by Bart Gauvin
The plight of the embattled artillery battery worsened. Unseen by the defenders, an Su-24 bomber, specially configured to sniff out and localize the electronic emission of enemy command posts, was turning in a lazy racetrack pattern high and to the east. The sensitive antennae on this electronic intelligence-gathering platform picked up the strong radio transmissions from the artillery battery’s fire direction center, and had finally triangulated their source. A second Su-24, this one a bomber, turned west and released a single Kh-59M missile, aimed at the deduced coordinates.
Designated the AS-18 “Kazoo” by NATO, the Kh-59M was a medium-range ground attack missile that flew the first leg of its flight under inertial guidance, then performed its terminal dive under televised control from the launching aircraft. In this case, the missile did not have far to fly. The weapons officer aboard the Soviet bomber guided the big projectile downward, now able to see the small forest of antennae and white camouflage netting of the battery’s fire direction center through the weapons camera. He watched until the feed on his small television guidance screen flashed to fuzzy static as three hundred kilograms of high explosive detonated. The blast wave sent shrapnel through tents, radios, vehicles, and men. Radio transmissions from the artillery command post ceased.
Gunfire continued to crackle to the south. The troop løytnant called over the squadron net to report that Soviet soldiers were maneuvering off the lake. He had already lost one of his four M113s to a shot from a BMD, and wanted permission to begin a fighting withdrawal north. Johansen assented. The troop was deployed just a few hundred meters south of his current position and wouldn’t be able to resist the weight of an attack by a full company of Soviet paratroopers supported by light armor.
With barely a moment to take in that news, more came over the radio when Berg, back at the airfield, called to report that Soviet paratroopers were advancing on the town from the east. The troop there had knocked out a BMD on the bridge over Brennelvo Stream, but infantry was working their way around their flanks. The løytnant there was also asking permission to pull back towards the airfield. Even worse, Berg went on, at least a company of Soviet paratroopers had landed north of town, on a spit that jutted into the fjӧrd next to the highway. These were now approaching from the northwest, into the squadron’s rear.
Johansen felt trapped. He was trapped. Where was Laub and the Battalion? Where was Jan and the air force? His command was a reconnaissance squadron, designed to find the enemy for the larger forces to deal with. He didn’t have the firepower to stop a determined assault by a full battalion of Soviet airborne troops.
The second flight of Su-25s roared overhead. Erik closed his eyes. They would be headed for the remaining howitzers. Erik grabbed the HF radio and switched it to the Coast Guard emergency frequency. He’d heard nothing but static over his unit net for hours due to Soviet jamming, so this was his only remaining link to the rest of the world. It was all the hope he had left for the survival of his squadron.
Johansen depressed the talk button, “Anyone on this net, anyone on this net, this is Banak. If you can hear us, we have Soviet infantry and armor advancing on us from every direction. We need support, any support! We can’t hold out much longer. If you can hear me, please respond!”
“—please respond!” crackled through the radio in Olsen’s F-16B.
A hundred kilometers to the west, Jan had just ascended to cruising altitude with the remnants of the failed attack on the incoming Soviet transports.
Electronic noise from the Soviet EW aircraft circling east of Banak was filling the airwaves, but now as Jan and his fellow pilots opened the range, Erik’s transmissions suddenly crackled clearly across the emergency net. Jan recognized his friend’s voice immediately.
Olsen keyed his own radio and responded, “Banak, this is Bobcat Flight. Can you hear me?”
Johansen’s pleas continued, oblivious of the calls traveling back to him from Jan’s radio. Olsen’s responses could not penetrate the electronic haze bombarding the receivers to the north.
“If anyone can hear this,” Erik was saying, “I am pulling my unit back to the airbase. Tell 2nd Mechanized Battalion to hurry. We can’t hold out long…heavy air attack…artillery destroyed…enemy are advancing on our rear and…”
A burst of static flared out the HF radio feed in Jan’s helmet. After that Johansen’s voice was gone. All Olsen could do was continue to withdraw west, away from Soviets, away from his friend. He reached up quickly to wipe away tears of rage. Anders, and now Erik too? he thought. How many more?
Jan took a deep breath and refocused on the task of bringing his jet, and the two other survivors, home through the quickly deepening blue of night. He needed to live if he wanted to fly another day, to even the score.
Johansen and the forward observer team barely escaped the observation post before Soviet paratroopers swept over their position in the house south of town. Hans was trying to reestablish communications to direct fire onto the Soviets advancing up the E6 when a squad of paratroopers emerged from the woods to the southeast. Johansen dropped an advancing paratrooper with the first shot from his G3, but the recoil sent shooting pain from his wound through his back. Hans gave up his attempts to communicate with the battery and grabbed his equipment.
They and the rest of the forward observer team escaped down the staircase as a long burst of machinegun fire poured through the window, shattering the toys and decorations in the child’s room that constituted their observation post. With the house as a shield, Erik mounted his snowmobile but a BMD fired a high explosive round into the spotter team’s G-Wagen, blowing the vehicle apart and killing the two enlisted men. Hans slumped against Erik, groaning, shrapnel peppering both his legs. Johansen draped Han’s arms over his back and accelerated his snowmobile away through a hail of bullets.
Johansen’s squadron folded their perimeter back towards the airfield, fighting the Soviet desantniki through the dark streets of Lakselv, both sides taking and inflicting casualties. The only difference is that we don’t have men to spare, Erik thought darkly. The fight moved through the stench of acrid smoke, past the crash site of a Soviet Su-17, and numerous other fires now smoldering against the frigid night. Here and there frightened civilians scurried across roads, trying to remain out of the crossfire. The single remaining TOW missile-equipped M113 fired at a BMD but missed when its control wires tangled and snapped in the underlying brush, sending the weapon corkscrewing harmlessly upwards. It quickly died from a seventy-three-millimeter shell to the front glacis from that very BMD.
Johansen arrived at the icecrete bunker where Berg was coolly organizing their last stand with the remnants of the squadron. The two reconnaissance troops had acquitted themselves better than the anti-tank section and the observer team, knocking out two of the thinly-armored BMDs with Carl Gustav shoulder-fired anti-tank rounds. In exchange, the Soviets had exacted a heavy toll, reducing Erik’s force to half strength. All were now joined up under Johansen’s direction at the airfield. One of his løytnantar was dead, the other had taken a ricochet to the foot and hobbled from one fighting position to another using his rifle as a crutch. Altogether, the squadron had less than thirty dragons still effective as the desantniki closed in on their final position, centered on the icecrete bunker.
Clouds obscured the moonlight, and snow began to fall on the small perimeter as Berg and Pedersen helped Erik carry Hans into the bunker. The rittmester sighted down his rifle over the ice parapet as they all heard the treads of Soviet BMDs clank and squeal, signaling that the final assault was closing in.
Erik looked around at the wreckage of his command. A few men occupied the bunker. Others lay behind trees or huddled against the bombed-out hangar, rifles and machineguns trained outward. Many were clearly wounded, and many more wounded men filled the squadron’s casualty collection station behind the hanger. A pair of the boxy M-113s sat back deeper in the trees, soldiers manning the M2 machi
neguns in their hatches. Snowmobiles and G-Wagens littered the surrounding woods like toys in a messy child’s room. The circling Su-25s had long before put the one surviving howitzer out of action with cannon fire. Erik could count only one Carl Gustav recoilless rocket launcher among the defenders, his only remaining anti-armor weapon. The sound of Soviet vehicles grew louder from the direction of Lakselv.
Johansen’s thoughts turned once more to the Poster on the Wall. One of its provisions read, “If retreat is the only option, resistance shall continue on other fronts…” Retreat was no longer an option for Johansen. In reality, it never had been. His back burned from the wound and he could barely move from his spot within the bunker. Nor was retreat an option for most of the survivors of his squadron, with Soviet paratroopers closing in from three directions.
Erik looked out and saw his lanky executive officer moving coolly from soldier to soldier, giving words of encouragement and redistributing ammunition. Perhaps, thought Johansen, a smaller contingent might have a chance. Elsewhere, the pioneer sergeant, Pedersen, was doing the same. A plan solidified in the rittmester’s mind, a plan that had been forming in his subconscious for much of the day, since he had seen that old man at the passenger terminal.
“Berg, Pedersen, on me!” Johansen croaked as loudly as he could. The two leaders trotted back to the bunker, their white parkas ghostly amid the snow that had begun to fall.
The løytnant and the sergeant looked at their commander, exhausted but attentive. Gritting his teeth against the shooting pain that sprang through his shoulder with every word, Johansen rattled off his instructions. “Gentlemen, our situation here is hopeless. 2nd Battalion is not coming, and neither is the air force. It’s only a matter of time before we’re overrun.”
Both men looked uncomfortable, but neither objected to their commander’s bleak analysis. Johansen went on, “The Directive orders us to continue the resistance on other fronts if retreat is the only option. That is now the situation we face. I am ordering you two to gather up as many of the men as can still ride a snowmobile,” he let that hang, doing the math just like Pedersen and Berg were—maybe ten men?—Johansen swallowed and continued, “You will break out from here. I would suggest an escape to the southeast, but I leave that decision to you. The rest of us will cover your departure.”
Berg opened his mouth to object, but Johansen cut him off. “I am ordering you, Løytnant Berg! Break out from here and link up with the Telemark Battalion to our south. They will need all the help they can get. I count five snowmobiles that you could use to get away, so…ten men? Yes, start choosing them now. There’s not much time.”
Berg and Pedersen remained crouched, grimly silent for a moment. Then the sergeant said, “I’ll grab some explosives. Should be useful.”
Berg nodded, saying, “I’ll get the men and snowmobiles.”
Johansen only nodded through clenched teeth, uttering an unnecessary, “Hurry.” The Russians will be coming any minute now. They all knew that every second counted.
Pedersen jogged to his section’s M113 where he began stuffing blocks of C4 and det-cord into satchels that he loaded onto an arctic toboggan hitched to one of the snowmobiles.
Berg moved quickly from fighting position to fighting position, tapping unwounded men on the shoulder with a quiet, “Follow me.”
In five minutes, both men were back with their small force. The sounds of approaching armored vehicles were growing louder, even muffled by the now steadily-falling snow.
“You know what to do?” Johansen asked, eyes locking with Berg.
Berg nodded, but it was a stiff, reluctant movement. His blue eyes were pained.
“Sigurd,” Johansen addressed the løytnant, and then he looked past the officer to the other men gathered behind him, “All of you. Continue the fight. You can make things difficult for these monsters. Remember the Directive! Go!”
They scattered to the snowmobiles and were roaring away into the snowy darkness seconds later.
The buzz of their departure was still fading when ghostly figures emerged through the softly falling snow, bounding from tree to tree. The remaining defenders held their fire until the Russians were close. Then, with his remaining strength, Johansen heaved himself up onto the parapet and shouted, “FIRE! Let them have it!”
Every rifle and machinegun in the perimeter blazed. The enemy dropped, some with wounds, others for cover. Return fire winked out of the darkness, and mortar rounds began to fall and explode around the small icecrete bunker. The defenders fell silent, one by one. A Soviet BMD clanked forward through the trees and swirling snow. Just outside the bunker, the Carl Gustav team rose out of hiding and knelt, training their launcher, but before the gunner could depress his firing trigger a burst of fire from deeper in the forest tore into them, felling both men.
Enraged at the death of his men, at the whole situation, Johansen rose up and blazed away at the Soviet vehicle with his rifle. To his right within the parapet of the bunker, a rifleman did the same, though with single, aimed shots. To Erik’s left, a man wielding a belt-fed MG3 machinegun rattled off bursts into the snowy darkness.
The BMD continued to rattle towards them, a monster oblivious to the rounds sparking off its armor, treads grinding through the snow. Johansen kept firing until his bolt locked backwards on an empty magazine. The Soviet vehicle stopped. The turret rotated towards the icecrete bunker. Time seemed to slow until Johansen felt he was looking directly down the muzzle of the vehicle’s stubby gun. Still staring down the Soviet barrel, Erik reached for a full magazine in his webbing. There was a flash that reflected off the falling snowflakes like a thousand points of light, and Erik Johansen’s world went dark.
“The airfield is secure, I repeat, the airfield is secure. We’ve captured all of our objectives, Yastreb Command,” crackled the radio in the circling Il-22.
“Well done, Lev,” Sokolov complimented his assault battalion commander. “What of your casualties?”
“Heavy,” came the response. “Heavier than expected. The defenders around the airfield fought hard. We have only a few prisoners. Some may have escaped before our final assault, but we couldn’t pursue.”
“Very well, Lev. Organize a defense. The motor-rifle troops should be passing through your position by daybreak.”
“Da, Command,” responded the assault battalion commander.
The gathering dark and a snow squall blowing in off the fjӧrd had obscured the end of the battle for the two colonels, forcing them to listen much like two men listening to a football match with money in the game, only it was lives and the fate of nations that was at stake here. Romanov said a quick prayer for the soldiers down below, both the Russians and now for the Norwegians who had resisted them so valiantly.
Sokolov removed the radio headset and looked at Romanov. He said, “Our air force cousins will have interceptors operating from the airfield within hours. The first MiGs are scheduled to arrive in,” he looked at his watch, “ninety minutes from now. They will likely be slightly delayed while we clear the runway, but overall we are on schedule. For now, we should get you back to your own unit. Tomorrow, it’s your turn.”
Romanov nodded. His regiment’s part in the plan did indeed begin the next day, but in a setting more desolate, cold, and far lonelier than this battlefield.
CHAPTER 88
1415 EST, Sunday 13 February 1994
1815 Zulu
Over the Queen Elizabeth 2 wreck site
ABBY LOOKED DOWN with horror at the hundreds of colored dots that sprinkled the dark gray surface of the water below. Bodies, like soggy confetti scattered on pavement after a long-departed parade, paper disintegrating in the elements. Each body had been a person, a person whose life had been slowly sucked away by the cold waters in which they were trapped. No more lifeboats plied the patch of ocean where the Queen Elizabeth II had gone down. The boats that survived the missil
e strikes had already departed, motoring north towards Montauk, crammed to the gunwales with as many of the survivors as they could possibly fit.
Abby and Buck had already rescued one load of stunned, half-frozen survivors, taking them at maximum speed to the evacuation center at Gabreski Field, Long Island, where ambulances were lining up to rush the hypothermic victims to local hospitals. Now they were back, but looking out over the disaster area she felt a moment of hopelessness wash over her. There were so many.
Still, she saw some reasons for optimism. On the flight back to the wreck site, they’d seen more than a dozen boats churning south through the Atlantic swell, including local police and fire boats, but also several commercial fishing trawlers and even a few yachts from the marinas that dotted Long Island’s south coast. The ever-present Coast Guard Dolphin helicopters were dangling rescue swimmers at the end of lines to pull in survivors, and now some small civilian choppers were flitting around trying to help as well. Thanks to the amphibious design of the Sea King, she and other members of her flight were landing directly on the water so the crews could drag survivors up through their open doors several at a time.
As she nudged her helicopter downward to do their part and scoop up another load of survivors, Abby’s heart skipped a beat when a local Bell 212 dipped its nose to fly north and almost collided with a Coast Guard Dolphin, whose rescue swimmer was just reaching the waves. The civilian helicopter pilot, belatedly realizing his mistake, pitched to the side, the two aircraft’s whirling rotors missing each other by mere feet.
“Holy crap!” Abby heard one of the pilots key over the rescue frequency, then, “Hey asshole, watch where you’re flying or stay out of this area!”
