Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  “We don’t have time for that.” Kiawak turned around. “We planned our defenses at the inlet, and see what happened?”

  “That’s because we had the wrong place. Now we know where the enemy is.”

  “I’m going downhill,” Kiawak shouted at the other eight men, who were standing quietly around their vehicles. “Who’s coming with me?”

  “Kiawak, you’re a hunter. Think like a hunter,” Joe said. “This is like chasing a polar bear.”

  “Yes, kind of. Here we have our chase dogs and our snowmobiles, and then hunters surround the polar bear. Oh, wait, we can’t really surround these sons of bitches because they completely outnumber us.” Kiawak raised his voice as he spurted out his last words.

  “My point is that you need hunters, you need many people for a successful kill. We’ve got to wait for Justin and the rest of our men.”

  “How far are they?” Kiawak asked after a deep sigh.

  “Can you check how long until they’re here?” Joe called to one of the men.

  “We can stop their advance. We can do this.” Kiawak took his binoculars and glanced at the airstrip. Then he spat on the ground.

  “What now?” Joe asked.

  “More black flies scattering around the runway. I’d love to swat the bastards.” Kiawak pointed his weapon at one of the Danes and gently stroked its metallic trigger.

  “Even if everyone was here, they’re still out of range of our guns,” Joe replied, looking through his own rifle sight. “They’re probably a thousand yards away, maybe even a little more than—”

  A metallic bang cut off his words. It sounded like a heavy hammer striking a steel barrel. Joe glanced to the right side of Kiawak’s truck, less than four feet away from his position, and noticed a bullet hole the size of his fist. Before he could say another word, the window glass shattered, spraying a storm of slivers around him.

  “Hell,” Joe yelled, dropping into a snow bank. “They may be out of our range, but we’re getting hammered by their snipers.”

  “Justin says they’re about two miles and a half south,” a man shouted, while crawling for shelter behind one of the Suburbans.

  “That’s maybe five minutes,” Joe said.

  “Where’s Carrie?” Kiawak raised his head from the pool of slush where the sniper shots had sent him and ran his eyes over the horizon.

  “She’s behind the ice ridge.” Joe pointed to his left. “I guess she anticipated sniper fire.”

  “Well, when’s she coming out to fight? Because we—”

  He was interrupted by a deafening blast as the Seahawk arrowed through the sky, a few feet above ground. As it descended over the runway, rapid reports of machine gun fire from the Seahawk began mowing down the Danish vanguard that had begun climbing the hills.

  Kiawak saw a few silhouettes falling to the ground. His men shouted battle cries with every rattle of the Seahawk’s weapons.

  The air assault lasted for a few seconds and then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the helicopter vanished, taking cover behind the ice hills, a few hundred yards away from the trucks.

  “There you go, girl,” Kiawak yelled. “Give them hell.”

  * * *

  “What’s the casualty count?” Gunter stomped out of the airport terminal. Yuliya followed two steps behind him.

  “We’re still checking, but we’ve confirmed four dead,” Valgerda replied over the radio. She was crouched behind the Hercules’s nose wheels, clutching her assault rifle. “The attack was uncoordinated and—”

  “I saw the attack,” Gunter interrupted her, “and how it was or it wasn’t carried out. But how come these idiots have Seahawk choppers? And how the hell do they know of our change of plans?”

  Valgerda knew better than to offer a guess.

  “We’re setting up positions, sir,” Magnus replied. He was digging up a small trench in the snow banks by the runway. His men, the foremost unit of the Danish troops, had suffered two casualties, both recruits. “There will be no more surprises.”

  “Support sniper fire with machine guns from one of the Bells,” Gunter commanded.

  “I’ve got it,” Yuliya said. “Yuri, Alexei, come with me,” she called to two of the guards. They left Gunter’s side and began to jog toward the hangar.

  “We’ve got to take that hill. Now!” Gunter said. “I don’t want to get pinned down here while they call in reinforcements.”

  “We’ll take the hill, sir,” Magnus replied. “It won’t take long.”

  * * *

  The machine gun rattle greeted Justin even before his convoy took the last couple of turns snaking down the airport road. As soon as they stopped, about thirty yards behind Kiawak’s truck, two bullets struck the hood of their Land Rover.

  “Crap,” Justin ducked instinctively. “What the . . .”

  A Bell 204 helicopter was hovering in the sky, to the east of the runway.

  “Get out of the car, quick,” Anna shouted.

  Justin shoved open his door and crawled behind the Land Rover’s front wheel. He held his M4 carbine with his right hand. Anna sat next to him.

  “You’re OK?” Justin asked.

  “Yes. I’m good,” she replied.

  They stared at the rest of the convoy in front and behind. People had dismounted from their vehicles and were scrambling for cover— alongside their vehicles, in snow banks, or behind the ice hills.

  “Ned. Ned,” Justin yelled, as the hammering continued from the Bell’s gunners.

  There was no answer.

  “I don’t think he can hear you,” Anna replied.

  Ned was less than fifty feet away, but the gun blasts made their communication impossible.

  Justin’s walkie-talkie chirped. “Yes,” he answered it.

  “Hey, Justin,” Kiawak said quickly in a loud voice. “We’re getting slammed here. Your men have any long-range guns?”

  “No. All we’ve got are assault rifles,” Justin replied. “M4s and the like.”

  “Too far. The chopper’s too far away.”

  “Half a mile?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Has Carrie tried an assault?”

  “Yeah, she did. A few minutes ago,” Kiawak said, “but we’re saving her Seahawk for a rainy day.”

  “This is a rainy day. It’s hailing bullets.” Justin pressed his back against the Land Rover’s tire.

  More rounds clanged against his truck and the other vehicles.

  Kiawak said, “Yeah, I know Justin, but the battle has just begun.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Nanisivik, Canada

  April 14, 09:00 a.m.

  “OK, so what do we do now?” Kiawak asked.

  Their small group was huddled behind the ice ridge, next to the Seahawk helicopter. Though they had managed to gather together, they had done little to deal with the enemy’s air advantage.

  “Well, there are no reinforcements,” Justin said. “So, whatever we plan, it’s entirely up to us to do it.”

  “Their strongest points of attack are the snipers and the Bell chopper,” Carrie noted. “Our defenses aren’t gonna hold forever if we don’t eliminate them.”

  “Their sniper attacks came from only two positions.” Justin began to draw on a patch of snow. “Here and here.” He stabbed the snow at two points. “One by the terminal and the other to the left of the plane. The chopper usually strikes from the right, with two gunners. But everyone’s beyond our gunfire range.”

  “So, we’ve got to get closer,” Anna said.

  “That’s easy to say,” Joe replied. “Their snipers have us in their crosshairs at all times. If we attempt to advance, it’s certain death.”

  “There’s got to be another way,” Justin said.

  Carrie shook her head. “There isn’t. I have to agree with Anna. We need to push forward.”

  “But how?” Kiawak asked.

  “We need to move at the same time and at the same pace. The Danes have no idea how many men we
have. But we know they have no more than two hundred of them. It’s impossible to squeeze more troops in that plane. I propose we begin a slow, motorized attack, one man driving a vehicle, with another one forcing their way in through constant shooting. I’ll cover from the air.”

  “Wait a second,” Kiawak said. “The sloped terrain is very difficult for our vehicles, especially SUVs with no rear-wheel drive.”

  “We’ll use all-wheel drive trucks only,” Justin said.

  “I don’t know about throwing our entire force into battle all at once. We have about a hundred people, roughly,” Kiawak said.

  “Thirty/sixty,” Carrie said. “We’ll prepare thirty trucks with sixty men, who will attack first. The second wave will be the rest. They’ll pour downhill once the front units have gained good positions.”

  “If they make it,” Joe mumbled. “OK,” he added after a brief pause. “Let’s do it.”

  “I’m going in the front line,” Kiawak said, “and you’re not coming with me. The men need you here.” He gestured to Justin.

  Justin smiled. Changing Kiawak’s mind was a lost cause—at least in these circumstances. “I’ll lead the second battalion, General.” Justin saluted Kiawak.

  * * *

  “What the hell are they doing?” Gunter barked, noticing ten trucks plodding through the snow banks and sliding downhill toward the runway. The ruts they left behind in the snow looked like scratch marks of a giant’s hand. “They’re . . . they’re attacking us?”

  “Negative, sir, we’re not taking fire,” Magnus replied over the radio. “But they’re advancing to gain strategic positions. My men are shelling them with heavy fire.”

  Magnus’s two sharpshooters, Hobart and Soren, had burrowed trenches halfway between the runway and the hillside. They were taking aim indiscriminately at the approaching vehicles. Magnus raised his binoculars to his eyes just as Hobart clipped the right mirror of the front truck, a Ford 350. The driver steered to the left, but his rear wheel mired in an ice rift. The truck came to a halt. A man peered from the truck box and fired several shots from a light machine gun. Hobart corrected his aim by a few millimeters and his .50 caliber bullet blew away the right side of the shooter’s chest.

  “One down, no, two down,” Hobart said with a grin. Soren’s slug pierced a large hole through the driver’s door.

  “Great job, guys,” Magnus congratulated them. “Keep it up.”

  The Danish soldiers were shooting at the other vehicles too. Their firepower had stopped a Dodge Ram, but its driver was still blasting round after round. His machine gun bullets snipped ice chunks and raised snow dust in front of the Danish troops.

  “Luigi and Benito, move forward!” Magnus called at the troops. “They’re still too far.”

  Luigi looked back at Magnus, who was standing by the Hercules’s cargo door, and shook his head. Benito also ignored Magnus’s words, keeping his head down and flattening his body against the snow.

  “Fucking mafiosi,” Magnus cursed.

  “Sir, I’ve got it,” Hobart said.

  He turned his sight to the right, toward the Dodge. A few rounds coming from a white truck to his left reminded him there were closer targets that needed his attention. Before he could take a shot, Soren pulled the trigger of his sniper rifle. The white truck kept inching downhill despite the hole Soren’s bullet drilled in its windshield. Hobart had no clear shot of the driver from his position. He aimed at the right front wheel and planted his bullet at the intended spot, blowing out the tire. The white truck sank in the snow and began to tip over, until it rested dangerously on its right side.

  “Is the driver still alive?” Soren asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hobart replied. “I don’t see any movement.”

  “Let me handle this,” Valgerda whispered over the radio.

  She began plowing through the knee-deep snow, avoiding rifts and crevasses. She tried to keep to the trail set by other troops who had marched through before her. Cutting to the left, toward her target, she noticed the muzzle of an assault rifle flashing at the rear end of the white truck. Valgerda lay on her stomach and began to crawl through the snow. She pushed forward for about sixty feet, and stopped when a couple of bullets slammed into an ice block less than four feet from her head.

  She raised her Gevær M/95 rifle. Once the truck was exactly in her crosshairs, she pulled the trigger very slightly. The grenade launcher screamed, and a gray cloud of smoke engulfed her. Two seconds later, the warhead exploded in the white truck’s cabin, tearing it to shreds.

  “That’s it,” Magnus said. “Watch and learn, guys.”

  Three other trucks began descending the hill to their right flank. Magnus’s binoculars identified six men aboard the trucks.

  “Hobart, Soren,” Magnus said. “We’ve got more visitors.”

  “I’ll take care of them, sir,” Hobart replied.

  “Sargon, Vince, and Ali,” Magnus ordered another group of recruits, “support Hobart and Soren by attacking these targets.” He glanced at the group. They were standing about one hundred and fifty feet away from the runway. “Onward, soldiers!”

  “Sir, they’re shooting shit at us from all sides,” Ali replied over the radio. “It’s not safe to go any farther.”

  Sargon and Vince dug their heels in as well.

  “Soldiers,” Magnus hissed. “Move ahead as ordered. Now!”

  Ali refused to respond to the command, but Magnus had no time to convince his defiant men. A metallic bird of prey materialized over the ice hills and began slaying the soldiers with its steel talons. The Seahawk poured a torrent of bullets over the frontline positions of the snipers before taking a sharp dive to the left and out of sight. The surprise attack had given the Danish force no time for any counteracting fire.

  “Kill that damn pilot,” Gunter screamed over the radio.

  Magnus adjusted the volume of his earpiece before he would suffer permanent damage to his eardrum.

  “Bring down that bloody chopper,” Gunter shouted.

  “Where the hell is Yuliya?” Magnus asked.

  “I’m on my way,” she replied. “It took me some time to turn the Bell around, since this rusty piece of junk doesn’t work well.”

  Magnus’s binoculars followed the flight of the Bell helicopter. It hovered over the runway for a few seconds before it went screaming toward the battlefield.

  “That should take care of that problem,” Valgerda said.

  “I hope so,” Magnus replied. I’ve got my own problems to resolve. He glanced at Ali’s group still rooted in their trench.

  * * *

  “Fire! Fire at the chopper!” Justin shouted.

  The Bell roared, circling above their heads.

  “We are.” Joe slammed a fresh magazine in his Let Støttevåben. “But the beast is moving so fast.”

  He cleaned the snow from his face with the earflap of his toque, and straightened his gloves before resuming shooting.

  “Maybe we should have Carrie dogfight this,” Anna suggested between sporadic shots. Justin had given her a crash course on how to use his M4 carbine. The weapon rested heavily on her arms. The firing recoil jerked the metal stock against her shoulder.

  “Carrie’s ammo’s running low,” Justin replied. “We have to ride this on our own.”

  “Doesn’t she have Hellfire missiles or some rockets?” Joe shouted.

  A volley of bullets sprinkled the Land Rover. Anna gritted her teeth. Justin offered her a reassuring smile, but her eyes showed her morale needed a more powerful boost.

  “Ned,” Justin called to the man lying fifteen feet in front of him, “status!”

  “Two men critically wounded,” he replied. “Nilak tells me they have three dead and ten wounded, two of them in serious conditions.”

  “That’s besides the guys lost down in the field,” Joe added. “Seven or eight, I believe.”

  “Can we afford another attack?” Justin asked.

  “Not until the flying monster
’s dead,” Joe replied. “Or at least down on the ground.”

  Justin peeked through a couple of holes in the Land Rover’s doors. The Bell helicopter had completed a downward pirouette and was rising up toward the ice ridge. The Seahawk was hidden behind the ridge.

  “Well, the pigeon’s going to the hawk.” Justin pointed out the obvious. “Is Carrie ready?”

  “She better be,” Joe replied.

  * * *

  As soon as the enemy helicopter appeared over the hill, the Seahawk broke into a long volley of machine gun fire aimed at the Bell’s tail rotor. The Seahawk hovered a few feet above ground, swinging slightly to the sides.

  As machine gun bullets slammed into the Bell’s rotor blades and pierced its tail boom, the helicopter pivoted to the right. Yuliya’s mission had been turned upside down. She struggled to regain control of her helicopter and avoid a nose-first crash into the fast-approaching ground.

  The Bell responded to her commands and regained its earlier altitude but only for a few moments. Sharp electronic beeps erupted throughout the cabin. Flashing red signals on the control panel urged Yuliya to perform an immediate emergency landing. But landing behind enemy lines meant death or capture. She attempted a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.

  The unsafe maneuver brought the helicopter dangerously close to the ice-covered hills. At the last moment, the Bell jerked upwards, the damaged tail rotor barely missing a huge rock jutting out of the ice ridge. Yuliya steadied the helicopter and headed back to her camp.

  * * *

  When Carrie fired her shots, she intended to disable the Bell helicopter and force the pilot to land within easy reach of Justin’s men. The crew of the downed helicopter would serve as bargaining chips. Once Carrie realized the pilot was escaping her trap, there was no point in holding back.

  The Seahawk pitched forward until it was about a hundred and fifty feet above the ridge. Carrie tapped the joystick mounted on the center console; it controlled the machine gun. The powerful rattle returned. She spread out her bullets evenly over the entire length of the runaway target.

  Soon enough, the Bell was swallowed up in a thick cloud of smoke. Carrie eased up on her trigger, waiting for the inevitable explosion. A few seconds passed. The Bell helicopter appeared on the other side of the gray cloud, still airborne, but swaying to and fro like a duckling during its first flight.