Ian Slater - Force of Arms

Norton said nothing. It would be more complex than that: a pile of paperwork, courts-martial, lawyers, arguments, counterarguments, the New York Times.

Freeman turned his attention back to Danny Ricardo— age eighteen.

“Ricardo, you did this of your own free will?’

Danny nodded, and for the first and only time during the interview his eyes met Freeman’s. “I like it, sir.”

Freeman sat back, shaking his head. There was a long silence. “Well, I’ve got a billion Chinese to worry about, so you gentlemen’ll have to forgive me if I move right on along here. I’m not going to court-martial either of you, but if I allowed every individual to indulge his or her sexual preference whenever they felt like it we’d be overrun in a week. Now you two and a few others from Charlie company are going out on mopping-up operations. There’s the odd red Chinese holdout who needs his ass kicked while I’m trying to fashion something workable here in Beijing. I fully expect both of you to distinguish yourselves by closing with the enemy. You start playing hide the wiener and open a gap in our defensive line and I’ll personally see you get shot. And I don’t want anybody talking to the media. Sons of bitches’ll turn it into a circus. I don’t want to end up on the ‘Larry King Show’ arguing the whys and wherefores of poontang. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Sperling assured him.

Freeman looked at Danny. “File says you’re a good marksman, Ricardo.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, we need men like you at the front. You leave right away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sperling, you too. You’ll both be assigned for DMZ duty also.”

“Yes, sir.”

Suddenly Freeman asked Sperling, “Were you wearing a condom?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s damn irresponsible. Norton?”

“Sir?”

“I want them tested for HIV before they go.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed. Now, Dick, bring me Cheng.”

Ricardo and Sperling both had the test and an hour later were in action along the new DMZ mat ran east-west, south of Beijing.

Danny Ricardo was killed by a mortar shell from one of the last ChiCom units to hold out. Recommended by Freeman, Sperling won the Bronze Star for going out under heavy fire and bringing Danny in. Medics had to wait a quarter hour before the distraught Sperling would give up the body.

The USS Reagan was at four hundred feet when Captain Robert Brentwood heard, “Sonar contact, possible hostile submarine, bearing one three two! Range, eleven miles.” Brentwood stepped calmly up onto the attack island. “Very well. Man battle stations.”

“Man battle stations, aye, sir,” a seaman repeated, pressing the yellow button, a pulsing F sharp sounding throughout the ship.

“Diving officer, periscope depth,” Brentwood ordered.

“Periscope depth, aye, sir.”

Brentwood’s right hand reached up, taking the mike from its cradle without him even looking at it. “This is the captain. I have the con. Commander Rolston retains the deck.”

Beneath the greenish light over the sonar consoles the operator advised, “Range ten point seven miles. Possible hostile by nature of sound.”

“Up scope,” Brentwood ordered. “Ahead two-thirds.” He wanted to make sure that the possible hostile sub did not have any surface companion, though he should have heard them on sonar by now unless they were absolutely still in the water.

“Scope’s breaking,” one of the watchmen reported. “Scope’s clear.” Brentwood’s hand flicked down the scope’s arms, and he seemed glued to the eye cups as he moved around with the scope. On the COMPAC screen Rolston could see the dot, moving at about twelve knots.

Brentwood could see nothing topside — no surface ships. “Down scope.” He turned to the sonar man. “Range, sonar?”

“Ten point nine miles,” the reply came.

“Range every thousand yards.”

“Range every thousand yards, aye, sir. Range nineteen thousand yards.”

“Nineteen thousand yards,” Brentwood confirmed. The possible hostile sub was well within firing range. “Officer of the deck, confirm MOSS tube number.”

“MOSS in aft tube five, sir.”

“Very well. Angle on the bow,” Brentwood said, “starboard four point five.”

“Check,” the confirmation came.

“Range?” Brentwood asked again.

“Eighteen thousand five hundred yards.”

“Eighteen thousand five hundred yards,” Brentwood repeated. “Firing point procedures. Master four three. Tube one.”

“Firing point procedures, aye, sir. Master four three. Tube one, aye… solution ready… weapons ready… ship ready.”

“Fire MOSS.”

“MOSS fired and running, sir.”

“Very well.” Now the MOSS, the torpedo that was rigged to give off a sound signature like a submarine, might or might not draw the fire of the other submarine, which, after Brentwood had checked what sub should be in what area, he knew must be hostile.

“He’s fired,” sonar reported. They had a fix, as the other submarine fired at the Reagan’s MOSS. Brentwood didn’t hesitate. “Fire tubes three and four.”

“Three and four fired and running, sir.” After a few minutes the torpedo officer reported, “Wire disengaged,” advising Brentwood that the Reagan’s torpedo was in automatic homing mode. ‘Three thousand yards.. two thousand yards to go… veering… veering…” There was a violent hiccup on the sonar screen, telling them that the MOSS had been hit, but in taking time to fire its torpedoes against the MOSS the Chinese sub had made a fatal mistake and given away its exact position. “Five hundred yards…” This time sonar put the impact through the public-address system and they could hear the wallop of the Mark 48 torpedo hitting the Chinese sub and then a sound like a popcorn maker as the enemy’s bulkheads crumpled one by one and the Perch sank, accelerated in its death dive by water pressure to an impact speed of over a hundred miles per hour.

Thousands of miles to the southwest on the high plateau that was the Chang Tang, Major Mah of the People’s Liberation Army had exited a cave and looked about for the soldier who was nowhere to be seen. Mah suspected that the man, afraid to enter even the shallowest of caves without a flashlight, was simply sitting somewhere in an entrance, waiting till Mah was finished. He saw something move, and it was the soldier ambling around a rock pile. “Didn’t find anything in there,” he said.

“Did you go all the way in? There’s enough daylight— most of them are only about ten, twelve feet in.”

“I went all the way in, Major.”

Mah didn’t believe him, walked over, and thrust out his flashlight. “Here, take it and make sure you go all the way in. I’ll ask for it back if I come across a deep one.”

The soldier was clearly much relieved. “Inspect that one over there,” the major ordered. “It looks deeper than most. I’ll check out these shallower ones.”

“Yes, Comrade Major.”

Once again Mah drew his Russian Makarov 9mm pistol and started in.

The soldier, with the new confidence the flashlight gave him, had already disappeared into the deeper cave, and almost immediately he heard a sound, like a run of stones. He put the AK-47 off safety and swept his beam about but could see nothing, the sound now further back around the bend in the cave.

He saw a pair of eyes, fired, but was too late, the snow leopard already upon him, teeth sunk deep in the man’s neck, already crunching bone, the man’s eyes bulging in the flashlight’s beam.

Mah heard the burst and came running out of the cave he was in, saw a blur of crimson on white, the big cat disappearing over the snow into the mist surrounding the rocky outcrop.