Invasion: Colorado (32 page)

“I’m okay,” Goose said. “I’m just really tired.”

There were choruses of agreement in the dark about being tired.

“All right, let’s turn in,” the Lieutenant said in his loud voice. “Enough talk. We’ve worked hard. Tomorrow we’re going to fight even harder. So get some sleep while you can. The sentries will wake you in time if the Chinese try something fancy.”

Jake lay down. He shut his eyes and morning came all too soon. His back muscles ached from all the picking yesterday and he was cold.

There were rumbles outside, enemy artillery doing their thing. To warm them up and complete the blockhouse, the Lieutenant put them to work. At 10:17 A.M., the Chinese showed up and that was the end of the drudgery.

Jake was working on the third floor, shoveling concrete chips and dust: the blockhouse was filled with drifting clouds of dust. A shrill whistle brought him around. He looked up. Militiamen ran to their posts. Jake dropped his shovel and dashed to his weapons. He had an M-16 and a single-shot RPG. Despite his sweat, he shrugged on his jacket. Goose and Private Larry Barnes hurried to him. They each carried similar weapons.

The artillery-spawned rumbles grew. The Chinese had aimed their heavy guns at them, or near here. Big shells landed, shaking the ground and producing terrific explosions. Bits of dust and tiny pieces of loose concrete rained on them, forcing Jake to put on his helmet.

The fighting started ten minutes later.

“Steady,” the Lieutenant told the first team. The Lieutenant was a steroid freak, a little over six feet tall with massive shoulders and chest. He had a bull neck and a much-too wide of a face. He wore an armor vest, helmet and kept a heavy .50 caliber pistol ready. It was a hand-cannon, a real piece of work. Jake had seen him blow down enemy soldiers with it. Every time the Lieutenant shot, his arm remained rock-steady.

Creeping near a window, Jake saw the first attack. Chinese soldiers in body armor crept and crawled toward them through the rubble and through dirty brown slush. The Lieutenant had told the Eleventh to hold their fire. Let the enemy get close the first time.

The firefight started when the first Chinese soldier crawled onto a landmine. It blew up and the soldier rained blood, flesh and shrapnel: all that remained of him and his armor.

A whistle blasted from between the Lieutenant’s teeth.

Bullets poured onto the enemy. Grenades flew. A few Chinese fired back for a short time, until they died because they were too exposed. Jake grinned at Goose.

The next wave of infantry came with Gunhawks overhead. Blowdart missiles from the blockhouse roof brought down two of the infernal helos. Wisely, the Chinese infantry and choppers retreated.

Twenty minutes later, artillery shells pounded near, but the buildings to the east sheltered them. A recon drone showed up later, but an M2 Browning took care of it, using less than fifty rounds to drop it.

The Lieutenant had obviously chosen the blockhouse with care. It was protected and deeper in the city than any of their previous locations. If the Chinese wanted this place, they were going to have pay in gallons of blood to do it.

At 2:12 P.M., a flame-throwing tank churned toward them. The treads squealed and clanked as it neared. The Lieutenant had two big howitzers ready for such an emergency. Using direct fire, he punched holes in the tank and created a nice fireball that burned enemy soldiers that had gotten too close to their brutish flame machine.

“It’s working,” Goose told Jake. “The Lieutenant is a genius.”

Jake hoped Goose was right.

At 4:42 P.M. the armored bulldozers came. Jake peered through a firing loop and saw jetpack commandos land on top of buildings to their east. Ever since Texas, he’d hated the flyers.

“We should have put sniper teams up there,” the Lieutenant said.

“What about the bulldozers?” asked an NCO. “They’ll clear our mines without a problem.”

The Lieutenant turned to Jake. “Corporal, it’s your turn. See if you can do something about the bulldozers.”

The steroid-monster had never taken to him, but the man was killing the enemy and that counted for something.

“Yes, sir,” Jake said.

“Don’t come back unless you destroy all of them,” the Lieutenant added. “I don’t need any cowards in my outfit.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed, as he looked the Lieutenant in the eye. He noticed a small mole above the right one. Jake didn’t sneer. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t say anything. Outraged heat built in his chest until finally the words seem to bubble up out of their own accord.

“Why don’t you come with us then, sir,” Jake said. He turned for the underground entrance before the Lieutenant could answer, not caring if Goose or Barnes followed or not. He was going to destroy the three bulldozers no matter what it took.

A coward, am I? We’ll see about that
.

A few minutes later, Jake, Goose and Private Barnes climbed down a steel ladder into the sewer system. Jake used a lamplight on his helmet, the beam paving the way. It was cold down here, and damp, and it stank. He marched with bitterness, gripping his M-16 by the handle and clutching the RPG with the other.

The old brick walls shook and bits of slime dripped to the floor, dislodged by the enemy artillery fire.

“I don’t like this,” Barnes said in a quavering voice. “Why did he have to choose us, huh?”

“Stay here if you like,” Jake said. How dare the Lieutenant call him a coward. He should have hit the Lieutenant in the face. Forget that, he should have drawn his gun and blown the prima donna away. He’d fought his way free of the Chinese, marching all the way out of Texas and New Mexico. He’d volunteered a second time. The captain had liked him. The steroid-freak Lieutenant—the man had a death wish and couldn’t figure out why others wanted to live.

“I think this is our exit,” Goose said, pointing up.

Jake didn’t think about it. He didn’t check on his sewer map. Instead, seething inside, he slid the straps of his rifle and RPG over his shoulders and climbed the steel ladder.

“Wait for us,” Goose said.

Jake was done with listening to anyone. He shoved off the sewer cover and popped out of the ground like a gopher. Five Chinese soldiers had their backs to him. They were in a bent crouch, following an armored bulldozer. The thing’s engine revved with power. Concrete rolled and clattered ahead of its blade.

It was loud out here and far too bright.

Jake climbed higher, slid the M-16 off his shoulder, readied it and—oh, he noticed the five Chinese wore assault-style body armor, the heavier kind. He aimed at their exposed necks, and he fired.

They dove forward, each of them. Three did it because bullets tore open their necks. The last two wanted to live and did it instinctively. Those two twisted around, bringing up their weapons.

Jake shot them in the face, ending that part right there. He climbed out of the hole, changing to his RPG. He knelt on one knee and chose the bulldozer’s engine air intake as his target. With the iron sights, he aligned the prize, fired and felt the bang of the shaped-charge grenade’s launching charge.

Jake hugged the cold snow, shoving his head down. A terrific explosion followed. He looked up. Black smoke billowed from the bulldozer. The driver inside was slumped over dead.

“Give me another!” Jake shouted into the manhole.

A second later, another RPG poked up.

With it, Jake began to hunt.
A coward, am I? We’ll see about that
.

Enemy fire caused him to hurl himself down onto the ground. He low-crawled as bullets chipped concrete or whined off the street. Wet slushy snow soaked his clothes. Like a rat, he used the rubble. Like a hunting leopard, he listened for the rev of a bulldozer’s engine and the scrape of its blade. Then he saw it. The thing was thirty yards away. As before, Chinese soldiers crouched behind it.

Jake sighted on the ugly little thing, fired and crawled away as the infantry turned and blasted their weapons at him.

Some of the madness departed him then. He grew aware of the cold, of his slush-soaked clothes. Dozens of enemy soldiers tried to kill him, spraying fire his direction. He popped up and emptied a magazine at the closest ones. Afterward, he crawled.

This is the Rat War.

Jake reached the manhole he had emerged from. Lying on the street, Barnes stared at him with dead eyes. Half his head was gone.

“Goose!” Jake shouted.

From a different direction, Goose came running in a bent crouch. Smoke billowed behind him. Goose’s face was taut. His eyes seemed to bulge out of his head.

“Let’s get out of here!” Goose screamed. “I killed my bulldozer!”

Jake paused long enough to drag one of the Chinese he’d killed. As Goose darted into the sewer hole, Jake reached the opening and shoved the dead enemy down. He heard the corpse hit the bottom with a thud, then Jake slid down feet first, moving fast.

“What’s this for?” Goose asked down in the tunnel.

Jake didn’t answer. He began unbuckling the body armor.

“We don’t have time for this,” Goose said.

Jake looked up. Chinese infantry might show up at any time, firing down the hole. He grabbed the corpse’s left ankle and dragged. The armor scraped against the damp concrete.

Neither said anything more. Jake pried off the body armor. Since it would be hard carrying it, he put it on. It was a tight fit, but now he had armor.

Later, the Lieutenant gave Goose and him a hand out of the sewer system. They were in the basement of the blockhouse, with a heavy machine aimed at the hole.

The Lieutenant noticed the body armor. He said, “Where’s Barnes?”

Jake shook his head.

“Dead,” Goose said.

“It’s too bad about Barnes,” the Lieutenant said. “He was a good American.” He studied them. “You two did good work.” The man turned to go.

Jake’s mouth seemed to come alive. “Still think I’m a coward?”

The Lieutenant stopped, and slowly, he faced Jake.

Jake expected rage. He wondered if the Lieutenant would haul off and hit him. Instead, the wide face looked calm. The eyes regarded him and the Lieutenant reached toward him.

Jake didn’t move, but he was ready for anything.

The Lieutenant flicked a finger against the Chinese body armor, tapping it with a fingernail. “That was a good idea, Corporal.”

“This one is mine,” Jake said belligerently.

There was a flash in the Lieutenant’s eyes. Jake’s stomach muscles tightened. A second passed. Then the tiniest of grins touched the Lieutenant’s mouth.

“You ever play football, Corporal?” the Lieutenant asked.

The question surprised Jake. “No. I played hockey. I grew up in Alaska.”

“Hockey is a man’s sport,” the Lieutenant said. “Did your coach ever fire you up so you’d skate through a brick wall to defeat the opposing side?”

Jake got it then. It made him squint at the man. The bastard had played him. He couldn’t believe it.

The Lieutenant flicked the body armor a second time. “You earned this one. It’s yours,
Sergeant
.”

“Sergeant?” Jake asked.

“I’m promoting you. You’re going to be in charge of our sewer squad.”

Jake could only blink.

“Get some sleep,” the Lieutenant said, “and think about the sewers down there and how to beat the enemy when he comes crawling to take us out. This fight is far from over.”

THIRD FRONT HQ, COLORADO

Marshal Liang sat before a computer screen in his study. Under the desk, he soaked his feet in hot water. They had been aching lately. The heat felt good and allowed him to move his toes.

He awaited a call from Chairman Hong. The events of the past few weeks had not gone as planned.

Liang tapped the screen, putting up an operational map. Army Group B had taken Greeley and broken through the South Platte Defense Line all the way to Sterling. Zhen’s Tank Army drove for Cheyenne, Wyoming, but at a snail’s pace compared to the summer battles. The Americans were tougher now. Worse, the SAF First Front had only now reached the Platte River in Nebraska. As Liang had predicted, the Americans had turned the river position into a fortress line. The SAF attack had already stalled.

“Prepare to speak to the Leader,” an operator said.

Liang tapped the screen. Chairman Hong’s Polar Bear symbol appeared. A moment later, Jian Hong regarded him. The Leader’s eyes were red, and he looked angry. That was a bad sign.

“Marshal Liang, this is a pleasure,” Hong said abruptly.

Liang bowed his head reverently. He didn’t like the tightening of his chest. “The pleasure is mine, Leader. This a great honor.”

Hong closed his eyes and nodded in a manner that revealed he understood the honor he did Liang. When Hong opened his eyes, his manner resumed its hostility.

“I am not pleased with Third Front,” Hong began.

“I am grieved to hear this,” Liang said. He recalled stories about Hong’s displeasure with men who failed to accept reprimands. Maybe he could nip the Leader’s anger in the bud. “I am sure the fault lies with me,” he added.

“This I already know,” Hong said.

Liang paused, as the tightening of his chest worsened. In the past, it had always been tedious and dangerous speaking with Chairman Hong. Now…he felt growing alarm. Hong had never spoken to him like this before. And why were the Chairman’s eyes so red?

“I set a task for you, Marshal. I’m speaking about the capture of the Behemoth Tank Manufacturing Plant. The city still resists your arms. Until this moment, the Americans have not been able to hold onto a defensive position for so long.”

“Throughout the campaign,” Liang said, “the Americans have become increasingly stubborn. Here, they fight as men possessed.”

“Bah,” Hong said. “They are barbarians without soul. A cornered rat will fight if the cat or dog doesn’t lunge in fast enough. In Denver, you have failed to strike with speed. You must treat the Americans like rats. Do they not hide in the ruins and rubble like rodents? Why have you not closed your jaws on their necks and shaken them to death?”

“You speak wisdom, Leader. I thank you for it. Yet if I may, I would like to point out that Greater Denver is much like Los Angeles. It is a large, urban environment and—”