“Up,” Goose commanded. “Now.” He pushed himself up, setting the example. “Move out.”
Gathering their feet beneath them, the Rangers moved out down the alley.
“Oracle,” Goose said, jogging with his troops and trying fiercely to ignore the rat’s teeth gnawing at his knee at every impact against the uneven ground.
“Go, Phoenix Leader. Oracle reads you five by five.”
The thunder of the Whiskey Cobras swept by overhead, already en route to their next target.
“I’m hunting,” Goose said.
“Negative. All enemy tanks have target groups assigned. The marine wing is working the takedowns.”
Goose felt a moment of relief. He switched channels on the headset. “Control, this is Phoenix Leader.”
“I hear you, Leader.”
Goose immediately recognized the unaccustomed cold neutrality in Remington’s voice. In nearly twenty years of friendship and service, Goose had heard that tone directed at him less than a handful of times. His relationship with the captain, even when they’d been enlisted men and sergeants together, had contained confrontational situations but always with mutual respect. Questions filled Goose’s mind, but he shelved them. Whatever the problem was, he and Remington were too professional to let it interfere with the present op.
“We’ve taken down our last target,” Goose said. “Awaiting orders.”
“Fill in the gaps, Leader. I want this city secure while we shove their front line back and earn a little grudging respect from the Syrians.”
Getting dismissed so casually with no real agenda set was unusual as well. Remington always kept Goose at the forefront of any action. Goose knew Remington was aggravated, but he didn’t know why. However, the fact that the captain was able to feel aggravation during the current situation was a positive note in one respect: it meant the captain was fairly certain they were going to survive.
In the next instant, the heavy artillery Captain Mkchian had managed to bring into the city opened up with drumming full-throated roars. Still in the alley, Goose couldn’t see the immediate effects of the heavy long guns, but he got the impression the damage was substantial when other Rangers started cheering over the headset.
Goose flipped over to the fire-control channel on the headset and listened to the confirmed hits among the second wave of Syrian armor. Mortars and howitzers screamed into the night, launching from behind the front line and carrying to the enemy troops a mile away. Marine sniper squads deployed after the first few minutes of the attack had set up nests in the broken terrain outside the city and used the big Barrett .50-cal sniper rifles to pick off Syrian artillery teams.
Judging from the amount of damage the embattled Rangers, marines, U.N. Peacekeepers, and Turkish army were reporting, Goose felt certain the tide of the battle had turned. Knocking out the Syrian armor gave all the fire teams the room they needed to breathe. When it came to sheer tactics and number crunching, no one beat Remington. Goose took a small amount of pride in that because the captain wasn’t just his commanding officer but his friend.
“Man down! Man down!” someone ahead yelled.
The Rangers went to ground immediately, dropping into squatting defensive positions with their assault rifles at the ready.
Sweat ran down Goose’s face. Squatting on his injured knee was pure agony. The cortisone shot he’d received only a few days ago wasn’t standing up to the demands he was putting on the joint. He peered through the M-4A1’s open sights and waited.
The point man, Charlie Jointer, crept like a crab to the body lying at the corner of the alley opening onto the street. He prodded the inert man with a boot, keeping his rifle directed at the man’s center mass.
Flickering flames provided enough light for Goose to see that the man was dressed in civilian clothes—khaki pants and a lightweight shirt. He also wore a light jacket even in the heat.
“He’s alive,” Jointer called back. “But he ain’t one of ours. Maybe American or European.”
“Okay,” Goose said. “Everybody up and moving.”
The Rangers rose as one and advanced. Explosions rang out around them, but there was no sign of the enemy.
Reaching the man, Goose studied his features. He didn’t know him, but he knew the look of him. Scruffy and unkempt to a degree, the man looked like any number of people—residents as well as travelers trapped by the sudden attack and stranded in the city—who holed up with the military awaiting rescue.
“Kinda weird,” Jointer said to Goose. “Guy like this being out here all alone.” He looked down the street as if looking for more bodies.
“His friends could have left him,” Hershel Barnett offered. Big and solid and usually solitary, he wasn’t noted for optimism.
Breathing shallowly against the aching pain in his knee, Goose knelt. He kept his assault rifle canted up in the ready position and searched the body with his free hand.
The man wore a shoulder holster under his left arm and a paddle holster at the small of his back. Both holsters were empty. Dark bruises covered his face and a split along his right cheek needed stitches.
“Looks like somebody pistol-whipped him,” Barnett said. He’d grown up in the wildcatter oil fields near Houston, Texas, and knew a lot more about violence than the army had ever taught him. Goose had known the man at a glance. They shared small-town roots and similar backgrounds.
“In the middle of an attack?” Jointer shook his head. “Doesn’t make any sense.”
Goose ran his finger inside the man’s mouth, popping the jaws open to make certain there was no obstruction. He held his rifle between his knees and used his pen flashlight briefly. There was no obstruction and the dental work was definitely American. Europeans still used a lot of gold instead of the porcelain American dentists used. He took his finger from the man’s mouth.
“Trust me,” Barnett said, “somebody took the time to pistol-whip him like that, they had a reason.” He shrugged. “Would have been simpler to kill him ‘cause this
