Harbinger (The Janus Harbinger Book 1)

by Olan Thorensen

  As the man in front of him stepped, so did Zach, synchronizing footfalls and the resulting sounds. The difference was that Zach’s steps were longer, and he closed the gap between them in four seconds.

  His luck held. The man was smaller than Zach, perhaps five-four compared to Zach’s six-one. A quick guesstimate put the man’s weight at around 160 pounds, including gear. As with the other men, his Kalashnikov was slung across his back, and his Russian-style helmet was held by a chinstrap.

  The man might have sensed something at the last moment, but it came too late. Zach’s left hand swept around the man’s head to clamp his mouth. Zach’s right hand swept the knife in front of the man’s face, fist to the left of the throat. Zach lifted the man off his feet and simultaneously pulled his right hand and knife across the man’s throat, severing both carotid arteries and the trachea. Zach didn’t need to see the result. He knew a gush of blood spewed down the man’s chest.

  His eyes never left the next man, who continued up the slope, eyes to the ground, watching his footing.

  Zach held the last man upright only for a few seconds. It didn’t take long for the man’s brain to shut down when its blood supply stopped. Zach eased the body to the ground and moved on. He had lost no more than five or six yards to the next man.

  If he could repeat this with the next two men, he would sheath the knife and pull the silenced M4 and then wait. Everything depended on his escaping notice until the fewest possible men remained on this side of the slope’s crest. Surprise was critical, but he couldn’t control luck or the unexpected.

  He moved again, a shadow narrowing the gap to the next man, synchronizing his footsteps, internally reciting the mantra “Don’t look back,” as if generating a telepathic link to the next target.

  He could barely discern the outline of the crest and four men in front of the first man pulling prisoners. The first of those men disappeared over the crest. The second man. The third man. Then, time and luck ran out. Zach was now only four feet behind the next soldier, who either sensed something or looked back for some other reason, maybe to check on the men behind him. He stopped and turned. Zach leaped forward and drove his knife under the man’s chin, through his throat, and into the spinal cord. Zach let go of the knife. There were four soldiers on his side of the crest, the one on top, the two leading prisoners, and the one directly in front of him.

  He whipped the M4 from his back. He had four targets. The first priority was the lead man, just below the crest. If he ducked over the crest or even was killed but fell where the men on the other side could see him, the game was over. The two men leading prisoners would hesitate, occupied. The man nearest Zach was the second priority. He had no prisoners to worry about. If he hadn’t heard the man behind him being killed, he would hear the silenced shots or see the man near the crest fall.

  PHUT!

  The shot hit the lead man at the base of the skull. The bullet passed through the cerebellum, the section of brain coordinating motor control and a factor in speech. He collapsed as if turning to liquid.

  The silenced M4 had fired only five feet from the secondary target, who whirled, frantically pulling at his rifle.

  Phut! Phut!

  Zach shot him twice, once in the right forehead and once in the left eye.

  The two men leading prisoners stopped and turned, confused for a second while their brains decided what to do next—an interval that was too long. The first man took a round in the upper chest just under his throat. He dropped the rope and stood, making no other movement as his brain assessed what had just happened—then he collapsed.

  Phut! Phut! Phut! Phut!

  The last man standing had released his rope and was diving to Zach’s right while reaching for his rifle. Zach’s first shot missed. His second hit the man’s right hip and spun him onto his back. In the dim light, Zach thought the third shot had hit body central, but he wasn’t sure and fired again.

  Three of the prisoners let out muffled vocalizations, but Zach wasn’t listening. He had another priority and snatched the radio mic from his webbing, activating it at the same time he switched on his GPS.

  “Zulu One, this is Ghost One. You are clear hot. I repeat, you are clear hot. You can’t get here too fast.”

  “On the way. Three or four minutes,” came the response. The flight leader hadn’t bothered using call signs. Zach assumed the F-16s were circling out of hearing and fortuitously were headed generally in Zach’s direction when his call came. The flight leader’s original estimate had been five minutes. However, three or four minutes could be an eternity. The rest of the Chinese might come back over the crest any second, and Zach had to get the four prisoners moving.

  The gags were unimportant. There was no time for questions and explanations, so he left the gags in place. Zach jumped over to the two male prisoners and grabbed the lead rope lying beside the Chinese he’d shot under the throat. Zach couldn’t tell whether he was dead, but he didn’t move. Zach pulled on the rope, forcing the two men to stumble to where the two women stood huddled together. He kept one eye upslope, wondering how long before the other Chinese noticed they weren’t being followed.

  Forty-one seconds had passed since the first shot.

  Zach pulled the men up against the women, their five heads facing inward.

  “It’s Zach Marjek. F-16s are going to strafe the top of this hill and the other side in a minute. We have to get farther away. There’s no time to untie you. If you want to live, move faster than possible. If you hear me yell, get low behind anything available. Even bare ground is better than standing. Go!”

  Chunhua never hesitated. When April didn’t reciprocate, Chunhua jerked her head, so that the rope connecting to the women’s necks forced April to move. Likewise, Albertson jumped behind Gorski and lowered his shoulder into Gorski’s back to push him downhill.

  One minute and twenty-one seconds.

  Two silhouettes appeared at the crest of the hill. Their rifles appeared to be slung on their shoulders. One figure said something in Chinese. When his comment got no response, he repeated it louder. A second voice spoke, harsh and excited. The men’s outlines seem to shimmer in the dim light against the stars. Zach assumed at least one body had been spotted, and they were reaching for their rifles.

  One minute and forty-three seconds.

  Phut! Phut! Phut! Phut!

  Zach fired twice in the general area of both shapes, then knelt as he lost sight of the figures. He didn’t know if he had hit anyone with his four shots, but there was no doubt the rest of the attackers knew something was wrong. Voices rose from over the crest, many voices. He thought he saw another silhouette, but it disappeared before he fired. Suddenly, the skyline was a jumble of shifting shapes. There had to be at least three or four Chinese.

  Zach flipped the selector switch on his M4 and emptied the rest of the magazine, as he traversed the rifle where he thought the Chinese were likely positioned.

  The instant his last round fired, he leaped six feet to his right. Flashes and cracks erupted from two positions above him. Bullets flew through his previous position. Rock fragments hit the back of his head and torso. When he landed prone, he rolled partly onto his left side to change magazines.

  Two minutes and twenty seconds.

  He had to count on the Chinese being slow to boil over the crest. A lot of what happened next depended on how badly they wanted the prisoners. They had many options, which ranged from forgetting about the prisoners and getting to the submarine to coming down the hill firing discreetly to attempt their recapture, or tossing grenades and firing to eliminate all witnesses, whether they were prisoners or not. An unlikely option was that they would take several minutes to think about what to do next.

  Zach pulled a flare and a fragmentation grenade off his webbing. He held the grenade in his right hand and pulled the pin with his left hand, holding the grenade’s handle down with the fingers of his right hand. With the flare in his left hand, he poked his right thumb through the
ring of the flare’s pin and pulled. He noticed voices again. Chinese voices—at least one giving orders.

  Three minutes six seconds.

  He rose to his knees and threw the grenade, hopefully over the hill’s top, though he never saw where it landed. The flare followed.

  Excited shouts. Someone noticed the sparks from the two thrown objects as their fuses burned down.

  An explosion shattered the twilight, but not on Zach’s side of the hill. The grenade had made it over the top. Seconds later, the flare lit. It had missed passing over the crest by two feet, and the sudden red glare lit up rocks, bodies, and Zach. He never looked back at the four prisoners.

  Three minutes and twenty-nine seconds.

  This time, when figures appeared upslope, there was no uncertainty where they were. One man jumped over the top, spraying fire across the slope as he disappeared behind a boulder. One of the shots hit near Zach, and he heard another round buzz by his ear. Two more men appeared at the top, crouched, and fired but didn’t come down.

  Zach hadn’t fired again. Although the flare had exposed him, his dark clothing gave him a few seconds before he was located. He made a calculated guess at how many seconds he had, then fired half a magazine at figures he could see.

  Three minutes and forty-two seconds.

  Part of his mind noted that he had only seconds left to live. Suddenly, the top five yards of the slope erupted with sparks and rock fragments. The burning flare he’d thrown shot twenty feet into the air, and Zach got a quick glimpse of what seemed to be only part of a body bounce downhill to stop ten feet away.

  A fractional second later, a roar came seemingly out of the east to hammer Zach’s ears. As the sound moved west, its rumbling diminished. He knew it was the lead F-16 using its Vulcan 20 mm cannon to strafe the ground, centered on the area just north of the flare.

  He keyed his radio.

  “Zulu One, this is Ghost One. You are go to repeat until empty. By then, they won’t be able to find us in the dark.”

  “Ghost One, this is Zulu One. Roger on that. We got secondary explosions, but we don’t know how long the light from those will last. You need to get your asses as far away as possible.”

  “Roger, Zulu One. Hauling ass.”

  Zach turned to three prisoners whose forms he could just make out—Albertson by shape. The two women knelt together, Chunhua trying to comfort Weaver. He searched for Gorski.

  “Where’s—” he started to ask, then saw a shape on the ground. He knelt, felt his way to the neck, and checked for a pulse. Negative.

  He quickly ripped tape off Albertson’s mouth and jerked him around to cut the zip tie on his hands.

  “I think he got hit when the Chinese first fired,” said Albertson. “I know there were several near misses. Couldn’t see where, but I could hear them zipping by and hitting rock.”

  Zach didn’t respond. He went to the women and removed the tape and the zip ties.

  “We’ve got to get moving. The next strafing runs are coming. These jet jockeys are good but not so good we can be sure we’ll be safe until we’re at least a few hundred yards farther away.”

  “Zach, is that really you?” asked Chunhua. “I’d given up hope—”

  Zach cut her off. “No time! There’s more air cover coming in, but the rest of the Chinese could come over the hill any second.”

  He pushed the women downslope, Albertson followed, and Zach trailed at the rear.

  “What happened to Judy Vickman?” Zach asked as they trotted and stumbled over rocks.

  “They shot her!” sobbed April.

  “Only twenty minutes or so from the site,” Chunhua said shakily. “She couldn’t keep up.”

  Zach cursed but kept his attention upslope. The F-16s carried out more strafing runs, one fighter at a time, Zach assumed expending all of their five hundred rounds per plane. On the second run, tracers rose in the sky from the ground.

  They took one of the machine guns with them, thought Zach. Good luck hitting an F-16 at night. The tracers didn’t appear again after a brief flurry on the third strafing run. That was a mistake. The tracers led right back to the machine gun. The next pilot only had to adjust slightly. Light machine gun versus Vulcan 20mm is no contest.

  By now, Zach and the three others were far enough away that they had a better angle to the sound and could hear the F-16s approach and see flames from their exhaust. Streaks of light stabbed to the earth’s surface, followed by impact sounds but not explosions.

  They fired their Sidewinders, thought Zach. They were armed for aircraft interdiction, not ground support.

  The heat-seeking Sidewinders wouldn’t explode when they hit the ground, having a minimum range before their warheads armed. If nothing else, they’d make the Chinese keep their heads down.

  “Ghost One, this is Zulu One.”

  “Zulu One, Ghost One here.”

  “All packages expended. We should be back fully loaded in about nine zero mikes. Other friendlies due in about three zero with appropriate cargo. I’m to relay that ground pounders are forty mikes out.”

  They’re headed to Thule to rearm and refuel, thought Zach. Maybe a second flight of F-16s will be overhead before then, along with the Seals. Gotta find a place to hide until then.

  He would not try to return to Site 23 in the dark with the other three. They had already covered three hundred yards, and visibility was down to mere yards. He’d push them a little farther and then look for a spot where they could huddle quietly together. None of the others seemed injured. He remembered a melt stream not much farther. He’d give them water and the remaining energy bars. Then they would wait for help. He still did not have radio contact with Site 23, but the F-16 leader would have reported a sitrep. Zach almost let himself relax. Almost. Something else could always go wrong. A clear lesson was not to assume or expect anything in this part of the world.

  Six hundred yards away and in deepening darkness, Major Peng accepted reality. The mission was more than a failure. It was an unmitigated disaster. Not only had they failed to retrieve any equipment or prisoners from the American base, but he had lost most of his men, and the Americans knew their identity.

  The enemy aircraft seemed to have left, but he assumed they would return. It was also inevitable that ground forces would show up within the next few hours. He had briefly considered chasing after the prisoners before rejecting the option. He didn’t know how many Americans had come upon them undetected, but with only eight remaining men, finding and overcoming the opposition force in the dark in time to get back to the submarine was clearly impossible.

  They were close to the sea, he estimated no more than a kilometer. His last duty was to try and save as many of his men as he could. He had no doubt of his own fate if they returned to China, but maybe his men would be spared as having followed orders. He, as the mission commander, would have no such excuse. He sent a directional message and waited for an answer. After a minute, he sent the message again. After the fourth try, he accepted the truth. There would be no trip back to China. The submarine had already left or had been destroyed by American aircraft. He and his men would spend their last moments on this barren, forsaken land.

  They wouldn’t be taken prisoner. As futile as it might be, they would move and hide somewhere in this landscape. When they were inevitably discovered, they would do the honorable thing and fight to the death.

  CHAPTER 45

  AFTERMATH

  Inuit and Yupik

  Amaruq had not spoken a word from the moment the first Chinese had landed on Ellesmere’s shore. He did not need to speak to know their destination. Neither did he speak any Chinese, though he knew a little Russian. Tupilaq did all the talking, in broken Russian. Amaruq did not need or care to communicate. His entire focus was on how to slip away.

  When they came under fire, still many miles from the American base, he silently thanked the spirits that the Chinese wore white winter clothing. Although there had been a recent dusting of snow,
the clothing stood out against the still mainly rocky terrain. Amaruq and Tupilaq, in contrast, wore clothing that more closely matched natural hues—Amaruq wearing his own clothing and Tupilaq wearing clothing provided by the Chinese but which he had insisted closely resembled traditional Yupik garb. Therefore, the long-range shooters might not have even known the two Eskimos led the Chinese column.

  That event solidified Amaruq’s intentions. While the Chinese took cover and returned fire, Amaruq stealthily changed his position as if looking for better cover. When he reached a six-foot-high upcropped seam of coal, he rolled over the top and down the other side, now hidden from view.

  By the time the Chinese started to move again, he was a third of a mile away. He did not know if either the Chinese leader or the Yupik cared that he had disappeared. He was done. His previous intuition that he needed to be far away from what would happen next was more intense than ever. The man named Amaruq needed to no longer exist. As was the custom of his people, a change in life could accompany a name change. He had already made a selection. No longer would he be named Amaruq—“wolf.” He would be Tukkuttok, “the generous one,” and would find his way back to his people’s land. He did not know where he would settle, but it would probably be farther south than where he had spent most of his life, somewhere with the southern people’s conveniences. His employers had paid well over the decades. He would buy a house in an Inuit settlement. He would be generous to the people, thereby greasing his acceptance. He would find a young wife to warm his last years and perhaps leave children when he passed on into the next existence.

  It was good to have a plan.

  For Tupilaq, he foresaw no future. He had noticed the Inuit slipping away but did not care. He disliked the man, and the man’s people did not adhere to the old ways as much as Tupilaq’s did. Thus, when he saw the Inuit think he was deceiving the Chinese, he said nothing to the leader. The man was unnecessary.