Skyfire (12 page)

And then he wondered, too, if this was to be his las day.

They were coming-everyone had convinced them selves of that one single fact.

The mysterious coasta raiders, fresh from ravaging the New England coastline were now likely to carry their campaign southward am hit Long Island. And it was here, at Montauk Point, th very northeastern tip of the island, that they wouli probably come ashore first.

Not since the beginnings of the Circle War severs years back had the commander seen so much apprehen sion-some would call it panic-affecting the populatio1

of the American East Coast as had the news of th coastal raiders. He would have thought that after mor than five years of postwar instability, the American citi

103

zen would be able to handle any new threat. But if the events over the past forty-eight hours were any proof, it appeared that just the reverse was true.

He knew it was a case of knowledge not conquering fear, and for the most part the burgeoning born-again media of the country was to blame.

If anything, the citizens of the East Coast were better informed now than at any time since the Big War. Many local television stations were back to broadcasting regularly, and dozens of AM and FM radio stations had gone back on the air just in the past year alone. There were even a few dozen newspapers circulating in the Northeast, with many more farther south and out west.

All of this should have served the public good: Knowledge was power, they used to say. An informed public was a courageous one.

However, this latest threat brought with it a reputation for unmatched brutality, and the media had been playing that gruesome angle nonstop ever since Cape Cod was attacked. Certainly there were some indisputable facts: the raiders raped and killed almost indiscriminately, they could somehow mysteriously appear and then disappear apparently at will and they sometimes took young women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-six.

But from these kernels of truth, the wildest, most panic-stricken rumors had sprung up. Tales of impossible butchery, grossly inflated death counts, and outright cannibalism (sometimes while the victim was alive) abounded, fanned to flame by the various customer-hungry media machines.

The result was that rumors were being reported as facts and facts as rumors.

What was worse, it seemed as if every news broadcaster was striving to one-up the next by applying a new, more frightening twist to the story: The raiders were actually Special Forces troops being directed by the fanatical Soviet-based Red Star clique; the

104

raiders were bloodthirsty leftovers from the recent United American campaign against the fascist white supremacist armies of the American Southwest; the raiders were radioactive mutants from the North Pole; the raiders were UFO

aliens.

Just how alarming these stories were had been proved earlier this day when a crowd of five hundred or more Long Islanders, fleeing the inevitable arrival of the raiders, attempted to cross a drawbridge down near Islip. For some reason, the drawbridge operator chose to raise his span and stop the flow.

Seventy-eight people died in the ensuing stampede. The bridge operator shot himself through the head soon afterward.

Reports of similar tragedies had been coming in ever since. Hundreds of thousands of people from New England down to the Carolinas were fleeing inland, to the mountains, to the cities, to the forests-anywhere, just as long as it was away from the coast.

As this day-day four of the threat-grew longer, the news, as well as the rumors, only got worse. Since noontime, there had been a number of reports that oil refineries and fuel storage dumps were being blown up all across the country. Now again, a new twist was being added: the raiders weren't just moving down the East Coast, they were everywhere.

The problem was, these reports were true.

More than twenty oil refineries and fuel dumps east of the Mississippi had been attacked during the day. The vast majority of these attacks, most of which involved long-range remotely operated high explosive missiles, were successful, so much so that even the most battle-hardened veterans had to admit concern.

The coordination alone of such an enemy campaign was frightening. But so were the insidious reasons behind it. As soon as news of the fuel attacks spread, authorities immediately restricted the use of gasoline and aviation fuel for all but emergency reasons. This action

105

T

in turn created more panic, as people tried to horde whatever gas supplies were left. By 6 PM eastern time, the country was caught in the grip of a major fuel crisis.

The lack of fuel also restricted the timeliness of the response to the raiders from the central government in Washington. Knowing it was wise to conserve whatever fuel supplies they had-just in case the country was filled with fifth columnists-the United American Army was forced to march many of its troops to the coast. This would take time and careful planning as to just where these soldiers should take up positions.

The same was true for air support. Although a dozen squadrons of UA fighter jets had been moved to bases on the East Coast, the threat to the fuel supply dictated that only the minimum of patrol craft be sent out to look for the elusive enemy.

In the meantime, the United American army brass were urging the local militias to mount their own defenses, and this is what the Long Island Self-Defense Force was doing on the beach at Montauk on this warm night.

They were three hundred and fifty strong, by far the best-organized, best-armed force to meet the raiders so far. But still an atmosphere of nervousness was thick in the air. Most of the LISDF militiamen were volunteers, well trained, but more used to chasing local robber gangs and highwaymen than dealing with a barbaric, sea going army that apparently could appear and vanish on a whim.

Plus, many of them had never killed anyone before.

The militia commander checked his watch again, and then called his first lieutenant up.

"Have the men check their ammunition and then count off," he told the young officer. "It'll give them something to do and keep their minds on the job."

The lieutenant saluted smartly and then half ran

106

through the beach sand back down to the beginning of the now-completed barricade. Within a minute, the commander could hear the count start up: "One

. . . two . . . three . . ."

Then, steeling himself against the darkness and the gloomy crash of the waves, the officer raised his infrared binoculars to his eyes and once again peered out to sea.

The attack came twenty minutes later.

It was the Commander who saw them first and-damn it.'-it did appear as if they had just materialized on the beach.

"They're here," the Commander shouted out, immediately knowing it was not the proper warning to give. He screamed: "Check ammunition loads!" as partial remedy, adding: "Fire on my command and not before!" Then he turned his attention back to the small but growing force of men approaching the barricade from the left.

The invaders, at least two hundred of them now, were clearly walking right out of the surf. Yet impossibly, there were no landing craft in sight of the beach, nor any larger mother ships farther out to sea.

But to his credit, the Commander knew that it was not up to him to figure out the raiders' disappearing act. Nor did he intend to make a courageous and therefore suicidal last stand on the beach at Montauk. His orders were simple: inflict as much damage as possible on the invaders while minimizing casualties to the militia. The commander felt the first part of the order was straightforward enough; the rest however was left open for interpretation.

In reality, the commander intended on getting two or three volleys from his men and then, if the enemy kept coming in overwhelming numbers, he planned to withdraw to secondary positions about a quarter mile away.

107

Another two or three volleys and then another withdrawal. He would fall back like this all night if he had to-all the way to Southhampton if necessary.

It was a viable, intelligent strategy. There were no civilians anywhere nearby, and with the Montauk region being a sparsely populated resort area, there was little in the way worth pillaging. Besides, the Commander did have one advantage over his enemy: Time. Because he knew, as his troops did, that so far, the raiders had always "disappeared" long before the sun came up.

Quickly adjusting his infrared spyglasses, he estimated that more than three hundred raiders were now already ashore, with many more appearing by the second. He called to his radioman to get a message off to the LISDF

headquarters at Hampton Bays, some thirty-five miles away, telling them of the situation. Then he made sure his own M-16 was loaded.

Several more tense seconds passed and then the commander yelled: "Get ready!"

An advance group of more than fifty raiders had reached a point about a hundred yards from the northern tip of the militia's barricade and they had obviously spotted the defense works. At this point, the commander knew he had no other choice but to engage.

"Aim!" he yelled, knowing that the longer he waited, the more effective the first volley would be. "Fire only on my order . . ."

But suddenly his first lieutenant was tugging violently at his shoulder.

"Sir!" the man said in a terrifying whisper. "Look . . . to the south!"

The Commander spun to his right and adjusted his NightScope.

"Oh, damn-no ..." he whispered.

Approaching from their right flank was an even larger force of the enemy.

"And they're behind us, too . . ." the young officer 108

said shakily, pointing to still more shadows heading toward them from the dunes to their west.

"We're surrounded, sir . . ." the lieutenant blurted out.

A second later, they heard the bugles.

Until this day, Lee Goldstein had never killed a person before. He was a musician by trade, devoted to bringing people entertainment, not pain.

But now, as the sergeant in charge of the southernmost flank of the LISDF

barricade, Goldstein was suddenly killing people by the dozens, firing furiously at the hundreds of raiders that had attacked the weak side of the LISDF line.

It was a slow-motion nightmare come to life. The screams of his men, the nonstop firing of the guns on both sides, the frightening drone of the enemy's bugles. The air itself was drenched in panic. Men were being ripped by bullets all around him. Death and pandemonium were everywhere.

And there was no end to the invaders-they just kept coming, running up from the beach in a bizarre helter-skelter fashion, screaming as they charged the barricades, some firing their weapons, others wildly waving huge battle axes.

Through it all Goldstein kept shooting-it was as if his hands were fastened to the M-16, the heat of the constant firing welding them in place as a death grip.

But no matter how fast he fired or how many of the enemy he killed, Goldstein knew that his end was near. The invaders had breached the northern end of the barricade and were wielding their axes like a farmer wields a sickle.

Goldstein instantly learned that there was no horror equal to the sound of a man being hacked to death. The invaders were pouring into the LISDF positions from the rear, too, with many of their bullets flying over the militia's surrounded barricades and absurdly

109

cutting down their own men who were attacking from the south.

Despite the wall of lead, the line of screaming invaders was still coming fast. They were just fifteen feet from his end of the barricade now, and for the first time, Goldstein could see them up close. Their features were craggy, their faces lined and windblown. Each one wore a beard of some kind, and none that he saw had a face devoid of scars. How ironic, Goldstein thought, that he would see these things just before his death: the lines in the enemy's face, the grime on his hands, the look of absolute evil in the eyes.

The first invader to reach the barricade directly in front of Goldstein was swinging a huge battleaxe with one hand and firing a 9mm machine pistol with the other. Goldstein shot him in the throat. The next enemy soldier in line was carrying a red-hot BAR automatic rifle. He stepped right up onto the back of his fallen comrade and glared at the militiamen as he raked the barricade with gunfire. Goldstein fired three bullets directly into his heart. Behind him were two invaders carrying a length of pipe which was smoking heavily at one end. Goldstein recognized the instrument as a bangalore torpedo. He quickly sprayed both men with his M-16, the bullets snapping off a series of sickening cracks as they punctured the enemy soldiers' skulls at close range.

Blown backward the barrage, the dying men dropped the torpedo. Goldstein barely had enough time to yell "Down!" to his men before the explosive inside the metal tube went off. The force of the blast caused a large piece of the barricade-an eight-by-eight piece of backyard fence-to fall on top of him and pin him to the damp beach sand. Goldstein now could not move his arms or legs.

What was worse, the invaders were using the battered wooden section as a ramp to gain access to the line behind the barricade.

Scared beyond words that he was now going to be

110

crushed to death, Goldstein nevertheless managed to pull his M-16 up and point it through a crack in the wood beams. He began firing wildly, killing as many as four of the raiders with nasty shots to their private parts before running out of ammo. Trapped but still hidden by the heavy section of wood, he somehow was able to jam another clip into his M-16 and continue firing.

The raiders were all over the barricades by now, and brutal hand-to-hand fighting was going on everywhere. All the while the racket of the bugles and gunfire was rising to a crescendo. Yet in the background, Goldstein's finely tuned musician's ear heard another sound-a dull, mechanical roar that seemed to be coming from out to sea.

Perhaps it was the sound of some Angel of Death, he thought, coming to get them all.

Just then a great hand grabbed the end of his rifle muzzle and attempted to yank it up through the hole in the fence pickets. Goldstein squeezed the trigger and killed the man, but his hand was replaced by another. Goldstein fired again. And again. But as each victim fell away, another would grab his rifle and yank it.