Apocalypse unleashed

5

U.S. Rangers Convoy

One Klick North-Northeast of Harran

Sanliurfa Province, Turkey

Local Time 2124 Hours

“Are you getting this?” Danielle demanded as she stared at the trail of destruction that littered the countryside. She held on to the seat belt tightly.

“I am; I am,” Gary replied. “But even the Steadicam programming in this unit isn’t going to keep the picture from jumping everywhere.”

“Just keep shooting. Do you know where Goose is?” Danielle stared through the burning and overturned vehicles. Thank God none of them belonged to the Rangers.

“Not yet.”

“Find him.”

“I’m trying.”

Danielle turned to the driver. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”

The man refused to look at her, but he did put his foot down harder on the accelerator. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“If you want to pull over, I’ll drive myself.”

He shook his head. “Is any of this even real to you?”

“All of it is real,” Danielle told him. When she got back to Sanliurfa, she was determined to find another driver. “This is the biggest story of my career. A third of the planet disappears. A lot of world leaders are talking-behind closed doors-that this is some kind of religious thing.”

The driver swerved to miss a tree, and the cameraman yelped in surprise.

“We’re in a nation that has the only city in the world that sits on two continents,” Danielle continued. “Which city, by the way, has been a point of contention between Christianity and Islamic beliefs since they laid the first stone of the first building there.” She paused. “It’s real to me.”

“I found Goose,” Gary said.

“Where?”

“He’s on top of the second truck back.” Gary laughed like a madman. “You know, that guy is certifiable. I’ve filmed extreme sports athletes who wouldn’t do what I’ve seen him do since this started. I love that guy.”

Danielle clung to the honest emotion in Gary’s voice. That was how Goose played before the young male audience. He was a man’s man, a warrior in the truest sense of the word. And for the women, he was the hero, the guy they all hoped to fall in love with. Those were the demographics she’d pushed at her producer at OneWorld NewsNet to get permission to stay with his story.

But if he got killed…

She pushed that thought out of her mind. She couldn’t imagine Goose getting killed. When the chips were down and everything was on the line, he was unstoppable. She’d never met a man like him before.

The jeep whipped by a burning vehicle. A group of Rangers held bandits at gunpoint and were slapping restraints on them. The heat from the flames rolled over Danielle just for a moment, but her eyes remained on the lone figure atop the cargo truck.

Local Time 2125 Hours

Wind tore at Goose as he clung to the canvas covering the steel support ribs of the cargo truck’s payload area. The metal banged against his body, though the Kevlar vest blunted some of the trauma. He held on to the M-4A1 with his right hand as he went forward.

Crain climbed behind Goose. The younger man didn’t keep his body snugged into the canvas and was taking a beating that slowed his progress. He hadn’t yet gotten on top of the truck.

“Sarge! Sarge!” the truck driver called. “Are you there?”

“I’m here, Jenson,” Goose said. “You just hold her steady for one minute longer.” He dug his elbows and knees into the canvas and straddled the supports. His knee burned with pain at every bump and lurch.

“He’s almost at the door! I see him in the mirror!”

“I’m there,” Goose said as he pulled himself to the side of the truck and thrust the assault rifle forward.

The bandit clung to the truck’s side. The man’s feet rested on the edge of the payload area through the canvas tarp, and he held on to the tarp with one hand. Balancing himself, pistol in one hand, the bandit swung forward and tried to shove his weapon through the broken window.

“Sarge!”

Goose squeezed the trigger and felt the M-4A1 thud briefly against his shoulder. A three-round burst shattered the bandit’s head, and he fell from the truck’s side.

One of the bandit vehicles racing beside the convoy on the right side immediately returned fire. Goose stayed low. The canvas didn’t offer much protection, but he was grateful for what he got. Bullets sizzled through the air over his head. A round struck one of the supports and sent a vibration singing through it. And at least one punched into his Kevlar vest.

Goose plucked an M67 fragmentation grenade from his combat webbing, flicked the clip out with his thumb, and released the spoon and pin. Arching up for a moment, he threw the spherical grenade at the jeep as it roared to within thirty feet.

The bandits fired at him immediately, but between the rough ride offered by the jeep and the bouncing of the cargo truck, they missed him. Goose pulled his helmet low and crossed an arm in front of his face.

“Fire in the hole!” he roared.

Crain hunkered down atop the cargo truck.

A thunderclap exploded beside the cargo truck, and shrapnel from the grenade peppered the vehicle’s body. Goose pulled the M-4A1 to his shoulder and peered over the side. The jeep was a smoking ruin carrying dead men. It rammed into the cargo truck’s side, then got caught up under the wheels. The truck reared like a bucking bronco as it rolled over the bandit vehicle.

The three remaining bandit vehicles hesitated, then veered away from the convoy’s side. Unable to see the Ranger Hummers on the other side of the trucks, or possibly mistaking them for their comrades, the drivers of the bandit vehicles closed in again and focused on the lead truck.

“Drifter Two,” Goose called as he scrambled to the rear of the truck.

“Reading you five by,” Donner radioed back.

“Swing around behind the convoy and let these boys know you’re here.”

“Affirmative.”

Goose caught hold of the support bar across the opening and flipped across, stepping backward into the cargo area. He’d organized the way the payload was distributed before they’d left the post. He knew where everything was.

The dead bodies of the two Rangers who’d been assigned to the payload area rocked restlessly with the sway and jar of the cargo truck. For a moment, the sight of them held Goose in his tracks. Both of the men had been young. Losing soldiers under his command hurt, and lately he’d lost a lot of them.

Get your job done. You can grieve later.

He stepped over the dead men and used a penflash from the pocket of his BDUs to make certain of the crate he wanted. When he found the equipment crate he was looking for, he slung his rifle and opened the crate. He reached inside and took out an SMAW.

Using the Israeli B-300 Shoulder-launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon as a model, the United States Marine Corps had originally fielded the SMAW MK153 Mod 0 for use against tanks and heavily fortified installations. It had proven effective time and again. During Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. Army had used some of them. Impressed with the performance of the SMAW, the army had continued to borrow the marine weapons while in the Middle East, and the Rangers had a cache of them along the border for use against the Soviet-made tanks the Syrian army fielded.

Goose slammed an 83mm rocket home in the launcher, then swung around to the rear of the truck. Crain was hanging upside down over the opening.

“Thought maybe you needed a hand,” Crain said.

“I got it.” Goose stepped through the opening and put a foot on the truck’s bumper. He slid to the side of the truck, swaying along with the vehicle’s bumping, then shouldered the weapon and aimed it back toward the jeeps in front of the Hummer.

“Weapons upgrade?” Crain asked.

Goose took aim through the scope and centered the crosshairs on the lead vehicle.

“Just a little video game humor,” Crain said.

“I’m not much into video games.”

Crain’s rifle barked again and again.

Donner led the Ranger vehicles in a close sweep behind the cargo trucks. Goose saw them edging into view. The bandits spotted them as well and pulled away from the trucks.

The rocket launcher was overkill in this situation, and Goose knew it. But he thought about the village Niyazi had attacked and all the dead victims and wounded that had been left behind, and his heart hardened.

You’re not just taking out the bad guys, he told himself. You’re sending a message tonight. And that message is, you don’t mess with United States Army Rangers.

He squeezed the trigger, and the rocket leaped into flight. It shot across the hundred yards of distance and slammed into the rear of the lead jeep. In a blink, the jeep became a fireball that bounced erratically across the broken ground. The explosion sounded loud and definite. The flash was incredibly bright in the darkness, and Goose felt the heat wave a hundred yards away.

Crain cheered his approval from on top of the cargo truck. “Hit ’em dead center, Sarge! Yeah!”

Goose lowered the weapon and shoved it back inside the payload area. The two surviving jeeps veered off and headed away from the convoy.

“Looks like they’ve decided to cut their losses and run,” Donner said.

“Let them,” Goose said.

“We can still take them.”

Goose thought of the two dead men lying in the back of the truck and knew there were probably more. Guilt over leaving the convoy weighed on him.

“Taking them out isn’t going to bring our dead back,” Goose said. “And chasing after them will only split our forces again.” He fully expected Remington to chime in with a comment then and was surprised when the captain didn’t. “We stay together and finish this run. Besides that, those men will know they were lucky to survive tonight. They’ll tell their buddies, and maybe next time they’ll think twice about trying to hit one of our convoys.”

United States 75th Army Rangers Outpost

Harran

Sanliurfa Province, Turkey

Local Time 2219 Hours

The outpost was a skeletal affair that wouldn’t stand up against an armored cavalry attack. Then again, it wasn’t meant to. If everything worked right, the outpost was only going to be backup eyes and ears for the observation satellites the 75th currently had access to. Given the nature of everything that had happened these past weeks, Goose knew Remington didn’t want to depend on GEOINT while operations around Sanliurfa were pending. Geospatial intelligence gathered from satellite reconnaissance only worked as long as the satellite links were maintained.

Harran was a small village. All of the buildings were older and cheaply made, and none of them had any height to speak of. The Rangers had settled on the ruins of the Ulu Cami for their primary spotting base. Goose didn’t know how long ago the congregational mosque had been constructed, but it looked weathered and ancient. It was the highest point in the village. Someone had told Goose that the mosque had been built by the Ayyubids. When he professed ignorance, he was told they’d been a Muslim culture that had ruled a large empire from Egypt to Iraq in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They’d been driven out of the area by the invasion of the Mongols.

As Goose swung down from the cargo truck, he reflected that wars had constantly been fought in these lands. What was going on now was nothing new. Blood had soaked this soil for thousands of years. Now it was getting a fresh supply donated by the United States Army Rangers.

The village’s strangest feature was the collection of beehive houses two klicks outside the main population area. The houses looked like footballs someone had shoved end-first into the hard-packed earth. Constructed completely of adobe, the beehive houses lacked even a wooden frame.

When the Syrians had invaded, most of the ethnic Arabs that lived in the village had pulled up stakes and left. They’d headed back into the harsher country in hopes that they’d be left alone. Some of those that had stubbornly remained had fled when the Rangers had occupied the village. Only a scattered few continued to live there.

“Goose.”

Turning, Goose saw Danielle Vinchenzo approaching him. Her cameraman was at her heels.

“I really don’t have time to speak with you right now, Ms. Vinchenzo,” Goose said. “I’ve got a lot to do here. If you want to talk about anything, we can discuss it later.”

Danielle looked like she wanted to argue. Then Crain and Martinez brought the first body out of the payload area. The reporter’s face softened, and she pushed the camera down.

“I understand,” she said. “I’m sorry. If there’s anything we can do to help, please let me know.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Goose said. “Some of these boys will be wanting something to eat. If you and your team could help out with seeing to the mess hall and give those folks there a hand, I’d be much obliged.”

“Of course.” Danielle turned and left.

Goose headed to the back of the truck to see how bad it was going to be. His headset beeped for attention. He knew it was the frequency he used to speak with Remington away from the public channel. He’d known the contact was coming.

“Goose,” Remington said without preamble.

“Yes, sir,” Goose responded. Although he and Remington had been friends for years, that friendship wasn’t going to be acknowledged at the moment.

“Leaving the convoy in unfriendly territory was stupid.”

“Yes, sir.” Goose had no other answer. Excuses didn’t cut it in the army.

“How many dead do you have?”

“Five. Nine wounded. Three of those are going to be out of commission for a while. I’ll know more when the docs get through with them.”

Remington cursed with skill. That was one thing Goose had to give the captain. When it came to a fullfledged dressing-down, nobody threw one with as much castigation as Remington. The captain had refined it to an art form.

“I’m running short of Rangers as it is, Sergeant,” Remington said. “I sure don’t have enough for you to squander needlessly.”

“No, sir.”

“I’m holding you accountable for those men.”

“Yes, sir.” Goose was already doing so. Remington’s jumping on the bandwagon didn’t add any real weight. But a formality did come with the captain’s assist.

“I’m going to be reviewing your actions tonight, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.” Goose knew that if they were lucky enough to get out of their present situation alive-and he had his doubts about that- he’d never spend a day the rest of his life without thinking about a lot of the decisions he’d made.

“For the moment, I want you to remand yourself to house arrest.”

“What?” Goose couldn’t believe that. Despite how the night had turned out, Remington couldn’t possibly mean what he’d just said.

“You heard me, Sergeant. Remand yourself to custody. I’m going to turn the convoy over to Corporal Donner. He can bring the men you didn’t kill back home.”

“Yes, sir.” Goose felt himself go numb and hollow inside. In all the years of their association and friendship, he’d never thought it would come down to this. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d at least let me help square things away here before I do that. These boys, they could use the help. Taking two hands and a strong back out of the equation right now ain’t an answer.”

Silence sounded loudly on the headset connection.

For a moment Goose thought he’d dropped frequency. It sometimes happened. He knew there was a chance Remington would order men to take him into custody by force.

“Get it done, Sergeant,” Remington barked coldly. “Then place yourself under house arrest. I’ll have Lieutenant Swindoll set aside a place for you.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“It shouldn’t have come to this, Goose,” Remington said. “You and I have been through a lot together.”

Goose didn’t say anything to that. It was the truth, but there was no accounting-at least in his book-for what was going on now.

“If anyone was going to stick by my side during a tough situation,” Remington said, “I would have always said it would be you.”

“I’ve always been there for you, sir.”

“Then why aren’t you now?”

Goose didn’t know. He thought he was, but Remington didn’t see it that way.

“Get that operation squared away, Sergeant,” Remington growled. “Then we’ll deal with what I’m going to do with you.”

“Yes, sir,” Goose said, but he didn’t get the reply out before the frequency clicked dead in his ear.