by Bart Gauvin
Martinez looked around. Where was the LT? The platoon was getting scattered to the four winds, what with one squad moving south to flush out the sniper, another clearing around the van, and now his Third Squad asking to go off in chase of one man. The decision was quick, “Negative, Two-One, do not pursue,” Martinez ordered. “I want you to secure the building. Park your track to cover the back entrance. I’m going in to see if everyone inside is all right. Out.”
Martinez ordered his track’s driver to replace him behind the gun, then slipped down and exited out the back ramp of the M113, grabbing his M16 as he went. He was just starting forward when the platoon’s weapons squad leader, a friend, called to him, “Bert!”
The platoon sergeant didn’t like the resigned tone in the man’s voice. He stopped cold, then turned and walked to where the squad leader was standing, beside their LT’s track. The squad leader nodded his head toward the open ramp, a grim look on his face.
Ducking inside the M113, the first thing Martinez saw was the body of Lieutenant Kirby, stretched out between the benches that lined both sides of the vehicle’s interior. The platoon’s medic, an EMT by trade, was applying pressure to the officer’s chest through Kirby’s open flak vest, but Martinez could see that the floor of the APC was awash in blood. The medic looked up at Martinez and gave a slow, sad shake of the head.
Martinez knelt next to his platoon leader. The young man’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water. Then his eyes caught sight of Martinez, and he focused long enough to croak, “Did, did we get, get ‘em, Sarge?”
Martinez’s answer caught in his throat as he took his lieutenant’s hand in his own. He composed himself, not caring anymore about the young man’s misuse of his title. “Yes,” the sergeant said, trying not to let his voice break, “we got ‘em. You did good, sir, real good.”
He thought he saw Kirby’s chin try to nod once. Then the lieutenant’s eyes lost their focus, and Martinez felt his hand go limp. He looked up at the platoon medic, who felt the LT’s neck for a pulse. There was none. The medic withdrew his bloody hands, then threw the bandage he had been working with down in disgust before letting his head fall into his hands.
Martinez laid Kirby’s hand across his still and bloody chest. After laying a gentle hand on the medic’s shoulder, he told him, “Ryan, we’ve got wounded guys out there. Go see to them.”
The medic nodded, and they both exited the vehicle into the gray light of afternoon. For the first time since the firefight began, the platoon sergeant let himself slow down. Somewhere in the distance he could hear sirens approaching. His hands began to shake, but he stopped that before anyone saw it by clenching them into fists. That, at least, wasn’t hard to do. Anger was welling up inside him and it wasn’t just about Kirby or Sandy Hook, it was an anger for the entire New York area. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he raged. Wars were supposed to be fought “over there,” not here at home. Yet, here they were, duking it out at a Coast Guard station.
He felt that he’d failed in his most basic task of keeping his LT alive, of mentoring him and helping him to learn the profession of arms. Kirby had been a good kid, eager, aggressive, the kind of platoon leader that any platoon sergeant worth his salt loved, and he was dead because Martinez hadn’t spent the time to teach him about tactical patience. He clenched his fists tighter. No, he told himself, Kirby is dead because some Russian came over here and shot him. Came over here to our home, unprovoked, to kill our countrymen.
Martinez looked up as a blue uniformed Coast Guard officer came around the side of the M113, led by the plumber. The officer wore silver oak leaves on his collar. Martinez straightened and saluted. The officer returned the gesture quickly, then offered his hand to Martinez. The platoon sergeant noticed the name “Ingalls” stenciled on the officer’s name tape.
“I can’t thank you boys enough,” Ingalls was saying. “We thought we were goners there for a second until you rolled up. You got here just in the nick of time.”
The National Guard sergeant released the Coast Guard officer’s hand and said, “Don’t thank me, sir. Thank him.” His head inclined towards the M113 where Kirby’s body lay. “He’s the one who led us here.”
Ingalls nodded, understanding.
Martinez gave the Coast Guard officer another salute and walked away to see to his platoon’s positions. He was the platoon leader now, and he had a command center to secure. He wasn’t about to let his LT’s sacrifice be in vain.
Volkhov drove the car south on the trunk road that led off the peninsula. After barely escaping from that blasted American armored vehicle, crashing like an angry bull into the parking lot between himself and his target, Volkhov and his partner had tried to sneak away from the soldiers spilling out of the boxy track. They were seen crossing the grassy field between the lot and a water tower. They sprayed rounds from their assault carbines back towards the Americans, then made a run for it, but somewhere along the way the other man had gone down.
Volkhov kept running, eventually making it to a tourist area at an old artillery casemate on the east side of the peninsula. There was only one car in that lot, its owner taking pictures of dark pillars of smoke rising out to sea. Volkhov killed him, after ensuring that he had the man’s keys.
A line of police cars, lights flashing and sirens blaring, roared past headed towards the Coast Guard Station. The Spetsnaz officer was filled with rage at the failure of his mission, but for now he held it down. It had all become impossible when the soldiers had arrived. If Volkhov and his team had been just a few minutes earlier, they’d have wiped out every person in that building. Instead, here he was, evading to save himself.
Half a mile down the road, Volkhov pulled off onto the shoulder and waited, engine idling. He looked west towards the coastal scrub. After a moment, a figure stood up and jogged towards him. It was his sniper, sans the hunting rifle and gripping his forearm, blood oozing from between tightly clenched fingers.
As his wounded man climbed into the car, Volkhov counted his losses. Of the six members of his team, four were dead. Or captured, Volkhov allowed. He couldn’t be sure. Probably dead. The one next to him was wounded. That left only himself. Well, he thought as he pulled back onto the road bearing south, that will have to be enough.
CHAPTER 85
1730 CET, Sunday 13 February 1994
1630 Zulu
Tromsø Lufthavn, Tromsø, Norway
OLSEN WRESTLED TO keep his wounded jet level as he descended towards the Tromsø airstrip. He refused to let himself even glance left, where he knew the wing was streaked dark from multiple jagged punctures. The vertical stabilizer was in similar shape, compliments of the shrapnel from the missile that had nearly killed him. The port flaps were non-functional. He could still use his tail rudder, though he didn’t trust the damaged control surfaces to hold on through anything but the gentlest of maneuvers.
Looking down, Olsen saw the deep blue of the Tromsøysundet Strait give way to icy white surf breaking against the jagged islets and rocks sticking up from Tromsøya Island. Almost there, he urged his wounded machine, descending towards the black strip of asphalt ahead. A crosswind gusted from the east, and it took all of Jan’s concentration to nudge his normally nimble Falcon back into a good landing glide. The rocky coastline gave way to the colorful, snow-covered homes to his left. Then he was flying over the tarmac, painted white lines and black skid marks streaked backwards past his cockpit on both sides.
Just before his wheels touched down, Olsen remembered to question whether his landing gear had been damaged. If so, if even one of the tires on his tricycle landing gear was flat, then this would be a very interesting landing indeed.
It had already been an interesting flight south. After escaping from the Soviet aerial ambush around the Backstop radar, Olsen had limped northwestwards at low altitude, trying to avoid any subsequent dogfights. The acrid smell of burning
oil permeated the cockpit, and unexpected thunks told him when another piece of his aircraft had broken off and fallen away. He had even avoided calling on his radio for fear that the sensors on the Soviet electronic warfare aircraft lurking to the east would sniff him out and vector a pair of fighters to finish him off. Despite his precautions, he narrowly avoided a flight of four MiG-27s as the Russian jets dove to bomb the Norwegian Coast Guard frigate Nordkapp. The Soviet pilots, apparently intent upon their assigned target, hadn’t noticed Jan in his crippled Falcon beneath them, and Olsen wasn’t about to attract their attention.
Not until he was further northwest did Jan breathe a sigh of relief. The likelihood of Soviet fighters patrolling up here, far from their EW and radar support, was much less. Olsen had coaxed his F-16 around to a southwesterly heading over his country’s jagged fjӧrd lands. That was when he became aware of his true peril. Deciding that the time was right to break emissions silence, he had keyed his radio to call Magic, letting the controllers on the AWACS know that he was alive, but there had been no answer. He realized the radio had been silent since the missile had exploded, damaged in the blast, no doubt. Jan had no way of knowing if anyone was receiving his transmissions. He was alone.
He had considered his options. The flight of MiG-27s were troublingly far to the west. That meant Tromsø, where he had launched from and where he was attempting to land, was also in danger, and maybe even the main base at Bardufoss as well.
The rear wheels of Jan’s jet touched down in puffs of burning rubber on the icy, windswept runway. Jan cringed, waiting for a tire to blow, or a landing strut to collapse, but nothing happened. The Falcon’s front wheel touched down with a thump. All three wheels were down and he was rolling safely. Now Jan dispensed with all pretensions of being gentle. He threw his engine into full reverse, deployed what flaps still worked in his wings, and stood on his brakes. His trusty fighter shuddered to a stop half-way down the runway. Only then did he allow a ragged breath to escape from his lips.
A guide vehicle approached, orange lights flashing. The driver signaled Jan to follow, and he taxied off to the right. In a minute they were in among the hangars north of the small airport’s passenger terminal. Olsen saw that the large doors of one of the hangars was open, revealing a ground crew swarming over a pair of F-16s, one of them a two-seater that reminded him of Sven. He was sure he’d seen Sven Hokensen, in his “B” model F-16, eat a missile before Jan’s jet had experienced its own mid-air interaction with a Soviet weapon. He had to assume that Sven was dead. Just like Bjorn. Just like three of the other pilots that had flown north to Banak with him this morning.
Jan, following directions, brought his beleaguered Falcon to a stop on the far side of the hanger next to a C-130 transport. Ground crew hooked a ladder over the edge of the cockpit, but Olsen sat for a moment, remembering. What could he have done differently to keep his fellow pilots alive? He replayed each engagement in his head: the one Flanker shot down in the opening seconds of the war and another possible, the two MiG-23s over the North Cape. That was when he’d lost Bjorn. Should they have stayed together? Then on this second ill-fated sortie he had bagged another MiG-23 and a Fencer with Sven tight on his wing, before his friend’s F-16B had disappeared. Should they have split up for the engagement? Finally, there was that last Flanker in its scissor turn…The realization hit Jan: two Flankers, three Floggers, a Fencer, and another Flanker possible, that was at least six kills, maybe seven. I’m an ace! Somehow the elation he had always imagined he would feel at this, the pinnacle of any fighter pilot’s career, did not come. He just wanted to kill more of them.
Jan pulled the canopy release, allowing the perspex dome to raise, exposing him to the icy wind blowing in from the east. He was suddenly very tired. An overwhelming urge to close his eyes right here in the cockpit and go to sleep forced aside all other emotion. Then another icy blast struck him and he forced himself to get out of his seat and down the ladder.
A group of half a dozen pilots, all wearing exposure suits and carrying their helmets, emerged from the terminal walking towards the hangar just as Jan’s feet touched solid ground. One of them peeled off in Olsen’s direction, and Jan recognized yet another old comrade. Lieutenant Colonel Arne Anders, he’d been one of Jan’s flight instructors years ago, someone he looked up to as a mentor.
“Jan!” Anders called through the icy wind, “Good to see you alive! We’ve heard things have been rough up there.” He took Olsen’s hand, looking onto the younger man’s eyes.
“Yes, well,” Olsen answered, releasing the older officer’s hand, “I got…I got a few of them. Six, maybe seven, but I need a new plane.” He swept his hand back towards the pockmarked Falcon.
Anders nodded. “I can see that,” he said, surveying the shredded wing and tail. Then he bit his lip. Jan had spent enough time with this man in flight school to know that Anders only did this when he was deciding whether one of his trainees was ready for the next step.
After a moment Anders looked back into Olsen’s eyes and said seriously, “Jan, I’ve got a plane for you, a two-seater. If you feel up to it.” He indicated the F-16B Jan had seen.
Jan hadn’t flown a “B” model Falcon since flight school. The aircraft handled somewhat differently than the single-seat F-16A he had just landed, but it didn’t matter. He would have said anything, anything in that moment to get back into the sky, back to where he could kill more invaders. “Of course,” he answered quickly.
“Very good,” Anders said as another gust of wind caused both men to shiver. “One of my pilots, very junior, just froze up during the mission brief. I grounded him. I’m going up with two flights, seven ships in all. You would make eight. You can fly with me, since I was only going to have three in my flight anyway. I have a jet armed, fueled, and waiting for a pilot. But I have to warn you, Jan, we’ve got a tough mission.”
“What’s the mission, sir?” Olsen asked.
“It looks like the Soviets are about to make a drop on Banak,” Anders said, “an ad-hoc force including 340 Squadron is going to support us in trying to stop it.” In that moment Olsen knew the situation was bad. The Soviets had just driven him and thirty other pilots in state-of-the-art air superiority fighters more than two hundred kilometers west of Banak. Now Anders and his fellow pilots were going back to the airbase with a scratch force of whatever could be thrown together? What had happened during his half-hour of radio blackout? 340 Squadron flew the F-5A Freedom Fighter. It was a good jet, small and maneuverable, but it was no match for the modern Flankers and Fulcrums that were swarming over Northern Norway at this moment. The plane didn’t even have a radar! If this squadron, which specialized in ground attack, was being committed to the fray under those circumstances, Things must be as desperate as they feel, Olsen thought.
“…we’re going to loop up around the Cape and come at Banak from the north,” Anders was saying. “We’ll take our F-16s in at low altitude up the Porsangerfjӧrd and try to get in among the transports before they drop. 340 Squadron and some American and Dutch fighters are going to try to draw the Russian CAP off to the south long enough for us to get in, hit the wide-bodies, and get out.”
“Wait,” Olsen stopped the older man, “340 Squadron is being used as air-to-air, not air-to-ground?” He had assumed the F-5As would be conducting ground support.
The other man nodded gravely. “Us and them are all that’s left to feed into the fight for now,” Anders said slowly. “As I said, the plan is for 340 Squadron and the Americans to draw the escorts away so that we only have to deal with defenseless transports. With luck, we’ll never see a Russian fighter. Do you still want in? You know better than us that it won’t be easy, and I won’t order you.”
Jan swallowed once as he considered. He wanted desperately to get another shot at the Russians, but, I’m not suicidal. Is that what this is? A suicide mission? Again the fatigue hit him. He was exhausted after two hard sorties. He need
ed to rest, to process what had happened. But could he really do that when Johansen, now isolated with his command up at Banak, was counting on him? I promised him, Olsen remembered. I promised him we wouldn’t leave him on his own to die.
Jan made his decision. “Where’s my plane, sir?” he asked.
Anders nodded, unsmiling. “Follow me.”
CHAPTER 86
1750 CET, Sunday 13 February 1994
1650 Zulu
Two kilometers south of Banak Airbase, Lakselv, Troms, Norway
JOHANSEN WINCED IN pain with each step as he climbed the stairs. His wounded shoulder had been numb in the minutes after the shard of wood embedded itself in his flesh, but now his entire back felt as if it was on fire. It was all Erik could do to keep climbing instead of sitting down, right here in the stairway. If he could just be still for a few moments, but there was no time. Sweat beaded on his forehead beneath his white cloth-covered helmet despite the chill air flowing down the stairway. The rittmester kept climbing.
The stairway led to the second floor of a small house south of the town of Lakselv. No lights were on in the home, and the insides of the rooms and hallways were dark with the fading light of evening. Johansen emerged into an upstairs bedroom with a south-facing window, open to a frigid breeze. Two soldiers huddled at the window, stamping their feet. One of them held a set of binoculars in his gloved hands and peered south, while the other held the hand-mic of a radio set that leaned against the wall beneath the window sill. A cable snaked out the window to an improvised wire antenna draped back over the house’s roof in the direction of the gun battery at Banak. Three rifles leaned against the pastel blue-painted wall, creating a jarring contrast in what was clearly a child’s room. The third member of the team, a kaptein of artillery, was in the back of the room, examining a map spread over a bed under the red-filtered beam of an L-shaped flashlight.