Free Apocalypse Dawn by Mel Odom Page A

missiles lacked a lot in targeting systems, this one streaked almost into the smoke-and dustcovered heart of Glitter City.
    The preexisting clouds of smoke and dust prevented Goose from seeing the actual impact. But a heartbeat later, a fairly new blue van erupted into the air, turning and whirling like a child’s toy. Flames wreathed the vehicle and then the gas tank blew, ripping open the vehicle’s side.
    The van reached the apex of its arc and had started earthward again, disappearing into the smoke and dust before the sonic boom of the explosion reached Goose’s ears. A moment later, a wave of concussion rattled the RSOV’s windshield.
    Merciful God, Goose prayed. Spare the innocent. Because if You don’t, they’re all going to die here today.
    Bobby Tanaka glanced at Goose. Fear lit the young man’s eyes. He put his foot over the brake and slowed.
    “Get in there, soldier,” Goose said.
    “Gonna be suicide to go in there,” Tanaka said. But he grinned a little as he pressed his foot harder on the accelerator and drove the vehicle over the edge of the bowl. “Ah, well, I always did like a wild ride.” The RSOV juked and shuddered as the tires fought for traction on the hillside. They’d run out of road, roaring out over loose layers of sand and rock.
    Goose sat in the shotgun seat with his left foot braced against the dash. He cradled the M-4A1 with both hands and kept the assault rifle canted up at the ready. Closer to ground zero now, he raked his gaze across the field of destruction the SCUDs had left in their wake.
    Huge craters had opened up from the bomb blasts, turning the desert floor under the shifting sands into a lunar landscape. Stone buildings lay in tumbled wrecks or nearly covered by a deluge of de bris that had slid free of hillsides. Flattened tents and flaming tents littered the area, and none had been spared. The concussions from the SCUDs had ripped the tent pegs from the ground and flung the tents around like used tissues. Cars and trucks and vans sat abandoned, blown over or apart, or wrapped in flames that sent spikes of twisting black smoke up through the dust cover.

    People, dead and dying and badly broken, covered the ground. Other people hunkered in the false safety of the few remaining buildings or behind boulders on the ground and the hillsides. Several people shouted and cursed and cried out for help. Incredibly, some of the reporters were still working, standing in front of cameramen who had managed to hang on to functioning equipment.
    A familiar sickness twisted greasily through Goose’s stomach. He’d been on battlefields, had scenes etched inside his skull that he knew would never leave him. Today was going to add to that library of carnage.
    “Base,” Goose called over the headset.
    Only white noise answered. Remington and his support staff were off-line.
    Goose wasn’t surprised. Any staged attack against the American site would include strikes designed to take out the communications relays. It wouldn’t last, though. Cal Remington was nothing if not a man who planned for every eventuality. Backup systems were in place; they would be on soon. Goose believed that. Until then, though, they had their orders.
    “Stop here,” Goose ordered.
    Tanaka ground the big vehicle to a halt.
    A single road running north and south bisected Glitter City. Everyone who arrived there was on their way somewhere else.
    “Off,” Goose yelled. Raising his voice was almost unfamiliar after being accustomed to the headsets. He unbuckled and jumped to the road.
    Flames crackled around the broken and battered husk of a van that had been gutted and made over into a small restaurant on wheels. A Turkish man had operated the van, parking somewhere within the vicinity of Glitter City every morning and selling the borek and doner kebab lamb rolls his wife made every night. The borek-thin rolls of pastry filled with cheese, minced meat, or spinach and potatoes-was one of Goose’s favorites and