Maria, a legend among the resistance. That she was here showed the importance of the mission. The CIA officer had objected via satellite phone, saying it would be a terrible propaganda blow is she died or was captured. Besides, the mission called for Colonel Valdez’s best men, not his daughter.
Paul knew the answer, but he didn’t buy it. Maria was here because she believed in the romance of her existence, in the great cause. She was also here because according to Colonel Valdez she had the best small unit tactical mind of anyone in his army. Calling these ragtag people Paul had seen an army was stretching it. They were all so thin.
It was due to the Chinese occupation. Those like Maria and her six guerillas possessed fifth-class cards, if they owned a card at all. It meant they ate enough to keep breathing, but moving or working, that was another matter.
The world was starving to death due to glaciation. Because of it, the population was knocking on America’s door, demanding food.
Lee reached the top of the hill and crouched beside Paul. He mopped sweat with his sleeve and his nostrils made whistling noises. Lee was too tough to open his mouth and pant, at least beside a Marine who had beaten him up the hill.
William Lee, aka “Wolverine” to his 75th Ranger Regiment buddies. He was shorter than Paul and built like a pit bull. Those muscles were all useful, even the ones bunched on the side of his jaw. In Hawaii, Lee had bitten off the nose of a White Tiger commando, giving Lee time to draw his knife and gut the Chinese killer.
Probably because of his fanatical attitudes, Lee consistently produced results. In Hawaii, he had been the sole survivor of the “Night of the Generals.” It had been a daring mission behind enemy lines, putting five Rangers of Chinese extraction into a conference room of high-ranking enemy commanders. All the generals had died, according to Lee, one bayoneted in the throat. Since only Lee had made it back, his version of the story had become official history.
Paul and Lee were here because of General Ochoa, who ran SOCOM. Ochoa believed in an old pro football adage: get big playmakers on your team, men who excel under pressure during playoff or Super Bowl performances and let them play a lot. Guided by his theorem, Ochoa had handpicked Paul and Lee for this off-the-cuff mission.
“You two have achieved the biggest successes to date. Paul, you helped slow the enemy on the North Slope of Alaska. And Lee, killing those Chinese generals in Hawaii—it makes me smile every time I think about you sticking one of those bastards in the throat. Your task this time is straightforward. We need to find out what ‘Blue Swan’ is and why the Chinese think it’s so important. You’re going into Mexico and getting our country a Blue Swan to study.”
As they crouched on the dark hilltop in Mexico, Lee’s whistling lessened. Paul hoisted his rucksack higher on his shoulders so the straps eased some of their pressure.
Lee leaned forward like an eager bloodhound. “I hear them,” he said, meaning the Chinese.
“Be good to get an air-visual,” Paul said, “and know how they’re deployed.”
“Next you’ll be asking for a quad to drive down to the road.”
“Better get going,” Paul said.
Lee grunted as he forced himself upright. Gripping his rucksack’s straps, he began stiff-legged down the hill.
Paul could hear the convoy easily now, the roar of approaching trucks. The Chinese were coming, the Chinese who ran Mexico with an iron fist, the Chinese who had invaded Alaska seven years ago and swept every American satellite from space three years ago and who had launched a cyber-attack on his country. The U.S. had never been the same since.
Maria Valdez climbed beside him, crouching onto one knee. Sweat streaked her thin face. She never wore a helmet or a hat and she’d tied her long dark hair into a ponytail. She was pretty with those intense black eyes, but she never smiled and her voice was like a whiplash. She panted with an open mouth. In that regard, she wasn’t proud like Lee. Her eyes narrowed and she turned to Paul.
“They’re almost here,” she said.
The mission had called for plenty of time to deploy. But there had been a patrol in the way. The nine of them had detoured, eating up too much precious time.
Thinking about it made Paul weary. If they couldn’t even get this part of it right, he doubted the extraction would work.
Maria looked back the way she’d climbed. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted, “Jose, Lupe, Jorge, hurry! Set up the machine gun.”
She meant the .50 caliber Browning. She would man it, as she was the best shot among the guerillas.
“Luis, Benito and Freddy,” she said, “get your RPGs ready. I want you in the ditch with the Marine.”
The six guerillas toiled up the hill. Although thin and malnourished, they were hard-eyed partisans, Mexicans dedicated to throwing off the hated oppressor. Each of them had his own harrowing tale of abuse, of soul-crushing horror that usually involved a lost wife, daughter or sister, sometimes all three. The enemy avidly sought female companions, as their country had the worst man-to-woman imbalance in the world. More than one U.S. commentator said the Chinese lust for conquest was simply a primal urge belonging to the Stone Age—a hunt for wives. The Chinese had an ironclad law, permitting a family a single child only. Too many of them yearned for a male offspring, meaning they aborted the girls, the reason for the great imbalance.
Maria turned back to Paul, blowing her breath in his face. It smelled of sunflower seeds. She had littered the spent shells on the way here like an old time baseball player.
“We must kill every one of them,” Maria said, with her eyes flashing as she spoke.
Paul cocked his head. He heard grinding gears. The big vehicles downshifted as they toiled uphill. General Ochoa’s people had chosen this location with care.
Lee was two-thirds of the way down the hill. The Ranger had an custom-built mine to deploy. He had two, but by the sounds, Lee would be lucky to get one emplaced.
“Over there,” Paul said, pointing halfway down the hill. “That position will give you—”
“I know where to put my machine gun!” Maria snapped.
Maria grabbed a fistful of his jacket and leaned close so their lips almost touched. “We’ve gone over the plan, amigo. Now you’re wasting time because you insist on treating me like a child. Go! Get set up so we can kill Chinese.”
This wasn’t about killing Chinese, although Paul didn’t tell Maria. “Good luck,” he said.
Maria sneered. “I am not a pagan. I do not desire
“Works for me,” Paul said. He gripped his AT4, grunted as he stood and started down the hill.
Behind him, three guerillas followed, each of them carrying a Chinese RPG, long ago patterned off the successful Russian RPG-7. Maria and her team started for a position midway down the slope.
Lee had already dumped his rucksack in the ditch and knelt on the road. With a drill, he bored into the blacktop.
Long yellow grass rustled against Paul’s jeans, while his boots scraped over half-buried rocks. He was dressed like a civilian, but it would fool no one. He’d declined regular body armor. It would give him away as an American but more importantly, it would rob him of mobility, maybe the ability to have made the 16-mile march this quickly.
In the darkness, gears ground once more as trucks downshifted yet again. It was an ominous sound. The convoy, the armored trucks and IFVs, were almost up into sight from their steep climb. In their entire route, it was steepest over that lip, meaning the convoy would be down to a crawl once they reached this location.
Paul raised his AT4 and broke into something resembling a sprint. The rucksack bounced up and down, causing brutal agony to his shoulders.
