Falling Star (19 page)

The occupants in the Suburban were tossed around like rag dolls, except for the Marine seated in the front right passenger's seat, who was strapped in his shoulder harness.  The explosion's blast had blown in the front windshield despite the hardened window mountings.  Shards of glass showered the occupants of the Suburban.

Bernstein saw the missile strike the first vehicle and heard the anguished cry of his Marine over the radio, but could do nothing for the men in the disabled Suburban, at least not now.  "Unit 3, this is Fox Leader.  Unit 1 is down and blocking the road.  This is for real!"

The driver of Bernstein's Suburban slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting the overturned vehicle.  Even so, he had to swerve his vehicle violently to avoid a nasty collision.  The second Suburban skidded sideways and was stopped by the first Suburban with a loud metallic crash.  The second Suburban's front left wheel collapsed from the collision, rendering the vehicle inoperative.  The crumbling metal on metal sounds and gear and bodies being tossed about formed a slow motion ballet to Mike, who was in the second seat.

Despite the collision and resulting sparks, there were no fires.  The Suburbans used by CSAC were all equipped with automatic fire suppression systems activated by sensors for both collision damage and tip over.  When activated, the release of fire suppression gases and gelling agents prevented explosions in the fuel tanks.  Mike quietly thanked CSAC for that small favor.

With the second unit now disabled, Bernstein ordered his men to grab their weapons, Kevlar vests and helmets, and head for cover.  Instinctively, each Marine knew which weapon and grenade belt to grab.  They bolted out of the Suburban and scrambled for the sides of the road.

All that Mike was able to grab was a Colt AR-15 carbine, with two magazines taped together with duct tape.  Mike dove out of the Suburban and headed for the underbrush.

As Mike ran for the underbrush, bullets struck and ricocheted all around him.  The battle had begun.  As Mike reached the woods, he dove into the dense underbrush.

Breathing heavily, Mike muttered, "Shit, I'm getting too old for this crap."

In the front car, Lee, bleeding from a gash on his head suffered during the explosion and flip over, struggled to control his shaking.  The Marine who had been sitting in the right front passenger seat hung from the seat/shoulder belt, his head hung down in an unnatural position, blood spurting out of a deep gash in his neck, the thick bright red fountain pulsing with each beat of his dying heart.  Dave knew instantly that there was nothing that could be done for him.

"Everyone O.K.?"  He shouted.

"Jones, O.K."

"Gomez, O.K."

"Mulligan?" said Lee.

"I'm cut pretty bad, Dave."

"Can you make it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Get your gear and get the hell out of here," said Lee.  The four men grabbed whatever weapons were available, kicked the rear panel doors open, jumped out and headed for the woods.  Lee ran to the underbrush, dove and landed next to Bernstein.

"Damage assessment, Lee."

"One dead, two wounded."

The third Suburban was able to come to a full stop.  The door panels of the Suburban now bristled with gun muzzles.  Marine Sergeant Tom Wicker had given his men the command to arm themselves as soon as he saw Unit 1 flip into the air.  Bernstein's call over the communicator merely confirmed in Wicker's mind that the convoy was in trouble.

As the sole remaining functional vehicle, Wicker's unit was now responsible for stopping any heavy duty attack by an adversary.

Carelessly, Mitchell stood up to assess the damage his missile had wrought.  A Marine sharpshooter saw Mitchell raise his head, put a red ruby laser beam on the middle of his forehead, and squeezed the trigger of his Colt AR-15 sniper carbine.  The force of the nine millimeter caliber slug striking Mitchell in the forehead propelled his lifeless body up and back into the air.  The explosion of the bullet created a Roman fountain of red as the bullet found its mark.  The body of Mitchell lay beside the gravel road in a tangle of briar and underbrush.

"Son of a bitch," said the young sharpshooter.

As the men scrambled from the two damaged Suburbans, the dark blue helicopter began a strafing run.  A gunman leaning out of the opened window of the helicopter sprayed the running men with an Uzi.  One Marine was hit by the fire from the helicopter.  The multiple bursts of fire from the Uzi picked up the Marine and suspended him for an instant as if he were a marionette.  Finally, he fell to the road as if someone had cut his strings.

Bernstein screamed into his handheld communicator, "Unit 3, Unit 3, kill that damn motherfucker."

"Unit 3, Roger," Wicker said.  Turning to the Marine at his rear, he shouted, "Get the Stinger out and pop the top."

That was all the Marine needed.  He pushed a switch and a sliding roof panel opened.  Shouldering the Stinger missile launcher, the lance corporal took careful aim at the circling helicopter.  The Stinger missile launched from its tube with a whooshing sound and sped toward its target, leaving a white contrail.

The helicopter pilot saw the Stinger missile launch from the Suburban and immediately pulled back on his joystick in an attempt to escape.  His attempt to shake the Stinger missile was of no avail once the heat-seeking Stinger had fixed on the exhaust of the turbine driving the rotor.  As the helicopter turned, the Stinger missile followed.

Because of the pilot's final attempt to escape, the helicopter was caught in a rotation that continued even after the tremendous explosion of the Stinger entering the turbine exhaust tubes.

What remained of the helicopter began a slow, rotating dance to the ground, when secondary explosions of the helicopter's fuel tanks erased the existence of the helicopter and its crew completely.

Intent on the attacking helicopter, the lance corporal was not aware of the fight on the ground.  The Catonsville Furniture Bedding truck had slammed to a full stop about fifty yards from the three Suburbans.  The back doors of the truck were kicked open from the inside.  Twelve armed men jumped from the truck and assumed positions around the truck and along the underbrush of the roadside.

One of the attackers, armed with a commercially available Colt AR-15 carbine with laser scope, drew a bead on the lance corporal.  Hoping to prevent the lance corporal from launching the Stinger, the attacker had fired just as the young Marine launched the missile.  Enhanced by the laser sight, the attacker's accurate shot caught the lance corporal in his right rib cage, below his armpit. The bullet passed through his right lung, savagely ripped the atrial chambers of his heart, and passed up through the left lung before shattering his collar bone and tearing a gaping exit wound in his left shoulder.  The force of the bullet caused the lance corporal to drop the rocket launcher.  His lifeless body fell over the roof of the vehicle, legs dangling limply inside.  The spent missile launcher clattered to the pavement.  The right rear quarter panel of the Suburban was awash in the Marine's blood.

Inside the Suburban, Wicker shouted to his remaining Marines to haul the lifeless body back into the vehicle.  The body inside, a Marine slammed his fist into the roof switch and the roof panel slid silently into place.  The interior of the Suburban now reeked of the smells of gunpowder and smoke, the residue of fumes from the Stinger missile, the sickening smell of blood, and the closeness of sweating combatants.

The firefight raged fiercely outside.

Mike was firing a Colt AR-15 for the first time in many years.  The kick of the weapon required some effort on his part.  He tried hard to remember his trainers' admonition not to simply pull the trigger, but to fire in short bursts.  That way, in the words of Mike's trainer, "You don't get the walk-up that machine-gun users often experience."

The attackers fanned out into the woods on both sides of road.  The Marines didn't know how many attackers were in the woods.  Luckily, the attackers had chosen to ambush the convoy in broad daylight.  This gave the attacked the advantage of seeing minute movements.  The woods crackled with the report of semiautomatic rifle fire.  Occasionally, the loud boom of a Striker 12 shotgun could be heard.  Every once in awhile the woods shook with the explosion of a hand grenade.

In the sole operating Suburban, Wicker reached for the secured radio.  "Base, Base, Echo Fox-trot!"

The scratchy voice over the radio responded.  "This is Base, copy."

"Base, this is Fox Leader 3, we're under attack, repeat, under attack.  About fifteen miles west of Highway 235 on Huntersville Road."

1400 Hours: Saturday, June 12, 1993: Pautuxent Naval Air Test Center, Maryland

"Echo Fox-trot, advise you activate transponder.  ETA twenty minutes."  The radio operator at CSAC picked up the black handset that connected to the duty officer at Pautuxent Naval Air Test Center.  "Pautuxent, our convoy is under hostile attack.  Location: about fifteen miles west on Huntersville Road from intersection with State Highway 235, copy."

"Pautuxent copies."  The officer of the day calmly pressed a red button on his console.

The bell clanged loudly in the ready room.  The officer in charge picked up the telephone and listened quietly.  Putting the telephone back on its hook the Marine Lieutenant shouted, "Alright guys, this is it.  Let's go!"  Twenty men from Squads 1 and 2 of his platoon scrambled for their AR-15 assault rifles and piled into the HumVee and the transport truck parked outside the ready room.  The platoon was a unit of the Marines' Special Operations Regiment.

At the same time, three Marine pilots ran for their F/A-18 Hornets parked on the tarmac.  The pilots climbed into the cockpits, the canopies shut with a solid thud, and thumbs up were given to their crew chiefs.  Smoke billowed out of the exhausts as the screaming of the jets' turbines reached a thundering crescendo.  The crew chiefs saluted and the Hornets taxied to the active runway, screaming like banshees.

Pre-cleared for immediate takeoff, the thundering Hornets were airborne within seconds of having received the scramble gong.  Upon reaching altitude, the Marine flight leader radioed ATC, air traffic control, for vector information.

An air traffic emergency had been declared and the ATC had placed all military and civilian aircraft in holding patterns over West Virginia.

"Control, this is Red Leader."

"Red Leader, a military convoy consisting of three Suburbans has been attacked on Huntersville Road about fifteen miles west of State Highway 235.  One aerial attacker downed, possible other aerial attacks.  Echo Fox-trot has radioed for help, ground troops have been dispatched E.T.A. twenty minutes, need reconnaissance and air cover, if necessary."

"Roger," said the flight leader.  "Gentleman, arm your systems."

With that command, the three Marine pilots raised the small rectangular yellow and black striped metallic cover on their Hornets' control sticks and flipped the toggle switch inside to on.  With that action, the Hornets' awesome complement of ordnance was locked and loaded.  In addition to other weaponry, each plane in the flight was armed with four heat-seeking air-to-air AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles and a nose-mounted M61 20 millimeter six barrel gun.

After arming his weapon systems, the flight leader banked left and headed to the action.  Both of his wing men immediately banked left as well.

The first thing that the pilots saw was a column of thick black smoke rising from the woods.  At the column's base, the Hornet pilots saw the blackened remains of what appeared to be a helicopter ringed by flames.  Three bodies were strewn about the wreckage.

The pilots saw an overturned Suburban lying on its side, another Suburban stopped alongside the first one, and a third Suburban stopped a short distance from the others.  The body of a Marine lay in a pool of blood near the second Suburban.  The third Suburban appeared to be operational, and the Marine pilots could see automatic rifle fire emitting sporadically from the vehicle.

A short distance away a white truck sat empty.  Even farther away there was a yellow Cutlass that had slid on to the shoulder of the road.  Up the road on a small dirt access path partially hidden in the trees was a black panel truck.  At the intersection of that path with the main road, the Marine flight leader saw what appeared to be the body of a white male civilian sprawled out in the brush.

The pilots saw that the battle was still being waged.  They noted puffs of smoke indicating grenade activity and rifle fire smoke throughout the woods.  The Marine pilots saw men in civilian attire and in blue uniforms running through breaks in the trees.  Given the close hand to hand combat going on in the woods, there was little that the Hornet pilots could do, but circle and observe.

"Control, this is Red Leader, the battle below is close quarters.  Not much we can do.  Will remain on station until otherwise instructed."

"Red Leader, we're in communications with one of the Marines on the ground.  Will attempt a patch."

"Glad to see you guys," said Wicker.  "We're having a hell of a fight down here; we could sure use some air cover."

"Roger."

1420 Hours: Saturday, June 12, 1993: Huntersville Road, Eastern Shore, Maryland

Inside the yellow Cutlass, the young mother hugged her two children tightly, a look of terror on her face.  What started out as a shopping trip and afternoon drive had turned into stark horror.  She shook uncontrollably.  The children were strangely silent, at once excited and dazed by things that heretofore they had only been seen on television.  Every once in awhile, one of the kids would sneak a peek out the window.  The firefight was fascinating.

Meanwhile, the battle raged on the ground.  Mike was able to pick off one of the assailants from his position.  He felt no particular rush connected with ending the life of another human.  Years of training and his general disenchantment had purged those emotions from Mike.  Killing was simply a business matter.

He trained his laser sight on another young, dark-haired man in a white tee shirt and dungarees.  Mike felt no remorse in pulling the trigger.  A burst of fire from Mike's rifle caught the attacker in the chest.  This one looked like a pizza delivery man.  The burst of fire threw him into the dense brush, drenching the thick green underbrush in crimson.