by David Poyer
But that was all right, they were his men, eager to follow him into battle. Foam flew back from the pony’s mouth and the mane whipped at his hands. Down into a gully, out of sight of the highway. Then up, up again, over a small rise.
And there was the road, close now. There was the smoke, still rising, and the sweet battle stench of propellant and burning rubber, and the heavy ripping crack of 105 penetrators going out far above supersonic and the higher-pitched bang bang bang of an automatic grenade launcher firing back at them from somewhere in the milling murk. The burp-rattle of small arms. Explosions flashed amid his tanks. But even direct hits only scored the thick frontal armor, and they were growling forward again, gathering confidence, and for once, for fucking once, his guys had it all, surprise and fire advantage and heavier weapons than the enemy.
He plunged ahead into the bitter smoke. It stung his throat, making his eyes tear.
At the last second he veered aside out of the line of fire, and reined the pony in, one hand shading his single eye. The smoke unraveled a little just then, blown thin by a hot wind, letting tallow light bleed through from the glaring sun. Through it he could just make out the lead Dongfeng. It squatted immobile, smoking hard, with fireballs flying out the far side: ammo cooking off. The second leader was still firing at the oncoming armor with the grenade launcher, in the turret.
Then a shell from one of the tanks blew it apart in a huge detonation, white and orange, laced with the crackle of the grenades and whatever other ordnance it carried exploding too. Pieces and bodies pinwheeled through the air to crash and thud and clang off the steel siderails of the highway. When the turbulent boiling of air and fire and smoke rose it revealed a smoking, twisted chassis nearly stripped of armor.
“Hold fire!” Teddy yelled to Jusuf, hand-signaling his heavy units, and nudged the pony forward without waiting for an acknowledgment. Fortunately the tanks obeyed, ceasing their fire as he spurred in, sweeping his narrowed gaze across the black SUVs.
Some were already riddled by the machine-gun fire the tanks had been laying down along with their shells. Trapped, the convoy had herringboned out this way and that on the roadside, the correct tactic for a hasty defense. Black-uniformed Interior troops were spilling out with short-barreled personal defense weapons, propping them on the hoods to put an engine block between them and their attackers.
But Teddy and Jusuf and the other riders were on their flank, and he aimed his carbine and began firing, taking the Chinese in defilade, the little light bullpup jerking back into his shoulder with each shot. Pick up an outline, fire, watch it spin and drop. Shift to the next black uniform, a thicker upper chest area, probably some kind of body armor. A double tap into the legs and he too went down. Teddy grinned harder. Damn, he liked this optic sight.
Return fire hissed and cracked past. The pony shied, but he yanked its head around and pointed it directly at the lead vehicle and thumped its ribs again. The pony whinnied and tossed its head but obeyed, and Teddy fired again and again as they galloped in, laying a burst to finish the mag. He dropped the empty and slapped in a reload without looking, squinting through the roiling oily-tasting black smoke.
And noting, just with a microglimpse, a bulky figure clad in greens roll out of the second car back, tugging a pistol from a leather holster.
No cap, gray hair, stocky, army uniform. A patch of color on the chest. He was wearing his decorations.
Marshal Chagatai.
The troops sheltering behind the vehicles were returning aimed fire now. Gunflashes sparkled. A bullet scored Teddy’s shoulder like a hot poker, breaking his aim so his next burst spanged off a bulletproof windshield. Beside him in a rough line Jusuf and the other mujahideen were firing too, some from horseback, others dismounted. One went down as his horse was hit, spilling him onto the asphalt, where he skated along, flailing and cursing, but gripping his Kalashnikov for dear life, until he could struggle up to a knee and fire again.
The seething vapor trail of a projectile from one of the tanks streaked between the second and third SUVs, deafeningly close. The blast of its passage knocked down two of the black-clad troops running forward from the rear vehicles, but it exploded far downhill, in one of the soy fields. Teddy screamed at Jusuf, “Tanks, God damn it, I said cease fire, cease fire!” He hoped they heard that, because in seconds his ragtag cavalry would be in among the SUVs.
As would he. He steered his mount around the first limo, firing more to keep heads down than to score hits. The pony’s hooves slipped in the loose gravel of the berm and it almost went down again. He urged it forward, leaning to keep his own silhouette low, snap-firing as targets presented themselves. But they were getting scarcer. The hail of bullets from the rebels, plus the tank shells, had left more and more of the Interior troops lying dead or blown apart beside the vehicles, or dragging themselves crawling away, trailing blood, but still trying to escape the slaughter they knew was coming if they were overrun. Among them now Teddy made out a few civilians. Local pols, or Han intel types? He wasn’t going to waste time trying to sort them out. A woman in a dark skirt tried to drag herself under the second SUV, only to be riddled by a burst from Jusuf’s AK.
Howling, shooting, the rebels charged in among the vehicles. Teddy was barely keeping up. His pony seemed to be limping. Shot? Lamed? Maybe it was just tired. But the younger men were ahead of him now, firing and yipping, waving their black flags. Jusuf was in the thick of it, firing here and there, yelling as he rode down the line of cars. Teddy grinned just to see him. The kid wasn’t just a technician. He was a warrior, all right.
Then a gray-haired head rose above an open door. A pistol recoiled, and the young muj spun and toppled from his saddle. Jusuf hit the ground so hard his head rebounded. Then he lay still. His hand relaxed, and one of the shiny green Chinese grenades rolled out.
They weren’t that big, but they were packed with steel balls, and Teddy was too close to avoid catching shrapnel. He ducked below his mount’s back as it went off. A moment’s image. Another war, and another grenade …
A small green spheroid. It struck the wall beside him and glanced off.
It rolled between him and Sumo Kaulukukui, and rocked to a halt midway between them. The drill was to duck or roll, but there was nowhere to go.
The big Hawaiian had said, “War’s a motherfucker, ain’t it?” And stepped over it, putting himself between Teddy and the grenade’s blast.
You’d have enjoyed this fight, Sumo, he thought now. But the battle wasn’t over. In fact, at this point, it might be going the wrong way. For now, as the smoke blew past, it revealed the remaining troops safe behind the no-doubt-armored doors, firing from cover. While his rebels were being blasted off their ponies one after the other. His own began screaming, and staggered beneath him. Glancing down, he saw the thick black blood streaming down its front legs. Steel shards from the grenade, or maybe a Chinese bullet.
He hauled the pony’s head around, and it stumbled toward the second SUV. Where a gray-haired head showed above the door, then locked gazes with him across sixty feet of smoky hell.
Teddy aimed and squeezed the trigger, aware only when it clicked that he’d emptied the carbine. He thrust it back into its scabbard, yanked the Makarov from his shoulder holster, and fired. It recoiled, but he could tell as the sights rose that he’d missed. Snap shots usually did, especially from the back of a wounded horse. Not something they drilled at the Kill House at Dam Neck. He pulled the trigger again.
The pistol clicked, but didn’t fire. Fuck, the piece of shit was jammed! And since he still held the reins, he didn’t have a spare hand to clear it.
He threw it aside, and drew the blade at his belt.
The eight-inch, heavy, curved pchak, the Yengisar with the ram’s-horn hilt he’d taken off Hajji Qurban after killing him in a knife fight, and carried ever since.
He urged the failing animal under him directly at the pistol Chagatai was leveling at him over the armored door of the SUV. Bending low over the
saddle horn, he fixed his sight on the muzzle of the handgun. His death would emerge from that dark eye. A chance the guy would miss, but at this range, he probably wouldn’t.
But then the Chinese lifted the firearm and peered down at it, face blank, then surprised. Teddy grinned. “You’re out of ammo too, you old son of a bitch!” he yelled, bearing down on him. He leaned out, arm outstretched, as the dark eyes rose again to meet his own. They widened as Chagatai grasped what was coming at him, and flung his forearm up in a hasty, instinctive block.
Leaning down, Teddy swept the pchak in a wide saber-stroke that when it connected sent a shock all the way up to his shoulder and nearly knocked him out of the saddle. For a second, his arm paralyzed, he thought he’d hit the steel door. But glancing back as his mount sheered away neighing in pain, he saw the marshal sag back, gripping the top of the door with one hand. But his head lolled, nearly severed from the shoulders. Blood waterfalled down his chest, obliterating the rows of colorful ribbons with a scarlet drenching.
Then the marshal collapsed to the pavement, and the pistol spun away clattering over the asphalt.
Teddy’s pony was foundering under him. Reaching down its flank, he felt the hot blood clotting on its rough coat. It sank, going down on its forelegs as its knees buckled. He clung for another second, then grabbed the mane and half slid, half rolled off as the animal collapsed and rolled onto its side.
He landed on the bad leg, and something in it snapped and tore despite the brace. The pain blinded him for a moment and he sank to a knee beside the fallen horse, gasping as his foot buckled sideways. Another weapon … He sheathed the pchak with shaking hands and picked up an AK one of the rebels had dropped. Racked the bolt, feeling the slight but definite resistance as it fed a live round, and propped it on the heaving flank of the dying beast.
He surveyed the aftermath of battle. Vehicles flamed and smoked. Ammunition rattled as it cooked off. From the hillside, diesels growled as his light tanks slowly rolled down the last few yards to survey their work and hose down the still-living wounded with machine guns. Rebels and Interior troops lay intermingled on the asphalt, along the berm, up the hillside. A knot of mujs were dragging terrified civilians out of the last vehicle, forcing them to their knees on the center line, and executing them with single shots to the back of the neck.
Teddy gritted his teeth and pushed himself upright, using the Kalashnikov as a cane. The pain was terrific, breaking in combers like Santa Clara surf. He panted. The mountains reeled around him. He bent, trying to force the foot back into its titanium brace, but something was bad wrong. He took one step on it, biting his lip and grunting. Then, slowly, another.
He limped toward the knot of rebels as more shots rang out.
* * *
“WHOEVER they are, they’re executing the survivors,” Major Zein said. Her tone was flat, without judgment. She pointed to the screen. “Is that your HVT?”
Andres bent closer, arms folded. The wind whispered outside, scratching like a million tiny claws trying to get in at them. Was it windy there? Yeah, maybe, considering the way the smoke was dissipating now. Below where the gossamer-winged drone lingered: solar-powered, complexly lensed, an Argus eye unseen and unsuspected by those below.
He’d watched it all. The silent unfolding of the ambush. The explosions, like fiery black blossoms. The silent tumbling of vehicles, and the noiseless sprawl of bodies. The smoke had obscured the action from time to time, but sporadically cleared, at least enough for him to follow the battle, like glimpses between passing clouds.
Far below, shimmering with magnification, a tiny figure was limping away from a fallen horse. The animal tossed its head, obviously suffering. Red stained its side and pooled beneath it. An SUV stood with doors flung open, slanted across the road. Bodies lay scattered around it. He could just make out the colors of their uniforms. Black, green, gray. A few combatants looked to be of smaller stature. Women? Boys? He couldn’t be sure. And the limping figure? Probably a lot of the rebels limped, especially after a battle.
“Can we zoom in closer?” he murmured. “I know, it pixelates, but…”
Zein told one of the sergeants to drop to angels four and go to max magnification. Andres waited. The image on the screen expanded, but the larger it grew the more the details wavered, until it boiled as if viewed through molten glass.
“Shit,” the sergeant whispered. “It’s the hot air off that pavement. A mini-thermal effect. Usually we can do better, but I guess not today.”
The view banked as the drone came around in a long lazy circle. Much like, Andres imagined, a buzzard, viewing the carnage from above. Where were the buzzards anyway? The V-winged scavengers of the high mountains, whose effortless orbits in the sky he’d admired so often? Well, they’d arrive soon enough, with all that fresh meat out on the highway.
“Is that him?” Zein asked again.
Andres was about to say I’m not sure, I can’t tell, when just then the video steadied, just for a microsecond, and at that same moment the lone limping figure so far below turned its face up to the sky. As if aware it was being watched, though Andres was pretty sure that wasn’t possible. The drone was far too small, far too high up.
The face was bearded, a male’s, and it wore an eyepatch. He seemed to be holding some sort of rifle, or other weapon. But not in a combat stance. Was he … yes.
He was using it as a crutch.
With a coldness at his heart, Andres said, “That’s him.”
“That’s your target?” Zein said. Both sergeants straightened. The leftmost one began keyboarding. “You’re absolutely sure?”
“Yeah. It’s him. That’s SKFROG.”
The sergeant on the right reached for her trackball.
“You’ll need to confirm, for our records. Like I said.” Zein handed him a signature pad and stylus, like what you’d use to sign for a purchase at a drugstore. He thought for a moment of asking for a printout, just to gain another few seconds, but finally resigned himself. He signed, but not with his real name, of course.
He handed it back.
“Proceed?” She avoided his eyes.
He nodded.
Zein instructed the black sergeant in a neutral tone, recentering the white box Andres had seen previously onto the individual he’d pointed out. A tap, and a set of orange brackets lit. She edged them over on the screen, then adjusted them a smidgen more, until they lined up with the white one, tracking with it. Smaller, but centered inside it.
Another click from her mouse, and crosshairs winked on. These were centered too, subdividing the orange square into quadrants. The techs discussed this in low voices, keyboarding. The orange box displaced a few yards.
Zein murmured, “What about the others down there, near him? We’ve got a pretty decent radius with these new warheads.”
Andres touched his lips with a knuckle. On the screen, other rebels were crowding around where the second SUV stood. Looking down, apparently, at one of the bodies. The one in the green uniform. Its head lay at an unnatural angle. He couldn’t make out any more detail in the boiling image.
“This heat’s really distorting things,” the blond sergeant complained. “Seems to be getting worse, too.”
Andres cleared his throat. “What kind of radius are we talking about?”
“Kill radius? Ten meters. Wounding, fifteen.”
A diameter of thirty feet would take out everyone thronging around the SUV. And any survivors inside it as well. He touched his lips again, considering. But to judge by the executions he’d just seen, the sprawl of bodies along the white centerline of the road, there probably weren’t many prisoners left alive.
Once again that numbing chill touched his spine. He’d had to kill before. Sure. But never this far away, where he himself ran no risk at all—
“Sir?” The major tugged his sleeve. He flinched away.
“Sorry,” she said. “But once we have a solution, it can go away at a moment’s notice. The last second or two of
flight guides on a laser beam. We don’t turn it on until that final homing phase, so the target has no time to react once they see the illumination. But if this heat gets any worse … it could distort the beam. If we shoot, we don’t want to miss.”
“Right.” He nodded. “All right … Take them.”
“We can wait, see if he moves away from that scrum—”
“They’re all hostiles. Take them.” Agency orders: along with Oberg, neutralize as many of the top leadership as possible.
The sergeant murmured, “Will this be a double-tap strike?”
Andres frowned. “What? Explain?”
The major said, “We carry two missiles on these long-range missions. On underwing points. SOP on strategic-effects strikes is to place one Jagger, wait ten minutes, then place the second. To hit any responders, aid personnel, the target’s senior staff, and family members. It also balances the airframe in terms of weight and drag.”
Andres felt even colder. “Maybe. Let’s hold off, see how the first one goes.”
Zein nodded and turned back to her keyboard. She flipped open a binder and rapped several keys, a rapid, cadenced tappa-tap-tap she’d obviously entered many times before. The release code, he assumed. Beside her the sergeants were also busy, one monitoring the track the system was holding on the intended target, the other using a second camera to do an azimuth check, scanning around the drone’s airspace. It all seemed well practiced, as if they did this every day. Which of course they probably did.
