They struck up and down the perimeter trench and dust showered down, and screams and yelps rose as men cowered under the torrent. One of the missile gunners took a full burst of the mini-gun across the chest and the bullets pulverized him.
The gunship roared in; Yasotay could hear it overhead, circling, swooping as the pilot overshot the mark, swung back; a spotlight raced out from the craft, hunting targets. And then the guns caught it. The chopper pilot, too low, too eager, had crossed Yasotay’s silent first trench in hunt for the missile men; but he’d forgotten Yasotay’s own gunners, who opened up instinctively, catching the craft easily in ten or twelve streams of fire and the Huey wobbled, vibrated, and then was gone in a horrid smear of orange flame spreading bright as day across the night sky.
Yasotay was up even before the flames had drained from the air, and he saw the field ahead of them filled with rushing infantry and thought it was too late. But his NCOs, blooded the many years in Asian mountains, did not panic, and he could hear their stern voices calling out in reassuring Russian, “To the front. To the front. Targets to the front.”
Yasotay fired a flare, and then another.
It was sheer, delirious spectacle.
The infantry came like a tide of insects, scuttling, lurching ahead in dashes, yet still brave and steady, forcing the gap between itself and Yasotay’s front line, rushing ahead in packs of four or five. Yasotay fancied he could even see their eyes, wide with fright and adrenaline. Their backup guns had started, suppressive automatic fire from the flanks, lancing out over the troops but too high to do any damage.
Then his own fire rose, rose again; the men were on full automatic. The assault force troopers began to go down, but still they came, brave, good men, and the battlefield broke apart, atomized, into a hundred desperate little dramas, as small fire-and-movement teams tried to work closer. But Yasotay could see that he’d broken the spine of the attack. He picked up his scoped G-3 and began to engage targets.
Puller could hear them dying.
“This is Sixgun-One, he’s got missiles coming up, ah, no sweat, they’re missing, that’s one past us, oops, two gone, and that’s the big — Hit, hit, I’m losing it, we’re—”
“Charlie, I have you, you’re looking swell.”
“Major, he’s not burn—”
“Christ, he hit hard.”
“Delta Six, this is Sixgun-Two, I have missile launchers ahead, and I’ve got them engaged — oooooooo, look at them boys dance—”
“Sir, belt’s out.”
“Get it changed, I’m going in.”
“Goddammit, Sixgun-Two, this is Delta Six, you are advised to hold your position, I can’t risk another lost ship.”
“Sir, I got ’em running, I can see ’em running, I just want to get closer.”
“New belt, skip.”
“Let’s kick ass.”
“Sixgun-Two, hold your fucking position!” Puller roared.
“Colonel, I got those missile guys zeroed, oh, this is great, this
“Shit, sir, there’s fire coming up from—”
“Oh, oh, shit, goddammit, hit, I’m—”
“The fire, the fire, the fi—”
“Jesus,” somebody at the window said, “his tanks went. He’s all over the sky. It looks like the Fourth of July.”
“Delta Six, this is Halfback, I’m taking heavy fire from the front.”
“Halfback, get your second assault team up to the initial point.”
“Ready to go, sir. Shit, the gunships are both down, that one guy, he’s still burning. The fire is heavy.”
“Are your people still advancing?”
“We’ve got a lot of fire going out, sir.”
“But your team, is it still advancing or is it hung up?”
“I don’t see much movement out there, but there’s a lot of fire. There’s smoke, dust, snow, whatever, I can’t see through it. Should I send my backup yet?”
“Not unless you’re convinced your first wave has completely lost it.”
“Well, there’s fire. Where’s that stuff on the left? Where’s Bravo? Where the hell is Bravo? Jesus, Bravo, if you don’t help us, we’re going to get butchered and nobody’s getting any closer to that hole than they are now.”
The blade touched his throat; he felt it begin to cut then halt.
He felt the sinewy muscles so tight against him ease just a notch; then, swift and silent as his stalker had pounced on him, he was gone. The weight left Walls’s back; rolling over, his fingers flying involuntarily to the break in his skin where the blade had begun to slice open his throat, he found himself staring into the mad eyes of his own death, which this time had by luck decided not to occur.
“Jesus, lady, you scared the shit out of me.”
The Vietnamese woman looked at him sullenly. God, how could such a scrawny creature be so strong? Baby, you had my ass cold. Fifteen years ago you get me like that and my ticket be punched forever and ever.
He rubbed his neck, which was wet with a trickle of blood.
“I figure you come up the tunnels same as me. Then you run into one of them pipes for the rocket blast, right? You follow it, and you end up in here with me, is that right, girl? Sure it is. No other way it could be. Then, when you hear me coming, you crawl up inside there—” He pointed to the big cupola of the rocket exhaust port. He shivered, thinking of her curled up in there, like a cat actually inside the thing. “Shit, you look like you been through worse hell than me.”
She was smeared with mud and blood; her face was filthy. She had a crazed look in her dark eyes and her hand kept tightening and loosening on the haft of the big knife. One of her trouser legs was ripped out. A terrible gash had left a cascade of dried blood down one arm; the cut itself had turned black and glistening. Whoever said their faces were blank? He was wrong, whoever he was, because Walls now looked hard at the thing he had all those years ago taught himself was flat and dull and yellow and saw the same play of emotions he’d seen on any face: fear, anger, pride, a big charge of guts, maybe more than a little grief.
“They jump you? Where your partner be at? You know, Stretch. That tall white dude. Where he be at?”
She shook her head.
He laughed. “He didn’t make it? My boy Witherspoon didn’t make it neither. Well, sugar, just you and me, we’s all there is, us old-time rats. Nobody else coming.” He stood, picking up his shotgun.
“Okay, lady,” he said. “Now, I figure on climbing up this ladder to that little door. You see it? Way up there? Then, maybe somehow we get through the door. ’Cause the one thing I know, we don’t want to be sitting next to this big cocksucker”—he looked at the missile—“in case it gets lit off. Burn us to shit. You coming or you staying? Best if you come.”
She looked at him, her dark eyes crazily boring into his.
Shit, she don’t even understand what this is. This is just another tunnel to her, except that now it’s some shit with a rocketship.
“Come on,” he crooned. “Take it from me, you don’t want to be down here if this sucker go. Fire come out of the hole, burn you all up like napalm.”
He began to climb up the rungs. He climbed, looking up, watching the manhole cover of the silo hatch. He wouldn’t look down because it was too far, and Walls, the tunnel champion, was afraid of heights. He climbed and climbed until he was woozy. Seven fucking stories. It was high!
He finally reached the door. It was blank and solid. Hanging groggily on the rungs, he touched it, and it had no spring or give. It was another door, the door of his life.
FUCK NIGGERS wasn’t scratched into it, but it could have been, for that was its message. Like any door he’d ever faced, it only said, You ain’t going nowhere. You ain’t invited.
His hand made a fist and he smashed it, stupidly. His hand crunched in pain.
