I cursed Brown’s attempt to cut me out of the loop. It meant that I was just now getting my soldiers ready for battle. If I’d had advanced warning, I would have had everyone prepared to run to the Coffee Line as soon as Williams launched the attack. At that moment, no one was occupying the Coffee Line, and I wouldn’t be able to get anyone in place for another six or eight minutes.
Over the radio, the calls for help continued. The Chinese were now pushing down the hill, throwing grenades to flush defenders out from behind trees. Behind the PLA lines, mortar teams were targeting the Airborne positions with fire, and the shrapnel was heaping more casualties on an already bloody American defeat.
Pull back, Mike. Williams needed to end the debacle now while his force maintained some semblance of cohesion and order. The only thing stopping me from begging Williams over the radio to call a retreat was the thought that Brown would probably make his order to continue the attack clear, forcing Williams to keep going.
I didn’t know if Williams was even still alive. At that point, I would guess that about half of his force was dead or wounded. The failure of the attack had to be obvious, even to Brown. If he’d had any sense at all, he would have been screaming for a retreat himself.
The boys and girls of the reserve were finally ready. I led them out from the elementary school at a quick jog. We made rapid progress through the streets, heading toward the sound of gunfire on Teatime Hill.
A minute or two into the run, another terrified voice sounded on the radio. “Help! Under attack! Send back-up now!” This voice sounded older than the others, high-pitched because of the strain of battle. The request for assistance had not been very professional, sounding more like a civilian’s cry for help. The voice sounded very familiar though…
“Jesus, was that General Brown?” someone asked on the radio.
For a second, I was confused. Brown had said he wasn’t going to be participating in the attack at the front line. He was going to be back at headquarters.
“Oh shit,” I sad aloud. I switched frequencies back to the reserve channel and said, “Alpha Company, follow me, we’re going to headquarters. Everyone else, get to the Coffee Line, fast!”
The Chinese had pulled a fast one on us. All eyes were on Williams’s assault on Teatime Hill, but Colonel Fong must have thought there was an opportunity to strike a blow at the Airborne leadership while the Coffee Line was empty.
A daring attack, carried out right under our noses. It sounded like Unit One, the Chinese special forces unit that had torn apart the Lafayette Initiative a few days ago. Bad news for us regular soldiers.
I was breathless from the run, but I managed to say, “Alpha Company, we’re probably facing Unit One commandos. Be careful, goddamn it.”
Now that I knew there were Chinese soldiers attacking the headquarters, I noticed the occasional pop of M-4 rifles and pistols coming from that direction. The Chinese were presumably using silenced Ak-2000’s, and as we came to within a hundred yards of the gymnasium where Gutierrez and Brown had made their headquarters, I noticed the muffled phut of the Unit One weapons.
I slowed our approach. The Unit One soldiers would be ready for reinforcements; there was no sense charging in and accommodating their plans. Our weapons were at the ready, and my heart pounded with fear. We were going up against some of the best soldiers chosen from among the billion-and-a-half citizens of the People’s Republic of China.
Muffled cracks popped from down the street, and three of the soldiers of Alpha Company fell to the ground with gunshot wounds in their heads. The other soldiers in the company hit the pavement as well, searching for semblance of cover. I went down on one knee and returned fire in the general direction of the headquarters. The other men in the company followed my lead, and my squads started leapfrogging each other, one providing covering fire while the others advanced on the headquarters.
I saw a muzzle flash from an alley to our left, and two more soldiers went down with wounds to the chest. Firing in that direction, I was rewarded with the sight of blood splatter, one of my shots having apparently caught the Unit One soldier square in the head.
We pushed on toward the headquarters, where the sound of gunfire was diminishing. I weighed ordering a headlong rush. If there was any hope of saving anyone inside, it would be gone by the time we reached the building at our current pace.
On the other hand… well, I certainly wasn’t dragging my feet. Not at all. But the thought did occur to me that if General Brown were to die before I got there to save him, it might not be the worst outcome for the Airborne garrison of Citadel. It would serve the bastard right for ordering Williams to his death.
I decided to continue the cautious leapfrogging movement of squads, rationalizing that the lessening gunfire meant that there were fewer Americans left to save even if we did hurry. We continued pushing on down the street, though I also sent squads running down side streets to reach the other side of the headquarters, encircling the building so that the Unit One commandos wouldn’t be able to escape.
A grenade detonated across the street from me, and I probably would have been killed if a soldier from Alpha Company hadn’t been between me and the fragments. “Grenades!” I yelled, flattening to the pavement and firing blindly ahead.
Fighting against the commandos was proving difficult and costly in lives. They would pop up from cover, find a target, and fire almost instantaneously. Unless one of the Airborne soldiers was looking in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, we couldn’t react fast enough to hit them. The leapfrogging system ensured that we continued pushing forward and minimized our losses, but the Unit One soldiers could keep retreating back toward the headquarters, forcing us to go through more iterations of the leapfrogging.
Finally, the Unit One soldiers had fallen back to the headquarters itself. About three minutes had elapsed since they had first opened fire at us, and we had suffered about fifteen casualties. By my guess, there were only six Unit One soldiers outside of the headquarters to deal with. The gunfire inside the headquarters had ceased now, and presumably the Unit One soldiers would be ready to run back out of Citadel and try to pass through the Coffee Line again before my reserve had locked it down again.
The Chinese gunfire intensified, and several more of my soldiers were hit. Covering fire, I thought. They’re getting ready to run out from the other side of the headquarters. I hoped the squads I had sent down the side streets had made it around the building. Wouldn’t do to let the Chicoms escape nearly unscathed after wiping out our senior leadership.
Suddenly, the Unit One fire slackened. They had to be off and running to the west, away from us as we faced the headquarters. The building itself blocked our view of them, so I ordered, “Move up! Keep them running!”
No sooner had I given the order than automatic weapons fire sounded on the other side of the building. The sound was of M-4 rifles firing aimed shots, and I pumped a fist with joy. “Our boys are cutting ’em down! Let’s get over there and finish them off!”
At a dead sprint, we rounded the gymnasium and headed for the other side of the building. I could hear M-4 fire, but also the flattened sound of the silenced Ak-2000’s.
I peered around the corner just in time to see the last of the Unit One soldiers disappearing to the north a few blocks down the street. “Squad two, you on ’em?” I asked over the radio. Squad two had been assigned to cut off the escape routes to the north.
No response came. “Shit!” I yelled, hitting the wall of the gymnasium. It was obvious what had happened. One squad had not been enough to stop the Unit One soldiers, even with the element of surprise. Five Unit One commandos lay dead or wounded on the street, but they had wiped out the twelve man squad that had been meant to prevent their escape. The Unit One soldiers who had been wounded grabbed at their Ak-2000’s or sidearms and killed themselves rather than face capture by us.