He kept staring at the watch. It was still three more minutes before everyone was to be in place, especially the one crucial player for this entire attack plan who needed the most time to infiltrate into position.
Suddenly, a shot rang out, and then another, and then a long staccato burst of automatic fire, followed by a white flare going up, the magnesium light burst flooding the area around the mall with startling brilliance, revealing many of his troops out in the open, not yet across Tunnel Road.
“The shit just hit the fan!” Lee whispered. John looked back at his reserve team, mostly students but veterans, as well, whom he would have to commit if the lead assault failed—which, at this moment, he feared just might be happening.
Deployed out on the east side of I-240 were several hundred, nearly every person in Black Mountain and the reivers who could carry a gun and were not part of the lead assault teams. They had force-marched seven miles after sunset once dropped off near the Exit 59 barricade.
The only vehicles he had dared to send beyond that point were those that were relatively quiet, which would serve as ambulances. Nearly everyone else had come up on foot. Leading the advance were carefully picked teams of “hunters,” mostly reivers. They had to run on the assumption that the enemy had night-vision gear and would have advance patrols out. If his assault columns were spotted, the entire plan would disintegrate, and chances were that nearly his entire force would be annihilated, caught out in the open if the Apaches got up.
There had indeed been a couple of patrols out, and John now had a night-vision set, old military issue from fifteen years earlier, to observe the action. The other night goggles were issued out to Iraq and Afghan vets in the lead assault teams who knew how to use them.
The bursting of the flare blinded him for a moment. Snapping off the headset, he could see by the light of the flare several of his people, caught out in the open as they attempted to sprint across Tunnel Road and the approach to the helicopter base, being cut down by a sustained burst of machine gun fire.
“Go, damn it, go!” John hissed as more and yet more weapons opened up. And then he heard it—one of the Apaches was starting to wind up. If it got airborne, the entire operation was finished.
Fredericks had committed one serious tactical blunder: basing the helicopters at the abandoned mall on the far side of Beaucatcher Mountain rather than in the middle of downtown. It was a logical position in some ways; it had several acres of open tarmac, the old Sears building—which had not been gutted out and was a good location for barracks, storage, and workshops—and the covered parking lot behind Sears as a place to move the choppers in bad weather and for maintenance. The tactical mistake was that it was indeed on the outskirts of town, closer to Black Mountain. If he had positioned them on the west side of town, across the French Broad River, this plan would have been next to impossible.
The rotor of the first helicopter was picking up speed, even as his assault teams continued to charge in. No one needed to be told that if even one of the copters lifted off, all was lost. John grimaced at the sight of half a dozen of his troops crumpling up and collapsing, those surviving continuing to press in toward the defensive perimeter of concertina wire and piled-up highway barriers.
The helicopter began to lift, and in spite of the random shots streaking over his head, John stood up, binoculars focused on the Apache. In a few more seconds, it would be clear, and he prepared to give the signal for retreat.
From the roof of the mall, there was a flash of light. An RPG!
Handled by an old marine with the reivers who had been handed the launcher and two warheads taken the year before from the Posse, it was the one heavy shot the entire community had other than homemade shoulder-mounted weapons that might be good from fifty feet away but not much beyond that and were as much risk to the shooter as the target.
The marine had grinned with delight when handed the weapon, promising to get the job done or die trying. The missile streaked in, striking just behind the tail rotor assembly, knocking out horizontal control. It was a very good shot, shrapnel tearing into the gearbox housing and the spinning rotors. The Apache lurched sideways from the blow, the pilot struggling to throttle the engine back.
The Apache careened in nearly a full circle before crashing into the parking lot, pieces of rotor flying off in every direction, igniting into a fireball as its fuel tanks ruptured, the blast engulfing the second Apache. The pilot of the second Apache popped the canopy, he and the gunner attempting to roll clear.
Regardless of his feelings for the Apache crews and what they had done, John felt a wave of sick remorse. They had been on his side at one time, and he could see the two men writhing in agony as they struggled clear of the spreading fire and then collapsed.
John held up his flare pistol and fired off a round—green, the signal for the reserves to come in. Turning to his own unit, he shouted to get up and move forward.
The advance assault teams were into the concertina wire that had been strung around the makeshift base, throwing heavy planking over it to form pathways in. An old pickup truck, which had been hand-pushed the last mile to its preattack position down at the bottom of the long, sloping road approaching the mall, had roared to life and careened up the hill, a plow mounted to its front. It crashed through the gate and then burst into flames as the security team riddled the vehicle.
They were taking heavy casualties, and John was furious. The driver was ordered to wait until it was clear that fire from within the compound had been suppressed, but he had charged in regardless and was now undoubtedly dead, as were many who were trying to weave through and over the wire. A couple of explosions ignited—claymores—cutting down more of John’s personnel.
The attack, which he had prayed would infiltrate, gain positions, and take out the Apaches with two RPG rounds, had unraveled. His advance teams were pushing in regardless of loss, now seemingly an attack of desperation.
He could not stay out of it any longer. “We’re going in!” John shouted, and before anyone around him could object, he sprinted up the last few feet from concealment and started across the highway, his security team racing to catch up and then push ahead, Grace in the lead, Lee Robinson by his side, cursing at him to hang back.
His communications team, a man with a portable ham radio strapped to his back followed by two gunmen and Maury—who just still might be the most valuable person in this attack other than the marine who had knocked out the Apaches—was by John’s side.
“John, we’re too old for this crap!” his friend gasped. “And both of us wounded already.”
John did not reply, trying to ignore the pain in his chest with each breath he took. Maury no longer had his arm in a sling, and he could see his friend wincing with each step, as well.
More explosions echoed around the mall—claymores and grenades—and they were taking a devastating toll.
The rotors of one of the Black Hawks started turning, and an instant later, sparks from half a dozen semiautomatic and full automatic weapons slapped against its side. Smoke began to pour out of the engine housing, the pilot and copilot bailing out. The fourth chopper had not started up yet and John hoped that the plan just might work.
And then a roar of gunfire erupted from inside the abandoned Sears building at the north end of the mall. The gunfire rose to fever pitch, rounds, perhaps fired from his own side, zipped over John’s head, causing him to duck down below the edge of the road bordering the mall.
And then, just as suddenly as it started, the firing slacked off, cries going up to cease fire, Grace on the one megaphone owned by the town ordering the opposition to lay down their arms and surrender and that prisoners would be taken.