Fear and Anger (The 47 Echo Series) (16 page)

“So, what made you want to stand up to the powers that be?” Nick asked, trying to change the subject.

“It’s a wrong action they’ve taken. Getting into this war with America, with the Russians. I mean, we didn’t start this thing, but we didn’t need to rush in the second North Korea got attacked.”

“Well, North Korea started it, of course –” Nick started, but Feng cut him off.

“No. America started it when they sent special operatives into North Korea to kidnap a minor government official.”

Nick wasn’t too surprised by this attitude – the media in China was all state-controlled. Of course they’d make America look like the bad guys, not their allies in North Korea.

“So, I’m sure you didn’t hear about the nuclear bomb North Korea set off in downtown Los Angeles?”

“North Korea didn’t do that,” Feng said, shaking his head. “Your government did, then blamed it on North Korea.”

“You have to stop believing the state-controlled news if you want to fight them,” Nick told him, pulling a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lighting it.

“I didn’t get that from the state media,” Feng said. “I’m not an idiot. I got that from an American web site.”

“Probably some conspiracy nut,” Nick said, blowing out smoke. “I wouldn’t put a ton of stock in that.”

Still, something about the statement unnerved him. He’d been around when the bomb went off in Los Angeles – he lived in Burbank at the time. A few hours after the bombing, the President had come on TV and simply told the nation that North Korean extremists detonated the bomb on the sixth floor of the Aon Center in downtown LA. Since that announcement, no governmental entity had offered any evidence against North Korea that he knew of.

He shook off the thought and took another long drag of his cigarette. He seriously doubted the US government would
really
detonate a nuclear weapon in one of their own biggest cities, no matter what the reason.

Anyway, it was a little late to worry about it now.

Chapter Nineteen

Occurrence on the Border

There was no guard post, no sign that let 47 Echo know they were crossing into North Korean territory. Two years and change before, they would have still been in Russia, but that had all changed when the war started. When the North Koreans struck at Inchon in South Korea (with Chinese air support), none of the intelligence analysts predicted they would move north at the same time.

But they did, moving up through China and southern Siberia before Russia could mobilize any sort of defense. The Russian military was dealing with its split down the middle, as well as a Chinese offensive at the Manzhouli Sino-Russian Inter-Trade Tourist Area. By the time the Americans arrived to join the war, North Korean forces had easily taken over the towns and cities of southeastern Siberia and effectively quadrupled the size of their own country. Resources were stretched far too thin fighting with the Chinese along the Mongolian border, and the Russian military command had decided most of the captured land was strategically worthless, so very little effort went towards driving the North Koreans south.

It turned out to be a costly mistake. With the North Korean forces coming from the east and the Chinese forces coming from the south, aided by pockets of Russian Renegades all over, Russia was surrounded on two sides. The best the joint American/Russian force could hope for was to keep the Chinese and North Koreans from advancing too far, which hadn’t gone well in the early days of the war.

In the two years since they’d annexed the huge areas of Siberia, the North Korean military had been busy, installing Army and Air Force bases, setting up listening posts, and expanding the People’s Liberation Army electronic frontier.

So the only way Christopher knew they’d crossed into North Korean territory was because Bryce told him.

“Back into the shit,” Christopher sighed. They’d been in this area before, eighteen months earlier, crawling under stealth to a lab just outside of Pyongyang. At least Mary still had some of the intel and maps from that trip – those might come in handy this time around.

“Daniel, keep an eye on those cameras. If any North Korean patrols happen to wander into our path, I’d like to know about it sooner rather than –”

“Chris!” Anthony blurted out. “I got the squawk!”

“Can you pinpoint it?”

“We’re on it,” Mary said, rushing over to Anthony’s console and taking her netbook with her. They were quiet for a moment, and Christopher knew better than to ask for a status. They needed time to work.

Nobody spoke for several long seconds. Christopher could even hear Bryce breathing next to him. Finally, Mary’s head popped up and swiveled over to Martin and Carson.

“They look to be following the path the program mapped out for them,” she said. “I’m feeding coordinates to the nav computer and your tablet now.”

“Got ‘em. You sure these calculations are right?” Martin asked, scratching idly at the scar on his face.

“Pretty damn close,” Anthony said. “They maintain this speed and direction, we can have them in five minutes.”

“Bryce?” Christopher asked, turning to see that his driver had the nav coordinates up on his screen.

“We’re still faster than they are,” Bryce said. “Less weight. I can get us there to set up the charges in two minutes.”

“Pedal to the metal, then,” Christopher said. “Carson? You guys ready to do this?”

“Shit yeah,” Carson said, grinning and hefting one of Martin’s duffel bags on his shoulder. “We put some extra explosives and any junk we had lying around – shell casings, a few bullets, some keys and coins – in the package. Frag damage. Might get lucky and shred a tire or two while we’re at it.”

“They’re travelling along this road,” Martin said, running to the front of the cabin and pointing at a narrow path on the nav screen. “It’s dark enough out that we should be able to jump out, plant the explosive right in the center, and detonate it from inside the Razor when Anthony and Mary give the word.”

“Great. Who’s on trap duty?” Christopher said.

“I’ve got it, Gunnery Sergeant,” Carson said. “I’ve done this kind of thing before.”

“ETA, Bryce?”

“Thirty seconds.”

“Roger that. Carson, get ready to jump. The faster you can do this, the better.”

“Be back before you know I’m gone,” Carson said, running to the Razor’s back hatch with the duffel slung over his shoulder.

“At the location, Chief. I’ve parked the Razor so the back door is directly in front of the coordinates Mary gave me,” Bryce said.

Carson was out the back hatch before Christopher had to say a word. All of the lights in the Razor cut out as he jumped.

Good thinking, Bryce
, Christopher thought. Under stealth, the machine only had low-power red lights inside the cabin, but the ELR might still be able to see them from a couple miles off in the pitch-black night. Carson was back inside before Christopher could even finish the thought.

“Side of the road, Bryce. Martin, stand ready to detonate as soon as Anthony gives the word,” Christopher ordered as the rear hatch clanged shut and the red lights turned back on.

Bryce hit the gas and juked the huge assault vehicle off the road. Again, it was silent inside the Razor – all Christopher could hear was his friends breathing. Now, instead of just Bryce, he could hear Carson breathing slightly heavily – he’d really pushed himself to move as fast as humanly possible, and the bomb package Martin put together wasn’t exactly light. Christopher hoped it would be worth it. He kept his eye on his Soviet-era watch.

A minute passed. Nothing.

A minute and twenty seconds. Still no sound other than breathing.

A minute fifty. Christopher looked across the cabin at Mary, who shook her head. She didn’t say it, but Christopher felt he could almost read her thoughts.

Not yet
.

He looked over at Daniel’s screens. The sniper had his cameras locked in on the area where the duffel was placed, obscured from the front side by branches and leaves. Carson had done a great job.

Two minutes, ten seconds. Christopher was starting to sweat, even though the blast of cold air from the temporarily-open back hatch had not yet subsided.

“Now, Martin.”

Mary didn’t yell, didn’t raise her voice above a whisper. She just calmly told the demolitions expert it was time and laid a hand on his shoulder.

Martin, too, said nothing. He simply tapped his tablet, and the ground shook. Christopher could feel the Razor roll slightly on its suspension, even a good fifty feet away from the bomb. It had been a hell of a package, indeed.

“Daniel?”

“Saw the bomb flash, but it was definitely under something,” the sniper said, bringing up a playback of the explosion on several of the screens around the vehicle. Christopher watched on the large plasma just behind his chair – the bomb had definitely gone off under the Razor.

“Bryce, turn us around so the missiles are facing the ELR. Mike, Pete, on the fifties. Everyone else, grab a rifle and go out with me,” Christopher said, shrugging into his body armor and slapping on his helmet as he moved to the Razor’s side hatch. His people got ready quickly, and Gabriel handed him an M4 as the hatch opened.

“What’s the plan, Chief?” Gabriel asked.

“We go over there and try to get them to give up. They start shooting, go for cover and let Mike and Pete pound on them with the big guns for a while. See if that changes their mind.”

“Works for me,” Carson said, pulling the bolt back on his own M4 and joining them at the door.

“On my three, kids. One... two... three!” Christopher said, and he and his crew jumped out of the Razor and ran across the road to where the bomb had gone off. As they ran, Gabriel caught his foot on the side of the road and fell, landing right where the ELR should have stopped. He fell straight through to the ground.

“Gabe! You OK?” Christopher asked.

“Fine,” Gabriel said, popping up and going into a defensive crouch, his M4 trained in front of him.

“Wait... where the fuck is this thing?” Carson asked, taking big steps along the still-smoking blast zone, sweeping his rifle back and forth in front of him and hitting only air.

“Fuck. We missed it,” Daniel said, picking up a rock from the side of the road and chucking it as far as he could. It clattered to the pavement a good hundred yards away.

“We hit
something
,” Mary said, still keeping her rifle up and at the ready. “Maybe it managed to make it off the road?”

“Everybody grab a rock,” Christopher said, sighing and letting his M4 fall to his chest. “Throw in every direction and see if we hit anything.”

It was a low-tech solution, but it was the best one he could think of. Everyone threw, but no one hit anything. Christopher even grabbed a handful of the cooling gravel from the blast zone and chucked it in a wide arc – nothing.

“If we hit it, it was better armored on the bottom than the specs made out,” he said. “Everyone back on the truck. We’ll have to come up with a new plan.”

He led his team back into the Razor, and as the side hatch closed, he took a look at their faces. The expressions he saw ranged from depressed to downright angry.

Good job, Chris. You let them down. Nick would have figured out a way to accomplish this mission hours ago
, a voice at the back of his mind said.

Christopher shook his head violently, as if that would silence the nagging criticism inside his skull. It didn’t. All it did was give him a headache.

“Gunny, we got a problem,” Carson said. He’d joined Anthony at his station, and had a set of headphones pressed up to his ear. “I just picked up something from a nearby NoKo listening station. They registered the explosion and they’re sending a team out to investigate.”

“Time to get moving, then. Bryce, follow the course. It’s our only bet at this point,” Christopher said, sighing and taking off his helmet. “Best not to be here when the NoKo patrol arrives, anyway.”

“We’re rolling, Chief.”

“Daniel, let’s you and me take a look at that camera footage again. See if we can’t figure out what happened,” Christopher said, crossing over to stand behind his sniper’s station. Daniel brought up the footage of the explosion and ran it again.

“Yeah, it definitely exploded under something running in adaptive camouflage,” Daniel said, pointing to the flat, low top of the explosion. “See? Didn’t get much more than a foot and a half off the ground before it hit.”

“So the calculations Mary and Anthony did were right,” Christopher said, running his hands through his hair. “Why didn’t it stop them?”

“One second, Convict,” Carson said, looking up from the comm station. “Run that frame by frame.”

Daniel glared at the Ranger.

“We don’t use the c-word around here, Carson,” Christopher said.

“Oh, shit. My bad. Daniel, right? Sorry, man. Could you run that frame by frame? I think I see the problem.”

Daniel grinned, the slight forgotten, then re-ran the video in slow motion. As the explosion flashed, Carson stood and pointed.

“There. Pause it there. Put that up on the big mission screen, will you?”

Daniel kicked the frozen image over to the large plasma screen behind the passenger seat. Carson crossed over and pointed to the extreme right side of the flash.

“See it?” Carson asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Daniel said. “Good eye, Sergeant.”

“What?” Christopher asked, squinting at the image – but he saw it before Carson or Daniel had a chance to answer. “Oh, yeah.”

At the right edge of the frame, the flash and fire from the explosion suddenly curved upwards. A silhouette formed – the back end of a Razor.

“We hit them after the rear axle,” Mary said.

“Yep. Didn’t even slow them down,” Christopher grumbled.

“We might have done one better,” Bryce said, not taking his eyes off the road in front of him. Christopher noticed the driver had a copy of the image up next to his nav screen.

“Bryce?”

“Look at where we hit ‘em. According to the schematics Dr. Auffrey ran through with me, that’s right where their extra power comes from,” Bryce said. “We might have just made it so they’ll have to drop stealth sooner rather than later.”