Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [52]
Thus armed, the Marines were confident that they could handle the French commandos’ crossbows.
So the plan would go ahead.
Montana, Snake and Santa Cruz would work their way down through the station from A-deck, forcing the Frenchmen down, while Schofield, Gant and Rebound worked their way up from E-deck. They would hopefully meet halfway and the rest would write itself.
Schofield and Gant had departed right away.
Rebound was to join them as soon as he had stemmed the flow of blood from Mother’s leg and started her up on an intravenous line of methadone.
The three Marines on A-deck began their attack.
They moved quickly, using a textbook three-man flushing formation known as ‘leap-frogging’. One Marine would move forward, ahead of his partners and fire his Maghook. Then, while he reeled his hook in to reload, a second Marine would move in front of him – ‘leap-frogging’ him – and fire his Maghook at the enemy. By the time the third man stepped forward and fired, the first man was ready to fire again and the cycle continued.
The two French soldiers on A-deck responded as they were supposed to – they retreated, hastened away from the rolling wave of powerful Maghook fire. They hurried for the ladders, climbed down the shaft.
However, as he fielded reports from Montana about the French soldiers’ movement, Schofield noticed something odd about their evasive manoeuvres.
They were moving too fast.
In their retreat down the shaft, the four French soldiers had completely avoided the destroyed B-deck catwalk and continued straight down to C.
They moved fluidly, in a swift two-by-two cover formation – the lead two men covering the forward flank, the rear two covering their pursuers behind, with a space of about ten yards between the two pairs.
Earlier, Montana had reported that all four of the French commandos were wearing night-vision goggles. They had come prepared.
They continued to move down the shaft fast.
Schofield had expected them to waste time in the tunnels as they tried to adopt a defensive position. But the French soldiers seemed to have other ideas. They darted into the C-deck tunnels only for so long as it took the Marines pursuing them from the levels above to join them. Then suddenly, they appeared on the catwalk again and made for the rung-ladder leading down to D-deck.
At that moment, Schofield recalled something Trevor Barnaby had once said about strategy.
Good strategy is like magic, Barnaby had said. Make your enemy look at one hand, while you’re doing something with the other.
‘They’re moving for the south-west ladder,’ Montana’s voice said in Schofield’s earpiece. ‘Scarecrow, you down there?’
Schofield moved forward along the D-deck catwalk, the world green before his eyes. ‘We’re on it.’
He and Gant approached the south-west corner of D-deck, saw the rung-ladder that led up to C-deck.
Schofield spoke into his mike, ‘Rebound, where are you?’
‘Finishing up now, sir,’ Rebound’s voice replied from the storeroom down on E-deck.
‘Flanking west, Sarge,’ the voice of José ‘Santa’ Cruz said over the intercom.
Montana’s voice: ‘Keep ’em coming, ‘Cruz. Then send ’em down to the Scarecrow.’
On D-deck, Schofield and Gant arrived at the rung-ladder. They crouched, levelled their weapons at the empty ladder. They heard boots stomping fast on the metal catwalk above them, heard the distinctive snap-phew! of a crossbow being fired.
‘They’re coming to the ladder,’ Santa Cruz’s voice said.
More footsteps clanged on the metal grating.
Any second now . . .
Any second . . .
And then suddenly, clunk, clunk.
What the hell –
‘Marines! Eyes shut! Flasher on the ground!’ Santa Cruz’s voice yelled suddenly.
Schofield immediately squeezed his eyes shut just as he heard the stun grenade bounce on the metal deck above him.
The stun grenade went off – like a flash-bulb on a camera – and for