Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series) (3 page)

“No
sir. But they have been retreating for so long.”

“Yes,
and it started to feel easy, didn’t it? Well it’s never easy when the other
fellow says no, here I stand and you will have to come for me if you wish to
pass.”

“Well
what will we do, Oberleutnant?”

“You
heard Westhoven. The Stukas will be here soon.”

He
started pulling slowly on the fingers of his gloves, tugging at them, his mind
thinking hard on something. Schmidt had seen that look on the Oberleutnant’s
face before, and he knew that, quite literally, the gloves were coming off
when Wellman fell into this kind of mood.

“Contact
Second Battalion. Tell them to move their entire column up.” He squinted at his
map. We’ll hit them on their right flank, through that oil tank farm. There’s
good cover for an infantry advance there, he thought. And then we’ll just have
to slug it out, building by building, until we reach that main warehouse. And
we have SMGs too…

* * *

Dobrynin
was on his radio, yammering in
Troyak’s ear. “I’ll have to pull the Mi-26 out and return it to the
Anatoly
Alexandrov.
German planes, Troyak.
It looks like fifteen or twenty
on the radar.”

Troyak
did not like the sound of that. These would probably be those same German dive
bombers they had faced earlier. The German’s weren’t stupid. They could see
that he had the firepower on the ground to stop them, and what they really
needed was concentrated indirect fire on the Russian position. In about fifteen
minutes that artillery will be down on us again, but first things first.

“Troyak
to all hovercraft. Track and engage incoming enemy aircraft! Troyak to Fedorov,
come in.”

“Fedorov
here.”

“We’ll
need fire support from the
Shilka
. If you haven’t already done so, deploy
your radars and prepare to fire.”

 
“We’re
ready now,”
said Fedorov.
“I’m heading your direction.”

“What
about Orlov?”

“Zykov
is searching the detainment center now. I was going to look for the Commissar,
but then the Germans attacked so I moved the ZSU to a reserve position.”

“Good
job, colonel. Orlov isn’t going anywhere soon. Zykov will find him. Bring the
ZSU up here to my position east of the lake. Just follow the railroad tracks.
But watch out for those German planes!”

The
SA-N-5 was an older Russian naval SAM, with two quad mounts on the big
Aist
609 hovercraft guarding the harbor. Called the “Arrow” by the Russians it was an
old friend, but nonetheless very capable of tracking and destroying the threat
posed by the German planes. Soon the scene was much the same as when the
Anatoly
Alexandrov
first appeared in the midst of a Stuka raid over the Caspian
Sea. The arrows streaked up into the grey sky, eager to find targets with their
passive IR guided noses, and soon they began to get hits. With a maximum range
of just over four kilometers, however, the German planes were already over the
target and screaming down in their diving runs.

Now
Fedorov looked up through his binoculars as the motors whirred to elevate the
quad 23mm guns on the
Shilka
. The Russian radar guided guns were soon
firing at enemy planes well above the low cloud deck, beyond Fedorov’s visual
range. The noise of the guns prompted him to let his binoculars fall to his
chest and cover his ears. The guns were capable of firing at nearly a thousand
rounds per minute, but with a typical ammunition load of only2000 rounds, they
were most often used in short bursts of three rounds per barrel. That was still
enough to put twelve 23mm rounds on a target, with good accuracy, and in
sustained burst mode the gunners might fire 30 rounds per barrel and put out
ten times that volume.

There
were eighteen German planes aloft, and the missiles quickly got nine. The
Shilka
had already made four kills when the bombs began to fall. At least five Stukas
made it close enough to release their 500 pound bombs, and now they came
screaming down on the rail yard churning up the steel rails and wood ties as
they exploded with thundering concussion. Three bombs fell in the yard and
island between the two opposing positions, but two landed right on target,
plowing right into the main depot terminal and warehouse receiving building
where Troyak’s Marines were hunkered down.

The
enemy planes wheeled away, the last one chased by a missile that could make a
quick 6G turn to blow off its tail as it tried to flee north. The Germans had
paid a heavy price, but the bombs they delivered had struck a hard blow.

“Fedorov
to Troyak. Come in Sergeant.”

There
was no reply.

* * *

Wellman
clenched his fist when the bombs
struck home. “Got them!” He had watched in horror as the sky was scored by what
looked like Katyushas, but they were firing in small groups of four rockets
each, racing up to find the Stukas as they tipped over into their final dive.
He could not see how many planes were hit, but he could hear them going down,
engines still screaming with wrath as they fell. The concussion of the bombs
gave him heart, though he saw that most were falling short. Another two hundred
meters and they would have hit his own position! Then the last two struck home
and roared into the main warehouse and depot.

He
heard the whine of artillery shells joining the awful noise of the battle.
Kersten’s guns were back! Good! Now was the time to get his infantry ready.

“Schmidt!
Get on the radio to A Platoon. Tell them to attack through the tank farm as
soon as we lift the artillery barrage! We will move in that direction and
support them.”

Wellman
wanted to follow up the heavy weapons with a lightning swift infantry assault
along the coast supported by reinforcements coming up from II Battalion, and
the terrain near the tank farm offered the only good avenue of approach. On his
own front he could throw the entire weight of his two companies in an attempt to
occupy the island in the center of the rail yard, a cluster of small buildings
and trees. From there they could provide flanking fire for the main assault on
the coast.

 “Schmidt…
Signal II Battalion that they are to follow our A platoon as soon as they
arrive. Now we storm these damn Russian Guards and make an end of this. Rockets
or no rockets—this is work for good infantry, and of that we have plenty.”

Chapter 3

The
Germans came in force minutes later.
The artillery had kept heads down, and the Marines had taken a few hard blows.
Troyak himself had been knocked off his feet by the concussion of the bombs
when they hit the north end of the warehouse building. He sat up, instinctively
reaching for his assault rifle, and wiping the soot from his eyes, knowing he
had probably lost men there. He could hear calls for the medic and was soon
hastening to the scene, personally carrying one man back to the mortars for
treatment and removing another who had died in the bomb blast.

The
last rounds of 105 mm shells soared overhead and exploded with a roar. Then the
artillery lifted and he again heard the whistles. Now he looked to see that German
infantry was rushing silently from the covered woods near the oil tank farm,
and other sections sprinting across the rail lines to the center island. That
attack looked too weak, he thought. No. They will come at our north flank by
the tank farm, and those last two tanks will probably go that direction as
well. He had two squads and an RPG-7 section there, but the point of the
position was a building defended by a single squad. If the Germans could take
that building then it would give them an anchor to move on the next one, and break
into the rear of his position. They would then have access to the narrow beach
where boat 639 was still waiting, their lifeline back to the
Anatoly
Alexandrov
.

Troyak
could hear the firefight beginning and knew he had to get reinforcements up or
the Germans would eventually get close enough for grenades. He took a five man
section and worked his way north where the position he had set up was a
triangle of three buildings. A rifle squad was at the apex facing the oncoming
Germans. The left base was the RPG section covering the rail yard that had
taken down the German armored cars, the right base was a second rifle squad
covering a coastal road and with clear fields of fire to the water. He could
not lose that vital squad.

He
spoke quickly into his collar mike: “First Platoon—Move through your mortar
section to the north coast and block that road! Second Platoon— displace fifty
meters to your right and cover the rail yards. Get any casualties to the
hovercraft.”

The
Marines moved with expert efficiency. Five man sections firing and moving to
new positions on the run. By the time the Germans reached the rail yard island
the Marines had shifted and were again opening up strong suppressive fire
there. Wellman’s B and C platoons were soon pinned down, but to the north the
German attack was building in strength. Troyak decided to repay the Germans for
that artillery barrage.

“Mortar
teams—fire on the oil tanks. Saturation fires! Now!” His two 82mm tubes
answered the call smartly, dropping a couple ranging rounds and then firing for
effect. Soon the German advance there was being pounded, with mortar rounds
striking the rusty oil tanks, burning residual oil there and sending fragments
of twisted metal shrapnel in all directions. It was enough to stop the two
platoons of Wellman’s recon company that had been leading the attack, and the
Germans fell back. Troyak could see they were waiting for armor support, and he
gave his troops a heads up.

“There’s
still two tanks out there. Be ready!”

The
Russians had taken everything the Germans had thrown at them, and the action on
the inland road was equally hot and furious. There the two PT-76 tanks had
engaged the oncoming half tracks, and dueled with more Panzer IIIs sent forward
by Westhoven before the Russians unleashed a volley of hand held AT rockets to
decide the issue. Their superior range prevented the Panzer IIIs from getting
good shots on the PT-76 tanks, but Westhoven had already seen the problem and
knew what he had to do. The Germans were bringing up two 88s and looking for
good places to site them.

* * *

It
was a question Commissar Molla had a
very difficult time answering. How long can you breathe when I get both hands
around your neck? It was very difficult to speak while you were choking, and
that was what was happening to Molla now as he listened to Orlov’s last
taunting rebuke.

The
big Russian had moved so quickly that the Commissar could not even squeeze the
trigger of his pistol! In an instant Orlov batted the weapon aside with a sweep
of his arm and had a murderous hold on the other man’s neck, forcing him back
on the desk where he had been sitting and tightening his big hands on the man’s
throat. Molla’s pallid cheeks quickly reddened as he strained for breath.

“So
you like to collect young girls, do you? You like blonds? You stupid piece of
shit!
See how you like them in hell!”

Molla
strained to escape the hold but Orlov was just too big, his weight pressing
down on the smaller man, crushing him, choking the life from him. The Commissar
kicked and struggled, and then the icy light in his dark eyes wavered and he
went slack. Orlov held on, sneering at the man, and then released him, spitting
in his lifeless face.

“Svoloch!
I came a thousand miles to do that!
Rot in hell!”

Orlov
was breathing hard, yet elated that he had finally found the man he had come to
kill, and finished the job. Now what? He could hear gunfire, sounds of battle,
artillery rounds falling. Then he heard shouting and the sound of hard booted
feet in the hallway. He had to move—think what to do!

He
lunged for his service jacket where it hung on the nearby coat racket, then
suddenly hesitated. If I take that jacket with me they will be able to track
and find me. He could distinctly hear the sound of AK-74s now, and knew that
Marines must have landed here. But other voices outside were shouting about the
Germans.

In
the barest moment he had to decide—take the jacket and all the power and wealth
the information its computer could bring him, or leave it behind and embrace a
life here, a man of this world, now and forever. He moved quickly around the
desk to the window, forcing it up and looking outside to size up his prospects
for escape.

Marines
had landed! Marines from
Kirov
come to find him. Were they here to
rescue or arrest him for his crime of desertion? Were they here to kill him? Then
he realized that no one would have any knowledge of how he had killed the
helicopter pilot. All he had to do was tell them they had a fire on board and
the radio was dead…tell them the controls froze and the helo was veering off
course. Then the missiles came…