by James Rosone
The sound of the Chinook’s engines picked up and the giant helicopter clawed its way unnaturally back into the air. Then the Chinook turned and left them alone on hostile land as it raced back to NAS Key West to refuel and pick up the 101st Air Assault Division soldiers. The entire 18th Airborne Corps was participating in this assault.
With the swirling of the rotor wash gone, Dekker could scan his sector better. He saw streaks of oily black smoke rising into the air, maybe six or seven hundred meters away. It looked fresh, not like something that had been blown up several hours ago and was slowly burning its way out.
“First and Second Squads, advance on that farm and clear it,” instructed their lieutenant. “Then move toward those burning vehicles and check them out.”
“First Squad! On me!” shouted Dekker as he rose up and ran toward the farm.
He had his rifle at the low ready since they hadn’t seen any sign of enemy soldiers in the immediate vicinity or even heard gunfire nearby. The rest of his squad followed not too far behind him. Dekker waved them forward, then ordered them to form up a line abreast of him as they advanced. This way, if they encountered an ambush, he’d have his entire rifle squad online, ready.
Off in the distance, they heard the sound of a large-caliber gun firing. It sounded like an anti-aircraft gun. They saw some tracer fire streak up into the sky. An explosion erupted a couple of kilometers away, causing them to flinch.
One of the Apache gunships flew overhead and raced ahead of them. It wasn’t shooting at anything, which Dekker took as a good sign.
When they reached the farm, they started searching the nearby buildings. Once they’d finished clearing the property, Dekker saw a column of enemy vehicles half a kilometer away. The vehicles were all charred and on fire; debris surrounded many of them. Some vehicles had black forms hanging across the sides of them—enemy soldiers who couldn’t get out of the burning wrecks before they died.
“I got movement near the convoy!” shouted one of the soldiers.
“Three o’clock!” someone else yelled.
Pop, pop, pop.
The soldier fired a few shots, his new 6.8mm Sig Sauer rifle making a distinctly different sound than the traditional M4s they’d been using for half a century. “Got him!” shouted the soldier.
“Let’s move. Advance now!” roared Dekker. He raised his rifle to the ready position, tucked inside his shoulder, as he advanced on the convoy as fast as he safely could.
The rest of the squad had fanned out at this point to envelop any potential defenders still alive.
Pop, pop, pop.
Ratatat, ratatat.
Everyone hit the dirt as a string of machine-gun fire raked over top of their positions.
“Contact front!” one of Dekker’s sergeants yelled as the squad opened fire on them.
“Get that MG going now! I want some lead downrange yesterday!” roared the squad leader to his machine-gun crew.
“Firing the forty-mike!” yelled one of his M320 grenadiers.
Thump, came the sound from the grenade as it fired and sailed through the air.
Crump!
“Sergeant, what’s going on up there?” came the call over the platoon net from their lieutenant.
Dekker depressed the talk button on his throat mic. “Contact to our front, near that column that got shot up. They’ve got us pinned down with a couple of machine guns. Could you send the rest of the platoon up here to help us?”
“We’re on it, Dekker. Hold tight,” the lieutenant replied.
Dekker raised his own rifle up. He spotted a cluster of palm trees and some underbrush to the right of the convoy. Whoever was in there had set up a good position. They had a machine gun flanked by half a dozen riflemen on either side. Further to the right of their position was another machine-gun position with a similar setup. These guys had established a good L-position ambush on his Rangers. They needed to get out of it before they got cut to pieces.
Bullets continued to rip over their heads as the Rangers ate the dirt and tried to stay low—they weren’t in the best of covered positions.
“Sergeant, we have to move. We can’t stay here,” called out one of his fire team leaders.
“Everyone, pop smoke. We’ll fall back and flank these guys from a different position once we’ve built up some cover!” Dekker called out over the squad net.
Reaching for his own smoke grenade, Dekker pulled the pin on it and then gave it a good heave in the direction of the enemy.
Moments later, a total of nine smoke grenades were churning out a thick cloud of the stuff. With the cover now established, the Rangers fell back to a more defensible position until the rest of the platoon could link up with them. Then they’d start to flank the enemy positions and put them into their own L-shaped fire position.
“There you are, Sergeant. What do we have?” asked the lieutenant as he plopped down next to Dekker.
“Over there.” Dekker pointed. “We have two enemy machine-gun positions and at least fifteen to twenty riflemen.”
The platoon sergeant nodded to Dekker. “I see ’em. LT, we can send Dekker and Second Squad to the left of the column and then circle around behind them while we have Third Squad stay here and keep ’em occupied. Then Fourth Squad can circle around from the right flank.”
Just then, Captain Meacham joined them along with the company first sergeant. They had heard the shooting and come over to investigate.
“Lieutenant, Sergeants, before we send more Rangers to move around and attack that position, I’ll see if we still have some gunships still in the area,” Meacham announced. “I’d rather not lose any guys if we have some close-air support we can call.”
Twenty seconds later, they managed to get a hold of the Apaches they had seen earlier. They were still loitering in the area, waiting for a close-air support mission. They started feeding the pilots the coordinates of the enemy positions, then waited.
Dekker heard the familiar sound of helicopter blades, which was followed by the whooshing of some rockets. The little cylindrical objects flew across the sky into the thicket of palm trees and underbrush. Explosions erupted, sending tree branches, grass, and underbrush in all directions.
By this time, another platoon of soldiers had fanned out and joined them.
When the Apache flew overhead, it strafed the area with its chin-mounted gun a couple of times. Then it continued to loiter over the area; the pilot told Meacham he’d stick around to make sure they were clear.
With the cover of a gunship overhead, the Rangers charged forward. They ran across the open ground, closing in on their positions in case the enemy was playing possum.
When Dekker reached the thicket of trees the enemy had been hiding in, he saw close to a dozen dead bodies strewn about the area. He also noted the deceased weren’t Cubans—these were Chinese soldiers.
“All platoons, hold your positions,” called out Meacham over the company net. “Dig in and fortify where you are. We’ll hold our position until the 101 joins us.”
Dekker walked the line, making sure the machine gun was in the right position and the rest of his soldiers were ready.
Hearing the Apache overhead, Dekker looked up just in time to see an object that was flying incredibly fast slam right into the helicopter. The Apache blew apart, raining fiery debris down on the ground.
Moments later, a sleek, fast-moving object whizzed across the sky, flying right over their positions.
Holy crap, that happened fast… Dekker’s mind raced.
“Did you see that, Sergeant? That enemy fighter just smoked our gunship,” one of the Rangers said to him.
*******
Captain Meacham watched the fighter zip right over their heads. He turned to look back at the airport to determine if it would attack their positions. Instead of attacking the Rangers, the jet continued its high-speed race out to sea. Meacham realized what the enemy pilot was doing. He was racing out into the Straits of Florida to nail more of the helicopters
ferrying troops in from NAS Key West.
He grabbed the handset from his RTO and passed what he saw up to the next echelon. That was about all he could do.
Then he heard the voice over the radio say, “Phoenix Six, Columbus Actual. Rainbow One is showing enemy movement toward the airport. Rainbow is tracking two battalions, a mix of armored vehicles and light trucks, eight kilometers southeast and east of the airport. Stand by for contact. CAS has been called. Will advise when they arrive on station. Hold your positions as best you can. Out.”
Great, just what we needed. Two battalions of enemy soldiers heading toward us.
“First Sergeant, send a message to Third Platoon and tell them to haul ass and get up here,” Meacham ordered. “Let Fourth Platoon know enemy armor is inbound. Get their mortars set up and ready. Have them send their rocket teams forward as well.” He wasn’t sure how much time they had left. What he did know was, if the 101 didn’t arrive soon, he wasn’t sure a single battalion of Rangers would hold out against two mechanized battalions unless they had some serious air support.
“Captain, we got our scout drones up. We’re steering one of them toward those enemy columns. You want to see what we’re facing?” asked one of the sergeants running their reconnaissance section.
“Yeah, let’s see what’s coming,” Meacham replied as he sat down next to the tree. The drone operator was sitting under the shade with the Toughbook opened up.
Looking at the video, Meacham saw this was a serious force heading toward them. He spotted at least six enemy AA tracked vehicles, a dozen T-99 tanks and at least twenty infantry fighting vehicles and open-bed troop transport trucks. There were a lot of soldiers heading toward them as well.
As they watched the video for a minute, they saw the entire column start to split up, breaking down into smaller two- and three-vehicle teams. The AA gun trucks were further separating themselves from the vehicles they were supposed to protect.
As if on cue, the AA guns began shooting at something off-screen. The gun trucks were spitting out a lot of rounds. Then a couple of missiles flew out from their vehicles. Seconds later, one of the AA trucks exploded from a missile hit.
Meacham then heard an explosion overhead. He looked up and saw a fighter plane break apart in the air. Then he watched a single parachute deploy.
Meacham returned his attention to the computer screen and the image the drone was sending them. The trucks had thoroughly spread out. The transports had stopped, and a lot of soldiers had gotten out and were now fanning out to advance on the airport and prevent the Americans from gaining a foothold on the island.
Damn, this will be a bloody fight if our reinforcements don’t get here soon, Meacham thought.
*******
3rd Battalion, 116th Field Artillery Regiment
Florida Keys
Sergeant Rob Fortney was starting to feel like he was the new dad and not Ramirez. Whenever they had a lull in whatever it was they were doing, Ramirez was FaceTiming with his wife and their newborn son. Fortney had been annoyed at first, but now he looked forward to Ramirez’s little moments of joy. Ramirez had been pretty good about it, including him on the calls and letting him see his son. Then again, the two of them were practically living in the truck these days, so they were cooped up together a lot.
Fortney didn’t have any kids. He wasn’t even seeing anyone. When he’d left active duty six months ago, his only focus had been doing well in his first semester of college. School wasn’t something he’d excelled at, but if he wanted to become a police officer and then detective like his dad and grandfather before him, he needed the college degree. He did have to admit, he was really fascinated with forensic technologies and how they were being used to better understand a crime scene. He also enjoyed the psychology classes and understanding human behavior—it was all knowledge that he could see would genuinely aid him in becoming a detective one day.
The radio suddenly came to life. “Fire mission, fire mission. All crews stand by for coordinates,” someone from the fire directional control vehicles or FDC shouted. This was the group responsible for feeding them the coordinates to fire their rockets at.
Ramirez said a quick goodbye to his wife and placed his iPhone back in his cargo pocket.
“It’s coming in now,” Fortney said as the coordinates appeared on their targeting computer.
“Looks like we’re going to plaster some highway southwest of Havana,” Ramirez announced as Fortney programmed the grid coordinates into the missile. They were still too far away to use anything other than the long-range MGM-168 ATACMS Block Vs.
Specialist Davis pulled Ramirez’s door open. “We’re all set out here, ready to fire,” he announced. Then he closed the door and took off to the JLTV he’d ride out the launch from.
“Preparing to launch,” Fortney announced as he pivoted the missile pod in the direction of Cuba.
“Stand by,” Ramirez replied as they waited for the final firing order.
Sitting in the truck waiting, they heard someone on the radio shouting, “Incoming! Incoming! Everyone fire and head to the next firing point now!”
“Firing!”
SWOOSH.
“Get us the hell out of here, Fortney!” Ramirez shouted excitedly.
Not needing any further prodding, Fortney flipped the blinders covering the windows open and dropped the truck into gear. As he gave the vehicle some gas, they started driving down the sandy dirt mixture of the park before they headed to the gravel road that would eventually lead them to the road out of the park.
Something sounding like a freight train roared over them moments before a series of thundering explosions blossomed all around them. Fortney held onto the wheel tight as he fought to keep them moving forward and upright—they were getting rocked from the concussions of one explosion after another.
Fortney could feel their vehicle getting hit with all kinds of tiny shards of metal from whatever was exploding around them. It was sheer terror.
Then one of the vehicles in front of them disappeared in a bright orange fireball. The next thing Fortney felt was their vehicle being lifted into the air as they were thrown in a backward somersault.
Ramirez screamed something horrible in Spanish, his arms flailing about to grab onto something, anything, as their vehicle fell backwards to the ground. When they landed upside down, Fortney could feel the top of the truck crumple from the weight and the force of the hit. He also felt something bang and puncture his left thigh. It caused him to scream in pain before he momentarily blacked out.
When he woke up moments later, Fortney smelled smoke. He heard a fire crackling somewhere…it was close! Then he heard some screaming and shouting, but it sounded faint. A groan joined the chorus. Fortney realized the groaning was coming from him.
“Fortney…wake up, man. I need your help,” Ramirez called out, barely above a whisper.
Shaking the fog from his mind, Fortney tried to focus his vision on what was happening around him. He was having a hard time concentrating on anything. All he wanted to do was close his eyes and go back to sleep.
“Fortney! Wake up,” Ramirez shouted more forcefully.
Snapping awake, Fortney turned to look at Ramirez. Blood appeared to be flowing up his face rather than down it. This confused him for a few seconds before he realized they were both upside down.
“What the hell happened?” was all he managed to say.
“We got blown up, man. I’m trapped. I need your help. Can you move? Are you hurt?”
It took him a moment to process what Ramirez had just said to him before he replied. “I think something stabbed me in the left leg. I may have also broken it when our vehicle went airborne. Let me see if I can unstrap myself—I might be able to move and try and help you get out.”
Looking around them, Fortney saw cables for the radio and computer hanging everywhere. He also saw traces of smoke filtering into the truck. Smoke meant there was fire. They needed to get out of this vehicle.
&nb
sp; “Hector, how hurt are you?” Fortney asked, using Ramirez’s first name.
There was a moment’s delay in his response, “I—um, I’m not sure, Rob. I think my left leg is crushed. I can’t really move it or get it free right now.” A tear ran down his cheek. Fortney could tell he was scared; they were in serious trouble and he knew it.
Reaching for the door handle, Fortney tugged at it and felt it open. He breathed a sigh of relief at small miracles. He pushed it a little further open to make sure he could get out, then moved his hand down to his seat belt and tried to unlock it. It was stuck.
Grabbing for his knife, he cut the seat belt. His body fell the few inches to the roof of the cab, causing him to experience the worst stabbing and shooting pain of his entire life. After stifling a scream, he caught his breath and looked down at his leg. The problem was obvious. There was a piece of metal stuck in it. Grimacing, he grabbed the still-warm piece of shrapnel and pulled it out. He yelled briefly from the pain, but while his leg still hurt, he immediately felt better.
Fortney crawled out of the truck cab. Once he was able to turn around and get a good look at the place, he saw several other vehicles overturned like his. Some were burning infernos. He also saw a few soldiers moving from one wounded comrade to another.
The rear of Fortney’s truck was on fire. It wasn’t blazing yet, but the flames were picking up in intensity. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the fuel tanks caught fire and exploded. Then he remembered Ramirez.
Knowing he couldn’t put his weight on his injured leg, Fortney crawled around to the front of the vehicle and around to where Ramirez was. He reached up and gave the door handle a good yank. The door wouldn’t budge. When he examined it, he saw a portion of the door was bent and partially crumpled under the ground. He wasn’t going to get Ramirez out this way. Crawling back to the driver-side door, Fortney made his way back into the vehicle.
“I can’t get your door open,” he explained. “I need to see if we can get you out through my door.”
