Standing in the Storm

by William Alan Webb

  Yet flowers of all sizes and shapes also carpeted the scorched landscape. From delicate blues to bloodiest reds, they painted the desert floor, reminding him of his favoirte Impressionist painters. Majestic saguaro cacti peppered the boulder-strewn hills like sentinels watching for intruders. Mesquite and riparian trees grew tall along shallow stream beds. At another time, he would have found the panorama breathtaking.

  But not now. Now the enemy was coming. They were almost within mortar range, but he would not give the order to open fire until they were too close to miss. Between the rolling nature of the terrain, the boulders, and the cactus, visibility in places was less than a hundred yards. A mass of humanity headed right for them like a swarm of army ants, relentless and voracious. And while they looked like a mob, they moved like an army. If they wanted to even delay the attackers, every shot had to count. The Marines had to wait until they couldn’t miss before opening fire, and then pour it on.

  Sully surveyed his re-deployments yet again. The odds against his command were hopeless, yet he tried to spot a miracle defensive trick he might have overlooked. They had dug in at the top of the tallest hills in the area, no more than seventy-five feet high, but with long slopes and excellent fields of fire. Some three hundred yards to his left was the shoreline of Horseshoe Reservoir. It made a solid anchor, as far as it went.

  His far right was less vulnerable. Jagged mountains and foothills made for rough country. Beyond those mountains to the west was a broad, flat valley, cut by a few deep arroyos. Even further west were more mountains and impassable rough country. Getting through there would take hours, even without opposition.

  Then came the wide flat country bordering Interstate 17. That freeway had once hummed with traffic moving north from Phoenix. Sully had placed an entire platoon there, at the junction with Echo Company, a/k/a Task Force Safety. Echo had responsibility for Interstate 17 itself. The sun-bleached asphalt had cracks choked with weeds and flowers, but it was still navigable at speeds up to thirty or more miles per hour. A vehicle moving north could turn west at Highway 69 and be in Prescott within sixty minutes.

  Ruined buildings bordered the freeway and lay scattered about the landscape. By stretching his own line further, Sully had allowed Safety to concentrate firepower at the interstate, with their right flank anchored on Lake Pleasant less than four miles to the west. Both company commanders had assumed the enemy would hit the interstate hardest, so they put the bulk of their forces there. But Sully knew there was another weak spot to worry about: his extreme left flank.

  The reservoir protected his left flank, but everything else worried him. To his immediate left were several deep ravines. Beyond those was a hill, perhaps thirty feet high, near the shoreline of the reservoir, a small knob of rock he’d tagged, with grim humor, Last Stand Hill. When he’d been a teenager and faced a dilemma, his mom used to ask him, Is this the hill you want to die on? Such was the question now. Was that chunk of useless desert worth the lives of his Marines?

  If the enemy took that hill, they would turn his left flank. The entire Marine position might then crumble, all the way to Lake Pleasant, with tens of thousands of Islamists pouring into the brigade’s unprotected rear. He couldn’t let that happen, so the grim answer was yes; holding the hill was worth the lives of his Marines. Just like Custer’s 7th Cavalry, his men would live or die on Last Stand Hill.

  He had placed a precious LAV-25 there, hull-down, but there had been no time to dig a proper revetment. This left a lot of the armored fighting vehicle exposed as a target for RPGs. They were fortunate because all their LAV-25s were the upgraded A2 variant, with additional armor and a fire suppression system, which enhanced their survivability in combat. Speed gave them a battlefield advantage as reconnaissance vehicles. And if fighting was unavoidable, they carried a nasty punch. But LAVs were not designed for static defensive roles.

  Also on Last Stand Hill, he’d put a heavy machine gun squad and six infantrymen. Piccaldi was there with both of his rifles. Snowtiger was on the same hill as Sully and Embekwe, but placed to cover both their front and Last Stand Hill. She had her M110 lying on a towel, with fifteen magazines arranged for quick reloads and her M40 ready in her arms.

  The enemy was within range. Sully had deployed his Marines in the best way he knew, to both block the enemy and give his people a chance to survive. He was not fooling himself that they could last long against such numbers, though. He knew that, unless reinforcements showed up soon, his company would be overrun. No matter how many they killed, more were behind them, and there weren’t enough Marines to kill them all.

  But it was time to start trying.

  1515 hours

  Snowtiger was fastidious when preparing to shoot. First, she did a quick cleaning of both rifles. It wasn’t necessary. She cleaned the M40 every day without fail, like a religious ritual, but the condition of her weapon was a part of her environment she could control, a risk she could mitigate, and she never took unnecessary chances.

  Next, she examined the magazines for both of her rifles, reloading one because it might have gotten dirty. Finally, she went through the motions of feeling every magazine on her shooting vest. Her fingertips moved over them and memorized their differences. In the heat of combat, losing even one second while reloading could be fatal.

  Chapter 41

  Then out spake brave Horatius,

  The Captain of the Gate:

  “To every man upon this earth

  Death cometh soon or late.

  And how can man die better

  Than facing fearful odds,

  For the ashes of his fathers,

  And the temples of his Gods.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Horatius at the Bridge”

  1532 hours, July 29

  Dirt spattered his boot as a bullet smacked the desert near his left foot. Sully didn’t move. Another round hit two feet to his right, but he kept the binoculars to his eyes.

  “Cap, they’ve got you zeroed in,” said Company Sergeant Meyer.

  “Damn.” Sully scanned to his right. “Whoever these people are, they’re not a mob. There’s discipline out there.”

  “Please, Captain, take cover.”

  “Captain, I’ve got the shooter locked in. Permission to fire?” Lara Snowtiger said.

  “Permission granted.”

  Five hundred yards away, shrouded by dust: Snowtiger watched the man with dark hair sighting on Sully. The rifle had flashed twice with two misses, and she wasn’t going to let him get a third chance. Slowing her breathing, she squeezed the trigger. She didn’t hear the crack of the bullet; she only felt the recoil into her right shoulder. She kept the scope on her target and saw the distant man’s head explode in a haze of red.

  “Target down,” she said.

  “Nice shot.” Sully finally dropped behind the crest of the hill and slid a few feet on his back. He motioned for the radio. Taking a deep breath, he keyed the mike. “Kicker All, this is Kicker Real. Heads up, boys and girls. They’ve split into four columns, and most of the vehicles appear to be heading for the interstate. Today is why you get the big bucks. Remember your orders. No retreat. No fall back. We stand or die on this line. The entire brigade is counting on us, which is why General Angriff put Marines here instead of Army. Good luck and good shooting.”

  He’d no sooner finished than Meyers handed him another radio. “It’s Prime, sir.”

  “Kicker Real here.”

  “Captain Sully, this is General Fleming. The cavalry’s on the way, son, we’re sending you everything we’ve got, but you’ve got to hold on until they get there. Can you think of anything else we can do?”

  Crawling to the crest, Sully glanced at the tidal wave of humanity heading his way. “Yes, sir. Send more burps.”

  1537 hours

  Nick Angriff paced the cramped headquarters trailer like a caged panther. He stopped when a corporal manning one of the radios leaned back and addressed him.

  “General, Silver Fox as
ked Kicker Real if they needed anything and Kicker’s response doesn’t make sense.”

  “What was it?” Angriff said.

  “He just said, ‘Send more burps.’ Why would he want more of the enemy, sir?”

  A thin smile creased Angriff’s face as he thought of the mythic bravado from the Battle of Wake Island in 1941, where the Marines had been surrounded and without hope of rescue. The legend said the American command at Pearl Harbor had asked if they needed anything . Lt. Commander Cunningham, the CO, had radioed back, “Send more Japs.”

  “That man’s getting the biggest medal I can find.”

  General Muhdin was not sure about the exact strength of the forces opposing him, nor of their exact nature. But he had no illusions about his own army. He knew them to be a fanatical mob more afraid of their own leaders than their enemy. In military terms, they were good only for mass attacks. Anything requiring subtlety or creative thinking on the battlefield was beyond their capabilities.

  Having no other choice, he launched his men at what he saw as the weak points in his enemy’s defense. He expected to overwhelm what he thought was a small number of Patton’s half-trained and ill-equipped troops, like his own. He believed he faced men called LifeGuards. He didn’t know that he was actually up against real warriors.

  He watched his regiments move into position to attack. It was he who’d formed the Sevens into regiments of roughly one thousand men, each one named for something sacred to the Caliphate. They were not regiments in the American sense of the word, because such organization required a large number of qualified officers. Yet mob or not, Muhdin was proud of them. There was discipline in the ranks, too. The men knew how to use their weapons and they obeyed orders. For those who hesitated or disobeyed, punishment was swift and severe. After all, if your actions guaranteed your place in Heaven, what fear could death hold?

  The plan was simple because it had to be. Muhdin intended to attack down three main axes, while infiltrating in the areas between. The first column was also the weakest, with no more than three thousand men. They would try to turn the far right flank of the American position, the one anchored on Lake Pleasant.

  The middle column, less than two miles away, would drive straight north on old Interstate 17. This force was by far the strongest. Led by five rebuilt Bradleys and three working Abrams tanks, behind those crowded hundreds of civilian trucks, SUVs, and cars. All carried as many riders as could fit inside or hang on. No less than fifteen thousand men followed on foot.

  Once through the defenses, they would drive at maximum speed to seize Prescott. A large contingent he ordered to take the big mountain in the distance, the one his map labeled Badger Mountain.

  That left ten thousand men to assault his enemy’s far left flank. From what Muhdin could see, only a scattering of LifeGuards stood in his way. His only concern was all of the enemy vehicles. What were they, and where had they all come from?

  1547 hours

  They lay on the opposite slope of the hill, below the crest. Sully knew they still had two or three minutes before opening fire, so he turned to Sergeant Meyer lying next to him. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m good, sir.” But Meyer’s hand trembled as he smoked a cigarette.

  “You ever killed anybody, Meyer?”

  “Not sure, Cap. I shot at a lot of burps in Afghanistan and Syria, and I think I hit some of them, but I can’t say for sure I killed any. No time to count bodies.”

  “Yeah,” Sully said. “Right. You’re a good Marine, Meyers.”

  On his right, Lara Snowtiger lay at the crest, sighting through her scope. Bullets kicked up dirt here and there, but with her Ghillie suit pulled over her head, she was invisible.

  “What’s the range, Lara?” he said.

  “Three-two-zero, Cap.”

  Sully signaled open fire to the mortar squad and both tubes coughed. The first shells arced toward the enemy. The nature of the terrain meant the Sevens would only expose themselves as they crested the rolling hills. Once in the lee of the next hill, they would be safe from direct fire. To prevent the enemy gathering there to get organized, Sully had directed his mortars to lay their shells in those hidey holes.

  The whump of exploding mortar rounds prompted a yell, and a few brave souls charged the Marine positions. As thousands more joined in, it changed from a primal scream to something both old and new. Nabi Akbar! Nabi Akbar! The army of the Caliphate jumped to its feet and sprinted at the Americans, like a massive Japanese banzai charge.

  “Cap…” Snowtiger said in a calm voice. She centered her crosshairs on a man who appeared to be giving orders. “…guess who’s coming for dinner.”

  Motioning for the radio, Sully keyed the mike. “Kicker All, this is Kicker Real. Time to earn your pay. Fire at will.”

  Snowtiger squeezed the trigger and a red patch blossomed on her target’s left breast. He toppled backward, but she had already moved to another man. Then the rest of the squad opened up.

  The LAV-25 nearest her blasted away with both its coaxial M240 machine gun and the second machine gun mounted on the turret top. The chain gun was silent for the moment. All along the lines, Marines poured fire into their attackers. Shell casings piled up around them. An explosion below the crest of the hill sent dirt raining on Sully and Snowtiger. Bullets zipped past their heads.

  The Sevens’ tactics were simple — each man ran as fast as he could toward the Americans. Some fired as they moved and some stopped to aim. A lot had RPGs. While changing magazines, Sully noted with alarm how close they already were.

  Then the chain guns opened fire.

  The M242 Bushmaster was an externally powered, chain-driven, single-barrel weapon. It could fire in semi-automatic, burst, or automatic modes. The feed was a metallic link belt with dual-feed capability. The term chain gun derived from the use of a roller chain that drove the bolt back and forth.

  The massive 25mm shells could destroy anything up to, and sometimes including, a tank. At point-blank range, high explosive shells tore into the charging infantry, ripping them to shreds and blowing huge gaps in their lines. Like a chainsaw hacking through a grove of saplings, the Sevens fell in heaps. Limbs spun away and blood sprayed the air with a red mist. Men flew backwards while others rolled down the hill, some screaming, some not.

  But others returned fire. An RPG round exploded on the reverse slope just below the LAV, then another went high, flying past the turret at 295 feet per second. Sully heard a wet thunk sound to his left and saw PFC Brutonski roll down the hill, trailing blood.

  Turning back, he fired at a man in jeans and a ragged shirt who knelt on a knoll, aiming an RPG. The bullet struck the man in the forehead, snapping his head back. By reflex, he pulled the trigger. The grenade launcher swiveled downward as he fell and the explosive charge rocketed into the ground between two of his fellow Sevens. The blast blew them sideways.

  Beside him, Snowtiger fired like a machine. Load, aim, fire; load, aim, fire; and with every squeeze of the trigger another Seven toppled.

  Not every Seven carried a rifle or RPG. Like Soviet troops early in World War Two, they picked up weapons from men who fell. Also like the Red Army, hand-picked men aimed machine guns at their backs with orders to shoot anyone who retreated. They fell by the score, but in their frenzy of kill-or-be-shot madness, the volume of fire aimed at the few Marines lying prone behind the hill was like a hurricane.

  Snowtiger pushed the last loaded magazine into her M40. With the back of her left hand, she wiped sweat and dirt from her eyes. She glanced at Last Stand Hill just in time to see something slam into the right front tire of the LAV parked there. The blast blew off the tire and lifted the twelve-ton vehicle several feet in the air. The commander flew out of the turret, rolled to a stop, and didn’t move.

  When the LAV slammed back down, it leaned to the right like a listing ship. Seconds later another explosion blew the machine gun crew backward.

  The only Marine left fighting on Last Stand Hill was P
iccaldi.

  For several seconds she watched him sight and aim, as though on the target shooting range. And with every squeeze of the trigger, another Seven fell. But there were hundreds charging him, and he could not kill them all before being overrun.

  “Cap!” she yelled. “Captain Sully!”

  Sully ducked below the crest, his face red and streaked with sweat. “What?”

  “Sir, Zo’s all alone. If they take that hill, we’re fucked. I’m going to help.”

  Before Sully could say anything, she grabbed the M110 and five 20-round magazines, gathered herself, and took off at a sprint to cover the two hundred yards to Last Stand Hill. She had only gone twenty yards before the enemy spotted her, but Snowtiger was quick on her feet. Despite bullets whizzing past her ears, she zig-zagged through no-man’s land and made it across. She hit the dirt beside Piccaldi.

  “Couldn’t stay away, huh?” He sighted on yet another burp.

  “This position is too important to leave in your hands,” she said, panting from the run.

  Piccaldi looked her in the eyes for one brief moment. “Thanks for coming, Lara, but I think we’re the only ones left.”

  “I think you’re right. I’m moving to the other side.” She nodded at the LAV.

  Before she could move, Piccaldi reached out and stopped her. Confused, she met his eyes.

  “Don’t you dare get killed,” he said, then released her.

  “You either,” she said.