much more easily and could ford swollen streams with their flotation skirting, and the sixty-ton M-1s were often stuck and found it difficult if not impossible to negotiate on the flood plain, at least here at Nizhneangarsk the game was over for the PT-76s.
Or so it seemed.
For some inexplicable reason — perhaps because the driver of the PT-76 was concussed by the enfilade of 155mm and heavy mortar fire raining down about him, one PT-76 of the seven now approaching the Americans’ position had its lights on, and in the snow made a wonderful target, attracting fire from every kind of weapon the Americans had. Its turret suddenly imploded and it was gone in a huge bubble, along with a cheer from several of the mortar crews. Only Freeman and the paratroop commander woke up to the ploy at once and had started to yell at the mortars and antitank LAW crews to spread their fire among the others, but a quick-thinking and brave Siberian commander had succeeded nevertheless. While every “Tom, Dick, and goddamn Harry,” as Freeman later reported, “was throwing everything but his socks,” including infrared homing rounds, at that PT-76 with its lights on, the remaining six amphibians had precious seconds to find “breaching” aprons of ice that allowed them to get a grip onto the mainland at the edge of the fan-shaped sea and to fire back. In those few seconds at least three got off a hundred-millimeter round each, one of these taking out one of Freeman’s 155mm howitzer crews. There was another round, screaming overhead — so low that Freeman and Norton could feel its heat wash a split second before it hit one of the two Lynxes, which had come down to refill its “string bag” with antipersonnel mines. The explosion of the chopper was more a burst of black oil not yet alight, then a crimson flash followed by a deep, steady roar as the antipersonnel mines went off, filling the air with fragments that killed or wounded thirty-six of Freeman’s paratroopers nearby.
The PT-76s paid dearly as the one-man portable one-shot LAW antitank weapons nearest them were brought to bear, the six-pound AT rounds sinking all but one of the remaining six amphibians. Some of the Siberians afire inside these tanks were trying desperately to get out, the sound of them beating against the inside of the cupolas whose seals had been warped under impact of the antitank rounds clearly audible to the LAW teams. Only one cupola managed to open, and a gunner, aflame, tried futilely to abandon the tank, falling forward as the tank went down, its gun coming up, striking him face-on and knocking him back into the water. The man was pushed toward the edge of the ice by a wave from the sinking tank, its gun, now at a crazy, sky-pointing angle, disappearing into an enormous bubbling, the tank’s chopped-up flotation boards ripped, letting the tank slide backward into the oblivion of three thousand feet of water.
“I’ll tell you, Dick,” said Freeman. “I don’t envy those poor bastards.”
There was no reply. When Freeman turned about, Norton was out cold, his left hand lost from view in the blood gushing from his left eye.
“Medic!” yelled Freeman.
With the medic came more bad news. SATINT over China showed what the G-2 officer surmised had been a pinpoint burst of light situated about a mile upstream of the Nanking Bridge. Freeman said nothing, kneeling by Norton, who had been with him since his days in Europe, since Ratmanov.
“Sir?” the intelligence officer pressed, unsure as to whether Freeman had heard him.
“I know!” Freeman growled up at him. “You’re telling me the Country Market team’s been discovered?”
“Well yes, sir, but we’re not sure about both boats. We think this photo is definitely of one boat, but there’s a chance the second is still operational.”
“So, they’re in trouble,” said Freeman curtly. “Can’t do anything about it from here. Right?”
“No, sir. But whether they blow it or not, there’s the problem of getting them out. ChiComs are sure to be looking for them around the bridge.”
“Well, we sure as hell can’t leave them there.”
“No, sir.”
“They issued an emergency call?”
“Not yet, sir. Extraction’s scheduled in ninety minutes.”
“What do you suggest?”
A line of Siberians, dripping wet, some shivering so much from the cold that Freeman could actually hear their teeth chattering, was passing them under guard. One man saw him and saluted. Solemnly, the general rose and returned the salute, hearing the small arms fire in the background at the edge of the taiga a half mile to the east. Freeman knew he had a formidable problem either way. If the SEALs didn’t blow the bridge, there’d be no hope of contesting the invasion by the northern ChiCom armies. If there were some SEALs still alive and they did blow the bridge, chances were their original drop-off point would no longer be usable, ChiComs now searching upstream from whence they’d come.
“Any suggestions?” Freeman repeated.
“Well, sir, Tom Pierce, the Pave Low commander on
“Is there any other way?” asked Freeman.
“Well, sir, Pierce says it’s possible. SEALs carry an IFF — friend-or-foe identifier. Pierce thinks he could try a STABO link — if you approve.”
Freeman raised his eyebrows, watching Norton coming to, the colonel having involuntarily soiled his pants in the shock of getting hit. The general nodded to his G-2 that they should move away, give the medic room.
“First problem those SEALs’ll have,” the general told the G-2, “is that damn bridge. Whether it goes or not, they’ll know any attempted pickup’ll have to be made soon as possible after. We’d have to have those helos from
A Siberian officer, an American army blanket clutched around his shoulders, his face covered in oil, stumbled by, toward what he obviously thought was a vision or the grandest American invention since the Model T — the paratroopers’ portable MUST, already inflated, taking in wounded, its sterile air filter unit humming a soft song in the din of battle.
“Well, you’d better get everything ready, son,” Freeman told his G-2. “Use Black Hawks for that?” He meant one of the ubiquitous Utility-60 helos of Vietnam fame, the best for a STABO pickup.
“Pierce thinks the Pave can handle it, sir. He’s all set to go.”
“What’s the SEALs’ emergency call?”
“Mars.”
“All right. Have those Paves airborne soon as you can.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And lieutenant…”
“General?”
“You tell those big, ugly Paves to add some firepower.”
“Yes, sir.”
Freeman’s use of the phrase “big, ugly Paves” momentarily reminded him of the big, ugly, fat fellows — the B-52s he had ready at Nayoro should the weather ever clear over the Black Dragon River. With Americans and Chinese so close together in such foul weather, not even the B-52s’ pinpoint bombing could avoid killing as many Americans as Chinese.
“Lieutenant…”
“Sir?”
“SEALs carry that STABO stuff?”
“No, sir, it’s dropped.”
“All right, you attend to that. I’ll see if our navy boys on
“I hope those SEALs blow that bridge, sir.”
“They don’t, son,” Freeman called out, “you’re gonna miss the World Series.” He bent down again next to Norton, who was now sitting up, having his head bandaged. “And we, my friends,” he told the medic and Norton, “will be up shit creek without a paddle.”
“You think they’ll—” began Norton, then stopped, feeling the bump of the bandage over his eye. He was having trouble seeing with his right, and it felt as if his head would fall off. He began again quietly. “You think
