The bell had no sooner sounded than the kung-fu fighter charged out, swinging his fists and kicking aggressively. The bulky American backed away, his arms working to block the furious assault.
Just then an unusually tall, handsome Chinese soldier approached the general.
“You asked to see me?” he said, passing Liang’s guards and entering the VIP booth.
Down in the ring, the kung-fu fighter ducked a wild punch from the American and countered with a hammerblow strike to the chest. The crowd went wild.
“Your reputation for quelling anti-Communist uprisings in Tibet precedes you,” General Liang said without averting his eyes from the spectacle. The man next to him was Zhang Shuhong. Six foot two, with chiseled features, he was a special forces commander who, like the general, had come from a humble background in the city of Xinyu, southern China.
“I take pride in my work, sir.”
Confident, but not too cocky. Any more and he would have suspected Zhang was trying to compensate for some hidden insecurity.
Both men watched the fight for a moment in silence. The American wasn’t doing very well and the crowd was loving every minute of it.
“I asked you here to fix a problem for me.”
“Yes, I heard of the attack on Camp Shènglì.” The word meant ‘victory.’ The irony wasn’t lost on either man.
Since the incident, two more camps had been brazenly overrun by American insurgents. Now even more prisoners were on the loose and the escalating problem was beginning to eat up resources Liang couldn’t spare. He’d asked Zhang here to help him stem the bleeding. He handed the commander a folder.
Zhang opened it, reading the first of a series of dossiers. “John Mack. Age forty-five. A retired lieutenant with the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment.”
“That should read colonel,” Liang said. “He’s been promoted.”
“What are the Rough Riders?” Zhang asked, scanning the page.
“Apparently it’s the name they’ve given their particular insurgency group.”
Zhang smiled. “Sounds like something from a western.”
Returning the gesture, the general said, “I assumed the same thing. They’re in love with that bygone era and fail to see the future even when it’s staring them in the face. I want him and his men caught. Dead or alive. Either one is acceptable. And when you’re done, Mack’s corpse will be displayed as a warning to anyone who dares stand against us.”
Down in the ring, the kung-fu fighter threw a spinning back kick. The move was caught by the American, who swept his legs out from under him. The larger man then fell on top of his small, but agile foe, slowly working him into a choke hold.
The sound of the Asian man’s neck snapping stunned the crowd into silence. Their surprise was so complete that the smirk on Liang’s face went unnoticed by those around him. It was the look of a man who was heading for a winning streak.
Chapter 46
The light from an oil lamp flickered off the walls of the Rough Rider headquarters. In the planning room, John, Moss and Specialist Heller, the explosives expert from Alpha squad, were pouring over maps of Lenoir City, Tennessee, an area south of Oak Ridge and west of Knoxville. A section of the Norfolk Southern Railway line ran through the town, hugging the Little Tennessee River on its way to Knoxville. John followed it with his finger until he came to a turn in the rail line.
“This is where we’ll set the IEDs,” he told them.
“On a curve?” Moss asked, moving closer to get a better look at the map.
“Always,” John told him. “First off, it’ll give us the best chance of derailing the train.”
Heller’s eyes lit up. “And second, there are plenty more straight tracks than curved ones so repair will be more difficult.”
“Precisely. We’ll wire up three mortars buried beneath the tracks and attached to a pressure plate. As soon as the Chinese steam engine rolls over it, the IEDs will blow and derail the train along with its supply cars.” John glanced over his notes. “Only six of us will be going on this one.”
“What about the others?” Moss asked.
“I’ve got another Rough Rider team under Hoffman heading east toward Johnson City to take out a low-level Chinese general. Another group is going west to attack a North Korean checkpoint dressed as Chinese soldiers.”
“You found the uniforms?” Moss asked.
John shook his head. “Sort of. We decided to use what we pulled off the dead Chinese soldiers who attacked the town. It took a bit of mix-and-matching, but I think it turned out all right.”
Heller didn’t look convinced. “Don’t you think they’ll be able to tell Americans from their own people?”
“No one at the checkpoint will be left alive to talk about it, but we’ve picked a place where there’ll be plenty of witnesses. From a distance, all they’ll see are Chinese uniforms.”
Nodding, Moss said, “You want the North Koreans to think the Chinese are giving them payback for failing to stop the attack on the truck depot and the concentration camp.”
“Bingo. Listen, they may not totally buy it, but I wanna plant a seed of doubt in their minds. Anything we can do to drive a wedge into this fragile alliance only works in our favor.”
A knock came at the door and John pulled it open to find Gregory. He checked his watch, seeing that it was nearly eleven at night. “I thought you were asleep?”
“I tried. Kept tossing and turning.”
John glanced back at Moss and Heller. “I’m kinda in the middle of something important, bud. There’s a couch over there. Why don’t you lie down and try to get some rest.”
Gregory did and John couldn’t help but wonder if the horrifying images of what he’d seen at the camp were keeping his son from sleeping.
As the meeting resumed, the look of unabashed optimism on Moss’ face was almost contagious. “You know me, boss, I’m about as skeptical as they come, but I’m starting to feel like we may have a real chance of winning this thing.”
John nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“I mean, that meeting we had with General Brooks. Australia and New Zealand helping us in the Pacific. The NATO landings. We aren’t alone anymore.”
John let out a sigh as he rearranged the papers on the desk.
“What is it?”
“Heller, will you excuse us for a moment?” John said.
“Sure thing,” the specialist replied, confused. “I’ll start putting those pressure plates together.”
When he left the room, Moss took a step back, his body stiffening as though John were about to lay into him.
“There’s something you need to know about that meeting with Brooks,” John said.
“I don’t like that look on your face.”
“The intel on the war in the Pacific is accurate, but that NATO force…” John trailed off.
“What are you saying?” Moss asked. It looked like he’d just been kicked in the gut.
“I’m saying I’ve heard from other sources the landing in Halifax isn’t nearly what Brooks made it out to be. It’s far closer to the Dieppe raid than it is to D-Day. We know and trust each other, which is why I’m telling you this. I just didn’t want you getting your hopes too high.”
“But why feed us a bunch of lies?” Moss said, baring his teeth. “And don’t feed me a line about morale and propaganda.”
“It is, in part,” John admitted. “It’s also about making sure everyone’s on the same team.”
“But we caught Phoenix,” Moss almost pleaded and then paused. “You mean there might be more spies?”
“I don’t think so,” John said. “But Brooks is just making sure.”
Another knock at the door and this time Moss was the one who answered it.