Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4) (27 page)

“Objective secured,” Fedorchenko finally radioed up. “About
fifteen bodies. The rest look like they slipped away into a draw,
skiing farther down the mountain.”

Tactically, it made sense. Outgunned, taken by surprise, and at a
severe terrain disadvantage, there was no reason for them to stand
and fight on someone else’s terms.

“Break down those gun positions,” the Kazakh platoon sergeant
ordered his men. “We are going to consolidate with First Platoon.”

In three minutes, the men of 2nd Platoon were on their
skis and crisscrossing their way down the mountain toward
Fedorchenko’s men. Sure enough, there were bodies going into deep
freeze on the Arctic tundra, sprawled out all over the place. Aghassi
was going from corpse to corpse with their biometric scanner to
collect fingerprints and pictures. However, everyone was aware that
the bodies represented just a small portion of a much larger force
that still numbered around 75 men. At least they had thinned them out
a bit.

“Any word from Deckard?” Rochenoire asked aloud. With his
face mask pulled down, his breath was already freezing on his beard,
little icicles dangling off of it.

“He’s on his way back to link up with us here,” Aghassi
answered as he finished scanning another body. The data would be
uploaded back to SCOPE in the United States for analysis at the next
opportunity.

Fedorchenko skied over to the edge of a cliff where the enemy had
descended from and disappeared into the white. Dozens of ski trails
marked their path. Farther below, he could also see that their
passage had triggered a small avalanche, which was now picking up
momentum as it rolled toward the valley floor.

“We’ll pick up their trail once Deckard and his guys get
here,” Aghassi added from behind Fedorchenko.

The Kazakh mercenary frowned as he watched the avalanche plummet
away from them. Just another hazard of operating in the Arctic. He
would take their previous deployments to Afghanistan, Burma, Mexico,
or Syria over this nonsense any day.

Suddenly, a hollow
bloop
sounded from somewhere at the
bottom of the cliff. All eyes turned skyward as a black torpedo shape
arced low and slow through the sky above them. Squinting in the
bright sunlight, Fedorchenko could make out the tail fins of a 60mm
mortar round that seemed to be moving at the velocity of a booger
flicked across a junior high classroom. The mortar round reached its
maximum altitude for the charge setting it was on, then its nose
tipped back toward the earth and followed a trajectory that would
have it land a few hundred meters above their position.

Finally, it slapped into the mountainside and detonated with a
hollow thud. Above them, the mercenaries heard the snow and ice
rushing down toward their position.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Rochenoire groaned.

Chapter 25

The Samruk International mercenaries made a mad dash for the
closest boulders or cliff faces they could find, anything that might
stand a chance at shielding them from the flood of snow and ice about
to rain down upon them. Three Kazakhs from one of Fedorchenko’s
assault teams reached out toward their teammate as they took cover
behind one of the crags, but he was just a second too slow.

The avalanche burst over them, sweeping the Kazakh off his
feet and washing him over the cliff. Another one of the Kazakhs who
had gotten behind the rock formation in time was nearly swept away as
well, with snow coming up over the top of the rocks and pelting down
on their heads. His teammates held on desperately to his parka,
another grabbing onto the man’s rifle sling, which threatened to
strangle him as he lost his footing, undulating white sheets flowing
around the rock on either side.

Fedorchenko was huddled under another cliff face with his platoon
medic and another assault team. The avalanche flowed over them like a
waterfall, crashing down in front of them. After a few seconds, it
had passed, a relatively small avalanche.

“Nikita,” the platoon sergeant barked, “get out there and
figure out where the enemy is. Ivan, get those guns out,” he said,
referring to their own 60mm mortar. The mortar section carried two
60mm mortars with the hip plate and rounds. There was no way they
would have been able to make the climb with the 82mm systems, so they
had been left on the Carrickfergus.

Fedorchenko was ready to fight fire with fire. Nikita
peered through the scope on his 417. Based on the direction of the
enemy’s ski trail and where he thought their mortar shot had come
from, he could only make an educated guess. Before they could get
their act together, a second mortar round arced into the air and came
down above the Samruk men. Thankfully, this one failed to trigger
another avalanche.

Ivan’s men scrambled to get the ball socket of the
mortar tubes into the hip plate while others were setting 60mm rounds
to explode on delay. They wanted the rounds to bury themselves in the
snow before detonating.

“Put the rounds up there,” Nikita said, taking a best
guess as he pointed uphill and about 600 meters to their flank.

Ivan looked up at Fedorchenko, who nodded.

“Do it.”

Both mortar gunners dropped rounds down the tube and fired up
into the mountain. The rounds impacted and exploded, puffs of white
snow flung into the air. Fissures appeared in the snow. Then, massive
sheets of the white stuff came apart and began to break apart. The
avalanche rumbled downhill as the snow came apart in big chunks and
began flowing, becoming a river of snow.

“That should slow those fuckstains down a bit,” Rochenoire
said with a laugh.

“You know they might be able to activate that earthquake weapon
they are lugging around with them and bring this entire mountain down
on us,” Aghassi reminded him.

Rochenoire stopped laughing, his expression frozen on his face.

“Not to worry, we’re too close to them. They would kill
themselves in the process.”

“On your feet,” Fedorchenko ordered the men. “We
need to vacate this position before they fire on us again.”

* * *

Nate slid to a halt and looked at the avalanche gushing down the
mountainside in a white cloud. It made a thundering sound as it
tumbled, echoing through the valley.

“I think we’ve got a problem here,” the MARSOC veteran
called back to the others.

“
Cazzo
,” Maurizio cursed as he came up alongside Nate.

“That’s where our guys were firing from, isn’t it?”
Deckard asked as he skied forward, the third in the order of
movement.

“Yeah, just about,” Nate said with worry in his voice.

“Let's get a move on,” Deckard said as he took the lead,
pushing into the snow with his whippets. The mercenaries huffed and
sweated for another minute of travel until they heard several mortars
fire from the Samruk position, causing another avalanche farther
away.

“Neither knows where the other is, and neither have a direct
line of fire, so they’re trying to create avalanches on one
another,” Dag said, raising his voice so Deckard could hear him.

“Let’s pick up the pace; we need to consolidate with the rest
of our element and find out what the hell is going on.”

With little choice in the matter, Deckard plowed forward, hoping
he wasn’t skiing his way into another avalanche or a stray mortar
round.

* * *

“Oh, that’s a good one,” Aghassi said.

Having moved their element 500 meters laterally across the
mountain, Samruck’s mortar section dropped a few down the tube,
firing into the cliffs above. They couldn’t wait for Deckard to
show up when the enemy knew their location.

The mortar maggots had outdone themselves. The avalanche picked up
steam as it slid down the mountain to their front. Sheets of snow
crumbled into a rolling mess of debris that flowed right by the
Samruk mercenaries before continuing downhill to where they suspected
Oculus was located.

Fedorchenko pulled down his hood and held up his fist, halting
their movement. In military terminology, it was called SLLS, or stop,
look, listen, and smell. Careful observation helped push the human
senses out into the surrounding terrain to detect signs of the enemy.
Sure enough, shouting could be heard somewhere below them. The
avalanche had hit pay dirt.

The platoon sergeant smiled. “Let’s go finish them off.”

* * *

The enemy’s counter-fire sailed right over the main body
of Samruk mercenaries, to their relief. Instead, the 60mm rounds
exploded a few hundred meters above Deckard and his advance team. The
mountain above them seemed to crack and come apart as another
avalanche was triggered.

“Go, go, go!” Deckard yelled.

The order didn’t require any further explanation. The avalanche
streamed down the draw between two spurs coming off the side of the
mountain. The mountaineers quickly realized they had mere seconds
before they were swept away, not nearly enough time to move out of
the way by climbing up the side of the nearest spur. Their only
option was down.

Almost in unison, Deckard, Nate, Dag, Kurt, Jacob and
Maurizio hopped and pivoted their skis at a 90-degree angle, nosing
them straight downhill. Launching down the mountain, they skied like
they never had before. The avalanche was already tumbling over the
ski trails they had left behind just a moment ago.

Normally, the best way to survive an avalanche was to hug
a tree, but of course there were none on Ellesmere Island. All of
them knew that outrunning it was close to impossible.

Deckard picked up speed as he went over a bump and then
down a sharper angle while he propelled himself forward with his
poles. Swerving to avoid another rock, he kicked up a wave of snow to
his side. In his peripheral vision, he saw Dag angle toward a boulder
sticking out of the ground. Sailing right up the side of it, he
kicked off his skis and scrambled the rest of the way up, saving
himself.

He was one of the lucky ones. The avalanche was right
behind Deckard. The snow was cracking and coming apart right under
his feet, and he was still nowhere near the bottom of the mountain.
His arms burned with lactic acid as he pushed harder and harder,
trying to escape his own imminent destruction. His skis stayed just
forward of the leading edge of the icy landslide, and for a brief
second, he actually thought he was going to make it.

Then his world turned upside down, his limbs thrown in all
directions. The world spun end over end, his vision blurred by snow
whisking over his face.
Then everything seemed to roll, like
being trapped inside a garbage can spinning down a hill. He heard the
crunch of snow, and again he was going end over end. His body was
racked with spasms as something hard smashed into his lower back.

Finally, the disorientation came to an end as everything faded to
black.

Chapter 26

Canadian Arctic

Quiet, lonely, and empty in all directions. The arctic
desert existed as if it had always existed. Isolated from prying eyes
and human projections, it simply was. Scant vegetation poked through
the snow on the valley floor, waving back and forth in the wind.
There were 20 of them in total, moving in a single-file line. The
predators moved slowly, almost warily, but still steady and
confident. Like the ridges, spurs, and valleys, they had been there
for a very long time.

The white Arctic wolves hunted game, big game that
required an unusually large pack. Musk oxen could weigh as much as
900 pounds in the Canadian Arctic. The pack had suffered decline; all
of their kind had in recent years as their food sources were
diminished.

The alpha female stopped in her tracks, her paws sinking into the
snow as she sniffed the air. Somewhere in the distance, toward the
mountains, there was death in the air. Where there was death, there
was meat. Changing direction, she led the pack across the tundra,
toward their next meal.

* * *

Four skiers wearing digital snow camouflage and heavy rucksacks
moved roughly parallel to the wolf pack a half of kilometer off their
right flank. Both parties were unknowingly heading to the same
location. Warrant Officer Barry Cloutier led two sergeants and one
master corporal across the frozen valley, the indirect mortar fire
leaving them without any further doubts as to the location of the two
belligerents they were searching for. With a pair of binoculars,
Cloutier had seen troops on both sides caught in avalanches and swept
into oblivion.

Arriving at the foot of the mountain, they spread out and began
searching for one of the distant skiers they had seen go under in the
avalanche. He had almost made it to the bottom, but had been swept up
by the leading edge of it and buried under the snow. In an avalanche,
the snow starts moving downhill so quickly, the friction causes it to
melt into freezing water.
Trapped under the snow, that water
then quickly freezes again, entombing the hapless passerby. Whoever
it was may very well be dead already.

“Hey, I found a ski!” the corporal said as he pulled it out
of the snow and held it over his head.

Barry continued over the bumpy snow as his eyes picked out
something as well. Slinging his C8 rifle, he reached down. His gloved
hands found purchase on something flat and slick.

“I think I have the other one,” the warrant officer said.

Grunting and yanking, he pulled the ski from the snow.

“Hold on,” one of the sergeants called out. “Quiet!”

Barry set the end of the ski down in the snow and listened.

“There!” the sergeant said. “Did you hear that?”

“No,” the warrant officer said with a frown.

“There’s something down there, eh?”

Skiing over to the sergeant, Barry listened carefully. The wind
blew gently in his ears for a long moment before he heard it. A
muffled but audible cry.