Whatever Gods May Be Part 20

Using thermal imaging to help them pick off tower guards, second squad's teams opened fire on cue from hides in the foothills north of Malihud. Within thirteen minutes, according to the readout in a corner of her shadowscreen, Jamie saw prisoners scrambling to the transports.

She attempted to keep a rough tally-fifteen here, twelve there, another fourteen. Right on schedule, one of the transports took off, escorted by a Barracuda.

Then the mission clogged up. The strongest, healthiest prisoners had gotten to the helo first, and many of those who remained needed help making it to the other two transports. Comlink chatter told Jamie the recon force had found more prisoners than antic.i.p.ated and required extra time to get them out. Meanwhile, the enemy had begun to fight back.

"Three lavvies this side of the river," Avery reported from the hills east of the Malihud River. "We'll be able to snuff 'em before they get to the bridge."

* 167 *

But Zhong soldiers with rifle grenades were closer to the POW camp than the armored personnel carriers Avery had spotted, as well as more numerous and much harder to see. From their elevated hides, Jamie and the four snipes with her managed to take out three Zhong teams before they could launch, but she worried about others.

"Richb.i.t.c.h, Richb.i.t.c.h, Zhong attack helos on your high ten coming in fast," one of the Barracuda pilots yelled to another. "Count three-belay that-count five enemy birds. Five enemy birds. Cover your ten, Richb.i.t.c.h!"

Then one of the two Shark transports still on the ground exploded.

A Zhong grenade had hit its mark. With fire erupting in the c.o.c.kpit, the helo's occupants poured out and stumbled toward the remaining Shark.

Over her comlink, Jamie heard marines screaming. Operation Repo had gotten dicey fast. So much for the mission schedule on this one.

While enemy helos engaged the Barracudas in an air battle overhead, the snipes on both sides of the river didn't withdraw as planned-instead they started picking off enemy targets at greater and greater distances. This gave the recon units time to evacuate everyone out of the disabled helo and into the third transport, which finally lifted off and moved out to sea.

Although all the POWs had extracted, the last Shark departed minus some of the recon guys, who had but one option: Retreat toward the snipes' hides. The snipes did what they could to slow the enemy's pursuit of them.

"Our strays'll get to my position first," Jamie told Avery, then instructed her to immediately pull back into the mountains. "We'll pick them up and follow you. Figure join-up at zero-six-hundred at gridpoint September niner three niner four. But don't wait past zero-seven-hundred. The boogey men'll be chasing you."

"Roger," crackled the comlink. "Join-up at zero-six-hundred at gridpoint September niner three niner four. See you there." Above Malihud, a dozen helicopters battled while six stray recon marines scrambled to Jamie's hide. "We're outta here right now," she said to them as soon as they arrived. "Splinter-noise commo from now on. I'll take point and-"

A menacing new sound made her look up. The rotors of two * 168 *

helicopters-one of the enemy's and a Barracuda-had collided and both aircraft careened wildly.

The enemy helo smashed into one of the POW camp towers, detonating timed explosives placed there by the recon guys. As a conflagration claimed the camp, the crippled Barracuda tilted into an erratic spiral that brought it toward Jamie's position. It finally clattered and grated into the forest only thirty meters away and just a meter or two above her elevation, flipping over as it came to rest without exploding.

Jamie and the recon leader looked at each other. They'd have to check the Barracuda for survivors and retrieve them quickly. "We'll get 'em, ma'am," said the recon leader.

Minutes later he signaled Jamie: A finger pointed up once, twice- both crewmen alive. Then, a moment later, his fingers mimicked two pair of walking legs. Yes. Both ambulatory.

But they'd lost precious escape time. The mission plan would have to change again.

Within minutes, ten of them were out of Jamie's sight, already climbing along the west bank of the Malihud River into the forested hills. If all went well, they'd be able to follow it for about five kilometers to an elevation of nearly three hundred meters, then cross it and start the strenuous northeast trek toward the two-thousand-meter Mount Mantalingajan, where they'd join up with Avery.

Meanwhile, Jamie and two snipes diverted the enemy. Jamie began by firing a grenade into the Barracuda wreckage, which triggered a sizeable explosion she hoped would destroy any still-functional equipment and preoccupy the Zhong long enough to provide the margin the three of them needed to evade and escape.

"Leave just enough of a trail for the first hundred meters," she told her snipes. "We want the Zhong coming after us, not the others." The three of them headed east to cross the Malihud River, as though they were making a desperate run up the coast, trying to get past Brooke's Point and out of enemy territory. Once well across the river, they picked out enemy targets as they went.

It worked for a while, for more than a kilometer. Then the enemy started to get wise.

"Okay, guys," Jamie said, holding out her hand to be scanned, "secure me into your eyewraps and give them to me for a minute." Quickly she marked a pathway on each of their shadowscreen maps * 169 *

that would take them to the rendezvous with Avery. "You're getting off here. Start in that crevice right over there." She tilted her head toward the cliff-like rock face behind her. "See it?" The two snipes nodded.

"Steep as s.h.i.t, but great for hiding your trail from the Zhong.

You'll be able to climb it all the way to the top of this ledge, then head due north for maybe an hour to reach the track I marked. Got it?" They nodded again.

"Good. Keep absolute stealth. Your goal is to avoid detection and hook up with Avery. Do not engage unless you're positive you've been spotted and there's no other choice, understand? Take my water and MREs and give me half your four-sixteen rounds."

"You sure, Gwynnie?"

"I'm going east for another half a klick, see what else I can nail.

Then I'll cut north, too. But you remind the sergeant that she waits for no one past zero-seven-hundred. No one. I'll f.u.c.king nail her to a cross if she delays one f.u.c.king second. And you be sure to quote me on that if necessary. Good climbing. See you back at the ranch. Now go."

"Soon," each one said, offering a departing dap.

Jamie didn't watch them leave. She moved east as fast as the terrain allowed. The first time she found a natural hide and fired from it, she popped three targets and managed to skip out before the enemy determined her position. She pulled that off twice more, but the fourth time they found her after only one shot.

Soon her mental processes shifted from tactical planning to surviving second by second. Jamie survived and evaded and occasionally attacked for almost three more hours. With her very last .416 round, she even nicked a Zhong helicopter that was heading north, flying too low and too close to where she figured her people were.

Wounding the helo came at a price, however. It gave the enemy an accurate fix on her position. Within a minute, an enemy bullet almost took her head off, instead ripping her comlink eyewraps from her face and out of sight. She had little time to retrieve them; they'd self-destruct in less than a minute if she didn't she initiated proper shutdown or re-established physical contact with them. Without them, she'd be stranded a hundred and ten klicks beyond the Marines' forward edge, lost to the ops center.

Jamie could feel the countdown...Six...five...four...three...

* 170 *

Another enemy bullet whined past her nose. "Jeezus f.u.c.king christ," she wheezed, "what's it f.u.c.king take?"

Now she had only her pistol to slow down the enemy just feet away. Bereft of options, she decided to use her last bullet on herself.

But as she pointed the pistol at her temple, it saved her life by blocking a Chinese bullet. It also banged hard into her cheek, knocking her down.

She reached for her combat knife, but it, too, had vanished.

Weaponless, on all fours, trapped at the brink of a gully muddied from the recent rain, Jamie dove, hoping the thin brush below might hide her, and somewhere on the way down, her rolling world went dark and silent.

* 171 *

Chapter eiGhteen.

no Way out Shih shen?"

Splayed on her belly in thick, sucking mud, Jamie didn't move while she thought about the voice. I know what he said: Dead body... a question... in Mandarin. But had the voice been real, or was she dreaming?

A harsh blow struck her shoulder blade. Too harsh, too real. The malice in its lightning-flash sting revved her heartbeat and cleared her head. Oh G.o.d... don't move, don't move, don't breathe...

"s...o...b.. ding."

They're not sure. Maybe they'd just go. A long, hopeful moment pa.s.sed, and then she heard the squishy, gurgly suction of feet laboring through the muck toward her. Soon she felt a finger on her neck, searching for her pulse. Her stomach twisted, her heart slammed its dire warning against her chest: doom-DOOMED... doom-DOOMED...

The hand departed. "Hu-aw zhe."

That one she knew, too: "Alive." Oh G.o.d oh G.o.d oh G.o.d...

A boot a.s.serted itself roughly against her belly and shoved hard.

Then a ruthless kick missed her ribs but drove the air out of her lungs.

She grunted as the muck acquiesced with a wet pop! and she flipped onto her back-the day's catch.

The right side of her face was slathered with so much mud it sealed her eye shut. But her left eye opened to find six Chinese soldiers standing over her, six QBZ-96s pointed at her. Their blurry images shimmied and swayed. She willed herself to jump up and attack, force them to shoot her. But her body didn't budge. Not her arms. Not her legs.

"May-ee," declared one of them. "Jin."

Despite The Fear's dissonant wailing in her head, Jamie * 172 *

remembered the meaning: "American military"-and she flashed on the stories she'd heard about how Chinese soldiers didn't much like United States marines. Stories from before Operation Repo.

Without removing their eyes from her, the soldiers began arguing.

She couldn't understand their words, but their rancor and repugnance were unmistakable. Based on the flush she saw in their faces, the way the veins in their necks protruded, how close the QBZ-96 rifle barrels came to her nose, Jamie a.s.sumed they were bickering about which of them would be granted the honor of pumping her full of bullets.

"Gway paw," jeered one of them. She'd heard that before, too. It meant "white b.i.t.c.h." But not just white. Ghost white. The white of the dead.

Not dead yet, though. The resentful accusation in his tone told her.

They're not gonna do it. Jeezus, they're not gonna kill me. She exhaled the breath she'd been holding, but she knew their decision to let her live had nothing to do with international humanitarian law.

The squabble continued, but now it seemed to be about who'd get stuck having to lay hands on her. At least they don't seem interested in rape. Eventually, two of them grabbed her cammie blouse and yanked her upright and forward onto her knees. The sudden movement sent the world spinning. She staved off dizziness while the soldiers bound her hands behind her back, but when they jerked her to her feet, she sank to her knees again and vomited.

After her retching devolved into dry heaves, they pulled her to her feet once more. Two of them held her up while two others removed much of her gear-the pistol holster, the load-bearing vest, the canteen, the first-aid pouch. They searched her pockets, repeating "Yeh-un jing"-eyegla.s.ses. She responded with a blank stare; this was her first chance to play dumb.

Mud still caked her right eye, but her left eye perceived daylight's fade. The Palawan's primeval night would soon be upon them. EBC219 was almost over.

They shoved her out of the soggy bottom of the gully, kicking and berating her every time she staggered or fell. She fell often. The coast road running through Malihud was perhaps two and a half klicks away, and her frequent stumbling impeded their progress, created opportunities for the unexpected... A lot could happen in the Palawan dark...

"Bah-ee chih!" yelled one of the Chinese soldiers when she * 173 *

skidded sideways down a slope and attempted to turn an accidental stumble into an escape.

Jamie doubled over to protect her belly from his kicks. Profoundly regretting that she hadn't tried harder to get them to shoot her right after they found her, she stayed curled up beneath the blows, unable to prevent the moan that oozed out of her as her strength waned.

It threatened to rule her, this moan. It wanted to tear her open, this moan, so the frenzied panic she'd been holding at bay could flood in, drown her. She began to lose all ability to reason, to hope. Her mind registered only the pain of the beating and the pulsing rhythm of her rampant terror. Oh G.o.d oh G.o.d oh G.o.d...

Never in her life had she felt so helpless. She couldn't even cover her head while they kicked her, couldn't squirm out of the way of their blows, couldn't stop yelping her body's protest. There had to be something she could do, something...

Maybe I should just wilt. If she was unreservedly servile, they might ease off and she could get through it, she could survive. "Please," she said, struggling onto her knees when the kicks ceased. She looked up, beseeching the nearest Chinese soldier not to hurt her anymore.

"Please...ching- ng? "

He growled something she didn't understand and whacked her flat with the b.u.t.t of his rifle.

doom-DOOMED... doom-DOOMED... Drifting at the fringe of consciousness, Jamie grasped the message in her heart's urgent pounding: No way out.

The beating renewed until a shout from one of the others stopped it, and the soldiers turned away from her. She watched them fade in and out as blackness dappled the margins of her vision, she heard them berated by a voice that sounded choppy and angry and strange. Gotta try, gotta... When she lifted her head, no one noticed. The deepening dusk might claim her if she could just roll down the slope, just a couple feet to the tall gra.s.s at the edge of the path and then roll- She had a half-second lead on them, but her legs couldn't help her. The nearest soldier slammed his rifle b.u.t.t into her stomach, and she pa.s.sed out.

By the time they slapped her back to groggy awareness, dusk had given way to darkness. Two of the soldiers lifted her up and another put a container to her lips: Water. She needed water, craved water, and she * 174 *

gulped as much as she could. The soldier issuing orders peeled the mud off her face; from here on, she'd see the unconditionally murky night with both eyes.

"La dao!" he said, as though he believed she'd understand him if she could see out of both eyes. Jamie did understand-he'd told her to forget about it-but she gave nothing, no hint of comprehension.

v "All coercive techniques are designed to induce regression." Ever since she first read those words back in scout/sniper school, she'd tried to honestly appraise what she was capable of enduring.

When Operation Repo began, she still hoped that maybe, just maybe she'd be able to leave the Palawan without having to find out. She'd clung to that hope right up to the moment she sent her last two snipes north into the hills and pushed on alone.

What would the Zhong try to find out from her? Stuff about the battalion, future ops, Operation Repo- They'll want to know which way Avery's taking everyone through the mountains...

Jamie had no doubt about how it would go down. Pain, relief, threat of more pain. It had already started: The burden of the journey into Malihud had shifted from Jamie to the six Chinese soldiers. They kept her upright and moving, her first taste of the seduction of relief.

And then- 'Round and 'round 'til I break. Because everybody breaks.

She had to find a way to stall, to keep herself from giving up and giving in at least until Avery got second squad back to the FOB. At least twelve days. Even then, she could get somebody killed if she told the Zhong too much about her crew-where they were based, how they worked. No, no, it's gotta be the whole thirty-nine days. The whole thirty-nine days until her snipes were on that plane home.

Jamie's mind, as helpless as her body, flailed. "In the darkest hour- " How the h.e.l.l does that go? Something about light and hope, right? In the darkest hour, light and hope. Oh christ, what a f.u.c.king fiction!

One of the soldiers holding her up tripped her when the guy in charge wasn't looking, and she hit the raggedly inclined ground with a brutal thud just as she thought she might've heard somebody say, "Fiction's good."

* 175 *

Fiction? A chill scurried alone her vertebrae as the soldiers picked her up again. Of course. All warfare is based on deception.

Her mind quieted and within minutes, she saw it-the perfect diversion. I could tell them we're gonna invade Borneo. That'd screw 'em up good, because we're never really gonna invade Borneo. And after a while, when I recant, they won't know what the f.u.c.k to believe.

She'd have to concoct all kinds of details, remember as much as possible from the mapping imagery about the terrain of the northern tip of Borneo. And to make it believable, she'd have to hold out for a long time. Thirty-nine days...

For the next hour, Jamie invented plans for a five-p.r.o.nged amphibious a.s.sault on both sides of East Malaysia's Marudu Bay as well as three islands to the north of it. Three islands, right? Yeah, yeah, three. I remember three. Her Marines would be changing the rules of engagement. Her Marines would beat the c.r.a.p out of northern Borneo, southern Palawan, Balabac, Bugsuk, all of it all over the Balabac Strait-and unless the PIA and the Zhong withdrew, they'd be trapped and annihilated. Yeah, f.u.c.k 'em. f.u.c.k 'em all.

While the Zhong soldiers pushed her, dragged her, but mostly carried her, Jamie reeled trancelike through images of an initial briefing with Pinsof about the kinds of training exercises needed to prepare her people. In the gloom, she could see the expression on his face, taste her own nervous antic.i.p.ation as he laid out the plan's preliminaries.

By the time her captors delivered her to their commanding officer, she'd decided the Invasion of Borneo was a d.a.m.n fine idea and she was glad she hadn't been told more about it. Because she couldn't reveal to the enemy what she didn't know.