EndWar

His pulse leapt as the glowing orb shot off.

The missile was directed by an INS (inertial navigation system), where it conducted an autonomous search for a specific preprogrammed target image. A number of different search patterns could be programmed into the Harpoon, which not only increased its probability of detecting the target but made it harder to trace the missile’s flight path back to its launcher.

Now the Harpoon dropped down to wave height as it homed in, skimming along the icy spray.

Andreas checked his watch once more, then glanced up at the image on the flat panel.

The Harpoon’s WDU-18/B — an innocuous description for a 488-pound, penetrating, blast-fragmentation warhead — pierced the Kalovsk’s port beam.

A heartbeat… then 297,000 gallons of aviation and ship fuel ignited.

The Kalovsk’s crew was vaporized before her aft superstructure fractured into five pieces and hurtled skyward. Her port side spewed molten, fragmented steel more than two miles out into Gray’s Bay.

Then, in less than thirty milliseconds, molten fragmented steel — formerly the Kalovsk’s starboard side — bridged the twenty-five-foot gap separating the oiler from the port side of the Varyag.

Andreas gasped as the Varyag’s partially filled fuel tanks immediately exploded, peeling back and curling 150 feet of her main deck like a sardine can.

The enormous holes at the Varyag’s waterline brought icy arctic water in direct contact with the 1,200-psi superheated steam in both boiler rooms. The resulting explosions shattered Varyag’s keel in three separate locations.

Andreas beat a fist into his palm, and the crew saw that as a sign to cut loose and cheer.

Her spine broken, Varyag took nine minutes to join Kalovsk at the bottom of Gray’s Bay. There were no survivors from either vessel.

Two down, two to go. The Ulyanovsk and the Ivan Rogov…

Half his company had been killed in the C-130 explosion, leaving Sergeant Nathan Vatz in a state of shock as he gathered his chute with the other operators who had managed to bail out before the missile had struck.

He’d shut down the oxygen, popped off his helmet, and was panting in the frigid morning air, occasionally glancing across the broad, snow-covered field toward several buildings, lumber mills maybe, and the dense forests toward the east and west.

With the chute gathered, he charged toward the embankment along a snow-covered road, probably dirt, where the rest of the operators were gathering and burying their chutes in the snow.

There, Vatz crouched down with twenty-six other men, noting immediately that every operator of ODA- 888 had made it, along with most of the operators from ODA-887, though one guy was lying on his back, looking pale as two medics attended to him.

“Everybody else, all right?” asked Detachment Commander Captain Mike Godfrey. He was Vatz’s CO, bearded and barely thirty, and wise enough to lean on Vatz for advice. “This mission is not over. Captain Rodriguez and I have decided we’re carrying on and have put in the request for another company to be sent up. Of course that’s going to take time. Meanwhile, we get to work.”

Captain Manny Rodriguez, big eyes and a Fu Manchu mustache, nodded and added, “Me and my boys from Zodiac Team will hit the Chevy dealership and secure some SUVs, while you guys from Berserker hit the sporting goods store and pick up the gear in our crates. Same game plan. We all dress up like hunters. But it’ll be Captain Godfrey, Warrant Officer Samson, and Sergeant Vatz who’ll meet with the mayor and the RCMPs here.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police would be one of the keys in securing and preparing the town for the Russian invasion, but Vatz had a sneaking suspicion that their support wouldn’t be easily won. And with the area’s small population, Vatz figured if they found a dozen Mounties to help, that’d be a lot.

“All right, gentlemen. We rally on the police station no later than oh-six-thirty hours,” said Godfrey. “The Russians are already on the ground and on the move. No time to waste!”

“Okay, let’s move!” hollered Vatz.

And with that, all of them took off running across the field, shouldering their heavy packs.

Vatz couldn’t wait to see the look on the Mounties’ faces when he, Godfrey, and Samson walked into the station.

That would be an interesting conversation.

Major Stephanie Halverson crashed through the tree limbs with a horrible cracking noise. She was jolted left, then right, her helmet scraping against the trees, then suddenly she—

Stopped short.

Her entire body tugged hard against the straps, and her neck snapped back as she lost her breath.

It took a few seconds for her to get her bearings.

The snow lay about twenty feet below. She glanced up, saw that the chute had tangled in the limbs and she now dangled in midair.