The Fate Of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha: Book One (40 page)

              “Prowler from Streetgang leader,” Donner’s voice came over the radio. “Artillery has been silenced! We’re coming to pick you up!”

              “Roger that!” Carter said.

              “The EZ is clear!” he advised the operators. “Get the seriously wounded on board first!” he ordered. “Grumble, can you still carry Harvard?”  Carter asked; noticing that the Canadian sergeant had received what appeared to be shrapnel wounds to his left shoulder. His goggles were gone, his helmet cracked and his left eye was swollen shut.

              “I’ve got him Boss!” McNamara said, assuredly.

              “Then move out,” Carter ordered as he activated his radio. “Streetgang leader from Prowler,” he said “Our wounded are moving into the EZ now. You can start pick up the sniper teams.”

              “Roger that!” Donner voice responded.

                                          [][][]

              Roth fired a last shot that destroyed the head of an enemy machine gunner as the Kiowa-II helicopter came into a low hover over the roof of the officer’s quarters building. She could hear the rotors even through the floors and ceilings separating her from the roof. Distantly she could see the Pueblos lowering into the crater EZ and lifting off with her team mates as the Cheyenne’s flew in low, protective orbits.

              “Time to go!” Sains said, tapping her on the shoulder.

              She rose from her prone firing position, slung her sniper rifle over one shoulder, and drew her PM-58 machine pistol from a thigh holster. Any further enemy contact, she knew, would be a close range.

              Using a staircase, the two operators ran to the waiting helicopter, which was hovering fifteen above the roof as its dual, side mounted thirty-caliber Gatling guns fired on unseen targets in the distance.

              Smaller, faster and more maneuverable that the Pueblos the Kiowas presented harder targets for enemy gunners, but lacked the armor protection of their larger rotary-winged cousins.

              Both operators jumped the fifteen feet into the helicopter. Just as Sains had brought his left foot into the passenger compartment, jagged holes appeared in the floor accompanied sound of metal being ripped apart. His right foot erupted into a spray of blood and bone shards. Flame and smoke filled the compartment and the aircraft listed to the left and began to fall rapidly. Roth screamed in pain.

              Stationary, and therefore vulnerable while hovering, the Kiowa had been hit by some type of heavy weapon. It slammed into the roof of a neighboring office building, fell onto its side, and skidded to a halt, after its still turning rotors had been broken against the concrete roof.

              In an act of primal instinct, Sains threw himself out of the doomed aircraft as it struck the office buildings roof. Pain burst from his wounded foot to explode throughout his body as rolled uncontrollably to a stop. Through hazy vision he could see the Kiowa were it lay precariously close to the roof’s edge. It was partially engulfed in flames.

              He reached for his rifle, pulled its operating bolt to assure himself that it would still function, and crawled painfully toward the crash; activating his com-system as he did so.

              “Brains for Prowler!” he choked into the microphone.

              “Go for Prowler,” Carter responded.

              “Streetgang two-five is down!” Sains declared. “We’re on the roof of the executive office to the west of the officer’s quarters! I’m setting an I.R. beacon on two second pulse!”

              “Hang on, Brains,” Carter assured the operator, as he assured himself that the last of the assault team’s seriously wounded had boarder the pueblos. “We’re on our way!”

              “Streetgang two-five is down!” he said into the radio. “Grumble, Dancer you’re with me. Grab some ammo,” Carter ordered and turned to Beauchamp as he and the remnant of team Foxtrot approached on the run. “You and your team are with us; we’re going to relieve Streetgang two-five. Gear up.” Beauchamp and the three surviving operators of team Foxtrot joined Nagura and McNamara in raiding the cache of small arms ammunition carried in the Pueblo.

                            Carter boarded the Pueblo and tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Streetgang two-five is down near the officer’s quarters. I need you to take us there!” The pilot and co-pilot nodded. “Roger that,” the pilot confirmed.

              Carter turned to the pair of door gunners and two medics that made up the rest of the Pueblo’s crew. “Are you troopers up for that?

              “Good to go, Sir!” a medic with a boyish, almost childlike face said.

              Carter turned toward Mason Price, Fire Team Bravo’s commander. “Get the wounded out of here!” he told him.

“If we can’t evac with Streetgang two-five, we’ll try to join the underground!”

              A protest began to form on Prices lips, but went no further. “Affirmative,” Price said finally. “Good luck, Boss!”

              Carter boarded the helicopter and tapped its pilot on the shoulder again. “Let’s go!”

              The pilot nodded. “Roger that.”

                  [][][]

              Roth’s pulse was barely detectable. She was unconscious and he legs were pinned under the helicopter’s fuselage. Her blood was oozing out to form a puddle under her body. Sains used the chopper’s landing skid to pull himself upright; wincing as the he tentatively tried to put weight on his mangled foot. He checked the Kiowa’s crew and found that the pilot was dead and the co-pilot was dearly so.

              He used his rifle as a make shift crutch and hobbled over to the opposite side of the rooftop. He allowed himself to fall prone again, and peered out in the direction that the fire that had brought down the Kiowa must have come from. With great effort he focused through the agony emanating from his wounded foot and reached out with his psychic ability. After a few seconds, he found what he was searching for and activated his radio. As he spoke as he sighted his rifle’s scope and switched it to thermal imaging. Sighting his target and marking it with a laser for destruction by the gunships.

              “Streetgang leader from Brains,” he called. “I have ZSU-90 mobile gun at the intersection of Rue de Bastogne and Rue Nicolas Berger!” he reported. “It has adaptive camouflage, so you’ll need to go to thermal to spot him, but I have the target painted for you!”

              Donner’s voice responded quickly. “Roger that, Brains.” Donner confirmed. “Streetgang four-one and four-two; seek and destroy that ZSU.”

              Sains watch as the tracked, tank-like anti-aircraft vehicle lay in wait for more American helicopters to arrive over Streetgang Two-five’s crash site. In the orange and red display of the thermal imager, its four, turret mounted auto-cannon seemed glowed brightly from being repeatedly fired. The rotating radar antenna glowed a pale yellow.

              After a few seconds two Cheyenne gunships roared over Sain’s head. “This is Streetgang four-one. We have the target and are in to attack.”

              Each of the two helicopters fired a single missile. The missiles’ sensors detected the laser being projected from Sain’s scope and struck the anti-aircraft tank almost simultaneously. The electronic camouflage that had kept it hidden failed in a final electric shimmer at the same time that its turret was blown from its body and the ammunition for its four, thirty millimeter automatic cannon began to explode. The intersection was filled with flame and smoke as the exploding ammunition sent shrapnel randomly in all directions.

              “The target is destroyed.” The Cheyenne pilot reported.

              “Nice shooting Streetgang four-one.” Sains said, making his way slowly back to Roth’s side. He had just verified that she was still alive when he sensed a squad of enemy infantry in the stairwell. He knew that that squad was here to finish off anyone who had survived the crash.

              He sighted his rifle in the doorway to the staircase. “Sharron!” he said to Roth where she lay a few feet away. “Sharron, you’ve got to hang on! The team is coming! DO NOT DIE!”

              He opened fire on the first enemy trooper that tried to get onto the roof and saw the ultra high powered ammunition from his rifle blast away the right side of his targets chest.

                                          [][][]

“I have your man’s beacon,” the Pueblo’s pilot told Carter. Switching his own goggles to infra-red mode, Carter saw the pulsing beam of infra-red light marking Sains’ position. Two Cheyenne gunships were orbiting the building, protecting the crash site. 

              “Make a low pass over the roof,” Carter ordered. “We’ll jump. Get the winches and rescue harnesses ready.”

              “Will do, Sir!” the pilot confirmed as the chopper’s crew complied with Carters order.

              The Pueblo passed over the roof at fifty miles an hour. Carter and the other FIRE team operators made the twenty foot jump and instantly began firing at the doorway that Sains was already defending; driving back the enemy troops with concentrated gunfire. When all the enemy troops had been driven back into the stairwell, Nagura and McNamara each tossed grenade in after them. Both operators then shot any enemy troops that had survived the grenades.

              “Dancer, cover that doorway!” Carter ordered, kneeling beside Sains.

              “Roth is alive but pinned under the helo!” Sains reported. “The pilot is dead, but the co-pilot was still alive the last time I checked.”

              “Right,’ Carter said. “Help Dancer cover that door,” he added.

              Looking to his right he saw Roth being tended to by Joan Corey; an American first sergeant from Team Foxtrot. “How is she Wicked?” he asked, using Corey’s call sign.

              “Bad,” Corey replied, in a strained New England accent. “Looks like a fractured skull and a lot of internal bleeding!”

              “OK,” Carter said, seeing that Beauchamp and the rest of his team had already extricated the wounded pilot from the wreck helicopter. “We’ve got to get the chopper off of her! Wicked and I will pull her clear while the rest of you lift!”

              McNamara, Beauchamp and the other members of Team Foxtrot lift the crashed helicopter in one smooth motion and Corey and Carter puller Roth from beneath it. Bones protrude from the front of both thighs. Only the nanites from the IBOS automatic medical system had prevented her from bleeding to death.             

              Carter heard the sound of heavy weapons fire from above. The door gunners from the Pueblo were firing at unseen targets on the ground. Carter activated his radio. “Streetgang three-zero, what have you got?”

              “Massed infantry converging on crash site,” the Pueblo’s pilot replied.

              “Send down the rescue harnesses,” Carter commanded, as the Cheyenne gunships that had been orbiting the crash site turned their weapons on the approaching enemy troops. “We have two wounded.”

              “Sir, she should go up on a litter!” Corey’s said. “Using a harness might kill her!”

              “No time for a litter,” Carters said. “Our air support has to be low on ammo by now! Without their cover the enemy will bum rush us! You go up with her. Try to keep her from getting bounced around too much!”

              “Right,” Corey said.

              “Frogger, get Brains hooked up and then send the rest of your team up!”

              “On it!” Beauchamp said.

              Fifty seconds later Roth and Sains were both hoisted onto the Pueblo followed by the remainder of team Foxtrot. “Dancer, Grumble, you’re next!” Carter ordered.

              Carter and Beauchamp were the last to leave the rooftop. The pilot began maneuvering his aircraft away from the battle sight while the two team leaders were still dangling on the ropes. Both operators felt their body armor absorb several enemy bullets before McNamara and Nagura reached out to pull them into the comparative safety of the Pueblos passenger compartment.

              A medic immediately began to examine Carter’s injuries by passing a hand-held medical imager over his torso and arm. Nagura was tending to a gash on Beauchamp’s right forearm. A second medic was desperately applying CPR to the Pueblo’s co-pilot.

              The medic placed an oxygen mask over his face and began removing his body armor and opening the front of his IBOS. “Sir, Your lung is punctured,” the young medic said pointing to an image on the tablet-sized imager. “I’m, gonna have to stick you with this to relieve the pressure,’ he added holding up a heavy gage needle and syringe.”

              “What about my people?” Carter asked, pointing toward Roth where she lay on a litter affixed to the rear of the compartment with several intervienous medication tubes running into her arms from plastic bags hanging above her. Sains was on his knees beside her all but shouting words of encouragement. His foot had already been dressed.

              “I’ve stabilized her, but that’s all I can do. She needs a doctor and a hospital,” the medic explained. ”I tried to get him to elevate his foot, but he won’t leave her,” he added gesturing toward Sains.

              “Do what you have to do, Doc,” Carter said. “This isn’t my first rodeo.” The medic proceeded to insert the needle and between the injured ribs and draw out the pressure causing fluid; repeating the process twice.

              “You should be able to breathe easier now, Sir,” The Medic said. “But you should keep the mask on. I’ll dress the wound in a minute.”

              “Thanks, Doc,” Carter said. The medic turned his attention to McNamara, holding his scanner over the Canadian’s wounded eyes for several seconds.

              “OK, Boss,” McNamara said as the medic did his work. “How the hell did the enemy know where all of our EZs were supposed to be?”

              “Pope is how,” Carter said, removing the oxygen mask briefly.

              “If he wanted to blow the mission, why not compromise us at insertion? He could have had a hundred guys waiting for has on the beach when we came ashore.”

              Carter removed the mask again. “He didn’t want mission to fail. He just wanted to make sure that Harvard and I didn’t come back! That’s why he angled for the job of coordinating our extraction force.” Carter took another breath of oxygen from the mask. “My guess is that he compromised us right after we gave to go signal from the officer’s quarters. He knew it would be too late to stop us from hitting the Central Command by then, but they’d have time to cut off our EZs and keep us from getting away.”

              “Son of a bitch!” McNamara said. “Speaking of our extraction force, Boss; I don’t remember the plan having a C-190 in it.”

              “There wasn’t.” Carter said. “General Hicks, Chief Donner, Major Durst and me added it at the last minute; without telling Pope.”

              “So you knew Pope was up to no good.” McNamara said.

              “Pope is always up to no good,” Carter said before breathing more oxygen.

              “I didn’t think a C-190 had the range for this mission.” McNamara said.

              “Not for a round trip out of Iceland, they don’t” Carter said. “This was a one-way trip. Once they had used all of their ammo, the crew flew out to meet our invasion fleet, and then ditched in the ocean. Having a C-190, with all of that fire power, was the last thing that Pope, or the WCA would expect us to have.”

              “If it hadn’t have been there we would have be well and truly fucked.” McNamara observed. “But we lost a lot of good people because those EZs were blocked. Pope has to answer for that.”

              “Yes, he does,” Carter said. “But we’ll talk about that later.

           Chapter 12

USS Inchon: forty kilometers north of the British Isles

                              17, May 2104

              There had been little conversation on the forty minute flight to rendezvous with the invasion fleet. Without a massive amount of adrenaline in his veins Carter had begun to feel his injuries and fatigue. He suspected the other operators were in similar condition.

              With his people out of danger he allowed himself to wonder about his wife. Had the teams in the Urals made it out alive? Was Monica alive or wounded? He almost welcomed the pain he was in. It distracted him from the horrible scenarios that were raging through his mind.
She has to be alive
, he thought.
She has to be!

              The medic touched him on the shoulder. “Sir,” he said. “You might want to see this,” he added, gesturing toward the small window in the Pueblo’s door.

              Carter did as the medic suggested. A few hundred feet below the Pueblo, dozens of tilt-rotor, troop carrying helicopters flew flying in a tight formation. “Those choppers are a regiment from the Fifth Marine Division,” the medic said. “They’re heading for the English coast.”

             
Go get ‘em Devil Dogs!
Carter thought. He smiled. Seeing the invasion under way made the whole mission seem real to him for the first time. It gave him hope that all the death, pain, and all the things that had to be done would have some meaning.
If Monica was dead, it has to mean something.
He told himself.

              At last, the Pueblo touched down on the Inchon’s flight deck. The deck was alive with sounds. Helicopters were be launched and recovered.  Engines of small jets were being catapulted from the ramped flight deck. Dozens of deck crewmen were performing all manner of tasks in the precisely choreographed yet seemingly chaotic manner that can only be found in naval aviation. The cold sea spray could not scrub the smell of aviation fuel from the air. In the distance the massive naval guns the fleet’s cruisers and battle carriers could be heard even over the turbine driven rotor blades and straining jet engines. Cruise missiles bound for targets in the British Isles passed overhead at intervals. It all assaulted Carter’s senses simultaneously when the Pueblo’s doors opened.

              Painfully, he stepped out down from the helicopter. Two medics from the Inchon took his arms and guided him to sit on a waiting gurney. Carter waited until Roth, McNamara, and Sains had been helped on to their own gurneys before laying down himself. The operators were quickly ushered off of the flight deck and taken below decks; all the while being swarmed by doctors and medical technicians. Carter heard the doctor who seemed to be in charge order that Roth be taken directly to surgery.

              He felt a hand take his and turned to find General Hicks walking at his side as he was taken to the ship’s sick bay. “Damn it Doug, you did it! You lobotomized those globalist sons of bitches!”

              “Is there any word from teams Charlie and Echo?” Carter asked.

              “Garba has checked in,” Hicks said, his enthusiasm draining away. “Team Charlie had two killed, but they’re on their way to meet the sub that will bring them home.” Hicks tried to keep hide his concern. ”Team Echo hasn’t checked in. We know that they destroyed their target, got on their choppers and got away from the target area. They’ve missed their scheduled check in, though.”

              Carter closed his eyes; willing himself not to despair. “What about teams Bravo and Delta?” Carter asked.

              “They came on board just before you did,” Hicks said. “Pronikov was torn up pretty badly. The doctors will keep me apprised of everyone’s condition; including yours.”

              A medic unceremoniously shoved Hicks away from the gurney and took wheeled Carter through a hatch and into an elevator used exclusively for casualties. Carter closed his eyes and focused on his pain; trying to put his trepidation about Monica aside. There was nothing he could do for her. He didn’t know what might have happened to her. Speculation wasn’t fact, but pain was. He would focus what was real. Pain was real.

                            [][][]

              Carter looked at the remnant of his left harm as he struggled to arrange his pillows to support him a comfortable, upright position without disturbing the sensor tabs that were monitoring his vital signs. His left hand and forearm had been amputated just below the elbow. The blow it had absorbed while fighting the enemy paranormal operator had left the bones not just broken but, to quote the attending surgeon, ‘pulverized.’

              His broken clavicle meant that the rest of ruined limb was in a cast that held it in place at right angle to his body. His breathing was still somewhat painful as the broken ribs struggled against the bandages that cover them and the newly repaired lung protested against the abused that Carter had most recently inflicted on it. 

              It had been more than eight hours since the he had arrived on the Inchon and there had been no word from team Delta; no word from Monica. Because he had to, he held out hope in his heart, but his mind was already preparing itself for the fact of her death. He had to steel himself against the worst. He couldn’t go to pieces. The teams would need him.

              Although he was alone in the recovery room for now, he knew that casualties from the invasion force would soon be arriving and he would have company in his misery.

              “She’s dead, isn’t she, Sir?” Carter asked Hicks as he stepped into the cubicle of the Inchon’s recovery room that Carter occupied. The general’s face had answered the question before Carter had asked it.

              “Yes, Doug, she is,” Hicks said, his fist clinched as he strained not to give into his own sadness.

              “Team Charlie is aboard the Specter and on their way to meet us. Only one of team Delta’s chopper made it back to the Wraith. It was so badly damaged that it was hours behind schedule,” Hicks had to pause to gain control of his voice.

              “Yes, Sir,’ Carter pressed.

              “They had destroyed the Ural Command Facility and were on their way out in the choppers,” Hicks continued. “There was a roving infantry patrol along their path. Both of team Delta’s Pueblo’s were hit with shoulder launched SA-71 missiles. One managed to stay in the air but the other; the one Monica was in, went down nose first. There were no survivors.”

              “I understand,” Carter said.

              “The escorting Cheyenne took out the enemy patrol and the other Pueblo landed and the rest of team Delta and recovered the bodies. They’ll be shipped back to the States for the burial.”

              Carter nodded, “Yes, Sir.”

              Carter waited for the grief to overwhelm him. Instead a cold, coiled rage infused him. This was good. Rage was better than grief. Grief was never constructive but rage could be useful. He looked away from Hicks; not wanting him to see that rage.

              “Sir,” Carter said after several seconds. Was team Charlie fired on during their egress?”

              “Yes,” Hicks answered. “They were about twenty minutes out from their target and one of their choppers was hit by an SA-71. But the pilot of their Cheyenne was quick on the draw; he laid down a ripple of rockets on the patrol before they could get off another shot. The Pueblo that was hit just had its gun turret knocked off of it. It had to limp home, but it made it.”

              “Sir,” Carter said, this time not attempting to hide his rage. “Do you really believe that two, missile equipped infantry patrols just happened to be patrolling along to the escape routes of both teams? Or that the enemy just guessed the locations of our extraction zones in Brussels?”

              “It’s extremely unlikely,” Hicks admitted.

              “Extremely,” Carter agreed.

              Hicks moved closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Doug, I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But you can’t accuse Pope without proof. Besides, even if you had proof; you know who his father is.”

              “Yes, Sir, I know who his father is,” Carter said; “and I don’t care.”

              “This isn’t the place or time for this conversation.” Hicks said.

              “You’re right, Sir,” Carter consented.

              Hicks’ face softened. “Doug,” he said. “You’re hurt, tired and grieving. Let yourself heal. Let yourself grieve.”

              “Yes, Sir,” Carter agreed.

              Hicks forced a smile. “The doctors tell me that they’re going to clone you a new arm.”

              Carter looked at stump protruding from the shoulder cast. “That’s right; they say I rate a cloned replacement instead of a prosthetic because there isn’t any nerve damage. They say it will take a couple of months to grow the arm. Then they’ll attach surgically. I’m looking at a few months of physical therapy learning to use it and building up strength.”