“Yes, that’s what we do, we’re patient, Hiram. Very patient.” The smile widened. “Until it’s time to stop being patient.”
Vickers turned back around and told the driver to park inside the garage at the Texaco station. He never realized it was the same location where Colonel Henri Farbeaux once waited with his men a long time before as they planned to enter the underground hell of the animal known as the Talkan—or as Matchstick had called it, the Destroyer.
“Well,” he said, “they’ll eventually show and Chato’s Crawl will be the place it all ends for this Matchstick Man.”
The dark blue Chevy drove straight to the station and vanished around the back, where the men in black would start their vigil and patiently wait for Hiram Vickers’s bargaining chip to come home.
BEIJING, CHINA
General Xiao Jung was a man who was most responsible for bringing their former leader to power. Since the incident at Camp David he had his plans for China’s commitment to Operation Overlord overruled by the new president, Dao Xatzin—a man who had been waiting to take power in the wake of the military’s bold move four years before when they ousted, rather forcibly, the man that stood in the way of China’s cooperation with the rest of the world. The power had not passed to Xatzin, but to the Western-leaning man who had died at Camp David. Now General Jung was at the mercy of the man who ordered China’s withdrawal from the agreements with the West.
As he watched from National People’s Park two miles from the city of Beijing, he knew that this improvised plan had a chance of failing spectacularly. Even with the secret communiqués from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Maxwell Caulfield, advising the general on the intelligence that the new representative of President Xatzin had failed to pass on to the military. It was risky, but Jung thought if the attack could be coordinated correctly, they had maybe a 10 percent chance of saving Beijing.
In just the sixteen hours Jung had been observing, he had been fed intelligence from his forward units that over two and half million of China’s citizenry had been taken into the processing ship. As far as the air force could tell him the power-replenishing saucers had risen only once from Bohai Bay to regenerate the large saucer’s power shield. The plan would succeed or fail in that area alone. He must stop the processing craft from getting the needed power that prevented his military from regaining the capital. Thus far the new leader had been silent on the plan of attack, offering no guidance—as if he would not take the blame if the plan failed, but would gain the favor of the people if the general succeeded. Frankly thinking, Jung would rather have the politicos screaming at him for action rather than the silence coming from their hidden bunkers along the Yangtze River.
The roundup of Beijing’s citizens had deeply affected his army as they awaited the ground attack to commence. They had watched as screaming and pleading women and children were taken from their homes, streets, and other hiding places and dragged into the processing ship. The general’s mind screamed at him for action against this barbaric enemy that had shown no mercy for his people. The fate that awaited them once inside was one that any human being could not think about for very long before their spirits flagged in this desperate hour.
Jung placed his hands behind his back and looked out toward the sea. His navy was out there, waiting to spring their surprise on the ships hiding in the bay. The navy’s twenty attack submarines would be joined by the Liaoning, the first aircraft carrier in the People’s Liberation Army Navy. Its keel was originally laid down as the Admiral Kuznetsov–class multirole carrier Riga, for the Soviet navy. She had been purchased and refurbished and made China’s own by the People’s Republic shipyards.
The Liaoning waited twenty miles out to sea for any sign of the power-generation saucers that could escape the speedy and dangerous Type 093 Shang-class attack subs. Ten of these fast-attack boats, which looked amazingly like the older Los Angeles–class submarines of the U.S. Navy, would be assisted by five of the old Russian Akula-class boats and five of the Han-class subs as they would attempt to track down the three saucers before they could assist the larger processing craft in the heart of the city. The plan, code-named Operation Wrath, depended upon the navy to do their job and do it well. They were all expendable toward that goal, even General Jung himself.
As he turned and looked at the dark city before him, only the soft glow of the enemy shield cast any light on the dying capital. The surreal illumination was also a fear-inducing factor among the largest attacking force the People’s Republic had ever mounted. Over twenty thousand artillery pieces would be joined by an attack force of over five thousand Type 99A2 main battle tanks. These units would use their full complement of shells and special sabot rounds to weaken the shield and draw the energy-producing saucers from their hiding places. They would be assisted by a thousand long-range missiles fired from the five Shagshu-class missile cruisers a mile offshore. Add five thousand surface-to-surface missiles launched from hidden batteries in the outskirts of the city itself.
Jung looked at the forces poised inside the park and the surrounding suburbs of the capital. Over three million men would rush the shield if and when it went down. They would have orders not only to rescue as many of the citizenry as possible, but to avenge the millions that had already been butchered like cattle inside the cursed processing vehicle.
The general looked at his watch in the soft glow of the distant enemy shield. Two minutes until the air force started their attack runs. Bombers of the 10th People’s Air Wing would strike first with small battlefield nuclear bombs. One-megaton warheads code-named “The People’s Vengeance” would pummel the top of the shield in the hopes of draining the power of the enemy protection and craft and, with luck, maybe even destroy it. This plan was not the general’s but the commanders of the military advisory committee that sat safely beside the new leadership in their deep bunkers along the Yangtze.
“General, it is now 0230 hours. Shall I give the order to the orbiting bombers?” His aide also watched the quiet city two miles distant. He noticed the general had refused to wear the protective clothing provided to higher command officials. Jung would suffer the same fallout fate as his men. The aide silently and almost motionlessly laid his mask and plastic-lined protective gear aside, and waited on the man he and all the soldiers of his command respected beyond measure.
Jung just nodded his head as he faced away from Beijing.
The men could hear the engines of China’s latest miracle of aviation, the H-8 stealth bomber. The bat-winged craft was identical to the American B-2 and was just as deadly. The silence of the night was broken by two million men of the People’s Army taking cover as the loud warning sirens sounded from around the perimeter of the enemy shield.
A second warning sounded in a series of alternating blasts from the mobile communications vans that ringed the city. The general had to be pulled by his staff into the makeshift bunker near his command-and-control hut.
The dark skinned bombers streaked overhead from twenty thousand feet in altitude. Suddenly thick laser beams were projected onto the saucer from hidden places inside the smoldering debris outside Beijing. These laser-targeting guides were being cast by ten volunteers who had family inside the capital. Jung closed his eyes as he thought of the brave men who were sacrificing their lives.
The night became like day as the first one-megaton warhead detonated against the force field. Then three more struck the upper section of shielding. The scene became like an X-ray to those that braved the sight before them. The punishing winds tore through the city and the surrounding forces of the People’s Republic. The men inside the general’s sandbag-reinforced bunker felt the earth shake as three further detonations rocked the capital. Men all around Beijing fell when the impacts happened in rapid succession. The general heard screams of frightened men around him as he prayed to the unjust gods above that the enemy couldn’t withstand such an evil power as man’s nuclear arsenal.
The last of the nuclear smart bomb
s struck the direct center of the dome even before the heat had begun in earnest from the first three weapons. The cable of the shield cooked and melted but immediately started to regenerate before the heat started to dissipate. The two guarding saucers were immediately knocked down by the pressure wave that forced itself through the powerful shielding around the capital. The first hit the larger processing craft and then slammed into the surrounding buildings, while the second saucer was simultaneously smashed two miles distant from where it had been hovering. Then it impacted the shield, sliding down it like a bird caught in a net. It lay there smoking and melting. From the outside the men who braved a look saw the massive cables of the shield shake and vibrate and they momentarily thought that they would give fully. Instead, the blue glow increased, adding its own light to that of the nuclear detonations.
The night sky around Beijing looked as if the sun had exploded directly overhead. The noise was deafening as the explosive wave struck the surrounding troops. Armored vehicles rocked on their hardened springs and tanks bounced as if they were toys. Several thousand men were incinerated as they tried in vain to see the devastation and they vanished in a blinding wave of heat. The Grays were no better off. Spotters estimated that at least five or six thousand of the creatures had been caught in the open, along with several hundred of their walking automatons. At the same time it was reported that many hundreds of thousands of citizens were also killed from the 10,000° heat caused by the attack.
The general could not wait any longer. He rose from the plywood flooring of the bunker and raced outside, followed quickly by his entire staff. Jung threw up his arm as the heat wave continued to burst into the outskirts of Beijing. He turned his head and felt the hair on his head and arms crisp and fly away into the storm of wind and dirt.
Before the order was given, the three hundred JH-7 Flying Leopard fighter-bombers tore through the maelstrom of fire coming from the electronic shielding of the saucer. Without even the slightest estimation of the damage caused by the nuclear attack, the fighters released their loads of unguided bombs against the burning shield and city beneath. Strike after strike erupted on the smoldering upper dome. Ten thousand bombs fell from the night sky that was no longer dark. The attacking fighter-bombers were outlined by the glowing sky around them as the largest air assault in history continued.
The general raised his field glasses when he thought it was safe enough not to burn his pupils out from the amazing site before him. The city of Beijing was awash in a tremendous light that could never have been imagined and still the bombs fell from the sky.
“Get me intelligence from our forward spotters immediately. Is the shield holding?” he shouted as he tried in vain to penetrate the thick billowing smoke caused by the bomb impacts.
As a hard wind came in from the north, the answer was clear. The blue glow of the enemy protection was still alight with energy. The general saw the saucer that had slammed into the larger vehicle slowly rise from the rubble at its base and then start toward his waiting forces outside the capital. The large saucer was burning in several sections but was still there and still viable as it rocked and then settled once again. The streets had been sweeped clean of Grays, but also sadly many thousands of men, women, and children.
General Jung stilled himself against the failure of the attack and then lowered the glasses. The plan had to move forward through the disappointing failure.
“All commands, open fire!” he said angrily as he looked toward the target of Beijing.
In the next three seconds, twenty thousand artillery shells and five thousand sabot and high explosive tank rounds arched and streaked into the shield wall. It was as if a million fireflies struck the electronic dome at once and then kept alighting to the surface in an unyielding cacophony of sound and never-ending explosions. It was now a battle between the ancient gods of old as they struggled for supremacy.
The Chinese army was unleashing Earth’s version of hell against the invaders of their world.
BOHAI BAY, BEIJING
The three smaller saucers began the rescue of their processing ship by burrowing out of the sand and mud where they had lain undetected for three full days. They spun the bottom of the bay into a spiraling vortex of ocean life and water as they rose toward the surface. The Chinese navy finally had found the saucers’ hiding place and went on the attack.
Captain Zen Lee of the People’s Republic Submarine S-78, the Great Leader, was the first to confront the lead saucer as her sonar detected the movement through the deep-water port.
“Lock on and engage,” he calmly ordered. “Tubes one through six, full spread.”
The large submarine was based on the stolen design of the old Los Angeles–class boats built by the American General Dynamics Corporation. She shuddered as six YU-6 torpedoes, based on the design of the U.S.-built Mark-48s, sped from their tubes just aft of the sonar dome. The heavy-kill weapons sped to their maximum speed of fifty-two knots, catching the first saucer as it shed the mud of the bottom of the bay from its metallic skin. All six struck the craft at the midsection and then they detonated simultaneously, sending debris from the bottom through the thick environment to the surface where the impact explosion rocked the waves high above. The column of seawater shot to a height of three hundred feet and that was a marker for the fighter aircraft from the aircraft carrier Liaoning, as sixty of them had been orbiting the bay high overhead. The fighter-bombers of the 3rd offensive wing struck with the very deadly Mongol missiles. The tremendous rush of air caused by the streaking jets shattered the column of water and struck the saucer as it tried to reach the sky.
The Great Leader and four of her large sisters let loose a spread of YU-6 torpedoes that were targeted just beneath the falling vessel. The wire-guided weapons were electronically detonated sixty feet below the dying saucer.
Suddenly the second and third saucers charged through the dense waters of the bay, loosing cannon fire against the fast-attack boats of the Chinese navy. As the first saucer sank deeper into the water the warheads of no less than thirty-one YU-6s exploded just beneath her. The resulting cataclysm warped the saucer until it broke into three separate sections and then the remains swirled to the bottom, too damaged to heal itself.
The Great Leader heard the breaking up of the first saucer and her crew cheered. The captain ordered silence as he heard through her sound-dampening hull the terrible whine of the streaking saucers as they came on at the grouping of attack boats at over 200 knots. The captain never had the chance to order maneuvering to take evasive action as the first long line of laser fire cleanly sliced the Great Leader and her four sister boats into an exploding mass of steel and composite material. The crews of five of the largest submarines in the world perished as the remaining two saucers rose through the sea to confront the air attackers with a vengeance.
THE PENTAGON
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The situation room far beneath the E ring of the colossal building was silent as the real-time satellite images streamed in from three KH-11s and -12s as the battle for Beijing took a turn for the worse. Not only was the largest military bombardment and shelling against a single target the world had ever been witness to a complete failure, the entire attacking force of the Chinese navy’s surface flotilla and her underwater assets, twenty of the finest submarines in the world, had been destroyed.
Many angry eyes turned toward the upper balcony, where the military technicians knew the acting president sat with his young advisory staff. The men knew they had failed the Chinese, but the president wasn’t seeing it that way.
Camden watched the giant processing saucer as it slowly rose into the sky. Fighter jets of the People’s Republic continued to pummel the shield that had withstood no less than ten small nuclear weapons and millions of artillery, tank, missile, and air strikes and had still survived.
The gray image from high above showed the watching Americans the powerful might of the enemy as the large, thick cables of the shield wall burst like
a balloon; then the cables cascaded to the ground as the saucer began to climb into the sky. The shield was shed like the skin of a rejuvenated snake. They watched as the remains of buildings were also shed like a dog shaking off water. Still the great saucer rose into the dawning light of day. The two smaller saucers climbed with it as the two remaining craft that had refueled the power source shot off to the south. Tanks and artillery pieces adjusted aim and continued to pummel the unyielding saucer as it rose. Fighter aircraft dove in and several even made suicide runs and crashed into the upper sections, all to no avail. The craft simply rose at a leisurely pace as it burst through the thick columns of smoke that covered the remains of Beijing.
“General, the CIA sent this analysis over from Langley.” Caulfield’s aide handed the shocked Marine the bad news.
The general read the report and then passed it over to the remaining members of the Joint Chiefs. They too read the damage estimates to the People’s army, navy, and air force. All the chiefs were stunned with the exception of Admiral James Fuqua, who had resigned just after the destruction of the aircraft carrier Liaoning. She had gone down with all hands battling to the end. With her aircraft all shot from the sky the giant ship had died a violent death as she was ripped apart like a tin can by the remaining two saucers that had arisen from the bay and exacted a terrible revenge for the death of the third craft. Admiral Fuqua had begged for permission to send the three Virginia-class subs in the area to the rescue of the surviving crewmen of the carrier who were fighting for their lives in the sea off of China’s coast. He turned and pleaded with the new commander-in-chief to allow him to turn the 7th Fleet around and assist the Chinese in their effort as agreed upon by his predecessor, but it was all to no avail. The president merely shook his head in complete deference to the horrible disaster happening halfway around the world.
Caulfield lowered his eyes as he studied the angry military personnel far below in the situation center. He had watched an infuriated Admiral Fuqua as he stormed from the conference room; the president had accepted his immediate resignation. Caulfield watched as his friend’s replacement had been waiting in the hallway leading to the situation room.
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