“It is a bold plan,” Marshal Gang said.
Nung nodded, accepting the compliment.
“Yet I wonder if the Americans will wilt as you hope,” Gang said.
Nung squinted at the frowning marshal. “Without communications, without their vaulted command and control, with Chinese soldiers en masse, flowing over, around and behind them—yes, the Americans will wilt as I expect,” Nung said. “They will run from us in terror. Their entire defensive line will shatter like a brittle vase. I have promised our Great Leader this and I intend to see it achieved. Ceaseless assaults, comrades,” he said, turning to his officers. “Mass and more mass will swamp the American soldiers. Therefore, even though we haven’t achieved perfection in all our divisions, we will launch the assault two days from now. Two days, comrades, and the greatest battle in history will begin.
Marshal Nung was wrong. The start of the war would not begin in two days, but one night earlier under cover of darkness.
Paul Kavanagh stood with his new team in the glare of bright lamplights. Moths flew up there by the lights, motes of anarchy showing the senselessness of fate. This was an ad hoc group of soldiers. He had four former Marine Recon drill instructors from Camp Pendleton. They had been plucked from their training duties. He had six Rangers and five Free Mexico assassins. According to their records, they were the best Colonel Valdez possessed. Their leader was a man named Romo.
He was a dark-skinned native with sharp features. He was shorter than Paul, with his hair shaved to his scalp and with the eyes of a stone cold killer. Romo had an earring, with a small feather dangling and he walked with the silky grace of a jaguar.
Paul had shaken hands with each of his men. All had squeezed back. One or two had looked away; three of the Free Mexico soldiers had shifted uneasily. Romo had shaken hands normally.
“You are Paul Kavanagh?” Romo asked.
“Do I know you?”
Romo shook his head.
“Do you know me?”
“Si,” Romo said, hardly moving his lips as he spoke, but always staring into his eyes.
Paul knew it then. “Colonel Valdez sent you?”
“Si.”
“He wants my head or something like that?”
“Si.”
“And you’re the one who’s going to bring it in?”
With the tip of the fingers of his left hand, Romo touched his feather. “Si,” he said.
“Okay,” Paul said, “fine. But answer me this.”
Romo barely shifted his shoulders in a shrug.
“First, what’s with the feather?”
Romo became utterly still.
“I don’t see too many Mexican soldiers wearing those,” Paul said.
“I am Apache from my mother’s side.
Paul raised his eyebrows, and he nodded. “Good enough. Will you obey my orders until we destroy our Blue Swan missile?”
Romo glanced at his four men, each of them carefully listening to the conversation. “You and me,” he told Paul, “we kill the Chinese first, si.”
Paul stared into Romo’s eyes, and he felt a chill along his spine as if someone had put a cold blade against his back. The man was grim death, a stone killer. As Paul stared into those pitiless eyes, he considered drawing a knife and gutting the man on the spot. But since none of them were coming back alive, he figured why bother.
The conversation with Romo had taken place many hours ago. Now Paul adjusted his body armor. He looked around at the lamp-washed concrete at the waiting helicopters. They were sleek and fast, representing the latest in American insertion technology.
This was the land of the free, eh. Yeah, it was his land. His wife and boy were in LA. If the Blue Swan missiles worked and demolished the SoCal Fortifications…then his family was meat. This way, they had a chance.
“Love you, babe,” he whispered. Paul picked up his combination assault rifle/grenade launcher and with his rucksack secured, he jogged for his waiting jet-assisted helo. Romo and several of his killers followed. So did the Recon Marines. The rest of the Free Mexico soldiers and Rangers headed for the second helicopter. They were sixteen commandos bent on destroying a Blue Swan launcher—if it existed and if the planners had really pinpointed the thing’s location.
Flight Lieutenant Harris cracked his knuckles. He sat in a padded chair, staring at his screen and while wearing virtual reality goggles. In the same room were ten other men and women like him. Each was a drone operator.
Their drone was the Viper 10 air-superiority Unmanned Combat Vehicle. Lieutenant Harris rolled his shoulders, trying to make himself more comfortable. He didn’t like flying if he was stiff.
The V-10 was half the size of an F-35, the Air Force’s main single-engine fighter. Because the UCAV lacked a pilot, it needed less space and a smaller engine to do the same task. It could also take more Gs and be ordered to do suicidal things without losing a valuable pilot.
Lieutenant Harris squeezed his eyes shut and then he concentrated. Tonight, they were headed into enemy air space. Tonight, the drones were going to hunt for trouble.
Lieutenant Harris shrugged and then settled back, finding his comfort zone. He would do his best. He knew how much the V-10s cost. And if they failed, it was likely he wouldn’t make it out of San Diego alive before the Chinese came.
“Here we go,” the lieutenant whispered, taxiing his drone down a runway.
All across Southern California, other UCAVs, fighters, bombers and wild weasels launched into the darkness. From Vandenberg Air Force Base, a Titan VII rocket lifted a three-package satellite into space. No one expected those to last long, just long enough to give them vital intelligence.
AWACS planes remained well behind the border. They were critical in detecting enemy low and fast flyers— strike, recon and interceptor aircraft, even ground-to-air weapons and cruise missiles. The Airborne-Warning-And- Control System aircraft used look-down phased-array radar and computers to find low-flying enemy against all the ground clutter. The computers had gotten better since the Alaskan War, making it easier for AWACS and radar stations to spot enemy aircraft.
Because both sides lacked reliable satellites near the combat zone, they also fell back on using their AWACS and high-flying drones to control their planes and provide an integrated operating picture through secure datalinks. In other words, the AWACS were flying air battle control centers.
A terrible truism affected modern warfare, particularly in air combat. If one could see the enemy, one could kill the enemy nine times out of ten. It was why both sides used stealth craft. Special alloys and polymers, anti- radar paint and ingenious construction meant that most Chinese and American aircraft gave back very small radar signatures. Ever-improving radar and computers helped each side spot the faint returns, often pinpointing positions with lethal precision. It was a constant cat and mouse game.
As he sat in his seat in San Diego, Lieutenant Harris watched through his VR goggles as his V-10 waited twenty miles from the border. There were hundreds of Chinese aircraft up on the other side. The majority of those were fighter drones guarding Chinese air space.
Harris licked his lips. He’d never flown in combat before, although he had logged plenty of hours in simulated battle. There were four critical factors to air fights and to interception missions in particular. The side with superior eyes and ears, the detection devices and electronic counter measures—ECM—usually maneuvered into superior attack positions. The second factor was that the side with better tactics, including tactical or strategic surprise, gained an edge. Third, the side with more skilled pilots had an advantage. Lastly, numbers, sheer mass of planes
