by Schow, Ryan
Tong delivered the food and water as promised, and Quan quickly fell asleep after that. The surface of the roof was hard, though, and the night cold. Worse still were his dreams. They ran on an endlessly violent loop, brilliant enough and savage enough to jerk him awake more than once. Each time, as he lay there struggling to stay warm, to go back to sleep, he’d zero in on the sounds of war and killing below. Eventually the brief bouts of chaos tapered off into the night and all that remained were a few odd sounds here and there, the seemingly insignificant sounds of crickets and other insects making up their nightly chorus.
And then the first RPG hit the building. The concrete shook beneath his body, and twenty-five feet away, the side corner of the building crumbled and fell.
He scampered across the rooftop, closer to the stairwell. Was the entire structure about to come down beneath him? His foggy brain was fighting for purchase, his body sluggish to respond. Risking a quick look over the edge, he saw the hundred foot drop and tried not to panic.
Heavy artillery fire animated the valley below as he and Steve set up their confiscated sniper rifles and prepared for the day.
Fortunately the SAA hadn’t made it deep into the long, wide valley, but they’d moved a fair amount of their troops off the 503 and into the battlefield. There the SAA crushed the farmhouses and other residences that had been turned into outposts and Chicom storage facilities. But the Chicom’s answer to the SAA’s morning rush was to unleash their tanks. They were met by heavy artillery fire, and eventually the SAA’s tank-busting missiles took them out of commission. A SAA helicopter lifted into the air, fired on the building Quan and Steve were on, rocking it some more, but the chopper was promptly taken down by a surface-to-air missile. All of this before Quan had really even rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
The sat phone buzzed; he picked it up. Logan said, “So we’re just supposed to sit back and be patient?”
Quan might have still be shaking off the effects of a bad night’s sleep, but he wasn’t so drowsy that he’d missed the agitation in Logan’s voice.
“Yes,” he said.
“We did that yesterday and it sucked,” he said, steadfast.
“Let them deplete their resources first before you fire even a single round,” Quan said, yawning deep. “Otherwise we’ll come up empty with too much to fight and not enough ammo to tackle it with.”
“We’ll confiscate their weapons and ammo while we’re in the mix,” Logan said. “Just like we did back in Five Falls. C’mon Quan, you know we’re down for this.”
“All that was accounted for,” Quan said, now waking up. “You know this already.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled. “I just feel like the movie’s started and I’m still in the bathroom messing with my fly.”
“Just be patient and wait for my word,” Quan said. “At this rate, it won’t be too long. It’s not like the two armies are leaning on stealth or rationing as a strategy.”
“And whose word are you waiting on?” Logan snapped back. “Because I’ve got soldiers itching to fight, myself included. Especially myself.”
“We’re waiting on Tong Lim’s word,” Quan said. “When he says go, we’ll go. Until then, stay in the bathroom and keep messing with your fly or you’ll ruin everything.”
The line clicked off, Logan’s way of saying good-bye. Quan knew Logan well enough to understand the man’s drive. He was unrelenting in his pursuit of…something. Vengeance, maybe? Restitution for a shitty life? The man was a patriot, like the others, but he was extra committed to the cause. Skylar and Harper, too. The three of them trained in Krav Maga together, and though it took years to develop a single minded focus when it came to war, they seemed to work in concert together, almost off the exact same mindset. This was a rare phenomenon where he came from, and a blessing for The Resistance. But sometimes that blessing could also be a burden, he thought. Like now.
Quan felt he could handle Logan in the short term, manage him from on high, but the second he decided it was time—on his signal or not—the man was going into the battle and there’d be nothing he could do about it but provide cover.
“Who was that?” Steve called out.
“Logan.”
“They okay?”
“He’s ready to go,” Quan said.
Steve nodded, eye back in the scope.
Below, the SAA troops moved forward, advancing their position on the Chicoms. The fight steadily moved toward the center of the valley. The Chicoms weren’t overwhelmed, though. Not by any measure. And it was clear they were determined to push back. For awhile it appeared as though the Chicoms were about to take the SAA, but around high noon, the SAA rallied back. It was still too early to give Logan the go ahead, so he and Steve lined up shots and began to work the field from on high, making sure the kill count from the armies below was astronomical.
Quan locked in on a turret mounted Humvee. He put the crosshairs on the gunner’s head, then steadied his breathing. Taking wind speed and trajectory into account, he lined up his shot, released his breath, then gently squeezed the trigger. The round punched through the man’s neck, striking him five inches lower than Quan had been aiming for.
On the next shot, he adjusted his aim. He quickly took out a man with a rocket launcher, and the next Chicom who picked it up to fire off that round. By then, Quan felt he was properly calibrated for wind speed and trajectory as well as the slowing of the bullet and gravity’s effect on it. The next shot was dead on. He’d hit the grenade that was still in the RPG launcher lying in the dirt between the two dead soldiers. The explosion took out several SAA soldiers. After that, the Chicoms began to work their way forward again, the war progressing.
The sat phone buzzed again. Quan picked it up.
“Yeah?” he said, annoyed.
“My fly is up and I’m about to come out of the bathroom,” Logan hissed into the phone.
“Patience is a virtue,” Quan said, trying to dial the man back.
“Dead Chicoms on the field is more of a virtue. And dead SAA…that’s a virtue, too. But most virtuous of all of that is me and my men going weapons hot in a war we worked our asses off to be in. Which means I’m not going to stand back and let someone else have all the fun!”
“If you want to win, you’ll sit back and take a breath,” Quan snapped. “But if you want to lose, be my guest. But the second you go and blow your load, when half the SAA turns on you, don’t expect two guys on a rooftop to bail out the whole team!”
Logan hung up.
“Dammit!” Quan barked.
“What’s wrong?” Steve shouted from twenty feet away.
“They want to get in the game,” Quan said.
“Do you blame them?”
He didn’t, but from on high, the scene was different. The SAA had yet to move the rest of their army in, and the Chicoms were unpredictable at best. But when the heavy artillery ran out, when the last armored Humvee was blown up and the last Chicom tank sat dead in smoking ruin, the men would take to the field with only their fighting spirits and their guns. At that point, the foot soldiers would drown the valley with the blood of their enemies, effectively bringing the numbers down to a manageable advantage. Only then would Quan make the call to Logan. The problem with that was Logan was more unpredictable than all of them. And he had the respect of his people, which meant Quan’s orders held exactly zero sway against Logan’s orders. And if Logan was holding back—be it by common sense, or trust in the plan, and ultimately Tong Lim—then Skylar or Harper would step up and override them all. That was when things would ratchet up. That’s when their people would start dying, when the wrong blood would hit the valley floor. As far as any of them were concerned, the only blood they wanted spilled was the blood of tyrants and barbarians.
As he patiently lined up another measured, strategic target, Quan knew in the back of his mind that Logan and company could move at any minute, perhaps even that very second. If he’d learned anything from their past exploits, it was that he
had to expect the unexpected.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Logan was tired of waiting for the call from Quan. Everyone was restless, on edge, and dumping good adrenaline by the minute. As he watched the rest of the SAA advance onto the battlefield, he decided it was time for a Plan C. He gathered Ryker, Skylar, and Clay together and started redrawing plans.
“Operation Elephant Takedown can suck my ass,” Logan said when all of them were together. “I’m renaming this Operation Tailpipe.”
“Operation Tailpipe?” Clay asked, a bit of a smirk playing on his face.
“We’re going to shove this war right up the SAA’s collective ass. We roll in quiet, knives in one hand, handguns in the other. First the knives, then if we need it, the guns. We shoot when things are loud, but if we can shoot with their weapons, not ours, that would be all the better. It’s not complex, it’s not sexy, but we have the advantage here. Oh, and every bullet counts, so hit your marks, stay tight, and let’s level the playing field.”
“You’re not leveling the playing field if it’s two armies against one,” Harper said as she joined them. “All we’re doing is expending energy while helping to conserve the energy and resources of the Chicoms. Quan is right. We should wait until he calls.”
“What about our momentum?” Ryker asked.
“What are you talking about?” Skylar turned and asked. “Are you talking about forward movement, or the mental momentum of our troops? Because we’re waning on both fronts.”
“We’re ready to fight,” Logan answered. “That’s what she means. She means us being in killing mode while perched on a hillside, hiding, with our operational cuffs restricting us and our insatiable appetite at an all time high.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Harper told him.
“It’s only our lives, and our future,” Logan snapped back.
He was in a foul mood. He saw men on the field that needed killing, men he could kill, but he was supposed to just hang back, let someone else do the job he was there to do? Absolutely not!
“I’m going in no matter what anyone says,” Logan finally said, drawing the ire of the some of the more enduring tacticians.
“When the hell did you become the angry child?” Ryker said.
“About the time you decided compliance was key to survival, Ryker,” Logan said. “Get your head out of your ass man, this is the big show.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, sarcastic, “it’s Operation Tailpipe.”
“I’m going,” Logan said, getting up. He handed the sat phone to Harper, leaned down and kissed her. “I just need a few kills under my belt, then I’ll be back.”
She took the phone, speechless. Finally, she found her voice, not that it mattered at that point. “This is a tactical error,” she said.
“Only if I’m caught or killed,” Logan quipped, a surge of satisfaction flooding into his heart.
Skylar stood and said, “It’s about freaking time someone grabbed their balls in this group. I’m coming with you.”
“Skylar,” Ryker said.
“We’ll be back,” she said as Logan took off. She caught up to him quickly and said, “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a man on a mission,” he said.
“No, really,” she said, crouched beside him at the back of a destroyed SAA troop transport. “Who are you and why weren’t you like this when we were together?”
He turned and said, “Everything we went through made me into this.” His eyes were supercharged for war, his heart finding the right gear. “You being dead in my mind, and not wanting to be with me, all of that turned me into all of this. Which still isn’t enough as far as I’m concerned. But I’m working on it.”
“Trust me,” Skylar said, looking past him, head on a swivel, “it’s enough now.”
“What are you saying?” he asked.
Now she looked at him. “I’m saying I never really saw things working out with us romantically, because I’m not that kind of a girl, but I envisioned this. You and me, in a spot like this, both of us competent, ready to roll, and both with balls the size of grapefruits. This was always my dream for us. This was the end result. And here we are.”
“I just wanted to have sex with you, and maybe fall in love,” he said. “That was my dream for us.”
“And did you?” she challenged.
“I did.”
“Well now it’s time I get what I want,” Skylar said with a grin.
“Roger that,” he said. “And into hell we go…”
Logan peeked around the bumper, saw the coast was clear—save for scores of dead bodies. He took to the valley in a crouching run, zig-zagging low as he headed for cover. At that point of cover was a SAA soldier with his back to them. He was standing at a shot-to-hell supply truck, stuffing ammo into empty mags.
Logan weaved through the dead, closing in on the unaware soldier quickly and quietly. It didn’t hurt that mortar rounds were going off just up the valley, or that automatic gunfire rattled through the slightly smoky air at a constant clip.
He snaked a hand around the man’s face, jerked his head up and sideways, then swiped his blade across the exposed throat, controlling the soldier’s head just enough to keep the shower of arterial spray off them both.
“Congratulations,” he whispered into the man’s ear as he held him close, “you’re my first kill today.”
After a moment, the man became deadweight, his knees buckling. Logan let him drop dead, then he shoved him under the back of the truck and studied the weapons and ammo cases in a long glance. “This is why the others should be here,” Logan grumbled, picking up a rifle and showing it to Skylar.
“I can see just fine, thank you very much,” she said. “Harper was right though. You and I, we’re not right. We just got bored sitting around.”
“True about being bored, and true about Harper, too,” he said. “But we are who we are, which means change isn’t in the cards.”
“My turn,” she said.
From there, following her lead, they made semi-lateral advances, looking up a wide field of war and knowing one wrong move would result in their deaths.
He and Skylar took out four more men, all in stealth. But that’s where their forward attack ended. There weren’t many stragglers, which meant there wasn’t much in the way of low hanging fruit. And most of the men before them were the weak cut down and left behind in the opening act.
Ducking down behind a rather sufficient barrier—a Chicom tank rendered inoperable via a tank buster missile—he and Skylar studied the field ahead, both their hearts racing, both feeling alive for the first time that day.
To the far left and up the valley fifteen yards, they zeroed in on an overturned Jeep. Behind it, in a makeshift tent—one that could be broken down and moved quickly—was a cluster of at least six men. These weren’t front line soldiers, or even platoon commanders. These were the top brass. Those brilliant men who had more value being over a map than they did being behind a gun. It looked like they were plotting troop movements, redrawing plans, trying to gain ground on the fly.
“No freaking way,” Skylar said, kneeling back down.
She looked at Logan and saw it in his eyes: he knew they were looking at was the head of the SAA snake. A devious smile crept over her face.
“This might be our only chance,” Logan reasoned, almost like he was reading her mind and agreeing with her, even though she hadn’t said but three words.
“I like your thinking,” she replied.
If the two of them had anything in common, it was that neither of them followed very well, because both had become leaders in the plight to take back their country.
“We’ll be making a lot of noise,” he argued, studying her features, thinking the battle worn version of her was even sexier than the version of her he knew months ago.
Regarding the noise, he wasn’t opposed to it, even though he was opposed to dying, and that’s what making noise in Operation Tailpipe meant. It meant the tail
pipe turned on you, and your life was over. Doing this, running an attack so early in the game, that could be lights out for the Logan/Skylar duo.
“You want to get in the game with a bang?” she said. “Because this is how we truly level the playing field. Da Xiao Zheng is dead. If we kill those self-important donkey dicks in the tent, if we flat out waste them all, that’s us killing their Da Xiao Zheng. That’s us keeping the playing field even keel.”
“So that’s our logic?” he asked.
“It’s as sound as it’s going to get if we plan on pulling something like this off,” she said.
“I only have one question,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to lead or follow?”
She frowned at the question then said, “Duh, I want to lead.”
“Glory hog,” he said.
“Second best,” she countered.
Before he could respond, she gave a slight laugh, then made her way through the field, moving from point of cover to point of cover, and checking her surroundings before each advance. Up ahead, there was an unusually heavy barrage of gunfire, and the smell of smoke drifting over them with the shifting breeze. So far, none of the artillery fire was aimed at them. Logan caught up quickly, moved in tight beside her.
“On this next run, we’ll be exposed one way or the other,” Skylar said just over the staccato sounds of a belt-fed machine gun blazing red hot death on the Chicoms.
“Go, I’ll follow,” he said. Meaning he didn’t want them thinking so much that they overthought it and somehow lost their window. They sprinted to a turret-mounted Humvee that had its cabin blown out by either a grenade or an RPG.
A bullet plinked off the metal overhead, so loud it sent a shockwave down Logan’s back and caused a sharp piercing in his ears.
They turned to move on the tent, waited a beat, then went. They crossed half the distance when an SAA soldier entered the tent from the far side. He started speaking to what they assumed was the field commander, but he stopped when he saw them.
