by Ponzo, Gary
Carrie closed her left eye, once again focusing on her target. She wondered whether she should launch one of the two Hellfire missiles.
“C’mon,” she yelled. “C’mon! Go down, you son of a . . .”
The Bell swirled around a couple of times, dropping a few dozen feet. Then it jerked upwards, regaining its lost altitude. But once the pilot had steadied the helicopter, its main rotor blades stopped spinning. The helicopter took a downward plunge, fast and hard.
The helicopter was doomed. Some of the Danish troops scurried in panic as the large fuselage of the Bell helicopter crashed into the permafrost. The impact shattered the ground. The ensuing explosion hurled huge blocks of ice and rocks in all directions and tore open the ice shield. The crater swallowed the helicopter’s wreckage, as dark waves slammed against the edges.
“Holy crap!” Carrie stared in awe.
Narrow crevasses stretched like cobwebs for tens of feet on both sides of the pit. It looked like when a rock cracked but did not shatter window glass.
* * *
“The Danes are over a lake,” Justin yelled over the jubilant shouts of the men around him, “over a lake whose ice cover is busted open.”
“Yeah,” Nilak added. “There are two ponds by the runway. Tim used to complain that water from melting ice would flood parts of the runway.”
“Why didn’t we think of this earlier?” Justin said. “The solution is right in front of our eyes. Call Kiawak and the rest of the people back.”
“Eh, what? Why?” Joe asked.
“Our best defense is the natural one, the lake. We’ll blow off the top, breaking apart the ice sheet and sinking every one of these jerks.”
* * *
“Sir, Yuliya’s gone, sir,” Valgerda mumbled over the radio.
“I can fucking see that,” Gunter exploded.
Valgerda removed the receiver from her left ear. She could still hear him blurting obscenities and ordering four men to prepare the DHC-6 Twin Otter airplane for the fight.
“Magnus, where are you?” she shouted and began to look around. “Magnus?”
“I’m here, down here,” he replied with a groan.
She followed the sound of his weak voice until her eyes found him lying on his back. He was about fifty feet away from the helicopter’s grave. She noticed a trickle of blood over his right pants leg and a long tear, about four inches, on his shin.
“Fuck,” Magnus cried, as he tried to get back to his feet.
“It’s not broken, is it?” Valgerda asked.
Magnus placed his heel carefully over the slippery ice. “A damned ice sliver almost cut off my freaking leg. What was Yuliya thinking?”
“I guess she wasn’t. And neither is Gunter.” She pointed at the terminal. “He just ordered the Otter in.”
“Yeah, I heard it.” Magnus took an uneven step, leaning on Valgerda’s shoulder.
Whizz.
A bullet screeched over their heads. They both ducked. Magnus’s leg failed him. He plunged into the snow, cursing and rolling downhill. Valgerda returned fire at the closest truck from where the shots were coming. A couple of trucks farther up the hill were struggling to retreat from their initial positions.
“They’re falling back,” she said over the mike. “The enemy’s falling back. All troops, fire at will, fire at will.”
The gunfire from their recruits was not as loud as she expected. Valgerda repeated her order. More recruits joined in, but their firepower had diminished, and their shots were sporadic.
“You’re OK?” Valgerda stopped shooting to check on Magnus.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Lost my footing there and avalanched down the hill.”
He gasped for air and flattened his jacket. Then he dusted off the snow.
She glanced at his leg. The skin was now completely exposed, and his pants had ripped in another place.
“I’ll get that checked as soon as we’re over this bump,” he said. “What were you saying about those trucks?”
“They’re moving back. Or at least it looks like that.”
“Maybe they’re regrouping.”
“It could be.”
“How are we doing?”
Valgerda looked around, then dug out her binoculars from inside her jacket. A brief surveillance of their troops gave her the bad news. “We’re retreating, too.”
“What? Who gave that order? Gunter?”
“I don’t remember hearing it.”
“Cowards. It’s those damn cowards.” Magnus lifted himself to his knees. Valgerda placed her arms around his waist.
“What are you talking about?”
“I noticed insubordination even before the helo crash. I’ve got to fix this myself.”
He staggered to his feet. Realizing they were out of enemy fire range, they both kept their heads up.
“Hey, you,” Magnus shouted at a man smoking a cigarette and chatting with other recruits, their backs turned against the battle hill. They were standing about a hundred feet away from the runway, at a very safe distance from the gunfight. “Ali, right?” Magnus asked with a grimace.
“Yes,” Ali replied. “Wanna smoke?”
Magnus shook his head, his hand groping for his submachine gun. Once he found the trigger of his MP5 still hanging in its holster, he pointed the gun at Ali.
“Hey, man, what you doing?” Ali spread his hands, taking a step back. The half-smoked cigarette fell out of his mouth.
Magnus caressed the trigger, jamming the gun into Ali’s throat.
“Don’t try it,” Valgerda barked at Ali’s companions, who scrambled to pick up their guns. She kept her rifle lined up with their heads. “Unless you want to bang seventy virgins tonight.”
“Relax, I’m not going to shoot you,” Magnus said coldly. “But next time you disobey my orders, I’m gonna kill you all, one after the other. When I tell you to advance, you do it, or I’ll blow your heads off. Now get your asses out there, all of you, and use those guns in that fight.” Magnus gestured with his head toward the hill.
The group took up their weapons and reluctantly headed for the battle. Valgerda followed their every move, in case someone decided to become a martyr. No one did. She sat across from Magnus, on a heap of frozen snow.
“I’ll get the first aid kit and do what I can.” She pointed at his wound.
“Fine,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll update Gunter on our status. We’ll need more men. Maybe all of them.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Nanisivik, Canada
April 14, 10:23 a.m.
“So that’s your plan?” Anna rolled her eyes. “Drive to their flanks, plant the explosives, and kaboom, it’s done, just like that.”
Joe’s face remained calm. Kiawak looked at Justin, who was sitting with his back against the ice ridge. They were back in the small clearing, their improvised headquarters away from the battlefield.
“What do you think?” Justin asked Kiawak. His words sounded more like a plea for support than a simple question.
“It . . . it may work,” Kiawak replied, unsure about how to word his hesitant approval. “I mean, the frontal attack isn’t working, and we’re still counting our losses. This is probably our last attempt.”
“It will work,” Joe said strongly. “We will make it work.”
“You’ll need a lot of suppressive fire,” Carrie noted. “We also have to take the Otter airplane out of the equation before we sneak any men down to the lake.”
“I’ll go with my own truck,” Kiawak said, ready to stand up. Justin placed his hand on Kiawak’s shoulder.
“I’ll go with you,” Joe said.
“Wait a second,” Justin said. “Let’s not rush things. Carrie, you were saying about the Otter?”
“The airplane’s last attack left us with three wounded. I don’t want Kiawak and Joe or anyone else out in the open while the Otter’s still overhead. We’ve got to trap him or engage him head-on.”
“Plus, the Danes have launched
another attack, this time with twice as many troops,” Anna said.
“Which makes it even more pressing for us to act now.” Kiawak spread his hands. “If we keep sitting here and talking, they’ll climb up the hills and we’ll all be dead.”
Anna squinted as Kiawak spat out the word “dead.” They were under the threat of incoming bullets at all times. But the way in which Kiawak uttered the dreaded word, in a cold, flat tone, had a powerful effect on her doubts and fears. She asked, “Where do we start?”
“I’ll take on the Otter,” Carrie replied. “My big gun is almost out of ammo, but if I calibrate the Hellfire missiles properly, I should easily bring down the airplane.”
“I’ll have everyone hammer their soldiers, so they’ll have no time to fire at you,” Justin said. He turned his head in Kiawak’s direction. “You’ll need more than Joe for this thing to work.”
Kiawak nodded thoughtfully. “Of course. I’ll take two, maybe three other guys. I’ll drive, two guys will set the charges, and a fourth man will slam the Danes with continuous fire.”
“I’ll do the same on the other side,” Joe said. “We need to advance at least halfway to the bottom of the hill, about half a mile. We’ll use the chopper’s pit as a central point, since the ice sheet has already cracked around it. I wonder how big each explosive charge should be?”
“How much dynamite do we have?” Kiawak asked.
They all chuckled.
“No, seriously,” Kiawak continued. “Like Justin said, this is our last stand. We can’t afford any miscalculations.”
“All right,” Joe agreed, noticing the head nods of Carrie and Justin. “We’ll use all we’ve got. In terms of distance, I’m sure fifty feet apart should do the trick.”
Anna asked, “How thick is the ice sheet?”
“About two feet or so,” Kiawak said, “but I can’t be sure. We don’t want to just break the ice along the perimeter. We want to break apart the entire sheet over which these bastards are positioned, so they’ll all sink and die, drowning and freezing to death. Fifty feet between charges is about right.”
“That will require constant pounding for twenty, thirty minutes,” Justin estimated.
“Yeah, that sounds reasonable,” Kiawak replied.
“What do you think?” Justin asked Carrie.
“I think the battle will be over either way, but I hope it will swing in our favor.”
“I’ll round up the men.” Kiawak stood up. Joe followed behind, encouraging him with a shoulder tap.
Justin gazed at them for a long time, wondering if he would see them again.
* * *
“We’ll be in position in five,” the pilot of the DHC-6 Twin Otter airplane informed his two gunners kneeling by the rear cargo door. They had attached their safety harnesses to the handles inside the compartment, in order to withstand the rough flight, as the plane took sudden turns and steep dives. “Try to get the chopper this time,” he added.
“What about those trucks?” asked the first gunner, pointing at two vehicles rolling down the hill. They were off to the sides, and it seemed they were avoiding a direct clash with the Danish troops.
The pilot glanced at the suggested targets and shook his head. “Negative. The land forces will handle them, and they don’t seem like an urgent threat to me. Our sole objective is the helo.”
“Roger that,” replied the first gunner, cocking his Gevær M/95 assault rifle.
The pilot tapped a few controls, and the airplane climbed about three hundred feet. The maneuver gave the pilot an unobstructed view of the ice ridge. The usual hideout of the Seahawk was right behind it, but the flat clearing was empty. The helicopter was nowhere in sight.
“Where did the helo go?” asked one of the gunners.
“I have no idea, but I’m . . . there,” the pilot said, pointing at a small black dot on one of the control panel screens. “Two o’clock. Looks like our hawk’s trying to fly away.”
The pilot stared through the windshield at the horizon. He squinted hard and spotted the helicopter in the distance. “That’s our target,” he said. “Let’s get him, boys!”
The airplane picked up speed and altitude at the same time.
“Wow, buddy,” one of the gunners shouted. The swift acceleration threw him against one of the walls. He juggled his gun, nearly dropping it through the open door. “Take it easy. And shouldn’t we let the commander know about this change of plans? The pilot of that chopper is pulling us away from the combat zone.”
“I’m a pilot and the sky is my combat zone,” replied the pilot. “Our order was to take down the helo, and that’s what we’re doing. Hang on tight there.”
* * *
“First stop,” Kiawak shouted at Nilak, Iluak, and Sam, who had volunteered for the explosive-setting mission. “Hurry!” Kiawak pulled on the hand brake.
The brothers replied by jumping out of the truck box.
Sam stayed behind, lying next to a wooden box full of dynamite, blasting caps, detonators, and wires. He gazed at the enemy through the scope of his M-16. The Danes had yet to take any shots at their vehicle, even though they were trailing slowly to the flanks of the platoons. A single truck was too little of a worry for the Danes, since Justin and his men were hammering the Danish positions with heavy fire.
“We’re almost done here,” Nilak said in a loud voice, chipping at the snow with his ice pick, digging a small, but deep hole.
Iluak scooped out the snow, then planted four eight-inch-long dynamite sticks. Kiawak had already bundled them together and inserted blasting caps in each one.
Nilak inspected the copper wires to ensure they were connected properly to the caps.
“Good to go,” he shouted, satisfied with their work.
They climbed back into the truck box, and Kiawak pressed the gas pedal.
Nilak held the dynamite wire roll steady as they proceeded downhill. He counted for thirty seconds then called on Kiawak to stop. The brothers were once again on the ground, setting another explosive charge.
* * *
“What’s that truck doing?” Magnus asked over the mike, pointing at the white truck descending over the slopped terrain. “This is their fourth stop.”
Valgerda raised her binoculars slightly over the ice sheet. She ducked immediately to dodge a bullet that ricocheted less than two feet away from her head.
“You’re hit?” Magnus asked.
“Nope, I’m not hit,” she replied with a sigh. Her voice was shaky, like her hands. “But it was close.”
She fired her weapon toward the enemy positions, two vantage points on the side of the road. Then, she looked at Magnus, who had taken cover behind a thick ice boulder.
“Cover me,” she said. “I’m coming over there.”
Magnus peeked over the boulder and fired his assault rifle a few times. When he looked back, Valgerda rolled next to him.
“You’re OK?” he asked.
“Yeah. Running low on ammo though.” She tapped on the ammunition belt around her waist, fetching another fresh magazine. “These bloody Canadians are tougher than we thought.”
“We’re advancing, but very slowly,” Magnus said.
She glanced through her binoculars at the white truck Magnus had pointed out earlier. “I’m not sure if they’re trying to run away or surround us,” she said with a snort. “If it’s the first, they’re going the wrong way; the second, they’re just pathetic.”
“I don’t think it’s a maneuver to attack us on our flanks or try to box us in. There’s another truck, a white Toyota, to our right,” Magnus said between sporadic shots. “There, I got one of the dirtbags,” he said, watching as a human silhouette fell off a black truck.
“Great shot,” she said. “I wish the rest of our troops were getting somewhere.”
“Oh, c’mon.” Magnus shrugged. “He was just standing there, out in the open.”
Valgerda tilted her head in a whatever-you-say pose. “What do you think those truck
s are for?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, while unloading his Gevær M/95. “Maybe they recon, to determine our numbers.”
“Can’t they see from atop the hill?”
“Yeah, but they don’t know if the Herc’s empty or how many are back at the terminal.”
“A recon team, you say?” Valgerda pondered his words.
“Could be. I don’t think they’ve started to fire at us yet, but I’ll order our men to gun them down.”
“Only if they have clear shots. No use in wasting our last rounds.”
“Of course.”
Valgerda surveyed the white truck one more time. Two men jumped out of the back, dug briefly in the ground, then hopped back in their place. “I don’t know,” she said. “They keep getting stuck, and two men dig in the ground. But it’s behind the truck and to the sides, not in the front. What’s going on?”
“It’s only seven people, and they can’t do much harm. I’ll tell my men to wipe them out. And just for good measure, I’ll inform the Herc’s pilots and Gunter at the terminal.”
Valgerda squeezed her rifle’s trigger. “I think I got one too.” She raised her binoculars to confirm the kill. “Yes.” She grinned. “Five down, a hell of a lot more to go.”
“It would be easier if we had some aerial support.” Magnus looked up for any sign of the Twin Otter airplane. “Where did the pilot go?”
“Gunter sent him after their chopper. I guess that’s where he went.”
“Yeah, but I don’t see the Seahawk either. Where are they?”
* * *
“Someone’s coming.” Ned stared at the cloud of snow nearing from the north, the direction of Nanisivik. “I thought we had everyone willing and able to fight.”
Justin turned around, his assault rifle ready for action. “Let’s make sure it’s hostile, before we blast him,” he shouted.
Anna and a few others followed Justin’s cue. If a Danish soldier were riding in the middle of the snow cloud, he would be greeted by a hail of bullets as soon as he showed his face.
