Dragons Of Englor rb-24 Read online

  Before the chorus died away, Blade’s mind leaped ahead, to realize where the neat shells would land-if the destroyer’s gunners kept to their pattern. Being Russlanders, it was better than even odds-they would. The price of guessing wrong would be death for Blade and the courier, but at least it would be a quick death.

  Blade tossed the raft over the tree and grabbed the courier by the collar. Half heaving, half pushing, he pulled the man to his feet and sent him sailing over the tree, to land on top of the raft. The whistle of incoming shells sounded in Blade’s ears as he made his own leap. Their explosion caught him in midair. Somehow he managed to hit the ground in the shelter of the tree before the air was filled with enough flying steel to have torn him to shreds. Somehow he also managed to land holding the muzzle of the submachine gun up out of the sand. Beside him the courier lay full-length, as silent and nearly as stiff as a corpse. Blade kept his head down, too dizzy from the concussion to be able to rejoice that he’d guessed right.

  There was silence for a moment, then more shells whistled in. Explosions crashed again, and Blade had to roll clear as the tree bounced several feet toward him. If he hadn’t moved, it would have landed across his legs. He lay there, his hearing slowly returning, aware that blood was running from his nose, aware also that he was waiting for a particular sound. He knew it almost had to come.

  It came. From the forest where trees now lay tossed and tumbled in mad heaps came a thin chorus of screams. The Russland gunners had carried their pattern too far, landing a full salvo squarely on top of their own infantry patrol. Blade looked over the tree, which was now well chewed on both sides by shell fragments. He could see a number of khaki-clad figures sitting or sprawling among the fallen trees. Someone staggered to his feet, raised a submachine gun, and let off a stream of tracer into the sky. He wasn’t shooting anywhere near Blade. Apparently he was trying to signal the destroyer. Blade raised his own weapon and squeezed off a five-round burst. The Russlander fell back out of sight, his gun falling with him. It went on spraying tracer until the magazine ran empty, then fell silent. Once again the only sound Blade could hear was the moaning of the maimed and dying.

  Beside Blade, the courier staggered to his feet. The sight of the smashed forest and the dying Russlanders seemed to restore both his wits and his courage. He turned to Blade and grinned savagely. «Nice shooting, for us, yes?»

  Blade nodded, sprang over the log, and motioned the other man to follow him. They had to close in now and finish off any surviving Russlanders. Then they would have to get inland, away from the destroyer’s guns and from the landing party that would almost certainly come ashore the moment the captain realized what had happened.

  The courier was just sliding down to squat beside Blade when a machine gun went tak-tak-tak off to the right and bullets went wheeeet past Blade’s ear. He dove for the ground, the courier only seconds behind him. Blade saw the courier spin around, drop to his knees, then collapse, blood flowing from chest, shoulder, and right arm.

  Without raising his head, Blade pulled out his first-aid kit, then crawled over to the courier. The man had half a dozen bullets in him, and he was going to die without much better care than he could get aboard the submarine. That was obvious at a glance. Blade still worked furiously, disinfecting and injecting and bandaging. If the man would just live long enough to tell how he had been betrayed to the Russlanders-The machine gun fired again. Apparently the gunners could no longer see the two men lying on the ground and were firing at random to pin them down. Then the destroyer could range in on them, and this time there would be no mistakes with the target. Blade soberly wondered if either he or the courier had much chance of living more than another ten minutes.

  Again a burst from the machine gun. This one went on so long that Blade guessed they would now have to change belts. He risked raising his head enough to look out to sea. Then he stared in surprise and mounting delight.

  The destroyer had come about and was heading away to the south, down the channel. White water at bow and stern showed that she was already doing twenty knots and working rapidly toward full speed. A big searchlight forward was sweeping the sea in a great arc. Something sudden and compelling was drawing the destroyer away from the victims waiting for her on land. Blade didn’t know what this could be, but he didn’t have to. What he did know was that for the moment all he faced were the machine gun, its crew, and perhaps a handful of other Russlanders in shape to fight. Dispose of them-and quickly, because the destroyer’s captain might turn back or a helicopter arrive with reinforcements. Then inflate the raft, get the courier into it, paddle out into the channel, signal to theA sheet of yellow flame tore upward from the destroyer’s stern. On top of the flame rode a crown of flying pieces of the ship-depth charges, steel plates, boats, men, the whole after turret with its jutting guns and radar gear. At the base of the flame the sea rose in a dark wall topped and laced with foam. Then the thunder of the explosion came rolling across the water. Blade thought he’d become used to explosions by now, but this one swelled and swelled, until he had to open his mouth and clap his hands over his ears. The ground under him vibrated, and several weakened trees cracked and toppled over.

  As the flying pieces started splashing back into the sea, Blade saw the machine gun clearly. The two gunners had both risen to their feet and were staring open-mouthed out to sea, blind to everything except the dying ship. They paid no attention to Blade as he pulled a grenade from his belt, jerked the pin, and threw it. The men still had their mouths open when the grenade landed between them, so they died that way.

  Two more Russlanders sprang up from cover as the blast of the grenade died away, but Blade was ready for them, his finger on the trigger. A quick burst and the two men went down. Blade waited another minute, looking for anyone still able and willing to make a move against him. At last he was satisfied there was no one left.

  As he turned back toward the sea the wave from the explosion struck the shore, a six-foot wall of green water and foam. It rolled up the beach, scouring away the craters from the shells, reaching high enough to catch several fallen trees and pull them out to sea as it drew back.

  Blade looked down at the courier. The man was still breathing, but deeply unconscious. Probably just as well, considering his wounds. Blade picked up the raft and survival pack and carried them down to the water’s edge. Returning, he picked the courier up in his arms and carried him down to the shore. The man weighed over a hundred and sixty pounds, but to Blade’s muscles and adrenalin-charged system he seemed light.

  Blade unpacked the raft and jerked the inflation tab. The C02 cartridge went off with a wsssssh and the five-foot doughnut of dark rubber rapidly filled and firmed out. Blade laid the courier in it, making him as comfortable as possible. Then he pushed the raft through the shallows until it was well afloat, sprang in, and unfolded the paddles.

  The raft moved slowly and sluggishly with the extra weight aboard, and it had only a few inches of freeboard. But it showed no sign of being unstable, and that was enough for Blade. The raft didn’t have to take him and the courier back to Englor. It just had to keep them afloat long enough to be picked up by the submarine.

  Five hundred yards offshore Blade looked toward where the destroyer had been. At first glance she seemed to have vanished completely. Then Blade saw a long, low, rounded shape in the water, moving gently to the swell. The light from a patch of burning oil a few hundred yards away showed red paint on it, and a few tiny dots perched along it. The destroyer’s stern was gone, blown to bits. The bow was still floating, capsized, and with a few of the crew clinging to it.

  A thousand yards farther out, Blade shipped the paddles and began laying out three hand grenades. Three grenades exploding at one-minute intervals was the agreed-upon signal for the submarine to surface and make pickup.

  Blade had the first grenade in his hand, ready to pull the pin, when a long, thin metal tube slowly crept out of the sea two hundred yards away. A faint wake trailed away behi
nd it. Then the wake died, the tube rose higher out of the sea, and the rest of the submarine followed the periscope. Foam swirled away from the stern as the officers on the bridge maneuvered their ship toward Blade.

  A line darted across the water from the three sailors standing on the deck. Blade caught it and pulled the raft in hard against the gleaming black steel of the submarine’s hull. The sailors moved cautiously down the hull toward the water until they were practically hanging on their safety lines. Blade sprang up lightly from the raft onto the hull, and all four men joined together in heaving up the raft.

  Blade let his breath out with a long sigh of relief, saw that the three sailors were gently lifting the courier, and headed for the bridge ladder. There was one more thing to be done before he would be satisfied with the night’s work. As he scrambled up onto the bridge, he saw the submarine’s captain leaning against the railing, binoculars around his neck.

  «Welcome back, Mr. Blade,» said the captain.

  «Thank you, sir,» said Blade. «Now, if you can manage it, I think we’d do well to pick up a prisoner or two from that destroyer.»

  The captain shook his head. «I’m sorry, Mr. Blade. It might be useful, but it would also be dangerous. We can’t afford to stay around here much longer, and certainly not on the surface.»

  «But-«

  «No, I’m sorry. We were able to get rid of that destroyer only by using-by using something we didn’t expect to have succeed so well. I’m not going to risk my ship any further, now that we’ve got you aboard.» He smiled politely but turned away with a finality that suggested he would not be polite if Blade pushed the matter any further.

  Blade shrugged. Both he and the captain were right, in different ways. The captain was right in not wanting to endanger his ship any further. On the other hand, a prisoner or two from the destroyer might tell Englor much, possibly even something about their ship’s mission.

  But aboard his own ship there was no arguing with the captain. There was nothing to do but accept his decision and hope the courier lived to talk.

  The diving alarm hooted. Blade stepped aside to let the lookouts and the officer of the watch plunge down the hatch, then followed them.

  Chapter 9

  The captain might have been reluctant to risk his ship to pick up prisoners, but nothing else seemed to bother him. He took the submarine north and snaked her through a narrow and little-used channel just north of Tagarsson Island. Clear of coastal waters and Russland patrols, he ordered flank speed, and the submarine raced out across the Nord Sea. The turbines whined, the decks vibrated, and things not fastened down crept across tables and decks.

  The mad rush took them across the Nord Sea in fourteen hours, but that wasn’t fast enough for the courier. He regained consciousness once, long enough to know where he was and to hear Blade tell him of the destroyer’s sinking. That made him smile in deep satisfaction-three hundred or more Russland sailors gone in return for his wife. It wasn’t enough to save him. An hour later he lapsed into unconsciousness again.

  The submarine pushed on, eventually surfacing five miles off Whitby. Then a helicopter was called, and the courier and Blade were loaded aboard it and flown to a hospital.

  The courier was dead when they took him from the helicopter.

  R wasted no time. He arrived to debrief Blade only three hours after the courier’s death. Blade found himself whisked off to a «secure» room and kept there for the next twelve hours. Blade kept going-he was determined not to let a man so much older than he was outlast him. Besides, he was used to such exhausting debriefings. J’s fondness for Blade had never let him be easy on the younger man in professional matters. R was a man cast in the same mold.

  After Blade had finished telling every detail of his mission at least five times, R called an end to the debriefing and ordered in a meal. Blade went through the steak-and-kidney pie, grilled mutton chop, Brussels sprouts, and gooseberry tart with cream as if he were eating his last meal. Then he poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned back in his chair, full, content, relaxed, and quite ready for anything else that R might throw at him.

  R pulled out cigars, offered Blade one, then lit one for himself. After a few puffs he fixed Blade appraisingly with his one eye.

  «I was under the impression we’d handed you a fairly straightforward mission, Mr. Blade.» He seemed to be expecting a reply.

  Blade nodded. «I was under that impression too.» He matched R stare for stare. «I don’t think I can be held responsible for the complications, though.» His omitting «Sir» was deliberate. It was high time to learn a few things from R. Not what Special Operations already knew about Richard Blade-that would always be out of reach. But he might learn something about what they were planning on doing with Richard Blade in the future.

  «Not for the complications that actually took place, perhaps,» said R. «But what about your bringing out the courier? What about your request that the submarine try to pickup survivors from the destroyer?»

  They’d been over these points before. Blade knew that, and he also knew that R knew it. Presumably R had some particular purpose in pushing the matter. That didn’t make it any less annoying, and Blade didn’t see any reason to go on concealing his annoyance. He didn’t have to give the impression that he would tolerate being treated like a child. So when he spoke, his voice was clipped and as chilly as liquid oxygen.

  «We’ve been over that several times, sir.. I doubt if there’s any profit or purpose in doing it again. The courier stated in plain English that the network in Nordsbergen had been blown. It seemed likely that he might be able to give useful information on how this had happened.»

  «Why not interrogate him yourself?»

  Blade realized that R was asking the question in perfect seriousness. «As it happened, it was impossible. We had too many-ah, unexpected visitors, of one sort or another.» The phrase drew a thin smile from R. «Even if we hadn’t been busy fighting, I would have preferred to bring him out. It would have been better to have him interrogated by someone who knew more than I did about the background of Imperial intelligence operations in Nordsbergen.»

  «Such as myself?» said R.

  Blade nodded. «In any case, the courier was hit. I could have tried to take a prisoner from among the Russland wounded, but I don’t think any of them were in much better shape than the courier. That would have also meant leaving the courier behind. I wouldn’t do that.»

  «And the destroyer’s survivors?»

  «The average deckhand probably wouldn’t know why his ship was where it was. But an officer who knew something more might have survived. It seemed worth investigating.»

  «Not to the submarine captain, though.»

  «No, not to him. I’m not sure either of us was really in the right or in the wrong. We had different missions, and so we thought along different lines.»

  «You think the submarine had something to do other than deliver you and pick you up?»

  There was nothing in R’s voice to give a clue to anyone less perceptive than Richard Blade. To Blade, R’s polite question blazed like a signal flare, lighting up things that had been in the dark until now.

  No, not quite in the dark. For at least six hours out of the past twelve, Blade’s intuition had been raising a pointed question. Had his mission been a real one, or-something else? Blade decided that it was time to trust his intuition and put that question to R.

  «Yes. I think the submarine’s mission was the real one, and I was being sent ashore as part of a diversionary operation. I rather imagine that what the courier died bringing out was a fake, while the real material came out by some other route.» Blade kept his voice neutral. He was too experienced an intelligence professional to get indignant over this sort of deception, although he’d never liked it and never would.

  «What was the submarine’s mission, in that case?»

  «I imagine it had something to do with the device they tested successfully against the destroyer. From what I saw, I supp
ose it was a high-speed decoy that would match the acoustic and sonar profile of the submarine. They launched it, waited until the destroyer dashed off after it, then fired a high-speed acoustic torpedo straight up its stern.»

  There was a long silence in the room while R stubbed out his cigar and lit another one. Then he smiled. «The Imperial Navy wouldn’t be at all happy to learn how easily you guessed what they were doing.»

  «And you?»

  «I’m entirely happy with practically everything you’ve done or said. You acquitted yourself extremely well. Agents with ten years’ experience have done much less well in the face of considerably weaker odds. You’ve obviously got a great natural aptitude for this sort of work.»

  «Thank you, sir.»

  «Don’t thank me for my good opinion of you until you’ve seen what it will lead to. You’ll be assigned as an Independent Operations Specialist. That means one lonely assignment after another, usually deep in enemy territory. You’ll go out on those assignments, one after another, until you start losing your edge or the Red Flames kill you. You won’t be finding much pleasure in life.»

  «I didn’t expect that I was being invited to a year-long party,» said Blade with an edge in his voice. «I expected a great deal of dangerous work, and perhaps a short life. I also expected that it would be of some service to the Empire.»

  «My apologies,» said R, and he seemed to be speaking sincerely. He reached into another drawer of his desk and pulled out a decanter of whiskey, a soda-water syphon, and two glasses. «I’ve said it before, Captain Blade, but I think I can properly say it again. Welcome to Special Operations.»

  «Thank you, sir,» said Blade. «Captain?»

  «You need military rank, otherwise you’ll be neither fish nor flesh nor fowl to the more orthodox military types. Captain isn’t really high enough, but it’s as high as I can get approved for somebody of your rather modest seniority.