Chapter 42

Tiger 6! The cry came from a dozen voices over the ear link, a squawking cacophony as gunshots erupted from all sides of the camp. Tiger 6, we got action…multiple hits…everywhere…sector B reporting heavy activity…overrunning…need men…

“Baby,” said the Colonel, “get in the bunker now.”

…not afraid, darlin’…you do what you have to…

Rakkim and the Colonel scuttled along the west ridge, crouched over, hearing the crack of small-arms fire in the distance. The wind kicked up as the temperature dropped; chilled by their own sweat, they slipped through the scrub and took up positions with a commanding view of the dozens of access trails running up the slope.

The Colonel sat with his back against a rock, flipped open a palm display of the battlefield, at least that part with perimeter sensors. The northern and southern sectors had moderate activity, but the treeline fronting the steep, western approach to the camp was a mass of red dots. Crews’s main force was heading right toward the Colonel; scores of fighters passed through the sensor array, immediately replaced by others charging up the slope. Rakkim had suggested that Crews launch a limited attack, fifty or sixty men, but this was a full-out assault involving hundreds of End-Timers, more men than Rakkim even thought Crews had under his command.

…movement northeast perimeter…fire for effect…shit, shit, shit…

Rakkim eased himself flat against the ground, arms supported by a rise of dirt, the sniper rifle peeking out between the rocks. Machine-gun fire bombarded the perimeter. Wasteful. The seduction of raw firepower in the darkness, spray and pray. Rakkim kept both eyes open as he looked through the scope of the sniper rifle, saw men moving through the brush below, their movements jerky in the darkness, wired up on bathtub crank and death. He waited…finally saw a skeleton man emerge, the white bones stark in the night as he gesticulated at his men. Rakkim put a single shot through his mouth, the back of his head exploding.

Rakkim turned, hearing a faint laugh…but there was no one except the Colonel and it wasn’t his laugh.

“Bulldog Two, lay down suppressing fire at a sixty-degree arc along the clearcut,” the Colonel said evenly. “Mustang Three, maintain your position…”

Rakkim shot an End-Timer with a necklace of dolls’ heads through the throat, the man standing there with a look of surprise before he collapsed.

The Colonel glanced at Rakkim, then back at the palm display. “Eagle Two, you got that chopper ready? We could use those Gatlings. Shitbirds are stacked up along the perimeter.”

…almost there…

“Almost my ass,” said the Colonel. “You get that thing airborne.”

Rakkim shot another End-Timer. Another. Another. Breathe and fire, breathe and fire. The living stepped over the dead and kept coming.

“You want a night scope for that sniper rifle?” the Colonel asked Rakkim.

“No thanks.” Rakkim took down another skeleton man. “Things are going to be lit up soon, and night scopes will be worse than useless. I’ll stick with the eyes God gave me.”

“Thought Fedayeen got special eyes from corpses,” said the Colonel. “Implants or something so you can see like an alley cat in the dark.”

“When I was a boy they told us Christians liked the taste of pork so much they fucked pigs every chance they got,” said Rakkim. “I grew up, though, and learned better.”

The Colonel grinned, then looked over as the Monsoon 4 lifted off, he and Rakkim shielding their eyes from the dust it kicked up. “That’s better…” His face fell as the chopper set back down hard, bouncing on its skids. The Colonel talked over his com link to his other officers, trying to coordinate their actions.

Return fire from the End-Timers kicked up dirt around them now, pinged off the rocks. One of the colonel’s men must have been hit, howling in pain. Rakkim scrambled to another position about twenty yards away.

…taking casualties…

…keep killing them, but…just keep…who are they?

The Colonel’s men fired a barrage of mortar rounds, balls of fire erupting in the trees below. Rakkim blinked, kept shooting. Mortars were a lousy tactical trade-off-the blasts wouldn’t deter fanatics like Crews’s End-Timers, and anyone on the plateau wearing night goggles would be blind for minutes. He slapped in another magazine.

The Colonel moved nimbly over the rough terrain. “Never did talk to you about that Fedayeen prisoner. I felt bad that you had to be the one to put him out of his misery.”

“He was ruined,” said Rakkim, watching the underbrush beside the trails. “It was the only kindness I could give him.”

“Right through the heart.” The Colonel shook his head. “Happened so fast I didn’t even see it. None of us did.” The wind stirred the grass. “Redbeard must have been-”

…overrun here, Tiger Six, southwest perimeter…multiple penetrations…

“Fall back, son,” the Colonel said gently, “gather your men and rally along the heavy-equipment depot. I’ll send a reaction force.”

Rakkim sighted on a skeleton man he remembered from Crews’s church, ugly bastard waving a copperhead. Before he could get a shot off, the man ducked behind an outcropping of rock. Rakkim held the shot, finger curled on the trigger, sight centered on the last place the man had been.

…bandits in the wire!

Rakkim squeezed off a round as the skeleton man peeked from behind the rock, sprayed the boulder with pink.

Heavy gunfire roared from the heights around him as the End-Timers launched waves of attacks, dozens and dozens of them clawing their way straight up the slope. The machine guns on the heights opened up, swept back and forth across them, and the End-Timers broke and fell back, disappeared into the trees. Some of the Colonel’s men started after them, but the Colonel quickly put a stop to that, said he’d shoot anyone dumb enough to leave the high ground.

…still looking for those reinforcements, Tiger Six.

The Colonel raced ahead of Rakkim, the two of them sprinting across the camp. The Colonel stopped three times to check on his men, offering encouragement, giving orders. At the heavy-equipment depot, they dove behind a twelve-ton earthmover, bullets slamming into the sides, then crawled to a gigantic bulldozer that the ranking officer had turned into a command post.

The southwest perimeter was a mess, men strung out without regard to the fields of fire. The lieutenant and both sergeants were dead. A big blond corporal with pimples and a belly wound had assumed command and was directing the holding action against the End-Timers. He had dug his men in, sent runners for ammunition; from the shelter of the bulldozer he directed return fire, and did his best to secure the perimeter before he bled to death. According to the Colonel’s palm display, over a hundred of Crews’s men were KIA, but at least that many were still putting pressure on the unit.

“Sorry…sorry, sir,” gasped the corporal. “We keep killing ’em, but…they don’t care.”

“No cause for apology,” said the Colonel, gently applying a pressure bandage to the corporal’s wound. Blood continued to leak out the sides.

Rakkim set himself up behind the blade of the bulldozer, started taking down End-Timers who ventured into view. They seemed more cautious now, eager to hunker down and seek cover. Precisely the wrong tactic. Once they had cracked the Colonel’s defense perimeter they should have launched an all-out assault. If the southwest perimeter collapsed, the whole camp was at risk of being overrun; the Colonel’s remaining forces would suffer attack from inside and outside the line. Yet the End-Timers seemed listless and burned out, either awaiting orders from Crews or a resupply of bathtub meth.

I sent four of my boys to your house, Tiger Six, said Gravenholtz. Figured the missus might need a little extra protection.