Tripp really could not quite believe his good luck, if it was luck. Still, against his own expectation here he was, he and his battalion, sheltered under cover in a small town south of the city.
Though the people were friendly and cooperative, Tripp had had the phone lines and cellular repeater tower knocked down just in case. Now, with a small party dressed in civilian clothes forward to recon the state house and the routes leading towards it, the battalion—minus a small local security element, himself, the company commanders and the staff—caught up on rest. Even those still awake had had some chance to eat; Tripp vaguely remembered reading an Israeli study that said troops recently rested, fed and watered were much more effective than those without that consideration. Not that it would have mattered what any study said; to Tripp it just seemed plain common sense.
Chapter Seventeen
From the transcript at triaclass="underline" Commonwealth of
Virginia v. Alvin Scheer
DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED
BY MR. STENNINGS:
Q. You watched the entire battle on television, Alvin?
A. No, sir. I didn't see when it started, wasn't even awake yet. Though the TV did give some flashbacks. But I did see everything that went on from about ten o'clock that morning until late that afternoon. That took a lot of beer, like I said.
The beer was maybe a mistake because I starting cheering when they showed some of the killed and wounded being brought out on stretchers. Some folks in the bar weren't too happy about that and I shut right up.
Didn't stop me from smiling a whole lot, though.
* * *
Western Currency Facility, Fort Worth, Texas
"Think of it as an opportunity," Major Williams had suggested, once the artillery pounding had begun. "Sure, they will make some holes in the walls. Likely they'll get some of us, too. But see, we will know where those holes are . . . and we'll be able to prepare a very warm reception for anyone trying to come through one."
And so it had been. Working like beavers whenever there was a lull in the incoming fire, sometimes even when there was not, the defenders of the WCF had shifted firing positions, moving entire bunkers to take advantage of the routes in that they now knew the PGSS must use.
Unseen in one such midnight-dark bunker, Fontaine forced a smile to his face. He had perhaps hoped that the smile would give him confidence, even help him to slow his rapidly beating heart. It did not; his heart continued to pound in his chest, breath coming short and hard.
This was worse, far worse, than the first day's action had been. Then, following Pendergast around and simply doing what he was told, the young enlisted man had barely had time to think; he could only react. Now, with weeks of pondering and fretting behind him—weeks of tension, days of frightful bombardment and hours of chest-pounding fear . . . the boy was simply terrified half out of his wits.
He heard the scraping of something metallic on the concrete floor behind his bunker. A friend, he was sure; there had been no break in as of yet.
"Fontaine, that you?"
"Yes, Top . . . I mean, Sergeant Major. Me and Silva on the machine gun."
Pendergast noticed the strain in the boy's voice. "You okay, boys?"
"I'll be fine, Sergeant Major. It's just the waiting . . ." Silva grunted agreement.
"Not much waiting to go. They're massing all around."
"I know. Sometimes you can hear the diesels," answered Fontaine. "They're close. . . ."
* * *
Under the dim red overhead light, Sawyers crouched in the back of one of the LAVs, looking over the sketch of the objective, looking for flaws in his plan. Occasionally, the light of one of the radios mounted forward, behind the driver, would illuminate his face with an orange glow.
Four times had the radio's light flashed as his assault columns reported having taken up their positions. Now Sawyers heard the fifth, expected, transmission.
The transmission warbling, broken; the "fifth column"—two companies of PGSS aboard Army helicopters—reported, "five minutes out."
Sawyers keyed his own micophone, "Black this is Black Six. Five minutes."
A chorus of "Rogers" made the radio light flicker like a strobe.
* * *
It had just become light enough for the pilots to dispense with their night vision goggles. Warrant Officer Harrington announced, "Co-pilot's ship," then released his stick as he felt the other warrant take over. He could have simply left the goggles attached to his helmet, flipping them up and out of the way. But he'd never liked the weight of the things so he opened the plastic case, removed the goggles and placed them in the case.
He looked around and behind him at the thirteen PGSS "agents" littering his passenger area. His eyes rested momentarily on the two thick, coiled ropes on the floor to either side of the helicopter. I have a big surprise for you boys, he thought, darkly. "Pilot's ship."
* * *
"Here they cooommme!" shouted the man, Smithfield, bearing the antitank weapon up near the hole in the wall.
Fontaine's heart began to pound even harder than before. Even so, he gripped his rifle, steadying it on the sandbags of the bunker and taking a general aim at the seven-foot-wide hole blown in the wall that was his firing sector, his and the machine gunner's.
"You ready, Silva?" he asked.
As if to punctuate and agree in one, Fontaine heard a machine-gun bolt slam home.
"Be careful you don't hit the antitank man up by the hole," Fontaine cautioned.
"No sweat, Fontaine. We done worked it out. Smitty's going to fire one round, two if he can get away with it . . . and ain't that going to ring our chimes, back here? . . . then crawl left and back to us while I cover. No problem."
" 'Ring our chimes'? You sure Smitty worked out the backblast problem?"
"Oh yeah . . . we got just enough ventilation . . . just enough to live through it, that is."
The roaring diesels of the PGSS suddenly grew louder. Fontaine heard, distinctly, "Backblast area clear!"
Then it seemed like the world blew up.
* * *
It was overkill, really. The rocket Smithfield was using was an AT-4. Brutally, even impractically, heavy for a one-man weapon, it had been designed to defeat heavy armor, armor much heavier than any LAV boasted.
Thus, within less than a second after Smithfield had fired, the warhead had reached its target. The cone shape began to deform on striking, crushing a piezo-electric crystal within. This created a momentary surge of electricity that raced down to the warhead detonator. This exploded, causing the rest of the explosive in the warhead to likewise detonate.
That explosive was also shaped into a cone, but in a mirror of the ballistic cone to the front, this cone was recessed. Most of the explosion was, in effect, lost in every direction. Yet a portion was not. In the hollow cone hot gasses collected. These were held and focused by the surrounding explosion. The collected gasses then formed a plasma jet, moving at phenomenal speeds . . . straight towards and right through the armor of the PGSS LAV.
* * *
If the defenders of the facility had been partially and momentarily stunned by the serious backblast emanating from the AT-4, the recipients of that fire were more than stunned. One unfortunate, the one right in the path of the shaped charge's blast, felt only a momentary flash of agonized burning before the hot gasses forced into his body caused his torso to literally explode.
Being covered with bits of flesh and slime was the least of the occupants' problems, however. The sudden overpressure, pressure which could not escape the sealed armored vehicle, burst the eardrums of every man trapped inside. Most were knocked out, outright. Several took serious interior damage to vital organs from the concussive blast.