by A D Davies
Officially a mine, the clouds parted rarely, but on one such occasion a German satellite captured the lines of “workers” and the armed guards who seldom graced the face of many strip mines. It was undoubtedly a gulag, a prison where inmates were worked to the bone before either being reeducated to make them better citizens upon release or their ashes scattered after their death.
“The intel is months old, though,” Tane cautioned. “Compare it to flyovers two years before, and it looks like the Dragon’s Pit inmates’ve constructed an entire dam in the valley during that time.”
Harpal whistled in appreciation. “That’s a heck of a construction project.”
“It cuts off this river,” Jules said, showing them a line out of China’s Tumen province, which split into several smaller rivers. “Stretches across this narrow section of valley and creates a reservoir, with the main residential section of the Dragon’s Pit below the water level. It drains into streams and leaves a lot of channels branching off south and east.”
“From what we can tell,” Tane added, “it doesn’t feed into the national grid. It’s powering nothing except itself.”
“Or whatever they need Gilim for,” Dan said.
All understood what was at stake here.
“This is the best LZ.” Tane pointed at a landing zone a half-mile the other side of a hill and would take them thirty minutes of hiking to reach the Pit. “It was a garbage dump during the gulag’s early days, but they switched to filling in a disused quarry above the valley once the dam started going up.”
“And there’s no other way in?” Harpal asked. “I mean, I’m cool with a HALO, but how long since the rest of you did one?”
“Rangers had us practice four times a year,” Dan said. “It’s been a while, but assuming the kit doesn’t fail, I won’t either.”
“I’m cool.” Jules hadn’t performed a jump like this for five years, and that was one of three. And never from 20,000 feet—well above the maximum cruising height for most planes of this spec. He had gone through the checklist, so his near-eidetic memory was intact. He just had to hope his muscle memory clung to the same level of detail as it had done in his martial arts, shooting, and parkour.
They’d all donned the jumpsuits over their SWAT-style attire, sealed to survive the freezing temperature and lack of oxygen during a high-altitude, low-opening (HALO) jump. It was the only fast way to infiltrate a country this well defended. They’d need breathers and helmets, in addition to wing suits to fly them accurately toward the exact location. Not that they were full wing suits, not like the flying squirrel ones, just some extra webbing under the arms to help steer and slow their descent. It allowed the Cessna to venture close but not so close it would alert the authorities. A few tiny humans were unlikely to trouble even the most advanced radar.
Tane recapped as they synced their watches. “Once we’re down, we’ll have two hours to disable the machine and retrieve Gilim, or Bridget and Charlie will try to blow the network. Every section on earth will implode, and no one in the vicinity will survive. If we fail, and they can’t make that feedback loop work, the Americans will launch their cruise missiles, and the world is at war.”
Jules heard beeping from the cockpit, but shot back, “Hey, if our own Professor Toby ‘state the obvious’ Smith decides to retire, you should take over. “
Tane laughed. “I don’t apologize for being thorough. I’m gonna repeat myself again before the jump, and you can’t stop me.”
“Nah, but I can grab another nap.” Jules checked inside the cockpit and found a red light flashing in time with the beep. “What’s this?”
Harpal came over. “Damn, it’s a warning light. Someone’s hailing us.” He sat in the pilot’s chair and put on a headset. “This is Neo Zulu Oz; can we help with something?”
Dan crowded in, too, while Tane paid attention as he pulled the reports and photos together.
Harpal’s brow furrowed, and he answered in a hurry, “We’re in Chinese airspace on an approved vector—” He stopped talking, shook his head, and removed the headphones. “It’s Korean.”
Tane rushed over, took the cans, and listened. “They want to shoot us down.” Into the mic, he said, “Negative. We are…” He switched to Korean. Far from fluent, but he’d stated earlier he could get by. He snorted in frustration and threw the headset into the co-pilot’s chair. “He’s a fighter pilot. Says we’re in a disputed area. A neutral zone. He’s on an intercept course. We have to change direction, or he’ll blow us out of the sky.”
“We can’t,” Jules said. “If we do, we’ll miss our window. The wing suits won’t get us there.”
“What if we jump now?” Dan asked.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe is all we have.” Tane barged past and gathered the gear they’d got ready. “We have thirty seconds. Yes, or no?”
Jules was the first to join him, taking up the GPS unit they would use to guide them in, followed by a helmet that covered his entire head. “This plane was supposed to ditch in the ocean. I guess a rocket up the butt won’t change much.”
Dan and Harpal donned their rebreathers and helmets, and helped each other seal them in. The oxygen tanks—one-liter canisters strapped to their sides—were already in place, and the parachutes slipped on easily.
It was actually forty-two seconds before the scream of a MIG’s jet engines shook the plane. The Cessna undulated like a surfboard on a wave.
“Warning pass,” Tane said, muffled through his oxygen mask. “There won’t be another.”
“Punch it,” Harpal said, mouth equally shut in.
Without time for a second check over, Dan made for the door. “We need to get out before the MIG turns. A visual of us bailing out’ll give the game away.”
“Then stop talking and open her up,” Jules said, feeling like a Spitfire pilot with the mask strapped over his mouth and nose.
Dan gripped the lever and heaved it aside. The door gave a tight squeak. Everyone held onto the overhead rail. Dan thumped it open. Wind howled in, sucking at them as the cabin depressurized. The onboard computer compensated, but the altitude began dropping right away.
Dan jumped.
“You go next,” Tane said.
As Jules was the next closest, he didn’t argue. He moved hand over hand, stabilized himself, then dropped out, arms pinned to his side.
The sensation was always the same, his stomach shooting up into his throat. He monitored his own speed, jumping to 50MPH within a second, before passing the belly-to-earth maximum velocity of 120MPH three seconds later. But since he was in a head down, arms-pinned position, he carried less drag and continued to accelerate.
An explosion lit up the sky, then the MIG’s wake buffeted him as it plowed overhead.
Jules’s velocity prevented him from looking back. This had become a total gamble whether the Dragon’s Pit knew they were coming. They needed to drop at least ten thousand feet before engaging the wings, which would take the edge off the snap of the final parachute opening—less risky than a typical HALO jump, but they’d still be traveling far faster than was safe, especially so close to the ground. They just had to get there first, which was easier said than done.
G-forces pressed on his face, his eyeballs, making his eyes water. His neck ached, so he repositioned his head to take the pressure off. He sensed his velocity approach 150MPH and getting faster still. His head felt like it was squeezing his brain. No ability to speak, no way to check on the others. The altimeter beeped in his ear; the beep-beep-beep more rapid as he approached 10,000 feet.
The continuous beacon sounded.
Jules remained head down and spread his arms an inch at a time. He felt the air resistance bite the webbing under his arms. He craned his neck up and stretched his shoulders back. Too fast and he’d flip backwards into an uncontrollable spin, rocketing head over heels where not even deploying the ‘chute would save him.
Gradually, he came up, perhaps at 8,000 feet, but he’d lost count. He p
ulled almost horizontal, the classic belly-down position. He dropped far slower than a regular skydiver, and it took all his strength and concentration to remain stable. He risked a glance at the GPS on his forearm.
His location flashed green, his target red.
It was too dark to even try spotting anyone else, so he dipped his right shoulder, eased his torso into a downward angle, and steered back on course.
Able to see the contours of the ground, the mountains below stretching into the distance, Jules realized the beeping had ceased and someone was talking. His ears had popped at some point, and now he’d tuned in to the radio.
“Repeat, Bangle Boy, are you with us?” came Dan’s voice.
Jules’s throat croaked with the exertion of the past two minutes, but he found enough breath to speak. “I don’t remember agreeing call signs. And definitely not that one.”
“Bangle Boy is with us,” Dan said with a whoop. “Asian Mr. Bean, Kiwi Bird, we are good for landing.”
“He totally made those up this second,” Harpal answered.
“I think he’s drunk,” Tane said. “Or altitude sickness.”
“Guessin’ Dan’s is a bit cooler?” Jules asked.
“I’m Golden Harpoon,” Dan said.
“Not anymore,” Harpal replied. “You’re the Pink Cowboy.”
“Not a chance.”
“Hey, Pink Cowboy,” Jules said, “what’s your altitude? I’m at 6,000.”
“Three. Target in sight.” Dan snorted. “And I’m Golden Harpoon.”
“Got that, Pink Cowboy,” Tane said. “Kiwi Bird is at 4,500. Bangle Boy, you need to drop faster.”
“Copy that.” Jules referred to his GPS and saw Tane was correct. He descended between two peaks, recognizing the landscape from the satellite photos. “On the final approach.”
Because the Dragon’s Teeth mountain range was pretty high, the valley was way above sea level, so coming in at 3,000 feet, Dan must have been almost on the water or the ground. At 4,000 feet, Jules leveled out, letting the small wings and his speed glide him onwards. The more experienced pair of Tane and Harpal had overtaken him.
“Got a visual,” Jules said.
“Golden Harpoon is down safely,” Dan reported.
“On my six,” Tane said. “I see the LZ.”
The dots on Jules’s GPS were closer, almost touching. All they had to do was guide themselves around a peak to the left and pull to a halt at 100MPH.
Simple.
Jules tailed them, following their path, counting down with the coordinates. They approached the mountainside as planned, eased upward until they saw the landing zone—a garbage dump below the dam but hidden from view and allowed to fester, where it had rotted down to an uneven mass of junk. It was a small target at such a high speed.
They also couldn’t deploy the chutes hurtling almost horizontally, so Jules switched position again. Arms to his side, feet down this time. It increased his speed. When he achieved the high position, he hit the parachute.
The whoomph of canvass overhead decelerated him so fast he half-expected an airbag to slam into his face. He’d forgotten something for once: the toll this kind of incursion took on the body.
“Kiwi Bird down safe,” Tane said. “Asian Bean, what are you doing?”
Below, Tane was there, beside Dan, Jules on target too. However, while Harpal had deployed his parachute, he was much higher than Jules. And he was flying off-course.
“It’s Asian Mister Bean,” Dan said.
“We can argue later,” Harpal replied. “But I caught a thermal. I’m correcting… I’m—”
He was well off-course, rising awkwardly like an injured hawk buffeted in a storm. Even as Jules was only watching shadows, he could see Harpal struggling to correct, drifting beyond the garbage field. He was turning, twisting into a stunt parachutist’s spin, heading for the hillside too fast.
He steered away, taking him out… out… past the hillside where he’d be exposed to the Dragon’s Pit dam and anyone watching the area.
Jules touched down hard, but without damaging his knees, and rolled, snarling himself in his lines. Dan cut through the tangle and the soft ground allowed him to stuff the chute into the muck without it flying away.
“Asian Mr. Bean, report,” Dan said.
No answer.
The three guys ran silently to the dump’s edge, looking out on a valley less than a mile across, a sheer wall off to their right, the dam itself towering over them, spectacular against the night sky. Something fluttered atop the dam, billowing hard.
“I’m here,” Harpal said. “I’ve landed. Sort of.”
The object ceased fluttering, Harpal gathering his canvass and stashing it to hide it from view.
“I’m on a balcony, a lookout point, I think. But I don’t hear anything.”
“Can you get down here?” Tane asked.
“Negative. Not right away. I’ll try to join you soon, but there’s a whole network of scaffolding going on.”
“New plan,” Dan said. “Look down there.”
Jules and Tane followed his finger. They were a little over halfway up the dam, granting them a view of the scene below. The prison camp stretched for a half-mile down the valley and seemed to fill it with huts, buildings, and machinery.
Jules retrieved night vision binoculars from his pack and brought them to his eyes, adjusting for the flares of illumination. People shuffled around in the lights of flickering fires and low-wattage artificial bulbs. They all wore the same boiler suits, their heads shaved. Some carried tools, others slumped on the ground.
This was the Dragon’s Pit gulag.
Jules lowered the glasses.
“Asian Mr. Bean stays up top,” Dan said, who still had his own binoculars to his face. “We were always gonna need eyes and ears up top, so this is just a change of location. He can help us get down there and find a route into the main complex. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Tane said.
Jules said nothing. He set off, tramping his way to what he was sure would be a living hell.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Winding down from the former garbage dump, an overgrown road hooked back on itself in a series of hairpins, raised sides hewn out of the valley walls concealing their approach from eyes below. They had to be on the lookout for cameras and patrols, although Harpal would—hopefully—spot movement before they did.
Jules made a quick inventory of the gear they’d brought, Tane and Dan doing the same alongside. Because of the HALO jump, they’d used small packs—wide against their backs but as flat as possible to accommodate the ’chutes, air tanks, and thermals. At the top, in a pouch designed for it, Jules found the snub-nosed Glock 17 which Tane had insisted upon, then snug against this was one of his batons with the grappling hook and a bungee cord wrapped inside. Two multi-tools of differing sizes often came in handy, and each of them had packed a full-strength flashbang grenade. Jules pulled out a belt which he’d stocked up with his preferred selections of throwing knives and mini flashbangs and secured it around his waist.
Finally, encased in bubble wrap since the foam rubber was too bulky, he checked on the two stone bangles. Jules didn’t want to be left high and dry if it turned out they were needed. It was a risk, though. If they fell into the Executive’s hands, they might prove even more dangerous than if Valerio Conchin had succeeded back when Jules first hooked up with Toby and the Institute.
Seems like an age ago. Another life.
They reached the bottom without incident, scanning the camp and the surrounding land which was a hundred-yard dash from the lane entrance across a forked road, the other prong leading back down the valley. The perimeter fence appeared flimsy by prison standards, and a tower in the center held a single man, two unlit spot lamps, and two mounted machine guns. Each weapon had a 180-degree sweep of the complex. Huts served as accommodation, lining the grid of lanes and “streets” and were lit only by wan lanterns.
The residential section reminde
d Jules of Second World War-era prisoner of war camps, complete with prisoners in coveralls, the only addition to the black-and-white footage in his memory being gray fleece hoodies, which struck him as an odd act of mercy. But then, workers freezing to death was bad for business.
“How many are there?” Dan asked.
“The barracks will easily hold eight, so probably sixteen to a hut,” Tane said.
Harpal added, “I count twenty prisoners out and about. Exercising or can’t sleep, but no one seems to be troubling them. One guard in the tower. More prisoners in a yard below me, and they’re coming in and out of the main building. You have a patrol on the perimeter—two two-men units making a circuit. Goose-stepping all the way. I assume for appearance’s sake.”
Jules was still taking in the setup. He’d seen what Harpal just called the main building from up top. It appeared to be a blocky concrete structure with antennae and stronger electrical lighting than the rest of the camp. From here, it was taller than it had first seemed, and now they could view the road at the opposite end which—like the one they came down—used a hairpin route, although only one, which led to a flat outcrop.
Jules said, “Helipad. That’s their primary way in and out. The exercise yard is a barrel for shooting fish, so the prisoners can’t storm the castle. But that facility is our target.” Jules lowered his binoculars. “I’m guessin’ it goes a lot deeper than we can see. And it’s takin’ a huge amount of energy.”
“Two helipads,” Dan said, pointing. “There’s another on top of the primary facility too.”
“Makes sense.” Tane packed his binoculars away. “More than just one way traffic. Harpal, how’s our approach?”
“Surprisingly lax,” Harpal answered. “There’s no one on the door. Two lookout towers, plus a couple of guys up here guarding the dam access.”
“They don’t need much,” Dan said. “It’s inaccessible. Like the old Siberian gulags. There’s a fence, sure, but the most effective security is prisoners knowing they’ll die from nature if they make it past the guard tower and the machine gun.”