Third World War (51 page)

'John, hold. Just hold,' yelled Campbell. He ran against the wind. The sand hit him like driving rain. He reached a concrete hut, kicked open the door and fell inside to a sudden quiet. 'Right,' he said, catching his breath. 'Keep speaking. I got to the British and Japanese embassies.'

'Have been torched,' said Kozerski. 'In the case of the British, an APC turned up with a flame-thrower and cannon. They aimed to kill and they succeeded.'

Campbell squatted on the bare floor of the hut. He spotted a gas ring, a kettle, even an open sachet of instant coffee on a wooden table. Pierce had wanted him to go in from Seoul, but that was a 600-mile flight to Beijing, hitting Chinese airspace at Dalian. Campbell had vetoed the plan. Instead he had brought the Osprey into the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator, in a C-130 transport plane, flying through Russian airspace. The Osprey then easily handled the 400 miles down to Zamyn-uud on the border. With extra fuel tanks, and a light load, with just Campbell, a navigator and a pilot, it could just make the round trip of 600 miles to Beijing.

'And we think they haven't gone for our embassy because the Secretary of State is in there. Most important goddamn hostage I can ever remember.'

'And my orders?' pressed Campbell, knowing the satellite line might cut out at any time.

'You get her out, Lazaro. If we cut a deal on your way down, fine. If we don't, go to the embassy and lift her.'

'Soon as we're airborne, the SU-27s will be scrambled and we'll be sliced into pieces.' The one thing Campbell hated was saying that a job would be dangerous or impossible. But unless he had missed something, that was exactly what would happen.

'The President's on the line to Kozlov to get you safe passage. Soon as that's done, we want you in the air.'

Campbell didn't ask why Kozlov was suddenly to be giving him protection over China. The satellite line was too fragile for irrelevant questions.

Five minutes later, Kozerski called again with clearance. The Osprey's twin engines roared, sending the sand into a cloud around it. Campbell pushed shut the door and locked it. The sand and dust obscured everything, forcing the pilot to switch to instruments. The Osprey took off as a fixed-wing aircraft and that was how the pilot would keep it until they reach Beijing. Campbell checked his weapons: a Browning 9mm pistol; a Heckler and Koch MP5 semi-automatic; two shrapnel grenades, and two CS gas and two stun grenades.

The screen in front of him, illuminated by a forward-looking infrared display, revealed the bleak, brown desert countryside below as clearly as if it was a bright day with a cloudless sky. Satellite pictures showed military vehicles in central Beijing, the ruins of the Japanese and British embassies, and the main thoroughfares around Tiananmen Square clogged with people.

Up ahead, four Chinese air force SU-27 fighter aircraft fell into formation around the Osprey. They made no attempt at radio contact. Campbell heard the Osprey pilot notify the AWACs plane which acted as their control tower and was flying at 50,000 feet above the ground.

Campbell called Kozerski. 'We have an escort.'

'Hostile?'

'Not yet,' said Campbell. 'They'll let us in. But why should they let us out and lose the technology of the Osprey?'

'I don't have an answer to that,' said Kozerski. 'Like I don't have an answer to most things right now.'

They were flying at 283 knots. Arrival time over the US embassy in Beijing would be in seventy-three minutes' time, thirty minutes after nightfall.

****

61*

****

Washington, DC, USA*

'Campbell will be there in an hour,' said Kozerski, finishing the call.

'Have you got Sato yet?' asked West.

'Sato's dead. He stayed above ground in Tokyo,' said Pierce. 'Just hold a moment, Mr President--'

West turned to Kozerski. 'Is Kozlov still on the line?'

'The line's open. I can get him.'

'Is he in Beijing or Moscow?'

'Just back in Moscow, sir.'

'Japan's launched on North Korea,' said Pierce. 'A 20-kiloton nuclear warhead, airburst above Pyongyang at 2,000 feet.'

For a stunned moment, there was complete silence in the Oval Office.

'One launch?' asked West softly. An old saying came to mind. After the first time, the rest is easy. Amid the confusion and hard facts, a cold truth was coming out. How could he blame Sato? He would do the same, if one of his cities was hit. Only Mehta had shown self-control. And for that he had lost.

'President Cho from Seoul,' said Kozerski.

'Hold him for a couple of seconds,' said West. 'Chris, we have to go in across the DMZ. Now.'

'Our troops?' Pierce looked sharply at the President.

'They're fighting a war. They'll do fine. John, put Cho on.'

'Don't hit them, Mr President. Or they're going to hit us. Let it settle. We're emptying Seoul. I can't go nuclear on the border because the fucking wind's blowing south.' Cho sounded desparate.

'We're going in,' said West calmly. 'We have treaty obligations with you and with Japan.'

'Fuck. No--'

'Cho, we've got to draw a line on this. It'll be fine.'

****

62*

****

Beijing, China*

In one earpiece, Campbell listened to commentary from the Pentagon; in the other, he was on the intercom to the pilot. As they came in over the northern suburbs of Beijing, the SU-27 escorts peeled away. The pilot of the lead aircraft gave a thumbs-up.

'Good luck, Osprey,' he said in English, breaking radio silence. 'Hope to see you on the way out.'

'Identification of armoured vehicles in the diplomatic quarter,' came the voice from the Pentagon. 'Units outside the British and Japanese embassies are loyal to the Second Artillery Regiment. Unit unknown. Units at the US embassy belong to the Zhongnanhai presidential security detail.'

The Osprey, flying at only 300 feet, slowed as it approached the centre of Beijing. Strangely, the neon signs flashing on the top of the buildings were symbols of American capitalism. Campbell took in Kenwood, Ford and Motorola, before becoming distracted by a glow in a side street like a bonfire suspended above the ground. He punched in the GPS coordinates so he could get a closer look from the satellite imagery. As the image settled, he checked it against what he saw outside and realized that two bodies had been strung from lampposts and set on fire.

Further along, columns of military vehicles moved towards Tiananmen Square.

'What's that in Tiananmen Square?' he asked the Pentagon.

'Still checking, sir. We believe they are tanks and APCs loyal to the Second Artillery Unit.'

'Shit!' said Campbell to himself. 'Take her up,' he instructed the pilot.

He pulled on his night-vision helmet. The landscape of central Beijing was transformed into a deep transparent green.

Two lines of military vehicles faced each other in Tiananmen Square itself. A single tank blockaded the entrances to Zhongnanhai. Four more were at the steps of the Great Hall of the People.

'Head for the embassy, and switch to horizontal rotors,' Campbell instructed the pilot.

The pilot brought up the Osprey's nose and in ten seconds transformed it into a twin-engined helicopter. 'Keep her steady,' said Campbell. With the aircraft hovering, he pulled open the door to get a better sense of what was going on.

The US embassy itself appeared untouched. But it was surrounded by a civilian crowd. They were bundled up against the night cold, warming themselves at flaming braziers and encircling the compound. Converging on the embassy from two directions were six - possibly eight - armoured personnel carriers. The sky itself was clear of aircraft, indicating that the power struggle was confined to a few units within the army. The air force would swing once a victor emerged.

'Stay back,' Campbell instructed the pilot. 'And take her up.'

'Lazaro, Kozerski here.' A voice in his other earpiece.

'Go ahead,' said Campbell. The Osprey kept climbing. So far, the crowd hadn't noticed it and Campbell wanted to keep it that way. When he went in, it would be sharp and fast.

'Just the Secretary of State,' he said. 'We're watching the pictures here.'

'It could go any way.'

'Correct. And the President wants the Secretary of State out of the embassy before the marines have to begin defending it.'

'You talking to anyone?'

'Negative. Kozlov arranged your air cover. But I don't reckon anyone has control of what's down on the ground there.'

'Wheeled armoured vehicles,' said Campbell, 'approaching the embassy from two sides. Six in all, maybe eight. You got anything on that?'

'Type 90s. Nine troops in each, plus crew,' said the voice from the Pentagon. 'You could be looking at fifty to a hundred men against you.'

The armoured personnel carriers, sealed down, no commander in sight, stopped at the edge of the crowd.

'As soon as you are overhead,' said Kozerski, 'the Secretary of State will come out of the embassy building into the garden at the back of the building. She will be moving in the middle of a six-man marine unit. We'll leave it up to you how you get her into the Osprey. Once on board, head north and you'll pick up your SU-27 escort.'

The Osprey pilot gave a thumbs-up. Campbell clipped himself on to the winch.

The aircraft's nose dipped, but the pilot maintained altitude, bringing the Osprey directly over the embassy. From the corner of the compound, there was a flash from one of the armoured vehicles.

'7.62mm machine gun,' said the Pentagon. 'If they get serious, they'll use the 25mm cannon.'

The crowd scattered. The armoured vehicles pushed through, crushing some as they went, and drew up outside the gate.

The pilot brought the aircraft down rapidly. The navigator primed the Osprey's weapons. Cannon from the armoured car smashed into the compound wall. A guardhouse caught fire. A flare shot into the sky, lighting up the compound and the building.

The backs of the armoured vehicles opened. Commandos jumped out and fired scaling ropes at the walls.

'They're going in.' It wasn't Kozerski's voice, nor did it come from the Pentagon. Must have been another agency.

'Permission to defend the embassy?' The voice of the navigator, who could have cut down the Chinese troops.

'Denied.' Pierce's voice now, cutting across the line.

The Osprey was at fifty feet. The pilot slowed the descent. A searchlight beam swept across the compound, picked out Mary Newman, running across the garden, her marine escort surrounding her. It stayed on her. From somewhere from outside the wall came a sharp crack, and a marine fell. Campbell heard the shouting of orders and then the rhythmic thumping of a machine gun.

A marine sniper on the roof opened fire. The searchlight wobbled and went out. The pilot edged the Osprey down further. Even on rotor blades, the aircraft was never quite a helicopter. If the pilot descended too quickly without any forward speed the aircraft could roll and stall.

Campbell lowered himself down on the winch cable, unhooked himself from it and turned to fit it on to Newman. But she was being bundled back into the embassy building. A machine gun started up again in a series of five-round bursts that went on and on, breaking up the concrete in the courtyard and smashing ornaments in the garden.

Outside the wall was a scattering of single shots. From inside came flashes and sharper cracks from the marine guards.

Campbell could see Newman as a silhouetted shadow. He began to beckon her. But there was too much open ground. The beam of another searchlight cut across the lawn, wavering in the hand of a Chinese soldier on the wall, covered by withering fire directed towards the embassy building. An armoured vehicle broke through the gate. Campbell smelt the choking odour of tear gas. He watched Newman's silhouette shift slightly towards him, then a voice, louder even than the gunfire, called to her, and she disappeared into the darkness.

'I'm staying on the ground,' he told the pilot. 'Take her up. Take out the APCs. All six of them. Put a line of fire down on the wall. Then come back and get us.'

'Kozerski?' queried the pilot, referring to the White House orders.

'My authority overrules his,' snapped Campbell.