After estimating the first guard's angle of ascent, she lined up, took the shot, firing right through the wall, striking him dead-on. The red diamond winked out. Chills spidered up her spine.
Beautiful.
No more time to celebrate.
She worked the bolt, ejected the spent case, dropped her firing hand back two inches, ejected the cold magazine, reached forward, and seized the hot magazine, slapped it home, reloaded, and sighted in on the next target, all within three seconds.
She had him.
But an odd, tingling sensation worked across her face, and the hairs stood on the back of her neck.
Abruptly, static filled her HUD as a bolt of lightning struck not five meters to her left.
The HUD flickered back to life, now showing a green diamond where the red one had been.
Two more green diamonds appeared just below the first.
Oh my God! NO!
Diaz had been so startled by the lightning strike that she had pulled the trigger, the thunder coming a half second after the click of her rifle.
Sergeant Marcus Brown had led the way up the staircase, and with a hand signal, he had told Beasley and Jenkins to hold.
The guard ahead had just rushed up a few more steps toward his buddy, whose ass had been tagged by one of Diaz's insanely accurate sniper shots.
Brown had charged up behind the guy, quads burning like they did back on the gridiron. He had leveled his MK48 light machine gun, a powerful and beautiful weapon used to preach the good word of democracy. He had fired a quick burst that pummeled the guard to the steps.
Then he had sighed, waved up the others, reached the dead guard, and was just stepping over him, when the wall exploded behind, pieces crashing into his head.
Then… nothing.
As Ramirez and Nolan neared Admiral Cai's door on the fifth floor of the east building, they smelled something burning.
There it was: smoke wafting from the admiral's half-open door.
Ramirez raced across the balcony, past the partially opened doors of frightened civilians peering at him.
He reached the door, which was hanging half-open, booted it in, and moved into the room, squinting and lifting an arm against the heat.
Flames shot up from the bed and licked the blackened ceiling. It seemed the admiral had burned his classified documents and other materials and had fled, but where the hell was he now?
Nolan, it seemed, already had the answer. "Joey! Down there!"
Ramirez rushed outside and glanced over the railing, where below one of the guards and another man, presumably the admiral, dashed across the courtyard.
Nolan's P90 submachine gun issued a quiet rattle as he tracked the pair, but his bead fell short, and they vanished beneath the awnings.
Ramirez was about to get on the radio and call for help, but Beasley was already reporting that Brown had been hit. Ramirez waited a second until his teammate finished, then cried, "Ghost Lead, this is Ramirez. Got even more bad news. My target is heading out of the east building through the south side door. I say again, he's heading out the south side!"
Fang Zhi had gone down to check on his men and had found their bodies. Seized by panic, he had sprinted back up to alert Xu, who was not answering his phone.
Now Fang stared in shock at the bodies of Xu and the comfort girl as the radio reports from his screaming men — what few remained — rattled in his ears.
It was over. And he might have called the other Spring Tigers, helped them escape, but he had never been given their phone numbers, only Xu's. They had kept him just outside their circle, and their lack of trust would cost them their lives.
There was only one thing left. The Brave Warrior was parked under the awning below.
Would he yet again be branded a coward because he chose to escape rather than stand up and fight to the death?
And what would happen to him now? His only allies in this country were dead or about to die.
Fang stepped out of the room and eyed the rain. Ying Long was the most famous Chinese dragon and god of the rain. Fang asked him now to bring an even greater storm to the mountains, one that would ensure his escape.
Sergeant John Hume had been sent to cover the north side staircase in the event Major-General Chen attempted to use that route. The rickety wooden stairs rose about five meters, then turned up to the next landing. Hume climbed as furtively as he could, keeping a two-handed grip on his pistol, ENVGs lighting his path. The Zeus T2 radio-guided missile launcher that he usually packed was inappropriate for a stealthy job like this. Too bad. The element of surprise was gone, and he could use a nice explosion to lift his spirits.
A clatter of feet came from above.
He stopped, thought he saw a head jut out from above. Then a flashlight's beam suddenly blinded him.
He fired, wood splintering.
Something clattered down the steps: a grenade!
Hume turned and threw himself headfirst down the staircase, just as the explosion catapulted him against the far wall.
As shattered pieces of the staircase tumbled on top of him, he rolled over and pressed his back against the wall, as two figures came down through the lingering dust.
Despite his lost breath and the biting pain in his arms and legs, he thought, No, I don't die here.
Gritting his teeth, Hume squinted and emptied his magazine into the oncoming men. He broke into a scream as they collapsed and rolled down the stairs, falling at his feet.
The he reached forward, lifted one man's head. It was him, Major-General Chen.
Only semiconscious now, he tugged off his ENVGs and called out to Beasley. "Bravo Lead, this is Hume. Target Alpha terminated. One more to go. Need help here. Staircase. Please."
TWENTY-EIGHT
Maintenance Supervisor Tang Chia-jun coughed and squinted through the thinning clouds of smoke rising around the transformer station.
Once he and his men reached the breakers that he assumed were the problem, he took one look at the damage, and his mouth fell open.
Supervisor Tang had been working for the power company for over twenty-two years. He knew his job.
And he knew sabotage when he saw it. That new lock on the gate and the smoke had been the first signs of something much more than a routine repair.
Now his flashlight's beam shot up through the smoke like a laser and caught three gray bricks attached to the main lines. His breath grew shallow.
Just then, Tang's assistant supervisor shouted from the other side of the station.
Tang rushed over and found that the man had removed his hard hat and he, along with three others, stood near a small, robotlike camera humming softly.
Suddenly, the camera turned, jarring all of them. It rolled forward on its treads and seemed to stare at them, its "head" panning right and left.
"What is this?" asked his assistant.
Tang gaped at the thing. "I don't know."
"You don't know?" asked another of the workers. "Is this some new equipment?"
Tang turned back to the bricks on the main lines, then faced the robot.
He began to tremble.
Roughly three kilometers away, inside one of the north building's stairwells, Beasley frowned at the Chinese power crew in his HUD. Were they about to run off? He wasn't sure, but he needed them gone now. A data bar in the right corner of his HUD displayed a preprogrammed list of commands in Mandarin that he could issue through the SUGV's loudspeaker. He chose the obvious: Go away. Fast!
"Kuai Zou! Kuai Zou! Kuai Zou!"