Dragon Sim-13

20

Mitchell froze at the sound of the Chinese soldier's voice. He looked to his left front and through his goggles could clearly see a soldier step out of the dark shadows of the trees. Mitchell wasn't sure how well the soldier could see them. With a type 56 automatic rifle the man gestured for them to stop, then called out. Mitchell debated whether to drop the stretcher and fire his MP5 as the soldier came closer. He decided against it. He didn't think he could fire faster than the Chinese soldier. Mitchell hoped C.J. didn't use the shotgun or else they'd have the whole world down on them in a few seconds.

Mitchell could tell that the soldier was confused, but he could also see that the man had his finger on the trigger. The Chinese soldier came up next to Mitchell and peered at him strangely. Mitchell knew that with his goggles on he was an unusual sight. Mitchell waited. The second the soldier turned his attention elsewhere, he would fire. He figured he had a fifty-fifty chance of killing the man before he got off a shot.

Mitchell was thinking through this plan when the sound of three quick puffs startled him. The Chinese soldier collapsed. Mitchell turned to see Olinski propped up on one elbow on the stretcher, holding his silenced High Standard .22.

The team leader quickly broke out of his frozen stance. "Comsky and Dan. Let's put down the stretcher and throw the body in those bushes."

When they were done, Mitchell quickly gestured for the rest of the team to follow, and they moved out. He led them another three hundred meters past the skirmish line and then halted the small party. They crouched down in the dark. Mitchell knelt next to Olinski and whispered, "Good shooting."

"Thanks, sir."

Mitchell wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. That had been close. Too close. If it weren't for all the confusion and thinning of lines caused by the diversion, they'd never have gotten away with it. He wondered how long they would have before the body was discovered.

He allowed Hoffman and Comsky five minutes of rest, then they moved out again. Another twelve hundred meters and they should be at the pickup zone.

Colonel Pete Ehrlich was the commander of the airborne warning and control system (AWACS) plane that General Parker had ordered into the air. As the modified Boeing 707-320B leveled off at thirty-five thousand feet, Ehrlich 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 terrain or curvature of the earth. Ehrlich and his crew had an accurate radar picture almost two hundred miles in diameter as the rotodome completed a revolution every ten seconds.

Quickly they began the process of identifying and coding out all known images. Civilian aircraft liners were blanked off the screen. Military training flights were also blanked out. In a short while they had a manageable screen. Only a few spots of activity were left — the four F-16s flying the intercept and search mission, a lot of helicopter activity just south of Yanji in China, and a lone blip inching toward the coast of North Korea, still over international waters.

The radar operator pointed. "That's our boy right there. It's not transmitting any identification transponder code, and it's flying right on top of the waves. Airspeed's right for a Blackhawk."

Ehrlich picked up the headset to call General Parker.

Riley and Chong continued to climb. Another kilometer north, and three hundred feet in altitude, would get them over the northern side of the draw. Then they'd see if the picket line was intact to the east. If it wasn't, they'd turn that way and head for the border. If it was, they would have to turn west and head farther up into the mountains.

Behind them they could hear the Chinese overrunning the position they had occupied. A sharp crack resounded through the night air, followed by sudden firing. Riley smiled grimly to himself. The grenade he had left behind, attached to a trip wire, had been triggered. The Chinese were responding by shooting wildly into the dark. With a little luck they might shoot each other. At the very least it would slow them down a little.

Riley looked to the east and could see the glow of the moon starting to rise over the horizon. In another fifteen minutes, visibility would improve. That would reduce the large advantage the night-vision goggles gave him and Chong. They would have to start using the terrain for concealment, not just the darkness of the night. Riley also knew that more troops were going to be pouring into the area. He and Chong had to get as far as they could while night lasted. Even as they picked up the pace, they heard the sound of helicopter blades beating the air to the south and getting closer.

Riley took a quick glance over his shoulder and saw the bright searchlights of two helicopters probing the darkness near the site he and Chong had occupied only twenty minutes ago. Whoever was in charge of the search apparently felt that it was worthwhile to fly the helicopters at night and expose them to possible small-arms fire in the attempt to find them. On the ground Riley could also see the headlights of numerous trucks, bringing in more soldiers.

Colonel Tugur listened to the confused reports coming in from the regimental commander in charge at the shooting site. The position the firers had occupied had been overrun, and no trace of the shooters, other than expended cartridges and a booby trap, had been found. Tugur ordered the two Z-9s to move in with their searchlights to aid in the hunt.

Tugur was angry with the regimental commander. The man had ruptured the cordon they had so carefully designed to capture the terrorists. In his haste to attack, the man had opened up gaps. Tugur didn't think that whoever had been shooting could have outflanked the attacking force and escaped. They had to be moving farther into the mountains. Still, there was the slight possibility they might escape. He ordered even more reinforcements into the area.

He instructed the other four gunship helicopters to start up. He also ordered four S-70 helicopters to fly reinforcements above and to the west of the terrorists' likely location. Each aircraft could carry ten men. Tugur planned to emplace a number of squads higher up in the mountains and have them work down, catching the terrorists between them and the picket line.

General Parker had listened as calmly as he could to Hossey's story. The fact that the Special Forces colonel couldn't explain the reasons behind the mission, nor could he shed any light on why this Colonel Moore at US-SOCOM was now saying the mission should not have gone, made the whole thing more ludicrous than it already was. The story of a Chinese computer scientist at Fort Meade instigating all this was the icing on the fruitcake.

The ring of the STU III phone cut through Parker's thinking. He indicated that Major Thomas should answer. "Put it on the speaker."

Parker waited as Thomas turned on the voice box. "Parker here."

"This is Jim Gunston."

"What have you got, Jim?"

"The AWACS has picked up an aircraft making its way toward the North Korean coast. It's moving at about a hundred and thirty knots and down in the waves. We're pretty sure that it's the Blackhawk. Also we're picking up a lot of Chinese helicopter activity in the Changbai Mountains, south of Yanji. That's really unusual, because the Chinese very rarely fly their helicopters at night."

"Can you intercept the Blackhawk?"

There were a few seconds of silence on the other end. "No. The F-16s can't intercept in time. Also, there's another problem. That helicopter is flying just outside the twelve-mile limit from the coast in international airspace. It's way down in the wave tops and hasn't been picked up on radar yet. If we send some F-16s in there after it, we're definitely going to alert the Soviet and North Korean radar."

Parker considered this. "What about Wildcard? Can it make it in time?"

There was another pause. "It definitely wouldn't make it in time to stop them. The bird is only about ten minutes out from crossing the coast and only about fifty minutes out from where all this Chinese helicopter activity is. We've got to figure that's where the bird is heading. It would take Wildcard more than an hour to make it there. Plus, it would take us at least ten minutes to get it airborne."

Parker thought about the implications. "Launch Wildcard. I want it to be very clear that Wildcard is not to violate Soviet or Korean airspace. But I want it to get as close as it can to the Blackhawk. We need to keep our options open."

Again, a pause on the other end. Then Gunston's troubled voice came over the line. "Wildcard is only over here for classified test flights. It's not meant to be operational yet."

"I know that, Stu. I've seen the test results. It's already done more in practice than we're asking it to do now. I don't want it to violate sovereign airspace. Just hang off the coast until we figure out what's going on."

"All right. No harm in that. I'll alert them and get them airborne."

After fifteen minutes of creeping in the dark, wary of another encounter with Chinese soldiers, Mitchell finally arrived at the intersection of the unimproved dirt road and river, which was the guide point for the pickup zone. He shot a 320-degree azimuth and led the rest of Team 3 off through the woods. The pickup zone was about four hundred meters away. The moon had risen and even those without goggles could see relatively well. Mitchell would have preferred no moonlight.

They could all hear the sound of vehicles moving in the dark. Even as they left the dirt road behind, they could see the glow of headlights on it as reinforcements poured into the area.

While Lassiter flew, Jean Long did some final navigational calculations. They were headed on the right azimuth for landfall just south of Najin and should reach the shoreline in another five minutes. Then it would be twenty to thirty minutes to the pickup zone.

Already one of the internal tanks was dry and they were well into the second one. They would be working on the third when they landed at the pickup zone. That ought to leave enough room to get the survivors on board and also make the helicopter light enough to lift off with the additional weight.

During the hours of low-level flight above the wave tops, Jean had tried not to think about what they might find when they got to the PZ. Colonel Hossey had told her that the message said one man was dead and three wounded. Worrying about her husband would drain energy she needed to fly and navigate, so she had resolutely refused to allow her thoughts to dwell on the possibility that Mitch might be one of the casualties.

Jean scanned the instrument panel, then keyed her intercom to talk to Lassiter. "How do you arm these Stingers?"

Her copilot gave the answer she expected. "I don't know. I've never flown with them before. I imagine that switch down there on the lower right arms them. I know this button here on the cyclic fires them."

Jean had never flown with Stingers either. She hoped Lassiter's guess was right. With a little luck they wouldn't need the missiles.

Mitchell scanned the small open field with the night-vision goggles. Aided by the light of the moon, the field appeared as it would in daytime. Its size was adequate for landing a helicopter. Several small trees would have to be cut down, however.

He turned to the other members of Team 3 who were crouched in the tree line on the southeastern corner of the field. "Hoffman and Comsky will help me take down those trees. C.J., you stay here with Olinski. Ski, turn on the FM and start monitoring it."

The three men moved out into the field. Using their survival knives, they began hacking down the small trees that would have impeded the landing of the helicopter they all hoped was on the way. C.J. watched as the men worked. He could hear the rumble of vehicles going by only four hundred meters to the east on the unimproved road. It was obvious that the Chinese were bringing more units into the area. He could also hear and see the two helicopters off to the northwest searching the ridgeline.

Riley and Chong had made it over the crest of the northern ridgeline. They paused briefly to rest while Riley checked the terrain to the east. As far as he could see were the headlights of numerous vehicles moving to the north and south. Making it to the coast was out. He turned and looked up the ridgeline to the peaks of the Changbai Mountain Range. This was not the direction he wanted to head, but it seemed to be their only choice.

He gestured to Chong, and the two resumed their scramble up the ridgeline. The two Z-9s were still flying only a kilometer to their south, quartering the ground in a grid pattern. They would be overhead in less than fifteen minutes. Riley wasn't afraid of being seen by the helicopters as long as it was dark. Avoiding the searchlight would not be difficult. Tomorrow morning would be a different story. Riley was not optimistic about their chances of seeing another sunset.

Their chances further diminished as two new S-70 helicopters, with searchlights on, flew by to the south, higher into the mountains. The two aircraft carefully set down about two kilometers to the west. They landed about eight hundred meters apart, then took off, heading back toward the coast. Riley had little doubt about what was happening. Someone in the Chinese headquarters was getting smarter. Their last option was being taken from them. They had nowhere to go.

Riley turned to Chong. "They're putting troops in ahead of us, up there, with those helicopters."

Chong wearily rested the butt of his SAW machine gun on the ground. "What now, Top?"

"We keep heading into the mountains. That bird can carry only ten troops on board. The net's thinner that way. We have a better chance of fighting our way through by going up." Riley looked up into the darkness. "They're only about two klicks away, so we'll find out soon enough. I'm tired of running."

The pickup zone was clear. Mitchell sat with his back against a tree at the edge of the small clearing. The other members of Team 3 were crowded close around. They were all exhausted. Mitchell hated to think of what would happen if the helicopter didn't come and he had to get everyone moving again to find a hiding place before dawn.

Mitchell couldn't remember the last time he'd had a good night's sleep. Ever since the phone call to Jean's quarters had started him on this mission, he'd been running down on energy and sleep. No matter what the danger or situation, the body needed rest. Adrenaline could keep you going only so far. They were all cold, hungry, and tired. While they were moving, the physical exertion and fear kept the cold away. Now that they had stopped Mitchell could feel the night's chill penetrating his bones. He shivered briefly, the movement initiating pain in his cut that was beneficial in a perverse way — the pain kept him awake. He thought briefly of his wife in Korea, imagining her safe and asleep in her bunk. He wondered if he'd ever spend another night with her.

He tore his attention back to the present. There hadn't been any firing up in the mountains for quite a while. Mitchell wasn't sure if that was good or bad. He assumed that Riley and Chong were still running. The overflights by the S-70s indicated that the Chinese were probably airlifting troops into the mountains, which was bad news for the two men on the diversion team. Mitchell tried to accept that situation — they'd taken a chance on running the diversion. If an exfiltration helicopter didn't come tonight, he wasn't sure any of them would make it out. The Chinese now knew that there were people alive. Even though they were through the picket line, there would still be extensive troop operations throughout the area. The guard Olinski had killed would point the search back toward the border once the body was discovered.

Comsky was checking Olinski's and C.J.'s injuries in the dark, doing what little he could for them. Olinski was doing fairly well. Both breaks appeared to be clean. He was alert and monitoring the FM radio. C.J. was in worse shape now. The fall and subsequent movement had further aggravated the shattered arm. The man had lapsed into a sleep that was closer to unconsciousness. It was going to be very difficult to get him moving again. Mitchell knew he would have to, though. They couldn't carry another man.

Mitchell held his strobe light in his left hand. He checked to make sure that the infrared cover was firmly on. He was prepared to run out into the field and turn it on the second they had an indication that a helicopter was inbound. The IR cover on the strobe would prevent it from being seen by the Chinese helicopters. Only someone wearing night-vision goggles would be able to see the bright flash.

The lift birds continued to fly by every eight minutes on either side. The two gunship Z-9s had flown by three minutes ago. Riley and Chong had easily hidden from the helicopters' searchlights. Now they were moving cautiously through the dark. Somewhere ahead enemy soldiers were working their way down toward them. The terrain along the ridgeline was broken and jagged, with a few stunted trees growing amid the jumble of rocks that crowned the long finger of high ground heading into the mountains.

Riley and Chong moved from boulder to boulder. In the bright moonlight they both removed their night-vision goggles and hung them around their necks. Getting into a moving firefight with goggles on was not a good idea — the muzzle flashes from weapons at the closer ranges would temporarily blank them out. The illumination provided by the moon would be more than adequate. Riley held his SVD at his waist, slowly panning the muzzle from left to right as he scanned the terrain ahead. His M79 grenade launcher was ready at his side. Chong followed closely behind and to his right, leaving himself an open field of fire for his SAW. Both had unsnapped the covers on the holsters of their 9mm pistols. They were as ready as they could be.