Plague Zone

“Sir, there’s another helicopter in the ruins ahead of us,” the pilot said, glancing back at Jia.

“Proceed to target.”

They could collect their dead later, along with whatever equipment and clues remained. Jia was sure the second site had been attacked, too, but he needed to go through the motions of physically verifying it. A fool’s errand. This was how his life would end, cleaning up other men’s errors before they condemned him for their own mistakes. His disappointment was sickening, yet he thought, I’ll do my best. Perhaps it will be of some help to Qin if we—

“Watch out!” the copilot cried.

Two rocket trails lanced through the night. The fiery streaks went wide and cut past Jia’s helicopter as the rotors howled, the pilots reacting after the fact. The aircraft banked hard to Jia’s left, but the joy he felt wasn’t for escaping.

The Americans are still here! he thought.

His retinas burned. Both rockets had come from roughly the same place in the ruins. “There!” Jia yelled, pointing past the copilot’s helmet. The Z-9 had no armaments, but he wanted to avoid more incoming fire.

“I see them,” the pilot said as the copilot chattered into his headset, “We’re pulling left toward—”

A third rocket lifted from the earth directly in front of them. It slashed across the nose of Jia’s aircraft. The pilot shoved at the collective again, rocking them downwards. Then the night exploded.

“No!” someone yelled in the glare.

The rocket had struck the other helicopter and puffed away from its side in a long whipping cloud of fire and smoke.

Got ‘em, Cam thought. Three explosions lit the gloom like fireworks, although two of the RPGs landed in the ruins beyond the helicopters. Those bright pops of fire were disori enting because he expected them overhead. For a moment, his head reeled, trying to make sense of the distant flashes on the ground as a third, much closer light etched the shape of a Chinese bird into the sky.

The third shot was Medrano‘s, fired from somewhere to his right. It delivered only a glancing blow. The explosion seemed to bounce away from the helicopter’s side, but it was a killing strike. With infinite care, Medrano had bolted vials of the new machine plague to four of their rocket-propelled grenades. His RPG breached the aircraft. The nanotech did the rest. The helicopter shuddered, then spun away into the rubble below. The flames went out before it hit. Nor did it explode. But there was a solid wham in the dark.

Cam grabbed for another RPG against the wedge of concrete where he’d chosen to make his stand. They were closer to the labs than he liked, but they were afraid of being overflown, so they also wanted to be able to shoot at the campus in case the enemy got behind them.

The home’s foundation was exposed where its walls had been blasted away, creating a small, open corner for Cam to lay his arsenal, memorizing each weapon in line. If Alekseev had lifted a second launcher of his own, the Russian colonel held his fire. Cam couldn’t see the other man but he was fiercely aware of him and the others, too, like echoes of himself. In combat, they were as close as brothers.

“Save your round!” Alekseev called. “Save your round!”

“I hear you!” Cam shouted. This RPG was his last, and they were shooting blind. It was probably only their first shots, like tracer rounds, that had given Medrano an opportunity to zero in on the choppers. Now the surviving bird turned north, the sound of its blades slapping at the rubble.

Cam reached into the night with his ears and his bones, using his entire being as a tuning fork. He could track the vibrations. There, he thought. “Eleven o‘clock!” he yelled. “They’re at eleven o’clock!”

He ducked into the house’s foundation.

“Respond, respond!” the copilot screamed, trying to raise their comrades as Jia yelled into his own transceiver. “This is Short Dragon,” he said. “We are taking fire. The Americans appear to be dug in around our —”

The city beneath them ripped apart. Jia was still looking for the other helicopter when the black ruins shattered, heaved into the air by four explosions. The fires were distorted. Each sunburst was dirty with wreckage. At least one threw the body of a car spiraling up toward him, its hood and tires leaping away. Something banged off their aircraft with a crack like a gunshot and the helicopter lurched.

“We’re hit,” the pilot said calmly.

I was selfish, Jia thought. Uncareful. “Can you fly?” he asked, but the answer was obvious in the accelerating clockwise spin of the helicopter.

“Our tail—” the pilot began.

“Just get us down in one piece,” Jia said before shouting at his radio again. “This is Short Dragon at point two! We’re hit. We’re hit. The Americans appear to have dug in around the target and we’re putting down on the northern—”

Two more explosions painted their glass with light. In the false dawn, Jia saw the fins of a hundred broken walls rising from the ground. Poles. Wires. Was there anywhere safe to land? Seconds later they slammed into the mess. The helicopter bounced, then leaned to one side. “Go, go, go!” the pilot shouted, powering down as Jia and his men leapt out in a swift orderly line. He should have been proud of them, but he couldn’t see past his fury at his own failings.

“Split up,” he said, pointing Lieutenant Wei’s squad toward his left. The two pilots and another man would form up with him. “We’ll circle to either side. Stay on your radio. Be quick. We need to pierce their lines as quickly as possible.”

First he would advise his old base. Would they send reinforcements? How could more troops reach him if there were no more helicopters? Jia’s loyalty was to China and to General Qin, but he recognized the danger in what he must say.

Fifty percent of my strike force is dead.

If his superiors felt that he was losing this fight, they would send Xian heavy bombers over the labs. In fact, Jia wondered if those planes were already in the air.

Kendra looked up at the first explosions. “Go,” she said. “Help them.”

“I’m here to help you,” Deborah replied, floundering at the self-possession in Kendra’s face. My God, she thought. Is it possible she’s been totally coherent all this time?

“I know what to do,” Kendra said. “The marker—”

There was another huge detonation outside and their tent whispered and scratched as debris fell from the ceiling.

“I just need more time,” Kendra said.

“I can help.”

“You have to trust me.”

But I don‘t, Deborah thought. “Kendra—”

“I’m okay. Look at me. I’m okay. I know what to do.”

Deborah stared into the witch’s liquid dark eyes. Then she nodded and grabbed her AK-47 from the desktop, tearing through the sealed flaps of the tent.

The rubble burned. Fires leapt and crawled through the ruins in a dozen places, casting orange light and shadows. Cam waited with his insides crackling in the same way. The fighting had slowed to nothing for thirty minutes as the Chinese felt their way through the treacherous pitted landscape. Every second that passed was in his favor. Twice he heard people crunching in the dunes, but he held his fire. He was less likely to miss if they were point-blank.

Let them come to you, he thought. Let them come.

Suddenly two of Medrano’s bombs went off a hundred yards to Cam’s right. He heard the heavy stutter of an AK-47. Medrano? Another weapon responded. Cam tried to pinpoint either gun’s location, but the fight was too far away.

A third weapon joined the second, an unfamiliar brrp pp pp pp. Were the Chinese carrying submachine guns? Bullets pinged in the rubble. The AK-47 had stopped. Then another bomb tore through one of the standing walls, hurling fire and debris. The submachine guns quit and the AK-47 yammered again, once, twice. Cam realized there were two of the assault rifles. Obruch must have gone to support Medrano. They were holding the line. Cam wanted to help — he wanted to scream and cheer — but he stayed focused on the ruins in