There was no further word from China. And Quinn had discovered nothing more about STAAR. Kelly thought all those issues less important now that there was a definite timeline to Aspasia’s arrival.
• • •
Turcotte started moving up the tube even as the others were still clambering up the rope Harker’s men had fastened just inside the entrance. The tube went up at a forty-degree angle, manageable, but not very comfortable, especially given that the stone his boots were on was practically polished smooth.
From the diameter Turcotte had no doubt that this entrance had been built to accommodate bouncers, allowing them access to the cavern below. It was also the way all that gear had probably been put in there.
He could hear labored breathing behind him as he climbed, but his focus was on the narrow beam of light the flashlight on top of his MP-5 cast.
After five minutes Turcotte saw the end. A smooth wall of metal closed off the path. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. A long string of flashlights indicated the scattered line behind him. “Howes!” Turcotte called out. “Everyone else, hold where you are.”
The Special Forces engineer made his way forward, his bulky rucksack resting on his back. Howes dumped the ruck at Turcotte’s feet, holding it in place with a boot while he surveyed the metal.
“No idea how thick?” he asked.
“The professor says maybe a couple of feet.”
Howes nodded, his mind already working the problem. He opened a pocket on the outside of the ruck and pulled out a fifty-foot length of 10mm climbing rope and several pitons. He handed a hammer and two pitons to Turcotte and pointed to the right while he went left. They climbed as far as they could up the side of the tunnel, then got to work hammering the pitons into the rock.
Once both his pitons were in, Turcotte looped a length of rope through the snap link on the end of each one and brought the two ropes back to the center. Howes met him there and slowly pulled a large black cylinder, pointed on one end, out of the pack. It was almost three feet long and a foot and a half in diameter. Howes tied off the four ropes to bolts on the side of it.
Using the frame of his rucksack as a support, and the ropes to hold it in place, Howes wedged the shaped charge up so that the pointed end pointed at the metal.
“Hope this works,” Howes said. “Fire in the hole!” he yelled as he pulled the fuse.
Both he and Turcotte dropped down on their butts and slid forty feet down the tube to where Kostanov waited at the head of the column. The Russian grabbed them and halted their slide. “How long is the—” he began, but he was answered by a bright flash and explosion. A wave of hot air blew down the tunnel.
The shaped charge was sixty pounds of high explosive, molded in such a way that the major force of the explosion was focused several feet in front of the point. It burrowed into the metal door, heat and shock forcing its way.
Turcotte started climbing back up. This would be the moment of truth. If the charge hadn’t burned through the cap, he didn’t know how they were going to get out. Turcotte paused. He could feel fresh air on his face. “Let’s go!” he yelled.
He clambered his way forward, toward the jagged opening through which he could see stars shining high up above. Grabbing hold of the sides of the hole, he pulled himself out, then immediately tumbled down the side of the mountain tomb until he could arrest his fall by getting a grip on some bushes. He could hear Howes behind him, climbing through more carefully and attaching a rope in place to bring the others up.
Turcotte scanned the countryside. The opening was about two hundred meters from the crest of the tomb. Turcotte could see the lights of a town several miles to his right. Checking his wrist compass, Turcotte confirmed that he was on the eastern side. The pickup zone was to his left, several kilometers north.
Turcotte froze as he spotted a long line of small lights below him, about eight hundred meters away. A skirmish line, moving very slowly up the side of the tomb. He knew they were reacting to the explosion that had opened the shaft.
“Let’s put a move on, people,” Turcotte hissed over his shoulder. “We’ve got company.”
Turcotte climbed the short distance back up to the exit. He could see that the metal had been covered by earth and bushes, well hidden for centuries. The shaped charge had ripped a narrow hole about three feet wide through the cover.
Harker had his entire team out, now helping the Chinese students through the hole. The Russians under Kostanov were bringing up the rear.
“We’re going to be in the shit soon,” Turcotte told Harker, pointing at the long line of small lights.
“Jesus, that’s at least a battalion,” Harker said, estimating the situation. The Special Forces warrant officer scanned the sky. “I don’t see any Chinese helicopters. They get air on top of us, we’re finished.”
Turcotte pointed to the north. “We’re going that way. We’ll stay at this height, go around, and come down on the north. It should be clear.”
“They’ll come up behind us at altitude,” Harker noted. “With the old lady, we can’t move fast. We’ll be in their sights and they’ll have the high ground.” “Got any better ideas?” Turcotte asked.
“Mission accomplishment,” Harker said shortly. “My assignment is to get you and the professor out of here alive, not a bunch of students and some Russians.”
“Ah, most true,” Kostanov said from behind them. “Mission accomplishment must come first.”
“We go together,” Turcotte said, not wishing to waste any more time. “Are we all up?”
“Yes.” Che Lu was poised precariously on the side of the tomb, a bamboo pole in her hand dug into the earth, keeping her in place.
“We have to—” Turcotte began.
“I know what we have to do,” Che Lu interrupted. “Do not worry about me. I will keep up.”
“I’ll cover our rear,” Kostanov said.
“Let’s go.” Turcotte moved past the cluster of students and soldiers. It was hard going, walking along the forty-degree slope, and Turcotte knew the tactical reality was against them.
He heard the rattle of pebbles and swung up the muzzle of his MP-5, the laser aiming-dot reaching through the darkness. Turcotte centered the dot on the forehead of the lead figure in a group of five men about twenty feet ahead.
A voice cried out in Chinese from the group and Turcotte’s finger curled around the trigger and began to pull it back when Che Lu called out, “Do not shoot! They are my friends.” She immediately said something in Chinese as she worked her way along the group to stand at Turcotte’s side.
“Lo Fa!” she exclaimed as the old man walked up, body leaning against the slope.
“I told you not to disturb things best left alone,” Lo Fa said. He looked past them at the line of lights climbing up the hill, getting closer. “We have been searching for what the army searches for. I told these other idiots”—he gestured at the men with him—“that it was just a foolish old woman poking her bent nose where it shouldn’t be. You must come with me if you wish to get away.”
“Which way?” Turcotte asked.
Lo Fa pointed straight up the hill. “We go over the top and then west.” Turcotte shook his head. “We have to go north.”
“The army is north,” Lo Fa said. “You cannot go that way. We came from the west and we know a secret way to go in that direction.”
“We have to go north,” Turcotte said. He knew they didn’t have time to make a wide sweep around the Chinese. Not only was their PZ clock ticking, there was the larger clock of Aspasia’s pending arrival.
“As you wish.” Lo Fa shrugged. “Old lady, bring your students with you.” Che Lu turned to Turcotte and Kostanov. “It will be easier for you without me.”
Turcotte didn’t have the time or inclination to discuss it. “All right.”
Che Lu reached out and grasped his arm. “Bring the truth to the world. I must stay here with my people.” She took Nabinger’s hand and pointed down. “Besides, th
ere is much in here we have not uncovered yet.”
“Good luck,” Turcotte said, but she was already scrambling away in the dark, following Lo Fa and his guerrillas.
As they disappeared upslope, Turcotte was moving, leaning into the mountain tomb, working his way to the north. The skirmish line was now less than six hundred yards away. Turcotte looked along it to its right wing. At the current rate the two groups were traveling, he knew that he would not clear the right wing before it reached his altitude.
“Harker!” he shouted, still moving.
“Yeah?” the warrant officer replied.
“Get Chase up here with the radio.”
When the commo man caught up with him, Turcotte paused. “Get the SATCOM ready. I’m going to transmit in the clear to warn…” he began, then paused. He could hear the thump of helicopter blades.
A searchlight flashed on, lighting up Turcotte and the soldiers, overloading their night-vision goggles and blanking them out.
Overlaid on top of the blade sounds came the chatter of a heavy-caliber machine gun fired from the helicopter. Turcotte ripped off his night-vision goggles and grabbed Nabinger, covering the professor with his body. The rounds ripped by, tearing into Chase and throwing the commo man against the mountainside. The body tumbled down toward the skirmish line. Turcotte knelt and raised his weapon and fired, joined by the others.
The searchlight shattered and the chopper banked hard right and flew away to a safer distance.
“Status!” Turcotte yelled.
Harker’s voice came from his right. “Chase and Brooks are dead and the radio’s destroyed.”
“I’ve got a man wounded,” Kostanov answered.
“Let’s go!” Turcotte ordered.
“No,” Kostanov said, scrambling across to come to his side. “My man can’t move. All of us will never make it without someone slowing them.” He pointed down at the gaggle of lights that were now coming straight toward their position, less than four hundred yards away and steadily climbing. “I will give you cover. You go with your men. We will make our stand here.” Kostanov held up a hand covered in blood as Turcotte started to say something. “This is more important than our lives.”
Turcotte reached out and grasped the hand, then he let go. “Come on,” he ordered the four surviving Special Forces men and Professor Nabinger.
Kostanov went back to his men. He checked the stomach wound on the one man, pressing the bandage down tighter to try and stop the flow of blood.
“Fire some rounds, Dmitri,” he ordered the other. “Let the pigs know we are here.”
Dmitri put the stock of his weapon to his shoulder and fired a long, sustained burst, emptying his magazine in the direction of the Chinese soldiers, causing confusion and consternation in their lines, gaining a few seconds for Turcotte and his men and also focusing the direction of the attack toward the Russians.
Bullets cracked by overhead as the Chinese fired back. The flashlights went out and Kostanov could well imagine the soldiers crawling their way up the hillside toward his position.
Kostanov reached into his combat vest and pulled out all his magazines, stacking them next to him. He reached into another pocket and pulled out a battered blue beret. It had been issued to him over twenty-five years ago when he’d first joined the Soviet Airborne. Much had changed since then for both his country and himself, but Kostanov wanted the Chinese to know who had made this stand.
Dmitri noted Kostanov putting the beret on. “For Mother Russia,” he said. “For Mother Earth,” Kostanov corrected as he put his weapon to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.
• • •
Turcotte could hear the firing. It spurred him to move even quicker, to not waste the valiant sacrifice made by the Russians. After five minutes the furious sound of the firefight behind them faded to a few scattered shots, then silence.
Turcotte checked his compass. They had made it around the tomb. Due north beckoned down-slope. Turcotte started sliding down the slope, knowing the PZ was only four kilometers away.
CHAPTER 28
Kelly Reynolds looked at the computer printouts in frustration. She could make as much sense of them as the UNAOC decryption experts, which was to say she could make no sense of the garbled letters and numbers transmitted in one continuous stream.
The Guardian I computer under Easter Island was bursting information to the incoming Talon fleet almost nonstop, and in turn getting messages from the ships transmitted back to it. Kelly had to assume, as UNAOC did, that Aspasia was updating his information base. After all, Kelly reasoned, a lot had happened on Earth since Aspasia had gone into his self-imposed exile on Mars. Five thousand years of human history would require such extensive communications to get caught up on.
There had been no further messages from Aspasia to UNAOC, other than to acknowledge the landing site in Central Park. The clock was now under thirty-six hours to live contact, as the media had dubbed the moment Aspasia’s ship was scheduled to land.
Kelly hoped her friends would be back from China in time to see the landing and the beginning of a bold new chapter in the history of the human race.
• • •
Three more kilometers, Turcotte knew, and they’d be at the pickup zone. The going downhill was much easier. The terrain had also become less steep. Looking to the east Turcotte could see the first hint of dawn on the horizon, a light smudge in the amplified imaging of the night-vision goggles. Looking back to the north, he could see movement. The PLA had gotten smarter and wasn’t running around with flashlights on anymore, but he could hear the distant rumble of vehicles and voices. The chopper was still hanging back, several kilometers to the east.
As the elevation dropped, the vegetation grew thicker, which provided them with more cover.
“How you doing, Professor?” Turcotte asked.
“I’ll make it,” Nabinger said. “How much farther?”
“Under three klicks.”
“Keep going.”
Harker whispered out of the dark, “Hold up.” The warrant officer grabbed Turcotte’s arm. “We got trouble.”
Turcotte could see that Harker was holding a bulky scope in his hands, looking through it in their direction of travel. “What do you see?” Turcotte knew the thermal site could penetrate the vegetation and highlight the heat of living creatures and working machinery.
“We’ve got a picket line about six hundred meters ahead at the base of hill,” Harker said. “They’re holding still, just waiting. Looks like there’s a large stream down there, and the Chinese are along the northern bank. The line coming up the hill behind us must have been the hammer to drive us; they’re the anvil up ahead.”
Turcotte checked his watch. They had less than two hours before the choppers showed up. There was no time to go in any other direction, plus there would most likely be Chinese forces waiting whichever way they went.
“Suggestion?” Turcotte asked.
“We’re going to have to split,” Harker said. “I’ll take DeCamp with me. We’ll have the sniper’s rifles with the thermals.” He pointed over his left shoulder to a ridgeline coming off the mountain tomb. “We’ll go up there and start firing. That should cause some confusion as they react. There should be a hole for you to get across the stream, through their lines, and get to the PZ.”
“And what about you?” Nabinger asked.
“Once you get on the choppers, send one to pick us up,” Harker answered.
Turcotte knew the odds of Harker and DeCamp still being alive by that time were slim, but he didn’t have time to stand and discuss it. He also knew Harker was aware of the dire reality of the situation.
“All right,” Turcotte said. “How long do you need?”
“Give me fifteen minutes to get in position. You’ll hear us when we start shooting.”
“Let’s go,” Turcotte said. He grasped Harker’s hand briefly, feeling the dried blood that had come off Kostanov’s hand grit between their flesh.
• • •
“Is everything good to go?” Lisa Duncan asked.
Zandra was listening to radio reports. “Yes. The helicopters are on time and in the clear so far.”
“The Chinese aren’t onto them?”
“I can’t tell that from here,” Zandra said. “Their air defense units haven’t been alerted.”
“How do you know that?” Duncan demanded.
“I have an AWACS on station off the coast of China monitoring the situation.” “And if the helicopters do get spotted?”
“Then I will do what is necessary,” Zandra said.
“That’s rather vague,” Duncan said.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, but I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Zandra said in a calm voice.
“Who do you answer to?” Duncan wanted to know.
“We’ve already gone over that,” Zandra said.
“I want to know what you have done to protect those people on their way out,” Duncan insisted.
Zandra flipped a switch on the radio set in front of her. “Here. You can listen in to what’s going on as relayed from the AWACS. You’ll hear what I have done.”
• • •
Colonel Mike Zycki was the commander of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) plane that Zandra had ordered into the air using her ST-8 clearance. As the modified Boeing 707-320B leveled off at thirty-five thousand feet, Zycki ordered the thirty-foot dome radar dish, riding on top of the fuselage, to be activated. The advantage the AWACS had over ground-based radars was its ability to look down. The radar signals emitted at altitude were not blocked by the curvature of the earth or terrain. Zycki and his crew had an accurate radar picture almost four hundred miles in diameter as the rotodome completed a revolution every ten seconds.
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