In all the confusion, the rest of our convoy crossed into Gulfport. It was the helots’ first time on that side. As for me, I was heading back into the lair of those Aryan cocksuckers.
For the hundredth time since the night began, Grapes asked himself, Is this a nightmare? What started as a simple operation had turned into a disaster. The “cleansing of the ghetto” was a fiasco, and now some unknown group was demolishing the eastern part of Gulfport. What else could go wrong? With a shudder, he realized he no longer had the upper hand.
He’d positioned a hundred men along the inner wall to monitor the helots’ movements. He was sure that the towers on the bridge and the beating he’d given those fucking helots would keep the rest quiet and confined in the ghetto while he dealt with the intruders.
He was counting on one key element to work in his favor: he knew the city better than this new threat, whoever they were.
Redemption Avenue (named Fourth Avenue before Greene arrived) was one of the main roads into town. Grapes knew that the mystery army had blown up the refinery. From there it would have to travel down Redemption to reach the center of town. It was the perfect spot for an ambush.
He stationed four hundred men along both sides of the wide street, hidden behind hedges and on rooftops. Residents were scared shitless when the heavily armed men, covered in dirt and sweat, rushed in and transformed their living rooms into machine gun nests. Down the middle of the road, they placed antitank mines they’d taken from the Seabees’ storehouse. And then they waited.
Hong’s convoy sped through the streets of Gulfport, sweeping away the weak resistance in its path. It was a very risky blitz; their flanks were completely exposed. But Hong was heeding the call of battle. He’d bet everything on speed. Hit like lightning, destroy the enemy, and get out before the enemy could react. So far, that strategy was working.
A wide street stretched out before them. In the background, he could make out a large, brightly lit building with a giant white flag emblazoned with a green cross. Hong’s smile grew wide. That had to be his goal.
A rumble alerted Grapes. He stood up and peered out the hatch of his Humvee, which was hidden behind some tall bushes, and spotted the source of the sound. At the end of the street was a column of heavy vehicles headed up by a tank with a bright red star painted on its side. In the flickering streetlights, the star looked like blood.
The convoy was advancing at full speed. One hundred feet, fifty, twenty, ten… Then the first tank ran over a mine in the street.
Hong’s BTR-60 shook like a matchbox when the tank in the lead blew up in a blinding cloud of fire and dust.
“Mines!” the panicked driver shouted and swerved.
The BTR rocked violently as it sped around the burning wreck of the first tank. Then another tank ran over a mine and disappeared in a huge flash. Bodies and twisted metal leapt skyward in grotesque pirouettes, and a violent, mottled fire licked at the sides of the other tanks.
“It’s an ambush!” Hong shouted. “Circle up and return fire!”
The colonel cursed himself. They couldn’t keep going at full speed if they were in the middle of a minefield. They’d have to battle their way through.
The militiamen howled with excitement when the first tank flew through the air. They roared even louder when the second tank set off another mine.
“Kill ’em!” Grapes roared, feeling his confidence reborn. “Kill ’em all!”
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Kim’s group made it to the port without a hitch. They entered through a single gate, which stood wide open. The militiamen who should have been guarding it had fled when they saw the convoy of tanks. The BTRs roared up to the ship. Meeting no resistance, Kim and half his soldiers jumped out in the harbor parking lot.
Kim studied the Ithaca for a few seconds, mesmerized by its size. He spotted three ramps leading up to the ship, so he divided his men into three squadrons. He led the first group as it stormed the tanker.
The moment he set foot on the deck, he came face-to-face with a very young, very confused red-haired officer.
“Hey! What the hell’re you doing here? You can’t—” The young officer didn’t finish his sentence. A bullet from Kim’s Makarov pierced his chest and he collapsed, dead before he hit the deck.
“Let’s go! Let’s go! Move it!” Kim urged his men.
Shots rang out throughout the ship as the Korean squadrons fought their way into the bowels of the Ithaca. The lieutenant had no choice but to divide his squadron into smaller groups. It was the only way to gain control of the entire ship and its miles-long corridors. He had more than one hundred men and the element of surprise in his favor. A handful of sailors were no match for them.
Something hot whizzed past his ear. Kim ducked as a second bullet struck the bulkhead behind his head. The Korean looked up and saw a stocky man with a thick white beard and a captain’s uniform leaning over the gunwale on the bridge above him. The man was firing with homicidal rage.
“Look out!” the lieutenant yelled to his men, but the captain’s next bullet pierced the head of the soldier next to him.
“Climb up, Lieutenant!” A sergeant pointed to a metal ladder bolted to the tanker’s wall.
Kim raced up the ladder to the bridge, followed by a handful of soldiers. As they climbed, the captain picked them off, one by one, and they fell back on the deck.
The lieutenant’s lungs felt like they were going to explode. Fear and anger propelled him around the limp bodies and up the last blood-soaked steps.
When Kim broke into the bridge, the captain turned, gripping his rifle. His weapon was unwieldy in such close quarters, but he still opened fire. A bullet hit Kim in the hip, throwing him against the gunwale. The lieutenant grabbed on to anything he could as the captain struggled to load the next bullet.
Kim raised his pistol and fired twice. The first bullet struck the captain in the stomach. The second entered his chest, right below his name tag. The man doubled over, let out a long moan, and collapsed on the deck.
Kim limped over to him. He realized he was the only survivor from his small squadron.
The captain looked up, anger glowing in his eyes. “You… yellow… bastard,” he muttered, his lips stained with blood. Then his head dropped onto his chest and he stopped breathing.
Kim checked the captain’s pulse to make sure he was dead, then looked around. He was standing in the doorway to the bridge. He wished he’d taken the captain alive, but he was sure that the ship’s charts and a map of its last route were somewhere on the bridge.
The lieutenant was euphoric despite his wound. They were going to make it.
His gaze drifted to the ship’s deck. Shooting was heavy at the back of the tanker, but the front of the ship was under their control. The lieutenant saw the soldiers on the bow advancing to the back to take out the sailors who still resisted.
They stopped at a fence that stretched from one side of the deck to the other. Even from atop the bridge, the lieutenant detected his soldiers’ confusion.
The commanding officer rammed the fence several times, but it held tight. Then he made a decision. Kim watched helplessly as the officer placed an explosive charge at the base of the fence and ordered his men to back up.
“Noooooo!” Kim yelled, waving his arms in desperation. But it was too late.
About half of the thousands of tons of oil the Ithaca had transported to Gulfport were still in the bowels of the ship. Highly flammable petroleum gases took up the rest of the space in the hold. Normally, inert gas filled that space, but the ship’s gas exchanger was damaged and there were no replacement parts for a thousand miles.