The follow on vehicles were in disarray, the truck that had been several yards to the east of the bridge was laying on its side, burning fiercely, plume of black smoke reaching up into the morning sky. There were several bodies strewn about the area around it, some slowly starting to move, but most lay still, pools of blood here and there around the twisted, burning truck.
He picked up his M14, took aim, and scanned the area for targets. Nothing moved at all, save for the few crawling injured, then he heard what sounded like pops through his still-ringing ears, and saw the flash of what must have been Jimenez triggering the claymore mines, then he heard the rattle of the M240B machinegun, and realized that his companion must have acquired some fresh targets.
He caught movement to his front, several forms running towards him, away from Jimenez’ rapid fire, in hopes of escaping the certain death of the machinegun. They were running right into Tim’s sights. Tim took careful aim at the lead man on the far side of the chasm created when the bridge disintegrated in the blast, and squeezed the trigger.
He hit his target in the chest from a hundred and fifty yards away. The lead man fell face first onto the rubble-strewn highway. His following companions stopped in shock, giving Tim time to fire a round at each of them. One man’s head exploded, covering his friends with his brains and bits of skull, and the ones still alive turned and ran back the other way in panic, and Tim continued to fire the rifle at their retreating forms, hitting them in the back, one by one.
The ringing in his ears wouldn’t go away, and he could barely hear anything, but now could make out the pops of other weapons firing, then the louder crack of Jimenez’ M14 barking away in a steady, methodical fire.
“Just like on the rifle range, Taco,” he whispered, fired one more round, and changed magazines. He picked up the radio’s handset again. “Fire for effect!”
He threw down the handset, brought the rifle back up, and scanned his front, but found no targets. He never got a reply on the radio, though he did hear the high-pitched whistle of the first mortar round scream overhead, and he smiled.
* * *
Even at the tail end of the convoy where the damage was minimal, the shock was complete. The sergeant, a combat vet, was addled and his ears were ringing. He sat dumbfounded in the passenger seat of his Hum-Vee for a moment, and looked at the destruction in front of him.
His driver stared ahead, seat wet from where he’d urinated on himself, looking through the cracked and splintered windshield, mouth agape. Grabbing his carbine, the sergeant carefully opened the door, and stood outside, looking around warily. He could hear firing to the front, but couldn’t see who was firing, or where it was coming from.
He stuck his head back into the vehicle at his driver and shouted, “Grab your piece and follow me!”
The man stayed put, soaking in his own urine. Disgustedly, the sergeant made his way forward to the first truck and yelled at the men to get out. Reluctantly, they started to comply, and when he had them all out, he got the men to follow him towards the front of the convoy.
He could now hear the screaming of the wounded, and using the stopped vehicles for cover, continued forward. He found two of the other trucks crashed together, where apparently the drivers in their fear had tried to turn around and smashed into each other. The two were now hopelessly locked together by the twisted metal of their bumpers.
He gathered those men also, and when he had a group of about twenty-five, he moved forward again.
The group he was leading made it a few yards ahead when he saw a man in the roof mount of a Hum-Vee, bravely, though not all that smartly, returning fire with the mounted M240B. His rounds were spraying wildly into the forest at nothing that the sergeant could see.
He went to shout at the soldier, then heard a distinctive pop a whoosh. A thin stream of white smoke trailed out from the tree line several yards to the northwest. Reaching out like a finger, the AT4 rocket hit the Hum-Vee. It exploded, a gout of red flame and black smoke leaping out, killing the man on top, and everyone else still inside, silencing the machine gun.
He grabbed the man next to him and shouted, “It looks like the fire is coming from over there, to the northwest! Get everyone behind cover to the left of the convoy. We’ll move up under cover of the trucks!”
The man, his face streaked with dirt and sweat, fear in his eyes, complied, and was able to rally everyone to cover to the south.
“Sarge, what the fuck are we going to do?” one man screamed at him.
“We’re going to move ahead, find out where that fire is coming from, and kill them!”
“It’s like they knew we were coming!” another shouted, voice high pitched and panicked.
The sergeant didn’t reply to that, but he knew the man was right. It was a carefully set out ambush, that much was true, and there was only one way that could have happened.
He saw the big Aussie cowering under one of the trucks. He looked at him in disgust, spat out some dirt, and yelled at the man to get over to where he was.
Colin, face white with fear, looked at the sergeant like he was crazy, then finally got up the nerve to scamper out from under the truck where he’d been cowering since the first blast.
When he reached the sergeant, he shouted, “What the fuck happened?”
“That’s exactly what I want to ask you, mate,” he said, ‘mate’ coming out of his mouth dripping with sarcasm.
Colin saw the look in the sergeant’s eyes, and replied, “Look, mate, if you think I had anything to do with this, you’re dead-set wrong!”
“We’ll talk about it later!” the sergeant yelled. “You grab a rifle from one of the dead and come with me!”
Someone handed Colin an M16 from behind. He took the offered weapon, clutching it in a death grip.
“What the fuck else can go wrong today?” the sergeant asked no one in particular, and when his last word escaped his lips, he got his answer in the sound of the first mortar rounds whistling in. His bowels turned fluid when he heard it, knowing exactly the kind of death that was about to fall on their heads. “Incoming!” he screamed. “Take cover!”
* * *
As the first mortar rounds landed and exploded around the destroyed convoy, Tim got on the radio and called Jimenez.
“How are you doing?” he asked, in a deceptively calm voice.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel, Sar’ Major. Like you said, a day on the range, and it’s a target rich environment.”
“Good. I’m moving to another position. Are you able to redirect fire until I get to my secondary?”
“No problem, Sar’ Major, I got you covered,” Jimenez replied.
Satisfied that Jimenez could handle things for the moment, Tim grabbed his rifle, the radio, and his rucksack, and crawled out of his hole.
He stood and looked around, surveying the destruction he’d caused. He looked down on the upended Hum-Vee, and saw a lone man crawling away from the destroyed vehicle.
Taking one more look around, he started to jog towards the crawling form. As the mortar rounds sailed overhead and exploded to his front, satisfied that his attackers were pinned down by the fire, he made his way over to the prone form.
When his shadow fell over the crawling man, the man spun around in fear, looking up into Tim’s face.
“Don’t hurt me!” the man begged. “Please don’t hurt me!”
Seeing the man’s gold oak leaf, Tim smiled wryly, crouched down and said, “You must be Major Malfunction.”
“Please don’t hurt me!” the man screamed.
Tim looked at the man with utter disdain, and then grabbed him by the collar and dragged him, kicking and screaming, begging for mercy, back behind the shattered vehicle.
“Hurt you? I ought to cut your fucking heart out, you piece of shit,” Tim spat back at the man.
A mortar round fell a little short, and landed behind the Hum-Vee on the close side of the gorge, raining down chunks of shattered concrete on the pair. Tim never flinc
hed, but the major curled up in fear, shaking uncontrollably.
Jimenez must have corrected fire at that point, because the sounds of the rounds hitting changed slightly, and were farther away from them now. Tim looked back down at his quarry, wondering just what the hell he was doing; he should be in his secondary position by now.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing, eh?” Tim asked, his voice icy.
“I was following orders! I order you to surrender now!”
“You know what, asshole? I stopped taking orders from pieces of shit like you six fucking years ago. You have no authority over me.”
“It’s you!” the major gasped. “You’re the sergeant major!”
“Very perceptive, Major.”
Tim heard moaning from inside the overturned vehicle. “Don’t you go anywhere, Major. I’m not done with you.”
“You can’t…” the major stopped when Tim pulled out a .45 automatic from a holster.
“Just so you don’t go running away,” Tim told the man, brought the pistol up, and fired one round into the man’s kneecap, and the major let out a girlish scream of agony. Tim left him and skirted around to where he could look inside of the wrecked Hum-Vee.
Peering inside, he saw a young black man, face covered in blood, moaning. He was heaped up in a ball, one arm twisted beneath him at what looked like a painful angle. The boy looked up at Tim, and through tears, said loudly, “Mamma, I can’t feel mah laigs!”
Tim placed his pistol at the boy’s temple, and whispered, “Go to sleep now, okay?”
“Go to sleep?”
“Yeah, close your eyes and it’ll all be gone, okay?”
“Okay,” the boy said. “It hurts so bad.”
“I know. It’ll be gone soon,” Tim said, in a reassuring voice. The boy closed his eyes, and Tim pulled the trigger. The pistol’s report was muffled by the enclosed space, and when he did the deed, Tim sighed sadly.
Scooting back to where the major was still lying, screaming in agony, Tim brought his face close to the screaming man and said, “Now, what am I going to do with you?”
* * *
Holly was still fighting the controls. Inexplicably, her vision was starting to blur. She wiped her face to get the sweat out of her eyes, and for the first time, felt a warm wetness on her left leg. Looking down, she saw that a round from whoever had been shooting at them had pierced the fuselage and tore a hole in her thigh. Because of the adrenaline flooding her bloodstream, she’d never felt it at all.
Walter was still screaming, and she looked down at him, feeling completely helpless to calm her son. She looked further back, and saw the still form of Paula, lying silent and unmoving in an expanding pool of blood.
She turned her attention back to the controls, and fighting the yoke, tried vainly to keep the aircraft in the air. The pedals wouldn’t move and the yoke was like lead. Warning lights and alarms were now sounding throughout the cockpit, and she could smell smoke coming from somewhere behind her.
Looking out ahead, she saw the thick black plume of smoke outside of Williams, and tried with the last remaining ounces of energy she had to turn the Hercules in that direction.
“I’m so sorry, Walter. I’m so sorry Tim…” she said, tears filling her eyes.
* * *
The mortar rounds fell all around the shattered convoy, and the screams of the wounded and dying could be heard over the shrieks of the incoming rounds.
For Tim, time seemed to stretch out, seconds seemed like minutes, minutes like hours. He could still hear the crack of Jimenez’ M14, so he knew at least he was still in the fight.
Tim turned his attention back to the bleeding, screaming major. “Please!” he begged.
“It looks like you’re having a bad day, Major,” Tim said, and then was startled by a huge shadow blotting out the sun. It was followed a second later by the scream of the C-130’s engines at full-throttle, and both men looked up to see the gray fuselage pass overhead in a blur at top speed, the one engine closest to the fuselage on fire, spewing a thick stream of black smoke like a kite’s streamer behind it.
It was so low, Tim could see the individual rivets, count the streaked stains from hydraulic fluid down its wings, as it flashed by in a blur. He followed the aircraft southward, then it slammed head on into the side of Bill Williams Mountain, exploding in a fireball. All sound stopped, except for the moans of the wounded; even the mortar had stopped firing, for everyone must have seen the spectacular sight of the Hercules auguring into the side of the mountain.
Time stopped at that instant, and Tim gazed at the burning wreckage for what seemed like hours. He then heard a blood-curdling scream, then the rapid fire of a M240 firing off a long sustained burst.
Tim’s gaze dropped to the shirking man at his feet. His blood had turned to ice. He let his look bore holes in the man’s soul, and then nodded ever so slowly. He whispered in a very calm and deadly voice, “Yes, you are about to have a very bad day indeed…”
The major screamed.
Chapter 21: Follow Me!
The sergeant had rallied a handful of his soldiers, and now they were taking cover in the overgrown median that separated the east and westbound lanes of the interstate.
The initial shock of the Hercules slamming into the mountain had worn off, and he’d gotten control, now he needed to figure out what to do next. There had been several more AT4 rockets fired at the convoy, and every last one of their vehicles that hadn’t been destroyed in the initial blast were now heaps of twisted, burning steel, totally destroyed, each burning hotly, thick black smoke billowing out of each.
The mountainside was also ablaze, and the smell of burning flesh, jet fuel, and melting plastic now enveloped the entire area. The sergeant had heard, along with the rest of his men, the blood-curdling screams of some poor bastard well to the front, and the sounds made their blood run cold.
The machinegun that had fired a few moments ago had silenced, now the only thing heard was sporadic rifle fire, a methodic pop here and there, and the sounds of the wounded, moaning and screaming. At least the goddamn mortar has stopped firing, he thought thankfully.
He took a chance, and popped his head over a slight rise, surveying the scene in front of him. The only thing he could see from his vantage point through the thick smoke of the burning vehicles were the bodies of the dead and dying.
He was unable to see where the fire directed at them had come from, or determine how many he faced, but the one thing he knew for certain was the destruction of his unit was almost utterly complete. He knew was the fire was coming from somewhere to the west and north, on the far side of the gorge that was now inaccessible because the bridges had been blown in the most devastating way imaginable.
He pointed to one of the men. “You go out to the south, onto the eastbound lanes. You’ll have cover if you stay on that side. The trees will hide your movements. Go up there and see if you can find a way across.”
“If you say so, Sarge,” the man replied reluctantly.
“Do it now, goddamn it! If we stay here we’re going to get killed. We’ve got to get around them somehow. Now move your ass!”
The man took off, disappearing through the bushes, and the sergeant sat with his back against a tree, letting out a frustrated sigh.
“What now, Sarge?” another man asked.
“We wait for him to come back. If he finds a way across that gorge, then we’ll go and find whoever is shooting at us and kill them.”
“What about the major?” the man then asked.
He hadn’t heard from the major since before the initial blast, and told himself that he’d been on the far side of the bridge when it blew, and was most probably dead by now. It was up to him now, to continue the mission, if he could.
“I don’t know. He’s probably dead,” he told the man. He pulled out his radio, and tried to contact the major anyway.
* * *
Tim’s mind was in a rage now, as he walked away from the bloody bod
y of the major. He looked east, and through the smoke of the burning vehicles, he could see bodies strewn everywhere. Somewhere, off in the distance, Jimenez was now firing round after round into anything that still moved in the kill zone, and into bodies that were most assuredly very dead now.
He wiped the blood from the blade of his Ka-Bar knife on his pant leg, and taking one last look southward towards Bill Williams Mountain and the burning wreckage, his blood boiled. The fire from the crash had set the forest ablaze, and now the air was thick with the smoke of that fire too.
He sheathed his knife and, not turning back to look at his handiwork at the up-ended Hum-Vee, picked up his rucksack. With rifle in hand, he was about to head off towards Jimenez’ position, when he heard an unfamiliar voice crackle over a radio.
He spun back towards the Hum-Vee, and listening as best he could through still-ringing ears, followed the sound to the cab of the vehicle. Crouching down and looking past the dead driver, he spotted a satellite radio laying in the jumbled mess of the contents of the interior.
“Major, can you hear me? Please give me a SITREP, over.”
Knowing he’d better get out of there quickly, Tim went against his better judgment and brought the radio up to his mouth, depressing the push-to-talk button. “The major is dead, asshole.”
“Who is this?” came the reply.
“I think you know exactly who I am. Your major is dead,” Tim said, voice robotic and devoid of all emotion. He looked around at the carnage. “It looks like most of your men are dead too, or soon will be.”
“You murdered them!” the radio crackled.
“You want to talk about murder? That Hercules that slammed into the mountain was piloted by my woman; my daughter was in it, along with my four month old son. Don’t talk to me about murder, asshole. The plane just didn’t self-destruct, it had a little help. Your people killed my family, now I’m going to fucking kill every last one of you.”
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