First Strike (49 page)

He remembered something from weapons training. Officers were meant to be a sniper’s first priority. Radio men were up there, too. Buddy must have read the same field manual.

Someone’s got to call in support.

And nobody else seemed to be. They were shooting or shouting or moving for cover. Useful things to do – right now.
 
For
 
now. Someone had to think tactically.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was wriggling as fast as possible towards Lujan’s corpse.

I don’t even know how to use one of these fucking things!

It was a radio – how damn complex could it be?

He reached the corpse, rolled it over and picked up the handset. On the handle between the ear- and mouth-piece was an LCD display like the one on his wristwatch; right now it read 51.79. There were eight small rectangular buttons, four above and four below the display. The ones above it were simply numbered ‘1’ through ‘4’. The ones below had icons: fast-back, back, forward, fast-forward.
 
Like audio editing software
, he thought. Only these buttons probably controlled the radio’s frequency.

Which one?

Whatever it was presently set to – whichever 51.79 was. He pressed the thing to his face, pressed his face into the dirt.

“Mayday!” he shouted into the mouthpiece. “Mayday mayday mayday! This is One-forty-four Bravo Three and we need fire support
 
right now
!”

Nothing. No response. For one, two, three long seconds he waited in the hope that someone might pick up at the other end.

It’s a dead channel. Or it’s company or something and they killed Fourth’s radio man as well.

He wriggled sideways, trying to use Lujan’s body as some kind of cover. Still no response.

It must be the company frequency
, he thought. It made no sense for it to be anything else – that would be the frequency Lieutenant Croft would use to communicate with Fourth Platoon and Lieutenant Schmidt. Schmidt and his radio man were dead. There was no reason to assume that Lieutenant Robles and
 
his
 
radio man hadn’t been singled out, too.

I don’t
 
know
 
the other frequencies!

He took the phone away from his ear, prepared to dial randomly until he found something. Didn’t matter if Buddy was listening: the ones here
 
knew
 
he needed fire support. Besides, weren’t these radio channels supposed to be digitally encrypted?

Those four buttons above the display. The audio-editing software he’d played with in college – and encountered a couple of times since – had movement-control. It also had bookmarks, preset locations.

He hit ‘1’. The display didn’t change from 51.79. Desperately he jabbed ‘2’. The display became 39.72.

“Mayday!” he snapped. “Mayday! This is One-forty-four Bravo Three and we need help
 
now
! Is anybody there?”

A horrible moment of waiting:
 
is nobody on
 
this
 
channel, either? Or is the radio broken?

Then a calm voice responded:

“Bravo Three, this is Two-Ninety-Two Rocky. What can we do for you?”

Fort 292. What the fuck does
 
Rocky
 
mean?

“We need fire support, Two-Ninety-Two Rocky. We need artillery and air and anything else you have, and we need it
 
right now.
”

“Roger that, Bravo Three. Where d’you want it?”

Oh,
 
shit.

They were supposed to be about eight or nine miles from 292. Somewhere to the south. Beyond that, he had
 
no
 
clue.

The lieutenant had a map. Mullins raised his face from the dirt and saw Lieutenant Croft a few feet away, on his belly reloading his rifle. One side of his face was covered in flowing blood.

“Sir! Where the hell are we, sir?”

The platoon leader turned. Saw the handset Mullins was holding. Glanced at something pinned to his collar, then yanked it loose – ripping away a piece of fabric with it – and tossed it at Mullins.

It was a plastic reader about the size of a matchbox. It showed two nine-digit numbers, one above the other.

“That’s where we are. Get us help!” the lieutenant shouted.

Mullins buried his face to the ground and put the handset to his head again.

“…Three,
 
are you there?
” Two-Ninety-Two Rocky was demanding.

“I’m here,” said Mullins. “Got co-ordinates. These are
 
our
 
co-ordinates, where
 
we
 
are,
 
not
 
where we want the artillery to go. OK?”

“Roger. You want fire all around or what? Where’s Buddy?”

“Look to be on all sides and ahead – that’s north – of us. Here’s the co-ordinates.”

Mullins read them off.

“Roger that, Bravo Three. Just to confirm, you said”- Two-Ninety-Two Rocky read back the numbers Mullins had given – “right?”

“Correct,” Mullins snapped.

“You’re out of range of our eighty-ones, but the good news is that we’ve also got half a dozen one-fifty-fives.”

“Good.
 
When
? We’re being torn to pieces here!”

“Things take time to turn around, amigo. You’ll have your fire within ten minutes.”

“We could all be
 
dead
 
in ten minutes! Can’t you give it to us sooner?”

“Bravo Three, we’ll try to make it five, but no promises. Suggest you try ninety-one thirty-five if you’re that desperate. We’ll get those shells on the way ASAP. Try ninety-one thirty-five and get back to me when those shells come down so you can give us fire direction, OK?”

How the hell
 
do
 
I direct fire?

The lieutenant probably knew. That
 
had
 
to be something they taught officers.

“What’s ninety-one thirty-five?”

“General aviation. Non-secure channel, but if it’s as bad as you say, Buddy already knows you’re fucked. Give it a shot, amigo. Out.”

Mullins pressed ‘3’ and ‘4’, in the hope that one of those would already be set to ninety-one thirty-five. Neither. Three was the highest: 86.20. He jabbed that button and then hit fast-forward; the numbers began changing
 
fast
. After a second – 90.15 – he released it, pressed it for another split-second and then hit forward. It seemed to take forever for the number to reach 91.35.

“Mayday! This is One-forty-four Bravo Three – we’re under heavy fire and we need help
 
now
!” he shouted.

“This is Eagle Two Six Nine Alpha. Who and where the hell are you, One-forty-four Bravo Three?” came a calm, deep voice.

Mullins glanced at Lieutenant Croft’s GPS and read the first half-dozen digits of each line.

“One-forty-four Bravo Three, we have DH-22s in the air now and they’ll be on the way.”

Yes!

“Where are they, Eagle Two Six Nine Alpha? When can we expect them?”

Now. Two minutes. One minute
, prayed Mullins.

“They’re about fifty miles south of Roanoke. They’ll be there within forty-five minutes.”

“We need help
 
now
, god damn it!”

“Sorry, Bravo Three. Want me to cancel the mission?”

“No! But you don’t have anything
 
closer
? Or
 
faster
?”

“No can do, Bravo Three.”

“This is CMGI Sixty-Two Black,” came a new, female, voice. “You said you were at” – she repeated the twelve digits Mullins had given Eagle Two Six Nine Alpha – “right?”

“Correct!”

“You boys are Legion, right? Heard about some of you lot operating in our neighborhood.”

“Yes, we’re Legion! And we need help
 
now!
 
Who the hell are you?”

“CMGI Mining,” the female voice snapped. “If you don’t want
 
civilian
 
help, just say so.”

“We’ll take anything,” Mullins shouted back desperately.

“Stand by. You got lucky – our daily bird’s lifting off now.”

“How long?”
 
Half an hour? An hour?

There was a short pause.

“Three to five minutes. That good enough, Bravo Three?”

“Best offer we’ve had so far.”

“You got anything?” Lieutenant Croft yelled breathlessly at him.

Mullins nodded.

“Got artillery coming down in five to ten minutes. Some kind of civilian chopper’s on the way, too, although God knows what use
 
they’ll
 
be.”

The lieutenant had a map unfolded in front of him.

“We’re gonna be getting the hell out of here,” he yelled. Jabbed the map. “Downhill. Map says there’s a stream. Cover. Better than taking fire from both sides. Get Fourth on the line.”

“Yessir. What frequency – that default company one, fifty-one something?”

Croft nodded emphatically.

“Tried that, sir. Nobody’s home.”

“What about L Company? Eighty-six twenty.”

Preset number three
, Mullins thought. He hit that button and pressed the headset to his ear.

Panicked shouting came over the radio. Screaming.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Mullins heard. “We’re all going to die! Get the fuck
 
out
 
of here! Somebody get help! Where are those Legion fucks?”

“This is Bravo Three,” he yelled back. Looked up at Croft, who jabbed with a finger at the map. There was blood on the finger, Mullins noticed. But he got the idea.

“We want you to go downhill! Take cover in the stream bed!” he shouted at L Company.

Whatever CG officer or signalman was on the radio – there seemed to be more than one, shouting frantically at everybody and nobody – paid no attention. No acknowledgement.

“Lima One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six!” Mullins yelled. “This is fucking Bravo Three and you’re going to go
 
downhill
! Fucking acknowledge!”

“Get help! Fucking
 
help us!
” came back, uninterrupted by Mullins’ demand. Someone else on the frequency was simply screaming.

He put the handset down, looked up at Croft, shook his head.

“They’re panicking, sir. Didn’t acknowledge.”

“
Shit
.”

Jorgenson appeared, crawling flat with his first-aid kit in hand. The medic was a scarred, lean, coffee-colored man with a thin moustache.

“Pass the word,” Croft shouted at him. “We’re gonna go downhill. Everyone at once, when I say.” The lieutenant paused for a moment. “And we take our wounded.”

Wriggling on his belly through the second-growth woods, Sergeant Williams joined them. The platoon sergeant’s bayonet was fixed and bloody.

“We’re going downhill,” Croft shouted. “Pass the word.”

Williams gave a single nod.

“We’re gonna have to go through Buddies to get there,” he said.

Croft bared his teeth.

“Then we’re gonna have to – right?”

“Fine by me,” said Williams.

I should probably be passing the word myself
, Mullins thought. He turned, tapped the nearest man’s boot. It belonged to Guzman, who was looking down the sights of his rifle and didn’t seem to notice Mullins.

He tapped harder on Guzman’s ankle. The man ignored him, then suddenly fired a single shot. Then he turned to Mullins, a smirk on his face.

“Got the fucker,” Guzman shouted above the din. “What?”

“LT says go downhill on his signal,” Mullins shouted back. “Pass it on.”

He began to move towards the next-nearest man, who looked to be MacLean, the squad machine-gunner. He’d set up his M-249 and was firing long bursts uphill.

Then, in his peripheral vision, something changed with the radio. He looked and saw that a dim red light on the back of the handset had come on.

Is the thing broken?

He picked it up.

“Three, Five, are you
 
there
?” someone asked.

“Bravo Three here,” Mullins shouted. “Who’s this?”

“Bravo Four –
 
damn
, you’re alive? They got LT Robles
 
and
 
Sergeant Thurmond, and there’s fucking CGs dead
 
everywhere
. Your LT got a plan – he or the XO still alive?”

“We go downhill,” shouted Mullins. “LT says we go downhill. There’s a creek bed there – it’s cover. Understand?”