"Go! Go! Go!" said Fitzduane. "Calvin, where the fuck are you?"
There was no reply.
Fitzduane's Shadow One shot forward toward the approaching column. The Guntrack was maneuvering through the low hills beside the perimeter road, travelling a roughly parallel route.
In a little over a minute they would be side by side, separated by little more than a hundred meters but traveling in opposite directions. It was, Fitzduane reflected briefly as he roared toward the T55 tank that headed the column, almost a modern version of medieval jousting, except that only one side knew he had an enemy to deal with. The Guntracks had not been detected.
This was not a joust. It was war. It was the business of killing. Fair play did not come into it.
Fitzduane spoke into his microphone on the internal net, and Steve Kent slewed to a halt and crept into a firing position shielded by a rocky outcrop.
Lee Cochrane readied the. 50 GECAL heavy machine gun.
Fitzduane brought his RAW up to the point of aim.
A T55 tank looked disconcertingly formidable to rifle-equipped infantry and was strongly armored at the front, but it was vulnerable from the side and at the rear engine compartment. And Shadow One would be firing down, which would help. Tanks were thinly armored at the top. It was a matter of keeping the weight down. Maximum armor everywhere had the same effect as on a knight of old. The end result was unwieldy and virtually too heavy to move.
The T55 ground tank passed them, treads squealing in protest. This was a tank that had been six months on routine patrols and needed tender loving care from the maintenance shop. It did not get it. A split second after the RAW smashed into its engine compartment it ignited, flames jetting into the darkness.
Fitzduane fitted another RAW and fired at the next vehicle, an armored personnel carrier. The vehicle exploded.
Troop-laden trucks following the two lead vehicles braked to avoid crashing into the burning wrecks, and several crashed into each other. Soldiers poured out of the backs of the trucks, and it was into this chaos that the rotating-barreled. 50 GECAL began to fire.
Seconds afterward, Shadow Four leapfrogged Fitzduane and headed down to the end of the column, guns blazing and extending the slaughter. Shortly afterward, the Brick aimed his Dilger's Baby at the vehicle bringing up the rear.
There was an earsplitting crack and a tongue of flame, and the uranium-depleted projectile smashed through the side of the tank and ignited the ammunition inside. The whole tank blew and the turret sailed into the air and turned, landing upside down.
"Reverse! Move fifty," said Fitzduane, and Steve Kent shot Shadow One backward and moved to a fresh firing position fifty meters away.
And so it continued. Fire and movement. Shoot and maneuver. And using night-vision equipment under cover of darkness so that the Guntracks were almost never seen.
Take every advantage.
The engagement was brutal, and it took little time before most of the vehicles in the convoy were ablaze. Cochrane raked the carnage one more time and the two vehicles sped away to the rendezvous point. The survivors were convinced they had been hit by at least a battalion-size force.
Al Lonsdale's team high in the blockhouse and commanding both valleys and the perimeter road below entered the fray.
When the order came to shoot up the main camp, he sent Dana down to the Guntrack while he and Shanley stayed on the blockhouse roof to use the weapons available. Team Rapier had massive firepower, but ammunition was limited and it made sense to use what the other side was kind enough to provide. They appeared to have been generous. Apart from the 12.7mm heavy machine gun, there was an 82mm mortar and substantial stocks of ammunition.
Dana maneuvered the Guntrack into firing position and then went back to man the 40mm grenade launcher. Below them they could see sudden frantic action as the tented lines heard the sound of the perimeter guard column being shot up. A klaxon sounded. Tank crew ran toward their vehicles. Weapons teams sped toward mortar pits. Other troops spilled out of their tents while officers shouted and tried to impose some order.
Al Lonsdale's first mortar bomb exploded in the middle of the tented lines at almost the same time as Dana and Shanley opened fire.
Armored personnel carriers ignited and their crews ran from them into the maelstrom as 40mm grenades cut through their thin armor. Dana was firing a cocktail of armor-piercing, high explosive, and flechettes in three-round bursts at a cyclical rate of 350 rounds a minute.
In the confined space of the camp, the destruction was appalling. Each single high-explosive grenade had a kill radius of five meters. It was intensified by the green tracer from Shanley's heavy machine gun.
Further firepower came from Guntracks firing from the low hills opposite the main entrance outside the camp. RAW projectiles were followed by streams of armor-piercing Ultimax fire and the earsplitting crack of Dilger's Baby.
The tank guarding the main entrance gate burst into flame. Another T55 had its track blown off and spun slow round in circles until a depleted uranium shell blew its turret off. The colonel commanding the armored battalion tried to make a run for his armored command vehicle but was eviscerated by a Dilger round as he was climbing in. The APC ignited and commander and vehicle were burned together.
Laser sights, night-vision equipment, and high-magnification optics not only had vastly increased the first hit probability of Team Rapier's weapons but also, at such close ranges, made the business of killing disturbingly personal.
Through the viewfinders of the weapons sights the enemy looked close enough to touch, and the expressions of individual soldiers could be seen as high-velocity metal and explosives tore through them and blew them apart.
In the intensity of the action, the sights of such horrors made no impression on the outnumbered assault force. It was a matter of brute survival, and such images were repressed as fast as they were seen.
The killing continued with savage precision.
21
Madoa Air Base,
Tecuno, Mexico
Reiko Oshima lay on her back, her knees drawn up and spread apart and her hands grasping the metal bed-head of the military-issue bed.
Her forehead was beaded with sweat and her loins were sticky with sexual fluids. General Luis Barragan's principal attraction, as far as she was concerned, was a combination of his endurance and imagination, and he had already been working on her for several hours. A few moments ago, just as she had been about to come yet again, he had withdrawn from her and now stood gazing out of the window at the night sky. There was a flash of flame as he lit a cigarette, and as he turned to look at her she could see that his organ was still hard and erect.
She wanted to hit him, to inflict pain, but she was helpless, her wrists bound to the metal frame. He smiled at her, a flash of white teeth, and then he came nearer, the red tip of the cigarette glowing in the darkened room. Her eyes fixed on the red tip and she followed it as it approached her lower body.
She clenched her teeth in anticipation of the sharp pain and the sudden jolting burst of intense sexual pleasure that would follow, and then Luis would enter her again and pound in and out of her and finish what he had started. And then it would commence again, but always with a subtle variation. Or perhaps he would be the victim next time around. That was a pleasing prospect.
There was a flash in the sky and a thunderous explosion, and the window shattered and she could hear bursts of machine-gun fire. She pulled in reflex at her bonds, but it was useless.
"Cut me loose, you fool," she shouted at Barragan as she switched her gaze from the window to her lover.