We waited several minutes, the PLA soldiers outside keeping their weapons up and aimed the whole time. For the first time in years, I worried that the sweat on my hands might disrupt my aim. Even for someone who has seen combat dozens of times like I have, the literally constant life-or-death stress was starting to tell.
Finally, in the dead silence of that elevator, we heard a faint tinny voice in McCormick’s earpiece. “He can see her coming down the northern road into Pinglin,” McCormick said, relief evident in his voice.
Even Fong gave a little smile. “We should be going then.”
“Tell the soldiers out there to stand back at least ten feet from us,” I instructed Fong. He relayed the order, and the PLA infantry stood back a little. I didn’t want them close enough that they could shoot all three of us dead in an instant before we could react.
McCormick walked out of the elevator. At a slow, deliberate pace, he opened the door to the small staircase leading to the roof. More Unit One and PLA soldiers were stationed there, monitoring every inch of our progress.
We heard the whir of a helicopter outside. Adrenaline pumped into my veins. The end was near.
McCormick opened the door to the roof, and we saw the helicopter come in for a landing. I had never seen such a helicopter before, it was a state-of-the-art American stealth helicopter, like the one McCormick had described using during his time with the Knights. Overhead, in the dark, I could hear more helicopters, presumably belonging to the PLA.
Though we could no longer hear the buzz in McCormick’s headset, he announced, “Barker’s car is two hundred yards from the Airborne lines at Pinglin.”
We walked slightly more deliberately now. Dietrich and I kept our weapons leveled and aimed, resisting the urge to even blink at this moment.
I knew from our preparation that this was the tallest apartment building in the area. From the roofs of the other buildings, one could not see a six-foot tall person walking on this roof, so long as that person was not standing right on the edge. We kept to the middle of the roof, ensuring that no snipers could see us.
We were about ten meters from the helicopter when McCormick paused. “Barker has gotten out of the car. Concitor has someone helping her walk over. She appears to be alright. The PLA driver is withdrawing.”
Fong smiled. “I was true to my word. Now it is time to let me go.”
“Indeed it is,” McCormick said. Dietrich and I took a step back and moved around Fong to either side, making sure to keep our weapons trained on him. He held out his gloved hand to shake. “I hope you make it through the fighting.”
Fong took it. Then his face went gray. He withdrew his hand and looked at it. “What is this?”
Here we go.
McCormick kept his voice neutral. “Don’t worry, colonel. It’s just a little sedative whipped up by the Taiwanese. Nanoparticles targeting neuroreceptors that trigger sleep in your brain. You’re about to have the best 24 hours of sleep in your life — and nothing any doctor can do will stop it. You have about five minutes of wakefulness left today.” He forced a grin, though I could see how nervous he was. “You didn’t think we’d let you go just like that with the war to be decided in the next few hours, did you?”
I had advocated for using a fatal poison instead of a sedative for personal reasons, but as far as helping the war effort was concerned, this worked just as well. Fong’s face looked ashen, though from fury rather than the sedative. “This—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence because about two feet in front of him, Dietrich’s head rocked back and exploded in a shower of blood and brain matter. At exactly the same moment, a round hit me in the shoulder, throwing me to the ground.
This had always been the most dangerous moment in the plan. We had hoped Fong wouldn’t notice the delivery of the sedative, but our Taiwanese friends had said that to guarantee incapacitation for 24 hours, we needed to use enough that it would leave a palpable wetness on the recipient’s hand. Fong’s expression had probably been enough for the watching Chinese to think we had just figured out some way to kill him, and so they opened fire on us thinking that they had only moments to save Fong’s life.
McCormick was lucky. Because he was standing right in front of Fong, it was not easy for the PLA standing outside the stairwell on the rooftop to see him. Their first shots at him went wide, and he reached out, grabbed Fong, and pulled the PLA colonel to him, whirling the man around with one arm as he dropped his rifle and withdrew his pistol with the other. Fong was now a human shield.
“STAND BACK!” McCormick shouted over the helicopter’s engine which, though much quieter than an ordinary helicopter, still filled the air at such a short range. “Anyone moves and I shoot Fong dead right here!”
“Dmitriy, get in the helicopter,” he said to me more quietly.
I struggled to my feet, trying to ignore the excruciating pain in my shoulder. My left arm hung loosely, and so I pulled my pistol instead. “Not going anywhere ‘til we figure out how to both get out of here, Clay,” I said.
The moment seemed to dilate, stretching out as the standoff continued for several seconds. Perhaps fifteen elite PLA soldiers fanned out into a semi-circle around the stairwell entrance, their weapons up and aimed. Dietrich’s body was still pumping blood on to the roof, but I ignored the grisly sight of my comrade’s corpse.
Suddenly, an American F-22 streaked over our heads on full afterburner, no more than a hundred feet above us. At its full designed speed, it was going over two times the speed of sound. Though its primary mission was to take out PLA radar and antiaircraft missile sites in the vicinity, its pilot had been informed by Concitor that something had gone wrong. The ear-splitting roar of the engines and the sonic boom left all on the rooftop clutching their heads as the F-22 rocketed off on its mission to clear the way for the stealth helicopter’s escape.
Then, a few seconds later, just when everyone started to regain their senses, the PLA soldiers standing near the stairwell disappeared in a cloud of fire and shrapnel. A Taiwanese missile, the same kind that Concitor had used in the assault on Teatime Hill, showered the area in shrapnel. The missile’s precise targeting allowed it to home in on the stairwell specifically.
McCormick pushed Fong down on the roof and scrambled for the helicopter.
The helicopter pilot was screaming that we needed to go, that we were taking small arms fire from the street.
I took off running for the helicopter, which McCormick had already reached. “Get in!” he shouted at me.
Suddenly, my legs erupted in pain as three bullets tore into them. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, I fell to the hard surface of the roof, ten meters short of the landing skid. McCormick fired over my head, cutting down three Unit One soldiers who had climbed up a fire escape to reach the roof. He started to get out of the helicopter.
The calculus of the moment was instantly clear to me. There was no way the young American sergeant would get to me and carry me back before more Unit One soldiers arrived or someone managed to disable the helicopter. I never thought I would be in a position to sacrifice myself to save an American, but for some reason, the only thing I could think of was how happy McCormick would be when he saw Barker alive.
I screamed, “GO, GO, GO!” The helicopter pilot didn’t need further encouragement. He pulled up on the cyclic, and the helicopter sprang into the air. I had a fleeting glimpse of McCormick’s face, and then the helicopter was gone.