Thunder In The Deep (02) by Joe Buff

Author:Joe Buff [Joe Buff]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

ON THE SHORE OF GREIFSWALD BAY

As the rest of the team got organized, Ilse, using her night-vision goggles, looked up at the fifty-foot chalk cliff. Through the swirling snow and enveloping darkness she could just make out the pines and firs along its upper edge. Somewhere above was the village of Lubmin, she knew, and a sea-surveillance radar site that swept the bay and the Baltic, plus German antiaircraft and anticruise-missile installations.

There was a hard knot in Ilse's gut that wouldn't go away. At least Durban, South Africa, had been home. Here was an alien landscape, giving no comfort at all. The snowfall was recent; there was barely an inch on the ground so far, and none in some spots scoured by the icy wind. The wind moaned hauntingly in Ilse's ears.

The cliff face ran east-west, above the narrow, sandy, ice-encrusted beach. To Ilse's left, east, the cliff and beach stretched for several miles, to Struck Island and then Peenemunde and the Baltic, all invisible with the snow squall. The SEAL team formed up in single file and began the route march in the other direction, to the landward, inner edge of Greifswald Bay.

Meltzer, in the mini with two SEALs held in reserve, was lurking somewhere in the bay. This was as close to their objective as he could drop them off—the inner bay was very shallow.

The razor wire along the water's edge had been easy to get through without leaving signs of intrusion. The SEALs used small grapnels to hold the coils apart, and everyone shimmied through. They knew from recon imagery that the beach probably wasn't mined—advanced synthetic aperture radar, though it couldn't see through water, gave resolution on dry land of under a foot.

The beach was, however, frequently patrolled. Clayton's team was following in the footsteps of the latest patrol, a good precaution in case the beach was mined. Everyone's footwear bore a tread like that of German Army boots, to blend in. At least there were no canine prints; there was a shortage of trained guard dogs Axis-wide. There were wolves in the surrounding forests, but they usually avoided places humans went. From now on the team would communicate and identify themselves by number, not name, for clarity and security. SEAL One, at the point, was one of the surviving enlisted men from Texas. So was SEAL Nine, who brought up the rear. SEALs Two and Seven and Eight had been with Ilse at Durban. Montgomery was Three, Jeffrey was Four, Ilse was Five, and Clayton was Six. To Ilse this made sense. Montgomery's people were well trained for winter operations; Clayton's men, pressed for this mission out of necessity as reinforcements, had drilled for the tropics. The SEALs most used to snow and ice were at the front and back of the column, serving as guides and security. Everyone else was mixed together, a well-integrated unit, with the vulnerable mission specialists, Jeffrey and Ilse, protected in the middle. Clayton carried one of the nuclear demolition charges; SEAL Seven had the second one.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.