“Tango Fourteen Leader reads you, Search Twenty-Two,” Robinson responded.
“My team is down. My corporal is down. We’ve got wounded, and we’re part of them now.”
“Understood,” Robinson said, looking back over the bullet-riddled Hummer. “Tango Fourteen is coming to assist.”
The marine aircraft maneuvered as if by magic, approaching at speed then hovering in place like a freeze frame on a DVD player. The 30mm chain gun opened up at once, hammering rounds across the rooftops and through stone walls, chewing holes through in rapid succession. The wicked and deadly fire made Swiss cheese of the buildings. The basso booming of the rounds detonating filled the air.
“Tango Fourteen, this brief intermission has been brought to you courtesy of the United States Marine Corps,” the helicopter pilot said. “You’re now free to move around your war zone.”
“Affirmative, Rattler,” Goose radioed back. “Thanks for the assist.”
“Take care of your team, Phoenix Leader. We’re gonna fly standby till you get your op clean and green. We’ll control the horizontal and the vertical.”
Goose ran toward the burning building, dividing the rescue team up into squads as he moved. The structure had three points of egress on the first floor. They used them all, swarming up the two stairwells at either end and going downstairs. The pile of debris still blocked the doors leading to the basement, where a dozen people had taken refuge.
The rocket blasts had scattered and damaged the SAR team, and the time allowed by the attack had enabled the fire more time to feed. The oppressive heat filled the building and twisted the black smoke before the acrid clouds found their way out.
Goose stayed low to the ground as he moved, but the position put increased strain on his bad knee. He willed himself to keep going in spite of the cold sweat that ran down his face and back.
The com op called out the locations in the burning structure, adding to and changing the intel as the teams worked through the scene.
Goose tripped over a dead body in the third-floor hall and sprawled. Close up, even though his eyes teared constantly, he saw that the corpse was one of the SAR team. A rocket blast had torn him nearly in half.
Help those you can help, Goose reminded himself. You can’t do anything for this boy. He pushed his feelings into a nice, tight box, then set about stripping the SAR member’s oxygen tank from his body. The oxygen helped, as did the mask, although he couldn’t see any better than he had before.
Only a few steps ahead, Goose found the door that the dead soldier had reported hearing voices and banging behind. A burning section of the ceiling lay in the hallway and blocked the open door with a wall of fire that splashed across the ceiling like an upside-down waterfall. “There’s an old woman in here,” a man called. “I can’t get her out, and I can’t move the blockage. I don’t have any tools. Every time I tried to shift it, more of the ceiling came down.”
Goose removed his mask so he could be heard better, but regretted it at once as the acrid smoke burned his eyes, throat, and sinus passages. “It’s okay,” Goose said. “I’m going to get you out.” He turned his attention to the blockage and replaced the oxygen mask.
Glancing back at the dead SAR soldier, Goose spotted the fireman’s axe halfway hidden under the body. He took the axe, positioned himself, and swung at the blockage as if he were back on his daddy’s small farm.
The keen blade chopped into the ceiling section with sharp thunks that quivered up Goose’s arms. Embers swirled all around him, stinging his arms, his chest, and his ears where the mask didn’t cover them.
In seconds, he’d chopped the longest boards in two; then he used the axe to lever the bulk of the debris from the door. Only a few small flames danced on the floor, clinging to the carpet and the wood below. He stomped them out as a figure approached him through the smoke.
“Thanks for your help,” the guy said. “I think I could have jumped out the window and made it. I might have broken a leg or two, but I would have survived. I couldn’t leave the lady in this room. I knew she was an invalid so I came back for her, but I couldn’t get her—”
Staring through the smoke, Goose stared in surprise at the man.
Looking much the worse for wear in smoke-stained clothing, sporting first- and second-degree burns, Icarus stared back at Goose with equal surprise. “You,” Icarus said.
“Me,” Goose agreed. “Fate seems to have a way of bringing us together.”
“It’s not fate, Sergeant,” Icarus said, glancing over his shoulder at the open window. “I can explain—”
Another rescue worker stepped into the hallway behind Goose, emerging from the smoke.
Before Icarus could move, Goose powered a short right into the man’s jaw, rolling all his weight and muscle into the blow. Icarus flew backward and, like his chosen namesake, dropped to the earth. He didn’t move.
Goose stepped into the room. An old woman lay on the floor where the air was cleanest. She stared up at him with rheumy eyes and coughed fitfully.
The soldier stepped in behind Goose. He looked at the unconscious man on the floor, then at Goose. “You hit him,” the soldier accused. He looked wide-eyed and innocent behind the oxygen mask.
Goose nodded. “He was panicking, Private.” He put steel in his voice, showing his rank by tone alone. “Had to quiet him down so we could get him out of here.”
“I understand.”
“Good,” Goose said. “See if you can help the lady. I’ll get this one.”
The soldier stepped over to the old woman, talked to her briefly, then picked her up in his arms and carried her out of the room.
Bending down, Goose pulled Icarus’s deadweight over his shoulder. His knee popped and pain swelled like a balloon inside the
