The Reply

CHAPTER 30

Turcotte was now walking slower, to allow Harker time to get in position. They were going down slightly, as the terrain sloped into the wide streambed that ran along the northern base of Qian-Ling. It made tactical sense for the Chinese picket line to be waiting on the far bank of the stream, using it as a control measure. Turcotte slowed his pace further, moving as stealthily as he could through the darker shadows. The one big advantage Turcotte knew he held over the Chinese was that the PLA did not have ready access to night-vision equipment.

Another five minutes and they reached the edge of the thicker undergrowth along the south bank. Turcotte wanted to get as close to the enemy line as they could prior to Harker initiating contact. He halted in an area of especially thick underbrush.

Harker and DeCamp were positioned slightly under six hundred meters away from the Chinese picket line. They were about a hundred meters higher than the men they would be shooting at. They crouched among jumbled rocks and stunted pines along the first crest of the ridge that marked the northern side of the draw they had been descending.

Harker looked through the thermal scope, which he now had mounted on the sniper rifle. The rifle and scope were rated effective out to twelve hundred meters, and Harker felt confident that he could hit the soldiers he could clearly see as glowing images. He also could see Turcotte’s group, a small cluster of glowing dots, just south of the Chinese on the near bank.

Harker counted twenty Chinese soldiers in the immediate area of the team. Harker zeroed in on one glowing figure nearest the team. There was no wind that he would have to correct for. The hundred-meter drop required some adjustment, but Harker had done enough long-range firing to be able to account for that.

Five meters to Harker’s left DeCamp was hidden. He had his sniper rifle propped between two rocks. Harker glanced at his watch again. Another minute.

Behind the two Special Forces soldiers the mass of Qian-Ling loomed, waiting for the first rays of daylight to touch it from the east.

On the other side of the world glowing figures were also being watched, but these were small dots on a massive screen in the front of a subterranean room. At the Space Command’s Warning Center, deep under Cheyenne Mountain, they had the two foo fighters on-screen. They were going west over the Pacific, directly above the equator.

Harker smoothly pulled back on the trigger and the bark of the rifle echoed across the draw. A Chinese soldier, thinking he was secure in the dark, was slammed back as the 7.62mm round tore a fatal path through the man’s chest. Without conscious thought Harker did as he’d been trained. He arced the muzzle of the weapon to his second target. The man had heard the first shot but didn’t know what it meant. He never would, as Harker’s round hit him in the center of the chest and he tumbled down in a heap.

Harker fired all ten rounds in the magazine. Nine hits for ten shots. He reloaded a fresh magazine and decided to wait a few minutes to allow the Chinese to react.

“What the hell is going on?” Kelly Reynolds asked Major Quinn. A new message from the Airlia, broadcast openly to the entire world, not in binary, but in English, had just been picked up by receivers all over the globe.

Quinn pointed at the front screen in the Cube. “Space Command is tracking a pair of foo fighters.”

“What does Aspasia mean by don’t interfere!”

Quinn looked past her to make sure no one was close by, then leaned forward. “The Navy just lost a sub over the site of the foo fighter base. The Pentagon’s going nuts.”

“Lost a sub?” Kelly repeated. “You make it sound like they misplaced it. What happened?”

“I don’t exactly know. I’m picking up classified reports going from CINCPAC to the Pentagon, and as near as I can tell, the foo fighters did something to the sub and it’s down in deep water. No survivors.”

“Jesus Christ.” Kelly Reynolds shook her head in dismay. “What about China?”

Quinn bit his lip. “I’m not getting straight feedback, but I get the impression there’s some trouble. I’m intercepting a lot of traffic between this Zandra person and STAAR in Antarctica.”

“Are they going to get out?”

“The choppers going in to pick them up are on schedule.”

Kelly Reynolds shook her head. “We’re going to screw this up, aren’t we? Our big chance and the human race is going to screw it up.”

Turcotte could see and hear movement in the Chinese lines. There was the roar of tank and armored personnel carriers starting their engines. Orders were being yelled.

Even with the night-vision goggles it was unclear what was happening out there. For all Turcotte knew, the Chinese might be moving the whole picket line forward. He knew they had spotted Harker’s position by the green tracers from the 12.7mm machine guns mounted on top of the tanks and APCs.

“When do we move?” Nabinger whispered.

“Any minute now.”

From the high ground Harker could pick out the beginnings of what appeared to be a line moving forward toward his position. Harker gave a brief whistle and DeCamp whistled in response. Harker placed his weapon down and stretched his shoulders and arms out. He took several deep breaths and leaned back against a rock. He had a few moments before he had to start killing again.

Turcotte pulled on Nabinger’s arm, indicating they were going to move out. Howes and Pressler rose up and followed. They slowly moved out of the bushes they had been hiding under.

Turcotte heard another brief burst of fire from Harker and DeCamp’s position. Turcotte was sweeping from left to right and back with the night-vision goggles. He held the MP-5 at the ready. Off to his left he could barely discern a tank about seventy meters to north. Between the tank and the stream he could see nothing else.

Slowly they slid down into the streambed.

Turcotte felt his shoulders hunching, anticipating the bullet out of the darkness, but none came. He reached back and gave Nabinger a hand as they climbed up the far bank.

Turcotte checked his watch. Another twelve hundred meters and they should be at the pickup zone. Twenty minutes and the choppers should be there also.

The nearest troops were only five hundred meters away. It was time to be moving on, Harker thought. The Chinese were getting the range. Harker briefly considered not firing again. He decided they had to. He couldn’t be sure that the others had made it through yet.

Harker fired five rounds in under three seconds, shifting rapidly from target to target even as the Chinese soldiers dived for cover. DeCamp fired just as quickly. The two pulled their weapons in and slid down the loose rock, putting the outcropping between them and the enemy. Just in time, as the return fire was extremely accurate and incoming rounds cracked by overhead.

“Let’s go.” Harker led the way as they scrambled to the north, keeping the outcropping between them and the Chinese for as long as they could. There was only one direction for them to run: toward the top of Qian-Ling.

The PZ was a dry rice paddy surrounded by tall trees on every side. They had run into no one on the rapid kilometer-and-a-half walk to it.

Turcotte checked his watch. Ten minutes. They were clustered on the edge of the pickup zone. Everyone’s ears were straining. Listening for the sound of rotor blades.

At eight minutes to time on target they heard blades off to the south. Too soon, thought Turcotte. But maybe they’re ahead of schedule.

The blades were getting closer. Still off to the south. Then Turcotte realized what it probably was. More Chinese choppers to reinforce the first.

Turcotte leaned close to Nabinger. “You get on the first chopper that lands. I’ll get on the second. There’s a thing I learned in Ranger School that we have to do now. It’s called disseminating the information. That way if only one chopper makes it out, the word gets out. And there’s some other things I need to know, but first tell me how we can stop Aspasia.”

Nabinger nodded and began speaking.