It was so different crawling in the dirt under Chinese heavy machine gun fire than it was sitting on the rug at home listening to your dad talk.
“Screw it!” Jake hissed. He trembled from fear and adrenaline. He couldn’t stop it. But the thought keep pounding through him: How many times can I die?
With a convulsive shrug of his shoulders, he slid off the ammo pack. It thudded onto the dirt beside him. He shoved up to his feet and he ran for the sergeant. Were the Chinese using night vision? Sure, it was almost a certainty. What did it matter, though? You only died once.
Jake felt something: a terrible premonition that meant death. His neck hairs bristled and his body went icy. He launched himself off his feet as if doing a flying tackle. He thrust the M-16 in front of him and he hit the ground hard with his chest. The breath knocked out of him. Inches behind him something exploded. It lifted him, blew him forward so he tumbled head over heels. If he hadn’t had jumped, it would have blown him in two.
He lay dazed on the ground. It was crazy. The world spun. But something in him was on fire. Mechanically, he rolled onto his stomach, and he kept crawling. He spied the sergeant, the long twisted figure of a soldier.
“Sergeant?” Jake asked.
There was no answer from the man. There never would be. The sergeant was dead.
Jake lunged forward and wrestled the last Blowdart missile off the sergeant’s back. The tough guy had insisted on carrying it, saying he would decide when they needed it.
The Blowdart was a hand-held, expendable anti-air rocket launcher. Jake grabbed it, flipped the switches and lifted up onto one knee. He aimed the sights at the Gunhawk way up there, too high for their last .50 caliber to reach. The Blowdart beeped. He had lock-on, baby.
Jake muttered a curse against the Chinese and pressed the trigger. The Blowdart whooshed. He felt the blast on his shoulder. The rocket launched with vengeance and sped upward into the darkness.
Jake hurled the tube away. It hit on an end, flipped and landed on gravel. He grabbed his M-16 off the ground, climbed to his feet and ran. He didn’t look up. Instead he hunched his shoulders and concentrated on running as fast as he could.
Time seemed to slow down. He could feel his thudding heart. Air burned down his throat and each crashing pound of his feet seemed to send spikes up his shins. The shock of the near miss still messed with his perceptions. Then a terrific explosion transpired up in the sky. It had to be the most beautiful sound Jake had ever heard in his life, even better than the time Lucy had said, “Yes, I want to do it.”
One of the remaining U.S. soldiers let out a rebel yell.
Jake slid to a halt and looked up. Burning Gunhawk chopper lit the night sky with illumination like an old-time Very flare. Now he could see some of them flying Eagle jetpack whores.
Jake lifted his M-16, sighted the nearest, led the freak and started firing. In seconds, the flyer did a flip and plunged earthward. Oh, but that was a sight, and even though Jake didn’t know it, he was grinning from ear-to-ear.
From on the ground, other American guns opened up.
The Eagle Team flyers fled, but not before two more of them went down.
After the last of those thudded hard, bouncing up and crashing again, Jake turned to the others.
“Let’s go!” he shouted. “They’ll be coming back with more. We can bet on that.” He had to shout again until the two remaining Americans lowered their weapons and listened.
“What are we going to do?” asked a short Alabamian with a pimpled face. He’d been the one to give the rebel yell.
“Let’s check the dead,” Jake said. “But we have to move fast after that. First we pick the best weapons and—”
“We can’t head west anymore,” the Alabamian said.
“You want to play guerilla with the Chinese until we’re dead?” Jake asked. “Or do you want to get back home?”
“Alabama?”
“No, you idiot, the American Army,” Jake said.
“We’d better quit jawing about it,” Jamal said. “The Chinese will be back soon. They don’t like seeing their boys die to us.”
The last three Americans hurried, checking their buddies and the dead flyers.
“Maybe we ought to use these jetpacks,” Jamal said.
“You know how to fly one?” Jake asked.
“Naw,” Jamal said. “But I bet I could learn.”
“Look at this,” Jake said. “Jackpot. This one is carrying food.”
Soon the three of them stuffed their faces with Chinese rations. Jake kept chewing and swallowing rice. Then he heard the distant sound of helos.
“We have to go,” he said.
They did. The three of them strode away in the night, trying to put as much distance as they could between them and this latest ambush. It was now or never to get to the 285, cross it and head for the Rio Grande National Forest.
-2-
Plans
Paul Kavanagh stared at the angry, desperate old men. They sat in metal fold-up chairs in the cellar of an ancient farmhouse. A single naked light bulb dangled from the ceiling, providing the illumination. Behind the men, the harsh glare of light reflected off stacks of mason jars filled with preserves.
The basement was damp, cold and moldy. It belonged to a lonely dwelling at the southeastern tip of Colorado where the state met Kansas and Oklahoma. Each of the men wore winter jackets and all had wet pants. They’d trekked here on foot in the rain and through muddy fields to avoid Chinese patrols. Soon this wicked rain would stop and it would become cold again. True winter would howl down with freezing bitterness, hardening the ground and giving mobility to the stalled armies.
Romo sat in a chair behind him. Paul could hear the assassin’s harsh breathing. Romo had a fever and glassy eyes, but at least this was better than slogging outside. The truth was Romo should be sleeping in a bed upstairs or better yet, receiving medical attention in a hospital. But that would have to wait.
Each of the old civilians had a rifle or a shotgun. Some laid the weapons across their knees. Others clutched them upright between their legs. The point was: each carried, to Chinese ways of thinking, an illegal weapon. If caught by the enemy, these men would hang by the neck.
“It’s going to get worse,” Paul told them. “That’s the first thing you need to understand.”
The seven men stared at him. They didn’t want to hear that.
“If you’re not in for the long haul,” Paul said, “get out now while you can.”
“I’d rather die than be Chinese,” one of them said.
“Probably you’re going to get your wish,” Paul said.
“Hey,” the farmer named Smith said. “I didn’t bring you here to listen to defeatist talk. We mean to fight. We’re too old for the front lines, but most have us have been hunting since youth.”
“You’re not too old,” Paul said. “You could join the Militia. They’re taking anyone who’s willing.”
The men glanced at each other. Their expressions had the feeling of, “Why did we come to hear this?”
“Listen,” Paul said, “I’m telling you this because you have to want it so badly that you can’t sleep otherwise.”
“Want what?” Smith said. He was thin and of medium height. The wrinkled, lined face said he must be sixty at least, and held an AR-15 in his gnarled hands.
“Want to get rid of the Chinese,” Paul said. “Once you start, they’re going to hunt you night and day like you wouldn’t believe. They might even bulldoze your house or your neighbor’s house to teach all of you a lesson. They might hang your wife in front of you, or hang your kids or grandkids if they’re around. This isn’t a game and it’s not like hunting ducks. It is war, guerilla-style. Now, after you’ve thought about those things and if you’re still prepared to go the distance, then fight. Otherwise, go back home and survive this mess.”