Apocalypse Unleashed (16 page)

Local Time 0636 Hours

Danielle threw herself to the ground beside a small dentist’s office. The Closed sign posted on the door had faded from exposure to the sun.

Gary took cover beside her. His arms wrapped the camera as he sat with his back to the wall. The chin strap on his Kevlar helmet hung loosely, but it reminded Danielle to clap her own back onto her head. She’d grabbed it from the ground when they’d broken for cover.

Machine-gun fire ripped into the buildings and the street. Pockmarks appeared on both. The noise reverberated between the buildings.

“Do we still have satellite feed?” Danielle asked.

Gary looked at her as though she were insane.

Danielle raised her voice. “Can you hear me?”

“I heard you.” Gary glanced at the camera, then nodded. “We still have sat-link.”

“Then let’s get moving.”

Gary pointed at a group of Rangers tucked into shelter across the street. “They’re not going anywhere. I’m taking that as a sign that we probably shouldn’t be going anywhere either.”

“They’re waiting for orders.” Danielle stood and looked up in the sky. The jets had passed again, but they were turning. “We already have our orders. We’ve got to bring this story to the public.”

“I’m thinking maybe the public would understand if we sat here quietly and just spent some time being afraid.”

Danielle reached down and pulled Gary to his feet. “You have just as much chance of getting shot sitting there as you do trying to get somewhere else.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

“Trust me.”

“Man, you get me into more trouble. It’s like you’re jinxed.”

“Thanks. But just keep reminding yourself that what we’re doing here might just net you a Pulitzer.” Danielle ran back toward the residential area where Goose was being held. She held on to her flak jacket. Perspiration trickled down her body from the heat.

They crammed in tight against a sundries shop as the jets passed overhead again. Cannonfire hammered the building across the street. One of the structures tumbled down in a loose heap of debris.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it out of this one.” Gary breathed rapidly, on the edge of panic.

Danielle grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “You stay with me. Do you hear? Stay with me, and we’re going to be fine.”

Gary nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.

“The army’s got helicopters on the other side of the city. We can get out of here in one of those. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I hear you.”

“Good.” Danielle took a shuddering breath and hoped what she told him was the truth. She hoped he at least believed it more than she did, because her belief wasn’t so strong. “We need to find Goose.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s our story.” More than that, Danielle wanted to make sure he’d been let out of confinement. “We stick with our story.”

15

United States 75th Army Rangers Outpost
Harran
Sanliurfa Province, Turkey
Local Time 0647 Hours

“Take cover!” Goose watched the fighter jets return for another sweep. He waved the soldiers following him into defensive positions against the supermarket they’d jogged to.

As the jets neared and opened up with their cannons again, the antiaircraft gunners replied with bursts of fire. Rounds chewed into three of the jets. Goose’s sharp eyes spotted the canopy cracking on the lead jet just before the aircraft dove for the ground. Another jet streamed black, oily smoke from one engine and no longer moved as easily in the air.

The lead jet spiraled into the city and headed for the supermarket where the Rangers had gone to cover. The scream of descent rattled through Goose’s ears.

“Get down! Get down!” Goose put his right hand on top of his helmet and ducked his face into his left shoulder while he held onto the M-4A1. He thought of himself as the smallest target in the world and did the same for the other Rangers. The jet couldn’t hit them. The payload on board wasn’t going to—

The jet slammed into the building across the street. Even though he knew better than to look, Goose peered over his forearm anyway. The aircraft drove down into the three-story building like a great nail driven by a huge hammer. The building shattered and fell apart. Rock and mortar were strewn across the street. Several chunks thumped against the supermarket and shattered the plate glass windows filled with advertisements. Flames wreathed the ripped and broken fighter jet.

A moment later, just as Goose thought everything was going to be all right, the remaining ammunition in the jet cooked off. Several explosions tore through the building’s corpse and threw more debris into the air and across the street. The next few seconds became a whirling nightmare of potential death.

Once the ammunition was expended, Goose peered at the torn body of the fighter jet. Black smoke curled into the sky. The pilot could not have survived the destruction. He just hoped no one had been inside the building.

“Anybody hit?” Goose asked.

The men quickly acknowledged that none of them was wounded.

None of them believed it was possible either. With the storm of flying death that had taken shape around them, everyone was surprised to be alive.

“All right.” Goose stood. “On your feet, Rangers. We got a job to do.” He ran, giving the fallen jet and the gutted building a wide berth in case there were any more surprises. His bad knee ached with the strain but felt solid enough to push it as long as he didn’t try any sudden turns.

United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0651

Remington left the Hummer in front of the building he’d chosen as his command center. Sandbags reinforced the walls. Machine-gun teams surrounded the building. The soldiers standing guard immediately stood at attention and briskly saluted.

The captain performed a quick return salute and stepped through the doorway into the cooler atmosphere of the nerve center. The window-mounted air conditioners hummed in the background, echoed by the rapid-fire pop of the generators that powered them. The computers needed the cooler environment. Screens lit up bluewhite in the background.

Lieutenant Archer stood in front of the tactical board in the center of the room. The tactical board was acrylic and unpowered. They worked on it with marker pencils in case the power went down.

The lieutenant was a rawboned man with a neat mustache and an impeccable manner. Captain Sanderson of the British army stood nearby. He was aloof and in his forties, and he served as the liaison for the United Nations forces that had been driven back to Sanliurfa as well. Normally a liaison job would fall to a junior officer; Remington suspected the UN command had chosen to assign Sanderson because he was a man with rank equal to Remington’s.

Archer spotted Remington bearing down on them. The lieutenant turned quickly, dropped his clipboard under his left arm, and saluted crisply. “Sir.”

“At ease, Lieutenant.” Remington stopped at the nearest computer and gazed at the screen. “We have satellite recon again?”

“Yes, sir. The satellites just came back online.”

Remington let out a sigh of relief. At least Felix’s word was good.

On the screen, Remington stared at the advancing line of Syrian troops and cavalry. Tanks, armored personnel carriers, and artillery rumbled rapidly over the broken terrain headed into Harran. All of the tanks, APCs, and howitzers were Soviet made. The equipment was decades old but still serviceable and deadly.

“How far out are they?”

“Twenty, twenty-five minutes,” Archer said.

“Have we got our birds in the air?” Remington walked behind the line of techs at their workstations.

“Yes, sir. I scrambled the helos as soon as you ordered them in.”

On one of the screens, a line of fifteen helicopter gunships flew nap-of-theearth across the scrublands toward Harran. Six wide-bodied UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters outfitted for medical transport and rescue trailed behind.

“What about the fuel convoy?” Remington stared at the computer screen a moment longer, then checked the marker board out of habit.

“En route as well.”

“Have you got an ETA on the helos arriving in Harran?”

“Five minutes after the Syrians, sir.”

Remington cursed.

“Pardon me, Captain.” Sanderson stepped forward and imposed himself. “If I may speak.”

“Quickly.” Remington remained deliberately brusque. He and the United Nations troop commanders hadn’t quite worked out their pecking order. The UN officers had a better knowledge of the Turkish army, but the UN forces were appreciably smaller than the Ranger troops.

“Forgive me if I’m out of line, but aren’t you risking a lot by sending in those helos?”

“There’s a lot at stake, Captain.” Remington fixed the other man with a scathing glance. “In case you didn’t know it, I have a lot of Rangers in Harran. The United States Army isn’t in the habit of discarding men.”

“No, sir. I understand that. But it seems to me you’re risking a lot more by deploying those helos. We’re not exactly in our fighting prime here. Those machines could be hard to replace.”

“Maybe you’d feel differently if you were in Harran right now.”

“Those men knew the risks when they went there.”

Remington glared at the British captain. “
I
knew the risks when I sent them there. They’re there because
I
put them there. And I’m going to do my best to get them out of there.”

“Yes, sir, I understand that. But we’re not at liberty to squander hardware resources—”

“Enough.” Remington turned from the man. “If you want to go talk to your people about squandering resources, go ahead. I’m not going to squander Rangers that are the finest fighting men alive in this miserable corner of the world. If you can’t contribute something that will help me get those men out of there, keep your mouth shut—”

“Sir—”

“—or I’ll have you escorted out.”

Sanderson’s ruddy complexion deepened as he frowned in displeasure.

“Are we clear?”

“Positively crystal.”

“Outstanding.” Remington turned to Archer. “Keep this board updated.”

“Yes, sir.” Archer drew his marker and set to work.

Remington addressed the communications officer. “Get Swindoll for me.”

On the screen, the Syrian army relentlessly moved forward.