Ian Slater - Choke Point

Heading for him, the RIB began taking fire from a dozen or so of the hooded terrorists who positioned themselves along the “dock”—a crescent of crushed shell and sand to the left of the cave. Inaccurate though it was, given the fast-moving RIB, neither Freeman, Sal, nor Choir had much more success at hitting their terrorist targets once they’d “looped” Dixon aboard. One second they were firing from atop a four-foot chop, the next they were shooting on the downslide, the loud, crackling firefight coming from both sides unable to exact any serious punishment. Then Aussie, having successfully sought the turbulence of the waterfall-sea interface to hide in, saw the sail of the midget, which had appeared much larger from the water, coming alive with men wearing black balaclavas and overalls.

Like soldier ants erupting from their hive, half a dozen of the terrorists were already on deck, another cramped four remaining in the sail. Two of the latter, Aussie could see, were a machine gunner and his feeder. Of the other duo, one was obviously what U.S. military attachés around the world colloquially called the TIC — terrorist in charge — his authority evident as he directed a work party hurriedly toward the stern. The other man held an AK-47.

While the TIC continued to instruct his minions aft via what Aussie guessed must be a throat mike, two of the six soldier ants opened up with Kalashnikovs, the sound augmenting the tarpaper-ripping noise of the sail’s heavy.50 caliber machine gun, whose fan-shaped sweep of fire moved unhurriedly but with relentless intensity through a seventy-to-ninety degree arc, from the RIB that had picked up Dixon across to the interface of the waterfall and the open sea. It was as if the TIC had anticipated that the remaining American diver — Aussie — possibly wounded, would seek the camouflage of the falls, perhaps using its noise as a cover in the event that he was so badly hurt he could not silence his pain.

Freeman, unable to see Aussie Lewis, nevertheless refused to risk losing the RIB in looking for him. He knew Aussie would have made the same decision — no point going after one man when it was critical that the RIB, by using the sea stack and islet as protection, could continue to harass the sub to buy time until Jensen’s patrol craft and/or aircraft could arrive. And should the sub, despite the violent cavitation of its shaft, somehow manage to get to deep water and dive, Freeman knew it was imperative that he, Choir, Sal, and now Dixon mark its position for the massive antisub attack that would be launched. In any event, even if it managed to maintain a knot — or more, should the soldier ants repair the prop’s basket — the four Americans seriously doubted that the sub would get beyond the main channel.

Freeman, Choir, and Salvini also understood that despite their RIB’s maneuverability and firepower, now that they’d expended the AT-4 launcher, their collective small arms fire would be no match for the sub. Though a midget, it nevertheless dwarfed and outgunned them with the big.50 mounted on the sail.

Aussie, his strength waning as he trod water in the sunlit mist of the falls, also understood the necessity of the RIB biding its time, now using the protection of what would afterward be known as “Dixon’s sea stack.” Aussie further understood something his four companions couldn’t because their line of sight was obscured by the waterfall’s mist and the islet east of them: A work party of four of the black-clad submariners was already busy with monkey wrenches, a man with a sledgehammer standing by. The four men were obviously trying to unscrew the four bolts that held the prop’s protective basket in place, one of the two starboard bolts already undone. If they managed to remove and jettison the protective basket in time, the prop’s shaft, free of the warped basket, could surge to full power. Then the sub, even at six or eight knots, would be out and crash diving in minutes.

Aussie knew that even if the general had reestablished contact with Admiral Jensen, and COMSUBPAC-GRU-9 had dispatched the cavalry, it was highly doubtful they’d detect the midget, because the sub was sheathed entirely in a kind of sound-absorbing anechoic tile he’d never seen before, the tiles so barnacle-free that Aussie guessed they must be virtually brand new and impermeable to antisub sonar. Added to this was the one great advantage the diesel-electric subs had over the nuclear super subs, such as Captain Rorke’s late Virginia-class Utah : The old-fashioned diesel electrics were able to shut down completely, able to sit somewhere on the vast ocean bottom in absolute silence, while the nukes, for all their noise-dampening independently suspended compartment technology, could never be totally noise-free because of the necessity of keeping the reactor’s cooling pump going at all times, the giveaway heartbeat, however faint, of every nuclear navy.

Aussie intuitively flinched as another long burst of the sub’s heavy caliber machine gun raked Dixon’s sea stack, the.50 rounds zinging off the basalt rock, sending beehive-humming fragments of starfish and crustaceans into the air. Perhaps, Aussie thought, if he could muster enough energy to dive and swim to the sub, coming in on its eastern flank, where the terrorists were least likely to expect an attack, he could toss two or three of his HE and flash-bang grenades and take out the.50, allowing the RIB to speed in and unload all the ordnance it had on the work party.

As if his comrades two hundred yards off to the west behind the sea stack had the same intent in mind, Sal, Dixon, and Freeman — Choir steering the RIB as it darted out from behind the stack — opened fire. Sal was on the bow-mounted M-60, Dixon feeding its belt, and the general was firing his MP5. Thin, high plumes of water were leaping up about the sub’s stern from the fusilade. One of the terrorists’ four-man work party dropped away from the prop’s basket, his body spurting blood as gulls screeched in alarm and expectation above the sub, whose sail seemed to explode in an outrage of return fire that sent the RIB in a tight U-turn back behind the stack. What gave Aussie pause for thought was the extraordinary bravery of the work party — only one of the remaining three flinching under the RIB’s attack. Even so, there was no pause in their work, none of them deigning to turn around, the only visible sign of their concern being the increased activity around the basket, their remarkable concentration projecting an air of contempt for the nuisance Americans.

Seeing the same insouciance, the general admiringly muttered, “By God,” as he helped Sal and Dixon secure the RIB to the stack’s barnacle-crusted hide. “I’d decorate those sons of bitches — every one of them!”

“I’d rather shoot ’em, General,” said Sal.

The general slapped Salvini heartily on the shoulder. “So would I, Brooklyn, so would I. But all we have to do is worry them for another ten minutes — then we should have close air support. Sink the bastards!”

“That’s for me,” said Choir.

Dixon said nothing, the delayed shock of his underwater fight now hitting him full force, leaving him unable to join in the banter that seemed to come so naturally to these combat-hardened warriors. The loss, too, of his mentor and friend Albinski was still too recent, along with the scenes of floating, often eviscerated dead he’d seen littering the strait east of the U.S.-Canadian choke point. And the smell of the dead, something that none of the training films or movies had managed to convey, a stink that evoked feelings of revulsion, then guilt for feeling such revulsion. All this had at once frightened and confused him. If only he had the guts to dive, he thought, to swim out and pop up close enough to the sub’s stern.