by Schow, Ryan
Slowly, he planted his hands in the dirt and pushed himself off the ground. As he peeled himself up, a few slurps of blood drizzled out of his mouth and nose, like cherry syrup dripping in the dirt. There was a persistent ringing in his ear, and as he looked around, it was as if someone else’s eyes were in his head and they weren’t quite aligned with his brain. As he looked around at the horrors unfolding, none of them meant anything to him personally. He managed to get his body over, but then he dropped back down, this time on his back.
Is this what it’s like to be born? he wondered.
His eyes locked in on a big man bending down in front of him, his face a little bloody, but nothing as bad as what Clay had experienced. Brandon. Yes, Brandon! He was speaking, but Logan couldn’t understand a word he was saying. All around him, explosives were going off and mags were being emptied out.
“Are. You. Okay?” Brandon said again, this time accentuating his words.
Logan slowly put his hands to his ears, trying to clap out an obnoxious amount of noise. The sounds of war fell away, but the shrill ringing wouldn’t stop. It was coming from inside his head.
Bent over, shaking Logan’s shoulder, Brandon said, “We have to go.” Logan was staring intently at his lips. But then Brandon turned and looked up field. Logan suddenly remembered wanting to go that way. Then he remembered that he was in a war.
Brandon tried to lift him, but his body was limp, weak, all the connections still not made. He simply slid, boneless, out of Brandon’s grip. The boisterousness of war hit him full force: explosions, gunfire, the alarming sounds of men screaming, dying. He tried to sit up, but boiling clouds of smoke rolled over the valley, over him. He closed his eyes, turned and coughed. When he looked up, Brandon had a different look on his face.
He said, “Stay down, play dead until you’re right upstairs.” He said this as he tapped his head. Then Brandon lifted his rifle, crouched down low and moved toward the chaotic sounds Logan tried to drown out earlier.
His head made a word: Portland. He didn’t know what it meant. Not until he did. Brandon was from Portland. Yep, he thought. It’s starting to come back.
When he rolled back over, he saw a leg half covered in dirt, then a torso, hands and then a head. The breath fell out of him at the sight of the face. That’s when everything rushed back all at once. The connections were made as a sob hitched in the back of his throat. The girl’s mouth was slightly ajar, her face turned to the side. Her eyes were closed, unmoving.
“Harper,” he said, going to her. He shook her, but she did not respond.
Turning away, looking for help, he saw another familiar face. Rather, half a face. The other side was sheared off, like something had cleaved it right down to the bone, taking the skin and muscle with it. She was missing an arm, part of her leg. Lienna. Longwei’s girl. Part of Quan’s advanced team.
His body bucked, a deep, wrenching sob caught in his throat. A tortured moan escaped him as he turned back to Harper. Then someone grabbed him by the arm, pulled him up and shoved a rifle in his hand.
“C’mon man,” Barde said. The big Chinese man. Longwei’s guy. He saw Lienna, drew a solemn breath, then saw Harper next to Logan and wavered in his next step. Barde caught himself quickly, then started to drag Logan with him.
“Can’t do anything about them but get payback,” he said, unconvincingly.
Staggering forward, trying to get his legs working again, Logan fought to keep up the pace Barde had set for him. A fresh eruption of gunfire cut through the air. The strong grip around his arm, Barde’s grip, released so quickly, Logan lost his balance, tripped on an outstretched arm, then fell face-first into the bumper of a Chicom Jeep.
The back and forth firing of pistols was a steady, barking noise that let him know Barde was still alive and the Chicoms weren’t using rifles. Or maybe they were and Logan’s hearing was that far off. Either way, he tried to get up, but then a strong hand grabbed his shoulder and said, “Get up man, I can’t drag your ass up field and still hold these guys off!”
Logan tried pushing to his feet, but then he dropped back into the bodies as a whistling, overhead sound rang familiar. He pressed his face, belly and knees into the dead bodies beneath him, bracing for the worst. The explosion hit like a concussion burst of ground thunder. The force of impact rocked the Jeep in front of him. It also twisted Barde up off his feet.
More ringing. More pressure in his chest.
He turned his head, saw Barde lying a dozen feet away, his body was halfway blasted with a wall of dirt. He was alive, though, and going for cover. Logan started to get up, but then Barde looked at him and said, “No, stay down!”
Two Chicoms closed in on Barde, both men standing over him. Longwei’s best guy did what he could in that moment, he flipped them both off, then ate a handful of rounds before falling backwards, his face lifeless, his eyes seeing everything and nothing, all at once.
The soldiers started talking in Chinese; Logan slowly lowered his face into the uniform of the dead man under him. Then someone kicked him. Logan was face down, his rifle in his belly, and getting his faculties back by the moment. He held his weapon tight, praying they wouldn’t shoot him in the back, even though he’d shot a lot of people in the back in the rollout of Operation Tailpipe.
Another foot kicked him, but then someone grabbed his shoulder, forcibly hauled his body over and looked down at him. Logan already had the rifle ready. He stitched a three-round burst up the guy’s body, the third shot punching a hole in the man’s chest. Without hesitation, he swung the rifle on the other man and sent another three-round burst into the enemy. The second man was able to get a last-minute round off, but the loosed bullet punched a hole in the body beneath him, missing Logan by an inch. He turned and saw the eyes of the man he’d been laying on. They looked exactly like Barde’s eyes, exactly like Lienna’s remaining eye.
In that slow, surreal moment, all he could think about were the mounting losses. The names ran through his head, each one turning over like an engine trying to start somewhere inside of him. The first crank of the engine was from San Francisco: Kim, Yoav, Corbin, Chuck, Paul. The pain of loss, especially Kim, built up inside him. The second crank was Tristan, Otto, Connor, Noah. Now he was getting up, his teeth clenched, his hands pumping against the grip and the stock of the rifle. That pain turned to something darker, something more menacing. Something ferocious. The third crank had him thinking of Orbey, Barde, Lienna, Jin, Lok, Cleavon, Reed.
Eyes narrowed, his brows bunched together, he strained to see up ahead. Squinting, he looked over the bodies, past the vehicles, through the smoke and found he was not far from the entrance to the Chicom HQ. The names were running through him again, with more force this time. He was getting his sense of reasoning back as well. If the Chicoms killed Barde, that meant the SAA failed. If they so casually tried to kill him, it meant they were confident that they won the war. On that note, he finally managed to get to his feet, his grit returning, the rage inside him stretching its legs, wanting to run free. He staggered over to where Barde lay dead, snatched up his rifle, as well as a fresh mag half hanging out of his jacket pocket.
But the killing engine inside him still wasn’t going. It was primed and ready, but it still hadn’t turned over and caught completely. There was one more name, the name that hit him hardest. The one name that threatened to choke the engine and stall him out, but instead pumped him full of nitrous oxide, enough to make him want to kill every last one of those sons of bitches.
Harper.
He crouched low and pressed forward, stepping into fields of the dead, and the curtain of slow rolling smoke. He heard gunfire to the left, followed it in. All around him, there were corpses from both armies. And for nearly every one of them, he was able to grab a weapon. Which meant, when he saw one of those Chicom pukes, he could hit them with a heavy trigger finger.
Several Chicoms moved through the smoke toward him; he dropped down, blinked his burning eyes, confirmed they were the e
nemy. He fired on them, dropped all three, then sunk down into the field of the dead as return fire came in heavy and fast.
He was but one body among a hundred dead.
The men who returned fire moved over and through their dead friends, creeping now, but talking low among themselves. He emptied his mag into them when they were within a few feet, changed mags, then hustled to his feet and moved forward.
He didn’t encounter much over the next short run, but he stopped when he thought he heard voices. He couldn’t be sure, though, because even though the ringing in his ears had lessened, it was still there. Slinking on bent knees, he waited for a moment, then stood up when he heard a slight whistle to his right. Swinging his rifle around, he saw Ryker and Skylar, both of them tucked behind a small stack of bodies sitting on the rim of a mortar crater.
Ryker was waving him over.
Logan moved toward the cratered pit, stepped inside and fell the second his foot met the uneven slope of the ground. It hurt like a mother-effer when he hit, so much so that he just laid there for a moment. Ryker’s and Skylar’s response to seeing him told him everything he needed to know about himself. They were wide-eyed and grazing over every visible inch of him.
“What the hell happened?” Skylar asked.
“Mortar round,” he replied, speaking a bit too loud. “Two actually.”
“Bullets, frag, shrapnel, rocks?” she asked.
“All of it, I think.”
“Shhh, don’t talk so loud,” Ryker said. Logan was staring intently at his mouth, reading his lips because he couldn’t quite hear him. “You okay to move forward?”
Logan nodded.
“Where’s Harper?” Skylar asked. “Is she with you?”
Logan immediately felt his eyes start to water. Skylar saw this, frowned at him with that pained look. He turned away, then looked back a second later and saw that her eyes had taken on that terrible shine as well.
“No,” she said, a whimper.
He turned away again, sniffed hard, then swiped a dirty hand over wet eyes and saw they were at the front of HQ.
“What are we waiting for?” Logan asked pulling himself up.
“A call from Quan,” Ryker said.
Ryker looked down at Logan’s side, saw the sat phone still clipped on, tapped it with the barrel of his rifle.
“Any missed calls?” Ryker asked.
Logan just stared at him, his mind still caught on Lienna, Lok, Barde, Orbey and Harper.
Harper.
Before he knew what was happening, Ryker had grabbed the phone off his person and was checking it for calls.
“Nothing,” Ryker turned and said to Skylar.
“Who’s left?” Logan heard himself ask.
“Longwei, Ning, the Chang Gang, and Lavar,” Ryker said, pointing toward the blasted face of the Chicom’s hillside headquarters. “They’re dug in closer to the door. If Tong, Quan and Steve succeed, they’ll be pushing what’s left of the people inside out to us in a funnel. Longwei and his men will hit them from the side while we cut them in half from the front.”
“What about Clay, Boone and Felicity?” he asked.
Ryker shook his head, said, “I don’t know. I don’t think they made it.”
Skylar wouldn’t look at him. This bad news…this was his engine revving too high; it was his engine crossing over the red line. Images of Clay popped into his head. The man was a beast in battle, Boone, too when he got out of his own way.
And Felicity…
His heart jumped, one more terrible sadness taking hold.
Logan found himself staring down and in between Ryker and Skylar. There was a stockpile of Chicom and SAA weapons. At least twenty rifles and pistols with spare mags piled in and among them. Logan started to look around. He had two weapons, but no spare mags. And he had no idea how many Chicoms were left in the HQ. By the size of it—the first phase, according to Tong Lim—he estimated about a hundred people in there. One-fifty tops. But they wouldn’t be the front line soldiers. They’d be personnel, if he was right.
Dear God, he Prayed he was right.
Ryker turned, pushed Logan to his back and fired his rifle. A steady burst of ten or fifteen rounds. Beyond him, a four pack of Chicom rats dropped dead.
“This ain’t no Sunday picnic, man,” Ryker said. “Keep your eyes peeled. And for God’s sake, get some weapons.”
Logan moved back out into the field of bodies, taking weapons and ammo from the dead, staying low because the smoke was still heavy, but not so heavy that he had complete cover. He’d need to be ready for anyone who materialized through the haze.
He managed to collect nearly ten rifles, carrying them like firewood back to the mortar crater. He dumped them against Ryker, then went back out for extra mags. When he returned, it was to Skylar looking at him.
At first she didn’t say anything, but then she said, “Did Orbey make it?”
“She’s fine,” Logan lied. Swallowing hard, hating himself for lying to her, he said, “Sent her back when it got too hot.”
His face was immediately burning, the hatred he felt inside his heart not just for those who took everything from him, but now for himself as well. He still loved Skylar in his own enduring way, so to take this most important moment and answer it with a lie had him even more pissed off inside than ever.
She gave him a nod, a non-verbal thank you. He nodded in return, but was left shaken by the interaction. Sitting there in the smoke, bleeding, maybe even dying, he thought to himself, you don’t lie to those you love.
You don’t lie.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Quan and Steve tracked Logan’s, Skylar’s and Clay’s teams as they pushed their way into war. Brandon, Longwei and Zeke moved behind them, filling the holes between them as they pushed their way into the smoke filled valley.
The two of them tried to play guardian angel for as long as they could. But then they were out of ammo. He had his sights on Logan, but he didn’t have a single round left to cover him with. He feared Logan wouldn’t make it, his body piano wire tight, his mouth making little anxious sounds. And when the man he could not shoot that nearly killed Logan was taken down, Quan felt all that tension loosen.
He used the sat phone to call Logan. Harper answered instead. “We’re out of rounds,” he said, “so you’re on your own.”
“I just figured that out,” Harper said.
“I’m sorry about Orbey.”
Harper handed Logan the phone. They spoke for a few minutes, but then he said, “If we survive, remind me to tell you what Steve did. He did something straight out of the serial killer handbook.”
The sound of bullets tearing through metal screamed through the phone. He pulled it away for a second, then put it back to his ear in time to hear Logan say, “Don’t let these rats kill you.”
“Roger that,” Quan said before disconnecting.
He and Steve left the weapons and their posts on the roof, hustled back inside and down the stairs. At the stairwell door, Quan looked at Steve and said, “If they clear the field, and we clear the building, we win this battle, maybe even this war.”
“On the West Coast,” Steve said.
“Right now, that’s all that matters,” Quan said. “Are you ready?”
Steve had a Glock, two 9mm mags on his person, a seven inch blade on his side. He nodded, slowly, his face a little pale. To Quan’s question, Steve said, “You just worry about yourself.”
Just then the door opened, causing Quan to stand back. Weapon at the ready, he waited to see who pushed through that door, not sure if he’d give them a bullet or the knife.
It was Tong Lim.
“It’s time,” Tong said. “The tide’s turned. There are soldiers falling back inside. We need to kill our way through these people and fast.”
“All of them?” Quan asked. He wanted to know if Tong had friends or contacts he wanted spared, or any women or older men worthy of looking past.
“My contact went into t
he field to sabotage the Chicoms, but he was killed. So yeah, all of them.”
“Are you sure?” Quan asked again.
“I watched my contact die,” Tong said, sad. “I have nothing left to tie me to this place, so if it’s breathing in here, make sure it’s dying.”
Quan and Steve both gave firm nods. Quan looked down, saw the pistol in Tong’s hand, the ammo belt on his waist. When he looked back up, it was into twin pools of sadness.
“Ready?” Tong asked, less enthusiastic than before.
Quan nodded again, clenched his teeth, the drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Okay,” he said.
They stepped out into the busy hallway and Quan watched Tong start shooting everyone. Steve joined in and bodies fell everywhere. The sight of this immediately hit Quan wrong. But his hand was out, the pistol ready; he followed Tong, the three of them moving down the eastern hallway.
Tong shot everyone he saw. Quan’s eyes, arm and trigger finger were working, too. Unarmed people were dropping like flies. He felt sick inside. One person, one bullet. Men he didn’t know, women, all people who looked at him and Tong and had no idea why they were dying. And then they were dead. Bodies just flopping on the floors, blood slicks everywhere, fallen obstacles to be avoided.
He dumped one mag, slapped a fresh one home. Keep moving, he told himself. They are enemy. In the employ of the communists.
For whatever reason, in that moment, he thought of the life he had when he was young, before he knew the country he’d been born into, or the government he’d been enslaved to. These people he was shooting, they worked for the people who stole every last ounce of happiness he had as a child, or could have had as a boy, a young man, or a full grown man. They stole everything good and beautiful from China and her people.
So he kept shooting, and he kept watching people drop. Behind him, and because of him, the hallway echoed in a deafening buzz of such magnitude, it set his last nerves on fire. This is a massacre, he thought.