Paul Kavanagh raised his head. His right knee throbbed and he didn’t know if he could go on. That had been one lucky shot. Taking his stubby launcher, Paul aimed it at the pile of car wrecks. The shots came from there. It stood to reason therefore that Chinese commandos hid there, using lasers to guide the artillery.
Pop—whoosh—the fat missile sped for the pileup.
“I went nuclear,” Paul said. The platoon didn’t have any more of those rounds left.
He watched, and he ducked his faceplate against the ground. The wrecks were too close. Still, a little radiation through the powered armor was better than artillery shells killing him through collision.
BOOM! A mushroom cloud billowed upward, and metal wrecks flew everywhere.
“Start crawling,” Paul said. “When you can, get up and keep going.”
Romo tried to answer. Paul could tell the assassin spoke, but that was it. He couldn’t hear the actual words through the harsh static.
Okay, buddy, let’s get up and get going. Inside his helmet, Paul gritted his teeth. His right knee ached. That’s the way to disable us. The soldier who shot me was clever, but not clever enough.
Dialing painkillers, gulping several as if they were slimy pieces of squid, Paul forced himself to his feet. He visibly checked the knee. A dent stared back at him. The attempt to move his right knee brought success. All right, then, it was time to get going.
Paul jumped, and he shouted at the pain. Should he wait until the painkillers kicked in? The rest of the platoon had already started moving. The artillery still rained, and some shrapnel knocked Marines around. Most of them got back up, but not all. Fortunately, without the lasers to guide the 120mm, they weren’t hitting individual men.
I have to get out of the kill zone. I can’t afford to wait.
Trembling from the pain, Paul took another step, another, and he jumped. Upon landing, agony shot like a bolt up his leg into his groin. Well, that was too damn bad for him. He had a job to do, and he planned to be there when the Marines went in for the kill at the Taiyuan PBW Station.
Anna Chen looked up as Levin set a cup of coffee beside her. She sat to the side at a smaller table. Harold, Alan and McGraw had their heads together at the big table, discussing something in a heated whisper.
“The Daniel Boone is gone,” Levin said quietly. “That makes the last one.”
“Did we expect any of the Orion ships to survive?”
“No,” Levin said. “But in those matters, it’s good to be surprised.”
“Are we really going to use ICBMs?”
“What do you think?” Levin asked.
Anna nodded.
“You always were a good analyst,” Levin said, half turned away from her.
“I notice Hicks is here,” she said.
Levin said nothing, but she could feel his worry.
“Threatening nuclear war is one thing,” Anna said. “Indulging in it is another matter entirely.”
Levin’s shoulders loosened, probably because she hadn’t continued to talk about Hicks. He glanced at her and then looked away. “Will Chairman Hong order a full Chinese strike against us?”
“I’d consider that very possible,” she said.
“Even if it means China’s destruction in return?” asked Levin.
“When Chairman Hong dies, the world dies with him.”
Levin nodded. “I thought it would be something like that. By the way, how certain are you about this?”
“You want probabilities?” she asked.
“That would be nice.”
“Ninety-nine percent,” she said.
He nodded again. “What do you recommend we do?”
“Does it matter?”
“Possibly,” he said.
She looked up at him, and the urge to ask Levin what he planned to do here with Hicks almost made her pop the question. “I’m not sure,” she said finally. “Hong will agree to anything to keep us from launching the ICBMs. He’ll agree but go back on his word later. He’ll play for time in order to repair his PBW stations—provided we can destroy them.”
“Can’t he see reason?”
“He sees his strengths,” Anna said. “He owns Mexico. With the five million troops there, he realizes it’s a powerful card to play against us. If Russia backs out of the China War… America can’t defeat the country on its own.”
“At least not without our ICBMs.”
“Do you believe in mass murder?”
“Only if that’s the only option,” Levin whispered.
Before Anna could utter a rebuttal, Levin moved away. She watched him merge into the crowd. The aroma of coffee caused her to stare at the cup. Steam rose from it. She took the handle and sipped. Hmmm, it was good. Yes, it was better than what David used to serve.
Why had Levin brought Hicks? Why did armed majors stick close to McGraw? Did they plan a coup, or fear being knocked out of the triumvirate? Harold had tons of Militia guards down here. He was the king. It struck her as foolish for the others to attempt a coup in White House Bunker #5.
She sipped again. A coup—how did that compare to the possible beginning of full-scale nuclear war?
From the launch in Montana, through Low Earth Orbit and space-dropped down into Shanxi Province, five miles off target was the next thing to precision. Paul scowled as he thought about that. The precision had cost them nineteen out of one hundred and forty-six Marines so far.
His right knee throbbed, but the painkillers worked after a fashion. He felt the wound, but it didn’t travel up to his groin with near-crippling agony anymore.
The men raced down a slope, bounding toward a giant clamshell on a nearby hill. Huge block buildings surrounding the particle beam station. The thing was like a circular granary, squat and powerful. The clamshell’s firing mechanism shield was built like a soldier’s visor. When it lifted, the particle beam cannon aimed into the heavens. Presently, the thing was shut tight, with five tri-turreted tanks clanking out to do battle with the Americans.
Using magnification, Paul spotted enemy soldiers on the roofs of the block buildings. They would be the last line of defense. The five tanks would be the final A-team the Marines had to tackle.
Even as he thought that, the first tank fired one of its cannons—a tongue of flame appeared. The penetrator screamed with speed, and it hit a man, killing the American as it blew him and his armored shell backward.
The platoons were out of nuclear missiles, but that wasn’t going to matter this time.
“Use your ramshell launchers,” Paul said. “If you don’t have one, keep jumping.”
He had one. He’d taken it off a dead Marine. Once more, Paul skidded to a stop. He lifted a long launcher, activating it. Kneeling, he raised the tube so it rested on a shoulder. Then he picked a target.
Vaporized butane fuel filled the launch pipe, injected ahead of a special depleted uranium penetrator. The smoothbore launcher was an inside-out ramjet. His helmet beeped. He had lock-on. Pulling the trigger released a small propellant charge in the penetrator, getting it going. The charge sped through the air-fuel mixture, using ramjet power to build incredible velocity, over 6000 meters per second. Because this thing was a recoilless weapon, a giant fireball appeared at both ends. The 40mm penetrator roared toward the targeted T-66.
All across the slope, other fireball blooms appeared with the velocity of low-end coil-guns. Instead of needle-like penetration, the penetrators struck with hammer blows.
The tri-turreted tanks fired back at their tormenters, taking out three more Americans, but that was it. The ramshell launchers worked to perfection—there were too many shells at once for the enemy’s defensive fire to knock all of them down. It happened in a matter of seconds. Hatches blew from the one-hundred-ton monsters. Flames licked out of them and one big tank flipped onto its side as the treads continued to churn.