had been so loud it left the Australian’s ears ringing. He tapped Salvini’s S6 filter as Salvini stood mesmerized by the spectacle. “Come on, let’s go to Lake Nam.”
“I don’t like that name,” Salvini said. He had to say it again before Aussie could hear him.
“Why?” the Australian asked.
“Reminds me of
“So?”
“Spooky, man.”
“Bullshit. It’s a salt lake in the middle of nowhere.”
“Right,” Salvini said, and they set out — neither walking nor running but in that slow, commando jog that wouldn’t exhaust them yet would get them, they hoped, to the lake in time for the pickup.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Every officer and guard in Beijing Number One jail was in a foul mood because, with the missile threat removed, the United States, with local guerrillas involved here and there, was counterattacking all along the Orgon Tal-Honggor line.
Although they were only recapturing territory they had lost, the very fact that the Americans had turned and regained the initiative in some areas bespoke a commander who the Chinese knew would be loath to surrender. And in that way that it always does, despite official prohibition against it, the news of the American turnaround was already known by most of the prisoners. Only those in solitary, like Alexsandra Malof, had failed to hear the news, but the guard assumed she had.
“So, your guerrillas help.”
“Your guerrillas help.”
“Help what?”
“Ah, you think Chinese authorities do not know.”
“Know what?”
The guard stepped forward and punched her in the face. “You think guerrillas will—” He punched her again.
She flailed at him with her hands. “Get away from me…,” He enjoyed the fear in her eyes. He hit her again and felt his excitement rising. “We will kill all Americans!” the guard yelled. “All guerrillas.”
Grabbing her prison dress, he pulled it up about her waist. She tried to fend him off, kicking at him, but, laughing, he wedged his left thigh between her legs and kicked her with his right boot and she collapsed. He hit her again and again, and she knew if she didn’t yield he’d kill her, but he took her sudden servility as encouragement. Beneath all her hysteria, he told himself, she was just like the other women prisoners — she wanted it. Not being on the outside for a while, she missed it. He felt her legs give way, and she lay like a compliant dog as he huffed and puffed his way to ecstasy. It was short-lived, and when he heard the heavy door clanking open all he saw was the gun, and it was the last thing he ever saw, his body knocked off her, his temple a fountain of spurting blood, and astonishment on his peasant face as his head crashed into the stone wall. The reverberation of the pistol shot and the acrid bluish gray smoke were still in the air.
The moment Nie had looked through the judas hole and seen what was happening he’d ordered his aide, Captain Shung, to fire.
“Get him out of here!” Nie said, his voice even but its timbre vibrating with anger. He took one look at the prisoner’s face — bruised and bloodied by the fool of a guard. “After you get rid of him,” Nie added without looking at the captain, “get her to first aid. If she has to go to the prison hospital I must personally sign the transfer order. Understood?”
“Yes, Comrade Nie.”
“Thank you,” Alexsandra said quietly, realizing as she did so that the guard had knocked out one of her top teeth.
Then she understood — there hadn’t been an iota of sympathy in him for her in what the guard had done, only extreme annoyance that his most prized captive had been beaten about the face so badly that it would be awhile before he could make her look presentable in any show trial. In any event, he told Shung that he wanted the
Shung was also instructed to tell the replacement guard on the wing that he and his family would be summarily executed if so much as a scratch was found on the prisoner once she had been bandaged and returned from medical treatment. Nie had told Shung the very same thing, assuring a trembling Alexsandra before he left the cell that “We will certainly kill you as a spy if you do not cooperate. If you confess, your death will be quick — a public execution. But if you do not confess…” He threw up his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. “Then the guards can have you — do as they wish.”
There was growing pressure on Nie by the Politburo to have a public confession from Malof as an enemy of the people before they killed her. The effect of confessions, particularly among the peasantry, was much underrated by Western observers and intellectuals, who thought the mass of Chinese were as skeptical as they were about such confessions.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Freeman was pleased his forces had been able to rally significantly from the massive Chinese ground attack and to regain some lost ground, but the victories he’d expected from the close air support against Cheng’s main battle tanks were not forthcoming. The Chinese had made excellent use of smoke cover after the typhoon had passed, and, combined with the dust, the smoke not only obscured large areas of the battlefield and cut the Americans’ bombing and sighting laser rays and thermal sights, but made IFF — identification friend or foe — a near impossibility. Several M1s, mistaken for enemy tanks, had been taken out just south of the railway at Orgon Tal.
“At least the missile problem’s licked,” Norton said.
“For the time being,” Freeman answered. “Oh, it’ll take them quite a while to set up shop again, but we have to do something in the meantime, Dick — something so spectacular that it’ll short circuit the whole war.”
“Anything in mind, General?”
Freeman seemed not to notice Dick Norton’s voice. “I wonder whether young Brentwood shot those goddamned scientists.”
Norton was genuinely shocked. “You don’t mean that, General?” he said, but it was more a question than a statement of fact.
The general glanced at him and sighed. He was bone weary from lack of sleep. “No, Dick, I probably don’t, but have you ever thought of how we gain air superiority?”
“By more of us shooting down more of them I presume.”
“Planes or pilots?” Freeman asked.
It made Norton pause.
“Australian air ace,” Freeman continued. “Man called Caldwell used to shoot the German pilots in their parachutes in WW II. Said if he didn’t, the bastards’d be up the next day shooting down more of his buddies.” With that, Freeman looked up at the map and smacked Tibet. “Chinese scientists are same as the pilots. Long as we have them running loose they can build more missiles.”
