by David Poyer
“Actually, she’s here right now, Admiral.”
“Hello, Nick,” Blair said.
“Blair, hello. Look, I’ll make this fast. Tell me why you were on that helo.”
“Sir, we were extricating after the operation. Savo lost power and comms, but I had the rest of the strike force to think about too. I was shifting my flag to Hampton Roads.”
“Okay, that’s what I figured. And got shot down en route?”
“Correct, sir. Not exactly sure by what. Maybe a—”
“All right, well, we’re taking heat over your actions. It was OBE since you were MIA, but now you’re back, so are the accusations. I’ll try to defend you, but I can’t tell yet how it’ll turn out.”
“I understand, sir. Appreciate the backup.”
“Meanwhile, get well. Blair, my best.”
“Thanks, Nick.”
The rattle-click of a disconnect.
“Shit,” Dan muttered. He’d fought the strike group in to the target, accomplished every objective. Now they were hanging him out to dry, because one congresswoman with an ax to grind had it in for him?
It didn’t leave him in the mood at all.
But after a little while, with the chair jammed against the door again, Blair was able to change his mind.
II
FARTHER THAN THAT I CANNOT GO
7
Xinjiang
HALF an hour before dawn, Teddy Oberg lay prone on a western-facing step below a ridge. His shadow stretched before him like a dark Other lying dead on the bare rock. Below and around other shadows crept ever forward. Toward a strip of empty pavement bowled in a greening valley, between plunging walls of gray mountain too barren and steep for even brush to gain a foothold.
Two months had passed since their first weapons drop. Occupied, mainly, in recruiting and drilling young men (and some not so young) who’d sidled up to Nasrullah’s contacts in the hamlets and compounds that dotted the valleys. From Yengisar to Yitimukongcun they streamed, drawn by murmurs in the bazaar and tape-recorded sermons, martial songs and exhortations to resistance.
And the timeless beckoning of battle.
“Vladimir” had left after a week, leaving Teddy to run the buildup. They’d checked in from time to time on the Jetwire, and twice supply drops had fallen like silent snow from the night sky. The last had nearly been intercepted by a Chinese patrol, but the drop party had starbursted on contact, as trained. And, as trained, the three rebels security had surrounded had shot themselves before they could be captured and interrogated. He’d established other complexes, built and building, tunneled into the stark mountains west of Poskam, the nearest thing to a city that existed in these isolated reaches of the new People’s Empire.
It had taken four days to travel a hundred kilometers, moving by night and sleeping by day. With the lead platoon fifty meters up and the rest in column, they’d crossed three mountain ranges by passes and gorges only the locals knew. Negotiated precipitous ravines floored by rushing streams so deep with snowmelt they’d lost two bearers by drowning. Toiled up nearly vertical rock walls via goat trails that had probably been ancient in Alexander’s time. Two hundred picked men, in four squads.
He’d organized them SEAL-fashion, into forty-man platoons. Each platoon commander directed four squads. Each squad was divided into two five-man fire teams. He had no headquarters or targeting elements yet. Nasrullah ran the logistics, mainly donkeys and women. The bearers, Han and Manchu slavewomen, proved surefooted on rugged terrain with heavy burdens. Teddy had built his fire teams around light machine guns and designated RPG crewmen, in case the Han brought in light armor. His main remaining worry was enemy air, but the Agency had refused to provide man-portable missiles despite repeated requests.
Still, in this terrain, he didn’t think they’d run too much of a risk during the approach phase.
That would change in a few minutes. They’d moved the last miles to contact by bounding overwatch, with one platoon covering the next from a firing position while the other moved forward, then exchanging roles. Now, using the hand signals he’d taught them, he signaled the right-hand platoon out to cut the road. The left-hand one was already in place, dressed in stolen police uniforms. He himself wore shalwar kameez: baggy trousers and a long, loose shirt, topped off with a pakul hat and a heavy, wide-sleeved wool coat.
He checked his watch again. Just about now, two fire teams would be assaulting the security station nearest the border. Any quick-reaction team would be vectored south.
The real target lay below, emerging into sight as he trotted downhill. His bad leg jolted with pain, but still supported him thanks to the brace. He carried his rifle, a bag of grenades, and a Makarov, tucked into his belt, in case he was captured.
The Chinese had already tortured him once. He didn’t intend to give them another chance.
A crackle of distant small-arms fire, barely audible over the wind. Below, against a patchwork of green, the road switchbacked upward. Four hard-surfaced lanes. They’d overwatched it for a day. He was tempted to hit a convoy, but decided to stick to the plan.
The road wasn’t the mission. His targets ran alongside it, a few yards uphill. A white-insulated pipeline, four feet in diameter, elevated six feet above ground on steel girders concreted into footings. Above that, still farther uphill, rose the trussed green pylons of a high-tension line.
The walkie-talkie crackled. Relayed up the valley from boys crouched behind boulders. “Yo’l yopiq.” The road was closed. Four minutes later came the same word from the other direction. Teddy clicked acknowledgment, then switched to Guldulla’s channel. “Tokarev? Lingxiù here.”
“I would know your voice in Sheol, my friend.”
“And I yours. Stand by … execute.”
His demolition team broke cover a hundred meters from the road and sprinted across, bent double under their loads. Sinking to perch on a flat rock, Teddy focused his binoculars on them, noticing particularly Alimyan, the fat muj who’d braced him at the feast. He seemed brave enough. He’d volunteered for demolition training. But a doubter. Maybe, a troublemaker.
Two fire teams splayed out, setting in RPKs to cover the demo guys. He’d have preferred to set the charges himself, but didn’t trust himself to manage a long run uphill to escape. But he’d calculated the placement and wrapped the C-4 himself. All they had to do was duct-tape them to the pipe and the support pylons, press in the primers, and hit the timers. Guldulla crouched holding an RPG at his shoulder, aiming alternately up the road and down.
Teddy examined each end of the highway where it bent out of sight around hairpins. Still empty. Drilling again and again, he’d squeezed emplacement and withdrawal down to eight minutes.
He checked his watch again. Seven gone already.
Then all they had to do was evade and escape an alerted enemy with overwhelming numbers and total mastery of the air.
He tried for patience, but two minutes later finally had to click the little radio on again. “Tokarev, Lingxiù. What’s the fucking holdup down there?”
“A problem … the electrical thing is done. Just holding off on setting the timer. The problem is the pipeline. The covering is wet. The tape does not stick.”
“Oh, fuck me,” Teddy muttered, comprehending instantly. The chilled liquefied natural gas kept the line, even its insulated exterior, colder than the surrounding air. So any humidity was condensing on it. And the fucking adhesive wasn’t up to it. “Have them set the charges on top. Or lash them on with something. Hurry up, the QRF’s going to be here any minute!”
He hesitated, clutching the other radio. Withdraw his flankers, or leave them in place until the charges went? They were the most vulnerable, at either end of the road.
Then he heard it, echoing through the valleys.
The flutter-whack-whack of faraway blades, en route from the Internal Security base at Kargilik.
He hit Transmit again. “Tok, they’re incoming. Helicopters. Set the charges as best
you can, and get out of there.”
“One minute more. We are tying them on with our bootlaces.”
“No time, guy. Retro! Now!”
“One minute more—”
Teddy radioed the flankers. Instead of pulling them back into the hills, he ordered them both in toward him, on the double. He wanted everyone concentrated. Three or four helo loads of troops, he could deal with. Anything beyond that, the muj would find themselves the filling in the classic shit sandwich.
When he glanced up again the golden rays of a rising sun glinted off spinning blades.
The gunships came in fast and low, bursting out of a ravine and wheeling instantly into line abreast, as if they’d rehearsed the move for the last week.
Their black shark-silhouettes brought back bad memories. Woody Island. Echo Four, caught in the open by gunships with searchlights. A thousand suns rising over the dunes. The rotor wash blasting down brush and trees. He’d pulled his SIG and pumped round after round into the pterodactyl shadows, even knowing the full metal jackets would bounce off the bottom armor of a battle copter. The miniguns had blazed like red flashing eyes, a white-hot stream of incandescence searching the dunes. The final image so many insurgents, Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS fighters, must have seen.
He pawed his face, clawing himself back to now. Three Z-10s, in a tight formation that said these guys knew how to maneuver in mountains. He held absolutely still as they flashed overhead, obviously missing the small party crouched under the pipeline as they headed for the border station. Teddy radioed the border party to take cover, hoping he wasn’t too late. Then to Guldulla again: “Extract. Extract! Before they come back.”
“Men eshitish va itoat qiling, Lingxiù.” Which he didn’t quite get, but hoped meant something like “Roger, wilco, out.”
The brrrr of miniguns echoed up the valley. Teddy jumped to his feet and signaled the flank teams in. Disemplacing the machine guns, they straggled back across the road, shockingly exposed. He held his breath until they were climbing the hillside again, then pointed left and right, spreading them out. If they clumped during a firing run, they were toast.
Four more helicopters emerged from the same ravine as the first flight. Heavier, hanging clumsy in the air: troop carriers. They too roared overhead, but flared out and settled five hundred meters down the road. A blocking force, to cut off the retreat of whoever had attacked the border post.
One advantage, then; they still thought that was the main body. They didn’t realize another force was behind them. Teddy crouched again, staying low as black-clad troops in body armor spilled out of the squatting helos. As soon as the last soldier disembarked, the racket of engines grew again. The heavy black bodies lofted. A man downslope raised an RPG. Teddy yelled, “To’xta! olov qilmang!” The muj lowered his weapon, but looked puzzled.
The radio from the southern element crackled. They were pinned down by helicopters, taking fire from troops. Teddy ordered them to the southern slope, to take shelter during strafing runs, and advance to engage the force to their front.
Guldulla joined him, breathing hard after the run and climb. His half-white mustache looked wilted. His fingers were stained with blood, and his boots gaped laceless. Teddy gave him his orders.
The charges went off. First on the pylons, with cracks that echoed down the valley, accompanied by puffs of dirty smoke. For an endless moment the lofty structures stood proud. Then, one after another, they toppled.
The charges on the pipeline went off as the pylons crumpled, draping electrical cables over the raised line. A crack, a flash of electricity lanced among the snarl of wiring.
A blue-yellow fireball wiped out vision. The heat-flash seared his cheeks even two hundred yards uphill. It was smokeless, glareless, an enormous release of pure energy, but the dust boiled up and concrete and gravel and pieces of steel rained down all around him. Covering his head with one arm, he jumped to his feet. “Hujum!” he yelled. Forward, attack! “Ularga hujum! Xitoy o’ldiringlar!”
Another flash, another searing pulse. Driven by pumps, the severed pipe was still spewing liquefied gas. An immense torch lit up the still-dawning valley like a series of magnesium flares igniting one after the other. Teddy had figured it would cut off once pressure fell, but either there wasn’t a shutoff or it hadn’t tripped yet. Down by the road the grass was aflame. The asphalt pavement was boiling and burning, the melted area spreading in a circle around a roaring volcano.
Pulling his attention from that molten eye, stumbling forward, he waved his rifle. “Hujom! Hujum!” Then knelt, set the selector for single shots, and began sniping the dark figures that had deployed across the road, backs to him.
A ripple of fire clattered from his own line. Not heavy, but that was good. He’d drilled them over and over to aim carefully, to fire one shot at a time. Two or three of the blacksuits spun and crumpled before the troops reoriented to the threat from their rear and began firing back.
Guldulla, beside him, kept firing as he advanced. “Got ’em in a pincer!” Teddy yelled, knowing the guy didn’t speak English, just to encourage him. “Put ’em all down before they get reinforced.” He fired and rolled over, switching to another target. The bullpup was zeroed, and the butt jolted his shoulder as he put three fast rounds into another Chinese. From down the road more fire snapped, the 7.62s from the RPKs deeper than the smaller-caliber, higher-velocity Chinese rounds.
Then he heard it. The higher-pitched, fast near scream of approaching gunships. And in front of him, a bulky, low silhouette he recognized.
Alimyan. Teddy glanced around quickly. No one was looking their way. He went to one knee, fired out the last of his magazine into the tubby Uighur, and dropped to roll behind a boulder.
Just then the miniguns unleashed. Droning straight up the highway three abreast, the attack helicopters unchained hell on both sides alike, entangled as they were. RPGs lanced upward, but missed as the black birds tore close overhead, then lifted into the golden-red sky, gaining room to wheel back for another pass.
A blow knocked him down. He staggered to his knees as blackness submerged his brain.
* * *
HE swam up reluctantly through a scarlet haze. Men, too many of them his, lay along the sloping berm, some screaming and writhing, others motionless. Dust and smoke hazed the breeze, and a thick petroleum stink from the burning asphalt. The rebel he’d shot, Alimyan, lay a few yards away. Teddy crawled over to make sure he was dead, then stood.
Couldn’t make a stand here. He had nowhere near enough effectives or ammunition to hold against the squads that would be arriving on the next transports, or the battalion that was probably mounting up in light armor back in Kargilik. Their only hope was to melt back into the fastnesses. Extract as many as he could, and use the survivors as cadre to rebuild for the next action.
“Pull back!” he yelled in Han. “Withdraw! Take the guns. Shoot the wounded.” No way they could carry anyone who couldn’t walk. Not over three mountain ranges, moving by night.
Which might leave him out too … He uncupped his shoulder to inspect a gaping tear in cloth and flesh. Plenty of blood, but no fountain pulsed; no arteries damaged. He shook on clotting agent and taped on a pressure bandage. “Good to go,” he muttered.
But distant specks in the sky wheeled even as he blinked up. The gunships were returning. He waved the left two platoons, now inextricably intermixed, up the slope, leaving scores of crumpled bodies—far more than he’d expected to lose—and pointed his RPG and machine-gun teams at the incoming helos. “Do not fire too soon,” he told them. “You are the rear guard. Songs will be sung about you. But you must stay until your ammunition is gone. Now is your time to gain martyrdom. But do not let them take you prisoner.”
Their sergeant nodded grimly, wide mouth rimed with powder-smut. He stamped in the bipod legs of his machine gun and writhed his pelvis down into the loose scree. “Go with Allah, Lingxiù. We will die here,” he muttered. The rest of his fire team looked scared, but n
o one made a move to leave.
Teddy wanted to stay with them. But he couldn’t. “Go with Allah,” he muttered back. He unslung his grenade pack and dropped it beside them. Then turned away, eyes burning, and limped up the slope.
They’d accomplished the mission, but at far too high a cost.
You will use us as food for cannons.
In a very little while, firing erupted behind him, and the roar of rockets. He did not look back.
8
San Diego, California
THE deputy J-4—Pacific Command, Logistics, Engineering and Security Cooperation Directorate—sat Dan down before he left Honolulu. “Good morning, Captain,” the Coast Guard captain had said. “Honored to meet you, sir. Welcome to the staff. We all heard about your … stranding on that island.” He looked as if he wanted to know more, but glanced away instead.
Dan had nodded, easing himself into the chair in front of the deputy’s desk. He was back in khakis, instead of a hospital gown, but still felt weak. Not much of what he ate seemed to turn into what it was supposed to. His orders read limited duty, medical restrictions. And he was wearing eagles on his collar again. Reverted, as those orders had directed, to his permanent rank.”Nice of you to say so.” He smiled, as affably as he could.
The coastie said, “I’d like to make this a long chat, but I’ve got a meeting in five minutes. I understand you’re available for TAD.”
Temporary additional duty was a euphemism, in this case at least, for the Navy not knowing exactly what to do with him. He cleared his throat. “Correct.”
“Admiral Yangerhans wondered if you could act as his eyes and ears at the shipyard level for new construction. Are you familiar with the Asia Victory Program?”
“In general. Not in detail.”
“That’s the major defense buildup Congress approved as soon as the war went hot. The Army, tripled to ninety brigade combat teams. The Air Force, more combat aircraft. And the Navy, expansion to fifteen battle groups and five hundred combatant ships, plus UAVs, industrial expansion, submersible drones, space assets, et cetera.”
