Thorpe led the way fifty feet into the woods along the river bank and halted. "Damn," he said. "Another thirty seconds and we'd have hit the sons-of-bitches from behind."
Parker tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. There was a large black man in Air Force camouflage fatigues on the far bank, twenty meters away, looking at them. He had a body in his arms.
"Major Parker," he called out.
"Sergeant Everson," Parker replied, recognizing him from the security briefing where launch officers met the security personnel.
"The lieutenant's got the override code," he yelled. With that, he ran into the river and began wading across.
Thorpe glanced upstream. The ambushers were probably coming. Thorpe made sure he had a round in the chamber of the MP-5. He fired a burst as a man in black fatigues and red beret appeared, moving cautiously down the bank.
Everson was crossing mid-channel, holding the lieutenant above the surface of the water.
Thorpe saw the splash of rounds as he heard the sound of the machine gun firing. "No!" Thorpe yelled, standing and firing upstream, trying to suppress the firing. The man with the red beret fired back at Thorpe while his partner continued to fire the M-60 at Everson.
Everson had crossed mid-channel as Thorpe hit the man with the red beret, killing him, but the man with the machine gun was protected from Thorpe's firing by a log. Water churned around Everson as he continued.
"Fuck!" Thorpe yelled and then he sprinted forward toward the log.
Thorpe vaulted the log with the trigger pulled back, killing the machine gunner even while the man was targeting Everson. Thorpe kept going, ignoring Parker's call for him to stop. He ran along the bank, slipping between trees. He dashed across the road leading to the bridge, not even aware of his breathing, his entire being focused on the weapon in his hands and the men ahead.
The three surviving ambushers were reloading their grenade launchers and RPGs when Thorpe came running up the small slope in front of their position. They were momentarily stunned by his sudden appearance. As they began to react, Thorpe fired, right to left. He killed the first and second, but the MP-5 ran out of ammunition before he reached the third one, Mitchell. Thorpe didn't stop, dropping the submachine gun, and drawing his knife.
Mitchell was fumbling, pulling his pistol out, then abandoning the effort as Thorpe closed the remaining ten feet. Mitchell went to a fighter's stance. The impetus of Thorpe's charge smashed through Mitchell's guard and Thorpe slammed his knife home to the hilt into Mitchell's chest. The ex-paratrooper died with a confused look on his face, not even knowing how he'd been bested.
Thorpe grabbed one of the M-60s from the ground and spun about, searching for more targets, his eyes wild. A figure moved along the bank downstream and Thorpe's finger tightened on the trigger.
"Thorpe!" Parker called out. "It's me! Parker!"
Thorpe's body shook as a shiver went through him and sanity returned to his eyes. He slowly lowered the muzzle of the M-60. Parker ran up to his position and stopped, staring at the carnage. "Jesus, Thorpe," was all she could muster.
Her black flight suit was soaking wet. She grabbed his shoulder. "Come on. Come back with me. The lieutenant's hurt."
Thorpe followed her along the bank. Everson was kneeling next to Lieutenant Cruz, bandaging her wounds. In her hand was a blood-soaked piece of paper. "The door code," Cruz whispered.
Parker took it out of her hand. At that moment, Cruz's eyes lost their focus and her hand slumped down on the grass. Everson slowly reached up and closed her eyes, tears flowing down his cheeks.
Thorpe looked across the body and met Parker's gaze.
Four miles away, Maysun had dragged himself over to the wreckage of the Blackhawk and had been working on the chopper's FM radio with Tommy's aid. He finished wrapping some severed wired together, then picked up the handset.
"Any station this net, any station this net, this is Army Helicopter Seven-Eight-Six. Over." He waited a few seconds then tried again. "Any station this net, this is Army Helicopter Seven-Eight-Six. Come in please. Over."
The radio crackled, then a voice came out of the speaker. "Army Helicopter Seven-Eight-Six, this is Cobra Twelve. What is your location? Over."
Tommy handed Maysun a map. "Cobra twelve, this is Seven-Eight-Six. I am located at grid square thirty-four eighty-six. I say again, grid square thirty- four eighty-six. Over."
"Seven-Eight-Six, this is Cobra Twelve. You are to immediately vacate that area on a vector of one eight zero degrees. If you do not comply, you will be shot down. Over."
Maysun rolled his eyes. "I'd like to comply guys, but I can't. Because I've crashed here. Over."
"You're on the ground at that location? Over."
"That's what crashed usually means. Over."
"Wait one while I contact higher. Out."
"Wait one," Maysun said to Tommy. He shook his head and spun the frequency dials. He keyed the mikes. "Sergeant Dublowski, are you monitoring?"
There were a short pause, then a strong voice came over the radio. "This is Master Sergeant Dublowski. Who are you and what are you doing on my net?"
Thorpe sat next to Parker on the hood of one of the Humvees. They had left Cruz's body, covered by a poncho, where she had died. Everson was shaken, but ready for action. "Let's get to the LCC," Everson said.
"McKenzie's got a dozen men sitting guard at the door," Thorpe said. "Without the help of your platoon," Thorpe gestured at the burning Humvees on the other side of the river, "there's no way we can get in the vault door. We can't take them down with just the three of us."
"I say we try!" Everson said, his large hands were wrapped tightly around his M-16.
"There's got to be another way into that control center." Thorpe grabbed Parker's shoulders. "Think! Is there any other opening? An air shaft? Anything?"
Parker was shaking her head, when suddenly Everson held up a hand. "What about the maintenance tunnels?"
"You have to get into a silo or the LCC to get to the maintenance tunnels," Parker said. Then she sat bolt upright. Parker was thinking about Everson's suggestion as she slowly spoke. "The facility is designed to stop a terrorist from getting in and launching. But we've already launched Omega Missile."
"So?" Thorpe asked.
Parker was excited now. "The Omega Missile silo is empty. The silo doors are open. There's an underground inspection crawlway from every silo to the launch facility!"
"Where's the Omega Missile silo?"
Parker jumped into the driver's seat. "I'll get us there."
Chapter Eighteen
Charleston naval base is the Navy's third-largest homeport after Norfolk and San Diego. Over forty ships were currently anchored or docked on the Cooper River, just north of the city of Charleston. While the rest of the port was at its normal Sunday morning level, one ship was a beehive of activity.
The USS Shiloh was a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, more commonly referred to as an AEGIS guided-missile cruiser. It was a cousin of the infamous Vincennes which shot down an Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf. The Shiloh was an even more advanced version than that older ship. The sophisticated ship was a far cry from the cruisers of an earlier age that had boasted eight-to ten-inch guns as their main weapons. The Shiloh only had two single-barrel five-inch guns, one on the forecastle and one on the quarterdeck at the rear. For armament, the ship relied on missiles and it carried quite a punch in that department. It boasted eight Tomahawk cruise missiles in each of its two VLS missile launchers along with numerous other surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.