Standing Before Hell's Gate

by William Alan Webb

  He stood and turned his back to his driver. “Bug check.” It was necessary to have other Marines check your back for scorpions or spiders after you’d been on the ground.

  “You’re good, Loot.”

  Hakala stiffened at a distant sound. The first explosion sounded like nothing more than the faint pop of a bursting balloon. Seconds later, the second one echoed much louder and deeper, like a heavy clap of thunder. He’d already started up the reverse slope of the ridge when one of the men on the top called down to him.

  “We got smoke, Lieutenant.”

  Loose gravel rolled away as he trudged up the fifty-foot slope and followed the sentry’s finger. Two pillars of smoke rose from behind a mountain.

  Qadim followed him up and knew right away what they were. “Those must be the churches near Canon.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Sevens burn all Christian churches and Jewish synagogues.”

  “But how do you know that?”

  “I have never seen a tornado, Lieutenant, but I do not need to see one to know they are real.”

  Frustrated by the non-answer, Hakala changed the subject. “What were those explosions?”

  “I believe the Sevens triggered a trap. The first was meant to cause a rockslide and force anyone on the road below into a deep ditch. Unknown to them, large kegs of black powder were buried under the ditch. It means they are getting close to the main defenses. We need to help them!”

  “Listen, I know you want to help your people, but there’s an army out there of unknown strength and firepower between us and them. Probably thousands of men. To get through to Shangri-La, we’d have to get past them. We fought them once before and they had a lot of RPGs. These are LAVs we’re driving, which stands for light armored vehicles. Light armored vehicles. They’re not tanks and they’re not designed to absorb RPG hits.”

  “What is an RPG?”

  That surprised Hakala. “Rocket-propelled grenade. You don’t have any?”

  Qadim shook his head. “No.”

  “You’ll have to take my word for it then, but we can’t shoot our way through that many people armed with weapons that can destroy us. Even counting my crews, corpsman, and mechanic, I’ve only got thirty men. Thirty against thousands doesn’t work. I should know. I’ve done it before.”

  “Why not go around them?”

  “I thought you said they were moving down that other highway from the west.”

  “There are other roads than highways. There are small roads and game trails through the desert west of Shangri-La, then all we have to do is go over the Western Ridge and we’re there.”

  “Any water barriers?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lakes, rivers, that kind of thing.”

  “There is the Jemez River, but there are many fords. I have crossed it many times on foot.”

  “Could the Sevens know about all this?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Hakala made an instant decision. He checked his watch and then, half walking, half running down the slope toward the parked LAVs, he barked out orders. Three minutes later, First Platoon, Dog Company, 1st Marine Recon Battalion, pulled out heading north.

  #

  Chapter 69

  The Marines are like my West Highland Terrier. They get up every morning, they want to dig a hole, and they want to kill something.

  Thomas P.M. Barnett

  Gallup, New Mexico

  1547 hours, April 30

  Captain Martin Sully tilted the old Rand McNally road map so that the glare from the afternoon sun didn’t wash out the details. He’d already memorized the routes east that Dog Company might need to follow, but it never hurt to identify alternate roads just in case. Besides, he’d been napping when First Platoon called in a sitrep and that shot of adrenaline had made going back to sleep impossible. But since Dog Company’s other four platoons stood ready to carry out whatever orders he issued, either to stand fast against attack, withdraw, or advance, like everybody else Sully had little left to do. Unlike everybody else, he couldn’t be seen wasting time, thus the map.

  First Sergeant Meyer found him holding the map close to his face just outside the company command post, in an old wooden barn. Using his peripheral vision, Sully noticed the sergeant’s limp seemed better.

  “Colonel Berger again, Captain,” Meyer said. “He wants that sitrep… he doesn’t sound happy.”

  Sully lowered the map. He knew he could only play the ‘radio problems’ card for so long before it became insubordination. In his pre-Overtime career, Sully would not only never have sent out a deep recon against the spirit of his orders, even if not the actual letter of them, but feigning technical issues to stall for time would have been anathema. All of this ran through his mind before he answered. “Are you certain that wasn’t garbled in transmission? It sounds odd, considering I spoke with the colonel late last night.”

  Meyer carefully weighed his words. “There was a lot of interference. Should we request they resend?”

  “No! We have to maintain radio silence for the security of our mission. Let’s wait and see if they send again.”

  The corners of Meyer’s mouth twitched and Sully knew he was trying not to smile. “Aye, sir.”

  “You need to watch yourself, Meyer.”

  “Sir?” Meyer said, confused and suddenly worried.

  “Keep this up and you’ll be a butter bar.” Second Lieutenant.

  Meyer replied past a grin, “Wouldn’t want that, Cap.”

  “On the other hand, you might be looking up at PFC.”

  “Wouldn’t want that, either.”

  #

  1549 hours

  Shangri-La

  Men and women of all ages scurried to and fro on errands before the Sevens reached them. As he stood behind the last barriers on Highway 4, directing final preparations, reports came to Johnny Rainwater from all over Shangri-La about the fighting. None of them were good. Despite suffering heavy casualties, the Sevens advanced on all sides. On the east they’d advanced past the old Valles Calderas National Preserve in a running gun battle against the withdrawing soldiers of Shangri-La, and his people had been forced back to Los Griegos Peak, a mountain overlooking Highway 501. Any minute he expected to hear that the last line of trees blocking the road were under attack. He’d put most of the available defenders there, because if that position was overrun, the Sevens could pour into Shangri-La and destroy them.

  Things were even worse on the west side, where his people reported a woman in charge. From what Rainwater knew of the Sevens, that wasn’t possible, but those who had seen her swore that a heavy-set woman with black hair drove the enemy forward without mercy. One of the messengers swore she’d seen the woman shoot one of her own soldiers in the back while he appeared to be running away, and then execute two captured Shangri-La defenders as they begged for mercy on their knees. One of them had been Trinka Mathis.

  “Trinka’s only eleven,” Rainwater said to the messenger. “What was she doing there?”

  “Helping her dad load his rifles. He was killed before they caught her. I saw him fall.”

  “And this woman killed her?”

  The messenger nodded. “Stabbed Trinka in the throat and watched her die. She laughed the whole time.”

  “Thank you,” Rainwater said. The viciousness of his enemy left him stunned and sick. Vengeance was a stranger at Shangri-La, which was generally a peaceful and cooperative community, but Rainwater felt an unfamiliar anger boiling inside. That woman needed to die. She didn’t just deserve to die; she needed to die, and preferably in the slowest, most painful way.

  Then he heard gunshots and felt something sting his right ear. Touching it, he felt something slick and looked at his fingers, now red with blood. It took a second for his brain to register his danger before he fell into a squat. Bullets zipped overhead like angry wasps.

  #

  Muhdin’s new plan seemed to be working. He’d lined up three r
egiments beside each other and attacked due north. The Pir Baba Regiment, his best troops, attacked up Highway 4 and the ridge to its west. Beside it, over the eastern ridge flanking the highway, came the Nathar Shah Regiment, and on the right flank was the Kaaba Regiment in the open desert. Unlike the previous year, his men didn’t simply run forward as fast as they could. Over the winter they had learned fire and advance tactics. Part of a unit would advance to cover while the rest provided suppressing fire. They weren’t all that good at it yet, but already it was proving far more effective than simply attacking in human waves. The RPGs and mortars he kept in reserve.

  Also unlike the previous summer, Muhdin stayed close behind his advancing troops, so close that when two men fell into a pit near the left shoulder of the highway, he had heard their screams when the cougar trapped inside tore them to pieces. When his men tried to shoot the animal, it had vanished. Only when they had dropped to the bottom of the pit to check on their comrades did they see the tunnel in one wall of the hole, closed off by a retractable gate.

  Despite mounting losses, his men kept moving forward. Rumors said that the infidels had erected a tall flagpole from which flew the American flag, surrounded by four stone towers. Standing atop his command Bradley using his prized Leica binoculars, Muhdin saw a small flag attached to a metal pole flapping in the breeze, with four shorter structures around it. As he watched, the flag lowered and disappeared, replaced moments later by one more than twice as large. The colors on this one shone in the sun so there could be no mistake of what they represented; they were the hated red, white, and blue of the old United States.

  The defiance of the infidels knew no bounds, and so their punishment had to be equally severe. Emir el Mofty, the Superior Imam of the Caliphate of the Seven Prayers of the New Prophet, would demand nothing less, and Muhdin would be glad to give him what he wanted. Shangri-La and all of its infidel citizens would die.

  #

  1557 hours

  Shangri-La

  Johnny Rainwater couldn’t be everywhere at once, so when Abigail Deak volunteered to help wherever he needed it, he detailed her to stay at Highway 4 and hold their position no matter what happened. The Sevens had made it to the bur oak, the last defenses before Shangri-La itself. Built on the bones of the old Jemez Springs town, the common buildings of Shangri-La were long and centered on the highway, with no place to make a stand until the final stone wall sanctuary around the flag and towers. Regardless of cost, the barriers had to be held.

  Leaving her in charge there, he galloped to what the citizens of Shangri-La called the Valley of Death, two miles to the south. Over the decades, a great deal of defensive work had been done there to devastate any attackers, which the people had always assumed would be Sevens. The two sides of the valley were low, but sharply sloped hills rose about forty feet high on one side and eighty on the other. On the outside of those hills, the ground tended to be flat with no cover, a perfect killing ground. Facing that approach, the defenders had constructed an elaborate stone wall ten feet high and three feet thick, with firing ports; nothing less than heavy artillery or air strikes could destroy those positions.

  The valley, on the other hand, offered an enticing alternative. It looked like an old, dry riverbed two hundred yards across. The ground rolled a bit, offering cover except for the last fifty yards in front of a much lower stone wall, about four feet high, sited at the top of a gentle ten-foot slope. To the eyes of those who didn’t know better, it appeared to be the weak point in an otherwise stout defensive position.

  It was, of course, another trap, or rather a series of traps.

  When Rainwater dismounted one hundred yards behind the lower wall, he tied his horse to a scrub red elderberry tree. The soldiers of Shangri-La, a mix of both genders and ages from 16 to 80, clustered thicker at the head of the valley than on the two flanks, where the wall was higher. Likewise, the few available semi-automatic rifles that had been converted to full automatic capability covered the valley, while everyone outside the valley carried single-shot rifles. Most of those had been forged at Shangri-La and comprised a mixture of muzzle- and breech-loaders, but a few were pre-Collapse bolt-action hunting rifles. One man had a Garand M1 that had once belonged to his grandfather.

  After inspecting the position and encouraging those manning the wall, Rainwater loaded his own rifle, taking thirty seconds to pour powder, slug, and patch down the muzzle and tamp it down with a rod made for the purpose. He found a place along the valley wall, leaned his rifle against the rocks, and sat with his back to the stones. On his left was a seventeen-year-old girl named Koho, and to his right was her mother, Brenda. Both of their faces seemed to fold inward with anxiety, although each tried to smile. Nothing would relieve the tension now except sight of the enemy.

  They didn’t have long to wait.

  #

  Chapter 70

  If some of them wanted to stay back and eat breakfast, I reckon I’d be all right with that.

  Alleged quote from Davy Crockett before the last attack on the Alamo

  Southern fringe of Shangri-La

  1612 hours, April 30

  Peering through one of the rifle slits in the stone wall, Rainwater saw knots of men 300 yards away run forward and then disappear behind cover. Seconds later, other groups did the same thing, advancing slightly further than the first group. Those who couldn’t find a boulder or rise in the ground to hide behind simply fell to their stomachs. A third group came, and then a fourth. And then the first group jumped up and ran toward the wall again. Within a short time, the leading groups had closed within two hundred yards. He watched enrapt, knowing what was coming.

  Four groups of ten men each advanced at a crouch with rifles at the ready, spread out over the two-hundred-yard front. On the far left side of the riverbed, the southern side, he heard a cry of pain followed by screams. One hundred twelve ankle-deep holes pockmarked the valley floor, each one covered by a thin wooden board with topsoil and pebbles scattered on its top for camouflage. Each hole contained sharpened stakes, but seventeen also contained rattlesnakes placed there a few hours earlier. Shangri-La had a designated team of snake handlers who removed rattlesnakes from areas where they could endanger the citizens. When the objective of the Sevens had become obvious, those experienced snake wranglers had captured as many of the serpents as they could find and then placed them into the pre-dug holes. The terrified screams echoing in the still afternoon air made it obvious one man had been bitten.

  The others immediately stopped in their tracks. The injured man rolled in the dirt and screamed. Even at that distance, Rainwater could see the other Sevens hesitate and look at each other. Few things struck fear into a man’s heart like the bite of a venomous snake, particularly rattlesnakes. The defense of Shangri-La depended on terrifying attackers and it appeared to be working. Dragging himself backward, the wounded Seven yelled to his friends for help, and then stood up and wobbled backward with arms outstretched. Rainwater couldn’t help smiling.

  A single shot rang out in the distance. The staggering man fell to one knee, and then toppled sideways.

  #

  Muhdin handed the rifle back to its owner without changing his expression or speaking a word, although he said a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t missed. Every eye in his army stared at him in disbelief. All of his men knew the penalty for retreat. Likewise they all remembered the previous summer’s battle, when Muhdin had tried to turn machine guns on men who fled from the fight. A few men had fallen from the guns’ fire before the gunners had also fled. Now they’d all been reminded that cowardice in the face of the enemy betrayed lack of faith in their prophet, who promised immediate salvation for martyrs who died fighting infidels. Followers of the New Prophet should crave death in battle, not fear it.

  The advance continued.

  #

  As the Sevens resumed their leap-frog advance, Johnny Rainwater’s smile faded. He’d been told by the only Muslim who’d volunteered to infiltrate the Ca
liphate and returned that the commanding general of the Sword of the New Prophet was Moodeen or Moodinn or something like that, and that he terrified the Sevens. Now Rainwater could see why. Much of Shangri-La’s defense had been dependent on instilling fear in attackers, but it seemed the Sevens feared their own commander more than they did sudden and painful death.

  To their west, gunfire broke out, and from the sound he knew the positions at the highway were under assault. Along the wall, some of the defenders grew antsy. Squatting so as not to make himself a target, he duck-walked and crawled all along the line, whispering encouragement and reminding them not to open fire until he did. He knew them all and had grown up with many of them and knew who needed a hand on the shoulder and who would respond to bravado. But to all of them he repeated the same line. “No matter what you hear somewhere else, don’t shoot until I shoot.”

  While talking to a particularly frightened 17-year-old boy, he heard screams coming from the valley and knew the Sevens had found the trench.

  #

  Muhdin sensed this was the moment when all of the training and the intimidation would pay off. His men would appreciate his harshness when they celebrated victory among the spoils of their sacrifices, spoils that lay just beyond the low wall of stone ahead. He harbored no doubts that many rifles pointed at his men, even if so far no defenders had shown themselves. Soon, though, it wouldn’t matter. Once they closed within one hundred yards, he felt confident they couldn’t be stopped.

  Another harbinger of victory was the gunfire coming from the highway. That meant his men had targets to aim at, and so must have closed on the defenders. Everything seemed to be going well… until the first explosion came from the west, closely followed by another and then a third. They weren’t black powder blasts, though, which had a sound all their own. They sounded like RPGs going off, and that wasn’t supposed to happen unless something had gone very, very wrong.