His targeting computer chirped to indicate it had another Russian in its sights and was ready to fire. “My turn,” Riggs muttered as he locked on to the weaving fighter.
The radio erupted with missile launch calls and whoops as the Americans turned the tide and Russian planes vanished from the sky in inky blots of smoke and fire. Riggs led the charge and in minutes, had exhausted his supply of air-to-air missiles.
“Okay, Hawk One, step aside,” grumbled the voice of the XO of Hammer flight. “Hammer flight is starting attack run.”
“Have at it, Hammer.” Riggs pulled off his oxygen mask and basked in the cool air on his face. He grimaced as what was left of his squadron formed up around him in a loose diamond pattern. His interceptors had done their job—Roosevelt now owned the skies over Manhattan. He glanced at the scarred, chewed up F-35s.
“Hawks, sound off,” he called. “Radio check.”
“Two, five-by-five,” replied Jonesy.
“Seven, standing by.”
“Eight, good to go.”
“Four, five-by.”
Silence followed the last transmission. Riggs counted to thirty before he closed his eyes. He had seven letters to write. My God…we own the skies, but at what price?
CHAPTER 30
Aftermath
LANCE COULD FEEL A heavy pressure on his chest. Opening his eyes, he saw only darkness. For a terrifying moment, he thought he’d gone blind.
Last thing he remembered, there'd been an explosion near his location. He heard an incredible roar and the world went orange–white. Then black. He remembered saying a quiet prayer as he stepped under the cover of the trees and entered the open space in a sprint to reach the burned-out rubble of the nearest house. He remembered a vicious firefight—the crack of hunting rifles and M4s contrasted mightily with the bark of Chinese AK-47s.
He remembered how the rubble on the ground had abused his knees as he’d crawled around the corner of a demolished house. He’d seen one of the Chinese APCs down the street. Two regulators had rushed from the house across the street—or what was left of it—out into the open and froze when they spotted the APC. Lance had shouted for them to take cover and they ran toward him.
The last thing he remembered was the muzzle flash from the main gun on the APC.
Lance became acutely aware of searing pain on the right side of his face. He tried to move his arm to touch his face, but he was pinned to the ground. He tried instead to maneuver his hands until he found the edge of what used to be a wall. The crushing weight on his chest was forcing him to hyperventilate. He had to do something fast. Ignoring the panic that threatened to paralyze him, he pushed up with his shoulders. The wall barely moved.
Lance clenched his jaw and put all his strength into the effort and felt the debris on top of his chest shift just enough for a lungful of air. He noticed when he lifted the chunk of wall from his chest he could see daylight at the edges. He didn't have time to wonder how long he’d been unconscious as the wall was threatened to overwhelm his burning muscles.
Lance shifted his hips through a white-hot stab of pain and forced his left knee to prop up the wall. It was just enough for him to wiggle his right leg free. He pushed with every ounce of strength he had and lifted the debris just enough so he could wriggle out. The wall collapsed after he moved, showering him with dust and ash.
He lay there on his side, facing what was left of someone’s house. When he’d arrived in town, the house had already been burned to a crisp. Now it was just an ugly pile of rock, bits of drywall, and charred studs sticking up like the ribs of some mythical beast.
He coughed and wiped the grime from his eyes, then tested the skin on his face with the fingertips of his right hand. He winced and imagined that he must look like a half-roasted chicken. He slowly got to his knees but ended up back on his heels, panting with the effort. As his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the midmorning sun, he glanced around the landscape of Hell itself.
He tried to call out and found his throat clogged with dust. After a painful cough or two, he staggered to his feet and looked around the desolate landscape once more.
Several homes in the subdivision still smoldered. Black smoke obscured the sun like passing rain clouds. He brushed some of the dust off his chest. From the feel of it, he’d have some real impressive bruises the next day.
He turned an ankle after a few hesitant steps in the loose rubble and nearly went down again. After he caught his balance, Lance muttered a curse under his breath and staggered away from the charred house into the street.
"Hello?" he asked shouted. Still no answer. That was bad. He had no idea where his rifle had gone. He remembered the feel of it in his hands when the APC had fired—after the explosion, there had been nothing. It was like someone had switched off a chunk of his memory.
Try as he might, Lance could see no other living soul in the charred wasteland that had been Pine Bluff, Arizona. He limped forward down the street and called out survivors. No one answered. Lance clenched his jaw and hobbled forward, determined to reach the courthouse.
As he approached the ruined building, still two blocks in the distance, he could see thick black smoke pouring from what was left of the roof. His pace quickened and he ignored the pain from his right leg.
Where the hell is everybody?
There was no sign of the Chinese other than the destruction they had left in their wake. The comms van that Jerry had been shooting at the previous night was nowhere to be seen. Lance spotted blood stains in the street and on the sidewalk. Lance smirked through the pain in his leg. Jerry had done his job well. Bits of glass and broken metal covered the street like a dusting of hail. He could see skid marks leading away from the ruined courthouse—someone had left in a hurry.
Across the street, Lance could see that every window in the front of the courthouse had been blown out. The question remained, did the explosion happen outside or inside? The black column of smoke that reached up from the roof into the sky appeared like an accusing finger, the smoke thick and acrid. He wrinkled his nose and sniffed involuntarily as he reached the wide, charred marble steps.
"Hello?" Lance shouted once more. His voice echoed off the front of the building, but there was still no answer. Down the street he could see bodies in the road—some looked like soldiers, some like Regulators, and more than a few were clearly civilians. He began to climb the steps to the blasted entrance to the courthouse and then noticed part of the facade of the building had collapsed, effectively sealing off the front. Cursing again, he hobbled around to the north side and stopped in his tracks.
A Border Patrol SUV, its doors wide open had been parked on the grass next to an emergency exit. It idled a little rough, but proved someone was still alive. Lance swallowed and hoped they were the good guys.
Lance picked up his pace again and made for the emergency exit. The door had been propped open with a discarded AR-15. He ducked into the dark interior and could feel the residual heat inside the building. A dull, crackling roar seemed to emanate through the walls wherever he turned. He saw no flames, but the heat was oppressive and smoke writhed along on the ceiling like a living thing.
"Hello! Regulators? Border patrol? Anybody?"
Voices. He heard voices. They came from up ahead and down a corridor. He staggered in the smoke-filled darkness and turned when he saw light flicker off of a marble wall. A flashlight. He approached the corner and his fingers twitched. He desperately wished he had his rifle with him. He peered around the corner and saw flashlights cast eerie silhouettes in the smoke.
"—see anyone else?"
A second person coughed. "This is hopeless…" More coughing.
"Hey!" Lance called out in relief. "Are there any other survivors?"
Lance blinked as two flashlights lit up his face. He held up a hand to block the light.
"Who's there?" a harsh voice called out.
"Lance Bryton—who the hell are you?"
The flashlights dropped to the floor and illuminated
a clear path for him to reach the two speakers. "Glad to see you made it, Mr. Bryton," said a familiar voice.
"This is the second time I can say I'm glad to see you, Agent Levine," Lance said.
"It's a God-awful mess in here. I've got my boys looking outside, but so far we haven't found any survivors. Just bodies."
"Where are they?" asked Lance, trying to keep hold of his voice.
Agent Levine sighed. "Down there, in the basement.” He shined his light down a rubble-strewn staircase. “We cleared a path through the debris but it's pretty bad…"
Lance didn't bother listening to the rest of the man's words—he was already on his way over the rubble pile. At the bottom of the stairs, a green glow stick lit a corner of the smoke-filled basement.
“You sure you want to go down there?” asked Agent Levine.
Lance ignored him and kept going. "Rob? Rob, you down here, buddy?"
Lance took two steps and tripped on something in the darkness, landing flat on his face. He grunted in pain and rolled off the body of Ed Franks. He didn't look dead. Ed looked peaceful, like he was resting.
Smoke inhalation, Lance thought as he suppressed a cough. The smoke in the basement was even thicker than it was on the main floor. He figured there must be a vent or something that had funneled smoke into the room and suffocated his brothers. The last stand of the Regulators.
Lance searched Ed's body. Through the tears threatening to spill from his eyes, he found a working flashlight. He turned it on despite the tremor in his hands and swung the beam around the darkness. He recoiled in horror. There were bodies everywhere. Part of the ceiling had collapsed in the far corner, and feet and arms stuck out underneath the rubble pile.
Lance shuffled deeper into the nightmare. He felt the cool moisture of tears on his cheeks as he saw body after body, friend after friend. He could see a cluster of forms in the opposite corner. Lance closed his eyes—he knew what he would find there, but he limped forward anyway.
Rob lay against the corner of the building, his AR clutched to his chest, eyes closed as if asleep.
Lance fell to his knees and wept.
CAPTAIN ENLAI JAN ADJUSTED his helmet. He felt uncomfortable preening like this, but there was no alternative. After all, when one takes a video teleconference with the Ministry of Defense, one must look his best.
One of the command staff conscripts snapped a salute and then flashed a wry smile. "Ready, sir?" the young man asked.
Jan tried to ignore the rising taste of bile at the back of his throat. He was not sure his career would survive the failure at Pine Bluff. No less than the Undersecretary for the Great Leader and the Minister of Defense had ordered Colonel Chun to hold the town. And then the Regulators—those deceitful American terrorists—had holed up in the basement of the courthouse. The terrorists had mounted a counterattack and the Colonel had been killed—which, in his mind, had been the one bright spot in the whole situation. Jan believed his response had been perfect and had been instrument in the successful repulsion of that attack. He took a deep breath and looked at the camera.
Regrettably, certain orders had been misunderstood in the confusion after Colonel Chun’s death and the courthouse had been destroyed. Jan frowned. On top of that, what had been left of the local civilian population had been killed when a psychopathic conscript had torched that church. Just another casualty of a non-volunteer army, to Jan’s mind.
Jan knew Chun’s orders to round up the civilians into one spot had placed them in such a precarious situation. Even though he was not himself a Christian, destroying a house of worship—of any religion—was anathema to the young captain. It just went against all his training to kill unarmed civilians in such a disgraceful manner.
He swallowed audibly. He was doomed.
"The feed is coming online now, sir," said the newly promoted communications chief. He had been fourth in line for his current position.
Jan straightened his back and squared his shoulders. Whatever happened, he would accept it with honor intact. "I'm ready."
He sat inside what was left of the drone van after some hasty patch jobs. The large screen built into the side of the van also contained an embedded camera. It was from this location that Chun had delivered his briefings to the politicians back in Beijing. And now that onerous job had fallen on Jan’s shoulders.
The screen flickered and came to life as the image focused from thousands of miles away. A heavyset man in a smartly tailored business suit sat behind a wide desk top of glossy wood. The man smoked a cigarette and a gray haze floated over his head. He had sleepy, half-closed eyes that gave the distinct impression of a dragon guarding its horde of gold.
"Greetings Honorable Minister," said Jan with the slightest of bows.
The Minister’s eyes snapped open and the cigarette paused halfway to his mouth. A thin tendril of smoke emanated from the tip of the glowing cigarette. The Minister looked at a paper on his desk before he glanced up at the camera. "Where is Colonel Chun?"
Jan cleared his throat. "I regret to inform you, Honorable Minister, sir, that Colonel Chun is dead."
Now he had the politician's full attention. His eyes opened wide and the cigarette unceremoniously dumped into a full ashtray. He leaned forward, elbows on the table and peered into the camera. It looked as if he wanted to climb through the lens. "What is the meaning of this? What happened? Quickly, man, tell me!"
Jan tried to ignore the fear that swelled in his soul at the urgent tone of the Minister. Surely his fate had been sealed. "The terrorists attacked us in the middle of the night—there were snipers. We lost many brave men, including the Colonel."
"What is your name?"
The young captain stiffened. "Captain Enlai Jan, Honorable Minister, sir."
"Very well, Captain Jan. Tell me what happened." The man paused to light up another cigarette and darted his eyes at the camera. "Mind you, give me the brief rundown—I want to know what happened, when, and how it was handled. Give me the full detailed report later. I have a meeting with the Undersecretary soon."
Jan took a deep breath as he watched the Minister blow smoke towards the camera. He could almost smell the cigarette smoke and the realization made him crave one of his own. "They struck without warning, sir. They were able to avoid detection from our drone…"
He continued talking for 15 breathless minute and explained the gruesome events of the horrible night he'd survived. As Jan wrapped up the tale, explaining how orders had been confused in the heat of battle and the church and courthouse had been destroyed with complete loss of all American lives, he snapped his head ramrod straight and waited. The next words out of the Minister’s mouth would signal his fate had been sealed.
The Minister of Defense hid his expression behind those half-lidded eyes. Instead of a screaming fit, he merely nodded and puffed quietly on his cigarette. As seconds ticked on into minutes, a bead of sweat rolled down Jan's neck. He tried to remain calm and patient but worried he would scream if the politician failed to say something—anything—soon.
At last the minister spoke. "Captain Jan, you've shown exemplary fortitude in the call of duty and acted with—as far as I can tell—the best interests of China at heart. I applaud your quick thinking and swift, decisive actions. At last this terrorist threat is all but destroyed. Our mission may proceed as planned." The minister stabbed out his cigarette, leaned back in his chair, and intertwined his fingers across his paunch. "I am most impressed by you, Captain."
Jan nodded as relief washed over him like waves at a beach. "Thank you, Honorable Minister, sir. I only wish to serve China to the best of my abilities."
"Yes, about that. It seems we are short a Colonel."
Jan held himself perfectly still. This was not what he had expected at all.
The Minister cleared his throat and sat up straight in his chair. "Yes, I think you will do nicely." He snapped his fingers at someone off-screen and offered a quick smile for the camera. Someone handed the Minister a sheaf of paper
s. He sorted through them and selected one with a flourish. He handed back the rest of the papers and smoothed the one he’d selected on his desk. Jan swallowed as he watched the Minister chose a fountain pen from an ornate jade stand and began to write furiously.
As he wrote, he spoke: "For courage above and beyond the call of duty, for tactically assessing the situation that led to the salvation of the Battalion and at the same time accomplishing the primary objectives assigned by your commanding officer…I, Po Sin, duly appointed Minister of Defense of the People's Republic of China, hereby ordain and declare Captain Enlai Jan be given with immediate effect the battlefield commission of Colonel. With all due rights, privileges, and duties, etc., etc., etc.…"
The lieutenant standing next to Jan opened his mouth in surprise and flashed a big thumbs-up sign. It was all Jan could do to keep from smiling as he watched in his peripheral vision while his fellow soldiers high-fived each other and celebrated in silence.
"Signed this day, by my hand…" muttered the Minister. "Po Sin." He finished the signature with a flourish and replaced the fountain pen back on its stand. He held up the paper and smiled again at the camera.
"I shall have a facsimile of this delivered to you immediately. You will keep an electronic version for your safekeeping and I will hold this in my office until you return at the conclusion of your mission. Congratulations, Colonel Jan."
"Thank you. Thank you, Honorable Minister, sir. I don't know what to say…"
"And that is why I believe I have made the correct choice." The Minister paused to light another cigarette. "Your first order, Colonel Jan, shall be to expedite the removal of your forces from eastern Arizona and reestablish contact with the main body of our forces. By now, they should be finished with Flagstaff and well on their way toward southern California. You will make all haste to link up with them and complete the primary objective of establishing a beachhead on the coast of California.” He paused to exhale a small cloud of gray smoke. “There are to be no more delays, Colonel. Reinforcements are already en route and we must have safe harbor for them when they land. Am I clear?"
Sic Semper Tyrannis Page 40