Jeffrey pushed the corpse-shield ahead. He crawled through slippery blood and gore. The Turks kept pace over both his shoulders, their bodies close, bonding in a way civilians could never know. The Turks kept firing toward the other end of the tunnel. Germans kept firing back. Bullets hit Jeffrey's helmet, his flak vest, with the force of baseball bats. One of the Turks was hit. Jeffrey fired another shell and crawled on; the dead guard he used as a mobile sandbag was being pulped. Another Turk took the place of the one left dead behind Jeffrey, and the threesome pressed on.
A German guard vaulted into the tunnel from the other end; he too used a dead man as a shield. Two other Germans climbed in behind him, and that threesome advanced. Halfway between them and Jeffrey lay the jammed-open blast door, the constriction giving a modicum of extra cover. Whoever reached it first would have a razor-thin advantage. Jeffrey fired another shell, then another. The Turks on both sides emptied fresh 35-round clips, as the Germans fired back on full auto. Hot, angry hornets spat by in both directions; Jeffrey was struck by spent shell casings, and sand-blasted by concrete chips. His Turks died instantly; the Germans to his front also died.
The tunnel ahead was clogged. Jeffrey scrambled past the blast door. He tried to push the pile of bodies ahead of him, but they wouldn't budge — the Germans were barricading the air duct from the other side.
Jeffrey heard something on his headset. He was almost deaf; he turned up the volume.
'Four, Three! Four, Three!' Montgomery was calling him.
'Three, Four. Go!'
'You've got to take the far side of the interlock in enfilade! If my platoon goes through the blast doors unsupported, the interlock's a murder hole!'
'Three, Four. We're trying!'
Jeffrey reached to his load-bearing vest, grabbed a handful of C4 and a timer. 'Back,' he screamed to the new men crawling behind him. 'Back!'
They understood. Jeffrey glanced over his shoulder, watched them pile out of the air duct entrance oh-so-far away, as their comrades beyond the duct mouth yanked them by the feet.
Jeffrey set the timer and shoved the charge into the jam-up of bodies. He crawled backward fast for all his life.
Men helped him down and they took cover and the C4 blew.
Flame and smoke belched from the air duct. More enemy fire belched from the air duct. A Turk aimed his rifle into the air duct. Automatic fire killed him instantly. Another Gastarbeiter took his place. His forearms were shattered at once, and he fell back in paroxysms of pain.
'Four, Three,' Chief Montgomery called. 'We're pinned down, taking heavy losses. We need support!'
SIMULTANEOUSLY, ON THE LEVEL BELOW
By the hot, smoky light of illumination flares, Clayton's platoon fought their way toward the entry to the test section. Ilse was their guide, keeping to the rear per orders, shouting directions to Clayton and SEAL Nine. On her headset she could follow the desperate seesaw battle raging on the level above. She heard the shouts and screams and weapon reports over the circuit, and felt the shock of grenades and C4 through the deck and through the air. The carpet here on level two was squishy from water and blood, and bodies slumped like tattered sacks of trash.
Resistance on the second level seemed weaker now. Were the Germans laying a trap somewhere ahead? Did they really know there was an A-bomb ticking, or more than one, or were they just not taking chances? Ilse was glad she'd _thought to hide her case behind a pile of water jugs: The H20 would help block gamma rays and neutrons. Ilse heard Montgomery shouting for reinforcements. Salih offered to take some men and head upstairs, and Clayton said to go.
Ilse moved closer to Clayton. She passed a badly wounded German writhing on the floor. He was pimply- faced and looked barely seventeen. He kept calling, 'Mutti, Mutti.' Mommy. Tears streamed from his eyes.
Ilse shot him through the forehead, under the lip of his helmet.
Ilse reached the heavy door to the test section. It was locked. Of course. Salih had said the whole area was armored.
Clayton's men, the Turks, diminished in number but almost all of them armed now, crouched on both sides of the corridor. Two of them at the back, Ilse noticed, held big fire axes they'd broken from emergency-equipment cabinets.
SEAL Nine fixed lines of sticky detcord to the test section door. He started a timer and everyone pulled back around a corner.
The air itself seemed to solidify and heave. The door clanged to the deck. The men poured fire through the portal and charged inside.
Guards returned the fire and something knocked Ilse backward and knocked the wind out of her. She saw the stub of a bullet sticking from her flak vest, smoldering hot. Her breasts hurt. More automatic weapons spoke in both directions, but Ilse's throbbing eardrums barely heard. To one side of the control room a crowd of technicians took cover behind a barricade of desks and consoles, while a squad of naval infantry tried to hold off Clayton's platoon. Two of the guards, crouched behind overturned steel desks, had light machine guns mounted on bipods. They poured an endless stream of bullets at the SEALs and Turks, pinning them down. Through the armored glass of the wind tunnel beckoned the model missile.
Clayton and SEAL Nine crawled for the inner door to the wind tunnel chamber, below the arc of fire of the bipod MGs. More guards tried to head them off. Ilse saw SEAL
Nine clipped in the leg by a bullet. Clayton had one bootie heel shot off.
'Five,' Clayton shouted, 'use grenades!'
Ilse pulled two concussion grenades from her battle vest and pulled the pins and popped the spoons. She counted to three and threw them over the barricade. They exploded in midair. The MG fire ceased.
Turks charged the crowd of cowering technicians. For a split second the surviving guards were torn between who or what to protect, the staff or the missile. The Turks opened fire on the German technicians mercilessly. The guards cut down some Turks, till Ilse and Clayton killed them, too. A pair of scientists with nothing to lose lunged for the fallen guards' weapons. The pair of
Turks with fire axes blocked their path and cut them down. Ilse saw the ax heads rise and fall relentlessly, and red blood sprayed and bullets crackled.
The victims were in uniform. None had tried to surrender.
With a sharp crack SEAL Nine's detcord blew down the door to the test chamber. Ilse dashed inside: It was very warm in here.
She tried to lift the missile. It barely moved. She had to pull her gloved hands back — it was still scorching hot from the test.
'The fire nozzles!' she shouted, pointing at the overhead. She set the master selector knob to 'Wasser.' Water. Nothing happened.
SEAL Nine popped another illumination flare, and held it against a flame detector head. The water nozzles sprayed a freezing blast; the missile cooled. The Gastarbeiter dashed in and hefted the missile to their shoulders, then ran out like pallbearers with their prize. Seal Nine quickly bandaged his leg wound; it was minor.
Clayton and Ilse covered their rear as they withdrew. Ilse glanced into the corner of the control room. Blood dripped from the walls, and from the overhead. The Turks had left not one scientist alive. Ilse was revolted by the carnage. It was hard to tell where one corpse ended and the next began.
On second thought, Ilse ran and checked the light machine guns. 'Light' was relative; these fired 7.62mm.30 -caliber — rounds. One of the weapons was smashed, but the other worked. Ilse draped herself with belt after belt of ammo, till she could barely stand. She hefted the weapon and chased the rest of Six Platoon upstairs.
She passed some badly wounded Turks; it tore her guts to know they had to be left behind.
They pleaded for grenades, to try to take a German with them. She gave them what she had.
Jeffrey heard a strange whirring sound behind and wheeled in panic. He saw a huge pile of sandbags coming at him.
