Apocalypse Crucible Read online

  Turning his attention to the south-southeast, Goose took his 10x50 binoculars from the front pack attached to his Load Carrying. Equipment harness. He dialed in the magnification, moving the binoculars slowly to where the Syrian advance stood out against the dark horizon. They stirred up gray-brown dust clouds as they traveled. There was no mistaking the blocky lines of the Soviet-made tanks and APCs.

  “Do you think this is it?” Mitchell asked. He hunkered down beside Goose and kept one hand clamped over the pencil mike of his headset so his voice wouldn’t be broadcast over the com. “Do you think they’re going to try to rout us tonight?”

  “Not in the dark.” Goose put confidence in his voice. That was part of his job as first sergeant, to make the troops believe there was never a situation he hadn’t seen, never an enemy he couldn’t outguess. “On a hit-and-git mission, darkness is their friend. But trying to take over an urban area filled with hostiles—they’ll want the light of day.”

  “So what’s up with this?”

  “Pressure,” Goose responded. “Just knocking on the door and letting us know they’re still out there. This is designed to keep the kettle primed and boiling hot. They can put a few men in the field and keep this whole city awake at night.”

  “Still means they’ll be coming soon.”

  “Affirmative,” Goose said. Keeping the confidence of the troops also meant never lying to them.

  “How far do you think they’ll push it tonight?”

  “As far as they can.” Goose surveyed the approaching vehicles. They weren’t coming with any speed, and maybe that was a good thing.

  Lowering the binoculars, he glanced at the Chase-Durer Combat Command Automatic Chronograph he’d gotten as a Father’s Day gift from Megan and the kids. He needed a watch in the field, and though the timepiece was an expensive one, Megan had insisted on giving it to him, telling him that she knew he took care of his gear. She also knew that he would never check the time without thinking of her and Joey and Chris.

  “They’re stopping,” Mitchell said.

  Goose glanced back up and saw that the advancing line of military armor had indeed stopped. “Spotter teams,” he called over the headset.

  When the spotter teams acknowledged, Goose said, “Eyes on the skies. In case this is a feint for another aerial attack.”

  The spotter/sniper teams affirmed the order.

  “Phoenix Leader.”

  Goose recognized Remington’s voice at once. “Go, Control. You have Leader.”

  “Tach Two, Leader.”

  “Affirmative, Control. Oracle, this is Phoenix Leader.”

  Oracle was the com designation for Second Lieutenant Dan Knoffler, who was next in line for command of the company after Goose. Knoffler was currently sequestered in another part of the city, ready to take over at a moment’s notice if Remington and Goose were both injured or knocked out of the com loop.

  Knoffler also managed the constant flow of vehicles drafted into medical service to transport civilian and military wounded to Ankara. Planes and helicopters were used only in cases of extreme emergency.

  “Go, Phoenix Leader,” Knoffler radioed back. He was in his midtwenties, innocent in a lot of ways, but a dedicated warrior all the same. He’d missed the latest Iraqi war, and this action in Turkey was the first actual combat he’d seen. If he lived through the coming firefights, Goose knew the young lieutenant would grow into a command. “You’re monitoring?” Goose asked.

  “Affirmative. Oracle has the sit-rep.”

  “Oracle has the ball,” Goose said, letting Knoffler know he was going to be overseeing the city defenses for the time being.

  “Affirmative. Oracle has the ball.”

  Goose switched channels. He stared across the harsh terrain at the line of vehicles hunched like predatory beasts in the distance. “I’m here, Captain.” He stepped away from Mitchell so even his side of the conversation would remain private.

  “I’m looking at Syrian heavy cavalry, Goose,” Remington said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Don’t know, sir.”

  Remington was silent for a moment. “C’mon, Goose; you and I have been around the block a time or two. We’ve tramped through some wars in our time. What does your gut tell you?”

  “The Syrians didn’t show up just to remind us they’re out there.”

  “They could have,” Remington said. For years—while they’d been privates together, then corporals, and later, sergeants—they had always played the devil’s advocate for each other. If one of them came up with an exercise or a combat plan, the other did his level best to tear it to shreds, looking for weaknesses. They’d always been a good team.

  We just don’t always agree on things, Goose reminded himself. Corporal Dean Hardin was a good case in point. Goose put that sore point away.

  “No, sir,” Goose said. “I don’t think that’s the answer.”

  “Then what?”

  Goose looked at the line of vehicles in the distance. Even though he didn’t know for sure where Remington was, he felt certain the man was watching the Syrian cav with the same anticipation he was. “They’re here to make a statement, sir.”

  “Being out there on the horizon isn’t enough?”

  “No, sir,” Goose answered, “not hardly. After that attack last night, they should have been content to leave us alone for a while. The local people we’re trading with, sir, we know they’re trading with the Syrians, too. Those traders give the Syrians information just as they give us information.”

  That was why traders were met at the gates and not allowed to run unsupervised throughout the city. Trading for supplies was acceptable, but allowing them access to information about the city’s defenses to sell to the Syrians was out of the question. Even so, Sanliurfa was huge. Policing the whole area while managing ongoing rescue and salvage operations was impossible.

  “Think maybe we should put a bird in the air, Goose?” Remington asked.

  The support aircraft from the marine wing that had arrived from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit—Special Operations Capable MEU(SOC) out in the Mediterranean Sea had AH-1W Cobra attack helicopters in their ranks. The Whiskey Cobra was a piece of serious hardware. After seeing the marines and the Cobras in action, Goose had a healthy respect for the pilots and their machines.

  “We’d be risking the helo,” Goose said. “And the pilot and gunner.”

  “Every military action is an investment of risk,” Remington countered. “Whether you advance, fall back, or wait, you’re at risk.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So, if they’re a ticking clock, everything in me wants to spring the trap.”

  “Yes, sir,” Goose replied. “One thing my daddy always taught me about hunting in the swamps down in Waycross, Georgia, Captain: A patient hunter makes fewer mistakes than a man breaking brush just because he’s a little antsy.”

  “Do you think I’m antsy, First Sergeant?” Remington’s tone was abrupt. Despite the friendship and the working relationship they had, Goose knew there was also a certain friction between them.

  Goose had chosen not to follow Remington into OCS despite Remington’s best arguments in favor of the move. Having served his country for seventeen years as a noncommissioned officer—a noncom—Goose remained happy to finish out his twenty as the same. A commission meant dealing more with paper and less with people. Goose preferred the people.

  “No, sir,” Goose answered. “I feel the same way. It’s hard to pass up a snake hole without cutting a branch and shoving it down that hole to find out if the snake is home. But the way we’re set up here, sir? We’re prepared to skin the snake if it was to come to us. We are not prepared to go after it.”

  After a brief hesitation, Remington said, “Maybe we’re not ready now, but we will be.”

  “Yes, sir.” An uncomfortable silence passed for a few minutes. Goose stood on the rooftop with his binocs to his eyes. The gentle wind out o
f the south brought the thin scent of possible rain and a constant barrage of dust. Nearly every meal and Meal-Ready-to-Eat Goose had eaten since arriving in Sanliurfa tasted of dust. But even the prepacked MREs had been welcome.

  “Still no sat-com relays in the area?” Goose asked.

  “No,” Remington answered.

  Only a few days before, the new Romanian president, Nicolae Carpathia, had donated use of his satellite systems to aid the United States military teams in their assessment and eventual evacuation of the border. Yesterday, Carpathia had withdrawn that support. He had decided to go speak to the United Nations to focus the world’s attention on staying together on the issue of the mysterious disappearances. Syria had protested the U.S. military’s use of Carpathia’s satellites, saying the United States was there only to protect their own interests. According to Remington, who had somehow managed to get the Romanian president’s ear, Carpathia had reluctantly agreed and withdrawn the use of the satellites.

  The United States–supplied sat-relay system in place now proved barely adequate to allow communications between the U.S. forces scattered around Turkey and USS Wasp in the Mediterranean Sea.

  Captain Mark Falkirk commanded Wasp, the lead ship in the sevenvessel Amphibious Readiness Group. At the time of the Syrian attack, the 26th MEU(SOC) had been assigned to a 180-float in the Med. Now Falkirk and his ships were being used as staging areas to prepare for the coming battles in Turkey if Syria didn’t stand down.

  A flat tone buzzed in Goose’s headset. Knoffler was calling for attention. “Cap,” Goose said.

  “Got it,” Remington replied. “Go.”

  Goose flipped the radio back to the primary channel.

  “Go, Oracle,” Remington said. “You’ve got Control.”

  Goose didn’t say anything. With the Ranger captain logging on, Knoffler would know that the first sergeant was there as well.

  “We’ve got movement, Control,” Knoffler said.

  “Where?” Remington asked.

  Goose raked the terrain with the binocs. Gray movement slid forward from the morass of shifting dust that hovered around the Syrian cav units.

  “East end,” Knoffler announced.

  “Got it,” Remington said. “One vehicle?”

  “Affirmative, Control.”

  “Affirmative,” Goose added. “Sweep perimeter checkpoints. By the numbers.”

  In quick succession, the perimeter checkpoint duty officers confirmed the reported sighting of one vehicle en route to Sanliurfa. All the checkpoints on the northern side of the city confirmed there was no questionable activity.

  Tension filled Goose. He always got that way before combat. Then, when the first round was fired or the first move was executed, everything inside him became unstuck and he could move again. He said a brief prayer, asking God for His help during the course of the night, praying that his men and the people they defended would get through the encounter unscathed.

  Three days ago, during the retreat from the border, a pass had become impassable for a short time. While the Syrians closed in at full speed, Corporal Joseph Baker had united the men in reciting the Twenty-third Psalm. Baker had declared his faith in God, offering salvation to the men trapped on that mountain.

  And in the moment before the Syrians had opened fire into the trapped military, an earthquake had split the mountain and brushed the enemy army away. The 75th had lived, and Baker had stepped into his calling among the Rangers. Whenever he wasn’t on duty or helping with the wounded, Baker was witnessing to and counseling men who reached out to a faith they had never known or had somehow forgotten about.

  Goose counted himself among those who had forgotten their faith in God. Wes Gander, Goose’s father, had taught Sunday school in the little Baptist church they’d attended in Waycross. Goose had always been there, but he hadn’t always been attentive. Now he found himself wishing he’d listened better to the lessons his father had taught.

  Peering through the binocs, Goose watched the vehicle approach, picking up speed. It was an American cargo truck. A charred and tattered remnant of the flag of the United States hung from a fiberglass pole in the back. Several of the Turkish, U.N., and U.S. vehicles had been abandoned at the border because there hadn’t been enough gasoline salvaged to remove them all. Many of them had been left behind, booby-trapped. This one appeared to be finding its way to them despite its fate at the border.

  “Eagle One,” Goose called out, knowing from experience that Remington would want him to handle moment-to-moment operations to free up the captain to see the overall picture.

  “Go, Leader,” Mitchell replied.

  “Can you ID the driver?” Goose said. The sniper had a telescopic lens on his M-24 bolt-action sniper rifle.

  “Looking, Leader.”

  Goose felt cold inside. Although they’d searched diligently, he knew there was every possibility they had left some wounded behind.

  There were over two hundred men on Turkish, U.N., Ranger, and marine MIA lists. The Syrians wouldn’t bring prisoners here just to release them. But maybe the man was an advance scout, one who was there to convince them that the Syrians had hostages.

  “One man in the cab,” Mitchell said a moment later. “He’s wearing one of our uniforms.”

  “Anyone else?” Goose asked.

  “Negative.”

  The other spotter/sniper teams quickly confirmed the information.

  Goose put the binocs away. He knelt beside the retaining wall on the rooftop and unlimbered the M-4A1. The assault rifle had telescopic sights, but they didn’t have the range of the binocs. Keeping the scope on target was also problematic.

  The FIRM—Floating Integrated Rail Mount—system allowed a rifleman to mount a number of optical and sighting devices. The AN/ PVS-4 night-vision scope limned the world and everything in it with a green glow.

  Leaning forward slightly, bracing to take the recoil of the shot if it came to that, Goose focused on the cargo truck’s driver. The uniform the man wore was that of a Ranger. His face, however, remained in shadows.

  “Checkpoint Nineteen,” Goose called as he tracked the cargo truck’s progress. “This is Phoenix Leader.”

  “Go, Phoenix Leader. Checkpoint Nineteen reads you loud and clear.”

  “Get a loud-hailer, Nineteen,” Goose instructed. “Warn that truck off.”

  The response was immediate. “Leader, that truck could have some of our guys in it.”

  “Get it done, Nineteen,” Goose ordered, putting steel in his voice.

  “If those are our people in that truck, they’ll be there when we get ready to bring them in.”

  A moment later, the mechanical basso thunder of the checkpoint commander’s voice rang out over the dark city. “Stop the vehicle! Stop the vehicle now!”

  But the cargo truck didn’t stop. In fact, the vehicle gained speed, headed directly for the barricade two blocks over.

  “Sniper teams,” Goose said, “bring the truck down. Leave the driver intact.” Before his words died away, shots roared from the Marine Corps’ .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifles as they joined the thunder of the Ranger M-24s firing on the truck.

  Bullets struck sparks from the cargo truck’s metal hide. The canvas over the ribbed back end flapped loose, revealing huge tears. One of the tires went flat and the truck jerked to the right.

  The driver immediately corrected the truck’s direction. He drove straight for the barricaded area. The truck’s transmission groaned like a dying beast and the vehicle gained speed. The flat tire skidded over the rough ground and threw off chunks of rubber.

  “He’s not stopping!” Goose called, watching the action through the M-4A1’s starlight scope. “Bring down the driver! Bring down the driver!” It was a hard decision, and it had to be made on the fly.

  The truck remained on a collision course with the barricade. A split second later, the driver opened the truck door and bailed from the bucking vehicle. He hit the ground in a flurry of flying dirt. Before
he’d abandoned the vehicle, the driver had evidently locked the steering wheel into position. The truck drifted a little off the approach, but remained pretty much on target.

  Even as the snipers and some of the Rangers stationed along the barricade kept up a withering rate of fire, the cargo truck made contact with the heap of abandoned cars and farm equipment. The resulting explosion blew the barricade apart. Cars, tractors, sandbags, and rocks skidded and flew backward and up into the air. The cargo truck became a mass of explosions. Yellow and red flames roiled in the air, and clouds of smoke filled the immediate vicinity.

  Goose went deaf with the sudden, horrific cannonade of detonations. Even two blocks away, he was blown from his kneeling position by the concussive wave. Before he could get to his feet, a smoldering corpse landed on the rooftop near him.

  Then dead men rained from the sky.

  2

  Highway 111

  West of Marbury, Alabama

  Local Time 2118 Hours

  Cold darkness swirled around navy chaplain Delroy Harte as he trudged west. He felt a constant itch between his shoulder blades. He couldn’t get past the thought that something was following him, or that the thing had been following him since Washington, D.C.

  Some thing. The thought stirred acid in the chaplain’s stomach and made him feel queasy. Memory of the demonic being that had confronted him and nearly killed him two days ago remained as fresh as the cuts and bruises on his body from the fight he’d had with it.

  As he walked, he tried to resist the impulse to look over his shoulder, because he’d done it countless times in the last few hours and seen nothing. Finally, he looked back anyway. This time, too, he scanned the long length of highway and saw absolutely nothing that he didn’t expect to see. Despite the fact that the driving rain that had pounded Delroy for the last hour had abated somewhat and the drumming thunder sounded more distant, lightning still lashed the sky, the clouds still rumbled, and drizzling precipitation created a silver fog that dimmed the edges of his vision. Alabama’s stormy season in early March brought rain and lightning and managed to keep a hint of winter’s cold breath in the roaring winds that scoured the land.