The radio operator saw the confusion he had caused, and he clarified.
“No, you don’t understand. They’re coming north,” he shouted.
Becky came over. “North?”
“It’s the US Army. They’re coming. They’re pouring over the border! They told our people they’re heading to I-70!”
I-70 ran east-west across the state through Indianapolis. Half of Indiana was turning red.
The command post broke out in cheers. Townspeople hugged and laughed.
Turnbull was quiet. Dead to alive again in a heartbeat.
Back to the fight.
“Dale, cut some teams south to set up rendezvous with the US forces. We want the passage of lines through our guys coordinated so there’s no fratricide. Dale nodded. Turnbull headed to the door.
He still had unfinished business.
Two insurgents lifted the zip-tied lieutenant colonel roughly to his feet. His hair was high and tight, and there was a blood-stained bandage around his right thigh.
Turnbull looked him over, and he stared back hard.
“I’m guessing you were Colonel Deloitte’s three?” Turnbull said, abbreviating the term “S3,” or operations officer. The TAC-CP was overrun and the staff was captured. The prisoners had not been treated pleasantly, but they hadn’t been shot either.
The PRA officer said nothing.
“Some of the troopers told us already, so it’s not a secret,” Turnbull said. “I’ve got some questions.”
“I’m not telling you shit,” said the lieutenant colonel. He seemed resigned to his fate, but determined to go out with his pride.
“If you worked for Deloitte, if he let you work for him, I wouldn’t expect anything less. I worked for him too.”
“So you’re the infiltrator?”
“Not anymore. In a couple hours half the US Army will be coming through here and taking everything south of Indianapolis. This isn’t Indian Country anymore. It’s red. So now I’m not infiltrating anything anymore. I’m a citizen.”
The officer said nothing, taking it in. Pretty soon the insurgents would turn him over to the US Army. He’d probably get a choice, go home or go red. If Deloitte relied on him, he was probably squared away. Hopefully, he’d go red.
“I don’t need to know any operational stuff. I wouldn’t disrespect you by asking,” Turnbull said.
“So what do you want to know?”
“I want to know what happened to Colonel Deloitte.”
The lieutenant colonel’s eyes narrowed, now displaying a different and deeper anger.
“They came in and arrested him,” he said. “Then the PBIs took him outside. He looked them in the eyes the whole time. The Colonel said ‘God bless America,’ then told that bastard to go to hell.”
Turnbull was silent for a moment, his fist clenching and unclenching.
“So they shot him?” he said evenly. “Did they say why?”
“Treason, I guess. He said the colonel was guilty of a lot of things, but I guess it boiled down to that.”
“Treason,” Turnbull said bitterly. That was the last thing Colonel Deloitte could ever be guilty of.
“That’s what he said,” replied the ops officer. “I think he just resented how the Colonel thought he was a piece of shit.”
“He?” Turnbull said. “Who is he?”
“Our new commander,” the major sneered – never before had Turnbull heard the word “commander” been uttered with so much contempt. “As our Command Diversity Officer, he was next in the chain of command.”
“Even though he was incompetent? Should have left the Colonel in charge. Karma’s a bitch.”
“Yeah,” said the lieutenant colonel.
“And where is this new commander?”
The officer gestured with his head. “Him.”
There was a major zip-tied nearby, his eyes wide and fearful.
“Pick him up,” Turnbull instructed the guards. They dragged Major Little over to Turnbull.
“So you murdered Jeff Deloitte. You aren’t fit to lick his boots.”
“I’m a prisoner of war,” Little said.
“No, I don’t see any JAGs around to lawyersplain me the Geneva Convention, and you’re no soldier anyway.”
“You can’t hurt me!” Little babbled. “I’m a prisoner!”
Turnbull drew the .45 from his thigh holster. Little’s eyes grew wide with panic.
“Colonel Deloitte was my friend, but he was also my commander,” Turnbull said. “So when he said he wanted you to go to hell, I take that as an order.”
“But I
After 24 hours of fighting, th—”
e townspeople didn’t even flinch at the sound of the 1911A1.
17.
A platoon of four US M1A3s, with the lead tank flying the stars and stripes from its whip antennae, rolled up Main Street toward battle positions to the north. The bumper numbers identified them as a brigade of the First Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood.
The tanks clanged and clanked past him, just another scruffy civilian with an M4 for all they knew. The combat engineers had cleared the wreckage, or rather, bulldozed it out of the street off to one side to make a path. The Walmart smoldered in the distance, the smoke adding to the unworldly haze.
It looked to Kelly Turnbull like one of the Third World hellholes he had spent much of his twenties fighting in, and not only because of his sleep deprived state.
Locals were moving around examining the damage, most armed. Some were wounded, but walking. Lee Rogers walked by with a handful of guerrillas, some bandaged, seeming dazed. But no one was panicking, no one was faltering.
“Hey!” Turnbull shouted at to a pair of young locals who were dragging a dead PRA soldier in a tanker’s jumpsuit toward the field mortuary. “Pick him up.”
They stared at Turnbull, confused. Turnbull’s eyes were fixated on the dead man’s right shoulder patch. It was from the Big Red One. Probably Afghanistan. Probably from when they were on the same side.”
“Pick him up and carry him,” Turnbull said. “Show some respect. He was a soldier.”
The young men hesitated and Turnbull stepped forward, angry. Message received. They carefully picked the PRA soldier’s body up off the street and carried it, this time gently.
Turnbull lay down his M4 and sat on a bench out in front of a barber shop. The .45 in its thigh holster rode up, but he was too tired to adjust it. Bullets had pulverized the barber’s pole. The shop itself had served as an aid station during the fighting and while the wounded had been evacuated, the floor was still littered with bandages and gore.
Turnbull shut his eyes. His ears were still ringing, but he could make out helicopters. A trickle of blood rolled off his scalp and ran down his cheek like a scarlet tear.
He opened his eyes again, but it took effort. The US infantry was spreading through the town, ready for contact that wasn’t going to come. The enemy was gone. Turnbull watched the soldiers advance, too tired to move. A clump of troops approached him, just some ragged, unshaven civilian in battle gear chillin’ on a bench in the middle of chaos.
He exhaled.
“Who’s in charge here?” asked a nervous US Army lieutenant, geared up and cradling his carbine. On his left shoulder, as with all of them, was the oversized First Cav patch – a triangular shield-shaped symbol with a black diagonal stripe from left to lower right, and a black horse head silhouetted in the upper right corner. His platoon sergeant and radio operator stood behind him, weapons ready. Turnbull just stared at them for a moment.
“Not me,” he replied. “Not anymore.” With the rumble of the armored cavalry coming up from the south, Turnbull had gone back to the command post and found Dale.