Authors: Shawn Kupfer
After the detail dumped the four North Korean soldiers’ bodies in with the hundreds of American casualties, Johnny, Monica and Nick took a look inside the BMP-1. It was an old tank, but a large amount of Chinese tech had been quickly added to its systems. Wires still hung from hastily installed touch-screens, and the passenger area had been filled with computers and surveillance equipment.
“Think you can wheel this big bastard, Monica?” Johnny asked as Monica slid into the pilot’s seat.
“Drive, sure. But these displays and readouts aren’t gonna mean much to me, sir.” She shrugged.
“That’s why Ryan’s coming along. He should be able to figure out what all this shit does,” Nick told her.
“Four-seven Echo secure and ready to roll, sir,” Anthony radioed. “One-three-eight Ranger’s in position to open the doors for us and join their CO in the BMP.”
“Roger that, Anthony. Go stealth and power up. We’ll bring the BMP out and switch the necessary personnel in front of the cover location.”
“Affirmative, sir. See you in a minute.”
“Hey, Nick. Can you make anything of this?” Johnny asked, nodding to a netbook that had been wired to the BMP’s comm system. The screen was scrolling characters in Chinese.
“Yeah.” Nick read from the screen. “It looks like an interface to the Chinese Army comm network. Internet, radio decryption. This must be how the NKs and Chinese forces share intel.”
“So we’ve got access to the whole Chinese Army network?”
“Well, we’ve got an access
point
, anyway. Still a lot of logins and encryption we’d have to break. And I suck at that, personally.”
“Our tech person’s dead. You got anyone who can maybe break those encryptions?”
“Mary probably could, if I was there to translate for her. But one thing at a time, Major. We’ve got a mission to complete first.”
“No doubt. But if we can get into the Chinese Army network, we might know what we’re walking into.”
Nick felt like physically reaching up and slapping himself on the forehead like he’d seen people do in old movies. “Shit. I hadn’t thought about it that way. I’d hate to leave my team, but—”
“But you could keep them safer if we get better intel as we roll.”
“Exactly.”
Nick toggled his radio. “Razor 4-7, come in.”
“Yeah, boss,” Anthony’s voice came back almost instantly.
“Put Chris on the line, will you, Anthony?”
“You got it.”
“What’s up, Nick?” Christopher asked.
“Hey, Chris. Slight change in plans. We found some tech over here that we might be able to use to get intel on where we’re headed. Gonna need to transfer Mary over to the BMP, along with me. Think you can babysit Razor for this leg of the trip?”
“I can handle that, boss. We could use someone to run the stealth station, though.”
“Carson can help your boys out,” Johnny said.
“Take Carson from the 1-3-8.”
“Copy that. You keep in touch over there. You know how me and your mother worry,” Christopher radioed.
“Roger. We’ll keep our handhelds tuned to 1-9 Victor—you need anything, just come straight through at us.”
“Affirmative. Don’t turn grunt on us over there, Nick.”
“No worries.” Nick laughed, toggling the radio off.
Nick spent the next four hours in an uncomfortable chair, working with Mary to see if they could crack the Chinese Army network. A few times, he looked at the rear camera feed to determine if he could see any evidence of the Razor following their smaller vehicle. No such luck.
“Checking for the Razor, boss?” Mary smirked. “You won’t see it on cameras. Ever. Designed that way.”
“Still tough to get my head around. We wouldn’t have believed this kind of tech about ten years ago.”
“Actually, a lot of it was around ten years ago. Air Force was working on it back then, using high-performance civilian vehicles. Ever hear of the Challenger Vapor?”
“Yeah, heard of the Challenger. Remember when they re-released it about a decade ago. Wanted one bad.”
“Air Force and some contractors took one of those and loaded it with tech, even the same radar-absorbing paint and camera systems the Razor uses. Only thing it didn’t have was the adaptive camo, really, but it had plenty of other goodies to make up for it.”
“They still make ‘em?”
“They only made one, I think.”
“In service?”
“Nah. It’s at a museum somewhere in Ohio.”
“How do you know all this shit?”
“I worked at a desk, remember? Lot of downtime. No unsecured ‘net access since I’m a convict, so I read a lot of the Air Force project files.”
Nick nodded. “Any luck on the hack?”
“Broke the logins. Now it’s just making sense of the data when we find it. Different encryptions for different categories. And I have no idea what I’m looking at until you translate it.”
“Any way they can pick up our intrusions?”
“Don’t think so. I’m covering my tracks.”
Nick rubbed his eyes and peered at the netbook’s screen. “This right here—this says ‘Advanced Research Projects.’ My guess is that’s where we’re headed.”
“I’ll get started on breaking the encryptions. Can you write down the Chinese for Pyongyang? So I’ll know it if I see it?”
Nick pulled a small pad and pen from the front breast pocket of his black BDU jacket and scrawled on it in large characters.
Mary took the paper from him, looked at it, and shook her head. “Man. How does anyone learn to actually speak this language?”
“I grew up speaking both. Not so bad that way.”
“No offense to your culture, Nick, but it’s really giving me a fucking headache,” she said, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes.
Nick got up to stretch out his legs. The BMP was nowhere near as spacious as the Razor, even in the back passenger area where he and Mary and Ryan had set up. He found he couldn’t even stand completely without hitting his head on the top of the compartment. At just over five and a half feet tall, Nick felt sorry for the six-foot-four Major Evans.
“Ryan? Our North Korean friends saying anything?” Nick asked, looking over Ryan’s shoulder.
“Oh, they’re saying a lot. They’ve got frequencies that cut through their own jamming. Approved, official frequencies, I’d guess. I’m also picking up a bunch of low-power transmissions fading in and out about every twenty miles or so. Getting a lot of chatter on those that’s pretty damned critical of the North Korean government, the Chinese government, the war, you name it.”
“Pirate radio?”
“I think so.”
“Are you getting those transmissions on transmit-only channels, or can they receive?”
“Based on the computer’s analysis, some of them can receive. Not many.”
“Log those frequencies. They may come in handy later, and I’m sure intel wants to know about them. Log all the official ones, too.”
“Already on it. I’ve also managed to get access to some North Korean Army emails. I think this,” Ryan said, bringing up an email in Korean on his screen, “is the duty roster for the CDMs on guard around the Pyongyang lab.”
“How many CDMs are we talking?”
“Twenty-five. Ten in reserve if the lab gets put on alert status.”
“Movements and vehicle placement?”
“They’re attached.”
“Translate and download to Mary’s netbook. I’m sure the guys on the Razor will want to see this.”
“Roger that.”
“Good work, Ryan.” Nick grabbed the handheld and switched it on. “Razor 4-7 Echo, this is BMP-1.”
“Hey, Nick. Anthony’s crashed out. What can I do you for?” Martin’s voice came back.
“Chris still awake?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Grab him for me, would you?”
“Sure.”
Christopher’s voice came down the line a few seconds later. “What’s up, boss?”
“We’ve managed to pull some intel. Twenty-five to thirty-five CDMs on guard around the lab.”
“Lovely. Considering one could probably blow the hell out of us.”
“Yeah. How’s the stealth running over there?”
“Fine so far. Solid fuel’s still right near the top, so we should be able to proceed with daytime stealth mode as planned.”
“Good. Looks as if we’ll need it. I’ll get back to you with more as I have it. How’s everyone holding up over there?”
“We’re solid, boss. Got four racked out right now. The medic managed to drag himself to an open chair. Said he was tired of lying down. He’s been running Gabriel through more EMT stuff for the last couple of hours.”
“Good to know. Call if you need anything, yeah?”
“Will do.”
Nick turned off the radio and walked back to his chair. Mary was flying through screens of information now. She’d apparently broken the encryption, because the words on the screen made sense to Nick. He read a few words about highly classified material, about how only those personnel with a level 12 clearance would be allowed to log in.
“You got in,” Nick said.
“Looks like it. I found a file tagged with the characters you wrote down for me. Breaking the logins now.”
A few seconds later, the screen filled with characters. Nick read from the screen aloud: “China/North Korea Advanced Research Projects Alliance—Kim Jong Il Pyongyang Research Facility.”
“This what we’re looking for?”
“Yep. That’s it. Click that link,” Nick said, tapping the screen. “Should be a breakdown of their current development projects.”
Mary clicked the link, and a new page loaded.
Nick read silently, tightening his lips.
Mary turned around and noticed the look on his face. “What? What does it say?”
“The page is detailing something called Project Youxia. I’m not a tech guy, but as near as I can tell, it’s a virus. A virus that targets Caucasoid gene markers only.”
“A disease engineered to kill white people?”
“Yeah. That’s the best way to put it.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Looks like they think it’s more than possible. Apparently, they expect to have it ready to release in less than a month. This says they’re going to use it in weaponized form when they attempt to push North toward Magadan in three weeks. That’ll be the first test of the virus.”
“I don’t know the demographics exactly, but if they deployed something like that on the battlefield, it would take a huge chunk out of our forces. I mean, just using the 47 and the 138 as a representative sample—”
“Ryan, Pete, Rogan and maybe me and Gabe. That’s all that’d survive. But think further. If they take Magadan, which they probably will if their virus works as planned, they could launch missiles full of the stuff across the Bering Strait into Alaska and Canada. Maybe even the mainland U.S.”
“That’s…that’s horrible. We have to do something about it.”
“Agreed. But that’s not the worst part.
This
is,” Nick told her, pointing to a small grouping of characters at the bottom of the page.
“Why? What’s that mean?”
“It says ‘Project one of six.’“
Nick crawled into the cabin of the BMP. It was already crowded with Monica, Rogan and Johnny at their stations. Nick barely had room to stand, but he wasn’t going to be there long.
“Hey, Nick. Looks like Monica managed to squeeze a couple more MPH out of this crate.” Johnny smirked.
“That’s good. I’ve got Ryan searching the North Korean grid for a cover location. We need to stop and have a meeting.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
“It’s necessary. We finally found out what we’re walking into, and it ain’t pretty.”
Johnny nodded, toggling a few switches on the panel to his left. “Your mission, Lieutenant. Let us know where we’re headed.”
“Ryan will be up in a few minutes with a destination.”
“Roger that.”
He hadn’t thought of the BMP’s passenger area as spacious until he crawled out of the cabin. With only two other people in a space that was designed for eleven, Nick stretched his arms and legs as much as he could before he walked over to Ryan’s workspace. “What’ve we got?”
“I think this’ll do it,” Ryan said, pointing to a spot on the map displayed on his netbook’s screen.
“Pretty close to the lab. You sure we can stop there?”
“It should be abandoned. It’s a bombing test range, but there’s not anything on the schedule for the next couple of days.”
“Right. Let’s just hope we don’t run into any unscheduled tests. Get this info up to Monica then let Bryce know. After that, I want you and Mary to put together all the intel we’ve gotten to this point for the guys on the Razor.”
“We’ll get everything transferred over to Mary’s netbook and, y’know, make sure it’s in English.”
“Good man. Let me know if you need anything from me. Otherwise, I’m going to try and catch a nap.”
“In here? Where?”
Nick looked around the passenger area, which was crowded with electronics and weapons. He noticed a spot in the back corner of the vehicle, about three feet square.
“Looks like that corner’s elected.” Nick sighed, balling up his BDU jacket for a pillow. He didn’t expect to be able to relax, what with the noise from the ancient tank’s engine, the smell of its diesel, and the intel he’d read through—but in less than a minute, he was asleep.
“Boss,” Nick heard.
“Yeah,” he groaned, coughing a bit.
“Hey, boss. We’re rolling up on the bomb test range,” Mary told him.
Nick opened his eyes and let them adjust to the low light in the BMP’s passenger area. He rolled to his feet, stretching out the kinks in his back as he stood. “Have we been in contact with the Razor?”
“Yes, sir. They shot ahead of us and have parked in that structure up ahead,” Ryan said, pointing out a bombed-out shell of a two-story building on the BMP’s front camera feed.
“All right. How do we look for recon? Our cameras or the Razor’s caught anything close by?”
“Nope. And the airwaves are quiet, too. I’d venture no one goes near this place when it’s not in use.”
“Which makes them smarter than us, I suppose.” Nick stuck his head into the pilot’s cabin. “Monica, would you take us as close to the Razor’s cover spot as you can? The more cover we have, the better.”
“Copy that, sir.”
“Thanks.”
A few moments later, Monica had the BMP parked about four hundred feet from the Razor, safely tucked between a fallen retaining wall and the side of a bunker. There was just enough space to open the back door. Nick led the BMP crew out and across the field to the Razor’s cover building. Nick’s crew was already standing outside the Razor, though he couldn’t actually see the huge vehicle—with the 4:30 a.m. darkness and the Razor’s stationary position, the thing was functionally invisible.
“Boss,” Christopher whispered, raising his hand.
“Hey, guys. Sorry for the change in plans, but we really need to have this conversation in person. Everyone inside the Razor, yeah?”
The inside of the Razor was a bit cramped with fifteen bodies inside, but after seven hours in the BMP, Nick didn’t mind. He had Mary hook up her netbook to one of the Razor’s larger plasma monitors then turned to address his men. “All right, folks. We’ve found out what’s going down in the lab ten kliks away, and ‘nasty’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. For starters, there’s a virus that targets Caucasoid gene markers—as Mary put it, a disease that kills white people. That’ll be deployed in three weeks.”
The Razor crew fell silent.
“Unfortunately, that’s not all. There are five other projects in development at the lab, and some of them are worse. You’ll have the day to look at them, because we’re not going in until tonight.”
“Um…boss…going in? Shouldn’t we just destroy the lab and get the hell out of here?” Christopher asked.
Nick nodded. “Oh, we’re going to destroy the hell out of it. Martin, Mary’s got all of the specs on the building. I want you to work with her to figure out just how to make that happen. But before we do that, there’s something we need to steal. Something that could give us a fighting chance in this war.” Nick nodded to Mary, who brought an image up on the screen. It was a floor plan of the lab’s fourth floor, and the image quickly tracked through the halls and stopped on a very small room near the back of the building. “This is Room Thirteen, ladies and gentlemen. I know it doesn’t look like much, especially compared to the rest of the lab, but this is where we’re going to find the technology that could turn this whole thing around.”
“Wait, wait. Back up a minute. How are they going to deliver this virus?” Anthony asked.
“A weaponized aerosol, loaded into a warhead and detonated about two hundred feet above a battlefield,” Nick answered.
“No way that’ll work,” Johnny said. “Our missile-detection systems’ll spot that thing hundreds of miles away and take it out before it gets close enough to do any damage.”
“Ah. And that’s where we get to Room Thirteen,” Nick replied, nodding to Mary.
She punched a couple of keys, and an image of a small, cylindrical machine popped up on the screen.
“This is the project in Room Thirteen. They’re building a bigger one down on the main floor, but this one actually works.”
“And that’s…what?” Michael asked.
“This is an electromagnetic pulse cannon,” Nick said. “Broad strokes…fire it at a target, it knocks out anything electronic in its blast radius.”
“Point it at a Razor, and all the tech in the vehicle goes dead. Computers, comms, hybrid drive, all of it?” Christopher asked.
“The small one on the screen here, sure. That’ll take out a couple of Razors. The big one they’re working on is designed to be carried by an MI-26TC helicopter, and has a blast radius of three square miles.”
“Shit. That could wipe out an entire Firebase,” Carson said.
“Correct. Which means no missile defense, and only the older vehicles would even run. Then the Chinese fire in the virus warhead, which’ll wipe out a bunch of our forces…and then they can just roll on in with their fully operational CDMs and mop up whatever’s left, which won’t be much—six or seven guys with M4s, effectively.”
The Razor went silent yet again.
“Which is why we’re going to steal it and use it against them. We’ll grab the schematics for the large device and grab the operational prototype. I know it’s not in our mission profile, but the possibilities this weapon represents are just too important to ignore. I’m sure Colonel Ross would at least want us to try, anyway,” Nick said.
“It’s a big risk, but I tend to agree,” Johnny said, looking around the Razor for any signs of disagreement. There were none.
Nick continued, “Mary will hack every design note on the device out of the Chinese Army network, along with everything we can find on the virus. Then we blow the joint and run like hell.”
“Blowing the joint…that’s gonna take some doing, boss,” Martin said, thumbing through the building schematics on one of the Razor’s screens.
“What do you need?”
“To completely turn the place into rubble and make sure it burns hot enough to vaporize all traces of the virus? Thermobaric might work, but best bet’s nuclear. One, two kilotons oughta do it. Relatively small device. I can do that.”
“Please don’t tell me we’ve been riding around with a nuke this whole time,” Peter said with a groan.
Martin ignored him, instead turning back to Nick. “I can get it done. But is this electromagnetic pulse cannon thing really worth stealing? Why not just blow the place, hack the data and go on home?”
“I thought about that,” Nick told them, unslinging one of the Chinese assault rifles he’d found in the passenger area of the BMP. “Take a look at this.”
“Yeah. Chinese assault rifle. Seen one of those before, remember, boss?” Gabriel said.
“Yep. Remember those nifty computer-amplified sights? All the cool tech toys on the rifle and in the CDM?” Nick asked, yanking the power pack from the weapon and tossing it to Gabriel.
Gabriel caught the rifle in both hands and looked it over.
“Go ahead. Shoot one of us. Me, if you want,” Nick said with a shrug.
“I’m not gonna shoot you, boss.”
“Right. Toss it back,” Nick said, catching the weapon when Gabriel threw it back to him. He pointed the rifle at the floor and pulled the trigger several times. Nothing happened—not even a dry clicking noise to indicate the gun wasn’t loaded.
“The Chinese are way ahead of us in tech. Problem is, you kill the power to ninety-five percent of their devices, and they don’t work. A CDM’s guns are all computer-controlled. UAVs fly on computer brains. Their uniforms are augmented with battlefield computers, their helmets with site-visualizing screens. Even the rifles won’t shoot without power.” Nick smiled.
“Those CDMs are shielded like a motherfucker, though,” Bryce piped up.
“Not from an electromagnetic pulse.” Daniel smiled. “I remember my physics. That’ll stop ‘em dead, armor or no.”
“You’ve got that right, Daniel. And good on you for paying attention in high school physics.”
“College, Nick.”
“Even better.”
“But say they manage to bring one of those to a fight anyway,” Rogan proposed. “They could shut us down, too.”
“You’re right. They could conceivably rebuild the EM-pulse cannon and use it on us. But these,” Nick said, holding up his M4, “fire just fine without power.”
“Right. Fine, then. But how do you suggest we get in there, set up a nuclear device, steal tech, and get out without dying in the blast?” Johnny asked, arms crossed.
“Believe it or not, I have a plan for that.” Nick smiled.
“Oh, man. I do not like the look of that smile one bit.” Christopher shook his head.
“We’re lying low here during the daylight hours. Continue with the sleep and day watch shifts as usual. I’ll be coming to each of you to discuss your part in the operation as the day progresses. Martin, I think it’s fairly obvious what your job’s going to be.”
Martin nodded, his scarred face twisting into a full smile. “I’ll get started on my prep work.”
“Hey, Marty, man. You never answered me. We haven’t been riding around with a damn nuclear bomb in here, have we?” Peter asked.
Martin just kept smiling as he walked toward his pile of gear.