Part 36 (1/2)

Warlord Seven is the senior enlisted man in the battalion, Kemper.

Bowman keys his handset and says, ”Go ahead, Mike, over.”

Be advised that Warlord Five is leading a detachment east, over. ”Say again, over.”

Warlord Five is leading a detachment east on Thirty-Eighth Street, over. ”Wait, out,” he says, fighting a mixture of rage and panic.

Warlord Five is the XO.

The company is moving north, and Knight is leading some of the boys east.

The man is committing some incredible blunder, completely misinterpreting his orders, and dangerously close to getting them all killed.

Bowman realizes he has seconds to fix this.

He keys his handset again.

”Warlord Five, this is Warlord Six, how copy?”

Warlord Six, this is Warlord Five, go ahead, sir.

”Steve, what are you doing? Get those people back in formation before we have a disaster on our hands.”

Negative, says his XO.

Wrong answer

Lieutenant Stephen Knight, holding a pair of binoculars and watching the turn where he led Alpha, Bravo and Delta away from the main column, grunts with satisfaction as threads of brilliant white smoke begin to drift into the intersection.

His plan is simple: He is going to hit Maddy as he enters the intersection, then leapfrog east rapidly while the rest of the column continues north.

Bowman screamed at him for several moments over the radio but quickly realized they were wasting time they did not have, and decided to adopt Knight's plan on the spot.

Good old Todd. He has a flexible mind.

Knight is convinced his plan will succeed. Charlie's rear guard popped smoke to conceal the company's retreat and hauled a.s.s north. Meanwhile, his own force will draw Maddy off of Charlie and keep them busy for a while.

Maddy is not going to make a fool out of me again, he tells himself, grinning.

Vaughan comes jogging up after issuing orders deploying the rest of their force in depth, stacking them facing west, with a strong rear guard. Around them, two squads of soldiers, their first line, have found comfortable firing positions and are waiting for the order to shoot, locked and loaded.

Knight puts his binoculars away and winks at the man who had been his platoon sergeant and is now a first lieutenant, commanding what is left of Alpha.

”I just got off the com with the CO,” Vaughan says. ”I ought to shoot you in the G.o.dd.a.m.n head. You just killed us all.”

The soldiers closest to them, hunched over their weapons, raise their heads and blink, wondering what is going on.

”This is the only way to accomplish our mission,” Knight says.

”My boys died because you froze,” Vaughan roars, unholstering his nine-millimeter and chambering a round. His face is flushed, making the ugly diagonal scar appear livid on his face. ”Now they have to die so you can redeem yourself!”

”What the h.e.l.l?” one of the soldiers says.

”Oh man, I knew this mission was messed up,” another mutters.

”This is the right thing to do,” Knight says calmly.

”I outrank you now, Steve. You had no right to do this to me!”

He raises the pistol, takes a step forward and aims it at Knight's forehead.

”I don't care if you shoot me, Jim. What's done is done.”

”You had no right to do this to these boys!”

One of the soldiers calls out: ”Contact!”

Without taking his eyes off the pistol in Vaughan's hand, Knight takes a deep breath and screams with all his might: ”FIRE!”

The line erupts with a storm of gunshot, turning the first wave of Mad Dogs into flying fragments of meat and bone.

Vaughan lowers his pistol, shaking his head sourly.

More Mad Dogs turn the corner and race towards their line until stopped cold by another volley.

”They're taking the bait,” Knight says triumphantly. ”See that, Jim?” He raises his carbine, sizes up a Mad Dog in his scope, and fires his first rounds. ”I knew it'd work!”

If the entire game is going to be lost, there is nothing to be lost by sacrificing a p.a.w.n, he tells himself. Because with the game lost, the p.a.w.ns die anyway.

The tracers stream down the street, every fourth bullet a red streak created by a trail of burning phosphorous. A thirty-cal machine gun opens up, lacerating flesh and snapping bones. A forty-millimeter grenade falls from the sky, bounces off the roof of a car and explodes in mid-air, decapitating a dozen Mad Dogs at once.

And still they come, pouring around the corner, stumbling over the dead, their feet splas.h.i.+ng in a lake of blood and writhing bodies and body parts.

”Reloading,” somebody calls out.

”Bring it!”

”Get some!”