Bill switched the detonator over before looking up. The column on John R street had just appeared south of the bridge when the explosion occurred two blocks from them. They paused in shock, then they accelerated, the hope being that speed would carry them through any danger zones. Bill watched four Growlers followed by an IMP racing across the open bridge to the near side of the freeway.
“They’re racing up Woodward too!” Seattle called out. Assuming they were also targets of IEDs the other convoys were racing to get out of what they suspected were kill zones.
Bill didn’t let himself get distracted. On the northeast corner of John R and the service drive was a long two-story apartment building. It was old and constructed of crumbling red brick. A pile of rusted metal in front of it once had been a compact car. There was also a big roll-away Dumpster on the street before it, full of lumber and crumbling drywall, broken glass and plastic bags. After ten years of sitting out in the weather it was so badly rusted it was falling apart. Bill waited until the middle of the racing convoy was passing the dumpster, then hit the button on the detonator. The 110 pounds of C4 in a shaped charge inside the Dumpster blew outward in a fan-shaped explosion. Three Growlers were immediately destroyed, and all of the IMP’s wheels facing the Dumpster were shredded.
Bill didn’t have time to admire his handiwork—he switched the transmitter over to the Woodward setting and looked up. The third convoy was already racing across the bridge, IMPs and Growlers and two Toads. The Woodward Avenue bridge over I-94 was six lanes wide, and the vehicles were using every lane.
On the northeast corner of the bridge was an overturned car which had been there for years. It was collapsing with rust, and two-foot-long stalks of grass were growing up through its body. Combat engineers had managed to secrete ninety-two pounds of C4 inside it and Bill blew it without hesitation. The blast completely destroyed two Growlers, killing the Tabs inside, and flipped two others, but the remaining vehicles avoided immediate destruction because of their distance.
The Woodward IED was actually the closest to their hide, and it shattered their cracked office windows, the glass hitting the floor and the desks in front of Bill and Seattle. They watched the remainder of the Woodward column assume a defensive perimeter and Tabs bailed out of the IMPs and Growlers to tend to their wounded. Many of the soldiers seemed to be stunned by the blast.
Seattle swung his binoculars over to John R. The severely damaged IMP was limping along and had turned west, hoping to hook up with the Woodward detachment for security. The Growlers behind it remained where they’d rolled after the blast, the men inside dead.
He then checked Cass. The cloud over Cass was thinning. The front of the office building was crumpled and cracked. Growlers were mangled and flipped, and one of the IMPs had toppled over onto its side. The Toad at the rear of the column appeared undamaged, as did the IMP that had been traveling with it. The IMP moved forward to the north end of the scene to provide security, and the Toad set up at the south end. Shapes could be seen staggering around the street. That column was no longer combat effective, they’d be taking care of their wounded for quite some time.
The two men exchanged a look. They’d inflicted a lot of hurt on three out of the four Tab detachments, but there were still a lot of men and vehicles heading toward the dogsoldiers. Even more as soon as the Woodward group collected their injured. It was too bad the Tabs hadn’t split up into seven columns, and used every bridge… there’d been surprises waiting for them on six of the seven. The combat engineers had smuggled half a ton of C4 into the city for this party. Seemed a shame not to use it all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Barker pounded down the hallway and grabbed Miller’s loaner—he couldn’t remember the man’s name—and shouted, “On me!”
The man had been trained well; he’d been assigned to Kermit, and Barker was in charge of the squad, so he immediately peeled away from the stairwell door he’d been guarding with three other men and followed the short squad leader.
Barker ran down the hall, around a corner, and then stopped and hit a button. “What are we—” the man behind him said, then blinked. They were back at the freight elevator. He gave Barker a look.
“They’re fucking us on the stairs. Everyone knows you don’t take the elevator when there’s a fire or a gunfight, so maybe this is so stupid it’s smart.”
“Or maybe they’ll be waiting at the bottom for us.”
“It’s not stupid if it works.”
“Yes it is. Stupid is stupid.”
Barker shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Both men had their rifles up as the freight car wheezed its way to the third floor and the doors clanked open. It was empty.
“Two?” the man asked Barker.
“One. I want to make sure we get under them.”
The big metal-walled elevator seemed to take forever to descend to the first floor. “What the fuck’s your name?” Barker asked.
“Royce.”
Barker nodded. “We’ll head across to the bottom of the stairs you were at, it’s closest.”
Not only was the freight elevator slow, it seemed as loud as a slow-motion car crash to the two men, but finally it came to rest and the doors eased open. Barker and Royce were in opposite corners, crouched, rifles up, but no one was immediately visible in the hall.
Barker scooted out, rifle up, but the hallway was clear. He signaled to Royce and they moved down the hallway carefully. Barker quick-peeked the corner but didn’t see anyone. They headed down the main corridor to the stairway entrance. No one was initially visible, but they could hear shouts, and the occasional gunshot. The Tabs seemed at least one floor up, but that was just a guess.
The two men staged on either side of the stairway door. Barker used hand signals, telling Royce what he wanted to do, and the man nodded. Royce pushed the door open as smoothly and quietly as he could. The first flight of stairs was clear. Rifles up, the two men slowly advanced up the stairs, shoulder to shoulder, trying to make no noise. There was a turn halfway to the second floor and they paused just before it. They could hear several Tabs above them, talking loudly because their hearing had been destroyed by the gunfire. The stairwell smelled of sweat and blood.
Barker traded a look with Royce, then they pushed forward and around the corner. Four Tab soldiers were clustered on the second-floor landing and in the open doorway leading into the hallway, all of them looking upward. Barker and Royce started firing, pulling their triggers as fast as they could, ejected cases from their rifles bouncing off the walls and blood flying from their hits. The four men died before they had a chance to return fire.
Royce jumped over a body into the second-floor hallway and immediately came under fire from the other stairway at the end of the building, from the Tabs underneath Petal. Morris’ man dove across the hallway into an office as Barker leaned out of the doorway and fired down the hall. One of the Tabs fell and the other men with him pulled him back into the stairway, out of sight.
“Kermit, you up there?” Barker called up his stairwell.
“That you Barker?”
“Yeah. Go back up Petal, I’m doing an end run.”
Barker pulled a grenade off his chest. He looked across the second-floor hallway at Royce. He gestured he was going to head back down to the first floor and circle around. “Keep ‘em busy,” he told the man, then pulled the pin on the grenade and let the lever fly.
“One Mississippi… and the horse you rode in on!” Barker shouted, and heaved the grenade down the hall. Maybe it would have more effect than the two he’d tossed down the same stairwell. He turned and headed down without waiting to see if the grenade made it all the way to the stairwell door. It blew right before he hit the ground floor.