Memorial Day by Vince Flynn Page B

climate, and terrain that could be thrown at them. They excelled at direct-action missions-seizing airfields or capturing key facilities or towns. Using mobile firepower, agility, and speed, they were trained to overwhelm numerically superior forces in short order, and that was exactly what General Harley planned on using them for.

Eleven
    Corrigan walked to the front of the house and poked his head past the splintered and mangled doorframe just in time to hear a bullet whistle past and slap into the side of the mud-brick house. The bearded Corrigan didn't even flinch. He turned in the direction the shot had come from and shouldered his rifle, but before he had the chance to fire, one of his men on the roof took care of the problem for him.
    The amount of incoming fire was building steadily. So far none of his men had been hit, but if this kept up it was only a matter of time. He'd put four more shooters on the roof to bolster the two snipers and two light machine guns that were already in place, and all eight of them were busy. It was quickly becoming a target-rich environment, and inside one hundred yards, Delta shooters didn't miss very often, even when the targets were moving.
    The potshots weren't what had Corrigan worried. Brave men with machine guns assaulting a team of entrenched Delta Force shooters was little more than suicide, but these were battle-hardened soldiers who'd been in a state of perpetual war for two decades. It wouldn't take long for them to get organized and come up with a better strategy-a strategy that would probably involve bigger guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
    The call came over the unit's internal radio link. "Cor, it's Lou...I think you'd better come back here and take a look at something."
    Corrigan poked his head around the door frame and looked down the street through his AN/PVS-17 night sight. Two blocks away a tango came around the corner and took up position to fire an RPG. "Hold on a second, Lou."
    Corrigan moved reflexively. The PEQ-2 laser designator mounted at the front of his weapon painted the man's chest with a bright red dot and Corrigan squeezed the trigger. The tango crumpled to the ground. Almost immediately, another man scrambled from the cover of the building and reached down to pick up the RPG. Corrigan painted the man's head, dropped him with a single shot, and then ducked back into the house.
    "What's up, Lou?"
    "I think I found something back here."
    Corrigan edged his way up to one of the broken windows and took a quick look outside. He saw two men dart across the street about eighty yards away. One of them made it and the other didn't.
    "Can it wait?" he asked, as he surveyed the situation.
    Before the man could answer, the thunderous reports of a heavy-caliber machine gun boomed above the din of the steadily building rifle fire. A fist-sized hole was punched in the wall a few feet from Corrigan. The master sergeant hit the floor instantly as chunks of the dry mud brick rained down on him. He crawled back to the front door swearing under his breath.
    Thumbing the switch on his radio for the command net, he said in an angry growl, "Condor Five, this is Rattle Snake, where is my air cover?"
    "Air cover is on its way in, Rattle Snake. Sit tight."
    The voice was calm and professional and it irritated Corrigan to no end. It was easy to stay cool when you were safely above the fray circling at five thousand feet. Come down here on the street and get your ass shot at and see if your voice takes on a more urgent tone.
    "I've got a heavy-caliber machine gun firing on my position from the east!"
    "I see it, Rattle Snake. Raptor One is inbound."
    Before Corrigan could ask for an ETA he heard the telltale "whoosh" of aerial rockets passing overhead. A split second later there was a series of thunderous explosions.
     
    CAPTAIN MILTGuerrero stood at the edge of his hastily established forward command post and looked out across the field through a pair of night vision