As he ran, Alby saw West’s guns.
West noticed the shocked look on the boy’s face. “It’s OK, kid. This sort of thing happens to us all the time.”
West came to the barn’s huge door, ushered the others inside before he peered out after Sky Monster’s pickup as it sped south alongside a spur of hills, kicking up a thick dust cloud behind it—
But then a parachutist cut off his view of the truck, a fully equipped Chinese trooper who hit the dusty ground and rolled skillfully, slewed his chute, and quickly pulled out an automatic rifle.
Then he started running directly for the farmhouse.
Another man landed behind him. Then another, and another.
West swallowed. He and the others were cut off from Sky Monster. “Damn it, damn it,” he breathed.
Then he ducked inside the barn as over a hundred more paratroopers hit the ground on every side of his farm.
THE EAST DRIVE
MOMENTS LATER,the barn doors blasted open, and two compact all-wheel-drive vehicles boomed out from it.
They looked like something out of a Mad Max movie.
They were modified Longline “Light Strike Vehicles,” or LSVs—ultralight two-seater dune buggies with chunky all-terrain tires, high-tolerance wishbone suspension, and sleek bodies made only of roll bars and struts.
Jack and Alby were in the first car; Zoe and Lily in the second.
“Sky Monster!” Jack called into the radio-mike wrapped around his throat. “We’re cut off from you! We’re going to have to meet you at the highway! We’ll take the east drive and the river crossing.”
“Copy that,”Sky Monster’s voice replied.“The highway it is.”
“Jack,”Zoe’s voice came in.“Who are these people, and how the hell did they find us?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I don’t know. But Wizard knew they were coming. He sent us a warning—”
Just then, a storm of bullets chewed a line across the dirt road in front of Jack’s car. Jack yanked his steering wheel hard over, blasted through the dust cloud.
The shots had come from a big all-terrain vehicle thundering in from the desert plain to the north.
It was a distinctive six-wheeled vehicle, a WZ-551 armored personnel carrier built by the Chinese North Industries Corporation for the PLA. Featuring heavy armor and a French-made Dragar turret on its top, it had a box-shaped body and a flat prowlike nose that sloped backward underneath it. The Dragar turret boasted a brutish 25mm cannon and a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun.
It was the first of many APCs coming from the north. Jack counted seven…nine…eleven vehicles behind it, plus even more smaller ones, jeeps and trucks, all overflowing with armed troops.
It was the same from the south: men and vehicles had touched down there, discarded their chutes, and were now coming north toward the east drive.
An armada of vehicles coming right at them, from both the north and the south.
Zoe’s voice:“Jack! Those APCs look Chinese!”
“I know!”
He keyed his radio scanner, picked up the broadcast frequency for the Talisman Sabre exercises. A voice was shouting:“Red Force Three! Come in! You are way off course for this drop! What the hell are you guys doing!”
Clever, West thought. His attackers had made this look like an exercise drop gone wrong.
He evaluated his options.
The east drive led to the Fitzroy River, a north–south-running river that was currently full, it being the wet season. A single bridge spanned it. Beyond that river was an old highway which—at one straight section—doubled as West’s own private runway.
If his cars could make it across the river before the inrushing forces cut them off, they could make it to the highway, where they’d rendezvous with Sky Monster.
But a quick glance at the twin columns coming at him from the north and the south revealed a simple mathematical truth: it was going to be close.
West’s LSV roared down the dusty east drive.
In the passenger seat, Alby gripped the roll bar, his eyes wide with terror.
West glanced over at the little boy.
“Bet you never experienced anything like this at another kid’s house over the summer!”
“Nope!” Alby shouted over the whipping wind.
“You a Boy Scout, Alby?”
“Yes!”
“And what’s the Boy Scout motto?”
“Be prepared!”
“Absolutely! Now, young man, you’re gonna find out why you’re not allowed to play on the cattle crossings or
