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With the exception of its driver, those on and in the Abrams had just relaxed for the first time in days. Despite his psyche-crushing weariness, his pounding headache, and the blood running down his face, Richardson’s mouth actually held a hint of a smile while he attempted to carry on an animated conversation over the noise of the fleeing tank’s engine.
The first deadly rounds struck the roadway twenty yards in front of them. The shells chewed deep holes in the frigid pavement. The ordnance danced its way down the highway. In a flash, Jamie drove the M-1 headlong into the onrushing line of 25mm shells.
Four soldiers on the front of the tank were ripped apart by the murderous hailstorm that thundered from the merciless heavens. Each screamed mortally when struck. The injured Americans tumbled from the moving tank. Two dropped from the right side of the Abrams. They fell into the dense woods. The first was dead before he hit the unyielding ground. His severely injured partner was barely breathing but still alive.
Another of the wounded fell to the left. He landed on the rough asphalt. The tank’s spinning treads passed within inches of his head. The final soldier pitched forward. He plunged to the ground in front of the M-1. The right tread caught its helpless victim, crushing him beneath its tons of rolling metal.
All around him, Richardson could hear the terrified screams of the wounded and dying as the ricocheting shells ripped into the M-1’s thinner upper armor. In the middle of the maelstrom, the tank’s commander survived the onslaught without a scratch.
The other members of his crew, however, weren’t so fortunate. Waves of lead knifed through the top of the tank. The shells sliced into the driver’s and gunner’s areas. A red-hot round smashed into Tony Warrick’s upper leg. It ripped a huge hole in the specialist’s thigh. Warrick shrieked in agony. He grabbed at his injured leg. Blood spurted from the gaping wound. A sea of red quickly spread across the interior of the tank.
Clark Vincent was hit in the center of his chest. The young private died instantly.
Another round tore at the Abrams’s driver. The shell crushed Jamie Pierson’s right arm just below the elbow. He also howled in pain. Pierson instinctively released the tank’s handlebars and clutched at his injured arm. Seventy-two tons of out-of-control metal veered toward the trees on the left side of the roadway.
The havoc completed on the front of the tank, the cannon fire continued its brutal death march across the M-1. The striking shells slammed into two of the five soldiers riding on the engine compartment. They were thrown from the rear of the Abrams. The mortally wounded soldiers dropped onto the pavement near the edge of the woods.
As the fighter screamed overhead, Richardson recognized the distinctive silhouette of the F-35.
“Shit! It’s one of ours!” He grabbed at the radio. “Echo-Yankee-One! Echo-Yankee-One! This is Sierra-Kilo-One-Two. We’re under attack by an F-35. Say again. We are under attack by an F-35. Get him off us! Get him off us, now!”
“Roger, Sierra-Kilo-One-Two. I’m on it.”
The Abrams plowed off the roadway. It plunged into the snowy forest. The careening tank ripped its way unabated through fifty yards of an old growth of evergreen and beech. It toppled everything in its path. Fighting his mind-numbing injuries, Jamie wrestled with the bucking tank. The M-1 ground to a halt deep within the pristine forest. The seven hitchhiking soldiers who’d survived the air attack had been tossed like fall leaves onto the forest floor. At the conclusion of their roller-coaster ride, they lay scattered from one end of the tank-gouged trail to the other.
The F-35 turned to make a second run. The pilot roared over the trees, intent on finishing the task. With a thumb on the hair trigger, he soared a few hundred feet above the asphalt ribbon. But try as he might, he couldn’t locate the target. His victim wasn’t where it was supposed to be on the constricted roadway. The F-35 flew off a short distance. It turned for another run. Again the fighter hurtled down the highway, trimming the highest branches of the mighty forest in search of prey. Still no luck. Whatever the pilot had attacked in the darkness had somehow disappeared. Given enough time, however, he knew he would find and destroy.
The aircraft’s radio leaped to life. “Victor-Seven! Victor-Seven! Break it off! Break it off! You’re attacking friendly forces! Break off your engagement immediately!”
The stunned pilot banked sharply to the left. He raced back toward the west. Inside the cockpit, a burgeoning cloud of the pilot’s worst nightmares was coming true. He’d attacked his countrymen. He’d killed American soldiers.
On the ground, Richardson was left to pick up the shattered pieces of the pilot’s efforts. And he’d little time left. There were ten precious minutes before America would unleash its nuclear arsenal.
The moment the tank ground to a halt, Richardson leaped from the Abrams. He jumped to the forest floor. Inside the gunner’s area, Tony was yelling his head off. Jamie was little better. Clark Vincent was silent and still, his lifeless body slumping against the side of the loader’s hatch.
If any of them was going to live, Richardson had to get things under control and get the M-1 out of there. The seven soldiers who’d survived the attack were strewn about on the frozen, rock-hard ground. They were slowly picking themselves up. One had broken his arm. Another had badly twisted a knee. Richardson had five healthy soldiers with whom to work.
He motioned to the two who’d fallen closest to the highway and yelled, “Get back down the road and see if any of those hit by cannon fire are still alive.”
The soldiers signaled their understanding. They hurried onto the pavement. The pair started jogging up the center of the highway.
He looked toward two uninjured Americans getting to their feet twenty yards away. “You and you, help those guys.” He pointed to the pair of soldiers injured by the fall. “Get them onto the tank as fast as you can. We’ve got to get out of here.” He turned to the soldier closest to him. “I need you to give me a hand with my crew.”
Richardson and the soldier climbed onto the battered Abrams. They pulled the still-screaming Warrick from the compartment. The moment they lifted him onto the top of the tank, they could see his injury was extremely serious. Warrick’s shredded pant leg was soaked in thick blood.
“We’re got to get the bleeding stopped,” Richardson said. “Apply a tourniquet and dressing to his leg as fast as you can. I’ll get my driver out.”
“I’ll take care of it, Sarge.” The soldier ripped off his belt to use as a tourniquet and pulled a dressing from a pouch on his pistol belt. He went to work on the injured tank gunner.
Richardson moved forward to the driver’s compartment. He had to get Pierson out of there.
Jamie had stopped yelling. But the instant the tank commander placed his arms beneath Pierson’s to lift him up, the young soldier wailed once more. Ignoring Jamie’s pleas, Richardson dragged him out and laid him next to Warrick. With the help of their companions, the soldiers with the broken arm and the twisted knee hobbled up to the M-1.
Richardson quickly examined Jamie’s wound. He looked down at the arriving survivors. “Help those two onto the back of the tank. Then I need one of you up front to take care of my driver. We’re getting the hell out of here as soon as I check the engine.”
The tank commander leaped into the snows. He rushed to the rear of the tank. A half dozen bullet holes were visible in the armor covering the engine compartment. But the M-1’s powerful engine sounded none the worse for wear. There was no time to worry about it now. Richardson was back in front. He scrambled into the bloodstained driver’s chair. Jamie was in no condition to handle the beast. It would rest upon Richardson’s thoroughly exhausted shoulders to save their lives.
It had been four years since Richardson had worked his way up from driver to gunner, and from there to tank commander. His skills were a little rusty. Yet in his day, he’d prided himself on being the best driver in his battalion.
The injured were spread front and rear across the tank. Richardson started guiding the Abrams out of the woods, picking his way toward the highway.
When he reached the twisting pavement, the pair he’d sent in search of survivors was waiting with a critically wounded soldier. They carefully handed the soldier up. The others stretched him out next to Warrick and Pierson.
“Hurry up, get on board,” Richardson said.
“There’s another wounded guy back down the road about a hundred yards or so,” the shorter of the pair said. “Wait a minute, we’ll go back and get him.”
“How badly is he hurt?”
“Real bad. He took a round to the chest. He’s barely breathing.”
“Will he survive a three-hour ride on the top of this tank?”
“Probably not. With the way he’s struggling right now, he doesn’t look like he’ll last anywhere close to that long.”
“Leave him,” Richardson said.
The soldiers looked at each other in disbelief.
“But, Sarge . . .”
“If you want to see the sun come up tomorrow, leave him and climb onto this tank now!”
They reluctantly dragged themselves onto the bullet-scarred metal hull. Their unhappiness with Richardson’s decision was plainly evident. But the order the struggling sergeant had given was just as distasteful to him. Nevertheless, he was doing what he had to do. If he waited while the pair retrieved the hopelessly injured soldier, none of them would see the morning.
