The two of them were hunched over, pulling rounds out of two of the dozen or so ammo cans they’d found stacked in there, reloading empty rifle magazines by hand. It looked like there was plenty to go around, thank God.
Up in the front of the cabin, Handon huddled up with Fick to plan what they hoped would be the last act of this drama – both of them hoping like hell it wouldn’t end as tragedy. But first Handon had to tell him what was happening on the carrier. He didn’t have many details. But Fick would know one thing – if the Kennedy went down…
All his Marines would have to be dead first.
Carry the Fight
JFK – Commander Drake’s Quarters
Darkness, or damned close to it. A cocoon of silence – or, rather, of sound-muffling noise. Commander Drake lay on his rack in the spectral light, listening to music through noise-canceling headphones. These were in clear violation of standing orders, but he figured being a commander ought to have some privileges. Plus he knew they’d come and find him if they needed him. But the whole point of his existence now was that they didn’t need him.
Or they had to get by without him, anyway.
He’d originally bought the headphones just to find a little peace on this bustling and overcrowded warship.
But now he used them for a very different reason.
It was specifically so that he couldn’t hear the all-hands announcements on the tannoy – all of which made him want to put on his uniform, go out the hatch, and make himself useful, his extended sick leave be damned.
But Drake knew that was pretty much how he got into this mess in the first place. By trying to do everything, all by himself, all of the time. That grenade blast to his head hadn’t helped any. And it took Doc Walker a lot of urging, but she’d finally convinced him he really did have a traumatic brain injury – TBI. In the end, he’d had too many of the characteristic symptoms to deny it.
But the longer he reflected on it, the more convinced he became that the TBI had simply blown the lid off even more serious underlying damage – the results of overwork, and stress, and the crushing burden of command in a time of war. Not to mention having responsibility for the mission literally charged with saving the world.
And when that exploding grenade finally popped the lid that had been keeping all this tamped down in Drake’s psyche… what came pouring out wasn’t pretty.
* * *
Now, in his enforced solitude, alone with his demons and his barest self, he was belatedly learning some important lessons. Humility. Patience. And the courage to let himself be weak – to step down and let others carry the fight for a while.
But then, on this day, when his hatch suddenly opened up without warning… the fight came and found him. He squinted as light from the passageway fell across his face. As his eyes adjusted, he could see wide eyes and adrenalized-looking faces peering in.
Of the four people outside his hatch, he recognized the one in front as Senior Chief Derwin – the NSF Master-at-Arms and ranking petty officer. Behind him stood three other NSF, all armed, and looking loaded for bear. Drake felt around for his music player, powered it off, and pulled out the earbuds. And now he could hear it. The general quarters alarm was sounding.
Whatever was going on, he’d missed it entirely.
“Commander!” Derwin said, stepping inside. “I’m sorry to bust in. We’ve been pounding on your hatch. Didn’t you hear general quarters?”
Drake ignored the question, sitting up in bed. He hadn’t showered in days, but at least his buzz cut made it impossible for him to have bed head. “What’s happening?”
“We’ve been boarded,” Derwin said.
Drake stood up in bare feet and boxer shorts, and looked around for his uniform. “By who?”
“We don’t know for sure. They’ve been heard speaking Russian.”
As Drake finished pulling on his pants and buckling his belt, he exhaled and looked up at the senior chief. “Spetsnaz. It has to be Naval Spetsnaz.” And he thought:
Damn it. Homer was right again. Smart SEAL.
Derwin shook his head. “Dunno – maybe they are. But they’ve taken the bridge, ship’s magazine, and a bunch of other stations. And word has been passed down… Commander Abrams is dead.”
Ah, shit, Drake thought. Well, so much for humility and patience.
“What do we do, sir? What are your orders?”
Drake finished lacing his boots and pulled on a shirt.
“Follow me,” he said.
It looked like his sick leave was at an end.
And there was no one but him to carry the fight.
* * *
Way up on the second highest level of the island, the entire bridge crew had now either been killed or driven out. And one man held the bridge alone. Though he probably wouldn’t hold it long. Because he was bleeding out.
But he was happy.
This was the mystery blond sailor, who now sat slumped in what used to be the captain’s chair. Blood from multiple gunshot wounds on his extremities sheeted down the previously nice leather. Both his arms lay draped on the armrests, the right one limply holding a pistol with the slide locked back.
He was in this posture when the others arrived.
It was a force of Spetsnaz naval commandos, attired and armed like the ones operating belowdecks, all of them pure maritime pipe-hitters. But this team was bigger than all the others, sixteen men strong, and was led by the mission commander himself – Captain Leonov. It was this force that had been assigned to take the bridge, and hold the island – and for which the bleeding blond man was supposed to be merely a recon element. Now Leonov found him shot to hell and bleeding heavily, but still alive.
And holding the Kennedy’s bridge – all alone.
The captain shook his head at the man as he approached. “So – you just decided to take the bridge yourself. All the glory for you.”
The man shrugged from his slumped posture. “Tastes bitter, does it, Kapitán?”
“No.” Leonov reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “One of my men just seized control of a Ford-class nuclear supercarrier – by himself.” The pride was obvious in his face, and in his voice. “You were forced to launch early?”
“The alarm had been sounded. They would have hunkered down here, and you would have had a tough fight.”
“Who sounded the alarm?”
“It was from the hospital.”
“Damn it,” Leonov said. He got on his radio to the sergeant-major leading the teams belowdecks. “Starshina – get to the hospital. Secure the scientist and his research. Move fast.”
Then he got his own team busy fortifying the bridge.
Because as hard and fast as they had hit the Americans, knocking them back on their heels, and taking critical stations before they could react…
His 100 men were still outnumbered 25 to one.
As he got to work on the defenses with three of his men, and sent eight others out to secure and strongpoint the rest of the island, the four who remained got settled at the stations for helmsman, conn, officer of the watch, and tactical command officer. They all knew the rudiments of running these stations on a ship of this class. It was not only Western special operators who had large skill sets and broad cross-training. And by now being able to maneuver the ship…
They were about to tip those 25–1 odds.
* * *
Standing no more than twenty meters beneath the Spetsnaz commander, LT Campbell paced CIC like a tiger in a shrinking cage. She and her people were still secure, and could hole up in there forever. But they couldn’t affect a goddamned thing, and were controlling less and less all the time, as the tendrils of the invasion insinuated themselves into more corners and critical stations of the ship. Every minute they did nothing decreased the odds of ever repelling the invaders and retaking the ship.
But they weren’t doing nothing.
Under Campbell’s direction, her staff used the few handheld radios they had to coordinate th
e scattered and haphazard defense, as well as to develop the best tactical picture they could, and try to understand the battlespace.
There were also two stations monitoring the CCTV cameras mounted in hundreds of places inside and outside the ship. All voice comms had been taken out – shipboard, ship-to-ship, and ship-to-shore – but the video was wired up separately. Either the invaders were unaware of that, didn’t care about the video – or, most likely, just didn’t have the resources to take out everything.
So Campbell stood between two stations where she had men creating spreadsheets of the location and movement of all known groups of boarders, as well as armed and organized defenders. These then got plotted on to maps of each deck, and flashed up on the overhead displays. Officers with radios stood beneath the displays and relayed all of it, or as much as they could in the chaos, to personnel around the ship.
In effect, this was like having drone surveillance. And it definitely was the job CIC was supposed to be doing – running the fight. But it was slow, kludgy, prone to error – and they were having to improvise like hell and make up the process as they went along.
But it was the best they could do. And they had no choice.
Because if they didn’t all pitch in, the ship didn’t have a prayer.
“LT!” someone shouted.
“Report.”
“Engines are coming online!”
But she could already feel it beneath her feet, that electric hum of nuclear maritime propulsion. And since they didn’t control the bridge, this could only mean one thing – they were all about to go somewhere they probably didn’t want to go.
Campbell’s knuckles whitened on the grip of her pistol as she slid over to another station to check their speed and bearing. And as she looked on in utter helplessness, the ship started turning – and in another few minutes faced away from the Gulf and out toward the Indian Ocean… and started heading out to sea.
“Where the fuck are they taking us?” she said out loud.
She then moved back underneath the displays, shaking slightly – and absolutely determined to muster and organize a force that could retake the bridge. They had no choice – they had to regain positive control of the vessel. But even as she pondered this, she heard one of the handheld radios bark, louder than the other chatter in CIC. And the voice was not only loud – but firm, clear, and resolved.
“Is anyone in CIC alive and monitoring this channel? This is Commander Drake. Repeat, CIC from Drake, acknowledge.”
Campbell leaned across a bank of stations and grabbed a desk mic. “Break, break, clear this channel of all other traffic.” She looked around at the room. All activity and chatter ceased. “Drake, Combat. Campbell here. Is that really you, Commander?”
“Affirmative. Is CIC secure?”
“Yes, yes, affirmative. Where are you?”
“Just stay put, LT. We’re coming to you.”
“Negative, negative. Drake, be advised: other than CIC, we do not hold the island. You’ll just get killed if you come here.”
There was a fractional pause, and near silence in CIC.
“No choice. Stand by. Drake out.”
The Hunters
On the North Bank of the Nugal River
“White boys jacked our ride.”
Misha meant their raft, which they could now see beached on the far bank of the river.
Vasily, standing nearby and draining his rifle of river water, wondered why the hell Misha was moaning about a raft when they just had their whole mission objective stolen out from under them. He figured Misha was either too angry to talk about it – or, more likely, had zero doubt they were going to get it back. And he was thinking about how much he was going to enjoy killing all the Americans as he recaptured it.
Major Kuznetsov had a map pack laid out on the hood of his vehicle. “The nearest intact bridge is here,” he said, pressing his index finger into it. “It’s a big detour. But they’re on foot now, and we should have no trouble catching them.”
“Unless they’re not,” Misha grunted. “RTO!” he barked. “Get me the e-warfare officer on the Akula.”
Not bothering to identify himself, he just said, “Mad propz for hacking that American drone, you asshole. It just killed my whole team. Asshole.” He listened for a few seconds. “Da, I figured they fucking hacked it back. Where’s the source of the shitblasters’ control signal, the one that is so much more potent than yours?”
He made a scribbling motion in the air again until someone handed him writing materials. He wrote down ten digits, ripped the sheet off, then tossed the handset back to the RTO.
Then he looked around and picked two Team 3 men – not at random, but ones he knew well. “Barsuk! Voyna Ditya!” The two men, known as Badger and Warchild, stepped forward.
Badger was of medium size, but with wiry muscles like wound rope, and lightning-fast for a man of any size. He liked knives, as well as quick-drawing his pistol, or raising his rifle in a blur, snap-firing, and killing opponents before they could blink.
Warchild, the oldest man in the outfit, had a graying crewcut and nests of lines around his eyes and forehead, which bespoke both advanced age and ridiculously low body fat. His self-discipline was legendary, even in an outfit where renunciation of all comfort and pleasure were just the price of entry. He was also said to be utterly impervious to pain – even more so than everyone else there. Misha liked him because he was loyal – and because he was obviously a tough and brutal badass to have stayed alive and operational this long.
Both men were mean, merciless, fearless, and happy to die.
Misha shoved the scrap of paper into the top of Badger’s vest. “Get across the river. Go to this grid reference. Kill whoever you find there.”
With this he and Vasily traded looks. They both had a guess about who they’d find there. And they guessed he’d be wearing a thick beard.
“And get me my motherfucking drone back.” Misha turned away, leaned into the truck, and came out with a pair of RPGs. He tossed them at his two picked men. “Take these. You may need them.”
If either were worried about getting across the river with the heavy weapons, neither betrayed it. Wordlessly, they stepped away, and Badger started stripping down. Kuznetsov figured he was going to swim over and get the raft, so both could cross with their weapons and gear.
The RTO approached Misha again. “Captain Leonov for you, sir.”
Misha took the phone. “Report.”
“The good news is we hold the bridge. The carrier is ours to control now.”
“And the bad news?”
“They tried to bring down a prop plane, as you predicted.”
“That’s not bad news. Because you captured it, right?”
“Negative. It was destroyed, despite our best efforts.”
“Your best efforts suck my nutsack! Any other suitable aircraft on board?”
“Nothing on deck. And we haven’t had the manpower to take the hangar deck yet. But—”
“But what?”
“They managed to launch one of their Seahawk helos.”
“What the fuck were you doing?”
“We were fully engaged. It all happened quickly. But it looked to be in very bad shape. I’m amazed it flew at all.”
“Adjust your amazement threshold. Where did it go?”
“The ship’s radar array is down, of course, but at last visual contact, it was heading due west – straight for Djibouti Town. Camp Lemonnier I would guess. But we lost them after that.”
Misha considered, handing the phone back without signing off.
Camp Lemonnier, he thought. Or Djibouti Airport…
* * *
A few miles away, on the north side of the river valley, two Russian military aviators perched on the outside of a badly damaged attack helicopter – one up on top, banging on one of the rotors with a mallet, and the other stuck up to her shoulders in the open engine compartment.
Nina finally withdrew her head, wrench
in hand, and looked up at Bazarov. “This engine is a write-off,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do to repair it from here.”
Bazarov nodded.
But Nina didn’t look distraught. That’s why Mother Russia gave us two. They could still fly and fight with only one engine. It would ding their top speed. But, then again, not all that much.
“And the rotors?” she asked.
Bazarov nodded. “Some small shrapnel punctures. I’ve hammered down the edges. Lift will be fractionally affected. And we won’t win any smooth-ride awards.”
Nina nodded and spat in the grass.
Another thing she didn’t give a shit about.
* * *
The new RTO, who Misha still couldn’t tell from the old RTO, came and found him again. “Sir – we’ve just intercepted an enemy transmission. They’re headed for the coast.” He put the transcript on the hood of the truck, where Misha and Kuznetsov read it.
The Major looked up at his boss. “That’s good for us, then. We can catch them, kill them, and retrieve the objective – all on our way to extraction.”
Misha squinted down at the sheet. But what he was really seeing was the gleam of intelligence in the eye of the American commander, when they had locked eyes on that exploding riverbank. Something wasn’t right.
“No,” he said, finally. “I don’t think so.”
“But the transmission was encrypted,” Kuznetsov said.
Misha grunted. “No. Homeboy isn’t stupid. After we hit them in the Islamist fortress, they’ll have to know we hacked their comms. He’s using that to send us in the wrong direction.”
Kuznetsov raised his eyebrows. “So where, then?”
Misha grunted and pondered. And he remembered the Seahawk heading toward Djibouti Town. “The motherfucking airport,” he said. “They’ll rendezvous there, then fly out – on something either already parked there, or else coming in. And by now they’ll also know the carrier is in play – that they can’t go back there anyway.”
He snapped his fingers at the RTO. “Get me Team 3, monkey boy!” When he got through – to the forest encampment in the north where they’d started the day – he issued instructions. “Saddle up. Get to Djibouti Airport. You’re going to have company – prepare a reception. We’ll meet you, and crush the enemy between us.”
ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch Page 34