Part 50 (1/2)
D-Day, four and a half miles west of Dhurbo, Ophir
”I don't think this is going to work,” Morales observed. ”And, no, the f.u.c.king radio doesn't work for trans, though I can pick up BBC, if you're curious.” He whistled a few bars of ”Lillibullero,” to make the point.
He could see the distant flashes of what was probably a machine gun on the pursuing boat. He rotated his monocular down and scanned for splashes. Yep, about two hundred meters behind us and to port as we bear. On the plus side, they don't seem to be very good shots. He said as much to Eeyore.
Antoniewicz had a sinking feeling in his stomach. ”How good do they need to be? They'll close to point blank, eventually. Best bring Simmons forward and get him in a life vest.”
”Aye, aye,” Morales agreed.
D-Day, south of Bandar Qa.s.sim Airport
Even though he was firing subsonic ammunition, with a suppressor that would probably work with a One-o-Five, and did a pretty fair job of holding in the muzzle flash, too, every now and again Buckwheat got the feeling that somewhere, someone, out on the long slope below him, had his number. He got the feeling again when a long burst of machine gun fire pelted the rock behind which he covered, sending off shards in all the wrong directions. At times like those, he thought it wise to back up and find someplace else to shoot from.
Rifle cradled in the crook of his elbows, he backpeddled down the slope and out of the line of fire. This was, as it turned out, a very good thing as the next burst of fire didn't hit the rock; it hit precisely where he had been posted.
Maybe the suppressor is about done for, he thought, They're only good for so many shots anyway. Flash might be leaking through. No, it's probably leaking through.
He heard an engine's roar from behind him, coupled with the sound of gravel being tossed out by spinning tires.
The Hummer pulled up behind him. ”Jump in and get on the machine gun,” Rattus said. ”Watch out you don't step on the Brit.”
”What?”
”Jump in and get on the machine gun,” the medic repeated. ”We've got company coming, and I have a cunning plan. Ever hear of Joshua Chamberlain?”
”A cunning plan? Little Round Top?” Fulton rolled his eyes, saying, ”Why don't I just blow my brains out now?”
”Just get in.”
”What about Fletcher?” Fulton asked.
”Wahab's getting him.”
Buckwheat bolted at a crouch for the Hummer. As he did, he heard the on-board radio say, ”Rattus, Biggus; we're ninety seconds out. We can see the burning aircraft. We can also see what looks to be a loaded truck convoy leaving the city heading west. One of the guns.h.i.+ps is going after the convoy; the other's yours. Where do you want it?”
Biggus practically strained his neck, twisting his head to keep an eye on everything that was going on in the air and on the ground, as the medevac bird loitered. For all practical purposes he was playing FAC, or forward air controller. He may have been a little rusty, but he did have some limited experience at it.
From the radio came Rattus's words, ”We're just behind the topographical crest. The bad guys are mostly along the northern military crest. That's about seventeen or eighteen hundred meters south of the airfield.”
Biggus put the mike to his lips and asked, ”Can you give us a marker?”
”We'll give you lights for ten seconds, both vehicles, in thirty.”
”That'll do. Then what?”
”You'll probably need more than one pa.s.s,” Rattus said. ”When you've expended your load, or as much as you need to, let me know. Then we're gonna charge, right over the top, all guns-such as they are-blazing. We'll meet you at the airstrip, west of the burning aircraft.”
”Roger,” Thornton said. It sounded pretty desperate to him but, then again, they did have the hurt limey. So . . .
Biggus gave orders to the other two. After hearing a couple of ”Rogers,” he shut up and watched.
As the armed aircraft to his north made its first pa.s.s, all he could say was, ”Awesome.”
The aircraft carried fourteen of what were called ”S-8, 80mm” rockets, seven under each wing. The rockets were the mixed lot Victor Inning had provided; two per pod carried flechettes; three were high explosive; one was incendiary. The first one set to fire from each pod was illumination. One of these, from his right pod, the pilot to Biggus's north fired first.
Four seconds after the flash of the rocket's ignition could be seen, a two-megacandle flare blossomed over the truck convoy, slightly off center and to the north. In that four seconds the CH-801 had closed its range by two hundred and forty meters, give or take. In the next several seconds, the pilot let loose one entire pod, walking them up the road at and around the seven trucks. Most missed. In fact, all the high explosive and incendiary rounds missed. The flechette rockets, on the other hand, each of them spitting out two thousand thin, finned, steel darts, didn't have to be all that on target. Close was good enough where ”close” was defined as two and a half truckloads of human flesh reduced to twitching, screaming, moaning, bleeding, gagging, puking, s.h.i.+tting lumps of meat . . . in a fraction of a second.
As the pilot turned away-safer that was than pa.s.sing over a convoy of armed men, even if their drivers were jinking like mad-to line up for another run, his door gunner, Manuel, let loose with a long, two hundred round burst of machine gun fire. Manuel didn't hit much either. But his tracers did add to the overall ambience.
Buckwheat noticed that the fire snapping over the ridge slackened, indeed almost ceased, right after the northern sky lit up from the flare.
They're watching the fireworks, he thought. That, and probably s.h.i.+tting their pants. Now's the time, now, for the other strike to go in.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE.
”A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!”
-Judges 7:20, the Bible, New International Version
D-Day, Rako-Dhuudo-Bandar Cisman highway, Ophir