The Med (63 page)

Harisah was standing in the lobby, talking to the men from the committee, when the shout came from outside. He heard at the same instant the whock of helicopter blades, the growing whine of turbines. He knew instantly what it was, but restrained his first impulse to run for the door. That would be natural; they might have expected that, and targeted it. Instead he lowered his head slightly, and said, “They are here. Your advice?”

“The battle, strictly speaking, is not our responsibility, Majd,” one of them said. “What are your intentions? Where do you want us?”

“I will hold them off if they are few, or attack stupidly; and move to the upper floors if they penetrate. We will use the hostages as shields. If I judge the fight is lost, we will kill them all. The pickets and barricades should hold them long enough for me to make the decision. You will draw arms and fight with the rest.”

“We understand. Go with God.”

“Insh'Allah.”

He turned from them, dismissing that now from his mind. Now was the time for battle. He thought for just a moment of the American woman. In a way she was right. This was honorable war, to fight those with arms in their hands. He hoped for victory, that he might not have to kill so many of the innocent.

But victory or defeat, life or death, for him and for them, was not in the hands of the Majd now. For all would be, could only be, as it was willed.

Without thought, emptying his consciousness the way he had once crawling beneath the wire into Israel, he slid back the bolt to feed a fresh round. From outside came the sound of his men firing, shouting: “God is great!” He paused at a window, looking out. Then crouched, smashing out the glass, and picked out his first target.

*   *   *

Two floors above, Susan stood half-hidden at the window, looking breathlessly out and down. From this height she could see far out across the desert. She turned, again, to look back into the room. Nan still slept. She turned back to the window.

There was no doubt in her mind now. She was watching an attack on the compound. The helicopter had disappeared, passed out of her sight, but the smoke it had laid blew along the desert floor, eddying dark around the jetliner, then hiding it. The pulsating drone of many engines grew behind its curtain.

Then, all at once, six, twelve of the green vehicles burst out of the murk. Bigger than she had thought, they swayed roaring across the level sand, throwing up wakes of dust. At the same moment, below her, she saw men race back toward the hotel, saw them stop, turn, and throw up their weapons to aim.

The first cracks of rifle fire split the hot air. She paused a moment longer, watching, then ducked below the windowline and crossed to the bed.

“Get up,” she whispered. Then, above the rising clamor outside, said louder: “Get up, Bunny. Mommy needs you with her now.”

*   *   *

Bullets clattered suddenly on the hull. The men in the amtrac stiffened. One half-rose, reaching for a firing port. Cutford slapped him back into his seat without a word.

A few seconds later the engine faltered. It cut out, and the 'track glided for a moment almost soundless; then came the snarl of the starter. The engine caught, roared; they began to reaccelerate; and then something ground viciously beneath their feet, like an animal clawing at the floor. Without thought Givens lifted his boots to avoid it. An instant later the 'track slammed upward, scraping and screaming across something hard, and came to rest tilted up and canted to the left.

“Drop the ramp!” he heard Silkworth shout, dragging on the A-driver's leg. The wall fell away and light hit the interior of the tank. All the men leapt for it.

Will pounded down the ramp, rounded the flank of the LVT, and dropped with the rest. Hugging the bare ground, pumping its hot dry chalky smell rapidly through his lungs, he squinted quickly around in the sudden brilliance of day.

Their 'track had run up over a low retaining wall of cut stone. It loomed above them to their right with its snout cocked in the air. Bullets hummed overhead; it was drawing fire. One whacked into it as he watched, blasting off a neat oval of green paint. The men were crouched partly behind its immobile mass, and partially in cover of the wall.

Givens half-rose for a second to look over it, then ducked back down. Through the smoke he had made out an open space, a paved plaza. In the center of it was a ruined fountain. Around it was grouped three main buildings and behind them several smaller, lower service buildings. In that second-long exposure he had seen the flashes of small arms in the windows of the central building, the tallest, directly across the square. He hoped they didn't decide on a frontal assault.

No, flank left, Silkworth had said … a space behind the building, perhaps an alley or service road, opened in that direction; he saw the sergeant, ahead of him, pop up his head to examine it.

'Tracks were still arriving to their right, men dismounting. The din of engines and fifty-calibers was deafening. Givens realized the plan was already going wrong. The LVTs couldn't get to the hotel itself; the retaining wall was too high for them to climb. Instead they were dropping their troops behind it, then pulling back a hundred yards or so to provide suppressing fire with bursts from their cupola MGs.

He felt his need again then, and this time it was undeniable. Guiltily he pulled down his trousers and crouched for a moment in the cover of the wall. The relief was immense.

“Advance!” Silkworth's voice penetrated the ringing in his ears from the collision. Harner threw a just-lit butt away with a disgusted motion and swung himself easily over the wall. The others followed, rushing one or two at a time. Will got his pants up, clambered over the wall with two other men, and sprinted full out for the first building. Flashes from the far side of the square … rounds sang overhead, ripped trenches in the asphalt at his feet, and then he was behind it and in cover.

Ahead, standing erect at the mouth of the alley, the sergeant slapped his hands over his head and spread them; open up. “Mortar squad, follow me! Givens,”—he started, still trying to get his belt buckled—“you take point to the left, Harner right. Hernandez, you're tail-end Charlie. Staggered column, five meters apart. Use doorways, trash bins, whatever cover you can find. Keep your weapons pointed outboard.”

Will was moving to obey him when he felt his arm gripped. It was Cutford. “I'll take point,” the corporal muttered.

“Silkworth said—”

“Hey,
fuck
Silkworth. You think he cares for a brother like I do? Shit he does. Follow me.”

And there was nothing to do but fall back, watching the broad neck darken as Cutford lifted his rifle and slid toward the first doorway in a narrow lane. He acquiesced in it, but he didn't like it.
That Cutford,
he thought again, as he had so many times since the float began.
Why doesn't he leave me alone? Why is he always on me, giving me a hard time? This ‘brother' baloney …

“Come on, buddy, move,” whispered the guy behind him, some rifleman he didn't know, and he flinched and started forward. Ahead of him, already into the alley, Cutford moved from door to door in sporadic rushes, eyes on the windows of the larger building to their right. Givens tried clumsily to imitate him, trying to recall the drowsy lessons in the troop spaces on street fighting.

“Spread out, fuckheads!” Silkworth called behind them, and he froze for a few seconds, letting space seep between him and the point. Cutford was twenty yards ahead now, ducking into what must once have been a loading dock.

They moved like that, leapfrogging warily along the alleyway, for two or three minutes. Once one of the guys let off a burst at a window, and got his head chewed by Silkworth. They weren't supposed to initiate fire, not till they reached position. Givens took advantage of the halt to tip back his helmet and wipe his forehead, scratch his sweat-soaked hair. It left his brow feeling naked and
he
tipped it back down quickly. He realized then that the mortarmen hadn't been issued grenades. Silkworth got them moving again and he concentrated on the next doorway, on the windows above the fire team. Was that someone moving?… no, only a curtain, flapping in the wind through a shattered window.

Cutford … Hernandez … himself … Silkworth … Harner. Had Liebo made it? Walking into a blade sounded pretty fatal, but with a quick lift back to the ships they said you had a good chance of surviving anything but a head shot. From here, too? Where would they put a helo down here? Well, probably on the airstrip, if one of them took a sniper round. But they wouldn't. Then he remembered Washout, and the other men, those who had screamed back on the road, under the mortars. Where were they? He'd seen no medevac for them. It had happened to his friend—it could happen to
him
—

Pay attention, Will,
he told himself. Sweat dripped from his nose.
Jesus, your head is all over today, isn't it.

No. I shouldn't say His name like that. I'm sorry.

The alley ahead turned, angling off to the right, and as they crept closer he saw it.

Barricade. A mass of debris, mattresses and boxes and bricks piled from wall to wall across the narrow way ahead. He lingered, checking it out, but it was Cutford, still twenty yards up, who saw danger first. He pumped his rifle twice above his head as he dropped and rolled.

“Covah! Hostiles!”

From above them, from the second floor of one of the buildings, came a sudden blast of sound. The pavement where the corporal had been flashed sparks and gray dust. Givens lunged for a doorway, fear squeezing his chest like a tightening rope. M-16s barked high-pitched around him, five, six weapons at once. He found himself firing too, the rifle kicking, tracking up the building. Blue smoke formed a cloud. He saw his bullets join the others as the window and the frame around it burst into fragments and dust. A weapon flashed from the barricade then and he jerked his sights down, still firing, and aimed into it. Something whacked into the concrete above his head and he ducked. He triggered the weapon again, stood momentarily surprised as nothing happened, then released the magazine. It thudded empty off his boot and he slapped in a full one. Thirty rounds don't last long, he thought. I better start conserving ammo.

“Cover fire! Covering!” someone was yelling, and he aimed at the barrier again, then saw something move to the side. He swung, then jerked the rifle up just in time to miss Cutford. The corporal, on his belly, was tight against the leftmost wall, just where it curved. He was feeling at his chest. Givens ducked out, fired a burst at the barricade, ducked back, checked the window. Nothing moved.

Cutford rolled back a foot or two, raised himself on an elbow, and tossed a grenade overhand. It went up and over the barrier. The explosion boomed away, echoed, and in the sudden silence that followed they heard a man cry out.

“Move up, pal,” said the rifleman, rolling into his niche. “Quick, quick. I'll cover you.”

Me?
he thought for just a moment, and then he was running, bent low, hearing the ripping fire behind him. Another rifleman was moving up on the opposite side of the alley, head lifted, eyes wary. Givens ran, his boots jarring on the pavement, tripping on loose bricks. As he reached the barricade, Cutford got up and sprayed a burst over it, moving his rifle in a figure-eight pattern, and they went over it together.

Three men were running down the lane beyond. Two were ahead of the last, who was moving crabwise, bent to one side. Cutford paused and raised his weapon. His rifle barked once, then the bolt locked open. But the limping man was lagging even further, dragging himself along. The others looked back, but when Will fired too, they ducked away and disappeared.

The lone man jerked to a halt, whirled round, and fell to the pavement, dropping something. Will spun, only then remembering their rear, but there was no one else behind the breastwork.

Hernandez edged through it, hunched like a scared turtle under his too-large helmet. Silkworth appeared behind him, then two of the riflemen and then the major, Wasserman, holding his pistol with the slide back. His face was set and pale. Silkworth looked pissed. “Cover, you turds!” he bawled. “You don't double-time in like that! Jesus Christ! Fire and cover!”

“Sergeant's right,” said Cutford. He lowered his rifle, looked up at the blank faces of the buildings, and started back to the left. He ran gracefully for a big man, holding his weapon like a toy. Will followed him, stumbling a little because his legs were suddenly weak.

“Where'd you get the grenade?”

“Say what, Oreo?”

“The grenade, Cutford. Where'd you get it?”

“Bummed a couple off the riflemen. You better get some, too.”

“Right,” said Will.

“When you can.”

“Right.”

They came up on the man they had shot. He was face down, moving his arms as if trying to crawl. His left side had been shredded. Casualty drill, Givens thought from somewhere frozen in his mind. Silkworth kicked his weapon away. It was a Soviet-style carbine. Will booted him over, not too gently, then stepped back, drawing in his breath.

This was their enemy. No more than fourteen, not even a smear of mustache, dark eyes blown wide with shock and fear. Silkworth had aimed his rifle at the prisoner's head. Now he lifted it. One of the M-16 rounds—Cutford's, or Will's?—had hit the boy low in the back. The exit hole was the size of a catcher's mitt. Will swallowed, unable to look at it, unable to take his eyes away. He smelled blood and shit and powder smoke.

The major came up with the radioman lagging a few steps behind. “He alive?” he said.

“Not for long,” said Silkworth. “Look, sir, he's nothin' but a kid.”

“Old enough to carry a SKS. Check him for documents.”

“What, sir?”

“Documents, Sergeant!”