'Okay, boys,' shouted the sweating, panting crew chief, leaning with one arm on the wooden frame. 'Let's go back and slide the next one into position.
Amid Sada sat on a folding chair on the flat roof over his bunker, sipping a tepid fruit juice. His eyes were fixed on the hospital, standing tall and white except for black bull's-eyes painted on each side. He heard, distantly, the drone of aircraft.
Suddenly the interior of the darkened hospital lit up, showing a montage of broken glass and torn-out cinder blocks cascading from every window.
'I will never again doubt one of your hunches, sir,' Qabaash admitted.
'Wait for it, my friend,' Sada chided, wagging a finger. 'The building still stands. It won't for long.'
Seconds passed. Once again the former hospital building flashed with internal fire. This time, one corner began to sag. In half a minute another bomb, this one not so accurate as the first two, struck it on the side, almost exactly on one of the painted bull's-eyes. An entire section of masonry peeled away to fall crashing to the street below.
Qabaash looked awed. 'It was likely a fluke, my friend,' Sada announced.
It was nearly two full minutes before yet another bomb hit the building, again internally. That one managed to start a fire, though the next put it out while crumbling one wing completely.
'How many, do you think, Amid?'
'Why, as many as it takes, Qabaash,' Sada answered calmly. 'And if what they have tonight isn't enough, they'll be back tomorrow. The enemy has plenty of time, and apparently no shortage of munitions.'
Command Post, Legio del Cid, outskirts of Ninewa, 29/2/461 AC
'Truth is, Carl,' Carrera admitted to Kennison, 'that I'd have spared the building if I could. I couldn't. The other side probably had no choice but to use it, and made the right choice of at least not hiding behind it. But because they used it, it had to go.'
'Seems like a bloody awful waste to me, Pat.' For some reason Kennison seemed more troubled by the destruction of the former hospital than by anything that had gone before. Or perhaps it was a cumulative thing, with the hospital being the final straw. In either case, he had tendered his resignation to Carrera that morning, just before sunrise.
Carrera's face was a stiff mask as he folded the written resignation carefully and placed it in one pocket of his battledress, rebuttoning the pocket when he was done. 'In any case, Carl, no, I won't let you go. You signed on for two years and for two years you will stay, in irons if necessary. You were under no illusions about what I intended and you've known me long enough and well enough to know how I think and how I operate. None of this should be a surprise to you.'
Kennison looked utterly miserable, haggard and drawn. 'That's not the surprise, Pat. Everything you say is true. The surprise is how I feel about it. That, I never had a clue to. I don't even disagree, in principle, about the things you've done. It just bothers me in ways I can't deal with. Pat… I haven't slept in a week and it isn't just because of the cluster fuck the sandstorm caused.'
Carrera turned away for a moment, thinking hard. I don't have a decent replacement here for him. Kuralski could do it, but he's out of country. Jimenez could, too, but I can't afford to pull him out of Fourth Cohort. I need Harrington where he is. Triste? No. Great intel guy but not an operator. Parilla could run a staff well enough provided someone else gave him the overall plan. But he's still bedridden.
Fuck. I'll have to try to do it myself. That, and try to get Kennison back on track.
'Sergeant Major!' Carrera called.
'Sir.'
'Tribune Kennison has not slept in a week. He is currently unfit for his duties. Place him under arrest. Go to my vehicle and ask Soult for a bottle-no better make it two bottles-of scotch. Take the tribune back to the last town we passed and get him drunk as a skunk. Then put him to bed. Place a guard on him with instructions to fill him with more booze when he awakens. Have the legion's chief surgeon check on him from time to time.'
Kennison looked at Carrera skeptically. Fine, we'll play it this way for now. But I don't think that's the problem.
Sada's Command Post, Ninewa, 32/2/461 AC
The bombing had become more or less continuous, with one Dodo overhead at all times ready to drop a self-guiding bomb- mostly lighter, five-hundred-pounders-any and every time a group of Sada's men showed themselves. The bombs seemed to come down every five or ten minutes even without a visible target.
This is becoming a problem, Sada thought to himself. Another bomb fell somewhere in the town, not so far away that it didn't shake the commander even down in his bunker. At night we have these things, during the day it's the smaller, single engine dive bombers; those, or helicopters configured to carry rockets and machine guns. Both times, day or night, we have their RPVs patrolling for targets for the aircraft, the artillery, and the heavy mortars.
If it's becoming hard on my morale it must be worse for the men.
Right, then. Best get out of this frigging hole and go see them.
Command Post, Legio del Cid, 32/2/461 AC
'That's him!' Fahad shouted in the CP. 'That's Sada.' An RPV pilot began calling off the grid coordinates of the spot where the enemy commander had been seen.
Carrera, who was spending a lot more time at headquarters than he liked since he had sent Kennison away to sleep and rest, hurried to look at the monitor that carried an image from a circling RPV.
'Are you sure, Fahad?'
'I'm sure. No one walks quite like he does. That's him.'
Already the fire direction center was on the radio, giving precise coordinates to one of the Dodos circling overhead.
'Belay that!' Carrera shouted. All chatter in the CP stopped as every face turned to their chief with looks that said plainly, 'Are you out of your fucking mind?'
Carrera swept a glare back at his headquarters troops. 'Yes, I am probably out of my fucking mind. But I want him alive. He's worth more to us, over there, enforcing the rules than he would be dead and some other asshole breaking them.'
He did not give his real reason. I have a use for this man, in the future, if he lives.
Assembly Area Principe Eugenio, just east of Ninewa
Cruz ducked into the trench as the black flower blossomed just a hundred meters away, sending steel shards zinging through the air like homicidal bees.
'They're getting better,' Sanchez said. 'You've got to admit it; they are getting better.'
Cruz knew that shells were in short supply for the legion. Allegedly, they'd been given number one priority for both trucks and aircraft coming down the highway from Mangesh Base. The problem was, so the tribune had explained, that 'number one priority doesn't mean the only priority.' Food had to be brought, and that was bulky. Nor had the water purification point been moved right up to the river that fed the city yet. The legion needed a lot of water, too, about forty thousand gallons a day. Other items of ammunition, notably high explosives, grenades and small arms, were also needed and took up shipping space. The rockets for the big multiple rocket launchers wouldn't fit the legion's trucks except for the trucks that accompanied the launchers, and they were already carrying what they could.
Making things worse, the gringo commander of the 731st Airborne was pissed at Carrera-no, Cruz didn't know the full story- and had pulled out his own heavy transport.
So shells were being hoarded, for now at least, and the Sumeri mortars-they didn't seem to have any artillery available, but they had a shitpot full of mortars-were having a field day.
One of the century's snipers fired a single round from his Draco. He must have missed; he cursed the thing roundly as soon as he looked through his scope. He fired again.
The flyboys claimed to have gotten some. So far as Cruz could see it hadn't made a lot of difference. The Sumeri mortars barked whenever someone from the legion had the temerity to show himself.
Still, shells were coming down the pike. Stockpiles were being built.
