Ian Slater - Force of Arms

The Chinooks with their twin machine guns forward and one heavy machine gun on the open ramp would fly low, over the vast, sprawling city, their pilots hoping that the helos’ noise would be attributed by the populace to the Russian-made Hinds that had flown over Beijing during the Tiananmen Square massacre, dropping leaflets on the people and students below, pamphlets proclaiming, “The people love the PLA. The PLA loves the people,” before they had begun machine gunning the people down.

“We all set, Captain?” Freeman asked the Chinook leader.

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“All right, take us to Beijing.”

The four Chinooks rose, creating a ministorm within the storm of the monsoon, and headed out into the dust-stinging blackness of the Orgon Tal-Honggor front.

The colonel in charge of the Zhongnanhai was now a junior lieutenant, ten years of promotions demolished in two minutes as Cheng humiliated him. The fact that two Molotovs had been thrown was bad enough, but the failure to close down the block on Changan Avenue and to recognize the “hooligans” on the video feed from the lamppost-mounted cameras along the avenue only compounded the error in Cheng’s view.

Apart from losing face over the incident, the worst insult not only to the colonel but to the two hundred men responsible for the security of the Communist elite of the State Council, was the news that spread like wildfire that Cheng had announced, endorsed by Nie, that from now on security of the Zhongnanhai was to be the responsibility of Special Security Unit 8431 under the direct command of the Central Military Committee.

SS Unit 8431 was the toughest of the tough, used to going anywhere to immediately douse “ideological fires” or “demonstrations” that got out of hand. The commander of the unit 8431 was asked defiantly by the recent colonel what he, the commander of 8431, would have done to resolve the Molotov incident.

“Two armored vehicles would have been dispatched immediately,” the commander answered.

“To do what?” the disgraced colonel pressed.

“To annihilate the antisocial vermin immediately.”

“Oh? And how would you have distinguished them from the mass of people moving past the Zhongnanhai section of Changan Avenue?”

“It would not be necessary to make that distinction,” the CO of 8431 said.

“You would have killed them all?” the ex-colonel asked incredulously.

“Every one,” the commander answered. “Without hesitation.” With that, Commander Hu of unit 8431 contemptuously dismissed the one-time colonel and set about arranging the new security for the Zhongnanhai.

No one would be allowed to use the two lakes, he said— all boats were to be housed in the boathouse by the gazebo in the center of the south lake. He did not expect the Americans to be so foolhardy as to attack the Zhongnanhai, but in the event that any other social degenerates might try to breach the compound he would have divers carry out round-the-clock underwater inspections as well.

All the same, Hu realized that a wall that defended you could also box you in, as the Americans had found at their famous Alamo. Originally arrangements had been made for the entire State Council to be moved, in a time of war, via the supposedly secret subway station in the Zhongnanhai, to Xishan military base. For years it had been assumed that no one outside the State Council knew about this escape route from the Zhongnanhai, but then a map showing it was found on a June Fourth Democracy Movement cell leader.

Besides, Commander Hu had concluded that if the Americans ever did reach the capital, the line to Xishan would be one of the first blown up by the Democracy Movement traitors. Accordingly, Hu decided he would need a space in which to put the State Council, to give them visibility so the populace would know they had not deserted the city, and yet one that was capable of being defended in depth if necessary.

Julia Reid had never seen a snow leopard, period, let alone one in the wild. Yet here was the beautiful, lithe creature stock-still, the left front paw extended, the right slightly bent, caught in a moment of indecision, the old man either not having seen the animal or, if so, ignoring it with a mountain man’s sixth sense about such things.

Julia felt inside her sheep wool coat for the .45, its grip giving her enough of a sense of security that she steeled her nerves and managed to pass within fifteen feet of the leopard, the yak she was riding keeping up a steady pace, either pretending that he did not see or smell the potential enemy or, thought Julia, perhaps the yak knew there was no way he could defend himself from the leopard. When she looked ahead at the old man she was surprised to see him staring at her, his mouth hidden by the thick cashmere scarf but his eyes so alive that for a moment he seemed much younger. Only now did she discern that the look was a warning, not of her sexual attractiveness to him but a warning not to draw her pistol. “One shot,” he said, and then passed his ancient hand across his throat, “An’ Chin-eze.”

“Yes,” she said. “I understand.”

He turned from her, his knees motioning the yak on, and through the fine-grained but stinging hail he led her higher until she had to tell him by the appropriate sign language that her headache was so severe she couldn’t go on. It humiliated her more than she could have imagined, and in her mind’s eye she saw lines of tormenting faces — all male, all pilots, the bovine grins on their faces saying, “We told you women couldn’t hack it!” She was feeling dizzy and nauseated as well. Either she was weakening, or the nomad had taken her too high, albeit gradually.

He nodded knowingly, and sliding off his yak, he approached and motioned for her to unbutton her coat. She hesitated. Was he smiling? She couldn’t tell. He took her hand and, taking a step closer, placed it over his heart. She nodded that she now understood that he was only being solicitous of her health and wanted — no, needed — to feel her heartbeat. She pointed to her wrist. He shook his head vigorously, his fist now on his own heart and him making a wheezing noise through his scarf. Ah — he wanted to listen to her chest. “Quick! Quick!” he told her. It amazed her how specific he was with his English, given that he apparently knew so few words.

She undid her sheepskin coat and he quickly put his ear to her breast In the icy blast of the snowstorm she felt frigid, despite her other sweaters and flight jacket. Whatever, he seemed to take an inordinately long time listening to her. As she was about to say something, he abruptly finished, nodded knowingly, and said, “The wheeze.” Her head was pounding as if an iron band were tightening about her. He turned his yak into the storm and, though she couldn’t be sure, it seemed to her that they were going back down the mountainside, but it was difficult to tell, her vision blurring, her disorientation increasing with white upon white, the rain of small hailstones coming at her like tracer, taking her back to the dogfight with the Fulcrum, another time, another world away.

In the near distance, about fifty yards away, beyond which she could see nothing, an outcrop of rock appeared, the old man driving the yak toward it. Everything went black, and she felt herself pitching forward, losing the reins, vomiting, falling.

As the choppers entered the rain of the monsoon, the noise against their skins grew to a sustained roar, even the wokka-wokka of the Chinooks’ rotors subdued by the noise. The pilot of Chinook One was already sweating, and she didn’t care if Freeman saw it. There wasn’t one visible fix you could see, only the rain-filled darkness, the helos having to fly by instrumentation alone. The only thing that gave the Chinook pilots any comfort was that even though they were flying nap of the earth, by virtue of the infrared contour sensors, their noise would be muffled by the banshee howling of the monsoon.