Tom Clancy's op-centre_ mirror image - Tom Clancy [117]
About fifteen yards from the bottom, five yards to their left, Squires heard Sondra yell at them to wait. Squires looked down and saw her huddled close to her climbing partner, Private Walter Pupshaw.
"What's wrong?" Squires shouted as he stole a quick look at the horizon. He was searching for smoke from the locomotive and didn't see it-- yet.
'He's frozen to the cliff," Sondra yelled back. "He tore his pant leg on a rock. Looks like perspiration stuck the lining to the ice."
Squires shouted down, "Private Honda, get me an ETA on the train!"
The radio operator quickly set up the TAC-Sat as Squires and Newmeyer made their way toward Pupshaw. The officer settled in slightly above and to the right of the Private.
"Sorry, sir," Pupshaw said. "I must've hit a real icy patch here."
Squires looked at the soldier, who resembled a big spider plastered to a wall.
"Private DeVonne," Squires said, "you get above him and dig in. I mean, hold on real tight. Private Newmeyer, we're going to use our rope to try and free him."
Squires grabbed the line that held him to Newmeyer and whipped it up, so it was resting on Pupshaw's arms, in front of his face.
"Pupshaw," Squires said, "let go with your left hand and let the rope fall to your waist. Then do the same thing with your right."
"Yes, sir," Pupshaw said.
Both Newmeyer and Squires lent him their hands for support as, cautiously, Pupshaw released his grip on the rock face with his left hand, then grabbed it again when the rope had slid down. He repeated with the right hand, and the rope was now level with his belt.
"Okay," Squires said. "Private Newmeyer and I are going to climb down together. We'll put our weight on the rope so, hopefully, it'll slice through the ice. DeVonne, you be ready to take his weight when he comes free."
"Yes, sir," she said.
Slowly, Squires and Newmeyer descended in tandem, on either side of Private Pupshaw, the rope snagging on the ice where it had formed between the Striker and the cliff. It held for a moment, and the two men put more and more of their weight on the line until the ice shattered in a rain of fine particles. Squires had a firm grip on the cliff, DeVonne was able to hold onto Pupshaw, and after a tense moment when the rock beneath his right boot gave way, Newmeyer was able to regain his footing with a steadying hand from Pupshaw.
"Thank you," Pupshaw said as the four of them made their way to the bottom of the cliff.
When Squires reached the bottom, Sergeant Grey had the team gathered beside the track. There was a space of some ten yards between the base of the cliff and the track; to the west, roughly thirty yards away, was a clump of trees that appeared to have died sometime before the Russian Revolution. Private Honda was already on the TAC-Sat, and when he got off, he said that up-to-the-minute NRO reconnaissance put the train at twenty-one miles to the east, traveling at an average of thirty-five miles an hour.
"That will have them here in just over a half hour," Squires said. "Not a lot of time. Okay, Sergeant Grey. You and Newmeyer rig one of those trees to blow across the track."
Sergeant Grey was already unloading the C-4 from the pouches in his assault vest. "Yes, sir."
"DeVonne, Pupshaw, Honda-- you three start for the extraction point and secure the route. I don't expect we'll find any disagreeable peasants out here, but you never know. There could be wolves."
"Sir," said Sondra, "I'd like--"
"Doesn't matter," Squires cut her off. "Sergeant Grey, Private Newmeyer, and myself are all that's needed