Without warning

The dog exploded into a ball of hair and gore as the SAW opened up a short distance away. She heard cursing and saw Lundquist adjust his aim up a little. The attackers dispersed like startled rabbits, those who could anyway. An invisible wave swept over at least half them, cutting some down, throwing others into the air, completely disassembling one from the groin up.

‘Pour it on, boys!’ Carlyon yelled over the uproar.

The dense crump of exploding hand grenades momentarily smothered the rattle and snarl of gunfire. The battle for Gitmo, a vast conflagration, fell away from the minds of the men around her; the whole world was now contained on the small stage of this burning, rubble-strewn airstrip. They started to take return fire from the enemy, dug in all around them, and someone screamed as a round took him in the face.

Pileggi squeezed off discrete bursts from the rifle – picking her targets, waiting until she had a clear line, and sending two or three rounds down-range. The bullets hit hard, punching out chunks of meat and bone when they struck. Pileggi dropped three men in just a few seconds before having to duck behind the shattered masonry she’d built up in front of her firing position.

Lundquist cried out and flew backwards. Gouts of dark red blood looped gracefully into the overcast sky. The ground shook and heaved violently as mortar bombs began dropping on their position. None of them had any overhead protection.

‘They’re coming!’ screamed Carlyon. ‘Get ready!’ He emptied a whole magazine to give himself and his men some cover.

The Venezuelans had gathered themselves at last and were charging at them en masse, running into their own mortar barrage with bayonets drawn. Pileggi was almost certain she heard a bugle faintly beneath the din.

Pileggi changed magazines, rapidly, mechanically. Firing again as quickly as possible. Four of the attackers fell in front of their pit. Two more leapt forward and sailed over the edge, throwing themselves onto Jimbo Jamieson, who swung wildly at the closest intruder with a lump of wood. It connected with a hollow clunk that Pileggi heard quite clearly, despite all the noise. She swung her M-1 like a club too, driving the heavy wooden stock into the face of the second attacker. The man’s nose collapsed with sickening ease as blood erupted from his torn flesh.

Carlyon fell on her, driving her down. She felt his dead weight, the terrible slackness of his limbs, and knew he was gone. Pileggi tried to lift him clear, to get back to her firing position, but he was so heavy. It was worse, much worse, than having a drunken lover fall asleep on top of you. It was crushing, painful.

And then he was gone. The weight suddenly flying away, and she was looking up into the muzzle of a gun, wondering what it was, and realising just before it flashed white.

* * * *

‘Pearl is up, sir,’ a Marine private said, holding up a phone. ‘A lot of static.’

Musso thanked the private and took the phone. ‘General Musso.’

‘Franks. This line secure?’

‘I sorely doubt it,’ Tusk replied. ‘It’s probably trailing across one of the sat news channels as we speak, sir.’

He looked around the underground command bunker. Some of the screens were running live feeds from Venezuelan TV. The static on the phone connection grew in intensity. Musso shook the phone, even though he knew it didn’t do any good. It made him feel better.

‘Say again, sir?’

‘As a matter of fact, TVes is running us live, Musso,’ Franks told him. ‘Bastards. What is your status?’

The brigadier general rubbed his forehead and thought for a moment. If they were live on TVes, this conversation was going out to the world, a situation he might be able to use to his advantage. He couched his next words very carefully, trying to remember the lessons he was taught at charm school when he received his first star.

‘Enemy forces are aggressively targeting civilian refugees at my position, sir,’ Musso began. ‘I’ve got multiple civilian vessels burning in the bay or sinking. We lost a C-5 Galaxy as it tried to take off. My air liaison officer tells me that over four hundred US civilians were on board. We’re probably looking at upwards of a thousand civilian casualties minimum, perhaps more. My own casualties are climbing as well.’

‘Any attempt to offer a ceasefire?’ General Franks asked. ‘To mitigate civilian casualties.’

Musso blinked. Every fibre in his soul screamed at him to fight it out, resist to the last, make the enemy pay, but the civilians were his priority. They were his boss, his reason for being in the first place.

‘By us or by them, sir?’

‘Either.’

‘Negative, sir. I’ve not even had a chance to think about it,’ Tusk admitted.

‘The civilians need to be your top priority, General Musso,’ said Franks. ‘I’m ordering you to attempt to contact the enemy commander to seek terms for a ceasefire. We will try to do the same at our end. In the meantime, until you receive such a ceasefire, resist with maximum effort. Do you understand?’