ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (14 page)

Jie knew, in detail, the procedures that
were in place here and a holding area was not included, that is to say one
hadn’t been included six weeks before.

This was where fresh intelligence would
have assisted.

A hundred yards on and he saw the
lead vehicle in the queue move off slowly, continuing
for the facility but the remainder sat there a quarter mile from the entrance
and Jie left his squad in the undergrowth to recce ahead cautiously.

Half way along the column of trucks, vans
and cars he was able to see that they were being held by two soldiers who were
clearly not legionaries’ as one carried the shoulder flash of the 110
^th
Infantry and the other wore the maroon beret of the airborne forces.

The driver of the baker’s truck at the
end of the queue was listening to a music CD and jumped as legionaries appeared
at each window, faces blacked with camouflage cream.

 
“Autorisant
passé!”

The night and the rain hid them from the
legitimate articles at the head of the queue but they had to work quickly
before a further vehicle arrived to silhouette them for possible discovery.

The driver handed over the pass and then
left the vehicle to open the truck for inspection and the troopers kept him
busy with queries about his load and his movements.

Alone by the cab Jie leant in and ejected
the music CD to surf the channels until he found the local news station.

Delivery men worldwide consistently
collect polystyrene coffee cups, polystyrene fast food containers, cigarette
packets and newspapers with which to decorate the front dashboard.

Between the news channel stories and
speed reading newspaper articles, ignoring the obvious tabloid favourites’ of
who-is-screwing-who by identifying the cliché’
bylines
’, 
Jie gleaned an insight into local events in French Guiana since they had
departed from China.

The plan to tie up the troops chasing illegal
gold miners from Brazil had worked well, much better than expected in fact.

A television news channel had persuaded
the gendarmes to allow a news crew to embed with one of their jungle patrols to
better cover this increase of the illegal mining problem. The presence of a
young pretty reporter may possibly have had some bearing on the gendarmes
becoming a little over eager to please in the execution of their duties.

They not only turned away would-be miners
they encountered at the border, destroying their tools, but they also stopped
and searched
Garimpeiros
crossing back into Brazil, seizing any gold they were
carrying.
If the eight man patrol of gendarmes believed
the
Garimpeiros
would meekly accept the loss of their earnings and
would not seek retribution and restitution at gunpoint then they were at best
optimistic.
The gendarmes had soon reported the TV crew and
themselves were surrounded by ten times their number somewhere near the
Surinam, Brazil and Guiana borders. Nothing more had been heard of them in
almost two weeks. Under pressure from the media and the ministry the governor
had taken what action he could, bearing in mind that he had zero chance of
reinforcement from Europe.

By replacing the jungle
fighting expert legionnaires’ at the ESA and
Soyuz
sites with the as yet non jungle qualified, but conventionally trained soldiers
undergoing courses at the jungle warfare school, he had two hundred more boots
on the ground searching for the missing reporter, cameraman and policemen.

This was good news Jie decided, far less
chance of an awkward ‘‘Who the hell are you?” moment from one of the genuine
articles before they got inside.

Only here, out of all the locations in
sight of the ocean was the blackout not in place.

The ESA perimeter was covered with
pressure sensors, ultra-sonic movement alarms and lo-lite CCTV which required
no illumination, but the checkpoint at the entrance was lit up as bright as day
and it was towards this oasis of spot lights and 200 watt bulbs that Jie led
his troopers.

The approaching squad were under
observation as they approached, the barrels of a pair of ‘Thirties’ tracking
them unerringly from the moment the holding area soldiers had informed the
guardroom of armed ‘friendlies’ on the way.

Before them was a long stretch of
straight, level road with the jungle and undergrowth cleared for twenty five
metres at either side. That was a long way to go to reach any kind of cover
from view if they should need to.

They were committed.

Three and a half miles beyond the entrance
it was possible to make out the Italian
Vega
launch pad with a tall slim column in place and
illuminated by floodlighting. The lighting was not for the benefit of the
press, although it does make for eye catching footage and career defining
photography, the primary purpose is simply to spot problems such as leaks and
loose or missing inspection panels because at the end of the day even rocket
scientists can screw up.

Unlit and invisible in the rain and night
but only three quarters of a mile from
Vega
was the more substantial
Ariane 5
pad. Accidents can happen so at no time was their dual activity taking place at
both
Vega
and its relatively close-by neighbour.

Soyuz
though, was six miles distant and an
Ariane 5
rocket was in place there. Rain pelted its length, rattling off the casing of
its fantastically expensive payload package with a sound identical to that
which it was making on the rusted corrugated tin roofs of dilapidated and
abandoned fishermen’s huts near the beach.

Two miles closer but half hidden behind
jungle not yet cleared was the tall white final assembly building. The
Ariane
pads next customer was stood outside on a giant transporter that would deliver
it at 3mph, slowly but surely once the
Vega
had lifted its package into orbit.

Jie and his men arrived at the
illuminated entrance point just as the downpour came to a sudden end.

Once more ‘accidentally’ depressing the
transmit switch of his radio Jie sang softly and tunelessly. “…
v
oyez
…Ces oiseaux
blancs…
Et ces maisons rouillées…” He waited for the
acknowledging ‘click’ from the other end before he removed his bergen and left
his men standing in a group, chatting quietly together in a non-threatening
manner on the side of the roadway but studiously ignoring the French army
regulars who were in evidence.

A junior NCO checking the driver’s
documents of the vehicles that arrived and a second soldier ostentatiously
covering him gave the newcomers an appraising look before ‘blanking’ them in
return. 

Captain Jie Huaiqing wore the rank of a ‘
Sergent Chef’
, a Colour Sergeant equivalent, owing to ninety percent of the legions
officer corps being French regular army officers on secondment he would have
been asking for trouble if he had posed as one of the ten percent raised from
the ranks.

At the guardroom window though, he found
not a senior army NCO in charge, but a marine lieutenant with a broken wing.

A fall during the descent of a slippery
hillside on one of the jungle warfare courses cross country navigation
exercises had put the marine out of action, but at these ‘all hands to the
pumps moments’ even the walking wounded can be found a task within their
limited abilities.

The officer nodded and pointed to his
right arm in a sling by way of apology at not returning Jie’s salute.

“It’s always the one you can least afford
to do without eh, sir?”

“The essential ‘W’ arm, Chief.
Writing, waving and wanking.”
The marine officer replied
ruefully.

“And what brings you to these parts
instead of seeking out beautiful reporters in distress over by the border?”

By way of reply Jie fished out the
waterproof pouch from his map pocket at his thigh, withdrawing the book and
thence the written orders from between its leaves.
 

Instead of opening the orders the officer
turned the book, which Jie had placed on the sill and peered curiously at its
cover, a picture of a sea turtle was self-explanatory as to the books purpose,
the script being in Chinese logograms.

“You are a wildlife enthusiast, Chief?”
he asked.
“Plenty of that around here.”

Idly opening the front cover he looked at
the stamps on the inside for the briefest of moments before turning to the
colour glossy photographs in the centre.

Clearly not a fellow Herpetologist he
closed the book.

“Well each to his own eh, Chief.” He said
with a smile and returned it, opening the orders with a flick of his left wrist
whereupon he held the creases flat with spread fingers against the writing
shelf on his side of the window and began to read.

“Additional perimeter patrol, huh? I hope
you are familiar with the ground so you know not to venture between the yellow
markers and the fence?” he said glancing up from the orders.

Jie nodded in affirmation, emphasising it
with a respectful “Yes, sir.”

“Or every damn alarm on the place will go
off,
again
.” added the officer.

With a shrug the lieutenant handed the
orders back.

“You need to book yourself and your men
in, I can’t do it myself.” He added, nodding again at the limb in a sling.

“Not in that book!” he warned as Jie
reach for an open binder nearby on the sill. “That’s for civilian cleaning
staff…you need to unload your weapon and come inside. The binder is in the
corner and a bit heavy for a one arm bandit to carry across.” He grinned. “I’ll
buzz you through.”

Jie duly carried out an unload and looked
across the road to his men, making a surreptitious thumbs up gesture out of
sight of the marine officer at the window and the soldiers nearby as he placed
the ejected magazine in a pouch and secured it.

A faint nod in reply came from Corporal
Chui, his senior NCO.

On pushing open the door at the sound of
the harsh electronic buzz he found himself in a guardroom typical of those
anywhere in the world. Institutional light green paint from floor level, up to
above average shoulder height and then cream up to and including the ceiling. A
narrow rubber mat ran across a shiny floor and he knew without being told that
to step off it onto the gleaming and highly buffed linoleum would not be met
well. It smelled of floor polish, coffee and Gauloises cigarettes.

The marine officer had his ear to a
telephone when Jie appeared.

“On the table in the corner, Chief.” he
nodded to neatly arranged binders and logbooks on a shelf.

Jie however could see all manner of
labelled registers and books identifying the contents as Fire Drills, Mileage
Returns and archived Incident Logs, but he could see nothing to indicate a
booking in and out register.

“Sir, I can’t seem to find it…?” he
turned and the marine officer put down the telephone and smiled affably but
ignored the question.

“So tell me Chief, how you come to have
an April date stamp in a Shanghai library book when the war started in March?”

Time seemed to freeze, as it does at
those times of discovery for the kid with his hand in the cookie jar, the
burglar half inside the window when the light comes on, and the soldier with an
empty rifle.

He froze for a heartbeat as realisation
hit him. Somehow the French officer had been on to him from the start, and by
allowing him inside he had both lulled Jie and his men into a false sense of
security, and separated the leader from his men.
The sudden roar of the thirty calibre machine
guns outside jarred him into action.

Jie drew back his arm to fling the weapon
at the marine, to buy time to reach the Norinco inside his smock.

The marine officer had a Glock 17 held
with confident ease in his left hand and shot Jie twice through the chest
before the captain could complete the throw.

Jie’s legs folded beneath him, all
strength leaving his limbs he found himself on his knees, too weak to reach the
smocks zipper.

The marine officer crouched over him, the
pistol in his left hand.

Jie stared at it.

“Ambidextrous…” Said the officer in a
slightly apologetic tone “...and two years with the Embassy guard in Beijing,
in case you were wondering.”  He continued in good, but slightly accented
Mandarin.

Jie felt the floor tremble and a
thunderous sound announced the
Vega
rocket launching another replacement military
communications satellite into orbit.