by FARMAN, ANDY
At the far end of the runway the threshold markers were beneath the front wheel as he pivoted the aircraft left with the last bit of momentum, to buy a little more time before the flames reached fuel tanks that were still filled with vapour.
With brakes applied the captain pushed out the left side window as he unbuckled.
The cabin was filling with choking fumes but he had to check the crew.
Crewmembers were vacating the aircraft rapidly; the senior operator was last, coughing on toxic fumes. His co-pilot exited through the captains opened window and the captain himself followed the senior operator, dropping to the tarmac and running as fast as he could.
As the fire trucks arrived the open hatches were belching smoke. Fire could be seen inside the cabin as internal fittings caught alight. A thunderous bang sent flames and pieces of the starboard wing soaring as the vapour filled fuel tank gave way. A pair of less violent explosions announced the tyres of the right gear bursting.
The damaged wing sagged and the Atlantique leaned to the right, grey smoke pouring from the pilots open side window like a chimney, the fuselage completely engulfed in flame..
Cayenne airports fire crews had at least a proper subject to test their skills on now.
A signaller handed Li a message form, the Bao had sustained damage to her forward pressure hull where the depth charge had struck the casing. Submerging in that condition was possible but not advisable in ordinary circumstances. She had a double hull, but that pressure hull was not just there by idle design.
“Damn all we can do about that now, anyway.” He mused.
Bao was still on diesels but Dai remained on electrical power despite the chief engineer complaining the batteries were down to a 72% charge.
He used the radar sparingly as that was a double edged weapon, but he could hear the approach of threats without the enemy using that against them.
A flash off in the jungle caught his attention and a fraction of a second later he heard the sound of mortar rounds detonating.
Those damn bloody French mortars again! He thought.
They had to be firing blind though, possibly alerted to their approach by the sound of Bao’s noisy diesel engines.
Two more rounds landed, well short, one on the bank and the other splashing into the river without going off. There was only mud and silt where that particular mortar round had landed, nothing solid enough to crush the soft nose cone and fire the fuse there.
Captain Li gave a moment’s thought to the weight of a mortar round. How many could those helicopters carry?
Jie would have known of course.
To be on the receiving end of a mortar attack was doubly hazardous as they made no sound, no advance warning to dive for cover, unlike the mournful drone he know heard!
Bao’s radar mast was fully extended and rotating.
A 100mm shell from a naval gun smashed into the bank between the two submarines, digging deep into the soft earth before exploding.
Li shouted down the open hatch.
“Make to Bao…they are ranging in on your radar energy, but at least we know there is a surface warship in gunfire range.”
The rotating radar ceased but three more rounds impacted in the vicinity, white hot steel fragments striking the Dai’s conning tower.
He raised his night glasses once more, looking back towards the river mouth. The river was widening now.
Dirty water sprayed over the conning tower from more mortar rounds landing in the river.
A round struck the bank beside Bao, the air sentry on the Kilo’s after casing screamed and fell, sliding down the curved steel pressure hull into the river. Bao did not heave-to, and the rating was floating face down as the Dai reached him. Li watched the corpse disappear behind them in the darkness.
“Engine room…switch to diesels once more. We need to run on the surface for a little once we regain the estuary.”
The mortar rounds continued to harass, raining down around them but the naval gunfire had curtailed with the cessation of the Bao’s radar sweeps.
A rating appeared at the top of the ladder looking a lot like a caricature of a Mexican bandit, draped across the shoulders with belted ammunition for the 23mm.
“This is the last cannon ammunition, sir.”
Li nodded in acknowledgement and instructed him to start throwing empty cases over the side once the new belt was attached to the end of the existing one.
If they had to run silent it would not do to have brass shell cases rolling around and knocking into each other and the steel sides at such times.
Bao chugged backwards past the old and abandoned Kourou ferry.
In the distance, highlighted against a black skyline, the sparks from the plastic augmenting charges that fitted about a mortar bombs ‘tail’ hung in the air like fireflies before dying. It was of no use to the gunner though as it is almost impossible to judge the distance to a light at night with the naked eye. What may appear to be the light from a farmhouse window on a hillside two miles away may in fact be a glowing cigarette end six feet off, and vice versa of course.
Coloured flares again reappeared, falling though the cloud to be followed by another parachute flare. They were trying to assist the mortar crews and whatever warship was out to sea but instead its light revealed on shore the tiny figures of the French Foreign Legionnaires serving the two mortar barrels at Pont Les Roches.
Bao’s quick eyed gunner had seen the sparks and now he was on it, the barrel aiming up at an angle of perhaps as much as forty degrees.
Dai’s 23mm joined in, working the stream of tracer left and right, wreaking a terrible revenge upon the mortarmen. Plunging fire dropped upon them wherever they crawled to seek cover, behind protrusions in the ground or the crudely crafted logs, laid out as park benches. The automatic cannons shredded the logs, reduced the protrusions in the earth and annihilated whatever was hidden behind.
No more mortar rounds came their way.
Bao’s helm came over as her captain sought to turn bow on to the ocean again, at long last.
Dai now motored past the old ferry slipway too and Li put his glasses to the southeast, looking for the French warship.
The captain of One Eight finished his flare run across the estuary without himself or any of the crew catching sight of any action on the ground.
It was the fast patrol boat, La Capricieuse, which informed the Atlantique that the enemy submarines were emerging from the river into the estuary.
As sophisticated as they were, the Atlantiques onboard systems were unable to separate the submarines from the ground clutter while they were on the river. They were built to seek out targets on the surface or peeking up from below.
The patrol boats greatest asset was her speed, but this came at the cost of armament and armour. Her plywood hull was light and tough enough to deal with stormy seas, and her weaponry would be devastating against drug and gold smugglers vessels, but they had limited value against other warships.
“’Poseidon One Eight’ this is La Capricieuse…enemy sighted!” Her commander was a young lieutenant not long out of the Brest naval academy.
“Attacking!” was the next message, the young man’s voice not disguising the underlying excitement.
Five miles beyond them was forging in the corvette Premier-Maitre L'her, the second corvette still another ten miles further off.
The patrol boat made a magnificent sight, turning in and racing towards the surfaced Kilo at 25 knots, a great white bow wave standing out in the darkness. She had two automatic cannon, a 40mm and a 20mm, along with two 12.7mm machine guns, all were firing, and throwing out arcing lines of tracer, but speed and accuracy are not the same thing.
Crashing through waves, La Capricieuse opened fire at eight hundred metres, the gunners aim being thrown off by the action of the waves. The slowly moving and steady Kilo’s single 23mm cannon remained silent, until the range had closed to three hundred. The patrol boat was obligingly bow-on and the cannon fire ripped
through her from stem to stern. None of the patrol boats guns were firing as she tore past the Bao.
On the horizon there was a flash followed by a low moan overhead. A shell burst in the sea behind them.
Dai was some five hundred yards behind the Bao when she herself finished her turn.
The patrol boat La Capricieuse had been deliberately run aground on the shore at La Pont Roches and was settling low in the water but there was no sign of movement on board.
Bao fired again, but this time there was a geyser of water erupting from just forward of her bow as she launched on the fast approaching corvette, first one and then a second RPK-7 anti-ship missile was launched from her forward torpedo tubes.
“Full ahead together.” Li ordered. “Dismount the 23mm and get it below…bow air sentry to the bridge.”
The chugging growl of the big diesels increased apace.
There was another flash on the horizon but it was followed by a far larger emission, as the first anti-ship missile flew into chaff flung out by the corvette.
The first missile detonated in the chaff cloud and then the corvette exploded. It was initially a very visual, yet silent event, until the sound of the double explosions reached them.
There was cheering from the Bao, and then Bao blew up too.
A flash, smoke and a sound that made Li cringe, followed by wreckage falling all about and into the sea.
The air sentry was just appearing at the top of the ladder, he could not have seen the explosion but he did hear it and his eyes were as wide as saucers.
“Get below!” shouted Li to the man.
“Lookouts below… clear the bridge…sound the diving alarm!”
Poseidon One Eight’s onboard systems had tracked the Exocet all the way from their bomb bay to its terminal impact.
Wary of surface-to-air missiles the Atlantique banked hard to port so as not to overfly the second submarine and instead her captain headed for the now stopped and burning corvette.
“Ready the life rafts!”
Captain Li removed the outer clothing and the ridiculous gun belt as he reached the control room, holding them out for his steward.
“He’s gone captain.” His exec said. “He was one of the landing party who were caught by the mortars.”
Li faltered momentarily, not because he had any affection for the man, but because it may have a bearing on his future actions.
The launch pads had not been put out of action by conventional methods, which had been a complete failure as far as Li could tell.
His orders in the case of the special forces mission being a failure was to stand off and nuke the ESA site from the sea.
To fail to do that was a certain death sentence for himself and every member of the crew, including family members.
“Range to the Soyuz site?”
“Thirty point eight miles, captain.”
The French aircrew were currently engaged in aiding the stricken warships survivors, but that would not last.
They had a small window in which to act and still be able to clear datum.
“Bring the boat to launch condition one, please.”
Poseidon One Eight did not notice the launch of the single weapon. It burst from the depths with its protective cocoon falling away and its short stubby wings extending.
The cruise missiles ramjet propelled it at a respectable 467mph towards it target, the Soyuz launch pad, where the 320 kiloton warheads detonation would obliterate the Ariane and Vega sites in the same blast.
Such self-sacrifice, such effort by the inshore raiding flotilla.
Four submarines and three hundred and sixty one men had set off on this mission. One submarine and seventy four men remained now.
Far quicker, at 879mph, three Mistral high velocity surface-to-air missiles left the mobile launchers of the Legions air defence section and rendered all that effort null and void, obliterating the Dai’s cruise missile before it had even crossed the coast.
CHAPTER 3
Arkansas Valley, Nebraska, USA: 2057hrs, same day.
The return to the subterranean haunts that had become the homes for the President since the Washington bombing was depressing for Henry Shaw. Rubbing shoulders again with proper, down to earth troops who said it as they found it without the addition of spin had been a breath of fresh air. He already missed being with those who performed their duty as required and without catering to hidden agendas.
A not quite junior aide had met Henry on his return and managed to be respectful whilst still giving off a distinct coolness toward him. It was only to be expected; Henry would not have been surprised had a posse of MPs brought him back from Europe to face the President’s wrath.
In stark contrast to the civilian, the marine guard had been more than happy to see him back. In their eyes the Corps top Marine had gone off to the battlefield instead of staying in a hardened shelter with the army, navy and air force brass. It was a simplistic and erroneous view of the situation, which unfairly slighted the other services, but since when did a Marine ever pass up on the chance to strut that little bit more in front of the rest of the armed forces?
The President looked up when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs entered the Situation Room, giving a perfunctory nod of welcome to Henry but his eyes held no warmth.
“Has General Carmine fully briefed you on what you missed while in Europe?”
He nodded.
“Yessir, Mister President.”
Henry took his seat and returned the greetings from CIA and FBI; apart from the service personnel at the table no one else so much as met his gaze. Terry Jones and Ben Dupre did not involve themselves in the office politics of whichever administration happened to be in power. They both knew Henry was on the Presidents’ shit list and they both knew why. They also quietly admired the Marine for the balls he had shown doing what they both believed to be only right and just.
Henry thought back to when he had last been in the presence of the President. It had only been a week ago, just seven days that had been filled with briefings and hurriedly arranged meetings before moving on, on to another headquarters or out of the way location.
Looking back on it now it seemed far, far longer.
The President cleared his throat, bringing Henry Shaw back to the present.
“General, will you now present your briefing please?”
ETO, the European Theatre of Operations, appeared on the screen set against the far wall. Henry centred the picture over the channel ports
“As you can see, units of the US 4th Corps and Canadian 5th Infantry Division have now begun leaving the forming up points outside the city ports and begun the drive towards Germany after delays in offloading due to air attacks, and in some cases sabotage of dockside facilities.” The view changed to show a map of the parallel routes the Corps would take across the Continent and into Germany on the same autobahns the Soviets were trying so hard to reach.
“4th Corps is leading as the Canadians are top heavy with leg infantry in trucks, but those are being dropped off along the way to secure bridges and key points against further Soviet airborne drops which would cut the service support routes.”
“Again.” The President grumbled.
“Precisely, Mr President” Henry said in agreement.
“The Canadians have four such battalions in two brigades who will retain a small degree of artillery support but the remainder of their two brigades’ artillery units, an armoured regiment and the two mechanised battalions, will proceed as part of the 4 Corps reserve.”
“What of their logistics and support units, General.” The President interrupted. “I do not see any of those?” his hand waved at the clusters of military symbols on the map.
“Rail priority has been given to ammunition and stores for units already at the front, and in particular the division straddling the autobahns to the channel ports, Mr President. The combat units are travelling by road and every MP, and every civilian cop we can muster is employed in keeping t
hem moving and keeping refugees clear.”
Henry paused to briefly underline the situation.
“This is a race we are engaged in, and if we win it the reds will still be engaged in fighting other NATO units when they arrive and 4th Corps can immediately launch a counter attack. If we lose then the Corps will take a defensive stance and we will again be reacting to the enemy instead of taking the fight to them.”
The picture on the screen altered as Henry brought up the image of the German battlefield, focusing initially on the units either side of the Saale and Elbe rivers. The symbols depicting the types and size of units, lined on both banks, coloured blue for NATO units and red for the Red Army, but there were far more red symbols stacked behind each other to the east than there were blue ones on the west.
Two red coloured parachute symbols still remained in place on the western banks, despite NATO’s best efforts to dislodge, and then annihilate them.
“Mister President, just before dawn this morning the Red Army began a massive rocket and artillery bombardment of NATO lines from north of Haldensleben, down to the southern suburbs of Magdeburg.”
He stepped closer to the screen, his back to the wall and gesturing with his right hand without looking, without needing to look as he had memorised each screen of the briefing.
“The units being targeted are the US 5th and 12th Mechanised Brigades, the British 1st Armoured Brigade and the German 5th Panzer Grenadier and 4th Panzer Regiments.” Henry paused to look the men and women present.
“SACEUR informs me that by midnight tonight at the latest, those units will have ceased to be combat effective and the Red Army will in all probability begin an assault river crossing against minimal ground opposition.”
Grave looks were exchanged around the conference table, it was not unexpected news but that did not make it any easier of hear.
“General?”
Henry looked to his President, who had lowered his head to peer at him over the rim of his glasses.
