Warlords

by William H. Weber

  John laughed. “Leave it to a scientist to take the cold and calculated view.”

  “You may be a recovering pragmatist, John, but I’m still a full-on realist and I’m not so sure we have any chance of winning this.”

  “Are you talking about the war or defending the town?”

  “Take your pick.” Jerry stopped and watched John as he went back to the list in his hands. “Are you still considering that crazy plan of yours?” Jerry asked.

  For a moment, John wasn’t sure which crazy plan Jerry was referring to. “You mean getting our hands on an outdated nuke from Oak Ridge?”

  Jerry nodded. “That’s the one. You know, I’m starting to think it might not be such a bad idea after all.”

  “I didn’t think you approved of suicide missions, Jerry.”

  “I don’t,” he replied. “But after what happened today, the realist in me is starting to reconsider.”

  Chapter 47

  “Anything from our forward observers?” John asked both Henry and Rodriguez as he tightened the straps on his body armor and then swung his tactical vest on.

  Even though they had pulled all their troops back to Oneida, they still had a thin skirt of observers watching the approaches.

  Rodriguez looked up from the radio equipment. “Reports of Chinese armor gathering south along Highway 27 again.”

  “Is that it?”

  Henry nodded. “No movement in the other sectors yet.”

  They’d nearly gotten through earlier. John wondered whether the Chinese plan called for a repeat of their previous attack.

  Both radios came alive at once with busts of static and frantic voices.

  “Choppers coming in from the west,” one of the spotters said.

  Then Reese’s voice from atop the cell tower. “Overmountain, please be advised, I count six Z-10 attack helicopters inbound. Looks like they’re heading for the ridge.”

  “They’re trying to take out the artillery,” John roared. He grabbed his AR and a handful of extra magazines and tore out the front door.

  As soon as he was outside, the sound of the approaching helicopters grew from a low hum to a growl. Soon enough they came into view, a series of black dots about a thousand feet in the air. And with that sight came the realization that Reese had been wrong. There weren’t six of them. There were ten.

  No sooner had they gone from dime-sized to silver dollar-sized objects on the horizon than a flurry of Stinger missiles streaked into the air from rooftops all over town. Contrails streamed up toward their targets at supersonic speeds. One by one, plumes of fire and smoke exploded in mid-air, each followed a second later by the boom from a violent shockwave. Five flaming Chinese gunships spiralled to the ground and exploded.

  At about that time, the .50 cal Ma Deuces opened up from a series of strong points around Oneida, as well as the half-dozen technicals they’d hastily built to mount the heavy machine guns.

  There was a distinct rhythm to the Ma Deuce when she fired. She didn’t spit rounds out in quick succession like an M4 or an M249. But what she lacked in rate of fire, she more than made up for with brute force.

  Tracers filled the early evening sky, reaching out like neon fingers flicking aside targets one by one. Two of the five surviving gunships managed to evade the hail of bullets and swing around to retreat. But by then, the Stinger teams had reloaded. Three missiles rose up from white plumes, chasing the fleeing choppers.

  “Come on, you son of a gun,” John shouted.

  The reply came in the form of two explosions followed by the distant sound of cheering from every corner of the town.

  Over the echoes of jubilant celebration came another sound, this one far more ominous. Chinese fighter jets were fast approaching. The town’s Stinger missiles didn’t have the range to threaten them, which meant the Chinese could drop bombs on them all day and night and there was nothing the Americans could do but hunker down and wait for the slaughter to end.

  A thunderous blast erupted along the crest of Owens Ridge followed by a giant fireball. The fighters were going for the artillery positioned on the mountain that the choppers had failed to take out. And that tingling feeling on the back of John’s neck told him things were about to get a whole lot worse.

  Chapter 48

  The bombing lasted another hour. By then the reports coming in had gone from bad to outright depressing. All of the 155mm howitzers atop the ridge had either been destroyed or otherwise put out of action. That meant they only had a handful of artillery left, most of it concentrated and camouflaged near the high school.

  But that wasn’t all. Before long, forward observers began radioing in to report that Chinese armor was gathering along every major road leading into town. The enemy’s plan aimed to cut off any American attempts to escape or call in reinforcements. It seemed that the Chinese had learned a thing or two from the mistakes of their initial attack and were determined to overwhelm Oneida’s defenses by sheer force of numbers.

  John hated to admit it, but it was starting to look as though Jerry’s suggestion of doom and gloom was coming true.

  The lull in the bombing also provided a narrow window for non-combatants to get down into the storm drains again. John found Diane and Emma making ready to lead some of the others underground. John stopped briefly and gave Diane a kiss.

  “Don’t you dare try to be a hero,” she told him sternly. “I need you back in one piece.”

  “What do you take me for?” he teased, trying to hide the butterflies fluttering in his belly.

  John hugged Emma and told them he loved them both.

  Leaving General Brooks and the others at the headquarters behind, John hurried to meet up with Moss and Captain Bishop, who were dug in over at the veterinary hospital.

  The four major state routes and highways leading into town converged on Oneida’s main thoroughfare, Alberta Street. The abandoned cars and debris put in place had all been designed to channel the enemy into this killing zone of fortified buildings. Lying in wait in and around every structure sat tank-killing teams as well as fighters armed with heavy and light machine guns, grenades and in some cases mortars.

  This narrow strip was where the bulk of the fighting would take place, where the battle would be won or lost, and it was exactly where John wanted to be. Let General Brooks sit things out at the headquarters, shuffling reinforcements here and there.

  The veterinarian’s ground-floor entrances were blocked with furniture and barbed wire. As per John’s instructions, even the stairs had been rendered impassable. The same was also true for every house and business along the main strip, whether occupied or not. Denying the enemy infantry as many safe havens as possible was just as important.

  A ladder led up to a second-story window and John climbed it, feeling the weight of his armored vest and weapons fighting him with every step.

  He entered into what was once a post-operation recovery room back when the vet hospital had still been functioning. Before any medicine of value to humans had either been stolen or, in some cases, salvaged by Dr. Coffey.

  Gathered before John now were a mishmash of soldiers and armed townspeople, several in torn and bloodied uniforms. Ironically, many of the soldiers were quiet and thoughtful, while members of the town’s militia paced back and forth excitedly, expressing their eagerness to kill themselves a ‘Chink’ and other such racial slurs. It was all a way of psyching themselves up for battle. John understood that as well as anyone. In fact, he’d seen quite a bit of it in the early stages of the Iraq invasion when most of the military were little more than young men who’d never seen combat. But it was the sort of display you rarely saw from veterans. Not from a professional who’d seen the awful effects of war firsthand.

  Some of these men and women were still green, but after today that would all change and in ways they could hardly imagine. At least it would for the ones who made it out alive.

  Moss and Captain Bishop came over as John was pulling the ladder up and into the ro
om.

  “Any word from headquarters?” John asked.

  “Not yet, Colonel,” Captain Bishop replied, and it took John a second to figure out Bishop had been talking to him.

  “Just call me John,” he told him.

  “I’d sooner call you Colonel, sir, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Moss grinned, flashing a newly dyed mohawk. The strip of hair that ran across Moss’ scalp was now a mix of red, green and black.

  “I hope that’s not for camouflage,” John quipped.

  The three of them laughed.

  “I’ve always had a fascination with the Maori warriors of New Zealand and wanted something that would scare the pants off the enemy.”

  “Or give them hunger pangs,” Captain Bishop joked. “Since you kinda look like a giant rooster.”

  The visual was gut-splitting and John slapped Moss’ back, unable to contain his belly laugh.

  All joking stopped when the mechanized growl of Chinese armor came into earshot. The howitzers located near the high school opened fire. Not long after, the blasts from the howitzers mixed with the sound of 60mm M224 mortars being lobbed toward the enemy.

  The mortar’s maximum range was a little over two miles, which meant the tanks and fighting vehicles were drawing closer.

  “Any visual yet?” John asked Moss, who was over by the corner window, peering out through a pair of binoculars.

  “Nothing yet. All I see is a bunch of dirt and smoke being kicked up. Oh, wait a minute, here they come. Looks like a column of Type 99s, 96s and a ton of ZBD-08s.”

  A similar description came from Captain Bishop, who was watching through the window on the north side of the building.

  “It’s gonna get busy real soon,” John told them. Another ladder led from the room they were in to the roof of the building. He climbed it and crawled over to the three AT-4 teams positioned there.

  “Remember,” he told them. “Aim for the top and rear of the vehicles. And whenever you can, fire all at once. You three with the heavy machine guns, it’s your jobs to keep the heads of those infantrymen down.”

  They nodded just as the howitzers and artillery let up. John crawled to the rooftop edge in time to see the enemy column snaking its way through the cluttered streets.

  “Just a little bit further,” John whispered.

  Running along the sides of both buildings were rows of Chinese infantry, scanning the tops of buildings for any targets. The Americans hadn’t given themselves away just yet. The enemy knew the city was occupied. The battle earlier, the thorny reception the Z-10s had received as well as the artillery barrage were all confirmation of that. But that didn’t mean the Americans intended to stand out in the open and wait to be shot. Combat was as much a chess match and a waiting game as it was a race over who could shoot first.

  The southern vantage point from atop the veterinary hospital gave John a glimpse of another Chinese column approaching from the west. Each consisted of at least two dozen vehicles. A sobering thought when you considered there were two more columns just like it entering from the east and the north. Then John spotted an armored vehicle in the enemy column he didn’t recognize at first. Short, squat and armed with four cannons, it seemed out of place. Could it be an anti-aircraft gun?

  Soon his focus was yanked back to the southern spearhead as it wound further and further into town. The lead Type 99 main battle tank was crushing a wrecked Chevrolet when a high-explosive round from a concealed M1A2 impacted the side armor, causing a blinding explosion. That was when all hell broke loose. Rounds fired from the nearby buildings poured down into the infantry below. Dozens of AT-4 rockets streamed from alleys and rooftops, bursting in a violent hail. Many of the anti-tank rounds hit reactive armor and failed to cripple or destroy the vehicle. But there was one unexpected consequence. When the reactive armor exploded to neutralize the incoming rocket, it also peppered the supporting Chinese infantry marching along their flanks. In many cases the result was pure carnage.

  Less than a minute later, the town was engaged from one end to another. John steadied his scope over an enemy soldier taking aim at a second-story window. Squeezing the trigger, he let off two clean shots and watched as the infantryman crumpled.

  Glancing to his left, John saw that the AT-4 team next to him was cowering. “Get those rockets into action,” he yelled, but they stayed glued to the roof, rounds cutting through brick and ricocheting around them.

  When it was clear that these townspeople had lost their nerve, John grabbed the AT-4 and aimed it down onto the street. That was when he saw the M1A2 and two Bradleys over on Second Avenue burning. They’d been caught out in the open and destroyed.

  Then the distinct sound of anti-aircraft fire joined in the fight. John focused on the Chinese column entering Oneida from the south and finally recognized what was making that sound. A four 25mm-barrelled Type 95 anti-aircraft tank was chewing up the Walgreens like some ravenous beast. Anti-aircraft fire from each direction soon told John the Chinese had anticipated an American ambush in town and were ready. In horror he watched as one AT-4 team after another rushed out from alleyways or exposed themselves from rooftops only to be immediately decimated by 25mm cannon fire.

  Running over to the hole in the roof, John slid down the ladder. Several fighters inside were wounded, some even dead. Captain Bishop was busy engaging targets with his M4 when John asked for his walkie-talkie. He tossed it over and John radioed headquarters.

  “Henry or Rodriguez, come in.”

  For a terrifying moment there was no response.

  “Henry or Rodriguez, please come in.”

  “What is it, John?” Rodriguez said at last.

  “You need to get a message out to all AT-4 teams. They need to focus all their fire on those anti-aircraft tanks first. They’re killing us out here.”

  “Roger that.”

  The message went out a second later, but whether it was going to do any good, he didn’t yet know.

  Keeping the walkie by his side, John climbed back up the ladder and onto the roof, knowing what he needed to do. The AT-4 team he’d left a moment ago was still pinned down. Grabbing their rocket launcher, he moved to the edge and peered through a haze of gunfire. There he spotted one of the AA tanks directly below them, its guns swivelling up toward the animal hospital.

  “Oh, no,” he shouted, but it was too late.

  The Type 95 opened up, sending cannon fire bursting into the building’s first and second stories. Shards of brick and powder flew out from the impacts. Moss, Bishop and the other soldiers beneath him were being turned to Swiss cheese.

  Rounds from Chinese infantry below thudded all around John as he leaned over and aimed at the rear of the AA tank. When he was sure he had it, he depressed the trigger, releasing a violent backblast as the rocket raced toward its target, only to bounce off a slope in the armor and explode in a shop window. John cursed his bad luck right as fire from infantry below made him take cover.

  This was the last rocket on the roof, which meant John would need to find another way to destroy those AA tanks.

  What about the mortar teams?

  Yes, he could call in a barrage of 60mm mortars, but friendlies were all around. A single miss could be disastrous.

  John peered over the edge just in time to see the Type 95 on the street below tearing up a nearby building with 20mm cannon fire. From inside came the screams of the wounded and the dying.

  He got on the walkie, his palms slick with sweat. “Kiowa 55, this is Overmountain, prepare for mission, over.”

  After a moment of silence the radio came to life. “Overmountain, this is Kiowa 55. Go ahead, over.”

  “Kiowa 55, adjust fire, shift TP15. Danger close, AA tanks, two, in the open. ICM in effect, over.”

  “Bravo, one round, HE. Out.”

  A moment later the first mortar round whistled through the air and exploded in the intersection of Alberta and 2nd, wounding a handful of Chinese infantry.

  “Right fif
ty,” John hollered into the walkie. “Drop thirty, over.”

  The fire team repeated the order.

  The Type 95 began moving just as the second mortar landed right where it had been a moment before. Asphalt and chunks of rock were kicked into the air, pelting the nearby buildings. Any closer and the round would have landed on the vet hospital, killing John and everyone else in the building.

  The Type 95 ground to a halt, perhaps unsure what had just happened.

  “Kiowa 55, you nearly got him that time,” John told them. In fact, you nearly got all of us. “Right twenty, add fifteen. Fire for effect, four rounds, HE, Danger close, over.” He closed his eyes for a moment, unable to stop himself from thinking about Nasiriyah and the men lost there because of him.

  The AA tank began to lurch forward as the last mortar shell slammed into the turret, causing a deafening explosion.

  “Bullseye!” John shouted, scanning down the street for the next Type 95. “Great shooting, Kiowa 55. You ready for the next one?”

  One by one the other 25mm cannons were silenced by mortar fire, allowing the remaining AT-4 teams to get back to work on the main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Once the lead and rear vehicles in each column were destroyed, the remaining trapped tanks became easy prey.

  With every passing minute, the fierceness of the fighting began slacken until at last it stopped altogether. The enemy infantry had been denied a foothold in Oneida and most of their armor was either burning, disabled or abandoned.

  John and the other survivors from the roof made their way down to find a second floor covered with bodies. Only three had lived through that AA assault against the second floor. One of them was Moss. In several cases, the dead weren’t recognizable, let alone treatable. Lying in a corner still clutching his M4 was a dead Captain Bishop.

  John took Moss’ arm as the latter was reaching down to move a corpse. “You’re lucky to be alive,” John told him.

  Moss’ eyes found Bishop’s body. “Are we lucky, John?”

  Those words echoed in John’s ears as night began to fall and he braced himself for a list of American casualties which was sure to be staggering.