Enemy gunfire erupted from the lip, each barrel blazing flame as several Chinese shot at once. They had to be on their bellies, wisely using cover.
Paul dove for the second time tonight. This time, he was hardly aware of striking the ground. Without the rucksack, it was like jumping onto a mattress. Behind him, a guerilla cried out in mortal agony. Paul didn’t need to look back to know one of the guerillas was down.
Paul crawled and the dirt around him spit. A bullet whined past his head. Paul jumped up and ran crouched-over, yearning to reach a half-buried boulder. Something hot struck his left leg. He stumbled, but managed to keep his feet. Then he jumped, pulled the assault rifle close to his chest and shoulder, and rolled. More bullets hissed like wasps. Chips of rock struck his face.
He looked back and couldn’t see the three guerillas. He lay stretched out behind his boulder, momentarily safe from Chinese fire. He checked himself, but couldn’t find the satellite phone. He must have dropped it somewhere. Fortunately, he still had the scroll. Rolling it open, he studied the situation from the vantage of the patrolling drone. The nine Chinese were lying in a line on the lip, using it like a trench. Each wore body armor and each fired a QBZ-95. The only good thing was Maria. She’d set up the Browning again.
Paul glanced behind him just as the Browning opened up. The .50 caliber had much greater range, greater reach, than the enemy weapons.
“Okay,” Paul whispered to himself, looking at the screen again. His three guerillas were down. By the angle and stillness of their bodies, they each looked dead.
How much ammo did Maria have? The answer would be the same every time: not enough.
“You have to use her Browning while you can,” he told himself.
Paul pressed his forehead against the hard-packed ground. He had to think. He had to use what he had, which was what exactly? He had intel on the enemy, suppressing fire for a few more minutes and some night vision with his scope. The enemy must have night vision, too, but they couldn’t see him here behind the rock. For the moment, they didn’t have any UAVs. He had to use that against them. What made the most sense?
It came to him. It was obvious.
Paul took a deep breath, rolled the scroll and jammed it back into a pouch. Then he began to slither on his belly, using the rocks and boulders as a shield. His goal was simplicity. He had to get behind the Chinese and pick them off.
The next few minutes strained Paul’s stamina. Sweat kept dripping into his eyes. The rough ground tore through the fabric of his shirt at the elbows. The stony ground did the same to his flesh. He bled, but that didn’t matter now. Maybe in some future life it would matter. In the here and now, he kept using his elbows as he slithered for his destination.
Fortunately, Maria kept the enemy busy. Her team had carried extra ammo, which she now used prodigiously. Maybe she was smart after all. Maybe the colonel had known what he was doing sending his little girl.
Did Colonel Valdez love America? Paul had his doubts. Instead, the colonel’s logic must have been cold and inflexible. On her own, Mexico could never free herself from the Chinese. The country was prostrate and shackled: a victim to the world’s greatest power. To gain freedom, Mexico needed America as strong as possible. If the Chinese could breach the US’s “Maginot Line” on the border and begin tearing chunks of agricultural land from the U.S., it would show the rest of the world it was possible. The South American Federation would join in the attack. The German Dominion would likely drop airmobile brigades to secure an eastern state for itself as it launched its hovers from Cuba. If “Blue Swan” really was a weapon that could allow the Chinese to breach the world’s strongest defensive line, Colonel Valdez would want the Americans to find out about it so they could fix the problem. That would be enough of a reason to send his little girl into the fray.
Victory can’t come down to this little firefight, can it?
Paul gripped his assault rifle as he eased onto his feet. Blood dripped from his elbows. Below him to the left, he spied the burning vehicles on the steep hill road. They were all in a line, and they illuminated the nine Chinese prone on the road’s lip and to the right and left of the road. Straight below Paul were rocks and shale. He was roughly three hundred yards away from the Chinese.
Gripping the assault rifle, Paul began to climb down the rough slope. He should have kept his night vision goggles. Instead, he had to move slowly, testing rocks with his feet, pulling back when one shifted. If one clattered too loudly, one of the Chinese might look over and see him.
How long did he have until enemy reinforcements showed up? The fact this was a “Blue Swan” convoy probably meant not long. He might already be out of time.
Paul blinked sweat out of his eyes. He wasn’t going to get it done like this. He was going to have risk to win. First taking a deep breath, he propelled himself off his rock, jumping down. He strained to see in the darkness, using the distant firelight as best he could.
He landed on a boulder and almost pitched off it. He couldn’t windmill his arms to keep his balance—they gripped his rifle—so he jumped again, sailing downward. He landed and a rock slipped out from under his left foot. His ankle twisted and he let himself go limp, crumpling onto the boulders, landing on his side. He crawled, panting, expecting bullets to rain against him. When they failed to materialize, he climbed to his feet. His left ankle throbbed. He set down the rifle and untied the boot’s laces. His fingers felt thick and useless. His heart hammered.
You have to keep moving. You can’t stand out here exposed like this.
With stiff fingers, he jerked the laces tighter, knotting them quickly. He grabbed the assault rifle, jumped down ten feet and landed hard on a flat boulder. He winced at the pain shooting up his left leg. He plopped onto his butt and slid over the boulder’s side, landing on dirt. Using the night vision scope, he examined the terrain. Okay. He began trotting. Each time he put pressure on the left foot, his ankle flared with agony. Sweat streaked his face and his left hip began to hurt.
Finally, Paul lay behind a boulder, below and to the side of the nine Chinese by about one hundred and fifty yards. His mouth was bone dry so that his tongue felt raspy against the roof of his mouth.
He climbed to a crouch behind a boulder, unhooked a canteen and guzzled. He waited, and he guzzled again. Sweat drenched his clothes. He was shaking. The idea of crawling away and getting the hell out of here kept appearing more appealing by the second. White Tiger commandos were surely on their way. Enemy jets could drop napalm on everything. The Chinese were ruthless that way.
“Bastards,” he muttered, picking up the assault rifle.
He rested his bloody elbows on the boulder, bringing up the scope and taking several deep breaths. He needed calm. He needed steadiness. He put two extra magazines beside him. He didn’t want to waste time later unhooking them from his belt. He peered through the scope, judging the situation. Maria must almost be out of ammo by now. Once he started firing…
“Get it done,” he whispered.
Through his night vision scope, Paul Kavanagh sighted the leftmost Chinese lying on the ground. The soldier had pulled back from the lip, clutching his QBZ-95 between his knees.
Carefully, slowly, Paul squeezed the trigger. The assault rifle kicked, and the Chinese soldier lay back, his throat obliterated.
Paul was in the zone and continued firing with deliberate precision. When the third Chinese soldier shouted, standing up before Paul’s second shot put him down forever, the others finally noticed. The fourth went down with shattered teeth and a gaping hole in the back of his neck. The rest began firing downslope, spraying bullets, seeking Paul. It was a good thing he’d screwed on the sound suppressor, hiding his muzzle flashes.