A rocket launcher sprayed backblast. Lyons saw the RPG warhead end-on as the secondary propellent flashed. But the rocket had been fired too high. The warhead screamed past Lyons as he sighted the Browning and answered the rocketman with armor-piercing slugs.
But another rocketman sighted on the huge target of the truck and semitrailer. At a range of less than a hundred meters, he could not miss.
Lyons looked back as the rocket streaked into the trailer.
12
The blast slammed Gadgets back into the sandbag wall. As the explosion rang in his ears, he felt the trailer lurch, and the floor fall out from under him.
Metal scratched against asphalt, a woman screamed, things crashed in the darkness, the trailer fell sideways on the road. As the trailer's aluminum side scraped against the road's asphalt, Gadgets felt himself falling through space, then hit the sandbags again with a thud. A scraping noise seemed an overwhelming assault on his ears.
Then it stopped.
In the silence, Gadgets heard his heart hammering; the hammering became the sound of auto weapons. Slugs hit the trailer. He found the disposable penlight in his pocket.
Be prepared, he thought as he shone the light over the now upended mobile bunker.
"Wizard! We're hit! Help me with Desmarais!"
"No shit? We're hit? Think maybe we ought to get a second opinion? Wow, looks like we're hit..."
Ammunition cases lay against the wall. The heavy Browning machine gun and MK-19 now stood horizontal on their pedestals.
All the stacked weapons and equipment had shifted to the one wall that had become the floor. In the clutter, Blancanales struggled to disentangle himself from Desmarais.
Gadgets saw the trapdoor to the bunker far above his head. Before, they had entered by stepping under the trailer then climbing up through the floor. Now they had a problem.
Another flashlight came on. By the glow of Blancanales's flashlight, Gadgets freed a shipping trunk. He made steps by stacking the trunk and ammunition boxes under the trapdoor.
Swinging open the trapdoor, he saw falling snow and darkness. A hundred meters away, autoweapons flashed. The diesel cab lay on its side at the roadside. From behind the shelter of the cab, the Shia drivers returned the fire of ambushers.
A rocket streaked from the darkness. The Shias went flat, and the rocket missed the overturned truck by a hand's width.
"Oh, man. This is serious! Pol! You ready to get out of here?"
Pulling out his belt knife, Blancanales cut the plastic handcuffs linking Desmarais's hands together. He pushed her toward the pile of cases. "Up and out, miss."
Desmarais crawled through and fell with a scream. Autofire hit the trailer. Gadgets ducked.
"They got that exit zeroed!"
"Where's your rifle?" Blancanales searched through the tangled gear to assemble his own equipment.
"Forget the popguns! We got artillery..."
Releasing the clamping lever locking the MK-19 to the pedestal, Gadgets jerked the full-auto grenade launcher free. Groaning with the weight, he had to lower it. He disconnected the box of 40mm grenades. With the linked belt of grenades swinging loose, he picked up the launcher and passed it to Blancanales. Blancanales managed to shove the grenade launcher over the edge of the trapdoor and hook it in place with the swivel-tilt assembly. Gadgets untangled the belt of grenades.
"Do it! Hit them!"
Blancanales sighted on a flashing muzzle. Triggering single shots, he put the first grenade into the orchard wall, the next one over the top. Then he walked the blasts of high explosive and white phosphorous along the wall, hitting the top, the trees behind and a gateway.
Visible in the gray light of burning phosphorous was a person with a rocket launcher. Blancanales sighted and held back the trigger. As the backblast flashed, the night exploded around the rocketman.
Then the rocket hit the trailer.
As the transport slammed through the roadside ditch, Lyons kept the Browning pointed at the autofire. Stone and flesh disintegrated where the .50-caliber slugs hit, rifles firing wild, a dying man staggering, other forms running. Behind Lyons, the Shias fired their PKM machine guns at the ambushers.
The driver steered the awkward troop transport through a wide circle and gunned the engine as he regained the asphalt. Lyons saw the Rover already returning to the killzone where the overturned truck and semitrailer lay in the road. Holding down the firing button of the Browning, Lyons provided cover for Powell by raking the length of the orchard wall.
Using the maneuverability of the Land Rover, the Shia driver swerved under the line of .50-caliber tracers.
Powell heard a sound like jet engines as the .50-caliber slugs passed an arm's reach above his head. He reflexively dropped to a crouch.
"Crazy Shia! Cool it I'm no martyr man!"
The driver whipped through an orchard gate and sped along the other side of the wall sheltering the fanatics of the Muslim Brotherhood. Powell fired straight ahead as the Rover caught the line of militiamen and Syrian deserters in its headlights.
The fanatics spun from the wall and died as they raised their Kalashnikovs, Powell using the full-auto grenade launcher to its maximum lethal effect.
Flashing through clouds of choking acetate smoke and the fumes of phosphorous, Powell rode the bucking Land Rover like a stand-up rodeo star. He never released the grips of the MK-19. The Rover hit wounded and dead militiamen, the small vehicle going airborne, crashing back. A slug zipped past Powell as the Rover passed the last ambusher.
From the transport, Lyons watched Powell's wild counterattack and held his fire. Now no rifle fire came from the wall or the orchard. The strange gray light of phosphorous illuminated the length of the wall. Burning wounded screamed and pleaded.
Flames rose from the trailer. On its side, it had been hit twice, one blast tearing off the back wheels, the other scattering boxes of contraband everywhere.
A man ran from the wrecked diesel truck and fired into a ditch. The headlights of the troop transport revealed one of the Shia drivers finishing off a Syrian deserter. Another Shia waved from the shelter of the overturned cab.
Lyons did not see his partners.
As the transport braked to a stop, Lyons leaped off the tailgate. He looked for the trapdoor of the mobile bunker. He found the open rectangle. Below the trapdoor, he saw an MK-19 grenade launcher without the tripod.
"Wizard! Politician!"
"You okay?" Blancanales called.
"Yeah! What about you?"
"AMU shook up," Gadgets jived. "Get that truck backed up here. We got luggage to offload. Where's that crazy Commie bitch? Tell me she's dead."
"I don't have her!" Lyons shouted back. "She was in there."
"She was. El Senor Politico played the gentleman and boosted her out. You see her?"
"No!" Lyons ran to Hussein and told him to back up the transport. As the others transferred gear from the wrecked trailer, Lyons searched the area for Desmarais.
Beyond the orchard wall, the Rover cruised, still searching for ambushers. All firing had stopped. But Lyons moved cautiously, knowing any number of riflemen could still be watching.
He rushed to the blast-twisted trailer. Shielded by the wheels and open doors, he searched for Desmarais.
He waved a flashlight over the wheels. Not there. Edging around the door, he checked in the spilled boxes of the contraband. The rocket had hit the rear of the trailer, the blast shredding the contraband and blowing out the cargo doors, which had twisted on their hinges. Boxes of toothpaste and breakfast cereal littered the road.
But no Desmarais.
Inside the trailer, a fire had ravaged everything. She could not hide there. He glanced at the roof and saw only the gaping hole where the armor-smashing warhead had torn the aluminum like paper. Flames and smoke poured from the ragged hole.