The news prompted Beasley to call the captain. "Ghost Lead, this is Bravo Lead. I'll need to blow that transformer within the next couple of minutes."
When Mitchell and Smith reached the south building, only one guard had remained outside, thanks to Nolan. Smith had just tagged the other guy with an impressive shot, and the main door had split under Mitchell's foot as though it'd been made of balsa, thanks to years of martial arts training.
Now, as they headed up the staircase, en route toward Major-General Wu's quarters and the remaining guard there, Mitchell drew in a long breath and spoke evenly over the radio, responding to Beasley's call: "Hold off on the fireworks as long as you can. Looks like Chen's on the move in the north building. Change of plan. You move in and take him out."
"Roger that. On our way."
"Diaz?" Mitchell called. "Help him out."
"Roger that," she said.
Mitchell and Smith reached the fourth-floor balcony. They crouched near the wall, taking about a dozen more steps toward the major-general's door.
Suddenly, that door swung open, and one of the guards hurried out. Behind him came Major-General Wu Hui himself, wearing only boxer shorts and brandishing a pistol. Both men thundered directly toward them.
Their expressions changed as they spotted the two men crouched near the wall, but they were already too late.
Smith got off the first shot, striking the guard just as he was lifting his rifle.
Mitchell cut loose with his MR-C, hosing down the balcony with suppressed rounds and sending the muscular Wu to the wooden floor.
As Mitchell dove forward himself, Wu began squeezing off rounds and hollering obscenities in Mandarin.
Smith issued a half-strangled cry as Mitchell kept firing until Wu's pistol fell silent.
"Paul!" Mitchell rolled onto his side, sat up, where Smith was clutching his right biceps.
"Stings bad."
"I'll tie it off quick."
Mitchell reached into his pack for his medical kit. Every Ghost carried one except Nolan who, as medic, toted the full medical bag.
Within two minutes Mitchell had Smith's arm tied off and a big trauma bandage slapped in place.
"Let's go take a look," said Smith, lifting his chin at Wu's quarters.
Mitchell nodded, and while Smith double-timed ahead, Mitchell rushed over to Wu, his blood spreading across the floor like a dilating pupil, dark and oily. He lifted the man's head, making sure the folks back home got a good picture of his face. Then he rose. "Ghost Team? Targets Bravo and Delta terminated. Two more to go!"
"Captain, we got more stuff," called Smith from behind Wu's open door.
They had already seized several flash drives and two portfolios of documents from Xu's room.
"Take it all," grunted Mitchell.
All that gunfire below left Diaz struggling to do two things: get a bead on that remaining sniper and get control of her breath.
Even as she sighted him, he was sighting her brothers in arms around the castle.
Although he had yet to fire, she could already hear the crack of his rifle in her mind. The bastard was set up on another rock, unflinching in the rain, as though he'd been there for a hundred years, calmed by the spirits of his forefathers and waiting for the perfect shot.
The rain tapered off, just a little, the forest growing more silent, as Carlos and Tomas began to voice their doubts.
Not now!
She blinked hard then took in a long breath and held it. The reticle rested squarely over the sniper's head.
Adios. She fired. And gasped. He fell away, pieces of him hurtling end over end.
She swung her rifle around, positioning herself to face the north building, where the two guards posted outside had gone inside, presumably to defend Major-General Chen Yi, the NMR commander with the lazy left eye.
Despite the thick, earthen walls, Diaz could still see those guards as red diamonds superimposed over the building and rising as they mounted the staircase.
Both men drew nearer the wall. She could take them, but there was only one round in her chamber, and the magazine was empty.
After estimating the first guard's angle of ascent, she lined up, took the shot, firing right through the wall, striking him dead-on. The red diamond winked out. Chills spidered up her spine.
Beautiful.
No more time to celebrate.
She worked the bolt, ejected the spent case, dropped her firing hand back two inches, ejected the cold magazine, reached forward, and seized the hot magazine, slapped it home, reloaded, and sighted in on the next target, all within three seconds.
She had him.
But an odd, tingling sensation worked across her face, and the hairs stood on the back of her neck.
Abruptly, static filled her HUD as a bolt of lightning struck not five meters to her left.
The HUD flickered back to life, now showing a green diamond where the red one had been.
Two more green diamonds appeared just below the first.
Oh my God! NO!
Diaz had been so startled by the lightning strike that she had pulled the trigger, the thunder coming a half second after the click of her rifle.
Sergeant Marcus Brown had led the way up the staircase, and with a hand signal, he had told Beasley and Jenkins to hold.
The guard ahead had just rushed up a few more steps toward his buddy, whose ass had been tagged by one of Diaz's insanely accurate sniper shots.
Brown had charged up behind the guy, quads burning like they did back on the gridiron. He had leveled his MK48 light machine gun, a powerful and beautiful weapon used to preach the good word of democracy. He had fired a quick burst that pummeled the guard to the steps.
Then he had sighed, waved up the others, reached the dead guard, and was just stepping over him, when the wall exploded behind, pieces crashing into his head.
Then . . . nothing.
As Ramirez and Nolan neared Admiral Cai's door on the fifth floor of the east building, they smelled something burning.
There it was: smoke wafting from the admiral's half-open door.
Ramirez raced across the balcony, past the partially opened doors of frightened civilians peering at him.
He reached the door, which was hanging half-open, booted it in, and moved into the room, squinting and lifting an arm against the heat.
Flames shot up from the bed and licked the blackened ceiling. It seemed the admiral had burned his classified documents and other materials and had fled, but where the hell was he now?
Nolan, it seemed, already had the answer. "Joey! Down there!"
Ramirez rushed outside and glanced over the railing, where below one of the guards and another man, presumably the admiral, dashed across the courtyard.
Nolan's P90 submachine gun issued a quiet rattle as he tracked the pair, but his bead fell short, and they vanished beneath the awnings.
Ramirez was about to get on the radio and call for help, but Beasley was already reporting that Brown had been hit. Ramirez waited a second until his teammate finished, then cried, "Ghost Lead, this is Ramirez. Got even more bad news. My target is heading out of the east building through the south side door. I say again, he's heading out the south side!"
Fang Zhi had gone down to check on his men and had found their bodies. Seized by panic, he had sprinted back up to alert Xu, who was not answering his phone.
Now Fang stared in shock at the bodies of Xu and the comfort girl as the radio reports from his screaming men--what few remained--rattled in his ears.
It was over. And he might have called the other Spring Tigers, helped them escape, but he had never been given their phone numbers, only Xu's. They had kept him just outside their circle, and their lack of trust would cost them their lives.
There was only one thing left. The Brave Warrior was parked under the awning below.
Would he yet again be branded a coward because he chose to escape rather than stand up and fight to the death?
And what w
ould happen to him now? His only allies in this country were dead or about to die.
Fang stepped out of the room and eyed the rain. Ying Long was the most famous Chinese dragon and god of the rain. Fang asked him now to bring an even greater storm to the mountains, one that would ensure his escape.
Sergeant John Hume had been sent to cover the north side staircase in the event Major-General Chen attempted to use that route. The rickety wooden stairs rose about five meters, then turned up to the next landing. Hume climbed as furtively as he could, keeping a two-handed grip on his pistol, ENVGs lighting his path. The Zeus T2 radio-guided missile launcher that he usually packed was inappropriate for a stealthy job like this. Too bad. The element of surprise was gone, and he could use a nice explosion to lift his spirits.
A clatter of feet came from above.
He stopped, thought he saw a head jut out from above. Then a flashlight's beam suddenly blinded him.
He fired, wood splintering.
Something clattered down the steps: a grenade!
Hume turned and threw himself headfirst down the staircase, just as the explosion catapulted him against the far wall.
As shattered pieces of the staircase tumbled on top of him, he rolled over and pressed his back against the wall, as two figures came down through the lingering dust.
Despite his lost breath and the biting pain in his arms and legs, he thought, No, I don't die here.
Gritting his teeth, Hume squinted and emptied his magazine into the oncoming men. He broke into a scream as they collapsed and rolled down the stairs, falling at his feet.
The he reached forward, lifted one man's head. It was him, Major-General Chen.
Only semiconscious now, he tugged off his ENVGs and called out to Beasley. "Bravo Lead, this is Hume. Target Alpha terminated. One more to go. Need help here. Staircase. Please."
TWENTY-EIGHT
TRANSFORMER STATION
XIAMEN, CHINA
APRIL 2012
Maintenance Supervisor Tang Chia-jun coughed and squinted through the thinning clouds of smoke rising around the transformer station.
Once he and his men reached the breakers that he assumed were the problem, he took one look at the damage, and his mouth fell open.
Supervisor Tang had been working for the power company for over twenty-two years. He knew his job.
And he knew sabotage when he saw it. That new lock on the gate and the smoke had been the first signs of something much more than a routine repair.
Now his flashlight's beam shot up through the smoke like a laser and caught three gray bricks attached to the main lines. His breath grew shallow.
Just then, Tang's assistant supervisor shouted from the other side of the station.
Tang rushed over and found that the man had removed his hard hat and he, along with three others, stood near a small, robotlike camera humming softly.
Suddenly, the camera turned, jarring all of them. It rolled forward on its treads and seemed to stare at them, its "head" panning right and left.
"What is this?" asked his assistant.
Tang gaped at the thing. "I don't know."
"You don't know?" asked another of the workers. "Is this some new equipment?"
Tang turned back to the bricks on the main lines, then faced the robot.
He began to tremble.
HAKKA CASTLE
XIAMEN, CHINA
APRIL 2012
Roughly three kilometers away, inside one of the north building's stairwells, Beasley frowned at the Chinese power crew in his HUD. Were they about to run off? He wasn't sure, but he needed them gone now. A data bar in the right corner of his HUD displayed a preprogrammed list of commands in Mandarin that he could issue through the SUGV's loudspeaker. He chose the obvious: Go away. Fast!
"Kuai Zou! Kuai Zou! Kuai Zou!"
The men slowly backed off. All right, they were beginning to get the message.
Beasley pressed a button on his wireless controller, and a detonation clock glowed and flashed on his screen: 00:00:20, 00:00:19, 00:00:18 . . .
Not only would the rest of the station blow, but the SUGV was also rigged for detonation with chemical charges that would melt its components beyond recognition.
"Ghost Lead, this is Bravo Lead. Charges at the station have been activated. But I have two men down."
TRANSFORMER STATION
XIAMEN, CHINA
APRIL 2012
Tang's mouth finally worked. "Run now! Run!" He sprinted toward the gate, his men following, screaming their questions as a series of ear-piercing explosions came from behind them.
His heart hammering, his breath all but gone, Tang neared the fence when the concussion lifted him into the air for a moment, then slammed him into the gate.
The rest of his men joined him there, and they all turned back, breathless, staring in awe at the fireballs.
HAKKA CASTLE
XIAMEN, CHINA
APRIL 2012
Diaz ignored the muffled booming from the northeast as she targeted that door Ramirez had indicated.
Three of the four Spring Tigers were already dead. If she could nab this guy, Admiral Cai, designated Target Charlie, the mission was over.
But poor Marcus. Had she killed him? She was too damned scared to ask.
And Beasley wasn't saying a word.
She began to pant and could almost hear the rattle of her nerves as the door swung open, and there he was.
No, that wasn't him. That was his guard. There he was, just behind, turning now to the right.
She gave him just enough lead.
"Yeah, you didn't just miss the bad guy, Alicia. You killed one of your friends!"
Shut up, Tomas!
She took the shot, but the round erupted in the earth at Admiral Cai's feet. She cursed as she threw back the bolt and reloaded, never taking her eye off the admiral.
He dropped and began crawling around the building's edge, out of sight, though the red diamond IDing him glowed over the wall.
A green diamond suddenly floated into view.
"Diaz, Ghost Lead here. Hold your fire! I got him."
Mitchell and Smith had just emerged from the south building and dove forward onto their guts. They had a perfect bead on the admiral, whose guard had dropped in behind him. Mitchell held his breath, about to fire.
But Smith reacted first, cutting loose with his MR-C. The guard and the admiral shook violently as Smith's rounds drummed them into unceremonious death.
"Nice," gasped Mitchell.
Smith groaned and replied, "Thanks."
Mitchell called up Beasley's camera in the HUD, which showed the sergeant dashing across the castle grounds. "Bravo Lead, I need a SITREP."
"I'm here, Captain. Brown's down, but he's alive, unconscious. I'm en route to Hume's position. Not sure about him yet. Bo's got Marcus."
"You need help?"
"I think we're good."
"Roger that. Everybody else? All targets have been terminated. Fall back on the SUVs! Move, move, move!"
"Yeah, that's easy for him to say," griped Jenkins.
Sergeant Marcus Brown was still lying in the staircase. Diaz's round had missed him by a fraction of an inch, but debris from the wall had struck him in the head. That, along with tumbling down a dozen wooden steps, had knocked him out cold.
Jenkins had already checked Brown's pupils to see if they were equal and reactive to light, which they were, and he had already checked Brown's ears for any fluids; they were clear. In a perfect world, they would immobilize Brown's neck and haul him out on a portable litter.
In Jenkins's world, he was charged with carrying his buddy on his back, pack-mule style.
He carefully lifted Brown and started down the stairs, the wood creaking and bending with every step. Between Brown's massive physique and his weaponry, it took a blinding amount of force to bring him down.
Outside, Jenkins sloshed forward as more wind whipped through, carrying a fresh wall of rain. Despite all tho
se hours in the gym, the load was now too much. He collapsed to his knees and lowered his buddy to the ground. "Ghost Lead, Jenkins here. I have Brown, but I need help."