Charles Taylor: First Salvo

Bush held up one finger.

“None in the back.” Ryng hissed. “We only have to worry about one door then.” He pondered for a moment. “There are supposed to be about a thousand Norwegians here. They may have some of them up in the coal mines, but there must be another few hundred around here. We have to find someone who can tell us what’s going on.”

“Wally and I can bring you a body — a live, warm one.” Ryng held his hand up to his lips. The transformer under his arm had vibrated twice. Winters, at the Russian town, needed to talk.

Ryng extracted a small radio from under his shirt. “Go ahead, Harry,” he murmured.

“We’re back ashore all in one piece, along with one Russian sailor. We had to borrow him when we borrowed his boat. No opportunity to avoid him, I’m afraid. We did keep him alive. When he wakes up, perhaps we can learn a bit more about that cargo.” There was a slight pause. “Very interesting, Bernie. Those things under that tarp look very much like torpedoes, but they sure as hell don’t do the same job. No warheads. They’re a hell of a lot bigger too, very long and thin. Harper says they’re all fuel and high-speed engine from the looks of them. He also said he could be wrong but they sure as hell could be some kind of decoy. There’s no way you can launch them out of torpedo tubes — too narrow.”

“Okay, Harry. I think we may have something over here. Perhaps they’re air launched. Rick and I are going to check that out and call back. We’ve found the community of Longyearbyen and apparently the Norwegians are all prisoners. Looks like we have some Russian Black Berets up here. I don’t know how many. Send everything out on the SSB under the usual code. Stay loose for another hour. And, Harry, put together a little something special for that freighter. We still don’t want it going anywhere from here.”

“No problem, boss. Do you want it at the bottom of the harbor?”

“No. Put together something so it’ll be about an hour or so out to sea before it goes off.”

“Right, Bernie. We’ll sit tight until we hear from you. Out.”

With a motion of Ryng’s hand, Bush and Wally drifted off into the shadows in search of their one warm body while the other two headed for the airfield.

Owing to the arctic climate, the island was barren. There were few buildings to provide cover. Darkness had always been a blessing in the team’s business, but this time it would not come for another few months. So Ryng worked his way to the airfield using shadows and rocks and as much luck as possible, with Rick covering each movement.

Crouching at the shadowy edge of a maintenance building, they were treated to an unexpected display. Not more than two hundred yards away, one of the giant bombers was being armed. Ryng had to assume the torpedo-like units that Bush had found on the freighter were the same objects being wheeled out under the wings. Forklifts hoisted them up to the pod-like couplings they’d noticed from the other side of the harbor.

“What do you make of it?” Ryng queried.

“Harry’s right. They sure as hell aren’t torpedoes — not bombs either.” Rick peered at the blackened face beside him. “I’m trying to remember any recent intelligence reports about something like that.” He shook his head. “No weapon that I know of was even being developed in that shape.”

“Must run underwater, but I can’t figure out why.” Ryng paused, his head cocked to one side. Both became aware of a growing engine noise overhead. A third Bear bomber was gliding across the harbor toward them. After landing, it taxied over near the other two. As they watched in silence, the loading of the first one was completed. Minutes later, an air crew appeared, paused outside the plane for a few moments, then swung up inside. The new one moved into line as the first departed.

“Come on,” whispered Ryng. “It’s getting brighter out. Time to hole up for the day.”

Bush and Wally were patiently waiting in the deserted fishing shack where they had hidden the boat.

“I’m sorry, Bernie. That was all we could find.” Bush pointed toward a body huddled in the corner. “That’s why they must have forgotten him.” Filthy clothes and beard and a lingering odor of alcohol suggested that the man had been on a prolonged drunk.

“Was he like this when you found him?”

“Yeah. We heard some noise from one of the cabins and found him inside on the floor curled around a bottle of Aquavit, snoring up a hell of a storm. Believe me, he hasn’t said a word.”

“Well, let’s get him on the road to recovery. That cold water outside is a good starter. Got anything in the medical kit that could give him a jolt?”

Wally searched through his pouch for a small vial. “This’ll probably do it. But it might kill him too.”

“Tough. There’s no choice — and he’s not going to be missed,” Ryng said.

With cold water and an injection of the drug, the man was functioning within fifteen minutes. He spoke no English, and much of whatever he said in his own language would likely have been incoherent to his own countrymen. Then Ryng tried Russian. The man’s eyes lit up with fear. Unconsciously, he attempted to push himself backward, as if he were trying to pass through the wall. His lips moved but there was no sound. Again Ryng spoke to him, this time in a more soothing voice, realizing that all the man could see around him were four men in black clothes much like the Black Berets wore, their faces a menacing black. He explained that they were Americans. Abject fear modulated to uncertainty in the captive. To back this up, two of them dragged the man down under the shack, pointing out their rubber boat.

Back inside, the man’s expression softened somewhat. His face was flushed from the effects of the drug, his pupils dilated. Either he understood or assumed they were going to kill him there and then. Perhaps it was Ryng’s explanation of what might happen to his imprisoned compatriots if he didn’t answer their questions.

The man was now willing to talk.

The Black Berets had arrived a few days before, he began. No one in the village was concerned, since the huge planes bore the familiar Aeroflot markings. They saw a group of men leave the plane, but they looked just like other Russians they’d seen from time to time. When the Black Berets arrived in uniform in two trucks in the center of town, it was too late. They appeared just after a shift change. One of the trucks went directly to the mines. As far as he knew, the same shift was still up there after three days. The rest of the town had been rounded up and placed under guard, one group in the recreation hall, the other in the warehouse at the town pier. Since he had been drunk at the time, he decided that’s why they overlooked him. He’d gone out only once to find more to drink, somehow avoiding them by pure, drunken luck.

On Ryng’s chart of the town, the man identified where the Black Beret unit was billeted. Bernie had half-a-dozen more questions to ask when he saw the man’s eyelids start to droop. His brilliantly flushed face turned a deathly pale. Then his eyes rolled back into his head.

“I’m sorry, Bernie. All that booze in him and, look, he’s no spring chicken.” Wally shrugged. “Hey, he never knew what hit him.”

Ryng removed his radio and pressed a button twice. Winters’s voice came back. “Yeah, Bernie?”

“I’ve got what is probably an entire Black Beret platoon up here, Harry. They’ve been in town about three days. In addition to the locals being held at the rec hall, there’s a shift stuck up at the mines and apparently the balance of the town is at the town warehouse. I’m not as worried about them as I am about those funny-looking torpedoes of yours. They’re loading them on the Bears, four to a wing, and one of them’s already off somewhere.”