Capital Offensive (Stony Man) Read online

  Slumping in resignation, Julio slowly opened the lid and started to type awkwardly with his left hand.

  Even though McCarter knew that Kurtzman was monitoring any outgoing signals on the Stony Man–issue laptop, he paid close attention to the coded e-mail. The ISP was for a Colombian Internet company known for not paying much attention to international law, the subject line was blank and the bulk of the message was total gibberish, created by Julio running a finger randomly across the keyboard. Only the last word was a carefully typed: “Success.” Unexpectedly though, the screen name of the recipient seemed oddly familiar to McCarter. Snake Eater. Now where had he heard that name before?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Argun River Valley, China

  The ragged line of military trucks labored up the hillside, then came to a slow halt in a rocky field.

  Staying in the idling vehicles, the company of Chinese soldiers watched the steep hill with sharp eyes, their gloved hands tight on the grip of their deadly QBZ-03 assault rifles. The 5.8 mm weapons gleamed with fresh oil, the short 30 mm grenade launchers set underneath the main barrel a dull matted black, resembling the eye of a Stygian demon. The afternoon air was cool in the mountain valley, and their breath puffed misty white from grim mouths.

  Just over the next hill was the Ass of the Kurtzman. Not its official name, of course, but everybody knew what it meant. That was the route Broken Dragon company could take if they ever got the word to invade Russia.

  Tugging his gloves on tighter, Lieutenant Xu Chang stood upright in the Norinco SPG and scowled at the horizon. And where the Russians would come boiling out if they ever decided to commit suicide and attack China, he thought. But nothing was in sight except trees and boulders, not a road, hut or farm. Somewhere a waterfall splashed.

  Grunting in approval, Lieutenant Chang rested an arm on the big 155 mm barrel of the titanic howitzer and unbuttoned a flap on his heavy jacket.

  Pulling out a GPS receiver, he carefully checked the exact position of Broken Dragon on the vector graphic map. According to the device, his company was a good kilometer from the border. Plenty of distance.

  Smiling in relief, Chang tucked away the receiver. After the failed missile attack by the Americans, the Beijing high command had sent every border patrol to the very limit of the nation, watching for any sort of ground assault or covert invasion. The field lieutenant didn’t think that very likely, but a good soldier didn’t prepare for what the enemy might do, but for what they were capable of doing.

  “All right, this will do!” Chang shouted, his words briefly visible in the cold. “Shut them down!”

  In loose formation, the trucks, self-propelled guns and armor personnel carriers, turned off their engines. The vehicles were old, but serviceable, one of the 70 mm artillery pieces actually from WWII. But they chugged along the irregular mountain roads very well, even during the long rainy season. The mechanics at base kept every piece of equipment in top shape, even if an occasional bottle of whiskey had to change hands on the black market to get the needed parts.

  As silence came crashing down in the valley, a gentle wind could now be heard whispering through the treetops and ruffling the flowery weeds.

  Disdaining the short ladder, Chang hopped out of the vehicle and enjoyed the feel of solid ground under his boots.

  “Sergeant Wu, establish a perimeter guard,” he ordered, adjusting the collar of his jacket. “Ling, start lunch. Xi, begin the refueling!”

  The soldiers moved with practiced ease. In short order, the valley was a bustling campsite. A group of mechanics began to haul canisters from a supply APC and started to fuel the trucks. Under the snapping voice of the fat sergeant, a dozen soldiers gathered branches from the nearby woods and springwater hauled from the hidden falls. Soon, the smell of beef broth filled the air. Taking some heavy weapons from a 6x6 truck, another sergeant formed several groups of five and sent the patrols off to sweep the valley and hills.

  Spreading out, the rest of the soldiers got comfortable on the grassy hillside. A couple of men started to clean their weapons, and several rushed to use the nearby bushes. A communications technician opened a bulky laptop and was quickly surrounded by grinning men as he surfed for pornography on the decadent Internet. A deadly serious chess game began between a private and a corporal, drawing in a larger crowd than the pornography. Everybody else started listening to music on miniheadphones attached to music players, smoking cigarettes or reading paperback books.

  The valley was quite beautiful: thick green grass dotted with yellow flowers, along with some strange prickly plants that resembled a pitchfork and stood as tall as a man. Chang appreciated a lovely view, but much more importantly, the hillsides offered the company decent cover for the MRL trucks in case of trouble.

  These were the most recent additions to the planned upgrading of the Chinese military. First, the high command had upgraded their rifles to the QBZ-03s, and then came new assault vehicles: trucks, APCs, MRLs and battle tanks such as the world had never seen before.

  Which was how it should be, Chang noted with a swelling of pride. Machines were very important, but men won the wars.

  Draped in canvas, the two MRL trucks were parked at opposite ends of the convoy, offering their vaunted protection to all. The multiple rocket launchers packed enough firepower to stop any possible invasion and send the fat Russians running back to their drunken orgies. Communists who turned capitalist? Disgusting, Chang thought. He had nothing against making a yuan now and then, but worshipping money as a way of life was a poor philosophy.

  The crews of the MRL trucks considered themselves the elite of the company, and didn’t mix with the rest of the soldiers. Which occasionally led to fistfights, but never in the presence of an officer. The truck crews were eating packaged rations from silver Mylar bags, while a burly technician did things under the canvas sheet. There was a lot of banging, and quite a bit of cursing, some of it extremely inventive. Apparently something wasn’t behaving properly and the technician was attempting to correct the matter with sheer vulgarity, and a little help from a ball-peen hammer.

  “This will keep you going until lunch, sir,” a plump cook said, approaching with a steaming aluminum cup.

  Nodding his thanks, Chang accepted the cup and lowered his pipe—his smoking was a rare luxury—to take a sip. Excellent. Beef broth was much better on maneuvers than tea to feed the belly and fuel the blood. An army traveled on its belly. Feed the troops and they would fight to the death for you.

  The smell of the bubbling stew was spreading across the hillsides, and some of the men got out their mess kits to form a meandering line. In spite of the pipe and broth, the lieutenant’s own stomach was rumbling in anticipation, but lunch would be brought to him. One of the sweeter privileges of rank.

  Just then, the crowd of jeering men watching the porn stopped making noise as the communications technician touched the receiver in his ear and scowled darkly. With a curse, the technician slapped the laptop closed and started to run down the grassy hill toward Chang.

  At the sight, the lieutenant felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. He didn’t need twenty years of experience to know that soldiers didn’t abandon their pleasure for anything less than trouble.

  Stopping a few feet away, the technician threw a hasty salute. “Sir, we have air traffic coming from the west,” the man declared, glancing at the rotating radar dish atop an APC. “Ten unknowns at thirty-five meters, 140 kph.”

  “Helicopters?” Chang growled, tossing aside the cup of broth. It hit the cold ground and steamed slightly. Grabbing the microphone hanging from his gun belt, the officer thumbed the switch.

  “Alert,” he said, the words booming over the PA system of the SPG. “We have incoming helicopters from the west. Take cover and prepare for battle!”

  Instantly, the big pot of stew was kicked over to extinguish the campfire. Dropping whatever they were doing, the soldiers scrambled for their assault rifles and raced to take def
ense positions among the trees and boulders.

  The rear doors of an APC were thrown open and a corporal started passing out RPG launchers and grenades. The crew of the big SPG released the holding clamps and the 155 mm howitzer whined with electric power as the cannon rose to aim down the valley. The canvas sheets were ripped off the MRL trucks, exposing the honeycomb boxes filled with red-and-green-tipped missiles. Hydraulics loudly hissed, and the MRLs pivoted about, one aiming toward the incoming helicopters, the other facing in the opposite direction in case this was a feint.

  Sprinting over to the lead SPG, Chang stuck his head inside. “Corporal, tell HQ we have incoming unidentified aircraft!” he ordered brusquely. “Possibly Russians, but no visual yet. We will report again in ten minutes. If not, send in the MiGs.”

  “Sir!” the man answered, and turned to the radio built into the side of the SPG command-and-control.

  “Tell them our exact location, then go silent,” Chang snapped, grabbing a pair of binoculars. “Don’t tell the enemy the vehicle is our command base.”

  Nodding, the radio operator was quickly setting the daily code on the scrambler, then promptly began to relay the message.

  On a radar screen next to the radio, the luminous screen showed a flock of shapes moving fast along the valley. Suddenly the computer engaged and tags appeared under every blip identifying them as Russian Hind gunships.

  “Base, we have a confirm,” the radio operator said curtly. “Nine Russian gunships, classification Hind-D. Repeat, the Russians are approaching with gunships!”

  Stepping outside, Chang pulled the .357 Norinco pistol from the holster on his hip. Dropping the clip, he checked the load, then slammed it back in and worked the slide to chamber a round for immediate use.

  Only seconds later black dots appeared at the extreme end of the valley, moving fast and low over the fields of wildflowers and teasel.

  Raising the binoculars, the lieutenant saw that the gunships were armed. The wing pods were fully loaded with AA and AM missiles, and minirocket pods, plus array bombs.

  Softly, voices whispered in the lieutenant’s earpiece about the readiness of Broken Dragon. The company was also hot and ready to go. Nervously, the man licked dry lips. Unless the Russians had one hell of an excuse, this was going to become one exciting afternoon.

  Pausing a couple of hundred feet away from the Chinese convoy, the Russian helicopters spread out slightly into what was obviously an attack posture.

  “Stop whatever you are doing!” a voice loudly boomed over a loudspeaker attached to the prow of the lead Hind. The words were in badly accented Cantonese. “You are on Russian soil! Turn around and go back, or you will be taken into custody!”

  “Not likely,” Wu snarled, thumbing a fat 30 mm brass shell into the breech of the grenade launcher of his QBZ assault rifle.

  “Was that Cantonese? Do these idiots think we look like we’re from Canton?” a private growled, disengaging the pistol-grip safety on the sleek Vanguard. The Russians were too close to risk using the heat-seeker function, so he switched the surface-to-air missile to radar guidance, putting his faith into the weapon techs at the Junin laboratory.

  “Shut up, fool,” Chang snapped in Mandarin, the official language of unified China. “Sergeant Xi, check your GPS, please.”

  Maybe I made a mistake? Chang thought. It’s the end of my career if I made a mistake this huge!

  “Sir, we’re far on our side of the border,” the sergeant reported crisply, double checking the electronic device in his hands. “No doubt about it, sir!”

  Relaxing at the confirmation, Chang took the microphone from his belt and choose his words carefully. Russian was a difficult language to learn. Not as hard as English, perhaps, but still quite maddening with its bizarre syntax.

  “Attention Russian invaders! You are mistaken!” the lieutenant loudly answered from the SPG. “We have checked our GPS and you are over the border. Return at once, or we will be forced to open fire!”

  “I repeat, you are on Russian soil,” the pilot of the Hind thundered. “Leave immediately, or we shall be forced to shoot. You have five minutes.”

  “No, you have two minutes to get off Chinese land!” Chang snarled viciously, his hand tight on the microphone. “We will not yield to this feeble attempt to trick us into a retreat to show on your cable news shows. You are on the sovereign territory of China! Leave at once, or we will blow you from the sky!”

  The helicopters did nothing for a long moment. “You now have three minutes,” the lead Hind stated.

  “You have sixty seconds!”

  “Two minutes!”

  Placing the microphone on the belt clip, Chang touched his throat mike and switched the transceiver on his belt to a general frequency. “Ready all guns,” he instructed softly. “Prepare to fire on my command.”

  “Your time is up!” the Hind boomed, and the Russian machines began to drop lower to sweep forward in unison. “Throw down your weapons and surrender!”

  Waves of adrenaline and nausea fought each other inside his stomach, and for a long second the lieutenant thought he was going to be sick in front of his men. Then a cold calm filled the officer and he touched the throat mike again. “All guns, fire,” he commanded, the words puffy white.

  Out of the MRL came pulsating stilettos of flame that moved across the honeycomb as the banks of missiles launched in rapid succession. As the rockets streaked down the valley, two of the Russian gunships opened fire with electric miniguns, while the rest moved quickly away. Half of the Chinese rockets were destroyed in midflight, but the rest hit the lead Hind broadside and it erupted into a staggering fireball, shattered glass, bodies and pieces of fiberglass shards spraying across the field in a hellish rain.

  Now, the Chinese soldiers cut loose with their assault rifles, and the Russian gunships swept the miniguns along the line of parked vehicles. The barrage of incoming lead bounced harmlessly off the armed chassis of the SPC, APC and MRLs, but three of the trucks exploded. Shrieking in agony, burning men dashed from the wrecks, waving their arms.

  Instantly the Chinese launched a salvo of ground-to-air missiles from the MRL truck, and one of the gunships detonated. Then the colossal 155 mm howitzer spoke, the report deafening everybody within a hundred feet. The shell hit another Hind, punching in the hull and coming out the other side before exploding. But then six of the remaining Hinds unleashed missiles that slammed into the SMG and the lead MRL truck, blowing them off the ground in strident fury.

  The Chinese troops sent more Vanguards airborne, but this time the guided missiles veered wildly into the hills, their radar jammed by the Russian gunships.

  The last MRL took out another Hind, then it was also destroyed by a missile salvo. Darting about on the ground, the Chinese troops pounded the Russian with artillery. The gunships replied with rockets and a score of the Chinese died, torn into bloody bits.

  Snarling curses, Sergeant Xi launched an antitank weapon at a Hind, the meager supply of Vanguard rockets already dispersed among the combat troops. The deadhead rocket streaked skyward and glanced off the armored side of a Hind to smash directly through the cockpit window of another. The interior filled with flames, and the gunship began to rotate, spraying its miniguns randomly, the heavy slugs bouncing off the other Russian helicopters. Then the rotor came off and spun away into the hills as the battered chassis dropped from the sky. The tons of metal crashed on top of a group of boulders, and the cargo of munitions detonated in a wild staccato of dull explosions. Hot shrapnel went everywhere, ricocheting off the rocks, and a dozen Chinese soldiers fell, their uniforms reduced to bloody tatters.

  Explosions, acrid smoke, fire and screams filled the mountain valley as the deadly fighting rapidly escalated into total chaos….

  Sonora, Texas

  SHIFTING GEARS AT A TRAFFIC light, the unmarked van rolled through the intersection of the town and parked alongside the curb in front of the sheriff’s office. The brick building was two stories high, the
second-floor windows covered with steel bars set into the frames, not merely bolted to the outside as an addition. Clearly, this was the holding facility.

  Stepping from the van, Carl Lyons approved. Setting the jail on the second floor would make it that much harder for someone to try to release a friend. Smart.

  Slinging a nylon bag over his shoulder, Rosario Blancanales went to the sidewalk while Gadgets Schwarz pressed a fob on his key chain to set the security systems of the nondescript vehicle. The old van was their rolling command base on a mission, carrying an arsenal of weapons, medical supplies, fake ID, changes of clothing, burglary tools and a small electronics lab. Modified by Schwarz and Cowboy Kissinger, the vehicle was able to protect itself from car-jackers with electric stun guns built into the door handles, and BZ gas grenades hidden under the seats for anybody determined enough to get inside. If all else failed, any member of Able Team could trip the self-destruct with a simple phone call, and five blocks of thermite would instantly reduce the million-dollar vehicle into a bubbling puddle of steel.

  Pushing their way through the door, the Able Team paused to soak in the deliciously cool air-conditioning of the sheriff’s office. It was easily more than one hundred degrees outside, and stepping from their plane at the abandoned military airfield fifty miles outside of Sonora had been like entering a blast furnace. Even before the men had cycled down the ramp of the Hercules to unloaded the van, they were dripping with sweat and bitterly sorry they hadn’t taken Kissinger’s sage advice and brought along Stetson hats and neckerchiefs. There were only baseball caps and sunglasses in the equipment locker. Standard FBI issue. They didn’t help much, but were a lot better than nothing.

  During the long, hot ride into town, the Stony Man commandos noticed that every house they saw had a flower box, the colorful plants carefully situated under a wide awning for some vital shade. Water sprinklers formed shimmering rainbows as they struggled to keep the lawns green, and ivy seemed to be growing over everything that stood still.