Excalibur a5-6 Page 19

  Yakov swallowed, tasting bile, but he smiled broadly as the man next to him passed the time warning. He tested the straps of his parachute once more, making sure they were snug. All he wanted was to get out of the plane. He didn’t care if there was a division of Turkish soldiers on the drop zone. His stomach was pressed downward as the plane’s nose went up.

  The jumpmaster was holding up six fingers. He then pantomimed more jump commands and Yakov simply did what the man next to him did, getting to his feet and hooking his static line to the cable. His knees buckled as the plane once more made a violent maneuver.

  The roar inside increased as a sliver of daylight appeared in the rear of the plane. The rear ramp slowly went down until it was level, the upper half ascending into the tail of the plane. The nose of the plane was angled up about forty degrees and getting steeper as they ascended the side of Mount Ararat. Looking out the rear, Yakov could see the mountainside less than three hundred feet below. Looking to the side, Yakov blinked in disbelief. They were going up a narrow gorge with the sides above the aircraft and less than ten feet from either wing. He trusted that the pilots knew what they were doing. He was slammed against the side of the aircraft as the MC-130 banked hard right, angling the wings so that they passed through a narrow spot in the gorge.

  The man in front of Yakov slammed a fist into his chest to get his attention. Yakov looked to the rear. The jumpmaster had a single finger extended. One minute. Yakov realized he was hyperventilating and fought to control his breathing. Both his large hands were wrapped around the static line, using it to keep his balance. The man in front of him moved and Yakov edged closer toward the rear of the plane. He glanced up, noting the red light above the ramp. It went out and a green light flashed on.

  The jumpmaster was gone, stepping off the ramp. Yakov shuffled forward as the commandos went, and before he was ready was at the edge of the ramp. At that moment the plane banked hard and Yakov stumbled to his knees, then pitched forward off the ramp into the air. The static line unraveled on his back to its full length, then ripped the parachute out of its casing.

  Yakov was knocked breathless as he went from a free fall to a controlled descent. He barely had time to take a couple of breaths before his feet hit the ground hard. He collapsed to his right, doing a parachute-landing fall as he’d been taught in the Russian army’s airborne school so many years previously. The trip wasn’t over, though, as he slid down a steep ice- and rock-strewn slope while scrambling with his feet to stop his descent. He came to an abrupt halt as he tumbled into a boulder, the wind getting knocked out of him for the second time.

  Yakov lay still on the ground for several moments, savoring the experience of facing death and living. He tried to get his breath back, then slowly got to his feet and looked around. They had planned to drop right next to the location Che Lu had plotted. He was high up on the side of the mountain, the peak less than a half mile away to the southwest. He saw why the plane had made such an abrupt maneuver, as an almost vertical wall was less than a quarter mile away. The ground sloped steeply down in the opposite direction and he was flanked by two steep ridges. The surface nearby was a jumble of boulders, ice, snow, and rock face.

  He could see parachutes scattered about the area as he unbuckled his harness. He untied the MP-5 submachine gun from above his reserve and pulled the bolt back, putting a round in the chamber. He threw his rucksack over his large shoulders and pulled out his ground-positioning receiver, checking his location and finding the assembly point. He was less than eighty meters from the spot they had designated for the team to rally.

  Yakov carefully made his way to the point, at times having to use his hands to keep himself from falling. Sixteen of the eighteen Delta men were assembled when he arrived.

  “Where are the other two?” he asked.

  “We’ve got an injured man,” one of the commandos replied, pointing to the right. “Broken leg. One of our medics is working on him.”

  Yakov nodded, but his mind was already racing ahead. This was the place, but all he could see was rock, ice, and mountain. He realized he was breathing hard, his lungs straining for oxygen, as he was at about sixteen thousand feet in altitude. The coordinates that Che Lu had come up with were toward the peak, inside the vertical wall. The sun was low and darkness would descend soon. Yakov pointed toward the wall. “Let’s go and find our keyhole.”

  Mount Everest

  Turcotte kicked the toe of his crampons into the ice wall and edged up another ten inches. Looking up, he could barely see Morris ten feet above him. It was getting dark and visibility was rapidly decreasing. The top of the ridge was still over a hundred and fifty feet above. Glancing down and following the rope he was hooked into, he could see Mualama’s form. The bouncer had faded into the darkness although Turcotte knew they were less than a hundred and fifty feet above it.

  Turcotte felt as if he had entered a surreal existence. His entire world seemed to consist of this ice wall. He could hear every breath he took as the regulator added oxygen with each intake. Morris had set the flow on what he said was the minimum they needed. Figuring they would have to spend the night on the mountain and each carried only three cylinders in his pack, he estimated they would have just enough to get to the site and return to the bouncer. Despite the additional oxygen and the blood packing, Turcotte felt as if he was suffocating, his lungs straining. He had a pounding headache, worse than any he had ever experienced.

  Still he kept moving, one foot up, kicking in, putting his weight on it, then the other foot. Creeping up the side of Everest.

  * * *

  Just on the other side of the ridge Turcotte and his companions were climbing up, “Popeye” McGraw and Olivetti had stopped for the evening in a small divot along the ridgeline. They slid into their sleeping bags and immediately fell asleep, their modified lungs allowing them to breathe relatively easily without any additional oxygen.

  Their sleep, though, was not so easy, as their sleeping minds were troubled with the battle between memories of self and the part of the mind subordinated to the nanovirus and guardian programming. Both men moaned and kicked in their sleep, but the nanovirus and guide programming remained firmly in control.

  * * *

  On the northeast ridge, Lexina collapsed to the ground as Aksu called a halt. His men quickly set up tents and rigged stoves, brewing hot soup. She couldn’t even drag up the energy to speak, gratefully accepting a steaming cup from Aksu. Despite the additional lung capacity from being part Airlia and the beneficial effect of the half-Airlia blood, the climb had been a strain.

  The climbing leader pointed in the darkness. “We must start climbing in six hours. Three o’clock. I will wake you and your companions prior to that so you will be ready. We must make your location just after dawn so we can be down before tomorrow evening. Do you understand?”

  Lexina nodded. All she wanted to do was sleep. Aksu reached down and pulled up her dark goggles. Her eyes were closed. He lifted an eyelid and hissed as he saw the red within red eye.

  “What are you?” he asked.

  She pushed the empty cup back toward him, then turned her back. Aksu looked at her companions, Elek and Coridan. Both were already asleep — or unconscious. He had seen many strange things on the mountain and knew the dangers. He knew he should check both for signs of cerebral edema but her eyes and her attitude put him off. It was not his business.

  * * *

  Something lightly hit Turcotte’s head and he paused in his climbing. He looked up. Morris was just slightly above him, hammering pitons into the ice. Grateful for the halt, Turcotte leaned against the mountain, breathing hard, his lungs trying to get every molecule of oxygen. He glanced to his left. Mualama was steadily coming toward him, closing the gap.

  Morris slipped a nylon strap through a snap link attached to one of the pitons, then clipped the other end into Turcotte’s harness. He did the same with another piton-sling combination. When Mualama arrived, Morris did the same, leaning around
Turcotte, who tried to help even though he couldn’t quite figure out why the medic was doing this. He realized that he was having a very difficult time focusing his mind. Morris then pulled Turcotte’s pack off his back and hooked it to a third piton sling, so that it dangled right next to him.

  Turcotte pulled his oxygen mask to the side. “What are you doing?”

  “This is it for the night,” Morris said. “What?”

  “We stay here for the night,” Morris repeated. “You can sleep in your harness. Get your bag out and snap it around the safety lines. Five hours.” He reached up and checked Turcotte’s oxygen flow, then swung around him on his rope to check Mualama’s and repeat the instructions.

  Turcotte looked down in the fading light, then up and to each side. The view was the same. A sheer rock wall mostly covered with ice and snow. “Great,” Turcotte muttered into his mask.

  CHAPTER 14: THE PRESENT

  South Korea

  Alpha Four was built into the side of a mountain fifty miles south of Seoul, not far from Osan Air Force Base. General Carmody saw the devastation that had been wreaked on the Air Force Base by suicide squads of North Korean commandos as his helicopter flew by. Burning wreckage littered the runway and aprons and he could see that there were still pockets of resistance here and there.

  Disaster. That was the only word that Carmody could think as the chopper began going around the mountain. So far his command’s performance in the field in the face of the invasion had been a disaster. Seoul was practically devoid of life. North Korean forces were infiltrating behind his front lines. His Air Force power had been severely hamstrung by the unexpected ferocity of the suicide attacks from groups of North Koreans who had been in place prior to the onslaught, combined with the nerve gas rocket assaults by the Chinese, something they had not expected.

  The Blackhawk landed on the concrete pad next to a vault door. Bodies were strewn about and it was obvious the North Koreans had sent several suicide squads against Alpha Four, but Carmody had confirmed over the radio that the bunker remained unbreached. The large steel vault door set into the mountainside slowly swung open. A Humvee came racing out, a large plastic case in the back. Carmody slid open the cargo bay door and helped the crew chief load the nuclear bomb on board. As soon as it was secure, the chopper lifted into the air and the second of Carmody’s aircraft landed to on-load its bomb.

  “Where to, sir?” the pilot asked over the intercom.

  Carmody had already made his decisions on the way down. He gave his pilot coordinates and then radioed the other five helicopters with their own coordinates.

  The Blackhawk banked to the north.

  Taiwan

  The pattern was one that could not be allowed to continue. Tek-Chong knew that, but he didn’t know how to counter the mainland forces’ strategy. As soon as he pulled his men back out of range, the shield wall would be turned off, the mainland troops would advance within range, and then the shield would go back on, only coming down when the mainland forces were dug-in and prepared to fire.

  He’d already retreated four times, falling back over fifteen miles from the beach.

  Through his binoculars, Tek-Chong watched the Chinese forces advancing under the protection of the newly forwarded shield and he noticed something. Machine-gun fire burst out from a buried bunker of his own forces, men who had apparently survived both the bombardment and the shield passing over and had not been able to follow the order to retreat. The bunker was immediately destroyed by point-blank tank fire, but it planted an idea in Tek-Chong’s mind.

  He immediately issued the orders.

  The Taiwanese soldiers dug in, hunkering down in their foxholes and bunkers and remained still. Some were killed by the preparatory bombardment, but most survived. And when the firing ceased, Tek-Chong did not give the order to retreat. Instead, the men stayed in place underground, allowing the shield wall to pass over them as it was moved forward.

  After the wall passed over them, they then sprang up and engaged the mainland forces at point-blank range. It was brutal fighting, face-to-face combat not seen since the advent of gunpowder. Small arms, bayonets, entrenching tools, fists, and teeth, it was man against man in the most elemental of combat.

  And it worked for the defenders.

  The mainland army was forced to slow down, its superior firepower negated by the fact that its front lines were mixed with those of the Taiwanese. The shield wall was negated by the close-in combat.

  The mainland advance ground to a halt as the commanders pondered how to deal with this new development.

  South Korea

  Six machine guns were set up in position overlooking the main highway running north to south that bypassed Seoul. Colonel Lin had personally positioned each gun on the hillside and now he watched the road through his binoculars. Thousands of South Korean refugees crowded the road, making it difficult for American and South Korean reinforcements to make their way north. Lin planned on making it even more difficult.

  “Fire,” he ordered.

  The machine guns erupted, spewing out thousands of rounds per minute. The bullets chewed into the defenseless civilians, killing them by the hundreds, wounding many more. Bodies littered the road, the wounded and the dead.

  After two minutes, Lin issued another order. “Cease fire.”

  When the guns fell silent, the screams of the wounded civilians echoed off the mountains. Lin scanned the carnage with binoculars, seeing the women and children, their bodies torn apart by the large-caliber bullets. Unbidden, an image of his family back in the north came to him and for the first time he wondered what exactly victory would bring for anyone.

  Midway

  One thousand forty-two nautical miles northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands lies Midway Atoll just short of the International Date Line. Despite the distance, the three Midway islands were actually part of the Hawaiian Island Archipelago. A coral reef surrounded Sand, Eastern, and Spit islands, whose landmass totaled less than sixteen hundred acres. The atoll was first discovered in 1859 and since it consisted of little more than three tiny spits of sand, little attention was paid to them. They were claimed by the United States in 1876 and annexed in 1908.

  The first inhabitants were employees of the Commercial Pacific Cable Company in 1903, who’d come to administer the first round-the-world communications cable. In 1935 Pan American Airways established a base for their Pan-Pacific Clipper seaplanes on the island. In 1938, as tensions rose in the Pacific, the US Navy began building a naval air station. The base was finished in August 1941 and bombed on December 7 of that year.

  Midway, though, is most famous for the sea battle that took place in its vicinity in June 1942. The remnants of the United States fleet that had survived the disaster at Pearl Harbor just six months previously had sallied forth to meet another Japanese onslaught. Three American carriers — the Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown—waited near the island for an invasion fleet using intelligence gathered by American code breakers.

  A much stronger Japanese fleet approached the atoll, led by four aircraft carriers and numerous other ships. In a desperate series of strikes and counterstrikes the Americans delivered a stunning defeat on the Japanese, sending all four carriers to the bottom of the Pacific while losing the Yorktown. The Battle of Midway shifted the tide of war in the Pacific and marked the beginning of the setting of the Rising Sun of Japanese imperialism. Perhaps it was memories of that battle that had caused Admiral Kenzie to make Midway the destination for his fleet, even though the naval base there had been abandoned in 1997 and the entire area turned into a national wildlife refuge.

  Kenzie positioned his fleet to the northwest of Midway, escort ships surrounding his lone surviving carrier, the Kennedy. Linked back to the mainland by satellite communication, he remained up-to-date on the burgeoning world war. He’d already received contradictory orders from Washington — one set from the Pentagon directing him to sail west and support American forces in South Korea, another order from the
National Security Advisor directing him to sail east to San Francisco to defend the West Coast.

  He ignored both sets of orders and maintained radio silence, listening to the satellite communications but sending nothing. All of his ships were powered down, running on the minimum required energy. Kenzie was more tuned in to the mood of his sailors than to the information coming in from the satellites. Many had left family behind in Hawaii. Fear, anger, despair, confusion — all floated through the fleet like a dense fog.

  Pearl Harbor

  Captain Lockhart was to receive her first command. Despite being corrupted by the nanovirus and even knowing deep inside that she was aiding and abetting the enemy, a small part of her was thrilled. Especially this command.

  She was on Ford Island, in the center of Pearl Harbor, surrounded by a cluster of similarly infected sailors. Waiting. Behind them were two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles, forgotten in a storage area in the rush of the fleet departing. Several dozen compressors were pumping air into hoses that ran from the island into the water.

  Just offshore, the white memorial building was gone, the material stripped and used by the nanotechs. The dark water was boiling as if some great beast were stirring below. Lockhart took an involuntary step backward as a metal mast appeared, poking up through the surface and rising.

  Slowly, as air filled sealed chambers, the reconstructed USS Arizona saw the light of day for the first time in well over half a century. As the ship’s main deck became awash, Lockhart supervised the sailors in transferring over the cruise missiles as the nanovirus began construction of launchers for them in place of the guns that had once graced the ship’s decks.