“Oh, get out of my face.” Amaruq waved him off. “If I’m drunk, which… which, OK, I am, then you… you’re stupid, yes, you are.”
Ned turned around, heading toward his fighting position.
“Yeah, get lost, move it,” Amaruq yelled at Ned. “You’re not in charge anyway.”
“But I am.” Justin took a step forward. “What do you want?”
Amaruq peered at Justin’s face then at the assault rifle in Justin’s hands.
“I want to fight. I got up this morning and one of the guys told me everyone was fighting some Swedish badasses—”
“Danish,” Anna corrected him.
“Ehe, yeah, Danish. So, I’m saying to myself, what the hell, they forgot me?”
“You can fight?” Justin asked.
“Hell, yeah. I’ve been hunting before you were even born.”
Amaruq’s breath stunk like an Irish pub. Justin doubted it would be a good idea to give a gun to him.
“I… I don’t know,” Justin said, worried about enraging the old man any further. “You can help with the wounded down there.”
“Do I look like a nurse to you?” Amaruq spewed out, taking a step forward. “I’m a… I’m a hunter and yes, I do drink. Sometimes. I… I ran out of Listerine today and I needed… needed to wash my mouth. Verbal hygiene’s important, you know.”
“Oral hygiene, you boozer,” Ned shouted. “Send him home, for Pete’s sake, before he kills one of our guys.”
“You shut up or else…” Amaruq charged in Ned’s direction.
Justin held out his hand. “Whoa, whoa, hold it! The battle’s down there, soldier. If you want a gun, I need to know you’ll follow orders. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir. I can, sir.” Amaruq attempted a standing guard position. His right arm trembled as he brought it up to his temple.
“OK, I’ll get you a gun.” Justin gestured at Anna, who brought him a Lee Enfield rifle from a stash of boxes behind them. “You know how to use this?”
“Bring it here.” Amaruq snatched the rifle from Justin’s hand. “I fired rifles before you were even born.”
Yeah, I know, you said that earlier. And I know I’ll probably regret doing this. “Shoot only when you can hit the target. That’s the only mag you’ll get. And stay close to me.”
“Yes, sir,” Amaruq replied. This time he did not bother with the military salutation. He cocked his rifle and ran toward the closest truck set up as a barricade.
“I said…” Justin began to talk, but realizing his words were useless, he hurried behind Amaruq. “Don’t go anywhere else,” he shouted. Amaruq nodded and pointed his rifle at the Danish positions.
Carrie did not have to consult her radar screen to determine the location of her tail. The Twin Otter airplane was visible in the horizon, as she hiked her way up, and pivoted to her left. The airplane was tailing her at a distance of about two thousand feet. It was within her missile striking range, as indicated by the Remote Hellfire Electronics system incorporated into the control panel.
The Twin Otter would have no chance of survival once Carrie fired the laser-guided missile. She would push a button and forget about it, while the airplane disintegrated into a million pieces. As she flipped the switch encasing the weapon activation button, another thought crossed her mind.
She remembered the Bell helicopter smashing through the ice sheet and wondered if she could orchestrate the crash of the Twin Otter over the combat lines of the Danish troops. It would lend a helping hand to the explosives planting mission. Even if the airplane crash did not burst open the ice sheet, it would trample the soldiers and demoralize the rest of the troops.
Carrie grinned. She imagined the gray, metallic bird gravitating toward the ice surface after she had clipped both its wings. She slid the cover over the missile launch button and tapped the throttle, propelling the Seahawk into a swift ascent. Never bring an otter to a dogfight. She smiled to herself.
Chapter Twenty-six
Kiawak, the driver, felt pain jolting upwards from his leg at the same time he heard the metallic clunk. The bullet pierced through the door of his Toyota and landed in his right shinbone. He glanced down. The first trickle of blood seeped through his ski pants. He tried to ease up on the gas pedal but realized he had lost control of his right foot. A second later, the truck slammed into an ice boulder.
“What the hell, man?” Nilak yelled from the truck box. The impact had thrown him against the rear window. He saw sparks coming from the tailgate. “Freak, we’re getting shot at.”
“I can see that,” replied Sam. A foot away from Nilak, he was laying on his stomach on the truck bed and blasting his gun at the Danish recruits.
Iluak peered at the cabin through the small window. “Are we stuck?”
“Shit,” Kiawak replied.
He tried to lift his foot from the gas pedal. The Toyota roared and jerked, going nowhere.
“What’s going on?” Nilak asked.
“We’re not stuck. I’ve got a bullet in my leg. I can’t move.”
“I’ll come and get you out,” Iluak said.
He jumped from the truck box and landed in a snowbank. He lost his footing, slipped and fell on his back, just as a bullet shattered the passenger’s window. Other bullets rained on the stalled vehicle.
“Shit.” Kiawak pushed the driver’s door. “Iluak, stay down,” he yelled.
“Kiawak, we’re sitting ducks here,” Nilak shouted. “Do something!”
“I’m trying.” Kiawak pressed his shoulder against the door, gritting his teeth and dragging his leg. “Get out of the truck, both of you,” he shouted. More bullets hammered the vehicle.
“Sam, Sam,” Nilak said and began shaking the unresponsive gunner. Sam’s head was hanging to the side, and Nilak saw a large wound in the man’s chest, as he rolled over the lifeless body. “Kiawak, Sam’s dead, Ki—”
“Nilak.” Kiawak was halfway out of the truck, when he heard a thud from the truck box. “Nilak.”
“Is he OK? Is my brother OK? Nilak,” Iluak shouted from the other side of the truck.
“Stay down, stay down there,” Kiawak shouted back. “He’ll be fine. Still got your walkie-talkie?”
“Eh, yes, I think… I think so,” Iluak replied, searching for the radio in his jacket pockets.
“Call Justin and tell him we’re hit. Ask him to get the other men out of here. Tell him… tell him it’s over.”
“I was wondering why they were staying there,” Joe shouted at Justin over the radio, while Neville and Max, his team members, kept alternating their shots.
On the other side of the hill, Joe’s team had advanced deep into the enemy’s right flank. The terrain sloped at a much softer angle, and the three-man team encountered little resistance. With the Danish army largely destroyed and the suppressive fire from the Canadian positions up the road, Kiawak’s vehicle had been the main target of the enemy’s sporadic fire. Until now. Once the Danish shooters stopped the advancement of the Toyota, they turned their attention to Joe’s Mazda.
“There we go, whoa.” Neville exchanged a quick fist jab with Max, celebrating another casualty in the enemy ranks. “What’s going on, chief?” Neville asked Joe. “Are we gonna do this or not?”
Joe looked at the adrenaline-pumped young man, a white skull bandana draped around his head. He flashed Joe an evil grin, while checking the status of a rifle magazine by tapping it lightly against his head.
“Kiawak’s shot,” Joe replied. “Sam’s gone.”