The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time (47 page)

He was still weighing the pro’s and con’s when the explosions began.

*

From the flanks of Mahogany Mountain, Sergeant Buell watched rounds from his mortars and Captain Parson’s howitzer explode in the ranks of the enemy’s advance element below.

“You’re right on target Sir,” he radioed Captain Parsons.

“Good work, Sergeant,” said Dan Osaka, from behind the man.

“Twarn’t nothin’, Lieutenant,” the Sergeant replied in his best “aw-shucks” mode. Dan was in command of this twenty-man scouting detail.

Lady Di lowered her field glasses, stepped away from the Sergeant and turned to face Dan, amazement showing clearly on her face. “Those idiots were marching in a column, like they were on parade or something.”

“So their commander isn’t very smart,” Dan said. “There’s still six thousand of them.”

“Less now,” Di fired back cheerfully.

“Yeah, less now,” Dan agreed, but in his heart he doubted whether the shelling had accomplished much other than to let the enemy know they weren’t surprising anybody. Oh sure, he thought, we may have taken out a hundred of them. One hundred down, 5900 to go.

Dan had been in the dumps ever since Windwalker forbid him to go after Michael. It just didn’t seem right to him that his friend should be abandoned that way. Of course, he knew full well Michael could look out for himself, but what if he was hurt? Dan shook his head to throw off the thought. His friend couldn’t be hurt too badly. He’d seen the light show on Edge mountain earlier.

The enemy cavalry was rallying on the flats below and Dan could see that soon they would mount a charge toward his men.

“Okay, people, let’s break it off,” he yelled. He waved his arm and his men packed up and faded back into the trees. It was almost a mile to the next ambush site.

*

KABLAM! The shell blew a hole in the road and filled Michael’s eyes with smoke and dust. His jeep careened wildly off of a pile of rubble, flipped onto its side and slid across the street into a rock wall. Michael was thrown out of the jeep and slapped up against the wall with bruising force.

“You okay sir?” A voice whispered urgently out of the darkness.

“Ugh,” Michael grunted. He took a second to get his breath. “I’ll let you know,” he whispered back, as he checked his body for functioning parts. Everything seems all right. He winced as he sat up. Check that. At least nothing was broken. From the soreness and wooziness he could tell everything was definitely not all right. He’d seen better days. Worse too, he admitted, as he crawled around the jeep and cut the briefcase free.

A dim shape materialized beside him.

“Can you use some help, Sir?” Michael recognized the voice. It was Sergeant O’Malley, from Adam Young’s staff.

“Just get me to Colonel Young as fast as you can.”

“That’s what I’m here for, Sir,” O’Malley replied. He led off into the night. “Oh, by the way, Sir,” he said over his shoulder, “I’m glad you made it. Looked to be touch-and-go for awhile there.”

Michael’s mad dash for Provo had started even before he’d raced through the King’s front lines. One APC had chased him up from Spanish Fork, making him wonder how they had got onto him so fast. When he hit Springville, two more APC’s jumped him and the next mile had been dicey. Then, just after he’d crossed the bridge and while two of the APC’s were still on it, the Allies blew it up. Instantly, or so it had seemed to Michael, enemy artillery and tank fire had begun landing all around him. Half a mile later, on the outskirts of Provo and just outside the Allied lines, one of the enemy gunners got lucky.

He and the Sergeant wormed their way through the ruins. In an open space behind an intact building, two horses stood silently. Daniel Windwalker stood beside them, holding their reins, waiting.

“Now I know why Minowayuh called you Kemo Sabe,” he said admiringly as O’Malley and Michael approached. “You are one crazy dog-soldier.”

“Rats,” Michael smiled. “My secret’s out.”

“Got a present for you from Arnold Begay,” Daniel said, holding out Michael’s Uzi.

Michael grabbed the gun like a lost lover and shook Daniel’s hand. The two men mounted up and rode for Allied headquarters, while Sergeant O’Malley headed back toward his men.

Michael asked, “How’s Chris doing?”

“She was fine this morning,” Daniel responded. “Doc says she’ll be able to ride in another week or two.”

“I’ll stop in and see her after I’m done at HQ.” Michael’s saddle creaked as he shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable.

“Can’t. Adam ordered the hospitals evacuated. They’re up Provo Canyon with the children. Suzie’s back in action though.”

“Redfeather got hit?”

“Yeah, say I’ll make you a deal. I’ll bring you up to date on what all happened here today if you’ll tell me how somebody gets shot down on Edge Mountain and less than a day later crashes back into our lines dressed like a Captain in the King’s army.”

“Done,” Michael replied.

Chapter 46: Carswell’s Charge

Earl Baker stepped off the ladder, threw down his gloves and sank to one knee to catch his breath. The circles under his eyes looked like smeared black mascara. His cheeks were sunken, his lips cracked and bleeding and his hands trembled. He hadn’t slept in three days. Dirt had worked its way into the lines on his face. He braced both hands on his knee and boosted himself to his feet as he heard Jim Cantrell approach.

“We’ve hit water in the southern anchor shaft, Major,” Earl said.

What next? Jim thought. “Are we deep enough for the C-4 to work?”

“I don’t know.” Earl shook his head tiredly. “I just don’t know.”

“Do we have enough plastique for you to use a triple charge in that shaft?”

“Yeah, but these things are delicate,” Earl said. “If the blasts aren’t balanced just right...well, we lost twenty men when part of ten-shaft collapsed yesterday.”

“I know, Earl, but our people have already been pushed back to Provo and it’ll likely fall today. We’re running out of time.” Jim’s communications expert had established radio contact with Provo by climbing Mt. Timpanogos and setting up a relay station.

Jim ran his hand through his hair. They’d all been working around the clock for too long. Tired men make mistakes and exhausted men get themselves killed. Everyone had been pulling double shifts since they’d arrived. He looked at Earl, thinking, he’s had even less rest than most of us this past week. It was time to make the decision he’d been dreading.

“Shut it down, Earl,” Jim said softly.

“What?” Earl gaped. “We can’t do that. We...”

“We have to, Earl. We’re making too many mistakes. Shut down for six hours. No drilling. No shoring. No blasting. No carting. Everybody grabs a meal and sleeps.”

Jim checked his watch. It was 2:42 a.m. He knew they had at most another day or two to get it done. He laid a hand on Earl’s shoulder and looked him squarely in the eye.

“That goes for you, too. We’re all depending on you, Earl. We need that mind of yours fresh and clear.” Jim’s tone was firm and steady; it brooked no disagreement.

Earl nodded and shrugged helplessly. Jim clapped him on the back.

“We’ll fire it back up at 9 a.m.,” Jim said to Earl’s slowly retreating back. He forced his voice to sound enthusiastic.

“You want me to rouse the rest of the mess hall crew?” Earl asked over his shoulder.

“No. We’ll use the MRE’s,” Jim said, referring to the old but still edible prepackaged meals some U.S. Army bureaucrat had tagged Meals Ready to Eat, but common soldiers called Meals Rejected by Everyone. They were actually pretty good and he really liked the Chicken and Noodles as well as the Beef Stew. A full service meal at the mess hall would have been better, but it wasn’t set up to handle two thousand men at once. Besides, sleep was more important.

Against his will, his mind turned to thoughts of Sara. He was still torn between his duty to the Freeholds and his desire to go after her. His heart was insisting he had abandoned her. To make matters worse, he hadn’t heard a word from Raymond Stormcloud and it worried him. He tried to force his thoughts away from that topic, but memories of the scars her body bore from her previous encounters with the King haunted him, rekindling his slow-burning anger and stiffening his resolve. He would not fail. He must not fail. It was the least he could do for her.

*

The sniper peered from between the rocks trying to spot another victim. From a distance of slightly over 800 yards, Ellen Whitebear fired a bullet through his brain.

“Gotcha,” she whispered to herself. For the past two hours the sniper had been killing Allied soldiers. He’d even shot the antenna off the Huey so they couldn’t radio for help. This was the first time he’d given her a clear shot at him.

The sniper and the rest of a company-sized enemy force had found them last night, attacking at 4:00 a.m. Thanks to a few seconds advance warning by a pair of perimeter guards, the attack had been repulsed. Since then the battle had settled down to a long-range sniping war, which the Allies were losing. Outnumbered by at least five to one, defending a position down near the lake front, while the enemy held the heights to the south, the Allies were facing long odds.

Ellen had lost more than a dozen men since the fight began. Many of them were previously wounded soldiers who had risen from their bedrolls in the infirmary to help repel the initial attack. Of the twenty healthy fighters Jim had left behind, only fifteen were still on their feet.

The corpsmen and nurses were risking their lives in the best tradition of combat medics everywhere, recklessly exposing themselves to enemy fire as they rescued and treated the wounded, occasionally stopping to shoot back.

Ellen smiled in grim satisfaction as she dropped another enemy rifleman. Retreat was out of the question. There were more than one hundred men who’d been too badly wounded in the massacre at Bloody Lake to walk. She wouldn’t abandon them. In addition, she wasn’t about to let the enemy have the Huey. She had a feeling it would be needed.

She had to come up with something. Sounds coming from the rocks above indicated the enemy was about to mount another charge. A gust of wind blew her hair into her eyes and as she tied it back into a ponytail, her knitted brows relaxed. Of course! She handed her rifle to Gypsy and headed for the chopper, picking up Terrell along the way.

A few minutes later, she was back, her trap in place. She passed the word to withdraw to the innermost defense perimeter, then took her empty rifle, a Springfield Model 1903-A4, back from Gypsy and fed five more rounds into its fixed clip. The brute weighed over nine pounds, but she’d never fired a more accurate gun. Besides, the weight helped to absorb the recoil.

A rebel yell from farther up the hill announced the beginning of the enemy charge. Ellen fired three quick shots into the canisters she and Terrell had placed moments ago. A hissing noise, like steam under pressure, reached her ears along with enemy war cries as they advanced. She leaned her back against the rocks and prayed for the stiff up-canyon breeze to continue to blow.

Wisps of sickly green gas wafted up the hill toward the heights. The enemy front was visible now as dozens of men swarmed down the hillside, leaping from rock to rock and tree to tree, pausing only briefly to fire before continuing to advance. The gas was so dispersed that it was hard for Ellen to tell where it was. The wave of men met the first of the thin vapors. At first nothing happened, then with startling swiftness, men began to drop and retch.

“Gas!” That single piercing cry, ending as it did with a retching sound, galvanized the enemy soldiers, transforming them from battle-tested veterans, confidently advancing against light return fire, to a fleeing, panic-stricken mob.

Ellen smiled at Terrell, who gave her a thumbs-up. She knew the enemy would regroup and attack again, but she also knew they wouldn’t hit until after the breeze died down at sunset.

An hour later, the mule train from Provo arrived with fuel for the chopper and thirty minutes after that Terrell, Gypsy and Ellen were airborne looking for the enemy camp. It took them ten minutes to find and just three minutes to shred; Gypsy’s M60 and Ellen’s minigun raked enemy soldiers without mercy.

Now she could head for the main battle.

*

Back in Provo, the fighting was easily the most intense of the war. All morning, the Allies gave ground slowly, falling back one house, one block, at a time. Out of LAWS, their recoilless rifles smashed to scrap, their supply of anti-tank mines exhausted, Adam had no choice but to continue to wage a fighting retreat. And this was no orderly retirement from the field of battle. This was a grudge match, in which every inch was yielded only at the cost of blood. The Allies killed thousands of the King’s soldiers and thousands more replaced them. The enemy killed hundreds of the Allies and there were no replacements.

The King’s remaining four tanks had rolled toward Provo just before dawn. The single howitzer Adam had retained to defend the southern front killed two of them before being destroyed by the enemy Focke-Wulfe, which continued to bomb and strafe the Allies. A rifle squad purchased a third tank with their lives, decoying it into a deep, pit trap. The fourth tank, a Patton, stormed ahead, smashing everything in its path.

Major Cheryl Cummins died leading a daring cavalry attack that destroyed the last of the enemy’s artillery. The location of those guns and the timing of the enemy assault were the most useful pieces of information to come from the briefcase Michael Whitebear had stolen. Adam had used the information of the enemy’s troop and armor dispositions to minimize Allied casualties while maximizing those of the enemy, but even that did little to slow their advance. There were simply too many of them.

To the north, Captain Parsons and his troops held firm despite mounting pressure. His howitzer was camouflaged with overhead netting and the enemy Focke-Wulfe had been unable to locate and destroy it.

*

Michael Whitebear, Daniel Windwalker and Mitchell Stonehand raced through the wreckage of Provo toward the Big-Cat Construction Company. Word had come to them from Bob Young that one of the Allied mechanics had repaired a D-9H Caterpillar. The rest of the Allied bulldozers had already been destroyed. They weren’t much use against tanks, but were fearsome against infantry. Michael had come up with what Daniel was now beginning to regard as a typically Michael idea and the three were in a rush to try it out.

Daniel’s long legs had him in the lead as the three dodged their way around debris and leaped over fallen trees. Sure enough, it was up and running when they arrived. Daniel had no experience at all running a Cat. He pulled up and stood there looking at it, a puzzled expression on his face. Once upon a time, back before the world went to hell, Michael had run a little D-2 for a rancher. He took one look at this D-9H and knew he was in trouble. There were considerable differences. Kind of like the difference between flying an ultralight and a 727.

He was still standing there, looking helpless, when Mitchell Stonehand brushed by and climbed up into the cab. He raised and lowered the blade experimentally, then put the big Cat through its paces. He shut it off and climbed down.

“This don’t do it, nothin’ will,” he said, stoically.

Daniel just nodded, but Michael couldn’t resist asking, “Where’d you learn to operate one of these things?”

“Aw, I had a little construction company before, you know...” Mitchell said with a shrug. He was very sparing with words.

“Must have been some company for you to have one of these,” Michael said.

Mitchell mumbled something as he climbed back onto the Cat but Michael missed it. He looked over at Daniel, who’d been closer.

“Says he had thirty of ’em,” Daniel explained with a smile.

The Cat roared to life and headed for the open gate. Daniel and Michael scrambled to get aboard before they got left behind.

*

Captain Parsons had his hands full at the moment. Enemy soldiers were massing to charge his position. The strafing and bombing runs from the enemy plane had forced him to relocate his howitzer so many times it was almost at Olmstead, practically in the mouth of Provo Canyon.

Sergeant Buell continued to call in firing coordinates, as did Dan Osaka and Lady Di, not that it mattered much with only four rounds of high explosive left. He glanced again at the ammo boxes containing his surprise and wondered if they would do the trick.

Parsons looked around, examining his latest position for flaws. He couldn’t pull back any farther. It would have to do.

*

Prince John sighted carefully through the scope of his sniper rifle. The stock of the 7 mm Mashburn Magnum lay across the back of a concrete bench weary commuters had once rested on while waiting to catch a bus. A faded Pepsi ad still graced the bench, proclaiming itself the drink of the next generation. John took in half a breath, held it for the merest instant while his index finger caressed the rifle’s trigger and smiled as he watched his target, six hundred yards away, spin lifelessly to the ground. He pulled his eye away from the 4X Redfield ranging scope, cocked the bolt and fed another round into the single shot rifle.

The smile on his face was genuine as he truly enjoyed shooting a finely made gun. Though of course, killing at such distances took some of the fun out of it. The Prince was one of those rare men who took almost orgasmic pleasure in looking into the eyes of those he killed, watching the life flow from them, the sparkle turning flat and dull. The Royal Inquisitor shared this quirk. It was one of the reasons they got along so well.

John was smiling a thin-lipped smile, careful not to show his bad teeth. This morning’s attack was going well in spite of the fact that Carswell, up north, was dragging his ass. The man should have occupied Provo Canyon by now and cut off the Allied retreat, but he claimed to have encountered fierce resistance. Oh well, Carswell can be dealt with later, the Prince decided, as he lined up on another target.

*