The Z4A modified battle-taxi tipped earthward. A second later, the helo shot forward. Afterburners roared and orange flame flickered.
Zhu’s fingers slipped. He tightened his hold and crouched lower still. He shifted his feet as he leaned as low as he could, managing to get his boots in front of the foot bars. The tri-jet afterburners didn’t let up. As they dove, it was a struggle to remain on his cycle-seat.
“Ease up on your dive,” Tian radioed the pilot.
“Orders,” the pilot said. “I’m to dive at maximum speed.”
“And if your orders kill us by tumbling commandos, whose head do you think will roll?” Tian asked.
The battle-taxi eased up in its dive, giving Zhu time to re-grip the bars and lean into a better position.
“If we’re late…” the pilot said.
“Don’t threaten me,” Tian said, and there was menace in his voice.
The pilot didn’t say anything more, nor did they increase speed again. Zhu could understand the pilot’s fear. He’d fought Tian before and lost miserably. But losing a fight didn’t mean you backed down. He would rather take the blows of a beating than show cowardice.
The First Rank fed them data as he received it. The ground rushed nearer and I-25 had grown considerably. Zhu could see a blaze on the road. The partisans must have struck an oil hauler.
“Was the partisan strike by mine or machine gun?” Zhu asked.
“Looks like both,” Tian told him.
“There!” another Soldier Rank cried. “Look at three-dash-five. They’re riding motorcycles, two people per vehicle.”
Zhu swiveled his helmet while turning on the HUD coordinates. He spied the partisans with his night vision. The motorcycles fled for a forest three kilometers away. If the Americans reached those trees, it would be hard to find and kill them.
The Z4A swept out of the night sky like a proverbial bat out of hell. The afterburners and dive gave the helo speed.
“They’re splitting up!” the Soldier Rank shouted.
“We can hear you just fine,” Tian said. “There’s no need to shout.”
“Which motorcycle do you want me to follow?” the pilot asked.
Tian was quiet for a moment. Then he began to instruct the pilot and the team. “Zhu, you and Qiang will take the left motorcycle.”
The helo lurched right. Tian was giving him the hardest target. Despite that, the others would laugh at him if his motorcycle got away.
“Get ready,” Tian said.
The battle-taxi zoomed at the chosen motorcycle, gaining on it.
“Launch,” Tian said.
Zhu released the handlebars and thrust up with his feet. It was a tricky maneuver, and he twisted his boots. They could easily tangle with the handlebars. He cleared the helo and flew forward through momentum. He also dropped. Only now did he engage the jetpack. If a flyer shot up too soon, he could cause a bad accident for both him and the others.
“Zhu,” Fighter Rank Qiang said.
“Follow me,” Zhu said, “but stay to my left.”
“Yes, Soldier Rank,” Qiang said.
Opening the throttle, Zhu flew after the leftmost motorcycle and the two partisans. He made a quick calculation and gave himself maximum thrust. That ate up jetpack-fuel at a prodigious rate. But this wasn’t an endurance flight. He had to reach the motorcycle now. It was harder flying fast, though, trickier, more prone to misjudgments.
He gained on the pair. Did they hear him? One of the riders looked back. She had long hair whipping in the wind.
It’s a woman. I don’t want to kill a woman.
The woman sitting on the back of the bike didn’t have any compunction about shooting at him. She twisted around and fired a submachine gun. It spat flame.
Zhu wasn’t worried about getting hit up here. She rode a bike over bumpy ground and he flew in the air. She’d need divine luck to shoot him down like this. He’d learned through bitter experience that the dangerous ground soldiers were those who fired deliberately while standing in one spot.
“Qiang?” Zhu asked.
“Behind you and to the left,” Qiang said.
Zhu glanced back. In the darkness, he could barely make out Qiang. The Fighter Rank had fallen far behind.
“Get high up,” Zhu said. “You’re going to watch where they go.”
“I need to give you fire support.”
“You must obey me!” Zhu shouted.
“Yes, Soldier Rank.”
Zhu glanced at his grenade launcher. It was perched on his left shoulder like a predatory eagle. He gained on the motorcycle and fired a grenade. It sailed into the darkness and exploded to their left by forty meters.
The driver never swerved. Sometimes partisans panicked, but it didn’t look like these two would. Zhu fired another grenade for good measure.
The submachine gun blazed.
Zhu grinned to himself. He zoomed lower, gaining even more speed. He was a mere thirty meters above them. He flashed over them and sped ahead.
Now the motorcycle swerved, taking a different direction.
“Talk to me, Qiang. Tell me where they’re going.” Zhu didn’t want to take his eye off the ground. This was going to get tricky. While he was this low, he didn’t want to keep looking back to see where they were.
Qiang fed him data on his targets.
Zhu made a quick judgment and roared ahead for a rough piece of ground. Eagle flyers had broken many an ankle trying this. He needed full concentration.
“Zhu, they’re heading straight for you! I think they know what you’re going to do.”
The girl must be firing the submachine gun, but Zhu wasn’t going to worry about that now. He needed concentration. You’ve trained doing this many a time. Just get it right. Get down and then worry about the combat situation.
Too many Eagle flyers tried to do two things at once. You needed to land right first. Then you could fight. Fighting while trying to land meant you would spill badly.
Zhu watched the ground rush up. He swiveled his body and applied thrust, braking himself. He dropped, braked harder, and dropped at just the right angle. Seconds later, he ran lightly across the ground. His feet blurred and he brought himself under control.
“They’re coming for you,” Qiang radioed.
“They are brave,” Zhu said.
He ran, and with a flick of his hands, he shed the jetpack. It fell, and he ran faster, lighter now. Then he dove, thudding onto the ground, skidding with his chest, using his toes to drag and brake. As he stopped, he yanked his QBZ-95 from the rack and swiveled on his stomach.
“How did you do that, Zhu?” Qiang asked. “I can’t believe it.”
Soldier Rank Zhu ignored the question. He concentrated on combat. I must fight with superior bravely against these courageous Americans.
He sighted the assault rifle, and he let the pair roar at him over the bumpy ground. The headlight wavered and the enemy gunfire quit. The woman must be switching magazines.
Deliberately, Zhu pulled the trigger. The stock shoved against his shoulder as he lay on the ground. Flame belched out of the barrel, illuminating the iron sight on the end. He began firing bursts, and in a moment, the motorcycle slid and the two Americans went down. Zhu watched. The driver stayed down, for he’d shot the partisan in the head. The woman with the flying hair got up and staggered.
Zhu hesitated. She is a woman.
The partisan looked around wildly. Zhu heard her sob. Then he shot her, and she too went down—and she stayed down.
He thought about that—killing a woman, and it emotionally drained him. He lay on the ground and began to shake. He hated this about himself. All the excitement was over and now his body betrayed him. He shook, and he hated the fact of killing a woman.
“Zhu,” Qiang radioed from the ground, from beside the motorcycle. “They’re both women. They…they look like sisters.”
Soldier Rank Zhu closed his eyes. He didn’t like partisan hunting. The Americans were brave to do
what they did. Yet he had to kill them and make them stop. If he didn’t, China would wear herself out in battle.
“Are you well, Soldier Rank?” Qiang radioed. “I see you lying on the ground.”
“I’m fine,” Zhu said. He sat up, and the trembling increased. He had been scared making the landing. He was glad no one else knew that.
As he walked toward Qiang, he realized that he wasn’t cold anymore.
How much longer would the squad continue to hunt partisans? When was the war going to get hot again? He wanted to fight American soldiers, not their motorcycle-riding, submachine gun-firing women partisans. It wasn’t fair to him the Americans did that and he wanted it to stop.
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND
It was November 2and Anna Chen’s hands trembled as she stood before her hotel mirror. I’m the wrong person for this. I’m going to make a terrible mistake and it will cost America everything. Why did he choose me?
Anna wore a modest blue dress with a matching purse and shoes. Today, she wore her dark hair down past her shoulders.
Should I put my hair up? This is awful. I don’t even know how to dress for something like this.
She stared at herself, trying to drum up a modicum of self-confidence. She was slender, some said beautiful—Anna had a hard time admitting it to herself—and she was half-Chinese in a country undergoing its worst crisis because of the Chinese. Many, many people hated her because of her ethnicity.
If I fail, people will want to hang me for treason. They’ll say I sold them out because secretly I love the invaders and want them to win. Her lips firmed. She did not love the invaders. She loved her country and she loved—she blinked at herself, shaking her head. Then she went back to inspecting the dress by sliding her hands down her hips.
Despite her rapid rise in status, she worked out daily, practicing yoga. How many months ago had she been just another night-analyst for the CIA? Seven years ago, she’d worked for President Clark. Now she worked for President Sims.
Why can’t I call him by his first name? We weren’t that formal three days ago when he held me in his arms, whispering in my ear.
They had been working together for months, trying to stem the ongoing crisis. So far, nothing had halted the Chinese advance or the South American tanks. Week after week, the enemy surged deeper into the middle of the United States of America.
She no longer worked for the CIA, but had first moved onto the Presidential crisis team and then into the President’s inner circle as an advisor. Today she was here as the personal representative of the President.
I can’t do this. I’ll make a terrible mistake and it will cost us too dearly. What do I know about bargaining with one of the most powerful men in the world?
There came a knock at the door. Anna turned sharply. She felt lightheaded, dizzy. This was it. No. Please, let me go home.
“Enter,” she said.
The door swung inward and a large Secret Service agent stood there. It was the mission chief, a black man named Demetrius. He wore a black suit and sunglasses. “The car is waiting, ma’am,” Demetrius said in his deep voice.
Anna nodded. Her mouth had become too dry to speak. She faced the mirror a last time, picked up a necklace and kept fumbling with the tiny lock. She couldn’t—
“If you would permit me, ma’am?” Demetrius said.
She shivered. He stood so tall and powerful behind her. She hadn’t even heard him walk up. His face was stony; the sunglasses hid his eyes.
Feeling helpless, she nodded once more.
His big fingers moved deftly, brushing her hand as he clicked the tiny lock into place. “I do this for my wife all the time,” he said.
“Thank you,” Anna managed to whisper.
For a moment then, she was back in time. She remembered her former bodyguard, Tanaka. They had married and street thugs had killed him, ending everything. Tanaka would have scolded her for acting this mousey. She was the President of the United States’ personal representative. She needed to act boldly. She needed to realize that today she was the voice of America.
I have to swallow my fear. I have to think and measure the opposition. I must seek calm, calm, calm…
She’d entered the inner circle, advising the President and in the past few weeks consoling him. The crushing burden was becoming too much for one man to shoulder. President Sims was hard-pressed and people kept expecting miracles from him. He’d won the Alaskan War seven years ago, defeating the Chinese. He had a record of victory against them.
Yes, President Sims—
David. I can call him David in my thoughts, can’t I?
David Sims had helped America prepare for the present war. The Militia formations had been his idea. Shooting down the Chinese satellites last year and stopping the food tribute—he’d helped Americans feel proud again. Now to watch the endless retreats, the grim defeats, each larger than the last—it was grinding David down.
I’m here because this is better than crawling to the Chinese for conditions. And I’m here because Chancellor Kleist indicated he had a proposal for us.
Years ago, Anna had written the tome on the Chinese: Socialist-National China. It had been a bestseller, and it had won her a professorship at Harvard and then a spot on President Clark’s staff. After Clark lost his reelection bid, she’d been unemployed and looking for work. Finally, she’d joined the CIA because Sims helped those who had worked to defeat the Chinese in Alaska. As a CIA analyst, she’d uncovered the enemy’s Blue Swan EMP tac-missiles, and she’d helped figure out how to blunt them against the SoCal Fortifications. During these dark days, she’d learned all she could about Chancellor Kleist of the German Dominion, but her knowledge was spotty compared to her understanding of the Chinese leadership.
In the here and now, Agent Demetrius led the way down the hotel hall. Soon, they stepped outside. It was snowing and wet, clinging flakes fell. A running sedan waited at the bottom of the marble steps. White fumes puffed out of the car’s exhaust.
Anna worked her way down the slick steps. Her right foot began to slide; she held her body rigid and barely caught her balance in time. It wouldn’t do for her to fall down the stairs like an idiot. Finally, she made it and headed for the open car door. She slid into the back seat and Demetrius shut the door and climbed into the front, riding shotgun. The car started forward, the only vehicle on the street.
What a lonely country this has become.
The capital city of Reykjavik and Iceland as a whole used to have many more people. Glaciation had changed that. The Gulf Stream no longer warmed these northern waters. The current no longer warmed Europe or Russia. Because of the change, crops had dwindled to a pale shadow of their glory days.
The German Dominion refused to accept the lessening of their position. They had incorporated several North African nations into their empire. Experts attempted to change the former deserts into gardens using scientific methods. The ancient Carthaginians had done that to northern Tunisia. Now the Germans tried their hand at the game. They even towed icebergs into the Mediterranean Sea and put them on Libyan, Algerian and Tunisian shores. The melt helped water the new wheat fields.
From the back seat, Anna noticed they climbed a hill. She glanced left and saw colorful rooftops. There were many of those in Reykjavik. In the distance, she saw the spire of Hallgrimskirkja, the church of Hallgrimur. According to her brief, the spire was the sixth tallest structure on the island.
Once, Greater Reykjavik had boasted 200,000 people. Anna had read in her brief there were a mere 75,000 now. The ratio was similar for the entire island. Still, Iceland was strategically placed. A GD air wing flew out of the island and tough GD paratroopers and hover-tankers guarded the lonely land.
From the back seat, Anna pulled out her e-reader, trying to study her notes. It proved impossible. She was more nervous than ever. In the next few minutes, she would meet Chancellor Kleist and she would have to play her role as Presidential representative.
Kleist was a cunning
bastard. Oh yes, he was acclaimed as the new Otto von Bismarck. That sounded so much nicer. There had been little nice about Otto von Bismarck, however, a man of the late 1800s. His compatriots had named Bismarck the “blood and iron” Chancellor who’d created the Second Reich—the German Empire—through soldiers’ blood and his iron will. That empire had perished at the end of World War I.
Anna permitted herself a wintry grimace. The First Reich had been a medieval political entity. The Third Reich had been that monster Hitler’s creation. Today the Germans seemed wiser than before. No one called it the Fourth Reich, but the German Dominion instead. It encompassed the old European Union with added African countries.
Anna wasn’t here simply because the GD was a first-rate world power. Through his subtle and force-backed diplomacy, Chancellor Kleist had massed GD hovers into Cuba, along with elite paratroopers and airmobile brigades. GD Fleets roamed the Atlantic Ocean and its air and space patrols came perilously near America’s Eastern seaboard. The problem went much deeper, of course. Kleist had made a secret pact with the Pan-Asian Alliance, with China. The ray of hope for America came because it seemed as if Kleist had broken certain accords of the pact. His lack of help in attacking America this summer meant something, and if she did her job well, she might find out what.
One of the State Department men briefing Anna two days ago had told her Kleist reminded him more of Gaiseric than Otto von Bismarck. It had been a chance comment but she’d looked it up. One of her strengths was thoroughness and preparation. If she didn’t know something, she hunted it down.
Gaiseric had ended up being the king of the Vandal barbarians. In the waning days of the Western Roman Empire, groups of German tribes had marched hither and yon, conquering choice pieces of the empire and claiming the land as armed and dangerous squatters. Gaiseric took his Vandals from Spain and into Northern Africa. He besieged and took Carthage and soon turned his Germans into fierce pirates, creating a first-rate navy.
Gaiseric had proved the most cunning of the barbarian warlords. His words had helped convince Attila the Hun to attack the Western Roman Empire. Perhaps Kleist’s words had helped convince Chairman Hong to invade America. After Attila’s time and during Roman troubles, Gaiseric had taken his Vandals and sacked the Eternal City of Rome. The barbarians did such a thorough job of it that the tribal name—Vandal—stuck. It became a word that meant wanton destroyer. The key to understanding Gaiseric was his cunning and avarice.
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