Apache Dawn, - [little bear else holmelund minarik txt] 📗

Cooper looked at Charlie and motioned to enter the building. Charlie nodded and ducked under a piece of the wall and stepped in, weapon up. Cooper followed a second later. Behind him, he could barely hear the footsteps of his team moving forward.

Once they cleared the immediate entry-point, the smoke dissipated and their night vision was effective again. Cooper looked around the small waiting room and notice two figures in dark outfits with small packs on their backs moving toward the far wall where an exit door was being held open by a third. The figures turned and started firing.

Cooper dove for the deck and rolled left into a corridor. Charlie and the rest of the team went to the right and sought cover behind the low walls of the waiting area. Plaster and masonry exploded in little puffs as the North Korean marines fired their AK-47s blind. The noise was deafening.

Cooper raised his MP5 and sighted in one smooth-as-butter motion and fired two shots to the head of the first soldier. Before that man knew he was dead, two more bullets were flying downrange to his partner’s face. The third soldier screamed as he saw his two comrades die and slammed the door.

“Clear!” called Cooper. The SEALs ran through the waiting area, stepping over bodies and checking for survivors. Two or three of them were scanning for enemies and covering the rest that knelt down to check for signs of life among the fallen bodies strewn through the room.

“Got a lot of dead civvies,” Jax said sadly, kneeling next to a small boy. “No pulse. Most of ‘em still warm. Lot of blood, man…”

“Got a bunch of ‘em over here, no wounds…” said Swede. “Oh shit…”

“What is it?” asked Charlie in a hushed voice.

“Bio-hazard sign taped to one of the bodies. Looks like flu victims.”

Cooper looked around, night-vision goggles casting an eerie green light on the macabre scene. Whole place is full of bodies.

“More over here,” said Mike, kneeling a few feet away from Cooper.

Well, that’s comforting. The NKors sure picked a convenient time to attack—he paused, mid stride to examine the bio-hazard sticker hastily slapped on the black body bag at his feet.

That’s why there’s so many of them here. They knew in advance the flu would be deadly and take out a lot of their own people. Son of a bitch. There’s no way they could have timed this…bastards turned the flu into a weapon and hit us at just the right time…

Cooper stepped away from the pile of flu victims and instinctively covered his mouth. “Everyone break out your masks…nobody touch anything!”

“Found a stash of level-three respirators over here!” called out Jax. He tossed one to Cooper. “Looks like they were in the process of handing them out when the NKors breached.”

“Good find,” Cooper said. “Everyone put ‘em on.”

He put his mask on and hoped it didn’t distort his voice too much as looked up in the air and spoke again, keying his mic, “Slipknot Support, do you read?”

“Secret Service, any unit, respond,” Cooper said, his radio blasting on all emergency channels. “I say again, Secret Service, respond!”

A few static-filled words faintly came back over the bone phone in his ear. “Say again!” he called out.

“This is Slipknot Support…nnnnhh…” Cooper heard gunfire and shouting in the background.

“Slipknot Support, this is Striker 1, Actual, what’s your sit-rep?”

“Goddamn, I’m glad to hear your voice. Lacey, over there!” More gunfire erupted. “They’re pouring down the corridors. We’re pinned down at the entrance to the Critical Care wing. I got wounded and KIA. Seven effectives left. We’re holed up opposite the nurse’s station. Whoever the hell you are, you better hurry.”

“Is Slipknot secured? I say again, is Slipknot secured?” Cooper pointed at his arm-guard map and then at Charlie. His XO flipped through wrist-mounted maps of his own, looking for the Critical Ward.

“Affirmative, Slipknot is secured, but I can’t tell you for how long. I’ve got at least a company of enemy combatants in front of us. Who the hell are these guys? Where did they come from?” More gunfire and screaming.

“Hold your position,” Cooper said. “The cavalry’s on its way. Striker, out.”

“That way!” Charlie said, pointing toward a large double door to their right. “VIP Critical Care rooms are on the second floor. Stairwell access over there.”

The SEALs, moving like shadows, quickly left the waiting area to the dead.

“Run and gun!” called out Cooper. He kicked the double doors open with a crash and charged through. Two North Korean soldiers were setting up firing positions behind an overturned gurney. Without hesitation, Cooper swung the M-79 grenade launcher from his back and fired. A split second after the phoomp of his pirate gun, the corridor exploded in light and smoke with a tremendous crash.

Cooper charged into the smoke and stepped over the remains of the two North Korean rear-guards. He jogged down the shattered corridor toward the stairs, his team hot on his heels. Sounds of a fierce firefight reverberated down the stairwell toward them.

As they passed each door along the corridor, the forward SEALs paused to cover their teammates as they leapfrogged the rest. Every one of them was focused on the rooms they passed—some had patients laying in beds, wide-eyed in fear. Many more had bodies on the floor and bullet holes in walls and doors. It appeared the North Koreans were either randomly searching rooms or simply killing for sport. Either way, Cooper felt his anger rise.

It was one thing for the cowardly bastards to have shot down his team—they would pay dearly for that. But killing civilians—people in hospital beds? That was crossing a line. More than one room had a North Korean soldier in it trying to ambush the SEALs. Cooper’s wraiths dispatched each one with brutal efficiency.

Cooper reached the stairs first and took the steps two at a time. He could hear some shouted words from the top landing and slowed down, carbine at his shoulder, eyes downrange. The sound of fighting grew louder with each step, bouncing off ceiling tiles and walls. Cooper poked his head above the landing. He held up his hand to halt the platoon. Charlie moved up next to him, silent as a ghost.

The hallway beyond the stairs was dark with only one emergency light, hanging from a wire and swaying drunkenly. The corridor was strewn with bodies. Some were clearly patients, dressed in hospital gowns and still trailing IV lines from arms and wrists. Others were in scrubs and a few had white coats, stained with blood. The North Koreans had clearly moved down the corridor guns blazing and killed everyone in their path.

The doors along the hallway had been forced open, some shot through, and debris and equipment was scattered everywhere. Cooper could hear the eerie, spine-tingling wails from multiple medical monitors shrilly calling for attention from dozens of rooms.

Muzzle flashes accompanied by the deafening sound of gunfire in confined quarters at the end of the hallway painfully split the darkness. Cooper flipped up his night-vision goggles and let his eyes adjust.

When he could see again, Cooper found himself looking down a long hallway. About halfway down the hallway, at the junction of the main corridor to the left, was a large circular desk littered with computer monitors and phones. There were two North Koreans taking shelter behind the desk, shooting their rifles over the top of the bullet-ridden desk. The tactical lights on their weapons were lancing all over the place with their movements.

“There’s the nurse’s station. Secret Service is down that left-hand corridor,” Cooper whispered to Charlie.

Charlie gripped Cooper’s arm and pointed—on the other side of the nurse’s station, a few flashlights winked with movement. Cooper could hear muffled shouting over the noise of the firefight. He squinted and could just barely see North Korean marines kicking down doors on the left side of the corridor. There looked to be at least twenty of them. When they didn’t come back out, he realized what was going down. Flashes and the sound of more gunfire. A few bodies in hospital gowns tumbled out into the hallway.

The North Koreans are going to cut through those rooms…they’ll flank those Secret Service pukes if they can find a way to jump out down that left corridor. Cooper had seen enough.

He signaled to Charlie and pointed at the nurse’s station.

Both men opened up their weapons and in an incredibly loud few seconds, the North Koreans hiding behind the circular desk were on the ground, painting the floor red. The rest of the SEALs then advanced up the stairs and moved down the hallway, finding no survivors.

Cooper keyed his throat mic. “Secret Service, Striker 1 advancing on your position. Do not shoot, I say again, friendly forces turning the corner, your twelve o’clock!”

He stepped to the corner and looked left, almost expecting to take a bullet in the face. Instead, a flashlight beam pointed in his direction.

“Thank God!” someone said in the smoke.

“Charlie, go!” he said, pointing down the main hallway where the North Koreans had entered rooms and disappeared. Charlie instantly peeled off with his fireteam and vanished into the darkened corridor.

“Direct your men that way,” said Cooper as he trotted toward the besieged Secret Service agent. “You got at least ten NKors working through the rooms and advancing fast on your nine o’clock! They’re trying to flank you.” The agents nodded and faced the doors on the left side of the hallway.

Cooper, satisfied that the agents were prepared, turned to his fireteam coming up fast behind him. “Spread out and anchor the line. Jax, get in the center.”

“Team 2 in position,” Charlie whispered, dead calm.

Without a word, Mike pushed