Daugher straight-armed the bolting, panic-stricken legionary, dropping him flat on his back. Carrera and his party had headed toward the sound of firing as soon as they'd heard it. When it had grown into a cacophony they'd broken into a run to get there. They'd slowed when they saw the soldier fleeing without his rifle.
Carrera bent down and, grabbing the soldier with one arm, backhanded him across the face with the hand of the other. "What the fuck is going on, trooper?"
The kid just shook his head back and forth saying, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know-"
"Mitchell, this soldier is under arrest. Follow. The rest of you, either side of the street. Let's go see."
Carefully, the headquarters party advanced, Carrera just behind Bowman on one side, Daugher taking point on the other. Mitchell, taking up the rear, prodded the arrested soldier forward at muzzle point. They saw no more fleeing troops. On the other hand, they did see small groups of Sumeris advancing across an intersection without any obvious opposition.
Carrera took the radio microphone from Soult. He called Parilla first, to tell him what he thought had happened and to warn the Dux to be prepared to defend the CP and the airfield. Parilla was already shouting instructions before he released the microphone on his end.
Confident that at least the Command Post wouldn't be taken unawares, Carrera next called the Cazador Cohort.
"Tribune," he'd said, "I don't care if your men are tired. I don't care if they're dragging their guts behind them. Meet me at…" he stopped to look at his map… "Meet me at Checkpoint Alpha Seventeen. Now… yes, your whole fucking cohort."
"What now, Boss?" Bowman asked, eagerness and excitement in his voice.
"Now? Now we go seal off that intersection and try to buy some time."
Daugher and Bowman said, together, "Yeehaw!"
Carrera's only responses were a smile, the word, "Lunatics," and the order, "Let's go."
Jimenez had to admire the elegance of the thing. While his men fired up the lower stories of the apartment buildings across the park, the choppers pulled pitch and lifted up above Jimenez's own positions. They advanced above the park blazing away, lacing the fronts of the enemy-held buildings with fire. As they crossed from overhead to his high front, Xavier saw that even the crew chiefs were leaning out the side doors and windows to add their machine guns to the din.
With no significant return fire coming, the center two IM-71s arose, then swooped down, one falling in behind the other, to the center-and tallest-of the apartment buildings. The first disgorged its troops there, then moved forward to give room to the helicopter following.
When it did, the far side of the building-the side where there was no suppressive fire and which had not been touched by the mortar barrage-erupted with machine guns and RGLs. The helicopter tried to get away, but its own downdraft corrected at least one grenade in flight, straightening it out by the wind on the fins and causing it to surge upwards. This struck it on the tail, wrecking the tail rotor and causing the helicopter to tilt half over to one side and go into an uncontrolled spin. Spinning still, it spiraled to the ground behind the apartments and crashed in smoke and flames. Pinned tight by centrifugal force, none of the crew escaped.
Jimenez didn't see the crash. He caught a single glimpse of the spinning tail boom and then heard the fiery explosion. "Shit," he said quietly, nausea gripping at his stomach.
Lamprey and his RTOs landed even as the previous bird was beginning its death spiral. The pilot of the IM-71 that disgorged this second group saw what had happened to his predecessor and had no intention of following. Fortunately, he didn't have to. The first bird had taken the dangerous route out to clear the rooftop as quickly as possible for the second. Since only two were scheduled to carry troops to the tallest of the buildings, the second chopper didn't have to get out of anyone's way and could take the time to lift and do a fairly leisurely turn.
Once it had cleared the rooftop, the third and fourth helicopters eased in to the lower buildings flanking the center one. Before they touched down, forty of the forty-eight paratroopers of the 731st that had already landed had burst through the rooftop and were clearing out the Sumeris hiding below in vicious, no quarter, room-to-room and hall-to-hall fighting.
Lamprey, staying on the roof, led from the rear.
Rocaberti stopped running only after having sprinted half a mile and zigzagged several times to make sure he was out of the line of fire. It was a not unimpressive performance from a man in his early forties. Gagging with exhaustion, he leaned against a wall to catch his breath. Behind him, he heard enough firing to suggest that his entire command had not been exterminated.
This was a problem.
When Rocaberti heard the roar of a big gun-a tank, he thought- he knew he had a really big problem. If the century somehow held out there would be witnesses, dozens of them, against him at his future court-martial. He considered the way Carrera had treated enemies who had broken the rules. What would he do to nominal friends who had? Thinking of ropes and short drops, the tribune automatically felt around his neck.
Not that Rocaberti considered Carrera a friend; the legate had always been a bit distant. In fact, the sinking feeling in the deserter's stomach might not have been quite so deep if Carrera had been a friend.
"What difference does it make though?" he wondered aloud. "Jimenez is his best friend and Carrera would even have him shot if he'd run as I did. Fuck; fuck; fuck! Why did I ever let my uncle force me back into uniform?"
Though it did not answer the question, another blast from a tank's muzzle half a mile behind him did punctuate it.
Mendoza had to admit, the food was a bit better this morning than it had been. He sat in his driver's compartment, surrounded by the dials and controls of his tank, eating breakfast, fried sausage and some yellow-greenish stuff that probably had egg in its ancestry somewhere. Del Rio had gone and fetched it for all three men; the infantry century they supported still hadn't quite figured out what to do with them.
Between bites Mendoza watched the legion's attack aircraft swoop in on some targets blocked by the buildings to either side. Between those attacks, his mind wandered to a pretty girl in a yellow dress…
The cry of " Allahu akbar " echoed down the street. Mendoza heard Sergeant Perez shout, "Oh, shit!" He looked up from his food and saw a part of the Sumeri wave washing down the street. Without orders, Mendoza pushed the starter button to bring the tank's engine to life. With only the slightest hesitation he tossed the food up and out of the driver's compartment, then pulled on his combat vehicle crewman's helmet in time to hear Perez ordering, "… HE, Infantry."
The tank rocked as del Rio fired a round point blank into the oncoming Sumeris. The shell exploded a bit farther than would have been ideal but the Sumeris went down anyway, killed or wounded or merely stunned by the explosion behind them.
Perez shouted into the microphone, "Jorge, back up! Back up, dammit!" Mendoza threw the tank into reverse and stepped on the gas. These actions were automatic; he didn't need to see. Instead, he looked up and saw parties of the enemy racing along the roofs on both side of the street. Several of them carried rocket grenade launchers.
Distracted by the threat above, Mendoza lost track of the direction his tank was going. Instead of moving directly back, it lurched at a slight angle to the lay of the street. Thus, just after passing an intersection, the left rear struck the wall of a building, smashing it and lurching up on the mound of adobe fragments it created. The tank bellied up and stuck on the mound.