by Joe Nobody
“Let’s do this,” came Nick’s hushed response.
The man who was squeezed into the middle reached down and twisted a latch and then shoved against the wall. A section opened, and the contractors began pouring out of their hide.
The first dockworker they encountered was hefting a side of beef onto his shoulder, the man’s eyes opening wide when he looked up into the barrel of an M4 carbine, the owner of the rifle whispering, “Make a sound and die.”
The remaining workers were subdued without a peep, the group of frightened men locked inside a large freezer. “We probably should remember to come back and get those guys,” one of Deke’s men noted.
The comment was met with a shrug from his buddy, “Let’s hope there are enough of us alive to come back and let them out.”
Nick and Deke watched T-Bone and Lyndon outside, each man joking with the huddled security men. T-Bone handed the remains of his bottle to a guard and announced, “We’ve got to get going. You guys finish that off,” as he turned to walk back to the cab. “Lyndon! Let’s get moving.”
“Okay, dad. Let me see if they’ve finished unloading.”
T-Bone climbed into the cab, revving the truck’s diesel engine and reaching for the horn.
Nick nodded to Deke, both men pulling canisters from their vests, readying to spring on the distracted guards. In unison with T-Bone’s noisy manipulation from the cab, the two flash-bang grenades arched through the air, their metallic impact the last noise the surprised guards would hear for several minutes.
Two brilliant strobes flashed, the white light accompanied by a thunderous wave of sound pressure that completely overwhelmed the nervous systems of the huddled sentries. Some of the victims fell over while others maintained statuesque poses, unable to command their bodies to move.
The assaulters fell upon them, kicking away weapons and shoving the stunned men to the ground. Nylon ties bounded legs and hands in a flurry of activity, and they soon joined their co-workers in the walk-in.
Lou had moved away from the window, his view of the semi blocked by the outline of the warehouse’s facade. The sounds of the diesel racing its motor caused him to glance up for a moment, the big truck’s loud horn blasts even more noteworthy. He had just taken a step toward the window when the muffled reports from the grenades reached his ears. Unable to identify the source of what seemed like small explosions, he hurried to the window, but couldn’t see anything but small puffs of black smoke rising over the warehouse roofline, evidence of the diesel’s exhaust.
Keying his radio, Lou requested a status report and waited for a response. He repeated the transmission after a minute, his heart rate increasing when no one answered the inquiry. The rattle of distant gunfire brought home the realization that something was terribly wrong.
Bishop, with Terri at his side, stayed at the back of the formation approaching downtown Midland Station. His emotions had been on a rollercoaster ride all day. A strong desire to be in the thick of the entire affair, an almost uncontrollable urge to lead the assault had been squelched by Terri’s rather clever manipulation.
“You can do anything you want,” she had stated, “Just keep in mind that the baby and I are going to be right at your side. You can charge in like a one-armed tornado of death and destruction for all I care – but I’m going to be standing right beside you. Your risk will be shared by your child and wife. Your call.”
“That’s bullshit,” had been his response. “I’m feeling much better and getting stronger every day. I can do this. Those guys going into Midland Station need me… we need every man we can get.”
Terri had crossed her arms, the look in her eyes making it clear her decision was granite reinforced with steel – unyielding and immovable. “I’m not telling you what you can or can’t do. I’m simply stating that I’ll be right at your side. Right where a good, loving spouse should be. So whatever role you take, include me in the deal. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
Bishop had rumbled around pissed the rest of the day, his disposition ranging from pouting to outright anger. He eventually settled on taking charge of the reserve unit, which unless something went horribly wrong, wouldn’t be in danger.
The busloads of fighters from Alpha had split into three groups. Team A was comprised of 35 shooters and assigned to assault the headquarters building from the south.
Team B, also 35 marksmen, would strike from the west. Nick, Deke and the Darkwater operators had the job of creating a diversion, hopefully tying down a large number of Midland’s security forces.
Bishop led the final group of 15 rifles - the reserves. If A or B got into trouble, were flanked, or about to be overrun, Bishop’s team would come to their aid.
All of the Alpha planners with combat experience had demanded a simple approach. Complex plans always failed in the fog of battle. Simple, flexible schemes worked. Every single person carrying a rifle knew not only his job, but the objectives and position of the other teams. Nick had drilled everyone on the operation repeatedly, the rehearsals taking place at an abandoned building in Alpha for three days prior.
The reserve forces stayed back from Team A and B, those groups rushing forward to their jump-off positions. In addition to riflemen, three medics accompanied Bishop’s team.
As the last man in Team B’s column disappeared around a corner, Bishop’s radio announced, “A is staged,” followed a minute later by “B is staged.” Less than 30 seconds after that, all hell broke loose in Midland Station.
Nick’s earpiece buzzed with the reports that the two primary teams were in position, he and Deke making momentary eye contact and nodding. Here we go, thought the big man. Let the party begin.
The men with Nick had a very simple job – keep the enemy tied down.
Despite being a full block away from the headquarters building, the storage warehouse had been chosen as Nick’s Alamo for several reasons. The first was the obvious utility associated with Bishop’s idea of using a Trojan horse. Secondly, the walls were constructed of poured concrete, an excellent barrier against light weapons. Finally, there were very few windows or doors built into the facility. All of those factors made it a solid base for defense.
Most of the indigenous security presence in downtown Midland Station was concentrated around the Lewis Brothers Oil high-rise office building. Sandbagged outposts were staged at many street corners, with mobile patrols randomly moving around the downtown streets. Whoever had designed the defense was clearly willing to give up everything but the actual HQ building - the scouting reports indicating a 30-member quick reaction force barracked within the main structure.
Once A and B were in place, Deke wasted no time signaling his men, two of whom promptly aimed their rifles at the outpost on the next block and opened fire.
There were six Lewis Oil guards stationed at each intersection around the HQ building. Each post had built “V” shaped, sandbag fortifications, primarily designed to protect against projectiles thrown by rioters.
The defenders had no clue of Nick’s presence in the warehouse. Some of them were leaning on the waist-high wall of sandbags, while others huddled in a small group, waiting for the next vehicle to approach their position. Less than 100 yards away, four of the guards went down with the first burst from Deke’s shooters, the other two falling into the pit, more from being startled than any reaction to take cover.
Gunfire erupted from the opposite end of the warehouse at the same time, the target being another checkpoint one street over. The defenders’ causalities began mounting quickly.
Lou pulled the earphone from his head, thoroughly frustrated by the device. The two-way radios being used by his men weren’t designed for military operations, and the channel quickly became overwhelmed by the garbled cries of frightened, confused men.
From his top floor window, Lou could see his people scrambling for cover at several different locations. One intersection, only a block away, told a different story – the pavement littered with unmoving
men lying in pools of blood.
By the time he re-inserted the earpiece, the radio chatter had died down somewhat, and he seized the opportunity to transmit. “If you aren’t being shot at, stay off the fucking air. I repeat, stay off the air unless you’re under fire.”
Five seconds later, a very high-pitched voice sounded through the earpiece. “This is Ma… Ma… Martin on 3rd Avenue. We’re under attack! Everyone’s dead!”
That report was quickly followed by another, a panicked man yelling, “They’re in the warehouse! They’re in the warehouse! There must be a hundred of them!”
The warehouse? Lou’s gaze focused on the structure, his view mostly obstructed by a block of restaurants, shops and other retail stores that resided between him and the storage facility in question. Glancing back at the bodies lying in the street, he realized the angle was right, the two muffled explosions now making sense.
Broadcasting over the static filled channel, Lou began to issue orders. “We’ve got intruders in the Elm Street warehouse. I want all LBO security personnel from all facilities to converge on downtown. Leave only a skeleton crew at your facilities and immediately send everyone else here.”
One of Deke’s men waved his hand in the air, the signal-based communication necessary, given the incredible level of noise being generated by gunshot reports bouncing off the hard, interior walls. Deke watched as his operator flashed five fingers twice, and then pointed toward the distant hills.
We’ve got ten hostiles approaching from the east.
Deke dispatched two additional operators to that corner and watched as the four men identified individual targets among themselves. Were it not for the end result, the team’s activity bordered on art, a choreographed dance with exquisite, balanced timing.
Rising together, the four operators fired at once and then quickly acquired secondary targets. An exquisite move in an foul business, thought Deke. After breaking the back of the eastern assault, the two shooters returned to the center of the warehouse, waiting for a different corner to require reinforcement.
Over the next few minutes, the defenders of Midland Station mustered three different efforts to oust the men occupying the warehouse, all three assaults resulting in significant carnage among the attackers. Bodies littered the streets, the cries of begging wounded drowned out by the constant discharge of weapons.
Nick scurried to Deke’s central position and took a knee. “There’re going to catch onto this pretty soon. I can see trucks arriving with more and more of their men. Somebody with half a brain is going to stop these suicide charges and try something clever. Do you think it’s time to go up top?”
Deke pondered the question for only a moment before nodding. “Sure, why not? So far, they’ve not even pressured us. We can handle this level of bullshit with two less people. Have fun.”
Nick and another man jogged to a nearby wall and pulled down an access ladder. The rusted steel rungs led to a trapdoor high in the ceiling above. Each operator pulled on a different pack and extra rifle case and began climbing.
Pushing open the hinged door, Nick bobbed his head out the opening and then quickly ducked back down – just in case someone had beat them to the spot. Seeing nothing but air conditioner units, exhaust fans, and a couple of electrical boxes, Nick climbed out and made for the nearest HVAC condenser. The contractor soon joined him, both men scouting the area with intense scrutiny.
“That tall building one block over is the only structure I can see that we’ve got to be careful of,” the man reported. “If they get a sniper on that roof, he’ll have his way with us. Other than that, I think we’re in good shape.”
Nick agreed with the report. “You take the east corner, I’ll take the west. Let’s get off this roof after five minutes. We’ll do as much damage as possible and then skedaddle back down.”
The contractor nodded and then added, “Good hunting,” as he scrambled for the east side.
Nick pulled the .308 out of the case and slammed home a full magazine. I’m going to talk to Bishop about this rifle when we’re done. I wonder if he’ll trade something for it. Dismissing the clearly insane thought, Nick bent low and ran for the west corner.
The extra height exposed far more of the surrounding urban area than was visible from the first floor below. Without even needing the optic, Nick could see clusters of men gathering in the street four blocks away, their leaders pointing, shouting and performing other animated movements.
Nick uncapped the scope, deployed the bipod, and calculated the distance to the largest group of men. He judged the range at 450 meters, an easy reach for the .308 caliber weapon. Glancing at his counterpart, both men signaled with a thumbs-up that they were ready to engage.
An auto-loading, magazine fed, semi-automatic rifle like the one in Nick’s hands was a significant game-changer on the modern battlefield. With a well-trained operator, the weapon was capable of projecting terminal force at over 900 meters. While bolt-action sniper rifles had possessed that same range for over 100 years, the modern replacement could deliver accurate rounds at three times the rate of fire, and that could be devastating.
Only 20 years prior, a sniper in Nick’s position would select a single target, normally whoever appeared to be in command. While that one man was killed more often than not, the time to work the bolt and reacquire another target afforded all other combatants the time to take cover. The tactic was effective –critical - but did not result in large numbers of the enemy being taken out of the fight.
Weapons like the one now being aimed by the two rooftop-operators changed all of that. They could deliver red-hot slugs of death as fast as a man’s finger could pull the trigger. The .308 round used by both shooters fired super-sonic bullets, which translated into the lead arriving on target before the sound of the shot could be heard by the victim. There was no warning, no time to duck.
Nick picked his three targets, judging he could fire that many rounds before the men below could react. One last glance at his co-sniper signaled both were going hot at the same time. Long-distance death began pouring from the warehouse rooftop.
The optic, click-adjusted for a drop of several inches, was ready. Nick centered on a man standing in the bed of a pickup, clearly issuing orders to a large group of armed men.
Nick whispered, “Cry havoc… and let slip the dogs of war.”
The former Green Beret pulled the trigger, the weapon’s recoil aligning the crosshairs instantly on another foe – that lead on its way before the empty case of the first shot rolled to a stop on the nearby tarpaper surface.
It was a slaughter. The defenders of Midland Station weren’t combat soldiers with finely honed reflexes and nerves accustomed to incoming fire. It took the gathered throng far too long to realize they were under attack, longer still to seek cover. Even then, there wasn’t any place of protection. Several of the faster reacting men dove for the various vehicles parked in the street, and Nick ignored them. He also ignored those who stood dazed by the carnage around them, instead focusing his shots on the men running for cover. Few made it off the street.
Round after round poured in, the withering fire quickly exhausting the targets in the open. With the street littered with bodies, Nick began focusing on the easy marks – the men hiding around the vehicles. One after another, 168-grain balls of jacketed lead punched the sheet metal originally made in Detroit. Car doors and fenders only made the impact of Nick’s shots worse for the victims. The bullet would enter one side, expand and fracture, exploding out the other in dozens of lethal fragments that shredded flesh and ended life. There was no place to hide, nowhere to escape the death raining from the muzzle of Nick’s rifle.
And then it was over. Nick watched his rooftop partner take two more shots, and then his weapon fell silent as well. Time to go.
As Nick started to disappear through the trapdoor, he stopped, something catching his eye. The sun glinted on the piles of shiny brass casings lying on the black tarpaper background of the roof. T
he glitter of the brass catching his eye for a moment, and then he was distracted by movement in the window of the tall office building beyond. The outline of a man was visible on the top floor, the sun positioned perfectly to penetrate the tinted glass. The man was pointing at Nick while talking into a radio.
Nick disappeared, stepping two rungs down the ladder. Looking past his boots, he said, “I just spotted something important, I’ll be down in just a second. See ya at the bottom.”
His partner acknowledged the statement with a nod and proceeded to climb down.
Nick’s precarious perch made unslinging the AR10 a difficult balancing act. Inserting another magazine was even more difficult. A few moments later, with a round chambered, his boots firmly locked around a rung. Nick popped out of the trapdoor opening and began firing at the top floor of the Lewis Brothers Oil headquarters building.
Lou was reversing his orders. For five minutes, he had been screaming into the radio, first trying to warn his people of the snipers he had spotted on the warehouse roof. After the two shooters had begun slaughtering his men, his next set of commands had been for someone to get on the LBO building’s roof and kill the two men that were decimating his security staff.
After finally receiving a transmission that acknowledged an ex-police sniper was on his way to the top of the LBO building, Lou watched in frustration as the two men below retreated back inside their stronghold.
Red-faced mad and pacing back and forth in front of the floor to ceiling windows, his vision went to slow motion as the glass beside him exploded inward, the glistening shards resembling snowflakes floating through the air. Lou’s brain couldn’t command his legs to move, the mental signals out of sync with his nervous system screaming at his muscles. Another window became a geyser of glass, the impact causing an instinctive twist to avoid the projectiles flying at his face.
The third round slammed into Lou’s back just below his rib cage, the expanding lead exiting an inch below his sternum. Collapsing to his knees, the dying man looked down at a golf ball-sized hole in the middle of his chest. He was dead before his face came to rest on the glass-littered carpeting.
