Invasion: Colorado (2 page)

ARKANSAS RIVER, KANSAS

It was cold, wet and miserable under the supposedly rainproof camouflage slicker. Clouds hid the stars, making the night pitch black except for the dim lights near the Chinese pontoon bridge a mile and a half away.

Master Sergeant Paul Kavanagh lay on his belly. Freezing raindrops pelted his head and occasionally found a way behind his ears. He shivered every time that happened. The bad weather was making it difficult to see anything with his night vision binoculars.

“We should pull back,” Romo said.

Paul grunted for an answer. He was too angry for words.

The world seemed a sea of icy, slushy mud and snow, while nearby the swollen river raged. It was late October and much colder than it had a right to be. Glaciation—approaching Ice Age weather—had changed the normal patterns. Paul didn’t really care why it was so cold. Apparently too many volcanos had spewed particles into the air, and had been for some time now. His wife had told him before that TV preachers talked about the End Times and approaching Armageddon, and how there would be more earthquakes and calamities. Maybe they were right. The invasion this summer in Texas had felt like Armageddon. Weather-wise, the number of solar flares was almost zero—had been for years—and that supposedly made the Earth colder even without the mass volcanism.
Talk about your calamities.

“The hell with it,” Paul muttered.

“We’re leaving?” Romo asked.

Paul gripped the binoculars so his knuckles turned white. The Chinese were crazy to have built a pontoon bridge down there. The rain-swollen river should have swept it away, but it hadn’t. Nothing worked right anymore.

Romo and he were an LRSU team: Long Range Surveillance Unit. They belonged to SOCOM, which ran American commandos: SEALs, Delta Force, Marine Recon, you name it.

Normally, a LRSU team was composed of four men. Normally—ha, that was a joke. Since June 15, nothing had been normal. The American military had taken enormous casualties as the combined Pan-Asian Alliance and South American Federation forces drove up through the Great Plains like a bayonet shoved into the United States’ belly.

“Now’s a perfect time to slip away,” Romo suggested.

Paul lay on his stomach. He was cold and he was tired. Since this spring, he’d fought in California, in Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and now here in Kansas near the Colorado border. His wife and kid were safe for the moment in Reno, Nevada. Yet how safe would anyone be if the Chinese bastards split the U.S. in two? The enemy’s goal had become obvious and nothing America had done so far could stop their relentless advance.

There were just too many of them. Worse, the enemy never seemed to run out of supplies or the will to keep driving north.

This part of the world had turned to water and mud, a slimy glop that clutched boots and wheels alike, striving to pull them off the wearer. Maybe if the enemy didn’t have so many hovercraft things would be different, but Paul wasn’t so sure anymore.

“Do you have an idea?” Romo asked.

Paul tore his eyes from the field glasses and glanced at his blood brother. Romo lay beside him under his own camouflage slicker. The Mexican Apache used to be a hit man for Colonel Valdez of the Mexico Home Army. He was shorter than Paul, and he was dark-skinned, with sharp features, a shaved scalp and the eyes of a stone-cold killer. He also had an earring with a feather dangling from it. Go figure.

“Yeah,” Paul said. “I got an idea.”

“You want to let me in on it?”

With his thumb and forefinger, Master Sergeant Kavanagh wiped water out of his eyes and shoved them back against the field glasses. He was sick and tired of watching the American military retreat. He was sick of seeing good American boys lying dead in the mud.

The Arkansas River was behind enemy lines. The Chinese had taken Wichita and Kansas City and they were still pushing. Actually, it was more like crawling after the American Army. The U.S. formations slipped and slid like drunks on the mud, retreating and attempting to dig in and hold somewhere.

“We have to stop them,” Paul muttered.

“There’s nothing you and me are going to do about it tonight,” Romo said.

Paul turned to his blood brother, and there was fire in Kavanagh’s eyes. Despite his age, he was broad-shouldered, with lean hips. Once he’d been the hardest tackler on his high school football team. Lately a rage had been welling in him against the invading Chinese. What really ate at him was the growing sense of helplessness. He wasn’t used to the feeling. What had him so mad tonight was the radio message they had received five minutes ago.

Romo and he were LRSU. Originally, Paul belonged to Marine Recon, but now worked directly under General Ochoa of SOCOM. Their two-man team had slipped behind enemy lines to disrupt Chinese operations any way they could. They were also the eyes for the drone operators who would launch Precision Guided Munitions—smart bombs—on critical enemy chokepoints.

This pontoon bridge on the swollen Arkansas River was an ideal target. A traffic jam behind the bridge had already built up. If the drones could slip in and launch one, two or three smart bombs…

The message five minutes ago had aborted the mission. The reason it gave was simple. The drone operators had run out of smart bombs again and Ochoa didn’t want to try using dumb gravity bombs. Maybe if this had been the first time it had happened, Paul could live with it. But it wasn’t the first. This was the third time in two and a half weeks.

Three strikes and you’re out
.

“See,” Paul said, in a deceptively calm voice, “I’m crawling closer so I can take a few potshots at some Chinese captain or major. If I’m lucky, I’ll nail me one, or maybe even a colonel.”

Romo was slow in answering. “I understand your anger, my brother.”

“Yeah?”

“Remember, they invaded my country first.”

“Yeah,” Paul said.

Six years ago, the Chinese had aided one side of the Mexican Civil War. That side won and more Chinese soldiers kept coming until there were millions of them. The Chinese said it was for protection against American aggression. Under Chinese influence, the South American Federation joined in the fun, adding another few million soldiers against America. This summer with the invasion of Texas and New Mexico…

Paul shook his head. He was done talking or thinking about it. He put away the binoculars and shoved up to his feet. He had an old M25 sniper rifle and decided tonight was a good time to use it. If the smart bombs weren’t coming, he could put a few smart rounds into where they would do the most good.

Wordlessly, Romo rose beside him. They’d been behind enemy lines for twelve days already. Sometimes, LRSU teams stayed out thirty days. A mile from here—two and a half miles from the pontoon bridge—two dirt bikes lay under a sodden tarp. It was their ticket home: one of the few vehicles other than hovercraft that could negotiate this muddy realm.

In the freezing sleet the two commandos, one American and one Mexican, trudged toward the traffic jam down by the river. There were big Chinese Army trucks, stolen U-Haul vehicles, jeeps, IFVs, and towed laser batteries, the kind used to knock down aircraft and drones.

With a slurping sound, Paul’s boots sank into the mud. It was a struggle each time pulling them back out. The Chinese were crazy to use a pontoon bridge in the dark. They must have laid down a blacktop road to here and forced their soldier boys and supply columns to keep moving. All across the Great Plains, Chinese and Brazilians led the drive against America.

Rain struck Paul’s head and hit him in the face. The water dribbled down to his chin and sometimes his neck. He shivered at the cold. The camouflage slicker made him look like a wet Arab sheik or maybe like one of their women in those black garments that covered them from head to toe. He could never remember what they called that sorry-looking garment.

“You are bitter,” Romo told him.

Paul had almost forgotten his friend was there. Bitter or not, he was hunting tonight. Maybe it was the open grave three days ago. The squawking crows had horrified him. The black-colored birds had been like an angry, squabbling blanket of feathers, feasting on American dead tossed willy-nilly into the hastily-dug pit. Or maybe it had been passing near Dodge City. With his binoculars, he’d seen American corpses hanging by their necks. The worst had been a little girl in red tennis shoes. The rule was simple under the Chinese and Brazilian occupation. If they found an American with a rifle, shotgun or pistol, they hanged the poor sod. Land of the Free—no, Land of the Enslaved.

Paul gripped his rifle. Romo had quoted him a good saying before. “Better to fight on your knees than to surrender, but even better to fight on your feet.”

People had been trying to disarm the American populace for a long time now. Even the U.S. Government had tried it a few times. There was an ancient truth about that. If you lacked weapons, you lacked freedom. In this world of tooth and claw, you had to fight or be willing to fight for what was worth keeping. Once you gave up your guns, you were a slave hoping your master was nice to you.

Paul’s nostrils flared. How could they have run out of smart bombs? He shook his head.
Don’t worry about it, son. You have bullets. Use them, eh. Kill some sorry Chinese colonel and this little picnic will have been worth it
.

“Look,” Romo said. “Look how they stick to the road like good sheep.”

“These sheep have fangs,” Paul muttered. “Let’s head over there. See it?”

In the darkness, they trudged through the mud to a higher spot—it was more like a pitcher’s mound in height. Paul flopped onto wet grass and made sure his slicker covered him from his head to his boots. Romo did likewise. Once more, Paul took out his night vision binoculars.

The rain had turned into a lighter drizzle and he began to scan back and forth along the line of vehicles. There had to be over one hundred trucks, most of them backed up in two lanes. Chinese soldiers smoked cigarettes. There were hundreds, many several thousand glowing tips. More than a few of them also used flashlights, although the vehicles all had hooded headlights. By the number of soldiers down there, he figured an infantry brigade must be hoofing it or maybe they’d hitched a ride with a supply company. He couldn’t figure why so many men were outside of the cabs soaking up the rain.

He’d been right about one thing. There was a blacktop ribbon snaking away into the distance. It was a new road of sorts. Bulldozers moved across the muddy shore of the river. In places, water surged over the pontoon bridge, washing across it. Only a fool would use it tonight.

Even as he thought that, Paul witnessed the first Chinese Army truck inching toward the gate. The driver took the vehicle onto the bridge and slowly moved across. Waves lapped against its tires, but a few minutes later, the truck reached the other side and climbed the higher bank.

“One bomb in the middle of the bridge…” Paul whispered.

Another big truck started across.

“You stay here,” Paul said. “I’m going—”

“We’ll do this together,” Romo said. “You shoot. I’ll spot.”

“Are you with me then?” Paul asked.

“You have the madness tonight, the rage. You need to strike back. I understand.”

“We’ll crawl the rest of the way there,” Paul said.

“And die of hypothermia because we’re soaked,” Romo said. “What good is that? No. We must walk. If someone sees us, they see us, but I doubt they’ll be looking on a night like this.”

Wordlessly, Paul rose and began trudging closer. He didn’t know who was crazier, the Chinese or him. Once he starting shooting, the Chinese would know he was out here. They would start hunting for them. Was that worth it?

He wiped water out his eyes. It was cold and he was losing strength. He needed to use his head, to think.

“Wait a minute,” Paul said. He crouched down, using the slicker as a giant hood. Pulling out his binoculars, he scanned the traffic jam. Ah, what was this?

“There,” he said, pointing into the darkness. It was to their left. “Someone took a jeep out there and got stuck. It looks like they left the vehicle.”

Romo had out his binoculars, too. “I see it.”

“Ready?”

“There might be troops hidden in it,” Romo said.

“If only we could be that lucky. Did you see the open door? I think they left it.”

Fifteen minutes later, the two commandos warily approached the Chinese jeep. The front was tilted down, with the driver’s side tire bogged in a sinkhole. The rear tires were sunken down to the axle. The driver’s door was open, as Paul had mentioned earlier, and the vehicle was empty.

Paul climbed in first. The rain pelted the roof and reminded him of a better time with Cheri. He’d been young, strong and going to college on a football scholarship. Those had been his sweetest years with her.

Romo slid into the driver’s seat. He used the starter button. The engine turned over and coughed into life. Romo shut the door and found the heater. He turned it on and grinned at Paul.

Hunkering by it, Paul warmed his hands. The heat felt good on his cheeks. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to leave the jeep.

“We might as well eat,” Romo said.

Paul nodded, pulling out some rations. Afterward, he rolled down a window and used the night vision binoculars. The bridge was a mile away, though some of the clogged traffic looked to be at the maximum range of his M25, at least the maximum on a night like this.

Romo rolled down the back window. “Get your rifle ready.”

First taking out a sound suppressor, Paul screwed it onto the end. With all the noise down there and the covering rain, he wasn’t worried any Chinese soldier would hear the gun. Muzzle flash might give him away, but not with the sound suppressor in place.

Romo moved around until he looked comfortable. He used binoculars, spotting for Paul.

“Wait a minute,” Paul said.

Romo looked up.

“What’s what?” Paul asked, pointing.

Rome shifted his binoculars.

Paul used the M25’s scope. A small convoy of new vehicles approached the end of the traffic jam. They were sleek hovertanks, some with bubble cupolas at the top of the turret.