Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [27]
‘You okay?’ Schofield asked over his shoulder, as he aimed his pistol up at A-deck.
‘Yeah, did I miss anything?’
‘Did you see the part where that bunch of French pricks posing as scientists decided to pull guns on us?’ Schofield fired off another round.
‘Yeah, I caught that part.’
‘What about the part where we found out that our new friends had six more guys stashed away in their hovercraft.’
‘No, missed that.’
‘Well that’s the –’ he fired off another angry round ‘– story so far.’
Gant looked at Schofield. Behind those opaque, silver glasses was a seriously pissed-off individual.
In fact, Schofield wasn’t really angry at the French soldiers per se. Sure, at first, he’d been annoyed at himself for not picking that the French ‘scientists’ were actually soldiers. But then, they had got to Wilkes first, and they had brought with them two genuine scientists, a particularly clever ploy which had been enough to throw Schofield and his team off the scent.
What really made him angry, however, was that he’d lost the initiative in this battle.
The French had caught Schofield and his team off guard, taken them by surprise, and now they were dictating the terms of this fight. That was what really made Schofield pissed.
He tried desperately to fight his anger. He couldn’t allow himself to be angry. He couldn’t afford to feel that way.
Whenever he found himself beginning to feel angry or upset, Schofield always remembered a seminar he’d attended in London in late 1996 given by the legendary British commander, Brigadier-General Trevor J. Barnaby.
A burly man, with piercing dark eyes, a fully shaven head, and a severe, black goatee, Trevor Barnaby was the head of the SAS – had been since 1979 – and was widely regarded as the most brilliant front-line military tactician in the world. His strategic ability with regard to small incursionary forces was extraordinary. When it was executed by the finest elite military unit in the world, the SAS, it was invincible. He was the pride and joy of the British military establishment, and he had never failed on a mission yet.
In November 1996, as part of a USA–UK ‘knowledge share agreement’ it was decided that Barnaby would give a two-day seminar on covert incursionary warfare to the most promising American officers. In return, the United States would instruct British artillery units on the use of mobile Patriot II missile batteries. One of the officers chosen to attend Trevor Barnaby’s seminar was Lieutenant Shane M. Schofield, USMC.
Barnaby had had a cocky, hard-edged lecture style that Schofield had liked – a rapid-fire series of questions and answers that had proceeded in a simple, logical progression.
‘In any combat exchange,’ Barnaby had said, ‘be it a world war or an isolated two unit stand-off, the first question you always ask yourself is this: what is your opponent’s objective? What does he want? Unless you know the answer to that question, you’ll never be able to ask yourself the second question: how is he going to get it?
‘And I’ll tell you right now, ladies and gentlemen, the second question is of far greater importance to you than the first. Why? Because what he wants is unimportant insofar as strategy is concerned. What he wants is an object, that’s all. The worldwide spread of communism. A strategic foothold on foreign territory. The ark of the covenant. Who cares? Knowing of it means nothing, in and of itself. How he plans to get it, on the other hand, means everything. Because that is action. And action can be stopped.
‘So, once you have answered this second question, then you can proceed to question number 3: what are you going to do to stop him?’
When he had been speaking about command and leadership, Barnaby had repeatedly stressed the need for cool-headed reason. An angry commander, acting under the influence of rage or frustration, will almost certainly get