Slaughterhouse

FOUR.

Seated in the front seat of Tomcat Six—the lead aircraft in a flight of three AH-64D Longbow Apaches sprinting along the eastbound lanes of the Union Turnpike—Major Brad Fleischer was still a mile away when he saw the huge explosion rip across the roadway. A gigantic white-orange fireball consumed all the vehicles in the immediate area, enveloping them in writhing flame that twisted and turned. Thick black smoke billowed up immediately as the intense heat blazed through everything that was combustible, generating thick carbon which in turn gave rise to the smoke. As an aviator, Fleischer knew that black smoke was not a good thing. Black smoke in a combat setting usually meant someone had met with a very bad end. Fleischer stroked his thin mustache with his forefinger and thumb, watching as the smoke roiled in the sky.

“Whoa!” Smitty, the warrant officer sitting behind him, exclaimed. He was actually flying the Apache, while Fleischer manned the target acquisition and designation system, a turreted platform on the helicopter’s nose that allowed him to observe potential targets and then illuminate them with a high-powered laser to obtain targeting information that would be passed back to the fire control systems. The network of systems would take that information and turn it into data for the Apache’s weapons systems, most notably the eight AGM-114R Hellfire missiles mounted beneath its stubby wings.

“Tomcat Two-One, Tomcat Six. What just happened? Over,” Fleischer asked over the attack battalion’s radio net.

“Six, Two-One. Ah, looks like the Klowns made an attack with a gas tanker…ah, must’ve taken a hot round in the fight. Over.”

“Two-One, this is Six. Were you firing in the vicinity of that target? Over.”

“Negative, Six. When it happened, the chain gun was out of azimuth.” As the pilot of the Apache downrange that had been providing nominal top cover for the blocking force made his report, Fleischer saw more explosions tear through the backed-up traffic on the turnpike. As the heat from the flaming tanker caused the fuel in the stopped cars and trucks to ignite, secondary explosions added even more fire and smoke to the conflagration. Civilians were bailing out of their cars, running from the maelstrom as fast as they could.

“Not much left to shoot at, and it looks like most of the blocking force is gone. Gas station just went up, huge secondary explosion. Over,” the pilot finished as another burst of angry yellow-orange flame roared into the sky.

“Two-One, this is Six. Keep moving. Don’t hover. Keep your eyes open. We’ll be with you in just a few seconds. Over.”

“Roger, Six.”

“Smitty, when we pass Two-One, climb out to five hundred and start orbiting over the engagement area. We need to see who’s still alive down there,” Fleischer said over the intercom.

“Climb to five hundred and orbit right. Roger that,” Smitty responded.

Traveling at over a hundred and fifty miles an hour, they took less than fifteen seconds to cover that final mile. The warrant officer did as Fleischer instructed and eased the helicopter into a climbing turn to the right, holding at five hundred above ground level. Fleischer abandoned the TADS array for his regular Mark I Eyeballs and surveilled the scene below.

It was a catastrophe. The tanker truck had gone up only a dozen yards from the Bushmasters. The flames were yellow-orange, which meant automobile gas was burning. Car fuel was much more reactive than diesel and tended to blow up instead of just burn off. One Humvee had been practically vaporized, despite its armor, and the M925A1 truck that had been transporting the bulk of the troops was awash in flames. The bodies of fallen lightfighters lay everywhere, many of them on fire. A small contingent of troops was frantically trying to haul their comrades out of the burning truck. The last Humvee moved a few dozen yards downrange. A soldier manned the .50 caliber in its cupola, firing past the flaming morass. It took a moment for Fleischer to see what he was shooting at. Klowns, surging out of the first truck’s trailer. Tomcat Two-One was hovering downrange, and he watched several of the infected transform into disassociated organic garbage, courtesy of the Apache’s thirty-millimeter cannon.

“Two-One, this is Six. Work over that entire trailer. Over,” Fleischer said over the attack battalion’s radio frequency.

“Roger, Six. Working on that.” The thin metal that made up the trailer blew apart, peeled back by the Apache’s cannon. It was like watching an invisible butcher flay open a large pig. Inside, dozens of bodies lay on the trailer’s floor, already cut down by the ground fire.

“Wizard, this is Tomcat Six. Over.”

“Tomcat, this is Wizard Six. Go ahead. Over.” It was the presumptive “Lieutenant Colonel” Lee himself.

Fleischer shook his head. He had no idea what the guy was up to, taking Prince’s rank. But by the time the unit made it back to Drum, he might be the only light infantry officer left standing.

“Wizard, this is Tomcat. Bushmaster is down for the count. At least seventy-five percent casualties. We’ll cover from up here, but they’re going to need help recovering their fallen. We might want to think about getting Catfish on station. Over.”

The attack battalion had four UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters allocated to support them. Before sunrise, Lee had issued a fragmentary order for the Black Hawks—call sign Catfish—to be chopped over to support the infantry battalion’s attached cavalry scout element. The Black Hawks had lifted off, carrying the sole remaining members of Hanscom’s previous tenants, the Air Force’s Internal Security Response Team, which had been left behind after the rest of the zoomies had pulled out to maintain security at the airfield. Apparently, the zoomies didn’t trust an entire light infantry battalion to keep their premises safe. The Black Hawks had taken off for Wooster Regional Airport, where they would land and take control of the airfield’s fueling facility. The Apaches were thirsty beasts, and even though the airport was less than fifty miles from Hanscom, the gunslingers and armed scouts supporting them would need a safe place to refuel. The Black Hawks had made it without incident, and the cavalry unit had arrived with their four heavily-armored Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles a few hours later. The airfield was under friendly control…for the moment.

But the upshot was that the Black Hawks weren’t on station to evacuate the wounded.

“Tomcat, this is Wizard. Can your team hold the area long enough to extract the wounded by ground? Over.”

“Roger, Wizard. Tomcat’s got four shooters on station. Situation’s complex, lots of civilians and reduced visibility from smoke, but we can provide top cover for”—Fleischer checked the fuel totalizer readout on the multifunction display before him—“another fifty minutes. Black Hawks would be better. Over.”

“Roger, Tomcat. Understand about the Black Hawks, but we need them to stay where they are. We’re sending back two trucks and two Humvees from the Bushmaster Three element. What’s the situation with the westbound civilian traffic? Over.”

As Lee spoke, Fleischer heard another transmission on one of the side channels—an RTO dispatching the movement orders to the Bushmaster Three element.

He looked around, trying to figure out what was going on below. A lot of civilian vehicles were on fire, but many were not. Cars and trucks were jockeying all over the place, trying to get the hell out of Dodge. He reported that to Lee, adding, “Doesn’t look like the convoy’s under any direct threat at the moment. Over.”

“Roger, Tomcat. Thanks. Hold station until we can get our people out of there. Over.”

“Wizard, this is Tomcat. Roger that. We’ll maintain top cover for as long as we can, but we don’t have a lot of station time left. We also need to start rotating the scouts out for refueling. Tomcats Two-Seven and Two-Nine will take over aerial recon while the Birddogs do what they gotta do. Over.”

“Roger, Tomcat.”

Fleischer gave his unit and the scout team their orders. The OH-58D Kiowa Warriors would transition their scouting mission to the two AH-64Ds that were relieving them, then they would fly to Wooster Regional Airport to refuel and rearm. Once they returned, the Tomcats would bug out for the forward area refuel point, platoon by platoon. Fleischer was happy that Lee had thought to secure enough fuel to keep the battalion going, because their organic fuel supply wouldn’t get them through the day at their current operational tempo.

The trip was going to be long, and so far, it had been one hell of a busy morning.