The Omega Sanction - Andrew Scorah (best way to read ebooks txt) 📗

The Omega Sanction

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE OMEGA SANCTION

 

BY

 

ANDREW SCORAH

 

SO ENERGETIC ARE THESE ACTIONS AND SO STRANGELY DO SUCH POWERFUL DISCHARGES BEHAVE THAT I HAVE OFTEN EXPERIENCED THE FEAR THAT THE ATMOSPHERE MIGHT BE IGNITED ...

Nikola Tesla, inventor

 

MORE: WHAT WOULD YOU DO? CUT A GREAT ROAD THROUGH THE LAW TO GET AFTER THE DEVIL?

ROPER: I’D CUT DOWN EVERY LAW IN ENGLAND TO DO THAT!

MORE: OH? AND WHEN THE LAST LAW WAS DOWN, AND THE DEVIL TURNED ROUND ON YOU—WHERE WOULD YOU HIDE?

Robert Bolt,

A Man for All Seasons

 

HISTORY IS MOVING PRETTY QUICKLY THESE DAYS AND THE HEROES AND VILLAINS KEEP ON CHANGING PARTS.

James Bond in Casino Royale,

written by Ian Fleming

DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AG

 

Jonastal, Thuringia, Germany April 1945

 

Able Company caught primary assault. It was simply Able’s turn, and Charlie would offer suppressive fire and flanking manoeuvres and handle artillery coordination, but it was Able’s turn to go first. Lead the way. Semper fi, all that fine bullshit.

The hillside had turned into a seething hell hole of Dantean proportions. Flames belched oily smoke stinking of pitch and seared pork. Craters and bodies strewed the savaged landscape, which rumbled under a screaming sky.

With their Thompson sub-machine guns pointing the way, Sergeant Manny Decker and privates Dempsey, Genaro, and Cole alongside the 200 men of Able company ploughed up the tree lined-hill towards the Pass. The burnt-egg stench of sulphur hung everywhere.

Battle was weather. They ran through clouds of vapour, dust in the air, through layers of sulphur. There was no sun. Their boots fought for leverage in the soil and shale of the hillside. The thunder pounded, except that it was gunfire. The slope was alive with rounds striking, and it looked like small animals peeping about.

Angry, white-hot bolts of illumination cut through the mist and smoke.

Germans let loose with mortar fire, scattering the company. Decker and the men alongside him found themselves separated from everyone else.

The defenders were dug into the cliffs above. Machine guns and 20 mms’ bristled from bunkers, which over watched the mouth of the gorge leading to the Jonastal Pass. This redoubt was the last line of defence to the Jonas Valley Industrial complex. A last ditch attempt to prevent the Americans and Russians from getting their hands on German technology along the ever-shortening road to Berlin.

Information had been received about a vast underground complex in the Jonas valley area, so their unit, part of 30 Advanced, being the closest had been attached to the two US company’s and had been dispatched to take the valley, not expecting it to be as heavily defended as it was. When they arrived at the nearby POW camp at Ohrduf it had been abandoned, and so they expected the same when they moved on the valley.

Decker felt the fierce whisper of displaced air to the left and right of him as he made his way towards a fallen tree.

Scrambling to the earth, he reached the tree seconds in front of his comrades. They took advantage of the few moments of safety to catch their breath, and still their beating hearts. Cole crossed himself, and looked up to the sky as he was trying to become part of the fallen trunk. His nineteen year old face ashen beneath the dirt smudges.

“This is fucked up,” Dempsey gasped, his slender fingers gripping onto his weapon.

“Yeah, one company to take out those bunkers,” Genaro kissed the twin dice which hung from a chain around his neck.

“We’re here to soften ‘em up for the tank boys,” Decker pulled out the Thompson’s magazine, and replaced it with a full mag.

They all heard the rat a tat tat sound of machine guns from the bunkers and felt the thuds as bullets splintered the trunk above them. Next, came the whump crum of mortar fire. Shells exploded all around, showering soil down on them like a heavy summer rain.

Decker poked his head above the trunk. He was rewarded with another hail of machine gun fire, the rounds slammed into the trunk making it shudder with the sudden violence.

“They got us pinned good,” he said. “but we are only a couple hundred yards away from the first bunker. If you boys lay down some covering fire, I think I can get close enough to lob a grenade in.”

Before any of them could answer, they felt the ground rumble, the sound of a heavy diesel engine, and the crack of timber. Looking behind them, all four were horrified to see the approach through the trees of a Königstiger, the most feared tank in the German arsenal. Cole’s face was ashen, Genaro sat with his eyes wide, mumbling the 23rd psalm under his breath. Dempsey tried to scramble backwards but prevented from doing so by the trunk. His chin trembling, Decker thought he heard him call for his mother under his breath.

Fear pinned them to the spot. The 56 ton monster rocked to a stop ten yards away.

Decker regained his senses. Grabbing Genaro, he was about to scramble away when the 88mm barrel angled up towards the bunker.

“What the fuck!” Cole stared open-mouthed.

They all hit the deck, as the high velocity round exploded from the muzzle.

Decker, despite covering his ears felt as though he was underwater. The change in air pressure muffled all sound. Another shell exploded from the tanks muzzle. The world rocked around them.

Decker and his men climbed to their feet, he risked a look at the bunker; it was now a jumble of smoking rubble. With one eye on the ruined bunker they walked over to the tank.

A head popped up out of the turret.

“Thought you Tommys may need a hand.”

The grinning face of Tony ‘Duke’ Parsons looked down at them.

“Where the fuck you get this from?” Genaro slammed a hand against the tanks track.

“Ask me no questions.” A shit eating grin split his face as he tried to pull off an innocent choir boy look.

Duke was one of those types of guys every unit seemed to have in its ranks. You wanted something, they could locate it.

“Carry on men, gotta go help the others.”

He banged on the turret, “Waggon’s Roll!”

A thick cloud of blue smoke swept over the bushes and trees at the rear of the Tiger. With a rumble of rusting tracks, the tank set off again towards other bunker positions.

Decker rubbed the back of his neck as he watched the tank crash through the trees.

“C’mon boys, up the hill.”

They vaulted over the trunk, and proceeded towards the now silent bunker. The sounds of battle had died down further along the line. Decker gave up a silent prayer for this brief respite.

After checking the wrecked bunker for any signs of life they moved off to regroup with the rest of Able Company. Duke and his tank had helped even up the odds. Within the space of an hour, Able Company had cleared out the rest of the bunker positions. They entered the pass and found evidence of a hasty retreat. The Germans had not bothered to take valuable equipment with them. They found the same when they arrived at the Industrial Complex. None of them could figure out why the Germans had defended it with such vigour only to leave in such haste.

As the sun sank below the valley, Decker, Cole, Dempsey and Genaro were taking a well-earned break at the newly established forward operating base. The top brass had taken over a collection of offices with some work sheds turned into billets. A message from company command told them to hold the valley until further notice.

Outside, dispatch riders came and went, slithering wildly through viscous mud. The sounds of shouted orders drifted on the night air. For now, the percussive sounds of war was a far off drum beat fading in and out on the night air.

As a veteran of many campaigns, Decker did what all veterans did; he got his head down. You never knew when another chance to sleep would come so you took it when you could. Genaro, Dempsey, and Cole had hooked up with three other guys from Charlie Company and started a card game.

“I’ve heard of you boys,” one of the Charlie company men said as he studied his cards.

“Yeah, you’re supposed to be ghosts, 30 Advanced Unit, you never see ‘em but you know they’ve been there,” another added.

“And we can take your money before you know it’s gone,” Genaro slapped down another winning hand bringing forth another round of groans from the other players.

“I couldn’t do what you boys do, you must have some big cajones,” the third man, a dark skinned individual, said as he took the cards Dempsey dealt out.

“Hey, Decker?”

Cole leaned away from the map table and looked at the slumbering seargent.

Decker sighed. Opened his eyes and peered at Cole, “What?”

“I always wondered why we’re called 30 Advanced Unit when there’s no 29, 28 or any other units before us?”

“It’s the number of Commander Fleming’s secretary’s office at Admiralty, they couldn’t think of what to designate us so some wag came up with that number and it stuck,” Decker said before closing his eyes.

Decker thought back to his first meeting with Fleming, He had been lying prone after a Red Cap had struck him with a Billy club after answering back. The stockade had been his home for a year.. The charge was desertion and failing to obey the orders of an officer, as well as striking said officer. He had been in France as part of the fall back to Dunkirk. His unit had all but been wiped out. Decker, alongside five other survivors had trekked for several days, most spent in running battles with German patrols. He had started out with ten men, five were killed before they came upon a unit of Seaforth Islanders mounting an ambush in an attempt and slow down the enemy. The commanding officer, an upper class twit with a plumb in his mouth, had ordered Decker and his men to stay. He refused, told the man he had his own orders, and as far as he was concerned the orders of a dyeing man trumped his. The officer did not take kindly to that or the head butt Decker laid on him when the man pulled his pistol on him.

Fleming had held out his hand to help him up. Told him he was putting together a unit to undertake covert infiltrations into enemy territory by land, sea or air, in order capture much needed intelligence, in the form of codes, documents, equipment or enemy personnel. He would shit, piss, and fornicate with his new unit, did he want some of that. Decker did, and so here he was.

His thoughts returned to the present, and listening to the card game.

“I heard there’s a lot of Nazi gold hidden in this valley,” Cole said.

“Oh yeah, where’d you hear that?” Genaro laid down his cards and whooped as he took some more pay from the mooks he was scamming.

“Oh man, that’s me out,” Cole threw down his cards his lips curled back in disgust. “Heard some of the brass talking earlier.”

“You hear too much. Cole, sometimes it’s best to keep your mouth shut,” Decker said, his eyes still shut.

Before Cole could protest, their company commander, Captain Hardesty strode in.

“On yer feet men, I need you for a mission.”

They all jumped to attention. Decker felt a rush of adrenaline, but also a little disappointment at the interruption to his shut-eye.

“Grab your weapons, and follow me.”

Hardesty went outside to wait for them.

Decker grabbed his Thompson, and helmet. The others scrambled for their weapons before following Decker and Hardesty outside.

He pulled out a cigarillo from the battered pack in his top pocket, and struck a match on the wall of the building nearby. Applying it to the cigarillo, he watched Hardesty conferring with two infantrymen. Decker noticed a man in the uniform