A Private War by Donald R. Franck Page A

stepped back from the window high on the front of the warehouse. Reaching into his coat pocket, Gaylon pulled out a walkie talkie and keyed the mike.
    "Peters, how's it coming? Murdock is psyching up his people for another attack."
    With a rush of static the speaker came back with Peter’s voice. "Gaylon, it's slow going, I would say another twenty minutes."
    "Ok, make it 0130 hours, that's about twenty minutes from now. We have a lot of the food already in the tunnels," Gaylon stated.
    "Roger, and Gaylon, good luck!"
    "You too, buddy, out."
    Reaching the floor of warehouse, Gaylon walked over to Kate and Jill as they treated the wounded.
    "Peters said it would be another twenty minutes before he'll be ready", Gaylon stated," and our friend, Murdock is out there getting his troops ready for another attack."
     

Kate looked up into Gaylon's eyes, understanding filling her heart. 'Twenty minutes, so close!' Smiling Kate reached out her hand and Gaylon took it. Minutes later gunfire and grenades exploded as Murdock's Pirates rushed the warehouse. Gaylon broke the remaining glass out of the window on his second floor perch and fired his M-4 into the street below. Truck mounted M-60 machineguns raced by below, firing at the warehouse with everything they had. Other trucks ran behind them, grenades arching over the sides as men lay in the bed of the trucks with bags of grenades beside them. Tommy and his men returned fire from behind bales and boxes, a lone M-60 adding its song to the roar. Changing magazines, Gaylon fired again, and again, and again. The fire roared as it rushed toward them. Below, Kate shot one magazine empty and punching it out, rammed home another one. Shivers of wood and glass cut her face as a grenade exploded to the right of her. A man nearby screamed and fell, one arm off at the elbow. Kate crawled toward him as he screamed again. Taking a piece a wire and picking up a shiver of wood off the floor, Kate placed a crude tourniquet above the wound and twisted it down. Then pulling back a blood covered right fist, came back with a right cross and put the man out cold. Picking up her M4, Kate went back to her position at the barricade and opened fire. Above her, Gaylon changed magazines again and putting the M-4 on the wood floor, reached in his coat and pulled out first one and then the other of his Kimber CQP II's. Firing the Kimber in his right fist, Gaylon sighted on the M-60 gunners as they raced by. One man fell, the .45 scoring in his right eye and exploded out the back of his head. Another fell with blood pumping out of the side of his throat from a torn jugular. Changing aim, Gaylon sighted on another man lying in the back of a truck, a grenade in his hand, ready to throw. Gaylon fired. The bullet passed through the top of the man's skull and out the base of his neck. The man jerked and the grenade fell free, rolling next to the bag of grenades. The explosion lifted the truck off the ground, pieces of metal and bodies raining around it. Then crashing back to earth it rolled over and over down the center of the street, spilling gas and fire everywhere. Gaylon fired again and again at the screaming mass rushing the warehouse. Killing one and then another. Ducking down to reload, Gaylon looks at his watch, time to go.
    “Kate, everyone fall back, fall back!" He yelled.
    Kate picked up her empty magazines, jammed them in her coat, and grabbing the unconscious man by his good arm, dragged him toward the rear of the warehouse. Thompson's men were jumping over fallen comrades as Gaylon dropped the last six feet to the floor of the warehouse. Diving over a barricade of sand bags, he covered his head with his arms just as a massive explosion blasted every piece of glass and loose material like buckshot across the entrance of the warehouse. A second blast, more massive then the first, shook the ground and Gaylon was lifted off the ground and bounced across the concrete. A ball of flames, twenty feet or more