Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  In a panic, Sunny began kicking wildly, but his feet seemed to only slide off of the tightly muscled agent. Fang pinned Sunny’s legs down as he climbed up on top of him.

  Brandishing the knife over Sunny’s face, Fang seemed to be making a choice, kill or capture?

  Any thought of salvaging the boy and making a double-agent out of him soon evaporated, as Fang saw a murderous look in the boy’s eyes. He knew the look, what many of his victims had shown him in the past. It was the look of sheer enmity. There’s no turning this boy, he well and truly hates what I am. Fang thought, as he raised the knife for a killing strike.

  Sunny threw a handful of dirt and snow up into Fang’s face and reached up to grab Fang’s jacket, and pulled hard. Smashing his face into Fang’s nose and lips, Sunny felt the contact as the hard bone of his forehead smashed into the soft cartilage of Fang’s nose.

  Fang grunted, but quickly recovered, and stabbed his knife into Sunny’s ribs several times.

  Before he felt the pain, Sunny felt the solid contact as a rock in his hand made contact with Fang’s head. Sunny had not even known that he had grabbed the rock, it was as if his body was fighting for its life, completely disconnected from his conscious mind.

  Fang fell off of him and rolled to his back with his hands on his head, but he did not drop his knife.

  As the pain hit him in his guts, Sunny became terrified that the man would recover again and continue stabbing at him, so he rolled away from Fang and painfully crawled a few meters away. The pain was terrible, but a surge of adrenaline flooded into him and he was able to get up and stumble towards the SUV. He got into the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed behind him. Looking around inside the vehicle, he found a gun on the passenger seat, and reached across for it.

  No more than a few seconds behind Sunny, Major Fang closed in on the vehicle, smashing the driver’s side window into a hail of shattered glass with the tip of his knife. Shit, I’ve brought a knife to a gunfight, Fang thought, as he looked into the barrel of the Glock. He saw the boy’s trigger finger tightening on the trigger. Fang’s training took over, releasing the tension in his legs and falling to the ground in the same instant as the charge in the bullet casing exploded and sent the projectile past the space in the air where Fang’s head been a millisecond before.

  Fang rolled, and ran a few strides before diving over the snow-bank at the side of the road. By the time he rolled to a stop in a kneeling firing position he had pulled out his back-up pistol from his ankle sheath. He took aim at the SUV before the spray of snow he had disturbed from the snow bank even came to rest. But rather than taking more shots at Fang, the boy had elected to start the vehicle, and gunned the engine.

  Fang emptied the full magazine into the vehicle as he ran towards it, but he clearly did not hit anything important and was left watching his prisoner escaping, accelerating the SUV to the west, toward allied lines.

  Shit. Well, he won’t get far with those wounds, Fang thought. The boy will be dead in twenty minutes or less. I got what I needed out of him. I know his identity and how he was being handled….and I’ve got his picture… Maybe I can use that, to try it out on locals. See if I can draw out any of his contacts up in Bourke; maybe use that to infiltrate some of the Brown-turned-Green Panda underground….

  In no time, Fang had convinced himself that mortally wounding the rookie enemy agent, had been a stroke of genius, and forgave himself for losing his potentially useful prisoner.

  Two months later, after successfully turning the tables on a group of inexperienced Green Pandas in Bourke, NSW, thwarting an Allied incursion that the foolish locals were supposed to facilitate, Major Fang had been sent out of New South Wales on a dangerous mission deep into Northern Territory

  The entire sector was a disaster, and General Ma was looking for better intelligence on enemy forces and plans in the area. With air resources so scarce now, ever since the Marines out of Darwin had wiped out the 42nd Group Army, Northern Territory and the western portions of Queensland were essentially a black hole to the PLA. Even now, after three years of careful advances across a more comprehensive front, the sole Division from the 41st Group Army sent in to salvage the situation had only progressed a few hundred kilometers west of Charters Towers.

  With two full divisions of Chinese armor now in the hands of the Australians, and with the constant threat of raids by the Marines all along the front, the PLA had all but given up any hope of advancing as far as Northern Territory. Camooweal had been the offensive culmination for the PLA. The focal point now was on surviving the anticipated onslaught of Australian and Indian forces coming eastward from Adelaide. So far, the 41st and 38th Group Armies had been able to throw back the enemy incursions, but each action had taken a steady toll in terms of attrition, both of land force units and what was left of PLAAF air superiority fighters. Meanwhile, the Indian Army and Australian forces continued to build up larger and larger formations, and seemed to be preparing for a major offensive.

  The planners in General Bing’s command post back in China had ordered a resumption of offensive operations in the north, to draw some divisions from the Adelaide region and perhaps buy a little more time for General Ma to consolidate the gains north of Melbourne. The hope was that as the nuclear winter continued to wear down the Australians, the front lines might stabilize somewhat and allow the PLA to hang on to the eastern half of the continent. If they could do that, they would come out of the nuclear winter with the most productive agricultural lands, and be in a position to use food as a weapon. In order to accomplish this, they needed more solid intelligence on the disposition of the Australian forces in Northern Territory, and more importantly, on the Marines of MAFTFA, who were considered to be the most lethal opponent due to their expertise in battle-space-management, strike-and-maneuver tactics, anti-occupation warfare, and reconnaissance-in-force. So the mission was critical to the PLA cause, and Major Fang was pretty much the only man qualified for such a crucial task.

  It was probably a suicide mission, he knew, but if successful it could turn the tide back in China’s favor. All he had to do was get to Alice Springs, collecting intelligence on enemy forces along the way. Once there, he would find a way to send the intelligence back to the 41st Group Army. He was then to establish himself within the massive refugee camp near Alice Springs, build an identity as a helpful Panda, and then get close to just one particular person and find a way to kill him. Escape was a tertiary objective at best, and the least of Fang’s worries at this point.

  The most difficult part of the mission was not the culmination of it, but the starting of it. He had to bluff his way past enemy lines, playing a refugee from the Chinese sector.

  The first checkpoint had been touch and go, but he bluffed his way past the checkpoint west of Emerald, Queensland.

  Having insinuated himself into the vehicle of a mixed couple, befriending the Chinese wife of an Australian farmer, Fang had an easy ride most of the way. But when the couple asked him too many questions, and was forced to put his razor-sharp knife into their hearts just outside of the battle-scarred town of Mount Isa, his free ride was over.

  The deeper he penetrated into Allied territory, traveling on his own after returning the Australian couple’s kindness with murder, the more carefully the security forces checked him out. But he had woven together the seemingly plausible story he had adopted from the motorists who he had dispatched so recently, that he was headed to the refugee camp at Alice Springs to link up with his sister and her white Australian husband. He passed himself off as a landed immigrant who had lost his papers when he, his sister and his brother-in-law had fled the town of Emerald when it had fallen to the PLA 42nd Group Army three years back.

  His acting and lying skills had taken him almost the rest of the way, until he came upon a simple checkpoint outside of Ti-Tree, just three hundred kilometers from the refugee camp near Alice Springs.

  He had no idea that the area was an important source of potable water, n
or the burgeoning production of grapes that the tiny town had been known for before the war. All he knew was that he was suddenly confronted by a chicane of concrete blocks which he had to maneuver through very slowly. Backing out was not an option, he knew, as his vehicle had already passed over the one-way tire spikes laid across his path. The final turn in the serpentine row of concrete blocks put his vehicle square in the sights two soldiers standing on either side of his vehicle, their rifles trained on him and their fingers on the trigger.

  Major Fang remained calm, stopped the vehicle at the stop sign and kept his hands on the steering wheel as he waited for the soldiers to begin their protocol.

  “Shut-er off, mate!” said the one on the left, his M-16 aimed carefully at Fang’s head through the passenger side window.

  “Yes, Sir!” Fang said, shutting off the engine and then brushing his left hand across his left leg, just to feel the reassuring hardness of one of his concealed weapons, in this case his favorite throwing knife.

  “Who are you and where you going, buddy?” said the soldier.

  In the instant before answering, Fang had taken a more careful look at the first soldier and saw that the man had a cigarette on the go. A tiny whiff of smoke rose from the unseen cigarette which the soldier must have laid on the sand-bag that he was using to support his left elbow. He had his rifle trained on the passenger side of the vehicle, from Fang’s left, and was in a good position to watch Fang’s every movement. If I have to make a move, it’ll have to be when that one takes a puff, he thought.

  “My name is…Dazhuang, but everybody calls me Dusty,” Fang said, using the name used by the Allied agent who he had skewered outside of Dubbo. He had been using the alias at every checkpoint he had encountered, half hoping someone would recognize the name and give Fang some clue as to his fate. It was risky, but in Fang’s experience using the real names and identities of people he knew something about was better than making up fresh lies. Imaginary identities are much harder to keep straight than real personalities, even to a man as organized and detail-oriented as Fang. But this time he got an immediate reaction. He saw the soldier on his right freeze momentarily, his eyes narrowing in concentration for a brief moment, followed by a resumed and seemingly casual conversation, but now accompanied by a subtly higher level of alertness.

  “Dazwang, is it? Right. And where are you going?” the soldier asked, continuing the roadside interview.

  “I’m headed for the camp near Alice Springs, to meet up with my sister and her husband – he’s a farmer, or was, and I’m going to work with him when the war is over and the snow goes away,” Fang tried to spin the back-story the same as he had a dozen times between Charters Towers and this latest check-stop. But his heart was not in the story telling this time. He had already decided that it was pointless. He had switched to combat mode, in response to the subtle change in the soldier’s manner.

  “And what was your point of departure?” the man, wearing the rank of a Master Corporal, his shoulder patch featuring a dagger through the center of a boomerang and the motto: Strike Swiftly was instantly recognized by Fang as that of 1 Cdo Regt, Australian Special Ops Command. The soldier seemed to have a strange accent, perhaps American, Fang guessed, assessing the soldier carefully as he wondered what had caused the man to tighten up like that. Dusty! That must have been it. The guy must have known Dazhuang, or at least the name. Maybe he knows the kid is dead, so my turning up here using his identity is what he’s reacting to. Not good!. Fang decided he had to make a move, before the American-Australian could make a radio call.

  “Hold on! Stop what you’re doing, and get back into your car!” commanded the other soldier.

  Fang had opened the door and stepped out, moving toward the front of his car with his hands raised, pretending to be a bit panicked. He was careful to keep his distance from the soldiers, so as not to make them think he was moving in on one of them, but he was equally careful to position himself in between the two, so that each of them was in the other’s line of fire. They would know that they can’t shoot at him without putting the other man in danger.

  “I have documents – about the camp – from the Australian Red Cross in Longreach,” Fang said, tugging some papers out of his shirt-pocket with his fingers, slowly so as not to alarm the soldiers.

  The Master Corporal’s attention was momentarily diverted to the papers in the Asian man’s fingers. He leaned forward, over the top of the sandbags atop his concrete barricade as his eyes followed the papers falling to the ground. He watched the imposter fumbling to collect the papers and then rise back up, offering them to him. That’s not Sunny Yao, but he’s using Sunny’s cover name “Dusty”. How many Panda’s could have a name like that? who the fuck is this guy? he wondered

  On the opposite side of the road, Corporal Gillich could not see what the Chinese was doing, as the subject was bent over, with his rear end directed at the Corporal in the over-watch position on the left.

  Get your arse out of the way, Gillich thought, and then saw the threat. Adrenaline rushed into his blood as he saw the subject hiding a knife with his left hand under the sheaf of papers he was presenting to the Master Corporal with his right. Unable to fire without risk of hitting his partner, Gillich shouted: “Knife!”

  It was exactly the sort of thing that Fang had hoped for. The Master Corporal suddenly looked across at his partner on the opposite side of the road, and then back to Fang. He was just in time to see Fang lunging at him from two meters away, suddenly closing the distance enough to jab a knife sideways into the Master Corporal’s right hand. The soldier heard the sound of metal on metal before he felt the pain in his hand, as the knife penetrated right through his hand and struck the stock of the rifle before the blade was yanked out.

  As the pain reached his brain and he instinctively pulled his hand back from the rifle’s hand-grip, he saw the Chinese whirl. Gillich was in the perfect vantage point to watch the knife tumble end-over-end towards him as it flew across the road, hitting him squarely in his chest. He squeezed off a few rounds in his death-convulsion, but the rounds simply kicked up some mud and snow, well off-target. Corporal Gillich was dead before he hit the ground, Fang’s throwing knife having pierced his heart.

  Half stepping, half falling backwards now in an attempt to flee, the Master Corporal on the right side had let go of his rifle when the pain had struck. He raised his left hand to grasp the microphone clipped to his breast pocket, and squeezed.

  He heard the electronic ‘beep-bloop-rip’ sound that the Motorola 3,000 was ready to transmit, but he did not utter a sound. He had been frozen in place by the solid force of a man standing behind him. A man who had just reached over his left shoulder and grasped his jacket firmly on the right.

  He felt a strange tugging sensation across his neck, and then his head seemed to tip back on its own and a warm wetness sensation spread across his chest. The Master Corporal was puzzled by the strange saggy feeling in the skin and interconnecting tissue of his neck, just under his jaw.

  He dropped to the ground, his legs and torso suddenly having stopped resisting gravity, as if they were no longer there at all.

  He knew that he had just been killed, and that the ugly, scar-faced man must have been the one that had carved up Sunny Yao.

  He summoned up Melody’s face in his mind, taking her image with him into oblivion.

  Jake Weir no longer had to pretend to be a soldier.

  20

  AUSSIE RULES OFFENSE

  The snow and ice were a mixed blessing, General Ma knew. While climate along Australia’s east coast was moderated by the relatively warmer, five to ten degree temperature of the air masses coming inland from the ocean, the climate inland was altogether a different story. It was like two entirely different worlds. The coast was gloom, drizzly and grey but the roads were usable and it was easy enough to shift forces up and down the coastal highway, Highway A1, and use as many of the secondary roads as possible to move inland, but after about two h
undred kilometers inland the moderating effects of ocean became overwhelmed by the deep freeze of the inland areas. After the third full year of nuclear winter the interior of Australia had been transformed from the rugged, dry bushland and sparse forest to a wintry tundra reminiscent of the arctic, with sustained winds below minus twenty centigrade and wind-chill values in the minus thirty range. – quite inhospitable to anybody caught out in the open. And that was the primary problem.

  It had taken the PLA three years to stabilize the coastal region, despite brutal repression and at times outright massacre of the local population, there had been a spirited insurgency taking out units up to company size. Larger formations, such as Combat Teams and battalions had been relatively unchallenged, as long as they did not try to push too far inland.

  As a result, at this point three years into the campaign, the Chinese had solid control of the first two hundred kilometers inland all up and down the east coast, and part of the way round the south coast towards South Australia.

  General Ma, in command of the 42nd, 41st and 15th Group Armies, was responsible for everything north of the Queensland – New South Wales border, essentially everything north of what had once been Brisbane. Once the expected reinforcements arrived from Indonesia, he would reconstitute the 42nd Group Army out of the two Regiments of the 31st and one from the 15th. All that he had left of the 42nd was one regiment of the 372nd Division that was holding on to what little pride they had left, at the front-line town of Emerald. Reforming the 42nd Group Army was altogether unnecessary given the way he was operating the much larger formation designated Army Group North out of his Command Post in Rockhampton, he knew, but the effect on the Marines when they would ultimately be hit by a renewed campaign led by the 42nd Group Army was expected to be a deep insult. The US Marines had a long enmity with the 42nd, and were enjoying the sweet satisfaction of having wiped out the 42nd on the road from Cloncurry to Camooweal and the border regions of Northern Territory.