Dark Full of Enemies(68)

Down the passageway he heard Graves answer, “Five minutes.”

“Hurry up, they found us.”

He dropped the tin of thermite by the door, shouted “Seal this one and come up!” and climbed.

He found Stallings at the top squatting behind the door, peeking out through a crack.

“What’s going on?”

“They’re shooting—at Petersen.”

McKay grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled open the door. “Come on.”

He stepped outside and two guards ran past from the dam. McKay cocked and raised his Thompson and squeezed the trigger. He caught the guards in the back and they fell.

“Shit!” A voice in German, behind him.

He turned and shot another guard, tangled in the strap of his own rifle as he tried to bring it up. A fourth guard saw and stopped, fell backwards trying to turn. McKay squeezed his left eye shut and aimed, but before he fired the man’s helmet bent and rang and his head snapped to the side. He straightened and slumped, one foot twitching. Ollila.

McKay lowered the Thompson and looked up the dam. At the far end he could see men running, milling back and forth. They would come across the dam in force, soon. He looked at the barracks. The Germans seemed to run in circles, occasionally firing into the darkness or between the buildings.

“Grove—” he said, and something clapped the air beside his head.

McKay dropped and behind him. The guards from the dock, below the dam, had topped the stairs and opened fire. McKay sprayed the rest of his magazine at them and reloaded. He looked at Stallings, who lay beside him in the snow.

“Grove—grenade!”

Stallings blinked. McKay swore, pushed himself up to a crouch, and fired at the guards, who scuttled for cover against the cliff. One popped back up and raised his submachine gun and McKay fired again. The rock shattered in his face and the man covered his eyes. McKay shot him. The other appeared, already firing. McKay felt rather than heard his bullets snap past him and smash into concrete and snow. McKay raised his Thompson and squeezed the trigger and the bolt shot forward and stuck—jammed.

“Shit.”

The German stopped firing and leapt up another three or four steps, then bore down on McKay again. McKay let go of his Thompson and let it swing down and around him and drew his Browning. He dropped to one knee as the German fired again, and jammed. McKay aimed and fired off five, six, seven shots and the German, goggle-eyed, startled to have been shot, dropped his gun and fell away. McKay heard him clattering down the stairs as he lifted his Thompson again, cleared the cartridge crumpled in the breach, and changed magazines.

He looked at Stallings.

“Grove.”

Stallings stared at him. His lip trembled.

“Grove, dammit.”

“Yeah.”

“I coulda used you just now.”

Stallings stared at him.

McKay looked at the barracks. He spotted Petersen ducking behind one of them, changing magazines. Ollila’s rifle echoed twice, three times in the rock-walled fjord. He looked at the brightly lit barracks again, at the cables looping down from the pole near the latrine. He shook Stallings.

“I need you, Grove. I need you to cover me.”

Stallings nodded.

“Get up. Throw a grenade at those Krauts up there, then open fire with your Thompson.” He thumped Stallings on the back, hard. “Do it.”

And he leapt and ran.

He ran past the barracks and heard the Germans shout. He slid to a stop behind the building nearest the dam and looked at the terminal where the power line stopped and fed electricity to the barracks. He heard shouts and footsteps. He drew his ka-bar again, gritted his teeth, and jumped. In the barracks lane, Stallings’s grenade exploded. McKay slashed at the cables. He heard shouts and the blade caught. Sparks fell like motes in a sunbeam and the knife torqued from his hand. he lost his balance and fell to the snow. Every light on that side of the dam went black.

He raised himself and edged into the cover at the back of the building. He looked around but could see almost nothing. He listened and could hear only the Germans shouting, moaning, an officer directing the men. Ollila’s rifle cracked. The officer swore.

McKay stood and did not bother looking for his knife in the snow. He looked for Stallings and spotted him huddled against the concrete stairwell, reloading. Good man. All he had needed was a yell. He waved and Stallings spotted him. McKay signaled to stay put. Stallings nodded and watched the barracks and the dam.

McKay wondered what had become of Petersen, how much longer Graves would take. He listened to the Germans again. How had the Colonel put it back in London? He would make as much trouble as he could.

He put his Thompson to his shoulder and prepared to sweep the alleys. He heard the music stop.





Graves pressed home the last of his blasting caps and stood. He cracked his head on the ceiling, swore, and knelt again. But he had no time to nurse his skull, still less the ropeburns on his palms, which had started by stinging and aching and now bled freely in the cold. He shook his head and gave his work one last inspection—he had spread his first blocks of explosive in a tight grid across the left, outer wall of the gallery, roughly three feet by three feet. The rest he had simply stacked on the originals and taped together. And he had taken no chances on setting the stuff off—he hooked three timers to the lot and set them for thirty second intervals forty-five minutes distant. Now from the wall hung a great blocky barnacle of plastic, tape, and wire. Graves felt proud of this work. He had one last job to do, a snare to lay.