Standing in the Storm (The Last Brigade Book 2) Page 23

  “The Chinese have taken the ridge from the Marines,” Fleming said as Angriff looked on. “They’ve screened and pinned down Bulldozer in Skull Valley the town and are trying to cut Highway 10 here, here, and here. The Marines are still trying to hold them off but are getting chewed up. We need to pull them out. And they’ve reached the highway here.”

  “That’s Bulldozer One One Two?”

  “Yes. Ripsaw and Buzzsaw were re-routed for air support, and they report at least two mechanized battalions in the area, but so far the highway is still open. One One Two sent video before…”

  “Before what?” Angriff said.

  “Before we lost the feed.”

  “Don’t play games with me, Norm. If she’s dead…” he forced the words out, “just tell me.”

  “We don’t know anything yet. They took out two Chinese tanks and a bunch of infantry. Then something knocked out the feed.”

  From several stations down the long center table, Colonel Walling straightened. “General Angriff, First Armored reports they are at Bulldozer One One Two’s position. Lieutenant Randall’s tank is badly damaged and she is wounded, but the medics are with her now. They’ve called for medevac, but the LZ is hot. Apparently…”

  “Apparently what?”

  Walling looked uncomfortable. “General, it appears Captain Randall blocked the highway with his helicopter until the medics would attend to Lieutenant Randall. The tank battalion executive officer, Major Claringdon, used the word extortion.”

  “That is completely unacceptable,” Angriff said. Faces turned at his reaction, as he knew they would. He tried to keep his relief from being too obvious.

  He considered all the young men and women he sent into battle to be his children, and he wanted them to know it. In a unit where nobody’s parents still lived, he was a father figure to them all. But at a fundamental level, there was something different about ordering your own flesh and blood into harm’s way. He could not condone a court-martial offense, but the father in him wanted to shake his son-in-law’s hand. Any doubts he might have had about Joe Randall vanished.

  “Have the tanks spread out as far as is practicable in the direction of Skull Valley. Let’s pull the Marines back to here, but bring their infantry and heavy weapons forward to support the tanks. If we can hold here until the First Infantry comes on line, we’ve got them. I doubt they were expecting a pitched battle on this scale, or air attacks. Their fuel situation has to be critical. We cannot let them rejoin with the other column.”

  “I just hope we have the firepower to contain them.”

  “There’s no hoping to it.”

  North of Prescott, the 2nd Infantry Regiment moved out of their defensive positions just after sunup. When the first air strikes had gone in before dawn, the eastern Chinese column had stopped north of the tiny settlement of Paulden. As dawn broke, it spread onto the grounds of an abandoned firearms training compound. The ground was either flat or rolling, with excellent lines of sight. Confusion reigned but canceling the operation seemed unthinkable. The Chinese could not imagine they faced a new and much more dangerous enemy than expected.

  The two American infantry battalions advanced on the Chinese force, but the Chinese blocked this with a nasty surprise. Infantry filled the trucks brought along to haul slaves, and half the tankers held heavy weapons instead of fuel. The sprawling battlefield meant the Americans kept trying to turn a flank, while Chinese moved to block them while holding open the road to Interstate 40. Late in the morning, the Army reconnaissance battalion made a drive to cut the Chinese off and surround them.

  The Chinese position was precarious. They had the men and firepower to hold the Americans back, but the American artillery devastated their ranks. Wherever a defense coalesced for too long, it was soon engulfed by a metal storm of artillery. By early afternoon, the Chinese position was critical. Facing annihilation, the Chinese executed a fighting withdrawal. The exhausted Americans followed at a safe distance.

  As afternoon shadows stretched over the battlefield, the ravaged Chinese fled west on Interstate 40, with a rear guard to stop pursuit. But the Americans had to worry about their own left flank. The further they chased the beaten column, the more exposed they became to Chinese tank formations in Skull Valley, a mere eight miles away. Stopping at the settlement of Drake, they faced the Chinese rear guard at Hell Canyon, where the retreating enemy had blown the bridges. Angriff called off the pursuit and shifted the 1st Infantry Battalion west, to cut off the Chinese armor in Skull Valley.

  The Chinese armored corps tried to cut Highway 10 until noon. Fighting along the ridge near the highway swirled back and forth. For a few brief seconds a Chinese infantry squad used Joe’s Junk for cover, but they were soon driven back.

  Air strikes turned the tide. Knowing Patton had no air power, the Chinese had only brought vehicles useful in ground attack mode. The few SPAAAs carried a heavier ammunition load and left most of their SAMs at home. Moreover, it had been twenty-plus years since they’d last engaged enemy aircraft. With no practical way to practice anti-aircraft gunnery, all they could do was fire a lot of rounds and hope for the best.

  They were sitting ducks.

  The Americans targeted the SPAAAs first, destroying them early in the fight. By 1230 hours the Chinese commander realized he faced a professional military. And as impossible as it seemed, it was a professional American military force. He’d expected an easy victory and instead suffered heavy losses against an enemy of unknown strength. With no way of knowing he still outnumbered the Americans almost two to one, he ordered his scattered force to withdraw.

  If the Chinese had attacked any spot on the ridge by Highway 10 in strength, they would have broken through. The entire American position would have crumbled. But they did not launch such an attack. The afternoon became a battle of fire and movement, as the Chinese withdrew and the Americans tried to trap them.

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  Chapter 38

  The bastards tried to come over me last night. I guess they didn't know I was a Marine.

  PFC Edward H. Ahrens, Tulagi, 1942

  1423 hours, July 29

  Standing watch was Lara Snowtiger’s least favorite duty. But she knew its importance and was never distracted. And that watchfulness paid off.

  She saw something in the far distance. But what? All she caught was a glimpse of a dust cloud, but it was miles away and she couldn’t be sure before it vanished. Binoculars couldn’t see through dirt. The Sonoran Desert was like an ocean chopped by wind and then flash-frozen where the swells became rolling hills. Besides the hills there were trees, cacti, bushes, dry river valleys, and arroyos. Any of them could hide an approaching enemy.

  It might have been nothing more than a dust devil, spun up like a tornado by the rising thermals and gone as fast as it appeared. Or a herd of antelope chased by a predator. Yet Snowtiger’s instincts told her it was neither of those things.

  “Muthah fucker,” Piccaldi said. “Who set the thermostat on Hell?”

  “Poor baby, did the nasty heat wake you up? Wanna trade places?” she said.

  “Fuck, no. I did my watch.”

  “At dawn,” she said. “So SITFU and stop whining.”

  He rolled out from under the LAV-25. Sweat soaked his back and armpits, and he drank as much water as he could. Snowtiger glanced his way and snickered. Like her, Piccaldi was a killer. She also thought he could act like a little boy. He complained nonstop about the incessant swarming flies, ants, wasps, beetles, and mosquitoes. But the real threats, scorpions, centipedes, and rattlesnakes, didn’t seem to worry him.

  “Anything new from Prescott?” Piccaldi said, turning to their platoon leader, Lieutenant Embekwe, who sat on the shady side of the LAV. “Sounded like grim city over there earlier.”

  “Captain Sully might know, but I don’t. Last I heard, the situation was pretty confused.”

  “By pretty confused,” Piccaldi said, “you mean a clusterfuck, right?”


  “The last I got was the Chinese had at least one reinforced armored division, but no air cover or artillery. I have no idea if that’s accurate. It’s just what Cap told us.”

  “Fighting a fucking armored division.” Piccaldi shook his head. “With LAVs… damn.”

  “Yeah,” Embekwe said. “We may be doing an about face before this is over.”

  “Let the good times roll.”

  Embekwe had spread the platoon over a series of low hills. The vehicles were hull-down, and only those Marines on watch were in the open. The rest hid from the burning sunlight, either under their vehicles or in the shade. Nobody sat inside them. With the engines off, it was like sitting in a convection oven.

  Snowtiger resumed making slow sweeps across the desert to their front. She felt the sun and heat like anyone else, but her dark skin did not burn easily and the wide-brimmed Boonie hat protected her face. She could have crawled under a LAV as others did, but the vantage was better standing on the hill; the higher the elevation, the further she could see. Moreover, Piccaldi could not understand how she withstood the scorching sunlight and he couldn’t.

  Then she lowered the binoculars and cocked her head to one side. She’d started doing that as a little girl, and her grandmother had joked she was part German Shepherd. She felt something in the ground. Faint vibrations whispered in her feet as a slight tickle. There was no sound, just the least movement in the loose desert soil. She knelt, laying her palm on the ground. She paused like that, then turned from the east to the northwest. There, topping a small hill and moving their way at a dead gallop, were three men on horseback.

  “Company coming,” she said.

  Without a word, the squad scrambled to battle stations. Piccaldi knelt with rifle in hand, ready to fire. “Where?” he said, scope to his eye.

  “On our seven,” she said. “Three men on horseback. They’re armed and… they’re wearing feathers in their hats.”

  Within a second he had acquired the target and focused on the middle rider. “Dope the wind, Lara.” Is there any wind?

  She raised her left index finger. “Two-two-five at five.” Winds out of the southwest at five miles an hour.

  “Engagement sequence completed. I’m losing the ballistic advantage, Loot.”

  “Don’t shoot yet,” Embekwe said. “Radetsky, get the Cap over here, pronto.”

  The two flanking riders peeled off, vanishing into the rolling hills, and the last rider slowed to a canter. Moments later the other two reappeared on small hills to either side, with only their heads and rifles visible. The guns pointed skyward.

  “Skipper on the way,” the LAV chain gunner, Ivan Radetsky, called down. “ETA five minutes.”

  “He’s Apache,” Snowtiger said as the rider drew near. “I think he’s a chief.”

  “Hot shit, it’s about fucking time something happened,” Piccaldi said. “I hope he’s a real Indian. How cool would that be?”

  “Yeah,” Snowtiger said. “Imagine meeting a real Indian.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  High overhead a prairie falcon screeched as it circled. It sounded like a battle cry.

  Less than a minute later, the rider slowed his mount and stopped about thirty feet from the group. He ignored the weapons pointed at him and studied each of them in turn. His dark eyes seemed able to strip them naked and see into their hearts. He said nothing until he came to Snowtiger, when his expression softened.

  “How is this possible?” he said in a deep voice. “How are you here?” Gray streaked his shoulder-length hair. Underneath brushed leather pants and a dirt-stained white cotton shirt, it was obvious there was hard muscle with little fat.

  “I’m Choctaw,” Snowtiger said, unsure what he meant.

  “Of course you are.” He nodded, as if she’d confirmed something he already knew. “I have little time for this mystery today, though. Who’s in charge here? Is it you?”

  “It’s not me,” Snowtiger said.

  “Our company commander will be here in a minute,” Embekwe said. “Until then, I am.”

  The rider inspected each of them again. He stopped when he came to Piccaldi and regarded him for a moment, untroubled by the rifle pointed at his chest. “You are a deadly warrior, but you will never be the one in command. You are a tool used by the one who is. You,” he continued, pointing to Embekwe. “You are too young. I will wait to speak with your commander.”

  “Yeah?” Piccaldi said, forgetting that Embekwe was the ranking man on the spot. “And how do you know I’ll never be in command?”

  “I watched you shoot a man who stood next to your captain. He knew the shot was coming yet he did not flinch, which means that he knew, without a doubt, that you would not miss. You are a perfect killing machine, and he used you to best advantage. But machines need others to operate them.”

  It took them all a moment to realize what he was talking about. “You were there when we rescued the family,” Snowtiger said.

  “You are his equal,” the Apache said to her. “But there are two of you and only one of him.”

  “What do you mean, two of me?”

  Before he could answer, the dust cloud from a Humvee announced the arrival of Captain Sully. Climbing from the passenger seat, Sully wiped his face with his forearm and eyed the stranger on the horse.

  For his part, the Apache studied him back. “It was you I saw rescue that family. You were in charge. You are a man of courage, but to what end?”

  “Somebody get me up to speed,” Sully said. “Lieutenant?”

  “This guy came riding up, Captain, said he would only talk to you. He’s got covering fire on that hill over there, and that one.”

  Sully turned to the horseman. “I’m Captain Sully. Mind telling me who you are?”

  “I am Govind, of the Western Apache. You are the one who took that family a few weeks ago. You stood like a statue while that man and the Indian woman shot the men pointing guns at you, and you did not flinch. I respect your courage, Captain, which is why I am here.”

  “Thank you. May I ask exactly what that means, and why you have men pointing guns at us?”

  “The guns are not pointed at you; they are pointed at me. Those are my brothers. You wear uniforms like those men called Guards who serve the General named Patton, in the Republic of Arizona. You have the same white star on your vehicles, and you take people as captives like they do, but I am not a man who makes assumptions. We have watched you from afar for many weeks. I am here to find out who you serve, but I will not be made a prisoner. If you try to take me, my brothers will kill me. It is a fate preferable to a life of slavery.”

  “Then you’ll be happy to know your brothers don’t have to shoot you, because we don’t serve this General Patton. Our general is named Angriff, we are Marines, and we serve only the United States of America.”

  Govind leaned back in his saddle. “There is no United States. America died decades ago.”

  “Reports of our death were greatly exaggerated. We’re back. And we have no quarrel with the Apache, you’re as American as I am, and I’m sure my general would like to meet you. But only at your request. We will not force you to do anything.”

  “What you say makes no sense, Captain. You saved that family, and then took them against their will. You even used a helicopter to help you do it. I was not aware there were any helicopters left that could fly. Yet we have seen others around your mountain.”

  “I don’t know who we is, but if you saw the medevac helicopter, then you also saw the big red cross painted on its side. And I think you know exactly what that means… Govind? Did I say that right? The grandmother had been shot and was bleeding to death, so we flew her to our base for medical attention. None of those people is a prisoner, and none is a slave. Right this minute, as we speak, others of us are fighting in the city of Prescott to rescue thousands of people who were about to be sold as slaves. We’re the good guys.”

  “Yes, we saw that and wondered about it. Some of
my people think you wanted the slaves for yourself.”

  “We are there to save those people and free that city from the control of this so-called general.”

  Govind studied him but Sully matched his stare. “I do not see treachery in your eyes,” the Apache finally said. “I hear no lies in your voice. If time were not short, I would think about this, but time is short and I must make a fast decision. So I will trust you, even though I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Thank you. Would you care to join us for some coffee? We could whip some up post haste.”

  “Thank you, coffee would be welcome, but there is no time. You must act now or be destroyed.”

  “Destroyed? By what?”

  “She knows,” he said, pointing to Snowtiger. “She has seen it.”

  Sully raised both eyebrows when he looked at Snowtiger.

  “Right before he rode up, sir, I thought I saw a dust cloud, but it was far away and I wasn’t sure. I don’t know how he knew that. It could have been a dust devil. “

  “Oh, no,” Govind said. “Devils, yes, but not of dust. Those are men.”

  “Please just tell me what you mean,” Sully said.

  “Captain, about ten miles away is the army of the Caliphate, those that call themselves Sevens, followers of the New Prophet. They have moved from the place they call New Khorasan, but you may know it as Tucson. What this woman saw was the cloud raised by their vehicles.”

  “Army?” Sully said, stunned. “How big of an army are we talking about here?”

  “No less than thirty thousand men, perhaps more, and more than five hundred vehicles.”

  “What’s their heading? Where are they going?”

  “Going? Captain, they’re heading right for you.”

  Chapter 39

  Boys, do you hear that musketry and that artillery? It means that our friends are falling by the hundreds at the hands of the enemy… let’s go and help them. What do you say?