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tracks, and the others scrambled to the sides of the road and fell
facedown in the small ditches that ran there.
Hundreds of nine-millimeter bullets ripped into the sandbags around
Carlos's emplacement, but he kept his head down and continued to fire
until the barrel of the fifty-caliber was so hot it was smoking.
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Carlos shifted the barrel to the tank and peppered it with fire, but the
bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the armor plate of the tank.
The turret slowly swiveled until Carlos was looking down the black hole
of the long barrel of the tank's cannon.
He paused in his firing long enough to cross himself and whisper a
prayer to the Virgin Mary. Then he squatted and pulled again on the
trigger, sending a steady stream of bullets into the tank.
He saw a puff of smoke and flame shoot out of the tank's barrel, and had
time only to blink before the shell hit his outpost, exploding on impact
and blowing sandbags, machine gun, and Carlos into a million pieces.
The other outposts opened fire, and men around the tanks and half-tracks
burrowed even deeper into the caliche and sand around the Pan American
Highway, waiting for the tanks and half-tracks to soften the village up
for them.
Henry Gomez jerked on the tube of the TOW rocket in his hands, extending
and arming the handheld antitank rocket. It was one of the few modern
weapons that had been sent to Cardenas, and he intended to make it count
in the battle raging around him. TOW stood for Target On Wire, and the
shell, when fired, was guided by a fine wire attached to the launcher.
All the man firing it had to do was keep the sights on the target and it
would hit it up to fifteen hundred yards.
Henry leaned over the parapet of the roof he was on in time to see the
tank blow Carlos into dust. His lips pressed into a fine line-Carlos was
from the same village as Henry and they'd played together as children
before joining the Army together to see the country.
He put the TOW rocket launcher to his shoulder and sighted on the tank.
Taking a deep breath and holding it, he depressed the trigger.
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A giant whoosh and the rocket was on its way, the wire attached to it
visible as a gleaming line in the sun.
When a bullet tore into Henry's left side, just above his
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waist, he jerked to the side, sending the rocket off course momentarily.
With almost superhuman effort, he straightened back up and resighted the
tank. The rocket curved back and struck the tank just below the turret.
For a second, nothing happened, and Henry thought perhaps the rocket was
a dud. Then the tank exploded in a giant fireball, sending a plume of
black smoke and flames two hundred yards into the air. Seconds later,
the fifty-caliber machine-gun bullets and several of the tank shells
inside exploded. It was like the finest fireworks Henry had ever seen.
Dozens of the soldiers walking behind the tank were mowed down like a
harvester going through a wheat field.
Just as Henry's lips curled in a smile and he whispered, "Gotcha," an
M-16 bullet entered his forehead, exploding his brain into mush and
killing him instantly.
Juanito, observing this from the upper room of a nearby building, made a
fist and said, "Way to go, Henry."
The burning tank was blocking the roadway, and had halted the rebels'
advance for a short time.
Carlos stuck his M-l out the window and began to fire down upon the
troops pinned down at the road's edge. He managed to kill two and wound
another three before he heard a strange whoop-whoop sound in the hot,
dry air.
He glanced up in time to see a machine out of hell. It was a coal-black
HueyCobra helicopter coming down at the town out of the sun. Juanito
recognized it from the classes he'd taken in Officers' Candidate School.
For some reason, the fact that it carried eight TOW antitank missiles
and two rockets, and sported a 20mm cannon, popped unbidden into his mind.
He jerked his M-l up at a forty-five-degree angle and began firing at
the Cobra as fast as he could pull the trigger. He had little hope of
doing any damage. It was like trying to hit a hawk flying overhead with
a .22 rifle.
He must have done something, however, for the gunship
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changed course slightly, pointed its ugly-looking snout at him, and dived.
He could see the three barrels of the 20mm cannon belching fire and
flame as the helicopter roared at him out of the sky at ninety miles an
hour.
The windowsill and the walls on either side of Juanito dissolved in a
maelstrom of debris and splinters as three hundred 20mm slugs tore
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across the building. Juanito was thrown backward against a far wall, a
row of red flowers blooming on his chest where the slugs had stitched a
line across his body.
He groaned, blood bubbling from his lips. His last thought was to wonder
if the general had finished his breakfast yet.
Lieutenant Colonel Pedro Vega had his driver pull closer to the
outskirts of Cardenas. He'd learned from the previous commander of Perro
Loco's troops, who'd been killed in his staff command car by a land mine
while riding point, not to stray too close to the front until most of
the action was over with. Vega kept his HumVee well to the back of the
forward line of his troops.
The action had slowed to an occasional pop as another sniper or hidden
defender of Cardenas was found and dispatched by Vega's men. All of the
sandbagged outposts and gun emplacements had been destroyed. In fact,
most of the inhabitants of Cardenas had been killed along with the
soldiers defending the town. The streets were littered with bodies of
women, children, old folks, and even cats and dogs. No one had been
spared by the invading army.
Vega stepped out of his HumVee and stood next to the scorched sandbags
and melted, destroyed fifty-caliber machine gun, still red with Carlos's
coagulated blood on it.
Vega walked over and leaned his arm on the bent and twisted metal.
"Miguel," he said to his driver. "I am ready."
Miguel Hernandez took the colonel's digital camera from a
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bag hanging by a strap around his neck and quickly snapped off a couple
of shots.
"Be sure to get the bodies on the street in the background," Vega
ordered, adjusting his stance a bit.
Miguel shifted to the side, sighted through the viewfinder, and snapped
two more times.
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