The Reply

CHAPTER 28

Kelly Reynolds looked at the computer printouts in frustration. She could make as much sense of them as the UNAOC decryption experts, which was to say she could make no sense of the garbled letters and numbers transmitted in one continuous stream.

The Guardian I computer under Easter Island was bursting information to the incoming Talon fleet almost nonstop, and in turn getting messages from the ships transmitted back to it. Kelly had to assume, as UNAOC did, that Aspasia was updating his information base. After all, Kelly reasoned, a lot had happened on Earth since Aspasia had gone into his self-imposed exile on Mars. Five thousand years of human history would require such extensive communications to get caught up on.

There had been no further messages from Aspasia to UNAOC, other than to acknowledge the landing site in Central Park. The clock was now under thirty-six hours to live contact, as the media had dubbed the moment Aspasia’s ship was scheduled to land.

Kelly hoped her friends would be back from China in time to see the landing and the beginning of a bold new chapter in the history of the human race.

Three more kilometers, Turcotte knew, and they’d be at the pickup zone. The going downhill was much easier. The terrain had also become less steep. Looking to the east Turcotte could see the first hint of dawn on the horizon, a light smudge in the amplified imaging of the night-vision goggles. Looking back to the north, he could see movement. The PLA had gotten smarter and wasn’t running around with flashlights on anymore, but he could hear the distant rumble of vehicles and voices. The chopper was still hanging back, several kilometers to the east.

As the elevation dropped, the vegetation grew thicker, which provided them with more cover.

“How you doing, Professor?” Turcotte asked.

“I’ll make it,” Nabinger said. “How much farther?”

“Under three klicks.”

“Keep going.”

Harker whispered out of the dark, “Hold up.” The warrant officer grabbed Turcotte’s arm. “We got trouble.”

Turcotte could see that Harker was holding a bulky scope in his hands, looking through it in their direction of travel. “What do you see?” Turcotte knew the thermal site could penetrate the vegetation and highlight the heat of living creatures and working machinery.

“We’ve got a picket line about six hundred meters ahead at the base of hill,” Harker said. “They’re holding still, just waiting. Looks like there’s a large stream down there, and the Chinese are along the northern bank. The line coming up the hill behind us must have been the hammer to drive us; they’re the anvil up ahead.”

Turcotte checked his watch. They had less than two hours before the choppers showed up. There was no time to go in any other direction, plus there would most likely be Chinese forces waiting whichever way they went.

“Suggestion?” Turcotte asked.

“We’re going to have to split,” Harker said. “I’ll take DeCamp with me. We’ll have the sniper’s rifles with the thermals.” He pointed over his left shoulder to a ridgeline coming off the mountain tomb. “We’ll go up there and start firing. That should cause some confusion as they react. There should be a hole for you to get across the stream, through their lines, and get to the PZ.”

“And what about you?” Nabinger asked.

“Once you get on the choppers, send one to pick us up,” Harker answered.

Turcotte knew the odds of Harker and DeCamp still being alive by that time were slim, but he didn’t have time to stand and discuss it. He also knew Harker was aware of the dire reality of the situation.

“All right,” Turcotte said. “How long do you need?”

“Give me fifteen minutes to get in position. You’ll hear us when we start shooting.”

“Let’s go,” Turcotte said. He grasped Harker’s hand briefly, feeling the dried blood that had come off Kostanov’s hand grit between their flesh.

“Is everything good to go?” Lisa Duncan asked.

Zandra was listening to radio reports. “Yes. The helicopters are on time and in the clear so far.”

“The Chinese aren’t onto them?”

“I can’t tell that from here,” Zandra said. “Their air defense units haven’t been alerted.”

“How do you know that?” Duncan demanded.

“I have an AWACS on station off the coast of China monitoring the situation.” “And if the helicopters do get spotted?”

“Then I will do what is necessary,” Zandra said.

“That’s rather vague,” Duncan said.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Zandra said in a calm voice.

“Who do you answer to?” Duncan wanted to know.

“We’ve already gone over that,” Zandra said.

“I want to know what you have done to protect those people on their way out,” Duncan insisted.

Zandra flipped a switch on the radio set in front of her. “Here. You can listen in to what’s going on as relayed from the AWACS. You’ll hear what I have done.”

Colonel Mike Zycki was the commander of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) plane that Zandra had ordered into the air using her ST-8 clearance. As the modified Boeing 707-320B leveled off at thirty-five thousand feet, Zycki ordered the thirty-foot dome radar dish, riding on top of the fuselage, to be activated. The advantage the AWACS had over ground-based radars was its ability to look down. The radar signals emitted at altitude were not blocked by the curvature of the earth or terrain. Zycki and his crew had an accurate radar picture almost four hundred miles in diameter as the rotodome completed a revolution every ten seconds.

Unfortunately, even that coverage was insufficient to reach the area he had been ordered to take a look at. He could paint an accurate radar picture of the coast of China from Beijing almost to Shanghai, but the aircraft he was supposed to watch were over a thousand miles inland, near Xi’an.

Still, the AWACS could function in a command-and-control role by linking with a KH-14 spy satellite that was in geosynchronous orbit above central China and downloading the current data the various gathering devices on the satellite were picking up.

Quickly, Zycki’s crew began the process of identifying and coding out all known images the KH-14 was picking up in the air. Civilian aircraft liners were blanked off the screen. In a short while they had a manageable screen. There were only a few spots of activity left: some helicopter activity in the vicinity of Qian-Ling. And two blips moving quickly toward that spot.

The radar operator pointed. “That’s our aircraft right there. They’re flying right on top of the earth. Airspeed’s right for Black Hawks flying low level.”

“Punch in transponder code alpha-four-romeo,” Zycki ordered.

The operator did so, and four small dots appeared over eastern China, heading directly toward Qian-Ling. “Who is that?” the operator exclaimed. “They don’t show up on down-looking radar or”—he paused as he hit a switch to access another asset of the KH-14 spy satellite—“thermal imaging!”

“That’s our ace in the hole,” Zycki said, “four F-117 Stealth fighters to provide air cover for the exfiltration.”