As Paul knelt on the Mexican hill, his lips peeled back, revealing a chip in the right-hand upper front tooth. He’d gotten that in Hawaii while banging his face against a rock. With his short blond hair and angular features, it gave him a wolfish cast. Despite his years, he still had broad shoulders and trim hips. In his youth he’d been a terror on the football field, slamming running backs and receivers with bone-crushing force. As he knelt, Paul listened for the enemy, straining, cocking his head.
He heard something in the distance that could have been a big engine. Rocks and boulders littered these hills, with crooked trees and yellow grass. If he could already hear the Chinese convoy—
Paul twisted around. William Lee moved up the hill. He belonged to the 75th Ranger Regiment and was the other American on the mission, although neither Paul nor Lee was in uniform. It meant if captured they could be shot as spies or saboteurs, which Paul figured would never happen. If they survived a firefight, Chinese Intelligence would torture them until they’d extracted every piece of useful information from their brutalized bodies.
Because of that, their CIA officer—who remained safely in the States—had given each of them a cyanide capsule. Lee had asked for a false tooth to hold his, explaining that he might be knocked unconscious during a firefight. The Chinese would confiscate the capsule, therefore, before he could swallow it. Paul had quietly accepted his cyanide, pocketing it and later crushing the capsule with his boot heel on the sidewalk outside the mess hall.
Paul had promised his wife Cheri a long time ago that he would come home to her no matter what happened. It was the only way she had agreed to his reenlistment with the Marines after Alaska. Paul had also vowed after Hawaii that he was going to die in bed of old age. He’d seen too many good men butchered on the battlefield. There was nothing heroic about it, just the ugly mutilation of flesh and the pulverizing of bones. His vows meant he couldn’t die here on this mission. He certainly couldn’t take his own life.
He snorted bitterly. If only it was that easy. Likely, the vows meant he had cursed himself to a young and violent death. Well, not so young, but brutal, he was certain.
A Mexican woman followed Lee. She was thin like the others and she carried a heavy pack like them too. They were guerillas of Colonel Valdez’s Free Mexico Army. The girl, the woman, she was the colonel’s daughter, Maria, a legend among the resistance. That she was here showed the importance of the mission. The CIA officer had objected via satellite phone, saying it would be a terrible propaganda blow is she died or was captured. Besides, the mission called for Colonel Valdez’s best men, not his daughter.
If they wanted the best, why am I here?
Paul knew the answer, but he didn’t buy it. Maria was here because she believed in the romance of her existence, in the great cause. She was also here because according to Colonel Valdez she had the best small unit tactical mind of anyone in his army. Calling these ragtag people Paul had seen an army was stretching it. They were all so thin.
It was due to the Chinese occupation. Those like Maria and her six guerillas possessed fifth-class cards, if they owned a card at all. It meant they ate enough to keep breathing, but moving or working, that was another matter.
The world was starving to death due to glaciation. Because of it, the population was knocking on America’s door, demanding food.
Lee reached the top of the hill and crouched beside Paul. He mopped sweat with his sleeve and his nostrils made whistling noises. Lee was too tough to open his mouth and pant, at least beside a Marine who had beaten him up the hill.
William Lee, aka “Wolverine” to his 75th Ranger Regiment buddies. He was shorter than Paul and built like a pit bull. Those muscles were all useful, even the ones bunched on the side of his jaw. In Hawaii, Lee had bitten off the nose of a White Tiger commando, giving Lee time to draw his knife and gut the Chinese killer.
Probably because of his fanatical attitudes, Lee consistently produced results. In Hawaii, he had been the sole survivor of the “Night of the Generals.” It had been a daring mission behind enemy lines, putting five Rangers of Chinese extraction into a conference room of high-ranking enemy commanders. All the generals had died, according to Lee, one bayoneted in the throat. Since only Lee had made it back, his version of the story had become official history.
Paul and Lee were here because of General Ochoa, who ran SOCOM. Ochoa believed in an old pro football adage: get big playmakers on your team, men who excel under pressure during playoff or Super Bowl performances and let them play a lot. Guided by his theorem, Ochoa had handpicked Paul and Lee for this off-the-cuff mission.
“You two have achieved the biggest successes to date. Paul, you helped slow the enemy on the North Slope of Alaska. And Lee, killing those Chinese generals in Hawaii—it makes me smile every time I think about you sticking one of those bastards in the throat. Your task this time is straightforward. We need to find out what ‘Blue Swan’ is and why the Chinese think it’s so important. You’re going into Mexico and getting our country a Blue Swan to study.”
As they crouched on the dark hilltop in Mexico, Lee’s whistling lessened. Paul hoisted his rucksack higher on his shoulders so the straps eased some of their pressure.
Lee leaned forward like an eager bloodhound. “I hear them,” he said, meaning the Chinese.
“Be good to get an air-visual,” Paul said, “and know how they’re deployed.”
“Next you’ll be asking for a quad to drive down to the road.”
“Better get going,” Paul said.
Lee grunted as he forced himself upright. Gripping his rucksack’s straps, he began stiff-legged down the hill.
Paul could hear the convoy easily now, the roar of approaching trucks. The Chinese were coming, the Chinese who ran Mexico with an iron fist, the Chinese who had invaded Alaska seven years ago and swept every American satellite from space three years ago and who had launched a cyber-attack on his country. The U.S. had never been the same since.
Maria Valdez climbed beside him, crouching onto one knee. Sweat streaked her thin face. She never wore a helmet or a hat and she’d tied her long dark hair into a ponytail. She was pretty with those intense black eyes, but she never smiled and her voice was like a whiplash. She panted with an open mouth. In that regard, she wasn’t proud like Lee. Her eyes narrowed and she turned to Paul.
“They’re almost here,” she said.
The mission had called for plenty of time to deploy. But there had been a patrol in the way. The nine of them had detoured, eating up too much precious time.
Thinking about it made Paul weary. If they couldn’t even get this part of it right, he doubted the extraction would work.
Maria looked back the way she’d climbed. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted, “Jose, Lupe, Jorge, hurry! Set up the machine gun.”
She meant the .50 caliber Browning. She would man it, as she was the best shot among the guerillas.
“Luis, Benito and Freddy,” she said, “get your RPGs ready. I want you in the ditch with the Marine.”
The six guerillas toiled up the hill. Although thin and malnourished, they were hard-eyed partisans, Mexicans dedicated to throwing off the hated oppressor. Each of them had his own harrowing tale of abuse, of soul-crushing horror that usually involved a lost wife, daughter or sister, sometimes all three. The enemy avidly sought female companions, as their country had the worst man-to-woman imbalance in the world. More than one U.S. commentator said the Chinese lust for conquest was simply a primal urge belonging to the Stone Age—a hunt for wives. The Chinese had an ironclad law, permitting a family a single child only. Too many of them yearned for a male offspring, meaning they aborted the girls, the reason for the great imbalance.
Maria turned back to Paul, blowing her breath in his face. It smelled of sunflower seeds. She had littered the spent shells on the way here like an old time baseball player.
“We must kill every one of them,” Maria said, with her eyes flashing as she spoke.
Kill every one of them.
Lee was two-thirds of the way down the hill. The Ranger had an custom-built mine to deploy. He had two, but by the sounds, Lee would be lucky to get one emplaced.
“Over there,” Paul said, pointing halfway down the hill. “That position will give you—”
“I know where to put my machine gun!” Maria snapped.
Sure, lady. “Wait until Lee explodes the first mind before you begin firing,” Paul said.
Maria grabbed a fistful of his jacket and leaned close so their lips almost touched. “We’ve gone over the plan, amigo. Now you’re wasting time because you insist on treating me like a child. Go! Get set up so we can kill Chinese.”
This wasn’t about killing Chinese, although Paul didn’t tell Maria. “Good luck,” he said.
Maria sneered. “I am not a pagan. I do not desire luck.” She pulled a gold chain from around her neck with a small crucifix on the end. She kissed it. “I pray that Christos bless us against the atheist invaders. Tonight, let us send them all to Hell!”
“Works for me,” Paul said. He gripped his AT4, grunted as he stood and started down the hill.
Behind him, three guerillas followed, each of them carrying a Chinese RPG, long ago patterned off the successful Russian RPG-7. Maria and her team started for a position midway down the slope.
Lee had already dumped his rucksack in the ditch and knelt on the road. With a drill, he bored into the blacktop.
Can he get two mines in? We need two if we’re to have a hope.
Long yellow grass rustled against Paul’s jeans, while his boots scraped over half-buried rocks. He was dressed like a civilian, but it would fool no one. He’d declined regular body armor. It would give him away as an American but more importantly, it would rob him of mobility, maybe the ability to have made the 16-mile march this quickly.
In the darkness, gears ground once more as trucks downshifted yet again. It was an ominous sound. The convoy, the armored trucks and IFVs, were almost up into sight from their steep climb. In their entire route, it was steepest over that lip, meaning the convoy would be down to a crawl once they reached this location.
Paul raised his AT4 and broke into something resembling a sprint. The rucksack bounced up and down, causing brutal agony to his shoulders.
The AT4 was an 84mm unguided, portable, single-shot recoilless smoothbore weapon, a successor to the old LAW rocket. It weighed nearly fifteen pounds and his fired a HEAT projectile that could penetrate up to 16.5 inches of steel. The tactical trick tonight was going to be a simple one. The mine would blow the first vehicle. Paul’s AT4 would take out the last one, trapping the rest between them on the narrow road. The guerillas, Maria with the Browning, and U.S. Air Force drones would kill the rest. It was a KISS plan: Keep It Simple, Stupid. That was the best kind of plan in battle where the simple became difficult.
The air burned down Paul’s throat as he ran down the slope and his legs wobbled. Damn, he was tired. He needed to get into position. He—
The first Chinese vehicle climbed over the lip, appearing on the road below. It was an armored hover and by the mass of antenna on top, Paul bet it was a drone. The hover would be worthless off-road, but it had come quietly and faster than any truck or IFV. What a balls-up. Chinese convoy operations called for a drone crusher to lead. Everyone knew that. The planners had expected a crusher, not a hover.
No! Lee was still on the road. The hover likely had motion sensors, as much a robotic vehicle as an operator-driven drone.
Paul dove and he splayed his legs, dragging his feet, hoping to keep from tumbling. He grunted as the slanted ground slammed against him and his rucksack drove him down harder. He bounced and his steel-toed boots dragged in the dirt, kicking up stones.
Lee sprinted for the ditch. The Ranger pumped his arms as his feet flew. The hover’s heavy machine gun opened up with a stream of red tracers. Lee dove and jerked in the air as bullets ripped into him. The dive became a ragged tumble. He hit the ground and more tracers riddled his corpse, each one like a giant repeatedly slapping a doll, turning him over, and over.
Why had the Chinese brought a hover drone?
Paul didn’t have time to shake his head. The answer was too obvious. The mine was now out of play, as Lee had the activation-switch. Maybe one of the operators in Arizona could trigger it. First, the stealth drones would have to be in position. Paul hadn’t seen nor heard anything in the starry sky, nor had he communicated with the operators lately. Chinese detection gear was among the best and they therefore had decided to keep talk to a minimum.
Letting go of the AT4, Paul jerked quick-releases, shifted his shoulders and rolled the rucksack onto the ground. His fingers roved over pockets. He’d practiced this drill a thousand times. He ripped open a zipper and dragged out a laser-designator.
One of the guerillas crashed onto the ground beside him, readying a RPG. On the road, the drone raced for Lee’s corpse.
Cursing silently, Paul shoved the designator against his shoulder. It was built like a small carbine. He dug out a satellite phone and jammed it against his right ear. He punched the auto-dial, hearing it buzz.
“Echo one?” an operator asked.
The hover slowed as a port opened. Was it going to collect Lee? Before Paul could learn the answer, Lee rolled over so he faced his killer.
No way. Paul watched. It was ghastly. Lee smiled with red teeth. That’s blood. His mouth is full of blood.
Lee gripped something with both hands. His thumbs jammed down. The mine he’d planted in the road did its job as a coiled spring launched it airborne.
Paul thrust his face into the ground. An explosion rocked the world. Seconds later, debris rained with heavy pelting sounds.
After counting to three, Paul lifted his head and spotted the drone. It burned, flipped onto its side, a pile of junk now. Of Sergeant Lee of the 75th Ranger Regiment, there was no sign. In the end, Lee hadn’t needed the false tooth and cyanide capsule. The Ranger, he’d never have to worry about torture.
Paul blinked several times, hating the suddenness of the loss. Then he realized he heard heavy trucks braking, doing it out of sight. Did they stop on the steep part of the road just out of visual? He heard a clang. It sounded an awful lot like an IFV’s ramp crashing down. The shouts of Chinese infantry confirmed Paul’s suspicion.
The IEDs and the RPGs, together with the AT4 and Hellfire III missiles—
The first Chinese soldier climbed into view onto the road. He moved in that crouched-over manner of cautious soldiery. Helmet, body armor and cradling a QBZ-95 assault rifle—it used a caseless cartridge, the propellant a part of the bullet. That meant more ammo per magazine.
A second soldier appeared. They scanned the road and began eyeing the stony, grassy slopes on either side. Surely, they could see how beautiful of an ambush site this was. A third soldier appeared over the lip.
How many were there? Six per Infantry Fighting Vehicle meant—
The game changed then. Maybe opening communication with the operators—the drone pilots—in Arizona did it. How long had the American stealth drones been waiting? The CIA officer had told them the ones for this mission were super-quiet. But Paul figured he should have at least heard something up in the darkness if the drones were here. The Marine Corps used drones and Paul always heard them long before he’d seen them. Tonight, it was different, very different, a good surprise.
Maybe America finally had a few secret weapons of its own.
The first that Paul, and likely those soldiers down there, knew about the drones was the flare of a launching Hellfire III missile as it appeared in the dark sky. It blossomed into existence like a shooting star. There was a streak as the missile sped earthward and then out of sight. Paul figured the Chinese vehicles had stopped on the steepest part of the road, warned by the
hover that enemy combatants waited for them here. A terrific explosion illuminated the night as if a giant had lit an arc welder. It was brightly white and hurt Paul’s eyes. The Chinese that Paul could see—their bulky armor with the oversized chest plates starkly visible now—glanced back and then hit the ground. They crawled away from the strike.
Another Hellfire III erupted into existence. Did that mean there was a second circling stealth drone, or did the missile come from the same craft that had fired the first? One thing was certain, the Air Force had made it here without a hitch. It was good to know something worked right on their side.
Several new Chinese soldiers appeared on the road. They ran up over the lip at speed. Two of them dropped their assault rifles and leaned over as they gripped their knees, panting. A different soldier appeared, striding into view. He blew a whistle. The noise was sharp and commanding. The others straightened, the two picking up their dropped weapons.
On the other side of the lip, out of Paul’s sight, Chinese anti-air rockets fire-balled upward into the darkness. Maybe to show them who had the biggest balls tonight, two more Hellfire missiles appeared, streaking down.
An explosion in the starry sky—brief but deadly illumination—showed a Chinese hit.
“Sergeant Lee?” the operator asked.
Paul realized he still held the satellite phone against his ear. “Gunnery Sergeant Kavanagh here,” he said. It always surprised him how calm his voice sounded during these things.
“You blew the mine too soon,” the operator said.
Did they have a higher drone up there watching the proceedings? Just how many drones had the Air Force been able to slip through the Chinese defenses? The enemy border bristled with radar, missiles, lasers, flak guns, AWACS planes and jet fighters and even with “distant” satellite recon. If the Air Force could get all these stealth drones through, why had they used only two commandos?
“Looks like you’re right about the mine,” Paul said.
“Is your screen up?”
Invasion: California Page 3