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  “Left side!” Nick yelled.

  Bryce jerked the wheel to the right, turning the van so hard and fast that for a second, the vehicle teetered on two wheels. As all four wheels slammed into the pavement, the van took off down the road, back toward the bay, with the troop truck right behind them.

  “Everyone get low!” Christopher yelled just as the first bullets shattered the minivan’s back window.

  Nick felt a few rounds fly within inches of his face, smashing through the windshield as Bryce turned the van hard, skidding into a narrow alleyway and standing on the gas pedal. The troop truck tried to make the same turn, but its driver quickly realized the alley was too narrow. Indeed, the stolen minivan barely fit. Nick could see sparks where the sides of the van scraped against the alley walls, hear the loud, high-pitched whine of the stressed metal against the concrete. A few more rounds slammed into the back of the van, but Bryce turned them around another corner. The gunfire stopped.

  “Everyone okay?” Nick yelled.

  “Clear!” Christopher shouted back. “Daniel’s Kevlar’s nicked, but we got lucky!”

  “Bryce, back to the ghetto. Factory where we holed up before. Think you can make it?”

  “Think I’m gonna have to,” Bryce said, nodding. “We’re pretty close. We need to get this thing off the street ASAP.”

  Nick nodded his head in agreement, then noticed the blood staining Bryce’s right shoulder.

  “You shot?” he asked.

  “Scratched. I’m fine.”

  “All right, brother. Get us off the street. I’ll take a look at your arm once we’re covered. Daniel, Chris, Martin, take a window each. Any more armor shows up, I want to know about it before they see us,” Nick ordered. “Shout out the moment you see green.”

  With the team’s help, Bryce was able to avoid any further patrols all the way back to the factory. Nick and his people quickly stashed the van inside the loading dock and headed for the back end of the factory, where Martin assured them it would be hardest for any passing patrols to pick them up on thermal scans thanks to all the heavy metal lying around.

  “Man, I hate this,” Martin bitched, pacing back and forth. “Radiation’s gonna spike off the charts if they can’t get the meltdown under control. We’re all gonna die.”

  “Jesus, sit down,” Nick grumbled. “Worrying about it isn’t going to change anything. We either die by radiation in here or several hundred bullets out there. Make your choice, but at least be quiet about it.”

  Martin stopped pacing and stared at Nick, his left eye twitching a bit. He opened his mouth to say something but apparently decided against it, instead sinking to the floor, sitting cross-legged against a large block of steel.

  “Nick. Got a signal back. Emergency power seems to be coming up,” Mary said, nudging Nick’s shoulder.

  “Civilian or military frequencies?”

  “Got both.”

  “Chris, come over here and see what you can make out on the civilian bands. I’ll take military. Daniel, how’s Bryce’s arm?”

  “Fine, boss. He’s a tough little bastard.”

  Briggs was a tough bastard, too. Didn’t help him.

  Nick pushed the thought of Briggs as far back in his brain as he could—there would be time for that later—then nodded and slipped an earbud into his ear. Mary connected the other end to her netbook, and Nick suddenly heard a lot of voices talking over each other. He was instantly reminded of Camp Justice just after New York.

  “Defense grid is still down. Bombings all over Outer Mongolia, some inside mainland China,” Nick reported.

  As Christopher walked over, Mary handed him another earbud, which he popped into his right ear. He covered his ear with his hand and squinted, concentrating.

  “They’re going pretty fast, boss. I’m only picking up about half of it.”

  Nick just nodded.

  “What are they saying, Chris?” Bryce asked.

  “Well, sounds like the evacuation’s been called off. They’re saying the meltdown is under control. I think they’re selling it as an accident, not sabotage.”

  “Anything on the bombings?”

  “Nope. Not yet.”

  “Military channels are saying the meltdown was definitely sabotage. Definitely us, too. Every available unit is tasked with hunting us down,” Nick told his people.

  “Great. And we’ll never see ’em coming from here,” Bryce said, nodding around at the windowless factory.

  “Good point. Daniel, let’s you and I see if we can find some roof access. We’ll keep an eye on the street. Chris, you guys stay on 1-9 Victor down here. We’ll call if we get jammed up.”

  “Be careful up there, Nick,” Christopher said.

  “Hey, that’s me. Mr. Careful.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  On The Day

  Nick checked his watch as he and Daniel took up positions on the north and east ends of the roof. It was not even yet 9:00 a.m., but Nick felt like the attack on the power plant was days ago, not less than three hours. He kept the wireless earbud in his ear, listening on the PLA frequencies, hoping to hear any hunters coming before he saw them.

  “Ghost town off this way, boss,” Daniel told him. “Nothin’ moving.”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

  From the sea of voices on the PLA channels, Nick caught a report of F-35 fighters seen over Taizhou. He mentioned this to Daniel, who nodded.

  “Means the defense grid must still be down,” the younger man commented.

  “Means more than that,” Nick explained. “Means there’s gotta be an aircraft carrier off the coast, probably within two hundred miles.”

  “That close?”

  “Unless they’re sending the F-35s on a suicide mission, yeah. If we could just get in the water, get halfway to them…”

  Nick let his voice trail off. He was listening to further reports of the F-35s now, how they were being engaged by Chinese J-10 fighters. And how the J-10s were being blown from the sky.

  Well, at least someone’s doing well today, Nick thought.

  “You really think we’re going to be able to slip out of here undetected? I mean, it was a bitch and a half getting in,” Daniel said.

  “Only shot we’ve got, unless the port suddenly opens.”

  “Not much chance of that. Bet this city’s going to be in lockdown until they find us.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  Nick, still scanning the PLA radio chatter, was running escape scenarios in his mind. Perhaps they could make it to the Shanghai airport, kidnap a pilot and fly out that way. But the airport was on the other side of the city, and they hadn’t even made it four miles from this very building all day. Maybe one man could slip past the guards at the port and boost a boat, pick up the rest of the unit down the coast a couple of miles, here in the ghetto where the patrols seemed light. Nick knew he was the obvious choice for that mission, as one more Chinese face wouldn’t arouse much suspicion. The only problem was that he had no idea how to drive a boat.

  “Hey, Daniel. You know how to drive a boat?” Nick asked.

  “Nope. I’m from the mountain part of North Carolina, not the ocean part.”

  “Damn.”

  “Can’t be too hard, though, can it?”

  I sure hope not. The more his brain worked the possibilities, the more he convinced himself the boat plan was their best way out of Shanghai. As soon as the radio traffic died down, he’d move out on foot. Slip in past the soldiers at the docks. Grab whatever he could and pray he made it to one of the industrial piers to grab his people, then head for the open seas, try to pick up the aircraft carrier on radio. It might work, he told himself, though it sounded like a lie even to him.

  Nick turned to Daniel to bounce the plan off the younger man. Before he could open his mouth, though, he saw a helicopter in the sky heading their way, just behind Daniel’s left shoulder. Daniel saw it at almost the same moment.

  “Shit. It’s moving fa
st. How do you want to play it?”

  “Hold tight. All they see are two guys on watch in PLA uniforms.”

  The chopper drew closer, and Nick got a better look at it. It was a medium-sized utility bird, a Z-9 Haitun. It was a little smaller than a Black Hawk, but as far as Nick knew, pretty much served the same purpose. It didn’t look like the attack variant of the Z-9, so it would be armed, but not heavily.

  As the helicopter approached, Nick heard a voice blaring from its external speakers. It was a pleasant female voice, speaking in measured, textbook Mandarin. It spoke a few sentences then repeated the message. Nick guessed it was a recording, a machine voice.

  “What the fuck are they saying? They make us?” Daniel asked.

  “Stay calm, Daniel. They’re not talking to us. Nuclear accident investigators. They’re telling everyone to stay inside until they give the all-clear.”

  The words were barely out of Nick’s mouth when his radio buzzed in his ear. He’d expected a call from downstairs, wondering about the helicopter now passing overhead, but the voice didn’t belong to any of his people.

  “Echo, Echo, this is Recon 1. Sing out if you hear me.”

  It was the same voice from the helicopter.

  Nick quickly toggled his radio set to 1-9 Victor.

  “Recon 1, this is Echo.”

  “Well, howdy, Lieutenant. Staff Sergeant Matsuda. Need a ride?”

  * * *

  The factory roof was just big enough to land the Z-9, and Nick had all of his people ready to load as the wheels touched down. The chopper’s side door slid open, and Gabriel Martinez’ grinning face looked out at them.

  “Hey, folks. How have you been?” the young medic said.

  “Talk later, Gabe. Everyone load up. Sooner we’re out of here, the better,” Nick said, his voice loud enough to be heard over the rotor noise.

  Nick climbed in last, heading for the front of the chopper. The helicopter hopped in place slightly on the rooftop, ready to take off. MSgt. Ortiz-Gonzales was at the controls, and Staff Sergeant Matsuda was next to her.

  “Didn’t know you could fly a chopper, Master Sergeant,” Nick said, nodding to the powerfully built Marine.

  “Started off as a chopper mechanic. I’m kind of a shitty pilot, but good enough to get us out of here,” she said, nodding back.

  “We got traffic that F-35s were seen nearby,” Nick told her.

  “That means a carrier off the coast. Better bet than the overland route we were gonna take. We woulda had to stop and refuel that way.”

  “Can you make it two hundred miles?” Nick asked.

  Ortiz-Gonzales checked her controls.

  “Maybe. This thing’s pretty fuel efficient, but…it’ll be close.”

  “Got five plus you on board, boss. Where’s your medic?” Gabriel asked, putting his hand on Nick’s shoulder.

  Nick turned and shook his head, his jaw set and his eyes closed.

  “Damn,” was all Gabriel said.

  “Got a red light in one of the powerplants, here,” Matsuda piped up, tapping at a red bulb on her control panels.

  “Well, that answers the ‘will we make it’ question. We burned pretty hard to get here this fast, Lieutenant. With the weight we got now, we might make it a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty miles,” Ortiz-Gonzales told him. “Sorry. Kind of a crappy rescue, sir.”

  “If we had less weight?”

  “Less strain on the powerplants. Might make it another fifty miles, less another five hundred pounds.”

  “Chris! Gather up all the spare gear and toss it!”

  Christopher nodded and started dumping packs out of the helicopter—remaining water, extra weapons, everything but one gun each and one clip of ammo, plus Mary’s netbook.

  “That’s maybe two hundred, two-fifty pounds,” Ortiz-Gonzales said. “If we could bang those cannons off of the wings…”

  “No. You might need those,” Nick said.

  “You mean we might need those, right, boss?” Gabriel asked, frowning.

  “I’m two-ten, Gabriel. And I can blend in until you guys can make it out to get me,” Nick said. He turned to Ortiz-Gonzales. “Get my people to safety, Master Sergeant.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  “No way, Nick. You’re not staying here on your own,” Christopher said. His voice was solid, cold—this wasn’t up for debate as far as he was concerned. “I’m staying with you.”

  “No, you’re going to do your job, Sergeant. You’re going to get your unit home. I’ll be all right.”

  Nick hopped out of the helicopter before Christopher could say another word. Christopher tried to jump out with him but Nick shoved him hard, sending him sprawling back into the chopper. Nick looked down at his feet and saw he’d landed with his boots between two AK-47s and a small pile of extra ammo.

  At least I have plenty of firepower, he told himself as he moved to close the Z-9’s sliding door.

  “We’re coming back for you, boss!” Christopher said, struggling to his feet as the door closed.

  “You’d better!” Nick said, forcing a smile.

  As the helicopter rose slowly from the factory roof, Nick held up one hand. He told himself that the people inside were doing the same, though he couldn’t see any of them as the chopper climbed higher, then headed out to sea.

  It took Nick just under three hours to suspect that the chopper wasn’t coming back. They would have either made it to the carriers and back or been shot down somewhere along the way. He was waiting inside the factory, consolidating the ammo his friends had dumped out of the chopper, when the ancient Motorola rang.

  “Morrow,” he said.

  “Nick. Johnny here. We just heard. Your people touched down on Enterprise ninety-five minutes ago. All of them are fine.”

  Nick heard it in his friend’s voice. Heard that there was a “but” coming, and it was going to be a big one. He spared Johnny from having to say it.

  “The defense grid is back up, isn’t it?” It wasn’t a question.

  “Has been for two hours.”

  “And I’m on my own.” Again, it wasn’t a question, but Johnny answered anyway.

  “That’s correct.”

  “Shit. Colonel —”

  “I think you can call me Johnny, Nick.”

  “Fine, Johnny. Promise me something,”

  “Whatever I can.”

  For the first time in days, Nick’s stomach wasn’t freaking out on him. His shoulder and back muscles were loose, fluid. His jaw was relaxed, unclenched.

  “Promise me you’re buying the beer when I get back.”

  “You got it, pal.”

  “Good. I’m on my way. Tell Christopher not to wait up.”

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss the riveting first story of the 47 Echo squad. Available wherever ebooks are sold.

  47 Echo

  Russia, 2019. Combined Chinese and North Korean forces have taken increasing amounts of territory in a war that is devastating the world. Nick Morrow is a convict conscript assigned to 47 Echo—a suicide squad. No one cares whether they live or die, as long as they complete their missions. Under the command of a Marine Corps with nothing but contempt for its squadron of felons, they are on a mission to defend what’s left of war-ravaged Russia. Nick’s viewed as little more than cannon fodder. But his skills on the battlefield just might be what the squad needs to survive the meat-grinder that is the front lines of this bloody war…

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  About the Author

  Shawn Kupfer was born in 1978 on Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota and grew up in various military towns throughout the United States and Europe. After a stint as a semipro kickboxer in Florida and an EMT in Omaha, Shawn graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska. He has worked as both a writer and editor for various publications.

  He started the Twitter Novel Project in 20
09 and has since written and published seven novels 140 characters at a time. Shawn currently lives in Dallas, Texas, with his wife and two dogs.

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  ISBN: 978-14268-9394-0

  Copyright © 2012 by Shawn Kupfer

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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