Stephen Mertz - The Korean Intercept

Li set Kwan aside carefully. He rose to his feet.

The dead and the dying were littered about him in what he had so smugly thought was such a fine shelter from the elements. He had clustered his troops, making them an easy American target. Some of those dying recognized him, and their cries of agony were like their arms, outstretched, pleading, in his direction.

He closed his eyes to it. He unholstered his pistol. He would think of something beautiful as he died. His ears blocked out the aftermath of destruction, the cries of the dying. He thought of how beautiful his wife had looked on that day they met under the cherry blossoms, when the world was young and there was a future of hope.

He placed the barrel of the pistol into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

The dull booming of the bombardment had given way to the stuttering and hammering of gunfire and much frantic shouting from very close. The ferocious close-quarters combat was magnified with a strangely cavernous echo, telling Kate that the assault on Chai Bin's fortress had breached his inner defenses and spilled into this tunnel complex.

She jumped to her feet when Chai Bin stormed into their cell. He held a pistol. With his free hand, he caught her wrist as if with a steel claw and tugged her to him.

Paxton sprang in his corner of the cave. "What's going on?" He gawked at the sight of Kate being manhandled.

Kate didn't struggle. She saw several of Chai's subordinates gathered in the tunnel outside this cave-cell. She strained to keep her voice steady. "Careful, Bob," she told Paxton, and she said to Chai Bin, "The question's a valid one. What's going on?"

"Everything has gone wrong for me," said Chai, his tone clipped and dispassionate. "The Americans have attacked."

Paxton said quietly, "God bless America."

Chai ignored this. "I have lost contact with my men at the shuttle. I can only assume the worst. We will withdraw now from here. I have an armed helicopter that is well concealed nearby, awaiting us. It is a helicopter shot down by my men a year ago." His chuckle was a gloating sneer. "It has been repaired. Fortunes of war."

Kate was summoning her chi as she never had before. "First you have to get us from here to there."

"Precisely stated, and that is why I am not killing the two of you. You will accompany me. The two of you are my passport, you see. Quickly now. We leave by this tunnel."

Paxton snarled, "Like hell," and flung himself at Chai.

Without hesitation, Chai lifted his right arm and swatted his pistol at Paxton as if batting a troublesome fly. Paxton caught the gun barrel alongside his head. He tumbled into the grasp of two of Chai's men, teenagers really, who had stepped into the cave to receive Paxton, one by each arm, before the astronaut could fall. Chai stepped out of the cell with Kate in tow, and they followed, dragging Paxton with them. In the tunnel, Chai flung Kate in the direction of two other bandits, who grasped her by each arm.

Kate saw that they stood opposite disorderly stacks of the electronic equipment removed from the Liberty and brought here. Her heart drummed against her ribcage when she saw three separate mounds of what looked like clumps of silly-putty, placed at intervals around the stacks. Plastic explosive, with detonators attached.

Chai observed her. "Those are five-minute fuses. Minutes from now, we will be gone and everything you see will have been destroyed."

There was a shifting of the shadows from across the tunnel, and Kate's breath caught in her throat.

Trev Galt said, "I don't think so, scumbag."

Chai's eyes widened in surprise. He raised his pistol and triggered a shot that missed Galt.

There came a high-pitched keening sound as the bullet ricocheted from the wall to the ground and then off at an angle into the side of the tunnel.

From the periphery of his focus, Galt noted a flurry of movement from where the two bandits held Paxton between them, near where two more similarly held Kate. He could also hear the shooting from nearby winding down to mostly small arms fire from around a bend in the tunnel, beyond this point. It sounded like General Tuttle's commandos were wiping out the final remnants of resistance there. Then his complete focus was on storming forward. His pistol remained holstered because he didn't want to risk accidentally wounding or killing Kate in the dim lighting. He saw Chai reposition himself away from his men, taking Kate with him.

Galt tore into the bandits, staying in perpetual motion, his arms and legs, hands and feet, working in perfect coordination to deliver a combination of lightning blows. Their response was slowed because their rifles had been shoulder-slung. He downed one with a sudden death Hiraken blow, both fists becoming club-like weapons that pounded flesh to pulp. He used a bone-crushing Empi smash to pulverize another's kidney, turning ribs and other bones to splinters. When the remaining two bandits tried to encircle him and take him from behind, he added lunging, vicious korgoruii "mule-kicks," stopping one with a fatal Nukite to the throat. At the same instant, the second man died from a Hiraken to the side of his neck. The entire mad scramble had lasted less than thirty seconds. Galt swiveled to face Chai, who stood with Kate less than ten feet away. And he saw Paxton then, crumpled up on the earthen floor. The astronaut wasn't moving.

Chai stood behind Kate, holding her in place against him, a human shield, an arm across her throat. The muzzle of his pistol was pressed to her temple. Even under these circumstances, Kate looked beautiful to Galt, even in her dirty, torn flight suit. Her hair was tussled, partially covering her face. She stood there with her knees bent, looking like a cat ready to spring.

Chai spoke from behind her shoulder. "Drop your weapon and step aside, American. The bullet I fired at you ricocheted and killed him." He nodded at Paxton's sprawled form, adding, "I will not hesitate to kill this woman if you do not obey me and let us pass. Then you will have come all of this way for nothing."

Kate said, "Hello, Trev" in an unusually calm voice. "I don't know why, but I sort of expected you. Thanks."

"Hi, Katy." He was the only one who had ever called her that. "Interesting mess you've gotten yourself into."

Chai's eyes flared like embers touched by the wind.

"You know each other?" He threw back his head and laughed.

"You could say that," said Galt. "Katy, have you found your chi?"

"As a matter of fact," said Kate, "I have."

She executed a sharp backward jab of her elbow, lifting her arm as much as she could in the bandit's hold so that the elbow sharply struck the side of Chai's head, jarring the gun barrel away from her temple as his head snapped back. Chai bellowed in rage, in pain, releasing her. Kate lunged aside.

Chai forgot about her and tracked his pistol in Galt's direction. He snap-fired. But Galt was already charging, weaving and dodging, and this bullet also ricocheted off the opposite wall. Galt launched himself into a flying drop-kick, the heel of one combat boot pounding into Chai's chest, the other boot smashing into the bandit's face in a terrific piston kick that sent both men heavily into the wall, knocking the pistol from Chai's hand. Chai assumed a martial stance and threw a reverse punch that would have taken the uninitiated by surprise because it was delivered with the hand on the same side as the rear foot.

Galt evaded the punch with a right block. Chai shifted his weight and feinted, a deceptively clumsy lunge that exposed his chest and belly invitingly. Galt refused the bait. Chai laughed and turned, and Galt turned with him.

"Are you afraid of me, American?" the bandit taunted. "I will kill you, then I will take this bitch and, when I am finished with her, I will throw what's left to my men for their pleasure."