Milosz and Wilson to get clear in order to pick up the other teams waiting for insertion at their objectives. The woman from the briefing was sitting across from Milosz. She leaned forward and offered her hand.
'I don't believe we've done the formalities. Tech Sergeant Bonnie Gardener,' she said. She nodded toward her partner, a large man with an M240 machine gun. 'And this is my spotter, Staff Sergeant Veal.'
The machine gunner merely nodded in response.
'Tactical air controller, air force special ops,' explained Wilson as the engines spooled up and made normal conversation difficult. 'We mark the targets. She calls 'em in.'
'And what if asswit pirate boy is sitting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art?' asked Milosz. 'Can be we bomb statutes and paintings now?'
Gardener grinned; an evil-looking grin it was, too.
'I'm from Alabama, Sergeant. We never did care much for art down there. 'Cept for that very special form of performance art created by five-hundred-pound bombs. Or dynamite and iron anvils. Y'all ever seen that done?'
Wilson laughed. 'I like you already, Gardener. You're my kinda cracker.'
And there was much to like about this Gardener, thought Milosz. She was a very attractive woman, although he knew better than to make anything of her sex. This Veal was a very ugly-looking guard dog indeed. Oh, well, the U.S. military took its warm bodies wherever it could find them these days. He was proof of that. And Gardener did not seem at all bothered to be heading into a roiling snake pit, even though women captured by the asswits had a much tougher time of it than men-and male prisoners were routinely tortured, humiliated, and killed in the most gruesome fashion, often on video, for propaganda. Gardener, however, seemed unconcerned.
He felt liftoff press them all into their seats before they banked away from the rooftop helipad. For just a moment he was afforded a clear view of the battle raging a dozen blocks north. The solid, rectilinear landscape of dead Manhattan, miles of right angles and straight lines soaring skyward in the bleak, inky blackness under a lowering sky, was broken and lit up in one small tile of open space where flaring light and fire raged. He could see small, single pinpoints of light moving through the rain from the north and west, like fireflies drawn to a spitting campfire. Across from him, Gardener checked her equipment as Wilson did the same thing. It was busywork. They had all checked and cross-checked their loadouts before climbing on board.
Milosz had switched up again, opting for an M4 fitted with an M203 grenade launcher from the traveling weapons locker that accompanied the ranger teams everywhere they went. He looked it over for any problems, performing a function check on the carbine while in flight. Sighting through the ACOG scope, the M4 felt impossibly light, even with the forty-millimeter launcher mounted under the carbine. He would have preferred a solid AKM with the same grenade launcher but was shot down every time he asked. No weapons that looked like those of the opposing forces, which was just as well since the SAPI plate in his body armor and the weight of three days' food, rations, and ammunition more than made up for the lightness of the carbine. For good measure, Milosz also packed a pair of claymores, eight rounds of HEMP for the 203, a quartet of frags, and a block of C-4.
Be prepared, he always said.
Wilson and Gardener looked over their M4 carbines. He noticed that Gardener also carried two pistols in combat rigs holstered on her thighs, plus a couple of thermite grenades, probably to destroy the radio and her laser designator.
She smiled when she saw Milosz looking at the pistols. 'Nice, aren't they? Nothing better than an M1911 forty- five for knockdown power. I'm not going easy into that good night, Sergeant.'
Milosz nodded.
Veal growled, 'We ain't going at all.'
'Ah.' Milosz grinned. 'That is orgastic Gatsby spirit, yes?'
The air force grunt just stared back, saying nothing. Another illiterate, then.
'Y'all think we'll be laying hands on any of those scarf-wearing motherfuckers?' Gardener asked.
Wilson was emphatic.
'No. I lost of couple a good guys to one of those whack jobs on Ellis. You see one, Technical Sergeant, you bring the fucking sky down on top of him. We won't be getting close. Agreed, Fred?'
'Orgastically.' Milosz grinned.
The Blackhawk swooped around far to the west, well away from the main concentration of enemy forces. But even so, ground fire reached up for them as they hammered low over the unlit warren of Greenwich Avenue and the West Village. Metallic pings and pops signaled a couple of lucky hits, but the pilot forged on, describing a snaking path up the island that never exposed them to a line of fire for more than a few seconds. As they crossed West 23rd Street, Gardener toe-tapped Milosz on the side of his boot and jerked her thumb, pointing east. Milosz had a clear view of seven or eight rocket-propelled grenades as they described tightly swirling arcs through the air to detonate in a spectacular constellation of starbursts against the facade of a high-rise. Falling glass and metal twinkled in the light of other fires. And then they had swept past and the destruction was reduced to unseen flashes and sheet lightning.
Master Sergeant Wilson, he noted, had his eyes closed and might even have been sleeping. Veal yawned expansively. Milosz knew it was common among combat veterans, especially airborne forces, to doze fitfully while flying into a landing zone. It was not bravado. This was simply one of the few times over the next few days they would get to sit quietly without having to remain constantly alert to enemy movements. Unfortunately, Milosz had never learned the art of blocking out the infernal racket of a helicopter in flight and so contented himself by furtively sneaking glances at the air force woman.
She was a fine and fierce-looking warrior encased in her body armor and festooned with weapons, and it had been many months since Milosz had enjoyed any quality time with any woman. He sighed and shook off such thoughts as best he could. This was going nowhere. She was very heavily armed.
'Help you, Sergeant?'
Damn, she had caught him sneaking a peek.
'No,' he replied, bluffing. 'You catch me daydreaming of better world, yes, except it is not day, and there is nowhere better in the world to be.'
'Oh, yeah. It's nice work if you can get it,' Gardener happily agreed, although she looked as though she knew exactly what he had been up to. She didn't seem to care, though.
Milosz reached through his body armor to his sweat-soaked T-shirt and pulled out the small cross he wore on a chain around his neck. He kissed it and asked God for the strength to keep his mind on the job and out of Technical Sergeant Gardener's pants, where it seemed inclined to stray.
'Two minutes!' barked the Blackhawk's crew chief. He had stuck a Velcro patch on his uniform that read NUMBER ONE INFIDEL.
Milosz saw Gardener smiling at it and was annoyed to find himself feeling a brief pang of jealousy.
Veal blinked groggily like a man awakened far too early from a much-needed nap. Wilson came awake like a cat, all at once.
'Lock and load,' he ordered. Magazines came out of ammo pouches. Wilson and Gardener both tapped mags against their helmets before slapping them into the magazine well. Milosz skipped the meaningless helmet tap and locked a round into place. For good measure, he pulled a fat forty-millimeter high-explosive grenade from his webbing. As he slid the 203 into the breech, he tried to crush the image of his very own weapon slipping into the air force lady.
Oh, Milosz, he scolded himself. Pope John Paul would be very disappointed.
He leaned sideways as the chopper began to angle around for a fast insertion. They were setting down on a clear, flat rooftop, and Milosz fired up his night vision goggles, set for low light amplification, and slapped them down over his eyes, turning the world a cool, fuzzy green.
'Ten seconds,' said the Number One Infidel.
The Blackhawk slowed to a hover as the crew chief threw the ropes out. Milosz was up and on the rope first, grabbing it with his hands.
The chief sought clearance from the cockpit and received it.
'Go-go-go!'
Milosz stepped out of the aircraft, his feet gripping the cord between his ankles in one fluid motion. He slid down into the maelstrom below.
