The old NCO yanked his own map out of a cargo pocket. Paper copy, since he chalked GPS units and the internet up there with black magic. “I don’t know. That far south, we might be within range of the enemy’s artillery. With all this ammo and fuel we’re hauling, even a near miss would wipe us off the map.”
The young sergeant pulled out a can of Copenhagen chewing tobacco. He offered the older man a pinch first. The master sergeant reluctantly waved his hand away. “Thank ya’ kindly, but I had to give up the habit. Though, in times like this, I reckon that was another stupid idea.”
“You’ve got more discipline than me, Master Sergeant. I wouldn’t worry none. The south is just our flank. Neither side has the resources to do anything there. I’ve been sending convoys down that way all day. We haven’t had a single shot fired in this sector. Besides, how would the rebels even know you’re in the Area of Operations (AO)? Your convoy would be in and out in minutes.”
The supply sergeant wasn’t the dithering type. “Fair enough. I don’t have much time, either way. All right, we’ll take your route. Thanks for the heads up.”
As he climbed back into his Humvee, the master sergeant noticed the faint whiff of gun smoke still hanging in the air. Like there’d been a shootout here recently. Strange after what the MP said, but not important. He had a job to finish.
The master sergeant waved at the helpful young soldier as they turned around. “Stay safe out there, Sergeant. Even if the rebels aren’t around there are still plenty of pissed off civilians. It’s the real Wild West out here.”
“You have no idea,” muttered the junior sergeant. He was actually a master sergeant himself, at least back home with his Californian-based Special Forces unit.
He nodded at each truck in the column as they turned around, even while chatting into a non-standard issue satellite phone. Ten minutes after the last truck faded from sight, a string of booms, followed by small mushroom clouds on the horizon, ended his team’s mission. As much as he would love to sit here all day and lead these federal assholes into the arms of his artillery, there was a limit to have often they could pull off that trick. Three convoys in 24 hours was a great hunt. Now it was time to get out of Dodge before real MP’s came asking questions.
Which should be easy for his team. It wasn’t just having the same uniforms, or that everyone spoke English, which made it so easy to infiltrate the enemy. Back in Afghanistan, he could grow his beard out, wear civvies and even speak decent Pashtu, but that didn’t mean he’d last two seconds undercover in a Taliban cell. Ah, but steeped in the same culture and speaking the same military jargon made it child’s play to fuck up this enemy’s rear area. A fun, even if deadly game.
Chapter 6
In the movies, war is one group of men charging another. Somehow, everyone forgets the machine gun in their hands. The two sides rush in waves, preferring to gut each other with bayonets rather than shoot. That nonsense went out of style in World War 1. In real life, hand-to-hand combat was always an accident.
Modern war is about engaging the enemy at the maximum range possible and pouring as much firepower into them as you can. When the other side is completely pinned down, you’d flank them just enough to get a better firing angle. Eventually, one side or the other would run low on ammo or take too many casualties and try to disengage. Then you could swoop in on their vulnerable position from multiple directions and force them to surrender… or finish the heroes off from a respectable distance.
Whether in small infantry squads or large armored formations, war more closely resembled a chess game. Soldiers moving in a carefully choreographed dance only to find a better firing position, with plenty of covering fire, artillery and smoke screens whenever possible. On the other hand, in the chaos of combat, there were always exceptions to the rule.
Specialist Parrott crouched low and leaned around an air conditioning unit. There. Just a few blocks away and deep inside a third-story bank window. The rebel sniper hadn’t repositioned. When a hunter finds a good stand, the temptation to stay put is hard to resist. Parrott tuned out the shooting around him and turned off the MARS sight on his rifle. 400 meters was too far to trust that red dot. He flipped up his “backup” iron sights. He never thought to thank his platoon sergeant for insisting they all still train with these old-fashioned tools.
Everything around Parrott faded into oblivion. The frantic firing from both sides, the supposedly friendly artillery rounds crashing way too near, the screams, the reek of burning plastic and flesh everywhere. None of that existed any more. A fantasy world. Reality stopped at the end of his barrel. All five senses only acknowledged the slight creak of his glove as he steadily applied pressure to the trigger. Just before the recoil should have surprised him, a half dozen something’s tapped on his helmet.
Above him, hell, with his ass right in his face, PFC “Burger” Bergermeister rocked a SAW machine gun. Methodically churning out five round bursts into every window in some other building across the parking lot, he paid no attention to the spent cartridges. If he hit anything, it wasn’t clear, but the shell casings showered Parrott’s helmet. Hot brass rolled down his collar and under his body armor.
“Shit!” One hot piece fused to the skin on the back of his neck. There was no way Parrott could rip it off without losing his perfect sight picture. He pushed out the searing pain and forced his breathing down. His rifle finally boomed on the exhale.
Parrott lined up for a second shot, but some shadow was already dragging the sniper’s body away. Good enough. He took a well-earned break to do a spasmic, brass-down-the-back dance. The gunner ducked down next to him to load a new 200 round ammo belt. Parrott shoved him away. “Give me a couple feet standoff when you shoot that thing!”
The kid grinned. “Huh? Oh, sorry for farting in your face. A little stressed.”
“What the fuck?” He shook off the last hot sting; now he smelt the fart. “Oh, come on!”
They both threw themselves down when someone shouted that old warning, “Incoming!” Parrott never heard the shrieking shells over the shooting. After the enemy’s artillery slammed their building, he couldn’t hear anything for a while.
Especially the bonsai charge coming their way on the heels of the barrage. While Parrott and his squad mates tried to untangle themselves from the ruins around them, this human wave covered the hundred yards of no-man’s-land with only a few losses.
Parrott popped his head over some twisted steel girder to see what everyone was shooting at so frantically. Not hard to find the threat. One of the attackers, most didn’t even have uniforms, crouched only six feet away. Instead of racing him to the draw, Parrott dropped back down as several rounds slammed into the steel girder in front of him. He stuck his rifle up and fired blindly over the debris. Parrott missed everyone, but his surprised antagonist had his guts ripped out by one of his own ricochets. Firing pointblank into a hard, flat surface rarely ended well. The few days of training these civil defense volunteers received could only cover so much ground. The wannabe soldiers had to provide their own commonsense.
When Parrott paused to reload, he heard the man screaming. Just a faint whining to his ringing ears. Stomach wounds were painful. Hard for anyone to ignore. A dozen or so of the rebel’s buddies came running to carry their wounded comrade out. Parrott assumed all the shuffling was a rush of his position. He unpinned both his remaining frag grenades. Cooking them off for two seconds, he then lightly chucked them over his head.