by Peter Nealen
The door opened on the main control center. There was still one Chinese tech inside, huddled behind a console, his hands on his head, shaking and crying. Apparently, not all the radar techs had been prepared for an on-the-ground firefight.
Hank quickly secured the tech, who wasn’t much more than a kid, taking his weapon and zip-tying his hands, while Marco held security on the door. Looking around the room, Hank saw that their best bet wouldn’t be putting charges on any of the consoles, but on the radar dome up above. The consoles were replaceable. The radar itself, not so much.
Joining Marco at the door, he took over security. “Go ahead and drop the ruck. We’ve got to get these charges set in fast.”
Outside, the gunfire intensified, and more charges went off, lighting up the night with yet more fireballs. The fight for Subi Reef was heating up.
And the Triarii’s time was running out.
Chapter 38
Explosives are dangerous things, no matter how experienced one is with them. In the quantities the Triarii were carrying, they’re even more so. That was why they’d kept the initiation systems separate, rather than risk having something go wrong with almost seventy pounds of TNT on a man’s back.
Unfortunately, while that made it safer to carry that much boom, it was going to take a lot longer to set the charges in than if they’d already had the initiation systems in. The charges had been prepped to a certain degree, but they still had to put together the time fuse, igniter, and blasting cap, crimp the caps, then insert them into the pre-bored holes gouged in the TNT blocks’ fuse wells. All of that took time, especially since they still had to move from target to target.
Up on the roof of the control station, setting charges on the radar dome, Hank could see a little bit more of what was going on. He still had to focus on what he was doing—getting distracted while working with explosives was a recipe for disaster—but he could glance up between steps to take in the situation.
Chan’s team had landed on the north end, their primary targets being the island’s underground water and fuel storage, the diesel power generation plant, and the hangars at the north end of the airstrip. The north end, however, was where the barracks and most of the security apparatus was. They’d already been at greater risk of compromise, and it looked like it had happened. From the looks of things, though, Chan and his boys were putting up more of a fight than the Chinese had been ready for.
Even as he set the last charge, pulling the igniter and squinting through his NVGs to try to see if it was smoking, a massive fireball lit up the north end of the island, and the entire northern half went dark.
Chan had apparently decided to blow the power plant early. So much the better.
Satisfied that the radar dome was toast once the charges went off, Hank hustled down the stairs and rejoined Marco Rodriguez where he was holding security on the door.
“Things are getting sporty out there.” Rodriguez sounded like he was itching to go join in. Hank could kind of understand.
“They are. Which just means we need to hurry.” He hefted the ruck, somewhat lighter now, and Rodriguez led the way out the door.
They’d left the one surviving tech zip-tied and gagged, alive, in the weeds some distance from the SAM site. There was no guarantee he’d survive the devastation the Triarii had in mind for the island, but Hank had balked at straight-up murdering him.
Starting at the northeast corner, with Rodriguez holding security, Hank started setting charges as quickly as he could get them primed and placed. The time fuses had all been pre-cut for about an hour, in order to give them time to exfil before the charges started going off, but Hank started cutting the fuses in half before setting the charges. With the mission compromised and Triarii already actively engaging the enemy, they had less time than they’d hoped before the Chinese might start trying to defuse the explosives.
More gunfire erupted in the night, this time due west, on the south end of the island. Time was running out fast.
Rodriguez heard it and suddenly he was next to Hank, pulling charges out of the ruck and running to the next cell. “Juan and Jim have security!” he called over his shoulder. Hank glanced up and saw two dark figures down in the prone in the weeds, next to the old SIAR array.
There wasn’t time to talk. He finished setting the next charge, yanked the igniter, held it to his nose until he could smell the smoke, and then grabbed the ruck and moved to the last cell in the lineup.
Another massive explosion flashed to the west, the rolling boom coming to them a few seconds later. If Hank was gauging the distance right… Then he didn’t need to guess anymore, as all of the lights on the south end of the island went dark. LaForce had blown the second power plant early.
That probably meant that either LaForce had already decided to cut the fuses short, or he’d gone back in after seeing the north plant go up, cut the fuses, and restarted them.
Hank finished the last charge, then reached up and gave Marco a squeeze. With the now-empty ruck on his back, they moved up to join Shevlin and Juan at the old SIAR array.
“Charges are already set here.” Shevlin was watching the west, where more gunfire flickered and cracked, headlights on the runway now the only illumination aside from the stars and the Z-9’s spotlight. “Looks like we’ve got a react force hitting near the landing site.”
“Let’s move, then.” Hank and Marco waited for the other two to get to their feet, and then they were hoofing it across the open ground between the SIAR arrays, rifles ready and scanning for threats. It looked like the Chinese were being held at the western corner, though, so they could move a little faster, especially since it appeared that the shore patrols were currently tied up with the fighting at the south end of the runway. They still had to move carefully and be ready for a fight, though, since they didn’t know how many of the Chinese personnel had weapons, aside from PLAN marines on security.
Hank, Shevlin, and the Rodriguez brothers jogged across the open ground between the older and newer SIAR arrays. More flashes flickered between buildings ahead, punctuated by the pop of distant gunfire a few seconds later.
As they paused outside a cluster of cargo containers, a new storm of gunfire erupted, sounding much closer. It was still out of sight, somewhere beyond a low building about a quarter mile away, but it was closer. Maybe the Chinese were trying to flank the Triarii engaged at the runway.
He decided to shift their route. Fighting through however many Chinese might stand between them and the beach landing site—or whatever element from his section were currently engaged between here and there—would only slow them down and increase the chances that none of them got off the island alive.
With a nudge, Hank pointed Shevlin back down onto the gravel embankment they’d followed most of the way there. It was doubtful at that point that the shore patrol would be traipsing along the road, so they could move faster, with some cover. Shevlin nodded, and a moment later they dashed across the road and headed along the shoreline, even as the sounds of the firefight got louder.
Footing wasn’t as good, and that slowed them down, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as when they’d been hauling close to seventy pounds of explosives per man. But they still had a long way to go.
Listening to the gunfire, Hank called a halt and clambered up to peer over the top of the embankment. Just in time to see half a dozen men in what looked like Chinese camouflage and carrying QBZ-95s creeping out of the maze of pre-fabs and trailers right on the other side of the road.
They were all looking west, toward where he could now hear suppressed 7.62 fire in addition to the 5.8mm rounds cracking out over the water. Scanning to his left, he could just make out movement and the slight flickers of suppressed muzzle blasts near another clump of trailers near the radar domes that had been one of Navarro’s squad’s targets.
There was no time to call a warning. Two of the Chinese troops coming around the corner were already aiming in at his boys. So Hank went flat, his boots still splayed
out on the gravel below him, his elbows on the road, put his red dot on the leading figure with the bullpup rifle, let out a breath, and squeezed the trigger.
The rifle surged back into his shoulder as the suppressor coughed with a heavy whack, but he was braced well enough, even with his hasty shooting position, that he kept the dot on the target as his bullet blasted through the man’s armpit. It was only about sixty yards, but that was far enough on NVGs, in the dark to be a decently long shot.
Juan Rodriguez had come up alongside him, fortunately, and had seen what he was doing as he’d gotten down. Whereas Hank had dropped the first man with a well-aimed shot, however, Juan dumped half his mag as he dragged his muzzle across the group. Three more went down as Hank caught up, transitioned to the man who had just dropped flat, desperately turning his rifle toward the unexpected gunfire. That one was still searching for a target when Hank shot him through the eye.
Rodriguez cleaned up the last man as he sought cover behind a trailer. Then Hank was up and moving, his rifle still in his shoulder, watching that corner just over his sights, heading for where his boys were still under fire. “Friendlies at your four o’clock!”
“Bring it in!” He found Navarro, Kinzie, Fuentes, Bob Nakato, Durand, and Alexander, holding down the corner, Alexander pouring Mk 48 fire down the avenue toward the barracks that loomed dark against the ships’ lights in the lagoon.
“We’d just rallied up and were heading back when we started taking fire from up there.” Navarro had rolled back from the corner, giving his position up to Kinzie, as Hank, Shevlin, and the Rodriguez brothers joined them. “They’ve got a belt fed up there by the barracks. Must have hauled it out as soon as the react force mobilized.”
“Must have. Any SA on LaForce and Faris?” Hank leaned out for a second, then snatched his head back as another burst crackled past his face, far too close for comfort. “Well, they’ve got that avenue locked down pretty well.” He looked over his shoulder. “Dammit.”
Navarro nodded. “If we try to bypass it, they can just run down this road and come in on our flank. As for Etienne, he and Faris booked it past here a couple minutes before they opened up.”
“And if we try to run up there and knock it out, we get sucked in and probably cut off,” Hank finished for him, noting the information about LaForce and Faris. That accounted for all the two-man teams on this side of the radar domes. He chewed the inside of his cheek for a second, then dug in his chest rig and pulled out a smoke. “When I say go, get down below that road and get moving to link up with the rest.” He was already pulling the pin as he spoke.
“What are you going to do?” Navarro was already starting to pull the rest of his squad back, aside from Alexander, as Hank tossed the smoke out in front of their machinegun.
“Wait for them to try to flank.” Hank already had the Rodriguez brothers watching their six, Jim Shevlin pushing up to take the corner from Kinzie.
Navarro looked at him for a moment. Expressions were all but impossible to see past NVGs, but he clearly wasn’t sold. “You sure?”
“Did I stutter?” Hank moved up next to Shevlin. “Get moving.”
The HC smoke popped and began to hiss, belching white smoke out into the lane, as Navarro and his boys sprinted for the road and the shoreline. Hank, Shevlin, and the Rodriguez brothers hunkered down to wait.
Several more explosions rocked the north end of the island. Chan and his boys must have cut most of their fuses short. Hank gritted his teeth, both wishing that he’d done the same, earlier, and that Chan had stuck with the plan. Sure, they were supposed to be exfiltrating by now, but if they’d gotten slowed down, the early dets would have alerted the Chinese before they were ready.
A moment later, a green flare arced over the north end. Chan and his boys were breaking contact and heading out into the water. Which meant that Hank and his section were behind.
The machinegun fire coming from the barracks hadn’t ceased when the smoke had filled the avenue between containers. Clearly, fire discipline wasn’t as much of a thing for the Chinese. It was screwing with his plans, though. If they just sat tight and kept pouring fire down the lane…
Almost as if finishing his thoughts, more men in Chinese camouflage, armed with QBZ-95s, came out of the maze of trailers, guns up and shooting before they even had targets.
That was what killed them. The muzzle flashes might as well have been spotlights, and the Rodriguez brothers were already down in the prone and aimed in.
With a ripping barrage of suppressed 7.62 fire, they cut the flanking element down before any of them had even registered where the Triarii shooters were. The first one took a bullet to the side and collapsed, screaming, his finger still spasmodically mashing the trigger, rounds crackling past Hank’s head before a second shot silenced him. The next man back simply collapsed, falling on his face as he soaked up a couple of friendly rounds from the first man.
The men behind saw the first two drop and tried to back up, but they were already committed, too far out of cover and well within the Rodriguez brothers’ sights. Two of them staggered back against the trailer, already bleeding out, and a third was spraying fire high when a bullet went through his chin and out the back of his head. He fell like a puppet with its strings cut.
Sporadic bursts of machinegun fire were still tearing through the obscuring smoke, green tracers licking off into the dark over the ocean. It wasn’t as intense as it had been, but it hadn’t ceased, either.
Hank decided they couldn’t wait in ambush anymore. Especially since they’d just ambushed one element already. Any follow-on forces would be ready for an ambush. They had to move.
He just tapped Shevlin, who had been ready for the signal. Shevlin got to his feet in a second, turning and running back down toward the road and the shoreline, bending down to thump Marco Rodriguez on the leg as he passed. Marco scrambled to his feet and followed, the two of them sprinting toward the cover of the embankment.
Hank and Juan stayed in place for a few more moments, until Shevlin flashed an IR laser on the trailer next to Hank’s head. They were trying to avoid yelling in English. Let the Chinese keep guessing who the enemy was.
Pivoting inward, away from the avenue where the smoke grenade was starting to burn itself out, Hank was about to tap Juan Rodriguez, but the other man was already getting up and getting ready to move. Together, after a glance to make sure they weren’t about to run right into either Marco’s or Shevlin’s line of fire, they sprinted away from the trailer, chased by more green tracers that skipped off the pavement and the steel walls of the containers with harsh cracks.
Scrambling down below the level of the road, Hank slapped Shevlin on the shoulder. “Let’s move.” With Chan withdrawing, the full weight of Subi Reef’s surviving security forces would be moving south soon. And the weakened section didn’t have the numbers or the firepower to withstand them.
Shevlin didn’t need any further prompting. He turned and started moving, scrambling along the embankment as fast as he could, keeping his head down to avoid the fire still crackling overhead.
It was almost a half mile to the landing site. It was a hard slog, trying to stay low and move fast, on a relatively steep side hill. Especially since they couldn’t afford to just put their heads down and run. Juan Rodriguez had to keep stopping to check their six. A good thing, too, because they hadn’t gotten far before a vehicle came out onto the road, headlights glaring at them and riflemen getting out to sweep the open ground between the trailers and the ocean.
Rodriguez opened fire. There was no sign that the enemy knew exactly where they were, but that was also why they were running suppressed. He shattered one of the headlights, and the Chinese soldiers scattered, just as the charges on the first radar dome went off.
There was no fireball—there wasn’t any fuel in the radar dome for the charges to set burning—but with a flash and an ugly, boiling cloud, the radar station came apart, fragments whickering through the air. The Chinese dove f
or the dirt, and the Triarii kept moving, bounding back along the road, one leapfrogging past the other before moving up onto the road to open fire, at which point the covering man would peel down toward the shore and run to catch up.
Then they were hitting the curve, heading toward the landing site. Looking up over the road, Hank could see figures near the small building ahead, trading fire with several Chinese vehicles at the south end of the runway. He didn’t see any armor, fortunately, but while the trucks had clearly been riddled with bullets, that hadn’t silenced the small arms fire from the Chinese troops spread out on the ground. Bullets were smacking concrete and plaster off the side of the building, while the Triarii sheltered inside or behind it.
Hank sprinted toward the beleaguered section, flashing his IR rapidly. The other three sprinted after him, boots pounding on the road. Lovell was on a knee at the corner of the house, waving them in, as gunfire skipped off the road off to their right.
Skidding to a halt, Hank dropped to a knee next to Lovell. “We got everyone?”
“You’re the last ones. Most everybody else is inside.” Lovell leaned out around the corner and fired three fast shots before ducking back behind cover.
“Then why the hell aren’t we getting in the water?” Hank demanded. They had cover, and they should be able to lose the Chinese in the dark pretty fast once they got under the surface.
“Because of that.” Lovell pointed to the north. Hank followed his finger, only then seeing the lights of a Chinese Coast Guard cutter as it steamed around the flank of the island. “Etienne’s got the radio up, but we’re not getting off this rock without support.”
Hank squeezed his shoulder and headed inside, calling ahead, “Friendly,” as he ducked through the door. LaForce was just inside, with one of the handful of radios they’d brought along held to his ear. They’d limited the comms they’d brought, for a couple of reasons. Waterproofing radios for full immersion was difficult, at best, and it would have meant a lot of extra prep time on the ground, before and after the mission. Furthermore, against the Chinese, a lot of radio traffic would only have potentially alerted them even earlier.