31
38 miles south of Delta
Major Timothy Riordan glanced at his watch and then at the sky. “This ‘midnight sun’ crap is irritating.”
“Oui,” Captain René Flérs said. “If you wish to do something under the cover of darkness, you must move quickly before the sky she lights up again.”
“And it doesn’t get dark until it’s bloody late at night!” Riordan shook his head. “Have the scouts reported back yet?”
“Non, and most confusing it is. I expressly told them to return before the midnight. Perhaps they have become disoriented and lost?”
“I’d be more willing to bet this has something to do with that Russian helicopter yesterday afternoon. That thing took more hits than a whore on payday, yet it stayed in the air.”
“But she did not return, oui?”
“That doesn’t mean a damn thing. We didn’t scare them off, René. They’re going to come at us in a different way. That’s why we’ve got to move out tonight.”
“The men are resting, but in full combat dress. The prisoners are under guard in the hospital. The machines are fueled and ready to leap into action.”
Riordan laughed. “All I have to do is push the button, is that it?”
“Certainment, mon Majeur.”
The major’s eyes never rested on one spot more than a few seconds. Only under fire was he able to stay still. Tonight his executive officer struggled to keep up with Riordan’s pace as they walked the perimeter of their camp.
“What’s Pelagian’s condition?”
“Doctor Revere says his wound improves trés quickly. He should be ambulatory by week’s end. The Russian also rapidly heals, but nothing like the large man.”
“Did you double the guard on the woman as I ordered?”
“Oui. She is unsettling, that one. My grand-mére would say she has the evil eye.”
“Keep that crap up and you’ll have me believing she can summon the black mariah or call down a banshee. She’s just an old woman who fights with her mouth. But she is damn good at it.”
“Where is roving patrol?” Captain Flérs asked, looking around in the twilight haze of midnight in summertime Alaska. “We should have encountered—”
An abrupt wave of concussion and heat swept across them as one of their three fuel trucks and two armored personnel carriers exploded in a thunder of detonations, lighting up the camp and surrounding forest by throwing burning fuel in all directions. Liquid fire cascaded down on four of the six tanks and both of the remaining APCs.
“Merde!” Flérs shrieked. “We are under attack.”
Riordan already had a whistle clenched in his teeth. He blew three sharp blasts, paused and repeated himself. Spitting the whistle out he screamed, “As if that fooking explosion wouldn’t wake the very saints themselves! Go direct the damage control crew; I’ll direct the counterattack.”
The men raced away from each other. Riordan saw figures flitting about at the edge of the camp. He pulled his pistol out and fired the clip empty.
All was for effect. Despite his keen marksmanship, he knew hitting anything over fifty meters away would take an act of a very forgiving or forgetful Catholic God. His men boiled out of their four-man tents, armed and alert.
The fire silhouetted them perfectly if you were watching from the forest, Riordan realized. His thought became a cosmic cue as gunfire erupted from the trees. Ten of his men went down in the first few seconds.
The first group of mercenaries took cover and returned fire, shooting at the muzzle flashes in the shadowed woods. Another armored personnel carrier exploded in the middle of the motor pool, spraying the area with pieces of metal as lethal as bullets or shrapnel.
The camp seethed with pandemonium: men screaming in anger or pain, weapons firing nonstop, and the roar of an out-of-control fire created the backdrop of a scene from hell. Riordan looked around, assessed the situation, and knew he had to make quick decisions or they were lost to a still unseen enemy.
He ran over to his men while bullets snapped and buzzed past his head. Something bit his right ear and he grabbed it to discover the lobe shot away. The old, blind, killing anger surged through him and he fought it. If he went berserk now they would all die.
“Concentrate your fire, sweep the woods. Where’s the mortar crew? Bring up those fifties on tripods!”
He glanced back at the raging fire. It looked out of control. Every time his men attacked the flames, they were cut down.
How the hell did they surround us? He picked up a rifle lying next to a dead Freekorpsman.
“Sergeant Ombekki,” Riordan grabbed the quick African. “Take charge here. I’m going to get some of our heavy weapons into this.”
“Yes, Major!” His filed teeth gleamed in the firelight. “I will hold them.”
Riordan raced toward the motor pool. Two of the tanks pulled away from the fire and he resolved to promote the men inside: the hulls had to be hot as ovens. Two burning trucks abruptly whomped into pillars of flame as their gas tanks burst.
A figure dashed from the forest and threw something at the lead tank. Riordan snapped the rifle to his shoulder and shot the man dead. Fire gushed over the side of the tank.
“Gasoline bombs, damn them!” He fired into the forest where the man had appeared. He emptied the clip then threw the rifle down and sprinted for the remaining armored personnel carrier.
Behind him one of their heavy machine guns opened up, firing long bursts. Riordan scrambled up into the gun tub on the APC and grabbed the twin fifties. With a shriek he pulled his hands free—the metal was hot enough to blister flesh.
He ripped his shirt off and tore it in half, quickly wrapping the cloth around his hands. The heat from the burning vehicles less than thirty meters away was nearly overwhelming. Now he was really pissed off.
He fired sustained bursts into the forest. If he saw movement, he blew the area to pieces. Enemy fire slackened as both tanks fired machine guns and cannon into the forest even as fire licked over the leading hull. Riordan became aware that enemy fire hadn’t just slackened; it had stopped.
“Cease fire!” he bellowed. “Cease fire!”
The order echoed around the perimeter and the crackling flames seemed magnified in the sudden stillness. The heat defeated Riordan and he jumped down off the APC, shaking his hands free of the smoldering shirt rags.
“Officers on me!” he bellowed. “Sergeants, assemble your men. Everybody attend to the wounded.” Firelight reflected redly off his sweaty arms and chest.
The grim triage began immediately. Every member of the International Freekorps knew that if their wounds were too grave for them to travel, they were dead. They didn’t own an ambulance.
Captain Flérs hurried up to him and rattled something in French.
“English, René, English!”
“Oui. Yes, Major. We have lost a great deal of machines and men.”
A gun went off near them as a mortally wounded trooper’s misery ended.
“How many men?”
“Sixty, perhaps, seventy?”
“How the hell did they get past our patrols and perimeter guards?”
René shrugged. “Who is the enemy—Russians, Dená, somebody else?” He shrugged again.
“Well, I know we got at least one; let’s go look at him.”
Riordan hurried over to where the man had tumbled in death. A large amount of blood covered the ground, but the body had disappeared.
“Perhaps they are wraiths,” René muttered.
“Bull crap, they’re just men,” Riordan snapped, peering around the woods with half-maddened eyes.
“Get me a korpsman for my hands.”