactionary force very soon, Tyce thought.
He checked, double-checked, then triple-checked the men on the perimeter lines, but everything appeared to be in order. Meanwhile, he’d brought all his forces down and into the Yeager airfield including his mobile HQ.
Better to have a everyone inside a consolidated perimeter, he’d thought.
So far, not a hint of more enemy had reared their ugly heads, but time wasted on the objective was now Tyce’s worst enemy. The Russians had shown time and again that they possessed all the manpower necessary to sweep Tyce’s token forces aside. He’d mounted a daring raid, but his small team was no match for a calculated Russian response.
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