Death Blow

6

Howie Anderson had stripped down for his workout in the weight room on the carrier. He had been onboard for two days and this was his first time in the gym. It was adequate. He wore only a pair of shorts and sneakers.

He had warmed up for twenty minutes on the treadmill at near the maximum, now he worked his quads. He was at the bar again and felt his muscles tighten. Four. His muscles were on fire. He strained and moved it slowly. Five. He powered hard to get the last inch, then dropped his feet again and came back up, muscles screaming with fatigue. He bleated in pain and shut his eyes as he willed his legs to come up. They did, a half inch, then another half inch to the max. Six. He dropped his feet and started again. The burn was tremendous, but he couldn’t stop. He needed one more inch. His legs felt like they were burning in a furnace. One more inch. No, he failed. He always pushed himself to total muscle failure. That way he knew he had gone to the max.

He toweled off and slumped on the bench, too tired to move. Somebody sat across from him. As the pain eased he looked up and saw a woman in a sports bra and shorts. She was nicely put together. Good boobs. Her straw-blond hair was damp from her workout. She grinned.

“You’re getting pecs,” she said.

“Need a lot more work,” he said, cautious. In here you could never tell the officers from the enlisted women.

She stood and waved. “Got to go. Have the duty in twenty.”

He waved back and returned to his workout. He used his system when he could. The first day he concentrated on his shoulders and arms. The second day was for chest and back. Then the third day was for the delts, triceps, and biceps. He liked to work his forearms hard, using the rubber ring squeezes until his muscles bellowed in agony from the buildup of acids.

Howie liked to bench press. He did pyramids, then ten reps at 350 and two at 370, then two more at 390. He loved to do seated behind-the-neck presses. He filled in with the usual curls, working up to 80 pounds on the dumbbells to build his biceps. At the end he slumped on a bench panting as his breathing and heart rate slipped back to normal.

“You always work out that hard?” the question came from a guy who had a pot belly and lots of flab. He had to be in his late forties.

“Usually, when I have time. You just getting started?”

The guy laughed. “Not hard to tell. My annual physical is coming up and if I don’t hit the marks this time, I’m riding a park bench in New Jersey.”

“Start slow and work up,” Howie said. “Get a good coach to train with you and then stick to a routine. You should be in here at least an hour every day.”

The guy with graying in his temples sat down and shook his head. “That park bench might be sounding better all the time.”

“No way,” Howie said. “Hey, there ain’t no free lunch. You earn your way. If it’s there, you grab it and be grateful. Otherwise you go out and dig in and pay your dues and then you can look for the gravy.”

“Ah, yes. The philosophy of youth.” He stared at Howie for a minute. “What are you twenty-two, twenty-three?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Enlisted?”

“Yeah. You’re an officer?”

“Of a kind. I’m a chaplain, a priest.”

“Oh, boy. I better get going.”

“Why,” the priest asked.

“Before I say something that could bring me up on charges, like insulting an officer, disrespect, all that.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I think all religions are shams and ripoffs. The end result of fear and superstition that’s been formalized and organized and turned into a huge, monstrous business for profit. I think it sucks. I firmly believe that all ministers, reverends, and priests are fakes and phonies and can’t possibly believe what they say they believe. No religion is logical or reasonable.”

The priest moved to the free weights and took ten pounders and began to do curls, working on his biceps.

“You don’t think I haven’t heard this before, young man? I’ve heard and seen it all. Still I have my faith. What do you have faith in?”

“Natural laws. Gravity, the planets, the tides, weather, the rebirth of spring that has nothing to do with Easter or Christ. I believe in things that can be proved. I don’t have to make a leap of faith that two and two are four. I can prove it. A leap of faith is a dive into stupidity.”

“What’s your job in the Navy?”

“I’m a SEAL. I’m trained to kill people.”

The priest frowned. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Is the pope Polish? Of course, I’ve killed people. A lot. I don’t keep track. It’s my job. I kill the enemies of my nation. I believe in the United States, that’s something else I believe in.”

“My country right or wrong?”

“Something like that, Padre.” He stood, using the towel on the sweat as he headed for the shower. “Got to go, Padre. I’ll let you take your turn sweating, then you can dream of heaven. But remember, that’s all it is, a dream, a figment of man’s collective imagination.”

“I’d like to talk to you again, SEAL.”

Howie stared at the man of the cloth. He shook his head. “Afraid not, Padre. Then I really could get in trouble, especially if you had your officer’s uniform on. What are you, a full commander?”

“Actually, I’m a captain, taking an every-three-years cruise as required by our head chaplain. It keeps us grounded. Looks like I have a lot of grounding to do here.”

Howie waved and walked into the showers.

Colonel Lin Pota checked his compass bearing and adjusted the automatic pilot slightly to stay on course as the Badger flew high over western China on a most important mission. Colonel Lin was the best pilot in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. He had more flight hours, had more kills in combat and had mastered flying every aircraft that China had. He was fiercely loyal to China and had not known what this mission was until an hour before takeoff. None of the rest of the crew knew the target. Only two knew what weapon they carried below in the bomb bay. Usually this Badger carried YJ-61 ASM (C-601), the land-based missile version of the antiship missile with a range of 120 km at mach 0.8. It had a large search-and-track radar on its nose to provide target coordinates for the missiles. Today it had a far more deadly cargo. The Badger had been reconfigured to its original capability for this mission.

“Weapons check,” Colonel Lin said in his communications mike. “Make sure our friend is riding comfortably and that there is no vibration loosening of the tie downs.”

“Yes sir, right away.”

Moments later an affirmative signal came back. Colonel Lin nodded and monitored his own controls. On course, at the right speed. From their base in Congqing, China, it was a 1,350-mile flight to target. At the top speed of the Badger at 650 mph, it would take them a little over two hours to make the trip. The Badger had a ceiling of 49,215 feet, but that kind of altitude was not needed. They were flying at 19,000 feet for good fuel economy. They would get to the target and return without refueling. The Badger’s range with a warload was 4,475 miles. Lots of room to spare.

Colonel Lin expected no trouble. They were over the friendly skies of China for all but the last few miles. They would make the bombing run and return. Routine.

Colonel Lin was taller than most Chinese his age. At thirty-eight he was young for his rank, but he had earned it. He had never disobeyed an order in his life, but he had to think about his current mission. He would be doing something that only two or three men had ever done before.

Would he be cheered or condemned? He knew the world would call him a monster, a villain, a mass killer. He had come to peace with that. He was doing a job assigned to him by his superiors. It had to be done.

Lin stretched in the pilot’s seat. He looked over at his co-pilot. The Major did not know what the mission was. He was not aware of any of the massive movements that the bombing run would set off.

Lin thought about it again. Yes, he would do it. Yes he would carry out his orders. He would drop the bomb on target as ordered and blast away at maximum power to escape as much of the blast and detonation problems as possible. The crew would be affected to a certain degree. They all would be examined carefully when they returned to base. Both he and the co-pilot wore special lead chest and lap protectors.

“One hour and ten minutes to target,” his bombardier reported.

“Yes, understood,” Lin said into the intercom. He adjusted the helmet, checked his instruments, and peered into the black sky ahead. Nothing there. There shouldn’t be. There wouldn’t be anything there. No enemy aircraft to contend with.

For no reason, Colonel Lin thought of his wife and one child at home. He and his wife obeyed the edict of one child per family in an attempt by the government to limit population growth. The plan had worked fairly well in the cities; but in rural China, there were still many four- and five-child families. He and his wife had been lucky, they had a son. He knew of two officers who had determined the sex of their child before birth and aborted girl babies. Male children were highly prized in China.

At once he thought of the wives and children who would never have another day in their lives. He shivered slightly. There could be a hundred thousand casualties. The target was a city of 135,000 people. True, they were not Chinese, they were the enemy. Lin had been surprised when told of the target. How could that small country harm the greatness of China? Certainly, it was no threat and there had been no buildups or threats or war between the countries.

The timing had been carefully plotted out so the bomb would fall on Biratnagar at precisely 0530. That would be at the official time of sunrise in the city.

“Starting gradual climb to 25,000 feet,” the co-pilot said. Lin looked round. Yes, it was time. Two minutes past time. He had been daydreaming.

“Right, climbing to 25,000 as programmed.”

“Thirty minutes to target,” the navigator said. “Colonel, I have more than two dozen blips on the radar of aircraft coming toward us from the south and east.”

“Yes, transports, those are ours. No worry. They will follow us over the target by thirty minutes. Everything is going as planned. Good work, crew. Stand by for bomb drop in twenty-eight minutes.”

Bomb drop. Two words that would change the course of the world for the next few years. The world would never be the same. He was the trigger that would start it. He had no idea where it might end or what else he might do in the plan. After they returned to their base, he was to be flown directly to Beijing for a ceremony and a medal. That much he knew. After that, he had no idea how he would serve China. If there were an air war, he hoped that he would be in the thick of it.

Twenty minutes later the navigator came on the IC, the intercom, again. “Seven minutes to release time. Seven minutes. Starting prerelease check off and count down.”

Colonel Lin went over the procedure again. The bomb would be released at the proper point for forward motion toward the target. It would drop fifty feet and a parachute would deploy, slowing its descent. It would still fall at 120 feet per second, giving it two minutes to descend to 10,000 feet over the target where the altitude sensors would trigger the bomb.

That gave the Tupolev Badger two minutes to get out of the way of the atomic explosion and tremendous heat and air blast. Two minutes at 650 mph would be twenty-two miles. Twenty-two miles away from a blast that could only be described as pure hell on earth. A roiling, boiling mass of flames, blast, destruction, radiation, and instant immolation of buildings, vegetation, and human beings.

Colonel Lin tried not to think about it. He had an airplane to fly, a mission to complete. He would complete his mission!

“One minute to release,” the navigator said. “On proper target course. About eleven miles from release point.”

“Release checklist completed. We have a green light for release by the Colonel.”

“Acknowledged,” Colonel Lin said. He felt sweat seeping down inside his helmet. His right knee hurt. It always began to ache when he went into combat. He had no idea why. For a moment his visor fogged over, then cleared. All he could think about was his family at home in Beijing.

“Counting down from ten,” the bombardier said. “Five, four, three…”

Colonel Lin felt tears streaming down his cheeks. He could think only of his family in Bejing, and the 130,000 souls below who might never see another sunrise.

“… two, one, release.”

Colonel Lin pushed the button on his console that had been especially rigged to release the twenty-megaton bomb in the underfuselage weapons bay. He felt a sudden upward surge of the aircraft as the extremely heavy bomb left the craft.

“Your airplane, Major,” Colonel Lin said.

“Right, full throttle, gradual turn to the left, about two minutes to blast,” the co-pilot said. “We’ll be riding the tail of the air surge. At twenty-two miles it should be moderate but on our tail.”

“Agreed, flip down face mask shields now,” Colonel Lin said. The crew moved down shields that let them see almost nothing.

Colonel Lin tried to count down the two minutes. The navigator did it for him.

“A minute and fifty seconds from release,” he said.

Almost at once, a searing brilliant flash overrode the sparse sunlight of early morning, stabbing through the face shields, followed a few seconds later by a crashing mountain of air that spasmed out of the huge ball of fire and away from the mushroom cloud back there twenty-two miles.

Colonel Lin checked the controls through his shield. What he could see looked normal.

Then the flash of light dimmed, and he jerked up the shield and saw that all instruments were in the usual ranges.

“Good work, crew, our job is done, we’re heading home,” Colonel Lin said.

“I have more than forty blips on my radar of incoming planes,” the navigator said. “They are still more than a hundred miles off but closing fast.”

“Crew, we have just started a war. We have bombed Biratnagar, in southeastern Nepal. The cargo planes coming are filled with paratroopers, who will drop in on every large city in Nepal. Our leaders think this Nepal war will last no more than two days.”

“Why are we going to war with Nepal?” the navigator asked. “What does that little mountainous country possibly have that China could want?”

“That they didn’t tell me,” Colonel Lin said. “Now our job is to get back home. Navigator, check our course and speed.”