The operations officer nodded. Little looked confused; his brain was processing the word “chaff” for possible offensiveness.
“And we have fifteen Hellfires total left.”
“Fifteen? I’m surprised it’s that many. Don’t count on resupply. The whole PRA missile inventory is probably stripped out. No Hellfire engagement without my authorization from now on. We need to save them for the tanks if the US forces come north. We can’t waste them on guerrillas unless the target is too good to pass up.”
The operations officer nodded. “I’ll pass the guidance to the controllers at Monroe. Now, we’re still in the planning process for moving south on order. The decision briefing is tonight. I’ll have you three courses of action.”
“Fine. Anything else?”
“Communications instructions,” said the operations officer. “We’re changing tactical call signs in case the insurgents compromised the signals instructions the destroyed recon teams carried. Sir, you are Red Eagle. I’m Yellow Hawk.” The operations officer turned to the Command Diversity Officer, grinning. “And you are Blue Falcon.”
It was 3:00 p.m. when Langer pulled his motorcycle up to the bank and went inside. The court house square was a hub of activity, but it did not appear that there had been any strikes in town since morning. Turnbull was poring over maps by the manager’s desk, and that’s where Langer headed.
Turnbull saw him coming. “Well?”
“I got a great tour from our pals,” Langer said. “Got right up close.”
“Good. I have the force waiting. What do we have?”
“Maybe a platoon for security, but no more than a squad on duty at any one time,” Langer said. He pulled a folded paper out of his denim jacket and flattened it out on the desk over the map. “Cyclone fence around the perimeter, with barbed wire around the top. There’s a tower and I guess it’s got a M240. A couple hummers with .50 cals over here. Some 5-ton and HEMMT trucks. Fueler here on the tarmac with JP-8. Now these buildings hold the crews – pilots over here, everyone who doesn’t think he’s God’s gift over here. And in those trailers, the drone jockeys.”
“Checkpoints?”
“No, it’s outside the PSF perimeter around Bloomington. Anyway, the blue are more concerned with keeping people from heading south than from us coming up north.”
“Okay,” Turnbull said. “Let’s get saddled up and moving.”
The force moved out in individual vehicles with four guerrillas each and a map. Each took a different route north, all heading to converge at the rally point near a small hamlet named Hendriksville a few miles west of Bloomington. The rendezvous time was 2000 hours, with the sun falling in the sky.
Turnbull rode in the backseat of a Toyota Camry with Langer, who brought some Pabst. But it wasn’t good Pabst. It was the same mass produced swill everyone outside the cities drank, but wearing Pabst livery. Brands were, of course, wasteful. But in the cities, there were microbreweries catering to the urban elite. Somehow, catering to their tastes was never, ever wasteful.
“Beer privilege,” Langer snorted, but he still sucked it down.
“How many of those are you going to drink?” Turnbull asked when Langer opened up his second.
“I dunno. How many beers away is it?’
The driver was a young man who had been kicked out of college and returned home after being accused of “gaze rape” by a 260 pound womyn with a nose ring. He had been eager to get involved in the fight, and now he was pointing out the windshield.
“Helicopters!”
Across the open field to the east, at about 300 feet, were a pair of Apaches headed south. The car entered a thicket of trees on both sides of the road.
“Stop!” Turnbull said, and the kid skidded to a halt, then pulled to the side of the road.
“Out and scatter!” Turnbull said, bailing out of the vehicle and sprinting toward the woods. The others followed his example, and they went in four different directions.
After 50 yards, Turnbull stopped, knelt and keyed the mic on his Motorola. “This is Broadsword, Hillary in five mikes! I say again! Hillary in five mikes!” That was the code word anyone on the mission was to give for Apaches approaching. Hopefully Jasper would be ready when they arrived in what he estimated would be five minutes.
Assuming the gunships weren’t going to pause to search and destroy the occupants of the Camry they had passed coming north.
After a few minutes, it became clear the Apaches were not going to detour from their route to hunt down one random car – he had been counting on that when designing the decentralized movement plan – and the four loaded back into the Toyota and restarted their interrupted journey.
“Made me spill my beer,” Langer complained. “I guess I really ought to thank them.”
Turnbull and Langer crawled on their bellies like reptiles, from the soft shoulder under the trees and to the perimeter cyclone fence. Both carried AKs looted from the PSF station, which pleased neither. Turnbull carried wire cutters. Langer had a bolt cutter.
Behind them, in the trees, waited a dozen guerrillas. Another team was cutting its way in down the fence line to the north.
Langer covered Turnbull while he cut. The tower was peeking just over the top of the long general aviation sheds that blocked their view of the flight line, so they kept low. Turnbull snipped one segment, then another, then another. After two minutes and a dozen snips, a man-sized segment of fence fell over. Turnbull pushed it away.
He nodded at Langer and went through. Langer signaled the rest of the team to move up and wait, and then he slithered through the hole as well.
The fence was up on an embankment and they rolled down the little grass hill to the pavement, got to their feet and dashed to the sheds. Carefully, they worked their way down to the south end.
A noise.
Langer raised his rifle, but Turnbull waved him off and placed his own against the shed wall. He drew the Ka-Bar knife from the scabbard on his battle rig. The blade was dark steel, and only the razor-sharp edge he had put on it gleamed in the moonlight.
Footsteps.
Turnbull held out one finger and Langer nodded.
The steps came closer and a man rounded the corner.
It was a soldier in PRA camouflage battle dress, with body armor and a Kevlar helmet left over from the US Army days. His M4 was over his shoulder, and he stopped, trying to compute the two men standing directly in front of him.
They did not compute. He went for his weapon, and Turnbull leapt forward.
The soldier stumbled back, but Turnbull was faster. His left hand shot up and grabbed the lid of the helmet and pulled it down and forward while bringing the knife upward. It entered under his jaw, the thrust coming up met by the weight of him falling forward. The soldier went limp instantly – the blade had gone through and severed his spinal cord.
“Damn,” Langer said. “That is messed up.”
“Help me,” Turnbull said. They pulled the body together and dragged it behind the building, laying him out.
“Overwatch,” Turnbull said, and Langer went to the corner, AK up, while Turnbull undid the man’s M4A1. It had a selector switch that said “AUTO” instead of “BURST,” so it would fire full automatic. Turnbull checked the chamber; there was a round in it. He dumped his AK mags and loaded up with six thirty-round M4 magazines.
“Let’s go,” said Turnbull, gesturing to the rest of the team.
“You leaving your Ka-Bar?” asked Langer.
Turnbull growled, knelt down and started working the blade out of the corpse’s neck as the other team members sprinted over to the shed. They stared at him and the body and then him again.