Jake climbed broken stairs, having to climb over debris and smashed wood. He smelled smoke. He listened to bombardments, chattering machine guns and the clack of tracked vehicles coming up. This war was never going to end. The world would fight it out in North America until they were all down to the level of savages. It was a new Ice Age. Maybe this would bring about the death of the Industrial World. Maybe this war was mass suicide of the human race.
The building shook. Bricks fell, striking the floor and bouncing crazily. The crackle of flames from somewhere near threatened to turn the place into an inferno. From below, heavy machine guns rattled endlessly, and the clang and clack of .50 caliber bullets bouncing off heavier armor told its own tale.
The three of them raced to a window. Enemy gunfire drove them back as the walls around the window sprayed cement and chalky dust.
“Now what are we going to do?” Charlie shouted.
Jake wondered about that. As he did, a salvo of HE shells hit the base of the building. Everything shook more than ever. Jake expected the floor to open up and swallow him.
“We’re going to die,” Lee said in a calm voice.
Jake looked at him. Corporal Lee gazed back.
“What the heck,” Jake said. He readied his RPG and raced back to a window. Lee took the other window. Jake aimed the RPG down, aimed at the top of the nearest Leopard turret. There were two tanks there now. He fired, and the shaped-charge grenade flew down. Jake stumbled back as a bullet slammed against his chest. That caused him to fall backward, hitting his helmet against furniture. An explosion came from below, bewildering him.
Jake might have passed out. The next thing he knew Charlie was dragging him. The potato-grower was weeping.
“Is there something wrong?” Jake asked.
“Lee’s dead,” Charlie said.
Jake wiped blood out of his eye. He climbed to his feet and his head throbbed. His chest hurt too. He felt the front of his body armor over his heart and the size of the depression there. He was lucky to be alive.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Amid the bombardments, amid the crash of shells and bullets and the sway of the rooms, they made it back into the smoky basement. The other tank had gone away, and so had the rest of the GD teams. Only one militiaman lived down here. He was propped in a corner as he bled to death.
Jake and Charlie hurried across the rubble to him to see if they can help the man.
It turned out to be one of the MDG Sergeants. The sergeant grabbed Jake’s arm and held on with a fierce grip. “You bastards killed one of the tanks, but Franks killed the lieutenant.”
“What?” Jake asked.
“The lieutenant wanted Franks to keep firing but Franks chickened out. So he drew his gun and blew out the lieutenant’s brains. He took off, Higgins. You listen to me. You kill that filthy traitor, Dan Franks. You punish him for running away in the face of the enemy. You…”
The sergeant’s grip failed. His hand dropped away and his head slumped to the side. The MDG was dead, his eyes glazed.
Charlie swept his hands over the eyelids. Jake got up and went to the lieutenant. The young man was very dead, with the front of his head blown away. Jake checked the back. He’d seen enough death to know now. Someone had put a pistol there and fired. He could see powder burns.
“What do we do?” Charlie asked. “Everyone is dead.”
Jake stood. He turned to Charlie. Then he picked up his M16 and headed for the way out. They had to escape this deathtrap and reach Buffalo before the GD closed the door on what was left of Fifth Army.
He knew what he was going to do. “Franks,” Jake whispered, and then he didn’t say anything more.
When General Norton hurled his hat across the room and swore fierce profanities, Anna understood that the combined ICBM-ASBM attack had failed to stop the invasion.
Director Harold scowled, staring at Norton. Finally, the director lifted both of his fists and slammed them against the table.
The President slumped deeper into his chair. His eyes became staring and hollow. It was a ghastly transformation. Anna would have preferred him to swear like Norton and show anger like Max.
“We need to use more ICBMs,” Max said. “One thermonuclear warhead got through. If we saturate bomb them this time—”
“Look!” Norton said in a grim voice. “The enemy fleet is beginning to spread out. They’re preparing for us to strike again.”
“Then we must strike again now, immediately,” Max said. “We must hit them before they disperse.”
“With all due respect, Director, I don’t think so,” Norton said. “They have space mirrors in place, operational mirrors. ICBMs are much easier to destroy during boost phase when they are full of fuel. With the mirrors, they’ll be able to reach down into the central US to do that. No. I don’t think we can—”
“Destroy the mirrors!” Max shouted. “Let’s use our strategic lasers against them.”
“Have you studied the angle?” Norton asked. “The GD mirrors aren’t close enough.”
“Then how can lasers bounce off the mirrors and hit our ICBMs during boost phase?”
“It should be obvious,” Norton said. “As the ICBMs lift upward, they pass the angle of the Earth and come into the mirrors’ line-of-sight.”
Max shook his head. “That can’t be it. We can’t have failed in this.”
“I agree with you there,” Norton told him. “The fight is far from over. We will entrain troops to New Jersey—”
“No!” Max said. “We must stop the fleet. We cannot let the enemy soldiers land and complete the encirclement of the First Front.”
Anna was frowning. There was something in the back of her mind. There was something else…
“Mr. President,” Max said. “I suggest another nuclear strike.”
David slowly looked up.
Anna shuddered. She hated the hopelessness she saw on his face. Then she saw something else appear. It began in the President’s eyes. The hollowness remained. He was very tired. But something other than despair shined out of him. It began as a light. She couldn’t think of any other way to express it. The light shined from his eyes. That melted the hopelessness. Then it etched lines in his face so he became like a grinning skull, one vitally alive with unholy power.
The President made a dry sound like one of the undead laughing. His lips peeled back, and like the Homeland Security Director a moment ago, he curled the fingers of his right hand into a fist. He slammed that fist against the table. He hit the surface hard.
Anna wondered if he’d broken bones. She had watched a nature show once that showed a polar bear sneaking up on a seal. The huge beast had used infinite patience. As it reached the nearest piece of ice to the seal, the bear rose up to charge. As the polar bear first charged, however, one of its hind paws slipped. That gave the seal just enough of a margin to slither to its ice hole and dive away into safety. The polar bear went berserk, and it hammered its forepaws against the ice in rage. Then the bear charged the cameramen and they shot the beast in self-defense. The interesting moment came later. The nature people discovered that every bone in the bear’s right forepaw had been broken by smashing it against the ice.
Would David now break bones in his fist? He’d hit the table hard enough.