Chapter Forty-Five

Twenty minutes.

That’s how long the Allied assault force had been pinned down in the lower lobby of Tower Two.

They didn’t have the luxury of time. They had to seize this gigantic building and kill everyone inside it in just one hour. Before the army made its move. Or before the ghost destroyers of Convoy 56 showed up.

The JAWS team had begun the hairy assignment of clearing the building’s northeast stairway of booby traps, but it was going to be time-intensive. The only way the present assault force was going up was by way of the southeast stairway, which they imagined was thick with NKVD defenders by now.

But before they could do anything, they had to get out of the lower lobby.

Suddenly, someone hit the floor on Dozer’s right. The man was wearing all-black camos and had dreadlocks falling out from under his Fritz helmet.

It was Catfish Johnson, CO of the Righteous Brothers, an all-black SF unit. They specialized in highly mobile special-ops artillery, a rarity, and they were damn good. They used the 75-millimeter M-6 field gun exclusively and were providing high-caliber defensive fire against the surviving Chekskis around Tower Two. But now they were needed by those inside.

“How can we help, Bull?” Johnson asked.

The 7CAV’s commanding officer pointed out the enemy machine-gun emplacements holding up everything. Then he indicated a large exterior stained-glass window located to the left of the NKVD positions.

“I’m sure that’s a work of art,” he said of the stained-glass window, “but can you guys put a couple of rounds through it?”

“We can,” Johnson replied. “But you’ve got to know we’re loaded with highly explosive shells. Lighter to carry than that deep-penetrating stuff. So, if we put two in the hole, we’re going to start a fire. Do we want a fire in here?”

Dozer just laughed at him.

“Believe me, Cat,” he said. “If we could have figured out a way to burn this fucking building down, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

Two minutes later, Dozer saw multicolored lights streaming through the stained glass.

He yelled for everyone to hug the floor. Two violent explosions followed in quick succession, raining pieces of tinted glass down on the American fighters below.

When Dozer looked up again, there was nothing left of the machine guns or the gunners—or the stained-glass window or the escalators.

Just as Catfish had promised, though they’d also started a fire in the upper part of the foyer.

“That could be a problem,” someone called out.

But then Dozer calmly reached up and pulled the fire alarm directly over his head, saying, “If this is pressure-fed, this could be our lucky day.”

No sooner were the words said than the sprinklers in the ceiling above them exploded in carousels of water. It quickly turned into a deluge, enough to put out the fire in just a few seconds.

There was some applause, some cheers, but then the indoor rainstorm did not stop. Dozer pulled the fire alarm again, hoping to turn it off, but to no effect. In seconds, the entire assault force in the lobby was soaking wet.

Dozer blinked the water from his eyes and blew his whistle again. Mostly air bubbles came out, but the sound was loud enough to be heard.

Stuck for so long, the Allies charged through the smoky, flooded lobby, heading for the southeast stairway.

The attack was moving again.