First Salvo

by Charles D. Taylor

  “Roger, Hedgehog. When you rejoin the formation, request you ferry over to me for conference. Out.”

  Admiral Pratt leaned back in his chair, stretching his feet out under the console before him and locking his hands behind his head. Christ, it was good to be out here! It was what he was good at, what he had trained for over the last few years, and it was what he was afraid might pass him by, perhaps fall into the hands of another man who simply did not have the background.

  Then he thought of Ryng and Cobb, each off on his own, away from all the supposed security of the electronics world, operating purely by his own wits. Perhaps they were better off than he—even safer! But he sure as hell wished he knew what they were doing and if there was anything he could do for them. He could not communicate with them. Anything that came to him would be relayed—if anything came at all.

  SPITZBERGEN

  Ryng’s eyes snapped shut with the initial burst from the automatic rifle. The reaction was instinctive, and he’d never been able to break it. His first time on the range the instructor had chewed him out, and Bernie never forgot the shock of that first moment—the feeling in the pit of his stomach, the chill running from his groin up through his spine, the shudder through his entire body. Then he had been all right.

  This time was no different—it never would be. His finger squeezed and released the trigger in an instant, yet he was aware that his eyes were shut. There was the icy feeling in his groin, a chill like the cold blade of a knife that followed some primal nerve, shooting up his spine; then he shuddered involuntarily, the act shaking his entire body.

  Then he was in motion again. That also was instinctive—anyone he might not have seen would have no chance of finding a target.

  The Black Beret directly in front of him was spinning wildly as the impact of the bullets flung his body back against the wall. Another reflected a momentary look of surprise as his chest was stitched with the small, steel-cored slugs. Then his lifeless body jumped involuntarily in a neat back flip. The AK-74 bullets, tumbling as they entered the body, were designed to be especially lethal.

  The sharp, explosive crack of the guns echoed through the warehouse, increasing in magnitude as each succeeding round was fired. Ryng sensed rather than saw Wally firing. One, then a second, marine were blown backward by the deadly force of the bullets.

  Ryng dove to his left, rolling, coming up with the gun at his shoulder, already aimed toward the third Black Beret. But there was no one in the spot he anticipated. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wally bouncing up from a similar roll, his target just where he’d expected. There was another short burst, and then there was only one left—Ryng’s.

  The warehouse was silent now. Only the sound of heavy breathing reached Bernie’s ears, as well as the thumping from his own heart.

  He glanced quickly for Wally, receiving a negative head shake for an answer. The last man couldn’t have gone far. How many seconds had it been? Five? Ten? He had to have moved in fear. A dive and maybe a roll. He couldn’t be more than ten feet on either side of where he’d started.

  Ryng thought of using a grenade, but then reconsidered. Not in here, he thought. Too close. End up splattering themselves all over the warehouse.

  He kicked over a table, shoving it viciously to where the marine should be if he’d gone to his left. That was it! he realized. There was a movement, maybe a head, a shoulder. Bringing the stock of the AK-74 to his shoulder, he squeezed the trigger gently, moving the barrel slightly to either side with his wrist. It was a superb weapon. It had little recoil, and it never climbed on automatic.

  The last Black Beret had only a coffee table and the false security of some corrugated boxes for protection. The boxes shredded. The table splintered. Ryng saw the man rise up, hands over his face, a cry of anguish mingling with the last explosive echoes.

  Six up—six down! How much time? Ten, fifteen seconds?

  That left Denny and Rick outside with a dozen more marines, their rifles precisely stacked to one side, and two aircrews, probably with survival weapons.

  As they raced out into daylight, Bernie Ryng was aware of a series of explosions. The neatly stacked rifles were scattered. The Black Berets who were about to load the bombers were caught in the open. They dispersed as best they could, some able to find cover, others falling to the automatic weapons fire.

  One enterprising air crewman, crouching behind a bomber’s landing gear, was returning their fire with a pistol. Perhaps it was the sharp, individual crack of each shot as opposed to the staccato chatter of the rifles that caught Rick’s attention. More likely he knew he was the target. Whirling, dropping into a kneeling position, he brought the gun to his shoulder. The AK-74 was intended as a close-in weapon for crowds rather than one person. This was a well-protected individual and harder to hit.

  Wally came to his assistance, firing until his clip emptied. Ryng recognized with anguish that one of his shots hit the Russian at the same time as Rick was hit.

  Bernie saw the shoulder bag fall as Rick’s body crumpled, the precious grenades rolling out onto the runway. Each one was critical if they were going to blow those bombers and the decoys. Carefully, as precisely as a jeweler, Wally was picking off those Russians still without cover, moving closer to the planes as he did so. Ryng, running in a crouch, changed magazines on the move. He halted for a moment by Rick, saw death staring back at him, and scooped up the bag and the grenades in a single motion. Denny had moved up to the first plane, leaping up the ramp into the fuselage in one fluid motion. Ryng covered him, counting the seconds, amazed so few could pass before Denny leaped back out, avoiding the ramp, his feet already in motion as he hit the tarmac, body crouched as he moved toward the second.

  He hit this one just as systematically as the first.

  A foreign sound caught Ryng’s attention—once again, the single shots of a pistol. He whirled, eyes off Denny’s moving form, searching for the source. Wally, caught in the act of digging in his own bag for a grenade, was frantically bringing his rifle to bear on a Russian wildly firing from his hip with a pistol.

  There was no match between a revolver and an automatic weapon at that range, unless the pistol was lucky. And it was. As the Russian was blown backward from the impact of a dozen slugs, Wally grabbed at his stomach. He doubled over in a curious slow motion, the shock lasting only a moment. Then he was erect once again, extracting the grenade he’d been after, yanking out the pin and lofting the grenade toward a scrubby hedge.

  Ryng was riveted in stunned fascination as the hedge exploded in a cloud of dust and branches. It revealed four Black Berets immobilized by the blast. Wally sprayed them mercilessly with the AK-74.

  Then a strange silence followed. No one was visible. Nothing moved. There appeared to be no more resistance.

  Denny vaulted into the last bomber, breaking the momentary stillness, sowing the remainder of his incendiary bombs with the aplomb of a professional. It took less time than the first two planes. An expert at his trade, it was a matter of simply insuring that the time-delay devices came to rest within each fuselage where he wanted them. Experience already guaranteed what the effect would be.

  How much time have we taken? Ryng wondered. Thirty seconds? Fifty? A minute? Two minutes? However long, as soon as their first shot echoed across the airfield, he knew Russian marines had dropped whatever they were doing. They would be automatically checking their weapons as they raced toward the field.

  “I’ll grab the jeep,” Ryng called to Denny. “Blow the rest of those decoys.” Wally ambled toward him with a weird sort of gait, his rifle slung with military precision from his shoulder, both hands pressed tightly against his belly, shiny, dark blood seeping through his fingers. He nodded toward the jeep, indicating he would get to it on his own. As he shuffled along, he occasionally glanced down at the blood, then over at Ryng with a confused look on his face. He’d never been hit before, no matter how exposed he’d been. Now Wally was terrified. There was a dull hurt but no pain, no
sensation that would tell him that everything was going to be all right—or that this was the end.

  Wally eased into the adjacent seat. “I don’t know if I understand this, Bernie. It never happened before. I don’t know….” His voice trailed off.

  “Just hold on,” Ryng answered. He shifted the jeep into gear. “Can’t do a goddamned thing until we get back to the fishing shack.” Then he recognized the anguish forming on the other’s face as he moved his hands from his belly. Ryng was embarrassed that he’d been so unfeeling. “We love ya, Wally. Just hold on!”

  Denny methodically placed his incendiaries around the decoys, moving as efficiently as he’d done with the bombers. There was never a lost movement when he was doing the work he loved. He leaped gracefully into the back of the jeep, slapping Ryng on the shoulder. “Hit it! I don’t know what’s in those things, but if they’re explosives, it’s going to be awfully messy around here in half a minute.” They had made a decision beforehand—set longer timers inside the planes. They might catch someone poking around inside. But the decoys had to go first. As they raced away in the jeep, Denny methodically dropped his last fragmentation grenades behind one by one. They too had time-delay fuses which would make the Russians think a little before they went snooping around the planes.

  Wheeling into the village, they heard the first explosion, followed by a second and a third, then a prolonged series of blasts. A column of smoke and flame roiled into the air. “Must be some special kind of fuel in those things. Look at the color of the smoke,” Denny remarked almost casually. “If those were warheads, they would have just blown themselves apart, no smoke like that.” He was very pleased with himself, grinning like a cat at his success.

  They passed the building on the dock that held one of the Norwegian groups. Ryng once again waved to the guard in a friendly manner. He guided the jeep through the one main street, then turned off toward the old fishing pier outside of town.

  The smooth gravel surface ended abruptly. Without warning, they were moving much too fast down a dirt path just wide enough for two wheels. The jeep bounced over a rock into the air, plunging down hard on the other side. Wally screamed with an unearthly wail, doubling over in agony, his body awash with the pain that had eluded him until then.

  “Keep going,” he moaned between his teeth, his head turned to Ryng. “Get this son of a bitch to that pier, to the morphine!” he shouted in the next breath, his features contorted through waves of pain. The comfortable refuge of shock had left him. Then the spasms of agony brought a merciful loss of consciousness. Denny reached over the seat and held his shoulders until they pulled up beside the fishing shack.

  They laid Wally gently on the floor of the shack. Blood pulsed heavily across his stomach, steadily pumping life out of his body. Denny, the team medic, administered the morphine first, then listened to the heart, checked the blood pressure, and finally cleaned the wound enough to determine the damage.

  “Forget it, Bernie. Gut shot, not a chance.”

  “Will he come around again?”

  “He might. He’s lost so much blood already, I wonder if he’s got enough strength left to open his eyes.” He felt the pulse. “Hardly enough left to take a breath, Bernie.”

  “Can you do anything for him?”

  “Yeah. Another few hundred cc’s and Wally Land will disappear without a thought in the world.”

  Ryng’s knuckles whitened perceptibly. “We’re down to minutes ourselves.” There were only so many people on the whole damned island, and the Russians would know there were no Norwegians that could mount an operation like the one that had just taken place. They had just minutes to escape. Ryng nodded, his eyes avoiding Denny’s. Wally Land’s face was tranquil when they left him in the shack. They crawled down under the old pier, making their way between broken-down pilings and remnants of fishing gear to the rubber boat. Their only purpose now was to escape— to survive. They kept two automatic rifles, their pistols, and a few fragmentation grenades. Everything else—food, medicine, electronic gear—was dumped. Ryng kept his radio.

  They pushed off from the pier simultaneous with a succession of explosions from the direction of the airport. They could see tall, greasy tongues of flame erupting into the sky—burning aviation fuel. So much for the bombers. If Harry Winters was successful with that freighter…

  The electric motor purred inaudibly. Christ, Ryng thought impatiently, I couldn’t care less about how quiet the engine is. All that matters now is speed. I’d take it big and noisy and fast, anything to get us the hell out of here. Silently and with agonizing slowness, the little motor pushed them across the harbor toward the opposite shore. They would follow the coastline as far as they could. If they were followed, then they’d just have to move ashore and somehow get back to civilization overland.

  The day was clear and crisp, barely a cloud in sight. It was a perfect arctic autumn day. After months of perpetual daylight, the harbor would soon begin its annual season of darkness. How lovely it would have been to have conducted this operation under that kind of cover, Ryng thought. But then it would have been forty below zero, the arctic winds would have frozen Denny’s fingers as he tried to set his bombs, and the harbor would have been frozen solid.

  The familiar noise of a helicopter in the distance snapped Ryng out of his momentary reverie. Perhaps if they had been on land, they could have hidden, but there was no way they could escape the helo that was moving slowly in their direction. The rhythmic thrum of the engine swept across the water, the bass-drum boom magnifying as it rebounded between the peaks on either side of the harbor.

  The helo swept back and forth in a zigzag pattern, unsure of what it was looking for, what it might find. In the small boat, the two men placed their rifles on automatic, laying their extra magazines within easy reach. The AK-74 was terrific for what they had done earlier, but it was next to useless against a helicopter—even with incredible luck.

  Quite unexpectedly, a deep rumbling from the direction of the harbor mouth caught their attention for an instant. It started like distant thunder, a low growling on the horizon. Lasting no more than two seconds, the rumble became a thunderclap echoing up the harbor, oscillating between the peaks on either side. Beyond the harbor, rising in oily black clouds that rolled over and through one another, came the proof to Ryng that Harry Winters had completed his part of the bargain. There was no doubt in Ryng’s mind that Harry had pulled it off.

  “Harry…” Denny offered tentatively.

  “Yeah,” Ryng responded. “He’s never missed yet.” A low whistle escaped from his pursed lips.

  “I hope he made it—” he began, but Ryng cut him off, gesturing toward the helo.

  Ryng headed for the shore on an angle. A wide, glacial river poured into the harbor ahead of them. There would be no way they could cross that if they went ashore on this side of it. He had to get to the other side, and he needed time and something other than the quiet little electric motor that pushed them sluggishly along. It didn’t seem so slow when we came in here, Ryng reminded himself, but no one was after us then. He looked over his shoulder as the helo closed in. It had spotted them.

  They both recognized the telltale increase in pitch and knew without looking that they’d been seen. The helo banked as it changed course in their direction, lowering altitude to inspect what had been sighted.

  The first pass was free. As the craft hovered just ahead of them, they fired together. It seemed a foolish venture, handheld guns pumping small antipersonnel bullets into a huge metal machine. Three clips each were expended senselessly while the helo backed off to a safe distance.

  Ryng swung the boat toward shore. They’d be easy targets on shore—but they were sitting ducks in the boat.

  Raucous noise shattered the peaceful arctic calm. Either man could have described the developing scene if he had been blind. Once again the increase of engine revolutions, the thwack of the rotors. The helo was making another pass at them. They waited with loaded clips, bob
bing along like toy ducks at a shooting range.

  Even before the helo came within range of their rifles, the chatter of machine gun fire added a new dimension to the sounds of the harbor. Foamy trails, punctuated by tiny fountains of water, heralded the path of the bullets, racing first one way and then another. But Ryng realized they had one advantage. The machine guns were attached to a vehicle hanging in the air, swinging as if on a thread, making it more difficult to aim. The trails continued to sweep aimlessly across the water, leaving a white froth behind them.

  Ryng whipped the little boat about frantically with one arm— anything to provide a harder target—while he fired wildly with the other. In the hail of bullets, Denny was transformed into a madman, emptying clip after clip when the helo came anywhere within range. As he expended the last shot in a clip, he would yank it out, inserting one clenched between his teeth, mechanically jamming another in his mouth even as he began squeezing the trigger.

  Now a path of bullets swept erratically across their craft. There were two, maybe three, thuds as the bullets hit and passed through. The boat was intended to be self-sealing, and they held their breaths. It was! But it was built for occasional damage, not .50-caliber slugs.

  The helo circled away, this time climbing slightly.

  “Oh, shit! You know what that means,” Denny hollered. “The heavy stuff—rockets!”

  And as he uttered the final word, they saw the telltale wisps of smoke. One—two—three. They could see the rocket trails, make out the rockets themselves as they bore down on them. The first struck twenty yards in front, erupting in a cloud of water and shrapnel. The second passed close overhead, cutting the air with a howl in concert with the blast as it hit the water fifteen yards away. The final one was too close. It might have been a good aim or a lucky shot. In any case, the buzz of metal shards told Ryng there was no more time.