Chapter 55
TWO HUMVEES ROLLED DOWN THE asphalt road toward the cul-de-sacs of houses.
Brodie sat shotgun in the front vehicle next to PFC Decker.
Corporal Reyes was in the back with PFC Tom Greer, who’d requested to come along.
The EMP bomb sat in the open-topped rear of the vehicle, and the LRAD, which resembled a thick flattened radar dish, was attached to the Hummer’s central crossbeam.
Howe, Morgan, and Taylor followed in another Humvee along with two more Rangers.
As they continued driving, Brodie spotted something up ahead across the road. It was the blackened husk of a burned-out car.
Decker said, “What the hell is this?”
Brodie noted that both sides of the road were lined with buildings, and there wasn’t a big enough shoulder to get the Hummer around the car.
Decker started to slow down, and Brodie said, “Don’t ease up. This might be an ambush.”
Reyes asked, “You mean this whole hostage thing is bullshit?”
“Maybe. Or maybe the right hand’s not working with the left anymore. A group of them are trying to get out, and another group is trying to kill us.” He looked back at Reyes and Greer, who were each holding a loaded RPG launcher. “Get ready to fire.”
“What?” asked Reyes.
“You heard me.” Brodie looked out the windshield as they sped toward the wrecked car. He said to Decker, “Next place to turn left, you take it.” He got on his walkie and said, “Might be an ambush. We’re going around. Follow our lead.”
Decker kept rolling ahead, then ten yards from the car he cut the wheel hard to the left and barreled down a narrow dirt passageway between two buildings. Brodie checked the rear and saw the other Hummer was following.
A D-17 stepped out into the road in front of them with an M4 rifle aimed at them.
It sprayed the windshield with bullets. Brodie ducked as the bullet-resistant windshield took the barrage.
A bullet punched through and hit Decker in the shoulder, and he cried out as the Humvee lurched to the right and scraped along the side a building.
Brodie grabbed the wheel and said to Decker, “Just keep your foot on the pedal.”
Greer was hanging out the left window and fired an RPG.
Direct hit. The tin man was ripped apart in a fiery explosion as the Humvee barreled into it.
The smoking, melting head of the D-17 smashed into the windshield and held there a moment, then Brodie cut the Hummer hard to the right and it flew off.
More gunfire was coming from above them.
Another rooftop ambush. Someone in the rear Humvee fired an RPG that hit the upper lip of a building just ahead of them, and chunks of concrete rained down on top of their car, hopefully not damaging the LRAD, as they sped along.
More gunfire. Reyes hung out the window, his head inches from the sides of the buildings along the narrow road, and fired a round.
Brodie cut the wheel right again and turned onto another narrow road. Ahead was the asphalt road at a junction beyond the burnt car obstruction.
The Hummer rumbled onto the asphalt and Brodie cut hard to the left. The vehicle skidded along the road as Brodie gunned the engine and sped toward the fork. Brodie took the right-hand fork and called out, “How’s it looking?”
Greer replied, “We cooked two of them, and I don’t see any more.”
They sped toward the cul-de-sac. Breathing hard, Decker said, “I think it’s time for some tunes.”
With his free hand Brodie pressed play on the music, and Decker floored it down the road.
The angry, driving guitar riffs of “Know Your Enemy” blasted out of the LRAD at an ear-destroying volume as the Humvee sped toward the houses. Decker, maybe high on the adrenaline, called out to Brodie, “Feels good, don’t it?”
“Feels like middle school,” he called back.
The ring of houses approached quickly. Brodie could see house six, Ames’s old residence, where the hostages were supposedly being held. He called back, “Reyes, we in range?”
“Almost, sir! We only have one shot at this. Gotta get as close as we can.”
The Humvee continued to speed down the road. The LRAD’s deafening acoustic beam blasted toward the houses.
“How’s it looking, Corporal? They know we’re here.”
“Almost…”
They roared into the cul-de-sac and Brodie noticed the bloody bodies of two Rangers lying next to the road up ahead. Decker muttered, “Those motherfuckers…”
Reyes called out, “Now!” and flipped a switch on the EMP bomb. The blast sounded like a sharp punch of bass beneath the music.
The Hummers screeched to a halt outside of house number six and everyone piled out.
Reyes, Greer, and the two Rangers from the rear vehicle equipped themselves with EMP rifles and formed a stack outside the house.
Brodie retrieved a med kit from under his seat and looked through the cracked windshield at the house as the lead guy in the stack kicked in the door, and they entered.
Brodie applied a field dressing to Decker’s wound. Then he said to the man, “Hang tight,” and hopped out of the Humvee with his M203 launcher.
He heard no gunfire. After a minute one of the Rangers came out of the house and flashed a thumbs-up, then Angela Morgan and Eric Saltsberg emerged. They appeared shaken, but unharmed.
Decker stopped the music as General Morgan strode up to his wife and hugged her. Brodie and Taylor approached Saltsberg, who appeared bewildered.
Taylor asked him, “You all right?”
The man had no response as he stared somewhere in the middle distance.
Brodie said, “Eric. You have any insight as to why those things wanted to go back to your employer’s headquarters? They on salary? Looking to put in a worker’s comp claim for mental distress?”
Saltsberg slid his eyes to Brodie. “Is this a joke to you?”
“No,” said Brodie. “Not even close. Actually, I’m extremely pissed off and looking for someone to blame. You’re looking promising.”
Saltsberg glared at him. “If you understood my job at all, Mr. Brodie, you would understand how absurd it is to level such an accusation at me. I had nothing to do with the development of these things. As for my employer, they will be my former employer as soon as I get home and resign.”
Brodie nodded. “All right. But be careful who you piss off. At the moment, everyone at Camp Hayden knows at least a little more than they should.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Taylor said, “I don’t doubt it. But you might not be going home so fast. This will be a hell of a debrief process, and the powers that be will want you around.”
Saltsberg shook his head. “Some goddamn luck. I was originally supposed to come here last week instead, but I stuck around for the company party.”
Brodie eyed the two dead Rangers as they were being moved out of the road and into the back of one of the Humvees. “There were a lot less lucky people than you today, Eric.”
Saltsberg followed Brodie’s look. “Dammit. Of course. I’m sorry. This is just so awful I can’t get my head around it. Nerves are fried.”
“It’s fine. Have a drink.”
“I don’t drink.”
“It’s never too late to start. Excuse us.”
He and Taylor walked toward house number six as Reyes and Greer carried bricks of C4 explosive and det cord inside. Brodie asked Taylor, “That what you used on the cell tower?”
She nodded. “After we got separated, I thought about Ames and how he rigged the whole fleet of D-17s with C4. Did he haul seventy pounds of explosives down there? Unlikely. And if he had, Greer would have seen it. Also, how did he even get the stuff? I figured it was probably stored down there, and sure enough when I returned to the Vault there was plenty in the storage room. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it but figured it would come in handy.
Once I loaded it out, the storm was beginning to clear, and I saw the cell tower in the distance, and it clicked.
Then Morgan found me in his vehicle, and needless to say he was enthusiastic about the idea.
We used the M2 to take out the three tin men guarding the south gate, then headed for the tower. ”
Reyes ran the det cord out of the house, attached a blasting cap with a long fuse, and ran the fuse twenty yards. Then he took out a lighter and held it out to General Morgan. “Sir, care to do the honors?”
Morgan shook his head. “The honor is yours today, Corporal.”
Reyes nodded, then passed the lighter to PFC Greer. “Light it up, you crazy bastard.”
Greer flicked the lighter and lit the fuse, and they all watched as the ignition burned down the fuse, hit the det cord, and then detonated five bricks of C4 inside the house, blowing out the windows and door, taking down a wall, and collapsing the roof.
Brodie and Taylor stood silently watching the destroyed house as smoke and flames consumed it.
That was five more tin men down. In the distance, he heard the sporadic sounds of battle.
Hopefully that was a mopping-up operation with no more human casualties.
Brodie said to Taylor, “Blowing the cell tower when you did… you saved my life.”
She smiled. “What else is new?”
“DROP YOUR WEAPONS!”
They all spun toward the sound of the booming voice. A D-17 walked toward them from the far end of the cul-de-sac. It was leading Captain Spencer by the arm while holding a pistol to the man’s head.