The sharp, explosive crack of the guns echoed through the warehouse, increasing in magnitude as each succeeding round was fired. Ryng sensed rather than saw Wally firing. One, then a second, marine were blown backward by the deadly force of the bullets.
Ryng dove to his left, rolling, coming up with the gun at his shoulder, already aimed toward the third Black Beret. But there was no one in the spot he anticipated. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wally bouncing up from a similar roll, his target just where he’d expected. There was another short burst, and then there was only one left — Ryng’s.
The warehouse was silent now. Only the sound of heavy breathing reached Bernie’s ears, as well as the thumping from his own heart.
He glanced quickly for Wally, receiving a negative head shake for an answer. The last man couldn’t have gone far. How many seconds had it been? Five? Ten? He had to have moved in fear. A dive and maybe a roll. He couldn’t be more than ten feet on either side of where he’d started.
Ryng thought of using a grenade, but then reconsidered. Not in here, he thought. Too close. End up splattering themselves all over the warehouse.
He kicked over a table, shoving it viciously to where the marine should be if he’d gone to his left. That was it! he realized. There was a movement, maybe a head, a shoulder. Bringing the stock of the AK-74 to his shoulder, he squeezed the trigger gently, moving the barrel slightly to either side with his wrist. It was a superb weapon. It had little recoil, and it never climbed on automatic.
The last Black Beret had only a coffee table and the false security of some corrugated boxes for protection. The boxes shredded. The table splintered. Ryng saw the man rise up, hands over his face, a cry of anguish mingling with the last explosive echoes.
Six up — six down! How much time? Ten, fifteen seconds?
That left Denny and Rick outside with a dozen more marines, their rifles precisely stacked to one side, and two aircrews, probably with survival weapons.
As they raced out into daylight, Bernie Ryng was aware of a series of explosions. The neatly stacked rifles were scattered. The Black Berets who were about to load the bombers were caught in the open. They dispersed as best they could, some able to find cover, others falling to the automatic weapons fire.
One enterprising air crewman, crouching behind a bomber’s landing gear, was returning their fire with a pistol. Perhaps it was the sharp, individual crack of each shot as opposed to the staccato chatter of the rifles that caught Rick’s attention. More likely he knew he was the target. Whirling, dropping into a kneeling position, he brought the gun to his shoulder. The AK-74 was intended as a close-in weapon for crowds rather than one person. This was a well-protected individual and harder to hit.
Wally came to his assistance, firing until his clip emptied. Ryng recognized with anguish that one of his shots hit the Russian at the same time as Rick was hit.
Bernie saw the shoulder bag fall as Rick’s body crumpled, the precious grenades rolling out onto the runway. Each one was critical if they were going to blow those bombers and the decoys. Carefully, as precisely as a jeweler, Wally was picking off those Russians still without cover, moving closer to the planes as he did so. Ryng, running in a crouch, changed magazines on the move. He halted for a moment by Rick, saw death staring back at him, and scooped up the bag and the grenades in a single motion. Denny had moved up to the first plane, leaping up the ramp into the fuselage in one fluid motion. Ryng covered him, counting the seconds, amazed so few could pass before Denny leaped back out, avoiding the ramp, his feet already in motion as he hit the tarmac, body crouched as he moved toward the second.
He hit this one just as systematically as the first.
A foreign sound caught Ryng’s attention — once again, the single shots of a pistol. He whirled, eyes off Denny’s moving form, searching for the source. Wally, caught in the act of digging in his own bag for a grenade, was frantically bringing his rifle to bear on a Russian wildly firing from his hip with a pistol.
There was no match between a revolver and an automatic weapon at that range, unless the pistol was lucky. And it was. As the Russian was blown backward from the impact of a dozen slugs, Wally grabbed at his stomach. He doubled over in a curious slow motion, the shock lasting only a moment. Then he was erect once again, extracting the grenade he’d been after, yanking out the pin and lofting the grenade toward a scrubby hedge.
Ryng was riveted in stunned fascination as the hedge exploded in a cloud of dust and branches. It revealed four Black Berets immobilized by the blast. Wally sprayed them mercilessly with the AK-74.
Then a strange silence followed. No one was visible. Nothing moved. There appeared to be no more resistance.
Denny vaulted into the last bomber, breaking the momentary stillness, sowing the remainder of his incendiary bombs with the aplomb of a professional. It took less time than the first two planes. An expert at his trade, it was a matter of simply insuring that the time-delay devices came to rest within each fuselage where he wanted them. Experience already guaranteed what the effect would be.
How much time have we taken? Ryng wondered. Thirty seconds? Fifty? A minute? Two minutes? However long, as soon as their first shot echoed across the airfield, he knew Russian marines had dropped whatever they were doing. They would be automatically checking their weapons as they raced toward the field.
“I’ll grab the jeep,” Ryng called to Denny. “Blow the rest of those decoys.” Wally ambled toward him with a weird sort of gait, his rifle slung with military precision from his shoulder, both hands pressed tightly against his belly, shiny, dark blood seeping through his fingers. He nodded toward the jeep, indicating he would get to it on his own. As he shuffled along, he occasionally glanced down at the blood, then over at Ryng with a confused look on his face. He’d never been hit before, no matter how exposed he’d been. Now Wally was terrified. There was a dull hurt but no pain, no sensation that would tell him that everything was going to be all right — or that this was the end.
Wally eased into the adjacent seat. “I don’t know if I understand this, Bernie. It never happened before. I don’t know….” His voice trailed off.
“Just hold on,” Ryng answered. He shifted the jeep into gear. “Can’t do a goddamned thing until we get back to the fishing shack.” Then he recognized the anguish forming on the other’s face as he moved his hands from his belly. Ryng was embarrassed that he’d been so unfeeling. “We love ya, Wally. Just hold on!”
Denny methodically placed his incendiaries around the decoys, moving as efficiently as he’d done with the bombers. There was never a lost movement when he was doing the work he loved. He leaped gracefully into the back of the jeep, slapping Ryng on the shoulder. “Hit it! I don’t know what’s in those things, but if they’re explosives, it’s going to be awfully messy around here in half a minute.” They had made a decision beforehand — set longer timers inside the planes. They might catch someone poking around inside. But the decoys had to go first. As they raced away in the jeep, Denny methodically dropped his last fragmentation grenades behind one by one. They too had time-delay fuses which would make the Russians think a little before they went snooping around the planes.
Wheeling into the village, they heard the first explosion, followed by a second and a third, then a prolonged series of blasts. A column of smoke and flame roiled into the air. “Must be some special kind of fuel in those things. Look at the color of the smoke,” Denny remarked almost casually. “If those were warheads, they would have just blown themselves apart, no smoke like that.” He was very pleased with himself, grinning like a cat at his success.