could be back in business in a day or two.”
“Well, if we went forward and blew up the rail lines?”
“Same thing, Dave — they could replace it in a matter of hours. Besides, there’s got to be a whole bloody store of missiles inside somewhere. We’ll have to go in.”
David Brentwood nodded his head. “You’re right I guess. But we’d better do it fast before they move in troops from Damquka on the other side of the mountain range.”
“Right,” Aussie said, and took aim at the nearest T-59’s infrared searchlight mounted to the right of the cannon. He blew it apart, then did the same with the other two.
“Why the hell didn’t you do that before?” someone asked.
“I’ve got two mags of point fifty sniper rounds, buddy. Missile had the first priority.”
“All right let’s go!” Brentwood said, and with that he returned to his men and another green flare shot in the air as a signal, not as a light, for the commandos had all the illumination they wanted in front of them in the burning fuel whose flames were silhouetting the Chinese as they dashed from boulder to boulder. Even so, the SAS lost another three men in a fifty-yard dash, and counting the four still missing since the drop they had seventy-one out of the original eighty.
A half mile from the roof exits high on either side of the door and back in the snow, much of which had been melted to ice by the fuel fire, the SAS/D saw more Chinese coming out — shot two of them, which kept the others’ heads low.
“Let’s concentrate on one exit!” Brentwood yelled.
Aussie disagreed. “You and Sal take the left — Choir and me the right.”
“Roger!” Brentwood acknowledged. “But be damned careful of shooting our lot once we’re inside.”
“You too,” Aussie said, and the seventy-one men split into two groups of thirty-five and thirty-six. All they were waiting for was to take out the three tanks.
Young Brooklyn had got to within a hundred yards of the nearest T-59, and he lifted the French-made Arpac, steadying its small tube against a rock, waited till the T-59 filled the peep sight, inhaled, held his breath, and fired. The sliding barrel recoiled, and the missile’s motor blasted from the tube at 247 feet per second without any telltale flash. The tank exploded. Again Aussie almost wished he’d told Brentwood that one DF5 missile blown up was enough, for he knew that in this close, the fighting must soon be hand to hand, and even veterans had no stomach for that.
In Lhasa it was dark and still snowing, despite the fact that it was officially spring. This was not that unusual for the Tibetan capital, nor were the wild dog packs that were congregating about the base of Iron Mountain. Its radio mast, which had received the signal that told the major that the attack on the missile site was taking place, was no longer visible in the snow, and the guard wasn’t sure whether the Dutchman was suffering from hypothermia or whether his shivering was because of the beating. A bit of both, he thought.
As the snow eased, more Tibetans could be seen emerging from their cluttered buildings onto the street. The major told the guard that Hartog was free to go. The guard prodded him with his bayonet and Hartog half fell, half scrambled down the stone steps. The dogs had not eaten, for the human feces they often lived on were covered by snow, and instead it was the smell of the Dutchman’s wounds that drew them, slowly at first, but then when the curs realized no Tibetan would help the downed man — the Chinese squad ready to deal with anyone who would try — the dogs moved in and tore the Dutchman to pieces, his screams drawing a large crowd, the placard proclaiming that he was an enemy of the people sodden and torn asunder by the dogs in their frenzied attempt to get at his vitals. A Tibetan monk was objecting, lecturing the Chinese on nonviolence until the major drew his pistol, and the monk’s colleagues hurried him away.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Despite the flares’ flickering light, mistakes were bound to be made by both sides in similar-looking white camouflaged overlays. The problem for the SAS/D— Brentwood’s troop on the left and Aussie’s on the right— was to climb up the flanks of the door to get on top of the cave. This meant that they would first have to negotiate the piles of snow-covered debris that was the excavated soil either side of the cave and then somehow climb almost sheer cliffs of over a hundred feet that stood like ramparts either side of the door, ramparts that were ChiCom high ground protected by at least four machine gun nests. The 7.6mm guns were set back from the cliff edge out of direct sight from below, but not so far back that they couldn’t rain down their fire on most of the boulder-strewn apron that spread beyond the railhead where the mangled gantry now sat, still so hot that it was vaporizing the snow falling on it.
“One, two for me!” Aussie yelled to Brentwood, indicating the two machine gun posts atop the left side of the cave and the door, and “three, four, for you,” pointing to the two 7.6mm nests atop the right-hand side of the cave.
“Roger!” Brentwood answered, and the two lines of commandos moved forward.
With the element of surprise expended, the SAS/D troopers understood and accepted, however reluctantly, that speed — dashing out, guns blazing in the boulder-strewn area about the cave entrance — would only bring certain death. But to go too slowly would give the ChiCom battalions at Damquka time to reach the cave — then the SAS/D would find itself sandwiched between two ChiCom forces. Immediately, however, both Aussie Lewis and Brentwood saw that for the four enemy machine gun posts there would be a “no-fire” zone of about twenty yards or so directly beneath the top of the door, the ChiCom machine gunners unable to depress their weapons at a more acute angle. It was this ground that the SAS/D force would have to reach and hold.
Quickly Aussie and Brentwood passed the word — no more flares, wait till all flare light had subsided, then attack, home plate being the front of the cave’s closed door.
But the ChiComs weren’t cooperating, still sending up flares from behind boulders, and the flames from the burning hulks of the knocked-out T-59s were lighting up the area. Brentwood knew that to rush out would be to have his men mown down. And so once again, all the SAS/D could do was wait, yet to wait was to give the Damquka garrison more time to respond. In civilian life it was called being between a rock and a hard place. Brentwood turned to his runner. “Tell Salvini and Choir to spread out far right flank, far left. Mimic a charge and maybe we can get the ChiComs to use all their flares.”
The messenger nodded, repeating the order. “Simulate flank attacks to dummy Chinks into using up flares.”
“You’ve got it,” Brentwood said. “Go!”
Rosemary had made sure that all the windows were latched as well as having slipped the dead bolts, and had been sitting, sipping her tea in the kitchen, when she’d heard the dolphins squeak. Vibrations from the wind. She wanted to throw the blasted dolphins away. No, she couldn’t. Robert had bought them for her — well, for the baby really. And besides, dolphins were the submariners’ logo. It would soon be dawn, but it was still dark outside. The important thing, she told herself, was not to let her nerves get on edge now she was so close to having “toughed it out,” as Robert would say. By herself. She hadn’t panicked — well, a little, and she may have lifted up the phone, but she hadn’t used it, that was the point. And she knew it was precisely these little victories that gave one the courage to see it through — well, Andrea would accompany her to the hospital when the baby’s time came. But what would happen if Andrea couldn’t — if her child was sick?
“Then, my dear,” she told herself aloud, “you’ll just have to do it solo.”
“What the hell you on ‘bout?”
She had tried to yell, but no sound would come — only a gasp as if she’d been completely winded. He was big — over six feet, black, and the knife blade caught the living room light. “You scream, I’ll cut your fuckin’ head off, lady. You unnerstand me?”
“Yes,” she said, sitting on the edge of the chair, her knuckles white with fear. “I haven’t got any money—” she began, her throat so dry she couldn’t finish.
“Don’ you give me that shit, lady. Old man’s credit cards.”
“He has them,” she said.
