Akiro's eyes remained open, and his head moved slightly on the intact axis of his spine. He looked at Noburu with a hopefulness the older man could not bear, as though Akiro expected the wise old general to fix him and make everything right again.
"Akiro," Noburu said, reaching out to steady the boy's witchings, which continued to expel the contents of his torso.
The aide's lips made a word that Noburu could not decipher.
"Akiro," Noburu repeated.
The tension went out of the boy's body, and the terrible vibrancy left his eyes.
Kloete opened up with the light machine gun, firing short bursts and cursing. The other machine guns kicked in, as did a few automatic rifles. Noburu kept waiting for the rest of his men to open fire. Then he realized that there were no others.
He picked up Akiro's automatic rifle, wiped off the wet mortality on his trousers, and knelt beside Kloete and the South African NCO. The three men fired over the edge of the roof. Noburu had stopped thinking now. He gave himself up to the trance of action, trying to fire as calmly as if he were on range.
The lead tank surged ahead of the crowd. It shot point-blank into the headquarters, following the main gun round with bright tracers from its machine gun. Tides of bodies fell to the Japanese weaponry, but there seemed to be no end to the mob. The space between the headquarters and the wall grew dense with the living and the dead.
In the blaze of the firefight, Noburu saw one of his men lash from a side door, charging without a rifle. In the last seconds before the man threw himself on top of the tank, Noburu recognized the swell of the grenade in the man's hand.
The explosion drove the nearest members of the mob to their knees. But it did not stop the tank.
"Sonofabitch," Kloete spat. The machine gun had licked empty.
The tank fired again. The building shook beneath them.
The South African NCO fixed a bayonet to his rifle. Kloete drew out his sidearm. He stood up carelessly, cursing and leading his targets, one by one. Noburu fired and watched a dark form tumble.
The line of machine gun tracers crisscrossed down below as the remaining Japanese fired their final protective fires.
Noburu heard a noise that did not fit.
Something was wrong. There was a great hissing, a new noise for which he could not account. Up in the sky. As though enormous winged snakes were descending from the heavens. Dragons.
The lead tank disappeared in a huge white flash that dazzled Noburu's eyes. A stunning bell-like sound was followed by an explosion. His vision of the world crazed into a disorderly mosaic. But he could see the tank burning.
"I can't see," the South African NCO howled. "I can't see."
The explosion had been as bright as a sun come to earth. The tremendous force of the impact made Noburu's head throb under its disordered bandage. He tried to see into the sky.
Two more explosions drew his eyes back to the earth.
Thank God, he thought, sinking down into himself. Oh, thank God. He found the thought that he was going to live unexpectedly pleasant.
The hissing and sizzling grew louder. The drone of engines began to emerge from under the cowls of their noise suppressors.
Someone had heard. Someone had monitored one of the radio transmissions. Someone had managed to muster an air-mobile relief force.
Kloete glanced over at Noburu between shots.
"Looks like your mates came through," he said. Then he straight-armed his pistol down at the mob.
The massed attackers wavered at the destruction of their armored support. The tanks had promised them a magic victory. Now the tanks were gone. In the midst of the swarm, high voices sang out prayerlike encouragements.
Noburu still could not see the relief aircraft in the darkened sky. He tried to place them by the sound of their engines. But his ears were ringing. The blast had shocked his senses. And his hearing was half-gone at the best of times.
Nonetheless, it annoyed him that he could not identify the hissing, descending ships.
Whatever kind they were, they were welcome.
As if at an invisible signal, the mob surged forward again. In the suddenness of the rush, the lead figures gained the building. Noburu rose to his full height to spend his last bullets where they were most needed. But he could already hear the distinct echo of fighting inside the headquarters.
Perhaps the relief force would be too late after all. By minutes.
He followed a running figure through the firelight, leading him carefully with his sights. When he was certain he had the man, he squeezed the trigger.
Nothing.
He drew out his pistol. But the man he had targeted had already made his way to the shelter of the building. Down in the belly of the headquarters, something exploded.
"Your boys are fucking slow," Kloete screamed. "They're too fucking slow."
Noburu fired and dropped a running man. The figure rolled over, clutching his knee.
There were too many of them. The attackers were already swinging themselves up to enter the building's second floor windows, leaving no point of entry untried. The last Japanese gun had been silenced.
The noise of the aircraft loomed in heavily. A pillar of fire descended from the heavens, followed by another, then a third. Noburu recognized the accompanying noise: Gatling guns.
Heavy bullets rinsed over the packed courtyard. The rounds were so powerful that they did not merely fell their victims but shredded them and threw the remnants great distances.
Kloete ducked, hugging the roof. Noburu followed his example. The South African was laughing like a wild man, his behavior insanely inconstant.
Beyond the lip of the wall, the fury of the crowd turned to wails of despair. Noburu could feel the intruders scrambling to avoid the godlike weapons, and he could picture the oversize rounds rinsing back and forth across the courtyard. Sometimes the old weapons were the best.
Noburu went cold. Underneath him, the sounds of combat within the headquarters building punctuated his horror.
He had realized that none of the new Japanese systems in the theater of war mounted Gatling guns.
Behind him, the dream warrior laughed and laughed and laughed.
The sound of the aircraft was deafeningly close now. He could begin to make out their swollen black forms against the deep blue sky. Each time one of the ships unleashed another burst from its Gatling gun, the cone of fire was shorter, closer. The Gatling rounds made a sharp crackling sound as they split the cobblestones amid the dead and the dying.
"Americans," Noburu said to Kloete.
Perhaps the noise was too much. The South African merely stared at him in incomprehension.
"The Americans," Noburu shouted, cupping a hand beside his mouth.
Kloete looked at him as if the general had gone mad.
The rotor wash began tearing at their clothes. The big ships were settling, hunting for places to nest.
The dream warrior howled with glee, goading Noburu to laugh along.
No. He was not giving up so easily. He pushed the phantom away.
One of the descending aircraft was heading directly for the helipad.
"Come on," Noburu shouted, already moving. "We've got to let somebody know about—"
The noise was too great. He scrambled toward the passageway that led to the elevator and the stairwell. It would take too long to route a message through the computer with the system locked down. The only hope was the old radio.