The pilot went visual as he could not put on his radar; otherwise he would run the risk of setting off every AA gun and missile battery that was strung along Baikal’s lakeshore, camouflaged in the forests.
He barely managed to get a fix on the three distant helos; they looked like dots of pepper against the white pallet of the western sky. He was watching the gas needle — soon they’d have to be refueled, the nearest POL depot at Port Baikal. Damn the SPETS — they should have gone on to Ulan-Ude. He banked the gunship in the direction of the dots, doubting he’d catch them unless they suddenly jinxed due west and he could take the hypotenuse vector between them. If it was a Hind and two Havocs on patrol out of Port Baikal or Irkutsk further west, it would make him and the SPETS look real
By now the lead Cobra was looking for muskeg, hoping for an open patch in the forest, no more than a mile or two from the shore, using Tankhoy as a general heading but keeping well away from any sign of habitation. It was the copilot who spotted a promising site, and within seconds the Cobra began a “sway,” signalling the Super Stallion and the other Cobra that he’d found a landing. The air was so clear now he could see a thin wisp of smoke from what had to be Port Baikal across the lake, the smoke rising to the right of creamy white cliffs of the Trans-Siberian Railway’s spur line from Kultuk at the southern end of the lake to Port Baikal. He told his copilot he didn’t know which was best for the commandos: clear weather, which would make it much easier and therefore quicker for them to reach their target, or snowy conditions, which, while slowing them down, would have provided them with more cover.
“They got clear weather, man,” said the copilot/weapons officer. “You can see for miles. They ain’t got no choice.”
“True.”
The Snowcat “Arrow,” technical designation UH-19P, was based on another American air-cushion vehicle speed record-holder, the UH-15. Like the UH-15 hovercraft, the Snowcat was triangular or, as seen from above, arrowhead-shaped, a mid-placed cockpit seating three, the military version placing the driver slightly higher and behind the other two.
Nineteen feet long and seven and a half feet wide, the triangular Snowcat, with an eight-inch clearance, was powered by an 1100cc Toyota car engine, its speed the same as the old record-setting UH-15: eighty miles per hour over water, ninety miles per hour over ice or snow, with a maximum gradient tolerance of thirty to forty degrees, depending on the condition of snow or ice pack. Its payload was a thousand pounds, which could easily handle three commandos and their equipment. In the lead Arrow this included a heavy, swivel-mounted, forty-millimeter M-19 machine gun in front of the cockpit as well as the gun’s box-contained belt feed ammunition — the gun’s forty-inch barrel having a theoretical 180-degree traverse. In practice, as Aussie had discovered on a dry-run assembly, the safest maximum arc of fire was 90 degrees, consisting of a 45-degree swing left or right. The noise that bothered him was, ironically, not the main thrust engine but the air cushion’s lift system, powered by an 1800-horsepower, 1600cc Briggs and Stratton vertical-shaft lawnmower engine, which drove an axial fan, the latter’s six-foot-diameter blade mounted at the back, or widest part of the arrowhead.
Delivery of the three-man crafts, ordered much earlier in the campaign by Freeman, had been delayed not because of any mechanical malfunction but because of the general’s insistence that the usual black skirting for the air cushion be painted white. The delay in delivery meant that the eight “designated drivers,” as David Brentwood had called them, had had only an hour or so to practice the previous evening. Now, with one Stallion, gone, he had only four drivers. But the controls were simple, even if Aussie complained of their “bloody Sunday” lawnmower noise and the rough ride, which frankly had surprised all of them except Robert Brentwood who, as part of his naval training in combined ops amphibious training, was already familiar with the gut-shuddering motion of ACVs, in particular the monstrous, barge-sized marine hovercrafts.
As the four craft from the remaining Stallion slid effortlessly down the rollers of the Stallion’s ramp door, guided by the six-man S/D and four-man sub crew team, the crews of the three choppers, zipping up their thick thermal jackets, were already busy spreading out the camouflage nets over the lone Stallion and two Cobras.
“Did you know the men on the Stallion well?” Robert Brentwood asked his younger brother, in an effort to share his loss of the four submariners.
“No.” It was said almost rudely, but David, as commander of the land part of the mission, was too preoccupied with its details for any sentiment to intrude. Besides, there was a nagging, albeit childish, determination on his part not to show any weakness to his older brother. As if reading his mind, Robert immediately deferred to his younger brother’s authority on the timing of the mission now that there had been the complication of the Havoc attack. “Wait till nightfall? “
“No,” answered David, adjusting his ammo pouch pack. “We go now.”
“You worried about that Havoc?”
“Yes. Maybe they’ll send out a search party. Better we push off soon as the birds are covered.”
Aussie looked around at the mention of “birds,” obviously thinking of making a crack, but he didn’t. There was too much to do helping Choir who, with David and Aussie, would man the lead Arrow; the sub crew of four and the other three Delta men would spread out in the other three Arrows. Some weapons, including a Stinger, a LAW antitank tube, and Aussie’s long sniper rifle, had to be strapped to the fuselage before they left. Choir was checking the front of the Arrow, making sure the protective plastic barrel cap was tight enough to withstand the rapid vibration of the air cushion.
Robert Brentwood called the other three submariners over. He would be driving one of the Arrows, Rogers another. “Remember, we’ll go in single file — S/D One leading, S/D Two covering our rear. Literally.” A couple of men smiled.”They’re the ones with experience in this kind of operation. Rogers—”
“Sir?”
“You’ll be right behind their lead Arrow. I’ll be behind you. Remember, single line formation for as long as we can — hopefully the whole way. But if anything goes wrong and we’re fired on from the flanks, then we move to abreast position.”
“Whose breast?” interjected Aussie nearby. The submariners ignored him. Robert reassured them. “Your part’ll start on the sub.” They all knew he meant
“What are they going to do after?” asked Rogers. He meant what would happen to the S/D team.
“They’ll come back to the choppers, wait till darkness or a snowstorm, whichever comes first, and take off with the Cobras and the Stallion. Look, don’t worry. Once we get a sub we’ll be the safest of all.” Only Rogers understood immediately, the point being that, once they were below, the sub would be the same as any other of the three or four GSTs they figured were operating in the lake.
“It’ll be a lookalike masked ball,” Robert Brentwood joked. “All look the same; nobody’ll be able to see us anyway. All done by sound, remember, fellas.”
“Quiet!” It was Aussie Lewis, and through the ear-ringing silence of the forest they could hear the distant chopping sound of helicopters. “Sure as hell’s not ours,” pronounced one of the Cobra pilots.
“Get those Arrows out of the open!” ordered Aussie.
With everyone but Aussie Lewis lending a hand, the four Arrows were pushed back up the rollers into the Stallion beneath the camouflage net.
Aussie broke off into the cover of the forest, whipping off the canvas cover from the Haskins rifle, and, without flipping open the bipod, rested the ice-cold, twenty-three-pound weapon against a fir, turning the scope’s “bullet” impact screw. Withdrawing the bolt — this being necessary before loading each 1.5-ounce bullet, whose combination incendiary/HE/high temperature, super-hardened penetrator head was capable of smashing through a plane engine or passing through an APC — he waited. Either way, Lewis figured if the Siberians spotted something and hovered over them even for a second, he’d cost them a pilot, gunner, or the “whole mother,” as the three Delta men called an enemy chopper. The noise was louder now; the rotor slap, while not overhead, was coming much closer. He glimpsed Rogers, the submariner, only about ten feet from him, under one of the Cobra’s nets, eyes closed. Another prayer. Aussie preferred to trust in his Kevlar bullet-proof vest. He saw movement — Choir Williams
