“Colin tells me you knew something about the attack before it happened,” the President said.
Anna glanced at Green before she said, “Yes, sir.”
“She should have told someone in authority,” the Secretary of State said.
“A good idea,” Green said quickly. “At least she forwarded a memo. I’m sure she thought that was good enough. It would have been under normal circumstances. Ms. Chen,” Green said, turning toward Anna, “You have my full permission to come and see me at any time if you have further information.”
“Thank you, sir,” Anna said.
“Enough, Colin,” the President said. “Ms. Chen, you believe the Chinese attacked our carriers?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. And she outlined what she had once told Colin Green.
“In your opinion, why would they make such an underhanded attack against our carriers?” the President asked.
“I believe the Chinese are using their naval exercise as a screen for a sudden land attack,” Anna replied. “They’ve loaded up an unusual number of naval brigades, while the Chinese Army rolled a regiment of T-66 multi-turreted tanks onto fast cargo ships. Maybe as telling, the ice-mobile formations in Ambarchik Base in East Siberia have been receiving mass air-shipments of supplies and airmobile companies.”
“You’re better informed than the Pentagon,” the President said, bemused.
“Sir, I believe the Chinese objective is Alaska and particularly the oilfields.”
“Tell me why?”
“I’m not completely certain as to why,” Anna said. “But I believe the key is the oilfields in Prudhoe Bay and ANWAR, together with the oilrigs in the Arctic Ocean. They represent a large supply of crude. Maybe the Chinese are trying to corner the oil market. Their interior rice riots likely frightened the Party. Maybe with the oil market cornered, they can dictate world food prices.”
The President nodded. “I wish I would have learned of this sooner. Now with two carriers destroyed…I don’t see how we can stop this diplomatically.”
Anna leaned forward. She’d been thinking about this for some time. “Sir, I have a suggestion. The Politburo’s Ruling Committee is seldom unanimous. There are strong personalities on the committee vying for power as the Chairman’s grip weakens. Deng Fong, Jian Shihong, Admiral—” She shook her head. “The names don’t matter now. My point is that maybe you can shake their resolve.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” the President said.
“I can’t believe Deng Fong is in favor of war. Maybe you can scare the others with American resolve. Show the Chairman this was a mistake.”
“The Joint Chiefs are showing me how to do that, Ms. Chen. They talk about an ASBM assault on the Chinese Fleet.”
“You just spoke about fixing this diplomatically, sir. I realize blood has been spilled, and it is hard to reset the clock. But this is Greater China we’re talking about.”
“What is your point?”
Anna glanced at the Secretary of State. He looked stern, angry. Colin Green seemed worried. The President, anger smoldered in his eyes.
“Sir,” Anna said, “I suggest you call the Chairman. He will want to speak with you.”
“Why?” asked Clark.
Anna said this carefully as the President and his advisors were powerful men, proud men. “The Chairman believes himself to be very persuasive. In both the Siberian War and against Taiwan, he lied to those he was attacking. He lied in order to get them to drop their guard. Both Siberia and Taiwan were too weak to resist Chinese arms for long. Therefore, the leaders of both countries were eager for any possible solution short of war. Those leaders took a risk and believed the Chairman’s promises. They were psychologically primed so they grasped at straws. The Chairman, however, believes he possesses a golden tongue, that it was his speaking gift that bewildered the Siberian and Taiwanese leaders into making foolish decisions. Several analysts now see this as his signature tactic. In the Tokyo Interview, the Chairman said that a few words leading others in the wrong direction saved thousands of Chinese lives. He asked which was worse, to speak falsely in a needed time or to let others spill his people’s precious blood.”
“You believe the Chairman will lie to me?” the President asked.
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“He will attempt to trick me, as you say.”
Anna nodded.
“Why should I speak with him then?” the President asked.
“To give him a lie,” Anna said, “to attempt to sow discord in the Ruling Committee.”
“…go on,” said the President.
“During the call you should tell him you’ve strengthened Alaska with secret reinforcements. Tell the Chairman that you know he’s attacking, that you’ve known of his buildup all along and have taken steps accordingly.”
“That will scare him?”
“Scare is probably the wrong word,” Anna said. “Instead, it might strengthen those who counsel the Chairman against a war with America.”
The President stared at his hands.
“It’s worth consideration,” the Secretary of State said. “Fight fire with fire. You have a subtle mind, Ms. Chen.”
Anna nodded demurely.
The President stood up. Everyone else rose with him. “I appreciate your candor, Ms. Chen.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“Keep her near,” Clark told Green. “We may need more insight into the Chairman’s thinking.” Then, without another word, Clark, the Secretary of State and Colin Green took their leave.
PLATFORM P-53, ARCTIC OCEAN
Paul Kavanagh dropped his M14 on the ice beside a dead Asian, the one with a bullet-hole in his back. It had been more than a few years since Quebec. Paul had forgotten some of his combat habits. One habit came back right away, however, looting the dead.
At first, in Quebec, it had been hard touching a dead body, especially if you’d made the corpse yourself. There was something mysterious about a dead man. You certainly didn’t want to touch it. To go through a corpse’s pockets—some Marines hadn’t been able to do it, ever.
Paul swallowed as he nerved himself. You don’t have time to screw around. You need better weapons. It’s a simple as that.
He picked up the corpse’s dropped assault rifle, the one with a fancy scope. There were some Chinese symbols on the sides. With an oath, Paul went through the corpse’s pockets, doing it fast. It made him feel soiled, and there was the fear the corpse would sit up suddenly and grab his wrist. It was a deeply superstitious feeling, one difficult to shake despite its impossibility. Lastly, he fumbled with the belt, unbuckling it from the corpse. Hurriedly, Paul buckled the belt around his waist. It held extra curved magazines, a bayonet, two grenades, a canteen and a small, unknown device. He raised the butt of the assault rifle to his shoulder and peered through the activated scope. He’d guessed right—infrared. The barracks and sheds were blue-colored.
“Hurry,” Red Cloud said, who looted his own corpse several feet away. “We don’t have much time.”
Ignoring the Algonquin, Paul scanned the rest of the barracks, derricks and then out on the ice, using the infrared scope. There wasn’t anyone anywhere. It was eerie. Where had the enemy gone? How had these soldiers even gotten here in the first place? No one had teleportation devices that Paul knew of.
And why is Red Cloud alive while everyone else is dead?
Paul brought the assault rifle to waist level as Red Cloud neared. He sure wasn’t going to trust the Algonquin. The Indian still held the big revolver in his hand, although he shouldered an assault rifle. Paul aimed his assault rifle at Red Cloud’s midsection.
The Algonquin halted, frowning, smart enough to keep his gun lowered. He raised his eyes to gaze into Paul’s. Red Cloud’s face was emotionless. “Are you a traitor?”
“Yeah, right,” Paul said. “You are.”
“Because I’m a dirty Indian?”
“Cause you’re alive and everyone else is dead,” Pau
l said with heat.
“What about you?”
“Yeah, what about me?”
“Your logic proves that you must also be a traitor.”
Paul thought about that. “So what happened then?”
Turning, gazing at the derricks, Red Cloud said, “They attacked from the north. They swept in silently just as U.S. Marines did in Black Rock country, killing everything. I looked out my window and saw what was happening. I hid, waiting for my chance, just as when Marines struck our camp during the war. When most of the shooters left, leaving the others to rig their explosives, then I came out to have my revenge. I think several of those radioed back before we killed them. The others will return. We must leave before that.”
“Yeah, Geronimo, leave to where?”
“I will not go back to Canada,” Red Cloud said. “They have a warrant there for my arrest and execution. Greenland is too far and in Siberia they speak Russian or Chinese.”
“So we hike to the mainland?” asked Paul, “to Dead Horse?”
Nodding, Red Cloud said, “We must hurry before the Chinese return.”
“How do you know they’re Chinese?”
“Look at them,” Red Cloud said, pointing at the dead. “Do you notice the tiger-head patch? These are White Tiger Commandos, China’s fiercest warriors.”
“So how did these Commandos get all the way out here? By walking across the ice?”
“The ‘how’ is unimportant,” Red Cloud said. “They are here. So we must leave—now.”
Paul stared at the bleak snowscape, at the pressure ridges and whispering particles of snow blowing across the ice. “Alaska has to be four hundred miles away. We can’t walk that far.”
“A man does what he must,” Red Cloud said. “To live, I will try walking the distance. Better, however, to see if any of the snowcats are operable.”
Paul studied the base. White Tiger Commandos had attacked, huh. He wondered what the point of it was. Had the Chinese attacked the Californian oilrig, too? Paul’s eyes widened. Why would the Chinese be destroying American oil wells? That was an act of war. War with China—this could be the start of World War Three.
“Do not think you can remain here and summon help through the radio,” Red Cloud said. “The White Tigers have used demolitions. They mean to destroy the base. To wait here is to wait for death.”
“Come on,” Paul said, heading for the nearest building. He believed the sneaky Algonquin now. He didn’t like Red Cloud anymore than before, but if a man were going to try to cross four hundred miles of polar ice, he’d probably want someone like Red Cloud with him. The Algonquin was more a native of this land than he was, that’s for sure.
“Hurry,” Paul said. “We have to see if anyone else is alive.”
The first barrack held a nasty surprise. Paul opened the door. In the murk, he saw a wire move and heard a click inside.
“Down!” he shouted, twisting, dragging Red Cloud with him.
As Paul hit the ice, the barrack’s roof blew off as flames roared into the Arctic night. One side of the barrack blasted apart, screeching metal. Hot pieces of shrapnel blew through the air.
From where Paul lay, he blinked groggily. The shockwave had rolled him backward ten feet. The Commandos rigged a booby trap. He wondered for whom.
“You okay?” he asked.
Red Cloud grunted as he sat up, his fingers probing his torso and legs.
Paul sat up beside him. “We got lucky.”
“We must hurry now, or we are dead forever.”
Dragging themselves upright, they staggered for the main garage. Paul stared north into the Arctic darkness. The stars were bright on the white ice, giving more illumination than seemed possible.
As they reached the garage, Paul said, “I’ll search for booby traps. You keep watch for more of them.”
“I will search, too.”
“Listen, Geronimo, I was in the Marines. We set our share of booby traps, so I know what to look for. You’re more used to this ice world and can probably spot something that’s out of place faster than I can. So let’s each stick to our areas of expertise, okay?”
Red Cloud grunted, and he gave a short nod. Slipping the assault rifle from his shoulder, he turned on the infrared scope and walked north.
Paul took out his flashlight. He was breathing hard as he opened the garage door. Washing his beam of light into the interior, he groaned as he spied the snowcats. Most of the tracked vehicles’ hoods were up. That didn’t bode well. He moved carefully around the strewn junk on the floor. Soon, he discovered that all the engines’ hoses and plugs had been cut. These White Tigers were bastards.
There had to be extras hoses and plugs somewhere. Or maybe he could jury-rig something. Paul worked fast as he went from machine to machine. He found a needed hose in the back of one, and there were extra plugs in the storage room. Taking a toolkit from a cat, he began working on the least damaged engine.
Maybe five minutes later, he heard a groan. Pulling his head from out under the hood, Paul cursed softly. He grabbed the rifle and heard the groan a second time. It came from the storage area.
Walking in the murk, with dim light from a derrick shining through a small window, Paul approached a closet. Was a White Tiger Commando waiting in there for him? Should he fire a few rounds through the closed door just to make sure?
Not wanting to call out and alert whoever was hiding, Paul stood indecisive for a moment. Finally, he put his hand on the latch and threw open the door.
Something shiny rose in back. There was a click like a cocking hammer. Paul whirled away, slamming his back against the wall as a boom went off. Despite his ringing ears and tripping heart, Paul heard muttered words. They were spoken in English, and he knew that voice.
“Murphy! It’s me! Paul Kavanagh! Quit shooting!”
He heard another muffled curse and something heavily metallic clattered on the cement floor. A second later, a body thumped onto the cement.
Paul clicked on his flashlight and peered in. Murphy lay face down on the floor, with blood oozing from his parka.
“Kavanagh!” shouted Red Cloud from outside.
“It’s Murphy!” shouted Paul. “He must have thought I was Chinese. Now he’s out. Come in here. I need your help.”
“The Chinese are coming,” Red Cloud said, as he entered the garage.
“What?” asked Paul. Did these guys have long-distance helicopters?
“There’s a platoon of them,” Red Cloud said. “We don’t have much time.”
“Are you sure?”
“I saw their submarines surface.”
Submarines. Right. That makes sense.
“I saw two submarines,” Red Cloud said. “First lasers stabbed out of the ice. Then the submarines broke through. After the subs settled, soldiers boiled out of the towers, climbing down. We have ten minutes before they arrive.”
Now we know how they got here. “We have to load up with supplies,” Paul said.
“We must leave now or we die.”
“Drag Murphy into the cat over there,” Paul said. “I fixed it. Then drive to the mess. Make sure you keep the cat’s lights off.”
Without waiting for an answer, Paul raced for the garage exit. The Algonquin had better not leave without him. “I’m going to scrounge us a bag of grub!” he shouted. “Okay?”
For an answer, Red Cloud disappeared into the closet where Murphy lay.
***
Panting and with sweat dripping from his face, Paul heaved three canvas bags into the back of the snowcat. Then he banged the back shut and raced around to the side, piling in on the passenger side. Red Cloud started the vehicle moving as Paul slammed his door shut.
The snowcat’s tank-like treads lurched and the compact vehicle clanked south, leaving the gravel skirt of the oilrig. They left behind the dead and any of those who might be wounded and unconscious. That grated on Paul. Marines didn’t leave their own behind. The Corps had drilled the idea into him.
&n
bsp; Murphy groaned from where he lay in back. Blood still seeped from his gunshot wound.
Rolling down his window, thrusting half his torso outside, Paul aimed the assault rifle north. He used the scope regularly, without infrared. Past the derricks and far out on the ice he saw two squat metal towers. They were the ‘sails’ of two Chinese submarines. The submarines had punched through the ice, which should have taken some doing. Paul had read somewhere that a sub couldn’t break through ice more than three-and-a-half feet thick. He’d been doing the radar-testing of the perimeter ice-thickness earlier. The ice here was much thicker than three-and-a-half feet. It must have been the reason why the Chinese had used lasers first, either melting the ice or breaking it apart. Marching from the two submarines were roly-poly White Tiger Commandos, more than twenty and each using snowshoes. They were almost to the northern edge of the oilrig’s gravel skirt.
He spied pinpoints of lights from the rifles. The White Tigers had spotted them and they were firing.
“They know we’re escaping,” Paul said. “They see us.”
Red Cloud spoke in Algonquin. Paul hoped it was an Indian curse, one with power.
Paul glanced back again. “Crap!” he said.
“What is it?”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Speak to me, Kavanagh.”
Paul saw a bright dot rise from one of the submarine’s sails. There was another fiery dot from the other submarine. Paul brought up the assault rifle. He caught the object in his scope. It was an armored White Tiger in a bulky battle-jetpack. Paul had read articles about them. After decades of effort, the Japanese had finally invented a rugged, fuel-efficient one. Paul had a swift view of the Commando using an armrest joystick-control and a bulky helmet with gizmos attached. The Commando moved swiftly through the air toward them. It had to be freezing up there.
“They’re sending two jetpack flyers after us!” Paul shouted.
He lowered the assault rifle. Something red winked from the first flyer. On a suspicion, Paul glanced at the side of their cat. There was a bright red dot on it.
“He’s using a laser!” Paul shouted. “He’s going to guide a missile into us.”
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