Countdown

by Jerry Ahern

  Her own squadron member launched a forward-firing missile, catching one of the two enemy aircraft in the starboard wing, the enemy plane’s wing ripping away, the aircraft cartwheeling through the air, flames spraying in its wake as the synth-fuel in its wings caught.

  Emma Shaw pulled up hard on the yoke, her aircraft’s nose rising just enough to make her airborne in a steep climb from the tarmac. She banked, flattening out, streaking over the wrecked enemy aircraft, joining the pursuit of the second Eden fighter. “Time to lighten up,” she hissed, launching a portside forward-firing missile.

  The enemy aircraft vaporized and Emma Shaw hauled back on the yoke, starting to climb into the darkness …

  Annie Rubenstein was worried about Natalia’s leg, because Natalia had asked for more pain medication. The drug’s effect should have held on for at least another few hours, Annie thought. Bundled to the nth degree against the cold, face swathed in scarves, and hood wrapped tightly around her head (and, for once in her life, grateful that she was wearing trousers), Annie stepped out of the chopper and into the night, instantly chilled to the bone despite the layers of clothing she wore.

  She wedged her body against the wind, bending into it as she walked toward the entrance to the mountain fortress that had been Deitrich Zimmer’s Nazi headquarters in North America. Natalia had said, “I’m going to get another dose of that pain killer. My leg’s bothering me a little and I’m afraid it will cramp when I’m flying the helicopter. Wait here, will you Annie?”

  “You shouldn’t walk on it then!”

  “Well, I don’t want to get any of the men inside to come for it. The weather is just so awful.”

  That was when Annie volunteered; and, as she reviewed the conversation, she stopped still in her tracks.

  She turned around. The helicopter was automatically releasing the guy lines which had anchored it againt the wind. Rotor speed, which had been minimal a few seconds before, was increasing.

  “Natalia!”

  But the helicopter was already beginning to rise out of the snow, buffeted crazily in the winds, Natalia obviously fighting to keep control, the machine lurching, slipping, rising, then slipping laterally again. “Natalia! Don’t!”

  Annie started running, back toward the aircraft, knowing that it was useless, but shouting, “You can’t do this alone, Natalia!”

  Her friend, soon to be her sister-in-law, was suddenly lost in the blackness above.

  Chapter Nine

  John Rourke rolled over onto his back, caution be damned, happy for an instant to be out of the chimney.

  He took a deep breath, then rolled over again, snatching one of the twin stainless Detonics Score-Masters from its holster at his hip.

  He lay on the slope, the ice was thick and slick here. Had he tried to stand, the action would have been hopeless. As his eyes scanned as far as he could see, through the darkness and the swirling snow, he spied no enemy personnel. Far in the distance, there were several light sources. He presumed these were the enemy aircraft, or perhaps the landing-pad control facilities.

  Reholstering his pistol, Rourke twisted himself around, taking from a musette bag at his side the last remaining pitons, grabbing for the hammer as he glanced once over his shoulder, then beginning to drive the pitons into the living granite.

  He set a triangularly shaped pattern, where the weight which would be on the rope would be shared relatively evenly by the pitons, rather than only on the one bearing the bulk of the tension.

  Rourke secured his rope, weighted it with the last piton, then began snaking it down through the chimney. Merely to have dropped it would invite the rope to snag on the rocks or on one of the pitons he had set into the chimney’s face along the way. Several times, he was forced to coil upward, then re-release the rope, but at last, after he had let out the entire length, he felt a previously determined series of tugs, indicating that someone had the rope and was ready to use it.

  Rourke wedged himself as best he could, looking over his shoulder again. Should he be discovered whilst aiding the next climber, there would be nothing that he could do. If he let go of the rope, there would be a substantial chance that the pitons alone might not hold.

  He tugged back in code on his end of the rope, then felt the rope go taut under his hands.

  Someone was on the way up …

  Paul Rubenstein had volunteered to go first.

  Schmidt, the most experienced climber, was the logical man to be last, in case anyone got in trouble along the way.

  Well into the chimney now, with the surface around him like jagged glass, Paul Rubenstein only smiled. He would have marveled at any ordinary man having been able to do this; for John, such was to be expected.

  Hand-over-hand, he worked his way up the rope …

  The helicopter’s controls were not to her liking. The Nazi machine lacked finesse, responsiveness. And, with the severe crosswinds and drastically limited visibility, such was more than an inconvenience.

  Natalia’s eyes scanned the summit of the mountain, from which she was now approximately three miles distant. It was an amorphous darkness, only marginally distinguishable against the night. But there would be a flare fired when the last of the climbers had reached the summit.

  When she saw it, she would go in.

  She waited …

  John Rourke edged along the ice-slicked surface of the slope, his body spread-eagled for maximum friction, a piton in each hand, his fists balled on them, ready to hamer them down to stop him from sliding over the edge if need be—if they would do that.

  A solitary length of rope trailed after him. Rourke looked back toward the chimney. Another length of rope trailed after Paul, the younger man doing the same thing, clawing his way across the ice-slicked slope just below the summit, positioning pitons, roping into them, moving on, making a web along which the other four men could follow in the final assault.

  Rourke kept moving …

  Annie pushed the scarves away from her face as she touched Commander Washington’s shoulder.

  “Yes, Mrs. Rubenstein?”

  “You’re going up, toward the summit from the inside, correct?”

  “Yes ma’am. Most of my people are already in position. As you know, enemy personnel are suspected of holding the two top floors. We intend to do something about that. And, it might also assist your father and husband and brother up there on the summit. I have Major Tiemerovna’s helicopter under observation. As soon as she moves in—meaning that she’ll have gotten the flare signal from your father’s team—we move in.”

  Annie swung her M-16 forward on its sling. “I’m going with you.”

  “But, Mrs. Rubenstein, if your father or your husband—”

  “They’d approve. I’m going with you.”

  Commander Washington’s dark eyes lit with a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Give me two seconds to get rid of these things,” she added, starting to strip away her arctic gear …

  Emma Shaw barrel-rolled the V/STOL to port, two Eden fighters streaking past her, following the contrails of their missiles.

  As she pulled out of the roll, she brought her fighter’s engines to full power, climbing after the enemy aircraft. The two pods of additional missiles she had carried were fired out, their racks jettisoned. She was lighter, faster, but almost out of missiles, too.

  Leveling out, her eyes alternated between the electronic headsup on her canopy windscreen and the darkness surrounding her.

  She knew how combat would be on the dark side of the moon. It would be like this.

  At three o’clock, she saw one of the two aircraft she’d followed, its propwash glowing against the night. Headsup was signaling her that her aircraft had been acquired by an enemy heat seeker. Emma Shaw smiled, in that same instant spying the second aircraft. She banked hard to port, half rolled, dove, the heat seeker on her tail, her nose aimed toward the second enemy aircraft.

  The second enemy aircraft was going into evasive maneuvers that Em
ma Shaw had seen before. She anticipated their result, banking hard to port, throttling back, then dropping her landing gear as she leveled off. Airspeed and altitude began dropping almost instantly as she skipped over the air. She was right over the second enemy aircraft. The heat seeker would contact in thirteen seconds according to the computer—she missed Gorgeous, her computerized companion in the Blackbird. This computer voice had no personality at all.

  The second enemy aircraft was picking up speed. Emma Shaw retracted her landing gear as she increased speed, matching the second enemy aircraft, dangerously close to it. Four seconds until impact from the heat seeker. Three.

  Emma Shaw throttled back almost to stall speed, dropping landing gear once more, neither the enemy aircraft just below her nor the heat seeker having time to change course.

  There was always the chance that when the heat seeker struck the enemy fighter, the blast would destroy her as well, but she had to take that chance. One second before impact, Emma Shaw retracted landing gear once again, throttled out and rolled.

  The blast almost rattled her canopy, but the enemy aircraft was going down in a red-and-orange fireball.

  “Yo! Bulldog Leader! Great one, Emma!”

  “This is Bulldog Leader, Bulldog Pups. Keep killin’ those bad guys. Bulldog Leader out.”

  She had to nail the aircraft which had fired on her.

  Chapter Ten

  Paul Rubenstein’s hands ached, but he grasped the last of his pitons in his left fist, the hammer in his right, then spiked the piton into the granite, making each blow count, because each blow made a sound, and even though the wind howled, there was always the possibility, however slight, that the noise might be detected.

  As Paul Rubenstein roped on, he tried spotting John on the far side of the slope, but the darkness and the swirling snow made that impossible. When he’d at last gotten to the height of the chimney, to take over for John on the rope for the next climber, John told him, “Give it ten minutes from now.” Their watches were already synchronized. “Then fire the flare pistol for Natalia.”

  Paul Rubenstein looked now at the face of his wristwatch.

  He judged that some two minutes remained.

  He leaned back, unlimbering his submachine gun. His position was approximately one hundred yards away from the perimeter of the mountaintop landing pad, the nearest enemy personnel perhaps that close, perhaps even closer.

  By now, Michael, Jones, Moore and Schmidt would be on the slope, starting to work their way out along the ropes that he and John had laid, readying themselves for the assault.

  Paul Rubenstein estimated that he had perhaps fifty yards of crawling to do, unaided by a safety line, before he’d be able to stand upright, then attack.

  Once he fired the flare, he would begin the crawl, as would the others.

  By the time they reached the point where, theoretically, it would be possible for them to stand and fight, Natalia should be in position, her explosives-laden remote video probes launched and zigzagging their way over the enemy position, hopefully diverting attention from the first few seconds of the assault which would be the most dangerous.

  One minute remained …

  Natalia’s eyes were fixed on the mountaintop, the Nazi helicopter hovering some two miles off. She glanced at the Rolex on her left wrist, previously synchronized with John’s watch and the watches of the other men. Once the flare was fired, which should be at any time now, she would have one minute to get the helicopter gunship into position and activate the remote probes.

  It would take that long, John had judged, for the men to scramble over the remaining portion of the summit slope and get themselves into position.

  The flare which would be fired would of course, alert the enemy defenders that something was about to happen, but if she stayed to the schedule there would be virtually no time for reaction.

  She returned her full attention to the summit, although she had not once fully let her eyes leave it. And, the gunship’s sensing equipment was preset to alarm her when the flare fired. She would rather trust her own senses than something mechanical.

  And then she saw it, so faint that, had she not anticipated the flare being fired, she might never have noticed it.

  Natalia started her machine toward the summit, arming the remote video probes in the same instant, then arming her weapons systems. If one of the Nazi helicopter gunships which remained on the summit were to get airborne, her job would be to prevent it from getting away, regardless of what that required of her …

  John Rourke was moving on knees and elbows, a Detonics ScoreMaster in each hand, the guns beginning to coat with ice from the instant he drew them from the full-flap holsters at his sides.

  He was counting seconds. Natalia would be prompt, and the moment the first of the remote probes was launched, John Rourke wanted to be in position, because each second he delayed was a second more allowing the Nazi defenders here at the mountain’s summit to realize that the probes were a diversion.

  Despite the fact that he had roped his way as close as he dared, and that the slope was vastly less steep here, just crawling was a challenge. He fell, spread-eagling once, then continuing on.

  Lights were visible from the control station for the mountaintop helipad, as were running lights from the helicopters. Four of these,he judged. That would be enough to get Commander Washington’s entire force away from the mountain, if none of the machines were too severely damaged, and if there were someplace left to go.

  The stupidity, the arrogance, the calculated viciousness of Deitrich Zimmer’s utilizing a battlefield nuclear weapon was beyond comprehension. A few such detonations and the precarious atmospheric envelope—which had been steadily returning since the Great Conflagration when the atmosphere ionized and burned—might again be destroyed.

  Forty-two seconds had passed since Paul fired the flare. Natalia would be three-quarters of the way to her position, her remote probes ready to launch.

  The ground was more level here, and Rourke risked moving more rapidly. He was within twenty yards of the helipad, the nearest of the Nazi machines some ten yards beyond that. Nazi personnel were not, so far, in evidence, but he could still only discern lights, not anything in greater detail because of the darkness and the snow.

  Rourke kept moving.

  Fifty seconds …

  In six seconds, her gunship would be on station. The probes were ready to launch. She could make out light patterns on the summit, from structures and from machines like her own. That would mean that her own running lights, had she used any, would have been noticeable as well.

  Four seconds.

  The instant that she launched the probes, she could be tracked. Three seconds. She flipped back the safety cover for the launch switch. The first finger of Natalia’s right hand flicked downward.

  Chapter Eleven

  John Rourke rose to his full height and started cautiously forward, ice-creepers lashed to the soles of his boots. Paul and Michael wore sets of creepers as well, and the other three men wore improvised versions of the same thing. It was one of the curiosities of this new age that, with all the added ice and snow coverage because of drastically reduced global temperatures as a result of the thinning of the atmosphere and the subsequent escape of heat into the blackness of space, no one manufactured ice-creepers. He had been introduced to them by his old friend Jerry Buergel, years Before the Night of the War. Often, they had proved invaluable, providing steady footing under otherwise intolerably slick conditions.

  Had John Rourke been possessed of any entrepreneurial inclinations, a business opportunity of rare potential would have awaited him, assuming of course that the entire planet would not be destroyed as a result of Deitrich Zimmer’s unconscionable use of nuclear weapons.

  But, because of Deitrich Zimmer’s insane ambitions, there were other matters more pressing for John Rourke’s mind to ponder at the moment.

  The video probes which Natalia had launched glided overhead toward the Na
zi gunships.

  It would only be a matter of seconds before the reaction started.

  It was better not to wait.

  He was within ten yards of the rear wall of the control building for the helipad. It was logical to assume that many of the Nazi commandos would be huddled inside it against the storm, while only a few unlucky souls waited in the cold and wind.

  John Rourke holstered his pistols, securing the flaps more as a retention device than as protection, the guns already ice coated. Instead, he drew the Crain LS-X knife, its twelve-inch blade worked to a near razor hone.

  Rourke quickened his pace, eyes scanning the night for some sign of human activity. And, he found it. Still standing, but huddled along the north wall of the building in the full force of the wind was a sentry.

  The man’s head was turning upward, eyes evidently attracted to the movement from the remote video probes. It was important to silence the man before he could sound the alarm that, a few seconds later, John Rourke would be eager for.

  Rourke, because of the ice-creepers, was able to cautiously jog over the ice, toward the control building’s wall, out of sight of the sentry, and seeing no one else in the immediate vicinity.

  Quickly, Rourke moved along the wall, with the back of his gloved left hand smudging snow away from his goggles.

  Where the two walls met, Rourke paused, took a deep breath, then wheeled around the wall.

  The Nazi sentry was just activating his transmitter as Rourke reached out with his left hand, closing it hard and fast over the man’s toque-swathed face. He snapped the man’s head back, exposing the throat to the primary edge of the knife, cutting deep in order not only to kill but to silence.

  The man’s body twitched, then slumped. Rourke dragged him back around the corner, quickly wiping the blade clean on the fellow’s arctic gear, then resheathing. Under more relaxed circumstances, Rourke would have made a quick search for papers of potential intelligence value and disabled the weapons he was leaving behind. There was, however, time for neither.