Robert Williams - Ice Fortress

Vertical spring-loaded metal prongs running from top to bottom of the small grenade gave it an innocent look, but that was far from the case. Like a deadly spider with its legs curled into a ball, as soon as the 07 grenade hit the ground, the prongs or ‘legs’ would spring from the sides of the casing causing the grenade to stand up like a macabre robot spider. A small charge would then fire from the base of the grenade, shooting it six feet into the air where it would perform a neat crowd pleaser trick and explode, shooting a cone of lethal shrapnel directly below the grenade with no collateral damage. The target, even if shielded by low lying cover, like the man Muller could see below, and anything in a six foot radius, would be blasted to a bloody ruin by the most advanced hand grenade ever devised.

Muller pulled the pin and threw the grenade with uncanny accuracy to Jack’s position in the concrete drain. Muller didn’t even duck for cover behind the conning tower. Neither did his men. They had all seen the Airburst grenade in action. It was a devastating and focused weapon. As soon as it hit the ground, they all silently counted in their heads the five seconds until detonation.

“Oh shit!”

Jack saw what was coming even before it hit the ground. His battle sharpened senses recognized the avocado colored grenade as it arced through its trajectory. He was toast. He’d seriously underestimated their firepower. All of it German. That couldn’t be a coincidence, but there would be time to analyze that later. Right now, he had no more than 5 seconds to live.

Jack calculated the distance from the nearest dead soldier to his position. The man had fallen in the shadows and having done so, rolled a few yards on the sloping concrete toward Jack. He crunched the numbers and angles and worked out that it was his only chance. The odds of success weren’t good, though. But what the hell…

Like a coiled spring, Jack leapt to his feet and made a furious dash toward the dead man.

Two seconds until detonation.

He threw himself down and slid the last couple of feet, outstretched like he was making a desperate attempt to slide into the home plate.

As soon as he slid into the fallen mercenary, Jack rolled the man over him until he was lying directly beneath, using the man’s dead body, Kevlar helmet and Schutzklasse IV tactical body armor as a makeshift shield.

The grenade exploded.

The blast was ear-popping and the shock wave brain jarring.

Jack was stunned and badly concussed, but alive.

Barely.

It hadn’t done him much good, though. He was still in the sights of the man who threw the grenade and the others with him in the U-Boat conning tower. They had the high ground and now Jack was pinned down by the deadweight of one of their men and his heavy gear.

“It’s time to give up, Rambo,” a voice shouted from the U-Boat. His English was clipped and precise, but he had a heavy accent nonetheless.

Jack pushed his weapon out of arms reach and raised his hands above his head as best he could. New mission — stay alive.

“Very wise choice,” the man commended him. “Tell your friend on the submarine to do the same.”

“It’s over Sam. Let’s focus on keeping the others alive,” Jack shouted in the hope that Sam would hear him and not play he hero.

“How do we know that they’re not going to murder us like the rest of the crew?” Sam’s booming voice echoed off the concrete walls and over the water.

Jack couldn’t argue with the man’s logic.

“By the way, my name’s Jack, not Rambo.”

“Alright, Jack and Sam, my name is Muller . Standartenführer Karl Muller. You are both clearly skilled and very resourceful, but the time for games is over. We have a mission to complete and we don’t have time for your American heroics right now. So, here’s what’s going to happen…”

Muller paused.

One his men unshouldered his pack and produced something that looked like an overgrown pistol whose oversized barrel was on a steady diet of steroids. He then pulled out a skeletal looking buttstock and rammed it home into the pistol. Now Jack recognized it, even in the less than ideal lighting conditions. He’d seen plenty of under barrel slung grenade launchers, but this was a H&K AG36 with its own buttstock. The man was holding a standalone compact grenade launcher.

But what in the hell did he intend to do with it?

“Your silence tells me you know what that is.” Muller seemed to read Jack’s mind. “We’re carrying HE rounds, in case you’re wondering.”

“It’s a one shot breech loader. Even with High Explosive rounds, you can’t take us both out with that,” Jack retorted. You might blow one of us into a shower of body parts, but before your man reloads, whichever of us survives will take him out.”

“Of that, I have no doubt. But neither of you two are the target.”

The man swiveled and turned his grenade launcher to the Barracuda.

“You’re not going to make much of a dent with that ,” Jack sneered.

“One HE grenade in the main ballast tank and it will take in enough water to begin submerging the sub. Even if they blow the other tanks, just one filled with seawater will take her down. Whoever is still on board will die in a steel coffin. Eventually.”

“Sam?” Jack thought Muller was bluffing.

Sam emerged from behind the sail with his hands raised. “He might be right. I’m not going to chance it.”

Jack managed to slither his way out from under his human shield and stood with hands raised.

Muller led his men down on to the deck of the U-Boat and across the dock to where Jack stood. Two of them broke formation to keep weapons on Sam.

Karl Muller towered over Jack and he got right in his face to intimidate him. Jack showed not the slightest concern at the man’s size or the raw power he seemed to exude. He was one tough unit, that was for sure.

But Jack had come up against his kind before. He suspected this time would be no different, in the end.

Looking around at his fallen team, Muller stuck his finger in Jack’s face, “ You ? You did all this?”

Jack shrugged. “It was fun while it lasted.”

He never saw the punch coming. That was a first for Jack. He always saw it coming. His combat ready eyes would pick up anything from a slight shift in balance or the lowering of one shoulder ready to pop an uppercut. But this time, he was completely blindsided by the gigantic man who moved with unparalleled speed.

Everything went dark and Jack hit the ground before he knew what, or who, hit him.

Snakes of flexible linear demolition charge entwined with ‘det-cord’ formed a silhouette charge on the oversized bulkhead hatch designed to blow the welded seam of the door without damaging the contents of the compartment.

Muller handled the demolition charges himself, not trusting the work to anyone else, given the stakes. He considered himself something of an expert when it came to breach charges using C4 and detonation cord. He hoped he had the combination right this time, not wanting to risk damage to the contents of the chamber.