Goose glanced at the skirmish line and saw the Soviet-made tank smashing through the wreckage left from the morning’s attack like it was going through wet tissue. The T-72, clad in reactive armor, was nearly invincible on the battlefield and moved through the terrain with impunity.
“I’m working on that now, Stonewall. Two.” Goose slung his assault rifle and hefted the satchel of rocket grenades from the dead Syrian’s shoulder, then turned and jogged toward the Jeep. He scanned the three Rangers in his squad.
Jansen had the injuries to his legs and was barely holding his own. Cusack had a scalp wound that leaked blood down into his eyes.
“Carruthers,” Goose said. “I need a driver.”
“You got it, Sarge.”
Together, Goose and Carruthers yanked the dead bodies from the Jeep. Carruthers slid behind the wheel and keyed the ignition. Goose clambered onto the rear deck and prepped the RPG-7. He slapped Carruthers on the back of the helmet to signal him. “Let’s go.”
Carruthers stepped on the accelerator and let the clutch out. The Jeep’s four wheels slid through the loose dirt for a second, then grabbed traction.
“Phoenix Two,” Goose called as Carruthers steered for the T-72.
“Go, Leader. Two copies.”
“That tank’s covered in reactive armor,” Goose said, squinting through the dust, feeling the kerchief drying around his lower face. “Hit it with everything you’ve got left and let’s see if I can get a clear shot.”
“Done, Leader. Three, Four, and Five, if you’re anywhere near that tank, get clear.”
“We’re already clear, Two. There’s no way we can stop that thing.”
The crunch and shearing of metal filled the air and hurt Goose’s ears as he reached into the satchel and took out a rocket. He attached the rocket to the fore end of the RPG-7 tube.
Reactive armor was a fairly recent addition to tank protection. Every tank was covered with metal plates that protected its vital areas of steering, guns, and ammunition storage. Designed by a German inventor in the 1970s, reactive armor consisted of two sets of plates with an explosive between them. When hit by a shaped charge, the explosive would be set off, blowing the outer layer out from the tank and negating most, if not all, of the damage. The RPG-7 rounds could penetrate the T-72’s denser armor, but not the reactive armor, in one shot.
And Goose was very aware that one shot might be all he got.
Forty-millimeter grenades slammed into the T-72, but the flurry was quickly over because the Phoenix squads had only five to seven—Goose had lost count—rounds to spare. The onslaught had also drawn the tank crew’s attention to their back trail.
The main gun swiveled around on the turret, then belched flame.
Carruthers took immediate evasive maneuvers. The 125mm shot sailed past the Jeep and slammed into a burnt-out troop transport.
Standing tall, taking aim, trying to account for the bumpy terrain, Goose fired the RPG-7 just as the tank’s machine guns opened up. A round caught him in the chest and knocked him down on the rear deck, paralyzing his lungs with pain. Even as he fell, Goose saw that his aim had been true.
The rocket impacted the front of the T-72 squarely, leaving a twisted mass of metal where the 7.62mm and 12.7mm light machine guns had been. With any luck Goose had blocked the driver’s vision as well.
Incredibly, though wreathed in fire, the T-72 lumbered forward. Goose watched in disbelief as the tank rolled closer. He marshaled his flagging strength and finally managed to draw a breath of air.
“Carruthers,” Goose called.
The man sat in the front seat without moving. The Jeep’s engine had died somewhere along the way.
“Carruthers.” Goose reached for the RPG-7, thanking God it hadn’t fallen over the Jeep’s side. He found the satchel and took out a rocket.
“Get clear, Sarge,” Tanaka advised. “Carruthers … Carruthers isn’t with you anymore.”
Staying low, hands fumbling as he tried to fit the rocket to the launcher, Goose inched forward and looked at Carruthers. At least one round had drilled through his heart, leaving him slack-jawed in death.
God keep him, Goose prayed.
“Get out of there, Sarge,” Ybarra said. “Get out of there now!”
Small-arms fire strafed the T-72 as it roared toward the Jeep.
Goose remained with the Jeep. If he tried to leave the vehicle in his present shape, he knew he wouldn’t make ten feet before the tank overtook him and ground him under the massive treads.
The T-72 could fire on the move at speeds up to twenty-five kilometers an hour. At present, the armored cav unit was moving faster than that. Or maybe it only looked that way, and the reason the tank crew wasn’t firing was because they hadn’t reloaded the tank’s magazine.
Standing, seeing that the machine guns had been eradicated, Goose tried once more to fit the rocket to the launcher. Before he could accomplish the task, the tank was on him.
In motion, weighing in at forty-four-and-a-half metric tons, the tank was a considerable weapon in its own right.
Dazed, working on fumes, the horror of the moment intensified by Carruthers’s death and the pain and fatigue that filled him, Goose realized he only had one chance before the tank ran him down. He gripped the RPG-7 tightly, stood, and stepped forward, timing his approach with that of the tank.
Just before the treads ground over the front of the Jeep, Goose sprinted forward. He leaped from the Jeep’s nose to the tank’s front skirting, dodged through the flames, tripped over the wreckage of the machine guns, managed two full steps that nearly got him to the tank’s rear skirt despite the sudden lunge of motion and mass beneath him, then fell.
He landed on the ground. The horrendous crunching and crashing of the Jeep filled his ears, and he tried desperately not to think of what was happening to Carruthers’s body. The impact knocked the kerchief from his face.
As he forced himself to his feet and tried to fit the rocket to the launcher again, he noticed the auxiliary fuel tanks strapped
