ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (58 page)

Colonel Chandler didn’t catch the callsign of the person
asking the question, the one who asked what they all wanted to know.

“Ringmaster, Spectre One?”

“Go ahead, Spectre Four?”

“I don’t know if
Three
released on silo six, I was looking real hard but I only saw five clear
strikes.”

“Roger…….Spectre
Four
this is
Ringmaster?”

“Ringmaster, Spectre Four, we just dialled in
designator six’s freeq, and it’s no tone, I say again, negative tone on target
six at this time…..resending activation codes……Ringmaster,
negative tone, negative tone
, over.”

Chandler was still for a moment, allowing his brain to
absorb what must follow. Switching to intercom he spoke, an edge of
determination in his voice.

“Send it.”

Arkansas Valley, Nebraska, USA

Wild cheering erupted before the message had been
completely read out and Henry Shaw shouted for silence. Those giving voice were
almost exclusively civilians.

“I will have silence in this room.” He growled,
glaring at the slower to respond.

“This is a
War
Room
, not
the
bleachers…this thing is
not over yet.”

The President took the message slip from the signaller
and read in silence.

“How many were aboard
Santa Fe
and
Columbia
,
Henry?”

A flicker of surprise passed over General Shaw’s
features, he too was ignorant of the messages entire content.

“I am not entirely sure, perhaps as many as three
hundred in total Mr President.”

He handed across the message.

“They were ambushed by the missing attack submarine;
HMS
Hood
collected both her and the
Xia.
”
 

Henry read the message himself, trying to recall who,
if anyone, he or his son and daughter may have known on the vessels, or perhaps
parents whose pride and joy whom they had raised and had such hopes and dreams
for were soon to be destroyed by a stranger at the door in uniform.

His thoughts were interrupted by another signaller. A
folded message slip held outstretched.

He took it with a nod, opened out the single sheet and
read the two words printed upon it.

“Mr President, we have a message from ‘Circus’ sir”

Circus was the codename for the airstrike on the ICBM silos
and the President could tell from his tone, kept professionally neutral, that
it was not necessarily one of cheer and victory.

Damn stupid name for a military mission he thought,
and not for the first time. He raised an eyebrow and his heart thudded at the
response.

“It reads,
Crescent
Moon.”

The crescent, the incomplete circle, a thing not
finished.

“Thank you Henry, please send back
Cauldron
……”
he paused, remembering something and embarrassed that he may just have sounded
callous.

“General, our troops on the ground…..have they had
time to withdraw?”

Henry could see that this was important to his
commander-in-chief. Tens of thousands were fighting and dying, a global nuclear
war could be just minutes away, but he needed this, this gesture, an assurance
that his humanity was still intact.

It was unfortunately irrelevant whether or not they
were out of danger, because they were just plain out of time. But he did not
say that.

“Mr President, Dick Dewar and his men are free and
clear, they are miles from the valley by now.”

Gansu Province, China: Same time.

The snow fell heavily, creating a visage that would
not be out of place in a ‘White Christmas’ setting if not for the thunder of
the massed guns defending the silos echoed throughout the mountains. It masked
the sound of heavily laden men whose steps compressed the snow with what would
be an easily audible crunching sound, at any other time.

The site of the avalanche was well behind the Royal
Marines but they were only midway across the narrow, slanting valley. Only
another twenty minutes at their current pace would bring them to the foot of
the northern rock wall.

The white thermal facemask worn by Rory Alladay
absorbed the moisture he exhaled, preventing the tell-tale fogging that would
otherwise result in the cold, frigid conditions.

He was totally exposed on a patch of ground as flat as
a billiard table; there was no cover for a hundred paces in any direction.
Nothing quite catches the eye like movement and he had been able only to slowly
lower himself into a crouch when he had first caught a whiff of tobacco smoke
before he recognised the outline of the Chinese soldier in white camouflage
gear set against the starkly blank background of the valley floor.

He was close, close enough to hit with a snowball had
they been engaged in any less lethal activity and the only thing that had saved
Alladay from detection was the Chinese soldier was looking up toward the sound
of an aircraft passing unseen overhead.

Rory was scout, or ‘walking point’ as the Americans
would have it, and the remainder of his callsign were moments behind.

“Enemy.”

The single word quietly spoken into the boom mike was
all that was required to have the M&AWC troops freeze in place before slowly
turning to cover their assigned arcs and take up prone firing positions. 

The Chinese soldiers head turned as he attempted to
discern the aircraft. He was relaxed, his gloved left hand gripped the stock of
his compact QBZ-97 assault rifle but the right held a reversed cigarette, its
red end masked by the palm of his hand.

He took a long pull, enjoying the nicotine before
exhaling and as the sound faded his head turned back.

He started as he caught movement in his peripheral
vision, which was followed almost instantly by a momentary difficulty in
catching a breath, but the sensation, along with all senses, thought and
feeling ended as if a switch had been flicked.

Rory lowered the dead soldier carefully into the snow
to ensure silence. The cigarette which had fallen from lifeless fingers sizzled
for a half second in the snow and its glow was quenched.

The dark handle of a fighting knife protruded from the
juncture of the throat and underside of the mouth. Once the body was laid down
Rory braced the dead man’s chin with the palm of one hand and withdrew the
blade, feeling it scrape on vertebrae as it came free and cleaning it quickly
yet thoroughly on the Chinese soldiers clothing. The blade, which he returned
to its scabbard, would not be frozen in place by his victim’s blood or brain
matter when he next needed it. 

The question of what the soldier had been doing there,
and where the rest of his patrol was, remained. It was obvious he had not come
alone to this place, so was he just lost or were his mates nearby?

Richard Dewar’s interrupted his thoughts, whispering a
question, a requirement for an update.

“Sitrep, over?”

Rory gave the situation report in low tones, without
embellishment and included his thoughts. Once complete he collected his bergan
from where he had dropped it and took up a prone position beside it, covering
the way ahead as Major Dewar brought up the remainder of the M&AWC.

The unnatural light reflected off the clouds distorted
the green hues of Rory’s night sight as it had his PNG’s. His range of vision
was increased however and he could make out the end of the flat area as the
shapes of a low cluster of snow covered rocks and boulders were now visible.

Looking over his shoulder he could now make out Major
Dewar at the head of the well-spaced line of men; it was time for him to move
again.

Rising to the kneeling position he heaved the bergan
onto his back and put his weapon into his shoulder, swinging the weapon through
a 180° arc, staring intently into the sight before standing and stepping off
toward the rock in the centre of the cluster.

A bright light shone from beyond the ridges, not a
strobe-like explosion but one of sustained duration. It lit the far rock wall
and spread downwards to encompass the snow covered floor as the source climbed
higher in the sky.  After several seconds the sound reached them. Harsh
light and noise from boosters providing three hundred thousand pounds of thrust
now filled the valley, seemingly little diminished by their distance from the
silo.

  The rock Rory was walking toward shot him.

Arkansas Valley, Nebraska, USA

A single line of script originating
from ‘Circus’ flashed up on the screen.

‘Missile Launch’

The blinking of a half dozen call lights on telephones
began just a heartbeat later.

Henry lifted the telephone receiver before him,
depressing the button above urgent light above the button marked ‘MDA’, Missile
Defence Agency.

“This is General Shaw.”

Gansu Province, China: Same time.

Richard had been looking off to his left arc when he,
and his callsign, had been caught like deer in the proverbial headlights.

The established drill for such a predicament, had they
been in Europe, the African bush or even a rain forest would have been to
freeze in place and literally ‘make like a tree’, but here in this narrow, bare
valley there were no such items to be mistaken for. To move or to drop into
cover was to draw unwanted eyes.

The top of the far valley wall had suddenly lit up and
that light increased to encompass them all.

The line of Royal Marine Commandos closed one eye,
their sighting eye to preserve night vision, and with the other they made best
use of the illumination to study their surrounds without turning their heads,
remaining motionless as the roar of rocket motors reached them, a roar that
almost but not quite drowned out the single shot that cracked out.

Rory Alladay dropped as if his legs had been cut from
beneath him, and none but Rory had seen the firing position. Richard stifled
the urge to go immediately to aid a comrade of many years, as quite obviously
the rest of the cadre was undiscovered. 

The flaming light rose into the night sky and faded.
Richard felt gutted that after all they had endured the mission had ultimately
failed, an ICBM was in the air, and to make matters even worse a comrade was
down.

Slowly the Marines began to edge into an arrowhead
formation, one best suited to such situations, allowing the flanks to remain
covered but permitting maximum firepower to the front without someone shooting
his mate in the backside.

A bang announced the flight of a parachute flare
rising from their front and its journey into the heavens was marked by a trail
of smoke. With a sharp popping sound the flare came to life above and behind
them, silhouetting the marines in its chemical light.

The enemy knew that the one man they had accounted
for, Rory Alladay, would not be alone and the view of the canyon floor now
differed markedly from less than a minute ago.

From the Chinese point of view the threat was too
close in for them to call in mortar, artillery or air support, so the Chinese
commander elected a reconnaissance by fire instead.

A wiser commander would have ordered just one of his
men to fire at suspicious shapes though, not the whole section.

Muzzle flashes emitted from each of the ‘rocks’ ahead
of them.

Richard was in the process of dropping prone, his ears
ringing painfully from the loud cracks of high velocity rounds passing close
by, when he was struck a fierce blow on the right side of the chest. He landed
hard, the breath driven from him and his right arm numb from shoulder to
fingertips.

The weight of his bergan pressed him face first into
the snow, smothering him in his suddenly disabled state its sheer weight
preventing his lungs from fully inflating. Spots danced before his eyes and he
realised the vulnerability of his position. Adrenaline assisted him to roll
onto his right side where his left hand could reach the quick release buckle of
his bergan. Free of its burden he rolled prone once more with incoming small
arms kicking up the snow about him and striking the bulky pack.

Richard’s job was to control the fight, not squirm
about attracting the incoming but he had to first get himself into a position
where he could do that job. The bergan was being used as an aiming point so
groping for the pistol grip of his M4 he rolled clear of the bergan and
awkwardly brought the weapon up one handed with the intention of putting some
rounds down, inaccurate or not, in the general direction of their attackers but
he sensed, rather than saw, that something was amiss with the weapon. The
weight and balance were all wrong.