Citadel Of Fear

McCarter heard it. It was low and sounded off in the fog, which told him that it was actually high. It sounded like a distant gardener’s Weed-Eater whirring from on high. Hawkins raised his weapon skyward. “It’s an RC helicopter”

“And it has a bloody infrared camera,” McCarter snarled. “And it bloody well has us! Fish?”

Encizo opened the action on the Pallad grenade launcher slaved beneath the barrel of his rifle. He took out the fragmentation grenade and slid in a fléchette round. “Hey, Hawk.”

“Yeah?”

“Go out in that clearing behind us. Do a little duck tolling. Maybe entice that eye in the sky to come down and take a closer look at you.”

“Oh, for…” Hawkins popped to his feet and ran at a crouch into the clearing.

Encizo shouldered his weapon. “Cal, a little light on the subject, if you please.”

Calvin James clicked an illumination-round rifle grenade over his muzzle. “Say when.”

The other members of Phoenix Force watched as Hawkins squelched across the wet glade one way and then came back the other. He suddenly crouched and ran to his left.

“Would you describe those as furtive movements?” James asked.

Manning spoke across the link. “I’d describe it as—”

“Now!” Encizo shouted and estimated the shot. “Nine o’clock!”

James snapped up his rifle and fired. The rifle bucked and the illumination round burst skyward. The low clouds, fog and predawn murk lit up and the small remote-controlled helicopter found itself starkly illuminated at five hundred feet. It appeared to be a fairly standard quad-copter with four rotors. It hovered in place for a moment like a deer in the headlights. James suspected the nonmilitary-grade night-vision camera’s lens had temporarily solarized.

The spy-copter was blind.

Like a cockroach when the kitchen lights came on, it suddenly tried to scuttle away. In this case by accelerating straight upward.

Encizo raised his weapon and fired. The 40 mm Pallad belched pale yellow smoke and sent fifty steel darts screaming skyward in an expanding swarm. The RC chopper tilted crazily as fléchettes speared into its plastic fuselage and tore apart its starboard rotors.

McCarter grunted in appreciation. “Nice shot, Fish.”

The little unmanned aircraft suddenly dipped with only its portside rotors to support it and spun violently toward the earth like a falling maple seed on meth.

“Hawk,” McCarter ordered, “be a good lad. Find that and mark it for retrieval. Everyone else hold position.”

“Be a good lad…” Hawkins muttered. Nevertheless the soldier slogged out of the slough and into the trees.

Encizo opened the smoking breech on his weapon and slid in a frag. “So what do you think they’re up to?”

McCarter kept his eyes and his muzzle pointed at the trucks in the mist. Above the tableau, the illumination grenade guttered as it descended on its parachutes. “They just lost their drone and are watching the end of the light show.”

“If I were them? I’d attack right now.”

The canvas covering of the lead truck suddenly popped off like a magic trick. The truck was armed with twin-mounted 23 mm automatic antiaircraft cannons.

Encizo shook his head. “Why don’t you just spit in the wind, Cal?”

Hawkins trotted through the trees clutching his prize. “What’s—”

“Down!” McCarter ordered.

“Jesus!” Hawkins threw himself down. “They brought artillery!”

“And aerial reconnaissance,” James reminded.

“Who are these guys!” Encizo snarled.

McCarter roared as the twin cannons hammered into life, sending high-explosive shells into the trees. Shrapnel from the high-explosive fragmentation rounds tore through the foliage over McCarter’s head. It was only a matter of moments before Phoenix Force got shredded. “Gummer!”

“Gimme a second! The cab is in the way!”

Encizo fired his 40 mm. The round detonated well off target as it hit a tree branch shrouded in fog. “Goddamn it…”

McCarter, James and Hawkins hugged mud. Encizo reloaded. The twin 23 mms thundered like giant jackhammers and continued to give the forest a haircut as they sought out human targets.

Manning did his math and found his shot. It was lost in the cacophony of cannon fire but from his little hillock his bullet drew a deadly line through the lead truck’s windshield, rear window and the cannon operator’s skull. The gunner rubbernecked and oozed out of his seat. The cannons went silent and oozed smoke. Armed men spilled out of the trucks. McCarter decided he’d had enough of this ambush. “Counter attack! By twos! Fish, on me!”

McCarter and Encizo jumped up and advanced through the trees straight at the enemy. They fired on rapid semi-auto and reaped the men deploying across the open road. McCarter dropped to one knee beside a tree as his weapon slammed open empty. “Reloading!”

“Reloading!” Encizo echoed.

“Coming through!” James bellowed.

“Coming through!” Hawkins shouted.

The two soldiers leapfrogged McCarter’s and Encizo’s positions, firing as they went. James put a burst though the window of one of the trucks as it tried to back up. The truck lurched as the driver fell against the wheel. James dropped to one knee. “Reloading!”

Encizo fired his weapon empty. “Reloading!”

“Coming through!” McCarter and Encizo advanced, relying on their optics and shock and awe. The enemy expected to chop their prey to pieces with the cannon or at the very least pin them down and then flank them. They had not expected a counter-assault. The enemy fired wildly on full auto and appeared to be in full panic mode. Manning’s sniper rifle reached out unseen for men who had taken cover behind the trucks. The rear truck was reversing and some of Phoenix’s assailants were running for their lives to get to it and get in. “Fish!”

Encizo instinctively knew what McCarter wanted. He dropped to one knee. “Grenade!” His 40 mm fired and his grenade flashed and smoked and perforated the truck’s cab and its occupants. The rear truck ground to a halt.

The enemy found themselves pinned.

McCarter was getting the feeling these guys were gangsters rather than real soldiers. His boots hit pavement and the last bullet in his magazine pushed a man into the ditch by the side of the road.

“Reloading!”

Encizo fired off three more rounds and knelt again. “Reloading!”

James and Hawkins charged forward. “Coming through!”

McCarter slammed in a fresh magazine as the twin

30 mm antiaircraft cannons suddenly traversed. McCarter swung up his rifle one heartbeat too slow. He had just enough time to see the new gunner’s teeth flash in the gloom as he smiled and told McCarter goodbye. The cannon operator tumbled out of his seat as Manning’s long-range rifle said so long first.