Invasion: China (Invasion America) (Volume 5) (2 page)

“Cheri,” he said, and he rubbed her
skin.

She raised her head, brushing aside strands of hair.

Paul gazed down into her eyes. She was beautiful, and his hunger for her grew. It was as if he was seventeen again.

“You’ve changed,” she said
. Her pupils darted back and forth as she studied him.

He grinned, and he rolled her onto her back. He loved the soft feel of her skin. Bending down, he kissed her, letting his lips press and linger against hers.

“You’re the best kisser ever,” she murmured.

“
No, you are,” he said. “Now what’s wrong? Tell me.”

She
turned away and stared at a wall, at a photograph of them in their twenties on jet skis. He had bigger muscles then and her white bikini against her tanned skin showed—wow!

“I used to go to the
Wives’ Club in the evenings,” Cheri said softly. “The other women there, the wives… Too many of them are cheaters.”

Paul frowned.
He didn’t want to hear that. The Marines fought, risking life and limb, and in their absence, their wives screwed other men? What was wrong with people?

“Most of the women are lonely,” Cheri whispered
. “They’re frightened, and their kids are growing up without their dads.”

Paul understood
then she was talking about herself and Mikey, not the cheating on him part, but about being lonely and kids needing dads.

“I can’t
very well quit the Marines in the middle of a war,” he told her.

“Honey, you’ve done your part, more than your part.” She turned to him. “
How many missions have they sent you on anyway?”

“One or two,” he said.

“Paul!”

“Hey, sweetness,
no Chinese soldier is going to kill me. Maybe the Germans had a shot, but not them.”

She
stared into his eyes, and she threw herself at him, clutching him fiercely. “Promise me,” she whispered.

“What
do you want me to say?”

“Promise me you’ll come home
in one piece.”

“I do promise
,” he said.

“Swear it
,” she said, with great urgency.

He did
swear, and he figured that would be the end of it.

No. She
began to weep again and shake her head. “I know you think I’m weak,” she said.

“You love me, and you want me with you.
I understand and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Then stay here!” she shouted. “Don’t go back.”

Something in her voice alerted Paul. It put a trickle of doubt in his gut. He hated the feeling. He pried her arms off him and stared into her puffy eyes. “Is someone hitting on you?” he asked. “Are you having trouble?”

She laughed forlornly. “Are you kidding
me? Slugs hit on me all the time. It never ends.”

“You’re tempted?” he asked, with a growing tightness in his gut.

“No,” she said.

He thought about the way she said
that, and he realized she was having problems. She’d always been faithful to him. Loyalty was big with Paul Kavanagh. It was one of the pillars of his life. He also knew that Cheri had a hard time standing up against persistent alpha types who knew how to play on her insecurities.

“Who is it?” he asked. “
Who’s putting on the pressure? Let me pay him a visit.”

She hesitated and finally said. “Do you know the bank we use?”

“First National where I send my checks?” he asked.

She nodded
miserably, and said, “The loan manager there is also in charge of food rationing.”

“You’re a Marine’s wife
!”

“
I know,” Cheri said. “But things got pretty rough last summer. This year they changed the law. According to the announcements, Homeland Security says everyone is making sacrifices, not just the military. To make it fair, every civilian is in the same pot.”

Paul grunted with understanding. Homeland Security had been making many changes this
last year. Too many of their people acted like thugs.

“What else?” he asked.
“Tell me everything.”

“
The man’s a creep,” Cheri said. “He likes pushing people around, military wives in particular. You can see it in his eyes that he’s enjoying himself. And they’ve given him assistants, bodyguards. He’s grabbed me several times. I told him to back off each time. I said that my husband would get mad if he found out how he’d been treating me.”

Paul was mad now. He wished she’d told him about this earlier.
“And?” he said.

She twisted her fingers together.
“I’d handle it myself if it was only about me, but…he threatened me with Mikey,” Cheri whispered.

The a
nger in Paul began to boil. He felt heat in his chest. “Threatened how?” he asked in a soft voice.

Her eyes wide
ned with fear. “I shouldn’t have told you. Paul, you can’t do anything about this. You know that, right?”

“
Sure,” he said. “Now what about Mikey? How did this bastard threaten my boy?”

Cheri seemed to think about it. Finally, she said,
“Homeland Security wants all boys Mikey’s age in the Patriotic Youth Organization, helping to train them to become future Militiamen.”

“The
Patriotic Youth?” Paul asked. “They’re a bunch of fascists.”

“Paul
! You can’t say things like that. Besides, it’s just a side issue. I miss you, honey. I can’t keep living like this. Your son needs you at home. I need you here.”

“We can’t let the Chinese win.”

“I know. I understand. But you’ve done your part. Let someone else do his for once.”

Paul heard the urgency in her voice
, the pleading. Being alone year after year had worn her down. The squalor of this apartment, the poor food and his absence…she needed him at home. He wanted to be here. Cheri had hit upon a truth earlier. He had changed. Endless combat had worn him down, emptying him inside. This damn war with its million-man casualty lists and the frigid weather—
“I can’t get discharged yet,” he said. “But I’m going to work on it.”

“Words,” she said in a small voice.

“No,” he said. “I want out
of the Marines, out of the commandos. First, we have to drive the Chinese out of America, drive them and their allies out.”

“How long will that take?” Cheri asked in a hopeless voice.

Paul scowled. It was a good question. “You look tired, babe. Close your eyes; get some rest.”

“What are you going to do?
You seem pretty hopped up.”

“I’m going down to the bank.”

“Paul, no, you can’t.”

“Yeah I can.”

“No,” she said. “Promise me you won’t do anything rash. Please. I have to live with these people when you’re gone. Templeton has connections with the Militia. If you try to push him too hard, he’ll find ways to push back. He’s poison. You can just see it in him.”

Paul had already slid his legs off the mattress.
Her fear hit him hard, and it confirmed his decision. It was time to visit this Templeton. If corrupt people like this guy were allowed to prosper, everyone would suffer, not just Cheri and Mikey. It was his duty.

He turned to h
is wife and chucked her under the chin. A quick calculation caused him to see that if he promised and broke it right away, she wouldn’t believe his other promise of coming home in one piece.

“Cheri, baby,” he said. “I promise I’m going to kick the
crap out of this bank manager. Believe me. He’s not going to be in any condition to mess with you again. I didn’t give a damn about his connections. With enough broken bones—”

“Please,
” she said, “don’t do anything like that. They’ll throw you in military prison.”

“No. I’m too good at what I do. Uncle Sam needs me.”

“Paul.”

“You told me
these things for a reason, right? Did you expect me to just ignore them?”

She looked down.

“Babe, this is what I do. I protect those I love. I put my life on the line to try to save America, to save you and Mikey. Do you think that means I’m going to let a money-sucking weasel like a Homeland Security dick bother my wife? No. It means I’m going to do what I do best. You get some sleep and let me deal with things. For a few days anyway, your husband is at home.”

“Paul…” she said.

“My promises mean something, sweets. I’m going to pound this punk and after another few missions, I’m coming home to stay.”

She didn’t say anything more, but she watched him with wide
, fearful eyes.

After Paul finished lacing his boots, he walked out. He was going to ask Mr. Banker Boy some questions. If he got the wrong answers…well, the man’s answers would determine just how many broken bones
Templeton had to deal with. One way or another, Paul was going to protect his own.

WI
CHITA, KANSAS

What’s in a nickname, or a name for that matter?

Colonel Stan Higgins crunched through the snow
, crossing what must have been a used car lot many years ago. Sure. He remembered his youth when every American could afford a vehicle. That seemed like a long time ago now in a different country.

He left his fellow tank officers
behind where they sat in an old movie theater sipping coffee and eating donuts. They’d all listened to General McGraw, the Joint Forces Commander of the Southern Front. McGraw had outlined their duties in the coming offensive. It was still several weeks away, maybe even two months. It depended on the weather.

No. That wasn’t completely true.
The Chinese were playing games again on their side of no man’s land in Oklahoma. It had the intelligence boys worried.

Stan shivered as a cold gust whipped off the prairies, barreling down Wi
chita’s streets. He wore a greatcoat and a hunter’s hat with earmuffs.

Stan was approaching his mid-fifties. At five-ten, he battled with his weight, never quite letting it reach two hundred. He popped two
glucosamine pills a day to help keep his joints limber. He didn’t run, but he rode a bicycle three times a week and lifted two days, keeping a nice ball of muscle in his biceps. These days, he didn’t have any time for basketball. Besides, he’d lost half a step. It irritated him when a player scored with a shot that he could have stopped even three years ago.

In his younger days, the boys called him “Money” because he made all his shots. No one called him that
anymore. No. His nickname was “Professor” because he saw history lessons in everything.

Stan scowled, flipping up his collar and hunkering down. What miserable weather. Dark clouds raced across the sky, threatening to dump
even more snow on Southern Front Headquarters.

Volcanism was on the rise worldwide, spewing tons of fine dust into the air. That reflected too much sunlight, the scientists said. The sun
also had far fewer sunspots these days. The big orb heated the Earth less than it used to. The two factors had conspired to make this a colder, drearier planet, with constant crop failures in places that used to thrive. With the Earth’s billions, hungry people had become desperate people, willing to go to war for food.

That made perfect sense historically. Sure.
Hunger had once driven the Huns off the high steppes of Asia. Well, to be precise, other nomads had done that, staking out the better grazing lands and killing those who disagreed with their choices. The displaced Huns pushed others in their wake, sending German horse barbarians in the Ukrainian prairies against the Roman Empire’s northeastern border. That had brought about the epoch-changing battle of Adrianople in 378 AD where Ostrogothic heavy cavalry shattered Roman infantry. For a thousand years afterward, cavalry ruled the battlefields.

Stan snorted, shaking his head
as his thoughts shifted. He headed for an old building, a Catholic church. McGraw would meet him there so they could speak in private.

The general liked to bounce ideas off him, strategic, operational and tactical plans. Stan loved military history more than any other kind. He read about wars, battles and sieges the way other
guys sat down for a few hours of sports as they drank beer. It relaxed him while it absorbed his thinking.

Stan
had snorted because he felt rueful about the fact that he understood some of the Romans of Julius Caesar’s time better than people today: those patriots Cassius, Brutus and company, the ones who’d carried hidden knives into the senate to stab the would-be-king Caesar to death. They’d wanted a return to the Republic.

Yes, Stan understood them better because that’s exactly how he felt. He wanted a return to the good old American Republic, the kind
that real citizens used to enjoy. By real, he meant those who could stand on their own feet without the government giving them the dole. People accepting handouts for long eventually became slaves. If you wanted freedom, you had to fend for yourself. Sure, help your fellow man when the accidents of life knocked him down. But don’t let your government give you freebies in return for tyranny that made a thousand laws concerning your everyday activities.