would be a quick response by the security team he’d formed two years ago to deal with just this kind of attack.
McLaren’s mind was racing. There’d be no way his men could possibly respond to the alert in anything less than a minute or two. Plenty of time for the NKs or whoever it was outside to make an initial attack. He had to find a place to hide. Someplace that would give him an edge in this first combat. Jesus, ain’t this the way of the world. Make it to army commander and find yourself scrabbling around in the dark worrying about men with knives.
McLaren left the phone lying off the hook on the floor and scuttled out of the room toward the stairs leading up to his bedroom. He took them two at a tie, trying hard to make as little noise as possible. At the top of the landing he dropped to his stomach again and reached up to turn the doorknob, pulled the bedroom door open just wide enough to slide through, and then pulled it closed again. Staying well out of the line of sight from the window, he crawled over to the plain old army footlocker he kept beneath his bed.
Time. Damn it, he needed more time. Those bastards outside were almost certainly on the way. Where the hell were Miller and his security team?
McLaren fumbled for a second with the catch but then got it open. He felt around inside the locker, ignoring the pistol and the M16. This was going to be close-in fighting. Down-and-dirty stuff. His hands found a familiar shape — a Mossberg 500 shotgun — and slid it carefully out of the retaining straps. It was already loaded. Strictly against regulations of course, and against every principle of weapons safety. But McLaren had always thought that if he needed this thing, he’d need it damned quick, with no time to waste. He grimaced. Well, by God, he’d been right about that.
Maybe a minute had gone by now. No time to waste. McLaren got carefully to his feet and slid around the room, staying out of the half-light pouring in through the window. He found the right ceiling panel, climbed onto a chair, levered it aside, and pulled himself up and through into a small windowless attic. He rolled away from the opening and lay still for a moment, trying not to pant for air. Jesus Christ, he thought, I’m getting too old for this shit.
The sirens going off outside made him jump. McLaren rose to a half-crouch and cradled the shotgun. Captain Miller had finally managed to get the alarm out. Well, good. The combination of bright arc lights flaring all over the base and ear-splitting sirens screaming would almost certainly throw the NKs into some confusion. Trouble was, they’d also redouble their efforts to get him before someone else got them. And they wouldn’t waste time in being fancy about it.
He was right. McLaren heard the glass in his bedroom window shatter and saw a small round object sail in to land squarely on his bed. He threw himself flat away from the opening as the grenade went off with a thunderous
He pulled himself across to look down into his bedroom just as a North Korean commando rolled in from the doorway and opened up with his submachine gun, shredding the tattered, burning fragments of bedding with a hail of soft-nosed bullets. When the man stopped firing and started forward to check his target, McLaren braced the shotgun, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The blast threw the North Korean back in a welter of blood and killed him instantly.
McLaren rolled hastily away from the hole as bullets fired blindly from below tore through in a cloud of splinters. Shit, there were others down there. He lay flat against one side of the attic and kept his shotgun trained on the opening. He’d send the first NK through to hell. They’d have a hard time getting at him. Unless …
McLaren didn’t waste time completing the thought. The grenade bounced in and rolled toward him just as he twisted round to get his feet in front of him. He kicked out desperately and connected, sending the grenade skittering away back down through the open ceiling panel. He heard screams as it went off and hunched himself back even farther into the narrow gap between the roof and the attic floor.
He could hear firing off in the distance.
The North Korean major crouched behind a parked Hyundai and feverishly snapped a new magazine into his submachine gun. Bullets spanged off the metal chassis and whined away into the air. He finished reloading, looked over at the man next to him, and jerked his head toward the direction of the fire. They both jumped to their feet and sent precise three-round bursts crashing in through the windows of the barracks just ten yards away. Broken glass cascaded out onto the snow-covered lawn.
Moans coming from a tangle of half-dressed bodies sprawled in an open doorway attracted the major’s attention, and he fired another burst into them. The moans stopped.
He heard a muffled explosion from behind him and smiled exultantly. That would be his assault team finishing off the American general. Someone had raised the alarm, but it hadn’t mattered at all. If anything, it was making their job even easier. All over the compound, half-drunk and half-asleep Americans had rushed out to see what was happening, and they’d walked right into the deadly crossfires laid down by his men.
The major pulled another magazine out of his belt and wished they’d been able to carry more. He wanted to kill more Americans. This was like slaughtering sheep.
Suddenly the man crouching next to him grunted and fell over onto him as bullets scythed along the side of the car. Shit. The major rolled out from under the body and lay sighting back the way the bullets had come. He could see helmeted troops advancing up the street, ducking from car to parked car as they moved toward him. Americans who’d broken past his flank guards.
The major edged away from them around the rear bumper of the car he’d been using for cover. He popped up and fired a quick burst before dropping back down. The Americans flopped to the ground, pinned down by his fire. He grinned. Now for a quick dash away from the car and into the darkness. This was the kind of cat-and-mouse fighting he’d trained for. The imperialists wouldn’t even know what had hit them. He got to his feet to run.
Corporal Hughes saw the movement up ahead and lifted the fiberglass-tubed LAW he carried to his shoulder. He squeezed the trigger and closed his eyes against the backblast.
Some instinct made the North Korean commando leader turn his head to look just as the sixty-six-millimeter light antitank rocket slammed into the passenger side of the Hyundai and exploded. Flame sheeted over him, but fast-moving steel and fiberglass fragments killed him before he had the chance to scream.
The Americans clambered to their feet and continued to advance, ignoring the smoking corpse that had been tossed out into the middle of the road.
He had dust in his eyes and throat now.
McLaren didn’t know how much time had passed since the last grenade had gone off. But it didn’t matter. All that did matter was that they hadn’t tried anything for a while and it was making him nervous.
The alert sirens had stopped, and he could hear more firing off in the distance. Then a series of muffled, coughing explosions. Some of it seemed to be moving closer. He stayed silent and kept his eyes on the opening.
More gunfire from below. Heavier sounding than the SMG fire that had ripped up the attic floor and shredded his bed.
He heard feet clattering up the stairs.
“General?” An American-sounding voice. But was it a trick to get him to reveal his position? He brought the shotgun up again.
“General, this is Sergeant Corey. The house is secure, sir. Mackerel Six.”
McLaren started to relax. Corey was one of his security team people and he’d used the right codeword. “Coming down, Sergeant. Shark Seven.”
He crawled over and swung himself out and down through the open ceiling panel. Corey and two of his troopers were there in full gear, weapons out, and their faces were drawn and tight. One of them was shaking almost uncontrollably. McLaren ignored that. He looked around the room. The acrid smell of burning cloth and charred flesh was stronger, and he could see blood spattered across the walls. Two dead Koreans in black camouflage gear lay crumpled on the floor — one near the door where McLaren’s shotgun blast had thrown him and the other half-entangled in the burning bed, killed by his own grenade.
He swung back to face the sergeant. “What’s the situation?”
Corey’s eyes came back into focus. “We think we’ve got most of them, sir. There’s three more dead downstairs where we got ’em as we came in. Others outside.” He stopped, seemed at a loss for words.
