The Reply

CHAPTER 31

The bulk of the tomb appeared right on schedule. O’Callaghan slid the Black Hawk on a course that would take them north of the man-made mountain. Five minutes out. The kilometers flashed by beneath. Four minutes. O’Callaghan could see tracers firing to the southwest.

Two minutes. The mountain was now to the south. O’Callaghan slowed down and started scanning to the right as Spence scanned to the left, looking for the IR chem lights and strobe the team should be lighting right now.

Turcotte stood at the center of the small clearing and turned his IR strobe on. He could hear more helicopters coming from the east. His mind was buzzing with what Nabinger had told him and even more with speculation: what else might Nabinger have learned from the guardian computer that he had not had time to relate?

O’Callaghan could see the strobe. Perfect. Nine hundred and fifty kilometers from the O’Bannion and a perfect linkup. He slid over the pickup zone to let Putnam land first.

Putnam flared his Black Hawk and started to descend. O’Callaghan could see the figure with the strobe extinguish it. Putnam brought the bird to a halt on the ground. Two men ran out and got on board.

The first Black Hawk started to lift.

Turcotte watched the first helicopter with Nabinger and Pressler, the medic, on board, go up into the sky. He ran forward as the second bird landed, followed by Howes.

Turcotte leapt on board.

O’Callaghan did a quick scan of the area as he lifted and turned east. “We got company,” he said, seeing the navigational lights of an MI-4 helicopter, four kilometers away near the mountain.

O’Callaghan knew the Chinese helicopter couldn’t see him yet, as the Black Hawk was blacked out and the Chinese pilot didn’t have goggles. He wasn’t about to give it a chance to find him.

O’Callaghan opened the throttle up and pushed the cyclic forward. The Black Hawk shot forward past Putnam, who immediately followed.

Harker took a quick glance over his shoulder as he climbed and saw the bright searchlights of two helicopters probing the darkness near the site he and DeCamp had occupied only minutes ago. On the ground Harker could also see the headlights of numerous trucks that were bringing more troops into the area.

Their only chance was to get over the top of Qian-Ling and then — that train of thought was broken off in Harker’s mind as he watched two Chinese helicopters fly to the top of the mountain tomb and settle down. They landed about a hundred meters apart and then took off, heading back down toward the coast.

Harker turned to DeCamp. “They’re putting troops in ahead of us.”

DeCamp wearily rested the butt of his weapon on the ground. “What now?”

Harker weighed their options. “We keep going up the mountain. Those choppers can only carry ten troops on board. The odds are better.”

Turcotte grabbed a headset off the roof of the cargo bay and put it on. They were going over the trees and the chopper was moving fast, but in the wrong direction. Turcotte keyed the intercom. “We’ve got to go back. We’ve got two more men on the mountain!”

“Jesus!” O’Callaghan exclaimed. He could see helicopters moving up there and tracers cutting through the air.

O’Callaghan pressed the button that transmitted to the other chopper. “Putnam, run for the coast. I’ve got more passengers to pick up.”

Putnam didn’t need to be told twice. “Roger that.” The other Black Hawk raced off to the east as O’Callaghan brought his chopper around on a tight turn to the west.

DeCamp discerned the enemy soldiers first. He gripped Harker on the arm and pointed. Harker stopped and squinted into the darkness. There were ten of them. Two hundred meters away and heading downslope. The Chinese were spread out, weapons at the ready, with twenty meters between each man. Harker looked around quickly. In the ground between the two parties there was a small knoll of boulders rising slightly above the rest of the ground. It was about a twenty meters ahead of where he and DeCamp now stood. He pointed it out to DeCamp. “We’ll make our stand there.”

“We’ve got company,” O’Callaghan yelled through the intercom as he accelerated the helicopter and jerked it hard to the left. Those in the back were tumbled on top of each other. Turcotte got on one knee and looked out as two Chinese helicopters roared by out of the southwest and started to circle east.

“The next one will be a gun run,” O’Callaghan said. “They’re circling to come back.”

The AWACS’s control room continued to track the action. They had the one Black Hawk escaping to the east, the other inexplicably turning back to the west, flying near two blips indicating Chinese helicopters.

Things got worse in a heartbeat as one of Colonel Zycki’s operators called out. “We’ve got four fast movers lifting off out of the airbase outside Xi’an, sir.”

Zycki swore. “Jesus. This thing’s getting out of control. The Chinese must have picked up the Black Hawks on local radar. How long till the jets are in the area near the Black Hawk?”

The analyst next to the radar operator quickly calculated. “Twelve minutes, sir.”

“How far out are the F-117’s?”

“They can make intercept, sir, but we need authorization for them to go hot.” “Goddamn. Get me this Zandra person on the line.”

Harker and DeCamp settled in among the boulders on the crest of the small knoll and watched the Chinese squad approach in the moonlight. They were only a hundred meters away now and moving slowly toward them. Harker whispered to DeCamp, “Another fifty meters and we start firing.”

DeCamp checked his submachine gun and insured he had a round in the chamber and the magazine was seated properly. Harker laid out two more magazines for quicker reloading.

“This is Zandra. Go ahead.” She was ignoring the glare of Lisa Duncan standing next to her, listening to the report from the AWACS.

“Yes, ma’am. Things are getting hairy over there. We’ve got one Black Hawk heading for the coast, but it’s got a hell of a long way to go. The other’s turned west for some reason. They’ve obviously been picked up on local radar as we’ve got two Chinese helicopters vectoring in on it. They’re about a minute out from intercept. We’ve also got four fast movers scrambled out of Xi’an. They’re nine minutes out. Our F-117’s will be in range to intercept, but we need authorization for them to fire.”

“I understand,” Zandra said.

Zycki’s voice came out of the box. “Ma’am, neither of those helicopters is going to make it out without help. Those Chinese helicopters vectoring in are probably armed.”

“All right, order the flight leader of the F-117’s to escort out the one Black Hawk that’s heading for the coast. It must have what we want on board.” “That’s abandoning the other chopper to certain death,” Zycki argued. “I don’t have time to—” Zandra began, but the mike was ripped out of her hand by Lisa Duncan.

“This is Lisa Duncan. I’m the President’s science adviser to UNAOC. You will order two F-117’s to escort the Black Hawk heading for the coast,” Duncan said, “and the other two go help the second chopper. Is that clear, Colonel?”

“Quite clear.”

Zandra had made no attempt to regain the mike.

Harker took a deep breath. He let it out. “Are you ready?”

“Roger that.”

Harker took a deep breath and held it. He pulled back on the trigger and the submachine gun spoke. He hit his first two targets before the rest had gotten under cover. The return fire was intense, green tracers racing by in all directions.

O’Callaghan had the Black Hawk down very low, cut short in his attempt to go straight to the mountain by the interception of the Chinese helicopters. O’Callaghan was skimming along just above the surface of the streambed Turcotte had crossed not too long before. While he was down lower than the enemy could go, he was forced to go much slower than the Chinese helicopters at a higher altitude. As he took a left-hand bend in the river he glanced back. He could see the running lights of the lead enemy helicopter only eight hundred meters back. There was no way he could go to the other two men and pick them up without getting nailed.

“Arm the Stingers,” O’Callaghan ordered. He had his attention split between the course he was flying, the firefight on the mountain to his left, and the Chinese helicopters closing.

“Armed,” Spence replied.

O’Callaghan pulled back on the cyclic, kicked his left pedals, and swung the Black Hawk around 180 degrees to face the two oncoming Chinese helicopters.

As the Chinese pilots started to react to this startling maneuver, O’Callaghan pressed the fire button once, then a second time. Two Stingers leapt from the side of the helicopter. The lead MI-4 Hind took the missile straight in its air intake just below the blades and blossomed into a fireball. The trail MI-4 started to turn, but the supersonic missile lanced into the side of the engine.

Turcotte keyed the intercom. “Let’s get our guys and get out of here.”

O’Callaghan pulled up out of the riverbed and accelerated.

Harker turned and stared to the north at the ball of fire that had been ignited in the air down there. Then there was a second one. A burst of automatic fire from ahead caused him to turn his attention back to matters closer at hand. He fired another magazine, scattering rounds all over the hillside, keeping the Chinese at a distance.

“There. Ahead and to the left. Did you see those green and red tracers?” Turcotte was leaning forward, pointing between the two pilots. “The red is our people.”

“No shit I see them,” O’Callaghan said. “The problem is, are they gonna see us? That’s a hot landing zone.”

“We’ve got a solution for that,” Turcotte said as he turned back to the cargo bay.

Harker heard the rotor blades coming toward them. At first he didn’t see anything. He quickly pulled his goggles up and turned them on.

“Get your harness buckled!” Harker yelled out. DeCamp turned in surprise. “We’ve got a Black Hawk inbound.” Harker turned his infrared strobe on and held it up.

On board the helicopter, Turcotte slid the left door open while Howes slid the right open. Each held a 120-foot nylon rope in a deployment bag in his arms. O’Callaghan flared the Black Hawk to a halt eight feet above the tumbled ground surrounding the IR strobe. The two bags were thrown out and hurtled to the ground.

“I’ve got this one.” DeCamp yelled as he ran forward and secured the rope. He pulled the deployment bag off and hooked the loop tied in the end through the two snap links in the shoulders of his combat vest. Twenty feet away Harker did the same. The two ran together and linked arms.

There had been no shots fired yet by the Chinese soldiers. They probably still didn’t understand what was happening and assumed the helicopter was one of their own.

“We’ve got them,” Turcotte yelled as he peered off the deck of the cargo compartment. O’Callaghan snatched in collective and quickly pulled the helicopter onto an easterly heading.

Harker and DeCamp felt their vests tighten around them as the rope became taut. Their feet came off the ground and they were savagely swung out to the west by centrifugal force. Harker gasped for breath as he and DeCamp held on to each other.

O’Callaghan straightened out the chopper and turned to the east.

“Find someplace to land. We’ve got to get them in.” Turcotte watched tracers from the ground make a pattern around Harker and DeCamp and pass by the helicopter.

“We can’t. There’s no time. Pull them in!” O’Callaghan yelled back.

DeCamp felt his rope jerk. He looked up and saw someone hanging over the edge of the deck signaling him to separate from Harker. He shook Harker and pointed up. They both began pulling themselves hand over hand up the ropes, even as the ropes were being pulled in.

DeCamp was pulled into the cargo compartment. Harker was hanging less than twenty feet below, slowly being pulled up. That was good enough, O’Callaghan figured. He dropped down close to the earth and raced off to the east as fast as he could push the chopper.