Eagle Station Part 37

"See if he's alive."

Court went to the body. "He's dead," he said in a voice far too even.

"Get his guns," Wolf ordered. Got to keep this guy from thinking too much, he told himself "h.e.l.l, man-you done great," he said. "I guess you got your eyeb.a.l.l.s on. Let's get the radios, get under cover, and find out what the h.e.l.l is going on." He searched the man by feel for weapons, found his pistol, and put it in his pocket. Then he stripped the rucksack from the body.

"Wolf, you're swearing."

"I am not, G.o.ddammit. Give me the bag."

Court handed it to him and saw him place the contents, along with a heavy device, into the Russian rucksack. "It's a Russian mine," he explained. When he was finished he said, "Okay, lead me-and move it.

Back to the high ground."

Using the goggles, Court got them back to the top of the rock pile. He gave them to Wolf to look around while he got on the FM radio and called the bunker.

"Eagle, Phantom, you read on Fox Mike?" "Do we ever. Thought you'd had it."

"What's the situation?" Court asked. He recognized Pearson's voice.

"They're hammering on the door but we ain't opening. All our antennas are down and I think the radar station is gone.

We haven't heard a word from the guys up there for the last thirty minutes. Hak's men are holding but he says they're being whittled down pretty fast. Says these guys can see in the dark.

Know anything about that?"

"Yeah. They got night-vision goggles." Court was speaking as quietly as he could into the headset.

"G.o.d help us. Anything we can do about getting some airpower in here?"

Court almost chuckled. Here he was with two radios and the blackest night he'd ever experienced. "Pilots don't have goggles, and you said your radar is down. Doesn't look good until daylight. Anyhow, the ceiling and visibility are zip." He thought for a moment. "You say you got contact with Hak. Can you relay some instructions for me?"

There was a pause. "Mister Sam says affirmative. What you gotin mind?"

"Might just try some Flaming Arrow. Who knows what Spectre or the Phantom FACs can do if I light one."

"You got a map? I'll give you some cords."

"Negative," Court said. "We've got to a.s.sume the bad guys are monitoring our transmissions, anyhow. Get the info from Hak where the bad guys are relative to the arrows and I'll see what I can do. Get his guys to talk in slang Hmoung or very fast so the bad guys can't catch it."

"Rog. We'll get right on it." The radio went dead.

"Here's how I see it," Wolf said. "There's twenty-five, maybe thirty guys here. There's no doubt in my mind they are Spetsnaz. Although I couldn't see their faces, I felt their bodies and heard them talk. They definitely were Caucasians and they were speaking Russian. They're not advisers, because there is no way advisers could come up that cliff, then be able to fight so well. These guys are in peak condition and well trained. There has to be some cosmic reason why they want to take this site to risk being caught here. It's my feeling they want to grab this place intact. Notice there are no big satchel charge explosions.

Just small arms and a grenade or two. They can't be here just to take out the site. Too much of an international risk. The PL can put this place off the air sooner or later if they really worked at it. Maybe these guys want prisoners or the equipment."

"The equipment is pretty run-of-the-mill," Court said. "Nothing very high-powered or cla.s.sified about it. They have comparable stuff, so there's no reason to try to capture ours."

"Then they must be after prisoners ... but there isn't anybody special here."

"Mister Sam is special. But the Agency has their guys at many places.

Then there are the technicians and radar operators-but if the equipment isn't cla.s.sified, why capture them?"

Wolf chuckled. "Well, there's you and me."

"And Powers and his wife, for that matter. But this thing was set up long before anyone knew we'd be here."

"Yeah. Well," Wolf said, "on to business before we wind up with a case of dead or an extended TDY to a gulag. Here's the situation. This rock pile, the helipad, and the bunker form a lopsided triangle, with the bunker being at the north end of the triangle. A trail leads north from the bunker to Hak's village.

One arrow is outside the bunker, the other is by Hak's village and sort of guards where the easy trail from below tops out. One of the Spetsnaz units is up the trail from the helipad toward the bunker. From what I can tell by the goggles, they seem to be moving freely in the radar site compound but are still attacking the bunker. I hear other firing farther away toward the village, but I don't know what the situation is.

See if Eagle has any info yet."

Court made contact with Eagle, who handed the mike over to Maple.

"Here's what I have from Hak," Mister Sam said. "He reports a blocking force on the trail that keeps him and his men pinned in the village.

They don't seem to be advancing, but he can't get his men out to come down here to relieve us. He thinks he could point the north arrow at them and light it off. Best I can tell about the guys outside our door is that they are south of us. Our arrow is between this bunker and them, but we can't get out of here to light it off. Any suggestions?"

"Stand by," Court said. "You heard all this," he said to Wolf.

What's your thought?"

"More convinced than ever they want prisoners. If not, they'd try to take Hak's village as well as blow up the bunker."

"If that's the case, they probably would want to extract everyone at daylight."

"By helicopter right from this pad," Wolf said.

"So the guy up here and those below were supposed to hold the pad."

"Exactly. And they are dead and not checking in on their radio net, so maybe we'll get some visitors to see what went wrong."

Court could feel Wolf swing around and survey the area toward the bunker. "Ay-yup," Wolf said, "and here some of them come this very minute."

"How many?"

:'Four. Let's get busy."

"Busy? One gun, one pistol, one set of goggles, a few grenades, outnumbered two-to-one and you want to get busy?

Wake me when it's over."

"I have an equalizer," Wolf said. "Found it with those two guys we took out at the hut."

"I'm awake and ready to play."

"You're getting pretty smarta.s.s for a guy who was coming apart a little while ago," Wolf said with approval.

"Just your basic fighter pilot," Court said.

" Okay, basic fighter pilot, here's what I want us to do. We gotta take out those four guys, then hit the guys attacking the bunker."

"Supposing," Court said, "we bypa.s.s those guys, flank the baddies at the bunker, and light up the arrow."

"Great," Wolf said, "but what good will a lit-up arrow do?

We ain't got no air."

"If I can get Spectre on the radio and get him to go into orbit overhead, maybe his infrared detectors can pick up the arrow."

"Say, what about that hand-held beacon you were so proud of?" Wolf asked.

"It's back at the bunker."

"Get them to use it."

"Can't. The antenna has to be in the clear, and they can't exactly stick it out a window."

"Okay, let's see if you can contact Spectre before we move," Wolf said.

Court pulled out the RT-10. "Spectre, this is Phantom Zero One on Guard. If you read, come up four and a half bucks on Fox Mike." Court used the simple dollars and cents slang code to tell the orbiting gunship to call on 45.0 megacycles, which Court could receive on his PRC-25.

"Well, h.e.l.lo down there, Zero One. This is your friendly Spectre Two Four on station. Two Two has RTBed. How you read?" The deep voice of the table navigator was rea.s.suring to Court. He felt like he was among his own once more.

"Your Item Roger and NOD all tweaked up?" Court asked.

The infrared and the NOD Night Observation Device were sensors Spectre used to gather all available heat on the infrared band to locate targets.

"Big fat roger on that. What you got?"

"Do you think you can pick up a flaming arrow through the clouds?"

"If you mean what I think you mean," the deep voice said, we probably can get some sort of a trace if the clouds aren't too thick and if there isn't any rain. Lousy resolution, though."

"Roger, Spec. Stand by this frequency and we'll try to get a fire going for you."

"What we need now is to get to the arrow, swing it into position, and light it," Wolf said.

"Simple enough. I'll just stroll over and do that little thing.

Got a match?"

"You're coming along, Bannister. Might make a Special Forces man out of you yet. And you have a point. We need something to light the rags.

All I have is a thermite grenade.

You got matches or a lighter?"

Court patted his pockets. "Yes," he said in relief when he felt his rubberband-covered Zippo in his right pocket. He silently thanked his SF buddy Joe Lopez who had taught him the trick at Bien Hoa so his lighter wouldn't slip out of his pocket.

"Thought you quit smoking," Wolf said.

"I did, but I still carry something to light ladies' cigarettes."

"Will it work first time?"

"It better. With all those guys out there I won't get much of a second chance."

"We won't have much of a first chance unless we get those guys in the bunker to help us. We need a diversion. Anything to keep the attention of the Spetsnaz while we sneak by and get to the arrow. Once the arrow's lit, that ship has to fire within seconds or we'll be shot up and overrun."

"Diversion," Court mused. He looked up. "Notice you can see better?

Take those goggles off and look around. That break in the clouds to the west is bigger. I may be able to bring in one h.e.l.l of a diversion." He pulled out the RT-10.

"Phantom Zero Two, Phantom Leader on Guard," Court transmitted to Captain Howie Joseph. "You still on station?"

"Roger, boss, but I've only got twenty minutes more of playtime. Less if I have to let down."

Court knew what he meant. As long as Joseph kept the big jet at alt.i.tude in an orbit with its engines throttled back, he saved fuel. If he had to come down to low level, the engines would gulp much more fuel and he would have to break off earlier.

"What I need won't take much, but you will have to come down."

"Well, I am a.s.signed to a Rescap. Can't really break away."

A new voice cut in: "Phantom Zero Two, this is Moonbeam.

I'll get your replacement up so you can go off station ten mikes early, copy?"

"Roger, roger," Howie Joseph said with glee in his voice.

"You heard the man, boss," he transmitted to Court. "Tell me what you want and I'll do it in ten."

"I'll need some of your rockets and maybe some strafe. You got a fix on my location?"

"Same place you said you were going?"

"That's affirm. When I call, I'll want it high up on the west face, near the top but not over the top. Under no circ.u.mstances over the top.

Copy?"

"West face, high but not on top. What's the weather like down there?"

"Lousy everywhere but to the west. There's a sucker hole over there that I hope will stay open until we need you. Note that Spectre will be orbiting east."

"How about ground fire?"

"Don't want to scare you, but a hand-held missile of some kind shot down a helicopter a few Hours back. I think it was IR-guided, so just pull up into the clouds after you fire."