Open Season by Cameron Curtis (early reader books TXT) 📗

truck. Insurgents have hidden among the bags of cement. One of them raises an RPG to his shoulder and fires into the Humvee’s windshield. A fireball engulfs the driver’s compartment. The explosion blows the doors off and flings them twenty feet to either side. Screaming, soldiers tumble from the back of the vehicle. Flames consume their uniforms, lick their flesh. Other insurgents sit up, raise their automatic rifles, cut the troops down.

“Contact front,” Poso snaps. “Shit.”

Second in the column, Bandonil’s Humvee rocks on its suspension. An orange ball of fire flares from its right side.

“Contact right,” Poso says. “RPG.”

“Tiger Two,” I yell. Smoke billows from Bandonil’s Humvee.

Behind us—another explosion.

I twist in my seat, look back to evaluate the situation. Bandonil’s Humvee has been hit. So have the lead and trailing vehicles in the column. The point Humvee is jammed against the cement truck, engulfed in flames. Its occupants have been cremated.

A well-executed line ambush.

The insurgents have a security element in the cement truck, fixing our column in place. A second security element has destroyed our trailing Humvee. With our lead and trailing vehicles destroyed, we can neither drive forward nor reverse. We are stuck in the kill zone. Their assault element is dug into the shops on our right, thirty yards away. Lighting us up with automatic weapons.

Doctrine says we should plaster those buildings with grenades, assault into the ambush.

But—we have no grenade launchers.

A Mark 19 could annihilate the insurgent assault element with a single drum of grenades. I curse the Philippine Army, which left Bandonil inadequately equipped.

I look at the fields to our left. Our SUVs could make a run for it. But we would be sitting ducks for RPGs. The uparmored Suburbans are designed to be proof against automatic weapons, hand grenades, and small land mines. They are not proof against anti-tank rockets.

My radio crackles. “Delos Actual, this is Tiger Two.”

Bandonil’s alive. I can’t believe it. His Humvee is still smoking. The hillbilly armor worked.

“Go ahead, Tiger Two.”

“I have called for support. We must hold for thirty mikes.”

He can’t be serious. We’re on the X. If we stay here, we die.

Muzzle flashes twinkle along the line of buildings to our right. Bullets smack into the bulletproof glass inches from my face. I’m conscious of a keening from the back seat. Garcia is covering Chrissie with his body. The girl is crying.

Philippine Army troops run between our vehicles, looking for cover. Where the fuck are they going. Trying to pile into a ditch on the other side of the highway. Eyes wide and staring, one guy freezes in front of us.

Like a thunderbolt, an RPG strikes between my Suburban and Poso’s. A bloom of fire swallows the soldier whole, leaps across the hood, and breaks against our windshield. Poso’s SUV is obscured by a fountain of asphalt and the concussion rocks our vehicle. There is a sound like rain pelting the Chevy.

More Philippine Army troops spill from Bandonil’s damaged Humvee and the one behind Keefe. Most of them take cover on the left-hand side of their vehicles. Return fire with their M16s. The fifty-caliber on Bandonil’s Humvee is out of action.

Carmichael sits next to me. He grips the wheel, knuckles white. The side of his face glistens with sweat. “What do you want to do, chief?” he asks.

We can’t run to the fields on our left—we’ll be picked off by RPGs. We can’t fire through the bulletproof glass of our armored vehicles.

I key my radio. “Tiger Two,” I say. “Get someone on your fifty. Put fire on that cement truck.”

It’ll take a brave man to stand behind that fifty caliber. Sparks flicker over Bandonil’s Humvee. The bullet strikes are accompanied by the maddening clang of metal on metal. Gunfights are loud. They are louder inside a steel vehicle.

Rockets sizzling, more RPGs streak toward us. Deadly, but inaccurate. Some RPGs are fin-stabilized, most are not. Rockets that are not stabilized have slanted exhaust vents to impart a ballistic spin to the projectile. I’ve seen those rockets fly straight and true. I’ve also seen them corkscrew out of control or tumble in flight. Seen them pitch over ninety degrees and plunge into the ground.

One of the RPGs passes under Poso’s Suburban and explodes. The blast lifts the four-ton vehicle a foot off the road on an orange pillow of flame. Great gouts of asphalt, dirt and rock shoot from under the SUV.

“Jesus Christ,” Carmichael breathes.

“We’re okay.” Poso’s voice trembles. The SUV’s reinforced floor is proof against most mines. Tires have been modified with a run-flat system of rigid rubber and Kevlar inserts. “Actual, we can not sit here.”

A figure crawls from Bandonil’s Humvee and grabs the fifty-caliber. It’s the lieutenant. He racks the charging handle, opens fire on the insurgents in the back of the truck. Half-inch slugs rip the bags of cement apart. The insurgents are torn to pieces in clouds of dust.

We have to protect Garcia and Chrissie, but—we are out of options.

There is no time to think. People do not rise to the occasion under stress. They fall to the level of their training. We have spent our lives training for moments like this.

“Pull off the road,” I tell Carmichael. “Attack those buildings. Right now.”

Carmichael needs no urging. He throws the Suburban into gear, pulls off the road, and floors the gas. The SUV accelerates toward the muzzle flashes. The bulletproof windshield stars with the impact of AK47 rounds. With each smack, the windshield becomes more opaque.

An insurgent in jeans and a white cotton shirt raises an RPG7 to his shoulder. His image is distorted by the spider web of cracks in the bulletproof glass. He fires and the rocket streaks toward us. I brace myself for the explosion that will end my life. The projectile passes over our heads. A trail of light gray smoke streams behind the orange flame of the rocket.

Carmichael plows into the insurgent. Crushes him with a four-ton battering ram. The man’s broken body is flung into the shopfront of the building behind