“So, are you suggesting that I take charge?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’m just saying that from the military perspective, the Iranian Army does not tolerate incompetence.” He cleared his throat and softened his voice. “However, from a father’s perspective, maybe the lieutenant needs positive encouragement. Instead of butting heads with him, go with the flow, see where that takes you.” He raised a hand and gestured toward the skyscrapers on Manhattan as they descended the slow arc down the bridge. “Look, his leadership has brought us all the way to New York City, the greatest city in all the world.”
Grady looked at the buildings ahead and sighed. To him, it looked like they were walking into a nightmare ambush. The platoon had no choice but to walk down the middle of the street and an enemy force could be anywhere. He’d actually done an urban defense terrain walk in Manhattan a few years ago—was it ten years ago already? The exercise had focused on how to defend against an attack there, but the lessons learned could be applied to an offensive as well.
Literally thousands of vantage points from above would keep their movements from being hidden, while snipers had innumerable places to hide. Side streets and alleys could hide entire companies of men to ambush them. A lot of older buildings were completely hidden from street view when newer ones had been built in front of them. They were only accessible through the lobby of the new building or through alleyways. Even worse, those older buildings often held passageways between one another underground, a leftover from the prohibition era and other times of strife. Those passageways could allow a small force to harass them throughout the city without the need to expose themselves as they moved from building-to-building. Urban fighting in New York City was a nightmare scenario and Grady hoped that it didn’t come down to that.
But he was a realist, borne from decades of experience operating in the world’s shittiest of shitholes. He knew that it would come down to a fight. There were too few resources and too many assholes. He wished the boats hadn’t been abandoned and that they’d stuck with their original plan to take the Hudson all the way up past Manhattan. There was nothing they could do about it now, though. Leaving a third of their men behind wasn’t an option, so here they were, walking their way into an ambush.
9
PIÑON, NEW MEXICO
MARCH 4TH
Clouds obscured any hint of moonlight and the last vestiges of daylight were fading fast in the desert as Sergeant Pollard’s small nine-man team bounded across the sand individually toward the town. The scrub brush and small depressions in the ground that he’d felt were sufficient when he’d taken Valencia and Cooper forward for a sneak peek seemed woefully inadequate to conceal them all now.
Because the site was actively jamming radio signals, everything had to be done visually, which meant keeping everyone within sight of one another in the poor lighting. They were bunched up and their silhouettes were a machine gunner’s wet dream. Yelling would have gotten the attention of the defenders as sure as waving a giant sign above their heads that said, “Shoot me!”
Miraculously, the entire team arrived at the edge of town without taking fire. Pollard was shocked that they hadn’t been noticed. The only thing he could figure out was that the town was lit up as bright as daylight and the darkness of the surrounding desert had hidden them. It was a terrible setup that practically invited the infected to swarm the Iranian site.
As they got closer, Pollard could hear the sound of rhythmic muttering, raising and lowering in intensity in regular intervals. “What is that?” he whispered.
“Sounds like they’re praying,” Cooper answered softly beside him.
Sergeant Pollard held up a hand and went to the corner of the building he found himself behind. He took a half-step away from the building to make sure his weapon didn’t scrape against the stucco as he edged around the corner for a peek.
Between the building and the missile launcher there were about twenty guys in uniform. All of them were on their knees facing the same direction. “Are you kidding me?” he muttered to himself as he ducked back around the corner.
He waved Jacobson over from the opposite side of the building. When the specialist got there, he said, “They’re praying. About twenty of them. I didn’t see any security, just all of the guys doing their thing.”
“So, we light ‘em up and blow the missile launcher, right?” Jacobson asked.
“I think that violates the Geneva Convention or something,” Pollard stated.
“Fuck that shit. Those fuckos don’t care about it, why should we?”
Pollard considered it for a moment before answering. “No. We’re not going to kill people who are in the middle of praying, but we’ll take them prisoner.”
“This is gonna go bad, Will.”
“Don’t call me that, Brandon. It’s ‘sergeant’ now, and you’ll do what I say. We’re not going to kill people while they’re praying. It’s just not gonna happen, man. But we have an opportunity right now to round them up while they aren’t prepared.”
Jacobson sneered, but kept his mouth shut. “Okay?” Pollard asked for clarification.
“Yeah, fine. Let’s get it over with.”
Pollard laid out his plan quickly to the group, then Jacobson’s team swarmed around one side of the building while he led the second team around the left. They charged across the small space, yelling to the prostrate men to keep their hands away from their weapons.
The Iranians were confused and began to grab for weapons. Two of the men earned a butt-stroke to the side of the head for their troubles. That quelled any further resistance from the group as
