“Immediately sir?” Stan asked.
“No. Let’s wait another half hour. We want them all on the road. High Command has decided to let the first enemy elements to break through unscathed.”
“That’s playing dirty, sir.”
“It sure is,” Taylor said. “And you know what?”
“What’s that, sir?”
“It feels great!”
Stan grinned. It did at that. The US 3rd Army Group just might pull a Genghis Khan trick on the Chinese. These were secondary troops in Harbin and panic seemed to have set in. Now, it was time to kill the enemy.
Jake, Chet and Grant walked on the side of the expressway with the rest of the platoon, two days after the massacre.
Harbin rose to the north, a US-captured city, the first provincial capital to fall to the Allies.
Thousands of twisted, wrecked tanks, BMPs, BTRs, trucks, jeeps and SUVs lay where they died, together with tens of thousands of rotting corpses. The stink was unbelievable.
“Somebody ought to clean up the mess,” Chet said.
“Didn’t you hear?” Jake said. “The Eighteenth is gathering Chinese prisoners for the duty.”
“How long until they bury the bodies?” asked Chet.
Jake shrugged. He had no idea. This section of the expressway was the worst. He’d never seen anything like it. In places, trucks, tanks and BMPs had gone off-road. It hadn’t helped them escape from the vengeful Cherokees and the V-10 drones that couldn’t comprehend mercy.
It was simple really. The more Chinese soldiers and vehicles the US and Russians butchered, the less there was to kill the good guys.
US missiles, rockets and chain guns had reaped a harvest by division, by brigade, by battalion and platoon. Miles of this littered the route. It had to be over forty thousand corpses, maybe more.
“The Chinese should have held their ground,” Chet said.
“We would have still beaten them,” Jake said.
“I know, but they would have done better against us that way than dying like fools.”
“Thank God they didn’t stand.”
“For sure,” Chet said. “I’m just saying.”
Grant swore, and head swiveled fast. “What was that?”
Jake had heard it too. In the heat of the sun, many of the bodies had already decomposed a lot. Interior gas had ballooned stomachs until they distended. Now, some of them made horrid gurgling sounds.
“That’s worse than your farts, Grant,” Chet said.
Grant gave Chet the finger.
After that, the three of them hurried. So did everyone else who came to this heap of dead.
Two hours later, they left the road. Battalion headed toward the Xinglong Reservoir.
They bedded down in the open under the stars that night. It was a quiet and peaceful. Suddenly, from the direction of the reservoir, a titanic explosion lit the darkness. Soon, a hot blast-furnace wind blew over them.
“Bet we don’t find any generators working there,” Chet said.
The next day proved him right. East Lighting had breached the dam for a distance of one hundred yards.
Jake learned that eight turbo-generators here had a total output of half a million kilowatts. The Chinese secret police had burned them out yesterday by deliberately letting them run at full throttle for too long.
Jake stared at the one hundred yard gap in the dam.
“What are you thinking?” Chet asked.
“Would you blow up a dam and wreck the generators like that if you thought you were going to beat back the invaders any time soon?”
“No,” Chet said.
“This tells us something.”
“What?”
Jake grinned. “The Chinese must not be feeling real confident right now.”
“They shouldn’t. Not after what I saw on the expressway.”
Jake nodded, and he turned away. “Come on, we’re heading out. The lieutenant says we’re getting a ride again. The Army is going to need us soon in Jilin Province.”
“Tally-ho,” Chet said, in a mock British accent he’d been practicing.
The two young soldiers shouldered their packs and headed for the assembly area.
-12-
Drive on Changchun
In the end, Paul Kavanagh decided he’d have to make a little excursion in his powered armor. The security here was intense, and they were a long way from anywhere out here in the sticks.
At chow that night, Paul ate his meatloaf in silence, with Romo on his right and Sergeant Dan French on his left. Dan was a SEAL. Correction: had been one. Like the rest of them, he was a Marine now—a drop specialist—and part of their squad. Dan kept picking up and twisting the peppershaker, putting more on his meatloaf.
The cafeteria seated a quarter of them at a time. They’d been making drops from lumbering transports, wearing an approximation of their gear. Another few weeks and they’d been ready for whatever plan the brass hats had thought up.
As Romo made to get up with his empty tray, Paul cleared his throat. Romo didn’t glance at him. The assassin simply sat back down, pushing his tray toward the middle of the table. No one ate faster than Romo did, but he hated having plates near after he had finished. It wasn’t the strangest of quirks among men who had seen a lot of combat.
Sergeant Dan looked up, and then he cut into his meatloaf, forking himself more. Soon enough, he muttered something, took his empty tray, and headed for the exit.
“I’m sick of this stuff,” Paul said.
With an easy twist of his head, Romo glanced at him. The dark eyes betrayed nothing, but they had been with each other for several years already. They’d gotten patterns down pat. Paul felt the assassin’s unspoken question.
“There are no girls here,” Romo finally said. “That is a mistake, as we’re warriors.”
“Soldiers,” Paul said. “We’re soldiers.”
“No. We act like soldiers. I concede that much, but no more. We fight. We’re killers, you more than anyone else.”
“I’ve heard it said, but I have my doubts about that.”
“I have no doubts,” Romo said. “And I see others realizing the same truth. The general, he knows I’m right. That is why he tolerates your lack of respect. You have asked too many questions too many times. You do not obey when they most want you to submit.”
“It’s a character flaw, I suppose.”
“I agree—it is a gigantic flaw. Colonel Valdez could smell men like you. You made the colonel faint, your odor of rebelliousness was so powerful.”
Paul remembered Valdez all too well from Denver in ’39. The Mexican colonel had wanted him dead. He recalled their meetings. None of them had gone well.
“I don’t think that bastard ever fainted in his life,” Paul said.
“Colonel Valdez will rule Mexico someday. You watch.”
That was something that had surprised Paul, how Valdez had actually convinced the other Mexican generals to revolt against the Chinese. It turned out America had been right to coddle the psychopathic Napoleonic wannabe. Imagine that.
Pinching the end of his spoon with his thumb and forefinger, Paul lifted the scoop and tapped it against his tray. “I’m taking a little ride tomorrow,” he said casually.
Romo just stared at him.
“I’ve been through Montana a time or two before this. Did some hunting in these parts. There’s a town… oh, I’d say about forty miles from here.”
“Our training range is huge, vast. The general does not want anyone to know about us.” Romo shook his head. “Security might have moved the townspeople somewhere else.”