by Ian Slater
To Commander Soong, now the victor of A-7, the MiG pilot was a comrade hero, having made it all the easier for him to conquer the summit and plant the red flag.
In the La Roche chain, Marchenko got more space than the president’s victory over internal saboteurs and the arrest in Central Park of the man who the FBI said had engineered the massive computer debacle.
For Sergei Marchenko, his downing of the Spectre meant another U.S. plane for his ground crew to paint on the side of his Fulcrum, his daring kill on near-empty only adding to his reputation in the Siberian air force for having devyat’ zhizney—”nine lives.” Even those who disliked his haughty manner, which included most everybody at Irkutsk, had to concede his bravery in going it alone, his sheer talent and his media-star status after what the western press had thought was his destruction over Korea earlier in the war.
It not only added to his legend at home, but burned the ears of all those Allied pilots who’d come up against him. This was especially so for Frank Shirer, who, seeing a MiG crash, had claimed the Korean kill. Adding insult to injury, Shirer was given the information in the mess of the B-52 squadron at Nayoro, Japan. Here, so far from home, his sense of being a has-been—”from Porsche to bus driver,” as he’d put it — was confirmed when he was told of Marchenko’s resurrection at dinner, where ail the B-52 crews also heard it. Frank thought of Lana telling him it didn’t matter a fig about Marchenko, that what mattered to her was that he, Frank, was alive, that if La Roche ever conceded to a divorce, they could get married. But her hopes were no consolation to Shirer. There were just some things you couldn’t explain to a woman. Shirer’s gunner, a gregarious Murphy from Philadelphia, tried to make light of it, but as Shirer cut into his steak, he pressed so hard on the knife that the screech of the steel on china went through the mess hall like nails on a blackboard.
“Don’t worry about it, skipper,” said Murphy, who, as well as resident optimist, was the B-52’s “designated hitter”—the tail gunner, though he had not yet seen an enemy plane and didn’t plan on seeing one. “This Mar— whatever his name is.”
“Marchenko.”
“Yeah — Marchenko. He’ll get his.”
“How are those tail guns coming along?” asked Shirer, shifting away from talk of the Siberian ace. “Wandering a bit on the way over, weren’t they?” He meant on the flyover from the States to Japan.
“Ah, they’re okay. It was me wandering, skipper. Had some of that sushi last night. Don’t think raw fish agrees with me. Had the runs all night.”
“You should stock up on Pepto-Bismol,” said Shirer. Murphy thought he was fooling, but he wasn’t. “You might have a long flight if the weather clears up north.”
Murphy patted his left vest pocket. “Got me a whole packet. Ah, know what the target is, skipper?”
“No.” Shirer’s tone sounded like he didn’t care, either. “Only that it depends on clear skies, or enough to see where we’re bombing.”
“Could be important, right?”
“Oh, sure,” said Shirer, feeling as bitter as the coffee. “It’s always important.”
“Yeah, right,” said Murphy, confident he’d helped shake his skipper out of his depressed mood. Then quite suddenly Murphy turned pale.
“What’s wrong, man? You got the runs?” the crew’s navigator asked Murphy. “Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Sushi,” said Murphy, pushing himself away quickly from the table, obviously in pain. “Goes through ya like crap through a goose.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Big dick!” said Aussie Lewis, wearily unloading his pack. “That’s what got us out.”
“And the choppers,” added David Brentwood wryly. The weapon Lewis was referring to was called the minigun by some of the SAS/D commandos who’d provided the withering cover fire as they’d loaded the litters of wounded aboard the helicopters. The minigun, one carried by each of the ten commandos, was a modernized mini-Gatling gun, a weapon with a phenomenal—”almost theoretically impossible,” the experts had said — rate of fire of over nine hundred rounds a minute. The ten of them fired by the SAS/D commandos had thrown up a steel wall of over ten thousand rounds a minute, the circle of SAS/D men clearing the LZ for the two Chinooks that supplemented the commandos’ fire with the front-mounted heavy machine guns. The extraordinarily rapid fire, due in part also to revolutionary C magazines feeding both the M-16 scope-mounted sniper rifles with 7.62mm bullets and the MPK5s with nine-millimeter Parabellum, enabled the SAS/D team to secure the snow moat between the timber and the landing zone long enough to get the wounded and dead aboard the Chinooks; the wall of depleted uranium bullets not only keeping down the heads of the Siberians, but the Chinese infantry coming up behind them.
The SAS/D team had lost seven men and four wounded, and for that they now had the hard intelligence for Freeman that the Chinese had been conned by what had been a Siberian artillery barrage into firing on American positions all along the northeast China-Siberian border, breaking the cease-fire. But Lewis’s prediction was borne out — it made no difference. The Siberian member of the U.N., representing the largest of the Commonwealth of Independent States, said the American allegations were “groundless” and “a pathetic attempt by the Washington warmongers to rationalize American aggression against the peace-loving peoples of Siberia and China.”
On the flight back to Kalga Field, northeast of A-7 mountain, before changing planes for a fast jet to Rudnaya Pristan’ on the Siberian coast, the Chinook pilots had a bad fright when fighters, in finger-four patrol formation, appeared on their FLIR — forward-looking infrared — screens, the pilots thinking that, like the downed Spectre, they were about to be attacked by more MiG-29s. But instead, the dots were American F-15 Eagles sent away down from Skovorodino to escort the choppers back. It was a tight-lipped bunch of SAS/D men who deplaned at Rudnaya Pristan’.
* * *
It was one thing to lose seven of your own in an attempt to rescue your own, but the sheer waste of the A-7 mission not only gave La Roche’s tabloids more screaming headlines, but was a waste emphasized by the failure of the Chinese to break off hostilities.
“You’d think they’d call their lot back,” commented Choir Williams as he watched a medic bandage up Lewis’s left foot. It was only a flesh wound but had made a mess of the boot.
“Nah,” said Lewis, looking at the medic who, Lewis saw, was carefully, obsessively, putting on a double pair of rubber gloves and rubber mask before he went anywhere near the blood. “Don’t worry, sport. I don’t have AIDS.” The medic didn’t answer, and Lewis turned his attention to Williams. “Ah, forget it, Choir. Beijing doesn’t give a shit who started it. Not now. They see their chance to gobble up more rich border territory — their price for helping the Sibirs. Anyway, what you think those old farts in Beijing are gonna tell the masses, mate? ‘Sorry, but we made a mistake and started a war. All our propaganda about Yankee aggression was a bunch of bullshit.’ “ Lewis watched the medic open a brown bottle of iodine, its smell bringing back unpleasant childhood memories. “They’d lose face, wouldn’t they?” said Lewis, his eyes fixed on the iodine. “And all their bloody perks as well.” The medic tipped the amber bottle against a cotton wad and stroked the wound, the astringent odor of the antiseptic rising, seeming to fill the barracks.
“Sting a bit?” Choir asked, poker-faced.
“Nah.”
“Oh well, then, boyo,” said Choir, “you’ll be fit for further service, then.”
“I will,” said Aussie, undaunted, and confident that the SAS/D team would now have a bit of well-deserved R&R. Aussie turned to Salvini and told him he’d now managed to find out the name of the “bird” with the “big nungas” he’d seen in Khabarovsk just before they’d been called for the A-7 mission. “Olga’s her handle,” he explained.
Salvini was cleansing his minigun and looking down each barrel as he did so. He winked across at Choir. “Olga? Sounds like a wrestler.”
“Do
n’t care, mate,” said Lewis. “She can wrestle me. Smother me to death if she wants.”
“Squeeze the life out of you, I should expect,” said Choir.
Aussie held his hands out, bowl-like, in front of him. “I tell you they’re this big, and I’ve got her address.”
“Ah, wouldn’t get all excited, Aussie, if I were you,” chimed in Salvini. “Might be a while before you see Khabarovsk, let alone any poontang. Rumor is they’re got something lined up for us.”
Aussie Lewis’s glance shot from Salvini to Choir and back again. Lewis could usually tell when they were kidding him, but Salvini looked totally disinterested — as if the rumor was already known by everyone except Lewis.
“Where?” challenged Aussie, suspicious.
“South,” Choir said, nodding in the general direction of China.
Aussie shook his head and immediately relaxed. “Horse shit!”
“No — dinkum!” said Choir, using the Aussie’s own expression for the absolute truth — the genuine article.
The medic taped the bandage and left. The truth was, he was overawed by the men of SAS/Delta. Aussie thanked him, glanced again at Salvini and tore off a piece of cleaning rag to wipe down one of the high capacity C mags. Salvini didn’t have a trace of a smile. He looked bored.
“All right,” said Aussie, standing up, wincing slightly, shifting his weight to his right foot, his grimace quickly replaced by a knowing smile. “You’re tryin’ to take the piss out of me, Salvini. Bet you’re wrong. Two to one on.” It was odds on — you’d have to bet two to win one. You could make money, but you had to be sure of your information. Salvini looked up, shifting the blame to Choir. “Should’ve known Aussie would bet on it — Australians’ll bet against the friggin’ sun coming up. Forty-eight hours without a bet sends Lewis into delirium tremens.”
“Aha!” said Aussie triumphantly, seizing on Choir’s hesitation. “What’s the matter? The cat got your fucking tongue?”
“I’ve never heard you speak, boyo, without a swear word. You always have to swear?”
“Don’t fart round, boyo. Put your money where your mouth is. Is there a mission or not? Pay up or shut up.”
Salvini began “black taping” his Heckler & Koch’s two-notch pistol grip, Aussie squatting down beside him, giving Salvini a friendly elbow nudge that almost toppled him.
“Five bucks, then,” piped up Choir, his tone, however, hardly enthusiastic.
Aussie stood up, mock shock all over his face, looking around the barracks in wide-eyed surprise. “Five whole dollars! Jesus, Choir, don’t go overboard. Salvini — how about you?”
“Five.”
“What a pair of wankers,” Aussie said disgustedly, shaking his head. “Hardly worth making book.”
“Then don’t,” said Choir, which only confirmed Aussie’s suspicion that they’d just made up a rumor.
“Oh I’ll take it,” said Aussie. “A mission south, is it?” He was reaching up for the small, blue, indelible pencil and paper he had tucked under his helmet’s Medevac band.
“Within a week,” said Salvini, upping his bet to add credence. “I’ll bet ten bucks.”
“A week? And a high roller! Okay — a week.” Lewis licked the tip of the indelible pencil, leaving a purple stain on his tongue as he wrote down the two wagers. Next, he cast a glance about the barracks, the rest of the SAS/D team in various stages of undress and/or busy cleaning weapons. “Anyone else?”
David Brentwood declined, as did the rest of the troop.
“Okey-dokey,” said Aussie, slipping the pencil back beneath the helmet band. “The Welsh Wart and the Brooklyn Dodger — five and ten. Done! Takin’ candy from a baby.”
“Better not be so cocksure,” cautioned David Brentwood.
“Don’t worry about my cock. I’ll have fifteen bucks to blow, and she’ll blow me!”
David Brentwood shook his head — the Australian was incorrigible.
“Listen, Davey boy,” said Lewis. “If these blokes are right, I’ll run starkers into Freeman’s HQ!”
“Promise?” someone yelled laughingly.
“Absolutely!” said Lewis.
“You all heard that?” said David.
“Copied!” came back an SAS/D chorus.
The jocular mood died suddenly with the sight of the unit padre walking in with the dog tags of the dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Pele… I am the goddess of fire.”
It was all Robert Brentwood in the bow of Echo One could think of when he saw the fiery, incandescent ball of light, for Pele — played by a Polynesian beauty — had risen from the fake but realistic-looking volcano during a Hawaiian show he’d once seen on Kauai, the waterfall in front of the mountain turning molten red like lava as the lights behind it changed from white to pulsating crimson. Pele’s right hand flashed quickly into the darkness like a karate slice, and a ball of fire — perhaps it had been done by lasers— had shot with incredible speed across from the fake volcano to the rain forest like a bolt of lightning. But the red ball he saw now streaking through the darkness across the river two miles from the Nanking Bridge was no conjurer’s trick. It was the tracer flash of a PLA eighty-two-millimeter 65RPG, a recoilless rifle round, in reality a short-range artillery shell tearing across the Yangtze darkness at five hundred miles per hour, striking Echo Two midships only seconds after her bow had hit a ‘tween channel wire, the sudden increase in tension triggering the RPG. The outboard’s fuel ignited, ammunition was exploding, the boat, its spine broken, in the air, afire and coming apart. Bodies and equipment spilled into the boiling brown water of the Yangtze illuminated by the fire, both sections of the boat still turning in air as if in slow motion, water pouring from one half in a gossamer spray. The acrid reek of burning rubber and cordite floated back to Echo One a hundred yards behind and to the left of what had been Echo Two’s Zodiac.
In that split second of Echo Two being hit, Robert Brentwood had to make his decision: to go and try to save whoever, if any, of the SEALs had survived, or to head immediately left, closer inshore, to avoid the mid-channel trip wire. He told Rose in a harsh whisper, “Hard left!” instructing Dennison and Smythe to man the paddles. Almost immediately he felt the Zodiac picking up speed, water slopping over the gunwales as it moved beam-on to the current, heading at a sharp angle inshore.
Ten seconds later the cold darkness was lit up again as the Yangtze was swept by searchlights, their stalks reaching out like long, white fingers from the right bank, and from the city beyond came the distinctive wails of sirens. Robert Brentwood pulled hard on the front starboard paddle, all the time wishing to God he’d given the order to row to shore a second after the searchlights had appeared; the searchlights would have vindicated his order — his decision not to go looking for the men from Echo Two. Even though he knew he’d made the right decision — that the mission was the thing that counted, that every man knew that — his gut was still in a knot. Machine gun fire was now raking the river at the floating debris several hundred yards ahead of them.
“They’re just guessing,” whispered Dennison.
“Right,” said Smythe, unconvinced. Rose kept paddling.
“Soon as we get ashore,” instructed Brentwood, “we hide the boat — swim down to the bridge in two pairs. Dennison, you’re with me. Smythe, you go with Rose. Rendezvous extraction point in two hours. Remember — no grace period. Chopper’ll come in and out. No chance for a second run. Understand?” Rose, Smythe, and Dennison nodded, intent on putting on their Litton M983 B night vision diving goggles and closed circuit oxygen apparatus. In their quarter-inch-thick neoprene wet suits with the flexible breathing hose and small front oxygen tank attacked, the four looked more like jet pilots than divers as they deflated the Zodiac, making it, the outboard engine, and paddles easier to hide on the bank in the vegetation that spilled down from the rice field to the very edge of the river.
Cloud broke, revealing the moon, and for a moment or two the three-m
ile-wide Yangtze took on the sheen of molten quicksilver. As Robert Brentwood chalked his rubber shoes before slipping them into the long flippers, he was struck again by how cumbersome, even absurd, they looked. But he knew that once in the water — a small amount of which would almost immediately form a body-heated layer between his skin and the rubber suit — with the first breath in the rebreather suit and the first kick of the long fins, a metamorphosis would occur. Probably they would have to go deep — thirty to thirty-five feet — to avoid the kind of trip wire that Echo Two had triggered, but not below the safety limit of forty-five.
The searchlights were still sweeping the wide race of the river, beams splitting then reconvening like flocks of ghosts finding their way over the floating body parts that had been the men in Echo Two. Brentwood heard the distinctive, long rattling sound of a Chinese RPK machine gun on the more heavily defended right bank. But because of the RPK’s limited nine hundred-meter range, its bullets didn’t pose any problem for Echo One, the rounds plopping in the mustard-colored, spotlit water like tired hail around the flotsam of Echo Two — the boat’s halves floating now like two dead manta rays, wings torn and shredded by the explosion.
The moonlight breaking through clouds revealed what looked like staggered platforms in the river, several hundred yards apart, of the kind Robert remembered kids in the States used in the summers to push out in the lakes and dive off. It told him how the river traffic they’d heard earlier was able to get past the trip wire or wires without incident, whereas Echo Two had been blown up. The ChiComs had anchored the floating platforms and mounted them with RPGs — not in a straight line across the river, but rather in staggered fashion, as one would place a series of overlapping gates at a sheepdog trial. You would have to know where they were, of course, in order to weave through them; for the sampans, he guessed, it must be akin to a motor vehicle driver in any other country having to negotiate a series of overlapping staggered speed bumps, like those the Communists had rigged up at Checkpoint Charlie in the days before the Berlin Wall had come down and the United Siberian Republic had arisen.
