Pulling on Siberian uniforms taken by Freeman’s forces from Siberian militiamen captured in Khabarovsk, the twelve-member S/D, as the SAS/Delta team was designated in Freeman’s HQ, were lost in clouds of steam rising from the long-nozzled de-icing hoses spraying the rotors of the two Super Sea Stallion choppers. The Stallions, their crews also in Siberian uniforms, would carry the team seven hundred miles, skimming over the vast taiga, in a nap-of-the-earth flying mission that would take them to Tankhoy on the southeastern shore of the lake, twenty-seven miles across from Port Baikal, the latter situated on the ice-free outflow of the Angara River.
The rotors of the two escorting Cobra attack helicopters-dwarfed by the Super Stallions, much larger at 99 feet long — were already cutting into the softly falling snow. David Brentwood would have preferred a smaller-silhouette chopper, but the big Stallions had a range of 480 nautical miles, each powered by three T64-GE-416 turboshaft engines. Strong enough to lift a 150-millimeter howitzer and the gun’s five-ton truck, each of them could certainly carry four of the three-man Arrow vehicles Freeman had insisted on for the mission; above all the big choppers could carry hefty extra fuel tanks.
As important as any of its other attributes, the Stallion could be refueled in flight from a KC-130 tanker so that by using additional drop tanks for the seven-hundred-mile run in and partway out, it would be able to be refueled in the air on its way back, beyond the deadly AA missile and gun batteries around the lake. In addition, the chopper had a remarkable 27,900-foot ceiling and also had two.50 caliber machine guns mounted starboard and port beneath the engines’ cowling, which two of the S/D could handle if necessary.
Though it wasn’t snowing heavily, the snow was bothering the pilots of the two attack Cobras more than the Sea Stallion crews, who had already done a lot of bad-weather flying in “pickup and deposit” rescue missions after, and sometimes during, the Baikal-launched missile attacks, taking litters of wounded to MASH units, and in some cases flying them as far back east as Khabarovsk. One of the Cobra pilots in particular seemed spooked, grumpily ordering his weapons officer/copilot to double-check that all red tapers had been taken from the sixteen Hellfire antitank missiles. The copilot had already done so, but the pilot thought the de-icing steam had momentarily obscured the ground crew who in turn might not have seen his thumbs-up signal. Meanwhile the seven crew members flown in from the USS Reagan to join Robert Brentwood, bringing the team up to twenty men, were adjusting their S/D-issued, extremely-cold-weather gear.
Freeman shook hands with every man, including the four chopper crews who were going on the mission.
“Remember now, engineers have assured us that the noise of the Snowcat Arrows is similar to the kind of engines the Sibirs use on their snowmobiles, so the noise in itself shouldn’t draw undue attention. And as you can see, we’ve spent all night painting your transport in snow/gray Siberian camouflage pattern. So what more could you want?”
If anyone laughed, no one could hear it over the rotors of the Sea Stallion coughing to life. “If for any reason,” Freeman continued, his voice in competition with the choppers, “you can’t rendezvous after—” He meant if the choppers were unable to fly. “—remember, just keep heading northeast. Once you’re in the taiga on the east side of the lake, we’ll lock on to your location transmitters. That’ll tell us where you are within a thousand meters. And if, God forbid, you should go down, going in or coming out, deploy away from the craft. We’ll home in on the ‘bipper’ as fast as we can but I repeat, don’t stay with the chopper, no matter how tempting.”
Freeman looked up into the falling snow.”And as I told you last night, your pilots will exit our area by flying due south, then east toward Tankhoy on the east side of the lake in order to avoid any more antichopper mines the bastards might have sown directly ahead of Second Army. We’re sweeping and grading for them now, but it’ll take twenty-four hours.” The general paused. “Anyway, all this is purely academic at this stage, gentlemen. I’ve every confidence you’re not going to be spotted. Good luck!”
Aussie Lewis’s tone was easy, typical of SAS/Delta veterans who, while not contemptuous of authority, were certainly not intimidated by it. “General, you think this newly painted red star’ll get us in more trouble than it’s worth?” He gestured toward the nearest Sea Stallion. “Attract friendly fire?”
“All forward observers — including air and ground units-have been ordered not to fire on any chopper in our area for the next half hour. You’ll be out of our fire zone after that.”
“Siberians don’t have anything that looks like a Sea Stallion, do they?” asked Aussie.
“No,” admitted Freeman, “but the Cobras’ll be out front, and their silhouettes are second cousin to the Siberians’ Havoc attack helos. By the time any of ‘em spot you, the Cobras will already have spotted them.”
“Right,” said Aussie enigmatically as he grasped the cold, stiff handle of the Haskins M-500 sniper rifle case and boarded the first Sea Stallion. “Duck hunting is it, Aussie?” asked Choir as they buckled up.
“Yeah,” answered Lewis, his mood more buoyant after a night’s sleep, and reassured by the fact that the falling snow would help screw up the enemy radar.
David Brentwood and his brother were silent, both knowing they were sharing responsibility, not only for the men under their command, but for a mission that, like Freeman, they understood could turn the tide for the U.S. Second Army and win the Siberian war.
From now on the choppers were on radio silence.
“S’truth,” said Aussie, his mood changing abruptly, “these bloody things make a racket.”
No one among the other five S/D men aboard Stallion One-David Brentwood, Choir, and the three Delta men, O’Reilly, Lawson, and Salvini — or the four submariners, including Robert Brentwood, said anything, all occupied by their own thoughts.
“Jesus!” said Aussie. “We’re not going to a bloody funeral, you blokes. Lighten up! Anybody want a fag?” he asked. He offered a packet of filterless cigarettes.
“Bad for your lungs,” said Choir disinterestedly.
“Oh, spare me,” rejoined Aussie. “Where the hell you think you’re—” He stopped, nudging David Brentwood and nodding toward one of the four submariners, the sonarman called Rogers from the Reagan. The man had his eyes closed tightly, head down, lips moving in prayer. “Say one for me, sport,” said Aussie.
“Hush,” said Choir with an edge that David Brentwood hadn’t heard in a long time, S/D volunteers being chosen for their ability to get on with one another in situations that would have other men at one another’s throats.
“Sorry, mate!” said Lewis, lighting his cigarette. “Sure you don’t want a fag?”
Rogers smiled and said something, but beneath the rumbling roar of the Sea Stallion’s three engines, Aussie couldn’t hear him.
After flying thirty miles south-southwest of the Second Army for a distance of seventy miles above the frozen Shilka River, where the outside temperature was minus forty degrees Centigrade, the four choppers swung southeast for the five-hour run over the vast, white landscape of birch, pine, and beech taiga to Tankhoy on the southeastern side of the 390-mile-long, banana-shaped lake. Here they would deplane for the final forty-five-mile east-west run from the southernmost tip of the lake around to Port Baikal situated on the southwestern end.
They were two hours into the flight, the taiga a whitish blur beneath the haze of the falling snow, when Choir heard the high-toned alarm sounding, the weapons officer saying something that ended with “… locked on.” Stallion One pitched so violently that Aussie almost lost his grip on the sniper rifle case. One of the submariners, walking back from having relieved himself, was thrown to the floor, sliding as the Stallion yawed hard to port. They heard a soft thump, barely discernible beneath the roar of the turboshaft.
“Splash one Havoc!” said the copilot on the internal radio. “Way to go!”
“What’s going on?” asked a sickly-faced Rogers. Robert Brentwood handed him another brown paper bag.
“One of our Cobras got the bastard!” announced the Stallion’s copilot excitedly.
“Hey! Hey!” two of the four submariners said, celebrating, as if suddenly brought to life by the information, their hands meeting in high fives.
“Brilliant!” said Aussie, lighting another cigarette, his tone killing any excitement in the cabin as surely as any missile. “So much for our fucking camouflage.”
“They don’t know where we’re going,” said David Brentwood, trying to reassure the submariners. “We could be reconnaissance choppers out looking for the forward units of their Thirty-first. Anyway, target’s a long way off.”
“That’s what worries me, sport,” said Aussie, electing to take the most negative implication of David’s observation.
“Not like you, Aussie, is it?” said Choir, surprised. “To be fretting so.”
“Hey, why don’t you take a flying—”
“Knock it off!” said David. “We’ll be okay. We’re all a bit edgy. Only natural.”
“Like All-Bran!” said Aussie, winking at Robert Brentwood and Rogers. “You blokes got all the Russia stuff down pat?” He meant the instructions above the various dials in the midget subs that would be written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
“Yes,” answered Rogers, head back hard against the fuselage now, eyes half open, a drooling, seasick look about him.
“More than we need,” said another submariner. “You get us to one of those GSTs, and we’ll take her down.”
“No problem,” said Aussie easily, his mood swing uncharacteristic of him and something David Brentwood didn’t like. “Hey, Brentwood!” Aussie shouted across at Robert. “You know Russki?”
“Some,” said Robert. “Enough to make sense of an intelligence report. Technical specs, that sort of thing.”
“We,” began Rogers, finding it difficult to get enough spittle to talk, “if you can get us to one — we can take her down.”
“Yeah, yeah!” said Aussie. “So you told me.” But now the phrase “take her” had shifted Aussie’s attention — he was thinking of a “bird” he said he’d had once in Wales. Yelling at them through the trembling of Stallion One as it dipped and rose over the contours of the taiga, more like a frigate in a rough sea, he was describing his good fortune to the submariners. “Jugs on her like this!” His palms cupped as he made an up-and-down motion. “I swear, biggest nungas you ever saw.”
Choir shook his head at the submariners.
Back at Second Army headquarters east of Yerofey Pavlovich, an eager young PR lieutenant came in and requested he be allowed to speak to Gen. Douglas Freeman on an important matter, refusing to tell Dick Norton what it was about. Freeman had come out, exhausted from giving his undivided attention to the minutiae of logistics that would be required to break out southwest toward Irkutsk and north to Yakutsk if the “Brentwood boys” succeeded.
“What’s on your mind, son?” asked Freeman. Norton, sensing the general’s mood, made a tactical retreat toward the coffee urn at the far end of the HQ hut.
“Sir, I’m Lieutenant Simpson, sir, and I’m responsible for your PR in the media pool in Khaba—”
“Don’t waste time,” Freeman ordered. “Spit it out.” This, with astonishing courage, the lieutenant proceeded to do. “Sir, the La Roche papers are murdering you. Not only back home but in Japan, the U.K. — all over the world, sir. And—” The lieutenant paused but then got right to it. “And the monocle doesn’t help — sir.”
“What?”
“The monocle, sir. Well, sir, it — it looks ridiculous, General.” He hurried on. “They’re calling you ‘Von Freeman’— the La Roche papers — and the Siberian propaganda radio is calling you a Nazi.”
Norton, seeing the general’s hand drop to his waist, thought that Freeman — fatigued from having been on his feet for over forty-eight hours without a break — might actually draw his revolver and put an end to the lieutenant.
Freeman stared at the lieutenant who, having said his piece, was leaning back at an impossible angle as Freeman advanced on him. “You cheeky sonofabitch! I oughta have you—NORTON!”
“General?”
“Is he correct?”
“Ah — well, that’s what they’re telling me, General.”
“Who?”
“The press.”
“Goddamn fairies!” Freeman exploded, rounding on Norton. “It’s your goddamned fault!” With that Freeman tore the monocle from its cord and threw it to the ground, crunching it under his boot. “You see that?” he bellowed at the lieutenant.
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell those fairies that that’s what I’m going to do to the Siberian Thirty-first.” He turned about to get the attention of everyone in the hut. He already had it. “Or they will do it to us. We beat them or we the. Here — in Siberia. Every one of us. The U.S. Second Army does not retreat. Is that clear?” There was silence. “Norton, get the a WAM here immediately.” It was an Xm93 wide-area mine.
“Yes, General,” said Norton. When Freeman had disappeared through the green curtains that separated his war room from the rest of the hut, someone manning the radar said in low tones, “Is he going to blow us all up?”
“Shut up!” commanded Norton. “If I hear any more smartass—” The cruise alarm began its familiar howl. “Incoming!” came the warning over the PA. “Incoming!”
There was a shuffling noise outside the headquarters hut, for even though the cruise was still 150 miles — seventeen minutes— away, many of the men were already heading for the sandbagged shelters.
Mine clearance was still going on up ahead so that soon the Second Army would be on the move again, but so long as the missiles kept coming from Baikal, Freeman knew he couldn’t advance in any meaningful military sense of the word. And yet retreat would not only mean a triple humiliation for Second Army but the Siberians, smelling blood, their supplies building up along the Transbaikal for Yesov’s attack, would be content with nothing less than the destruction of the entire army.