Ian Slater - Arctic Front

“They wouldn’t be able to see the moving about in this snowfall,” said the reporter. “Cuts down the infrared signature.”

“Maybe,” said the hunter, caught out.

“There’s another way,” said the reporter.

“No,” said the hunter.

“What? You don’t even know the fucking question.”

“Yes I do. You want to know if we could hike across to Big Diomede.”

“It’s only two and a half, three miles,” said the reporter.

“We could get killed.”

“Everybody gets killed. You ever do it?” asked the reporter, fixing the hunter with a challenging stare.

“Sure. Used to do it a lot after Gorbachev — for a while.”

“So?”

“It’s not a walk on an ice rink,” said the hunter. “Pressure ridges push up against one another.” He used his hands, pushing hard against one another, to demonstrate. “Ice as big as buildings.”

“Yeah, and it can be flat, too.”

“And how about the infrared?”

“I told you — not if we go when it’s snowing, Jack.”

“It’s not a hike, you know. You can get—”

“You scared. That it?”

“Yes.”

“So am I,” said the reporter, pulling out a wad of hundreds. “I’d bury this stuff here if I were you.” He started counting. “How long will it take us — not right up on the island but off the ice floe — close enough in so we can hunker down — close enough to get some zoom shots of the airborne going in off the southern tip?”

“Four to five hours.”

“That long? It’s only two and a half miles, for Christ’s sakes.”

The hunter smiled. Here was an ignorant man. What did he think it was, a walk in some park? “Hey,” he said to the reporter, “you the guy who was in Baghdad?”

“Nope. But I’m gonna be just as famous, Jack.”

“How you gonna send your stuff?”

“This little baby,” said the reporter, patting a four-wire, direct satellite-link phone. “Even if I can’t get a video because of the friggin’ snow, I’ll be in by voice. Live. Let’s go!”

The hunter agreed because he doubted that the white man could hack it, even with all the special thermal gear. Out there on the ice — with the wind it would be in the minus fifties.

“If the ice gets too jumbled — we get a sheer cliff — we’ll have to turn back. I get half — five grand!”

“All right,” said the reporter. “All right. Let’s get there before it’s fucking over.”

“How do you know there’ll be an airborne attack?” asked the hunter, pulling on his sealskin boots.

“Hey, Jack, look at the map. Doesn’t take a friggin’ genius to work that out. ‘Sides, Freeman’s the gung-ho type. Know what I mean?”

“Impatient.”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“Like you.”

As the C-141 turned north then westward, having gained HALO height, the men made final weapon checks. The 12.8-inch-long Heckler and Koch MP5K submachine guns were coveted by the SAS. With its nine-hundred-round-per-minute, nine-millimeter Parabellum bullets, the gun was referred to by the troopers as a “room broom”—ideally suited for the anticipated tunnel fighting. The weapon was also capable of a high, eighty-yard line-of-sight accuracy if used in the open. For the men of Delta Force, the weapon of choice was the M3A1 Colt.45 caliber submachine gun, some of its mass-produced parts honed down or replaced by hand-tooled mechanisms for greater accuracy. As a general rule, Freeman told Brentwood, he didn’t like the idea of two different ammunition sizes, preferring one that could be used by both SAS or Delta Force weapons.

“That’s why the Brits lost Crete,” Freeman told him above the steady thunder of the C-141. “Freyberg had troops from five different countries running around with everything from point three oh three to nine millimeter. Quartermaster’s nightmare. A lot of troops — Aussies and New Zealanders — ran out of ammo. Hand-to-hand fighting, a lot of it. Could see the Nazis floating down. Sky was black with enemy chutes. Clear blue sky. Damn! What a waste of fine paratroopers. Even with the ammo screwup it was a near thing. A turkey shoot — lot of Germans dead before they hit the ground. Germans almost lost it — until Maleme was taken. Convinced the German HQ never to put their money on an airborne offensive.”

“Christ!” said Aussie, picking up the general’s comment and turning to Choir Williams. “What the fuck are we doing here, then?”

“Ah!” said Choir with more bravado than he actually felt. “Not to worry, laddie. Rat Island’s not Crete is it? Siberians are hiding — dug in.”

“Oh, that’s bloody nice. Thanks for reminding me. I ‘d almost forgotten.” And then, before the Aussie’s fear could, like most of the men, force him to bear the rest of the flight in silence, he was seized by the habit that had made him famous throughout the SAS — and after the Moscow raid, throughout the entire British army. “Odds on,” he announced loudly, “that SAS’ll be first in!”

“In where?” came a voice shouting above the ear-drumming noise.

“In the fucking tunnels, you twit!”

“Ahead of us?” challenged a Delta Force sergeant from Brooklyn.”Gimme a break. We’ll have coffee on ‘fore you even find your hole.”

“Aussie knows where his hole is,” shouted an SAS.

“Don’t be so fucking rude,” said Aussie. “Welsh bastards! Come on, you lot!” He was looking across at Delta Force. “Where’s your fuckin’ esprit de corps? How about it, boys? As you Yanks say, ‘Pay up or shut up.’ Two to one we’re down first.”

“On the drop?” asked Brooklyn.

“No. In the fucking tunnels!”

“You’re on, Aussie.” Aussie whipped a stubbly indelible pencil from under his helmet and began taking the bets on a palm-sized notebook. “Right, mate. That’s the ticket.”

“Pounds?” asked Choir Williams.

“Pounds, dollars — U.S., not Canadian — yen, deutsche marks, but—” And now Aussie, watched by Freeman, adopted a Mexican drawl, showing his teeth. “—I don’ wan’ no stinking rubles!” There was a patter of laughter, quickly lost in the plane’s huge interior, the jumpmaster landing his boot with a mud on the decking to get everyone’s attention as he stood up and announced, “Get ready!” Automatically every paratrooper, despite his heavy pack, slid forward, seemingly effortlessly, to the edge of the folded metal seats, some making last-minute adjustments to their chin straps.

“Who is that joker?” Freeman asked Brentwood, nodding toward Aussie.

“Australian called Lewis,” Brentwood answered. “He’d make book on the sun not rising. Took a lot of bets before the Moscow raid. Before the target was known we were doing practice jumps over Scotland. Aussie was convinced we were rehearsing for Korea, not Europe.”

“Must have lost a bundle,” said Freeman.

“No.”

“How come?” asked Freeman, realizing the moment he’d asked the question what the answer was. After the Moscow raid there’d been hardly anyone left to collect.

Across from Brentwood the Delta Force commander was looking down his line. Though the SAS stick would be first out, he was making sure that every sixth man, assigned the 5.56mm M-249 squad automatic weapon, was strapping it tightly to the equipment pack. The SAWs would be fed by the new transparent plastic magazines of two hundred rounds so the shooter could see at a glance how much ammunition remained. In addition, several of the Delta Force men carried M-203 dual purpose rifle/grenade launchers with FETS — flare, explosives, tear gas, and smoke grenade packs.

Normally the jumpers would have been wearing the tried and trusted T-10 general-purpose drop chute, but the big twenty-eight-foot-diameter umbrella chutes couldn’t be maneuvered as well as the arching, rectangular MC1-1B chutes. The latter could be steered by pulling down the left-right riser bars above the jumper’s head, causing more air to spill on one side than the other, allowing the jumper to shoot forward at over four meters a second. In all the MC1-1Bs would make it aerodynamically a much more controllable drop, of the kind made by sports jumpers. The latter, however, as SAS/D instructors frequently pointed out, were unencumbered by 70- to 120-pound battle packs.