“Thank you Henry, please send back Cauldron……” he paused, remembering something and embarrassed that he may just have sounded callous.
“General, our troops on the ground…..have they had time to withdraw?”
Henry could see that this was important to his commander-in-chief. Tens of thousands were fighting and dying, a global nuclear war could be just minutes away, but he needed this, this gesture, an assurance that his humanity was still intact.
It was unfortunately irrelevant whether or not they were out of danger, because they were just plain out of time. But he did not say that.
“Mr President, Dick Dewar and his men are free and clear, they are miles from the valley by now.”
The snow fell heavily, creating a visage that would not be out of place in a ‘White Christmas’ setting if not for the thunder of the massed guns defending the silos echoed throughout the mountains. It masked the sound of heavily laden men whose steps compressed the snow with what would be an easily audible crunching sound, at any other time.
The site of the avalanche was well behind the Royal Marines but they were only midway across the narrow, slanting valley. Only another twenty minutes at their current pace would bring them to the foot of the northern rock wall.
The white thermal facemask worn by Rory Alladay absorbed the moisture he exhaled, preventing the tell-tale fogging that would otherwise result in the cold, frigid conditions.
He was totally exposed on a patch of ground as flat as a billiard table; there was no cover for a hundred paces in any direction. Nothing quite catches the eye like movement and he had been able only to slowly lower himself into a crouch when he had first caught a whiff of tobacco smoke before he recognised the outline of the Chinese soldier in white camouflage gear set against the starkly blank background of the valley floor.
He was close, close enough to hit with a snowball had they been engaged in any less lethal activity and the only thing that had saved Alladay from detection was the Chinese soldier was looking up toward the sound of an aircraft passing unseen overhead.
Rory was scout, or ‘walking point’ as the Americans would have it, and the remainder of his callsign were moments behind.
“Enemy.”
The single word quietly spoken into the boom mike was all that was required to have the M&AWC troops freeze in place before slowly turning to cover their assigned arcs and take up prone firing positions.
The Chinese soldiers head turned as he attempted to discern the aircraft. He was relaxed, his gloved left hand gripped the stock of his compact QBZ-97 assault rifle but the right held a reversed cigarette, its red end masked by the palm of his hand.
He took a long pull, enjoying the nicotine before exhaling and as the sound faded his head turned back.
He started as he caught movement in his peripheral vision, which was followed almost instantly by a momentary difficulty in catching a breath, but the sensation, along with all senses, thought and feeling ended as if a switch had been flicked.
Rory lowered the dead soldier carefully into the snow to ensure silence. The cigarette which had fallen from lifeless fingers sizzled for a half second in the snow and its glow was quenched.
The dark handle of a fighting knife protruded from the juncture of the throat and underside of the mouth. Once the body was laid down Rory braced the dead man’s chin with the palm of one hand and withdrew the blade, feeling it scrape on vertebrae as it came free and cleaning it quickly yet thoroughly on the Chinese soldiers clothing. The blade, which he returned to its scabbard, would not be frozen in place by his victim’s blood or brain matter when he next needed it.
The question of what the soldier had been doing there, and where the rest of his patrol was, remained. It was obvious he had not come alone to this place, so was he just lost or were his mates nearby?
Richard Dewar’s interrupted his thoughts, whispering a question, a requirement for an update.
“Sitrep, over?”
Rory gave the situation report in low tones, without embellishment and included his thoughts. Once complete he collected his bergan from where he had dropped it and took up a prone position beside it, covering the way ahead as Major Dewar brought up the remainder of the M&AWC.
The unnatural light reflected off the clouds distorted the green hues of Rory’s night sight as it had his PNG’s. His range of vision was increased however and he could make out the end of the flat area as the shapes of a low cluster of snow covered rocks and boulders were now visible.
Looking over his shoulder he could now make out Major Dewar at the head of the well-spaced line of men; it was time for him to move again.
Rising to the kneeling position he heaved the bergan onto his back and put his weapon into his shoulder, swinging the weapon through a 180° arc, staring intently into the sight before standing and stepping off toward the rock in the centre of the cluster.
A bright light shone from beyond the ridges, not a strobe-like explosion but one of sustained duration. It lit the far rock wall and spread downwards to encompass the snow covered floor as the source climbed higher in the sky. After several seconds the sound reached them. Harsh light and noise from boosters providing three hundred thousand pounds of thrust now filled the valley, seemingly little diminished by their distance from the silo.
The rock Rory was walking toward shot him.
A single line of script originating from ‘Circus’ flashed up on the screen.
‘Missile Launch’
The blinking of a half dozen call lights on telephones began just a heartbeat later.
Henry lifted the telephone receiver before him, depressing the button above urgent light above the button marked ‘MDA’, Missile Defence Agency.
“This is General Shaw.”
Richard had been looking off to his left arc when he, and his callsign, had been caught like deer in the proverbial headlights.
The established drill for such a predicament, had they been in Europe, the African bush or even a rain forest would have been to freeze in place and literally ‘make like a tree’, but here in this narrow, bare valley there were no such items to be mistaken for. To move or to drop into cover was to draw unwanted eyes.
The top of the far valley wall had suddenly lit up and that light increased to encompass them all.
The line of Royal Marine Commandos closed one eye, their sighting eye to preserve night vision, and with the other they made best use of the illumination to study their surrounds without turning their heads, remaining motionless as the roar of rocket motors reached them, a roar that almost but not quite drowned out the single shot that cracked out.
Rory Alladay dropped as if his legs had been cut from beneath him, and none but Rory had seen the firing position. Richard stifled the urge to go immediately to aid a comrade of many years, as quite obviously the rest of the cadre was undiscovered.
The flaming light rose into the night sky and faded. Richard felt gutted that after all they had endured the mission had ultimately failed, an ICBM was in the air, and to make matters even worse a comrade was down.
Slowly the Marines began to edge into an arrowhead formation, one best suited to such situations, allowing the flanks to remain covered but permitting maximum firepower to the front without someone shooting his mate in the backside.
A bang announced the flight of a parachute flare rising from their front and its journey into the heavens was marked by a trail of smoke. With a sharp popping sound the flare came to life above and behind them, silhouetting the marines in its chemical light.