Fear and Anger (The 47 Echo Series) (12 page)

“Sucks,” Hansen said.

“Ignore him. What’s going on? What’s the plan, here?” Nick asked.

“Right now, you’re in my shop. A back room that’s only accessible through a stairway in the electrical closet. We use it to stash supplies, people. Do some hacking,” he said, waving to the computers.

“And our weapons?”

“Safe. Locked up in the office. You’ll get them back – I just have my niece and nephews running around in the shop all the time.”

Feng pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the coverall’s breast pocket and lit one.

“The truck you were riding in – took it apart and scrapped it. Sitting in pieces all over the shop. They won’t be tracking you in that thing anymore.”

Nick nodded.

“You seem to be taking great pains not to answer the ‘what’s the plan’ question.”

“The plan for what? I got you off the streets. Gave you a safe place to crash. What more are you expecting?”

“To get out of this fucking country,” Hansen shot, finishing off the tea despite his expressed dislike.

“Yeah... let me ask you a question, friend. If that was possible, you think I’d still be here?”

“I’m going out to take a look around,” Nick said, setting his empty teacup back on the tray.

“Can’t do that. Not until night,” Feng said, shaking his head and blowing out smoke. “PLA knows your face. Everybody knows your face, of course, but the PLA is just a couple rooms away right now.”

Nick tensed up again. He had been sold out. Part of him knew it.

“Calm down, big guy,” Feng said. “We do work on the EQ2081s and 2102s for the government here. Drivers hang out here all day. It’s how we get half of the intel we collect.”

“You keep saying ‘we,’” Hansen said. “So far I’ve seen you and a little kid.”

“There are a few of us around. There’s a guy I want you to meet – he’s on Unit Ghost’s hit list, too. He might be able to help you out with your ‘plans,’” Feng said.

“Unit Ghost. What is it?” Nick said. “I keep hearing that name.”

“They’re...
fage
, how do I explain this? They’re the thing that lives under the bed. They’re the monster in the closet.”

“They’re fictional?” Hansen shot.

“OK, I’m explaining this wrong. They’re the worst of the worst. A special unit of the PLA with no oversight, no official orders other than to hunt enemies of the state. That includes Chinese citizens critical of the war, home-grown resistance groups... and now you guys, I guess,” Feng said, snuffing out his cigarette on the concrete floor and immediately lighting another. “These guys are brutal. They do whatever they want, whatever they need to achieve their goals. No one in the Army ever questions them.”

“Sounds like a good group of guys,” Nick said, frowning.

“You don’t want to meet them if you can avoid it. So here’s what we’ll do – wait here until dark. Rest. I’ll get some food back to you. My friend will come out after the garage closes, and you can work on plans with him then.”

Feng didn’t wait for an answer – he simply turned and walked out, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke in his place. Nick had a brief flash of cartoons he’d seen as a kid, where characters had vanished so quickly they’d only left smoke in their wake. Again, when the door closed, the lock clicked, but Nick got that now – without a key, no one on the other side, especially curious Chinese Army personnel, could just wander in.

“You... you don’t trust that guy, do you?” Hansen asked, rummaging around in the plastic bags for a pack of cigarettes.

“I don’t see as we have much choice,” Nick said, shrugging. “Give me one of those.”

* * *

Feng’s “friend” was named Yuan Shen, and he was a bastard.

As soon as Yuan walked into the room, he made sure everyone knew he would rather just set Nick and Hansen out into the wild. They were a problem, a headache.

“You. You’re the Marine?” Yuan said, squinting at Nick without the formality of introducing himself.

“Nick Morrow,” Nick said, holding out his hand. Yuan just looked at it like Nick was holding out a dead rat.

“You’re responsible for the bombings?”

Nick had to think for a second before he realized what Yuan was talking about – the Air Force and Navy raids into mainland China when the defense grid went down. Before he could answer, Hansen answered for him.

“Yeah. That’s us,” Hansen said, still sitting on the couch. He’d been there all day.

“You assholes. You know how many Chinese died in those attacks? How many women and kids?”

“The targets were all military,” Hansen said.

“Bullshit. American Stealth Bombers leveled the village of Ejin. You know how many Army there were in Ejin? Maybe 200. They wiped the whole fucking thing off the planet.”

“Look, I didn’t fly the planes. I had a job to do – take down the defense network. I did my job. And it’s not like
your
government didn’t wipe out 10 million people in New York City,” Nick shot back. He felt the back of his neck getting hot, and he tried to force himself to calm down.

“What about you?” Yuan said, whirling on Hansen. “You fly the planes?”

“I’m a pilot.”

“How many kids did you kill?”

“Fuck you, guy. Who the fuck are you, anyway?” Hansen said, struggling to stand, and failing.

“Me? I’m Yuan Shen, and I’m the unfortunate son of a whore who has to deal with you assholes.”

“Look, everybody calm down,” Feng started.

Yuan Shen shot Feng a look, a deathly stare. For a second, Nick thought the older man – and Yuan Shen was older, nearing 60 – was going to hit Feng. After a long moment, though, Yuan Shen let out a long, slow breath.

“Fine. Feng tells me you want us to help get you out of the country.”

“That’s correct,” Nick said, trying to keep his own voice calm. If Yuan could make the effort, so could he.

“And why the hell would we do that? Charity? Not like you’ve done a hell of a lot for us,” Yuan said, his voice rising slightly. When he spoke next, he calmed himself. “What you’ve done – or what Feng has done by taking you in – is put us all at risk.”

“I understand and appreciate that. So the sooner we’re out of your hair, the better. I’m not asking for anything more than a vehicle.”

Yuan crossed the room and sat on the arm of the couch Nick woke up on. He looked at Nick for a long moment, chewing on his right index fingernail.

“What you really want – whether you know it or not – is a clean car. One that doesn’t exist as far as the computers are concerned. And you want a clear path out. These are things I
might
be able to do. With the proper... incentive.”

Nick figured, just from the guy’s general attitude, that the other shoe was going to drop eventually. Now it was in the air, ready to leave his hand and hit the floor.

“And what incentive would that be?” Nick asked.

“We’re a small group, but growing,” Yuan said, suddenly disinterested with his fingernail. He stood and paced the room as he talked, never really taking his eyes of Nick. “But we have young men. Strong men, willing to fight. To disrupt PLA operations.”

“Uh huh,” Hansen said. There was more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice, and Yuan definitely caught it. He shot the pilot the same death stare he’d given Feng before continuing.

“Problem is, we’re low on supplies. Resources. We can’t be effective with what we have now.”

“And what is it you need?” Nick asked. He knew they were leading him to ask that very question, but he wished they’d just come out with it, drop the damn shoe already.

“Weapons,” Feng spoke up. “Guns and body armor. We know just where to find them, but problem is, there’s no way we can get them with the guns we have.”

“And that’s where you come in, Marine Nick Morrow,” Yuan said, smiling for the first time since Nick met him.

Chapter Fifteen

Dogs of War

It was the fastest unload Christopher had ever witnessed. The second the wheels hit the ground, loadmasters were on the move, uncovering the Razor and herding everyone inside. In two minutes, they were in the Razor, driving away from the plane as it took off.

Neal was tagging along for the first part of the journey, from the airfield to Carbon-4. He informed Christopher that he’d been assigned as combat controller for the mission, thanks to a combination of his history in Marine Intel and his familiarity with the team.

“More specifically, though, it’s my familiarity with you,” Neal had told him. “They want someone on the line with you who you know, who can’t be impersonated. We have history, so that ended up being me.”

Neal would stay at Carbon-4, be their point of contact if anything went wrong. They’d be using a similar cell-phone scheme to the one they’d used on the last mission – this one was even more secure, though, as it dealt exclusively with text messages. Text could be encoded, encrypted between two devices. Anyone intercepting the transmission would just get gibberish.

“Just don’t break this thing,” Neal said, handing him a 10-year-old iPhone. “It’s so obsolete that the message protocols have a low chance of being picked up, and even then, almost no chance of being decrypted.”

Carbon-4 was apparently just across the narrow bridge Christopher saw from the plane, so he had Bryce drive them there.

“That bridge looks like it’s made out of construction paper, Chief,” Peter commented. “We sure it’s gonna hold us?”

“Soviet construction,” Neal said. “It’s probably been there since the 40s, and they’ve been driving bigger trucks than this across it since. It’ll be fine.”

“GPS shows a town on the other side,” Bryce said, his voice flat and even, as always. “Verkhnezeysk.”

“That’s Carbon-4,” Neal told them.

“All right, then. Everybody hold your breath,” Bryce said as he eased them onto the metal-span bridge.

“What happens if the bridge doesn’t hold?” Anthony asked.

“We fall through ice and die horribly,” Martin told him. “It’ll be a race between drowning and freezing to death. My money would be on freezing.”

“Is there ever a time when you’re not... you know... creepy, Martin?” Christopher asked over his shoulder.

“Once. When I was a kid.”

The Razor made it across the bridge. Neal was right about the solid construction, and the road didn’t shudder or sway beneath them in the slightest as they crossed. When they got to the other side, a collection of buildings seemingly appeared out of nowhere. They weren’t intentionally hidden or camouflaged – they were just white and gray, like everything else in sight.

There weren’t many buildings. Four rows of houses neatly arranged into four streets, with one long, wood-sided building at the top of the order. Tall, thin, scraggly trees lined the edges of the town, if one could call the quiet, uniform collection of nearly identical buildings a town.

“Jesus. How long ago was this place abandoned?” Christopher asked.

“Not abandoned. Evacuated when the North Koreans got close, little less than two years ago,” Neal told him, not looking up from the command screen on his sleeve.

“You mean people used to live here? Like, recently?” Christopher said.

Neal didn’t answer him. It was hard to believe – this place looked like a ghost town, like Chernobyl after the blast. Nothing moved on the streets, except when the light wind decided to shake one of the thinner trees. Christopher started to wonder if they’d walk into one of those buildings only to find a pile of dead Cobalt Consulting contractors, but Neale’s command screen beeped and turned green.

“We’re all set,” Neale said, nodding to the long, low building, the largest one in town. The wall nearest them slid to the side, revealing a steel-walled room with vehicles inside. “Convict Bryce, find us a parking space.”

Bryce nodded and drove the Razor into the open building. It was a tight fit, only a few feet of clearance on each side, but Bryce parked them perfectly as the door slid shut behind them.

That was when Christopher met his first Carbon PMC. A young woman in her 20s, more muscular than Gabriel or Peter, walked up to the Razor’s passenger-side door. She was dressed in dark green cargo pants, a black thermal shirt, body armor, and a black parka. Her long, red hair was tied back in a tight ponytail at the base of her skull, and she had a Beretta ARX-160 assault rifle slung in front of her. She also had two pistols, one on each thigh, and a small earpiece/microphone combo in her left ear. She smiled at Christopher as he opened the door.

“Welcome to Carbon-4, folks. You’re Gunnery Sergeant Lee?” she said, her light, casual tone at odds with her head-to-toe weaponry.

“That’s me,” Christopher said, hopping out of the truck. She was shorter than him, but not by much.

“I’m Karen Roth, assistant supervisory agent. Follow me, folks. It’s cold as balls up here.”

“That’s a cool gun,” Peter said, falling into step behind Karen, Christopher, and Neal.

“ARX-160. Does the trick. We got a good deal on ‘em from the Italians.”

Karen led them to a hole cut in the floor, one that had a metal staircase leading down far enough that Christopher couldn’t see where it ended.

“Stairs are steep, so watch your step, OK?” Karen said, her voice still polite and conversational. If Christopher closed his eyes – a bad idea on the steep metal staircase – he could imagine her as a tour guide in a museum, one of those fun museums that had more gift shop than history.

They were fifteen steps down (he counted) before he could see the floor below them. A long, well-lit hallway led off to the left, which meant that the bulk of the Carbon outpost was under the town itself. Karen led them down the hallway for several hundred feet before she stopped at a door. She swiped her left wrist over a sensor next to the door handle, and when the door beeped, she opened it.

Christopher had never worked a straight, legal job in his life, but he once had a girlfriend who did, at a tech-support call center on the outskirts of Daytona Beach. He’d gone to visit her there at lunch once or twice, and the room Karen led them into now looked to him almost exactly like the company break room he’d seen back then. The only difference was that here, there weren’t vending machines lining the walls. Instead, there were gun lockers.