Red Storm Rising Part 75

"Starbase, we are under attack by a squad of Russian infantrymen, with reinforcements on the way. Their observation post on 1064 has a mortar and we're getting fire from that. We need help fast."

"Roger, copy, Beagle. Stand by . . . Beagle, be advised we're diverting some help your way, ETA two-five minutes. Can you mark your position?"

"Negative, we don't have anything to do it with."

"Roger, understand. Hang in there, Beagle. We'll be back. Out."

Edwards heard a scream to his left. He stuck his head up and saw mortar rounds falling near Nichols's position-and Russians less than a hundred yards to his front. Mike grabbed his rifle and sighted it on a moving shape, only to have it drop out of sight again. He picked his walkie-talkie up with his free hand.

"Nichols, Smith, this is Edwards, report in."

"Nichols here. Whoever has that mortar knows what he's about. I have two wounded men here."

"We're okay, skipper. We seen two Russians go down hard. I sent Garcia to cover you."

"Okay, guys, we have air cover on the way in. I-" The shape came up again. Edwards dropped the radio, aimed his rifle, and fired three rounds, missing the shape that dodged out of sight. Back to the radio. "Nichols, you need help?"

"Two of us can still shoot. I'm afraid your Rodgers is dead. There-" The radio went dead for a moment. "All right, all right. We killed one, and the other is backing away. Look out, Leftenant, there are two fifty yards to your left front."

Mike looked around his rock and got shot at for his trouble. He shot back without hitting anything.

"Hi, skipper!" Garcia crashed down next to him.

"Two bad guys, that way." Edwards pointed. The private nodded and moved left behind cover of the hill crest. He got thirty feet when another mortar round exploded four strides behind him. The private fell hard and didn't move.

It's not fair, it's not fair. I got them this far, and it's not fair!

"Smith, Garcia's down. Get back up here. Nichols, if you can get to my position, move!" He switched radios. "Starbase, this is Beagle. Tell your birds to hurry."

"Two-zero minutes out, Beagle. Four A-7s. We have some other help coming, but they'll get to you first."

Edwards took his rifle and moved over to Garcia. The private was still breathing, but his back and legs were peppered with fragments. The lieutenant crawled to the crest and saw a Russian crouched thirty feet away. He aimed his rifle and fired two bursts. The Russian went down, firing his own weapon in a wide arc that missed Edwards by a scant yard. Where was the other one? Mike stuck his head up and saw something the size of a baseball flying through the air. He scrambled backwards as the grenade went off ten feet from where he'd been. Mike rolled to his right and went back uphill.

The Russian had disappeared again, but Edwards saw the others had reached the foot of his hill on a dead run and were starting up to his position. He strained to look and keep his head down at the same time. The other one-there! He was clambering down the hill, apparently dragging a wounded man with him. Mortar fire started to drop behind him, covering the man's retreat.

"You okay, Lieutenant?" It was Smith. He was wounded in the arm. "Whoever's working that G.o.dd.a.m.ned mortar must be the Russian Davy Crockett!"

Nichols arrived three minutes later. He was unhurt, but the Royal Marine private with him was bleeding from the abdomen. Edwards looked at his watch.

"We got air support coming in about ten minutes. If we stay here at the top in one place, they can drop all around us."

The men took position within fifty feet of Edwards. Mike grabbed Vigdis by the arm and set her between two boulders.

"Michael, I'm-"

"I'm scared, too. Stay here no matter what happens, stay here! You can-" The whistling sound came again, and this one was close. Mike stumbled and fell right on top of her. A hot needle seemed to penetrate his lower leg.

"s.h.i.+t!" The wound was just above his boot. He tried to rise, but the leg wouldn't take any weight. He looked around for the radio and hopped over to it, cursing all the way. "Starbase, this is Beagle, over."

"Nine minutes out, Beagle," the voice said patiently.

"Starbase, we're all on top of this hilltop, okay? We're all within fifty feet of the summit." He stuck his head up. "We have about fifteen bad guys coming toward us, maybe seven hundred yards away. We beat off the first attack, but we're down to-four, I guess, and three of us are wounded. For G.o.d's sake, get that mortar first, it's murdering us."

"Roger that. Hold it together, son. Help is coming."

"You're wounded, Leftenant," Nichols said.

"I noticed. The planes are eight or nine minutes out. I told them to take the mortar position out first."

"Very good. Ivan's in love with the b.l.o.o.d.y things." Nichols cut the pants away from the wound and tied a bandage on. "You won't be doing much dancing for a while."

"What can we do to slow them down?"

"We'll open fire at five hundred. That will make them more cautious, I think. Come on." Nichols grabbed his arm and pulled him to a position on the crest.

The Russians were moving forward with great skill. Men alternated brief rushes with dives behind whatever cover was available. The mortar was quiet at the moment, but that would change as soon as the paratroopers got close enough for their final a.s.sault. Nichols had discarded his submachine gun, and was aiming a semiautomatic rifle. When he figured the range at five hundred yards, the sergeant took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. He missed, but every Russian on the hill dropped.

"You know what you just did?" Edwards asked.

"Yes, I just invited more mortar fire on us." Nichols turned to look at his lieutenant. "b.l.o.o.d.y poor choice we have, isn't it?"

"Michael, you need this." Vigdis came down beside him.

"I told you to stay-"

"Here is your radio. I go-"

"Down!" Mike yanked her beside him as a mortar round dropped thirty feet away. A series of five dropped across their position.

"Here they come!" Smith yelled.

The Marines opened fire, and the Russians returned it, das.h.i.+ng from one piece of cover to another in a two-p.r.o.nged advance that threatened to envelop the hilltop. Mike got back on the radio.

"Starbase, this is Beagle, over."

"Roger, Beagle."

"They're coming in on us now."

"Beagle, our A-7s have you in sight. I want to know exactly where you and your people are-say again exactly."

"Starbase, there are two secondary summits on this hill, about three miles west of hill 1064. We are on the northern one, repeat northern one. My group is all within five-zero feet of the top of that hill. Anything that moves is the enemy, we are all sitting tight. The mortar is on hill 1064, and we need that taken out quick."

There was a long pause. "Okay, Beagle, they've been told where you are. Get your head down, they're one minute away, approaching from the south. Good luck. Out."

"Two hundred yards," Nichols said. Edwards joined him and leveled his M-16. Three men rose at once, both men fired, but Edwards couldn't tell if he'd hit anyone or not. Bullets kicked up dirt and stone chips a few feet away, and the whistle of more mortar rounds came down again. The group of five landed right on the crest as Edwards caught the shape of a haze-gray fighter-bomber diving from his right.

The stubby A-7E Corsair pulled out a thousand feet above the mountaintop three miles away. Four canisters of cl.u.s.ter bombs fell, splitting open in the air. A small cloud of bomblets cascaded on the Russian observation post. From three miles, it sounded like a loud string of firecrackers as the hilltop disappeared in a cloud of dust and sparks. A second aircraft repeated the maneuver twenty seconds later. There could be nothing left alive on the hilltop.

The attacking Russians stopped cold in their tracks and turned to see what had happened to their base camp. Then they saw that more aircraft were circling only two thousand yards away. It was clear to everyone that their best chance to stay alive another five minutes was to get as close to the Americans as they could. As one man, the Russian squads rose firing their weapons and ran up the hill. Two more Corsairs wheeled in the sky and darted in, their pilots drawn by the movement. They swept in level only a hundred feet above the slopes and loosed pairs of cl.u.s.ter bombs. Edwards heard the screams over the thunder of the explosives, but could see nothing through the cloud of dust that rose before his eyes.

"Christ, they can't drop much closer than that."

"They can't drop any closer than that," Nichols said, wiping blood from his face.

They could still hear rifle fire from within the dust. The wind blew it away, and at least five Russians were still up and moving toward them. The Navy Corsairs made another run in but broke off, unable to drop so close to friendly troops. They curved back in seconds, firing their cannon. The sh.e.l.ls scattered wildly, with some exploding ten yards from Edwards's face.

"Where'd they go?"

"The left, I think," Nichols answered. "You can't talk directly to the fighters?"

Edwards shook his head. "Not that kind of radio, Sarge."

The A-7s circled overhead while their pilots watched the ground for movement. Edwards tried to wave at them, but couldn't tell if they recognized the gesture or not. One of them dove to his left and fired a cannon burst into the rocks. Edwards heard a scream, but saw nothing.

"Stalemate." Edwards turned to look at his satellite radio. The last set of mortar rounds had sent a fragment through the backpack.

"Down!" Nichols grabbed the lieutenant as a grenade arced through the air. It exploded a few feet away. "Here they come again."

Edwards turned and put a fresh magazine in his rifle. He saw two Russians fifty feet away and fired a long burst. One went down on his face. The other returned fire and dodged left. He felt a weight on his legs and saw Nichols down on his back with a trio of red holes in his shoulder. Edwards put the last magazine in his rifle and moved awkwardly across the hill to the left, unable to put much weight on his right leg.

"Michael . . ."

"Go the other way," Edwards replied. "Look out!"

He saw a face and a rifle-and a flash. Edwards dove right, too late to keep from being hit in the chest. Only shock kept the pain from becoming unbearable. He fired a few rounds into the air to keep the man's head down as he backpedaled his feet to get away. Where was everyone? There was rifle fire to his right. Why wasn't anybody helping him? He heard the roar of jet engines as the A-7s continued to circle, unable to do anything but watch in frustration. He cursed them as he bled. His wounded leg revolted at being used this way, and his left arm was useless. Edwards held the rifle like an oversized handgun as he waited for the Russian to appear. He felt hands under his arms dragging him backwards.

"Drop me, Vigdis, for Christ's sake, drop me and run."

She said nothing. Her breathing was heavy as she struggled, stumbling, to pull him over the rocks. He was losing consciousness from the blood loss, and looked up to see the A-7s drawing off. There was another sound that didn't seem to make much sense. Dust rose around him with a sudden wind and there was another long burst of machine-gun fire as a huge green-black shape appeared overhead. Men jumped out, and it was all over. He closed his eyes. The Russian commander had gotten through to Keflavik. Here was the Mi-24 to reinforce the outpost . . . Edwards was too drained to react. He'd run a good race and lost. There was more chattering rifle fire, then silence as the helicopter moved off. How did the Russians treat prisoners who'd killed helpless men?

"Your name Beagle?"

It required the greatest effort of his life to open his eyes. He saw a black man standing over him.

"Who're you?"

"Sam Potter. I'm a lieutenant with Second Force Recon. You're Beagle, right?" He turned. "We need a corpsman over here!"

"My people are all hurt."

"We're working on it. We'll have you outa here in five minutes. Hang in there, Beagle. I gotta go do some work. Okay, people," he called loudly. "Let's get those Russians checked out. If we got any live ones, we wanna move them the h.e.l.l off this rock right now!"

"Michael?" Edwards was still confused. Her face was right above his when he lost consciousness.

"Just who the h.e.l.l is this guy?" Lieutenant Potter asked five minutes later.

"Wing-wiper. He done good," Smith said, wincing with his own injuries.

"How'd you get here?" Potter waved for his radio operator.

"We f.u.c.king walked all the way from Keflavik, sir."

"Quite a trip, Sarge." Potter was impressed. He gave a short radio order. "Chopper's on the way in now. I guess the lady goes out too."

"Yes, sir. Welcome to Iceland, sir. We been waiting for you."

"Take a look, Sarge." Potter's arm swept to the west. A series of gray b.u.mps on the horizon headed east toward Stykkisholmur.

USS CHICAGO.

They were still out there, McCafferty was sure-but where? After killing the last Tango, contact had never been reestablished with the other two Russian submarines. Eight hours of relative peace rewarded his evasive maneuvering. The Russian ASW aircraft were still overhead, still dropping son.o.buoys, but something had gone wrong for them. They weren't coming very close now. He'd had to maneuver clear only four times. That would have been a lot in peacetime, but after the past few days it seemed like a vacation.

The captain had taken the chance to rest himself and his crew. Though they would all have gratefully accepted a month in bed, the four or six hours of sleep they'd all had were like a cup of water for a man in the desert, enough to get them a little farther. And there was only a little farther to go: exactly one hundred miles to the jagged edge of the arctic ice. Sixteen hours or so.

Chicago was about five miles ahead of her sisters. Every hour, McCafferty would maneuver his sub to an easterly course and allow his towed-array sonar to get a precise fix on them. That was hard enough: Boston and Providence were difficult to pick up even at this distance.

He wondered what the Russians were thinking. The mobbing tactics of the Krivak-Grisha teams had failed. They'd learned that it was one thing to use those s.h.i.+ps for barrier operations against the Keypunch team, but something very different to rush after a submarine with long-range weapons and computerized fire-control. Their dependence on active son.o.buoys had reduced the effectiveness of their ASW patrol aircraft, and the one thing that had nearly worked-placing a diesel sub between two son.o.buoy lines, then spooking their target into moving with a randomly dropped torpedo-had failed also. Thank G.o.d they didn't know how close they came with that, McCafferty thought to himself. Their Tango-cla.s.s subs were formidable opponents, quiet and hard to locate, but the Russians were still paying for their unsophisticated sonars. All in all, McCafferty was more confident now than he'd been in weeks.

"Well?" he asked his plotting officer. "Looks like they're steaming as before, sir, about ten thousand yards behind us. I think this one's Boston. She's maneuvering a lot more. Providence here is plodding along pretty straight. We got a good fix on her."

"Left ten degrees rudder, come to new course three-five-five," McCafferty ordered.

"Left ten degrees rudder, aye, coming to new course three-five-five. Sir, my rudder is left ten degrees."

"Very well." The captain sipped at a cup of hot cocoa. It made a nice change of pace from coffee. Chicago turned slowly north. In the engine s.p.a.ces aft, the submarine's engineer crew kept watch on their instruments as the reactor plant turned out an even 10-percent power.

About the only bad news was the storm on the surface. For some reason a series of squalls was parading around the top of the world, and this one was a real growler. The sonar crew estimated fifteen-foot waves and forty-knot winds, unusual for the arctic summer. It knocked 10 to 20 percent off their sonar performance, but would make for ideal conditions as they approached the icepack. The sea conditions would be grinding acre-sized ice floes into ice chips, and that much noise would make the American subs very hard to detect in the ice. Sixteen hours, McCafferty told himself. Sixteen hours and we're out of here.

"Conn, sonar, we have a contact bearing three-four-zero. Not enough data to cla.s.sify at this time."

McCafferty went forward to sonar.

"Show me."

"Right here, skipper." The chief tapped the display. "I can't give you a blade-count yet, too sketchy for anything, Well, it smells like a nuclear boat," the chief allowed.

"Put up your model."

The chief pushed a b.u.t.ton and a secondary screen displayed the predicted sonar range, generated by computer from known local water conditions. Their direct-path sonar range was just over thirty thousand yards. The water was not deep enough yet for convergence zones, and they were beginning to get low-frequency background noise from the icepack. It would impede their ability to discriminate sonar contacts in the same way bright sunlight lessens the apparent intensity of an electric light.