Blue Warrior

Judy was still underneath the Aviocar. She didn’t find any damage in the fuselage, but the starboard wheel was leaking air fast. “C’mon, you guys!” she barked in her headset.

* * *

Pearce was the last one up the tower thanks to his limp. The colonel knelt by Early’s corpse and was covering his bloody neck stump with his own civilian shirt. The staircase was narrow. Wolfit handed Pearce his weapon and took Early’s feet, Kavanagh the shoulders. Pearce noticed the colonel’s knees were soaked in blood. Everybody’s boots were slick with it, too. Mann led the way down, and Pearce followed the rest.

They cleared the stairs and dashed for the plane.

“ETA one minute, Colonel,” Red One reported. “Advise you leave now.”

“Working on it, son. Thanks for the tip.”

Judy had already strapped back into her seat and revved the engines, keeping her feet pressed hard against the brakes. The plane shuddered in protest.

Mann ran and leaped into the cargo area as Wolfit approached. Wolfit stepped up into the bay effortlessly and swung around, the two of them pulling Early’s heavy corpse in behind them, deep into the cargo area. Kavanagh walked Early’s broad shoulders in, then jumped in behind him.

Pearce limped as fast as he could. Myers shouted at him. “Looks like you’re buying the beer!”

The air cracked.

Pearce spun like a top, then dropped to the tarmac, blood spraying from his head.

59

Aéropostale Station 11

Tamanghasset, Southern Algeria

15 May

As soon as he saw Pearce drop, Guo called the DPV for a pickup. He had to evacuate quickly — no time to savor the killing of the two Americans today. The cruise missiles would be arriving within moments to sterilize the battlefield. He was under strict orders to leave no evidence of Chinese presence behind, and with five smashed vehicles and ten dead operators in the field, there was only one way to burn away the evidence. The mobile missile launch platform in Mali had already fired on his command. He designated the COMPASS locators in three of the DPVs as the targets.

The surviving DPV slowed just enough for Guo to leap into the passenger seat. He shouted, “GO!” but it was hardly necessary. The driver smashed the gas pedal to the floor. The rail threw big sand and fishtailed as the Chinese raced due north, away from the coming holocaust.

* * *

Three ground-hugging Chinese cruise missiles streaked across the Algerian desert, flying just meters off the deck to avoided radar detection and air defense systems. Onboard TERCOM and COMPASS navigation systems maneuvered autonomously around obstacles while keeping the missiles zeroed in on their targets. They had been launched just minutes before from a single portable launcher now deployed in Mali by Dr. Weng and Zhao, with more missiles for reloads stored in a Chinese-secured Bamako warehouse.

The CJ-10 “Long Sword” cruise missile had been largely designed from reverse-engineered American Tomahawk cruise missiles salvaged by the Pakistanis from failed cruise missile strikes against the Taliban in the late 1990s. Like the Tomahawk, these weapons were designed for surgical strikes. Tomahawks were the weapons of choice for many American presidents before the advent of drone technologies like the Predator, and sometimes after. President Obama launched over two hundred Tomahawks against Gaddafi’s military in 2011, helping to topple his murderous regime. In fact, the Americans had launched two thousand Tomahawk strikes against other nations without declaration of war since 1983—ample precedent for today’s action, as far as the Chinese were concerned.

The Long Swords locked onto their respective targets just one kilometer away, their 500 kg warheads set to ignite with devastating precision.

* * *

Sergeant Wolfit slammed the cargo door shut as the plane lurched forward.

Cella hovered over Pearce’s unconscious body, medical bag open, cutting away at the tagelmust still wrapped around his head. Myers straddled his legs to steady him against the shuddering fuselage streaking down the runway.

The tagelmust finally gave way. Myers gasped. Pearce’s face was slathered in a mask of indigo and surging blood.

“It’s just a scalp wound,” Cella shouted. She smiled at Myers. “He’s alive.”

“Thank God,” Myers whispered.

* * *

Judy slammed the Aviocar’s throttles as far forward as they could go, but the boxy little plane still wasn’t hitting maximum speed, thanks to the deflating starboard tire. The smoldering ruins of the Hummingbird loomed large in the windscreen. They weren’t going to make it—

“Now!” she barked.

She and Kavanagh yanked back on the yokes together, pulling them hard into their guts. The Aviocar leaped into the air like a thrashing marlin.