by Tom Hart
They found Major Ryan with two marines in a gulley, one Gunnery Sergeant and a corporal. The Corporal held a sniper rifle at the ready.
‘How the hell did the Chinese find us so easily?’ Tony demanded.
‘We were betrayed,’ Ryan spat.
‘By who?’
‘One of my marines.’
‘Who?’
‘Lieutenant Travers.’
‘Damn, I liked that guy he was funny,’ Tony said.
‘Turns out he studied his arts degree at Beijing University before he joined the Marines. Chinese intelligence recruited him then.’
‘How do you know it was him?’
‘Ryan pointed to a nasty bruise on his neck. He tried to kill me, if it wasn't for gunny here I'd be dead.’
‘He had a GPS tracker hidden in his boot,’ the gunnery sergeant said with disgust.
One of Tony's troopers began bandaging Tony's shoulder. It was only a flesh wound. The bullet passed through without hitting bone or arteries. Tony had experienced far worse.
‘Here is the plan,’ Tony said in his command voice. ‘We are going inland. The Chinese will not expect that, it's rough country and isn't going to be easy.’
‘My men and I didn't join the Marines for easy,’ Ryan replied. ‘Count us in.’
Tony grinned. He liked this Yankee.
‘We're going to head for Alice Springs and blend in with civilians before making our way to Canberra.’
‘Canberra,’ Sarah asked. ‘You sure that's a good idea.
‘I intend to pay a visit to this General Zhang we keep hearing about.’ Tony gestured towards the Corporal's sniper rifle. ‘I'll use that to say hello.’
Ryan was nodding. ‘I like it.’
Less than five kilometres away Maloney was running low on ammunition. He was surrounded by Chinese bodies, some only metres from where he lay prone in the tall grass. He was down to his last magazine and the Chinese would know where he was by now.
The two claymores he’d hurriedly set up to protect his flank had detonated a few minutes ago. But the thirty rounds in his rifle would be enough to take down a few more of the bastards. He removed the knife from the battered scabbard strapped to his thigh. It had been a gift from a US Navy Seal he rescued in Vietnam. He placed it upright in the dirt within reach of his right hand.
Maloney wasn’t afraid of death. Dying in combat was a family tradition.
Maloney's father and two uncles had fought against the Japanese in World War II. His father and one uncle were killed near a small Papuan village named Kokoda when Maloney was four years old. His remaining uncle survived the war.
One, Captain Alexander Maloney went on to serve again in the Korean war, fighting hordes of Chinese at the yellow river in the middle of winter. His uncle told him it had been so cold the firing pin in his rifle froze solid. Accordingly most fighting was hand-to-hand with entrenching tools, knives and whatever else was at hand at a time. Miraculously Maloney's uncle survived his second war, minus his right eye and half the fingers on his left hand, courtesy of a Chinese grenade.
But Captain Maloney was not done yet. When the Vietnam war was announced he told his wife that it was about time for another good scrap. Much to the Captain’s dismay the army turned down his application to serve again.
The Army was very polite about it. He was a war hero after all. The deputy Chief of the Army personally visited the Captain at his home to thank him for the offer and to say he'd done more than his fair share of fighting in two previous wars.
It was Mrs Maloney’s turn to take up the cause. She took the deputy chief aside and said she did not think Vietnam serious enough to be classified as a real war. She explained her husband would be insufferable if the Australian army was fighting and he was not somehow involved. She suggested a training role might be available for him. Mrs Maloney's powers of persuasion won the day and Captain Maloney was recalled from retirement to active service by no less than a personal letter from the chief of the army.
That same letter promoted Captain Maloney to Major with immediate effect, and appointed him to a non-combat position, in Australian headquarters Vietnam.
It did not take Major Maloney long to convince his superiors to allow him to venture a little closer to the action. To assess the efficiency of the army logistical supply chain to frontline troops as he put it so convincingly.
Arriving unexpectedly at the headquarters of Charlie Company, 2nd Royal Australian regiment, now Lieutenant Colonel Maloney made a big impression with his eye patch and single black glove with holes for his missing fingers.
The Major in command of the company was unaware Colonel Maloney was under strict orders not to go on combat missions.
The Colonel told the Major he was there for just that purpose, to see how well the boys handled themselves in the jungle. For the occasion the Colonel had bought with him two Sig Sauer pistols, a machete, entrenching tool, and a sawn off shot gun. He described them as his jungle kit.
When the Major noticed the World War II and Korean War ribbons, which took up most of the Colonel's chest, he sensibly gave the Colonel command of the next Platoon going beyond the wire. First up the Colonel asked the Platoon's two veteran scouts if he could join them. The scouts had never experienced an officer upfront at the danger end, especially a Colonel.
It did not take long for the Colonel to make an impression on the Platoon. He safely guided them around two ambushes, stopped one of the scouts from stepping on a land mine, and used his shot gun with devastating effect against a pair of Vietcong machine gunners crouched behind a log.
The Colonel thoroughly enjoyed himself when a company of Vietcong, charged out of a clearing with bayonets held high. Emptying both pistols and his shotgun the Colonel turned to his faithful entrenching tool, affectionately nicknamed the Beijing Express.
After receiving a dressing down from his commanding general for disobeying a direct order, Colonel Maloney was given yet another medal for the courage and calm he displayed repelling a determined attack by enemy forces five times his number.
‘Only five to one this time,’ the Colonel said to the General. ‘Hardly worth me getting out of bed.’
The Major of Charlie company and the Captain of the Platoon both nominated the Colonel for a Victoria Cross. Due to the Colonel’s actions only three Australians had been killed in the battle.
The official report also noted the majority of the eight-seven dead Vietcong were killed by the Colonel himself after he personally relieved a Vietcong machine gun crew of their weapon and turned it on the Vietcong.
The report also included a blacked out section from military intelligence who visited the site of the battle afterwards. The report noted twelve Vietcong were killed by blunt force trauma to the head and chest caused by a metal object with small serrated teeth. The object was later identified as the Colonel's entrenching tool.
The nomination for a Victoria Cross, Australia's highest decoration for bravery, was supported by Admiral Barnard the Commander of all Australian forces in Vietnam. But the request was knocked back by High Command in Canberra because Maloney happened to already have a Victoria Cross from his service in the Korean War. So the decision was made to add a bar to the Distinguished Service Cross previously awarded to him in World War 2.
Sergeant Maloney liked to think some of his uncle's fighting spirit resided in him too. Despite uncle and nephew serving in Vietnam at the same time their paths had not crossed. The younger Maloney had been on operations further north even his uncle was not cleared to know about.
Maloney the younger was able to use his knife and the entrenching tool in his final moments to kill a further three Chinese soldiers. Despite gunshots to his stomach and neck, and a bayonet wound to his shoulder he managed to pull the pin on a grenade with his teeth to take the last five Chinese with him. As he lay bleeding out, Maloney placed his entrenching tool on his heart and held it tightly. He traced his bloodied fingers along the engraving on the handle. ‘Beijing Exp
ress you bastards!’ he said with his dying breath.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
ALICE SPRINGS
They got within three hundred kilometres of Alice Springs before they encountered the first Chinese patrol. They avoided it easily enough. The Chinese were sticking close to the roads but did not seem active at night which was when Tony and the team chose to travel.
It was Sarah's idea to hitchhike the last hundred kilometres and they were picked up by pair of German tourists in a motor home. The Germans had no idea they were holidaying in the middle of a war. They thought they were giving a lift to a group of Australia soldiers badly lost during a training exercise. They left the Germans ten kilometres out of the city and snuck around the Chinese infantry company camped at the Northern entrance to the city.
Upon acquiring some civilian clothing from a select group of clothes lines at a rural property on the outskirts of Alice Springs, the group checked into the curiously named diplomat Hotel. It was the most expensive hotel in town, although from its dilapidated state Tony commented it was the most expensive shitty hotel in town. On Ryan's suggestion they buried their larger weapons to retrieve later. They all still carried their side arms concealed in their civilian clothing.
Sarah used the Wi-Fi in McDonald's to connect to an ASIO backup server in London and secretly patch into an old department of meteorology weather satellite in orbit above the Northern Territory. She retrieved maps of Alice Springs and the highway to Adelaide current at 9 am that morning. She looked closely at the images on her phone. ‘It’s not so bad, there is a Chinese formation of tanks in the city centre next to the post office and a small roadblock on the main highway to Adelaide.’
Tony purchased a beaten up 4WD with cash from a local car dealer. Sarah managed to purchase a set of jerry cans with black market diesel as part of the same transaction. Almost enough to get them to Adelaide.
The air conditioner didn't work but Tony drove at one hundred and sixty kilometres an hour so the breeze was pleasant. He said they needed to blend in and everyone drove that speed on this road anyway. No one in the 4WD noticed the Chinese drone shadowing them from 10,000 feet.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
ARMOUR
Henry was still in Brussels when he got the call. It was Admiral Traverstein the head of the CIA. ‘Henry we need you back at Area 51. Something big has come up. We are sending a jet for you.’
Henry wiped the sleep from his eyes as his driver opened the purple tinted door for him. General Taylor the engineering director of Area 51 was waiting to greet him. The two knew each other from their time together in the CIA’s Budapest station. ‘Hank, what gizmo have you flown me halfway around the world to see now.’
‘You'll love this one Henry, it's a real knockout.’
Hank led Henry to one of the three development labs at Area 51.
‘Last time I was here you tried to show me your prototype chemical laser and it nearly killed everyone in the room.’
‘It needed a bit of tweaking, works fine now,’ Hank said happily. That laser was now the centrepiece of a secret network of ICBM swatter satellites forming part of a US ballistic missile shield, so it worked out in the end.
Henry looked at the two soldiers dressed in what appeared to be black lycra bicycle gear. ‘Don't tell me you are entering a team in the tour de France Hank?’
Hank laughed at his friend. ‘Henry meet the terminators.’
‘The what!’ Henry chuckled.
‘Well, that's what they are,’ Hank said deflated.
‘They don't look threatening to me,’ Henry said.
‘I told them to put socks down their trousers but they wouldn't listen to me,’ a man said from behind Henry.
Henry turned to see a tall muscular man with short cropped grey hair and wearing a three star General's Uniform. ‘Duke Fletcher,’ the man said extending his hand.
‘Ah the famous Duke,’ Henry said taking his hand. ‘Nice job with the Russians.’
‘Infamous,’ Hank said quietly.
Duke ignored him, the man was sporting because he was sleeping with his daughter Captain Taylor.
‘All Hydra's work,’ Duke said modestly. ‘I'm the message boy.’
Henry noticed Hank seemed unhappy to have Duke around. Well Hank was used to being the centre of attention for his technological breakthroughs. Now Duke was the superstar.
‘I can show you if you like,’ Duke said picking up an M16 lying on a bench. ‘Ready,’ Duke said to one of the lycra clad men.
‘Ready sir,’ the man replied.
Duke emptied the magazine into the man's chest. The man did not even flinch. The smell of cordite filled the air and Henry wrinkled his nose. He hated guns. In the CIA he'd avoided using them. There was no finesse to using a gun. Blades were the real sign of an expert.
‘The armour was reverse engineered from the suit you found in Poland. This is the inner suit. It is a hundred times stronger than Kevlar and can successfully protect the wearer from calibres up to 30 mm, the equivalent of an Apache attack helicopter canon. The outer armour is hanging on the wall to your left.’
Henry glanced at the armour on the wall. It looked similar to that in the basement of the castle in Poland. The only difference he could identify was the addition of a United States flag on the shoulder and a series of small grey boxes with cabling and lights.
‘We integrated it with a fourth-generation combat information system, GPS, infrared, comms and night vision module. Other than that it is identical to the armour you recovered from Poland’ Duke said as if he were describing the weather.
‘What was it made of?’ asked Henry
Taylor spoke before Duke could continue. Henry could tell his friend was growing increasingly uncomfortable having Duke around.
‘It is a remarkably simple composite made from carbon, quartz and magnesium. It is the unique lattice structure of the molecules which makes it practically indestructible. It is completely immune to heat of any temperature, explosives or even radiation. It even generates a powerful magnetic field which repels high-speed projectiles and deflects blades. We still have no idea how.’
‘So they make the wearer invulnerable?’ Henry asked impressed as hell.
‘Not quite,’ General Taylor stated. ‘Tungsten tipped blades can penetrate it.’
‘Luckily the only devices which make use of tungsten in sufficient quantities are chainsaw blades. We do not anticipate our enemies will attempt to attack our soldiers with chainsaws.’
‘Boring,’ said Duke. He received a glare from Taylor.
‘Have you told him about the other weapons?’
Taylor frowned at Duke. He hated Duke was now his equal in rank after only having been around for five minutes. He did not believe Duke was the type of man his daughter should be involved with but she seemed completely enchanted with him.
Duke took Taylor’s silence as an okay. ‘Well check this out,’ he said turning to Henry. Duke led the way to the nearby testing chamber which held targets spaced from ten to fifty metres away. A black bench held three leaf shaped rifles with oversized barrels at least two inches thick which look to Henry like some kind of electric vacuum cleaner.
‘These are plasma rifles, I will let General Taylor talk about the technical details, and I won't pretend to understand them. However, I do enjoy demonstrating the weapons, please place these goggles on.’
Duke hefted one of the vacuum cleaner looking weapons and pointed it down range. ‘Prepare to be amazed,’ he said to Henry. Duke pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. No noise, no explosion, nothing.
Henry looked down range at the target. It was incinerated or had it, evaporated? It was hard to tell which, it was as if it had been melted from the inside. There were no scorch marks just the charred targets as if they had been set ablaze then instantly doused with a fire extinguisher.
‘Basically this weapon super heats organic material and causes it to explode,’ Duke said with a shrug. ‘The beauty of the weapon is n
o collateral damage. Buildings or other equipment around the target is left intact.’
Henry was impressed. ‘That’s not all,’ Duke said theatrically.
General Taylor rolled his eyes.
A marine approached holding a small pistol like weapon with two barrels, one slightly longer than the other. ‘This is a plasma pistol,’ Duke said while waving his hands dramatically. ‘It fires a laser.’
Henry frowned. A laser pistol did not seem as impressive as Duke had made it out to be. ‘This little beauty can engage up to two hundred targets simultaneously at ranges of up to five miles. It’s a psychic weapon.’
That got Henry’s attention.
‘Psychic?’
‘Yeah it's pretty cool,’ Duke said without offering an explanation.
General Taylor’s face was now set in a permanent scowl. He was not happy this fool Duke was involved in a technical demonstration.
‘You just think about who your enemies are and it kills them. You don’t aim it, it targets them automatically.’
That was pretty cool, Henry thought.
‘Now for the catch,’ Duke said stealing General Taylor’s thunder. ‘They can only be used by soldiers with O negative blood types.’
‘The same as the Maralinga aliens,’ Henry said softly. But there were no weapons at the crash site so where had these come from?
‘You’re going to love this story,’ Duke said. ‘The suit of armour you recovered in Poland was more than armour. We found microscopic etchings on the breastplate with blueprints for these weapons. Whoever owned the armour was carrying around an instruction manual for an arsenal of weapons like these.’
That seemed strange to a master tactician like Henry. Why would an armoured soldier carry the design of their weapons into battle? Surely if they were captured their enemies would uncover the blueprints. Unless the soldier had switched sides and smuggled the designs? Just who had this armour belonged to?