Without warning

Franks turned to the commander of the 25th Infantry Division, who had remained silent during the exchange. ‘Francis, what’s your take on Guantanamo?’

General Murphy snorted. ‘They’re well and truly fucked, sir. Civilians mixed into it, and us with our cocks in our hands… Musso is a smart man. He’ll see it pretty clear as well.’

‘You mean surrender,’ Franks said. ‘Right?’

Murphy couldn’t bring himself to say it. He folded his arms and nodded.

‘Sir?’ An army specialist approached the officers. ‘Gitmo on the line.’

* * * *

Susan Pileggi exhaled, and with the hot, stale breath went some of the tension cramping her arms and shoulders. Not that she relaxed – that would have been impossible. But as she saw the end coming, with no chance of escape or redemption, she accepted it for the first time, and part of the fear and the strain of the last few weeks ebbed away.

She waited in the gun pit. The muzzle of her M-1, retrieved from the body of the Marine she’d lent it to a few hours ago, tracked the small group of Venezuelan paratroopers as they cautiously rounded the huge mound of burning rubble a hundred yards away. It had been a chemical storehouse; for what, she had no idea. But the stench was vile enough to blot out the smells of the base as it died around her. Burnt meat, corpses crawling with carpets of black flies, the unwashed bodies of the men around her, napalm smoke and festering wounds – the evil stink of the warehouse blotted them all out.

‘Sergeant Carlyon. A head count, please.’

‘Twenty-three friendly, ma’am. As of five minutes ago.’

Pileggi nodded. They were spread out over a hundred-yard front, some fucking the earth in a drainage ditch, others taking cover behind broken machinery or piles of concrete barriers. They held on. The enemy numbered in the hundreds now, but they still hadn’t forced the issue, and in this failure had probably died in greater numbers than was necessary. They could’ve ploughed us under an hour back, she thought.

Carlyon popped up and squeezed off a three-round burst, and the reassuring boom of Lundquist’s shotgun followed almost immediately. The volume of return fire was heavy, but poorly directed.

She followed the advance of the small party attempting to flank them to the north. Carlyon was aware of them too.

Gitmo was dying. The base had done so well to hold off against the sneak attack, but Lieutenant Colonel Pileggi knew it would be overrun, probably in the next few hours, and her small band of brothers were sure to die with her. She was aware, without turning to look at them, of the men in the firing pit next to her. Chief Lundquist was hunkered down, reloading his shotgun next to Jimbo Jamieson, a civilian who had joined them in the middle of some of the worst fighting; he’d pulled up in a Humvee full of sailors, carrying two boxes of ammo and, most precious of all, spare barrels for an M249 squad automatic weapon. Jamieson was watching the enemy creeping through the dark too. Never taking his eyes off them as they crept closer.

Even while concentrating so fiercely on the flankers, Pileggi remained unnaturally aware of other details. A patch of red hair peeking out beneath the curve of a helmet… The unnaturally straight line of a bayonet… A muted cough in the next foxhole, barely audible under the freight-train scream of battle all around.

Their lives had only one meaning now: to delay a catastrophe that was otherwise inevitable. Attackers were pouring onto the headland from three sides and they were going to take the strip. When they did, more would doubtless fly in, falling upon Guantanamo’s remaining defenders and the unarmed refugees with equal ferocity.

God only knew what sort of shit rain and hellfire that would unleash, and Pileggi wasn’t sorry she’d be missing it. She had already seen civilian boats targeted out on the bay, for no apparent reason other than that they made easier, more pleasing prey than armed Marines and soldiers. The atrocities, witnessed by everyone she’d managed to gather for the airfield defence, had doubtless hardened the Americans’ resolve. Dozens of dead paratroopers lay on the tarmac as testimony to that.

She laid the cold iron sight of her weapon on the centre of the group of men, who were now coming at her with much greater confidence and speed. They hadn’t seen Carlyon’s ambush yet. Good. Half a second telescoped out towards infinity. Susie Pileggi had plenty of time to examine the poor standard of their uniforms and the torn rubber shoes of the man in the lead. It spoke of a badly planned, hastily thrown-together plan of attack. A three-legged dog suddenly bounded in front of the advancing Venezuelans, spinning in circles, howling as though possessed by a demon. It was probably mad.

‘Fire,’ yelled Carlyon.