This part of the world had turned to water and mud, a slimy glop that clutched boots and wheels alike, striving to pull them off the wearer. Maybe if the enemy didn’t have so many hovercraft things would be different, but Paul wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Do you have an idea?” Romo asked.
Paul tore his eyes from the field glasses and glanced at his blood brother. Romo lay beside him under his own camouflage slicker. The Mexican Apache used to be a hit man for Colonel Valdez of the Mexico Home Army. He was shorter than Paul, and he was dark-skinned, with sharp features, a shaved scalp and the eyes of a stone-cold killer. He also had an earring with a feather dangling from it. Go figure.
“Yeah,” Paul said. “I got an idea.”
“You want to let me in on it?”
With his thumb and forefinger, Master Sergeant Kavanagh wiped water out of his eyes and shoved them back against the field glasses. He was sick and tired of watching the American military retreat. He was sick of seeing good American boys lying dead in the mud.
The Arkansas River was behind enemy lines. The Chinese had taken Wichita and Kansas City and they were still pushing. Actually, it was more like crawling after the American Army. The U.S. formations slipped and slid like drunks on the mud, retreating and attempting to dig in and hold somewhere.
“We have to stop them,” Paul muttered.
“There’s nothing you and me are going to do about it tonight,” Romo said.
Paul turned to his blood brother, and there was fire in Kavanagh’s eyes. Despite his age, he was broad-shouldered, with lean hips. Once he’d been the hardest tackler on his high school football team. Lately a rage had been welling in him against the invading Chinese. What really ate at him was the growing sense of helplessness. He wasn’t used to the feeling. What had him so mad tonight was the radio message they had received five minutes ago.
Romo and he were LRSU. Originally, Paul belonged to Marine Recon, but now worked directly under General Ochoa of SOCOM. Their two-man team had slipped behind enemy lines to disrupt Chinese operations any way they could. They were also the eyes for the drone operators who would launch Precision Guided Munitions—smart bombs—on critical enemy chokepoints.
This pontoon bridge on the swollen Arkansas River was an ideal target. A traffic jam behind the bridge had already built up. If the drones could slip in and launch one, two or three smart bombs…
The message five minutes ago had aborted the mission. The reason it gave was simple. The drone operators had run out of smart bombs again and Ochoa didn’t want to try using dumb gravity bombs. Maybe if this had been the first time it had happened, Paul could live with it. But it wasn’t the first. This was the third time in two and a half weeks.
Three strikes and you’re out.
“See,” Paul said, in a deceptively calm voice, “I’m crawling closer so I can take a few potshots at some Chinese captain or major. If I’m lucky, I’ll nail me one, or maybe even a colonel.”
Romo was slow in answering. “I understand your anger, my brother.”
“Yeah?”
“Remember, they invaded my country first.”
“Yeah,” Paul said.
Six years ago, the Chinese had aided one side of the Mexican Civil War. That side won and more Chinese soldiers kept coming until there were millions of them. The Chinese said it was for protection against American aggression. Under Chinese influence, the South American Federation joined in the fun, adding another few million soldiers against America. This summer with the invasion of Texas and New Mexico…
Paul shook his head. He was done talking or thinking about it. He put away the binoculars and shoved up to his feet. He had an old M25 sniper rifle and decided tonight was a good time to use it. If the smart bombs weren’t coming, he could put a few smart rounds into where they would do the most good.
Wordlessly, Romo rose beside him. They’d been behind enemy lines for twelve days already. Sometimes, LRSU teams stayed out thirty days. A mile from here—two and a half miles from the pontoon bridge—two dirt bikes lay under a sodden tarp. It was their ticket home: one of the few vehicles other than hovercraft that could negotiate this muddy realm.
In the freezing sleet the two commandos, one American and one Mexican, trudged toward the traffic jam down by the river.