Hero by Joel Rosenberg Read Free Book Online Page A

needed a rook, not a hug. "Your squad's on the left—your fireteam and these five," Galil said, gesturing at five more men. "You're designated Red section. Rest of you with me, you're Green section, arrowhead to my left flank—Moshe and I are the spur. Let's go, quick and quiet. Moving overwatch—twenty-meter interval. We don't have time for run-and-cover."
    They moved quickly, boots crashing through the slimeleaf plants littering the floor of the forest.
    "Autogun one is up," Shimon reported over their private line, his voice drowned out by a crash. "But the second bus just blew, and I don't think these people are running out of ammo." His voice was distant, dreamy. "Any chance you can hurry things up?"
    "On my way." Galil didn't alter his pace. Yes, you hurry. But you don't hurry things so much that you blunder blindly into a rain of bullets.
    Rifle fire beyond the next knoll caused him to stop for a moment. He puffed for the platoon freak.
    "Kelev Twenty to all Kelev One units. Green section hold in place; cover my advance."
    Near the base of a tree, his foot slipped on something and he almost fell headfirst into one of the corpse-white fungi.
    "Shit." Which is what it was. Human shit. It had to be. While terrestrial fauna had long been turned loose successfully on Nueva, it was small stuff. Galil didn't think that was the end product of a rabbit. This didn't make any sense, not at all. The ambusher had to have been hit by an elite assault group, but basic field sanitation was something that elite field soldiers would long have gotten down pat.
    He was trying to figure out the implications of all that when two rifles to his left opened up.
    "Got 'em. Two men in Casa utilities. The fucking Casas—"
    "Shit, David, don't be an asshole—he was shouting in German. They're fucking Freiheimers in Casa uniforms."
    Galil grinned tightly. The rules of the game were very specific about what you could do to pieces caught in a war zone while showing false colors: anything. They'd be captives of war, not civil detainees, prisoners, prisoners of war or criminal detainees—not even capital criminals awaiting execution.
    Captives of war had no rights. None.
    He puffed for Shimon. "Kelev Twenty. We're about two points south of west of you, three hundred meters out. Moving in for—"
    A helo roared overhead. What the fuck?
    Gunfire rained down through the leaves. Pain lanced through his right leg, knocking him to the ground.
    "Go, go, go," he shouted. Sometimes if you shout, you can manage not to scream. "Two prisoners. Do it ." He waved the rest on.
    Half blind in pain, he pulled an injector of valda oil out of his belt pouch. His fingers trembled and shook as he scrabbled uselessly at the release tab, then swore and bit the package open, slid the injector out and jammed it into his leg, just above the knee.
    A warm wave of dull distant pain washed away the agony, and then dissolved itself. He puffed for his private line to the general. "Shimon, we're taking fire from above."
    "How many hit?"
    Galil had just caught the edge of the rain of bullets; Moshe Bar-El had been stitched diagonally across the chest. He sprawled on the ground, almost cut in half, fat, broken, yellow worms of intestine peeking out through the crimson mess of his midsection.
    Two men beyond him lay broken and bloody, and for the life of him Yitzhak Galil couldn't put names to the broken pieces.
    "Three dead; I'm dinged." Keep the pain distant.
    "Do I need to replace you?"
    Galil took a quick inventory. His leg was still bleeding, the blood running down his khakis and into his boot, but it didn't look like much; probably only cut through the muscle. No spurting—venous, rather than arterial blood.
    The piece with the triple bars of a captain on its shoulder was only injured, not out of it.
    Besides, he could monitor and control things from here. No. You had to leave decisions for those who were going to have to live with them. "No, Shimon. I'm passing it along." He