Ian Slater - Force of Arms

“They’ll never expect a raid in this weather,” one of Aussie Lewis’s troops aboard the second chopper said.

“Fuck them” his buddy replied from across the aisle. “ I never expected a raid in this freakin’ weather.”

“Just so they don’t drop me in that fuckin’ moat,” another said, referring to the moat that separated the Forbidden City from the Zhongnanhai on the latter’s eastern side.

“Fuck the moat,” Aussie Lewis put in. “You’d better hope they don’t drop you in the friggin’ lake.”

“Which one?” another joshed. “The central — the Zhonghai — or the south lake?”

“Neither of the fuckers. I can’t swim.”

This got a great laugh, for SAS/D troopers were required to swim with weapon and several clips of ammunition, their training the most brutal in the world.

“Bullshit, man,” the Tennesseean said. “We ain’t going in no fucking lake. I was told we were on a fast rope insertion.”

“Yeah, fast rope right in the fuckin’ lake.”

“All right, you guys,” Aussie yelled. “Pay up or shut up. Five to one someone lands in the pool?”

“Some friggin’ pool.”

“Come on,” Aussie pressed. “Five to one—” And out came his small black book from his vest and a small purple indelible pencil from his first-aid pack under his helmet strap. He gave the pencil a lick, looking for all the world like a bookmaker’s tout

“Put me down for two bucks,” a trooper said.

“That’s two bucks you’ve lost already, Aussie.”

More bets were shouted, Aussie writing quickly.

“Hey Aussie,” called out the Tennesseean — the tall black soldier sitting by the ramp. “What if you get hit, man?”

“Come on,” Aussie riposted. “Get real. I can’t get hit. It’s against the fuckin’ Geneva Convention. Besides, I have a plan for which there is no known defense. It’s called the Aussie Auxiliary!”

“Jeez — you’re full of it, man,” the Tennesseean replied, half the forty troopers in the Chinook clapping Aussie, the rest waving him off.

Aussie flashed the book at the Tennessean. “So how about it, Tennessee? You game or not?”

“Mr. Lewis,” the black man said with mock formality. “How long have I known you?”

“Too fuckin’ long,” someone else said.

“The gentleman’s correct,” the Tennesseean acknowledged. “Too long. And that’s why I’ll not bet a cent.” He turned to the soldiers nearest him, raising his voice. “You’ll notice he said ‘pool,’ but what particular pool does he mean, gents? The lakes, the moat?”

This started a flak of spirited questions directed at Aussie, who held both hands up. “The lakes only,” he said. “Right? Fair enough? The lakes.”

In preparation for fast-roping it down into the square, they were all pulling on their gloves, and those who already had them on pulled them on that much tighter. The Tennessean did the same thing. Quite irrationally there was something that made one feel invulnerable, pulling leather gloves on tightly, flexing the knuckles, seating each finger snugly. Aussie looked across at the black man, a longtime friend and colleague. “Thanks a lot, you fucker. What pool? Christ, nearly had a riot.”

“Keep the riot for the Zhongnanhai,” the Tennesseean said good-naturedly.

Up front in Chopper One Freeman held up his hand. “You boys ready?” There was a unified and boisterous response. It could have been a football game. And going out into the darkness each man had the same gut-tightening experience.

“Ten minutes!” Freeman announced, holding up the fingers of each hand to underscore the point, and everyone fell silent, most watching the red five-minute warning light and feeling the Chinook’s buffeting by a dying monsoon.

David Brentwood, who stood behind Freeman, the general’s backpack pushing against him as they dropped suddenly in an air pocket, had been quiet for most of the trip. He was thinking of Georgina, his wife — how they’d been honeymooning in the Canadian Rockies when he was recalled to Second Army. A master’s degree in political science from the London School of Economics and Political Science meant she knew much more than David about the political situation and intrigues that so often led to war, and it had taken awhile for David to accept the fact that she was more intellectual than he and wasn’t talking down to him. It was her British accent that created that impression. She spoke so beautifully that he worried about what he figured would be the inevitable clash between Georgina and his friend Aussie. Well maybe everything would be all right — maybe the same thing that happened to the Australian once he’d met and fallen head over heels for the Alexsandra Malof woman would occur and he would show his politely spoken better half. Or was that the better half? Once they landed on the square that rougher side of Aussie would help get the job done. They would all have to be uncivilized if they were to go in and take the Zhongnanhai.

“That’s what I heard,” came a voice on Choir’s chopper, a first-timer from further down the line. “Chinks don’t like to fight in the rain.”

“Ferris, you’d believe any fuckin’ thing.”

“I’m just tellin’ ya what I heard. Right?’

“Yeah, yeah, you know that’s the same kind of shit they gave us about the Japanese.”

“What?”

“Said there was no way a Japanese could fly at night ‘cause his eyes were too fucking narrow.”

“Yeah, well, hell — that’s just plain dumb!” the first-timer said.

“That’s right. About as dumb as believing Chinks won’t fight in the rain.”

“Well,” the first-timer said, snorting with superiority, “you know the kind of shit you hear from the grunts.”

“Yeah, well just remember the moment you hit terra firma you’re a Delta commando. Remember what you’ve been taught.” He paused. “You’ll be okay. Hell, we’ve been through that mock-up ten times at least, right?”

“Right.”

“Five minutes!” Freeman called aboard Chopper One, holding up his black-gloved hand and making his way back from the pilot so that he would be one of the first to go down on the ropes. The worst part about fast-roping it was the downwash of the rotors — like a water bed on your head it was so powerful.

They had been flying over the city’s outskirts for some time, but there were few lights. Not only was the city normally dimly lit by modem standards, but Cheng had put a blackout in effect the moment he broke the cease-fire.

Up in the cockpit before he’d taken his place by the leftside door, Freeman had seen through the infrared binoculars that coming in from the northeast they’d already passed over Purple Bamboo Park, avoiding the high chimney between the park and the Beijing Zoo, and had started a right-hand turn above Xizhimen Railroad Yards, over the Xinhua printing plant and the bird and fish market where they saw the infrared blobs of white faces looking up at them from a gray wash of background — the market people being early risers along with the farmers and fishermen. They were passing by the chimney before the old Presbyterian church and everything went crazy, the sky lighting up in deceptively lazy-looking traces of green-and-red tracer and over the sound of the passing monsoon the steady bump, bump, bump of triple A fire.

Straight ahead the pilots could see the bell and drum towers across the Houhai, the top of each tower alive with triple A streaming from it, then both towers exploded from Hellfire missiles as the Comanches came into play. Now all they could hear was the rain and the explosion and the Comanches leading the Chinooks over the art college before turning right again down over Number 101 High School, the Ministry of Culture, Congan Hospital, turning right again over the Post Office and now hovering over the Museum of the Chinese Revolution on the eastern side of Tiananmen. Suddenly there was a terrific bang by the chopper, the scream of its engines, and the pilot’s voice: “In your seats — we’re going down! In your seats!”