Under the dim red overhead light, Sawyers crouched in the back of one of the LAVs, looking over the sketch of the objective, looking for flaws in his plan. Occasionally, the light of one of the radios mounted forward, behind the driver, would illuminate his face with an orange glow.
Four times had the radio's light flashed as his assault columns reported having taken up their positions. Now Sawyers heard the fifth, expected, transmission.
The transmission warbling, broken; the 'fifth column'—two companies of PGSS aboard Army helicopters— reported, 'five minutes out.'
Sawyers keyed his own micophone, 'Black this is Black Six. Five minutes.'
A chorus of 'Rogers' made the radio light flicker like a strobe.
* * *
It had just become light enough for the pilots to dispense with their night vision goggles. Warrant Officer Harrington announced, 'Co-pilot's ship,' then released his stick as he felt the other warrant take over. He could have simply left the goggles attached to his helmet, flipping them up and out of the way. But he'd never liked the weight of the things so he opened the plastic case, removed the goggles and placed them in the case.
He looked around and behind him at the thirteen PGSS 'agents' littering his passenger area. His eyes rested momentarily on the two thick, coiled ropes on the floor to either side of the helicopter.
* * *
'Here they cooommme!' shouted the man, Smithfield, bearing the antitank weapon up near the hole in the wall.
Fontaine's heart began to pound even harder than before. Even so, he gripped his rifle, steadying it on the sandbags of the bunker and taking a general aim at the seven-foot-wide hole blown in the wall that was his firing sector, his and the machine gunner's.
'You ready, Silva?' he asked.
As if to punctuate and agree in one, Fontaine heard a machine-gun bolt slam home.
'Be careful you don't hit the antitank man up by the hole,' Fontaine cautioned.
'No sweat, Fontaine. We done worked it out. Smitty's going to fire one round, two if he can get away with it . . . and ain't
' 'Ring our chimes'? You sure Smitty worked out the backblast problem?'
'Oh yeah . . . we got just enough ventilation . . . just enough to live through it, that is.'
The roaring diesels of the PGSS suddenly grew louder. Fontaine heard, distinctly, 'Backblast area clear!'
Then it seemed like the world blew up.
* * *
It was overkill, really. The rocket Smithfield was using was an AT-4. Brutally, even impractically, heavy for a one-man weapon, it had been designed to defeat heavy armor, armor much heavier than any LAV boasted.
Thus, within less than a second after Smithfield had fired, the warhead had reached its target. The cone shape began to deform on striking, crushing a piezo-electric crystal within. This created a momentary surge of electricity that raced down to the warhead detonator. This exploded, causing the rest of the explosive in the warhead to likewise detonate.
That explosive was also shaped into a cone, but in a mirror of the ballistic cone to the front, this cone was recessed. Most of the explosion was, in effect, lost in every direction. Yet a portion was not. In the hollow cone hot gasses collected. These were held and focused by the surrounding explosion. The collected gasses then formed a plasma jet, moving at phenomenal speeds . . . straight towards and right through the armor of the PGSS LAV.
* * *
If the defenders of the facility had been partially and momentarily stunned by the serious backblast emanating from the AT-4, the recipients of that fire were more than stunned. One unfortunate, the one right in the path of the shaped charge's blast, felt only a momentary flash of agonized burning before the hot gasses forced into his body caused his torso to literally explode.
Being covered with bits of flesh and slime was the least of the occupants' problems, however. The sudden overpressure, pressure which could not escape the sealed armored vehicle, burst the eardrums of every man trapped inside. Most were knocked out, outright. Several took serious interior damage to vital organs from the concussive blast.
And then the vehicle began to burn. . . .
* * *
'The bitch is burning!' shouted an exultant Smithfield as he began to prep his second AT-4 for firing. 'Hah, hah . . . look at it. . . .'
The burst of machine gun fire coming from another of the approaching LAVs brought the soldier's celebration up very short.
'Oh fuck . . . oh, fuck,' whispered the sergeant, looking down at red ruin and spurting blood. Drilled through a thousand repetitions for operation of the antitank weapon, the man's hands continued to go through the motions even as his life leaked away. But the hands moved so slowly . . . so slowly.
Smithfield looked up to seek a new target. He did not need to look very far or very hard as the bulk of a LAV loomed above, a scant 15 feet from the hole.
