Volodya and Douglas were the first to stagger out of the container, grateful for any release from the monotony and motion sickness of the enclosed space that they had been stuck in for ten hours. Until, of course, two seconds later, when they realized that they had come ashore right next to a sewage pipeline.
“I knew China would be a shithole,” Volodya quipped.
Douglas, Grant, Brook, Jed, Dietrich, and Taleb said nothing and merely began loading the truck. An hour later, we were all at the spacious house Lian had purchased with the bulk of her severance package. Cots had been set up for everyone. There were even groceries in the cupboards.
After the sewage and the long, exhausting trip, however, no one was much in the mood for food. The men went off to sleep, while Douglas, Lian and I planned.
“How was the trip over?” I asked Douglas.
“It's been a long time since I've had to be locked in a box with six other men for that long a time with one damn toilet. But we survived.”
“How were the men getting along?”
Douglas sighed. “You want the good news first or the bad news first?”
“Good.”
“They're all professionals. No fights broke out, nothing like that.”
That wasn't particularly great news. “What's the bad news?”
“There are problems emerging already. Taleb's silent as a bloody rock, and no one trusts him because he's an ex-terrorist. Jed's especially suspicious of him, seeing as he's spent his whole career fighting jihadis.”
“Any solutions you can think of?”
Douglas scratched his head. “We need to integrate Taleb. He's a damn timebomb otherwise.”
“Agreed. Any other problems?”
“The Taiwanese intel specialist, Lieutenant Fei, he's awfully quiet. Really, none of them are very talkative, though. Grant and Brook are mates going way back, but none of the others knows or trusts each other.”
I sighed. This sort of management problem was extremely basic, but even here, among hardened mercenaries, such things had to be addressed. “Split them up on future operations.”
Douglas responded, “Problem is, they know each other well, know each other's training. They'll work better together than they ever will with others.”
“Do any of the others know each other like that?”
Shaking his head, Douglas said, “I've got scores of employees around the world. Volodya, I guess, has worked with Taleb before as an instructor, but none of the others have worked together before. I've worked with Volodya the longest and the most directly. If I know him, he's going to be the easiest to integrate. Jed will be the next easiest. He's a simple bloke and he doesn't seem to have any big issues. Dietrich's a cold fish, but he's a stable cold fish. Taleb… well, he might be an issue. But he's a damn good operator, and he volunteered.”
“So, how do we make them a team?”
“Same way it's been done for thousands of years. Throw 'em into battle and let the fire weld them together.”
Chapter 7
"We've been traveling long enough. We're here now. Let's make some bloody trouble."
The team was assembled around the dinner table of our house in Qiaogangzhen. We had spent the past day recuperating from the transit, unloading weapons and equipment, and, in the case of Douglas, Fei, and me, plotting our first move. Now, Douglas was sharing our plan with the team.
"We want to put pressure on the Chinese supply lines. Those lines start at factories and depots in the interior that are cranking out ammunition, spare parts, et cetera, and sending them to Guangzhou and other ports in the area for transshipment to the front lines.”
"The ports themselves have been sealed up tight since the Knights' raid at the beginning of the war. The Knights came in from the sea and planted demolition charges on merchant ships in the Guangzhou harbor. The Chinese learned from that humiliation. They've got a couple battalions guarding the docks now. We'd need an army to get in past all that.”
Dietrich observed, "You are saying that we have to go further back in the supply chain, before the materiel gets to the ports."
Douglas answered, "Smart lad, Hans. I knew there was a reason we brought you along. So, how do the supplies get to the ports? Some of it comes by highways, but the lion's share comes by rail. Even before the war, they used rail for most of their military shipments, a dependence that dates back to when they modeled their military on the Soviet Red Army seventy years ago. Now, with the U.S. in the war contesting the sea lines from the Middle East, China can't even use trucks on a large scale without taking vital oil away from its economy. Their domestic situation is screwed up enough as it is without spiking gasoline prices."
Jed, the American explosives expert, drawled, "So we're blowing up some tracks then, eh?"
Fei giggled. “Ought to get the war on the right track!” Everyone in the room gave him icy looks, so he shut up.
I said, "A little more complicated than that, but, basically, yes. The target will be a railroad bridge on the outskirts of Guangzhou over the Luoyang River. We're going to time it so that a train also crashes in the process, just to get a little more bang for our buck."
Volodya asked, "And who's going on this little trip?"
Douglas and I didn't look at each other, but we had spent as much time picking the personnel as conceiving the original plan.
"You, Priest, and Jed are going. Fei will be giving intel back-up from here. Douglas and I will be monitoring the op from here as well."
"How?"
"You'll all have ear pieces and glasses cams. Better get used to the ear pieces, by the way, they're going to be implanted in your canal. Perfect sound quality, plus they're invisible to an outside observer.”
"Good. The whole world looks better when seen with Russian eyes."
Douglas replied, "Speaking of Russian eyes, you and Jed are going to be wearing surgical masks to hide your non-Chineseness a bit. What with the air pollution in China, it's not that uncommon for people to wear the masks. Oh, you've got your cover story, but we don't want it to come to that."
Jed asked, “What's the cover story?”
“You're Russian environmental engineers monitoring the river for carcinogens and other pollutants. Volodya will do all the talking. You'll take along some fancy looking equipment that you can wave in front of the locals if any of them stop you.”
Volodya asked, “Will we have the right paperwork?”
I smiled. “Indeed you will. I have documents for all of us identifying us as citizens of the Russian Federation.”
“Why Russian?” Jed asked.
Volodya answered, “Russia is still supplying arms to the Chinese. It's the country least likely to make a Chinese citizen call the police.”
I nodded. “Exactly right. Now, we've got a couple other little gadgets here that might come in handy…”
Four hours after leaving the village, Priest parked the nondescript white van on a dirt road among the vegetation two miles upstream from the bridge. I watched the camera feed from Priest's glasses as Volodya, Priest, and Jed checked their gear. Each of them wore bland, ordinary t-shirts, jeans, and a large backpack.
The men exchanged a confirmatory glance. Their home countries were about as far apart as possible and they spoke three different native languages. In this moment, however, a nod was all they needed.
Reporting back to the house, Priest whispered, "Ready to go."