Invasion: Alaska Read Free Page B

platform, with its bright lights shining in the night. The Americans had built it several years ago. According to the briefing, it had taken a special act of Congress and fierce debates among the environmentalists of the country. The Americans needed oil, and they were breaking long-held taboos to acquire it wherever they could. This new platform was supposed to be the first of many in the Californian coastal region.
    Ru took out his binoculars, which could switch to infrared scan. A dark chopper swooped around the platform, and he spotted a patrol boat. The Americans took security seriously. The oil companies used reliable Blacksand mercenaries for the job.
    First signaling to the others, Ru submerged once more. It was a long swim. He heard the motor first as a tiny sound. The sound grew as he neared the giant oilrig. According to his briefing, the patrol boats carried armed mercenaries and heavy machine guns. The patrol boats were equipped with APS radar. Normally it was used as a fish-finder, but for a short distance, it could detect swimmers.
    Ru headed down into the darkness, down, down, down. Flicking on a heel-light, Ru looked back. Other heel-lights appeared, three of them. With a nod, Ru resumed his dive. The temperature became steadily colder. Even after years of training, this was an uneasy experience, the knowledge that hired killers patrolled above, seeking to find and destroy him.
    Ru and the others carried high explosives, and they each had a TOZ-2 underwater pistol. It was similar in design to the SPP-1 pistol developed in the old USSR. Ordinary-shaped bullets were inaccurate underwater and extremely short-ranged. Therefore, their pistols fired a round-based 4.5mm steel dart 115mm long. Each dart weighted 12.8 grams, and each dart had a longer range and greater penetrating power than a speargun’s spear.
    The TOZ-2 had four barrels, each holding one cartridge. None of the barrels was rifled. Each dart was kept in line by hydrodynamic effects. It meant that the TOZ-2 was inaccurate when fired out of the water. Ru had practiced with the pistol. All of them had. The deeper one dove, the less range their pistols had. The effective range out of water was fifty to sixty-six feet. In water twenty feet deep, a steel dart could kill at one hundred and thirty feet. In water fifty-six feet deep, the steel dart’s range shrank to sixteen feet.
    By using his compass and rangefinder, Ru unerringly reached the oilrig. He switched on a lamp and used the light to scan the darkness. A wahoo darted before him, a scombrid fish like mackerel or tuna. Fish densities around an oil or gas platform were twenty to fifty times higher than the open water. It told Ru he was near. Then a great stanchion appeared. Although the oilrig was new, the stanchion was already encrusted with sea-growth.
    Using a depth-gauge, Ru adjusted his range and used his combat knife to scrap and pry away marine-growth from the metal stanchion. Each time the blade touched, he heard a click and a scraping sound. Once he had a big enough area, Ru slipped the CHKR-57 from his chest and secured it to the stanchion. Once finished, he set the timer.
    They did this four times, the others securing their explosives to different stanchions.
    Ru grinned. Even Kwan managed a soft smile. Then they swam away, keeping at this deep level but heading for the rendezvous point. It was easier swimming without the explosives. Now Ru merely had to find the T-9s and then the submarine. Afterward, he would be on his way home to Shanghai and Lu May.
    The sound of the American patrol boat dwindled. When all he could hear was the sound of his breathing, Ru slowly surfaced. He used his compass and rangefinder, and in time, he turned on the directional device. He waited, watching. There, a pulse from the T-9’s emitter showed on his tiny screen. With joy in his heart, Ru swam near the surface all the way there.
    Soon, the four Commandos unclamped the T-9s, climbed onto the saddle-seats