Page 78 of Cry Havoc

Tom thought the beating of his heart was loud enough to give them both away.

As Tom and Quinn stepped from the shadows, it was only three quick steps to their adversaries, whose attention remained focused on the safe house.

Quinn led with the larger weapon. Driving the tomahawk down intohis target’s brachial plexus between the neck and shoulder, he severed the nerves and arteries responsible for upper body motor function, forcing the man to his knees.

Tom leapt the moment Quinn’s tomahawk put the enemy to the ground. The SEAL slid his hand over the nose and mouth of the second sentry, pulling him back and off balance and twisting his head to the left, exposing the right side of his head. He inserted the narrow blade into the wind gate at the base of the skull to the right of the spine, driving it up into the brain. He twisted the sharp blade violently, feeling his enemy spasm, then let the body sink to the ground.

He turned to Quinn, who had delivered a coup de grâce to the man’s skull and was pulling the edged weapon from where it had become wedged in bone fragments and brain matter.

“I need to get one of those,” Tom said.

“Everyone needs a tomahawk.”

Tom sheathed his blade and dropped to a knee, taking cover behind the vehicle and picking up the sentry’s SKS rifle. He checked to ensure there was a round in the chamber.

Though the SKS was simple and reliable, Tom would have much preferred to be holding an AK. The wooden-stocked SKS had a ten-round fixed internal magazine top-loaded using stripper clips that made reloading less than ideal. Tom found himself wondering if the limited magazine capacity was the reason for the bayonet that folded under the forestock. He reached down and removed the Chinese Type 56 chest rig from the dead man. It consisted of ten canvas pouches that held two stripper clips each. If it was full, that would give Tom an additional two hundred rounds of 7.62 x 39mm ammunition.

Quinn had sheathed his tomahawk and now had an SKS in hand and a Chinese chest rig over his shirt. He was looking through the car’s windows at the front of the safe house.

How many had gone inside?

From the blown-out window in their apartment, they had seen at least four enter.

Was it better to wait and ambush them from across the street or move inside the building and hit them as they descended the stairs?

As the One-Zero, Quinn made the decision for them, sprinting across the street with Tom just feet behind.

This was going to happen fast.

An RPG had destroyed the entrance, and whatever was left had been pulled away to facilitate entry.

They both knew a small foyer was just behind the doors with a staircase to the left and a hallway straight ahead.

Tom and Quinn both unfolded their rifles’ long bayonets forward and locked them into place on the muzzles of the twenty-inch barrels. They then moved to the sides of the entrance against the doorjambs, which were still relatively intact.

They heard voices on the stairs.

It was almost time.

The two MACV-SOG operators waited until the voices indicated the enemy were close to the bottom before pivoting into place against the sides of the door and bringing the rifles up to firing position.

In the darkness it was next to impossible to find the front sights, so they relied on the semiautomatic rifles being positioned correctly into the pockets of their shoulders as they depressed the triggers, sending round after round into the darkness.

They heard combatants tumbling down the stairs. As their rifles ran dry, they charged into the building leading with their bayonets, thrusting them into the piles of bodies on the floor of the foyer until nothing moved. Breathing heavily, Tom reached into his pocket and flipped open his Zippo, extending his arm over the carnage at their feet. They were surrounded by death.

Quinn dropped his empty rifle and picked up a new one from a dead man. Tom extinguished his Zippo and did the same.

“Now what?” Tom asked.

Their answer came in the form of the sound of an engine.

They moved back to the sides of the door frame, this time on the inside, and looked into the street.

The vehicle drew closer, and both men prepared to engage.

A dark American sedan screeched to a stop in front of the building.

The men held their fire as Nick Serrano opened the driver’s side door.