“Right!” shouted Ramos. “They’re alien invaders.”
The two men sprinted to a pickup. The front windshield had been blown away, the glass killing the passengers. Ramos and Mick Higgins dragged the corpses out.
“I’ll drive,” said Ramos.
Mack grunted as he climbed into the pickup bed. Below were burning Chinese vehicles. To the side of the hill—
“Over there!” shouted Mack. “I see aliens in the trees.”
“Those are White Tiger Commandos,” Ramos said. He started the pickup, revved it and shouted, “Are you ready?”
“Go!” Mack shouted.
Ramos floored the accelerator and cranked the steering wheel. Then the pickup climbed the side of the hill as he aimed the vehicle at the White Tigers.
First Rank Lu Po lay in the snow. He took aim, firing at the crazy Americans in the pickup. An old man stood in back. The man had wild hair and he was laughing, swinging the heavy machine gun from side-to-side.
Beside Lu, Wang coughed blood and died.
“You shall suffer because of that,” Lu said. Before he could align his shot perfectly, three .50 caliber bullets smashed into him. They tore his body, instantly killing the hero of the San Francisco carrier attack.
“We did it,” Ramos said several minutes later.
The road below burned with Chinese trucks and commandeered vehicles. There were more vehicles and more Chinese soldiers coming, but this raid should hurt the other side, maybe enough to affect the present battle for Anchorage.
Then a Chinese attack helicopter rose into sight above the trees.
Directly behind him, Ramos heard the loud, chugging noise of the .50 caliber machine gun. Instead of diving into the snow and trying to escape, Mack Higgins tried to destroy the chopper.
A missile flashed from the helicopter’s wing.
“Ave Maria,” Ramos said, as he watched the missile streak at him. Then their technical exploded, and the two men died.
Paul Kavanagh waited with Red Cloud in a gully on Cross Island. Before them was a wide expanse of pack ice. Behind were low mounds of frozen tundra, with deceptive dips and gullies everywhere. A cold wind blew, although Paul was immune to its bite just now. Particles of snow blew like sand across the desolate ice. It hurt visibility, but it was nothing like a whiteout. Cross Island, along with several other small pieces of rock and tundra, guarded the approach to Dead Horse.
A Marine lieutenant had found them and the other American who had survived the hovertank pack-ice attack. The lieutenant had slipped out of Dead Horse with five hard-bitten Marines. He had rendezvoused with the last two helicopters. Instead of flying away, the lieutenant had landed on the ice, giving Kavanagh and the others badly needed supplies. Then he’d recharged their fighting suits. Afterward, the lieutenant had sent one of the choppers north, hunting for the enemy. It had never returned. Before its destruction, however, the helicopter crew had radioed the lieutenant information. They’d found a battle-group of snowtanks heading for Dead Horse. The enemy advance would take them to Cross Island. Likely, the Chinese commander wanted to reach tundra as soon as possible so he could get off the ice, even if for a little while.
“I know this is a risk,” the lieutenant told Paul two hours ago. “But this is critical. The Chinese hold Dead Horse, but not in strength. The approaching snowtanks would triple Chinese combat power there. So I think we should hit them now and keep them from joining.”
Paul glanced at Red Cloud before he told the lieutenant, “Captain Bullard said he’d give me a link to California once this was over.”
“Bullard’s dead, but I’ll see what I can do. Just give me a few more days. I know this is your specialty. The Corps needs you.”
That’s how Paul had let himself be talked into this desperate plan. Crazy. They were just a handful of weary men—less than fifty against thirty snowtanks, accompanying infantry on sled-carriers and supply caterpillars. Neither side appeared to have air, other than the lieutenant’s remaining helicopter. Paul and his men did have these Arctic fighting suits, and fully-charged again.
“I see something,” Red Cloud said. As he lay on his stomach, the Algonquin used a thermal tracker. “It’s the Chinese.”
Paul slid to the M220 Launcher. They had taken it off the sled and set it up here in the gully.
“Wait,” Red Cloud said. “They’re stopping and they’re still out of range.”
“What are they thinking?” Paul asked.
“Nothing good,” Red Cloud said.
More than ever, Paul wanted to crawl to the helicopter and fly out of the Arctic Circle. He wanted to see sunlight again. The Marine lieutenant thirsted for revenge, however. All he could think about was killing Chinese. With two helicopters, they could have been ferrying the survivors to somewhere on the coast. Instead, Paul found himself laying in the Arctic darkness in a gully, facing thirty snowtanks with infantry support. He hated these odds.
“Come on you bastards,” he said. “What are you waiting for?”
His fingers itched as he touched the TOW launcher’s firing mechanism. The Arctic night was a lonely world. Murphy must have been lonely those last hours lying in a cold snowcat. Paul still couldn’t understand why the Chinese had to gun-down oilmen working a rig. That had been murder.
“What are they waiting for?” Paul asked.
“We will find out soon enough,” Red Cloud said.
Lieutenant-General Bai was in charge of the Chinese taskforce stopped on the ice. He had fled from the main base on the pack ice four hundred kilometers north of Alaska. That base had vanished in a mushroom cloud of radioactive destruction. The Americans had used another nuclear-tipped torpedo.
Bai had fled in a tracked sled, much like a giant snowmobile. He had coolly considered his options. If he returned to Siberia, he would no doubt take the blame for the base’s destruction. He had been the officer-in-charge. He should have defended the base better. He considered General Nung, who had fought his way into Dead Horse. The general had little logistical ability, yet Nung had consistently advanced in rank. It was then that Bai knew what he would do. He’d gather the survivors of the nuclear attack and join the thirty snowtanks heading for Dead Horse. He would re-supply General Nung. Perhaps the brash general could produce another miracle. Nung had done so before. Yet in order to produce a miracle, Nung needed more troops. These troops Bai brought him.
“We are awaiting your orders, sir,” the officer in charge of the snowtanks radioed him.
In his command sled, Bai fretted. He was a logistics officer, not a combat fighter. There were American soldiers on the island. The soldiers could spot for another submarine. On all accounts, Bai knew he must get his troops onto dry land and off the pack ice. After seeing the mushroom cloud expand in the Arctic darkness, Bai had come to dread the possibility of a third nuclear-tipped torpedo.
“Sir?” radioed the commander of the snowtanks. “It is inadvisable to just sit here and wait.”
Bai knew that a bad order given strongly was better than dithering back and forth. “Dismount the infantry,” he said. “They will clear the way for your tanks.”
“Yes, sir!” the snowtank officer said.
Bai nodded to himself. The snowtanks had to crawl over the ice. Their weight was too great for them to move at speed. If they did, the tanks would create violent wave-action under the ice. If the waves moved too violently, they would crack the ice and the tanks would fall into the freezing water. That limitation had been one of the debilitating factors of the trek from Siberia to Alaska. Once the snowtanks reached the tundra, however, they would easily be the most powerful vehicle in this nightmare land.