“Dragon?” Mike asked. He was at the square behind Cinderella’s Castle and now sped up.
“Already lifting off,” Greznya said. “But she is out of position to intercept. She estimates she will reach the Magic Kingdom about the same time as the aircraft, but from the east instead of west. We anticipated that the attack would come from the Kissimmee area.”
“Tell her to hammer it,” Mike said, slowing down. The aircraft was going to be coming in from the northwest. It might hit Fantasyland, first, but he was just as sure that the target was the parade, which came down from Adventureland, turned at the square, then went south to Main Street. He pulled the communicator off his belt and keyed on the take from Greznya. Sure enough, the bird was coming from the northwest and already over Disney property. Dragon was up and hammering for the park but she was way out of position. “Greznya, gimme all teams,” Mike said. “All teams. Go hot at this time. Target coming in from the northwest. Converge near…” He looked around and shrugged. “Converge near Haunted Mansion. Grez, give me Colonel Olds…” he said, putting the communicator back on his belt and dumping his backpack.
“Colonel, it’s that Kildar guy,” the RTO said, holding out a telephone.
“What?” Olds snapped, taking the phone.
“We have an inbound at Disney. What is your intent?”
“As far as we can determine, it is a civilian aircraft that is off-course,” the colonel replied. “I don’t have a shoot order from higher.”
“You’re authorized to fire at your discretion,” Mike said, incredulously. “That’s why they gave you Slammers. Now are you going to take it out?”
“I… I do not have a shoot order,” the colonel stammered.
“FUCK SHOOT ORDERS,” the man screamed. “TAKE OUT THE DAMNED PLANE!”
“Colonel,” the RTO said. “One of the Slammers has eyeballs on the target and is requesting shoot authorization…”
“I will have to call you back,” the colonel said, handing the phone back to the RTO. “Get me Tallahassee. I need authorization to shoot…”
Sergeant Ray Thompson had been an Air Defense Artillery gunner since he’d first joined the Florida National Guard. However, in Iraq there wasn’t much need for ADA so his unit had been “converted” to infantry then back to ADA when they redeployed to the states.
In Iraq he’d pulled more than his share of guard duty on roadblocks, quite a few convoys and various other spots where mujahideen tried to add him to the growing list of dead and injured. And in the process he’d occasionally seen “The Look.” “The Look,” that is, of a guy who is bent on martyrdom. Not many guys who saw “The Look” lived to tell about it and it wasn’t precisely describable. It wasn’t wide-eyed it was more like a thousand mile stare crossed with, of all things, joy.
He was using a pair of 60x binoculars to ID the incoming craft. Piper Cub, steady approach, the bird was locked by the Slammer and it was headed straight for the Magic Kingdom. And he could see right in the cockpit, see the pilot’s eyes. And he had The Look.
“Tell higher that this is a definite bad-guy,” Ray said. “And we need a Go order.”
Mike zipped open the large backpack and started drawing out the parts of the M-60E4, assembling them as quickly as he could. He’d assembled one as a demonstration one time in under thirty seconds. He was trying to beat that record.
“Hey, buddy,” a man said, ducking under the barricade and running over to him. “What in the fuck are you doing?”
“Getting ready to shoot down an airplane,” Mike said without turning around. “I’m with SOCOM. Now I’d suggest getting under shelter, sir.”
The man paused and looked over his shoulder.
“Dafney! Where are the kids?”
“Allison’s here,” the woman yelled back. “Jason and Lindsey are up at the Haunted Mansion, I think.”
“Get under cover,” the man said, picking up the overlarge box of ammo and drawing out the linked 7.62 rounds. “I used to be a gunner in the National Guard.”
“You got ammo bearer,” Mike said, pulling the linked ammo over and slapping it into place. He dropped the feed tray down and cocked the weapon. “Greznya, where is this thing?”
“Just west of the employee parking lot,” Greznya said. “It should enter the park just west of Haunted Mansion.”
More people were watching what was going on, and shouting, as Mike lifted the machine gun to his shoulder. The crowd surged back, obviously fearing he was going to open fire on them, but then paused as it was apparent he was pointed at the sky. He could hear the plane now, a slow drone and low.
“Anybody else got this?” Mike asked.
“Oleg,” Oleg called. “I’m… Fuck, Kildar, I don’t know where I am. East of that big castle thing.”
“Nikolai. I am in Cinderella’s Castle. I have partial eyeballs on the target. I do not have enough to engage.”
“Kildar, Kildar, Dragon. I am crossing Bay Lake at this time, heading for Main Street. I have eyeballs on the bird but will not arrive before it enters the park.”
“Keep an eye out for secondaries,” Mike said, pointing the weapon over the trees to the west. “I think this one’s all mine.”
Farzad had seen the Slammers tracking him and was surprised they did not open fire. That would, of course, have ruined his mission. But he still would have been a martyr. As it was, he would simply have to send many infidels to hell.
He crested the trees that surrounded this end of the park and smiled. The infidels had gathered in huge numbers to see their parade. This would be a good killing, perhaps even better than that of the martyrs of 9/11. Many of the Americans would die and that was always a good thing.
He flinched, though, as tracers flew past the nose of the aircraft and looked down. A man was standing in the roadway holding a machine gun to his shoulder and firing up at the plane.
Well, there was only one thing to do. Farzad hit the release and began to spew VX out of the back of the converted Piper.
Mike cursed as vapor began to bellow out of the back of the bird. Most of the Keldara had MOPP gear in their bags, but he wasn’t wearing his and neither were any of the civilians. So he kept his finger clamped on the trigger as the plane droned across the lake, laying down a cloud of deadly gas behind it.
He’d led it by too much at first, probably just right if it had been a shot from the side but the plane was heading, more or less, just at him from right to left. As he corrected it banked towards Cinderella’s castle and another stream of tracers headed towards it, falling low. Nikolai finally had a shot.
Mike kept his finger on the trigger, mentally blessing the designers of the new generation of M-60 and kept his elation down as the stream of fire finally hit the engine cowling. The engine began to smoke and as he followed the line back into the bird it banked to the side, out of control, and began plummeting downwards.
However, the thing was still filled with VX and it was headed down towards the crowd gathered for the parade. Most of the crowd had scattered, screaming, as he opened fire and it became obvious what was happening. One girl, though, was just standing there, paralyzed.
The plane shuddered again, the vapor cutting off for some reason, and staggered through the air, headed for the Haunted Mansion. Mike wasn’t really paying attention, though. He’d dropped the machine gun and was sprinting across the open area towards the frozen girl.
He heard the guy behind him shout something, but he wasn’t paying attention to that, either. He figured he had about a one in four chance of reaching the girl before the plane smacked into the small hill the Haunted Mansion was on and covered the whole area in toxin.