CARRIER 5: MAELSTROM By Keith Douglass

of men in military fatigues waited there. No sooner had the UH-60’s wheels

touched down than a tall, blond man in military fatigues was leaning in the

helo’s open cargo door, extending a hand to Tombstone as he unbuckled his

safety harness and retrieved his briefcase.

“Welcome to Bergen!” the Norwegian officer shouted to be heard above the

whine of the helicopter’s rotors. “It’s very good to see you!”

Tombstone had memorized a table of Norwegian military rank insignia

before leaving the Jefferson. Three stars on white-bordered shoulder slides

made the man a colonel, equivalent to a U.S. Navy captain. “Commander

Magruder, sir!” he shouted back, saluting. “It’s good to be here!”

“Forget the formalities, my friend. This way, please!” Bending low

beneath the slowing rotors, they trotted across the field to the waiting

soldiers who were standing next to several jeeps and an M-113 personnel

carrier parked by a road. Tombstone clambered into the back of one of the

jeeps, and in moments the entire convoy was heading east, racing up a six-lane

toll road into the hills above the city. The road was almost deserted save

for military traffic, and the tollbooths stood empty and ignored.

It was surprisingly warm and humid, with the mugginess that hangs heavy

in the air before a thunderstorm. Bergen, Tombstone reminded himself, lay

farther north than the southern tip of Greenland, but it possessed a

remarkably mild climate. The hill-blanketing forests were lush and green.

“I’m Colonel Bondevik,” his host said once they were under way. His English

was perfect, carrying only a trace of the musical lilt of the Scandinavian

tongues. “I’m sorry we couldn’t let you fly directly to our headquarters, but

we were concerned that enemy infiltrators might observe the helicopter and

locate our position.”

“Infiltrators?”

“The Spetsnaz.” Bondevik spat the word. “And traitors as well. I fear

the spirit of Vidkun Quisling is not entirely dead in our country.”

The journey into the hills was interrupted only once, ten minutes after

they left Bergen. Receiving a code phrase by radio, the lead jeep in the

convoy pulled off the road and into the shelter of the hardwood forest that

lined that part of the highway. The others followed suit, and waited in the

shadows silently, unmoving, for several moments more.

Then the silence gave way to a growing thunder in the distance. Seconds

later, four jet aircraft boomed out of the east, skimming the hilltops in a

tight-knit diamond formation, so low that Tombstone could see the red stars

painted on wings and tails, and the sun-glint from their canopies.

Sukhoi-27s, Tombstone thought, “Flankers” in the NATO lexicon.

Twin-tailed and arrowhead-flat, they looked like enlarged copies of the

American F/A-18 Hornet, and like the Hornet they were designed as multirole

aircraft, as handy at ground attack as they were in a dogfight. The formation

vanished to the west. Several minutes later, the distant boom and thud of

explosions echoed among the trees, and the Norwegian soldiers with him grew

grimly silent. Bombs were falling in the city they’d just left.

“Have the air attacks been bad?” he asked Bondevik as the convoy began

moving up the highway once again.

“Bad enough,” the Norwegian replied. “Nothing on the scale that you

Americans demonstrated in Iraq a few years ago, but bad enough. We think they

are not so interested in pounding us into rubble as they are in keeping us off

balance. So far the bombing has done nothing but strengthen us.”

Tombstone wasn’t certain he’d understood. “Strengthen?”

“You would be amazed, my friend, how a man can be strengthened by hatred.

Our men fight the bastards with the ferocity of berserks.”

It was raining by the time they reached their destination, a steady,

melancholy drizzle. The headquarters of the Norwegian defense was located in

the woods outside a village called Arna. There was little to see–tents

scattered in small groups beneath the dripping canopy of the forest. Vehicles

were carefully draped with branch-festooned camouflage netting, and the

machine shops, motor pools, and warehouses were hidden in tunnels cut into the

faces of rocky bluffs. Tombstone saw no cook fires, and care was taken not to

run the motors of jeeps or personnel carriers more than was absolutely

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