Apocalypse Unleashed (18 page)

Local Time 0026 Hours

Tired, Megan stood in front of the drink machine in the vending area. She stared at the buttons and felt like they’d been written in hieroglyphics.

“There isn’t anything in that box that you haven’t seen before. Make your selection and move along, girlfriend.”

The raucous voice could belong to only one person. Megan turned and saw Evelyn Banks standing behind her. Evelyn was in her sixties, surely past retirement age, but she insisted she wasn’t yet sixty-five, so personnel had kept her on the payroll. Skinny and feisty, Evelyn worked as a custodian in the building. She knew every person who worked there as well, and she knew all the news and gossip too. She wore a faded blue sweater over her khaki shorts and 82nd Airborne T-shirt. Granny glasses covered her keen gray eyes. She wore her silver hair up in a bun.

“Hey, Evelyn,” Megan greeted.

“Hey, yourself. Have you picked a drink yet? If you haven’t, you can have my dollar and my favorite flavor is grape.”

Megan selected a water and pressed the button. “Sorry. I was lost in thought.”

“I guess so.” Evelyn fed her dollar into the machine. She punched a button and a grape soda tumbled into the dispensing slot. “Must have been some mighty heavy thinking.” She twisted the top off the drink and took a healthy slug.

“Long days will do that to you.” Megan opened her water and took a sip.

Evelyn glanced at her watch. “Not to mention long nights. I’d tell you that you probably need to get home, take a load off, get some sleep, but I know you’ve got all those teenagers waiting for you. I swear, you must be crazy to put yourself through all that.”

“Maybe a little. But I enjoy the kids. And they need someone.”

“What about you?” Evelyn took another healthy drink.

“What about me?” Megan was confused.

“Don’t you need somebody?”

“You mean Goose?”

“Unless you got another man I don’t know about, that’s exactly who I’m talking about.”

Megan’s face warmed in embarrassment. “No.”

“Too bad. I love to gossip. Probably my biggest sin.” Evelyn shrugged helplessly. “Probably what’s kept me here after everyone else has gone on to heaven.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“What? Gossip?”

“Yes.”

“Girlfriend, life wouldn’t be worth living without those juicy little morsels every now and again. I live for gossip.” Evelyn grinned. “And anyway, I’m just kidding about that. I had a long talk with my preacher. Him and God have got things sorted out, and I think he helped me sort them out as well. I know I’m feeling a whole lot better about life these days.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“You know, that’s exactly how it feels, too.” Evelyn adjusted her glasses. “But I was serious about having somebody for yourself.”

“Goose is over in Turkey.”

“I know. And they ain’t no telling when he’s coming home.” Evelyn shook her head. “It’s just sad is all.”

“What’s sad?”

“That the two of you can’t be together. Especially right now, when you need each other the most.” Evelyn drank more of the grape soda, then bought a package of peanuts from another vending machine. She opened the peanuts and poured them into the bottle. Purple fizz bubbled up.

Megan watched, almost fearful the concoction might explode. It was something she knew would have delighted Chris.

Evelyn swirled the peanuts in the grape soda. “I probably shouldn’t do this. Those peanuts play heck with my dentures.” She took a swig, crunched peanuts, then hooked a finger in her mouth to adjust her teeth.

Despite the uninhibited display, Megan was paying only slight attention. Her mind had seized on the idea that the old woman had set forth.

What they needed—what they
all
needed—was a sense of family. That was why so many teens had crashed at Megan’s house. They had nowhere else to go to get that sense of family. Otherwise they’d have gone there.

It was a sobering realization, and it made her miss Goose even more fiercely.

“Megan! Megan!” Dorthea Whitlow came around the corner and peered into the vending area. “I thought I saw you in here.”

Panicked, Megan gave her full attention to Dorthea. The other woman was about her age, but she didn’t have a husband or children.

“You’ve got to come.” Dorthea waved one hand.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s on television. The Syrians just crossed over the border. They’re headed into Harran now.”

Megan recognized the name. That was where Goose was. She hurried after Dorthea as they hustled back to the nurses’ station.

Oh, God, please don’t let anything happen to Goose.

17

United States 75th Army Rangers Outpost
Harran
Sanliurfa Province, Turkey
Local Time 0727 Hours

Heat shimmered across the drylands between Harran and the advancing line of Syrian armored. Fighter jets continued assaulting the city. Waves of cannonfire and rockets destroyed the beehive houses.

Goose lugged an FIM-92 Stinger missile launcher to one of the forward buildings. A young private named Fernando Sanchez followed him and humped spare rockets for the weapon. Goose carried one in the launcher and two more across his back.

The Harran outpost had ten launchers. Some of them were U.S. Army–issued. Others had been scavenged from the UN and Turkish equipment that was initially left behind at the border when everything had started weeks ago. Goose didn’t feel bad about appropriating the weapons or anything else they’d managed to scavenge. The Rangers were primarily the ones standing against the Syrian offensive. They needed the hardware.

A Syrian jet flew overhead. The cannons opened fire and decimated a nearby machine-gun nest. Thankfully the Rangers manning it had time to break for cover before the missiles hit, but the .50-cal machine gun became a superheated, twisted chunk of scrap. The sandbags ruptured and created a miniature sandstorm.

“Falcon Leader.” Goose spoke into the headset as he readied the Stinger launcher. Falcon Leader was Lieutenant Swindoll’s call sign.

“I read you, Falcon Three.”

“Pull the soldiers from the machine-gun nests.”

“Why? We need them there.”

“They’re going to be casualties if you don’t. The hostiles have marked most of their twenties. They’re targeting them.”

Another jet launched an attack. This time radio contact was immediate. “We’re hit! We’re hit! I need help! Somebody help me!”

Goose’s heart went out to the injured soldier. Then he focused on his task.
Get your part done. That’s all you can do. You do your part; everybody else’s part will get done too.

“Get me ready,” Goose said as he pulled the launcher onto his shoulder.

Sanchez slapped the BCU into place in the Stinger’s handguard. The battery coolant unit hissed as it shot argon gas and a chemical energy charge into the weapon. The Stinger’s targeting and acquisition systems came online. Without the BCU, the system wouldn’t work.

With the Stinger locked and loaded, Goose trailed the fighter jet. The weapons system beeped to let him know the target had been acquired. His finger slid into place, and he fired.

The Stinger missile was about five feet in length and weighed almost twenty-three pounds. When it left the launcher, powered by a small ejection motor, the recoil was noticeable. The load on Goose’s shoulder was immediately less; only the twelve and a half pounds of launcher rested there now.

The missile headed skyward; then the solidfuel, two-stage motor kicked to life and accelerated it up to over Mach 2. The fighter jet had slowed to initiate its attack on the Ranger ground forces. As a result, it was almost a sitting duck for the Stinger.

“Load me,” Goose ordered as he watched the missile intercept the Syrian jet’s left engine. Sanchez slapped another missile into place, using one of the four he carried instead of the two Goose had. If they became separated, Goose could still fire the launcher on his own, but not without ammunition.

The Stinger detonated and turned the fighter jet into a fireball that shed pieces of broken aircraft like a dog shaking off water.

“Ready.” Sanchez slapped the top of Goose’s helmet. Goose searched the sky for another target. Another jet, farther out, swooped in for the kill. A brief glance at the readout showed Goose the target was twenty thousand feet out. It was well within the 12,500-foot ceiling of the Stinger, but it needed to be another four thousand–plus feet closer.

C’mon,
Goose thought as he tracked the fighter jet and waited for the acquisition beep. He couldn’t help thinking that Rangers were in the enemy pilot’s sights and were about to die.

The Stinger beeped, and the system showed a solid, steady signal.

Goose fired. The missile streaked away and kicked in the solidfuel afterburners.

“Load me.”

In the sky, the Stinger closed on the fighter jet. Evidently the onboard systems warned the pilot he’d been targeted. He tried to take evasive action, breaking and rolling to the right. The missile passed through the space the jet had been; then the heat-seeking systems autocorrected the warhead’s trajectory and sent it back after the fighter jet. Less than a second later, the missile sped into the aircraft’s jet engine and detonated, tearing the wing off. The fuselage careened wildly out into the empty lands and exploded when it struck the ground.

Sanchez slapped Goose’s helmet. “You’re loaded, Sarge. Good shooting.”

“Thanks.” Goose didn’t take any glory in the kills. Soldiers were separated by necessity, but they were usually cut from the same cloth. Those men had families they wouldn’t be going home to tonight, but it was better that Goose’s men went home to theirs when a choice had to be made.

He snugged the Stinger launcher into his shoulder and looked for another jet. When he spotted one, he started to sight in on it when he saw another Stinger missile lift from the ground in pursuit. The Syrian turned into a flaming midair mass and rained down over the other side of the city.

“Falcon Leader,” someone called over the headset. “This is Falcon Two.”

Goose listened intently. Falcon Two was Lieutenant Wolper. He was in charge of the front line.

“Go, Two,” Swindoll replied.

“We’ve got hostiles at the door.” Fullauto fire rattled around Wolper’s words, interspersed by the reports of the main guns of the approaching Syrian tanks.

Fall back,
Goose thought, urging Swindoll to make the call.
Sell them real estate, but do it an inch at a time. You can’t hold it.

“Pull back to the second line,” Swindoll ordered.

Goose searched the sky for another fighter jet, but there didn’t appear to be any. Evidently the Stinger response had persuaded the Syrians that the cost in hardware was too high to continue. On the other hand, the tanks and APCs were now close enough to do considerable damage.

“Falcon Three, this is Falcon Eleven.” The soldier’s voice sounded tense. Machine-gun fire chased his words.

Goose’s mind spun. Falcon Eleven was Corporal Brett Rainier, also one of the Stinger crews. A map of the city unfurled in Goose’s head. Rainier was a hundred yards or so to the southwest.

“Eleven, you’ve got Three.”

“We’re under attack by hostiles, Sarge.” Panic clawed at Rainier’s words. “They came outta nowhere. They’ve got us pinned down.”

“Understood. I’m on my way.” Goose turned and handed the Stinger to Sanchez. “Stay here. Kept this zone clear of jets. If you have to go, go. I’ll find you.”

Sanchez nodded. “Good luck, Sarge.”

“You stay frosty, son. A cool head will see you through this.” Goose slipped the two extra missiles from his back, took his M-4A1 into his hands, and ran for Rainier’s position, praying he wasn’t too late.

Local Time 0731 Hours

A burst of machine-gun fire sent Danielle diving to the ground near one of the mudbrick houses. She’d been listening to the sound of the big guns and the gunfire from the jets overhead. Hearing the sound at ground level was unnerving.