The Fate Of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha: Book One (9 page)

              “Eight man patrol half a click out,” he whispered in to the microphone that was attached to his helmet. “They are lightly armed and making a lot of noise.” He closed his eyes filtering through the thoughts of each man until he settled on the patrols leader. Focusing, he achieved a telepathic link. “The leader is bored. He’s more interested the bottle of the booze under his bunk at his barracks. Recommend we let them pass.”

              “Confirmed; we let them pass,” Carter concurred.

              The enemy patrol came as close fifty feet to Team Alpha’s position. Confident that they were safe in their own territory, their pace was leisurely; their attitude was casual. As they passed him, Sains concentrated on the sergeant leading the patrol. None of the enemy soldiers had inkling that they were being observed.

              When the patrol was far enough away Carter keyed his radio. “Did you get anything?”

              “Affirmative,” Sains said. “There are two other enemy roving patrols. One is five clicks to the east, the other five clicks to the west. We shouldn’t run into them, but if we do, the recognition password is ‘wormwood’.”

              “Well done,” Carter said. “Move out, same formation.”

                    [][][]

              From concealed positions just behind the trees the team could see that the prison compound was situated in a wide, open plane at the center of thick forest and encircled by three hundred yards of open ground and a triple-layer, concentrically arranged, thirty-foot tall chain link perimeter fence nearly two kilometers in circumference. The compound consisted of five buildings: the main prison building, three troop barracks, an administration building, and a large garage. The cluster of five buildings was encircled by a second triple-layer fence similar to the outer fence. There were also, four anti-aircraft impalements, several equipment sheds, ten guard booths spaced at equal distances around the inner fence, and five guard towers at intervals around its perimeter.

              The compound also had a heliport with six landing pads and four hangers; each holding four helicopters. There was also a small control tower was situated between the perimeter and compound fences to the east of the prison compound. It was surrounded by a separate triple layer fence with a guard-booth at the only gate

              At the center was the prison building itself. Seven stories in height and totaling one and a half million square feet of internal space, its outer walls were two meters thick and constructed of polished artificial granite that was as smooth as glass. Except for two massive blast-doors in the front and rear, there were no windows or openings of any kind. Ventilation was accomplished through hundreds of small underground ducts leading to concealed openings scattered throughout the prison grounds. The theory being that it would be impossible for an enemy to find and block all of the openings at once and that the ducts themselves were far too small for prisoners to escape through.

              The prisoners were held on the highest three floors. The floor bellow was staffed at all times with at least one hundred armed and armored guards. Below that were living quarters for the entire guard force. This meant that, should any prisoners escape, they would have to pass two entire floors full of guards.

              “Paint your targets,” Carter said.

Roth, McNamara, Burgett and Sains switched their rifles’ scopes to target designation mode and painted four predetermined points on the main buildings walls with individually coded lasers. Once they had the lasers on their marks, they all grew very still.

              “Is everyone set?” Carter asked. Each operator answered in the affirmative.

              Carter activated his radio, tuned it to the frequency that allowed him to speak with the team’s helicopter crews, and spoke into the small microphone built into his helmet “
Machine Head
, this is
Prowler
; your targets are painted.”

              In a small forest clearing, ten miles away from the prison, the Cheyenne gunship, and the two Mohawk assault helicopters rose to hover just above the tree tops. “Confirmed
Prowler
, the packages are ready,” the gunship’s weapons system operator replied from its rear seat.

              “Send them,” Carter directed the gunship.

              “On the way,” the weapons systems operator replied. As the missiles flew from the rails under helicopter’s wings toward their targets, the two Mohawk assault helicopter rose from their hiding place and moved toward the prison compound. 

              “Incoming,” Carter told his team.

              Seconds later the team could hear the missiles streak over head. The first missile struck the building on the second floor and blasted a twelve-foot wide hole through the wall and into a lounge used by the prison guards. The next two missiles blew similar openings on the ground floor; at opposite sides of the building to allow escaping prisoners an exit from the building. The last struck the wall on the second floor but did not detonate on impact. Instead, it plowed its way through the exterior wall and several inner walls until its computerized fuse determined it had reached its programmed target: the prison’s main control room. The high energy plasma warhead filled the room with a cloud of super heated, ionized gas that expanded at nearly the speed of light. Everything within the room was vaporized in an instant.

              Moments later, the two Mohawks appeared from over the trees. The first fired a ripple of rockets into each of the four antiaircraft gun impalements as the troops manning them struggled to respond to the attack. The other used its rockets to blast gaping holes in each of the fences allowing escape for fleeing prisoners. The Cheyenne appeared from another direction and fired six rockets into each of the barracks as the men inside frantically attempted to dress and arm themselves. The Mohawks turned next to the four inner guard towers; raking them with automatic cannon fire. The Cheyenne’s next victim was the administration building; which received a volley of rockets.

              The Cheyenne turned its rockets on the garage. The exploding warheads ignited fuel and set the vehicles within it on fire. Next, the Cheyenne’s turned its thirty millimeter automatic cannon on the dozens of vehicles parked around the garage. Following this, the three American helicopters laid waste to the heliport. All three helicopters then disappeared into the blackness; never rising above one hundred feet.

              “Go!” Carter ordered. The compound had erupted in a chaotic mix of blaring alarms, flashing lights, running men, and fire. The smell of spent explosives, smoke, and burning flesh laced the wind.

              The team sprinted from the tree-line; all of them covered the one hundred meters to the perimeter fence in less than three seconds and leapt over it; landing on the run. Without slowing, McNamara and Williams fired on one of the inner fence’s guard booths using heavy sub-machine guns. The ultra-powerful rounds they fired pierced the bullet resistant windows protecting the booth’s two occupants and riddled their torsos with holes.

              The entire team jumped the second fence and assaulted the prison building. The disorganized, shocked troops of the garrison offered little resistance. The compound was filled with half-dressed, surprised men still trying to comprehend what was happening. Carter’s team simply killed anyone who got between them and the main building.

              When they reached the prison building Carter and Sains each threw a hand grenade into the hole the Cheyenne’s missile had made in the second floor guard lounge. Instead of exploding after the standard six second delay of conventional grenades, the sensor-fused grenades detonated three feet above the lounge’s floor; maximizing their killing power and allowing no time for the enemy troops to react. Sains and Carter vaulted into the destroyed lounge the instant after their grenades had exploded; followed quickly by the rest of the team.

              The scene inside the building was no less chaotic than it was in the compound outside. Five guards were laying dead in the lounge; victims of either the missile strike or exploding grenades. A discordant riot of shouting could be heard reverberating down the corridors. Screams of wounded men could be heard over the screeching of the alarms. Dust and smoke swirled around each other in the air.

              Sains cocked his head slightly and held up a hand; to stop the team from exiting the lounge. Using hand signals, he indicated that his psychic abilities had detected eight troops waiting for the team to exit the lounge. A few more gestures communicated the exact position of the enemy troops.

              McNamara and Burgett flanked the threshold of the lounges door way; the door itself having been destroyed by the explosions. Each tossed a grenade through the threshold; one to the left and one to the right.

              Again the sensor-fused grenades exploded before hitting the ground; giving the prison guards no time to respond. Bits of metal tore through the guards. Concussion from the blast squeezed the air from their lungs and crushed their bones. A cloud of dust and fire was thrust down the corridor.

              Carter switched his rifle’s scope to its thermal imaging mode. Using the sensor to see the orange and red thermal images of the guards through the lounge’s wall, he saw one of the heat producing forms move slightly. He fired one round from his assault rifle through the wall and into the moving form. The figure stopped moving.

              “Clear!” Carter said. “Proceed as planned.”

              Carter led Burgett, Roth and Defontain, to the left and down a long corridor. The rest of the team followed Williams to the right and into a stairwell.

              The guards had begun to rally. Five of them had taken position a corridor junction and were defending the secondary control room: the objective of and Carter and his group. The area around the room was a more secure area than the lounge. The walls were hardened to withstand a siege in case of a prisoner riot. Even Team Alpha’s ultra-powerful weapons could not penetrate them. Carter’s group was forced to seek shelter behind the walls of the preceding intersection. The guards maintained a constant barrage of gunfire. Carter could hear them calling for reinforcements.

              “Keep up your fire!” Roth shouted. “They’ll give me my moment.”

              “Right,” Carter said. “Give her cover!”

              Carter, Burgett and DeFontain began a coordinated stream of gun fire that drove the defending guards to cover around the junctions corners. Roth made an adjustment to her assault rifle’s scope. Keeping her body behind the wall, she moved her rifle around the corner; exposing only her hand and part of her arm to enemy fire.

              The scope was connected electronically to a small video display that was projected onto her goggles’ left lens. This allowed her to see her enemy, and aim her rifle, through the scope’s sensors while remaining largely hidden behind the wall. She watched her enemy fire at the team for several seconds. Then there was a fraction of a second when all five of the guards allowed their heads to be exposed. In that instant she fired a five round burst.

              To her enhanced perception that instant was extended in time. Even with her rifle firing at six hundred rounds per minute, she had aimed one bullet precisely at the head of each guard. The micro-explosive rifle bullets decapitated each guard and produced five clouds of pink mist.

              “Move!” Carter ordered. The Alpha operators surged down the corridor, stopping at the junction where the decapitated guards lay.

              “Set security,” Carter ordered.

              DeFontain removed two grenades from her equipment harness. She set both grenades for proximity detonation and placed them on the floor just behind the junction’s corner.

              “They’re set,” Defontain reported; “Twenty seconds till the go active. After that they’ll go off if anything man-sized gets within ten feet.” The team moved quickly away before the grenades armed themselves.

              The single entrance to the secondary control room was located at the end of narrow corridor that was twenty meters long. The team charged down its twenty meter length so quickly the four troopers guarding the command center’s blast doors had no time to raise their weapons before being shot in the head at point-blank range.

              “Get to work Burgett,” Carter ordered, removing a tube of incendiary gel and detonators from a rear compartment of Burgett’s pack and handing them to the operator.

              “It would have been faster to use a demo-pack,” Burgett observed.

              “No way; it would damage the equipment inside, and we need it intact and operational. That’s why we haven’t taken out the power station yet.”

              Burgett opened the flashlight-sized tube of yellow gel that he proceeded to squeeze into the seams along the threshold of the blast door. He then placed four micro-detonators at roughly equal distances in the sticky gel.

              “Ready,” he reported, taking a small remote detonation trigger form a pocket.

              Carter quickly assured himself that Defontain and Roth were well clear of the door and then moved away himself. “Do it.”