The Generals of October

by John T. Cullen

  Vermont Avenue was littered with bodies and overturned vehicles near Logan Circle. Cars sat at odd angles.

  A dead tank burned orange-red, framed in thick black smoke.

  A skirmish line of infantry moved at a crouch toward the Atlantic Hotel and Convention Center, whose blackened walls and window-holes billowed with smoke as guns fired.

  New Hampshire Avenue, which also crossed at Logan Circle, was still aflame with battle. Two old M70 Abrams tanks just then fired. They rocked on their carriages and spouted balloons of gray smoke. A second later, plumes of dirt erupted several thousand feet down the street.

  Tory’s convoy screamed down a long avenue lined with fresh military vehicles on either side. Untested soldiers awaited their turn at battle, holding their M16’s while crouched behind vehicles. Every face was taut with fear and curiosity. Quite a gauntlet for the commandos to run on their way to the White House, Tory thought.

  “Yessir,” Rocky was saying. “I’d get the FBI, the CIA, everyone on it. Something more is going to happen. I got a nose for it. This just can’t be all there is. They would have never--Yessir. Thank you.”

  Apparently satisfied with that conversation, Devereaux lit his cigar, popped a ventilator hatch to let out the smoke, and settled back.

  Tory peeked again. Smoke still drifted on New Hampshire Avenue. She saw exploded LXs, tanks, and trucks. Nurses and doctors in field gear triaged the walking, the wounded, and the dying at a field station that consisted of three assorted civilian ambulances and a furniture van. American flags flew everywhere as a protest against the insurrection. Sullen, handcuffed prisoners in blue-yellow fatigues were herded into buses. Young GI’s moved about their tasks with glum efficiency, but cheered and made victory signs when the LXs passed.

  A half dozen MEAS choppers flew overhead, fast, in formation, rooftop level, and Tory thought of Maxie. She called via com button.

  “--is Captain Bodley,” said a familiar voice. Just then something exploded near Maxie. There was a steady noise that sounded like bees buzzing, or was it devils shouting in hell?

  “Maxie, it’s me, Tory. Where are you?” She pictured Maxie, stethoscope around her neck, hair flying.

  She sounded sad or tired. “Someone just handed me this phone. All our com buttons are out. We need ambulances, nurses, doctors, major medevac.”

  “I’ll tell General Devereaux.”

  “Who? Tory, where have you been?”

  “In the hotel with the 399th.”

  “I heard about that. Figures you’d be there. Driving the front tank, no doubt.” Tory heard machine gun fire on Maxie’s end. Three loud crump blasts followed one after the other.

  “LX’s,” Tory corrected. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m standing here in the rain, up to my elbows in blood, and brains, and mud, trying to tape this guy’s chest back together so he can be moved. The other one here has both legs off, but we taped up the stumps, and wrapped him ready to roll.” Now Tory understood the chorus from hell: it was the moaning and screaming of wounded soldiers in agony, some dying, all terrified. Maxie said: “My chopper was shot down last night. The sons of bitches keep shooting our choppers down. A sniper picked off another one of the nurses during the night. She was my friend.”

  “Oh Maxie, I’m so sorry.”

  Maxie’s voice was all energy, white-hot, almost inhuman. “I’m down to one doctor and she’s half out of it with shock. Meanwhile, our guys are getting creamed over here. The streets are all screwed up, and we can’t move the wounded out to Bethesda and Reed. I love ya, Vick. If we get out of this alive, let’s disco.”

  “You’ll get out alive,” Tory said. “I love ya too, Maxie.”

  “Thanks. If you meet a guy named Tom Dash, and if I don’t get out, tell him we’ll have that pizza some other time.”

  “You met a guy? A nice guy?” Tears were streaming down Tory’s face as she tried to keep up a false cheer.

  “Yes. He’s a nice boy. Last I saw he was trying to lead a bunch of wounded guys out of here. I sure hope they all make it through. This whole thing is such a bummer, Tory. What a drag. I don’t even have time to cry.”

  “Did you dump that snake oil doctor yet?”

  Her voice came with a throaty little chuckle. “He’s in a straight jacket. That’s another story.”Maxie’s voice suddenly dropped. “Oh Tory.”

  “What?”

  “This boy just died on me. His name is Tom O’Leary. I thought he was going to make it. He was doing so good. I am holding him here in my arms.” There were five more crump sounds, a long rattle of machine gun fire, and the continuous wailing of wounded. “Bye, Tory. I’ve got some badly hurt GIs here. We need help. Send us transportation! Send us cover and get us out of here!”

  “I’ll tell General Devereaux. Where are you?”

  Maxie told her, and Tory explained to General Devereaux. Rocky spoke hoarsely on the radio. “Mark? Goddammit, where are you?--Listen, Mark, we got some Army nurses in trouble on the corner of--what’s that?--I can’t! Come on, I’m busy headed for the White House. I’ll send twenty LXs and three Ikes, it’s all I’ve got handy. Do me a big favor, old buddy, drive your tanks over there and cover my boys and those nurses. Anyone you see shooting nurses, back a tank over him a couple times, do you hear? Call Conrad MacIntosh and have him run some trucks over to help those nurses. They’ve set up a temporary field dispensary between some wrecked buses. Got a bunch of wounded soldiers need to get to a hospital.” A minute later, the three tanks, and most of the LXs following Devereaux’s, peeled off one by one, each making a snappy turn with a big roar and a gout of black diesel smoke, and speeding away down a side street. Tory prayed they’d get there in time to save Maxie from harm.

  Chapter 44

  While the dust was thinning out, and before the commandos overhead could start shooting, David and Mike Lewis jumped off the platform, landing on another tunnel mouth a floor below.

  “We’ve got to go up and check on Goldman!” Mike insisted.

  “Agreed,” David said. “Let’s go.” They found a perpendicular cross-shaft and climbed up a set of metal rungs. They found Goldman dead of a single shot to the heart, and pulled his limp body back into the shadows. “We’ll send someone for him when it’s all over,” Mike said.

  David picked up Goldman’s assault rifle and ammo pouches. Hearing voices, he sprayed the door above with bullets. Another body dropped down into the shaft.

  Mike spoke into his com button, but there was no answer. “That explosion must have knocked out my com. They can’t send anyone up here for us. Their priority is to bring Mattoon to the White House. Is there another way out of here?”

  David shrugged. “You got me. This place is a nightmare of hidden service tunnels.” He pointed behind him to the shaft. Mike gave Goldman’s body a pat on the shoulder, a farewell ruffle, and slid past David. “Hurry, man. Let’s get out of here.”

  As David and Mike started down into the utility tunnel, the sounds of battle erupted from the elevator shaft behind them. They heard what sounded like cannon fire and rockets exploding, and exchanged puzzled looks. The sound was as if an ammo dump was in the process of blowing up. Whatever it was, the thought mirrored in their eyes as they exchanged worried glances, it could not be good.

  No time for worry now. Their first order of business was to escape before commando search teams found them. Their second order would be to hide out until it was safe, or, if possible, to escape from the hotel and get to friendly lines.

  Cautiously, sometimes a step at a time, the two men advanced. Often, they heard the voices of their enemies just feet away through a thin wall or around a corner.

  A new sound began to be heard: the muffled slams of exploding artillery shells. The hotel was being shelled from outside. Each explosion echoed in the tunnel walls and echoed back and forth like an evil whisper.

  Smoke drifted lightly and ominously in some parts of the airconditioning system. The one thing David dreaded most now
was being caught in a massive conflagration. If the hotel went up in flames, most likely he and Mike would die quietly and insidiously of smoke inhalation. The flames might never even reach them.

  “That smoke is getting worse,” Mike said, coughing, as they walked through a brick tunnel whose floor was so thick with dust that it was like walking on sand.

  David raised his hand and listened. “It’s quiet out there,” he whispered.

  Mike’s eyes were upturned and wide in his dirt-streaked face. “Yeah. We must be in a quiet part of the hotel.” The artillery barrage continued outside. The babble of voices between explosions had evaporated in the quiet halls of the hotel. Maybe the blue and yellows had moved out?

  David pointed to a laundry shute stenciled 10th Floor. Red water pipes for fire emergencies flanked the laundry shute. Creeping carefully along the wall, they came to a service entrance. The door also read, in larger letters, 10th Floor.

  Just as David was about to reach for the door handle, the door slammed open. A group of commandos burst in from the outer corridors, fleeing in panic, but they still had their weapons. They spotted David and Mike and raised their weapons to fire.

  David pulled back against the wall, just in time to avoid a hail of bullets that flew past and knocked chips off the bricks. David felt the sting of brick debris on his face and brought the assault rifle up. He sprayed the exposed commandos with about thirty seconds of unremitting fire, barrels blazing, and watched them drop.

  Mike had been hit. Covering, David dashed out to the fallen man and sat down. He cradled Mike’s head on his lap. Mike had difficulty speaking, but he mouthed a word and twitched a finger, pointing to a fatigue pocket. He looked up with huge, imploring eyes and his mouth was open in one unrelenting gasp for air.

  David probed in Mike’s pocket until he touched something--he knew instantly what Mike wanted. David pulled out a photograph of an attractive redheaded woman with frizzy hair and a playfully crooked smile. Two tow-headed boys of eight or nine were in the picture, one on either side of her. David felt Mike’s hand on his wrist in a grateful grasp. David held the picture in front of Mike’s face. “She looks like she has a nice sense of humor,” David said. Mike seemed to want to talk with the woman. Mike moved his eyes, as if staring at the picture through a false light, a smoky room, and unable to make out clearly, but struggling--as David held the picture up, Mike made a brief croaking noise and grew still. He didn’t become heavier, nor more limp, just--he was gone. David, placing his emotions in a temporary holding basket like a letter to be answered later, tucked the picture in Mike’s pocket and rose.

  Four commandos sprawled lifelessly in the thick dust. Only one of them still moved, moaning and feebly trying to raise one hand.

  Quickly, David went through the dead men’s packs, until he found a spare blue and yellow uniform. He donned a camouflage cap, and donned one of their shirts, only buttoning three or four buttons. Under that, he still wore the Class A uniform trousers and black shoes in which he’d reported to work. He wanted to be ready to toss the commando uniform off if he had to, in case friendlies started shooting at him.

  David checked the wounded man, but he was dying, and there was nothing David could do for him. The man had two bullet wounds to the mid-torso and already had lost a lot of blood. His eyes were glazed, and his body was limp. Still, he moaned faintly.

  David grabbed the man’s wrist and lifted. With great effort, he got the limp figure over his shoulders. He felt warm blood running down his legs as he carried him out into the hotel corridors.

  As David staggered with his load, the scene outside was pandemonium. They were in a wide main corridor in the middle of Tower 2, from the looks of it. The carpeted floors were littered with debris. Here and there were upturned maid service carts, broken ammo cases, a sock or a cap or a boot. The corridor had the acrid smokehouse stench of cordite, and a thick pall of smoke hung motionlessly, thicker in some spots than in others. From broken doors and windows, fresh air blew through as if he were outside. The corridor ran out in each direction toward a T-intersection with the floor’s outer perimeter corridor.

  Seeing several of commandos repairing a machine gun in a hall niche, David put the dying man down and told them: “Call a medic.”

  He did not stop to ascertain if they obeyed. They made no sign that they recognized him from the alarm, but concentrated on their deteriorating situation. What had happened? David wondered. Why had their leaders gone out on a limb like this, when the situation must have been hopeless from the beginning? Had their leaders betrayed them?

  Rather than try the elevators are out, David decided, better to try for an exit stairwell.

  He stopped to let several commandos pass carrying a large mud-colored container of mortar rounds, each man holding one handle of the heavy box. They headed toward the outer walls, which, David saw as he drew near, were pocked with holes. The thick concrete had been hit by so many shells that, in places, one hole overlapped another. Each hole was about a foot in diameter. That is some strong concrete, David thought, luckily, or the whole building would have started to collapse by now.

  The rounds still came in, sporadically, and each time, the walls shook and emitted a gout of shattered concrete and drifting dust. A shell exploded not far away. A group of commandos operating a machine gun at a window hardly seemed to notice as they kept firing into the city. The window had long been blown out, its frame gone to the very floor. A fresh wind blew in.

  The rest of the outer corridor of the hotel was equally a disaster. The carpets were covered with blood, dust, and debris. Bodies lay everywhere, sometimes several in clumps, in that bilious blue and yellow camouflage cloth. Sometimes the dead men had the courtesy to lie face down as if asleep. At other times they lay sprawled and grimacing. One corpse’s face had been peeled off leaving only one eyeball and grimacing teeth.

  David was dead tired, but he thought of Tory and was anxious to get out of the hotel. Again and again, the floors shook as tank and artillery fire hit the hotel. Windows rattled.

  Through a particularly huge hole, David glimpsed an astonishing sight. The city of Washington was a battleground. Thick dirty smoke roiled in the streets, punctuated here and there by the flash of a rocket of the wink of a tank muzzle. Lots of objects burned. As he watched, a tank tormented in a narrow street by snipers shoved an accordion bus out of its way, turning the bus into a shattered v-shape. The tank climbed over the bus and rolled away, raking the houses on either side with machine-gun fire. Finally its turret swung around. Rocking on its chassis, the tank delivered a shell whose explosion sent a Civil War-era brick building down in a shower of dust. This, in downtown Washington.

  The commandos David encountered did not look dispirited, but there was something seriously bleak about them, and he heard them speak of a betrayal--he wasn’t sure what, and he did not stop to ask for details.. The halls were strangely empty, littered with clothing, bandages, empty shell casings.

  David found a stairwell and bounded down ten flights of stairs, at one point climbing over a slippery pile of dead commandos. In the lowest stairwell, he found the door lying down and a path open out of the hotel. It led across a lawn, where bodies lay, wet in the rain. It led to a shattered wall, part of which had collapsed inward, revealing the city beyond: acres of rubble, a no-man’s land.

  David thought of making a run for it, but decided against it. Too risky. And he still had something important left to accomplish. For a moment, he still contemplated fleeing. It looked inviting, but no thanks. In the distant drizzle, he glimpsed the broken body of a downed helicopter with Red Cross markings. The chopper burned with black oily smoke rising from its trashed interior. David heard gunfire from above and saw bullets bouncing off the water-soaked walls. He turned away and went back into the bowels of the hotel.

  David made his way toward Tower One through corridors littered with bodies and wreckage. His passage was brightly lit by morning sunlight that streamed through shattered skylights.
The sweet, damp wind blew in freely.

  He found that the lobby was obliterated. The glass ceilings were gone, and it was raining on the flattened tropical garden. The marble floors were heaved up and broken like brittle candy. A huge Canary Island date palm hung upside down into a hole in the ground, and David could see daylight on twisted vehicles in the garage below. Thick diesel smoke, tainted with a medley of acrid smells, rose from the garage in a column to heaven, dissipating in drizzly sky like an offering.

  Outside, artillery still fired steadily. Fighters ducked from rubble pile to rubble pile. The floor shook every few seconds as a new shell landed.

  David headed upstairs, using an unscathed inner stairwell. He found his way to Tory’s former work place. Emergency lights still burned along the way. He came to the restricted rooms that contained CloudMaster. Kicking the door in, weapon ready, he was surprised to see a smallish figure busy in a room marked Data Processing. “Hello?” he said pushing a disangled door in and stepping over a pile of crumbling drywall. The figure turned, and he instantly recognized her. “Glad you’re alive!” he said.

  “Captain Gordon!” said Jet Steffey removing her head walker’s gear.

  They shook hands, then hugged. She grinned pixie-like. Her butterscotch face was smudged, but her eyes twinkled undaunted. “Didn’t know you were still around, Sir. Where’ve you been?”

  “It’s a long story. Still working?”

  She sighed. “Yes, I couldn’t get out. I called home and my husband took our baby to my mother’s, so they’re safe. I figured I might as well keep busy, though everyone else left. I promised Lieutenant Breen I’d look for Ib’s file. With Tabitha gone, she wanted something to show Mattoon. It’s probably all too late now, huh? How is she?”

  “She’s with General Devereaux,” David said. “Find anything yet?’