Apocalypse Dawn

by Mel Odom

  Intermittent assault-rifle fire opened up in his area. The other members of Goose’s twenty-man team, broken into five groups of four, reported engagements as well.

  Cusack sprinted to join Goose, taking up position near the front tire of the cargo truck for the limited protection it offered.

  “Phoenix Eight confirms two hostiles down,” Tanaka reported in a cool voice. The team sniper had taken up a position a hundred yards back on top of a Bradley M-2 APC that had seen its last day. One of the Marines, a sniper with a Barrett M-82A1A .50-cal sniper rifle instead of the more conventional M-40A1 chambered in 7.62mm rounds, kept Tanaka company. Goose had allowed the addition because the man had come highly recommended.

  The unique blast of the .50-cal round tore through the battlefield.

  “Confirm three down from Eight’s position, Base,” the laconic Marine stated.

  “I need to know about those vehicles, Base,” Goose said.

  “You’ll have it, Leader.”

  “Phoenix Leader, this is Stonewall Leader.”

  “Go, Stonewall,” Goose replied. Stonewall Leader was the Marine sergeant in command of the surviving troop contingent from Wasp. Signaling Cusack, Carruthers, and Jansen, the three members of his own four-man group, Goose sent them around behind the Syrian soldier’s position.

  “I realize this is your party, sir,” Marine Sergeant Deke Henderson said, “but I’d like permission to try my luck with the arriving armored cav. This Barrett, sir … well, if you’ve never seen one in action, you’d be surprised what it will do. Even those later model T-72s can’t handle the .50-cal rounds.”

  “Affirmative, Stonewall,” Goose said. “Do what you can. We need to work for a holding position for a while.”

  “I’ll do you proud, Phoenix Leader,” the Marine promised.

  Gunfire erupted from the Syrian soldier’s position. Whirling into action, Goose sprinted for the end of the cargo truck. When he came out around the end, his back pressed up tight against the sootstained truck, he listened to the Syrian soldier’s assault rifle burn through the rest of his clip.

  Turning, Goose dropped the M-4A1 into firing position and looked toward the Syrian BTR-60. The sniper lay in a hollowed-out spot in the earth near the APC. Goose directed a stream of 5.56mm tumblers at the BTR-60’s sloped sides, counting on the light bullet and the angle of the APC’s sides. The lightweight bullets slammed against the vehicle’s steeply inclined wall.

  Designed to bounce and ricochet after hitting a target, the 5.56mm rounds deflected down into the Syrian soldier. The man pushed himself to his feet, then dropped back and didn’t move again.

  Goose blinked perspiration from his eyes and searched for more enemy troops. He heard the clank of heavy rolling stock in the distance and knew that the armored cav Base had talked about was emerging from their chosen hiding areas.

  The Rangers couldn’t back down. Goose knew that. They had to stop whatever contingent of Syrian forces remained in the area here. The Syrians had radio contact with the rest of their army. Remington’s intel teams were still assessing how large that army was. If the Rangers backed down, they might trigger a rout that would bring the rest of the Syrians grinding toward them.

  Goose turned and signaled to Cusack, Carruthers, and Jansen. The three experienced Rangers moved at double time to fall into position around Goose. He moved Henderson up to take point.

  “Take us to the west, Carruthers,” Goose said. “We’re going to set up a pincer and see if we can’t take out some of the cav.”

  “You got it, Sarge.” Carruthers hailed from Big Fork, Montana. He was stocky and solid, slow to speak but quick to act. He was a minister’s son, and one of the men that Bill Townsend had spent a lot of time with. He took off, angling to the right, putting the sun to their backs.

  Goose readied his M-203 grenade launcher with an HE round. The high-explosive 40mm grenade packed a solid punch that was devastating to the T-55 Russian-made tanks that made up most of Syria’s cav, and the round performed well against even the T-72 monsters.

  Cusack packed an M-203 as well and readied his own.

  “Phoenix Two,” Goose called. “This is Leader.”

  “Go, Leader. You have Two.” Eddie Ybarra was a top-notch sergeant from Arizona with twelve years in.

  “Set up to the east of the main blockage,” Goose said. “Try to outflank the tanks. Your team has two M-203s. I want to catch the Syrian cav in a cross fire.”

  “Affirmative, Leader. Two is on the move.”

  When Carruthers waved in warning and went to the ground next to a rocky outcrop, Goose fell into position against a burned-out troop transport that lay in twisted ruin. “Phoenix Three, Four, and Five.”

  The leaders radioed back in response.

  “Hold the middle,” Goose instructed. “Take out the ground forces and cover each other. Fall back if you have to. I want to draw the cav in.” As those squad leaders responded, he looked around the troop transport, breathing shallowly at the stink of burned flesh coming from within the vehicle.

  A hundred yards away, a line of six T-55 main battle tanks, one T-72 main battle tank, two APCs, and three Jeeps formed a pack of hunting steel jackals. Evidently the SCUDs and the carnage unleashed by the Marine wing had struck them, as evidenced by the blast scarring they wore on their armored hides, but they hadn’t been disabled. Three T-55 tanks ran the forward line, crunching over broken vehicles and debris as well as corpses of their own dead.

  The sight was a vision out of hell as Goose had imagined it back when one of the hellfire and brimstone evangelists had arrived at Waycross, Georgia, when he was a kid. Some of those men had painted word pictures of Satan’s dominion, pictures that had been a lot like what he had seen all morning. It was easy to imagine that the whole world had slipped, without knowing or heeding the signs, into the end times, just as Bill had warned.

  Syrian troops flanked the armored cav. Some of the Syrian soldiers jogged behind the slow-moving tanks with one hand on the rear so they could take advantage of the cover provided.

  “Phoenix Eight,” Goose called.

  “Go, Leader,” Tanaka answered.

  “Stay with Three, Four, and Five. I want you providing cover sniping fire.”

  “Affirmative, Leader, but you’re going to be hanging out there.”

  The clank of the treads and the hoarse rumble of the tanks’ V-12 diesel engines grew steadily louder. The T-72 in the second wave stopped, locked down, then belched fire from the main gun.

  The 125mm round screamed through the air and struck deep in the heart of the broken and burned vehicles in the Syrian camp. A Jeep jumped into the air, spinning end over end as parts flew off, then landed with a huge crash that shattered it into pieces.

  Goose was surprised to learn that none of his team had been hit.

  “Phoenix Leader, this is Blue Falcon Leader.” The Marine Harrier captain was Dalton Hammer, a Tennessee native. There hadn’t been time for Goose to learn much more than that while preparations had been made to save the Marines from the aerial crash site and pull the front line back into a semblance of order.

  Remington had managed the liaisons between the U.N. peacekeeping forces and the Turkish army, but Goose had tried to get to know the new commanders. He hardly knew more than their names so far, but each of them had learned in a heartbeat what Goose had expected of them and what he planned to do with their units.

  “I want to offer my assistance, Phoenix Leader,” the marine captain said. “You and your men are going to get chewed up by those cav—”

  “Negative, Blue Leader.” Goose put edged ice into his voice. “You will stand down and clear my com. Now.”

  There was no response.

  Goose knew the Marine captain was only concerned about their welfare, but there was no way Goose was going to allow the few surviving aircraft they had left to them to be risked in this engagement. The CH-46Es were going to be needed for evac for the more critically wounded—provided they liv
ed that long—and the Harriers and Apaches were going to be used to cover their final withdrawal from the border. Remington had promised additional aircraft would be forthcoming soon from Wasp. Though Goose gathered the guys on Wasp were having problems of their own.

  Knowing his short dismissal was probably going to earn him a grudge match with Dalton Hammer, Goose hoped he’d be alive to mend fences later. The Marine captain wasn’t used to taking a backseat to the action. Goose also knew that Remington would support him on any decision he made on the battlefield.

  The line of Syrian cav advanced inexorably. Dust rose from the broken ground behind them. The vehicles avoided blast craters large enough to drop Greyhound buses in.

  “Phoenix Two.” Goose lifted his M-4A1 and curled his finger over the M-203’s trigger. Remaining behind cover of the troop transport, he took aim at the center T-55.

  “Go, Leader. You have Two.”

  “HE rounds, Two. First target is the center tank. After reload, take out the tank closest to you in the lead. With luck, the drivers will panic and turn outside. If we get lucky, we’ll break a tread and mire those vehicles down.”

  “Affirmative, Leader. Target acquisition understood. Awaiting your go.”

  Goose glanced at Cusack at the other end of the troop transport. The lanky young Ranger stood braced with the M-4A1 to his shoulder.

  “Affirmative, Sarge,” Cusack said. “Locked on.”

  The tanks continued forward, closing at low speed, bringing in a tide of dust that settled over the trail of dead Syrian soldiers left behind them.

  “Stonewall,” Goose called. “This is Phoenix Leader.”

  “Go, Leader. You have Stonewall.”

  “That .50-cal you’re carrying has armor-piercing capability, right?”

  “Bet the farm on it, Phoenix Leader.”

  “Concentrate your fire on the lead tanks. Let’s see if we can’t jam them up.”

  “Awaiting your go, Phoenix Leader.”

  Goose squinted, squeezing out a bead of sweat that had been obscuring his vision. His body was a mass of aches and bruises. He pushed all those feelings out of his mind and prayed to God that he could stand firm and get done what he needed to do.

  “Fire!” Goose ordered. His finger drew up the M-203’s trigger slack, and he felt the assault rifle buck with grim authority against his shoulder as the 40mm HE round whooshed from the grenade launcher’s throat.

  The Mediterranean Sea

  USS Wasp

  Local Time 0953 Hours

  “God raptured his church,” Chaplain Delroy Harte stated with more conviction than he’d ever had at any time in his life. “That’s why all those people are missing, Captain. The Lord has reached down into this world and taken those believers who walked with him.”

  But even as the conviction filled the chaplain, he knew the jury was still out for those who watched him. Despite his best intentions, he didn’t know if he was getting through to the two men before him. For a moment, he thought he truly knew what his father had gone through on Sunday mornings. Delroy had never met a man who believed in the Word of God more than his father, but even that solid belief—though it had helped shape what Delroy did and his career choices, in fact, just about everything about his life—hadn’t been enough to get Delroy into heaven. How had his father gotten up every Sunday morning, hoping that he had discovered a message, a moment in the Bible, that could turn a flicker of belief into a life-lasting flame in those who listened?

  Captain Mark Falkirk sat behind his desk and gave Delroy his full attention.

  “Captain, are you going to listen to this—this—this hogwash?” Colonel Donaldson exploded. He slapped the desk with both his big hands and stood. “You’re a military man, Captain, not some wideeyed kid looking for the supernatural around every corner. Religious magic or whatever hoopdoodle this Bible pounder is pushing isn’t going to solve the problems we’ve got facing us.”

  Before he could stop himself, Delroy’s voice thundered, “God is not a parlor trick, Colonel Donaldson!”

  “Are you listening to this, Captain?” Donaldson demanded. He looked at Delroy for just a moment as if to make sure the chaplain was staying in place, then turned back to Falkirk.

  “I am listening to this, Colonel,” Falkirk said.

  “You shouldn’t be,” Donaldson objected. “Do you know the kind of effect the chaplain’s ravings are going to have on the crew once this gets out?”

  Falkirk remained unflappable. “It appears to have already gotten out, Colonel. Due to you pressuring Chaplain Delroy to speak his mind in front of the crew instead of having a private meeting with him as he requested.”

  Donaldson swore. “He shouldn’t have interrupted my meeting.”

  “Your meeting,” Falkirk said, “wasn’t interrupted until you came to the door and entered into a verbal confrontation with Chaplain Delroy.”

  “If I hadn’t gone to the door, he would have come in after me. He threatened to walk through the sergeant I had posted there.”

  Falkirk flicked his gaze to Delroy. “Chaplain?”

  “Aye, sir,” Delroy agreed. “I did that.”

  “Would you have gone through his sergeant?”

  Delroy hesitated only a moment. Stay with the truth, Son, Josiah Harte had said so many times while Delroy had been growing up. Always stay with the truth. You’ll be judged in God’s eyes anyway, and He will know what was in your heart. Hiding the truth from others serves no purpose and sometimes conflicts the works God is trying to do through you.

  “Aye, sir,” Delroy answered. “I would have tried. I don’t know if I could have. The sergeant is a big man.”

  Falkirk nodded. “And he’s half your age. I would think you’d know better than that.”

  “Aye, sir.” Delroy took a short breath. “But it was imperative that I speak to you and the colonel, Captain. I know the idea of the Rapture is hard to accept, but it’s all in here.” He held up his father’s Bible.

  “Oh, spare me,” Donaldson growled. “Captain, we’re wasting time here.”

  “Colonel, is there anything else you can be doing right now?” Falkirk’s voice was crisp and clear. “Anything for those men over there along the border, or to get the troops here more ready?”

  Donaldson folded his arms over his chest. His fists knotted. “No. You know that, Captain.”

  “I do know that.” Falkirk rested his elbows on the neat desk and pressed his fingertips and palms together.

  Like a man praying, Delroy couldn’t help but observe. The signs are always there. His father had always told him that. A man who learns to walk with God will always find his course charted for him. He just has to pay attention. The chaplain was paying attention now.

  “In addition to putting together relief and help for those Marines stranded along the Turkish-Syrian border, in addition to arranging for medevac ships to get the more critically wounded here when Captain Remington pulls his troops out of the area, I’m trying very hard to understand what happened to a third of my crew and a corresponding number of your Marines,” Falkirk said. “Maybe I’m not an imaginative man. I’ve exhausted everything I can think of, and I can tell you that the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon haven’t come up with an answer either.”

  “We don’t need this God poppycock running rampant through our men,” Donaldson stressed.

  Delroy took a deep breath, about to reply to that, but he maintained his silence when Falkirk waved him off.

  “Do you know what will happen to the morale aboard Wasp if the crew starts speculating like this?” Donaldson continued.

  “The morale of this crew has already been damaged,” Falkirk stated. “It was damaged when our birds went down in flames over there, and it was damaged when so many of their shipmates vanished without explanation.”

  “Then it’s our job to take that morale and build it back up,” Donaldson said.

  Anger flickered though Falkirk’s eyes for just an instant, then the emotion w
as gone. “Do you think that you pulling your sidearm and shoving it into Chaplain Harte’s face is going to shore up the morale aboard this vessel, Colonel Donaldson?”

  “The man simply wouldn’t shut up,” Donaldson roared.

  “And if he had?”

  “I wouldn’t have drawn my sidearm and threatened him.”

  “So coming to me and requesting the three of us meet to discuss this would have made you happier?”

  Donaldson blinked in confusion.

  Delroy was also aware that Falkirk had framed the option as a mild rebuke of his actions—that was typical of the way he handled things. Point taken, Captain. He breathed out and made himself calm down.

  “Because I would have called that meeting at Chaplain Harte’s insistence,” Falkirk continued. “Chaplain Harte is one of my most valued and trusted officers. I would afford him the same respect I show you.”

  “You can’t believe what the man is saying,” Donaldson objected.

  “You’re right,” Falkirk agreed. “If I had been a true believer, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here in command of this ship right now. I’d be gone with the others.”

  Donaldson stepped back as though in disbelief.

  For the first time, Delroy noticed the Bible lying on the corner of the captain’s desk. The cloth bookmark was near the end of the Bible, probably somewhere in Revelation. Just look for the signs, Son. God will always put them there to guide you.

  “The chaplain is crazy,” Donaldson said. “Even if he’s not certifiable, he’s not in his right mind. He’s been up all night. One of his best friends died in medical last night. Sleep deprivation. Emotional turmoil. All the confusion of what has taken place over in Turkey these past few hours. Those things have obviously taken their toll on him. He’s lost it.”

  “The disappearances haven’t just been in Turkey or aboard this ship,” Delroy said as patiently as he could. “They’ve happened around the world.”