Diamondhead Read Online Free PDF Page B

side. Even from this side of the river Mack Bedford could see the jutting Roman nose.
     
    The Arabs clustered around the new arrival, shaking his hand and smiling. He walked to the first tripod and spoke briefly. He examined a long tube that had been in the back of one of the trucks. Then he returned to the tripod and stared through the sights. For five more minutes he spoke to the men, all of whom were wearing Arab dress. Then he placed his arm around the shoulders of one of them and steered him to the limousine, which immediately accelerated away.
     
    Mack walked back north, along the line of his tanks, instructing them to move on up toward the fires and to prepare to shell the wall that shielded the missile launchers. All four began to rumble forward, and the commander jumped into his own vehicle for the short ride.
     
    As they came to a halt Mack climbed down from the right-hand side of the vehicle. As he did so there was a roar from the lead driver, whose head was above the hatch.
     
    “INCOMING! . . . HIT THE. . . . ” But it was too late. The missile from the other side of the Euphrates lanced across the water, belching flame, and slammed straight through the starboard-side fuselage of the lead tank, the one that contained Billy-Ray Jackson and Charlie O’Brien.
     
    Mack Bedford watched aghast as the entire thing burst into a bright-blue chemical flame, the inferno in the interior now blasting through the hatch like a blowtorch gone berserk. A blowtorch from hell. Someone was trying to get out, but his entire head was on fire. He never even had time to scream before he died. It looked like Billy-Ray.
     
    The roar of the fire drowned out the next missile that streaked across the river, leaving a fiery tail, and smashed into Mack’s second tank, the one that contained Chief Frank Brooks and the master gunner, Saul Meiers. No one had a prayer. Once more the missile ripped through the steel of the tank and detonated into a sensational fireball, incinerating everything in its path.
     
    Lieutenant Commander Bedford just stood there, as did Lieutenant Mason, both of them in shock at the sudden and terrifying impact of the hit from the insurgents. Again they watched as someone, this time the tank commander, battled to get out, but it was a grotesque charade. Everyone in the tank was plainly on fire, burning alive, caught in the roaring chemical flame that extinguished life instantly. The SEALs, on their rescue mission, were gossamer moths trapped in the devil’s inferno.
     
    Men were leaping from the other two tanks, anything to get clear before the next Diamondheads came in. Mack Bedford stood there, staring, in some kind of a dreamlike trance. He could not quite work out who was dead and who was alive. Was this hell, and had he died with his men?
     
    The roar of the flames drowned out everything. The billowing smoke was rising a hundred feet in the air. No one could even see the far bank of the river. SEAL team leaders were hustling everyone into positions beyond the shattered convoy. Someone rushed up to Mack shouting, “THIS WAY, SIR—WE GOTTA REGROUP—WE GOTTA GET CLEAR OF THIS FIRE!”
     
    Mack joined the rest, running over the rough ground, keeping the burning convoy between his men and the death-trap missile launchers across the river. Like everyone, he was scared to climb back into the tanks to open fire on the enemy. It seemed nothing could stop the Diamondhead on its chosen course, and its deadly mission.
     
    He assumed a loose command, instructing that no one move until he was certain the insurgents had made an escape. SEALs had already phoned for help from every available quarter. Within fifteen minutes, rescue helicopters would arrive, but there was no one to rescue. It was impossible to live within the periphery of the Diamondhead missile. They waited in silence as the flames crackled beneath the desert sun. And then slowly they rose up from the sands and began to walk toward the pile of