Calgary Through the Eyes of Writers

This eagle landed on the J I Case building (349-351 10th Ave SW) in 1894. The threshing machine business closed in 1969, the eagle made its way to the Glenbow Museum, and Rodney's Oyster House serves seafood in the old Case premises. (Photo: Calgary Public Library Alison Jackson Collection)

The Calgary Tower has been seized by Russians who may have a nuclear bomb. US Navy Seals swarm the streets of downtown. Helicopters hover around the tower. Sergeant Marc Rakken, of the US Joint Strike Force, has an impossible job: getting a team of civilians and their detonating devices up a 191-metre tower controlled by the enemy and onto the observation deck.

He’d been ordered to cause minimal damage to the tower. Well, tell that to the troops up there, four on the top landing now, dishing out a steady stream of rifle fire punctuated with the occasional smoke and fragmentation grenade. The Russians had already destroyed several landings that the team had strung ropes across.

Another explosion rocked the stairwell, and suddenly three of Rakken’s men tumbled by, having been blown off the stairs. Two had probably been killed by the explosion, but a third had keyed his mike as he fell, screaming at the top of his lungs as he plummeted to his death.

“Sergeant, we can’t go on,” cried one of his grenadiers.

Rakken, his face covered in sweat now, the MOPP gear practically suffocating him even as it protected him, could stand no more. “Sparta Team!” he barked loudly. “Follow me. We’re going in!”

Tom Clancy/David Michaels, Endwar (New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2008)