“This is a sad day for your country, my friend,” Romo said. “I know the feeling. It’s too bad there is nowhere for you to run. When Mexico fell to the Chinese, I could come here. We can’t go to Canada, because soon there will not be a Canada.”
“Okay,” Paul said. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Romo held him back. “Let us wait a few more minutes. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
Paul picked up the laser designator. It looked like a bulky, overheavy assault rifle. He shouldered the strap and tested his bad ankle. Pain flared, but he’d had worse. Slipping off the strap, he set down the designator, sat on the gravel and began tightening the laces of his combat boots. He was going to tie this sucker tight. His ankle could worry about swelling later.
“You’re driven,” Romo commented.
“I guess.” Paul stood, tested the ankle and could feel the tendons stretch until pain flared. It hurt, but he figured he could go another five hundred miles if he had to. If he didn’t, his wife would be a widow and maybe even some Chinese soldier’s play toy. He didn’t like the Chinese. He didn’t like the Brazilians, and he sure as hell didn’t like these Germans either.
“Come on,” Paul said.
Romo sighed, following him.
They worked down the hill, climbed through a barbed wire fence and moved through a pasture.
The enemy column moved in the darkness. No moon, just shining stars up there. Had the Germans planned that, too, attacking during the right phase of the moon? The Krauts were good at war. Maybe they always had been. That didn’t make him like them any better.
“This is a good spot,” Romo said.
“We’re close enough?” Paul asked.
“Si.”
Paul lay on the grass. So did Romo. Soon, Paul trained the designator on the distant column. “I got it,” he said.
Romo used a one-time pad, and he spoke with their SOCOM coordinator. In the dark, he told Paul, “They’re on their way.”
There weren’t too many cruise missiles left in stock in this part of the country. Their side had to use them wisely now. It wasn’t like the old days when America could pour hardware at a problem and make it disappear in a haze of countless explosions.
Enemy ECM was damn good, but it couldn’t beat an infrared laser painting the target. No, sir—
“Here they come,” Romo said.
Dark streaks slid through the sky. They homed in on the infrared signal, and the fireworks started. Enemy beehive flechettes, autocannons, antimissile rockets: they blasted munitions that raced to meet the onrushing American cruise missiles.
GD tech was the best. The counter fire took out all but one cruise missile. That one exploded and blasted a Ritter tank, flipped the mother and took out a second one. Paul heard the tremendous clangs as the 40-ton tank smashed back onto the ground. A grass fire started, and then a GD fuel carrier exploded. That made things blaze, and smaller vehicles raced away from the mayhem.
“Not enough cruise missiles to stop the column,” Romo said. “We scratched the enemy is all.”
“We need to start thinking about using nukes,” Paul said.
From on the ground, Romo glanced at him. “That wouldn’t be too good for you or me.”
“I guess not,” Paul said.
“Your wife wouldn’t like that either.”
“No…”
“But a nuclear warhead would be more effective,” Romo said. “You are right.”
“Let’s go—”
At that moment, hisses punctured the night, and a German shout alerted Paul and Romo that they were under attack by GD commandos.
Paul slithered around the other way, and he crawled on his hands and knees. He moved faster than a man had a right to move like that. Romo was right behind him. Shots kicked up gravel, bits of dirt around him. Then something slammed against Paul and knocked him face-first onto the ground.
He grunted, and his chin slid through dirt.
Romo cursed in Spanish, surged up and grabbed Paul Kavanagh under the armpits. Paul got his feet, and he ran.
A GD bullet had put him down. American body armor had saved his sorry hide. Now the two LRSU commandos sprinted uphill.
Romo panted, and he was on the horn with a shoulder microphone. They had a helo to pick them up. It was five minutes away.
“We’ll never make it up the hill,” Paul said.
“Si. I’ll take right.”
Romo let go of Paul, and the assassin dove right. Paul dove left, and the two commandos crawled through the grass. They hadn’t made it back to the barbed wire fence yet.
Paul stopped crawling and panted on the ground. Then he slid his sniper rifle from his back. GD Humvee utility vehicles roared this way from the interstate. That was bad. Paul chambered a round, and he used his night vision scope, hunting for the enemy sniper who had put him down.
It might have been nice to use his high-tech visor and computer ballistic hardware. It gave off too much an electronic signature, at least for GD tech to pick up. This old-fashioned night scope could do the trick just fine and without giving him away.
Paul took out a sound suppressor and quickly screwed it into place. Low sound was good. Less flash was better. With his elbows on the ground, Paul searched the darkness and the weeds out there. One bigger weed moved in the wrong direction, at least for the way the breeze blew. Paul studied the weed and the area around it, and he caught a dull color. Was that a GD helmet?
Paul concentrated, aimed and squeezed the trigger as he held his breath. The rifle butt slammed against his shoulder. He watched, and there wasn’t any spume of dirt. The dull patch twitched, though. It had a hole in it, and fluid leaked out.
Backing up, moving to a different position, he heard Romo’s sound suppressor. Then he heard the assassin curse softly.
GD rounds split the air. Three enemy commandos must be firing at them.
“Romo?” Paul said softly.
His blood brother made an owl sound.
That’s all he needed. From prone on the ground, Paul kept hunting, and he grinned, although he didn’t know he did. This was his kind of warfare. He could take these Germans. He could—
“Helo,” Romo said softly. The assassin had crawled near. “It’s going to pop up and give us a barrage. Get ready, my friend.”
Paul scanned the darkness. Then he heard the stealth machine. It would be better if they were on the other side of the hill. Then they could climb aboard and leave. He didn’t like the pilot risking himself and the machine. But everyone was going the extra mile tonight. They couldn’t let Syracuse fall. Everyone had to take a chance.
Paul heard the helo. He heard missiles launch, and he saw missiles and heavy machine gun fire erupt from the GD Humvees.
“Go!” Romo shouted.
Paul got up, and he saw Romo get up from ten feet away. They raced for the helo. Kavanagh was hardly aware of bulling between two strands of barbed wire. Clothes tore, a long, bloody gash spilled blood from his arm, but he was through the fence and sprinting uphill.
That’s when a GD missile slammed into the stealth helo and an explosion tore into the night, causing lines of light to etch across the darkness.
“No!” Paul shouted. He dove, but not fast enough. The concussion shoved him into the dirt. Then metal and other debris rained around him. One piece slashed across his body armor, and Kavanagh was surprised when he took another breath.
