The Ecuadorian general stared at her, confused. She said, “General, I asked you a few days ago to show me your perimeter security posts. You declined. You said that you did not have time.”
He gulped. “I…” He kept shaking his head. Gone was the machismo.
Lena knew that a few thoughts were making their way through his inferior brain. He was wondering if he had misjudged what level of authority Lena held. He was asking himself to reevaluate why the Chinese needed so many troops here on this base. And he was beginning to feel afraid of what this tall, scarred Asian woman who stood before him might do.
“General, this morning your president — the president of Ecuador — pledged allegiance to our cause. In doing so, he promised that Ecuadorian armed forces would serve under the oversight of Chinese military. You should now consider yourself under my command. So I ask you, why were your base security measures so lax? Why did you fail us last night?”
The general’s face reddened. He didn’t speak.
“What’s the matter, General? I will give you all the time you want to answer.”
He cleared his throat, gathering his courage. Looking back and forth between Lena and the rows of Chinese commandos. Some of their eyes were no longer looking straight ahead, but at him.
The general said, “You are not in charge. I am the general. You are—”
She marched off the platform and slapped him, open-handed, across the face.
He brought his hand up to his cheek, staring back at her in disbelief. Then anger came. He raised his right hand and, in the slowest windup Lena could ever recall witnessing, attempted to strike her face.
It was child’s play for her. She stepped to her right and with both hands grabbed his right bicep and the upper left section of his uniform. She gripped, twisted, and turned forward, using his momentum against him. The overweight general was flipped over onto his back, landing faceup on the pavement.
He lay gasping for breath on the ground.
Lena looked up at the Chinese colonel. “Sidearm, please” was all she said.
The colonel’s eyes widened, but he complied. His fingers fumbled around at the holster, but then he handed her the weapon.
Lena said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “General, you have chosen to reject the authority of China, and of your own president. As the senior representative of the Chinese government on this base, I hereby find you guilty of treason.”
At the sight of Lena holding a handgun to the general’s forehead, the Ecuadorian staff began to object. But Lena was too quick.
A single gunshot rang out.
The Ecuadorians’ mouths opened. Blood drained from a single hole in the general’s forehead.
She then turned to the Ecuadorian staff. “Who’s the next in command?”
Two of them actually pointed at the other. She looked at one of them and smiled. “Excellent. Congratulations on your promotion. A warning. Don’t let this happen again. Now, your government has pledged that your men will report to us. We can confirm with them on the phone later today. But from now on, your men will report up through the Chinese base commander. Is that understood?”
The scared Ecuadorian officer nodded quickly.
“Good.”
She turned to the Chinese base commander. “Colonel, if you could please see to it that none of our new Ecuadorian conscripts have second thoughts.”
He nodded, still in shock that she had just executed the Ecuadorian general.
Lena turned to the lieutenant colonel in charge of the Leishen Commandos. “Give me two platoons of your men. We have some hunting to do.”
“Good God.”
Chase took his eye away from the spotter scope and looked down at the dirt. His breathing was heavy. Who was this woman? She was a monster. How could this be the same person he’d been with in Dubai?
As Chase watched her, she handed her sidearm back to the Chinese officer, turned from the group she was with and began walking with a thin, brown-skinned man.
Chase searched his memory for the name. Natesh Chaudry. That had to be the American consultant David had worked with on the Red Cell island. The one who was working with Lena and Jinshan.
The pair walked over to the adjacent hangar, where a different group of Chinese soldiers were rolling some type of covered platform out onto the flight line. They threw off the tarp cover, revealing several dozen machines spread out across a flat white surface.
“What are those?” asked Calhoun.
They looked like giant metal spiders. Or…
“They’re drones,” said Chase.
One of the soldiers next to Lena typed on a laptop computer. All twelve quadcopter drones rose in unison, hovering twenty feet above the pavement. Each of the quadcopters had several round protrusions underneath. Chase had received briefs on these things. They were the newest iteration of weaponized drones. Small quadcopters, controlled by ground troops. They could be used to hold a variety of items. Cameras. Sensors. Bombs.
The drones spread out and began heading toward their mountain.
“Oh shit.”
Chase said, “I don’t know what kind of sensors those things have, but if they start looking around over here, they could find us pretty quick.”
Captain Calhoun called out, “Alright, folks, let’s get a move on. We’re heading to the extraction LZ right now.” The Marines leapt up from their positions and began moving.
Chase kept watching through his scope. They were rolling out a second drone platform, lining it up next to the first.
The last thing Chase saw before he high-tailed it out of there was the second set of drones taking off.
Lena stood fifty meters behind the drones, but she paid them no attention. She was looking through a set of binoculars. They were pointed up into the jungle-covered hills, where Chase and his team were located.
16
The drone swarm buzzed overhead, sounding like giant wasps. Chase hoped that the canopy of rainforest might provide some cover. The noise made the group tense.
The Marines were spread out in a column about fifty yards long, half-walking, half-jogging. The men in the front cut through the vines and thick jungle brush with machetes every few feet.
They came upon a muddy road. The first few Marines hunched down on either side, only a few feet into the vegetation. They used hand signals to cross. Quick and quiet. The sun was still high overhead. The mist had cleared away.
But always, that buzzing noise. The drones were up there. Watching.
Captain Calhoun said, “Gunny, how we doing?”
Gunnery Sergeant Dalby tapped the Marine next to him and they both stopped. Darby spread out the map on the second Marine’s back.
“Sir, we have about another hour, and we should be at the LZ.”
“Alright, I’m gonna make the call.”
Darby nodded.
Chase was staying quiet, keeping up while carrying the heavy pack that contained the crypto key.
Calhoun took out his radio and extended the antennae. He typed in a preplanned code. The two US Army H-60s were spinning on a small grass landing strip just over the Colombian border. The Blackhawks were part of the Army’s First Battalion, 228th Aviation Regiment. They were part of Joint Task Force Bravo, out of Central America. General Schwartz had requested two of their aircraft to participate in this highly classified mission.
The crew chief in the lead H-60 had been waiting for the Marine Raider radio signal, notifying them to head to the extraction zone. Within one minute of receiving the notification, they were flying to the landing zone at one hundred and twenty knots. The crew chief also sent a signal back, indicating that they were on the way.