‘Please,’ Kartsev said, slipping away. He was aroused, but that only made it worse. ‘I really just came here to ask you a few questions.’ When he looked back at the girl, she was crying. Her hands covered her face. She was sobbing silently. Kartsev was exasperated. ‘What is it now? Because I refuse to defile you you’re crying?’
The woman turned away and struggled to compose herself. She denied that she was crying even as she wiped the tears from her face. When she turned, she flashed a smile his way as if to prove her case. Kartsev had had enough. ‘I’m sorry for disturbing you.’ Before the girl could say a word, he headed out. The security troops kept their eyes averted as he passed them for the stairs.
At the building’s entrance, the chill hit Kartsev. He remembered he’d left his coat in the apartment. Cursing, he returned to the still-open doorway. He didn’t know how to read the startled looks of the guards who waited outside the apartment. But when he entered, he saw the reason instantly. The young woman was on her knees. A large brute clenched her hair in his hand as he stood before her. Kartsev walked right up to the man, whose eyes were closed. He seemed to sense someone’s presence. When he looked around, his face registered instant terror. The woman sank back onto her haunches, coughing. Her face was invisible behind her curls.
Kartsev left without his things and found his aide on the landing. ‘Get the woman and the child and put them up in a Kremlin apartment. Give them everything they need. Take care of them.’ He looked the man straight in the eye. ‘And I want you to schedule that man in there.’ The aide nodded. ‘Oh, and get my coat and gloves.’
Kartsev waited in the cold stairwell. They hustled the woman and boy past. She was frightened but not complaining. She dutifully smiled at Kartsev as she got the boy’s jacket on. A single shot rang out from upstairs. The woman stopped and looked back toward her apartment. She was clearly perplexed, but seemed otherwise untroubled. ‘Your coat, sir,’ Kartsev’s aide said.
‘Sappers i-i-in!’ came the cries over the furor.
Andre Faulk was crammed low in a hole next to a replacement. Bullets chipped off rock around their shallow position, which was dug on the side of a steep ridge. Some of the fire was Chinese. But most was from the three machine-guns above them that raked their platoon’s positions. When the ‘sappers-in’ call was given, they killed everyone who raised his head.
It was the third time in ten minutes they’d been overrun.
Faulk narrowed his focus to just his hole. To the strong stench of the unwashed man next to him. A private from Iowa or Indiana seeing his first action with the 101st To the rock chips that peppered them both. To the screeching noise and burst of flames and ever-present shouting of massed attackers. Andre jammed his eyes shut. He grimaced as bullets flew by at supersonic speed.
Andre was at the limits of his ability to function. But the replacement was long gone. He was no use at all. He’d been choppered in that day. Said he’d seen action with the Third Infantry. But the facts didn’t sound right.
The storm of fire in the air above subsided. ‘Heads u-u-up!’ shouted the NCOs at their heavily depleted platoon. They’d flown in with thirty-eight. But they were down to twenty-nine including nine worthless replacements! ‘Let’s go, fuckhead!’ Andre shouted. He rose.
Through the dim light crept hundreds of men. The slope was steep. They moved as if their legs were stuck in molasses. Andre aimed and killed a man. His muzzle blazed as he killed and killed. It lit the rock on which he lay with flame. The granite was armor. He’d weathered mortars — even artillery — in the rocks.
The only problem was that the Chinese had the same cover. They advanced and dove behind the impenetrable stone. Then, in celebration of survival, they fired. They seemed perfectly content to set up shop behind good cover. Until, that is, they were prodded on. The shrill whistles of Chinese officers sounded like those of referees in a basketball game. But the sound sent the men to their deaths. It was as if its exhortation was too powerful to ignore. Andre listened for it. He aimed at the men who were flushed out by it.
His rifle slammed into his shoulder with each round. Each blinded him with the flash for a split second. He kicked the replacement hard and then fired. ‘Hey! Motherfucker! Get yer ass up here now!’ There were dark moving figures everywhere. Profiled against fires in the valley below. ‘I mean it, asshole!’ He fired three well-aimed shots — felling two. ‘You’re gonna get stuck like a pig if you don’t!’
Andre heard a loud whistle. A man was turned and facing downhill. Bent over with the effort of blowing. Pow! came the blast from Andre’s rifle. The man disappeared in the muzzle flash. The bastard from Iowa or Indiana finally joined him. He laid his rifle on the rock and shot up half a magazine in two seconds. It distracted the hell out of Andre. The guy dropped, apparently done for the night. With gritting teeth Andre braved the deep shit. He’d save their fuckin’ asses by himself! He killed Chinese to vent anger at his ‘squadmate.’ Useless fuckin’ bastard, he cursed silently as he relentlessly killed the enemy.
Searing pain shot through his ear. His eyes watered instantly. ‘Shit!’ Andre shouted as the warm liquid ran down his neck. The enemy was fifteen meters away. He fired and fired until his magazine was empty. When he dropped to reload, the guy from Iowa or Indiana rose. But he didn’t even fire a fuckin’ shot! He jumped right on top of Andre.
‘Mother-fucker? Andre screamed. The full weight of the man pinned him. When he pushed the guy away he saw the problem. A bullet had smacked right into his face. ‘Shit!’ Andre cursed. On instinct he pushed away from the carnage.
‘Sappers i-i-i-in? shouted a half-dozen men.
The machine-guns fired. The air filled with death. Bullets whipped by inches away. Spits of granite stung his face and eyes. This is it! Andre thought over and over. He switched his selector to ‘Burst.’ He didn’t risk rising. He held the rifle over the rock. With his arms at full extension he fired. One, two, three quick pulls of the trigger. Nine rounds at what must have been point blank range. The trigger froze on the fourth pull. The mag was empty. He dropped the rifle and grabbed his dead squadmate’s M-16. He lay on his back and waited.
Andre fired at the first dark form to blot out the stars. The three-round burst threw the man down the hill. The next man must’ve assumed Andre was dead. He climbed the hill, stooped low under the machine-guns. Andre laid him out with a shot fired through his knees. He didn’t want to have to reload. He flicked the selector to ‘Semi.’ Two men appeared right over his head. One opened up on full auto from three feet. The rounds pummeled the replacement’s lifeless body. Andre’s shot stood the man straight up. He tumbled backwards over the rock. The second man kicked Andre’s rifle away. He collapsed on top of Andre as machine-guns raked the position repeatedly.
Andre grabbed the man’s searing hot AK-47. A flash of white from an elbow stunned him. The man’s knee just missed Andre’s groin. The Chinese assault rifle was pressed between them. They wrestled and it went off. The Kalashnikov sprayed rocks not two feet away. But the wide-eyed Chinese soldier had made a critical mistake. He was smaller than Andre and he had tried to use his rifle.