Chapter One
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post Sanliurfa, Turkey Local Time 0403 Hours
"Incoming!"
First Sergeant Samuel Adams "Goose" Gander heard the cry from the spotter/sniper teams he had set up along the nearby rooftops. As the warning was repeated over the radio communications system his team used, he gathered his thoughts, feeling the adrenaline slam through his system.
"All right, Rangers," Goose barked over the ear/throat headset he wore, "stand sharp."
"Standing sharp, First Sergeant," one of the nearby soldiers responded. Others chimed in, letting Goose know they had heard him. Despite the constant threat they had been under for days, all of the men stood tall and solid. They were men Goose had trained, men he had placed on special assignment, and men he had promised to die with if that should become necessary.
Goose stood behind the barricade of cars and farm equipment the Rangers had set up at the edge of the city when they had arrived in Sanliurfa two days ago. The soldiers had barely escaped an avalanche of Syrian troops-Soviet-made tanks, a horde of infantrymen, and squadrons of jet fighters.
Since then, United States military personnel as well as the remaining local citizenry had added to the barricade, using abandoned vehicles and everything else that came to hand. The military teams and the locals fighting for their homes stayed busy filling sandbags and shoring up the defenses. Sandbags filled the cracks and crevices, made machine-gun nests, and reinforced primary buildings used for defense and tactical information. For the time being, all roads south out of Sanliurfa were closed.
The Syrians were coming. Everyone knew it. Their arrival was only a matter of time. Apparently, that time was fast approaching.
Goose closed down the manpower and equipment lists he''d been reviewing on his PDA and tucked the device inside a protected pocket on his belt at his back. The low-lit LCD screen had temporarily robbed him of his full night vision, but he had to check it. A sergeant should always know where his men and materials were, and where they were needed. The PDA made that task almost doable.
He ran a practiced eye down the line of soldiers who stood at battlefield positions along the barricade. Like him, they wore the battle-dress uniforms they had worn for days. All of the BDUs showed hard use in the form of rips and tatters covered by a layer of the ever-present dirt and grit that shifted across the sun-blasted lands. Every man in the field had been under fire during the last three days.
They''d had neither the time nor supplies to allow them the luxury of rest or fresh clothing. Thankfully, they''d had plenty of socks, and Goose had seen to it that each man changed socks frequently. A foot soldier was only as good as his feet. An infantry that couldn''t march was no help to an army seeking survival and was often a burden.
Goose took pride in the way his men stood at their posts despite their hardships. His unit was undermanned, underequipped, and too far away from reinforcements that wouldn''t have been sacrificed on Sanliurfa anyway. Sanliurfa, the City of Prophets, was a stopgap, a strategic position that would be given up at a dear price when the time came. The American forces planned to give the outlying troops a window of opportunity, a chance to put together a counteroffensive against the Turkish juggernaut rolling up out of the south. Despite the knowledge that they were already paying a hefty blood price for something they could never hold, Goose''s Rangers stood tall and proud and vigilant.
Holding his M-4A1 assault rifle in his right hand, his finger resting on the trigger guard and not on the trigger, as his father had trained him even before he''d first put on the uniform of a United States fighting man seventeen years ago, Goose trotted down the barricade line.
His left knee ached as he moved. He''d sustained the original injury years ago in a war with Iraq. The military doctors had put everything back together as best they could, declaring him fit for duty. Then, only three days ago, he''d reinjured his knee, just before the Syrian army''s unprovoked attack against the Turkish army forced 3rd Battalion''s 75th to retreat from the Turkish-Syrian border. During that engagement, in what Goose believed to be a completely unrelated happening, a large percentage of the world''s population had disappeared without explanation.
During the last two days in Sanliurfa, he and his men had gleaned from the sporadic news coverage that the world at large was as confused about the disappearances as his troops had been when it happened. Goose, of course, had developed his own theories about what had happened. But, according to the media, several possible explanations were being advanced for the mysterious disappearances that left empty clothing in piles where men and women and children had been.
Children.
The thought of all the missing children brought a sharp pang to Goose''s heart. His five-year-old son, Christopher, had been one of the children who had disappeared without a trace. So far, although the facts hadn''t been confirmed, it seemed that every young child on the face of the planet had vanished.
Goose hadn''t been able to say good-bye to Chris. He hadn''t even known until many hours later that he had lost his young son. He could only trust that Chris was in good hands-is in God''s hands, he desperately reminded himself-because he struggled to believe the boy was in those hands. Everything had happened so suddenly.
"Eagle One," Goose called over the headset. "This is Phoenix Leader."
"Go, Leader. You have Eagle One." The reply was crisp and confident. Eagle One was Terry Mitchell, a career man with ten years service under his belt and one of the best spotter/snipers Goose had ever worked with.
"Where away, Eagle One?"
"South-southwest."
Goose reached the end of the barricade section that sealed off the street. The barricade stretched twenty blocks, backed by everything the Rangers could cobble together for defense. Heavy cavalry in the form of M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley M2 and M3 armored personnel carriers backed the barricaded sections in strategic locations. Supporting the tanks and APCs, scattered jeeps, Humvees, and Ranger Special Operations Vehicles (RSOVs) operated as couriers for ammo and stood ready to offer quick transportation for wounded. Several of their vehicles had been lost during the Syrian border attack, and his men had appropriated anything that was running for their defense of the city.
"What do you see?" Goose started up the metal fire escape that zigzagged up the outside of the three-story apartment building that stood as the cornerstone of the barricade.
"A line of vehicles. Tanks, APCs."
"ID?"
"Confirmed, Leader. Syrian. They''re flying colors and proud of them." "Any sign of aerial support?"
"Negative, Leader."
Goose pounded up the fire escape. Despite the cortisone shots he''d been given for the pain and inflammation, he felt the weakness in his knee. The pain had dulled to bearable, but his movements felt mushy and a little uncertain. So far the limb had held beneath him. He forced himself to go on, reaching the second-floor landing and hauling himself around to continue up. "How many vehicles?"
"Thirty or forty. Maybe more. Hard to say with all the dust they''re stirring up. Daybreak''s an hour away. Probably get a better look then."
Unless they''re in the middle of us by that time, Goose couldn''t help thinking. Despite the coolness that usually came with the fading sun in the evenings, perspiration beaded on his forehead and ran down into his eyes. He knew he was running a slight fever from the inflammation in his knee. The fever, like the pain, was familiar. He often felt it when he was pushing himself too far, too fast.
But that was the pace that dealing with the Syrians required. During the last two days, the Syrian army and air force had harried them mercilessly, probing and exploring the strength of the U.S. forces'' hold on the city. The battalion''s primary assignment from the Joint Chiefs was to hold the line against the Syrians in Sanliurfa while the cities of Ankara and Diyarbakir resupplied and got reinforcements.
Goose switched the headset to another frequency. As first sergeant, his personal com unit came with auxiliary channels that he used to communicate with other divisions of the Ranger companies. "Control, this is Phoenix Leader."
"Go, Leader," Captain Cal Remington''s smooth voice answered immediately. If he''d just been shaken from slumber, his words showed no trace of it.
"We''ve got movement." Goose was currently the second-ranking officer among the companies since the first lieutenant had been killed in the border clash. Remington had chosen not to fill that post and kept Goose in his present position of sovereign command after him. Goose had more years experience as a soldier than any other man in the unit-most of those years with Remington, first as a co-staff sergeant and later as first sergeant after Remington completed Officer Candidate School.
"That''s what I heard. I''m on my way there. Be with you in two."
"Yes, sir," Goose replied. Only slightly winded from running full tilt up three flights of switchback stairs in full gear, he reached the rooftop landing and stayed low. He switched back to the battlefield channel. "Eagle One, this is Phoenix Leader."
"Go, Leader."
"I''m at your twenty."
"Come ahead, Leader. Heard you coming up the fire escape. Eagle Three confirmed your ID before you reached the first landing."
The thought that a sniper, even one his Rangers, had placed him in rifle crosshairs-even for the few seconds necessary to identify him-made Goose uneasy. Friendly fire wasn''t, and all too often it was initiated by fatigued troops stressed to the breaking point from living in fear.
The U.S. Rangers-accompanied by remnants of the Turkish Land Forces and the United Nations Peacekeeping teams that had survived the brutal attack along the border-had lived under those conditions since they''d retreated to Sanliurfa. The Turkish army, under Captain Tariq Mkchian, and the U.N. Peacekeeping teams, led by Colonel John Stone, backed the Rangers'' efforts. Those troops hadn''t fared any better than Goose''s own. During the last few days, Captain Remington had proven to the two commanders that the Rangers were far better suited to the urban brawl that the Syrian army was forcing upon them than their own units. It had been a long, arduous fight, Goose knew, but Remington was a man who had consistently proven he could get his way.
During the last two days, scouting units had tagged and made contact with Syrian scouts pushing into the area. With the world in chaos from all the disappearances, the Syrian government had chosen to take as much land as possible before the world returned to some semblance of the status quo.
Goose kept his head low as he hauled himself up onto the rooftop. He glanced automatically to the north, east, and west.
For the most part, Sanliurfa was dark. With the blessing of the Turkish army, Captain Remington had imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the city in an effort to control the looting. So far, because Sanliurfa was going to be offered as a sacrificial lamb to the invading Syrians while defenses in Ankara and Diyarbakir to the northeast and northwest were shored up and hardened, no one in the Turkish government had seen fit to tell the United States fighting men that they couldn''t die in their places.
Pockets of soft golden light marked civilians gathered around lanterns or campfires. Looters moved among them, too, a reminder that primitive impulses lurked just below the surface of most people. The fear and uncertainty those people had experienced had brought those old instincts to the forefront.
The Syrian air force had made an unexpected raid the night before that had resulted in a number of casualties. Goose could make out the darker cavities in the city where that strike had compounded the destruction of the SCUD missile strikes that had hammered Sanliurfa in the opening minutes of the undeclared war. The Syrian fighters last night had mainly targeted Sanliurfa Airport, finishing off what the SCUD attacks had started. The enemy pilots had also targeted homes and businesses, areas where the U.S. forces had gathered to relax or sleep while off duty. A third of the city lay in ruins.
Syrian snipers had kept the perimeter guards busy as well, killing nineteen more soldiers and wounding forty-three. The Rangers and marine snipers had confirmed twenty-two kills among the Syrian snipers themselves, but no one took any solace in that. Compared to U.S. casualties and the two hundred and twelve confirmed civilian lives lost to bombs, the Syrians had come out on top during that attack. Goose was pretty sure their body counts were reasonably accurate, despite the carnage from the initial air strikes. Search-and-rescue teams could tell the difference between the newly dead and the early kills because the bodies were fresh as opposed to those that had lain there decomposing since the first attack. The wounded that night numbered over eight hundred, most of those also civilian.
Before the Syrian attack, two hundred and eighty thousand people had lived in Sanliurfa. With the addition of the Ataturk Baraji Dam, named one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, as part of the Southeastern Anatolia Project, the city had grown by leaps and bounds. Wealth and privilege had flowed into Sanliurfa, and it was no surprise that the Syrians wanted to capture the city and create a psychological advantage in their undeclared war.
Turning his attention to the south-southeast, Goose took his 10x50 binoculars from the front pack attached to his Load Carrying Equipment harness. He dialed in the magnification, moving the binoculars slowly to where the Syrian advance stood out against the dark horizon. They stirred up gray-brown dust clouds as they traveled. There was no mistaking the blocky lines of the Soviet-made tanks and APCs.
"Do you think this is it?" Mitchell asked. He hunkered down beside Goose and kept one hand clamped over the pencil mike of his headset so his voice wouldn''t be broadcast over the com. "Do you think they''re going to try to rout us tonight?"
"Not in the dark." Goose put confidence in his voice. That was part of his job as first sergeant, to make the troops believe there was never a situation he hadn''t seen, never an enemy he couldn''t out-guess. "On a hit-and-git mission, darkness is their friend. But trying to take over an urban area filled with hostiles-they''ll want the light of day."
"So what''s up with this?"
"Pressure," Goose responded. "Just knocking on the door and letting us know they''re still out there. This is designed to keep the kettle primed and boiling hot. They can put a few men in the field and keep this whole city awake at night."
"Still means they''ll be coming soon."
"Affirmative," Goose said. Keeping the confidence of the troops also meant never lying to them.
"How far do you think they''ll push it tonight?"
"As far as they can." Goose surveyed the approaching vehicles. They weren''t coming with any speed, and maybe that was a good thing.
Lowering the binoculars, he glanced at the Chase-Durer Combat Command Automatic Chronograph he''d gotten as a Father''s Day gift from Megan and the kids. He needed a watch in the field, and though the timepiece was an expensive one, Megan had insisted on giving it to him, telling him that she knew he took care of his gear. She also knew that he would never check the time without thinking of her and Joey and Chris.
"They''re stopping," Mitchell said.
Goose glanced back up and saw that the advancing line of military armor had indeed stopped. "Spotter teams," he called over the headset.
When the spotter teams acknowledged, Goose said, "Eyes on the skies. In case this is a feint for another aerial attack."
The spotter/sniper teams affirmed the order.
"Phoenix Leader."
Goose recognized Remington''s voice at once. "Go, Control. You have Leader."
"Tach Two, Leader."
"Affirmative, Control. Oracle, this is Phoenix Leader."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Apocalypse Crucibleby Mel Odom Copyright © 2004 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
