Invasion: Alaska (25 page)

Walking in the murk, with dim light from a derrick shining through a small window, Paul approached a closet. Was a White Tiger Commando waiting in there for him? Should he fire a few rounds through the closed door just to make sure?

Not wanting to call out and alert whoever was hiding, Paul stood indecisive for a moment. Finally, he put his hand on the latch and threw open the door.

Something shiny rose in back. There was a click like a cocking hammer. Paul whirled away, slamming his back against the wall as a boom went off. Despite his ringing ears and tripping heart, Paul heard muttered words. They were spoken in English, and he knew that voice.

“Murphy! It’s me! Paul Kavanagh! Quit shooting!”

He heard another muffled curse and something heavily metallic clattered on the cement floor. A second later, a body thumped onto the cement.

Paul clicked on his flashlight and peered in. Murphy lay face down on the floor, with blood oozing from his parka.

“Kavanagh!” shouted Red Cloud from outside.

“It’s Murphy!” shouted Paul. “He must have thought I was Chinese. Now he’s out. Come in here. I need your help.”

“The Chinese are coming,” Red Cloud said, as he entered the garage.

“What?” asked Paul. Did these guys have long-distance helicopters?

“There’s a platoon of them,” Red Cloud said. “We don’t have much time.”

“Are you sure?”

“I saw their submarines surface.”

Submarines. Right. That makes sense
.

“I saw two submarines,” Red Cloud said. “First lasers stabbed out of the ice. Then the submarines broke through. After the subs settled, soldiers boiled out of the towers, climbing down. We have ten minutes before they arrive.”

Now we know how they got here
. “We have to load up with supplies,” Paul said.

“We must leave now or we die.”

“Drag Murphy into the cat over there,” Paul said. “I fixed it. Then drive to the mess. Make sure you keep the cat’s lights off.”

Without waiting for an answer, Paul raced for the garage exit. The Algonquin had better not leave without him. “I’m going to scrounge us a bag of grub!” he shouted. “Okay?”

For an answer, Red Cloud disappeared into the closet where Murphy lay.

***

Panting and with sweat dripping from his face, Paul heaved three canvas bags into the back of the snowcat. Then he banged the back shut and raced around to the side, piling in on the passenger side. Red Cloud started the vehicle moving as Paul slammed his door shut.

The snowcat’s tank-like treads lurched and the compact vehicle clanked south, leaving the gravel skirt of the oilrig. They left behind the dead and any of those who might be wounded and unconscious. That grated on Paul. Marines didn’t leave their own behind. The Corps had drilled the idea into him.

Murphy groaned from where he lay in back. Blood still seeped from his gunshot wound.

Rolling down his window, thrusting half his torso outside, Paul aimed the assault rifle north. He used the scope regularly, without infrared. Past the derricks and far out on the ice he saw two squat metal towers. They were the ‘sails’ of two Chinese submarines. The submarines had punched through the ice, which should have taken some doing. Paul had read somewhere that a sub couldn’t break through ice more than three-and-a-half feet thick. He’d been doing the radar-testing of the perimeter ice-thickness earlier. The ice here was much thicker than three-and-a-half feet. It must have been the reason why the Chinese had used lasers first, either melting the ice or breaking it apart. Marching from the two submarines were roly-poly White Tiger Commandos, more than twenty and each using snowshoes. They were almost to the northern edge of the oilrig’s gravel skirt.

He spied pinpoints of lights from the rifles. The White Tigers had spotted them and they were firing.

“They know we’re escaping,” Paul said. “They see us.”

Red Cloud spoke in Algonquin. Paul hoped it was an Indian curse, one with power.

Paul glanced back again. “Crap!” he said.

“What is it?”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Speak to me, Kavanagh.”

Paul saw a bright dot rise from one of the submarine’s sails. There was another fiery dot from the other submarine. Paul brought up the assault rifle. He caught the object in his scope. It was an armored White Tiger in a bulky battle-jetpack. Paul had read articles about them. After decades of effort, the Japanese had finally invented a rugged, fuel-efficient one. Paul had a swift view of the Commando using an armrest joystick-control and a bulky helmet with gizmos attached. The Commando moved swiftly through the air toward them. It had to be freezing up there.

“They’re sending two jetpack flyers after us!” Paul shouted.

He lowered the assault rifle. Something red winked from the first flyer. On a suspicion, Paul glanced at the side of their cat. There was a bright red dot on it.

“He’s using a laser!” Paul shouted. “He’s going to guide a missile into us.”

Red Cloud slammed on the brakes.

Paul jammed his back against the brace of the open window. “What are you doing?” he shouted, as the snowcat came to a halt.

“There’s a Blowdart launcher in the back,” Red Cloud shouted.

Paul slid inside, thrust his assault rifle against the door and lunged over the back of his seat. He saw the single-shot Blowdart tube. It was like an old LAWS rocket. He grabbed the launcher, opened his door and jumped outside. The engine roared as the left tread spun, rotating the cat in place. Then both treads tore up ice and snow as the cat clacked away at a right angle from its former position.

With one knee on the ice, Paul activated the Blowdart.

Then he saw an orange bloom from one of the submarine’s towers. That had to be someone firing an ATGM, an Anti-Tank Guided Missile. The flames behind the missile showed its increasing speed, and that it came straight at the snowcat.

Despite his shaking arms, Paul lifted the Blowdart tube and peered through the scope. He spied one of the flyers hanging up there, no doubt ‘painting’ the cat with his guidance laser. Paul squeezed the trigger. The launching-tube shivered. It was like a recoilless rifle. Flames flickered out of the back of the tube as the missiles sped upward at the flyers.

It must have panicked them or caused the flyers to jink like crazy. Whatever, it meant that neither kept their laser targeted on the snowcat. The Blowdart must have badly surprised the flyers.

Then Paul remembered the missile coming for them. He looked up and watched slack-jawed as the submarine-launched missile roared overhead. It was loud, a flash of metal, and it was so close he felt a momentary wash of heat. Several hundred yards behind him, the missile hit the ice and exploded.

Dropping the empty tube, Paul picked his assault rifle off the ice. He scanned the sky. There was only one flyer now.

Bringing up the assault rifle, Paul flicked on the infrared. The scope had a range-calculator. The flyer was over a thousand yards away. That was much too far to think he could hit the man. Still, he began firing three-bullet bursts. In seconds, Paul tore out the magazine and shoved in another.

More orange blooms now appeared on the two submarine sails.

With his teeth clenched, Paul kept firing. Whether it was his bullets or the Arctic cold, he didn’t know. Maybe the pilot wasn’t familiar enough with the jetpack under combat conditions, or maybe having someone firing at him panicked the man. All Paul knew was that the flyer plummeted toward the ice.

The next two submarine-launched missiles veered to the right, exploding in the darkness.

By then, Paul was sprinting to the snowcat. Would the Algonquin leave him behind? Did Red Cloud hate him that much?

The cat lurched to a halt even as Paul wondered. The machine began backing up. Paul glanced at the sky. No more jetpack flyers appeared. Just as good, no more missiles launched from the towers. Maybe whoever fired at them had to order up more missiles from within the submarine.

Exhausted, Paul climbed into the passenger seat. “I nailed two!” he shouted, slamming his door shut.

Red Cloud was hunched over the wheel. His eyes were hard on the ice before them. “Ready?” he asked.

Paul yanked on his seatbelt. “Let’s get out of here while we can.” He laughed as he patted the assault rifle between his knees. “They’ll probably chase us. But at least we’ll make it hard on them before we die.”

Red Cloud gave him a single glance. Then he returned to staring outside as the treads began to clank.

BEIJING, P.R.C.

The atmosphere was tense as a bodyguard wheeled the Chairman into the conference chamber. On one side of a large oaken table sat Jian Shihong, Xiaodan of the Police and a red-eyed Admiral Qingshan. On the other side of the table were Deng Fong and the Army Chief of Staff.

Around the large room, the curtains were drawn against the gloomy weather outside. It had rained for three days and the weatherman predicted hail tonight.

Jian kept his hands on the table near his glass of mineral water. He yearned to fidget, to release some of the anxiety that seethed in him. There had been another rice riot yesterday. This time the people hadn’t simply looted the rice factories and stormed into the stores. Leaders had spontaneously arisen and several mobs had attempted to burn down police stations. News of it had leaked onto the blogosphere, with several cell-phone videos racing around the internet.

Jian had been urging the Chairman to order a full internet blackout until the emergency was over.

During the meeting, Deng had attacked him cleverly, repeatedly bringing up the ongoing food disaster. Deng had the gall to stare at him as he talked about full-blown famine.

Fortunately, the Chairman had already moved Jian out of the Agricultural Ministry and had made him a Minister without Portfolio. Jian had become the
de facto
coordinator of the Alaska Invasion. Therefore, he kept telling Deng to bring these food-supply matters to the new Minister of Agriculture.

The Chairman appeared both worse and better than the day he’d made the decision to invade Alaska. His skin had an unhealthy shiny quality. And the pain creasing his features from his ramrod posture almost made Jian feel sorry for the old man. The Chairman’s eyes, however, radiated power to a greater degree than before.

As the Chairman entered, Deng turned to his computer, eagerly reading something.

Jian yearned to know what it was. The man had an agile mind and attacked from many directions.

I will only be happy when the police drag Deng screaming from this room. A gun pressed against the back of his head, and boom—Deng Fong’s corpse will flop about like a catfish. On that day, I will sigh with relief
.

“Sir,” Deng said, not even having the decency to allow the Chairman to make himself comfortable again. The bodyguard knelt and rearranged the plaid blanket around the Chairman’s useless legs.

“You have news?” the Chairman asked. The old man no longer whispered, but spoke crisply.

“Sir,” Deng said, “the Secretary of the U.N. has phoned. She urges you to sit down with the Americans and talk out any differences we might have.”

“The woman is presumptuous,” Jian said. It would ruin everything if there were peace now. He needed war, a highly successful war if he were to oust the Chairman and become the new ruler of China. During these past days, he had seen a way to gaining total power. But for that to happen, he needed a long war.

“I am baffled,” Deng said. “In what way is the U.N. Secretary’s gift presumptuous?”

“There are no open hostilities between our nations for her to fix,” Jian said. “She is like a dog that sticks its nose up a woman’s dress, sniffing where it isn’t wanted. I am sorry to say, but to me that is presumptuous”

“You surprise me,” Deng said. “Do we not attack America?”

“There is no ‘open’ conflict between our nations yet,” Jian said. “That is what I’m saying.”

“Yet the U.N. Secretary has drawn the correct conclusion,” Deng said, “as she no doubt witnessed the destruction of the American carriers.”

“We preempt the worst of the grain-hoarding nations,” Jian said. “That is true. But as yet there is no open conflict.”

“The Secretary desires world peace,” Deng said, “particularly peace between the two largest nuclear powers. She must hate the glacial period as much as we, since China like much of the world can no longer feed its starving population. Imagine a world sunk in a full-blown ice age as a nuclear winter howls across the continents.”

“The Americans know we have an impenetrable ICBM defense,” Jian said. “For that reason there will be no nuclear winter, no true ice age, because the Americans would never dare to launch their missiles.”

“This is excellent news,” Deng said. “Yes, your prophetic gift reassures me entirely. Please, former Agricultural Minister, could you focus your far-seeing powers to help find the Chinese people enough food to eat?”

Jian seethed inwardly. The clever intriguer was a master at these conversations. “We will have enough food,” he said, “once we force the Americans to open their storehouses to us.”

“Enough of this,” the Chairman said. “We have important matters to discuss.”