Wall of Night

71

Tanner crouched beneath the crawl space hatch in his yellow coveralls and matching flash hood, waiting and listening. The backpack and AK were slung over his shoulder. In his right hand he carried his ghillie blanket, rolled into a tube with the revolver stuffed inside; in his left hand, a gas mask.

As Hsiao had explained, the coveralls, flash hood, and gas mask were standard attire for the camp’s fire-fighting squad, which consisted of a handful of guards specially trained to respond to fires and general minor disasters that came with living year-round in the wild’s of northeastern China. Aside from the camp commander himself, members of the fire squad outranked everyone during emergencies.

Tanner was about to find out if that was true.

Five minutes after Hsiao placed his call, Tanner heard the electrical whine of the Hind’s turbo-shaft engine being powered up, followed moments later by voices shouting to one another:

“No packs, just weapons!”

“Move, move, move!”

Briggs popped open the hatch, boosted himself up onto the floor, and stood up. He raced to the garage doors and peeked through a crack. Shrugging on their coats and packs, paratroopers were racing out of the barracks toward the landing pad. Xiang and another man — the leader of the paratroopers, Tanner assumed — stood beside the Hind’s door until the last man was aboard, then climbed in and slid shut the door.

The Hind’s rotors spun to full speed. The pilot lifted off, rotated in place to clear the hangar roof, then banked right and disappeared over the treetops.

Briggs started his mental clock. Five minutes for them to reach the false dump spot, another five to realize it’s a ruse, another five back to the camp … He could count on fifteen minutes, no more.

He pulled the first flash bomb out of his pack and hurled it across the garage, where it hit the wall and ignited in a flash of blue flame. Within seconds, smoke began to drift across the garage.

Tanner jogged to the rear of the garage, pried open the window, leaned, and heaved a second flash bomb against the wall of the adjoining storage shed. It ignited, sending a splash of flames up into the eaves. He turned right and threw another bomb against the shed closest to the hangar.

Around him the garage was thick with smoke, the far wall half engulfed in flame.

He pushed his backpack through the window, followed it, then dashed along the rear of the sheds until he was kitty-corner to the hangar. He removed the last three bombs, gingerly tucked them inside his coveralls, then strapped the AK to his pack and tossed the bundle overhand toward the hangar wall, where it bounced into the shadows.

Suddenly the whoop, whoop, whoop of an alarm began blaring. Voices started shouting. Smoke was wafting across the compound. He could see the first tendrils of flames beneath the garage’s eaves.

He donned his mask, tucked his ghillie blanket under his arm, and ran into the compound.

He headed straight for Soong’s barracks. A dozen guards, many still in their long underwear, were stumbling out of bunkroom barracks, staring at the smoke and flames.

“Huo zai!” someone shouted. Fire! “Huo zai!”

“The hangar’s in danger!” another voice called. “Someone get the pilot, hurry!”

Tanner strode up to the group and gestured wildly. “Move it! Move, move!”

The men hesitated for a moment, then scrambled in different directions.

Tanner kept jogging, mounted the barracks steps, and pushed through the door. A pair of men rushed past him into the compound. Mentally following Hsiao’s map, Tanner turned left down the hallway, then right, then left again. Before him lay a door labeled with Mandarin characters. He could only decipher one word, but it was enough: “sublevel.”

He backed up a few feet, threw a flash bomb down the hallway, then pushed through the door and trotted down the steps to the sublevel.

It was quiet here, the earthen walls absorbing all but a few shouts from above. He took a moment to get his bearings, then started jogging. Right … left … another left …

He turned the corner and skidded to a halt. He was standing in a short hallway at the end of which was a lone wooden door. On each side of the jamb stood a paratrooper, an AK-47 across each body. They eyed Tanner with a mixture of fear and uncertainty.

“Ni shi shei?” one of them asked. Who are you? State your business.

“The camp’s on fire!” Tanner shouted through his mask. “Get the general!”

He started toward the door, but one of the paratroopers moved to block him. “No one enters, but the camp commander, you know that!”

Out of choices, Briggs thought. He threw up his hands. “Er bei wu!” I’ll find him!

He turned, jogged down the hall and around the corner. He stopped, jammed his hand inside the blanket, and gripped the revolver. Gotta be quick … can’t miss … four shots, two apiece …

He took a breath, spun around the corner. He took two bounding steps, dropped to one knee.

Muffled by the blanket, the revolver’s report was barely audible. He fired twice into the nearest paratrooper’s chest, then adjusted his aim and put two more into the second man. They both crumpled.

Tanner tossed away the revolver and snatched up one of their AKs. He fired a three-round burst into the door’s top hinge, then the bottom. With a crash, the door dropped off its hinges and swung inward, ripping the knob and lock out of the jamb as it fell.

Tanner stepped through the door.

Curled into a ball in the corner was General Han Soong. He stared wide-eyed at Tanner. “What?” he cried. “What is it?”

Seeing his friend, this once proud man, huddled like a frightened child, filled Briggs’s chest with emotion. My God, what had they done to him? He ripped off his gas mask. “Hello, Han.”

Soong blinked once, then again. “Briggs? My God, Briggs …”

Tanner walked over and knelt beside him. “Good to see you again.”

“And you!”

“Feel up to a little traveling?”

“Yes, of course. My God, yes!”

“Then we better move; we haven’t got much time.”

“What about Lian? I have no idea where they’re keeping her! Briggs, I can’t leave without—”

“You won’t have to. She’s here.”

“Here? What do you mean? I don’t—”

“Later, Han. We have to go—now.”

“Of course. What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. Play dead.”

With Soong dangling over his shoulder and covered by the ghillie blanket, Tanner climbed the stairwell to the main floor, retraced his steps to the entrance, and charged into the compound.

The garage and the storage sheds were fully engulfed. Despite the coveralls, he could feel the heat of the flames on his skin. Black smoke roiled across the compound, so thick he could see little past the few feet before him. The guard towers had turned their spotlights onto the garage and burning embers and ash swirled in the beams. Bodies rushed by on all sides, fading in and out of the smoke. Someone jostled him from behind, then was gone. Disembodied voices called out to one another.

From across the compound he heard another turbo-shaft engine grinding to a start. The Hoplite. Following procedure, the camp’s pilot and ground team were moving the helicopter from the imperiled hangar and warming up the engines should it need to be evacuated.

Using the sound as his guide, Tanner pushed on through the smoke. As he passed the garage, a man in red coveralls and a gas mask — the leader of the fire team, Tanner assumed — grabbed his arm. “You! Where are you going?”

Tanner shouted a garbled response, then jerked his thumb at Soong’s limp body and kept going.

“Wait! Come back here!”

After ten more paces he felt his feet hit concrete. The landing pad. He adjusted course and a few seconds later the hangar doors materialized out of the smoke.

The nose and most of the cockpit of the Hoplite were halfway out the doors. Two soldiers — one of them Hsiao — were bent over the nose wheel’s tow bar, struggling to pull the Hoplite onto the pad. Tanner ran around to the already open cabin door.

The pilot jerked around in his seat. “Hey!”

“Injured!” Tanner shouted, and waved him back to the controls. He lay Soong on the cabin floor and tucked the AK beneath him. Briggs lifted the corner of his mask and pressed his mouth to Soong’s ear, “Stay on your belly. Keep your face hidden. I’ll be back.”

He followed the fence away from the garage until he saw a wooden wall off to his right. He turned toward it. The control center. He mounted the steps, pushed through the door, and started down the hall. Radio room, first door on the left …

“You!” came a voice from behind. “I asked you, what are you doing?”

Tanner turned. The fire-team leader stood in the open door. Briggs again shouted nonsense and turned to go. The man chased after him. “Stop right there! Who are you? Show me your face!”

Tanner turned, took a quick step toward the man, and kicked. The top of his foot slammed into the man’s knee, shattering the joint. As he screamed and fell forward, Tanner met him, slamming his knee into the center of his forehead. He toppled over sideways and went limp.

“Hey! Hey!”

Briggs turned. Standing outside the radio-room door was a guard. In his left hand he held a Makarov 9 mm pistol. “Stop right there! Don’t move!”

Ten miles to the southwest, Xiang’s hind was landing on the road beside the ravine. As soon as the skids touched the dirt, Shen and his men jumped to the ground and scrambled down the bank and into the ravine.

Barely aware of his surroundings, Xiang remained sitting in the cabin. Something’s not right about this … what is it? Think! What had Corporal Wujan said? “One of Shen’s men had called …” Not radioed—called! Was it a slip of the tongue?

Xiang got up and walked into the cockpit. “Contact the camp, get a status report!”

“Yes, sir,” the pilot replied. Ten seconds later. “Sir, there’s no answer.”

No, no, no …

Panting, Shen appeared in the Hind’s doorway. “There’s nothing down there!”

“I know,” Xiang growled. “That bastard! Damn him! Get your men—”

“What the hell is that?” the pilot cried, pointing out the window.

To the northeast, an orange glow hung over the treetops.

“Get your men aboard!” Xiang shouted. “He’s set the damned camp on fire!”

Tanner gauged the distance between himself and the man. Too far. He’d be dead before he made it halfway. Briggs noticed the corporal’s patch on the man’s sleeve. Wujan …

“Wujan, help me!” Tanner cried. Pointing a finger at the fire chiefs body, he pressed his back against the wall and began sliding toward Wujan. “That’s … that’s the American!”

“What? He’s—”

From the corner of his eye, Briggs saw Wujan’s gun hand droop ever so slightly. He snapped his hand forward, grabbed Wujan’s wrist in an overhand grip, and wrenched. As Wujan stumbled forward, Tanner hit him, driving his fist into the point where his jaw met his ear. Wujan slumped forward, unconscious.

Tanner took the gun, stuffed it into his pocket, and stepped into the radio room. He pulled out his next-to-last flash bomb and threw it against the wall above the radio set. Liquid fire splashed, over the set and ignited the wooden table. Briggs ran back into the hall.

There were two remaining doors, both on the right side.

Briggs pushed open the first one: mops, buckets brooms … He moved to the next door and turned the knob. It was locked. He backed against the wall and slammed his heel against the knob plate. The wood splintered, but held. He kicked again, then a third time. The jamb tore loose. The door swung open.

Heart in his throat, Tanner rushed inside.

Lian Soong sat in a wooden, hardback chair in the center of the room with her hands clasped in her lap. Though it had been twelve years since Tanner had last seen her, she seemed to have changed very little: petite, smooth, white skin, silken black hair … My God, Lian …

She stared up at him with an expression Tanner could only describe as apathetic. She no longer cared, he thought. Broken and obedient, she was resigned to the course her life had taken. What had they done to her? To both of them?

Briggs took off his mask. “Lian, it’s me. It’s Briggs.”

Her eyes went wide for a moment, then she cocked her head. “Briggs.”

Not a question, but a statement.

“Yes, Lian. I have your father outside. We’re getting out of here. All of us.”

“Briggs,” Lian repeated, as though reconnecting memories in her mind. “It’s you.”

Tanner stepped forward and knelt before her. He took her hands in his own. “It’s me.”

Lian looked into his eyes, then smiled tentatively. “He told me you were coming back for us.”

As with her father, Tanner draped Lian over his shoulder, then ran into the hall. Gray smoke poured from the radio-room door. One wall and part of the ceiling was aflame. He ran out the door, down the steps, and into the compound. He sprinted through the smoke, dodging bodies, until he reached the landing pad. The Hoplite was there, rotors turning at idle. Busy checking gauges, the pilot never saw him climb into the cabin. He laid Lian on the cabin floor next to her father.

“Both of you lay perfectly still,” he shouted to them.

Briggs leaned out the cabin door, looking around. “Hsiao!”

Hsiao materialized out of the smoke with Tanner’s pack in his hand. Briggs took it, pulled him aboard, and slid the door shut.

“What’re you doing?” the pilot called. “We don’t have orders to—”

Tanner drew the Makarov and pointed it at him. Careful to stay below the windshield, Briggs crouch-walked into the cockpit. He jammed the gun into the pilot’s side. “Do you speak English?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Listen carefully: I can fly this helicopter — not as well as you, but I could — so I don’t need you. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Make one wrong move, and I’ll shoot you dead.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Liftoff.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Six minutes after the hoplite disappeared over the treetops, Xiang’s Hind landed in the middle of the compound amid a tornado of black smoke and embers. Shen slid open the side door and he and Xiang jumped to the ground. Xiang coughed and squinted his eyes against the smoke.

Xiang stared in silence at the chaos around him. All but two of the camp’s buildings were in flames. Now just a charred skeleton, the garage had collapsed in on itself. Portions of the septic truck were visible through the timbers; the silver tank glowed red through the patches of soot. Members of the fire team and partially dressed guards hurried to and fro.

Xiang felt a flash of rage, but it passed almost immediately. In its place came a detached calm. It was remarkable, really. He had underestimated Tanner every step of the way. The man had wasted their time, divided their forces, disappeared and reappeared like a ghost …

None of that matters now, Xiang thought. True enough, he had lost this battle, but not yet the war. It wasn’t over. Tanner wasn’t as smart as imagined.

Eng appeared out of the smoke. “The Hoplite’s gone, sir. We tried to stop it, but …”

“I know,” Xiang murmured. “Lieutenant Shen!”

“Sir!”

“Send some men to Soong’s cell.”

“Yes, sir.” Two minutes later Xiang got the answer he expected: “He’s gone,” Shen reported.

Xiang nodded.

Shen stared at him. “Sir?”

“What?”

“Your orders?”

Xiang pulled himself erect. “Yes. I assume the Hind has the RFDF unit?” he asked, referring to Radio Frequency Direction Finder.

“Uh … yes, sir — for locating search-and-rescue beacons.”

“That’ll do,” Xiang said. “Gather your platoon. We’re going on a hunting trip.”