Countdown_ The Liberators Part 46

"Roger, Skipper," Webster said, then turned off to oversee the consolidation.

"Good luck, Reilly, ya doggie Irish b.a.s.t.a.r.d, ya," Cazz said at the dust cloud behind the advancing armor.

And now I feel my age, Reilly thought, as his turretless Eland bounced over the rough ground, beating his kidneys like a good son of the Prophet would beat a sharp-tongued wife.

He stood in the s.p.a.ce that would have held a turret, with Schiebel on the pintle-mounted machine gun ahead of him and James driving. James was a d.a.m.ned fine driver but, Jesus, this is rough ground and old technology.

Two vehicles ahead of him, the commander of a gunned, turreted Eland turned and flashed him a smile that would have been brilliant in the day. From the posture and shape he knew it was Lana Mendes. He'd have known anyway, since the order of march was by his command.

Almost, almost, he'd told Green to switch the order of march from First Section leading to Second Section. He hadn't because it would have been such obvious favoritism that he couldn't have stomached it. Nor, he suspected, could Lana have.

But I can hardly stomach that a girl I care for is preceding me into combat, either, even if only by fifty meters. f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k! The old rule is good: "n.o.body else's wife, n.o.body's girlfriend, and none of the hired help." f.u.c.k.

Lana was young and very healthy. The bouncing of the Eland caused her kidneys no serious discomfort. If it had, she might not have noticed anyway. The woman's heart sang at riding into battle on an iron steed, emulating the heroes of her childhood: Dayan, Sharon, and Israel Tal.

Turning her face back to the front, she placed her hands on either side of the vehicle commander's cupola. Night vision goggles on, she scanned to the front and to the left. Although it was premature, she ordered, "Viljoen, gun to ten o'clock."

"You see something, Lana?" the Boer asked, although his hand was already spinning the traversing wheel.

"No, just being careful. You should have done it without being told."

Viljoen bit back a snarly reply. Even so, he thought, No, you should have told me. A vehicle in order of march takes its cue from the one ahead of it, sweetie, or from SOP. Since we don't have an SOP, and the one ahead of us is aiming straight front, there was no cue. Ah, well. It's a little thing after all.

Reilly was about to pitch a b.i.t.c.h at the First Platoon leader when he saw the gun of the second vehicle, Lana's, swing left. Number Three automatically began to traverse to the other side.

He turned full about and saw the gun and turret of the next Eland in line, Sergeant Abdan's, moving to the left. Satisfied, he set his own head and eyes to the front, out to where the scouts led the way.

While it's possible to do bounding overwatch with three vehicles, Snyder, the scout section leader, thought, it just isn't practical.

Bounding overwatch, a military term meaning, in essence, one section moving while another watches over it, ready to fire in support, would have been clearly preferable when heading into the unknown. This, quite despite the fact that there was an unmanned aerial vehicle overhead and forward, scouting in advance of the scouts. The problem with doing it with three vehicles, and after the accident on the boat that was all Snyder had, was that one could either have uneven teams, with lessened security and lessened confidence for the shorter of the two, or one could have one vehicle continuously switching from one overwatch to the other. This last could be done, but it was somewhat slow and somewhat p.r.o.ne to screw ups.

Instead, Snyder kept his three Ferrets in a broad wedge, one-his own-in the center and following an approximately straight path to the objective, the others about three hundred meters to either side-RPG range-to spring any ambush the locals might throw together at the last minute.

Best we can do, I suppose. Well, that, and navigate the company to the objective. "And for that," Snyder said, aloud, "we've got GPS." d.a.m.n, but we've all been spoiled absolutely rotten by GPS.

D-Day, MV Merciful Merciful

Stauer didn't say anything for a few moments, taking in the screens visible past the UAV pilot's shoulder. One showed a map, and the location of the UAV. Another showed the ground in an image-intensified camera carried on the nose of the aircraft.

"Anything on the ground?" Stauer asked of the pilot.

The pilot shrugged. "Couple of runaway goats. Other small animals."

"How about at the tank lager?"

"Looked at it twenty minutes ago. Nothing unusual."

Boxer and Waggoner walked in and stood behind Stauer.

"We've got no unusual cell phone calls coming from anywhere, yet," Boxer said. "But we do have unusual activity at Bandar Qa.s.sim. People loading boats, that sort of thing. And at least one boat that was at its moorings isn't anymore.

"By the way, it looks like Buckwheat and company did a killer job on the airport to the west of the port, too. Wrecks and flames everywhere."

"Source?" Stauer asked.

"I tapped into NSA."

Stauer shook his head. There was something just so fundamentally wrong about a private citizen, even if a retired two star, accessing the most secret means of intelligence gathering available to the United States of America.

Seeing the headshake, Boxer defended himself, "Hey, it's not like I'm giving the information to enemies of the United States, is it?"

"I think," Ken Waggoner interrupted, "that we need to launch on Bandar Qa.s.sim now, boss. We've got to a.s.sume the sub went down somewhere, and probably before completing its mission. If we launch now, the planes will hit just after daybreak."

Stauer felt a twinge at the phrase, "the sub went down." Mourn later. He thought a moment before agreeing, "Yeah, do it. But since there's at least one boat missing from the port, have the planes skirt the coast and take out anything sailing our way between here and there."

Waggoner considered that, found it wise, and answered, "Roger. Send the medevac flight, too?"

"Yeah. Have it loiter out of small arms range, though."

D-Day, six hundred meters south of Bandar Qa.s.sim Airport, Ophir

Maybe this wasn't so f.u.c.king smart after all, thought Buckwheat. He was panting too hard to say it aloud even if he'd been of a mind to. His lungs bellowed, sucking air. Lord Jesus, it purely sucks to get old.

Bullets cracked and ricochets sang around the team as they withdrew at a dead run. The group shooting at Buckwheat and his people seemed to lack night vision; nothing else really explained that their fire was dispersed along the entire ridge. But they could see well enough that it hadn't come from the sea to the north and the pattern of wrecked and burning aircraft suggested strongly that it hadn't come from east or west, either.

And, thought Fulton, looking behind him at the advancing figures silhouetted by the burning planes and helicopters, G.o.d, there are a lot of them.

He stopped, knelt, and in rapid succession emptied a magazine at the pursuers. President's Hundred, motherf.u.c.kers, he thought, seeing that he'd hit four for five and the pursuit then slowed radically. I wouldn't have missed the once except for being out of breath.

While Fulton fired, Vic pa.s.sed him by and the scoundrel was hardly breathing hard. As Fulton turned his attention back to the south, and began running again, he heard Babc.o.c.k-Moore cry out and stumble, then fall to the ground.

Buckwheat changed his direction toward his spotter. In five or six steps he'd reached him and knelt down.

"Hit?" Fulton asked.

"Left leg . . . pretty bad," Vic gasped.

"Right."

Without another word Fulton slung his rifle across his back, bent forward at the waist, and pulled the wounded man to a sitting position. Babc.o.c.k-Moore gasped as Fulton stood, pulling him to his feet.

Letting inertia hold the black Brit in place, Fulton bent, pulled, and the next thing Vic knew-which is to say, what he knew when the pain subsided enough for him to see again-he was slung across the American's shoulder, the other man's rifle barrel digging into his chest, and bouncing up and down-and my, didn't that hurt, too-as the pair of them ran on Buckwheat's legs for the topographical crest and cover.

I am so too old for this s.h.i.t, Fulton thought, then said, "Fat . . . f.u.c.king . . . limey."

"I'm . . . not . . . fat," Babc.o.c.k-Moore gasped. "I'm . . . just . . . big."

D-Day, Rako-Dhuudo-Bandar Cisman highway, Ophir

The road in front of Snyder's Ferret was broad and had been, at some time in the past, more or less paved. He reported having reached it to Reilly, who answered, "Roger, follow the plan."

"Wilco," the scout section leader answered. "Break, break . . . Three, this is one. Cross the road directly in front of you, cut out to three hundred mikes past it, then scout generally west for four klicks, keeping parallel to the road. At four find a good hide."

"Roger," came the answer.

Snyder continued, "Four, one. Don't cross the road. Back off three hundred and scout west five klicks, paralleling the road. Hide when you get there."

"Roger."

Snyder then used his intercom to tell his driver, "Back off fifty, then cut right. We'll follow the road for three kilometers, then find our own hide away from it."

The wheels of Lana's Eland thumped and b.u.mped over the broken asphalt of the road, approximately where it had been crossed by Scout One a few minutes earlier. Looking to the turret's right rear-it was still trained left-toward the presumed location of the scout, she found she couldn't see the other vehicle but could make out a plume of dust driven upwards by its pa.s.sage.

She turned to face forward again. "Whoa, Dumi," she said into her intercom, at seeing a deep and sudden drop into a wadi that she wasn't sure the driver had seen.

"I've got it, Lana, no sweat," the Zulu said. Even so, he let off of the gas and put his foot on the brake.

Lana leaned back sharply as the armored car rolled into the wadi. Its tail swung a few degrees to the left, not entirely out of control but not entirely in it, either. The rolling slide down gave her a distinctly unpleasant feeling, not dissimilar to being in a freefall elevator.

Except the ground here is so much more real, she thought. She had a sudden, horrifying vision of the gun digging into the wadi floor and the Eland doing a pole vault over it.

She began to order, "Viljoen, nine . . . " before she saw that the gunner was already swinging the muzzle farther to the left.

The rear wheels spun for a moment, kicking up rocks. Feeling the back of the thing going out of control, Dumisani took his foot off the brake and reapplied the gas. The spinning wheels threw more gravel and sand to the rear, as the Eland plunged down.

Lana felt herself being thrown side to side in the commander's hatch. For a moment she thought the thing would flip. Heart in her mouth she almost screamed for the driver to simply stop. Self-discipline stopped her from that. Barely.

At the bottom of the long slide, the angle of the ground under the front wheels changed, causing that end to bounce upwards. Again, barely, Lana managed to stay in her position. This was repeated when the rear wheels struck.

Then, to the Israeli woman's vast relief, Dumi was able to apply the brakes for a moment before cutting right and moving out again on the wadi floor. He had to move quickly, too, because the next Eland in line was already cresting the lip of the wadi.

Adonai, Lana thought, if that was so terrifying, what am I going to do when the bullets start flying?

By sections and platoons the company spread out in its ambush configuration, reporting in to Reilly as each position was reached.

First to report were Peters and the mortar section, about four kilometers back. That one was simple: "Guns up."

Next was the scout section, its three Ferrets strung out to the west at roughly one thousand meter intervals, two north of the road and one, the farthest out, south of it. These hunkered down in hide positions, plentiful among the deeply cut wadis, while the commanders got out, slung radios on their backs, and crawled to where they could see the road but still not be seen.

The two sections of turreted Elands didn't go as far as the scouts had. Instead, they followed the deep main wadis several hundred meters then began looking for side cuts. These were plentiful and steep, if not nearly as steep as the major wadis' sides were. Into these side cuts the vehicles pulled until the gunners reported that they could see the road. At that point the drivers went into reverse and backed up until there was a fair certainty that the bulk of the vehicles would be hidden. To make sure that was so, each commander and driver then dismounted and put a camouflage screen in front of their Eland. Lastly, they bent and tied the whip antennae down.

The infantry platoons took advantage of the lay of the ground, as well. It was a predictable peculiarity of a wadi system that feeders into the main wadi would be at an angle to it, corresponding to the lay of the ground. Into these feeders the turretless infantry carriers pulled. The dismounted men then trooped along the sides of the feeder, confirming they had a good line of sight to the road. They began setting up directional antipersonnel mines, even as the squad RPG gunners laid out rounds on the ground for easy access and reload.

The AT section, under Harvey, took up a position farther east, well behind the infantry lines.

Once everyone had reported, "In position," or some variant on that, Reilly and James dismounted and walked up the road through the entire kill zone. Yeah, it's a risk, Reilly thought, but still better than having an enemy tank not in somebody's field of fire. The troops adjusted their firing positions from there, reported what they had, field of fire-wise, to their leaders, and then hunkered down again behind cover. Once Reilly had confirmation that the entire KZ was covered by fire, he called the Merciful and said, "Let loose the jarheads of war."