About a quarter of a mile away, landing craft left white, luminescent wakes through Mobile Bay. Major Richards whispered, “Pathfinders meeting a boat.” The British marine didn’t point. He had fallen in love with the American integrated display system. His thumb rolled a small track ball mounted atop the right index finger of his glove. Crosshairs on the screen in Hart’s goggles aimed at a dark stretch of beach. You couldn’t quite tell where the water ended and the land began until the phosphorescent surf lapped against the shoreline. Richards — who was well-trained at recon — was directing Hart’s attention to Chinese troops already on shore that they hadn’t seen before. They had come out of hiding just like Hart and Richards immediately after the barrage had lifted and were greeting a landing craft. With the new system, Richards could just as easily be designating the landing craft as a target for an aircraft, missile, or shell. That was what was so hard for Hart to swallow about their mission. It didn’t allow for engagement.
Hart left Richards and headed off toward a rare surviving outgrowth of weeds and bushes. He had to keep his movements slow and not cast any shadows from the stars that might be visible to light-amplified binoculars, so he crawled on all fours. His entire body was covered by a chemical protective suit that served dual purposes. It also reflected heat inward. If he hadn’t worn it, his body would glow on infrared. De-humidifiers in the toe-to-hood gear kept him cool so long as he frequently drained the bags of sweat at his shins, which were now filling rapidly.
He slithered into the bushes and extracted a pointed black stalk, which he sank into the churned and blackened soil. He then mounted the camera to the stalk and plugged his goggles’ umbilical into the camera. Instantly, the view through the camera appeared on his goggles’ screens. When he moved his head from left to right, the camera traversed Mobile Bay. The camera was “slaved” to the movements of Hart’s helmet.
Just like a fucking target designator, he thought. He centered the picture shown by the camera on one open landing boat. In the background — out in the bay — water splashed white off the bows of dark ships.
Hart angrily continued with his routine. The camera was functioning properly. He removed the umbilical, and his regular view reappeared. He covered the camera with netting, ensuring with care that the lens was not obscured.
Captain Hart was a Green Beret — a member of the 5th Special Forces Group — and was used to working with dangerous implements. But the final step on the checklist was the one he liked the least. Without looking up at his partner, who was forty meters away installing British state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, Hart whispered into the intercom, “Self-destruct system’s armed. Fire in the hole.”
“I’m right behind you,” Richards replied. The sound of his voice came from the right over the directional earphones in Hart’s helmet. Hart had less than sixty seconds. Plenty of time, he reassured himself. He plugged a different jack into the camera’s output. From it protruded a tiny filament. He began unreeling the nearly invisible wire behind him as he crawled up the slight rise of the cleared forest. By the time he was six feet away, he was safe. The motion detectors would blow the eight-pound charge mounted at the base of the camera the next time anyone came close.
At the first standing tree on the top of the ridge, about twenty meters away, Hart activated the microwave transmitter and raised its single telescoping leg to about twice his head height. At the top, the hollow black cylinder was already buzzing with an electric motor that searched the horizon for a carrier signal. There was a beep of success in his headphones, and he stapled the slender metal leg to the tree on the side opposite the bench.
A radio signal arrived through a swirl of attempted Chinese jamming. Hart heard, not from Richards, but from much farther away, “Angel Six, Angel Six, this is Sentry One. We read you five by five. Execute Romeo Alpha. Repeat, Romeo Alpha. Acknowledge. Over.” Hart’s eyes narrowed behind the electronic lenses. “Acknowledge, Angel Six.”
“This is Angel Six. I acknowledge. Execute Romeo Alpha. Repeat. Romeo Alpha. Angel Six, out.”
Richards joined him at the tree. “What is Romeo Alpha, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“For you, it’s evac. Let’s go catch a ride.”
They returned to their crater of first choice. At least a dozen boats were disgorging troops. The first warships — expendable frigates and corvettes — now patrolled the deeper water with radar domes, missiles, and guns. The Chinese had gotten amphibious landings down to a fine art. It was an art that particularly impressed the marine, Richards, who whispered bits of praise and admiration. “I can’t tell you,” he finally said enthusiastically, “how thankful I am that you agreed to me coming along. It’s a wonderful opportunity. My report to London is already half written in my head.” Richards stopped talking when he looked at the only part of Hart’s face he could see — his unsmiling mouth — and then said, “I’m… I’m so sorry. I apologize.”
Hart concentrated on the enemy that was invading his country. He grimly designated inbound assault formations with his track ball, all the while gritting his teeth in anger. If only there were orbiting missiles ready to navigate to the precise coordinates that Hart’s targeting system computed or to ride Hart’s laser beam down to the Chinese. It would take them an hour to kill him. In the meantime, eight-hundred-pound warheads would rain down onto their heads.
Why that wasn’t his mission, Hart didn’t know.
Several platoons formed up and headed left. Only one went right. That’s the one Hart designated with a press of his trackball. Richards nodded in silent agreement.
The Chinese were crack assault troops, but Hart was Special Forces, and Richards was Royal Marine recon. They followed the Chinese from a distance of about two hundred meters without being observed, skirting minefields that twice bloodied the Chinese. The platoon periodically stopped for artillery prep, which devastated the path ahead. That was why Hart and Richards trailed.
The American and Brit peeled off after three miles. Three miles of Hart itching to open fire on troops left behind to ambush anyone like Hart and Richards. Three miles of Hart silently praying the Chinese would make a wrong turn into the minefields whose location only he knew. Three miles of Hart daydreaming of slitting the throat of a wounded straggler who so brazenly defiled his country.
They uncovered their two three-wheeled ATVs. Their engines were acoustically silenced and made almost no noise. “You know the route?” Hart asked.
“You’re not coming?” Major Richards asked. Hart — goggles still covering his upper face — shook his head. Richards asked, “Just what is ‘Romeo Alpha’? That plan wasn’t part of our briefing.”