Supercritical Read online

  “Sir!” the young soldier said, snapping to attention and giving Nick a high salute.

  “Get yourself together, soldier,” Nick said in quick, clipped Mandarin.

  The young soldier started buttoning his uniform coat quickly as Nick pushed past him and walked into the main building. He was right about it being a listening post, he saw as he looked around. The place was crammed with computers and long-range communications gear. The young soldier, however, was alone in the room.

  “Who’s in charge of this outpost, soldier?” Nick snapped.

  “Lieutenant Wei, sir,” the young soldier stammered.

  “Where is he? And why are you by yourself in here? There are supposed to be two of you monitoring communications at all times!”

  That was a guess, as there were two chairs in the small room, but it turned out to be correct.

  “Private Chang stepped out just a minute ago, sir. He should be—ah. There he is,” the young soldier said.

  Nick spun around and saw an even younger soldier, this one maybe seventeen, standing in the open doorway.

  “Well? Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to find Lieutenant Wei and bring him here?” Nick spat at the new arrival.

  “MSS,” the first young soldier whispered to the second.

  The Private’s eyes went wide, and he backed out of the building slowly, then broke into a run.

  “Now, while we’re waiting, I want a progress report,” Nick said to the young soldier.

  “Yes, sir! About three hours ago, we monitored three Russian planes coming into our airspace. Their transponders were using an old code. A squadron went up to intercept them. The Russians were not of our allies. They took down six of our planes, but we did shoot them all down. No parachutes made it to the ground.”

  “Six, eh? Sounds like they went down swinging,” Nick said.

  “‘Went down swinging?’” the young soldier said, his face furrowed in confusion.

  “An American expression,” Nick replied with a wave of his hand, only he didn’t say “American.” He used the term guizi, which translated loosely as “white devil.” He almost slipped up and used the Cantonese term, kwai-lo, but caught himself in time.

  “American, sir? You use their terms?”

  “Know your enemy and know yourself, soldier, and you will always be victorious,” Nick said. His brain was struggling to keep up in Mandarin. He spoke it fluently but didn’t have much opportunity to use it growing up, and he was actually better with Cantonese. Constantly in danger of stepping on a linguistic land mine, Nick did his best to keep his heart rate down.

  “Is that Sun Tzu, sir?”

  Holy shit, it is Sun Tzu. How did I pull The Art of War out of my ass? Nick thought, but he merely nodded to the young soldier.

  “Sir?” a voice came from the door. “I’m Lieutenant Wei, sir. I apologize that you were kept waiting, but we did not receive word you were coming.”

  Nick looked over his shoulder and saw an officer, this one only slightly older than his two men. His hair was disheveled—he must have been sleeping.

  “The MSS does not need to inform you when we are coming by,” Nick said. “Now, Lieutenant. I need one of the Mengshi light assault vehicles you have outside.”

  “May I ask why, sir?”

  “You may not. It’s need to know, Lieutenant, and I’m afraid you’re just not cleared for that information. Now, keys. Quickly. I’m short on time here, and you wouldn’t want my report to mention you specifically as the reason for my delay, would you?”

  “Of course not, sir. Right away, sir. Private Chang, bring around Mengshi Three after you top it off with petrol,” Lieutenant Wei ordered.

  “Sir!” the young Private shouted before scurrying off.

  “Very good, Lieutenant. I’ll see that I mention your operation favorably when it comes up,” Nick said, smiling widely and showing teeth.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until the listening post’s lights disappeared in his rearview that Nick allowed himself to take a nice, deep breath. His heart was hammering in his chest. He honestly thought he was going to be found out at any second, especially since he was just making shit up as he went along.

  This mission is going to get us killed, he thought as he circled back around to pick up his unit. I’m struggling with the language, and my people don’t speak a word of the Russian they’re supposed to have known from birth. This is a bad situation all around.

  Still, he’d accomplished the first step. He’d gotten them transport, a large Humvee clone with a Type 77 machine gun on the roof. It would be a squeeze, but all seven members of the unit could fit inside.

  “Step one down,” Nick muttered to himself as he drove. “And that was the easy one. Only nine hundred and twelve more steps to go.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Roll On

  Bryce took the wheel, and Nick sat in the passenger seat. Behind them, Christopher, Mary and Daniel sat in the rear seat, while Martin and Briggs rode in the covered bed of the truck with the team’s weapons and gear. Checking the rearview mirror, Nick saw that his people had their iPods on. Most of them were silently mouthing Russian phrases to themselves as the Mengshi rolled through the night, headed for Ulaanbaatar per the vehicle’s GPS system.

  The road was almost completely abandoned. In the first hour of the journey, Nick saw one car, a broken-down old Lada Niva sedan going the other direction. It was even more packed than the Humvee; as the old Russian car passed, Nick counted eight people inside.

  “Hey, boss,” Bryce said about an hour into the drive. He’d decided not to try and learn Russian while he was driving, so he and Nick were the only ones not engrossed in Captain Dyuzhev’s rapid-fire lessons.

  “Yeah, Bryce?”

  “Not to diminish the job you did getting us a ride, but this thing eats fuel like a bitch. No extra gas cans, either. I checked before we started out.”

  “Will we make it to Ulaanbaatar?”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty likely. But we’ll definitely want to fuel up there.”

  “Roger that.”

  “You know,” Bryce said, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror to see if Daniel was listening, “an old boyfriend of mine did an endurance race out here about six or seven years back.”

  Nick nodded. Before his arrest, Bryce had been one of the best T-5 rally truck drivers in the world. It was almost an unknown sport in the U.S., but in Europe and Africa, it had a decent following.

  “In the big trucks like you used to do?”

  “Nah. Motorcycles. Anyway, he told me something interesting. Back then, Mongolia only had something like eighty miles of paved road in the entire country. Not many gas stations, either. Now, I’m sure the Chinese have built up more roads since they took over, and more fueling stops—”

  “But we shouldn’t count on it.”

  “That’s where I was going, yeah. I know we don’t want to be sitting on a ton of extra gasoline, what with it being flammable and all, but an extra twenty or thirty gallons might mean the difference between getting out of Mongolia or having to stop and flag down another ride.”

  “The guys in the back are going to love that,” Nick said. “They’re already wedged in with gear.”

  “Might want to consider a follow vehicle if we can find one in Ulaanbaatar,” Bryce suggested.

  “I’d rather keep us all together. The less we have to use the radios, the better. Intel says the Chinese haven’t broken 1-9 Victor yet, but I’d prefer not to test that. We’ll make it fit.”

  “Another suggestion, if I can?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Might want to leave the rest of the unit a couple of miles out from the city, someplace they can cover. Just you and me go into town. It’s gonna look suspicious, us pulling up loaded like a fucking clown car.”

  I should have come up with that, Nick thought. Good thing Bryce is keeping his head.

  “You, me and one other. I need someone to keep his hea
d on a swivel.”

  “My man’s the best there is for that,” Bryce said, nodding his head backward at Daniel.

  “I had the same thought. How are things going with you two, anyway?”

  “Given the conditions, can’t complain. At least we have each other,” Bryce said.

  Nick envied the two of them. They’d been a couple since before they joined 47 Echo, back when they were in another convict unit. Nick had pulled them both into his unit when he saw Daniel’s natural sniper talent, and he already knew of Bryce’s skills from the T-5 racing circuit. After their transfer, Bryce told him they were glad to get out of their former unit. Their new CO was a former Baptist preacher who didn’t take kindly to his two gay soldiers. Most Marines—real ones, anyway—Nick had met were pretty much unfazed by gays in the military, and the convicts even less so. Still, a religious zealot would pop up every once in a while and condemn the gays in his unit to hell, seemingly not realizing that these were the people watching his back.

  “All right. Let’s keep our eyes open for a good cover spot. According to the GPS, we should reach the capital around sunrise.”

  “Is that what that thing says? No offense, boss, but Chinese just looks like a bunch of lines to me.”

  “None taken.”

  They drove on for another two and a half hours, still not seeing another vehicle along the long, desolate road. Nick began to wonder if the entire country consisted of the eight guys in the Lada and the one farmer who’d shot at them earlier as the sun began to rise. Even when the GPS said they were only seven miles from the capital, the road was still barren on either side. In the distance, Nick could see a small building on the right side of the road.

  “Daniel,” Nick said, turning around and shaking the younger man’s knee.

  Daniel pulled the earbuds out of his ears.

  “Yo.”

  “Building up ahead. We’re going to slow down a bit away. See what you get on thermals,” Nick told him.

  “Right on.”

  Bryce slowed the Mengshi to a crawl, and Daniel leaned out the window with his Druganov sniper rifle—an “awesome piece of firepower,” as he’d said when Dyuzhev had given it to him. He put his eye up to the scope and trained the weapon on the building, which Nick saw now was really just a small shed.

  “Nothing on thermals. If there’s anyone in there, they ain’t alive,” Daniel said.

  Nick noticed that the rest of his crew were pulling out their earbuds too, as they realized something was finally happening.

  “Good. Bryce, stop us there. Everyone but me, Daniel and Bryce will hold at this building for the time being. We’re low on fuel, and a vehicle packed with white people is going to attract a lot more attention than we want. We’ll go load up and come back here to get you.”

  “I could go along, Nick. See if I can pick up a loose Wi-Fi connection, get us some intel,” Mary said.

  “That’s a negative, kiddo. We’re in and out, quick as possible. There’ll be other chances to hack.”

  “’Sides, next to Daniel and me, you’re the best shot we’ve got,” Christopher said. “I’d feel much better having every available shooter with us if we get into a situation.”

  “I guess,” Mary said, sighing.

  “Hey, I’m a pretty good shot, too,” Briggs piped up from the back of the truck.

  “Really? Then what are you doing in the Air Force?” Christopher said, a grin creeping onto his face.

  * * *

  As Nick, Daniel and Bryce got closer to Ulaanbaatar, they started seeing evidence there actually was a city there. First, a few low buildings popped up on either side of the road. Then, cars began to pass them going the other direction. A few minutes later, they were in the middle of a fairly modern metropolis, bordered on both sides by mountains. Vehicles and people were everywhere, and the overwhelming majority of both were People’s Liberation Army.

  “Hate this,” Bryce said through gritted teeth as he stared straight ahead, both hands gripping the wheel tightly.

  “Hey, you wanted to come,” Nick said. He tried to sound light and offhand, but his voice sounded flat. He, too, felt exposed. Uncomfortable didn’t even begin to cover it.

  “There. Gas station, left side of the road. About five hundred yards,” Daniel said.

  It took Nick a moment, but he saw it. Then his stomach sank.

  “Uh, guys…I just thought of a problem. We don’t have any money on us, Chinese or Mongolian. Shit, I don’t even know what they’re using here.”

  “Maybe flash that ID of yours? Worked on the guys at the listening post,” Daniel suggested.

  “I’m going to have to. Bryce, how much fuel do we have?”

  “Just under an eighth of a tank.”

  “Enough to make a getaway if things go south?”

  “Sure. I mean, not far, but I’ll do what I can.”

  “Right. Keep the engine running while I talk to the guy,” Nick said as they pulled into the gas station and rolled to a stop next to one of the pumps.

  He got out of the passenger door and headed for what looked like the cashier window. His heart was jumping around his chest again, and even though it was chilly outside, Nick could feel a sweat starting near his lower back. He swallowed hard as he approached the small building. The man inside was overweight, dressed in a People’s Liberation Army uniform that barely fit him. A QBZ-95 assault rifle rested against the wall next to him, and he was just shoving an energy bar into his mouth when Nick walked in.

  “What do you want?” the fat soldier said.

  “Fuel, obviously,” Nick said, showing his ID.

  “Oh. MSS,” the soldier said, smiling. He had food in his teeth. “My brother-in-law works for you guys. Hey, are those guizi in the truck with you?”

  Nick leaned over the counter and motioned for the fat soldier to come closer. He did, and Nick dropped his voice to a whisper.

  “Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but they’re Russian allies of ours. Spetsnaz. Do you know what that means?”

  “Special Forces,” the fat soldier said, nodding his head. “That’s cool.”

  “It is, isn’t it? Now, we need to fill up our vehicle, and take any other fuel you can spare. Got any petrol cans around?”

  “Got a couple of ten-gallon cans. I’ll get ’em for you.”

  “That’s a good man. What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Tong, sir. Private First Class Jian Wa Tong.”

  “I’ll make sure to mention you to my superiors, Private.”

  “Cool,” the fat soldier said, smiling again and finishing off his energy bar as he headed toward the back of the store.

  Nick waved to Bryce outside and saw him get out of the Mengshi and start fueling up.

  “Here you go, sir. I’m just writing this up as ‘MSS Special Purpose.’ Classified, right?”

  “You’re correct, soldier,” Nick said, trying to grin at the overweight guard. He found, again, that his mouth wouldn’t smile, no matter how hard he tried.

  “You look tired, sir. Been a long journey?”

  “Can’t really say, Private. But thanks for these,” Nick said, picking up one large can with each hand and walking back out to the gas pumps.

  “Quick as you can,” Nick said to Bryce under his breath. His lips were dry, and it was all he could do not to lick them obsessively.

  Bryce just nodded, and Nick set the gas cans down next to him and got back into the truck.

  “Daniel? How are we looking?”

  “A lot more Chinese Army than I would have thought. Where the fuck are the civilians?” Daniel whispered.

  “Probably hiding. Wish I was doing the same.”

  “Light armor heading this way. Bryce, hurry the fuck up,” Daniel said, nodding down the long street to a slowly approaching Chinese ZFB assault vehicle.

  “Almost done. One more can,” Bryce hissed through the open driver-side window.

  Nick glanced back at Daniel and saw the younger man had his Druganov
held just below the seat, ready to bring it up and fire through the windshield at a second’s notice.

  “Take it easy, Daniel,” Nick whispered.

  “I’m cool, boss.”

  “Full up. Let’s go,” Bryce said, throwing open the back door and shoving the gas cans onto the back seat next to Daniel. He was in the driver’s seat a second later.

  As they pulled out of the gas station and headed back for the rest of their team, the Chinese armor pulled into the gas station, parking in the spot where they had just been.

  “Man. That was too goddamned close,” Daniel said, breathing out hard.

  “Get used to it,” Nick said. “I have the feeling we’re going to have a lot closer calls than that one before we’re done.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Black to Comm

  As 47 Echo drove farther south, they passed what seemed like hundreds of People’s Liberation Army vehicles, all headed north. Nick didn’t like the look of that at all. The combined U.S. and Russian forces were barely holding their ground as it was, and if China was sending a major offensive their way…

  Well, Nick thought, this mission would be rendered pointless pretty quickly.

  After Ulaanbaatar, Daniel and Bryce crashed out in the back of the truck, squeezed in between the gas cans and the team’s gear. Christopher had taken over at the wheel, and Nick stayed in the passenger seat. He dozed off and on as they slowly wound their way toward China, confident that Christopher could read the GPS with the basic Chinese Nick had taught him over the last year.

  With the extra fuel, they easily made it to nightfall. As his watch turned over to 2200 hours mission time, Nick had Christopher pull the Mengshi off to the side of the road.

  “Time for a pit stop, kids. Grab something to eat if you haven’t already,” Nick said as Christopher turned off the engine.

  He stepped out of the vehicle, munching on a First Strike Ration bar. They were terrible, but they contained all of the nutrients he needed to stay alive and functioning. When he’d first come to Russia as a convict, they were all he’d eaten for a couple of weeks before Christopher scammed some decent food for them. Most of the cigarettes, food, and decent equipment 47 Echo had came by way of Christopher. The guy was an excellent scrounge.