the surface the magnetic storm might spoil them all. She hoped National Security Agency data experts would be able to decode and reconstruct the key information.
Over her helmet radio she heard that Jeffrey's platoon was halted by another wave of guards, and Lieutenant Clayton was down.
Jeffrey was in command now, and he'd run out of further options. He finished loading the back of the forklift with six small satchel charges. SEAL One jury-rigged connections in the battery box, to get enough current so the thing could move. The driver was a heavily bandaged Turk volunteer, already shot in a shoulder and one thigh, who knew he'd never make it far in any case.
Jeffrey yanked the igniter cords on the satchel charges together. He prayed the shock wouldn't trigger the A-bombs' antitamper. They had no choice. He fell back to where SEAL Nine was giving first aid to Clayton's pelvic wound.
The Turk driver screamed something and charged the German barricade. The German firing increased, and concussion grenades went off. There was a dreadful detonation, the loudest, hardest one so far.
Jeffrey charged immediately through the smoke. Now he held a German assault rifle in either hand, firing both at once. Ilse worked her light machine gun. Montgomery threw concussion grenades as far ahead as he could.
Surviving Turks charged after them. Others carried the
SEALs' packs, much lighter from their heavy use of ammo and explosives. Others brought the model missile, and the computer disks. Two men served as Ilse's ammo bearers now.
The combined satchel charges worked terrible havoc among the latest German position. Furniture and equipment were shattered beyond recognition. The blast broke so many overhead pipes, the sprinkler heads ran dry. Ammo cooked off as wreckage burned. The stench was sickening. Jeffrey's team paused to quickly salvage bullet clips and weapons — they were running dangerously low.
Jeffrey advanced again, firing and reloading constantly. He and Ilse and the rest of the team bled steadily from nicks and cuts: from bullets and broken glass, ricochet fragments, and flying shattered concrete and metal and wood. From the unending unbearable noise of battle they were almost deaf; Jeffrey's eardrums felt persistent pain and throbbing pressure. His rifle barrels were red-hot, and he knew they'd be drooping, making the weapons inaccurate — but at such short range it hardly mattered. The team came to one last German position, barring the main interlock to the surface. Jeffrey spotted the fat man — the security chief — firing a pistol.
Jeffrey eyed his watch: four minutes till the A-bombs blew. If the interlock was jammed, the SEALs were trapped. If it wasn't jammed, more German reinforcements could come through any moment. Both Jeffrey's rifle clips ran empty. Next to him, SEAL Nine's ran empty.
'Use cold steel!' Jeffrey yelled. 'The Germans hate cold steel.' He caught Ilse's eye and shook his head, motioning her to save her remaining MG ammo — hitting the armored blast door walls, the heavy-caliber ricochets would go everywhere. Behind a structural column Jeffrey fixed a captured German bayonet to a captured German rifle. He loaded a fresh clip, his last, and chambered a round.
Jeffrey tossed Ilse his other rifle. He watched her fix a bayonet. He heard Montgomery shouting orders to the Gastarbeiter in German; they, too, fixed bayonets. Some Turks grinned.
Jeffrey tossed smoke grenades. Through the smoke he threw illumination flares. Jeffrey cleared his throat. 'Charge!'
Ilse lunged and parried and lunged and stabbed. Her rifle clip was empty; in closequarters hand-to-hand fighting there was no time to reload. Everywhere around her, men screamed and grunted. She heard rips and thuds and clicks and crunches, as butts and bayonets clashed with each other or hit home. These barely registered on Ilse, as her combat mind focused in a tight tunnel-vision toward the front. Also in her mind she heard a constant scream of fear and panic, her own inner voice, but she had to keep on fighting. Any second she might die in agony. She cringed in naked vulnerability as she worked: The difference between life and death was random chance. She had no time for praying now — God helped those who helped themselves.
The Germans' backs were to the wall, the inner doors of the last interlock. The SEALs' and Turks' backs were to the wall, the A-bombs about to blow. Behind Ilse flames crackled, and harsh flares hissed. In front of Ilse macabre shadows danced. Ilse found herself face-to-face with the head of internal security. He realized she was a woman, and aimed his pistol at her head with obvious delight. The hammer clicked on an empty chamber.
Ilse jammed her bayonet way down in his groin, just above the pelvic bone. She dug and lifted and dug and lifted, pinning the man against the inner blast door. His eyes widened and his mouth gaped. She twisted her rifle and worked the muzzle back and forth. Pink foam issued from his mouth, and his face turned white. He began to collapse against Ilse's weapon, shuddering and convulsing. Bright red blood spattered her cammo smock, and boiled against her overheated gun barrel.
She yanked free her rifle and plunged the bayonet into his chest, right at his heart. The weight of his body pulled her weapon down with him. She tried to remove the rifle but the bayonet was jammed, tight in his ribs.
She jumped — Jeffrey was tapping her on the shoulder. 'Next phase! We have to get through the blast doors now.»
Ilse looked around in shock. The Germans all were dead. SEALs and Turks worked over the latest bodies, reammunitioning.
A Turk ran up to the corpse of the security head, whom Ilse had left where he fell. The Turk gave back her light MG — she was still swathed in belts of ammo for it, though the belts were swathed in blood. Ilse stood under a broken water pipe to clean her gear. With a fire ax the Turk cut open the fat man's chest with a nauseating crunch, and freed the assault rifle. He grabbed it with a smile. A comrade tossed him a loaded clip. ARBOR, and the martyred Gastarbeiter, were avenged.
Again the surviving company squeezed into the space between the inner and outer blast doors, missile and computer drives and all. This time there was no time to lay out sandbags, and they had no idea what forces they'd face on the surface. Ilse lay flat behind her bipod-mounted machine gun. Montgomery opened the outer door a crack.
Cold air blew in. No snow There was a blinding flash and a deafening crack as something impacted hard against the outside of the blast door.
'They've got an armored car!' Montgomery shouted — 'a real one.' SEAL One retrieved his pack and pulled out two small shoulder-mounted antitank weapons.
'Watch out!' Montgomery said. 'These have a back-blast!' Everyone scrambled aside. Ilse waited to be roasted alive by flame from the bazooka shells. Montgomery fired through the narrow space between the halves of the blast door. There was a roaring woosh, then a flaming blast outside.
The interlocking space was filled with plastic particles, not flaming gas — the recoilless antitank weapon was meant for use in confined space after all. The armored car was in flames — the shaped charge warhead burned through its thin armor. Its 75mm ammo began to cook off. The whole vehicle jumped and shivered, then the turret blew sky high. SEAL Nine opened the blast door wider and Ilse and the others charged. The air was crisp but still. The ground was covered with four or five inches of snow. The sky was clear and bright. Ilse lifted her night-vision visors.
Above her, powered by the solar storm, a brilliant aurora flickered and pulsated, dancing sheets in evanescent red and green and blue, forming arcs and curtains and long converging lines. From her left, tracer rounds arced in the SEALs' direction. From her right she heard another heavy motor, another armored car. She-saw the sparkle of its laser range-finder. SEAL One fired the other antitank rocket, but he missed. The armored car fired, and a high-explosive shell tore up the dirt — its shock wave made the aurora seem to ripple. Turks rose and charged the armored car from opposite directions, while its gunner hurried to reload. The commander stuck his head out, and reached for the top-mounted machine gun. Ilse cut him down; his body draped the top hatch. The armored car's hull-mounted machine gun opened up. One Turk lived to reach its engine deck. His satchel charge exploded. The armored car exploded. Jeffrey led his people instinctively to the right, away from the heavy machine guns and toward the bay, the water, a SEAL's best refuge. He knew his group was in the installation's parking lot. In the distance, by the auroral lights, Jeffrey saw people piling into buses. Some buses were already further off, on the road to Greifswald — surviving lab staff, rushing to safety. They were out of range of his weapons. SEAL Nine had said there was supposed to be a freight train.
Jeffrey knew from intel that many westbound trains here were laden with explosive ordnance, manufactured in occupied Poland. Helo gunships escorted the trains to protect them from local partisans. This train wasn't on any known schedule, but the enemy must've seen the magnetic storm as a chance to sneak one through. Most trains
