Firepower, John Cutter [best summer reads .txt] 📗

Deliveries Inc., and four more; six rebuilt 46-foot delivery trucks with stolen plates, driving from two sides up the access streets. Pulling up, three on the north side, three on the south. Men in Brethren uniforms jumped out of the cabs, ran to open the trailer doors, releasing the militia assassins. They came piling out, guns in hand.

They were all wearing paramilitary togs, which Vince figured to be a big mistake on Gustafson’s part. “The General” wanted to keep up his façade, his facsimile of an army — it was all about his vanity. But it made the gunmen visually easy to separate out from the non-militia. It made them targets.

Already, uniformed cops were turning toward the men jumping out of the backs of the trucks. But the Brethren began firing their weapons; AKs and AR-15s, fired toward the cops and the crowd.

Gritting his teeth in fury, Vince saw two cops falling under the onslaught and several people in the dispersing crowd stumbling, going to their knees, hit by the Germanic Brethren.

“Thirty degrees right, tilt to starboard!” Vince roared as the helicopter flew up to the green in front of the memorial. Deirdre tilted the H225, giving Vince a downward firing angle. He felt the safety harness holding him in place tighten.

Vince opened up, the big gun thundering, shivering in his hands, the 7.62 x 51mm rounds cracking down into the phalanx of oncoming militia gunmen sprinting across the grassy sward on the right. The strafe was chewing up a dozen armed Brethren, and a dozen more, so that they danced grotesquely in place as the bullets tore into them… ripping up flesh and sod… The cops were firing at the Brethren too, and so were FBI and Home Security agents, just arriving…

Too little too late…

“Come around the memorial building, sharp as you can!” Vince shouted, ceasing fire. “Head southeast, tilt down when we’re parallel with those other trucks!”

“Roger that!” Deirdre circled the chopper over the white marble memorial building, came back to the line of trucks on the south side. Men were still jumping out of the trucks on that side — they were moving into action a little more slowly than those on the north side — and Vince fired directly down into the trucks, the rounds pocking through the thin metal, striking the engines, igniting gas tanks, tearing into men climbing out. Flames gushed up and pieces of truck flew and smashed into Brethren already on the ground.

Vince fired another long strafe at a large group of gunmen running through the line of steel posts toward the memorial steps. His rounds gashed into them, splashing blood on the green lawn. He was careful not to direct fire in a way that would risk the crowd or the cops.

A few more people in the fleeing crowd had fallen under bullets fired from the domestic terrorists, but now — as Vince had hoped — the Brethren had spotted the heli, were turning, firing up at him and Deirdre. Bullets cracked off the hull; windows spiderwebbed, and the windshield shattered on one side. At least they weren’t shooting at the crowd.

Vince glanced over, saw that Deirdre seemed unhurt. She was ignoring the enemy gunfire and steadily controlling the helicopter. He had admired her before; he admired her even more now.

“Swing back around to the north side!” he called. “Head northwest, tilt for fire!”

“Copy that!” she yelled, her voice barely audible over the rushing wind coming through the shattered windshield. She circled the chopper back, heading west toward the memorial once more. Vince spotted more cop cars arriving.

Another strafing run, Vince targeting both the militia trucks and the Brethren on the lawn; some of the Brethren had dropped their guns and were running away to the north.

Vince fired another long burst, tracing it across the ragged line of domestic terrorists. Some of them returned fire, bullets cracking through the door around him and smacking into the bulkhead as he hammered at them; some virtually exploded with the impacts as they were hit by several big rounds apiece. Blood splashed; dirt geysered up. The trucks began to explode as he swiveled the gun to fire at them.

“Cut due north, then circle back south, tight as you can!” he shouted.

She shouted something unintelligible in response and veered due north. He glanced at her, saw she was talking into her headset; probably reporting who she was, saying she was with the FBI. Even giving her badge number. She wasn’t authorized for any of what they were doing up here, but it gave the authorities on the ground around the memorial a chance to think, maybe preventing some panicky officers from opening fire on the heli.

Vince braced against inertia, gripping the machine gun, as Deirdre swung the helicopter tightly around, its engines screaming, militia bullets cracking by from behind. He was almost pulled from his two-handed grip on the M134 by the powerful gravitational torque as they came around to the south; then they straightened out, passing through smoke from the burning trucks below, and he yelled, “Tilt to starboard!”

She tilted and he aimed carefully, his downward fire cutting through a group of thirty more domestic terrorists who were running in all directions, some toward the memorial, some toward the crowd, others looking for cover. He fired in lethal bursts, ripping them apart like a mad surgeon.

Then he ceased fire as they passed over the crowd. Once past the crowd he opened up again, backing up the fire from the cops who were shooting at the last of the crowd of Germanic Brethren near the burning line of trucks on the south side…

The rounds tore through the militiamen, cutting them down, and then as the heli flew through the smoke from the trucks on the south side, he saw another dozen Brethren running through the walkway, away from the memorial, some of them throwing