'Ten,' Ilse yelled. 'Where?'
'The dorm and the wind tunnel area,' Salih said. 'They're armored.' Ilse relayed — Salih, now squad leader Ten, lacked a helmet radio; Ilse's number was Five.
'Three, Six,' Clayton called. 'Repeat: casualties?'
'Six, Three,' Montgomery answered. 'SEAL Seven is dead. We lost fifteen Turks. Rear secure. Beginning retrograde movement.'
'Copy. What's your body count so far?'
'Ten enemy dead. All naval infantry. Eight's squad is sweeping the level beneath us now, blocking the stairways with cluster minelets to isolate the level under that.'
'Three, Six. Copy.'
'Six, Nine.' Nine was also now on the level below, beneath the rest of Clayton's platoon. Nine led another squad of Turks — Ilse had seen them assaulting down a stairwell.
'Nine, Six. Go.'
'They keep changing the encryption keys, to lock out captured radios. More naval infantry are mustering outside. I heard something about a freight train coming, with Army helo gunship escort.'
'Nine, Six. Copy,' Clayton said. 'We're heading for the wind tunnel. Keep pace under us! Work with Eight's squad to cover your flank. Break break. Four, Six — status?'
'Taking heavy fire,' Jeffrey said. 'When's that freight train due?'
'Four, Nine. They said about four zero minutes.' 'Six, Four. Reset your bomb, four zero minutes.' 'What? You said seven five!'
'That's a direct order, Shaj.'
'I'm in charge of the mission. We'll never get out of here in forty minutes!'
'Six, Four. With the ROEs, I rule.'
Ilse heard Clayton hesitate. 'Four, Six. Roger that, aye, aye. Break break. Nine, Six, you copy?'
'Six, Nine. Affirmative. I'll reset the bomb.' Nine knew the antitamper disarm code.
'Four, Six. Status?'
'We're taking heavy fire near the air duct,' Jeffrey said. 'Unable to advance.'
'Fall back,' Clayton said. 'When Three Platoon links up, assault the duct again.'
'Copy.'
'Six Platoon,' Clayton said, 'squads Five and Ten, to the second level now! Follow me!' Jeffrey spun and fired and spun and ran. He tried to make every shot count, trying to slow down the German pursuit. He was the leader of Four Platoon, and Four Platoon was retreating. Something slammed Jeffrey's flak vest from behind but didn't penetrate, and he dropped to the floor and crawled. Jeffrey fired over his shoulder, then crawled more. A Turk, too slow, had his back stitched. He thumped hard to the concrete; his head bounced, then lay still.
Everywhere the sprinklers poured. This is like houseto-house combat in a monsoon. Rifle reports echoed harshly in the corridors and stairwells, making it hard to tell who was where. The Turks with German weapons made it worse.
At least the heavy sprinkler flow held down the smoke and cordite fumes, and suppressed the dust from shattered plaster and concrete. But it couldn't soften the broken glass from smashed fluorescent bulbs — Jeffrey's arms and legs bled. He had no choice: The enemy fire was too intense to duckwalk now.
Jeffrey's surviving men scrambled back around the cover of a structural load-bearing wall. They clambered over dead Germans, whom they'd killed just moments before. Among the lifeless navy blue, and the bright red blood, Jeffrey saw orange: dead Turks. Desperate for cover as more enemy closed in, Jeffrey gestured for his men to pile the bodies as sandbags. He noticed these dead guards wore bandoliers of beanbag rounds, with taser stun- guns on their belts. The Turks had already grabbed the riot guns and twelve-gauge killing buckshot loads.
Bullets snapped overhead, or thudded into the bodies. One Turk raised his head too high — his skull exploded. Jeffrey squeezed off three aimed shots with his pistol, using his helmet visor reticle, and hit one guard in the face. The German had pulled the pin on a offensive concussion grenade, but didn't live to throw it. It detonated under his belly. More gore pelted Jeffrey and his men, red and gray and purple. The deep puddles on the concrete floor were tainted with fresh blood.
Then Jeffrey saw something else among the dead guards' gear.
'Six, Four! Six, Four!' Nothing. More bullets snapped overhead. A Turk raised his shotgun blindly while he sheltered behind fallen friends, and answered with a deafening boom.
'Six, Four,' Jeffrey repeated into his open mike. On his headphones he heard the others breathing, grunting, and cursing, and the sounds of battle in stereo. Up his nose he smelled spent high explosives, acrid bullet propellant, and pungent vomit and urine and shit.
'Four, Six. Go!' Clayton said at last.
'These dead guards have radiation detectors!' 'What?'
'Six, Five.' Ilse's voice sounded, above more firing and more grenades and screams. 'I had to show that lady guard my laptop.'
'Team, Six,' Jeffrey heard. 'They're on to us. Pick up the pace.' Jeffrey's.50-caliber pistol was empty; the sound suppressor smoked. He loaded another clip. A grenade landed behind him. Its fuse train also smoked. A Turk grabbed the grenade and threw it back in time. Jeffrey ducked, and another searing shock wave overtook him — the engagement ranges were too short for fragmentation grenades. Burning debris pelted Jeffrey's legs, then was extinguished by the constant freezing downpour.
'Six and Four, Three,' Montgomery said through the ringing in Jeffrey's ears. The chief was breathing very hard. 'My flanks are linking up with yours.' The sounds of German firing increased. Every second that passed, the two A-bombs came closer to detonation.
Every second that passed, German experts might find the bombs and disarm them — to prevent their going off too soon from blast shock from the firefight, Jeffrey had ordered their antitamper sensitivity set on low. The best way to protect the bombs, and the only way to escape, was to keep up the attack toward the front door of the lab. Jeffrey heard a grunt and a gurgle on his radio. Then he heard a Turk shouting in German on the circuit. 'Two's dead!' SEAL One translated. 'A Gastarbeiter has his helmet.' Two Squad was leaderless now. 'One, Four,' Jeffrey ordered. 'Have Two Squad merge with Eight! Then get Two's commo gear to Ten, to Salih!'
'Team, Six,' Clayton snapped. 'Next assault phase, commence.' All the remaining lights went out. Battery- powered blackout lanterns switched on from the overheads. The Germans shot them one by one. Jeffrey realized what the guards already knew: The Turks had no way to see in the dark.
Jeffrey popped an illumination flare. It ignited and he threw it toward his front. It skidded and hissed along the concrete, then burned brightly even in the endless indoor deluge. Weird shadows flickered on the pockmarked walls.
Jeffrey traded his electric pistol for the Turk's captured twelve-gauge shotgun. He showed the man how to use the backup iron sights on the SpecWar weapon, with their tritium dots for night work. They traded ammo.
Jeffrey jacked seven fresh shells into the big pump-action magazine under the shotgun's barrel. He looped a bandolier with twenty over his shoulder.
'Forward!' Jeffrey screamed.
Jeffrey fired at the ground, halfway between himself and a group of German guards. The deadly pellets bounced hard off the concrete, then tore on at kneecap height — they knocked the Germans down. Some of Jeffrey's men threw grenades. His squad hit the deck. Detonations flashed; the shock through the concrete punished Jeffrey's insides. SEAL One and his men dashed from around a corner. They poured fire at the guards from enfilade. Four Platoon had reached the air duct. They had to get through the air duct, or Montgomery's push through the interlock, to the other half of the lab, was doomed.
Another naval infantryman stuck an assault rifle out of the duct and sprayed Squad One. Two Turks fell, bellowing in pain, mortally wounded. SEAL One and his surviving squad returned the fire. The German's corpse dangled from the air duct.
'One, cover me!' Jeffrey shouted. Jeffrey grabbed an aluminum step stool, twisted and riddled from bullets and blast. Two of his Turks helped him toward the air duct. Jeffrey aimed his shotgun into the duct and fired and pumped and fired and pumped and fired and pumped. The bullets spewing at him from the other end of the duct subsided for a moment. He shoved the dead dangling German in front him as a shield, vaulted into the duct headfirst, and fired another blast. Two Turks came in right behind him with German assault rifles.
