Page 127 (2/2)

“Got him!”

“Keep that fire on the second-floor windows. They’re chucking grenades!”

Dew stood, groaning a bit as he did, then scooted around the front of the Ford and ran toward the building.

Perry drew his .45 and followed. This was insanity. But if Dew was going, Perry was going with him.

Dew’s sprint wasn’t much of a sprint at all. Mentally, maybe the guy had shed twenty years, but physically, not so much. Soldiers raced across the empty lot on either side, pa.s.sing Perry and Dew as if they were standing still. Each step felt like it took five minutes, five minutes during which a bullet might connect at any second.

Yet no fire came his way.

Perry saw only one enemy gunman. Didn’t actually see him, really, just four or five muzzle flashes from behind a cracked piece of plywood covering a third-floor window. About two seconds after that shot, the plywood disintegrated thanks to a ma.s.sive concentration of fire that kicked out a rain of splinters and paint chips. The gunman didn’t fire again.

Dew followed a dozen soldiers toward a rusted roll-up garage door that was closed only a quarter of the way. A battered plywood wall blocked the rest of the opening. Perry heard a whoosh from behind and instinctively ducked. A rocket shot past, at least twenty feet to his right. It hit the plywood wall and erupted in a cloud of fire and wooden shrapnel.

Nail’s voice in his helmet speakers. “Take that building!”

Perry moved forward, still right behind Dew. Whiskey Company soldiers were thirty yards ahead of them, rus.h.i.+ng toward the now-gaping door. For what must have been the hundredth time in the past hour, Perry tried to comprehend the bravery of a soldier, someone who chose to rush headlong into enemy fire.

The first soldiers reached the open door. One tossed in a grenade. Like an optical illusion, someone from inside the building tossed out a grenade at the same time. The two devices actually pa.s.sed by each other, going opposite ways. The charging Whiskey Company men scattered and dove for cover. Two didn’t make it far enough. The grenade exploded. No fireball like in the movies, just a h.e.l.lacious bang, an instant cloud of smoke and a fist-hard hit of air. The two men were standing one second, falling the next. One hit the ground face-first and didn’t move. The other turned as he fell, landing on his right side, hands reaching behind his back and grabbing madly as if his clothes were on fire.

Automatic gunfire erupted from the boarded-up second-floor windows, one gunman on either side of the roll-up garage door. Another Whiskey Company soldier went down, screaming, grabbing at a thigh instantly soaked with blood.

Dew kept running forward.

Perry stayed on his heels.

Dew raised his M4 and fired. Perry pointed his .45 at one of the windows and emptied the magazine. Plywood splintered where he shot. Behind him, to the right, he heard a whuff, then a second later a heavy crunch as something ripped through the plywood window right before a concussive bang blasted it outward in a fiery cloud of pulverized brick and wooden splinters. Perry reloaded, debris raining down on him and Dew as they followed soldiers beneath the roll-up garage door.

<script>