The Third World War: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict

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Wind whipped up the sand into such a swirl that it was impossible to see across the runway. Even guarded from the worst gusts by huddling behind the undercarriage of the Osprey, Lazaro Campbell had difficulty hearing the instructions from Kozerski in the White House.

After the nuclear attack on Tokyo, China's airspace had been closed to foreign traffic. The temperature at the airstrip in the Mongolian border town of Zamyn-uud was fifteen below zero. Wind speeds fluctuated between nothing and sixty miles an hour, tearing the covers off the engine cowlings and forcing frozen sand into everything. Campbell's face carried a dozen tiny cuts and was now wrapped in a scarf, his eyes protected by goggles.

'Tokyo's gone,' he heard Kozerski say in his earpiece. 'No one's picking up the phone in Beijing. The British and Japanese embassies—' A gust sent a roar around the plane. The pilot and engineer were in the cockpit with the engines running to keep out the sand.

'John, hold. Just hold,' yelled Campbell. He ran against the wind. The sand hit him like driving rain. He reached a concrete hut, kicked open the door and fell inside to a sudden quiet. 'Right,' he said, catching his breath. 'Keep speaking. I got to the British and Japanese embassies.'

'Have been torched,' said Kozerski. 'In the case of the British, an APC turned up with a flame-thrower and cannon. They aimed to kill and they succeeded.'

Campbell squatted on the bare floor of the hut. He spotted a gas ring, a kettle, even an open sachet of instant coffee on a wooden table. Pierce had wanted him to go in from Seoul, but that was a 600-mile flight to Beijing, hitting Chinese airspace at Dalian. Campbell had vetoed the plan. Instead he had brought the Osprey into the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator, in a C-130 transport plane, flying through Russian airspace. The Osprey then easily handled the 400 miles down to Zamyn-uud on the border. With extra fuel tanks, and a light load, with just Campbell, a navigator and a pilot, it could just make the round trip of 600 miles to Beijing.

'And we think they haven't gone for our embassy because the Secretary of State is in there. Most important goddamn hostage I can ever remember.'

'And my orders?' pressed Campbell, knowing the satellite line might cut out at any time.

'You get her out, Lazaro. If we cut a deal on your way down, fine. If we don't, go to the embassy and lift her.'

'Soon as we're airborne, the SU-27s will be scrambled and we'll be sliced into pieces.' The one thing Campbell hated was saying that a job would be dangerous or impossible. But unless he had missed something, that was exactly what would happen.

'The President's on the line to Kozlov to get you safe passage. Soon as that's done, we want you in the air.'

Campbell didn't ask why Kozlov was suddenly to be giving him protection over China. The satellite line was too fragile for irrelevant questions.

Five minutes later, Kozerski called again with clearance. The Osprey's twin engines roared, sending the sand into a cloud around it. Campbell pushed shut the door and locked it. The sand and dust obscured everything, forcing the pilot to switch to instruments. The Osprey took off as a fixed-wing aircraft and that was how the pilot would keep it until they reach Beijing. Campbell checked his weapons: a Browning 9mm pistol; a Heckler and Koch MP5 semi-automatic; two shrapnel grenades, and two CS gas and two stun grenades.

The screen in front of him, illuminated by a forward-looking infrared display, revealed the bleak, brown desert countryside below as clearly as if it was a bright day with a cloudless sky. Satellite pictures showed military vehicles in central Beijing, the ruins of the Japanese and British embassies, and the main thoroughfares around Tiananmen Square clogged with people.

Up ahead, four Chinese air force SU-27 fighter aircraft fell into formation around the Osprey. They made no attempt at radio contact. Campbell heard the Osprey pilot notify the AWACs plane which acted as their control tower and was flying at 50,000 feet above the ground.

Campbell called Kozerski. 'We have an escort.'

'Hostile?'

'Not yet,' said Campbell. 'They'll let us in. But why should they let us out and lose the technology of the Osprey?'

'I don't have an answer to that,' said Kozerski. 'Like I don't have an answer to most things right now.'

They were flying at 283 knots. Arrival time over the US embassy in Beijing would be in seventy-three minutes' time, thirty minutes after nightfall.