Rachel patted his cheek. “Whatever you say. Hey, how come you never mentioned having a cousin out here before? I didn’t know you had any family in Florida.”
“Well, we aren’t that close. Haven’t spoken in years.”
Rachel stopped lashing water bags to her bike. “Are you serious? You want to go crash with someone who doesn’t even like you?”
Dixon sighed and strapped the watch back on. “Actually, he hates me. Think’s I’m a moron. You two will get along just fine.”
Iraqi Army Traffic Control Point, Hwy 1
12 miles west of Basra, Iraq
“Friendlies, 12 O’clock!”
Kat whipped up her binoculars and hunted for the source of Captain Dore’s jubilant radio call. The acrid clouds from the endless burning oilfields around their little convoy cut visibility to a few hundred meters. Sergeant Atkins, now her driver, stuck his head out from a hatch three feet to her left and spotted the friendlies first.
“Why are those idiots blocking the road?”
Kat beamed at the cluster of Iraqi Humvees in the middle of the highway ahead. “Who cares? It’s just nice to see some sense of organization. Let’s go. Pull up alongside the captain.”
During their 120-mile meandering trip north, they’d seen nothing but a depressingly small number of fleeing civilians and the occasional burnt-out police or military vehicle. Well, not counting the out of control oil fires. Tens of millions of dollars in liquid gold flaming away every hour, yet no one seemed to care.
“You got to be kidding me.” Kat’s driver brought them abreast of the other six tracks, all parked in an outward-facing circle around the Iraqi traffic control point. Not a soul was in sight. Captain Dore sat crossed legged on the deck of his vehicle, Kevlar helmet in his lap. He kept muttering something under his breath.
Atkins shut off the engine and dismounted. He and a few other soldiers poked around the abandoned Iraqi fighting position. Not a single body, drop of blood nor shell casing marred the ground.
It was all spookier than coming across a battle that had been lost.
Atkins popped the trunk of the last Humvee. “No water. Not even a half-drunk bottle. They left a shit-ton of weapons and ammo behind, but took the time to strip every last drop of water? Wherever the Iraqi army ran off to, I guess they weren’t planning on fighting again.”
Over the wind, a chattering buzz emerged from a cluster of sandstone buildings nearby.
“Mister, mister!”
Kat grinned at the twenty or so kids that materialized from nowhere and crowded around her track. Even though she knew it would only encourage more children to join in, she couldn’t help herself. The poor things seemed so scared. Kat reached down into the track and pulled out a bulging sack of Skittles bags her team accumulated. Like any soldier in the field for more than a few days, the mere sight of the ubiquitous candy found in every MRE churned her stomach.
None of the kids even glanced down as the satchel spilled out at their feet. They just kept jumping and screaming over one another. One of the tallest boys bounced up on the treads and monkeyed onto the deck. Kat shooed him back.
“Hey, you little brat. Get off…”
The abject terror in the boy’s eyes washed away Kat’s anger. He couldn’t have been any older than her own daughter was.
“Please, mister. Take us with you. We small. We no use big space. Please, please, please, please.”
Kat grabbed the teenager’s arm as he hauled up a little girl. She knew from her previous tours that even though Iraqi kids gobbled up English like western children consumed video games, they had no cultural grounding in the language. She spoke as clearly as she could, careful to avoid any idioms.
“You cannot come with us. It is very dangerous. You need to take these other children back into the city. Find the police or the Iraqi Army. They will protect you.” She didn’t mention parents or family. After a generation of ceaseless war in this land, there was a fair chance these poor kids didn’t have any left. Now was the wrong time to bring that up.
The boy shook his head. Hard to notice since his whole body quivered. “City no safe. They take mama. They burn baba. Police all dead. Army run fast and run far. Only…” He struggled for the words.
“Only djinn everywhere!”
All the kids clustered around and picked up the chant, wailing themselves into a frenzy. “Djinn! Djinn!”
Captain Dore ran up on foot. Kat shot him a pleading look. He threw up his hands. “What are you all screaming about? What’s a djinn? Russians? Iranians? How many bad guys are there?”
One of the girls, much better dressed than the rest, shoved herself out of the horde. Her thick British accent marked her as the offspring of some local bigwig. Her high-pitched squeal cut through the chattering like a bullhorn. “Demons! Like from your Bible. Scores of them! All with bloody great big guns.”
She jabbed a finger back towards Basrah. On the horizon, some strange and giant transport ship blasted skyward, right out of the city center. Several smaller specs flittered above the defenseless city. Spiraling towers of flaming death blossomed in their wake.
Captain Dore gave his surviving operators only the briefest glance. They’d been together long enough that he didn’t need to announce a group decision. “All right. What are we waiting for? Mr. Jenkins! You and the other civilians stay here and keep an eye on the kids. We’re going to recon the town and see if we can extract some more civilians. If we’re not back in an hour or you lose radio contact, take these Humvees and keep heading north. Stay in sight of the highway, but don’t travel on it.”
The archeologist pulled his dust-laced keffiyeh down to his neck. “Hey Rambo, are you freakin’ nuts? There’s only two dozen of you, going up against God knows how many of God knows what!” Jenkins gripped his borrowed rifle like a childhood teddy bear. He stuck his free hand out at Kat.
“Come on! Tell the captain how dangerous this is.”
Kat just smiled and tossed him a spare radio. “We’ll keep you in the loop.”
Their CIA tag-along trotted over to one of the abandoned Iraqi Humvees. Smith hauled out an Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher from the backseat. Looping a burlap quiver full of extra rockets over his shoulder, he ran back to Kat’s track.
She grunted as he dashed past. “You know how to use that thing?”
Smith chuckled and wagged a finger at her. “Good one! Let’s get to work.”
***
It didn’t take Kat’s little convoy long to reach the town. At least as close as they were willing to get without any tactical reconnaissance. A mile outside of city limits, they ran into another abandoned Iraqi army unit. This one much larger and clustered in a semi-circle… but their battlements faced towards the town. Whatever they were preparing to fight was already inside the city.
Kat dismounted and fanned out with the other American troops. She waded through piles of spotlessly clean rifles and uniform tops. “What the hell? They took the time to set up and dig sand berms around their vehicles, but then just turn tail and run?”
Sergeant Michaels whistled. “Look at all this hardware. There must have been a couple hundred soldiers here. The Iraqi’s were sure ready to make a stand. What the hell could scare them enough to run without firing a shot?”
Atkins stood on a berm and yelled from the far edge of the fighting position. “Hey, Captain! You have to see this.”
Kat jogged over right behind Captain Dore. She scaled the berm around the perimeter and followed Atkins’s dark stare.
After so many tours, she was no stranger to the Grim Reaper’s handiwork. They were business partners, after all, but she’d never seen anything like this.
Kat couldn’t even begin to count the hundreds, maybe thousands, of bodies splayed out in the depression ahead.
This close to the Tigris River, the endless sand gave way to irrigated farm fields. It was hard to tell just where they merged, since the ground was a bloody marsh for over a kilometer.
Kat took deep breaths and forced her stomach down. “Jesus Christ. Maybe you’re right, Captain. Has to be the Russians. Even the Iranians aren’t this barbaric.”
Captain Dore scanned the death fields carefully with his binoculars. “Barbarians… hmm. Yeah. That makes sense. You notice anything missing from the massacre?”
Kat refused to raise her binoculars. She didn’t need a closer view of the terror. Even with her naked eyes though, she noticed something was amiss.
Not a single hijab nor any other scrap of female clothing clung to the bodies.
“They’re all men. Young and old, but no kids or women. God… Is that a good thing or even worse? What did they do with the females and kiddies?”
Captain Dore dropped his field glasses and turned around, studying his unit. “Betcha dollars to donuts they’re on that transport that flew away. So, these bastards want to act like barbarians, okay. Then let’s get medieval. Listen up! Spread out in two-man teams. I want a gunner and driver in each Iraqi vehicle. That’ll triple our combat power. We’ll advance and take out those flying things. They’re so slow and hovering so close to the ground that it’ll be a turkey shoot.”
He pointed at a five-meter high antennae mast sticking out of an abandoned command vehicle. “Kat, use the Iraqi radios and see if you can get us some fire support. Artillery, aircraft, whatever you can shake loose. That getup should have enough range to reach anyone in a hundred kilometers.”
Dore busied himself assigning fighters to every armored vehicle in sight. Kat climbed into the smoldering oven of the Iraqi command center and checked out the equipment. All US-made communications gear. She cycled through silent frequencies, waiting only five seconds on each channel for a reply that never came. “Any station this net, this is Butterfly 7, southwest side of Basrah. We need a fire mission, over.”
Three minutes later, Sergeant Michaels trotted up and poked his head in the side hatch. “Kat, we’re ready to move. Any luck?”
She tossed down the radio and jumped out, wiping the sweat away. In the suddenly humid climate, thanks to the so-called nuclear winter, it was actually cooler in the sun than inside the track. “Not a damn peep. Looks like we’re on our own. Well, let’s get going.”
She trotted over to an eight-wheeled BTR-94 Armored Personnel Carrier, salivating at the twin 23mm guns sticking out of the remote weapons station. “Is anyone taking this bad boy? If not, I call dibs. Hey, who’s my driver?” Beside her, Michaels grunted and cocked his head at a squat, tracked vehicle ten feet away.
“Sorry to ruin your lady boner, but you’re driving for me. I’ve trained countless local troops how to use these weapons. We’ll take this BMP-3 Soviet Infantry Fighting Vehicle. It’s got thicker armor and… hell yeah!” He skidded to a stop and pumped his fist at the distant horizon.
“Looks like someone was listening to you!”
Even from ten miles away, Kat had no problem identifying the unique silhouettes of the American F-22 fighters. Both opened fire immediately, filling the sky with a dozen heat-seeking missiles.
The missile trails across the horizon painted the most beautiful sunset Kat had ever seen. While the other troops cheered, she flipped her short-range radio to the emergency, unencrypted channel and broadcast in the clear.
“This is Butterfly 7. Good to see you fellas. Don’t know if your radars are fried like everyone else’s, so here’s a Situation Report. Those two bogeys over Basrah are all that’s left. They can hover, but have no visible rotors. No obvious missiles either, so it should be an easy hunt…”
All twelve inbound missiles exploded hundreds of yards short of their targets. An American voice crackled over her radio. The sound was weak, barely rising above the static, but Kat couldn’t miss the shaken confidence in the pilot’s voice. “Butterfly, this is Falcon 2-4. We just shot our entire load. Please tell me the EMP is still messing with my sensors. Do you see any impacts?”
Kat didn’t even need to raise her binoculars. “No joy on all rounds, Falcon. Thanks for the attempt though. You better get out of here before they notice you, over.”
“This is Falcon, negative. The bastards wiped out our whole squadron. It’s payback time. Switching to guns.”
The odd enemy ships continued hovering in place. They rotated towards the American jets, but made no effort to flee or fire back. Kat grinned as flashes of gunfire blossomed from each F-22. Her grin turned to horror as the flames spread quickly, encompassing both aircraft. “No way…”
On a hunch, she flipped down her night optical/observation device, despite the daylight. What was invisible to the naked eye was too damn clear in the infrared view. Both enemy craft bathed the F-22’s in steady beams of intense heat.
“God damn lasers!” Both fighters exploded at the same time. Kat didn’t bother looking for a parachute. Captain Dore cupped his hands and shouted from the far end of the armored vehicle line.
“Kat! Turn that radio off! Everyone, radio silence until—”
Too late. One of the UFO’s finally moved. In their direction.
Sergeant Michaels, like all the other operators, grinned in anticipation. “Even better. They’re coming to us. In that case, the hell with drivers. I’ll take the BMP’s guns and you can rock the BTR’s weapons.” He punched Kat’s arm and shouted. “Get some!”
All Kat could manage was a weak “Hooah,” but she popped open the tiny side hatch of the BTR Armored Personnel Carrier and slid inside the armored car anyway. Over her shoulder, she caught Michaels chuckling before disappearing inside his BMP-3 Soviet Infantry Fighting Vehicle ’s back ramp.
“Don’t worry. No matter how badass their weapons are, they can only shoot at one target at a time!”
His flawless logic buoyed Kat’s confidence as she sat at the weapons station and tried to puzzle out the Ukrainian button labels.
Michaels was far too optimistic. As soon as Kat figured out how to power up the fire control computer, half a dozen explosions roiled the line of vehicles.
Kat ignored the blasts and shrapnel pinging off her hull, and just focused on leading the flying target. She peered through the aiming scope and held the firing trigger down. “One fuck you. Two fuck you…” She paused, readjusted her aim, and repeated the two-second chant.
Each short burst burped out 15 rounds from the dual 23mm guns. She whooped as her third spurt caught the cruising thing over a thousand yards away. The plane dipped briefly, sparks flying out the top… but righted itself and kept coming. The nose of the enemy craft dipped ever so slightly to point directly at her.
Before she could fire again, several streams of tracers from the other tracks dissected the inbound aircraft. They kept firing until long after the ship slammed into the sand. The strange aircraft refused to perish in a routine crash though. Even five hundred yards away, the shockwave from the ship’s explosion rocked Kat’s armored car. Not allowing herself even a momentary pause of relief, she popped her head out the track to figure out how much their little victory had cost. It took several seconds for the sand cloud to settle enough to see more than a few feet.
Kat’s heart sank as a flaming track appeared in the dust. “Mike! Oh God…” She dived down and ran towards the rear ramp. She reached up and grabbed a tiny shielded handle mounted on the side of the BMP Soviet Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The externally activated fire suppression system was a universal safety feature found even on these Russian-made vehicles. Kat yanked hard on the handle, activating the system, while she rushed to open the back hatch.
As soon as she touched the latch, the armored door swung open and knocked her off her feet. Michaels did a barrel roll out the opening, stomping on her foot in the process, and heaved in the sand. The noxious fumes from the fire-fighting chemicals spilled out the hatch and made Kat’s head spin. Michaels gasped for air and stabbed a finger at her.
“Why’d… cough… you do that? I had everything under… bleh… control!”
Kat jumped to her feet and kicked him down. She rolled him li
ke a rug and swatted at the flames engulfing his legs and climbing up his crotch. “Uh huh. So you wanted your bratwurst roasted?”
Michaels opened, but then quickly shut his mouth in relief as he stuck his hand down his pants. Kat shot him a wink. “Thank God for the fire-resistant underwear they issue, huh? Can you feel your legs?”
“Medic!”
The cry from farther down the line snapped them both back to reality. Kat stared around the junkyard of shredded vehicles. Most of the destroyed tracks were unoccupied at the time of the fight, but… She gritted her teeth as Roland and Captain Dore dragged a barely moving figure out of one bit of wreckage. “Damn, that’s Atkins!”
She ran to help, but Michaels grabbed her ankle. “No, pull security. Your guns are still working. I’ll go help.”
Kat heaved him to his shaky feet. Michaels seemed more scared about Atkins’s injury than his own near-death experience. Was that even a tear in his eye? Well, at least he could walk.
“Incoming!”
Kat threw herself down on top of Michaels as her BTR Armored Personnel Carrier glowed red and then burst apart. She flopped her head to the side and peeped up like a mouse at the sky. The second enemy war eagle dived straight down on its prey. No, that wasn’t quite right.
The damn thing hovered in place, directly over their heads, with its snout pointed down. “We have to get some cover!”
Michaels whipped up his rifle and fired impotently at the demon.
“Where? Least we can do is go out fighting!”
Kat searched around frantically. He had a point. None of the vehicles with the heavy weapons could raise their muzzles to 180 degrees. As for hiding in a foxhole, they’d be fish in a barrel to the eagle above.
“Fuck it!” She rolled on to her back as the scorching heat of the invisible laser crept closer. Kat forced herself to keep her eyes open as she screamed and emptied her rifle at the black apparition a hundred yards over their heads.
She thought she at least hit the damn thing, even if it shrugged off her minuscule bullets like so many mosquito bites. Her bolt clicked to the rear. Instead of reloading, Kat just turned to Michaels. “It was nice—”
The Caliphate Invasion Page 9
