“Pickman… trying to… building…”
“Captain, where are you?”
“After the… in the administra—”
Dixon said, “The administrative building. We actually might be able to use the map room there to monitor the tin men’s movements.”
“First we have to get there. Which means crossing the parade ground or circumventing it without getting gunned down.”
“We have to try. And we can’t stay here. It’s only a matter of time before they find us.”
Brodie picked up his machine gun and led Dixon out of the mess hall and down the dusty road. The storm clouds had dissipated somewhat, and the wind was a little less fierce. The sunlight bled through the haze and cast everything around them in shades of burnt orange.
They moved west toward the parade grounds as quickly as they could, knowing that at any moment a D-17 could pick up their heat signature, and that would be the end of them.
They had almost made it to the perimeter of the parade ground when a massive explosion went off somewhere to the west, large and powerful enough to shake the ground.
They froze. Dixon looked at him. “The armory?”
“No,” said Brodie.
They peeked around the corner of a building toward the flat expanse of the parade ground. Across from it, where the administrative building had been, was a massive pile of burning rubble.
Dixon turned to him, and the light of the flames danced over her features. “Oh God… How many people were in there with him?”
Brodie thought again of the late Sergeant First Class Miller, as if the man were guiding him from beyond the grave.
The tin men don’t know the meaning of a life you have to protect, not take.
Why risk clearing buildings when you can blow them up instead? Why fight for land you can just burn? Like the Nazis at Stalingrad or Warsaw—annihilation was not the tactic, it was the goal.
He said to Dixon, “They’re not interested in fighting a battle. Not this time. They are going to raze this place to the ground and pick off the survivors in the rubble.”
Dixon closed her eyes and tried to maintain her composure. “There’s a logic to that.”
Brodie looked at the burning building and thought of Captain Pickman. He hadn’t liked the guy, but he certainly didn’t deserve that. Brodie suspected that Pickman was there because he had the same thought as Dixon that the map room would net valuable Intel. Brodie had a sense that in his final moments, Captain Pickman had done his duty.
Dixon looked at Brodie and put her hand on his arm. “Forget thinking like them. We’re not capable. Let’s be whoweare. Our goal is to preserve life. And the most likely place that people will shelter and try to make a stand is the barracks. And they might not understand the kind of ordnance these bastards have gotten hold of, and what they plan to do. We need to go there.”
Brodie met her eyes. And in the firelight, he had the wholly inappropriate and ill-timed thought that she was beautiful. Maybe it was the adrenaline.
Well, shewasbeautiful. And brilliant. And behind all her fronting was a powerful goodness. And maybe now, in what were likely their last moments of life, that was worth honoring and fighting for.
He said to her, “Command wouldn’t put themselves all in one place. Colonel Howe was not in that building.”
Dixon’s mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything. She must have wondered how he knew, but in that moment, she seemed grateful that he did. She said, “I hope you’re right.”
“I know I am. Let’s get to the barracks before it’s too late.”
CHAPTER 52
BRODIE AND DIXON MADE THEIRway north, skirting the edge of the parade grounds and trying to maintain cover behind the surrounding buildings. The storm was slowly passing. The sand still hung thick in the air, and the sun burned dim and orange like a dying star. The heart of the storm had rolled north, where lightning flashed across the sky, followed by thunderclaps.
Somewhere to the west they heard a distant gun battle. It did not last long. Another popped up on the opposite side of the camp and ended just as quickly.
The tin men were tightening the net, and it was a matter of when, not if, they themselves would be snared by it. He wondered about Taylor. Why had she run off like that? He hoped against all odds that she was okay.
The M240 was a pain in the ass to carry. He eyed the bullet belt, which he guessed was originally a hundred rounds, and had a little more than half left. There was no semi-auto setting on this thing, so he’d have to be disciplined and try to hit what he was shooting at the first time. How many armor-piercing bullets from a hip-fired M240 machine gun does it take to kill a tin man? The answer was, too many.
