“You want to keep patrolling these shitholes until one of these fools kills us?” Chet asked. “I don’t. We’ve done our duty. Let some other sucker take a bullet in the chest. I’ve had it with stalking empty buildings up to here. Too many chances for booby-traps. They’re the worst.”
“I’d rather die in a firefight than find myself stuck deep in China with our supply lines cut and have to surrender,” Jake said. “I’m never surrendering. I’ve heard what they do to prisoners.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Chet said.
“Why not?”
“Because you can always shoot yourself before waving the white flag,” Chet said. “See what I mean?”
Jake halted. Holding his rifle one-handed, he dug into a pouch and extracted a discolored jawbreaker. They had found a Chinese candy store two days ago. Everyone stocked up, Jake on bags of jawbreakers. He sucked on one twenty-four-seven. The sugar helped keep him going. The strong cinnamon taste kept the boredom from closing his eyes.
An ear-link crackled. It was the lieutenant. “Stay sharp. Jenkins spotted movement near the temple. He counted seven hostiles trying to be sneaky.”
Jake craned his neck to look ahead. Most of the village was old homes with slanted roofs. They’d passed a brick bakery. Near the southern edge of town was a three-story building, a pagoda or something. The temple, as they called it.
Suddenly, a gong boomed from there. It sounded like something from an old kung-fu movie.
“Right,” Jake said. He faced his house, a small store, actually. With his free hand, he tested the door. It was locked. Screw this. Using his rifle butt, he smashed the display window. The tinkle of glass didn’t drown out a second gong from the temple.
“Fire in the hole!” Chet shouted. He tossed a grenade through the window into the store. It exploded, and Chet jumped through the opening into gloom.
Jake followed, scanning back and forth down junk food aisles. Most of the time there was an unspoken rule in villages. No. He took that back. It was a printed rule, dropped onto Chinese cities with millions of leaflets. If the Chinese civilians didn’t fire at the Americans, the Americans didn’t kill them.
Live and let live or something similar to that.
A door in the back of the store opened, and a man shouted at them in Chinese.
The double gongs had made them nervous. Jake raised his rifle at the man. Chet didn’t wait. He fired, and the old man crashed back through the door he’d opened, falling onto a rug.
Jake rushed forward, screaming orders in case anyone else was in the other room. Again, Chet refused to wait. He lobbed a grenade past Jake and through the open door.
“There could be kids in there!” Jake shouted, twisting away at the last second.
The grenade exploded, a man screamed with pain.
Jake gripped his assault rifle and nerve, plunging into the room, jumping over the dead man. A second man lay on a bed against the wall, holding his guts with his hands. Blood poured between his fingers. Beside the man on the bed lay three Chinese grenades. Son of a bitch, Chet was right. Jake shot the man. A creak warned him. The bathroom door inched open. Jake emptied his magazine, splintering wood, causing the door to swing open. A Chinese man staggered against a toilet, sliding to the tiles.
“He has a grenade!” Chet shouted as he entered the bedroom.
Jake turned his back to the Chinese man and crouched low. The grenade in the dead man’s hand went off. Something peppered Jake’s back, but the body armor saved him from harm.
“They’re attacking outside!” Grant shouted, who had stayed by the store’s display window.
Chet stepped into the bathroom, looked around and darted out. “He’s never getting up again.”
Jake used his left sleeve to wipe his mouth. He was shaking. He hadn’t expected a firefight. Well, it hadn’t been one. They’d only had grenades.
“Come on,” Chet said. “Grant’s at the front.”
The two of them rushed to Grant, crouching down on either side of the big window. They saw a weird spectacle. This place was living up to the haunted feel. To Jake’s amazement, regular Chinese people in ordinary clothes charged down the street.
“Are they drugged?” Chet asked.
“Look at their hands,” Grant said. “They have grenades.”
“They’re crazy,” Chet said.
Jake sucked on his cinnamon jawbreaker. He didn’t want to fight this kind of battle. The US Army and Marines had come to fight enemy soldiers, not butcher stupid civilians.
A sprinting Chinese man on the main street pulled a pin. He skidded to a halt, turned so he faced the temple and cocked his arm, ready to hurl the grenade back the way he had come. Gunfire from the temple cut him down. Civilians around him screamed. He went down in a flopping heap. So did his grenade. It went off, and two women howled in agony, with shrapnel in their bodies as they staggered backward and fell.
“What’s going on with this freak show?” Chet asked.
Jake thought he knew. He’d fought in the penal battalions back home. The worst had been in New York State. The Chinese must have their own form of penal battalions, and some civilians didn’t like it.
The civilians who survived the temple gunfire and grenade charged down the street. Those in front pulled pins. American gunfire cut them down. Someone used a grenade launcher. The civilians scattered. Two grenades flattened most of them. Maybe three civilians darted into hiding in the nearby homes. The wounded on the street began to groan or scream, depending on the injuries.
“That’s jacked up,” Chet said.
Silently, Jake agreed. “I have an idea,” he said. “Let’s head out the back.”
“Care to share your idea with us?” Chet asked.
“I think the Chinese police, or somebody, are driving the ordinary people to attack us.”
“Why would they do that?”
“To drown us in a sea of bodies would be my guess,” Jake said. “What do the Chinese leaders care as long as enough US soldiers die?”
“Pretty ruthless,” Grant said.
They’d moved to the back as they talked. Jake unlatched the rear door.
“Better inform the lieutenant what we’re doing.”
“What are we doing?” Chet asked.
“Trying to come on the police from behind,” Jake said. “Kill them and we win this village.”
Chet blinked at him three times. “Okay. I’m with you.”
They raced down an alley, their gear making muffled sounds on their back.
“We’re not supposed to play heroes,” Chet panted. “Remember?”
Jake was thinking back to New York near Buffalo, his worst days in the penal battalions. He saw red today. He hated the Militia MPs who had forced them into crazy combat situations. This should be a fight between free men—those that loved their country.
“Jake,” Chet said. “Slow down. This is too risky.”
Jake saw something out of the corner of his eye. Grenade! He darted behind a barrel. The grenade landed and it rolled right up to him. He just stared at it as a cold sweat broke out over him.
After a few more seconds, Chet appeared. He laughed, picked up the grenade and said, “The fool forgot to pull the pin. You’re one lucky sorry mother.”
Jake swallowed what remained of his jawbreaker. His jaw clenched. With a grunt, he stood. Then he began to stalk purposefully toward the temple. A crazy feeling on invincibility consumed him.
I’m alive for a reason. Otherwise, I’d be dead right now.
He turned the corner and he saw seven Chinese men climbing into a big SUV. They wore brown uniforms with red belts. Somewhere, he’d been briefed about that.
Oh yeah, those are East Lightning bastards: Chinese secret police. I bet they’re the ones who forced the civilians to rush us.