Invasion: California Read online

  “Just a minute,” Paul said. This felt too surreal, it always did. He pulled a computer scroll out of the rucksack, flicking a switch that stiffened it. A second later he viewed the situation from one of the drones that used night vision. Trucks burned on the steep road. Chinese infantry fired assault rifles into the air. Each shot looked like a spark on the screen. Paul spotted a Marauder-sized light tank. No, not a tank. The vehicle swiveled a pair of anti-air cannons and began chugging radar-guided flak into the sky. Out of the corner of Paul’s eye, he witnessed an explosion, which indicated a hit, another dead American UCAV: Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle. A different drone targeted the enemy. Paul watched his screen as crosshairs centered on the Chinese vehicle and as a Hellfire streaked down and obliterated the cannons.

  “Do you have visual?” the operator asked.

  “Sure do,” Paul said.

  “We’re putting down another barrage,” the operator said. “Then you have to go in, finish them and find the Blue Swan container. We have to take care of some enemy air headed your way.”

  Oh yeah, sure, no problem. “Have you counted the number of enemy infantry?” Paul asked.

  “That’s going to change right now,” the operator said. “Keep your head down.”

  Several things happened at once. Maria Valdez on her midway position on the hill opened up with the .50 caliber Browning. She was four football-field lengths away from the nearest enemy. The Chinese officer with the whistle went down in a heap. The others hit the dirt a second time and swiveled on their bellies toward the machine gun. Several crawled like mad for shielding rocks. Others opened up, firing back at Maria.

  That’s a mistake. The Chinese were pinned on the road, easy targets for the Browning, which had greater accuracy at range than the assault rifles. In the next eight seconds, Maria killed two more enemy as her slugs ripped through body armor like pencils through paper.

  Then the sun appeared—a monstrous light half-hidden by the steep slope. Paul clawed the earth, pressing his body against its protective soil. Concussion arrived with the sound. It lifted Paul, flipped and threw him against the soil so he rolled. Thunder boomed and shook the bones in his body.

  No one had told him about this. Was the Air Force using nukes? Or was this one of their nifty fuel-air bombs, the kind that sprayed a mist of explosive gassy liquid and ignited?

  “They’re all yours now,” a gloating man said into his ringing ear.

  Paul was only vaguely aware that he still held onto the satellite phone. All mine? What do I want with them? “Roger,” he said. “How about keeping the spy plane up there so I can see what they’re doing?”

  “We still have to extract you,” the operator said.

  Paul scowled. That wasn’t an answer. Then he realized it was. The spy plane—the drone—would stay to guide the extraction vehicles. They had to get “Blue Swan” back into America so the techs could pull it apart and figure out its great secret.

  Maria’s Browning kept chugging. Every fifth bullet was a tracer—a red light—helping guide the thin deadly line into desperate Chinese.

  That was a problem, as desperate soldiers made dangerous ones. Several fired back from rocks near the lip. One of them, probably more, had radios. They would summon help, which might be helos, enemy drones or even jets to lay down old-fashioned napalm.

  Paul checked the screen and choked on what he saw. While coughing, he saw movement among the burning Chinese vehicles on the steep part of the road. That was the problem with resorting only to bombs. The earth was a big place, with many folds and seams for anxious men to hide. It meant, as it always had, that infantry needed to go in to finish a task. Trouble was, his infantry was six skeletal guerillas and one bloodthirsty chick against—Paul counted at least ten more Chinese on the screen. Those in the rocks made another four. Fourteen alerted, body-armored enemies against their eight were poor odds.

  It was only a matter of seconds before the Chinese in the rocks spotted him out here in the open. Some of them, at least, must have night vision equipment.

  “Yeah,” Paul said.

  He dragged the fifteen-pound AT4 to him. It had a HEAT round, made to disable an armored vehicle. He removed the safety pin at the rear of the tube. That unblocked the firing rod. He lifted it over his shoulder, moving his legs to the side. Otherwise, the back-blast would burn them. He moved back the front and rear covers so the iron sights popped into firing position. With quick precision, he moved the firing rod, cocking the lever forward and over the top to the right side. He sighted the largest boulder behind which the four Chinese hid. Taking a breath and holding it, Paul used his thumb and pressed the forward red firing button.

  With a whoosh and the heat of back-blast, the round blew out of the tube. Time seemed to stand still. The 84mm round struck the boulder, exploding it and killing several Chinese.

  Maria swung the tripod-mounted Browning and worked over the dead. She caught one man crawling for new cover.

  “Let’s go!” Paul shouted. “We have to beat the others who are trying to climb up to the lip. If we do, we can pick them off.”

  He grabbed his assault rifle and ripped open a flap on his belt as he ran. Lee had loved bayonets fixed to the end of his assault rifle. The idea of sticking the enemy had always seemed to excite the Ranger. Paul had read studies. Less than one percent of combat deaths were due to bayonet. The gleaming blade on the end looked fierce, but that was about it.

  Paul drew a long sound suppressor out of his pouch. On the run, he screwed it onto his assault rifle. The “silencer” tonight had little to do with quiet shots and everything toward hiding muzzle flash. If he used full auto-fire, the sound suppressor would quickly overheat and become useless. His idea was aimed fire while keeping hidden from the enemy, hopefully long enough to kill all of them before they figured out his position.

  Paul heard his own labored breathing and the crunch of his boots. Behind him followed three guerillas. He glanced over his shoulder. Two carried their RPGs. The smart one had a submachine gun out. Could he count on them to help him? A further twist showed him Maria on the slope. Her team dismantled the .50 caliber. That was a mistake. He could have used her to give fallback cover. She wanted to kill Chinese, however, and that meant moving the heavy machine gun forward. It was hard to fault her desire.

  With his mouth open, as hot air burned down his throat, Paul sprinted for the lip, the edge that would show him the steep road and the burning vehicles. Ten Chinese soldiers were coming up, and he was sure that reinforcements were on their way from somewhere. He had to get this “Blue Swan” and be long gone, or he was going to end up in a torture chamber, worked over by experts.

  He failed to win the footrace. A Chinese soldier stumbled over the lip and onto the visible road. If Maria still had her position, she could have killed the man.

  Paul slid to a halt while still on the slope, tore off the night vision goggles and brought the assault rifle’s butt to his shoulder. He panted, knelt and winced as a stone pressed painfully against his kneecap. He shifted his position and peered through the night vision scope. The man kept moving in his scope, in and out of sight because Pau’s hard breathing moved his rifle too much. Paul took a deep breath, let it halfway out and held it, feeling as if he was underwater while trying to do it and while desperately needing air.

  Concentrate. Squeeze the trigger.

  The kick slammed against his shoulder. The soldier went down. Paul strained to see through the scope. The soldier crawled for cover. He’d just knocked the man down, likely hitting body armor.

  Like a basketball player taking his second free throw—one who had missed the first shot—Paul aimed with greater deliberation and squeezed the trigger.

  The Chinese soldier jerked and sagged, and half his face was missing as he lay on the ground.

  War is Hell.

  Paul glanced back at his help. The three guerillas lay on the ground. They must have stopped when he stopped, which was a natural reaction. That wasn’t go
ing to win them the needed position, nor garner them the “Blue Swan” whatever it proved to be.

  “Go, go, go!” Paul shouted at the three.

  Time was everything now. Forgetting to pick up his night vision goggles, Paul stood and ran for the road and for the lip. After four steps, he realized his mistake, but it was too late to go back. He had nine Chinese soldiers to kill if he was going to get home to Cheri and his son Mike.

  Enemy gunfire erupted from the lip, each barrel blazing flame as several Chinese shot at once. They had to be on their bellies, wisely using cover.

  Paul dove for the second time tonight. This time, he was hardly aware of striking the ground. Without the rucksack, it was like jumping onto a mattress. Behind him, a guerilla cried out in mortal agony. Paul didn’t need to look back to know one of the guerillas was down.

  Paul crawled and the dirt around him spit. A bullet whined past his head. Paul jumped up and ran crouched-over, yearning to reach a half-buried boulder. Something hot struck his left leg. He stumbled, but managed to keep his feet. Then he jumped, pulled the assault rifle close to his chest and shoulder, and rolled. More bullets hissed like wasps. Chips of rock struck his face.

  He looked back and couldn’t see the three guerillas. He lay stretched out behind his boulder, momentarily safe from Chinese fire. He checked himself, but couldn’t find the satellite phone. He must have dropped it somewhere. Fortunately, he still had the scroll. Rolling it open, he studied the situation from the vantage of the patrolling drone. The nine Chinese were lying in a line on the lip, using it like a trench. Each wore body armor and each fired a QBZ-95. The only good thing was Maria. She’d set up the Browning again.

  Paul glanced behind him just as the Browning opened up. The .50 caliber had much greater range, greater reach, than the enemy weapons.

  “Okay,” Paul whispered to himself, looking at the screen again. His three guerillas were down. By the angle and stillness of their bodies, they each looked dead.

  How much ammo did Maria have? The answer would be the same every time: not enough.

  “You have to use her Browning while you can,” he told himself.

  Paul pressed his forehead against the hard-packed ground. He had to think. He had to use what he had, which was what exactly? He had intel on the enemy, suppressing fire for a few more minutes and some night vision with his scope. The enemy must have night vision, too, but they couldn’t see him here behind the rock. For the moment, they didn’t have any UAVs. He had to use that against them. What made the most sense?

  It came to him. It was obvious.

  Paul took a deep breath, rolled the scroll and jammed it back into a pouch. Then he began to slither on his belly, using the rocks and boulders as a shield. His goal was simplicity. He had to get behind the Chinese and pick them off.

  The next few minutes strained Paul’s stamina. Sweat kept dripping into his eyes. The rough ground tore through the fabric of his shirt at the elbows. The stony ground did the same to his flesh. He bled, but that didn’t matter now. Maybe in some future life it would matter. In the here and now, he kept using his elbows as he slithered for his destination.

  Fortunately, Maria kept the enemy busy. Her team had carried extra ammo, which she now used prodigiously. Maybe she was smart after all. Maybe the colonel had known what he was doing sending his little girl.

  Did Colonel Valdez love America? Paul had his doubts. Instead, the colonel’s logic must have been cold and inflexible. On her own, Mexico could never free herself from the Chinese. The country was prostrate and shackled: a victim to the world’s greatest power. To gain freedom, Mexico needed America as strong as possible. If the Chinese could breach the US’s “Maginot Line” on the border and begin tearing chunks of agricultural land from the U.S., it would show the rest of the world it was possible. The South American Federation would join in the attack. The German Dominion would likely drop airmobile brigades to secure an eastern state for itself as it launched its hovers from Cuba. If “Blue Swan” really was a weapon that could allow the Chinese to breach the world’s strongest defensive line, Colonel Valdez would want the Americans to find out about it so they could fix the problem. That would be enough of a reason to send his little girl into the fray.

  Victory can’t come down to this little firefight, can it?

  Paul gripped his assault rifle as he eased onto his feet. Blood dripped from his elbows. Below him to the left, he spied the burning vehicles on the steep hill road. They were all in a line, and they illuminated the nine Chinese prone on the road’s lip and to the right and left of the road. Straight below Paul were rocks and shale. He was roughly three hundred yards away from the Chinese.

  Gripping the assault rifle, Paul began to climb down the rough slope. He should have kept his night vision goggles. Instead, he had to move slowly, testing rocks with his feet, pulling back when one shifted. If one clattered too loudly, one of the Chinese might look over and see him.

  How long did he have until enemy reinforcements showed up? The fact this was a “Blue Swan” convoy probably meant not long. He might already be out of time.

  Paul blinked sweat out of his eyes. He wasn’t going to get it done like this. He was going to have risk to win. First taking a deep breath, he propelled himself off his rock, jumping down. He strained to see in the darkness, using the distant firelight as best he could.

  He landed on a boulder and almost pitched off it. He couldn’t windmill his arms to keep his balance—they gripped his rifle—so he jumped again, sailing downward. He landed and a rock slipped out from under his left foot. His ankle twisted and he let himself go limp, crumpling onto the boulders, landing on his side. He crawled, panting, expecting bullets to rain against him. When they failed to materialize, he climbed to his feet. His left ankle throbbed. He set down the rifle and untied the boot’s laces. His fingers felt thick and useless. His heart hammered.

  You have to keep moving. You can’t stand out here exposed like this.

  With stiff fingers, he jerked the laces tighter, knotting them quickly. He grabbed the assault rifle, jumped down ten feet and landed hard on a flat boulder. He winced at the pain shooting up his left leg. He plopped onto his butt and slid over the boulder’s side, landing on dirt. Using the night vision scope, he examined the terrain. Okay. He began trotting. Each time he put pressure on the left foot, his ankle flared with agony. Sweat streaked his face and his left hip began to hurt.

  Finally, Paul lay behind a boulder, below and to the side of the nine Chinese by about one hundred and fifty yards. His mouth was bone dry so that his tongue felt raspy against the roof of his mouth.

  He climbed to a crouch behind a boulder, unhooked a canteen and guzzled. He waited, and he guzzled again. Sweat drenched his clothes. He was shaking. The idea of crawling away and getting the hell out of here kept appearing more appealing by the second. White Tiger commandos were surely on their way. Enemy jets could drop napalm on everything. The Chinese were ruthless that way.

  “Bastards,” he muttered, picking up the assault rifle.

  He rested his bloody elbows on the boulder, bringing up the scope and taking several deep breaths. He needed calm. He needed steadiness. He put two extra magazines beside him. He didn’t want to waste time later unhooking them from his belt. He peered through the scope, judging the situation. Maria must almost be out of ammo by now. Once he started firing…

  “Get it done,” he whispered.

  Through his night vision scope, Paul Kavanagh sighted the leftmost Chinese lying on the ground. The soldier had pulled back from the lip, clutching his QBZ-95 between his knees.

  Carefully, slowly, Paul squeezed the trigger. The assault rifle kicked, and the Chinese soldier lay back, his throat obliterated.

  Paul was in the zone and continued firing with deliberate precision. When the third Chinese soldier shouted, standing up before Paul’s second shot put him down forever, the others finally noticed. The fourth went down with shattered teeth and a gaping hole in the back of h
is neck. The rest began firing downslope, spraying bullets, seeking Paul. It was a good thing he’d screwed on the sound suppressor, hiding his muzzle flashes.

  It took the entire second magazine to kill the fifth and sixth soldiers.

  Maybe the remaining three Chinese had enough of the silent killer who hid behind them. One bolted up over the lip. Maria’s Browning chattered a long burst and there came a terrible scream. She still had bullets.

  The last two Chinese took off running away from Paul. He stood up and fired fast, sending bullet after bullet, chipping rock beside them and spitting dirt by their feet, but failing to nail either. They got away and both of them carried weapons.

  Will they double back to fight?

  Paul shook his head. He didn’t know, but he felt soiled by the encounter. Sniper-fire killing always did that to him. The day he truly began to enjoy deliberate butchery, he felt, would be the day he was a destroyer and no longer a soldier simply doing his duty.

  Blue Swan. It was time to search for the miracle weapon.

  Slinging the rifle’s strap over his shoulder, Paul limped toward the burning vehicles. It would be just his luck that this was the wrong convoy. There was only one way to find out.

  By the time he reached the Chinese vehicles, his bad ankle made walking an act of pure will. He didn’t need to check the IFVs or the big troop trucks. The smell of cooked flesh coming from them nauseated him. He’d never gotten used to that, or the look of the dead, some with melted faces or bone sticking up around blackened flesh.

  Whatever bomb the Air Force had used was brutal. Likely, it was one of the new secret weapons people blogged about these days. America had lost the Arctic Circle oil rigs and Hawaii, but they weren’t going to lose the mainland. Soon now, the world and the Chinese in particular were going to learn what old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity meant. That was one of the problems, however. The East—meaning the PAA and sometimes India—had greater manufacturing ability than the rest of the world. The East had also shown the niftiest battlefield hardware in both Alaska and Hawaii.