by Chris Harris
The next Chinook, filled to above normal operating capacity, applied full power and slowly heaved itself into the sky with its guns firing. Ginge looked back with relief when one Sea King and two Sikorsky Cyclone helicopters flew in low and landed hard. They must have been loitering nearby, waiting for the first few Chinooks to depart before committing themselves.
The Chinooks and Blackhawks he knew would not have had the capacity to take them all, with the new arrivals he knew they would have. If they were still alive, that was.
The next rangers to stagger past were each burdened by the weight of one of their comrades carried over their shoulders. From the way their arms and legs hung limp, it was clear they were their dead. Leaving them behind to not be honored and buried was never an option and they would take priority over the living.
Next in small groups came the men still capable of fighting, most bleeding or limping they filed onboard the waiting helicopters which lifted off as soon as they could fit in no more.
The colonel was the last to appear. His face bleeding and his arm supported by a makeshift sling he stopped, told the men with him to get to one of the helicopters and crouched down next to Ginge.
“It’s just your boys now. The helos are just about holding them back, but they must know we are pulling out. Soon there is going to be a shit-ton of them heading our way when they realize there ain’t anyone firing back.”
Ginge raised the whistle that hung from a lanyard around his neck. “Get yourself on a chopper, Colonel. As soon as I blow this whistle my lads will be running faster than Usain Bolt with the shits for last lift out of here.” There was something in the way he had said it that made the colonel look at him.
“And what about you?”
He shrugged. “I’ve got myself a nice spot here. I figure the Chinese will come racing around that corner over there soon. I’m reckoning I can bag myself a brace of two of them and buy the lads some time to get away.”
He was offering to sacrifice his own life to give his men enough time to get away. The colonel kneeled next to him behind the pile of rubble, using it as a makeshift firing position. “You have indeed got a nice spot here. Would you mind if you had some company?”
Both knowing what they were resigning themselves to do, he said nothing but nodded. The colonel eased his blood-covered arm from the sling and checked his rifle was loaded, then placed his last two remaining magazines beside the ones Ginge had put within easy reach.
“Ready when you are, Major.”
Ginge raised the whistle to his lips and blew a long series of short, sharp shrill blasts. More whistles sounded as his captains responded, blowing blasts of their own.
Men rose from their positions, running hell for leather back toward the waiting helicopters. As one filled and rose into the air, one of the Blackhawks hovering overhead firing at the attackers descended to take its place. The pilots must have decided to risk using the radios to communicate with each other as it was so well choreographed.
The last man to pass their position was one of his captains who, on seeing his commanding officer and the American colonel together, skidded to a halt.
“Come on, Ginge,” he shouted.
“Smithy, get on the chopper.” He indicated upwards. “We’ll hold them off and get the next lift.”
He looked at him and the colonel next to him with a worried look on his face. “Sir?”
Giving the captain an apologetic half grin, he replied, “Don’t you look at me in that tone of voice, Smithy. Someone needs to do this, and I will not ask it of anyone else, so that’s the end of it. Now be a good chap and give me any spare mags you have then kindly fuck off and get on the chopper.”
The colonel fired at a group of Chinese who had rounded the corner, stopping any more debate or protests the captain might have tried. They dived back behind cover leaving two of their number lying on the ground.
Reaching into his pouch he pulled out two magazines and handed them to Ginge. He then stood to attention, gave a smart salute to his major and said, “It’s been an honor,” before turning and running full pelt to the last chopper on the ground.
“Piss off,” Ginge replied with a laugh and shouted at his receding back, “try again without the melodrama?”
Smithy shouted back as he ran and tried something a little more British, “Don’t go being a wanker.”
“I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction,” Ginge yelled back over the sound of gunfire. “Now, off you fuck!”
Before Smithy reached the helicopter, the Chinese came around the corner in strength. Picking their shots carefully the two men fought side by side, bullets striking all around them as the attackers soon discovered their position and directed all their fire toward them.
Hearing the engine noise on the helicopter change as it began to take off, both men switched their weapons to fully auto and emptied their rifles at the Chinese. A final short burst of cannon fire from the Apache blew apart a larger group that rushed into view before it peeled away and followed the Blackhawk. Flinching involuntarily from the incoming fire that hit all around them they fought their last stand. Surrender never entered their minds, both knew they would keep fighting while they had breath in their body.
Bleeding from dozens of wounds caused by razor-sharp brick splinters and other shrapnel that continually swept over them, they kept firing, bodies mounting as they beat off attack after attack. The colonel threw his rifle down as he fired his last bullet and pulled out his pistol. Ginge did the same when he emptied his last magazine at a group who were trying to outflank their position.
For the first time, the incoming fire made them duck down and take cover. Ginge looked at the colonel and said, “Well that was fun whilst it lasted. One more time, Old Boy?”
“Sure, son,” he said with resigned satisfaction. “This sure has been one hell of a fight. As the ranking officer here, I could order you to try and make a break for it. But I think, my friend, I’d be wasting my time.”
“That you would, sir,” Ginge said, “that you bloody would.”
In between lulls in firing, Chinese voices could be heard shouting commands. You didn’t need to understand the language to know it was the officers urging their men forward for one final assault.
Ginge reached into his backpack that lay open by his side and picked up his last grenade, pulling the pin as he held it in his hand.
“Ready?” he asked. Not waiting for the reply, he threw it over the battered and much reduced wall of rubble.
As soon as the grenade exploded, they jumped to their feet, pistols held out ready in front of them, searching for targets. After firing off only two shots each, they were both knocked off their feet by the blast wave of an explosion directly in front of them. Debris rained down on top of them as they lay there, senses dulled by the shock until another explosion, this time slightly further away followed by a sound they both knew well made them gain their feet and stare forwards.
The area that seconds before had been filled with Chinese soldiers was empty of the living. Bodies lay scattered from the force of the explosion. Thirty-millimeter cannon fire ripped into the ground destroying anything it touched.
It could only be coming from an Apache; nothing else they had had that sort of fire power. The noise of another helicopter approaching made them turn around. One of the Blackhawks was approaching. Flying low and crabbing in sideways, its door gunner firing over their heads.
They did not need telling twice to run toward the rapidly descending helicopter, both diving in before it touched down. They clung on as the pilot expertly turned and at high speed raced at ground level through the base using the ruined buildings as cover before eventually gaining altitude, and raced away across the Maryland countryside. Getting to his knees on the hard floor Ginge was helped into a seat by his grinning captain nicknamed Smithy. He was handed a headset so they could communicate.
“Thank you, Smithy, but when I told you to fuck off, I meant all the way off and not to embark
on some bloody half-arsed rescue mission.”
“Well, boss, there’s no way we could allow the Victoria Cross you will probably get to be posthumous. As you well know the penalty for getting one is unlimited drinks in the mess for those involved in the action and managed not do anything as stupid as get a medal. Also, the Yanks were not keen about leaving their colonel behind, so we had a little chat and decided to swing on by and see if we could get your backsides out of the pickle you got yourselves in.”
Ginge smiled at the loyalty his men had shown to him. His face then dropped theatrically when he thought about what Smithy had said about the fine he would pay if for some reason they decided his actions deserved a medal.
“On seconds thoughts, Smithy,” he said, “can you drop me back please? I can’t afford to buy you buggers that many drinks.”
Chapter
Twenty-six
Texas
“Madam President, we have received a message. The scientists have been rescued,” Sebastian informed her as she sat at the large table in the central room of the ranch in Texas that, for the last forty-eight hours, had been the seat of government for the United States.
Communication was still restricted to Morse code; they used a hastily developed system of code words made up of slang or oblique references they hoped would, in the short term, outwit any Chinese intercepts.
Despite their pleas, wanting her to be whisked out of the country to avoid any possibility of her falling into Chinese hands again, she was insistent that she would never do that. Following a brief communication with her husband, Steve, who was at the Holly River Base she’d ordered plans be drawn up to get her there where they could establish a permanent base of resistance.
“That’s good news, Sebastian. Has Fen Shu divulged any useful information yet?”
“Not yet, ma’am. She is proving very difficult to get any sense out of at all. I’m no expert, but I think she has had a complete mental breakdown now that all her plans have come off the rails. No matter what I have tried, and trust me, apart from pulling her fingernails out I have used every technique I know. If I could get hold of a few vials of drugs that I know will loosen her tongue, I may have a chance.
“She has periods of lucidity where she is back to her usual vicious self and then she loses it, wailing on about a lost brother and how she let him down and wants to make it right again. I honestly do not know what she is on about. I have checked, and General Liu does not know anything about a brother. As far as he knows, she is the only child of the brother of the president, always living in the privileged, cosseted world of the top-level inner circles of the government.
“If she had a brother, in the misogynistic Chinese culture, he would surely have taken precedence over a mere woman. Even the mentally challenged idiot offspring of senior government officials manage to get high profile cushy jobs of one sort of another. They just have a team of underlings employed to do the job for them.”
“Maybe she needs a woman’s touch, Sebastian? A gentler approach after the treatment she has received and what she has gone through in the last few days. Let me have a talk with her.”
“I’m all out of ideas, so it’s worth a try certainly, Madam President.”
“Okay, so tell me all she has told you about this brother. And please can you call me Madeline? I’m finding all this formality a little irksome considering the situation we are in.”
Sebastian stood awkwardly for a few moments before responding, “I don’t think I can do that, Madam President. It just wouldn’t be right for me to address you less formally. Things may not be as they should, but you are still the president and represent all that it stands for. What else are we fighting for if not the United States of America? And you, through no design or fault of your own, are our leader.”
“Okay, Sebastian. I understand. Thank you for your unquestioning loyalty and patriotism. But can you promise me one thing, when this is all over and we find ourselves sharing a bottle of bourbon, sitting in some comfortable chairs in front of a blazing fire, I order you to call me Madeline.”
He smiled and nodded his head. “Yes, Madam President, I can see that would be the occasion to drop the formalities. Now, let me tell you all that she had me about this brother.”
Madeline walked down the steep stairs that led to the basement and asked the guard to unlock the door.
Fen Shu was locked in a windowless dusty storeroom in the cellar. She was shackled by her arms and legs to a length of chain padlocked to a fixing bolted to the rough stone wall.
Kept in total darkness to disorientate her, her chains clinked and hampered her attempts to shield her eyes with her arm when the door was opened and the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling was turned on.
The cellar was cool and smelled musty from disuse. It had most likely been designed as a cold store for storing foodstuffs and had become redundant over time as refrigeration replaced its need.
There were no comforts in the room. A blanket lay on the bare earth floor and a single bucket was in a corner for her toilet needs. This had been knocked over and its contents created a stinking damp patch on the dusty floor.
Fen Shu, her face dirty and streaked with tears, screamed, “Get me a new bucket, I cannot see it in the dark. Send someone in to tidy it now!”
Her eyes looked wild and her face, which had usually been a mask of calm and confidence, now looked scared, desperate, and more than a little unhinged.
Madeline studied her. Sebastian’s summary looked accurate. Her composed and confident outer shell had been stripped away. She was going to be the person who delivered America to her country, and she probably thought that they would still be successful, but she herself had failed, allowing not only for the president to escape but for herself to be captured.
Failure in her country was not an option. Even her uncle would not be able to save her from the disgrace that had befallen her. The only power she held now was the location of the virus antidote. Her warped mind, twisted further beyond the realms of reality, believed she could use the information to turn the tables on her captors, recapture the president, and return in triumph to continue her mission and wipe out the shame she felt.
“GET OUT, you bitch!” she screamed when she recognized Madeline. “I will not tell you anything. That pathetic man you sent could not get me to talk and you will not either. I demand better quarters,” she screeched petulantly. “You will all pay for this when this puny rebellion of yours gets crushed.”
Madeline stood her ground, wanting nothing more than to silence her with a chair to the face. She could have vented once again the anger she felt toward this woman who was responsible for the deaths of millions, and the millions more who were dying slowly from the virus. Instead, she spoke softly. “No Fen Shu, I am not here to question you, but to ask for your help. I have had contact from some who have the most wonderful news for you.”
“There is nothing I want from you. The only news I want is that your country is defeated, and you are offering me your surrender.”
“You’re probably right.” Madeline looked over her shoulder theatrically as if to check they were not being overheard and lowered her voice. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but you are winning. Every uprising has been crushed by your soldiers. It is only a matter of time before we too are captured.”
She could see hope building in her. It was now time to deliver the lie. “But that is not why I am here. Your brother has been found in one of your camps. He identified himself to someone with the Red Cross who was doing an inspection. He had tried to tell your soldiers, but they did not believe him.”
Madeline watched her face. Anyone with a sound mind would have questioned the story’s validity, but it hit a spot in Fen’s brain that wanted it to be the truth so very much that it subconsciously countermanded any doubts.
Her faced changed from shock to hope to happiness in a few seconds. Tears of joy ran down her face. “Where is he? I must go to him immediately.”
“I will have to see if that is possible. Maybe we can have him brought to you here? But he is a long distance from here and with the country at war it could be difficult.”
Fen though for a few seconds. “I can get him. I have full authority to travel anywhere and to use whatever resources are available.”
Madeline held her hands up to silence her. “The problem is, we have learned that he is desperately ill from the virus. He may be too ill to travel.” She let the statement hang in the air like a lure. Fen’s current mental state made it easy to lead her on. She looked at Madeline, unable to separate truth from fiction, and she believed her.
She calculated that if they were soon to be overrun by Chinese forces, then it was irrelevant if they got hold of some of the antidote. It did not matter how it got there, through her own people or through the Americans. As she did not know when her people would come for her, the best chance for her brother would be to tell them where it was and let them get it to him.
“I can get the antidote for him. I cannot let him die, I must take care of him.”
“Fen Shu,” Madeline said kindly, “I know you’ve been asked many times where the antidote is being stored, but now I’m asking as one woman to another: please tell me where it is so I can get it to your brother before it’s too late. If it was my brother or sister who was ill, who was dying, I would do anything to save them.”
All sense and reasoning had left her. The lie, told so simply, had been accepted by her confused mind. “Get me a map of San Antonio. I can show you.”
Everyone had been briefed about what was going on and how to act if the Chinese woman came into the room. She was to be treated with respect as it may further lower her defenses and stop her seeing through the lies she had been told. The men and women around the table nodded at her and moved respectfully out of the way as she was shown a large-scale map of San Antonio.