Implacable: Vicky Peterwald, #5

by Mike Shepherd

  From the surrounding buildings medics and woman aids dashed forward. They had been warned not to clump up, but the civilians had never seen what a grenade could do.

  One of the murderers on the roof saw enough of a clump to hurl a grenade. A Marine sniper blew his head off, but the grenade left five women screaming on the ground. Cautiously, Marines came forward to drag them off the killing ground.

  Vicky let out a deep sigh. The night had been bad. It was about to get a whole lot worse.

  "The ground floor is clear," the general reported. "Somebody tossed a couple of thermite grenades into the parking garage under the hotel."

  Vicky sniffed the air. "Oh, shit," she muttered.

  "Correct, Your Grace. They were using the garage as their latrine and now it's burning."

  Vicky shook her head. "Now we fight through gagging smoke. Can they make this any worse?"

  "Please don't challenge them, ma'am. I'm sure they would be only too happy to exceed your expectations."

  "True," Vicky said, then realized the import of this last move.

  "With a fire in the garage, how long before the building gets involved?"

  "I don't know, ma'am, but they are living on borrowed time."

  Vicky shook her head. Some people were just too dumb to live.

  Automatic weapons fire came from the hotel.

  "We're trying to force the stairwells," the general reported. "We think they've run out of grenades."

  "Can we blow a hole in the floors and send a team in behind them?" Vicky asked.

  Even as she said the words, one of the few armored vehicles in the fleet went crashing into the lobby.

  "The engineers have arrived," the general said, dryly.

  "Remind me to keep my tongue under control for a few extra seconds next time."

  "If you'll pardon me, Your Grace, I just feel honored that you've learned enough of my trade to know what needs to be done next. It's my job to plan ahead so that it's ready to go when you want it."

  "You're being kind to me, now, General."

  "I'm being respectful."

  Vicky listened to the chatter of machine pistols and the lower sharp reports of M-6's.

  "I have to admit that I could add nothing to this mad melee battle you've got going here."

  "Thank you, Your Grace. We Marines are doing what we are trained to do. Only you can bind up the wounds of this mess when it's over. Only you."

  For a moment, they studied the battle board in silence, then the general spoke. "They’re into the second floor." He paused for a moment, then added grimly. "The redcoats shot down a batch of hostages. We're checking for survivors."

  Vicky let her anger out with a blast of expletives that did not make the tall Marines guarding her blush, but they did nod respectfully.

  "Get more people into the hotel. Push them harder," Vicky ordered.

  A company of Marines advanced toward both the back and front of the hotel. Both units kept to a wide order. Still, a few of the gunmen on the roof tried to take shots.

  All those that tried, died, as the snipers five hundred meters away put a bullet through them.

  The rest of the gunmen on the roof huddled down and didn't dare show their faces.

  Now, more women helpers and medical personnel moved forward. There was some fire at them, from behind the glass of the upper windows. Those were answered quickly by the sniper teams.

  That kind of noise went away.

  The third floor went differently. The engineers breached a bedroom with a dozen terrified women bound together. For some reason, they were behind a closed door.

  When asked, one of the women whispered that the guard was in the next room with two girls.

  An agile Marine slit his throat before the bastard even knew he wasn't alone with the girls.

  While the engineers pulled up another stepladder, the trigger pullers put a quick end to the fight at all three stairwells. The gunmen were all concentrated on the stairs and died of ignorance regarding where the bullet came from that killed them.

  All of the hostages on this floor were captured alive.

  The next floor was a bit more difficult. It took three tries before the engineers found an empty room.

  There were a dozen open doors along the hallway. Each of those rooms had to be entered and a gunman killed. Fire teams also needed to reach the stairwells at either end of the corridor and the other hallway beside the elevators at the midpoint.

  A company skipper organized his troops into three teams ready to dash in both directions.

  To the right or left were troopers with orders to enter each open door and kill the gunner there, hopefully before he killed the hostages.

  The middle team would race for the stairwells at the end of the hall, engage the redcoats there and take them down.

  31

  Private Philip Houseman was fast on his feet. He was assigned to lead the right column. He would be making the farthest dash to an open door. By the time he busted in, three of his buddies would have shot themselves some shitheads.

  He was looking forward to getting himself a few as well.

  The skipper said the first three should bust through the open doors and kill any bastard they found in the rooms. The rest of the eight teams that had been assigned rooms could bust in or slow down and make their attack a bit more carefully.

  "Houseman, you can do it any way you want."

  "Want to bet me, sir, that I can get there before two of the three other guys can?"

  "No way I take that bet, private."

  When the skipper brought his hand down, Philip dashed forward, his rifle held close across his chest. He passed the men in the middle file and pulled ahead of his buddy, Wik.

  As he neared the open door, he heard shots behind him. Bringing his weapon up to his shoulder, he whirled into the door, slamming his right shoulder into it. His rifle was up and aimed across the room. This one had a kitchen across from the door. The guy standing in the other door was diagonally across from Philip. He was swinging his machine pistol around to fire off a burst at the Marine.

  Philip got off the first shots.

  The three-round volley missed, but it made the guy jump just like the sergeant said it would.

  The second volley was in the exact center of mass. The redcoat looked down in shock at the blood pulsing from his chest. He made one more try to raise his weapon, then collapsed onto the floor.

  Quickly, Philip entered the bedroom, his weapon held at the ready, his eye following his sight picture.

  "Clear," he said, though no one was supposed to be behind him. But that was also his order to raise his weapon to the overhead.

  "Don't worry ladies, the Marines are here," he shouted to be heard above the wailing and sobbing. He pulled his knife from his boot and handed it to the woman that seemed most together.

  "Can you cut the rest loose?"

  Her shout was turned into a mumble by the tape over her mouth, but her raising her hands to him was enough communication. He slashed the rope at her wrists.

  The woman quickly pulled the tape off her mouth. "Thanks."

  "Pardon me, ma'am, but I got to guard the door," Philip said.

  He peeked into the hall just in time to spot a redcoat slip out of one of the doors that hadn't been opened. He leveled his weapon to shot the Marines in the back as they approached the stairwell at the end of corridor.

  Philip shot him in the back. He tumbled forward onto the carpet. Philip glanced back, then forward, then back again.

  Wik was just coming to his door.

  Philip waved at the body down.

  Wik nodded and turned to cover the other direction.

  No more doors opened.

  At the far end of the hall, Philip watched as the battle in the stairwell turned bloody. Hearing weapons fire behind him, one of those bastards had turned to see where the noise was coming from.

  The jogging attack force had shot him down. This alerted the other fellows standing in the doorw
ay. They'd been firing and ducking back in, then firing again.

  A dozen hostages sat, taped up tight, waiting their turn to be shot and tossed down the stairs.

  Now, all five of the gunmen tried to pile through the door into the stairwell. Likely they hoped to flee up them. They might have made it if they went single file, but organization was not their strong suit.

  They died as they had lived, undisciplined, and with no clear direction. They clogged the door open, which left the guy laying prone on the landing in full sight when he jumped to flee up the stairs.

  Every member of that blocking force died.

  Philip grinned with pride for himself and his buddies. Those pieces of shit had no idea what to do when they came up against real bad asses.

  32

  Unfortunately, one of the guys from third floor managed to escape up to the fourth floor. What he would tell them was anybody's guess.

  The engineers were already forcing their way into two rooms on the fourth floor. One was occupied, the other wasn't.

  The attack teams moved into place even as the engineers began working on the fifth floor.

  Vicky watched from her secure jail of a headquarters as floor after floor was breached. The casualty figures made her want to cry. Most often the bastards holding the hostages chose to fight it out with her troops, but too often they turned their guns on the hostages and died with a bullet in their back.

  The wounded were evacuated quickly to hospital. No one kept a count of the dead hostages. That sad duty would have to wait.

  As the count of the dead redcoats grew, the number of killed and wounded among Vicky's troops grew as well. Vicky had never before been engaged in a grim battle of attrition.

  For the redcoats there was no surrender. It was as if they knew that the hostages and the stories they could tell were a millstone around their necks. They could die fighting or die at the end of a rope. With no other choice, they fought for blood. Maybe they hoped that if they killed or wounded enough of Vicky's Marines that she'd throw in the towel and give them a ticket off planet.

  Vicky admitted to herself that the thought crossed her mind. It had crossed it several times. Still, she let the battle rage on.

  Her troops tried everything they could think of to reduce their casualties. More engineers were brought in so that they could breech floors in two places at a time, then three.

  The enemy began opening every door and assigning roving gunmen to check out every room.

  With the prospect of discovery imminent, the Marines, now much experienced, went up the ladders ready to shoot and moved quickly to do their jobs. The time it took to clear a floor got shorter and shorter.

  Sadly, the slaughter never declined. The gunmen died shooting. The hostages died screaming or lived to weep and tremble in shock.

  As they cut their way onto the eighth floor, Vicky had had enough.

  "General, you can stay here and sit on your ass. I've had it. I'll be with the troops."

  "I'm with you," the general said, and followed her into the street.

  33

  Vicky's senses were raw, as if sliced open by a thousand shallow cuts from an obsidian blade. The night was that darkness that preceded the dawn. The moon had risen into a low fog and shed no light. The air held a chill that went straight to the soul and a smokey stench that revolted her stomach.

  As she crossed the street to the Imperial Bismarck Hotel, she faced the walking wounded coming back. Marines helped along by their comrades. Former hostages were assisted by women volunteers. The blankets that wrapped the wounded could not hold at bay a world gone cold and ugly.

  It was the stretchers hurrying by that hammered at Vicky's heart the most. The moans and cries of pain from the wounded would never be forgotten.

  She'd commanded ships and Sailors had died by the thousands. That was like a game. This was honest and dirty and real. They assaulted Vicky's soul, one at a time.

  She hastened her steps.

  Inside the hotel, a third battalion was being brought in to relieve the one at the point of the spear. A captain from the forces on the line briefed the Marines on their enemy.

  "They're trigger happy. Their nerves are shot. If you see one, get off a quick burst. It doesn't matter if you hit him, it will spoil his aim. That will give you time to get a good sight picture and make your next shot a kill shot."

  "Kill?" a trooper asked.

  "Guys, if they see you, they will shoot to kill. They don't want to talk. They just want as many side boys as they can take with them to hell, okay? They give no quarter and we're taking no prisoners."

  "Even if they offer to surrender?" a young Marine asked.

  "We've had five of them scream they wanted to surrender," the captain snapped. "Each one of them cost us a dead Marine. The only reason they offer surrender is because you've got the drop on them and they want to flip it. We've taken to shooting them in the knee. If they go down, we'll let them live. If they go down shooting, we kill them. So far, they only go down shooting. That answer your question?"

  The serious look on the Marines' faces was answer enough.

  The captain then went on to brief the Marines on the breeching procedures and the need to move quickly from room to room.

  "Listen, I'll warn you beforehand. Sometimes the gunmen with the hostages turn toward you and shoot it out. We almost always get them first. However, too many gunmen turn toward the hostages and spray them with those damn machine pistols even as you're shooting them in the back. I hate those bastards, but you've got to understand. There's nothing you can do to make them do one or the other. They've made up their mind which way to turn long before you showed up in their doorway, okay? Dead hostages are not your fault."

  Only a low mutter greeted that comment.

  The battalion commander stepped forward to fill the gaping void created by that bitterly won fact, "Half of you have been given shields. With the long hallways and open stairwells, there's not a lot of cover, so we're making some. The shields are made of the best plate we've got, but nobody's calling them bulletproof. These redcoats are firing heavy, low velocity rounds. Enough of them at close range will pierce your battle armor. A few of them at a longer range will leave you black and blue tomorrow. If you take it in the chest, there may be internal bleeding, okay? You didn't join the corps to live forever, but there's no use letting idiots like these shitheads mess you up.

  That got a bold "Ooorah!” in response.

  "Those of you with the shields, keep them at an angle. We want to deflect the rounds, not stop them, okay? You shooters, keep your shit wired tight and behind the shields. You get yourself killed and Gunny here will have you on punishment drills for the next year," the major growled.

  That got a smattering of laughter.

  "Okay, any questions?"

  "Yes, Major," General Pemberton said.

  "Sir?"

  "Would one of your men give the Grand Duchess a shield?"

  "Of course, sir. Ivanovich, hand yours over."

  "Yes, Major," and a fresh-faced young man was trotting toward the general.

  "General, I came here to shoot the bastards," Vicky growled softly through her clenched teeth.

  "And you've shown that you can do very well with one hand. You can use the other arm for the shield."

  "This is ridiculous," Vicky growled, but she took the shield from the young Marine. It was well balanced and easy to control. Despite its size, it didn't seem to weigh that much.

  With one last "Ooorah" the Marines filed off by companies to relieve the company now fighting their way up each of the three stairwells.

  Vicky and Pemberton followed in the wake of the company headed for the central stairwell near the useless elevators. At the second floor, the general aimed Vicky into the hall.

  "They don't have a lot of grenades, but every once in a while, someone tosses one down the stairs. You and I are taking a different route up."

  A Gunny Sergeant from the battalion being relieved
waited by the elevators for them. "Your Grace, if you will follow me."

  She did. He led her down the hall to a room with a hole in the overhead and a ladder.

  "May I suggest you shoulder the shield, Your Grace," the Gunny offered, then helped her swing the shield onto her back. She hadn't noticed the two leather straps at the bottom of it. They turned the shield into an awkward backpack.

  Still, it was easier climbing the ladder with both hands than with a hunk of ceramic and composite on one arm.

  Vicky smiled as she followed Gunny up the ladder. The Vicky of a few years ago would have pouted if a guy didn't offer to carry anything heavy for her; pouted and demanded he carry it.

  Somewhere over the years, that Vicky had disappeared. Was it while she was fleeing for her life from Greenfeld in a yacht with a leaking fuel tank? More likely it was some time after she woke up naked and strapped to a bed, left to die of thirst. She'd learned that if she was going to live, she'd have to do it with her own two hands.

  So now the pampered Grand Duchess carried her own shield.

  Besides, this Grand Duchess wanted a certain Count of Oryol dead. Preferably after she'd pulled the trigger.

  Somehow the change didn't seem so strange.

  Gunny led her and General Pemberton on a roundabout path. Sometimes the room with the breach was to the right of the elevators. Sometimes to the left. Vicky found herself walking a lot of halls.

  Halls that stank of death.

  The wounded had been removed. The dead had not.

  The dead redcoats lay sprawled about. Sometimes in halls. Other times in rooms. Usually alone, occasionally in pairs. Rarely were three or more together.

  The dead hostages were always clumped in rooms where they'd been shot down by their now dead kidnapper. Some of the women looked as if they'd found peace in the end. Others died with a horrified look still on their faces.

  Every one of the dead demanded vengeance from Vicky as she hurried by them, hastening toward just that retribution. The more ladders Vicky climbed, the louder the sound of gunfire grew.