“What about Lopez and Tierney?”
“Their vehicles are in reserve. I figure we’ll move ’em wherever they’re needed.”
Hollings nodded. “Face them rearward. I’m concerned we’ll be attacked from behind—these walls don’t go far. The moment we make contact, I want remote fire support. Any word from the Kiowa they sent up?”
“Negative, sir.”
“Goddamnit. I’m blind.” He pointed back at the map. “We do not fall back to the guardhouse—it’s a death trap. Not enough windows, and it looks highly flammable. If we get overrun, we mount up and join MRTP a few clicks south. Understood?”
Priestly nodded as he folded the map.
Hollings surveyed the area. This would not have been his first choice for a defensive position. He’d rather dig in somewhere in the prairie with his men deployed in a ring. They’d be able to see anything coming a long ways off. But here, the broad expanse of a fifteen-foot perimeter wall thirty yards ahead of them blocked their view of the road north—and it was worthless as a defensive position; too tall to fight behind and too thin to stop much. Only two courses thick with no parapet. It was for show only. Like the guardhouse. Apparently, corporate military brass was just as dumb as the government kind.
Hollings looked at the large, log-cabin-style guard building just to the left, inside the gate. It had an overlarge, peaked slate roof with field-stone chimneys and log-cabin walls. Some billionaire’s idea of pioneer style. It blocked his field of fire to the east, and it had no windows on that side. He couldn’t have designed a more useless building if he’d tried. And yet he’d been ordered not to demo it.
This was a civilian security layout. All-out assault wasn’t contemplated. The guardhouse was the largest structure for miles, and was intended as a rest stop for guests and employees starting the thirty-three-mile drive toward the center of the ranch. Restrooms, refreshments, and house phones next to a small parking lot.
And then there was the guard shack outside the gate, used for greeting vehicles as they drove up to the closed gates. More Davy Crockett-style nonsense. A small pedestrian gate beside it lent access to the guard shack from the main building.
“Priestly, we bring any C4?”
“Yeah, some.”
“I want to take down these curtain walls near the gate. It’s just blocking our field of fire.”
“Already asked, sir. Not approved.”
“For chrissakes . . .”
Suddenly a shout from the guardhouse went up, and then along the line. “We’ve got company!”
Silence prevailed for a moment. Then they all heard it. The sound of distant tires wailing on pavement, coming from the darkness of the north road. The noise of many engines also came in on the breeze.
“All right, places ladies! Wait for the claymores, and keep an eye on our flanks!”
The Korr soldiers adjusted their night vision goggles and hunkered down in their foxholes around M249s and M60s. Another readied a Javelin anti-tank rocket launcher. They were all trained professionals here. Steady fingers rested near trigger guards as last-minute radio calls squawked in the blackness.
“There, sir!” Priestly pointed.
Hollings trained a FLIR scope into the darkness through the bars of the wrought-iron gate. He could see them coming—a long line of cars racing in at over a hundred miles per hour, only a half mile out. He didn’t see any end to them. “Vehicles one thousand yards! Coming in fast!”
Gear creaked in the dark as hands clenched around pistol grips and straps were pulled taut.
“Give ’em hell, gentlemen!”
The roar of approaching engines took center stage now, echoing off the outer face of the estate wall. Suddenly a booming wall of sound hit their eardrums—followed by a shower of sparks and flame. Quickly followed by several more sharp explosions and the screeching of metal.
There were hoots in the ranks. “Yeah!”
A flaming, twisted piece of wreckage slammed into the wrought-iron gates, knocking one gate off its hinges and filling the grillwork with fire. Another flaming wreck slammed into the first, toppling the gates completely. They crashed down onto the highway dividers, sounding like a xylophone tumbling down a staircase.
“So much for our gates.” Through the flames Hollings could see that the claymores had taken out another dozen AutoM8s, which were burning in the ditches alongside the road.
But there was now a veritable roar of racing car engines. The flames revealed dozens more cars coming in from the night.
Just then a staccato boom echoed and tracer fire flicked out of the guardhouse—tracer rounds bounced off the distant prairie and metal wreckage. The M60 near Hollings opened up, too, as another sedan plowed through, smashing into the burning wreckage filling the arch and sending the whole pile over the highway dividers. The deafening crash washed over them, flaring into a brilliant fireball as the wreckage cartwheeled into the corner of the guardhouse. Another car blasted through. And another—which tumbled into the ditch alongside the road—partially blocking their field of fire to the gate.
“Jesus H. R. Pufnstuf Christ!”
“Priestly, put some arty on that road!”
“All I’ve got is static, Captain. Comm just went down!”
“Goddamnit, get on the landline in the guardhouse. And bring some fire down!”
Priestly saluted and took off at a run toward the guardhouse. Flames and tracer fire silhouetted him against the surrounding blackness.
Soldiers around Hollings were flipping up their night vision goggles. It was getting bright in the kill zone with all the flames.
A rocket streaked out of the guardhouse window and disappeared through the gate opening. A flash and boom echoed out there. Another rocket raced in from the foxholes and detonated against the stone wall. Rock splinters blasted back, dinging against the Humvee fenders as Hollings ducked down. “Damnit!” He stood back up and had a much better view of the road now. Good thinking. They could build a new fucking wall. . . .
A whole row of SAWs on his right opened up through the new opening—tracers screaming toward the sound of a NASCAR race approaching them out of the darkness to the north. Ricocheting off of unseen targets. Another rocket raced out of the guardhouse. An explosion. The burning wreckage of a car knocked down a section of wall to the left of the gate.
Machine-gun fire rattled from the extreme right and left flanks—out by the ends of the wall.
“Keep on them! Keep firing!”
Several more cars raced into the meat grinder, crashing into the barriers and pitching up. But by now the barriers were partially pushed aside or smashed in two.
He could see Priestly racing through the guardhouse door. The guardhouse was starting to catch fire now. Soldiers raced up, pulling pieces of burning wreckage away from the wall. A Humvee with the .50 caliber on top roared past Hollings and slowed near the wreckage—nudging it from the building.
“Good job, Lopez!”
Lopez waved and opened up with the .50 into the maw of the gate. The deep, slow booming of the .50 was a kettledrum section to the crackling of small arms fire.
Another rocket streaked out of the guardhouse and nailed a car on the approach road.
Hollings looked around at the carnage. Good lord . . . Flaming wreckage littered the prairie. It looked like something from Revelation.