Reilly was about to pitch a bitch at the First Platoon leader when he saw the gun of the second vehicle, Lana's, swing left. Number Three automatically began to traverse to the other side.
He turned full about and saw the gun and turret of the next Eland in line, Sergeant Abdan's, moving to the left. Satisfied, he set his own head and eyes to the front, out to where the scouts led the way.
While it's possible to do bounding overwatch with three vehicles, Snyder, the scout section leader, thought, it just isn't practical.
Bounding overwatch, a military term meaning, in essence, one section moving while another watches over it, ready to fire in support, would have been clearly preferable when heading into the unknown. This, quite despite the fact that there was an unmanned aerial vehicle overhead and forward, scouting in advance of the scouts. The problem with doing it with three vehicles, and after the accident on the boat that was all Snyder had, was that one could either have uneven teams, with lessened security and lessened confidence for the shorter of the two, or one could have one vehicle continuously switching from one overwatch to the other. This last could be done, but it was somewhat slow and somewhat prone to screw ups.
Instead, Snyder kept his three Ferrets in a broad wedge, one-his own-in the center and following an approximately straight path to the objective, the others about three hundred meters to either side-RPG range-to spring any ambush the locals might throw together at the last minute.
Best we can do, I suppose. Well, that, and navigate the company to the objective. "And for that," Snyder said, aloud, "we've got GPS." Damn, but we've all been spoiled absolutely rotten by GPS.
D-Day, MV Merciful
Stauer didn't say anything for a few moments, taking in the screens visible past the UAV pilot's shoulder. One showed a map, and the location of the UAV. Another showed the ground in an image-intensified camera carried on the nose of the aircraft.
"Anything on the ground?" Stauer asked of the pilot.
The pilot shrugged. "Couple of runaway goats. Other small animals."
"How about at the tank lager?"
"Looked at it twenty minutes ago. Nothing unusual."
Boxer and Waggoner walked in and stood behind Stauer.
"We've got no unusual cell phone calls coming from anywhere, yet," Boxer said. "But we do have unusual activity at Bandar Qassim. People loading boats, that sort of thing. And at least one boat that was at its moorings isn't anymore.
"By the way, it looks like Buckwheat and company did a killer job on the airport to the west of the port, too. Wrecks and flames everywhere."
"Source?" Stauer asked.
"I tapped into NSA."
Stauer shook his head. There was something just so fundamentally wrong about a private citizen, even if a retired two star, accessing the most secret means of intelligence gathering available to the United States of America.
Seeing the headshake, Boxer defended himself, "Hey, it's not like I'm giving the information to enemies of the United States, is it?"
"I think," Ken Waggoner interrupted, "that we need to launch on Bandar Qassim now, boss. We've got to assume the sub went down somewhere, and probably before completing its mission. If we launch now, the planes will hit just after daybreak."
Stauer felt a twinge at the phrase, "the sub went down." Mourn later. He thought a moment before agreeing, "Yeah, do it. But since there's at least one boat missing from the port, have the planes skirt the coast and take out anything sailing our way between here and there."
Waggoner considered that, found it wise, and answered, "Roger. Send the medevac flight, too?"
"Yeah. Have it loiter out of small arms range, though."
D-Day, six hundred meters south of
Bandar Qassim Airport, Ophir
Maybe this wasn't so fucking smart after all, thought Buckwheat. He was panting too hard to say it aloud even if he'd been of a mind to. His lungs bellowed, sucking air. Lord Jesus, it purely sucks to get old.
Bullets cracked and ricochets sang around the team as they withdrew at a dead run. The group shooting at Buckwheat and his people seemed to lack night vision; nothing else really explained that their fire was dispersed along the entire ridge. But they could see well enough that it hadn't come from the sea to the north and the pattern of wrecked and burning aircraft suggested strongly that it hadn't come from east or west, either.
And, thought Fulton, looking behind him at the advancing figures silhouetted by the burning planes and helicopters, God, there are a lot of them.
He stopped, knelt, and in rapid succession emptied a magazine at the pursuers. President's Hundred, motherfuckers, he thought, seeing that he'd hit four for five and the pursuit then slowed radically. I wouldn't have missed the once except for being out of breath.
While Fulton fired, Vic passed him by and the scoundrel was hardly breathing hard. As Fulton turned his attention back to the south, and began running again, he heard Babcock-Moore cry out and stumble, then fall to the ground.
Buckwheat changed his direction toward his spotter. In five or six steps he'd reached him and knelt down.
"Hit?" Fulton asked.
"Left leg . . . pretty bad," Vic gasped.
"Right."
Without another word Fulton slung his rifle across his back, bent forward at the waist, and pulled the wounded man to a sitting position. Babcock-Moore gasped as Fulton stood, pulling him to his feet.
Letting inertia hold the black Brit in place, Fulton bent, pulled, and the next thing Vic knew-which is to say, what he knew when the pain subsided enough for him to see again-he was slung across the American's shoulder, the other man's rifle barrel digging into his chest, and bouncing up and down-and my, didn't that hurt, too-as the pair of them ran on Buckwheat's legs for the topographical crest and cover.
I am so too old for this shit, Fulton thought, then said, "Fat . . . fucking . . . limey."
"I'm . . . not . . . fat," Babcock-Moore gasped. "I'm . . . just . . . big."
D-Day, Rako-Dhuudo-Bandar Cisman highway, Ophir
The road in front of Snyder's Ferret was broad and had been, at some time in the past, more or less paved. He reported having reached it to Reilly, who answered, "Roger, follow the plan."
"Wilco," the scout section leader answered. "Break, break . . . Three, this is one. Cross the road directly in front of you, cut out to three hundred mikes past it, then scout generally west for four klicks, keeping parallel to the road. At four find a good hide."
"Roger," came the answer.
Snyder continued, "Four, one. Don't cross the road. Back off three hundred and scout west five klicks, paralleling the road. Hide when you get there."
"Roger."
Snyder then used his intercom to tell his driver, "Back off fifty, then cut right. We'll follow the road for three kilometers, then find our own hide away from it."
The wheels of Lana's Eland thumped and bumped over the broken asphalt of the road, approximately where it had been crossed by Scout One a few minutes earlier. Looking to the turret's right rear-it was still trained left-toward the presumed location of the scout, she found she couldn't see the other vehicle but could make out a plume of dust driven upwards by its passage.
She turned to face forward again. "Whoa, Dumi," she said into her intercom, at seeing a deep and sudden drop into a wadi that she wasn't sure the driver had seen.
"I've got it, Lana, no sweat," the Zulu said. Even so, he let off of the gas and put his foot on the brake.