Thomas dove left just as the fragmentation grenade detonated in a blinding flash, shredding the tent sides and splintering furniture. In midair at detonation, Thomas was bowled over, thrown hard on the ground. Only a mangled pelican case had stood between him and death. As he struggled to his feet, blood streamed from his ears and nose, and a sharp pain jabbed his arm. The ringing in his ears was replaced by a dull nothingness. He collapsed back to earth and lay perfectly still in the protective blackness, gasping and choking in the billowing smoke. Several minutes passed before faint voices captured his ears. Slowly the ability to detect sound returned. A bright flashlight flickered across the far canvas, coming to rest squarely above his face. Thomas froze. They were back for another go, the mop-up crew. He groped for his weapon — it was nowhere to be found. The only recourse left was to attempt to slide under the shredded canvas and into the night. That effort failed miserably.
“Something’s moving there, sir.”
Colonel Harcourt’s sweaty, dirt-streaked face peered at Thomas from behind a camping lantern.
“General Thomas?”
Thomas weakly responded, raising one arm. Two Rangers grabbed him under the armpits, dragging him roughly to his feet.
“Can you stand, sir?”
“I think so.” He wobbled in place, his bad hip jabbing with pain. The Rangers guided him to a crate and gently lowered Thomas to his rear. An army medic approached and gave him the once-over. One of his shoulders felt like it had been slammed by a buffalo. Blood dripped from an arm.
Others in the rescue party rigged temporary lighting, bathing the interior in brilliant, white light. While Thomas watched from his seat, Harcourt moved among the bodies, mentally noting the identity of each. He seemed unaffected by the devastation, a veteran of far worse spectacles.
“Over here,” he shouted, “Secretary Genser’s still alive.”
Genser’s shattered body clung to life despite multiple bullet wounds from the assault. A stretcher team carefully lifted his body to the taut canvas, securing the webbed straps.
“Get him to the hospital tent.”
Harcourt continued to move among the dead. “That’s it,” he observed matter-of-factly. “General Thomas, can you make it over here?” The two Rangers had to help him.
Harcourt knelt beside one of the corpses, poking at the body’s blood-soaked uniform. He rolled him on his back and began to unbutton his shirt. “See here, wrong color T-shirt. Pretty good imitation though. They’ve even got the right weapons, everything. The bastard’s English was damned good. It’s tough as hell to shoot someone wearing the same uniform. Makes you question for just a moment. That’s all they need.”
Thomas could barely believe what he saw. “Spetsnaz?” he asked incredulously. He struggled to kneel down next to the dead soldier. The Russian was young and strong, with a blond crew cut and deep blue eyes that stared at the ceiling.
“That’s right, sir. Twenty or so. They had us pegged. Even knew which trailers were which. Took ’em a while to figure out the tents. I figured we wouldn’t have to worry about them for a least a day or two.”
Thomas stared at the Russian’s cold face. He had found his target.
“Where did they come from; how many?” Thomas asked.
“Hard to tell.”
Thomas remembered a secret report that mentioned an unbelievable number of two to three thousand in such a scenario. He had thought it nonsense.
“We’re probably targeted,” Thomas muttered to himself.
“What was that, sir?”
“They know our position. We could be hit by an ICBM warhead in thirty minutes.”
“I don’t think so, sir. These guys aren’t fools. They would have reconned the area, designated the target, stood off. These guys wanted a positive kill. They knew their target. Thank God the speaker hasn’t arrived yet. But we aren’t taking chances. You’re getting out of here, sir.”
“What about the speaker?” Thomas suddenly remembered.
“Detoured. Same place we’re gonna fly you in a few minutes.”
Thomas noticed soldiers removing Alexander’s limp body from the human wreckage. He shuffled over as they placed him in an olive-green body bag. The secretary had absorbed a burst of machine-gun fire in the chest. Thomas knelt awkwardly on both knees and gently touched Alexander’s already cold forehead. The senseless killing had suddenly become very personal.
Harcourt’s firm hand touched his shoulder. “We’ve got to get you out of here, General Thomas. A helo’s leaving in five minutes.”
CHAPTER 26
“Nothing yet? Are you sure?” Buck’s sharp tone betrayed mounting impatience. He and his men rushed headlong toward the Russian mainland blind and deaf. In the backseat, Jefferson shook his head in disbelief as he tweaked his little black knobs for the umpteenth time. His lungs pulled hard on the oxygen hose attached to his mask, not able to suck in enough of the metallic-tasting air. Sweat dribbled down his cheeks under his glazed helmet shield.
“Man, I’ve checked the equipment over and over. I can’t figure this out. Where the hell are those guys?”
The heavy-laden B-1B bomber rocketed two hundred feet over the choppy waves of the Kara Sea, buffeted by winds that rose in intensity. Buckets of salt spray collected on the plane’s underbelly, occasionally curling over the wing’s leading edge, tossing off frothy foam. Buck had correctly skirted the northeastern edge of Novaya Zemlya, a large, mountainous, dagger-shaped island, and now stood on the Russians’ doorstep. Two hundred miles farther south lay the small, round island of Ostrov Belyy, gateway to the treacherous Obskaya Guba. And yet still no Mainstays to greet them. Something was terribly wrong.
The tension in the cockpit was unbearable, gnawing at the crew’s last reservoirs of strength. Hour after long hour had passed with no contact from either STRATCOM or their unseen enemy. Their nerves were frayed from exhaustion; their bodies were weak from dehydration. The air-conditioned cockpit did little to remove the body heat generated under flight suits, heavy gloves, boots and helmets. But they were driven on by the knowledge that Russian nuclear bombs had devastated their home. Buck begged for that first illusive contact with the Mainstays.
The Russian defenders should have jetted far north, until their elliptical radar patterns had broached the irregular island chain strung across eighty degrees north latitude. Instead, their plane’s sensitive ESM gear drew a blank. Buck’s mind played with the possibilities.
My god, he thought, they’ve developed passive IR tracking. They’ve got us nailed, and we don’t even know it. Or maybe it was the super-secret ultra-wide-bandwidth radar. He had read the Foreign Technology Division reports on how it could weed an incredibly weak radar signature from the typical background clutter. That technology was claimed to be the future nemesis of the stealthy B-2, whose BB-sized radar return clearly outdid the bird-sized B-1B. The experts discounted it to a man. But maybe the Russians had once again fooled the clever analysts. He cursed the wing’s smug intelligence officers who laughed off futuristic sounding threats, citing technological hurdles insurmountable by the moribund Russian R&D community. The entire intelligence apparatus had completely flip-flopped from the dark days of the early eighties when the Soviets were supermen, capable of wizardry beyond comprehension. Now the former Soviets were technological invalids, incapable of turning out even the simplest consumer goods, let alone advanced military hardware.
His mental turmoil triggered another concern — targets of opportunity. “Ledermeyer, anything from Lacrosse?”