Dark New World (Book 3): EMP Deadfall (36 page)

Taggart glanced at the map. Second Platoon, First Squad had visual on six Arabs in some sort of a firing nest east of a major intersection—objective four. But that intersection was a poor tactical location. Spyder’s HQ was thought to be at Oscar One, and this intersection was only of secondary interest. Something felt wrong.

Eagan’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Cap, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would they put troops there? And why Hajjis instead of Spyder’s gangbangers?”

Taggart stared at the map, and then it came to him. “Crap. Yes, it does make sense. Look, if we had just made a beeline for Spyder’s HQ we’d have had to go right through that intersection. They’d have flanking fire on our guys. So, there have to be other enemy positions there. And stationing Hajjis there means Spyder’s either been reinforced or replaced. I’m betting on reinforced. If I’m right, it’s a trap.”

Taggart picked up his radio and clicked. “Bravo One, this is Zipline. Take cover and hold in place… Bravo Two, Bravo Three, divert east toward Oscar Four to scout for additional enemy positions. Go easy and avoid contact. Something’s not right; keep your asses wired tight. Alpha, did you copy?”

The Alpha commander acknowledged, and then the next ten minutes seemed to tick by at a snail’s pace. It felt like the seconds hand on Taggart’s mechanical watch moved in slow motion.

Finally, his radio came to life again. “Zipline, this is Bravo Two. We’ve got eyes on another emplacement, corner November Echo at Oscar Four, second floor window emplacement.” Immediately after, Bravo Three squad reported in the same information but at November Whisky corner.

So. Three emplacements at that one intersection. One on the ground just west of it, one in a building to the northeast, and a third in a building to the northwest. Anyone walking into that intersection would have been cut to ribbons. But why there? Taggart had deemed it the least likely objective they’d have to assault, which is why it was objective four.

Eagan returned and saluted annoyingly. Any time they weren’t outside, Eagan went through this stupid routine, forcing Taggart to salute him back. Damn shitbird. “As you were. What now?” Taggart snapped, not bothering to return the salute this time.

“Sir, Alpha One reports all units have found nothing. They’ve scouted the other three objectives. Oscar One was clearly Spyder’s HQ, but no one is there. There’s even chow there, still warm. They must have left in a hurry. It’s a bug-out.”

Taggart clicked his radio again. “Alpha, this is Zipline. Converge on Oscar Four, but recon each block en route. How copy?”

Alpha’s commander acknowledged, and Taggart nodded. Their commander would be breaking the squads into fire teams right now to speed the search, probably, but that was her decision. Taggart didn’t care how she got it done, as long as they swept the area and converged on objective four.

Eagan suddenly grew serious, losing his usual smirk. “Captain, I gotta tell you, the little lizard part of my brain is screaming ‘danger!’ at me. I don’t like this one bit.”

Well, no shit. “Yes, Eagan, I know. I feel it, too. But with those outposts empty, we had no one to question, no chance of getting paper intel. We’re blind. They know we’re here, somewhere. They left their little self-styled castle in a hurry. I don’t know if they had scouts or if the Koreans are using their satellites or spy birds, but whatever they’re doing we know, we don’t have surprise anymore. We have to assume it’s a trap.”

“So why don’t we just retrograde the hell out of there?”

“Eagan, I hate that word. It’s ‘retreat,’ not ‘retrograde,’ got it? But the reason is simple. We need information. Those are Hajjis down there, at least some of them are. We need intel.”

Taggart then clicked the radio again. “Alpha and Bravo, this is Zipline. SITREP.”

Both units reported their situation, but nothing much had changed. Bravo was in place, and Alpha was sweeping through Spyder’s now-empty turf to converge with Bravo. Alpha thought they’d be there in ten mikes. Taggart waited. And waited.

His radio chirped. “Zipline, this is Alpha. We are rendezvous at Oscar Four, with eyes on two emplacements.” She then gave coordinates that put her squad covering the gap Bravo had left to the west of the intersection and two squads to the south and west to reinforce Bravo platoon.

Despite the late hour and cool night air, Taggart felt himself begin to sweat. Adrenaline was a bitch, but it could be controlled. Not stopped, but channeled into something useful. He took a moment to gather himself. It was time for his troops to either ‘get kinetic,’ as he thought of it, or get out. But they badly needed intel—the situation had somehow changed dramatically, and he was in the dark about it. Changing that would require someone to question, enemy locations, paperwork… Intel. Very well. Time to get kinetic.

“All units, this is Zipline. I have TOD 2247 hours, repeat, 2247… mark. Bravo One, at 2250 engage. Repeat, 2250 engage. Alpha One, hold position unless you see another emplacement or Bravo needs support. Alpha tune Tac 2, Beta tune Tac 3. How copy?”

Both platoon commanders confirmed the orders. Then there was again nothing to do but wait. Taggart frowned. War time was like being in garrison: Nine-tenths of the time was just waiting. The difference was that final tenth. On base, it was spent training. At war, it was spent in terror, screaming, killing, and dying. This war was no different than the Sandbox had been, except bloodier and harder.

“Eagan, thirty seconds. Get to the radio room. Grab our Militia guy to relay if you need to. I’m on channel Tac 1 still.”

More waiting. Seemed like forever. Again. But really it was ten forever-long seconds. This part of war always sucked, but this time it was worse—he was the captain, now, in the rear with the gear. Before all this, he would have been Alpha One’s right-hand man and in the thick of it. More dangerous, but better able to keep an eye on his boys and girls in the fight. Back here, he was helpless to do anything of much use except stay alive so his unit could maintain command integrity. What a damn oxymoron
that
was. Command Integrity. Being an officer officially sucked balls, not that he’d ever talk like that around Eagan again. Shoot, that was a tragedy in its own right. He and Eagan had been friends before. Weird, dysfunctional friends, but Eagan was like his own lost little brother, and Taggart suspected Eagan thought of him as a father figure. Eagan’s dad, he knew, had skipped out when the boy was seven—

DING!
Taggart’s alarm chirped. 2250 hours, and time for his people to live or die. He heard the abrupt chaos of unit chatter emanating from the “radio room,” and Eagan’s steady voice droning in reply, though Taggart couldn’t make out the words. If anyone needed him, his radio would sing; until then, Taggart was just ornamental.

For long seconds, he heard the faint chatter from Eagan’s room, a steady back-and-forth of lifesaving information. Abruptly, Taggart’s radio squawked into life, making him jump. “Zipline, Zipline, it’s Alpha One,” it screamed, though Taggart didn’t recognize the man’s voice. So, their commander must be dead or pinned. She was effective, and he hoped she was just pinned down. “We got rumble in the jungle, sir! Armor coming down the main road from north and south toward us.” There was a pause and then the voice screamed, “Are you sure? Goddammit!” He’d obviously been too stressed to remember to stop transmitting. “Zipline, we got three, no
four
birds inbound to the west, and the Hajjis are going full retrograde, sir. They’re squirting all over themselves!”

Taggart cursed. Tanks or some other hardened vehicles were coming in from both sides like hammers. The enemy was “squirting”—running the hell away—and four enemy helicopters were coming in from the side. Helicopters were his worst fear as a soldier.

He reached for the radio, but as his hand touched it, it chirped again: “Zipline, Alpha One. Bravo One has overrun, um, Tango One”—that’d be the first enemy position they’d found, on the ground level—“and got their fitty! He’s chased off one of the birds—”

The voice was cut off mid-sentence. Two seconds later, the same voice clicked through on Taggart’s radio. “Zipline, Alpha One. Bravo One dropped a Hajji bird with the fitty, but we’re being overrun. Tanks are almost on us, and the birds are banking east and west of us. They’ll have us lit up in moments. I’ve ordered everyone to bug out, but there’s nowhere to go. God bless America. And, sir? God bless everything you’ve done. If we win, find my fam—”

The radio went silent. Taggart ground his teeth, his lips raised in a snarl. His left eyelid wouldn’t stop twitching, and he felt his face flush red with rage. His men. His
people
. America. Taggart clutched his radio and strode toward the radio room. He couldn’t save his people, but he could hear them at their last. They deserved to have someone with them when they died, to remember their sacrifice. As he entered the room, he saw Eagan sitting at the table with one of the platoon-channel radios.

“…say again?” shouted Eagan. The Militiaman stood to Eagan’s left with shock on his face.

The radios were silent. Actually… Not even a crackle came from them.

Taggart shouted, “SITREP,” and stared at Eagan’s radio, willing it to come to life. To show that any of his troops still lived.

Eagan spun in his chair and stood tall. He always slouched, except in combat, but not right now. The boy was rigid with tension. Eagan saluted—crisply, for once—and said too loudly, “Sir, I had multiple reports that the birds were taken out, someone shot them down or something. They were falling from the sky. The armor—it was APCs, sir—stopped in the middle of the road. We got that SITREP from both Alpha Two and Bravo One. Then the radios died. Not even static.”

* * *

The slant-eyed
pendejo
had told Spyder that his satellites found a “rebel” nest with both soldiers and armed civilians, but they couldn’t find out exactly where before he’d gotten satellite access because Ree’s drones kept getting shot down by—get this—other drones whenever they went out looking. When Spyder’s crew caught one of Angel’s gangs scouting his territory, Spyder learned that Angel and his soldier tagalongs planned to invade and that they’d been behind the mystery raid on his turf by Ree’s raghead pals. Spyder passed all that along, repairing his “loyal servant” status, and Ree had come up with the plan for this ambush.

Spyder stood in the slant’s “T.V. Tent,” as he thought of it. It was a command center that General Ree had set up just north of Spyder’s turf. Ree stood with his back to Spyder, watching the ambush unfold with obvious glee.

Next to Spyder was the hulking, reassuring presence of his pitbull, Sebastian. They both watched the many monitors—and Ree himself—with fascination and fear. Fear because this setup showed him how stupid his idea of taking Ree out had been. Oh man, so fuckin’ happy he hadn’t found the right time to try, because it would
definitely
not have been the right time. There would never be a right time. He might be able to kill the man, but he’d never get away alive. His crew, scattered around the ’hood waiting for the signal, would have swarmed the command center as soon as he fired off the flare gun he’d hidden outside, but in seeing all Ree’s power, he decided he’d never pull the trigger. Better to be a live servant than a dead rebel.

On the screens, Spyder saw swarms of Americans with serious hardware—M4s, M16s, a few AKs—rushing all over the intersection where General Kimchee and his sand-eating followers had tried to set the ambush. Ree’s men were getting overrun right before his eyes. A glance at Ree showed that the bastard didn’t give a crap about his soldiers. “
Huelebicho,
” he muttered and saw Seb nod in agreement.

Four blank monitors lit up, showing a rising aerial view. “The helicopters have risen,” Ree said in English, then began spitting instructions in Raghead.
 

Spyder said almost under his breath to Sebastian, “
Perro que huele carne.
” Like a dog smelling meat…

“Yeah, man. Angel’s gonna get his ass handed to him.”

On the monitor, the helicopters banked dizzyingly, moving into a circular pattern. Like sharks closing in. Spyder’s heart beat faster in anticipation, and he licked his lips.

General Ree turned to face Spyder, grinning. “You are here because your information was correct, and this is happening in your kitchen. My units are about to engage the rebels. You will see what happens to American traitors to Great Father’s noble cause.”

Spyder watched enraptured as Ree turned back to the monitors and raised one hand. A moment later, he chopped down through the air and spat a single word in Sand-eater.

And everything in the tent went dark and silent. Nothing on the monitors. Nothing from the radios. Spyder looked around in confusion, but saw that everyone else was doing the same. That couldn’t be good. “What the hell is going on,” Spyder demanded, and felt—rather than saw—Sebastian grow tense and wary. He could almost feel his man’s aura change from calm-but-alert to “mothafuckers are about to die.” Spyder put a hand on Seb’s arm. “
No te rochees,
Seb,” he said almost under his breath.

As the people in the command center—a canvas pavilion tent—quieted down, Sebastian nudged him. “
Bichote
, listen to that noise.”

“What noise?”

“Yeah. The generator outside is quiet. The vehicles Ree kept running? They’re quiet. All is quiet. We’ve heard this silence before, yes?”

Spyder froze. Seb was right… The man was a meathead, but cunning. He’d never miss seeing advantage when it showed itself. Spyder hissed, “
Ése salió por lana y llegó trasquilado,
” and Seb stifled a chuckle.
Ree had gone out looking for sheep but came back sheared
. Asshole.