Warriors

CHAPTER 73

Moon, desperate, hate filled, came at Hawke with the knife above his head. Stoke raised his sidearm. A dozen automatic weapons were now locked on Moon’s heart.

“Leave him alone!” Hawke yelled at his men. “I can take care of him.”

Roaring, the big martial arts expert launched his body at Hawke, driving him back against the wall, and slashing down with the dagger. Hawke feinted to one side and deflected the blade, ducking inside the powerful punch that followed. Still, Moon’s knee came up under Hawke’s chin, hard, and his vision blurred. When Moon went for his gut with the knife, Hawke dove forward and caught an ankle, hugged it to his chest, and spun with it. Moon started to go down but turned, kicked Hawke viciously in the forehead with his free foot, and tore loose. Hawke staggered.

“My daughter Chyna will make your son suffer before he dies,” Moon said, getting to his feet. “No matter what happens here tonight. I promise you that.”

“Your daughter Chyna is in London in police custody, General, charged with murder. Probably being waterboarded by MI6 officers as we speak. Or hadn’t you heard?”

Moon, enraged, was back instantly, throwing a barrage of punches that felt to Hawke like being hit with round rocks. Hawke staggered back, and the man launched himself into the air in some kind of strange scissor kick, coming at him feet first. Hawke slid sideways along the wall, snatched at the lower of the two feet, and whipped it as high as he could. The first thing to hit the floor was the back of Moon’s head. He rolled up onto his hands and knees, shaking his head.

Hawke stepped forward and drop-kicked him again. Moon rose up and came down hard on his back, rolled up, and as he came halfway up, Hawke chopped down viciously with the flat edge of his hand, a blow to the face that flattened his nose, breaking every bone, a sickening crunching sound.

Moon dissolved to the floor, blood gushing from the center of his face and blinking slowly like a lizard, eyes out of focus, done.

“Stoke, cuff the general’s wrists to that overhead support beam,” Hawke said, glancing over at the launch clock, the big red numbers scrolling down to—0012—

“Twelve seconds! Chase! Can you stop it?” he cried out.

“Yes… one more thing and…”

The launch warning alarms all fell silent. The clock had stopped at 0007. Chase sat there at the console staring up at it, breathing hard and bathed in sweat.

Hawke raced over to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and said, “God bless you, Chase, you just might have saved a million lives on the island of Oahu.”

Chase came out of his chair.

“Commander, I’ve got to destroy the rest of the Centurion fleet! Moon has preprogrammed the remaining subs in both the Atlantic and Pacific to launch all weapons at primary urban targets in Britain and along the U.S. West Coast. L.A., San Francisco, Seattle. Launch codes have been initiated. He was just finalizing their codes when we entered and—”

“Dr. Chase. We have no time. This entire complex is about to blow sky-high. Where are the self-destruct controls for the fleet of Centurions?”

“Over there! That whole panel is dedicated to the seven remaining subs and the 280 ICBMs aboard them. You can’t blow this place now, Hawke. To do so is unthinkable.”

“Good Christ in heaven. How long to destroy them?”

“How long have I got?”

Hawke looked at his watch just as he heard Chief Rainwater and Froggy cry out from entrance to the control room, “Hawke! For God’s sake, you’ve got to get out of here now! We set the timers. At 0430, in less than six minutes, this whole damn place is going to blow!”

“You’ve got four minutes, max, if we want any chance to get out of here alive,” Hawke said to Chase. He was already at the control panel, working furiously, punching in codes on seven different screens, his hands a blur across the keypads.

“I built these fucking things; I am more than happy to die destroying them.”

“I’m not leaving without you.”

Chase ignored him, working furiously. He screamed something Hawke couldn’t understand at four of Moon’s young Chinese scientists, who immediately sat down on either side of the American and started punching code as rapidly as humanly possible.

“Evac all your men from the complex, Fitz,” Hawke shouted over his shoulder. “The SEALs’ minisubs will have already arrived offshore to ferry you all out to the sub. Get down to the beach and start swimming to the SDVs. We’ll be right behind you as soon as we’re finished here.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Fitz said, and gave the order for his men to evacuate the CCC building.

At that moment, four of the first Chinese paratroopers to land burst inside the control room, firing wildly.

Fitz and Stoke shot them all dead where they stood, and Fitz and his men raced out into the night, carrying their dead and wounded, no man left behind.

“You’ll be taking fire from above, Fitz!” Hawke called after him. “Take out as many of those spec-ops paratroops in the air as you can on your way to the beach!”

Fitz grinned at him and nodded his head.

As Hawke had predicted, Fitz found the sky overhead filled with moonlit white mushrooms, a hundred parachutes streaming down from a star-filled sky. The instant he and his men emerged from the CCC structure, lead rained down on their heads.

“It’s done!” Chase cried out, leaping up from his station at the console. Seven codes on seven monitors flashing “TERMINATED” on the screens above. Seven wailing alarms went silent, and seven identical digital readouts wound down to 0–0–0–0. Hawke glanced at his watch.

In less than ninety seconds, the huge submarine base and weapons complex surrounding them would be reduced to rubble.

“To confirm. All seven Centurions terminated, Dr. Chase?”

“Every goddamn one of those monsters, Hawke, and the three hundred and twenty nuclear weapons inside them are now vaporized on the deepest part of the ocean floor. A few tsunamis in the forecast, but that’s about it.”

Hawke looked over at General Moon, at his handcuffed wrists high over his head, suspended from the steel beam, a lethal mixture of fear and furious frustration flashing in his black eyes. A vengeful Chase was hovering in close, his right hand squeezing the general’s throat, barely under control.

Chase said, “You told me once you were a man of destiny, isn’t that right, General?”

“I am!” Moon managed to croak.

“Just not quite the destiny you contemplated, is it? IS IT?”

Moon whipped his head around and summoned a jungle roar that sounded primeval. An animal, now, in his death throes.

Hawke had seen and heard enough. He stepped directly in front of Chase, pulled the American’s hand away, and got right up into Moon’s face.

Hawke’s voice was low, low and cold.

“General Moon. I don’t know how to say ‘Sayonara’ in Chinese, unfortunately. But I do have one last thing to say. Your assassins murdered the American president. Tom McCloskey was a good, honorable man whom I considered a close friend. His widow and his immediate family are still in hospital, fighting for their lives. All wounded during your despicable and morally reprehensible attack on mourners at the president’s gravesite.”

Moon was writhing, seething.

“Say what you’re going to say…” he spat out.

“And now, from that very grave, with a little help from me, the late president returns the favor. Rather a fitting ending, isn’t it?”

Moon hissed back at him:

“You expect me to beg, Hawke?”

“No, General Moon, I expect you to die.”

Hawke, Chase, and Stokely Jones dashed out of the seaward entrance of the CCC building. He could see Fitz and his men racing toward the very end of the rocky point beyond, pursued by paratroops who’d already landed and being fired upon by those who had not. Fitz and company were returning fire over their shoulders as they ran, darting and weaving across the rocky headland toward the curving sandy beach, beckoning white in the waning moonlight. Hawke saw to his relief that there were a lot of men in the sky hanging motionless in their harnesses and floating to earth.

Some of the invading troops were deliberately landing on the rooftops of the sub base and taking up firing positions there. Bullets whined and spanged the rocks around them.

Hawke saw Froggy and Rainwater had stayed behind. They’d taken up a position about thirty yards behind the last of the retreating commandos. They were firing from behind some large earthmovers to cover Fitz’s retreat with their two big M-60 heavy machine guns. Thump-thump-thump-thump, like a deep rumble of thunder. They were laying down heavy suppression fire at the advancing ground troops, the men on the rooftops, and also firing up sporadically at the remaining descending paratroopers.

It was enormously effective, but their position was still dangerously exposed from the fire raining down from above.

Hawke and his two companions raced ahead, firing at anything that moved, until they reached Froggy and Rainwater’s position.

“You’ve got to go,” Hawke said to them, ducking behind a bulldozer. “In sixty seconds, all those paratroops still alive are going to be on the ground and racing this way. No bloody way we can hold them off…”

“Just get Chase safely aboard the SDV,” Rainwater said, his finger still on the trigger, firing full auto. “Froggy and I’ll cover your retreat as long as we can. But we’ll be right behind you!”

“He’s right,” Hawke said. “Stoke, you go. Take Chase. Get him to safety. Rainwater, Froggy, and I will remain here and help cover your backs.”

“Boss, you can’t—”

“Don’t argue, Stoke; just get Chase to the sub alive!” Hawke said, and, crouching low, he began firing single, very precisely targeted sniper rounds at the silhouetted soldiers up on the roof and those still suspended in their harnesses and floating to earth.

Stoke and Chase had just bolted for the beach when their world shook to its core and the whole of Xinbu Island seemed to turn a red-hot shade of white.

A massive series of explosions shook the earth as the enormous reinforced concrete structures lifted into the sky, blown to bits by the countless satchel charges laid by Rainwater and Froggy around the interior and exterior of the CCC complex. Black smoke and plumes of red-orange-yellow fire reached skyward, licking at the bottoms of the lowest clouds scudding by. All the Chinese rooftop commandos died in the collapse, and many of the troops on the ground were killed by the radiating blast. Even more were killed by the giant chunks and bits of falling concrete thrown high into the air and now raining down upon them.

“Good bang for the buck, lads,” Hawke said to the two men, allowing himself the very briefest of smiles between bursts of getting the lead out. All that fell to him now was to try to get off this godforsaken island alive. If he didn’t, so be it. He was untroubled and unafraid. A memory of Admiral Lord Nelson’s last words aboard the HMS Victory came to him:

I thank God that I have done my duty.

Chase was safe. Moon was dead, his terrifying weapons destroyed. Mission accomplished, and all the rest of it was gravy. He looked at his two comrades and added, “Demolition of that magnitude often makes a good diversion, too. I suggest we get while the getting is good.”

“D’accord,” Froggy said, smiling his agreement.

“Leave that fucking gun behind!” Rainwater said to Froggy as the Frenchman got shakily to his feet, the big gun cradled in his arms. “Too heavy! You can’t run with that monster in your hands.”

“Mais non!” Froggy said, hefting the thing. “They’ll pick it up and use it on us, Chief!”

“Hell with it, let’s go,” Rainwater said.

And so the three men ran, the little Frenchman staggering along behind, going as fast as his short legs could carry him with the heavy gun cradled in his arms. There were still rounds being fired at them, not as many as before, but still, very lethal slugs of lead were whistling overhead.

Hawke finally had the crescent-shaped beach in sight when he felt the absence of Froggy behind them. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw no sign of him.

“Froggy!” Hawke called out. “Come on, let’s go!”

“Shit,” Rainwater said. “Must have fallen or gotten hit. I’m going back for him.”

“No, you’re not, Chief. Keep moving. I’m the one responsible for the safety of every one of these men, not you. Go. That’s an order.”

“Merde!” they heard Froggy’s faint cry of pain; he’d gone down somewhere, a hundred yards or so back there in the gloom, among the scattered rocks.

“Shit is right, Frogman,” Rainwater said. “Good luck, Commander!” Then the Indian warrior turned and bolted for the beach and the submarine waiting offshore.

Hawke ran back, darting this way and that, firing blindly toward the winking muzzles of the oncoming paratroops, his eyes scanning the rocky ground, calling out Froggy’s name.

He heard another soft moan a few yards to his right. The little guy was facedown in a puddle of water on the rocky shale, arms and legs akimbo, his beloved gun beneath him, a dark stain spreading across his back.

“Froggy?” Hawke said, dropping to his knees and getting his arms under the Frenchman. “You still with me, mon ami? I’m getting you off this beach.”

The Frogman croaked out a little laugh, said something in such a hoarse whisper, Hawke couldn’t make it out over the approaching rattle of automatic fire.

He hefted Froggy’s considerable weight, got to his feet, and started moving rapidly toward the sea, looking down into the little Frenchman’s fluttering eyes.

“Stay with me, Froggy! Hold on, damn it! Keep your eyes open. What did you say back there?”

“Bienvenue, mes amis, au paradis!” he whispered.

Hawke mounted a rise, a rocky outcropping that overlooked the little bay riffled with whitecaps and the sandy beach thirty feet below. He saw a narrow crevice in the rock, with a sandy path leading down to the crescent of shoreline beyond.

He paused for a brief moment before starting down.

His eyes were fixed on the far horizon.

The distant burning star of fire inched up above the earth’s dark rim. Rising, the sun sent its first brilliant, white-hot rays streaking across the heaving wave tops, splashing color over the water’s surface, creating radiant streaks of deepest blue. In the distance, the silhouette of the black submarine waited for him, the welcoming twinkle of tiny red lights visible fore and aft along her hull.

The fresh sea air on his face was good in the cool blueness of the morning. It carried a sharp bite of salt along with its promise of a brand-new day.

It was going to be a beautiful day.

“Come on, Froggy, let’s go home,” he said, and carried the dead man in his arms down to the sea.