Invasion: China (Invasion America) (Volume 5) Read online

  He heard the harsh sound of his breathing. This was awesome, like the highest high dive on the planet. He remembered his youth when he used to cliff dive forty feet or more.

  Sergeant Kavanagh laughed as he forgot about being sick.

  “Why is he laughing?” someone down there asked.

  “This is great,” Paul whispered. Then he pushed off. It was just like cliff diving. He pushed away, and he dropped from the capsule. A rear camera on his helmet let him view the round balloon and the capsule holding his blood brother. In seconds, he lost sight of the balloon.

  At that point, it felt as if he just hung in space. He recalled a time surfing, the most serene moment in his life. It had been in Oceanside near Camp Pendleton, the California Marine training base. Winter surfing demanded a wet suit. The gray sky made it impossible to tell, as he lay on his surfboard, to see where the ocean ended and where the sky began. The ocean waves just rolled in. The waves sucked for surfing that day, but they had been perfect for just lying there, serene. It had been the one moment in his life where he went Zen peaceful.

  This was like that, floating in the stratosphere. Actually, he dropped, gaining speed as he went. He grinned. That lasted a minute. Slowly, the grin began slipping away as the nausea returned.

  “How are you feeling?” the ground controller asked.

  “Like I twirled around too many times doing ring-around-the—rosie.”

  “You do that often, Sergeant?” the other man asked.

  “I did as a kid. What, you never did?”

  “Watch your mouth,” the ground controller said. “The general is talking to you.”

  Paul might have said he was sorry about that. He wasn’t. Screw them anyway. He was a speck of nothing, picking up speed. Look at the Earth, just look at it. This was crazy. According to the briefing, he’d be going supersonic soon.

  As he free fell, Paul wondered why no one had tried inserting Special Forces personnel into China already like this. Maybe they had. Maybe SEALs used exotic equipment, gliding across the Pacific Ocean and quietly dropping into China to commit acts of sabotage. That would be the ultimate. Well…no…being an orbital-dropping Marine was going to be the ultimate.

  How was that going to work anyway? The candidates had already gone through grueling tests. They were looking for the best of the best. Paul figured he was one, but was that really true?

  He knew one thing. He was the oldest candidate. Talk about working overtime to stay in shape…

  Oh wow, he began to notice movement. It was no longer quite so dark around him. He couldn’t see the curvature of the planet, either.

  “He’s at four hundred and fifteen miles per hour, sir.”

  Paul groaned. He couldn’t help it as his stomach gurgled. Clenching his teeth, he ran a litany in his mind: You will not vomit; you will not vomit. One time, the throat burn before, that’s all you’re allowed.

  The struggle took all his concentration. By the time the nausea passed, the world had turned fully normal again.

  “Six hundred and seventy-five miles per hour,” the ground controller said in his headphones.

  Paul had already assumed the skydiving position. As he reached seven hundred miles per hour, he moved incorrectly, putting his arm in the wrong place. He rolled, tried to correct and only made it worse. Now he began to spin, and it accelerated faster than he could believe.

  His trainers had warned him about this. His special pressure suit had all kinds of gauges. Among them was a G-meter that monitored his drop. He also had a drogue deployment button in his right glove. If he held it down for three seconds, it would fire the drogue stabilization chute. That was a special chute to stop whatever evil—destabilizing—was happening. The G-meter flashed red in his helmet. That meant he experienced over 3.5 Gs for a continuous period six seconds or longer.

  With a loud clap of noise, the drogue stabilization chute deployed. Paul grunted, the wind knocked out of him, but he quit spinning.

  Fighting it so he wouldn’t restart, he remembered all the skydiving lessons. He stretched himself, arching his back, and he fought to hold it, hold it…he sucked down air. His lungs unlocked. Even better, he held his position. The G-meter went green.

  “He’s going to make it, sir,” the ground controller said.

  “Once he deploys his main parachute I’ll believe it. Until then, let’s wait and see.”

  Paul grinned. He liked the general, kind of. For a brass hat, the man was okay. He scanned the scene and continued to breathe pure oxygen from his two bottles. He carried enough for ten minutes of air.

  Checking a gauge, Paul saw he dropped at 713 miles per hour. He was supersonic, baby. Except for the extreme speed, this was just like skydiving now.

  He watched his height as measured from sea level: 20,000 feet, 18,000 feet, 16,000 feet.

  “Get ready to deploy your main parachute,” the ground controller said.

  “Roger,” Paul said, who watched the gauge closely.

  At six thousand feet, with a Montana pine forest below, Paul gripped the handle, feeling the molding for his fingers. At five thousand feet, he pulled.

  “It’s time to deploy,” the ground controller said a second later.

  A louder clapping sound than before and a vicious yank against his shoulders told him the parachute deployed. If it hadn’t, he had an emergency reserve chute.

  Paul’s speed slowed. Soon, he began to float down to the ground. He was going to make it. Now he would find out if they were going to wash him out of the program or not.

  ABILENE, TEXAS

  In the brisk morning air, three hundred yards from an old car lot, Colonel Higgins walked past parked Behemoth tanks. These were new vehicles from Detroit, painted with desert colors.

  This happened to be the newly reconstructed Sixth Regiment. Jake had belonged to the original sixth. Stan sighed. He dearly missed his boy. It still didn’t sit well with him. He’d buried the sadness, though, and now he took it out on the Chinese. It was an unhealthy thing to do, and every time he destroyed a Chinese tank or truck, he waited for a good feeling to emerge.

  Why doesn’t killing the enemy make me feel better?

  The Behemoth tank crews stood at attention before their vehicles. They were sharp-eyed young men in black uniforms and angled caps. How many of them would die before this damn war ended? After three years of grueling fighting, they had finally fenced off the Chinese invaders. Another campaign should push them all the way into northern Mexico. Then what would happen?

  Will we invade Mexico to drive out the Chinese? We have to. If we don’t, we’ll have to worry about the Pan-Asian Alliance for the rest of our lives.

  One tanker caught his eye. He was a tall lad with sucked in cheeks. Stan stopped before him.

  “What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Corporal Chet Bretnor, sir.”

  “Chet?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Why do you seem familiar?”

  “I was part of Jake’s crew, sir. We survived the Red Dragon attack together.”

  Stan frowned, and he turned away. But he was the colonel, the hero to some of these lads. He forced himself to look once more at Chet.

  “That was a bad day,” Stan said. “I’m glad to see you make it.”

  The boy’s face screwed up, as if he was trying to gin up the courage to say something. Stan didn’t want to hear it, whatever the boy had to say. He sighed, and he almost walked on, almost…

  “Yes?” Stan asked.

  “Sir,” Chet blurted. “I haven’t heard from Jake, sir. Do you happen to know where he’s stationed?”

  Stan froze for several seconds. Then he shook his head. “Jake died, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that, sir. How did it happen?”

  Stan frowned. That seemed like an odd question. “Radiation poisoning,” he said.

  “Didn’t he get the bone marrow treatment?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did those men t
ake him away?”

  “He was dead.”

  “What?” Chet asked. “No. I don’t think so, sir.”

  Stan stared at the soldier. Finally, he asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Jake resisted them, I’m not sure why, and the man gave him a sedative.”

  “Resisted?”

  “From where I lay, it sure sounded like that. I was pretty out of it at the time, sir. Maybe I don’t remember it very well.”

  A worm of suspicion crept into Stan’s heart. “What did the men look like who took him?”

  Chet cocked his head, and he gave Stan a funny look. “You know, I’ve never really thought about it before. You know what. They were MPs.”

  “Come again?” Stan asked, sharply.

  “Militia MPs, sir,” Chet said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Chet recoiled, and he paled. “Did I say something wrong, sir?”

  Stan had to come back from the place he’d gone in his mind. He saw the boy’s fright. So, he put his hand on Chet’s shoulder. “Come with me. I want to hear more about this.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’m an idiot. I should have realized when the doctor wouldn’t look at me.” He faced Chet. “Militia MPs took him. I can’t believe it. They took a sick, possibly dying man. They’d better hope he’s still alive—or heaven help them.”

  MARINE TRAINING BASE, MONTANA

  Paul sat quietly before General Allenby. The holding cell made him uneasy. The obvious two-way mirrors didn’t help him relax.

  A wooden table stood between them. Paul sat on one side, the general on the other.

  General Allenby didn’t look like anything special. He was average height with a narrow mustache and bland features. He had intense brown eyes, the only giveaway that something extra might be going on with the man.

  Allenby stared at him. Paul stared back. He didn’t know what else he was supposed to do. If the general thought he was going to wilt before a brass hat…the man could think again.

  Paul had landed, waited for pickup and soon ridden back in a jeep. They took him straight to the brig. He’d waited here…he didn’t know for how long. There were no clocks on the walls. He felt hungry, so maybe three hours had passed since landing.

  A few minutes ago, the door opened. Big MPs stood outside. They were the hard types who would beat you down with billy clubs if the general ordered it. Allenby walked in, sat down and the MPs shut the door.

  Now the general just sat there, staring. Because of the mirror behind the man, Paul could see the balding spot on the back of the general’s head.

  Internally, Paul shrugged. Screw them anyway. He was good at what he did. He’d stopped kissing butt a long time ago. Actually, he’d never done it. That’s why he’d been discharged from the Marines the first time after Quebec when he’d still been a kid.

  “You didn’t take your anti-nausea pill,” Allenby said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why not?”

  “They don’t agree with me.”

  “You’re going to have to take one…when you combat deploy.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll need our Marines at peak efficiency,” Allenby said. “We’re only going to do this once and you have to do it at your best.”

  “Do what, sir?”

  “That’s classified for the moment.”

  “It’s special ops. That much is clear.”

  “Sergeant, I want the best men in my unit. What we have planned…” Allenby shook his head. “You’re going to learn about it soon enough. The point I want you to understand is that I intend to win.”

  “Me too, sir.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of your record. I like it. When the going gets tough, you come through, Kavanagh. What’s more, you’re unconventional. You think for yourself. That’s the kind of man I want, the kind our country is going need. You have to listen to instructions, though.”

  “I understand, sir,”

  “No, you don’t. As I’ve said, I’ve read your record. You’re not only a good soldier—a great soldier—but you’re also a born troublemaker. What’s lucky for you is that there’s a war on.”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re a killer, Kavanagh, a natural. Your friend Romo is one, too. America needs its killers right now. We’re going to put the best of you—or the worst—into one unit of super soldiers. You are going to kill like no one has done before.”

  “Sir?”

  Allenby smiled, and his brown eyes seemed to shine. “I know. You expected me to reprimand you for not taking your anti-nausea pill, maybe flush you out of the program. Well, I’m not going to do that. It just so happens that I’m a killer myself. I get things done. I’m going to get this one done, and I’m going to keep the most dangerous men with me. You’re one of the elite. Your record says as much.”

  “Why am I here in this holding cell, then, sir?”

  “Because I’m chewing you out for the sake of my DIs and trainers. They’re not naturals like the rest of you men.”

  “This is chewing me out, sir?”

  “Don’t play stupid with me, Kavanagh. When people ask, or if they hint at it, you let them know that I chewed you out good. You finally get it now, you tell them. You’re going to toe the line from now on.”

  “But really?”

  Allenby leaned forward. “You will toe the line, Marine.”

  “Yes sir,” Paul said.

  Allenby sat back. “Good. I’m not going to kid you, son. This mission is going to be tough. It will kill an awful lot of you. I’m figuring three-quarters to half of you aren’t coming back.”

  Paul didn’t like the sound of that.

  “This one is going to be for everything,” Allenby said. “We’re going to kick ass and end the war our way, with China laid out on its back. Now tell me, even though its dangerous, positively deadly, do you want to back out?”

  “I don’t feel like dying, sir.”

  “That isn’t want I’m asking.”

  Paul thought about it. He’d promised Cheri. But he was fighting mad, and he’d made up his mind as he watched those mushroom clouds in Oklahoma. “I’m in, sir.”

  “I knew you’d say that. You’re my kind of man, Kavanagh. Just so you know, from now on, I’m going to ride you hard. We’re going to have one throw of the dice with this mission. The Chinese—well, never mind that for now. This is one is going to be bad. It’s also going to be the craziest, wildest mission any Marine has ever been a part of. Just how big are your balls, son?”

  Paul stared at the general, and something burned behind the Marine’s eyeballs. “Bigger than yours, sir,” he said.

  Allenby leaned forward, and his features became like a mask. “If you ever say that to me again, you won’t survive your training.”

  Paul said nothing more, but he might have smiled. Just the faintest bit. He waited.

  The general stood, nodded at Paul. The door opened. “That will be all, Marine. You’re dismissed.”

  The general went out first. Paul followed. It was then Kavanagh decided the general was a nut job. Three quarters causalities on this mission—just what did the brass hats have planned for them?

  MOSCOW, RUSSIA

  With an umbrella over her head, Anna Chen negotiated the slick steps of the Hotel Saint Peter. Freezing drops pelted her, mingled with pellets of hail. They lay at her booted feet, expended white shot of the horrible new glaciation.

  The world starved to death. So what did humanity do? They formed giant leagues and fought over the most precious resource on the planet: prime farmland to feed their peoples.

  Now I’m pretending to try to convince the Russians to join the fun. If ever there was a time to do this, it’s now. Hong has overextended China’s military, with the bulk of in Mexico and the rest in Burma against the Indians. How has Hong convinced Konev to back off? I still don’t understand it.

  Anna sighed. It had been a long journey from Washington to Mos
cow. Max Harold had told her she was going as their envoy. The good of the country demanded it. Everyone knew the President trusted her. It would show Russia that David Sims still sat in the driver’s seat.

  Harold had lied to her, but she’d pretended to believe him. David lay in a semi-coma, induced by his physicians she believed. Harold’s guards sealed David off from those who wanted to help him recover. Thus, the Director of Homeland Security wanted her out of Washington. That was the real reason for the trip. She spoke to the Russian president. It made good TV coverage, she supposed, but that was it. The Russians were too scared to move against China.

  The wind chose that moment to pick up, and the hail no longer rained straight down, but slanted at an angle. Particles struck her in the face. She repositioned the umbrella, and saw Demetrius, her bodyguard, get out of a big Chinese-manufactured car.

  It surprised her that Harold had let Demetrius stay with her. There was no one else she trusted nowadays. The big black man wore a hat and turned up the collar of his coat. Otherwise, he endured the hail. He was a true stoic.

  Is the Chinese-manufactured car a not so subtle slap in the face by Konev’s people?

  It was big and heavy, a Tiger Fang, she believed the company had named the model. It was top-of-the-line luxurious, armored for official use. The presidents, prime ministers and other rulers in most countries had a right to fear their people. Most went hungry, but not the rich or politically powerful.

  Anna wondered where she fit in the scheme of things now. I represent the United States, but I’m afraid to speak the truth to my own countrymen.

  Harold had sent her across the Pacific Ocean in the USS Colorado, a Virginia-class submarine. He’d told her he didn’t trust air travel. The Chinese might try to shoot down her plane. East Lightning was frightfully good at what they did, prying secrets out of people. No doubt, she topped one of their kill lists. She’d always been able to ferret out Chinese secrets.