Mel Odom - Apocalypse unleashed

That was a quality of leadership, Remington knew. But men didn’t have to like an officer to obey him. Fear was another good tool. The British navy under Lord Nelson had employed fear and brutality among the crew, and it had worked.

“Man,” another tech said, “there’s nothing the sarge can’t do.”

“He’s got God looking out over him,” someone else said. “Remember when the Syrians rolled those tanks into the streets? Sarge stood up to one of them and took it out single-handedly.”

“Quiet!” Remington roared. “Do you think this is some kind of ice cream social? or a John Wayne movie? Those are my supplies. Dedicated to my outpost. I want my supplies to reach my outpost in one piece. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” several of the techs responded. The good mood didn’t exactly vanish, but it went underground. They focused on the screens.

“We wouldn’t have to be rescuing my supplies if Sergeant Gander had followed orders,” Remington said. He tried to keep the anger from his voice but knew he’d failed. He pushed his breath out and got control of himself. Something was going to have to be done about Sergeant Samuel Adams Gander.

Soon.

U.S. Rangers Convoy

One Klick North-Northeast of Harran

Sanliurfa Province, Turkey

Local Time 2124 Hours

“Are you getting this?” Danielle demanded as she stared at the trail of destruction that littered the countryside. She held on to the seat belt tightly.

“I am; I am,” Gary replied. “But even the Steadicam programming in this unit isn’t going to keep the picture from jumping everywhere.”

“Just keep shooting. Do you know where Goose is?” Danielle stared through the burning and overturned vehicles. Thank God none of them belonged to the Rangers.

“Not yet.”

“Find him.”

“I’m trying.”

Danielle turned to the driver. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”

The man refused to look at her, but he did put his foot down harder on the accelerator. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“If you want to pull over, I’ll drive myself.”

He shook his head. “Is any of this even real to you?”

“All of it is real,” Danielle told him. When she got back to Sanliurfa, she was determined to find another driver. “This is the biggest story of my career. A third of the planet disappears. A lot of world leaders are talking-behind closed doors-that this is some kind of religious thing.”

The driver swerved to miss a tree, and the cameraman yelped in surprise.

“We’re in a nation that has the only city in the world that sits on two continents,” Danielle continued. “Which city, by the way, has been a point of contention between Christianity and Islamic beliefs since they laid the first stone of the first building there.” She paused. “It’s real to me.”

“I found Goose,” Gary said.

“Where?”

“He’s on top of the second truck back.” Gary laughed like a madman. “You know, that guy is certifiable. I’ve filmed extreme sports athletes who wouldn’t do what I’ve seen him do since this started. I love that guy.”

Danielle clung to the honest emotion in Gary’s voice. That was how Goose played before the young male audience. He was a man’s man, a warrior in the truest sense of the word. And for the women, he was the hero, the guy they all hoped to fall in love with. Those were the demographics she’d pushed at her producer at OneWorld NewsNet to get permission to stay with his story.

But if he got killed…

She pushed that thought out of her mind. She couldn’t imagine Goose getting killed. When the chips were down and everything was on the line, he was unstoppable. She’d never met a man like him before.

The jeep whipped by a burning vehicle. A group of Rangers held bandits at gunpoint and were slapping restraints on them. The heat from the flames rolled over Danielle just for a moment, but her eyes remained on the lone figure atop the cargo truck.

Local Time 2125 Hours

Wind tore at Goose as he clung to the canvas covering the steel support ribs of the cargo truck’s payload area. The metal banged against his body, though the Kevlar vest blunted some of the trauma. He held on to the M-4A1 with his right hand as he went forward.

Crain climbed behind Goose. The younger man didn’t keep his body snugged into the canvas and was taking a beating that slowed his progress. He hadn’t yet gotten on top of the truck.

“Sarge! Sarge!” the truck driver called. “Are you there?”

“I’m here, Jenson,” Goose said. “You just hold her steady for one minute longer.” He dug his elbows and knees into the canvas and straddled the supports. His knee burned with pain at every bump and lurch.

“He’s almost at the door! I see him in the mirror!”

“I’m there,” Goose said as he pulled himself to the side of the truck and thrust the assault rifle forward.

The bandit clung to the truck’s side. The man’s feet rested on the edge of the payload area through the canvas tarp, and he held on to the tarp with one hand. Balancing himself, pistol in one hand, the bandit swung forward and tried to shove his weapon through the broken window.

“Sarge!”

Goose squeezed the trigger and felt the M-4A1 thud briefly against his shoulder. A three-round burst shattered the bandit’s head, and he fell from the truck’s side.

One of the bandit vehicles racing beside the convoy on the right side immediately returned fire. Goose stayed low. The canvas didn’t offer much protection, but he was grateful for what he got. Bullets sizzled through the air over his head. A round struck one of the supports and sent a vibration singing through it. And at least one punched into his Kevlar vest.

Goose plucked an M67 fragmentation grenade from his combat webbing, flicked the clip out with his thumb, and released the spoon and pin. Arching up for a moment, he threw the spherical grenade at the jeep as it roared to within thirty feet.

The bandits fired at him immediately, but between the rough ride offered by the jeep and the bouncing of the cargo truck, they missed him. Goose pulled his helmet low and crossed an arm in front of his face.

“Fire in the hole!” he roared.

Crain hunkered down atop the cargo truck.

A thunderclap exploded beside the cargo truck, and shrapnel from the grenade peppered the vehicle’s body. Goose pulled the M-4A1 to his shoulder and peered over the side. The jeep was a smoking ruin carrying dead men. It rammed into the cargo truck’s side, then got caught up under the wheels. The truck reared like a bucking bronco as it rolled over the bandit vehicle.

The three remaining bandit vehicles hesitated, then veered away from the convoy’s side. Unable to see the Ranger Hummers on the other side of the trucks, or possibly mistaking them for their comrades, the drivers of the bandit vehicles closed in again and focused on the lead truck.

“Drifter Two,” Goose called as he scrambled to the rear of the truck.

“Reading you five by,” Donner radioed back.

“Swing around behind the convoy and let these boys know you’re here.”

“Affirmative.”

Goose caught hold of the support bar across the opening and flipped across, stepping backward into the cargo area. He’d organized the way the payload was distributed before they’d left the post. He knew where everything was.

The dead bodies of the two Rangers who’d been assigned to the payload area rocked restlessly with the sway and jar of the cargo truck. For a moment, the sight of them held Goose in his tracks. Both of the men had been young. Losing soldiers under his command hurt, and lately he’d lost a lot of them.

Get your job done. You can grieve later.