Mirror Image

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

With all the hi-tech wizardry the military had put at his disposal, Charlie Squires couldn't understand why they didn't have nonfog night-vision goggles instead of these "foggles," as the Strikers had nicknamed them. Sweat pooled on the inside bottom of the lenses, and if you covered your mouth with a muffler, as he'd tried to do, the perspiration warmed, turned to vapor, and you couldn't see. If you didn't use the muffler, your lips froze together and the tip of your nose went numb.

A warm face wouldn't matter much if he dropped off the hundred-foot-high cliff, so Squires chose to see— as much as one could see with thick snow swirling around. At least he could see the cliff.

Squires was descending, buddy style, with Private Terrence Newmeyer. One man started rappelling down the cliff, got a foothold, then extended a hand and steadied the other as he descended a little further. In the dark, on icy cliffs, Squires didn't want anyone rappelling without something for guidance— though he had to admit, these weren't the worst conditions he'd seen. Squires had once been invited to participate with Israel's Sayeret Giva'ati, the elite reconnaissance brigade, during their "hell week" training. The exercises included climbing down a twenty-four-meter high cliff and then running an obstacle course. The olive fatigues of the soldiers were ripped to shreds by the end of the drill, though not from the cliff itself: throughout the descent, officers had been pelting the soldiers with both Arabic epithets and rocks. Compared to that climb, this one— foggles and all— was a day at the beach.

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 for this part of the plan. I need the rest of you to cover our retreat, if it comes to that."

"Yes, sir," Private DeVonne saluted.

Squires turned to Private Honda, briefing him about the remainder of the mission. "You report to HQ as soon as the bridge is in view. Tell them what we're planning to do. If there's a message from them, you'll have to deal with it. We won't be in a position to use our radios."

"Understood," said Honda.

As the three Strikers started off through wind-gusted snows that ranged from ankle-deep to knee-deep, Squires joined Sergeant Grey and Private Newmeyer. Grey was already pressing small strips of C-4 to the trunk of a large tree near the tracks. Newmeyer was cutting the safety fuse, leaving the timer fuses they'd brought for Squires to use later. The safety fuses were marked in thirty second lengths and he had measured out a piece ten lengths long.

"Make it four minutes," Squires said, looking over his shoulder. "I'm a little antsy about the train being so close that they hear it."

Newmeyer grinned. "We all did the fourteen-mile timed run in under a hundred and ten minutes, sir."

"Not in snow with full gear you didn't—"

"We should be okay," Newmeyer said.

"We also need to leave time to throw snow on the tree, so it looks like it's been there a while," Squires said. "And me 'n' Grey have another little job to do."

The Lieutenant Colonel looked ahead. In five minutes, they could reach a concave area of granite some three hundred yards ahead, one that would protect them from the blast— assuming the concussion didn't bring the cliff down on them. But Grey was experienced enough, and the explosives were small enough, that that wasn't likely to happen. That would still leave enough time for one of them to come back and clear away any traces of their tracks in the snow: it had to look as though the tree had cracked and come down by itself.

Grey rose when he was finished, and Squires squatted as Newmeyer lit the fuse.

"Let's go!" Squires said.

The Lieutenant Colonel helped Newmeyer up and the three men ran toward their little sanctuary, arriving with a minute to spare. They were still catching their breath when the sharp report of the low-explosive blast tore through the night, followed by the brittle cracking of the tree trunk and a dull thud as it hit the train tracks.