"If-and it's a big if, I know-you do this and it works out," Ridenhour continued, "Carrera will use his assets to ferry over your entire brigade and subdivide the city into two sectors for operational purposes. You will still be under legion command, however. Do you accept?"
Before Lamprey could answer, Ridenhour laughed. "If you don't, he will take the city on his own, damn the cost, and you will look like the Grand Old Duke of York, except that the air transport that got you here so that you could sit around jerking off is much more expensive than the shoe leather the duke wore out marching his men up a hill and down again."
"I could simply ignore the bastard and cross on my own," Lamprey insisted. "I've got my people back in the rear working on getting me rubber boats even now."
Ridenhour sighed deeply. How to explain to one arrogant worldclass asshole that there was a much bigger, and infinitely more ruthless, asshole nearby.
"Have you ever stopped to consider that dropped bridge, Jeff?" Ridenhour asked. "Do you really think it was just a mistake? I've gotten to know the man and he doesn't make or permit that kind of mistake. Now what do you suppose he might be willing to do if you try to force a river crossing against his wishes? What do you think it will do to your career if there's a massive friendly fire incident here between you and the legion and you end up losing over half the total of men killed in this campaign? You did want to see stars someday, didn't you?"
Forward Command Post, 4th Cohort
Xavier Jimenez heard the IM-71s whop-whopping behind him as they moved from the captured airfield to cross the river to where the gringo Airborne troops waited. Truth be told, Jimenez had doubted the FS Army commander on the other side of the river would roll for it. It had been an awfully dirty trick, he thought, Patricio dropping the sole useable bridge right under the paratroopers' noses.
The helicopters' sound rose, then began to drop again. Almost immediately, four Turbo-Finches appeared overhead. Singly they began to dive on the apartment buildings, firing machine guns and rockets down to clear the rooftops of any enemy who might be waiting there. Jimenez didn't know how effective the attack would be, though he did see one enemy soldier running along a roof be driven over the side by a blast to fall, screaming and arms flailing, to the ground.
That attack went on for several minutes while the helicopters got farther away. Just as Jimenez lost track of them completely, the aerial attack stopped, the birds winging it out of the area on full throttle.
Even as the last Turbo-Finch emptied its rocket pods, there came a massive roar from the legion's heavy mortars, in firing position somewhere to Jimenez's rear. He'd seen and heard so much mortar fire of late that he didn't even bother to try to count the seconds until impact. Instead, at about the right time, he ordered his command party to, "Duck!"
The mortar rounds that came in were almost all airbursts, set off by variable time fuses as they neared the vertical walls of the apartment building or the ground below. Their shards sometimes landed near Jimenez and his men. More often, the shards crashed against the apartment buildings' walls or entered the rooms through open or smashed doors and windows. The firing stayed steady, at about thirty heavy rounds a minute, for several minutes.
Sometime after the heavy mortars had begun firing, Jimenez heard the sound of the helicopters coming from behind and growing. They held up and hovered at a holding position several hundred meters behind Jimenez. That was his signal.
"Patricio, this is Xavier. Cut the heavies."
"Roger, out."
The muzzle blasts from behind stopped, though the shells continued detonating for half a minute. The last four shells were smoke. These exploded and sent burning bits of phosphorus down to the ground trailing tails of white smoke. Jimenez counted them off, carefully, before ordering, "Fourth Cohort! Support the assault by fire!"
Rifle and machine gun fire erupted from Jimenez's side of the children's park.
Assault Position Ramadan
Sada was most pleased to wake up and discover he was not dead, as he had half-expected to become when he'd closed his eyes to sleep the night before. Around him, his men were also awakening, shaken rather than shouted at by their sergeants and lieutenants. The sun was just beginning to seep through the basement assembly area's few slits and crevices.
"Qabaash, check the troops to the right," Sada ordered. "I'll go left."
The two then split up, walking where possible and crawling where not, to inspect the soldiers Sada was about to send into an attack that was, on its face, hopeless. They returned after several minutes, meeting with the commander of the battalion about to assault.
"Let me go with them, Amid," Qabaash begged. The major just quivered with excitement at the pending assault.
"No," Sada answered, firmly. "You have other things to do." He turned to face the new battalion commander. "You know your orders?"
"Yes, Amid, " the captain commanding the assault battalion answered. "They're simple: attack, do damage, break through and go hunting through the rear for the support areas. Then become such a pain in the ass in the enemy's rear that he has to stop his attack to the northeast." The battalion commander-he was the sixth officer to hold the post in as many days-looked like a man who has resigned himself to death, as indeed he had.
"Allah's blessing upon you then," Sada said, placing one encouraging hand on the naquib 's shoulder. He looked at a firing slit, and then at his watch. Judging the time about right, Sada said, " Allahu akbar, my friend. Attack."
Ordering "Fixed bayonets" and taking up the cry, " Allahu akbar! " the battalion commander led his men out of their sheltering cellar and into the light.
" Allahu akbar! " came from three hundred throats as the storming party, pleasantly surprised not to be shot to bits as they emerged from the basements, charged across the street in full battle fury.
As they stormed, six blocks away a barrage was unleashed on another Sumeri position.
Command Post, Rocaberti's Century
Timely provisioning was something Rocaberti had always prided himself on, even back in the old days of the Balboan Defense Corps. He also saw much benefit in an orderly dispensing of rations. His acting centurion, still the sergeant who had previously led the century, had had other ideas. The sergeant had demanded to maintain fifty percent security rather than lining up three sections out of four to make chow go more smoothly and efficiently. The sergeant had demanded and Rocaberti had overruled him. All the sergeant could do now was get the men through the line and back to the front as quickly as possible. This he tried to do. He was still trying, when the heavy mortars to the rear had opened up on some apartment buildings well off to the right front. The men had shuddered, as nervous and tired men will, when the first shell bursts had gone off.
"Ignore it," the sergeant insisted. "Get your goddamned food and get back to the line."
The last time Manuel Rocaberti had heard massed artillery so close it had been at the commencement of the invasion of his country by the FSC. It had set him to trembling then. It did no less now.
Then, though, it had not been the artillery that frightened him so much as the prospect of a ground attack. That had convinced him to desert his command and run for it. So, when over the shock waves of the big guns he heard, louder and much closer, the massed cry of " Allahu akbar, " and looked up to see a mass of armed Sumeris boiling up seemingly from the earth, Rocaberti did three things: he dropped his jaw, he dropped his breakfast and he dropped the pretense of courage.
While his sergeant shouted, "Action front," and tried to push, pull and prod the legionaries into some semblance of a position they might hope to defend, Manuel Rocaberti, son of the Federated States Military Academy at River Watch, Class of 438, former major in the Republic of Balboa's Defense Corps, tribune in the Legio del Cid, bolted.