Apocalypse Crucible (7 page)

Yesterday, that CNN reporter had been found dead, his throat slit. He’d been young, convinced he was on the trail of something that would earn him a Pulitzer, and he’d taken chances by going into the rougher areas of the city where the traders and black-market dealers met. Danielle had earmarked the story to follow up on, but OneWorld had kept her busy pumping human-interest stories, such as the cooks she had been with before the attack.

“We do have Captain Remington now,” Stolojan said.

“But where is Sergeant Gander?” Danielle asked.

“Two blocks east of your position. One block south. At the main barricade blocking egress from the highway.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll cue you when we go live. Until then, we’re going to shoot some bits that I’ll want to work into the story. We’ll upload as we go. Get them cleaned up and I’ll do voice-overs later.” Danielle’s mind worked furiously. She didn’t know how many people comprised whatever workforce Stolojan was part of, but he seemed to have an army at his beck and call for research as well as for processing.

Staying close to the building, Danielle took the lead. Cezar and Gorca followed reluctantly.

“I heard what you said about the bodies,” Cezar said. “Do you think this is why the Syrians did this? To frighten the soldiers?”

“Are you scared?” Danielle countered.

“Yes.”

“Then I’d say it’s working.”

“I suppose.”

Danielle halted at the corner leading into a narrow alley filled with debris. A rumbling noise reached her ears, one of those impossible things that happened in the lull of gunfire and mortar fire. She knew what the sound was. Even though she didn’t want to, she turned toward the crashed barricade.

Dust and haze and flames filled the gap where the barricade had been at the end of the street. The Red Cross Humvee loaded the wounded and performed a U-turn just as an armored behemoth lumbered into view.

The tank was Russian-made. Danielle knew from her research that the Syrian army used primarily Soviet munitions. She didn’t know if it was a T-62 or a T-72, but it was huge. The tracks gouged the street, tearing away chunks of pavement. Then the turret swiveled as the tracks locked down. The main gun took deliberate aim.

Danielle dodged around the alley corner. Realizing that Cezar was frozen, his camera resting on his shoulder as he shot footage of the tank, Danielle reached back and grabbed his shirt. “Move!” she yelled, yanking him into stumbling motion.

Gorca followed, covering his head with his hands.

The vehicle’s main gun belched flame that tore away the shadows between the buildings. The blast deafened Danielle. Riding out an adrenaline spike, she tried to run down the alley and drag Cezar behind her. Her feet became entangled with his, and she stumbled over a chunk of building. She fell.

Behind her, the tank sped forward again.

Renewed fear slammed through Danielle. The occupying military force hadn’t claimed their cobbled-together defenses were impenetrable. In fact, Remington had told the citizens that exactly the opposite was true.

Another round blasted from the tank. A building staggered, then fell, joining the debris on the other side of the main street.

Lying on the rubble amidst shadows too thin to offer much in the way of protection, Danielle felt certain that she was about to die. Then, ahead of her, she saw a man running toward her through the swirling fog of dust and haze.

Disheveled and wearing a torn uniform, Sergeant Goose Gander ran across the ragged piles of debris that choked the alley. He held his assault rifle in both hands across his chest. When he reached her, Goose grabbed her by her Kevlar vest and yanked her to her feet. He pushed her toward the end of the alley.

“Get out of here!” he ordered. Then he was gone, rushing headlong on an interception course with the invading Syrian tank.

Cezar started for the other end of the alley. Danielle put a hand against his chest and stopped him.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Follow me,” Danielle told him, starting after Goose.

“You heard the sergeant!” Cezar protested. “He told us to get out of here!”

Danielle kept moving. “The story’s here, Cezar. If you don’t want this job, I’m sure OneWorld can find someone else to take your place.”

Cezar hesitated only a moment then followed.

Stopping at the corner, already several yards behind Goose, Danielle watched the Ranger out on the street. A gunner popped up from the turret and turned the 7.62mm light machine gun mounted there toward the first sergeant.

A row of bullets chopped into the pavement toward Goose. He never broke stride.

4

United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0427 Hours

When the Syrian soldier popped up from the T-62 tank loader’s turret hatch and manned the light machine gun, Goose knew he had no choice but to continue the attack. Ducking back into the alley where he’d passed Danielle Vinchenzo and her OneWorld NewsNet team would have been impossible. He’d have slipped and fallen on the debris underfoot and been easy prey for the Syrian gunner. That fact ricocheted through his mind in a heartbeat. Grimly determined, he lengthened his stride.

“Goose, look out!” a Ranger shouted.

Already in motion and with the headset securely in place under his helmet, Goose experienced a curious Doppler effect. He heard the warning through the headset, then again from his right because the soldier was so close. The Ranger sounded familiar. Under any other circumstances, Goose felt certain he would have recognized the man’s voice.

The tank continued rolling forward, leaving a widely spread set of track marks in the cracked and cratered street. Thankfully, the turret gunner had trouble bringing the machine gun to bear on Goose.

Lifting his M-4A1 assault rifle, Goose fired two three-round bursts and hoped for the best. One burst struck a flurry of sparks from the tank’s armored back less than a foot from the Syrian gunner. The second triburst hammered into the enemy gunner’s chest and popped him back over the turret.

Less than twenty yards from the tank and closing quickly, Goose said, “Tango One, this is Phoenix Leader.” His breath came raggedly, tearing his words apart.

“Go, Phoenix Leader, you have Tango One.”

Tango One was Lieutenant Harold Wake, the commanding officer of Charlie Company of the 75th Rangers. Charlie Company held the ground currently challenged by the Syrian push. Goose, through the extension of Captain Remington’s authority, actually had command of the ranking officer. Working in the heat of battle with too few troops from too many forces made for strange chains of command.

“If I don’t stop this tank, sir,” Goose told the officer, feeling the shuddering weakness clawing at his knee, “you stop it.”

“Affirmative, Phoenix Leader. I’ve got a soldier with an MPIM en route. He’ll be here any second.”

“Great. I gotta slow the tank at least, Tango One. Till your soldier gets here.” Goose didn’t want to take the chance the Syrian rolling stock would penetrate to within line of sight of the makeshift hospital.

Wake’s response came back at once. “My guy will be here, Leader. You’ve got to get clear when he does.”

“Even if I’m not … hospital’s not far.” Talking while winded came hard. “I’ve got a shot … and a plan. I’m taking it.”

“Goose!” another soldier interrupted. “Gunners at the rear ob slit!”

With the shadows that filled the street under the cover of night, Goose didn’t see the observation slit cut in the T-62’s lower quarters at first. Then the war machine sped by the flaming wreckage of a Volkswagen minivan that had been part of the barricade. The fire lit up the oiled snouts of the submachine pistols that one or more of the tank’s crew had shoved through the ob slit.

Goose stayed the course, trusting that God was watching over him now. His good friend, Corporal Bill Townsend, had been a devout Christian and had steered Goose in that direction after years of Goose’s being lost in his faith and convictions. Bill had always believed that God watched over everyone, that no sparrow fell that God did not know about.

Goose still hadn’t found the strength to believe as strongly as the younger man had, but he was getting there. Bill had vanished from Goose’s side at the same time the air-rescue effort from USS
Wasp
had turned into a nightmare of smashed metal and broken men scattered across a barren landscape.

And his son Chris had been taken in the same wave of disappearing people. That was what a quiet voice had whispered into the back of his mind even as the battle screamed around him. With no warning, God had ripped away Goose’s son with no apparent care or consideration for Megan’s or Goose’s pain.

Goose didn’t know how he was supposed to believe in light of all that. The sergeant settled for hoping and training to believe. Chris was in a better place; Goose had to believe that. It was the only way he could concentrate on saving the lives he was responsible for right now. He pushed away the whispering voice planting doubts in his mind. As a soldier, as a father, he had to believe.

He reached for the tank just as rapidfire detonation from the gunners inside the vehicle popped like a string of firecrackers in his ears. At least one of the rounds struck Goose like a sledgehammer. Thankfully, the round spent itself against his Kevlar flak jacket. The blunt force trauma from the round was a different matter; the Kevlar spread the impact across a greater area, but the savage power of the blow still bruised the flesh beneath.

Staggered by pain and the force of the shot, Goose stumbled. He pushed himself forward desperately, realizing too late that he was relying heavily on his weakened knee. He held the M-4A1 in his right hand, grabbed the tank’s rear deck with his left, and managed to jam his right boot onto the right track as it came up from the pavement.

Straining, using everything inside himself as well as the leverage gained by leaning onto his right leg as the track swung his boot up and provided purchase, he held on to the tank’s skirting. He drove the boot down against the whirring treads. In a heartbeat, the lunge that had looked dismally short of his chosen objective became forward flight with the aid of the whirring track tread. Clinging to the assault rifle, unable to draw a breath because of the pain in his side and the explosive movement, he fell away from the tread at the apex of the climb and smashed against the tank’s turret.

Dazed, Goose realized he lay on the tank’s rear deck. He sprawled on the surface for a moment as he regrouped. Reactive armor had been retrofitted to the T-62. If hit by another tank round, the added armor was designed to explode and counter the effects of the other explosives and deny penetration. Several sections hadn’t been exploded, and he knew if the armor detonated beneath him it would more than likely kill him.

“Cease fire on the tank!” Lieutenant Wake’s words echoed over Goose’s headset. “Cease fire! Phoenix Leader is up there!”

Taking a deep breath, trying to get oxygen back into his lungs, Goose stood uncertainly on the lumbering engine of destruction. He peered at the bombed-out street ahead of him, seeing several beautiful buildings that had fallen into ruin under the barrage of attacks during the last few days.

The buildings that had been set aside as hospital quarters lay only a few blocks ahead of the tank. They’d be easy prey for the T-62’s upgraded 120mm main gun, and the raw weight of the war machine’s forty-plus metric tons was a fearsome weapon as well. Goose had seen M-1 Abrams crews raze buildings simply by driving the tanks through them again and again, smashing walls and breaking supports till the structures fell.

Knowing he wasn’t going to get hit by friendly fire helped, but Goose knew if he didn’t stop the vehicle quickly, the main gun would be within range of the makeshift hospital in seconds. Once in range, the tank crew would fire on the dozens of wounded inside. None of those wounded would have a chance.

The exploding truck loaded with dead men had been a feint. During the immediate paralysis after that attack, gun crews had raked the barricaded areas and rooftops with surgical efficiency. The devastation had been as complete as if the Syrians had had a map.

Goose didn’t doubt that the enemy force had just such a map. The occupying army had no control over the citizens who remained within Sanliurfa. There was every chance that the Syrians had informers planted within the city, a tactic as old as the art of war itself.

“Phoenix Leader,” Remington called calmly over the headset. “This is Control.”

“Go, Control,” Goose responded, moving forward across the bucking tank deck.

“Leader,” Remington said, “you’ve got a string of bogeys on the tail of the beast you went to intercept. Copy?”

Turning around, Goose stared back along the street. Four blocks away, he spotted the dim outlines of another tank rumbling through the area where the barricade had been.

“Affirmative, Control,” Goose said. “I see them.”

“They’re making an all-out run at us,” Remington said. “Going for the hospital. Probably the ammo dumps and the supplies after that.”

Moving supplies around during the day had become an automatic effort. With spies and potential saboteurs in the city, the three armies comprising the defense force had had no choice about trying to protect their food stores, fuel, and munitions. That protection was noticeable to even an untrained eye. Rotating the hospital around hadn’t been possible.