Unable to hear the suppressed reports of the long gun some five hundred yards to his fore, Cade put his trust in Angel One to cover his approach to the RQ-9 trailer. The impenetrable darkness adding an extra sense of security, he slipped past the mobile missile launcher’s metal grille.
The moment Cade reached the middle of the launcher’s big-rig-sized tractor, a door opened half a dozen feet in front of him.
Skirting right to get a better angle around the door’s swing, he drew up a few pounds of pressure on the MP7’s already fine-tuned trigger and overlaid the red pip on the point in space he figured the PLA soldier would emerge.
Beating Cade to the punch, the soldier sprayed a burst of poorly placed rounds in his direction.
Rounds zinged off the blacktop, one striking dead-center in Cade’s chest, another carving a furrow in the flesh on the outside of his right thigh.
Kinetic energy halved from striking the ground first, the round that had struck Cade’s chest was stopped by the ceramic plate in his carrier.
Though winded slightly from the sudden punch to his solar plexus, and wincing on account of the hot sting from the damage done by the second ricocheting round, Cade dropped his muzzle by a degree and let fly two subsonic rounds.
Killed in the act of placing a boot on the trailer’s top stair, the shooter’s body went rigid and pitched forward. Carving a steady arc over the stairs, the face-shot man looked like a felled tree. The impact with the ground wasn’t as impressive; however, it did draw out of one of the dead man’s comrades.
Nearly perpendicular to the open doorway, his breathing still affected by the glancing blow, Cade was afforded a frontal view of the second soldier’s gruesome death. Fired by Griff, maybe six feet away and from an angle oblique to the startled soldier, the first hurtling forty-grain hunk of lead struck the man under the chin, just below his right ear. As the kinetic energy was snapping the soldier’s head left, Griff’s second round entered an inch above the man’s turning cheek. Traveling just under 1100-feet-per-second, at an up angle, the round took the path of least resistance: plowing through the nasal cavity, crushing ethmoid bone, and exiting the skull through the nasal passage.
The partially formed look of surprise was erased from the soldier’s face as his entire nose—cartilage, flesh, and dermis—exploded outward and was taken along for the ride in front of the disintegrating hunk of tumbling lead.
To Cade’s right, things were happening that caught his attention. In the holding pen, prisoners drawn from their tents by the gunfire were gaping at the fallen guards.
Beyond the pen, the agitation among the dead things outside the fence was ramping up. In the middle distance, both doors on the trailers housing the PLA cadre were banging open.
Cat’s out of the bag, Cade thought. Instantly, a near-solid stream of red tracer fire from Nat’s MK-46 was lancing the air far off to his right.
Simultaneously, Cade was fishing an M67 frag grenade from a pocket. Pressing his back to the right side of the door, with Griff crouching on the opposite side, Cade let the MP7 hang by its sling and pulled the grenade’s pin.
On the same page as Cade, Griff kept his weapon aimed at the doorway. With his off hand, Griff grabbed the door’s edge and started it swinging closed.
There was no dramatic exclamation of Frag out or Fire in the hole. Cade simply let the spoon fly and, just as the door was passing the midway point in its swing, sidearmed the tennis-ball-sized grenade into the trailer.
As the door slammed shut, Cade and Griff dove to the ground.
Three long seconds later there was a muffled whoomp. No screams issued forth. There were no cries for help in Mandarin or any other language, for that matter.
Just silence from within.
In the event any PLA soldiers were alive inside the trailer, Griff readied a second grenade.
This time Cade tended the door as Griff pulled the pin and rolled the grenade into the trailer.
There was another whoomp and the Pale Riders were up and mounting the stairs.
Chapter 79
From his position south of the lot, Nat was taking incoming from the PLA soldiers spilling from their billet. Prone behind a pair of Jersey barriers, he ignored the rounds crackling overhead and striking concrete and continued firing short bursts of suppressing fire.
Immediately following the muffled explosion of Griff’s grenade, Cade opened the launcher trailer door and peered inside. The smell of blood and cordite hit his nose first. Then he saw that the grenades had turned the remaining soldier into a partially clothed corpse leaking blood and who knew what else. To ensure the twin doses of shrapnel hadn’t left functional any of the electronic equipment, he fired a dozen rounds into the wall occupied by multiple flat-panel screens, all of them surrounded by dials and buttons.
As Cade swapped magazines, he called, “Clear.” On the heels of the one-word SITREP meant solely for Griff, he went on, “Jedi Flight, Anvil Actual, you are green for go. Romeo Bravo is offline. Repeat, Jedi Flight is green. Fire for effect on the troop billets.”
In the next beat, Ari responded, saying, “Anvil Actual, Jedi One-One. Good copy. On station in thirty.”
Thirty? Too much time. However, seeing as how they were hemmed in by fire coming in from the troop billet and unable to advance due to the steady barrage spewing from Nat’s LMG, they decided to stay put and wait for reinforcements.
Confident in the knowledge the IR tape on their helmets would differentiate them from the enemy, Cade exited the thin-skinned trailer and took cover next to Griff, beside the stamped-metal stairs, where he hoped enemy rounds wouldn’t find them.
***
Ten seconds into what was to be the longest thirty seconds of Cade’s life, he felt in his chest the familiar harmonic vibrations that could only be the Jedi Flight. It seemed to be coming from two directions: east and south. Nearby, the prisoners felt it, too. Faces turned expectantly skyward and a hushed murmur arose from the cramped pen.
Another five seconds crawled by and the rotor thrum was accompanied by the distant diesel growl of an approaching vehicle.
In the pen, chins were dropping and heads were panning in the direction of the new sound.
In the next fifteen seconds, presenting to Cade as more of a slow-rolling train wreck than the calamitous kinetic action that it truly was—all hell broke loose.
As Cade bellowed “Get down” at the prisoners who were still standing, a second chain of orange-red fire joined in with the sporadic tracer fire from Nat’s weapon. Only the new incoming was lancing down at a forty-five-degree angle. Looking as if it was made of interconnected rounds, the beam of fire tore into the troop trailers with animalistic ferocity. The thin metal skin was no match. Nor was the flesh and bone of the partially clothed troops still pouring from the doorways.
It was over in seconds for the soldiers who were just minutes away from choosing from the prisoners their girl for the night.
Like tin cans tossed into a campfire, the trailers were quickly reduced to smoking shells, their walls and roofs buckling inward. As Jedi One broke contact and swung a tight, banking port-side turn that took it over the OMSI roofline and toward the river, Jedi One-Two came in out of the east, moving low and slow, her deployed landing gear passing just feet over Cross’s overwatch position atop the viaduct.
From five hundred yards out, as viewed through Cade’s color NVGs, the Ghost Chinook gliding over the fenced-in parking lot was a sight to behold. Standing on the deployed rear ramp, a lone soldier trained groundward what looked to be an M240H machine gun.
Five hundred yards east of Cross’s position, rolling westbound on the two-lane passing directly underneath the viaduct, the returning troop transport was picking up speed. Gears gnashed and exhaust belched as the driver worked the transmission on the American vehicle he was not overly familiar with.
Didn’t matter. Because prior to reaching cover under the viaduct, a Hellfire missile fired by Jedi One-Three dropped down from the inky black
sky. Engine glowing red and trailing a swirl of white-gray exhaust, the air-to-surface missile hit the transport, dead center, at nearly a ninety-degree angle.
When the twenty-pound HEAT (high-explosive anti-tank) warhead detonated, the rig’s multi-wheeled backend reared up and the dozen troops sitting on opposing benches were blown apart, their severed limbs and ruptured torsos scattered in all directions. Afire and still moving, the transport rolled out of sight underneath the viaduct, coming to a full stop only when the fuel in its tanks touched off and the driver and passenger inside the cab were engulfed by flames from the secondary explosion.
Thirty feet above the licking flames, Cross was feeling the heat—literally. Head down and pressing his prone body against the cool cement wall when the Hellfire crashed into the troop carrier, the SEAL had instantly lost both of his eyebrows, every last one of his long blond eyelashes, and all of the hair on his forearms where his rolled-up sleeves had left them exposed.
Thanking God the Hellfire had struck the vehicle just prior to it sliding underneath the distant northbound lanes, he charged the M4, rose up over the wall, and began putting the burning PLA soldiers out of their misery.
While Cross was doing the right thing, a pair of F-22A Raptors flying out of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska were releasing ordinance on Target Bravo—the sprawling Convention Center at the east end of the Steele bridge, some two miles north of OMSI. In the process of being turned into a command and control facility for General Jinlong, the glass and steel Convention Center was seconds away from becoming a pile of broken concrete and twisted rebar.
Hearing small arms fire coming from behind the HQ-9 trailer, Cade and Griff rose up and pulled back toward the museum. Enemy fire crackled the air around them as they rounded the grille on the HQ-9’s tractor. Just as the twin detonations blocks away rumbled the ground under Cade’s Danners, he lifted his gaze and saw that Alamo had repositioned himself outside the door and had the prisoners prone on the ground directly below the emergency stairway. Bullpup shouldered, the resistance leader was screaming at the top of his voice and dumping rounds toward a pair of PLA squirters hemmed in by the gate.
Seeing the trapped PLA soldiers hinge over and fall to the parking lot, one clutching his gut, the other clearly having taken a couple of rounds to the head, Cade and Griff hustled back to collect Fan and Jinlong.
Meeting the Pale Riders halfway, flex-cuffed prisoners in tow, Baker said, “I’m not going back with you. My work is far from finished.”
“My orders call for me to break you out … nothing more,” Cade said. “However, I do have a couple of requests.”
Slapping a fresh mag in the bullpup, Baker said, “Shoot. What do you want?”
“When the bird with the QRF puts down, all I want is for you to let one of the medics check you out. Give you something to help you rehydrate. Let him set that broken nose and tend to those fingers.”
Baker looked off into the dark. Finally he said, “Can I have a minute alone with Torture Boy?”
Cade shook his head. “That I can’t do. Know that I’ll make sure he answers for what he did to you. You have my word.”
“The videotape?”
Cade dug the tiny cassette out of his pocket and handed it over. “I have no use for it.” He paused to pivot the NVGs up. “What are you going to do now? President Clay is going to ask me what’s on your mind.”
“I’m going to pick up right where I left off,” said Baker. “Kicking ass and taking names. Only this time if they catch up with me, they will not take me alive. I’ll go down swinging. And I’m sure as hell taking a whole lot of them with me.”
Cade said, “I’ll relay the message. Stay frosty out there, Alamo.”
Baker shook Cade’s gloved hand, then turned and limped off to meet the incoming Ghost Chinook.
Chapter 80
As Jedi One-Two touched down east of the holding pen, Cade reported over the comms that the west side of the lot was now clear. Seeing the rangers spilling down the helo’s open ramp, he called Cross and Nat and ordered them to return from their overwatch positions.
While ranger medics tended to Baker and the others, two more rangers sprinted toward the HQ-9, in their hands enough C4 plastic explosives to destroy all of its components.
Cade probed his plate carrier. Finding no entry hole, just a rip in the chest rig and a dent in the chest plate underneath, he probed the hole in his pants. Coming away with a bloody finger and the knowledge that the graze was a shallow one and likely wouldn’t even need suturing, he smiled at his good fortune.
“Couple of close calls,” Griff said. “Need me to check you out?”
Shaking his head, Cade said, “I’ll be fine.” He paused. “You still have those cards on you?”
“Cards?”
“The deck you were playing Hold Em with on the tarmac back at Peterson.”
Griff retrieved the pack of playing cards from his ruck. “These?”
Nodding, Cade took the cards from him. Opening the pack, he noticed the cards bore the same gun-toting Grim Reaper as the Pale Riders patch riding on his shoulder.
“Where’d you get these?”
Griff replied, “Lola had them made up for me. Some printer dude in Springs supplies them to her.”
“Can they be replaced?”
“Sure. Why?”
All business, Cade said, “I’m going to leave some of them behind. I want the PLA pukes who come looking for the general to know who to fear.”
Dragging the prisoners along, Cade and Griff walked the parking lot. Dropping a card near each fallen PLA soldier, Cade called them out, saying, “Ace of spades. Queen of diamonds. Six of clubs. Suicide King ...” He went on like that until half the deck was gone and they were back to where they started.
Cross and Nat were waiting near the pen and watching the rangers loading the Ghost Chinook with the injured. A handful of those among the healthy prisoners who wanted to ride along to Colorado Springs were already aboard and strapped in.
Ten minutes after Jedi One-Two landed, it was filled to capacity and the turbines were beginning to spool up.
Cade and Griff instinctively ducked their heads as the heavy-lift helo launched. They were still standing, heads bowed and backs facing the LZ, when Jedi One-One slid in from the north and took One-Two’s place on the parking lot.
Meeting Skip at the open starboard-side door, Cade said, “Good shooting, Tex.”
Grabbing Fan by the arm, Griff said, “Where do you want him?”
“Port side, back to the cockpit. Put Baby Bird directly across from him.”
Once the prisoners were strapped in with their legs bound at the ankles with zip-ties, Cade boarded the helo and sat on the seat beside Jinlong.
Cross and Griff clambered aboard. Taking the forward-facing seats beside Cade, they began removing their rucks and securing and stowing their rifles.
Boarding last, Nat snagged the rear-facing seat adjacent to the starboard-side minigun.
Showing Ari a thumbs up, Skip said, “All customers aboard. Preparing for launch,” and started the cabin door motoring shut.
The red cabin lights flickered briefly as the turbines started to spool up.
Over the shipwide comms, Ari said, “Welcome aboard Night Stalker Airways. TF-160 wants you to enjoy your flight. As we prepare for launch, please return your seats to their upright positions and stow your seatback tray tables.”
“The seats have one position,” Griff complained. “Straight up and stiff as a board.”
Cross and Nat fist-bumped Griff.
Feeling the ship go light on her gear, Cade said, “Take us south, please. To the riverfront park.” He pointed to it on the map on Skip’s lap.
Addressing Ari, Skip said, “It’s just this side of the Sellwood bridge.”
“There’s like a dozen bridges across this river,” shot Ari.
“Two miles south,” Cade said. “It’s impossible to miss.” As the helo turned on axis a
nd went nose down, he regarded the general. “Do you speak English?”
“Poorly,” said Fan.
Cade growled, “I asked Baby Bird.”
In fractured English, Jinlong said, “Very little.”
“Why didn’t you study abroad?” Cade asked. “Maybe learn the language before you come over here to fuck us.”
Jinlong remained tightlipped.
Ari said, “Thirty seconds out.”
Cade flipped his NVGs up. Regarding the general, he said, “When does the spring offensive commence? Give me a date. Troop strength. All the details. You do that and I’ll find you something to cover that shriveled little worm between your legs.”
The general said, “Fuck you,” and spit in Cade’s balaclava-covered face.
Having witnessed the ultimate sign of disrespect one soldier could show another, Griff, Cross, and Nat all voiced their displeasure.
“No he didn’t,” exclaimed Nat.
“Want me to break his nose?” asked Griff.
“Stupid move,” said Cross, shaking his head.
Cade said nothing. He was busy removing his helmet.
“On station,” Ari said. “Where do you want me?”
Cade said, “Hover over the parking lot. Southeast corner. About twenty … twenty-five feet above the deck.”
Ari side-slipped the helo into position.
Removing the sweat- and spit-soiled balaclava, Cade fixed Fan with a hard stare. “Do you recognize me?”
Fan leaned forward as far as the safety harness would allow. After a few seconds spent studying Cade’s face, he shook his head. “All you round eyes look the same to me.”
Seething inside, Cade said, “Picture me tied to a chair in a Utah farmhouse.” He tugged off one glove and held his hand up for Fan to see. “And with fingernails. I used to have perfect fingernails.”
Seeing Fan’s face go slack, Cade snugged his glove back on and turned to face the general. “The spring offensive? Spill your guts.”
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 14): Home Page 42
