* * *
Electricity, a mild charge actually, raced down the wires to two widely spaced claymores. At the mines, the charge nudged the otherwise fairly insensitive blasting caps into action. Deciding that the charge was sufficient, the caps did their job, exploding inside the pound-and-a-quarter of C-4 held by each of the two mines.
The Composition-4, a very high explosive, also shocked into awakeness, duly detonated, fragmenting both the case and the layer of seven-hundred-odd resinated ball bearings to its front. Those twin explosions likewise set off the det cord running from the fuse wells in the mines that had no fuses in them.
As fast as the ball bearings were moving, it was as nothing compared to the speed of detonation of the det cord. Before the projectiles had managed to travel much more than a foot, the second set of mines likewise detonated as the exploding det cord reached them. These in turn set off another strand of det cord each, which likewise set off another pair of mines.
In all, fifteen claymores, packing over ten thousand ball bearings, went off within approximately one one hundred and fiftieth of a second.
And that was not the worst of it.
This close to the blasts, the worst of it was the glass from the deliberately broken out windows that had served to cover and camouflage the claymores. This was no lightweight stuff; nothing but the best for the Treasury Department. The glass shattered under the blast, yes. But it shattered into fragments even more lethal than the ball bearings.
Those men nearest the wall, the one squad that had reached it first, were literally torn into fragments—chunks of bloody, disassociated meat. Farther away, where the glass had lost some of its initial velocity due to its relatively low density, it merely ripped and blinded.
The ball bearings were denser. They continued on unless stopped by something. In the case of twenty-seven "agents" of the PGSS, that something was human flesh. They went down as if scythed, arms flying and torsos hurled backwards.
Body armor stopped many of the glass and steel fragments, of course. Body armor did not cover arms, legs and faces.
Those ball bearings that did not impact on a body, which was—indeed—most of them, continued on. Some of these went too high and were lost. Others buried themselves in the ground. In at least one case, however, a chunk of fourteen that had remained stuck fast together by the resin impacted on a grenadier who had neglectfully left his armored vest open. The chunk of steel and resin stayed together until it was halfway through his body. At that point, under the stress of rapid deceleration, the ball bearings said their goodbyes to each other and began to take somewhat different tracks out of the body.
And then, of course, came the glass—following the ball bearings dutifully. These slivers and splinters left a swath of screaming, face-tearing, blinded men in their wake.
Dutifully, the B Company commander had had his own head up, watching for signs of progress from his assault team. His eyes registered, indeed it was the last thing they ever registered, the sudden billowing of the smoke screen as the claymore on the far side of it detonated. Before another image could register, the man's face and eyes were hopelessly shredded by shards and splinters.
The commander felt nothing, at first; just the sudden shock of losing his vision. Then his ears were assaulted, first by the blast, then by the rising tide of horrified, anguished screams from the torn, bleeding remnants of his company.
Then came pain and, with the pain, realization. Following the realization of what had happened came the realization that it was to be permanent.
The commander added his screams to those of his men: "I'm bliiinnnddd!"
* * *
Pendergast fought down the nausea that threatened to engulf him. Ah, Jesus, you poor bastards. Drawing in a deep breath he shouted to the half-stunned defenders, "Fire!"
* * *
Sawyers didn't need to be told to understand what had happened to his B Company. The ashen faced, trembling, vomiting and demoralized remnants that staggered out of the smoke, some dragging bodies and parts of bodies with them, told all that was needed.
One man—Sawyers didn't recognize him through the sheet of blood on his face and the strange, uncertain, staggering gait—walked right into the path of unseen tracers. The burst took him in the legs and spun him end over end.
It was a very long burst. Before it ended, and while the man was still flying, one bullet—at least one—passed into the man's body where the armor did not cover, at the juncture of neck and shoulder.
"Those murdering motherfuckers!" he hissed to the media type that followed him. "Did you see what they did to my man? Did you get it on film?"
Not waiting for an answer, Sawyers tore the microphone from Ricky's hand and screamed into it at the company facing the wall opposite the one B Company had tried, unsuccessfully, to breach. "A Company! Get me in! Get me a goddamned breach in that fucking wall!"
* * *
Down in an office labeled "Security," deep in the bowels of the WCF, Davis' eyes scanned the closed circuit cameras that ringed the building. Tapping the intercom, he announced, "They're going to try for Wall Four."
* * *
The B Company commander had been a not very bright treasury agent with a degree, transferred in for the chances of advancement. The A Company commander, a solid little fireplug of a man, was an ex-Marine infantryman with a combat action ribbon and a bronze star from the Second Gulf War. He had transferred in because he liked combat action and the PGSS had seemed like a good place for it.
The ex-Marine had heard the sound of the blasts, clearly—heard the screams, faintly—and had a very good idea of what the two added up to.
"Forget the effing smoke for now," he ordered his grenadiers. "I want HE grenades at every possible place along or in front of that wall."
Within seconds the dull crump of exploding 40mm high explosive could be heard hitting the base of Wall Four. The A Company commander had no certain idea of how effective they were. In truth, he hardly expected to set off a string of daisy-chained claymores by sympathetic detonation of the HE. He did expect to displace those claymores, to ruin their preset aim.
But, sometimes, one's expectations are exceeded. One round of 40mm HE, stray or random, managed to hit almost exactly dead center on almost the exactly most central claymore. The resulting small explosion resulted in a dozen larger ones.
Ball bearings, another ten thousand of them, arced out. Unfortunately for the defenders, they arced out where the PGSS should have been had they assaulted directly.
"Anyone hit?" queried the commander through his radio.
"Negative . . . Negative . . . Third platoon. I've got two minor wounded. . . . Negative."
"Ring team in!"
* * *
"The claymores went off prematurely," Williams heard Davis announce over the intercom. "I can't see a damned thing."
"Ah shit," the major muttered, then pressed the intercom button. "Pendergast? Sergeant Major? If you can hear this still, I'm taking what I can scrape together and heading for Wall Four. Join me as fast as you can or we're screwed. . . ."
"Fontaine? Go carry that message to the sergeant major. Run, boy!"
Williams turned to the half dozen men immediately nearest him. "The rest of you; follow me!"
* * *
Through blind, unaimed fire sprinted the half dozen men of the "ring team." Identified by and with their "ring"—a linear shaped charge twisted into a donut shape and used to blast a fairly precise circular hole in the wall of a building to be assaulted—the ring team duty was about as popular as carrying a flame thrower into fire had once been. Even so, they sprinted despite carrying the awkward charge. The men cursed the ring charge even as they cursed the nearby crackling fire that plucked at their fragile lives.
"Godammit. One fucking LAV, just one, to carry us up and give us a little supporting cannon fire . . ."