Invasion: Alaska

by Vaughn Heppner

  Paul rose up, jumped the perimeter wall and sprinted to the tent. Behind him, he heard a softly grunted curse—Red Cloud. Paul reached the tent, slipping past the flap.

  The Chinese soldiers heaved a crate onto the top of a pile. With the sound of scraping wood, they shoved the crate into place.

  Paul sprang like a panther as the nearest Chinese turned around. Paul rammed a knee into the man’s soft stomach, driving the air from his lungs in a whoosh of pain and shock. Then Paul leaned forward, placing one hand firmly over the soldier’s mouth. He put his weight behind his knifepoint. It went in like a skewer into carefully tenderized steak, sinking without a sound. Paul felt the body tense with the agony. Then he twisted the blade so it tore the soldier’s lungs and heart apart in one savage moment, killing the man instantly.

  The soldier’s back arched and his teeth clenched on Paul’s palm. Blood trickled from the soldier’s nostrils and his eyes protruded as if he’d been strangled.

  Paul withdrew his knife and wiped the blade on the soldier’s parka. He felt dirty killing like this. It was horrible work, but so was Murphy dying alone in a stalled cat.

  Red Cloud’s soldier lay on the crates, his throat cut and blood pumping out and misting in the cold.

  “There’s still the one in the caterpillar,” Paul whispered.

  “We must hurry. Our luck can’t last much longer.”

  Paul and Red Cloud strode out of the tent, their knives ready.

  “You tap on his window,” Paul said. “I’ll come in from the passenger-side.”

  The caterpillar was parked ten feet away. Red Cloud went around the back.

  Paul took six rapid steps. Then he heard Red Cloud knocking on the soldier’s window. Paul opened the caterpillar’s passenger-side door. A Chinese man listening to his earphones looked up at Red Cloud. Paul could hear the tinny musical sounds as he climbed into the warm cab. The Chinese soldier whirled around, stared at Paul and went for his gun as he shouted. Paul thrust the Gerber blade into the man throat, the knife grating against neck-bones.

  Red Cloud opened the door and twisted the soldier’s head, dragging him outside and burying his face into the snow. He stabbed the Chinese soldier, finishing the grisly task.

  The radio in here—Paul used his bloody knife and pried and tore it out of the dash.

  “What now?” Red Cloud asked.

  “We use our grenade and hope they think one of the ammo crates went off on accident. Help me drag the corpses into the cat’s back.”

  Once all three copses lay among the ammo crates, Paul told Red Cloud. “Go on, run like the wind.”

  Red Cloud stared at him. Then the Algonquin sprinted away from the caterpillar. In the darkness, he hurdled over the perimeter wall and ran across the ice for the nearest pressure ridge.

  Paul worked feverishly as he opened a crate. It was artillery ammo. With his knife, he made some quick adjustments, arming the shells. Swallowing hard, Paul pulled the pin and set the phosphorous grenade amongst the readied shells. Then he whirled around, picked up the radio and sprinted. He leaped over the ice-wall and ran. In the distance, he saw the dark blot of Red Cloud ahead of him. He counted the seconds.

  Then he hit the ice, sliding across it, and he began crawling, hoping to put more distance between himself and what was about to come. A millisecond later, a terrific explosion rent the Arctic stillness. The shockwave lifted Paul, tossing him over the ice. Secondary explosions began as the ammo began to cook off.

  All the while, a dazed Paul Kavanagh continued crawling, hoping that none of the shrapnel hit him.

  AMBARCHIK BASE, SIBERIA

  Jian Shihong hated the bitter cold of Siberia. It had been a shock climbing down the supersonic plane into this miserable place. The cold had hit as a hammer, driving icicle nails into his bones. He’d witnessed the base’s square buildings and the polar ice that had spread into the Arctic distance. According to the general explaining the situation, the darkness gripping this land would not relent for many months.

  Jian had landed several hours ago, having made the trip in record time from Beijing. Now he was supposed to enter another plane and fly over the ice toward Alaska. That was madness, sheer insanity. He no longer believed the Chairman. He was certain the old man lulled those he was about to use. Telling him he was going to be the next Chairman—Jian was certain that had been a ruse. He had to take more risks to outsmart the clever old man dying in his underground bunker.

  “Turn up the heat,” Jian said.

  “Sir?” asked the general.

  They stood in a large chamber filled with computer maps and working personnel. Lieutenant-General Bojing was medium-sized, with a round head and an immaculate uniform. His polished shoes shined so splendidly that at times Jian could see himself reflected in them. The military personnel at work covertly watched him. Jian could feel their gazes. But he’d yet to catch a soldier directly staring at him. Maybe they feared his bodyguards. Three of his team stood against the wall. They kept their hands on the butt of their guns, watching everyone. Their presence comforted Jian. He need merely point and they would shoot an offender.

  “I’m still cold from walking around your freezing base,” Jian said. “I want it warm in here so I can think.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lieutenant-General Bojing, who turned and uttered a quiet word. Soon, extra heat billowed into the room.

  “Yes, that’s better,” Jian said.

  He hadn’t had time after leaving the Chairman’s bunker to speak with either Admiral Qingshan or Police Minister Xiaodan. He would have liked to compare notes with them or even ask Xiaodan’s opinion on the Chairman’s odd behavior.

  What can I possibly do out on the ice that I cannot do from Ambarchik Base? It is a preposterous thing that I am so far from the seat of power.

  “It’s the logistics problem that presses against us hardest,” said Lieutenant-General Bojing.

  “What?” Jian asked crossly. This lieutenant-general had been trying to brief him for some time already. Did the man truly think he’d come out here to fix problems? This journey was a farce at best and a carefully laid trap at worst.

  “Logistics, sir,” Bojing said. “It is the movement of supplies from the factories to the fighting men.”

  “I’m well aware what logistics is. I used to be the Agricultural Minister.”

  Bojing blinked at him. One of the other personnel started coughing sharply.

  Before Jian could demand an explanation—he scowled as he scanned the chamber—Bojing touched his left wrist. Jian recoiled at the bodily contact.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said Bojing. “I’m…I could use your expertise.”

  Jian rubbed the back of his hand against his parka. How dare this man touch him? It was an insult.

  “Umm, as I was saying, sir,” said Bojing. “It’s a matter of logistics. The length of the supply-line across the Arctic ice has stretched our resources to the breaking point.”

  “That makes no sense,” Jian said. “You haven’t even started attacking yet.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bojing, dipping his head as he preformed a small bow. “I realize that. But maybe if I explained the situation in greater detail…?”

  “Explain if you must,” Jian said, who kept trying to think of an excuse. He didn’t want to travel across the ice.

  “Sir, normally a soldier outside his own country needs one hundred pounds of supplies a day.”

  “So much as that?” asked Jian.

  Bojing bowed his head. “In the Arctic, the need rises dramatically. Now to move a ton of supplies one hundred kilometers by rail takes fourteen ounces of fuel. A large cargo ship will take approximately half that.”

  “We’re not shipping supplies by train or ship across the ice.”

  “Exactly, sir. A normal truck consumes one percent of the supplies moved per one hundred kilometers.”

  “Why this choice of words? What do you mean by ‘normal’?”

  “On the ice we use highly modif
ied caterpillars instead of ordinary military trucks. The caterpillars consume two percent of their load traveling every one hundred kilometers. That is twice as much as a normal truck.”

  “Is that a problem?” asked Jian.

  “The bitter cold wears on our Arctic caterpillar-haulers four to five times as much it would on normal trucks. Perhaps as importantly, the caterpillar-haulers travel slowly over the ice, seldom more than twenty kilometers per hour.”

  “Is that because of the wave effect?”

  “Exactly, sir, the motion over the ice by these heavy vehicles stirs the water under the ice. Too much motion and we risk breaking the ice and possibly losing the supply route, to say nothing about the caterpillar-haulers. Because of a number of factors, particularly our efforts to leapfrog the supplies, we are moving the majority of our goods by air. Once again, the extreme environment affects our efforts adversely. For instance, Arctic airfreight consumes five percent of the supplies per one hundred kilometers moved. The forward bases are over two thousand kilometers away.”

  “It sounds to me like a mathematical problem,” Jian said.

  “The extreme weather has caused more breakdowns than we anticipated. We have begged for a rush of winterized parts, but they have been slow in coming.”

  “I will make some calls,” Jian said.

  “We would be most grateful, sir. Could I explain another facet?”

  “Of course,” Jian said. “It is one of the reasons why I’m here.”

  “It’s called wastage.”

  Jian scowled at the lieutenant-general.

  “I know you understand all this, sir,” Bojing hastened to say. “The wastage I’m talking about today is the daily losses of troops and vehicles.”

  “Have you secretly begun fighting the enemy?”

  “No, sir, the cold fights us, the bitter weather. We’ve been losing approximately forty men a day to the weather, mostly because of frostbite. Unfortunately, there are a higher percentage of mechanical failures with the snowtanks and hovers. Once we enter battle, the attrition to both men and vehicles will surely rise.”

  Jian appeared thoughtful. He wasn’t here to figure out problems like this. He was here to light a fire under General Nung. Yet maybe here was the answer to his dilemma. Under no circumstances did he desire to travel over the Arctic ice as the military fought the Americans.

  “Yes, I see the problem,” Jian said. “We must increase the supplies, rush more winterized parts to Ambarchik and attack the North Slope at once.”

  “Sir?” asked Bojing.

  “If we are losing men and vehicles just getting into position, how many will we lose while waiting to attack?”

  “Probably just as much, sir.”

  “Then we must attack now!” Jian said, smacking a fist into a palm. He would put a fire under them. He’d have his bodyguards shoot anyone who disagreed with him to show them he was serious. “We will lose our fighting men in the cauldron of combat instead of to the weather.”

  “Well…” said Bojing, who glanced at an officer standing nearby.

  “I’m not interested in excuses, General. You must radio Nung—”

  “We’ve been practicing long-distance radio silence, sir. This is a delicate operation. We cannot let the Americans know our exact whereabouts, not until we reach solid ground.”

  As Jian gripped Bojing’s left shoulder, he smiled as a father would to his son. Oh, this was perfect. “I am naming you as my special envoy to General Nung.”

  “Sir?” asked a bewildered Bojing.

  “This hour you will board a plane and fly out to General Nung.”

  “The general is in one of the forward positions, sir. That could be close to eighteen hundred kilometers away. The trip will take time.”

  “The great distance is the reason why I’m sending you, a man of authority. You will tell General Nung to rouse himself and attack at once. I will tolerate no more delays from him. He must use whatever tanks and planes are ready and rush into battle. Chinese soldiers are dying fighting the Americans near Anchorage. Nung is no longer allowed to sit on the sidelines as he gathers supplies and shifts his tanks here and there. He is like a man diddling himself, and I will simply not have it. Do I make myself clear?”

  “You do, sir,” said Bojing, who stared at Jian in wonder. Finally, Bojing seemed to remember whom he spoke to. “Umm, Minister Shihong, could I point out one troubling problem to your order?”

  “If you must,” Jian said, scowling. He attempted to radiate his determination, hoping to affect the others in the room.

  “I am in charge of supplies, sir, as it is my area of expertise. Ambarchik Base is the critical supply depot. The strength of General Nung’s soldiers is directly related to how well we keep the blood of clothes, fuel, spare parts, ammo and food pumping to them.”

  “Do you feel yourself to be indispensable?” Jian asked coldly.

  “Sir, General Nung and I have worked together for many years. He is the fighting soldier and I keep him supplied. He gave me explicit orders to—”

  “One of the reasons I’m here is that General Nung is not fighting. His reputation lacks any virtue this time around. Men call him a fighter and yet he waits like a woman for a man to call. You will tell him I said that.”

  “But Minister—”

  “I have given my order,” Jian said in a silky voice. “Must I enforce it as well?” he asked, glancing at his bodyguards.

  Bojing caught the direction of his gaze. Bojing bowed his head, but seemed unable to find words.

  Once again, Jian gripped the man’s shoulder. “You have told me you two are close friends. Good. He will believe you then when I tell him that the Chairman is very unhappy with his progress. Tell Nung he is to attack. If he fails to attack—then on his return, he will be shot.”

  The room fell silent, and Bojing grew pale.

  “I will do as you order, sir,” said Bojing.

  “I knew you would.” Jian smiled and studied the personnel around him. None dared to meet his gaze. The feeling of being watched had stopped. It felt good to wield power so decisively. Crack the whip and watch the ants scurry to their tasks. Perhaps he would become the new Chairman. First, he would show the world his command style by giving the order that ended with the capture of the Alaskan oilfields. He would put a fire under this General Nung. He’d make everyone obey his will as he began to implement the Chairman’s treasured command trick of setting his underlings against each other’s throats.

  ARCTIC OCEAN

  The pack ice crackled and splintered, the sound like a thousand snowballs hitting a wall.

  Paul scrambled to his feet as he glanced over his shoulder. Red Cloud jumped up, too. The continued cracking made the pack ice under Paul’s feet tremble. It reminded him the ice was no more than three and-a-half feet thick here. He had the sick feeling the ice would continue splintering and plunge him into the freezing Arctic Ocean.

  They had survived their mad gamble and managed to get out of the Chinese supply dump. They had also connected a power-source with the stolen radio and tired many different bands. Finally, Paul had spoken with the Marine battalion headquarters stationed in Dead Horse. They discovered the U.S. was at war with China.

  “I can’t talk long,” Paul had said. “So listen close and start taking this down.”

  He’d explained about Platform P-53, the White Tiger Commandos and the Chinese supply dump near his position. Then he’d told the operator that he would call back in an hour. Paul and Red Cloud both feared having the Chinese find their frequency and sending someone out to kill or capture them. They had both agreed never to surrender.

  “Check the parts of my story that you can. Then when I radio back in an hour you can tell me if you’re going to believe me or not.”

  An hour later, he and Red Cloud had found themselves talking to a Marine captain. The Marine believed them all right. The captain had also told them that a submarine was coming to meet them. They were supposed to remain where t
hey were and wait for the submarine’s appearance.

  As the ice cracked and splintered nearby, they still waited.

  “It takes longer to surface than one realizes,” Red Cloud said.

  Paul nodded. They’d dragged the toboggan away from the splintering sounds. From a safe distance, they now watched as a black ‘sail’ of an American ballistic submarine broke through the pack ice and rose like a steel tower. In time, a hatch at the top rose into view. A man emerged, a good two stories higher up than they were.

  Paul cupped his hands as hoped surged through him. We’ve been rescued. “Down here!” he shouted. “We’re over here.” Paul waved his arms.

  A spotlight came on, washing them in light. Soon, several soldiers appeared on the sail. The soldiers used rungs and climbed down.

  Paul recognized their insignia. They were U.S. Army Special Forces, sometimes known as Green Berets. That surprised him. They were from the 1st SFG, an A-Detachment. They were America’s premier unconventional soldiers. What were they doing out here on the pack ice?

  Special Forces soldiers jumped onto the ice and jogged toward them. Each cradled a stubby assault rifle. Several of the soldiers surrounded them, half the guns were trained on Red Cloud and the rest on Paul. A master sergeant shined a light first in Red Cloud’s face and then on Paul’s.

  “All clear,” the master sergeant said into a microphone on his shoulder.

  “Are you taking us aboard?” asked Paul.

  “Negative,” the master sergeant said. “Now tell me exactly what happened to you.”

  It took time. As Paul talked, with occasional anecdotes added by Red Cloud, sailors with axes climbed down the sail. They chopped at the pack ice. It was grunt work. In time, the main body of the submarine appeared. The sailors went to a larger hatch, which mechanically opened. The sailors wrestled out snowmobiles and hooked up sled attachments.

  “Are those for us?” asked Paul.

  “The fewer questions you ask,” said the master sergeant, “the better it will be for you.”