The Reply a5-2

by Robert Doherty

  “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.

  Unfortunately, even that coverage was insufficient to reach the area he had been ordered to take a look at. He could paint an accurate radar picture of the coast of China from Beijing almost to Shanghai, but the aircraft he was supposed to watch were over a thousand miles inland, near Xi’an.

  Still, the AWACS could function in a command-and-control role by linking with a KH-14 spy satellite that was in geosynchronous orbit above central China and downloading the current data the various gathering devices on the satellite were picking up.

  Quickly, Zycki’s crew began the process of identifying and coding out all known images the KH-14 was picking up in the air. Civilian aircraft liners were blanked off the screen. In a short while they had a manageable screen. There were only a few spots of activity left: some helicopter activity in the vicinity of Qian-Ling. And two blips moving quickly toward that spot.

  The radar operator pointed. “That’s our aircraft right there. They’re flying right on top of the earth. Airspeed’s right for Black Hawks flying low level.”

  “Punch in transponder code alpha-four-romeo,” Zycki ordered.

  The operator did so, and four small dots appeared over eastern China, heading directly toward Qian-Ling. “Who is that?” the operator exclaimed. “They don’t show up on down-looking radar or”—he paused as he hit a switch to access another asset of the KH-14 spy satellite—“thermal imaging!”

  “That’s our ace in the hole,” Zycki said, “four F-117 Stealth fighters to provide air cover for the exfiltration.”

  CHAPTER 29

  On board the USS Springfield Captain Forster was the senior commander among the three Los Angeles-class attack submarines hovering above the Greywolf’s position. The Springfield and the Asheville were at a standstill, power down to a minimum to keep life-support systems operating on board the boats. The Pasadena, the third ship of the flotilla, had all systems active and was monitoring the situation for the group.

  The first indication that the foo fighters were moving again was from the Pasadena, which reported two foo fighters coming up from the depths.

  Forster didn’t reply, still running silent as they had planned. The captain of the Pasadena had his orders.

  On board the Pasadena the crew reacted as they’d thoroughly been trained to, rushing to battle stations. The firing crew began tracking the two targets.

  * * *

  On board the Greywolf Commander Downing watched the two foo fighters sweep by, heading up. The three that had been shadowing the submersible still remained on station. Downing turned and met Tennyson’s glance.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said.

  * * *

  As the foo fighters passed the Greywolf’s depth, the captain of the Pasadena gave the order to arm the Mark 48, Mod 2 torpedoes.

  “Fire!” the captain of the Pasadena ordered as the foo fighters passed through three thousand meters.

  Four torpedoes launched with a hiss of compressed air, each foo fighter double-targeted. The torpedoes raced away from the sub, a spool of wire unreeling behind each one, allowing it to be continuously targeted by the submarine. Each Mark 48 weighed over 2,750 pounds and was ten feet long by twenty-one inches in diameter. The conventional warhead consisted of over a thousand pounds of high explosive.

  “Tracking,” the weapon officer announced in the crowded control center. “I’ve got four good ones. All tracking clear, tracking two separate targets. Time to impact forty-two seconds…” He paused, his eyes widening at the information his computer was giving him. “We’ve got inbound!”

  “Inbound what?” the captain demanded.

  “Our own torpedoes!” the weapons officer exclaimed. “They’ve been turned.” His fingers were working the keyboard, trying to regain control of the weapons. “Time to impact, twenty seconds.” Every eye in the control room fixed on the commanding officer.

  The captain was staring over the man’s shoulder, reading, interpreting. “Fifteen seconds!”

  “Abort, abort, abort!” the captain yelled.

  The weapons officer flipped up a red cover and pressed down on the button underneath. All four torpedoes detonated less than two hundred meters away from their launch point.

  “Prepare for impact!” the captain ordered, knowing his order had been much too late as the shock wave from the four simultaneous explosions hit the sub.

  * * *

  Captain Forster, on board the Springfield, was listening passively through a hydrophone headset. He tore the headphones off when the thunderous noise of the torpedoes going off hit them. The submarine rocked in the water. Forster yelled for a damage report as he put the headphones back on.

  He heard the sounds coming from the Pasadena every submariner feared the most: the screech of metal giving way, water rushing in, air being blown out under pressure. He even imagined he could hear the screams of the crew of the Pasadena as they were crushed, but that might simply have been his imagination.

  There was absolute silence throughout the Springfield as even sailors not wearing the headphones could hear the faint sound of bulkheads giving way echo through their ship, like the sound of popcorn popping in the distance.

  “Sir!” the first officer hissed. “What do we do?”

  “We do nothing for now,” Forster ordered, turning away from the other men in the control room. He felt his hastily eaten breakfast threatening to come back up as he imagined the fate of the crew of the Pasadena. “We do nothing.”

  On board the Greywolf they had heard the explosion and now they could also hear the sound of the Pasadena dying. Half a minute later they could pick up the noise of the battered hulk of the once proud submarine dropping by, heading for the ocean depths, more bulkheads shattering as the pressure increased.

  CHAPTER 30

  Turcotte was now walking slower, to allow Harker time to get in position. They were going down slightly, as the terrain sloped into the wide streambed that ran along the northern base of Qian-Ling. It made tactical sense for the Chinese picket line to be waiting on the far bank of the stream, using it as a control measure. Turcotte slowed his pace further, moving as stealthily as he could through the darker shadows. The one big advantage Turcotte knew he held over the Chinese was that the PLA did not have ready access to night-vision equipment.

  Another five minutes and they reached the edge of the thicker undergrowth along the south bank. Turcotte wanted to get as close to the enemy line as they could prior to Harker initiating contact. He halted in an area of especially thick underbrush.

  * * *

 
Harker and DeCamp were positioned slightly under six hundred meters away from the Chinese picket line. They were about a hundred meters higher than the men they would be shooting at. They crouched among jumbled rocks and stunted pines along the first crest of the ridge that marked the northern side of the draw they had been descending.

  Harker looked through the thermal scope, which he now had mounted on the sniper rifle. The rifle and scope were rated effective out to twelve hundred meters, and Harker felt confident that he could hit the soldiers he could clearly see as glowing images. He also could see Turcotte’s group, a small cluster of glowing dots, just south of the Chinese on the near bank.

  Harker counted twenty Chinese soldiers in the immediate area of the team. Harker zeroed in on one glowing figure nearest the team. There was no wind that he would have to correct for. The hundred-meter drop required some adjustment, but Harker had done enough long-range firing to be able to account for that.

  Five meters to Harker’s left DeCamp was hidden. He had his sniper rifle propped between two rocks. Harker glanced at his watch again. Another minute.

  Behind the two Special Forces soldiers the mass of Qian-Ling loomed, waiting for the first rays of daylight to touch it from the east.

  * * *

  On the other side of the world glowing figures were also being watched, but these were small dots on a massive screen in the front of a subterranean room. At the Space Command’s Warning Center, deep under Cheyenne Mountain, they had the two foo fighters on-screen. They were going west over the Pacific, directly above the equator.

  * * *

  Harker smoothly pulled back on the trigger and the bark of the rifle echoed across the draw. A Chinese soldier, thinking he was secure in the dark, was slammed back as the 7.62mm round tore a fatal path through the man’s chest. Without conscious thought Harker did as he’d been trained. He arced the muzzle of the weapon to his second target. The man had heard the first shot but didn’t know what it meant. He never would, as Harker’s round hit him in the center of the chest and he tumbled down in a heap.

  Harker fired all ten rounds in the magazine. Nine hits for ten shots. He reloaded a fresh magazine and decided to wait a few minutes to allow the Chinese to react.

  * * *

  “What the hell is going on?” Kelly Reynolds asked Major Quinn. A new message from the Airlia, broadcast openly to the entire world, not in binary, but in English, had just been picked up by receivers all over the globe.

  PLEASE DO NOT INTERFERE WITH OUR PROBES

  THEY ARE GATHERING IMPORTANT INFORMATION

  Quinn pointed at the front screen in the Cube. “Space Command is tracking a pair of foo fighters.”

  “What does Aspasia mean by don’t interfere!”

  Quinn looked past her to make sure no one was close by, then leaned forward. “The Navy just lost a sub over the site of the foo fighter base. The Pentagon’s going nuts.”

  “Lost a sub?” Kelly repeated. “You make it sound like they misplaced it. What happened?”

  “I don’t exactly know. I’m picking up classified reports going from CINCPAC to the Pentagon, and as near as I can tell, the foo fighters did something to the sub and it’s down in deep water. No survivors.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Kelly Reynolds shook her head in dismay. “What about China?”

  Quinn bit his lip. “I’m not getting straight feedback, but I get the impression there’s some trouble. I’m intercepting a lot of traffic between this Zandra person and STAAR in Antarctica.”

  “Are they going to get out?”

  “The choppers going in to pick them up are on schedule.”

  Kelly Reynolds shook her head. “We’re going to screw this up, aren’t we? Our big chance and the human race is going to screw it up.”

  * * *

  Turcotte could see and hear movement in the Chinese lines. There was the roar of tank and armored personnel carriers starting their engines. Orders were being yelled.

  Even with the night-vision goggles it was unclear what was happening out there. For all Turcotte knew, the Chinese might be moving the whole picket line forward. He knew they had spotted Harker’s position by the green tracers from the 12.7mm machine guns mounted on top of the tanks and APCs.

  “When do we move?” Nabinger whispered.

  “Any minute now.”

  * * *

  From the high ground Harker could pick out the beginnings of what appeared to be a line moving forward toward his position. Harker gave a brief whistle and DeCamp whistled in response. Harker placed his weapon down and stretched his shoulders and arms out. He took several deep breaths and leaned back against a rock. He had a few moments before he had to start killing again.

  * * *

  Turcotte pulled on Nabinger’s arm, indicating they were going to move out. Howes and Pressler rose up and followed. They slowly moved out of the bushes they had been hiding under.

  Turcotte heard another brief burst of fire from Harker and DeCamp’s position. Turcotte was sweeping from left to right and back with the night-vision goggles. He held the MP-5 at the ready. Off to his left he could barely discern a tank about seventy meters to north. Between the tank and the stream he could see nothing else.

  Slowly they slid down into the streambed.

  Turcotte felt his shoulders hunching, anticipating the bullet out of the darkness, but none came. He reached back and gave Nabinger a hand as they climbed up the far bank.

  Turcotte checked his watch. Another twelve hundred meters and they should be at the pickup zone. Twenty minutes and the choppers should be there also.

  * * *

  The nearest troops were only five hundred meters away. It was time to be moving on, Harker thought. The Chinese were getting the range. Harker briefly considered not firing again. He decided they had to. He couldn’t be sure that the others had made it through yet.

  Harker fired five rounds in under three seconds, shifting rapidly from target to target even as the Chinese soldiers dived for cover. DeCamp fired just as quickly. The two pulled their weapons in and slid down the loose rock, putting the outcropping between them and the enemy. Just in time, as the return fire was extremely accurate and incoming rounds cracked by overhead.

  “Let’s go.” Harker led the way as they scrambled to the north, keeping the outcropping between them and the Chinese for as long as they could. There was only one direction for them to run: toward the top of Qian-Ling.

  * * *

  The PZ was a dry rice paddy surrounded by tall trees on every side. They had run into no one on the rapid kilometer-and-a-half walk to it.

  Turcotte checked his watch. Ten minutes. They were clustered on the edge of the pickup zone. Everyone’s ears were straining. Listening for the sound of rotor blades.

  At eight minutes to time on target they heard blades off to the south. Too soon, thought Turcotte. But maybe they’re ahead of schedule.

  The blades were getting closer. Still off to the south. Then Turcotte realized what it probably was. More Chinese choppers to reinforce the first.

  Turcotte leaned close to Nabinger. “You get on the first chopper that lands. I’ll get on the second. There’s a thing I learned in Ranger School that we have to do now. It’s called disseminating the information. That way if only one chopper makes it out, the word gets out. And there’s some other things I need to know, but first tell me how we can stop Aspasia.”

  Nabinger nodded and began speaking.

  CHAPTER 31

  The bulk of the tomb appeared right on schedule. O’Callaghan slid the Black Hawk on a course that would take them north of the man-made mountain. Five minutes out. The kilometers flashed by beneath. Four minutes. O’Callaghan could see tracers firing to the southwest.

  Two minutes. The mountain was now to the south. O’Callaghan slowed down and started scanning to the right as Spence scanned to the left, looking for the IR chem lights and strobe the team should be lighting right now.

  * * *

  Turcotte stood at the
center of the small clearing and turned his IR strobe on. He could hear more helicopters coming from the east. His mind was buzzing with what Nabinger had told him and even more with speculation: what else might Nabinger have learned from the guardian computer that he had not had time to relate?

  * * *

  O’Callaghan could see the strobe. Perfect. Nine hundred and fifty kilometers from the O’Bannion and a perfect linkup. He slid over the pickup zone to let Putnam land first.

  Putnam flared his Black Hawk and started to descend. O’Callaghan could see the figure with the strobe extinguish it. Putnam brought the bird to a halt on the ground. Two men ran out and got on board.

  The first Black Hawk started to lift.

  * * *

  Turcotte watched the first helicopter with Nabinger and Pressler, the medic, on board, go up into the sky. He ran forward as the second bird landed, followed by Howes.

  Turcotte leapt on board.

  O’Callaghan did a quick scan of the area as he lifted and turned east. “We got company,” he said, seeing the navigational lights of an MI-4 helicopter, four kilometers away near the mountain.

  O’Callaghan knew the Chinese helicopter couldn’t see him yet, as the Black Hawk was blacked out and the Chinese pilot didn’t have goggles. He wasn’t about to give it a chance to find him.

  O’Callaghan opened the throttle up and pushed the cyclic forward. The Black Hawk shot forward past Putnam, who immediately followed.

  * * *

  Harker took a quick glance over his shoulder as he climbed and saw the bright searchlights of two helicopters probing the darkness near the site he and DeCamp had occupied only minutes ago. On the ground Harker could also see the headlights of numerous trucks that were bringing more troops into the area.

  Their only chance was to get over the top of Qian-Ling and then — that train of thought was broken off in Harker’s mind as he watched two Chinese helicopters fly to the top of the mountain tomb and settle down. They landed about a hundred meters apart and then took off, heading back down toward the coast.