Felix used his binoculars to survey the opposite side of the falls for any signs of kampfschwimmer movement. As he huddled in the stinking, smoking rubble of the Brazilian hotel, he began to grow very worried.
The Germans couldn’t have picked a better secondary target, once driven from the dam. And the next move is theirs.
He hated having to wait, and desperately wanted to seize the upper hand. He considered telling his machine-gun team to rake the Argentine hotel or the jungle behind it — a reconnaissance-by-fire might provoke the kampfschwimmer into acting prematurely.
But Felix glanced at his watch, and up at the afternoon sky. The sun was already getting low, and in just a few more hours it would be dark. If he told his men to open fire now, the kampfschwimmer would need to keep their heads down only till after sunset.
Whichever way you cut it, my tactical situation sucks.
Felix’s heart almost stopped, then leaped for joy, as he saw steady muzzle flashes from inside the Argentine hotel. Shrapnel bursts the size of rifle grenades began to pelt the rubble he and his men were using as shelter.
The kampfschwimmer know we’re here. They want us to keep our heads down. Why?
Of course! They’re working to a forced schedule. They need the mushroom cloud and flash flood during daylight. Both have to be seen to do the most good, soaring high into the sky and inundating helpless Argentina from evil Brazil.
The SEAL chief crawled up to Felix. As incoming small explosive shells pounded the ruined hotel and shrapnel whizzed and zinged and little new fires broke out, the chief shouted, “That’s a German objective crew-served weapon, sir!”
“I know.” Both men cringed as a round hit very close.
“We’re outgunned! We just have a thirty-cal!”
“I know,” Felix said.
“Return fire?”
“No. Save the ammo belts till we have targets. That hotel’s on high ground, too far back from the river. I doubt they’ll leave the bomb in there.”
“Sir?”
“The falls. They need to break cover and get to the falls. They want to set off the bomb right under the falls.”
For a moment the chief looked horrified. “Understood.”
“Tell the sniper and gunner, weapons tight till they see men in the open. Then kill them all. If they see a big package, that’s the bomb. Shoot it to pieces!”
“Sir, won’t that make it go off?”
“Not in theory!”
The chief looked very doubtful.
“It’s not like we’d feel anything,” Felix yelled.
The chief crawled off to issue orders.
No, we won’t feel anything. Our brains won’t even have time to register our own catastrophic failure.
The German machine cannon ceased firing, and Felix waited for the kampfschwimmer to make their next move. Nothing happened. He scanned the falls and the escarpment, and the river below, with his naked eyes and with his binoculars. Watching the water cascade over the edge of the cliff became hypnotic. He made himself look away.
Fixating on the view of flowing water had played nasty tricks on his brain. When he looked at the enemy hotel again, it seemed to be rising steadily upward, into the air. Felix needed to blink and shake his head, to make the optical illusion stop.
This is not a good beginning.
The German machine cannon started firing again. The flashes were coming from a different place in the rubble of concrete and I-beams.
They waited for us to react to their initial burst of fire, then shifted the gun’s position.
Then Felix caught glimpses of motion outside the hotel. Kampfschwimmer were dashing for the ruined walkway that led down to the base of the falls.
His ears ached as his men opened fire. The.30-caliber light machine gun used short and steady bursts, punctuated by the booming crack of the heavy.50-caliber sniper rifle. But it was hard to aim accurately from a mile and a half away. Updrafts of wind caused by the crashing of water under the falls made good marksmanship even more difficult.
The kampfschwimmer took cover, unhurt. Felix’s gunners adjusted their fire, and it became more effective. The kampfschwimmer began to rig climbing ropes on the edge of the escarpment. One rope unrolled and jiggled as it hung down to the far bank of the river below the falls. But now the Germans were pinned down.
Their objective crew-served weapon fired again. With its laser range finder and adjustable explosive rounds, it began to probe the rubble, searching for the SEALs with the light machine gun and the sniper rifle. Both crews were forced to pull back and seek new positions, and the Germans knew it. The kampfschwimmer broke cover, and another anchored climbing rope uncoiled down near the first.
They’re going for the bank on the other side. From there they can use old tourist catwalks to get under and behind parts of the falls…. We can’t let them do that.
Felix shouted for his men to open fire.
A German began to rappel fast down the side of the escarpment on a rope. The SEALs’ machine gunner and sniper pursued him with fire. Through binoculars, Felix could see their rounds chip rock from the brownish, grayish cliff face near the rappelling German garbed in black.
Suddenly the man was hit. He lost control of his rate of descent and plunged two hundred feet to the base of the cliff. He bounced once, then lay still. His helmet rolled away and fell in the river.
Felix heard scrambling and scraping as his shooters rushed to different hides within the hotel’s debris.
The German machine cannon fired again, as if in revenge. The SEAL machine gunner and sniper knew better than to return the fire — they’d reveal their newest positions and invite quick death.
We’re in a standoff. We’ve proven they can’t get down the cliff… but if they can’t, neither can we.
Felix saw another blur of movement, on the high ground near the Argentine hotel. Kampfschwimmer were heading toward the upper falls.
The SEAL gunners fired at them, but the line of fire crossed closer to the precipice face of the falls, and the powerful updraft of mist and wind threw off the trajectory of the rounds. The SEALs missed. The German objective crew-served weapon immediately retaliated. Felix heard a scream rise from the rubble of his hotel. The sniper’s spotter crawled up from behind. He said the sniper was dead, and the.50-caliber sniper rifle was smashed.
Whoever’s commanding the kampfschwimmer team is good. He timed the rhythm of those latest moves just perfectly. I’m sure he even used the wind from the falls to give his men better protection.
Now what the hell are they doing on the upper end of the Falls?
Felix’s chief crawled up. “Sir, I think they plan to drop the bomb down the falls!”
Felix stared through his binoculars and thought hard. “No, Chief! Not drop it! Lower it!”
“You mean—”
“Yeah. Underwater they’re protected from our machine-gun fire. Right?”
“Uh-oh.”
“Tell the thirty-cal crew to duel with that cannon, just enough to keep it occupied and distracted. Everyone else into Draegers.”
“Sir?”
“Take all the climbing ropes we’ve got. We’re going into the water after the Germans.”
At the edge of the river on the upper escarpment, just above the falls, Felix briefed his men. He had to shout constantly to be heard over all the noise. Felix pictured working in the falls.
“It’s just like a beach recon under enemy fire! It’s just that the beach is incredibly steep, and there’s an ungodly tidal rip!” A riptide, an undertow.