‘Sergeant Carlyon. A head count, please.’
‘Twenty-three friendly, ma’am. As of five minutes ago.’
Pileggi nodded. They were spread out over a hundred-yard front, some fucking the earth in a drainage ditch, others taking cover behind broken machinery or piles of concrete barriers. They held on. The enemy numbered in the hundreds now, but they still hadn’t forced the issue, and in this failure had probably died in greater numbers than was necessary. They could’ve ploughed us under an hour back, she thought.
Carlyon popped up and squeezed off a three-round burst, and the reassuring boom of Lundquist’s shotgun followed almost immediately. The volume of return fire was heavy, but poorly directed.
She followed the advance of the small party attempting to flank them to the north. Carlyon was aware of them too.
Gitmo was dying. The base had done so well to hold off against the sneak attack, but Lieutenant Colonel Pileggi knew it would be overrun, probably in the next few hours, and her small band of brothers were sure to die with her. She was aware, without turning to look at them, of the men in the firing pit next to her. Chief Lundquist was hunkered down, reloading his shotgun next to Jimbo Jamieson, a civilian who had joined them in the middle of some of the worst fighting; he’d pulled up in a Humvee full of sailors, carrying two boxes of ammo and, most precious of all, spare barrels for an M249 squad automatic weapon. Jamieson was watching the enemy creeping through the dark too. Never taking his eyes off them as they crept closer.
Even while concentrating so fiercely on the flankers, Pileggi remained unnaturally aware of other details. A patch of red hair peeking out beneath the curve of a helmet… The unnaturally straight line of a bayonet… A muted cough in the next foxhole, barely audible under the freight-train scream of battle all around.
Their lives had only one meaning now: to delay a catastrophe that was otherwise inevitable. Attackers were pouring onto the headland from three sides and they were going to take the strip. When they did, more would doubtless fly in, falling upon Guantanamo’s remaining defenders and the unarmed refugees with equal ferocity.
God only knew what sort of shit rain and hellfire that would unleash, and Pileggi wasn’t sorry she’d be missing it. She had already seen civilian boats targeted out on the bay, for no apparent reason other than that they made easier, more pleasing prey than armed Marines and soldiers. The atrocities, witnessed by everyone she’d managed to gather for the airfield defence, had doubtless hardened the Americans’ resolve. Dozens of dead paratroopers lay on the tarmac as testimony to that.
She laid the cold iron sight of her weapon on the centre of the group of men, who were now coming at her with much greater confidence and speed. They hadn’t seen Carlyon’s ambush yet. Good. Half a second telescoped out towards infinity. Susie Pileggi had plenty of time to examine the poor standard of their uniforms and the torn rubber shoes of the man in the lead. It spoke of a badly planned, hastily thrown-together plan of attack. A three-legged dog suddenly bounded in front of the advancing Venezuelans, spinning in circles, howling as though possessed by a demon. It was probably mad.
‘Fire,’ yelled Carlyon.
The dog exploded into a ball of hair and gore as the SAW opened up a short distance away. She heard cursing and saw Lundquist adjust his aim up a little. The attackers dispersed like startled rabbits, those who could anyway. An invisible wave swept over at least half them, cutting some down, throwing others into the air, completely disassembling one from the groin up.
‘Pour it on, boys!’ Carlyon yelled over the uproar.
The dense crump of exploding hand grenades momentarily smothered the rattle and snarl of gunfire. The battle for Gitmo, a vast conflagration, fell away from the minds of the men around her; the whole world was now contained on the small stage of this burning, rubble-strewn airstrip. They started to take return fire from the enemy, dug in all around them, and someone screamed as a round took him in the face.
Pileggi squeezed off discrete bursts from the rifle – picking her targets, waiting until she had a clear line, and sending two or three rounds down-range. The bullets hit hard, punching out chunks of meat and bone when they struck. Pileggi dropped three men in just a few seconds before having to duck behind the shattered masonry she’d built up in front of her firing position.
Lundquist cried out and flew backwards. Gouts of dark red blood looped gracefully into the overcast sky. The ground shook and heaved violently as mortar bombs began dropping on their position. None of them had any overhead protection.
‘They’re coming!’ screamed Carlyon. ‘Get ready!’ He emptied a whole magazine to give himself and his men some cover.
The Venezuelans had gathered themselves at last and were charging at them en masse, running into their own mortar barrage with bayonets drawn. Pileggi was almost certain she heard a bugle faintly beneath the din.
Pileggi changed magazines, rapidly, mechanically. Firing again as quickly as possible. Four of the attackers fell in front of their pit. Two more leapt forward and sailed over the edge, throwing themselves onto Jimbo Jamieson, who swung wildly at the closest intruder with a lump of wood. It connected with a hollow clunk that Pileggi heard quite clearly, despite all the noise. She swung her M-1 like a club too, driving the heavy wooden stock into the face of the second attacker. The man’s nose collapsed with sickening ease as blood erupted from his torn flesh.
Carlyon fell on her, driving her down. She felt his dead weight, the terrible slackness of his limbs, and knew he was gone. Pileggi tried to lift him clear, to get back to her firing position, but he was so heavy. It was worse, much worse, than having a drunken lover fall asleep on top of you. It was crushing, painful.
And then he was gone. The weight suddenly flying away, and she was looking up into the muzzle of a gun, wondering what it was, and realising just before it flashed white.
‘Pearl is up, sir,’ a Marine private said, holding up a phone. ‘A lot of static.’
Musso thanked the private and took the phone. ‘General Musso.’
‘Franks. This line secure?’
‘I sorely doubt it,’ Tusk replied. ‘It’s probably trailing across one of the sat news channels as we speak, sir.’
He looked around the underground command bunker. Some of the screens were running live feeds from Venezuelan TV. The static on the phone connection grew in intensity. Musso shook the phone, even though he knew
