Worst of all, Maas felt helpless to do anything. The Sea Stallions were about a mile from the action, having completed a long sweep out from the place were the Miajappe had sunk and the second and third battleships were still burning. Like Clancy before him, Maas knew that only an act of divine intervention could save the troopers stuck on the fast-attack boat now. It seemed more like a matter of time before something tragic and unavoidable happened.
Suddenly, Maas noticed something. The Sparvee had been heading right into harm’s way at 50 knots—but now it seemed to be rapidly slowing down. There was no longer a large plume of smoke left by its overheated engines behind it, nor the roostertail of water thrown high in the air from its uncontrollable wake. Was this just an illusion? An example of mind over matter, multiplied by a bad case of wishful thinking?
It was neither. The runaway boat was definitely slowing down. At the moment it was barely moving at all. The three jets streaked right by it, the AA fire following them and straying away from the attack boat.
What had spared the troopers on board the Sparvee from such an untimely fate? The finger of God? Another example of the strangeness that had enveloped the area?
No—it was something a little more down-to-earth than that: what had happened was the small-attack boat, known for its notorious rate of fuel use, had run out of gas.
But now another peril was evident, and Maas could see it right before his eyes. The fast-attack boat was suddenly drifting right into the sights of the sixth-inline battleship, the fearsome Nori.
The next thing Maas knew, he was scrambling up to the front of the big helicopter. He quickly directed the pilot’s attention away from the sky full of AA fire and missiles and down to the surface, where the attack boat was now heading right toward the sixth battleship. The pilot turned the Sea Stallion over in a second, sending everything that wasn’t tied down flying all over the cabin. Right beside them, the second chopper had performed the same gut-wrenching maneuver.
The AA gunners on the sixth battleship saw them coming and began opening up. Huge five-inch shells were now rocketing past the Sea Stallions as they drew closer and lower to the drifting Sparvee. The troopers on the attack boat were firing back at the battleship with their small weapons, an uneven match if ever there was one. Incredibly, some of the rifle fire hit home, killing several of the battleship’s deck gunners, now just 200 yards away.
By this time, the first Sea Stallion was in position over the fast-attack boat. Hovering just 10 feet above the rear end, some of the troopers were able to climb up onto the depleted fuel tanks and make the leap into the open door. The first chopper took on six men and then backed away, its cargo hold full.
Now the chopper carrying Maas and the other JAWS officers came in. By this time, the gunners on the Nori had registered their guns and were barreling in on the desperate rescue operation. Maas was hanging onto Snyder, who was hanging on to Miller, who was literally lifting the troopers off the bridge of the foundering attack boat and throwing them into the chopper. During this time, enemy fire was exploding all around them. It seemed impossible that a shell hadn’t hit them yet. To make matters worse, the attack boat had caught fire, either because the engines had finally melted down or an enemy incendiary round had hit it. Flames were soon leaping from the rear end and quickly working their way forward.
Clancy had just lifted the last guy from the attack boat when suddenly a huge explosion went off. It was so violent, the last JAWS soldier nearly lost his grip and fell back into the fiery sea. But somehow, all three JAWS officers managed to hang on to him. They started yelling for the pilot to move off, and their cries soon brought results. Slowly, gradually, the big Sea Stallion began moving away from the Sparvee. The attack boat quickly became engulfed in flames. There was another explosion—the lubricating oil tank had probably gone up—and then the small boat finally slipped beneath the waves.
The Sea Stallion by this time had turned a 180 and was heading in toward shore. Now all those aboard could see what had caused the huge explosion just seconds earlier. The fourth battleship was now engulfed in flames and smoke and smaller explosions. The F-14s and the ancient Delta Dart were flying around its mast, dropping bombs and strafing it from stem to stern. The water all around the battleship was covered with oil and flames—and bodies. The holds of the immense vessel had been full of the Cult’s “specialty troops,” and now these soldiers were the water.
Here was the strangest, most disturbing sight of the entire battle: many of these specialty troops were so close to shore, they could probably have swum to safety. Others could have conceivably grabbed some floating wreckage and held on until a rescue. But none of the troops had. Instead, many were killing themselves—either by purposely drowning, or by slitting their throats or stomachs. But even more disturbing, they were killing each other. The JAWS men could clearly see the soldiers from their helicopter, fighting in the water among themselves, stabbing, slashing, trying to hold one another’s heads under water.
Why were they doing this? The only answer was that the specialty troops had been so keyed up for killing that when the opportunity was lost and they were thrown into the water, they had no choice but to start killing either each other or themselves. The madness that had boiled up inside them wound up providing their own demise. The sight of these specialty troops meeting their ends in such a fashion was upsetting to the point of inducing nausea.
But soon, the minds of the JAWS officers were on other things. There was yet another crisis looming: the dangerously low fuel tanks of their helicopter. The first Sea Stallion had already made it to shore, but just barely. It had come down in a controlled crash at the water’s edge, not far from the UAAF’s first defense line.
Now the second chopper was absolutely out of fuel, both main tanks and reserves. The pilots were shouting at everyone on-board to get strapped down or at the very least hold on to something—already the big rotors were fluttering.
Maas looked out the cargo hatch to see they were still a quarter mile from the beach. The water below was littered with flaming wreckage and bleeding bodies. It offered no hope for any kind of safe landing. The copter was filled with wounded and depleted troopers—plus Sean Higgins, who was still in a state of shock and under the influence of the massive dose of morphine given to him at the conclusion of the recon raid, back in Cuba. How would he be able to make it to shore if they set down in the dangerous waters?
The big copter began shuddering now, the engine was starting to melt down. The electrical wires began crackling and burning, and now a toxic cloud filled the hold. Outside, the sky was still thick with flames and smoke and the crashing of shellfire and the whooshing of missiles. The JAWS officers, crowded around the comatose Higgins, just looked at each other, the same thought on all their minds: was this the end? After everything they’d gone through, would they meet their demise simply because of a few gallons of fuel? Gas they could have taken on-board during the refueling on Key Lime?
As it turned out, the answer to all their questions was no. From somewhere, a great gust of wind came off the ocean and pushed the stricken helicopter the last 500 feet toward the beach. The pilots let out one last wail for everyone to hold on. The next thing the JAWS men knew, they were flying around the cabin, almost weightless.
Then, finally, the helicopter came down—hard, and with a crash—but in one piece, in about two feet of water, just off the main beach. Incredibly, everyone on board had made it.
They began falling out of the cargo door, some on their own, others needing help. The waves and lapping water made evacuating the aircraft somewhat difficult, but the copter was empty inside of two minutes. The last to come off was Higgins. He was lowered on a stretcher into the waiting arms of the ablest troopers and carried further up the beach, just beyond the high tide mark. Above them, the battle was at last winding down. There were no more Beagles fouling the air, no more Styx missiles racing overhead. The bay was now the graveyard for five battleships. One had sunk, four
others were burning and going down, and the sixth was speeding away, still under attack by the F-14s and the Delta Dart.
Behind them, many parts of the KSC were in flames. All of the communications buildings had been destroyed, along with the shuttle runway and the temporary aircraft housing. The VAB was smoking mightily on its southeast corner. One quarter of the immense building was either missing or obscured by smoke. Sirens still wailed across the vast UA complex, the sound of medevac choppers filled the air. It was still only 0745; the battle had lasted less than two hours. But in that time, more than 7,000 men had been killed—the vast majority of them Cult sailors and specialty troops. Still, UAAF casualties had been high, especially among the defenders around the VAB and in the AAA emplacements on the beach. Among the hardest hit were the NJ104 combat engineers.
Now the tide was rising and the wreckage and bodies from the battle were coming ashore. The JAWS medics attempted to revive Higgins with injections of adrenaline. It took a few heart-stopping moments, but finally the stricken JAWS officer came around. He opened his eyes to see a huge crowd of troopers staring down at him. A cheer went up as his face and eyes showed the first signs of revitalization. He had made it—and so had they. Somehow, they had accomplished their grand aim and still survived the brutal battle.
Higgins jumped to his feet. To the astonishment of all, he pushed his way through the crowd of troopers and began running toward the water. It took a few seconds for the other JAWS men to react. Then they started chasing him, calling after him to come back.
Higgins reached the waterline and dived in and began swimming frantically out to sea. Those closest to him heard him shouting, “There’s one left! There’s one left!” A dozen JAWS men dived into the surf to pursue him, but Higgins, apparently fueled by the double dose of adrenaline and morphine, was swimming like a madman.
He swam about 100 yards out—and then stopped. It appeared that he’d either run out of energy or had simply given up. But just as it seemed he was about to slip beneath the waves, he suddenly grabbed onto something and began swimming back.
The other troopers finally reached him and saw that he had retrieved a body—one that appeared quite dead, yet was still bubbling air from its mouth. The JAWS troopers managed to pull both of them back out of the water and soon began working CPR on them.
Higgins was easily revived. He jumped up and joined the effort to resurrect the man he’d dragged to shore.
“I was dreaming that I saw him flying through the air,” he was saying, as the JAWS medics began performing artificial respiration on the man. “A voice—a woman’s voice—told me I had to save him if I could…”
The man coughed up a stomach full of seawater and began breathing on his own. Another cheer went up, though Higgins’s odd rescue had been downright eerie.
And who was the man whose life he’d so dramatically saved?
The answer was on the name tag of the man’s extremely scarred and burnt uniform. Above the left pocket, still visible, was the patch of the NJ104 Combat Engineers. Below it was the officer’s name: Lieutenant Colonel Don Matus, the man who’d been blown off the top of the VAB in the opening minutes of the battle.
Twenty-one
MAJOR DONN KURJAN, AKA “Lazarus,” did not fight in the “doomsday” battle for the Kennedy Space Center.
He’d left the morning before. Catching a ride on a cargo plane heading for Boston, he’d been forced to get off at the Newark military air station because the airplane could go no further north.
The reason was the atrocious weather that had been battering most of New England for nearly a week. A major hurricane, unnamed, its strength at the top end of the scale, had been parked off the northeast coast for six days. During that time, winds in excess of 110 mph had shorn whole forests along the Maine coast. Tides running more than 30 feet above the norm had flooded large sections of lower Connecticut and Rhode Island. Mid-sized tornadoes, spawned by the massive storm system, had torn up sections of New Hampshire and Vermont.
Electricity, phone lines, and water systems, shaky in the area since the Big War, were now nonexistent. Disaster relief forces from neighboring states were having a hard time just communicating with each other, never mind with victims caught in the storm’s gigantic swirl. Worst hit was Cape Cod. Here the winds were the highest and the rain the heaviest. Waves the size of tsunamis had been battering the fragile beaches for five days nonstop. Those caught on the Cape and the nearby islands could not get out, just as those who sought to bring relief to them could not get in. Most disheartening of all, UA military weather forecasters could see no end in sight to the massive tempest; indeed, the hurricane was actually gaining strength as the hours went by and not depleting itself, as storms of its ilk usually do.
A search of memories and the record books confirmed it: there had never been a storm quite like this.
So Kurjan’s airplane had been forced to set down at Newark; this was as far north as any UA military airplane dared to travel. Kurjan used his UAAF staff connections to secure an ancient military jeep from the airport security detachment. Once he’d been able to wrangle a tank full of gas, he headed out through New York City, up the rain-slicked highway into Connecticut, over several swaying bridges into Rhode Island, finally reaching the approaches of Cape Cod. The trip, normally a 5- or 6-hour affair, took Kurjan nearly 24, the conditions were that bad.
But this did not deter him. Something deep inside him, the same thing that had somehow graced him with the longevity of a cat and plain old good luck in his military adventures, was now compelling him to get to the Cape at all costs, not matter what. His trip had taken on a surreal edge. He’d somehow survived the night in the swamp during the Norse attack and remained unharmed as the C-5 gunship rained hell down upon earth. Yet in his brief recuperation, all he could think about was how he could get to Cape Code by the quickest means possible. How strong was this attraction, that he would risk life and limb to obey it? What outside forces were drawing him toward the center of the worst storm ever imagined?
Kurjan didn’t know—and the truth was, he didn’t really think about it very much.
He just kept on driving.
It was close to midnight when he began coaxing the Jeep up the long, winding road that led to Nauset Heights.
The rain was absolutely fierce, the thunder and lightning so constant, the night seemed as bright as day. The wind was blowing at such a constant gale, the sand and water spray made it difficult to see even a few feet in front of him.
Finally, he reached the top of the heights, just as the old Jeep’s engine gave out for lack of fuel and initiative. Kurjan was forced to abandon it at the slight bend in the road which led to the farmhouse at the edge of the heights. Only by the crack of lightning could he make out the name on the signpost swinging mightily in the supersonic breeze: Skyfire.
Kurjan had been here several times before, back in happier days, when Hawk Hunter was repairing the place, living out his days in contentment and semiretirement. Kurjan’s fondest memories of Skyfire were the nonstop sunny days and cool, star-filled nights, when he, as a guest of Hunter and Dominique, would sit with them on the creaky porch and talk away the hours, sipping spiked lemonade and eating plump, sinfully juicy lobster. Kurjan recalled thinking back then that even though days like these were few and far between, sometimes the cosmos does reward those who are patient enough a little glimpse of heaven. He could still close his eyes and feel the warm sun heating his face. Never had he felt so content.
But now, in the scary winds and pounding rain, the little farmhouse looked like something from a horror movie. Dark, wet, and forbidding, it seemed like a place that had been abandoned for years. The waves of hay, long unkempt and uncut, were blowing so hard in the gale, they combined to emit a kind of screech, a sound that went right to the bone.
There was no soul here anymore, Kurjan thought, looking at the ethereal setting. No life. Or at least, life as the place had known so many times in the past.
Still, he unclasped the gate and walked down the flooded, sandy path. A particularly nasty crack of lightning hit just as he reached the first step, the thunder that followed a second later loud enough to make him jump. The same compelling feeling which had led him to this place at this time was now telling him to avoid the front door. He wisely chose to follow the advice. Moving his head down against the wind, he stumbled to the rear of the house and let himself in through the back door.
The kitchen was dark and smelled of salt and spilled oil. An old wick lamp, its glass container cracked and leaking kerosene, was sitting in the sink. Several candles, their wicks long ago soaked and useless, lay scattered on the table. Long strings of herbs and bulbs, hung from the ceiling rafters to dry, were now broken and ruined, littering the cabinets and the floor. The ancient icebox, which Hunter’d once stocked with dozens of bottles of the local brew, was alone in one corner, its door hanging off the hinges, its shelves bare and stained. Kurjan put his hand inside and was disheartened to find it had been warm for a long, long time.
He moved through the pantry, to the swinging door he knew led to the small dining room. He pushed the door open slowly, his massive .357 Magnum up and ready for anything. Inside he found a single candle burning on the dining room table. Caught in its bare illumination was the face of a young girl.
She looked up at Kurjan as he came through the door, tears rolling down her cheeks. She was wearing a bathing suit and was probably no more than 12 or 13 years old. The wind was blowing through the cracked window next to her chair, but she seemed unaffected by it. He stared back at her, not quite believing she was there. Pale and fragile, she looked like a ghost.
He stepped up to her, lowering his gun to his side.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Who else is here with you?”
The girl turned her eyes toward him, but he got the distinct impression that she could not see. Rather, she seemed to be looking right through him, just as he imagined he could see right through her.
Death Orbit Page 22
