The Apache crashed to the ground a hundred meters or so into the trees, to Galt's left. A secondary explosion rocked the night. But the sound of the secondary explosion was lost under the suddenly erupting explosions that made the earth tremble.
Tanks had opened fire nearby, firing systematically, over and over. Then came the chatter of automatic weapons fire and what sounded like more than one heavy caliber M-60 machine gun on full auto.
Galt unholstered his Beretta. No one could have survived the crash of the Apache. So now he had Captain Morales's blood on his hands, along with Barney Markee's, because they had been drawn into his "personal" covert op. He would grieve for them. He would have to wear the hair shirt for his part in their deaths, if he survived what was happening here tonight. As for right now, it was time to kick ass from here to eternity. His only course was to go ahead, whatever the odds.
The illumination of the fiery remains of the chopper cast an amber glow across the distance. Galt glided about in a 360-degree turn, his pistol up, his eyes searching for any sign of human presence. Whoever built the signal fire would still be around. He hated dealing with local talent on a covert op. It was always chancy.
A figure emerged from the tree line; a scraggly, elderly male wearing a frayed woolen jacket, baggy trousers and a straw hat. He fit the description provided by Smathers, the CIA man in Tokyo.
Galt spoke in Korean. "You are Ahn Chong?"
Ann nodded. "What is your name?"
"I'm the one you expect. My name is Trev Galt. You will lead me to Chai Bin?"
"Yes." He indicated the direction where they'd seen the Apache go down. "Chai Bin will have heard the explosion and plane crash. Even now he will be sending men to investigate."
Galt clicked his NVD goggles into place. The man and their surroundings shimmered in high resolution infrared. "That was a Russian T-54 tank. The North Korean military has them by the hundreds. Is your government's military attacking Chai?"
"I think not." Ahn spoke with assurance. "They would have a large force and attack without further delay. This is a smaller force. They are cautious."
Galt picked up on the thought. "Chinese." He regarded this mountain peasant. The old man exhibited a keen intellect. No wonder the CIA had found him invaluable as an intelligence source on the ground. Galt glanced at his watch. He spoke into the mic that was part of his helmet, programmed into the attack team's frequency.
"We just lost one," he said, without preamble, across the tac net. "Chinese tanks. Over and out."
It started raining again, raining in thunderous torrents that filled the air with wild noise. They sought scant cover beneath a towering pine. It rained with the intensity of a waterfall.
Ahn watched. When Galt was done, the old man asked, "Did they receive your warning?"
"We can only hope. I didn't expect a response. The mission is radio silent. They're going to attack Chai Bin like an iron fist. We have to move very quickly now."
"I will show you the way."
A pair of huge boulder formations, nearly abutting each other, loomed against the sky. The rock formation formed an entrance. The rain had ceased as abruptly as it began, but not the wind. The wind shrieked.
A lone sentry stood in the lee of one of the massive boulders that sheltered him from the howling wind. The sentry was huddled against the cold. He paced, smoking a cigarette, a rifle slung over his shoulder.
Galt and Ahn were stretched flat, side by side, against the side of a gully, observing. The wind rattled the branches of the trees and sent down an irregular shower of water from rain-drenched pine needles. There had been no more hostile fire since the downing of the Apache. Ahn had led the way here via a network of game trails: a steep climb, the stony paths treacherous with moisture. At the moment, Galt felt wrapped in the scent of pine. Even the ground was covered with pine needles.
"That is Chai's secret tunnel," Ahn whispered. "Even most of his own men do not know of it, which is why he posts only one sentry. That sentry would be killed if he spoke of it."
Galt whispered in reply, "So how do you know about this tunnel, my friend?"
"These are my mountains." The inflection of the old man's words was cold as the stony ground. "I know everything about them."
"I wish we knew where those Chinese tanks are positioned."
Galt eased down from the lip of the gully to where he could stand in a low crouch. Ann did the same. The rumble of helicopters drawing near penetrated the rattle of tree branches and the hiss of wind across icy rock. Galt glanced in that direction.
"If the Chinese commander is smart, he'll keep his head down and let us do the attacking."
"Either way" said Ann, "Hell is about to visit this place."
"And your work here is done," Galt told him. "It is time for you to withdraw. Be mindful of those Chinese."
The old man snorted derisively. "They are like Chai Bin. Intruders in my home."
"And what of me, and those in the helicopters?"
"You are helping to set my house in order," said Ahn Chong. "I will leave this battle to you, American, but the fight against the North Korean regime will not die within me until my last breath. It is good to know that there are those in my own home, my daughter and her husband, who will fight a quiet fight with me. And it is good to know that from the other side of the world, men like you are willing to help us. Goodbye to you, American. And good luck."
His scraggly yet noble figure receded into the night, fading away.
Galt wasted no time in returning his attention to take a final reading of the situation before pushing on. His only course remained to plunge ahead toward his goal.
He bent his head to shelter his face from the stinging wind, and launched himself from the gully at the sentry across the clearing. The rotor noises of the advancing choppers, loud and close under the low cloud ceiling, drew the sentry's attention. Galt came up close behind him and executed a simple shime-waza, the strangle hold that clamps across the carotid artery. Galt jerked his arms but, since the sentry was already unconscious when his neck was snapped, he emitted no sound of alarm before his body collapsed.
Galt continued, at a run, into the tunnel.
The pair of Apache AH-64s clawed through the predawn darkness at 190 knots, hugging the terrain at fifty feet, thrashed by treacherous, pummeling winds. Two miles and closing fast on the target, the gunships were creating their own "stealth," combining high speed and low altitude with a complete blackout of navigation lights and radio silence.
First Lieutenant Bruce Donnelly, piloting the lead chopper, broke radio silence. "This is Ghost Leader. Assume attack position." Donnelly was thirty-three years old, originally from Columbus, Ohio, married and the father of three.
The other pilot rogered that and broke away.
Donnelly's gunner, WO4 Kendall, positioned in the lower front seat of their Apache, grunted approval across the intercom. "Well, all right. Let's find something to blow up."
The dark valley below was five miles long and cultivated. The choppers roared over a sleepy hamlet. Donnelly scanned the darkness for any sign of the Chinese force Galt had radioed about, but so far it was impossible to visually penetrate the valley's dense foliage.
Then the target came into view. There in the distance, a black butte soared almost straight up at the far end of the valley.
He down-throttled the Apache as the outlines of the installation first began materializing in the greenish glow of his Forward Looking Infrared System. Like his weapons officer, he wore a flight suit without rank or designation, and a shoulder-holstered.45 automatic. He was a combat veteran of Grenada, Panama, the Gulf and Afghanistan. He broke radio silence.
"Big Bird, this is Apache leader," he said over the tac net. "Are you with us?"
"In position and on your ass, sir."
The Blackhawk was a half-mile back, maintaining position, waiting to ferry in the Army Ranger team. The response from the Blackhawk's female pilot was cool, calm and collected.
Donnelly positioned his Apache in a five-hundred-foot hover, and the other did the same, allowing the weapons officers to fix the target in their sights.
The layout of watchtowers, barbed wire and gun placements was clearly etched in the FLIR's infrared glow, including SAM launchers at each corner of the perimeter and ZPU-4 four-barreled anti-aircraft artillery.
Donnelly said, across the radio, "Initiate."
"Time to rock and roll," muttered Kendall.
The helicopters unleashed a salvo of missiles, turning the gloom into an out-of-control fireworks display. Instant chaos engulfed the target site. Anti-aircraft artillery began returning fire, their tracer bullets crisscrossing the darkness, joined in by smaller arms fire from the towers and ground emplacements.
Donnelly and his wingman throttled their choppers into a combat approach, head-on at the source of the sparkling green tracers whizzing around them, head-on into the blazing barrage. Both gunners and pilots wore helmets with Target Acquisition and Designation Sensor devices attached. Everywhere the gunners looked, they directed FUR beams that automatically allowed them to sight in on any target, whichever way they looked. It was not necessary for a WO to actually eyeball a target once the infrared beam picked it out. The gunner sighted by reading off the numbers from an instrument panel on the side of the sighting device. When a laser-designated Hellflre missile was triggered by the weapons man, the FLIR screen flashed LAUNCH. A clock counted down the missile's flight time.
Donnelly saw a watchtower evaporate in a violent cloud of smoke and flame. Kendall found something else to fire at and pressed his button, sending off a burst from the chain gun. AAA fire from a ZPU-4 splattered against the armor of the Apache's right side, jarring the gunship. Donnelly swung the war bird around, maneuvering into a slow sideways crawl.
"I see the bastards," Kendall growled across the intercom. He fingered the button for an extended burst from the chain gun at the artillery position that had been camouflaged with netting. Orange-red flame tracked the rounds that completely destroyed the gun and those manning it in a blasting flash. Resistance from the bandit base had generally tapered off to practically nothing, except for the occasional random of flash of rifle fire. Kendall said, "I see figures running from the base, away from the fighting."
"I see them too," said Donnelly. He made his decision. "All right, Big Bird," he said over the radio. "It's a hot LZ down there, but if we want out of here before the Chinese or the North Koreans show up, it's now or never."
"It's now," came the woman pilot's reply. "We're coming in."
The Blackhawk launched some heavy fire from its own missiles and chain-gun as it rotored past, then touched down in the center of the now-deserted compound.
From his hover position, Donnelly saw the squad of Army Rangers tumble from the side of the Blackhawk while the door gunner swept M-60 fire at anything that moved. Then a SAM was fired at the Apache, but not from the base below; instead, from approximately one click to Donnelly's starboard side. He pulled hard in a reflexive evasive maneuver while Kendall automatically activated their "black hole" infrared suppressor system. The missile detonated in the air somewhere nearby behind them.
Donnelly snarled. "Who the hell ordered Chinese?" He heard the plang! plang! plang! of small arms fire hitting his helicopter, again not from the base below but from the same approximate point of origin as the SAM. He nosed the Apache in the direction it was coming from. He saw movements-tanks, personnel and trucks. "See 'em?" he asked Kendall.
"See 'em!" Kendall confirmed.
The weapons officer unleashed a pair of rockets at a line of moving troop carriers that burst apart in a flash of multiple explosions, following the rockets up with an extended burst of 30mm gunfire, obliterating their ranks, sending survivors diving for cover. Missile after missile, rocket after rocket, 30mm after 30mm poured in at ground force from the circling Apaches.