Invasion: China (Invasion America) (Volume 5) (18 page)

Then Anna felt his biceps quiver, and heat radiated from his arm.

“
It’s over three hundred and fifty strikes now,” Harold said. “They’re poisoning our land. This is madness.”

The President opened his mouth, perhaps trying to speak. He kept staring
at the big screen, and his shaking grew worse.

“The strikes have hurt their own people,” Chairman Alan of the Joint Chiefs said. “It’s
possibly destroyed their air force—”

“
They’re not holding back,” Harold said. “So we can no longer afford to hold back—unless we want to wage a gun battle with a knife.”

“What are you suggesting?” Anna
asked. “That we saturate our country with yet more nuclear weapons?”

“Not our land,” Harold said. “
This is the sacred country, and these demons have spoiled it. No,” he said quietly. “It’s time to strike the Chinese homeland and teach them a lesson they won’t forget for a thousand years.”

“
If we launch our ICBMs, they’ll launch theirs at us,” Anna said. “How does that help us?”

Harold focused on her.
“In case you haven’t noticed, Ms. Chen, they’ve already struck with nuclear weapons.”

“
They can still strike us again, with heavier nuclear weapons,” she said.

They locked stares, and it must have been clear to both of them that they each thought differently from the other.

“Mr. President,” Harold said, “what do you suggest we do? Should we wait for their ICBMs to launch?”

David Sims continued to stare at the big screen. A small line of saliva trickled
down his open mouth. Anna was the first to notice. As she did, the first heart attack struck the President of the United States, and his torso collapsed onto the table.

For a few minutes at least, no one could order a nuclear
retaliation. Meanwhile, the number of Chinese thermonuclear explosions grew to three hundred and sixty-three.

STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA

Jake proved to be one of the lucky ones, although very sick. He was alive, and he lay on a cot under a warm quilt. There were hundreds upon hundreds of beds pushed side by side in long rows. Giant heaters roared at either end of the circus-sized tent.

Nurses pushed carts and doctors checked victims. The
endless gaging and moaning sounds didn’t induce sleep or a feeling of well-being. Someone always seemed to be vomiting, and many of the acute victims wept quietly. Maybe the worst part was the smell. Behind the strong odor of ammonia lingered worse stenches.

Jake clenched his teeth, trying to suppress any noise. He’d vomited so much in the past few days that he was seriously losing weight. There wasn’t anything left in his stomach to hurl.

More radiation had hit the crew then Jake had realized at the time. Patches of hair kept falling out and his eyesight had become blurry.

Chet, Simon and
Grant had similar symptoms. Like Jake, each of them had received blood transfusions. Unfortunately, the Army had already run out of antibiotics in the state, although more were on the way. The doctor also told him the Militia had started a nationwide blood drive. There was more blood coming, too.

Jake hoped so. Otherwise, he
doubted he or the others would make it. The Chinese had gone crazy, changing the nature of the war. Why did they have to use nuclear weapons?

“Hey,” a man
whispered with a raspy voice.

Jake turned his head
to see Simon staring at him. The man had horribly red eyes and blotches on his skin. As the driver, Simon seemed to have gotten the worst of it. Jake wasn’t sure how or why that happened. Maybe Simon had just been in the wrong place in the tank.

“I’m sorry, Corporal,” Simon whispered. “
I’m so sorry. I-I panicked.”

“It’s oaky,” Jake said. “It happens.”

“I’m really sorry,” Simon whispered, as tears began to leak from his eyes, leaving wet trails on his cheeks. “I screwed us bad, huh Jake?”

“Forget it,” Jake said. “We wouldn’t have shot
down the missile anyway. We have a fighting chance at living now because you took us out of there so fast.”

The tears flowed more freely.

Jake wished he could believe what he said. In his heart, he
did
blame Simon, but he couldn’t tell the man that, not now. Simon apologized about once an hour. Either the driver didn’t remember he’d already apologized or the guilt of their predicament tore at him too much.

“It was
just our turn to be screwed,” Jake said.

Simon nodded.

Closing his eyes, Jake tried to get some sleep. He felt achy and cold. He wished they would crank up the heat in here.

He must have fallen asleep, because he opened
his eyes as a nurse rolled back a sleeve.

“What’s wrong?” he asked groggily
.

She smiled down at him. She was
so beautiful, with a heart-shaped face. If he felt better—
“We
just received a mass transshipment of blood,” she said. “That’s good, too. You boys need another transfusion.”

Jake watched her swab his arm. As she did, an orderly rolled a bag of blood
near. The plastic-encased blood was life. Even though his hair was falling out, he wasn’t as bad off as many others. He—
“What are you doing
to him?” a hard-voiced man asked.

The nurse looked up, and she frowned.

Jake didn’t like that. He concentrated, craning his head to look up where she did. He spied three Militia MPs at the end of his bed. One of them looked familiar. He was a flat-faced man.

“We’re moving him,” the MP said.

“It’s time for his next blood transfusion,” the nurse said.

“
No, not just yet,” the MP said.

The nurse
turned around to face the man.

“Don’t worry about it, sister,” the MP said. He took out his wallet and showed her a badge. “We’re under Presidential orders.”

“Oh,” she said. Then her eyes lit up as she glanced down the row. “Doctor,” she called out, “these men are trying to take one of our patients. Couldn’t we give him a blood transfusion first?”

Jake
watched the doctor walk up to them. The bald man’s hangdog look didn’t give him any confidence. “It won’t matter,” the doctor told the nurse.

“Shut your mouth,” the MP told him.

The nurse’s eyes widened with surprised. Then she stared at Jake. “What did he do?”

“He’s a traitor,” the MP said. “He shouldn’t get good American blood
before these others.”

“
Is that what you think?” Jake said.

“I told you to shut up,” the MP said. “If you say another word—”

“Is that necessary?” the doctor asked.

The MP glared at the doctor. The man
in the white coat wilted, nodded and turned away.

“Move aside,” the MP said, and he bumped the nurse, making her stagger against Simon’s cot.

Jake wanted to be angry, but he felt too cold and achy. “Can’t you see I’m sick?” he whispered.

“My heart bleeds for you,” the MP said. “Come on,” he told the other two. “Give me a hand.”

Jake sucked in his breath. At least he could say goodbye to his friends.

The MP
had palmed a small stunner into his hand. With big horse-sized teeth, he grinned down at Jake, and the Militia cop pressed the stunner against his neck.

Jake
heard it buzz as he arched in pain. In a fog, he heard the nurse ask what they were doing. Then he fell into a deeper fog, slipping away into unconsciousness.

STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA

In his jeep,
Stan Higgins screeched to a halt before an Army checkpoint. For the last three weeks, he had maneuvered what remained of the original penetrating armor against the formerly trapped Chinese and SAF forces. It had been a nightmare, with radiation counters in selected vehicles helping the units avoid highly radiated zones.

Combined with a few fresh divisions along the front, they had captured hundreds of thousands of nuclear
-shocked SAF soldiers and starved into submission as many PAA forces. The post-Red Dragon operation had catapulted Stan into national fame. The praise tasted like ashes in his mouth. What had happened to his boy? Several hours ago, he’d found out Jake had survived the nuclear strike, and had been brought here. Now no one could put him in touch with his son.

The vast tent city rose to the north of Stillwater, a huge area where medical personnel tried to cope with the hundreds of thousands of cases of
the radiation poisoned.

In the weeks since the attack, several things had become clear.
Despite the success of the latest operation, the front was in shambles on both sides. The nuclear warheads had thrown everything into turmoil. Casualties numbered in the millions. This tent city was one among many, and it was far too near the fallout zones.

T
he good thing was that the South American Federation forces had panicked en masse. They had never signed up for nuclear war. The nukes had also enraged the American people. This was far uglier than the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers and much worse than Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese made their sneak attack.

It’s universal.
Everyone wants to nuke China in retaliation
.

Stan showed his credentials
. The guard snapped to attention, saluting. “Yes, sir, Colonel Higgins, I can have a man park your jeep over there.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Sir—”

“Where’s administration?”

“Over there, the central tent.”

“Thanks.”

“Yes, sir, Colonel Higgins,” the guard said, saluting again.

With an aching chest, Stan
turned the steering wheel and crunched over gravel. He parked, jumped out and hurried to the central tent. Big Army trucks moved down a narrow lane. No doubt, they carried precious blood and newly made antibiotics.

Stan glanced
up at the sky at moving clouds. They would have to relocate these tents—well, relocate the sick. The weather patterns were finally changing. The wind might blow radioactive contaminants over Stillwater.

F
allout had been raining onto areas of northern Mexico, and it had made the people there furious with their Chinese overlords.

This is halftime. The side that can regroup faster will have a huge advantage
.

A loud noise caused Stan to glance east.
A big Chinook helicopter flew low toward the tents. It must be transporting more sick people.

Stan scowled. The Red Dragons had changed more than just the battlefield. The President had a heart attack and those vultures
, Harold and McGraw, had used it to step into Sims’ place. After all these years, it was finally happening to the United States of America. The Caesars had finally appeared, the men on the white horses who would supposedly save the country from disaster.

Would
David Sims recover from his heart attack? Stan had his doubts. McGraw played a dangerous game. At the moment, though, Stan didn’t care about that.
What happened to Jake?

It took an hour
of red tape and checking, and Stan began getting angry. Finally, he cornered a balding doctor with shifty eyes. Stan found him in a tent full of sick people with horrible sores. The doctor wore a white lab coat and checked a slate at the end of a bed.

“I’m talking to you,” Stan said.

The doctor ignored him as he continued to study the chart.

Stan grabbed an arm, and he spun the doctor around to face him. A nurse
watched, and she didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Maybe this happened too much around here lately.

“Do you know who I am?” Stan asked.

“I heard you the first time you spoke,” the doctor said, who wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“My son was here.”

The doctor made a bleak gesture. “Do you see how many patients we’re processing?”

“Where is he? What happened to
Corporal Jake Higgins?”

“I’m sure I don’t know
,” the doctor said.

Stan’s grip tightened. “What kind of doctor are you?”

“A weary one, Colonel Higgins—this is monstrous. Why do you folks insist on butchering each other? Isn’t there enough despair in the world that you people have to excel at killing?”

Stan let that pass; the man was a healer, after all.
“There isn’t a discharge paper for Jake and I haven’t found a death certificate. What happened to my son? I know he was here. The records prove it.”

The doctor frowned. “I’ve been very busy
, as I’m sure you see. I must have forgotten to write out his death certificate.”

“He died?” Stan asked
, his voice turning hollow.

The doctor paused for just a moment.
He seemed to cringe, which was odd. Then the man jutted his chin, and said, “Yes, he must have died. I don’t believe he was discharged.”

The words almost struck like physical blows. Stan let go of the doctor’s arm.
It felt as if a giant ghost reached through his chest and squeezed his heart, which constricted his throat. He found it difficult to talk, difficult to gather his thoughts. Yet he said, “You seemed uncertain.”

“No…”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

The doctor brought up the chart in his hands, scanning it.
“I’m very busy, Colonel. I’m sorry about your loss. I truly am.”

“What about his friends?”

“I’m sure I don’t—”

With a fierceness that seemed natural now,
Stan grabbed the man’s arm again and yanked him closer. “You’d better start being a little more helpful. Where are his friends?”

“Let me check.”

The anger drained away, and Stan released the doctor. With slumped shoulders, he followed the man.

A half hour later, Stan spoke with Simon. Chet and
Grant had already been discharged.

Stan knelt beside Simon’s cot.
The boy was thin and hollow-eyed, clearly dying. First touching the soldier’s arm, Stan let go as Simon winced in pain. He spoke pleasantries to the soldier, but the boy proved delirious. Finally, Stan couldn’t help himself. “Do you remember seeing Jake?”

It must have been the urgency in Stan’s voice.
Simon blinked several times, and he focused. “Yes, Jake. He commanded our tank.”

“Jake
was my son.”

“He was a good tank commander.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I’m sorry, sir.
” Simon’s lower lip trembled. “I panicked. I took off too soon. It must have upset the calibrations of our last shot.”