Remington drove his RSOV just back of the ridgeline and parked.
A hundred yards away so that both vehicles couldn’t be lost in one SCUD blast, Goose parked the Hummer and leaped out. He kept his head down, one hand on his helmet, and ran for the ridge. The Ranger rifle companies lay spread out along the ridgeline, taking what cover they could behind natural fortifications, husks of downed planes and helicopters they’d pulled into position, and behind sandbags they’d spent the afternoon filling.
Goose hugged the ground and prayed for his teammates and the Marine wing that had flown into enemy territory. As infantry, the only chance the Rangers had was to dig in and try to survive. Again and again, the earth shook beneath him. He kept his face buried in his arms, choking on the dirt and the dust that stayed stirred up. He kept praying, hoping to get home to Megan, Joey, and Chris.
In less than a minute, the Marine pilots were confirming successful strikes against identified SCUD launchers. Unfortunately, the pilots in turn were being targeted by ground antiaircraft guns. As Goose listened to the frantic radio chatter, he realized the attrition rate among the Marine wing was fierce.
“Marathon Leader, this is Blue Falcon Leader,” the Harrier pilot called.
Marathon Leader was Captain Remington’s call sign. The operation had been designated Marathon because of the long run the Rangers would have to do to get to Sanliurfa. The Turkish military had moved extra troops into the city to help hold the Syrians back until the next fallback to Diyarbakir could be arranged.
All we’ve got is forty klicks of bad road, Goose told himself. We can do forty klicks.
“Go Blue Leader,” Remington replied, “you have Marathon Leader.”
“Marathon Leader, be advised that the hostiles’ infantry and cav units are in motion.”
“Roger that, Blue Leader. Can you confirm twenty from the line?”
“Twenty from the line is ten klicks.”
“Roger ten klicks, Blue Leader. Marathon One, did you copy?”
“Affirmative,” Goose responded. “Marathon One copies. Roger ten klicks.”
If the Syrians were ten klicks out, Goose knew it wouldn’t take more than seven to ten minutes to cover the distance. He looked back over his shoulder at the mountain road the fleeing transports carrying the wounded had taken earlier in the day.
Goose couldn’t see any of the trucks, Jeeps, and Hummers that carried the wounded, but he knew they didn’t have a big enough lead to make an escape. If the drivers didn’t maintain a grueling pace, the approaching Syrians would quickly overtake them. And the same grueling pace they had to maintain might kill many of the injured.
At least when the Syrians got close to the border, the SCUD launchers would have to stop firing at them. But the medevac units would remain fair game for the missiles.
Six minutes later, the command post personnel radioed that the Syrian cav should be visible from the Rangers’ positions. That was the bad news. The good news was that the SCUD launches were down to practically nil. Between the attacks by the Marine wing and the probability that the Syrians had expended most of their arsenal the previous day, they obviously hadn’t had much to give.
Goose crawled to the ridgeline and peered over. Through the smoke and the dust haze, he spotted the front line of the approaching Syrian cavalry. The tanks and APCs looked monstrous in the darkness, briefly lit up as their cannon and machine guns opened fire. Orange gouts of flame rent holes in the darkness.
“Incoming!” someone yelled, and Goose didn’t know if someone else had yelled or if he was only hearing his own voice.
In the next instant, the cannon rounds impacted against the ridgeline. A few others exploded farther back behind Goose. A fresh wave of falling dirt and rock rained down over Goose’s back.
Then the line of advancing cav broke up as they hit the first of the M-18A1 claymores the Rangers had positioned in the area in front of the burned-out hulks of Syrian vehicles left from the initial attack yesterday. The mines slowed the tanks and APCs for a moment as the drivers feared broken treads or blown tires in the case of some of the APCs.
The Syrians had been expecting the traps there, Goose knew as he took out his night-vision binoculars, but the next layer was down and dirty, stuff that wasn’t found in the textbooks.
As the Syrian cav units stood down to send infantry ahead to search out the claymores that could cripple the APCs and tanks, Remington gave the order to begin the second wave of the evacuation.
The U.N. forces departed first, sagging from the middle of the confrontation zone as Remington had worked out. Even with all the casualties they’d had, the Rangers stood the best chance of surviving bringing up the rear. The U.N. forces hadn’t been bloodied as frequently or as harshly as the 75th, and the Turkish army was more equipped and trained to attack en masse rather than by small, swiftly moving special forces units.
The U.N. forces sped through the night, getting away smoothly in spite of the blistering attack that had taken place. If the Syrians hadn’t moved forward and forced the confrontation, Goose felt certain they could have made the retreat as easily as a practiced circus act.
The vehicles drove without lights because that would have drawn Syrian fire immediately. With the heavy dust and smoke streaming across the battlefield, the vehicle’s lights wouldn’t penetrate and would only blind the drivers. Small reflectors had been placed along the mountain road for the first five klicks, till the road disappeared up into the mountains high above
