“Matherson, damn it, the general wants you. Move it!”
John looked back to where Bentley was standing out in the open, arms on hips, as if oblivious to the firefight that was going on.
John spared one last glance for his fallen friend, stifled back his emotions, and crouching low started toward Bentley.
Maury, Forrest, and Malady, who had been deployed forward, got up to join him.
“Lee?” Maury asked.
“Gone,” was all he could choke out.
A loud tearing sound, almost like that of a bedsheet being ripped in half, echoed against the face of the ridge. One of the Apaches, angled down, was at a hover fifty feet up, pouring in a stream of 30mm shells across the face of the huge steel doors, then turning its fire into a bunker on one flank for several seconds, pivoting, delivering the same deadly blow to the second bunker on the other side of the door. Its tracer rounds made its efforts look like a garden hose of liquid fire pouring down from an angry heaven. A second Apache was swinging back and forth, sweeping the ground above the door with the same river of death. There was a secondary explosion from what must have been a concealed bunker positioned partway up the steep slope.
John came up to Bentley, who without comment turned, set off at a slow jog, and led them to where General Scales was down on one knee, snapping out commands into a handheld radio.
“That’s it, you’ve torn the shit out of them!” he cried. “We take one more shot. Don’t wait for me. Cut loose again!”
The two Apaches broke away from their attacks, turned, and with rotors thumping loudly pivoted and climbed up.
Bob stood, went over to a Black Hawk, and held up his hand, and the pilot offered him a microphone linked to a loudspeaker strapped to the helicopter.
“That’s it!” Bob shouted. “We didn’t want a fight. You opened fire first. You saw what you got. Lay down your arms, come out hands over your heads, and I promise safe surrender. You’ve got thirty seconds, or some Hellfires will come in next.”
The bunker to the left flank of the steel door let go with a secondary explosion, ammunition within lighting off like a long string of firecrackers, men around Bob ducking. He remained standing.
“Fifteen seconds or you’ll really get a taste of hell.”
Three men came staggering out of the second bunker, hands up, one of them obviously burned, smoke swirling up from his scorched uniform.
“Medic forward!” Bob shouted. “Surrender; we’ll take care of the wounded. This is General Bob Scales, Eastern Command. I am giving you a direct order that will save your lives. Now give it up.”
One of Bob’s medics raced forward and actually knocked the man in the smoldering uniform down, rolling him back and forth in the snow and shouting for one of the other surrendering men to help him. The sight of this finally broke the standoff at last.
More men and women began to emerge from concealment, many of them wounded.
“That’s it! Keep coming forward!” Bob shouted. “All medics up front and center. Treatment center on me. Move it!”
The Apaches continued to circle overhead like birds of prey eager to strike. Looking up, Bob picked the transmission mike up, clicked it, and passed the order for them to climb a bit higher, hover, and hold fire unless directly ordered to attack.
He let the mike drop, grimly surveying those coming in, and then looked over at John. “Thank God you’re okay,” he said. “I looked back when your bird was hit; I thought it was you in the doorway.”
“It was my friend Lee,” John replied, still struggling with emotion.
Bob looked at him questioningly.
“He’s dead.”
Muttering a curse, Bob turned away. “Damn them, damn them. There was no need for this. I had to come in sharp and fast, not just go up to the gate, knock politely, and ask to please come in. But it didn’t have to be this way. Damn fools should have seen we had the firepower edge.”
Several dozen surrendering were now coming forward, the majority injured in some way. A captain, dragging a wounded leg, approached Bob and stopped half a dozen feet away, and just glared at him. “Who the hell are you?” the captain snapped.
“First off, I am your superior officer, and you will salute before addressing me,” Bob snapped.
The captain glared at him and those around him, attention focusing on John and his people for a moment, who, other than their flak jackets and helmets, were decidedly unmilitary.
“And this rabble?”
Sergeant Bentley stepped forward and got within inches of the captain’s face. “You will address the general as sir, you son of a bitch, and salute a superior officer. Now close your damn yap and answer when spoken to.”
The captain began to reply, and Bentley leaned in almost nose-to-nose, exactly like a professional DI intimidating a jerk of a recruit who, if behind the barracks and out of sight, would get his butt kicked.
The captain relented, stepping backward a few paces and to one side, turned his focus toward the general, and finally offered a salute.
“Captain Dean Hanson, United States Air Force.”
Bob barely returned the salute. “Your unit?”
“223rd Security Battalion.”
“Oh, Christ, air force security,” one of the men behind Bob growled. “No wonder.”
Bob did not look back at whoever spoke out with disdain. “Why did you fire on us, Captain?” Bob snapped.
“Sir, our standing orders are anyone enters this compound, we shoot first and ask questions later.”
Bob looked around at the carnage. Lee was not the only casualty on their side. Several men near Bob were down. Dead and wounded were being carried in where one of the medics was shouting that he was setting up a clearing area, literally next to the command Black Hawk. The ship John was in was beginning to burn, and no one was bothering to try to suppress it.
“Now listen to my orders,” Bob snapped at the captain. “That steel door over there, open it now.”
The captain stiffened and shook his head. “My name is Captain Dean Hanson, United States Air Force, serial number—”
Bob stepped closer. “Cut the bullshit, Captain. Open the damn door.”
“Sir, what you are ordering is in direct contradiction to my orders.”
“From where?”
“Sir, I do not have to answer that question.”
“Bluemont?” Bob shouted and John saw a flicker in the captain’s eyes, and he knew Bob saw it as well.
Bob shoved past the captain and strode the hundred yards to the door, ducking down for a moment as more munitions from one of the bunkers ignited like a Fourth of July display. A dozen of Bob’s troopers and John and his friends fell in behind him. As they approached the vast steel door, they could see it looked almost like a safe, its face pockmarked from the strafing runs by the Apaches that still circled overhead.
“Captain, open that door!” Bob said, looking back at Hanson, whom Bentley was shoving along behind them.
“I can’t.”
‘What do you mean you can’t?”