"Come on, John," Benson said quietly, "you've almost made it." Creeping to the edge of the burned area, Taft could see the open space to the border was nearly eighty yards wide. He could only hope that the Chinese had burned the line inside their border and not yards inside Kazakhstan. If he could cross the open area and make it into the woods, he believed he would be inside Kazakhstan. The tree line was the key to living. He had to believe that — it was all that kept him going.
"The ground troops have just located a motorcycle," Yibo shouted to the pilot of the helicopter. "Fly south about a mile, I wish to check it out." At the news of the motorcycle, Jimn also ordered his driver to race south. Screaming into his portable radio, he ordered the troops to locate the trail of footprints and follow them. It was time to bring this to an end. Choi was too valuable to lose. Taft looked through his night-vision binoculars at the mass of humanity clustered around the motorcycle that had brought the pair to the border. Beams from the soldiers'
flashlights intersected as the troops massed, each trying to get a peek at the cycle. Then, as Taft watched, the beams of light took order and began to march directly toward where he was hiding. Taft had removed his boots; with Choi on his back there was only a single set of prints. It seemed his brilliant plan had fooled no one.
"There's only one thing to do," Taft said to himself as he clutched Choi tighter. With his plans in ruins, his only prayer was to sprint across the open space. He hoped he could outrun his pursuers. There was no other option. He began to run to the border as fast as his legs would move. The sound of a whistle reached Tafts ears around the same time a weak beam of light from a flashlight swept past his pounding feet. The soldier who had spotted Taft screamed into the radio to alert the others as he started running after the fleeing pair.
Punching their afterburners in response to the radio call from the soldier, the two Chinese fighters did a 180-degree turn and began to fly south. Yibo's helicopter was above the motorcycle, about to touch down, when he heard the soldier's call. The pilot turned toward the troops chasing Taft without an order being given. Hyperventilating to fill his lungs with air, his legs aching dully, Taft made a dead run across the open expanse. The weight of Choi seemed nonexistent as a rampant explosion of adrenaline coursed through his blood. Sixty yards across the open space, he began up the slope of die hill that formed the border. Taft's bare feet were pounding the ground with the intensity of a jackhammer in a paint shaker. Nose flared, he screamed a rebel yell.
A Kentucky thoroughbred would have had a hard time keeping pace. Jimn shouted into the radio. "Fighters, spray the border with your chain guns."
"What if they cross the border?" one of the pilots immediately asked over the radio as he removed the firing lock from the wing mini-cannon.
"They cannot leave the country alive," Jimn said loudly. "Keep firing until you bring them down."
Fifty yards behind Taft the Chinese troops started up the hill. If they had only stopped and taken a shot with their rifles they would have hit him cleanly in the back. Instead, caught up in the heat of the chase, they ran blindly, their rifles held low.
"Go in at an altitude of ten feet," Yibo shouted to the helicopter pilot. Dropping down, the helicopter flew just above the troops' heads. The helicopters powerful spotlight illuminated Taft and Choi just as they crested the hill, jumped over the top, and raced into the woods inside Kazakhstan.
"I've got you now," Yibo said quietly.
Streaking low from the north, the two fighters lined up for their firing run. The lead pilot was seconds from squeezing his trigger and tearing Taft and Choi to shreds when his cockpit was lit up with the blinding light of a phosphorescent rocket. Twisting his control stick, the lead fighter pilot broke off his approach. As trained, the second fighter followed his partner. Both fighters executed a ninety-degree turn to the east. Seconds after Taft entered the forest that signaled the Kazakhstan border, he was tackled by a man dressed entirely in black. Taft reared his arm back to punch.
"Stop, we're the good guys," the man shouted with a Georgia drawl. Taft quickly lowered his arm.
Choi was plucked from where he had been dropped by a second man, just as the helicopter carrying Yibo crossed the border, searchlight sweeping like a death ray. The next few seconds seemed to last forever. Dust and leaves swirled about as a loud whining noise filled the forest. Crouching and placing his hands over his ears, Taft buried his eyes in his shirt.
Like the phoenix rising from the dead, a United States Marine Harrier jump jet hidden behind the hill rose directly into the path of the advancing helicopter. Massive spotlights on the Harrier's wingtips lit night into day, while a second set of white-hot phosphorescent flares belched from the forward pods. A voice from both the plane's radio and an external loudspeaker overrode the noise of the whining engines. The amplified voice said in Chinese, "Turn now or you will be destroyed." Eyes blinded by the spotlights and the flares, Yibo's pilot jammed his cyclic to the side. The helicopter turned back from the border and hovered. The troops racing up the hill paused, unsure if they should advance.
The loudspeaker continued. "This is Captain Don Chin, United States Marine Corps. We are on joint exercises with the Republic of Kazakhstan. Any violation of the Republic's sovereign border will be met with force. Retreat immediately and maintain a minimum distance of one mile from the border."
At that instant Taft was grabbed by the shoulder.
"Now," the man dressed in black shouted.
Crashing through the forest, the four men reached an armored Humvee a short distance away. Taft and Choi were pushed in the backseat. The soldiers dressed in black climbed in front. The driver turned the key and without a moment's hesitation the Humvee raced away, heading west from the border. In less than twenty seconds, the Humvee was doing sixty miles an hour on the narrow dirt road.
The man in the passenger seat turned and spoke to Taft. "It'll take us several minutes to reach the plane. Do you need some water or something?"
"I've got some coffee in a thermos," the driver added. Taft rubbed his palms across his face. "Force Recon?" he asked.
"How did you guess?" the man in the passenger seat asked.
"No one else would be crazy enough to attempt a stunt like that. You're the only guys in the military that want to die for your country."
"Semper fi," the driver laughed.
"I'll take that coffee," Taft said wearily, "plus a cigarette if you have one." As the Humvee slid around a curve, narrowly missing a grove of trees, the marine in the passenger seat handed back the thermos, a pack of Camels, and a Zippo lighter.
"Kind of hard to believe," Taft said.
"What's that?'
"I quit smoking seven years ago," he said as he lit the Camel and took a drag.
"The shit is really hitting the fan, sir," the radio operator aboard the C-130 said as he continued monitoring the radio transmissions. "The ground commander, an officer named Jimn, is calling to Beijing to receive permission to cross the border," he said, rapidly translating the radio messages.
"Order the Harrier to back away slowly," Benson told the radio operator. "Keep a close eye on the radarscope," Benson said to the radar man. "If the fighters cross the border, alert me immediately."
"Force Recon reports they have both parties. They say they can see the lights of the C130 now and estimate their arrival time at about four minutes," the radio operator yelled to Benson.
"Warm your engines," Benson said to Brable, who was already in the pilot's seat, waiting for instructions.
"Roger," Brable said as he reached to the overhead panel and flicked the switch to spin the starters.