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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Critical Mass
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Schade edged silently to McGarvey's side and watched for
a second or two. The guard's position was about thirty feet from where they crouched.
“A night spotting scope?” he asked softly.
“I think so,” McGarvey whispered. “I want him out of there. Can you get in close enough to take him with your knife?”
“Yes, sir,” Schade said.
“Keep to his right. I'll cover you from here. But I won't fire unless there's no other choice.”
“Right,” Schade replied, and he headed across, slowly, silently, like a night animal on the prowl with deadly intent.
There might be others watching, but this one had to be taken out. The starlight scope-equipped rifle made him too dangerous.
McGarvey switched the safety off, cocked the Walther's hammer and centered his sights on the guard's back. The pistol was silenced, but the sound could be heard and recognized for what it was at a respectable distance.
Fifteen feet out, Schade froze.
The guard stepped back, looked toward the church for a moment, then shook his head and leaned up against the obelisk. It was clear he was nervous, but he was probably also cold, wet, tired and bored.
Schade was stuck. The guard had only to turn his head slightly and he would be looking right at the young man.
But they had a second, potentially even more serious problem. The guard had looked up toward the church, as if he'd been looking for
someone.
Another guard watching from a vantage point in the church? Even now that one could be taking a bead on Schade, who would show up in a night scope like a duck in a shooting gallery.
The guard behind the obelisk scratched his nose and started to turn away, when he evidently saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned abruptly and looked directly at Schade.
For a second he was too startled to move, but the moment Schade's knife hand began to come up, the spell was broken
and the man opened his mouth to shout a warning as he brought the Russian-made Kalashnikov assault rifle around.
McGarvey jumped up and fired two shots in rapid succession, the first hitting the guard in the throat, blood erupting from an artery in a long spurt, and the second hitting his chest, driving him off his feet before he had a chance to utter a sound.
Dropping down, McGarvey immediately switched his aim toward the church, in the direction the downed guard had looked.
Schade did the same, flattening himself against the rock-strewn ground, his silenced .22 automatic pistol in hand.
Nothing moved, and there was no answering fire. If someone had been there, they were gone now, or incredibly, they had seen or heard nothing.
Only the wind and the pattering rain made any noise, until McGarvey started to rise when he heard the distinctive pop of an unsilenced automatic weapon from somewhere in the distance. Below, possibly at the base of the cliffs beneath the church.
“What the hell was that?” he muttered as he and Schade headed in a dead run the last fifty yards or so to the main doors into the church's nave.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” LIPTON DEMANDED. HE'D BEEN on the radio copying the latest weather report from Meteorology aboard the
Nimitz
when the sea twenty yards out erupted in a dozen miniature geysers.
“We're under fire,” Tyrell answered urgently.
Tony Reid hurriedly started the outboard. Everyone else had their weapons out. Tyrell was studying the base of the cliffs one thousand yards away.
“Belay the motor, Tony,” Lipton whispered. “Even with a night spotting scope they can't be sure they see us, but they might be able to hear something.”
A little closer, the water to their left geysered again. This time Lipton estimated fifteen or twenty rounds had been fired, perhaps a few more.
“If he's firing a Kalashnikov, we're at his extreme range,” Tyrell said.
“He might get lucky,” Lipton said. “Can you spot him?”
“No, but I'd say he was low, maybe right on the water at the base of the cliff.”
“A dock?”
“Probably.” Tyrell looked up. “It's your call, Ed, but we can't stay here like this. Either pull back, or …”
“Or go ashore,” Lipton finished it for his number two. They'd been sitting out here for hours waiting for something to happen and now that it had, it was the wrong thing. If Spranger's group was trying to break out, they'd be on the water, a hell of a lot closer, and they'd be using a lot more firepower.
Whoever was firing at them was probably a lookout stationed on the dock. A chance increase in the ambient light level had come at the same moment the guard was looking in their direction, and he'd spotted something. Or thought he had.
They came under fire again, this time the hits coming in a wide pattern off to their right, but much closer. The shooter was finding their range.
They'd received word from Operations aboard the
Nimitz
that the EPIRB signal from McGarvey's walkie-talkie had begun to fade before he had reached the port of Thira, and less than a minute later it had cut off completely.
Commander Rheinholtz's best guess was that McGarvey had tossed the device overboard.
“If the sonofabitch wants to do it on his own, then let him,” the chief of Air Operations had radioed.
“I'd like to remain on station for a bit longer,” Lipton had asked.
The airwaves were silent for a long moment, as Rheinholtz pondered his request. Of course he hadn't told his boss that Schade was missing. There would be hell to pay if the
Nimitz
CAO knew.
“I want you out of there well before dawn, Lieutenant,” Rheinholtz radioed. “Acknowledge.”
“Aye, aye, Commander,” Lipton replied.
“Keep us posted.”
“Will do.”
Lipton checked his watch. Dawn was less than two hours from now. They were running out of time. Obviously McGarvey had reached the port, but what then? Had he and Schade found a way out to the monastery? Had they attacked from the land side?
The possibilities were nearly endless. But it was very likely that his ex-wife and daughter were still being held. That situation had not changed.
“Ed?” Tyrell prompted.
Another spray of fire from the shooter on the island hit the water, this time close enough to get them wet.
“Bob is probably with McGarvey over there,” he said. “We can't leave them.”
His men were watching him closely, grim, expectant expressions on their faces.
“We're going in,” Lipton said, making his decision. “Secure your weapons and check your rebreathers.”
 
Spranger couldn't see a thing.
He looked up from the starlight scope and glared at Bruno Lessing, who'd done the shooting. The man was a professional; steady, reliable. It wasn't like him to fire at phantoms. But there was nothing out there.
“I'm telling you, General, that I saw a small dark boat, perhaps a rubber raft, about nine hundred meters out. Three … maybe four men.”
“I don't see them now,” Spranger said, glancing again across the dark sea. If anything the night had deepened as the rain increased, though dawn would be here in less than two hours. He wanted to be gone by then. The pilot had assured him that despite the weather, as long as they had a little daylight he could get them up to Athens. The chopper was ready to fly. All that was needed was to remove the camouflage canopy covering the machine, and undo the tie-downs on the undercarriage and the rotor blades.
“They could be American Special Forces,” Lessing was saying nervously. “McGarvey could have called for help.”
“Not him,” Spranger disagreed. “We saw the
Dhodhóni
heading back to Thira. He's definitely coming here overland.”
“Pardon me, Herr General, but you cannot possibly know enough about the man to form such a judgment. Not so soon after you first learned of him.”
Spranger had handpicked his people from the survivors of East Berlin. They were the best of the best. All of them, Lessing included, were respectful of his authority, but no one was frightened or intimidated by him, which was as it should be.
But with this now, Lessing could not be right. Because if he was, they were in very deep trouble.
Once again he bent over the scope and peered through the eyepiece. The light intensification circuitry gave the surface of the sea a gray, ghostly cast. But as before there was nothing out there. Absolutely nothing.
“You may be right, Bruno, but it does not alter the fact I can't see a thing now,” Spranger said. He stepped aside. “Take a look for yourself.”
After a moment, Lessing bent to the scope, and studied the distant darkness for several long seconds. When he looked up he still did not seemed convinced. “I'm truly sorry, Herr General. You are correct, there is nothing out there now. But I did see something.”
“Could have been a piece of flotsam, or even a glitch in the little black box.” Still Spranger's eyes were drawn to the sea, a slight edge of fear creeping into his head.
With McGarvey, you should expect the unexpected.
He'd carried the walkie-talkie down with him in case McGarvey decided to make contact again. Dürenmatt came on.
“Ernst, where are you?”
Spranger unslung his comms unit. “On the dock. Bruno thought he saw something, so he fired at it.”
“McGarvey is here,” Dürenmatt responded so quickly he stepped on some of Spranger's transmission.
“Say again, Peter.”
“I said, McGarvey is here. Walther is down. I left my position for less than a minute to take a piss and when I returned, he was down. From where I'm standing I can see that he took at least one hit.”
“I'm on my way,” Spranger shouted. The detonator was still upstairs in the great room.
“What about me?” Lessing demanded.
“We're getting out of here. If you don't hear from me in the next ten minutes, go to the chopper. But
Gott in Himmel
, Bruno, keep your eyes open down here.”
 
 
Lipton and his five SEALS were in the water. They'd deflated their boat, and buoyed it just beneath the surface with a sea anchor. Tyrell carried a portable LORAN set, which, although it weighed less than twelve ounces, could bring them back to within fifty feet of the exact spot so they could retrieve their gear.
The antenna mast on Lipton's communications radio was fully extended for maximum range. The LAMPS III chopper would be on station out of visual range somewhere just over the horizon to pick up his radio transmissions and relay them to Operations aboard the
Nimitz.
“Saturn, Saturn, this is Mercury, acknowledge,” he radioed.
Commander Rheinholtz responded immediately. “This is Saturn.”
“We're going in.”
“Negative, Mercury. Negative.”
“We're taking fire, so we must assume that Brightstar is in trouble and the subjects are in jeopardy. We have no other choice.”
The radio was silent. Lipton could imagine Rheinholtz on the horn with Washington trying to get a reading on this latest development. But that would take time: Too much time.
Lipton keyed his radio. “Will advise,” he said. “Mercury out.” He switched off the transmitter, sealed it in its waterproof case, and on signal, he and his four SEALS submerged to a depth of ten feet, and on his lead made their way directly to the island.
 
At least they didn't have the German woman to contend with, Elizabeth thought as she tried to pick out something, anything, in the black night from her window. But there was nothing out there, nor had there been any further shooting.
Their leader, the one they called Ernst, had taken the woman away. But that had been hours ago. Until the gunfire over the past two or three minutes there had been nothing. They had not been given food or water, but they had not been bothered again.
“Do you see anything, Elizabeth?” her mother asked, in a weak, frightened voice.
Elizabeth shook her head and came away from the window. Her heart was hammering and she was having a little trouble catching her breath. It was her father they'd been shooting at, she was convinced of it. Just as she knew that she was going to have to warn him about the explosives planted in the wall just below their cell.
She put her ear to the door and held her breath to listen. But there were no sounds from the other side. Nothing. No more shooting, no sounds of running footsteps, no shouting, not a sound.
Stepping back she bunched up her fists and hammered them against the thick, wooden door. “Father,” she screeched. “Father! Are you there?”

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