An identical vehicle raced up on the opposite side of Chin. And there was another even further away. They were barreling at fifty kilometers per hour into the Chinese, who were panicked and offered no resistance. And how could anyone stop such a thing? All Chin had was his rifle and a single hand grenade.
Just before the armored vehicles pulled even with Chin, he lay behind the tree and pressed himself flat. The ‘pum-pum-pum’ of the automatic cannon filled the woods. He lay there until the sound of the engines receded. Then he lay there until he could no longer hear the guns and the bombing runs. Then he waited for the sun to come up.
He didn’t rise from that spot, in fact, until ordered at gunpoint. Then, he rose carefully, slowly, his hands in air as the nervous Americans shouted orders he didn’t understand.
The crowded Bradley armored fighting vehicle rocked and bumped along at high speed. Kate and Woody were thrown every which way, banging shoulders and knees with the mechanized infantry squad. Woody had tried at first to shoot the scene, but he’d given up with mumbled complaints about bad light.
The men sat with their backs to the walls. They were quiet and wore looks of deep concern. They were new to the war, Kate had learned, as she did eve-of-battle interviews with several. They’d only just flown into Siberia, having remained in Japan as part of the ‘strategic deception plan.’ They looked little older than high-school boys, and they had attempted unsuccessfully to hide their fears. All of which, Kate knew, made for the first good footage in weeks.
The squad leader began talking on the radio. His words were almost shouted, but Kate could barely hear them over the whining engine. He traced coordinates on the map with his finger. He repeated, ‘Roger that! Roger that!’
When the sergeant got off the radio, he squatted in the narrow center aisle. ‘Listen up! We’re gonna provide flank security to the main breakthrough! When we dismount, I want everybody to follow me toward a line of low ridges! We’ll set up there and refuse the east! One of the recon units up ahead sighted dismounted Chicom infantry moving toward that ridge! We’re gonna drop our packs and double-time it so’s we get up that ridge first!’
Even before he’d finished, the Bradley began to slow to a stop. The engine noise dropped off noticeably. Men scrambled to get a hold of their gear. The sergeant pulled his bulging pack toward the rear and knelt awkwardly amid the press of knees. The double doors opened. Men raced into the darkness outside. Kate and Woody were the last two out.
The doors closed and the Bradley took off. The soldiers all dropped their loads and raced for the dark outline of a hill. She and Woody followed, but very quickly they lost contact with the men. Woody grabbed Kate’s arm and pulled her down into the snow.
‘Woody!’ Kate objected, but he hushed her angrily. ‘Woody, we can’t just loiter around here in the dark. That’s more dangerous than…’
He tackled her flat to the ground. She didn’t know what possessed him to crush her like that, but she lay there scanning the dark woods for danger. It took her a few moments to see the shadowy figures.
Nearly a dozen men emerged from the treeline. They walked slowly like a wary patrol. At first she thought surely they were Americans. But their differently shaped helmets were a dead giveaway.
Chinese!
Kate and Woody lay absolutely still. But it was no use. The Chinese headed straight for them. Each step of their approach was announced by the crunch and squeak of their boots.
Kate raised her head. The Chinese soldiers stood all around. They had no weapons. Their hands were raised to the tops of their helmets. Woody got to his feet.
‘You guys are all under arrest,’ Woody said. ‘Get down on your knees.’ He motioned, and then demonstrated what he wanted.
‘Woody!’ Kate cautioned. But the Chinese slowly sank to the ground — their hands still atop their heads. They whimpered — pathetically mouthing things in Chinese. Some cried. Their faces were frost-bitten. One man who was missing several teeth held up family photos and begged for his life. By the time the first American soldiers arrived, the number of prisoners had grown to almost a hundred.
Pyotr Andreev followed the instructor to the range. It was a sunny day. The place looked like a public park. They stopped at a picnic table with bench seats covered by a small shingled roof. On the table there were weapons.
‘All right, two fifty-three,’ the instructor began — calling Pyotr by his anonymous case number. ‘What we have here is your primary weapon — a semi-auto .50 caliber sniper rifle, military issue — and your choice of secondary weapons.’ The selection included an Uzi, a Heckler & Koch MP5, and an Ingram MAC-10. The man started to go over the strengths and weaknesses of the lot, but Pyotr picked up the Ingram. It was the .45 caliber version, not the lighter 9-mm. He slapped the magazine in the pistol grip.
The instructor followed him the short distance to the target range. ‘The MAC-10 is a helluva weapon for close-in combat,’ he said as he stopped beside Pyotr. Three plastic jugs filled with water sat atop a pitted wall of concrete blocks. A thick earthen embankment lay behind. Single shots cracked in the distance. Pyotr held the weapon at his hip. He grasped it firmly with his right hand and wrapped his left in the leather strap that hung from the muzzle. ‘It fires standard .45-caliber pistol ammo. The rounds’ tremendous stopping power is also the weapon’s main drawback. It tends to ride straight up when you…’
Pyotr squeezed the trigger. The weapon thundered. It bucked and shook and shot flame a foot out the end of its short barrel. Pyotr fought it for a second and a half, then the weapon fell silent. ‘Goddammit!’ the instructor yelled. ‘I give the Goddamn order to fire on this range! You do that one more time and…!’
The instructor fell silent. His mouth was still open. He stared down the range toward the targets. There were no jugs on the wall. ‘Cease fire,’ he said as an afterthought. He took off down the range. Pyotr followed. Shredded pieces of twisted plastic lay on the ground behind the wall. The soil around the targets was dry. The water had been sprayed all over the soggy embankment.
Pyotr had fought the gun’s ferocious recoil with his left hand in the leather strap. He’d slewed the weapon from left to right when it wanted to rise toward the sky. The instructor straightened, but never looked his way. ‘Don’t fire any weapon on my range again without my go-ahead! You got that?’ Pyotr nodded. They had asked him to say as little as possible. His accent betrayed too many things.
The instructor picked up a new jug of water and put it on the wall. When he turned, he saw Pyotr pouring water from another container down the wall on the end opposite the target. ‘We use these gallon milk containers ’cause they’re the same density as a human torso when filled with water.’ When the light gray blocks turned dark, Pyotr tossed the jug and headed back to the picnic table. ‘So,’ his trainer said, ‘you’ll take the MAC. Let’s move on to this mother.’ He raised the .50-caliber rifle. ‘It fires these,’ he said, tilting the open top of an enormous black magazine so that Pyotr could see the stack of rounds inside. They were nearly five inches long. The thick, metal-jacketed bullets were propelled by an enormous charge. The cartridges were the width of a man’s thumb. ‘The magazine holds five rounds.’