All of the prisoners were now packed into a corner of the little concrete house while Barry and Krakauer where shooting outside from the door with their AKs.
“How many Americans in all?” asked Messner.
“Five Americans!”
So that was it, they had them all.
Perfect – thought Messner.
Krakauer, who at that point in time was shooting through the door, nodded he’d heard too.
Now they only had to put a stop to that damn firefight.
Messner grasped a smoke grenade from his equipment pack but some bullets passed right over his head and started cracking in their room.
“Shit!” he screamed while the rest of them dropped to the floor.
Some bastard had reached a position close enough to h was able to fire straight into the room.
That was not good, not good at all.
The hostages were at risk.
“Go downstairs!” Messner screamed.
The prisoners started crawling toward the stairs.
Then, as his hands shook with fear, Messner got ready to throw the smoke grenade outside, thus exposing himself to the fire briefly. That was the reason his hands shook.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, DOC! Screamed Krakauer.
Messner looked at the smoke grenade in his hands. He was holding the red one which stood for retreat.
Holy shit.
If Krakauer hadn’t stopped him in time, and he’d really have thrown it. well.
Messner let it drop to the ground with its safety pin still in it and then pulled out the right one.
With shaky fingers, he put his index inside the safety ring and threw the grenade outside the door as far as he could.
Ortega and the others would have seen it for sure.
“DONE!” he yelled.
It was then that all hell turned loose.
Thousands of holes were blown everywhere and that included on the walls, through the windows and on the roof. Fragments of wood and concrete started flying everywhere.
Yet Krakauer continued to shoot through the open door.
“DID YOU SEE THEM?” Berry screamed.
“YES'” yelled Krakauer back and then bellowed:
“They are all on the opposite building. INCOOOOOMING!”
More wood splinters soared overhead.
Enemy fire was intensifying tenfold.
“Downstairs! Retreat downstairs!” yelled Messner.
“I can’t” shouted Krakauer
“SHIT!”
Messner tried to crawl away, but the floor in front of him was penetrated explosions.
Johnny should have been here by now – he thought.
The eight of us attacking fifty of them, and we have been idiots.
This was insane.
-
Fire.
The flames went up toward the sky shooting blisters of concrete, metal and wood everywhere.
Some of the flying rubble was on fire and the heat managed to hit Krakauer square in the face too.
Lawrence saw the scene almost in slow motion, like a state of hypnosis but then suddenly came back to reality.
It had to be Jorgenson with an M72 from the mountaintop. They had seen the smoke signalling 'hostage taken' and had started destroying the base.
If Jorghenson and Ortega had found the time to shoot down the mountain instead of at their own enemies however, it probably meant that the fight above the mountain was practically over by then.
All this thinking was affecting his ability to focus though.
So, he lowered his head over the sights of his AK again, and went back to looking for targets but didn’t find any.
There wasn’t anything moving in front of him anymore.
That explosion had made the entire base silent.
Krakauer lowered his rifle.
They had won.