Lawson’s throat had been cut, his snow-veiled stare silent testimony to the utter surprise and horror with which it had happened, so much blood around the Arrow that it looked like a spill of pink algae, the snowfall diluting the dark red.
His jaw tight with anger, senses bristling, Choir saw the footsteps of the Siberian patrol. There had been three — possibly four — no doubt coming round in a circle from the choppers after hearing the Arrow making its way through the woods. The Arrow’s gas tank was punctured in three or four places, the gas gone.
Choir switched the safety off his HK-11 then began the “lope” run, the kind that, because of the high adrenaline energy it consumed — eyes, ears, trigger finger on the edge — could exhaust even the fittest commando in half an hour in the heavy snow. He heard a dog, its panting downwind of him. As it turned, one man in the group of four turned with it, but by then Choir had fired three long, rattling bursts, downing the dog and the two SPETS nearest it, the other two quickly dashing behind tall firs.
Choir, still running, suddenly tripped on hidden roots, his vest taking the brunt of the fall, bullets whistling above where a moment before he’d stood. Now rolling over, he performed the minimum requirement of the SAS, its calling card: changing the magazine in midroll, returning fire within three seconds, not hitting either of the SPETS but keeping them behind the trees, as he also took cover behind an ice-cream-domed stump.
One SPETS was firing, only the barrel of his AK-47 visible. Choir could hear the other moving twenty feet to his right, going down on his knees. Choir was lifting his weapon when, as if in slow motion, he glimpsed the other man’s face and the white toque he was wearing becoming one, suddenly blurring, the man’s face and scalp separating from him like torn paper as David Brentwood’s Heckler and Koch nine-millimeter Parabellum punched into him from behind, bark flying everywhere. There was another shot. This, in its singularity, was much louder, more of a “thwack” than the outraged chatter of David Brentwood’s machine gun. Aussie’s Haskins, firmly braced by the best Siberian pine, spoke only once, its HE/incendiary literally blowing the remaining SPETS’ head off, Salvini covering the rear.
No one spoke for several minutes, all frozen in attitude, braced for the counterattack — if there was to be one — making sure that absolutely nothing else was moving. Softly Aussie told Salvini, “Told you I heard a fucking mutt!”
They took Lawson’s dog tags but had no time to bury him. It was hardest on Choir, but it was necessary and, with only one backward glance, he moved off with the other three, telling them briefly about the choppers and the vanished crew who were no doubt dead inside them. It was up to David whether to go on and destroy the choppers but there would be the mines to negotiate — too time-consuming in itself and besides, any noise would only attract further enemy patrols. Plus the SPETS patrol could have already reported the position of the chopper to an HQ.
“We hike,” he said simply to Choir, Aussie, and Salvini. “East-nor’east.”
“Just what I felt like,” said Aussie somberly. “Bloody four-hundred-mile walk.”
They never doubted they’d make it. If an SAS/Delta man couldn’t make fifty miles a day, he was loafing. It would be eight days to the forward units of Second Army who, given the GST the team had taken out in the tunnel and the explosions from the lake, must be mightily relieved at having at least the cruise salvos already cut by more than half. Besides, the four men had their weapons, two MRE’s apiece, and after what they’d been through during winter — survival course at Brecon Beacons for the SAS, the High Sierras for Salvini — they had no fears except how cold it might become, already minus forty as it was growing dark.
But here, too, they had two outstanding allies: their physical condition — the ability to go beyond fifty miles a day with their much-lightened packs — and, just as important, the small Nu-wick 120-hour candle in their kit. Weighing fourteen ounces, looking like a can of tuna, the light/heat candle came with six small and, according to Aussie, obscene-looking movable candles: one candle for light, two for cooking and, as two troopers slept under their Norway flap tents, two on guard, three candles for heat.
The deaths of Lawson and the others on the mission weighed heavily on David during the next seventy-two hours, more so as there was no opportunity to talk — each man refraining from speaking unless it was absolutely necessary. They were conserving energy, all communication done by hand signal, tire four of them moving in a diamond firefight pattern, just far enough from one another to have arcs of interlocking fire should it be required. David had to force himself, especially when he was on the point, to stop thinking about the choppers they’d had to abandon; it irked him that even some of their equipment would fall into enemy hands.
As they got closer to the north end of the lake, his mood began to improve, however, with the expectation of meeting up with Freeman’s advance forces. The mood was shattered when they heard, though they couldn’t see, another salvo of four cruise missiles passing overhead toward Second Army. David’s anxiety increased, too, for his brother’s safety; but then on their satellite bounce shortwave radio they picked up a static-riven BBC overseas service broadcast announcing “reduced enemy cruise activity” and a substantial victory for Second Army east of Yerofey Pavlovich, which meant Freeman was on the march. Though it was a cause for celebration, they still couldn’t make any noise, and indeed the news only alerted them to another danger, namely that in their SPETS uniform any advance American patrols probing southwestward to Baikal would shoot first and ask questions later. They ripped off the SPETS shoulder insignia, but even so the Siberian white coveralls had a baggy form with a distinctive belt, unlike the Americans’ white overlays.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Robert finally had to sleep. But it wasn’t for long, and waking from his turn on the “plank,” one of the GST’s fold-down bunks, he felt sick from the suffocating smell of diesel. He was in a hellish red light, Johnson informing him triumphantly that he’d found the “rigged for red” switch while he, Brentwood, was asleep. In the event that they might have to go topside, through thin ice into the pitch-black Arctic night, the ruby glow would be easier on their eyes, allowing them to adjust to the darkness. “Do we still have them—” Brentwood almost passed out with the pain, a persistent hammer blow radiating from his shoulder through his neck and head muscles down into his lower back and buttocks. “Do we still have them in the northern quadrant? “
“Yes, sir,” answered Johnson. “One of ‘em moved a few hundred yards or so but not far. They’ve come up close to the surface — just fired off another salvo. Means they’re still pretty close to the ice hole — only about a hundred feet below. Guess they’re going to pop off another few. I figure they must be near some upwelling — thin crust — so why move? Probably don’t even have to use any ‘charge-pick’ through the thinner ice now they’ve fired.”
Robert Brentwood didn’t respond, for as he sat up he felt his head was literally going to fall off, consciousness having torn him brutally from a dream. He’d been with Rosemary and his little boy — would it be a boy or would it be a girl? — in a sylvan glade in Oxshott, the embracing, cool calm of a huge oak tree above them as they’d picnicked — chicken — with one of those wicker baskets so beloved by the English with everything in its right place, and his child smiling at him, eyes wide with wonder, and then David and Lana were there with her pilot boyfriend, the one she wanted to have as a fiance if La Roche ever condescended to agree to a divorce, and the pilot’s head, which had somehow become Robert, was bandaged, sore, eyes covered as Lana had described in a letter.
“We’re going to fire our missiles,” he told Johnson and Lopez, easing himself off the bunk. “Convince ‘em we’re still one of them.” He paused then pointed at the ONC E-8 chart, the position of the two subs, from which they hadn’t moved, marked with red crosses. “They’ll think we’re hitting Second Army.” He tried to smile at his own brilliance, but even the effort emitted a fiery pain deep inside his skull.
“All
“Way to go, Skipper!” echoed Lopez.
“You okay?” Brentwood asked, squinting in the redded-out light. “You look like hell.”
“A bit whacked, sir.”
“After we shoot off the missiles, you hit that bunk.”
“Sir, I’ll be all-”
