That must have been the first time in his life Willie ever volunteered for anything but beer. “It’s good to see you, shipmate. You can stay in here with me, but why don’t you lay down in the corner and try to catch some Zs.”
He did so, after bitching about how hard the floor was and having to use his jacket for a pillow. “Turn off that damn radio noise out here,” he said. “I’ve had enuffa Soetoro to last me a lifetime.”
“I thought you were a Soetoro voter.”
“Don’t remind me.”
I cranked the volume of the speaker to zero and settled down to wait. Willie and Sarah were sound asleep when I went into the break room at one a.m. and made a pot of coffee. While it dripped through, I went in to the studio and put on the earphones. The prez was talking about his enemies. I put the earphones down and went back to the break room for a cup. Nothing but that white powdered stuff for creamer, so I silently cussed the Maryland doctors and drank it black.
Waiting was hard. I went out and surveyed the street. Two or three truckloads of them — we would kill them right there.
Waiting has never been my long suit. I must have been at the head of the line for good looks and natural charm; when I got to patience there wasn’t much left — I only got a teaspoon full, if that.
I found myself rubbing my sore neck again. The doctors at Camp Dawson had put more antiseptic on it and a sticky bandage. The muscles were still stiff.
I wondered about Willie, why he was here. A warrior he wasn’t. Growing up in the Washington ghetto and a couple of stretches in the pen had taught him to stay out of the line of fire and keep his head down. Willie was a survivor. That was one of the reasons I liked him. When I had had my fill of agency operators full of bullshit and testosterone, I could visit Willie at the lock shop and come back down to earth.
Musing along those lines, my handheld squawked. The voice was Travis Clay’s. “We have a truck two blocks north, and someone standing beside it looking the situation over with binoculars.”
“Okay.”
I nudged Willie with my foot. He came right awake.
“Uh-oh,” Willis Coffee said. “I hear helicopters… Coming this way. Getting louder.”
Damn!
It was beginning to look like the bleeding wasn’t going to be one-sided at our little party.
I walked to the busted window and listened. I could hear the choppers now, definitely coming this way. If these were paramilitary thugs, from FEMA or Homeland or the IRS or wherever, they were catching on fast. If they were military, oh boy.
“Trucks are moving, at least three. Guys walking along beside them. All armed. Looks like FEMA uniforms.”
The choppers were above us somewhere.
“They stopped in the wrong block! They’re in the next block north.”
“Choppers overhead. Two Blackhawks. Guys rappelling down onto the roofs on the east side of the street. But they’re in the wrong block too.”
I keyed the mike on my hand-held. “Machine gunners, take out the choppers. Everyone else, hit ’em.”
And the world split apart. The hammering of heavy machine guns rolled up and down the street. I grabbed an AT4, fired it up, and stepped right through the empty window onto the sidewalk. The lead truck was in the middle of the next block. Perfect. I didn’t waste time and got the round off within three seconds. It went right into the engine compartment and exploded. Pieces of the truck went flying everywhere.
Bullets were whanging off the concrete sidewalk and brick facade, so I dived right back through the window socket with the empty tube in my hands.
The sound of combat rose to a roar.
Those soldiers — I saw uniforms and helmets — would quickly figure out there was no radio station in that block and be heading this way if the guys on our roofs didn’t manage to keep them pinned.
Then I heard a chopper crash. The explosion was tremendous. The other one was trying to get away, it sounded like.
I grabbed two grenades, pulled the pins, and went over to the window. Risked a quick squint. Guys coming down both sides of the street, shooting up at the roofs. I threw one as far as I could across the street at an angle, then leaned out and tossed the other left-handed up the street.
Willie was hunkered down in the corner, trying to see up the street through the empty window socket.
“Shoot low,” I shouted. “Ricochet the bullets off the walls over there.”
He began squirting bursts.
“More, more,” I urged.
I became aware that Sarah was behind me, and she handed me a couple more grenades. I sent them down the street, and the explosions were gratifying.
This went on for what seemed like an hour, but couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, if that. Willie changed magazines twice.
“Keep your goddamn head down,” I told him when he kept bobbing up to squirt off a burst.
I glimpsed a grenade flying into the street in front of our position. “Down! Grenade!”
It went off and showered the office with shrapnel. I looked at the studio window, which was grazed but intact.
Then I realized the shooting was tapering off. Another burst or two, and a deafening silence descended.
“Willis? Travis?”
“The survivors are running for the trucks,” Willis shouted into his radio. “Don’t let ’em get away!”
About that time the alley door crashed open. Willie Varner spun on his knee, a very athletic move, and fired a burst from the hip. Then another burst that emptied his weapon.
I was there with my M4, waiting, so I cranked my head to see. Two soldiers in uniform down.
With the carbine at the ready, I went down the hallway. One was still alive, a black kid. The other was seriously dead. From the streetlight in the alley I could see the patches on their shoulders. New Jersey National Guard.
Willie was there, kneeling, checking on the wounded man. The guy looked at Willie, gurgled something, then his eyes froze and he stopped breathing.
Willie dropped his weapon and put his hands over his face.
“Hey, man,” I said. “It was them or us.”
Sarah put her hand on his shoulder.
“If you had waited another half second to shoot,” I told Willie, “you’d be the one lying dead.”
Willie straightened up, left his weapon right where it lay, and walked out the alley door and turned right, away from the fight.
“Let him go, Tommy,” Sarah said.
“I just hope there are no more bad guys out there.”
“Let’s check on the broadcasting equipment.”
The radio came to life. It was Willis Coffee. “There was a fire fight over west of town, about where that radio tower should be. Maybe they tried to take it too.”
One of our guys was dead and three more wounded. The soldiers who lay on the floor in the hallway had apparently come south down the alley and gunned the two good guys on guard at the north entrance, then kicked in our door.
Among the attackers on the ground there were nineteen bodies and eight wounded. The rest had gone north running or riding the surviving trucks.
“If they had stopped in the right block, we’d have gotten them all,” Travis Clay said. And they would have destroyed the radio broadcast equipment, I thought, but I managed to bite it off before it came out. “And we have one prisoner, a FEMA guy who surrendered. His name tag says his name is Lambert. What do you want me to do with the wounded and this guy?”
“Put all the wounded on trucks and take them out to the camp. Maybe the doctors can save them.”
“Our guys already left. Grafton said no prisoners.”