CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Assault on Tenebrae Coltere

Red Leaf seemed tense, hunkering down awaiting an onslaught to finish them. Since the outbreak of battle, the streets had rung with savage gunfire; to experienced gun enthusiasts it seemed as if entire armories had been seized and were being used; there were deep booms of shotguns, high-pitched, metronomic barks of hunting rifles, and the rapid reports of semi and full automatic rifles, with occasional blasts marking grenades or IEDs going off. To some, it seemed a return of the Riots, sometimes called the Battle of Red Leaf, and they stayed away. Others armed themselves in their homes and stayed in tense silence to see the outcome of the fight.

The din became overridden by the sound of helicopter blades, and those brave enough to peek outside their homes witnessed seven Blackhawk helicopters racing over the city. Three of them peeled off and went towards the newer construction, but four of them continued on their way to what had been a formerly quiet neighborhood.

Agent Bengal waited tensely in the darkness of the helicopter, watching the door gunner as the man turned this way and that with his nightvision goggles, trying to see what was going on in any clear detail. Around him sat a dozen men from the FBI Assault Squad 7, waiting calmly for the order to evacuate the helo.

This isn’t how it was supposed to go, he thought. He’d been supposed to be conducting a routine investigation—albiet with a rather unusual feature with the centaurs—when the call had come into the office that a large group of armed fanatic hostiles was carrying out an assault on police headquarters and the secret laboratory set up by Wolfe’s corporation. The guards he’d emplaced had been severely injured and an unknown number of police officers were dead. He’d immediately requisitioned the assault squads and left the base two hours after getting the call. He’d been able to raise Chief Gardner only recently however, and learned of the two-pronged assault going on with the effort to locate and secure a witness’s family and the attack on the lab. The police hadn’t been aware of the attack on his station, and Bengal could hear the intense anger and recrimination when the Chief spoke next.

“I respectfully request the assistance of the FBI in securing the city. I’m down most of my force, it sounds like, and the city is in danger. The mayor is incommunicado, unless you can raise him on the radio and have him request federal aid.”

“No need.” Bengal said grimly. “Some of our assets in town were attacked and a couple of our people were injured.”

“What were your people doing here in the first place?” Ben asked, his voice going from exhausted to heavily suspicious.

“Protecting government interests.” Bengal replied. “Look, Chief, we can go about this now, or later when there’s more time to explain. I’m less than four minutes out now; how do you need us to deploy?”

“Four minutes out? You in a helo?”

“Yes.” Bengal replied impatiently.

“Good. If you can run over the top of these guys, give them something else to think about, I can push up down here.”

“Sounds good chief. We’re on our way.”

That conversation had been three minutes ago, and as Bengal went to the door and looked out, he saw black smoke rising from burning squad cars and a the blinking fireflies of a raging gunbattle on the street.

Sweet Jesus! How many guys are in this shitstorm? Bengal wondered.

The choppers tilted crazily as the pilots swung over the street, racing along the street at barely seventy feet, the blades coming close to several roofs. They darted over the heads of the police and screamed over the fanatics in a line, but rather than causing them to duck as expected, Bengal started to hear the ashcan rattle of ground fire slamming into them.

“What the hell?” he shouted, ducking as a bullet whined through the door. It struck the armored ceiling and fell flattened onto one of the soldiers below; he carelessly brushed it off his lap like dirt.

Bengal had a momentary flashback of being in Iraq facing down an assault on Saddam’s compound with RPG’s and AK–47’s shooting at him, before he came back to the helicopter.

“All right, it doesn’t look like these guys scare easy.” He said to the compartment at large.

“We’ll swing back around and go for another pass. After that, we land on the rooftops nearby and post snipers up top. The rest of us will go down to ground level and hit them from the sides and rear. Take prisoners at your discretion; don’t get killed.”

The men nodded calmly and checked their weapons one more time as the helicopters dipped and turned. They passed by the fanatics one more time, enduring a withering hail of bullets, before swinging back along a side street and towards the houses and general store of the neighborhood. As the Blackhawk hesitated along the top of a two-story house, Bengal threw his line out the cargo compartment and practically dropped, braking only a little before he hit the shingles with a loud thump. Seven more showed the rest of the squad descending, then the ropes were drawn up by the cargo master while the door gunner loosed a burst on a group of fanatics approaching the house.

Around them, like a scene from WWIII, troops shimmied out of helicopters onto the roofs of houses, some flying the American flag, while the sky lightened in the smoke-choked, blood-red of dawn while the rattle of gunfire provided background music to this hellish scene.

Bengal hurried to the edge where he could see better the fanatics dug in behind their barricades while the police pushed stubbornly at them, accepting whatever loss to keep the uniformed police at bay.

Bengal hooked his last rope on the gutter and dropped down to the flowerbeds below, hurrying forward and taking knee, his M–16 sweeping the yard in front of him while the rest of his team climbed down the rope behind him.

Once the last boots touched the earth, Bengal rose and stalked into the gloom, heading towards the gunfire.

It wasn’t long before he saw the rear of the barricade, and about thirty members of the group holding it. Strewn about were the corpses of two dozen more, attesting to the skill and perseverance of the men and women under Ben’s command.

The barricade had been formed with two small moving trucks pushed back to back across the street, and chairs, tables, and here and there bodies had been pushed around them to form a solid wall with firing steps near the top. No ramshackle affair this seemed, these people had deliberately planned to engage the police in a firefight, Bengal thought.

He withdrew around the corner and turned to his men.

“Thirty hostiles standing behind that barricade, perhaps another two dozen dropped already. Alpha team is in place across from us, deploy in twos and push up to the next house. Once in place, spread out in firing position and let them have it.”

The men nodded, and in twos they disappeared around the corner, guided by a soldier posted at the corner, watching the fighters at the barricade for any sign that they’d been seen, and motioning for the next pair when it was safe.

Bengal found himself taking his turn, and he raced with his partner to the next house up the line, just thirty feet from the rearmost body, a pretty young girl in armor with part of her arm blown away by a solid shell from a shotgun.

Bengal resolutely pushed her from his mind as he silently shot from cover into the open street, crossing halfway to where another member of Alpha team met him. The two men dropped to their bellies, guns pointed towards the fanatics. A moment passed, but the fanatics took did not notice them, and continued to fire over the top of the barricade, which occasionally splintered as bullets tore into it from the police beyond. Then another pair raced into the street and dropped not two feet from Bengal and the captain of Alpha team. The two teams deployed in a single firing line, dropping to their bellies to lessen their chances of being hit.

“All units, fire!” Bengal bellowed suddenly, and the entire line lit up in rapid fire as the soldiers picked targets and sent three round bursts at them as fast as they could.

Caught by surprise, the fanatics turned around and focused on the FBI soldiers with single-minded focus. They took no notice of the bullets plucking at their clothes with near misses, which were few, or their falling comrades around them, which were more numerous and regular; instead they poured fire back with such wild abandon that Bengal felt dismayed; he’d never encountered the like before, not even in the deserts where the terrorists would ram car bombs next to convoys or launch attacks behind suicide bombers to take their objectives.

His men cried out as they were hit, or dropped their heads to the pavement in silence; not even hugging the earth could save them, and Bengal just realized how horrible his mistake had been; he’d counted too much on their breaking after the first volley, or being so reduced that any return fire wouldn’t matter. Instead, he found that only ten had been killed; the rest were still standing, and now that he looked closer he could see their shirts were more bulky then he would have thought, and he realized they were armored.

Bengal heard his gun go dry, and he swapped the magazine almost without thinking. Another eight of the fanatics were down, but so were almost half of his own men.

A great roar pulled everyone’s attention; Ben Gardner stood at the top of the barricade, the sun shining on the badges of his breast and cap, his sleeve soaked in blood, his face scratched and cut, and a look upon his face so terrible that Bengal felt a thrill of terror unlike any that he’d ever felt before. Behind him came a further eight officers, firing their guns as they clambered around the debris, leaping from flat space to flat space, and trying to duck behind whatever cover they could find, or jumping down on their foes and rolling on the ground in vicious fist fights on the ground. Ben wrestled with the greatest of the remaining terrorists; a great blond man who looked like he spent most of his life in one fitness gym or another, and had to outweigh the police chief by a good sixty pounds. Yet the chief did not give up, and the blond man seemed on the defensive, as he tried to block the smaller man’s blows.

Seeing friend and foe too hopelessly entangled to even risk any sort of shot, Bengal sprang up from the ground and cast his rifle to the ground, it would do no good in a knife fight. With a battlecry of his own, he raced forward, those of his men unhurt on either side.

Bengal leapt onto the back of the blond man fighting the chief. He seemed to take no notice of him, unless like that of a dog who had a gob of mud land on its back.
Trying to wrap his arms desperately around the thickly muscled chest, Bengal successfully managed to get his hands around one of the arms. Tugging backwards, he tried to get his handcuffs on the wrist, but his opponent wasn’t having any of it.

Unexpectedly, the blond man leapt backwards. Bengal barely had time to prepare himself before he found himself slammed into the side of the truck. He very nearly lost his hold, but managed to cling on, until Ben hit the man like a football linebacker at full tilt, his arm extended halfway like a fighter or lancer, and buried the fist into the blond’s belly.

“Hooof!” he gasped, doubling over.

Bengal could sympathize; he himself felt like a bird smeared on the grill of a truck that struck a brick wall.

He didn’t let the pain distract him, however. Snatching up his second set of handcuffs from his belt, he slapped one cuff on, then wrenched the man’s arms back with Ben’s help. The blond began to struggle, and both men grasped his arm and strained to bring them back together. Fortunately, the blond still reeled from the gut blow, and they managed to get his second wrist into the cuffs.
The blond roared like a wounded bull, and cast himself back again unexpectedly. Bengal found himself crushed against the truck back again, then jerked forward as the blond cast himself onto Ben, bearing him down under their combined weight. Ben couldn’t get away in time, and they went down in a tangle of limbs. The blond then began to beat Ben with his own head, battering the smaller man while accepting the damage to his own noggin.

Bengal tried to catch and hold his head, but the man didn’t seem to notice his efforts at all.

“Damn you! Give up all ready!” Ben gasped angrily, trying to free his hands.

“Never!” the blond snapped, sounding not unlike a cement truck, rough and gravelly. “The master has said you must die, or us! And it will not be us!”

Bengal laced his fingers together and struck with all his might at the back of the blond’s head. It snapped forward, and Bengal felt a surge of hope that he’d managed to knock the huge man unconscious.

A jerk backwards convinced him that he’d failed.

Goddammit, just go to sleep already! Bengal thought almost desperately. He wrapped his arm around the man’s throat and squeezed, trying to choke him out.

The blond went berserk! He writhed and thrashed like a wild animal, Bengal tightening his grip simply to keep from being thrown off. The blond rolled, right over the top of him, and Bengal felt the air whoosh out of him, but he didn’t let go of his grip.

Now, however, Ben was free from the huge man’s grip, and he sprang upright and charged over to where Bengal was struggling. Drawing back his fist, Ben punched the blond in the head over and over, while Bengal tightened his grip nearly to the end of his strength.

Slowly the fire went out of him, and he began to relax. At last he lay on the ground, not dead, but unconscious.

Free at last to look around, Bengal looked round at the devastation surrounding him.

Four police lay on the ground, clearly dead, with another two injured. Two of Bengal’s men had been cut, but as the vests had turned the blades and they were upright and walking, he didn’t take too much notice of it. None of the other fanatics besides theirs had been taken alive, and they lay cast about like toys tossed by some giant, angry child.

The two of them walked amongst their dead, looking sadly at the bodies.

“John.” Ben said tonelessly, looking at the body of a fair-haired officer that lay entwined with his opponent, a knife buried in his stomach, while his foe looked strange with the powerful dent in his throat.

Stuck halfway down the barricade hung the body of another police officer. Ben’s face tightened as he viewed her.

“Anne” he murmured, looking at her short, brown hair.

Bengal stayed silent, realizing the pain that Ben had to feel at the loss of his people.

At length, though, he began to speak.

“What happened here?” he asked.

Ben snorted. “A fucking mess, that’s what happened.” Ben told him harshly. “I learned that the mother of my witness was in danger, and I tried to have her picked up. No sooner had my officers got inside the door then they found themselves trapped with several cult members firing in. I got here soon after that, and we drove off the three or four fighters they had then. More showed up, and I thought we could get out of here and too the station, but then a car down the street blew up, and then the truck came out of that driveway there and parked across the way, and from it came two dozen of the bastards, while more came from the house bringing the rest of this junk out while the ones from the back of the truck laid down a covering fire.”

“Once the barricade was in place, they seemed content to wait it out; wearing us down or something.”

“Perhaps they wanted you to call for help from the station.” Bengal mused aloud. “And so make their attack there easier.”

Ben’s face darkened. “I heard about that.” He growled. “Any idea how bad it is?”

Bengal shook his head. “I only know that the survivors made their way to the secured area.” He told him.

“What secured area?” Ben asked.

Bengal shook his head. “Classified.” He told him. “But I can say that it wasn’t ready to face a dedicated attack. I sent some squads to beef up the security there.”

Ben looked at him suspiciously. “What facility?” he asked grimly. “Is it something to do with those girls?”

To Bengal’s surprise, he heard other growls around him, and he realized that the surviving officers had gathered behind them to listen.

“I can only say,” he said carefully, realizing that now he was faced with danger from a different quarter, “That it may have something to do with one of them, but that it was actually their idea.”

Ben’s eyes tightened, and his knuckles whitened, but he said nothing.

“Sir,” one of the remaining officers broke in. “We need to get going, and secure the station.”

“With only five of you?” Bengal cried aghast.

“Even if it was only me.” Ben said grimly.

“Well, we’ll go with you, but I think we’ll go by air.” Bengal said firmly, tapping his mike.

“Papa-Mike-One, do you read, over?”

“This is Papa-Mike-One, I read you, over.” The helicopter pilot came back, her cool voice somehow reassuring to him.

“Swing back up for pickup.” Bengal told her. “You can land at the intersection, if possible. Over”

“Roger. We’ll be waiting. Over.”

A moment passed, then three Blackhawks flew over their head and thundered towards the intersection. Fortunately, the blast that had cratered the street had knocked over the stop signs and the power lines, leaving a clear space for them to land.

“Wait a second.” Ben said, turning to one of the houses. “We’ve got civilians to evacu—well, here they come!”

Bengal saw a huge man clutching the shoulders of a frail-looking woman whose pale face and wide eyes made her seem sick.

“Are you all right?” he asked in concern, instantly checking her for sign of injury.

Instead of answering, the woman broke into tears, and buried her face into her husband’s arms.

Bengal looked at Ben, hoping to see some sign as to what was going on.

Ben’s eyes looked grim, but he patted the woman’s shoulders gently.

“There, there, Katie. It’s all right. Sara’s all right, now. I don’t think Sylvie or Taryn will press charges against her.”

Bengal had a glimmer now of what had happened, but he stayed quiet. The woman peered with one watery green eye at them. She sniffled a little, but remained quiet.

“We should get going.” Bengal reminded everyone, noticing that the squad officers and his men had already disappeared.

Her husband swept the woman off her feet and charged towards the waiting helicopter, Ben and Bengal on his heels.

Once inside, Bengal gave a tap on the back of the pilot’s helmet. At that signal the helicopter lifted up from the ground and joined the others as they headed further towards the town, leaving the smoking, cratered street with its dead behind them for now.
Ben looked at Bengal curiously. “Where are we going.”

“To the secured facility.” Bengal told him.