Ian Slater - Force of Arms

“After the swelling goes down,” the makeup artist told Chairman Nie, “I’ll need four — perhaps six — hours.”

“I can keep the cameras far enough away,” the “All China News” producer added. “No closeups of course.”

“But when,” asked Nie, “will the swelling go down?”

The makeup artist shrugged. “I’m no doctor, but I’d say four — six — days. Good food — fresh air.”

“All right,” Nie said, decidedly unhappy about the turn of events but seeing that he couldn’t do very much about it at the moment. The trouble was, the Politburo was becoming impatient. There had been widespread reports of “hooliganism” in Harbin and to the south in Fuchow province just across the straits from Taiwan.

“Hooliganism” was now even a wider net, meaning anything from reading a capitalist newspaper from Hong Kong to actual insurrection. It could also get you shot.

Nie needed a confession coming from her own lips. That was the propaganda he wanted. Instead of her starvation diet they would feed her well, fatten her up a little, get her looking healthy. In Harbin they had captured four undercover conspirators, and in Beijing jail they still had the American SEAL, Smythe. If she did not confess he would have the four conspirators and Smythe all shot in front of her, not at once but as the questioning proceeded.

That evening one of the night nurses on her rounds came to the prisoner’s bed and could not see her. The nurse panicked and had almost sounded the alarm when she thought to check the lavatory, and found the Malof woman there. All her bandages were off, and she had a gruesome black eye that she did not have before.

It was self-abuse, they told Nie, to get more time in hospital, the action of a coward.

No, Nie said, it certainly wasn’t the action of a coward but of a “brave enemy agent.” Yes, she no doubt had given herself a black eye and unbandaged herself to delay her recovery, to delay her questioning, and that told him that she was afraid of something happening, that finally her will would break under the pain.

Aussie and the two men with the Stingers waited till last before they began their climb up into the mist, voices lost to the wind under the roaring of rotor blades. As he began his climb, Aussie heard a sound like firecrackers in the distance and then mortar fire, not toward him but out on the lake. Beneath a long tongue of mist he could see water spouts as mortar rounds hit the lake, and then a strange mist — or was it fog? — seemed to rise up from the enormous lake to join the mist above.

Salvini, Choir Williams, and Aussie Lewis were the last three to approach the last Pave Low, ten men having gone before them, one badly wounded and bleeding profusely. The trooper beside him gave him a shot of morphine from his helmet pack then proceeded to make a tourniquet out of his belt.

“Last three!” Salvini yelled up at the two chopper crewmen at the door. One of the crewmen, despite the strain, the expectation that any second a wild burst of ChiCom machine gun fire from the pickup zone might riddle him and the chopper, still found time to laugh, calling out to the other crewman, “These guys might be tough ‘uns, but they sure as hell can’t count!”

“Whaddya mean?” the other man shouted back, barely audible over the noise of the rotor slap. The other crewman pointed down. “There are four of ‘em, not three.”

The other trooper shrugged — what did it matter? long as they didn’t leave anybody, and they could only wait another five minutes before the fuel gauge would dictate they head out.

Aussie was carrying the Haskins sniper rifle, weighing twenty-three pounds, and in the swirling vortex of wind caused by the prop wash he was trying to make sure that the last trooper, below him, wasn’t bothered by the muzzle brake and the end of the barrel, which had a tendency to swing a bit like a pendulum in the high wind, despite its weight.

“You okay, mate?” he yelled down.

There was no answer. “Hey buddy, you okay?” Aussie yelled, letting the barrel tap the man’s helmet. “You in trouble?” Suddenly he saw a black blob pass him into the open door. He heard a shout from above and saw the grenade come out again, bursting open about ten feet below him, and felt a hot sting in his right buttock. By now realizing the man below him was a ChiCom, he let the barrel of the Haskins swing in close directly above the man’s white overlay hood. The ChiCom’s right hand came up to push the rifle away, his left hand holding another grenade.

“You—” Aussie began, and pulled the trigger on the Haskins, sending a.50 depleted uranium slug right through the ChiCom helmet, exiting from the man’s chest in a crimson cloud of pink snow, the man, or rather his corpse, falling quickly to the ground, already lost to view in the snow.

“Cheeky bastard!” Aussie yelled as he was helped aboard the Pave Low, saw the rope ladder coming up after him, and felt immediate relief. Then as the Pave Low started off along with the other two southwest across the lake and began climbing, he sensed a sudden tension inside the chopper. He heard a bump, then another, and could feel the Pave Low yawing hard to the right, and he could hear the pilot’s voice. “Go for height, damn it! Height!” His voice shouted with urgency, and Lewis could hear another pilot’s voice but was unable to make out what he was saying over the sizzling noise of static. Then he heard, quite clearly, “I’m going down.” Seconds later there was a muffled explosion.

“She’s gone!” Brentwood said. There were several more bumps hitting the fuselage. “Gone where?” Aussie asked. There was no answer, and Aussie made his way through the tightly packed troops to the pilot and copilot’s cabin. Beyond the windscreen was nothing but an impenetrable whiteness. It was a complete whiteout, but the radar was speckled as if a pepper shaker had been passed over it and all the speckles alight.

“Birds,” the copilot yelled, seeing his puzzled expression. “Fucking thousands of ‘em. Lake’s a fucking bird sanctuary.”

“Jesus,” Aussie said, “is that what’s hitting us?”

“You’ve got it.” He’d no sooner spoken than another impact hit the chopper, and a spray of blood and feathers was smearing over the perspex window. The wipers began to whine. They threw out anything and everything they could to lessen the weight and gain more altitude, including the Haskins, minus its bolt action, and eventually they were high enough that the iridescent dots on the radar became less and less but were still a threat. They heard the F-15 Eagles streak past high over them and then a Mayday from one of the pilots, then a gut-wrenching explosion.

“Christ, his intakes must be jammed with ‘em,” the pilot said. “And at that speed, man—”

Lieutenant Reid had seen the “telephone post,” the Soviet-made SAM streaking up toward the F-15C Eagle, and had dropped down to get below the SAM. When the Eagle was below it, Reid pulled up harder, the SAM following but unable to make the acute upturn in time, going harmlessly past the Eagle. Then suddenly, triple A had exploded halfway between the plane’s right-side 20mm Vulcan cannon and the speed brake actuator, tearing the plane apart. Reid had ejected immediately, the Douglas ACES 11 seat suddenly in the sky, full of rushing wind and dirty black puffs of triple A fire exploding all around, and the chute opened, drifting down silently amid the mist and fog, Reid doing everything possible to steer the chute away from the lake but realizing it was mainly up to fate. The black puffs of AA smoke seemed to decrease, and Reid was pretty sure that the chute was being blown over the mountain range toward Damquka.