Читать книгу Final Resort - Don Pendleton - Страница 8

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

The first explosion stunned Lance Corporal Kenneth Pyle. Patrol duty at Gitmo was strictly routine, no surprises encouraged, since Camp X-Ray had been established to contain leading terrorists, insurgents, or whatever the hell they were labeled this week.

The enemy, Pyle thought, and let it go at that.

So, no surprises in the guise of training measures for Marines who drew guard duty at the camp, in case somebody had an itchy trigger finger and he greased a drill instructor.

But what in hell was this about?

The first blast sounded like a half-pound charge of C-4 or the equivalent. It echoed from the east side of the camp, meaning that Pyle could not investigate despite his shock and sudden, urgent curiosity. The first rule of guard duty in the Corps was to stay alert and man the post assigned, no matter what distractions surfaced in the course of any given shift. Pyle couldn’t leave his beat along the camp’s northern perimeter unless directly ordered by the Sergeant of the Guard or someone who outranked him.

Pyle was thinking accident when two more high-explosive detonations rocked the base, one on the southern side, and one—unless Pyle missed his guess—not far from the command post.

And it wasn’t any goddamned accident.

He knew that, now.

Pyle jacked a round into the chamber of his M-16 and watched the wire, remembering the orders that had been drilled into him from day one of his posting to Guantanamo. The base and all that it contained was U.S. property, an island in a hostile sea of red, surrounded by the enemy.

That rule had been in place since 1959, around the time Pyle’s father was born, and there had never been an assault on the base.

Until now.

Three blasts, plastic explosives, and if Pyle had any lasting doubts, the sounds of automatic weapons fire confirmed what he already knew: this wasn’t any exercise designed to test the camp’s security procedures.

This was happening. The shit was coming down, and—

Pyle saw movement, fifty yards or so beyond the razor-wire perimeter he’d been assigned to guard. Raising his M-16, he sighted on the spot and saw a man rise from the undergrowth out there, with something balanced on his shoulder.

By the time Pyle recognized the object as a rocket launcher, triggering a short reflexive burst of 5.56 mm rounds in vain, the nose-heavy projectile was already hurtling toward him. All that he could do was hit the deck.

And pray.