Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [50]
‘Nothing one good kiss from a fine lookin’ man like you wouldn’t fix,’ Mother growled through clenched teeth. Despite her pain, she too saw Schofield’s scarred eyes.
‘Maybe later,’ Schofield said, as he saw a door set into the tunnel wall ahead of them. ‘In there,’ he said to Gant and Rebound.
They opened the door and dragged Mother inside, all four of them dripping wet. They were in a storeroom of some sort. Rebound immediately set to work on Mother’s leg.
Schofield spoke into his helmet mike, ‘Marines, call in.’
Names came in over the intercom as each Marine identified him or her self.
Montana, Snake and Santa Cruz. All up on A-deck.
Rebound and Gant, E-deck. They called in formally over their helmet intercoms even though they were standing right next to Schofield, so that the others would hear their voices and know for a fact that they were still alive. Even Mother said her name, just for the record.
There was no word from Book, Hollywood, Legs, Samurai or Ratman.
‘Okay, everyone, listen up,’ Schofield said. ‘By my count these bastards are down to four now, plus the two civilians they brought along with them to jerk my chain.
‘This has gone far enough. It’s time to end it. We have a numerical advantage, seven against four. Let’s use it. I want a flush of this entire facility from the top down. I want these assholes pushed into a corner so we can finish them off without losing any more of our people. All right, this is how it’s gonna happen. I want –’
There came a sudden thunking noise from above him and Schofield immediately looked upwards.
There was a long silence.
Schofield saw a line of fluorescent lights bolted to the ceiling above him. They stretched away at regular intervals down the southern tunnel to his right.
And then, at that moment, as Schofield watched them, every single fluorescent light in the tunnel went out.
The world glowed incandescent green.
Night vision.
With his scarred eyes masked by his night-vision goggles, Shane Schofield climbed up one of the rung-ladders between E-deck and D-deck. He moved slowly and carefully, deliberately. He remembered Book saying once that wearing night-vision goggles is like wearing a pair of low-powered binoculars strapped to your head – you see something and you reach out to grab it, only to find that it’s actually a lot closer than you think and you knock it over.
The whole station was cloaked in darkness.
And silence.
Cold, eerie silence.
With the entire station filled with the flammable propellant from the air-conditioners, all gunfire had ceased. The occasional shuffle of movement and the odd low whisper of someone speaking into a helmet microphone were all that could be heard in the pitch darkness.
Schofield surveyed the green-lit station through his night-vision goggles.
The battle had entered a new phase.
Somehow, one of the French commandos must have managed to find the station’s fuse box and turn off all the lights. It was a desperate ploy, but a good one nonetheless.
Darkness has long been the ally of numerically inferior forces. Even the advent of ambient-light technology – night-vision goggles and gunsights – hasn’t diminished the average military tactician’s opinion of the advantages of a small operation carried out under cover of darkness. It’s a simple maxim of warfare – landed, naval or airborne – nobody likes to fight in the dark.
‘Marines, stay alert. Watch for flashers,’ Schofield whispered into his helmet mike. One of the great dangers of night-vision fighting is the use of stun grenades, or ‘flashers’ – grenades that emit a sudden blinding flare of light which is designed to temporarily disorient an enemy. Since night-vision goggles magnify any given light source, if one sees a flasher go off through a pair of night-vision goggles, blindness won’t be temporary. It will be permanent.
Schofield peered up into the station’s central shaft. No light entered the station from outside the enormous frosted-glass dome that topped the wide central shaft. It was June – early