“At least they’re making it easy on us,” Hans whispered to Luger.
“They’re idiots,” Luger said. “There’s nothing they can do to beat us.”
“Of course not,” Hans said. “They’re too old-fashioned, too stuck in the past to do anything more but scrape a little paint off our Sigrids.”
They both glanced at the company commander. He was busy speaking to the lieutenant colonel.
“How many have you killed tonight?” Luger whispered. “I’ve obliterated seventeen of them so far.”
“Fifteen,” Hans said, in an envious voice.
Luger laughed.
It made Hans double down and begin searching for more enemies. If he couldn’t tread any of these soldiers, at least he could chalk up a higher kill number than Luger. That might also help keep the captain off his butt and let him get a treading later.
Drone wars, Hans decided, were much better than a computer-generated video game. This was real life and real death, and it was a whole lot more fun because of it.
OTTAWA, ONTARIO
General Mansfeld stood in the GD Expeditionary Force HQ Operational Center. He watched the American assault in Toronto and he tried to decipher their reasoning.
Huge screens hung on the walls. It was like being at King’s Table in Dusseldorf during the soccer playoffs. Well, minus the odor of beer and the sound of drunken cheers every time the home team scored. At King’s Table, screens stood side by side and one atop the other on the walls. Everywhere one peered, one saw massed soccer. Here in Ottawa, it was mass walls of war as seen through the night vision cameras of Sigrids and HKs.
A major handed General Mansfeld a cup of coffee. The trim former Olympic athlete accepted the cup and sipped as he watched a screen. An AI Kaiser HK—a machine known as “Hindenburg”—supplied the images of this screen.
It showed a nighttime wasteland of rubble and the stumps of buildings. Smoke rose from the nearest. Once, this area had been the heart of Toronto’s financial district. Now, instead of accountants, enemy tanks approached. American infantry flanked the big machines. More soldiers on foot followed in back.
Three Kaisers to take on eight M1s and assorted GIs
, Mansfeld mused.
I didn’t know the Americans had so many tanks left in the city
.
Mansfeld handed the cup back to the major. The general then eased forward and touched an operator’s shoulder.
The captain sitting before him stiffened and twisted his head around. The man had a small crossed bones earring. “Yes, sir?” he asked.
“Are you in communication with…with Hindenburg?” At the last minute, Mansfeld remembered that AI liaison officers liked to refer to their machines as people and certainly by name. It was odd. It was even a little disconcerting. But Mansfeld wanted information and knew that it helped to put these liaison officers at ease by complying with their rituals.
“Yes, I am communicating, sir,” the captain said.
“I’d like to hear the exchange,” Mansfeld said.
The captain paused for a half-moment, although he obviously kept himself from frowning. Mansfeld found both things interesting. AI liaison officers were like jealous Canine Corps handlers in the attachment to their creatures. Quite odd, if one thought about it. Finally, the captain moved a finger of his manipulation glove.
A speaker with a metallic voice came online. “Probability indicators show the M1A3s will tack onto grid 2-B-12. The first Abrams will commence firing in…six seconds. I wish them to—”
“Fire now,” Mansfeld said, bending down and speaking into the liaison microphone.
In shock, the liaison officer opened his mouth. “Sir, Hindenburg knows how to—”
“Fire,” Mansfeld said, with bite to his words. “I have ordered you to fire. Why do you delay?”
“I must confirm your authority,” Hindenburg said in its metallic voice.
“Confirm me,” Mansfeld told the captain.
The liaison officer tapped his screen. “Hindenburg, the commanding officer of the GD Expeditionary Force has given you a direct order. You will obey.”
“I am initiating battle zone override,” Hindenburg said. “If you will notice, please: the first M1A3 has stopped short, indicating the crew plans to fire. My prediction is off by two seconds, although the end results will be the same.”
On screen, a squat 175mm cannon roared with great effect. At the same instant, two other Kaiser main guns opened fire.
General Mansfeld watched with absorption. He mentally filed it away for later study the Kaiser’s possible insubordination. At present, the attack met with his approval.
The Kaisers were efficient and sudden death for the old American tanks. Once, the M1s had ruled the world through superior technology. There had not been a tank around able to compete against the Americans. Tonight, in Toronto, the Americans became like the Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein in the deserts of Kuwait back in 1991. Yes, most of the Abrams tanks fired their cannons once. Those shells did nothing, as the Kaisers intercepted each shell with a 25mm autocannon and a mathematically sound formula with the beehive flechettes. No, Mansfeld took that back. Three high-velocity shells found the armored hide of the lead Kaiser, of Hindenburg.
“My glacis has taken a twenty-seven percent hull hit,” Hindenburg informed them, “a thirty-three percent strike and a forty-nine percent. None has breached my armor.”
The AI meant how far each shell had gone into the glacis before stopping.
“I repeat,” Hindenburg said, “there was no penetration. I maintain a ninety-six percent capacity.”
The speed of the Kaiser’s turret and ability to elevate or lower its cannon amazed Mansfeld. He watched the salvos butcher the remaining M1s. At the last moment, two Abrams retreated through the rubble, racing to get behind two buildings. None of it mattered. The Kaisers blasted the last Abrams first, blowing its turret clean off, and they killed the second M1 moments later, leaving two smoke-billowing hulks.
In less than two minutes, the tank battle was over. It was a complete victory for GD arms.
“You can turn off the speaker,” Mansfeld told the liaison officer.
The captain seemed grateful.
“I will speak to you after the battle,” Mansfeld said. “I want to get to the bottom of possible AI insubordination.”
The captain licked his lips before saying, “Yes, sir.”
Mansfeld nodded in a reflective manner. What he’d just witnessed is what he had been talking about in Berlin. Not Hindenburg’s insubordination, but that GD equipment was one or sometimes two generations ahead of the American field equipment. The enemy could not compete with them. Oh, there were the Behemoth tanks. But as of now, those three hundred ton monsters remained in Oklahoma, facing the Chinese.
The enemy had courage. It was impossible to deny, nor did he want to. Yet Mansfeld suspected the courage was partly born out of ignorance. Once the Americans realized how inferior they were, their courage would wilt. This was going to be a hard lesson for the Americans to learn. The Chinese had mass and they had some good technology. The GD had vastly superior equipment and training. And the GD had him. He was the one general who knew how to take these superiorities and turn them into a devastating advantage.
Frankly, if he were the Americans, he would be doing everything in his power to kill him. He was the focal node in this campaign. With him, the GD would be grossly invincible and crush all opposition in the fastest time possible. Without him, the conquest would take longer. But the facts where the facts. The Americans and their Canadian allies simply didn’t have the weapons to compete with the GD.
After witnessing this, Mansfeld realized that nothing could save the Americans, nothing other than a supernatural event. But since supernatural events did not occur…
Mansfeld signaled the major, waving him near with a single finger. He wanted a fresh cup of coffee. The ease of the Kaiser victory gave him an idea. Yes… he needed to exploit the Kaisers better than he was doing.
-5-
Tenth Battalion HQ
PARIS, ILE DE FRANCE
John Red Cloud’s face hurt because he had been smiling, it seemed to him, for endless weeks now. He hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to move around the various European enclaves.
In old Canada, races mingled easily. In Quebec, there had been a large native culture. In Normandy and the Ile de France—the two French enclaves he’d traveled through—he had seen a ninety-five percent majority of white people. Twenty-five years ago, it had been different. Much of France had been immigrant Muslim then, with people from all over the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. That had radically changed fifteen years ago with the riots, near civil wars and finally with the vast deportations of the non-natives. It had been an ugly time, and from it had arisen the German Dominion.
John noticed several oddities here, at least compared to how people did things in Quebec. First, there was much greater automation. Second, he hardly spied any children. He recalled reading somewhere that Europe had a shrinking population. Instead of cheaply hired immigrants, the Europeans used robots. That included a million cameras. John felt an itch along his back wherever he went. What made it worse were the people. The French as a whole cast him dark, suspicious glances. He felt like a pariah, an outsider. It was only a matter of time until the police picked him up and discovered that he wasn’t Jacques Pickard as his ID proclaimed.
He strode down a Paris suburb with his hands in his jacket pockets. Cars passed, and the drivers cast him dirty looks. In an attempt to offset their hostility, John did something difficult, something foreign to his nature. He smiled, trying to project a friendly attitude. He was certain it fooled no one. But like a hunter wearing a buffalo hide to sneak near a herd, he did it anyway.
As John saw it, he had three options. One, he could return to Quebec and kill GD authorities there or perhaps gather a group of likeminded Algonquians and create a death squad. Two, he could continue his lone way through Europe until he reached the capital of Berlin. There, he would seek a shot at Kleist. Three, he could throw himself on the mercy of the French secret service and ask for help—actually, he would throw himself on the mercy of the one agent he knew to be hostile to the Germans.
John’s nostrils flared, and he started to scowl, when a green BMW slowly moved down the street toward him. The car had darkly tinted windows, hiding whoever sat inside. That caused uneasiness between John’s shoulders. Despite the ache to his facial muscles, he forced himself to grin stupidly like some McDonald’s worker.
Unfortunately, he lacked a gun, knife or even brass knuckles. Too many places had automated detectors. He had barely escaped twice already and had decided to no longer chance fate. He felt naked and exposed without weapons, and forced himself to keep his hands open and relaxed.
The BMW slowed the closer it came. John refused to glance at it, but he knew this was bad. He had to decide here and now how he planned to proceed. If he went home, he admitted defeat. It would be the safer course, but he hadn’t stepped onto this path to play it safe. He would gladly trade his life to take down the treacherous leader who had betrayed the Algonquians. His wife was dead. His children were dead. All he had left was his people and his pride. The GD automated armies sliced through the Canadians and Americans. The North Americans could not win.
I must remain on my chosen path. I killed men to reach this place. I cannot stain their deaths by quitting. I must persevere to the end. If I die…I die.
Red Cloud knew a moment of great calm. He had chosen the path of death in order to serve justice. He was a walking dead man, a
hormagaunt
. That gave him power, and the power would help him overcome those in the BMW…if he acted boldly, like a sleepwalker, and continued straight at his enemy on the path of death.
The smile on his face no longer hurt his muscles. For a brief moment, the smile became genuine, if ghastly and chilling. He stopped on the sidewalk and faced the BMW pacing him. Then he indicated that the driver should lower the tinted window.
The large car continued moving a moment longer, although it slowed to less than John’s former pace. It seemed as if the driver hesitated. Then a motor whirred and the window slid down smoothly.
A square-faced, blond-haired man regarded him.
Still smiling with his acceptance of death, John approached the driver. The man frowned, and he reached into his suit jacket.
John bent down as if to talk, and nodded to the other man in the passenger seat. He waited for the right moment, and he could tell both of these were deadly men. The driver removed his hand from underneath the jacket. John had a glimpse of a leather holster. The man held a compact pistol, and he began reversing the barrel so he could no doubt point it out the window.
Your time has come, John Red Cloud. Step through the Death Gate and accept your fate
.
John moved with that deceptive speed of his. The driver brought up his gun, the barrel almost aligned for a shot. John stepped to the window and reached in with a rattlesnake’s swiftness. Surprise flooded the driver’s face, a flush of red. Then anger followed with a heavy frown. By then it was too late for the driver. One of John’s scarred hands gripped the driver’s wrist, twisting hard. His other hand plucked the compact pistol out of the man’s grip. It was neatly done and successful because he had become a hormagaunt. Death or the threat of it no longer fazed him.
“Damnit,” the driver said. “You can’t do that.”
The passenger recognized the danger first. John could see it in the man’s eyes, the dilation of his pupils. The man reached into his suit jacket. Therefore, John shot the passenger first, two bullets in the chest and one in the neck. The passenger flopped, and crashed against the passenger-side door.
The driver looked at his friend and then looked into the smoking barrel of John’s gun.
“No,” the driver said.
With his smile still frozen in place, John shot three times more, obliterating the driver’s features. The man didn’t flop or jackknife anywhere, because his seatbelt kept him securely in place.
John didn’t bother looking around to see if anyone had witnessed this. He was on the death path. That gave him power and it gave him extraordinary luck. Instead of looking around and wasting time, he dropped the gun into a jacket pocket. Then he tried to open the driver’s door. It was locked. John reached within and opened it from the inside.
The smell of blood and death was strong in the BMW. Reaching across the dead driver, John unbuckled him and pushed the corpse over until the two were touching.
He climbed in, ignoring the blood, closed the door with a
whomp
and shut the window. He glanced at the two dead men. They must be undercover police or secret service agents. He would check for identities later. For now, he eased his foot on the gas pedal and drove away.
The incident solidified his plan. He would drive to the French secret service agent’s house. He would outline his need and accept whatever help the man would give. John was on the death path. That meant he needed to move quickly. Those on the death path only had a short time left on Earth. The extraordinary luck would only last a finite period, so he must utilize it to the fullest now.
As John turned onto a new street, the smile slipped away. He had the normal deadpan look of John Red Cloud again. Yes, that was good, too. John decided that he would never smile again…unless he stood over Chancellor Kleist’s steaming corpse.
WASHINGTON, DC
Anna Chen sat in Underground Bunker Number Five. It lay several hundred meters below and to the side of the White House. In case of a nuclear attack, elevators would speed down here through immense layers of concrete. There were enough guns and butter—so to speak—in the bunker’s lockers to last ten years, at least.
This was where David and his larger Crisis Staff often watched critical battles or sat to discuss and make war policy.
Director Max Harold of Homeland Security was present, together with the Director of the CIA. There was the Defense Secretary, the Secretary of State, Chairman Alan and the rest of the Joints Chief of Staff.
Anna sat as a Presidential advisor. She along with everyone else listened to a briefing major outline the Toronto Pocket’s assault.
They watched nighttime images on the big screen. It showed flashes of American artillery. There were big silhouettes of American tanks moving like dinosaurs, bent over mortar teams lugging their equipment, machine-gun gunners and the actual assault soldiers, both American and Canadians wearing bulky body armor.
“We attempted to give them air support,” the briefing major said, a youngish woman with a solemn gaze. She clicked a device.
The big screen switched images, showing American V-10 drones boring in toward Toronto’s airspace. For a moment, the deadly-looking craft flew alone. The next instant lasers stabbed upward into the night sky. Drones broke apart. Some dove to escape destruction. Others lifted and still others peeled away in either direction.
GD drones or fighters—the major didn’t know and they were too far away to tell—launched air-to-air missiles. Anna watched their contrails. The GD missiles moved so fast, and they darted like hummingbirds after the jinking V-10s. Each second, another V-10 burst apart in a flash of explosion. Soon thereafter, there was nothing in the sky but smoking parts raining toward Toronto.
“We need cruise missiles,” someone said. “We need hundreds of them hugging the earth. The lasers couldn’t stop a barrage of them. Bam, bam!” the Defense Secretary said, clapping his meaty hands together. “You’d have wasted GD strongpoints instead of useless, destroyed UAVs falling on them.”
“We don’t have hundreds of cruise missiles in one place to use,” General Alan said, perhaps a trifle apologetically.
The Defense Secretary was a large man with a red face and a redder nose. “Then we’d better damn well produce more of them, shan’t we?”
“We do produce them,” General Alan said. “As fast as the plants manufacture the missiles we use them. It’s building up enough missiles in one place that is proving impossible. Our munitions are woefully inadequate. The battles against the Chinese in the Midwest…they burned up everything we had last year.”
“I understand that,” the Defense Secretary said. “I’m talking about saving cruise missiles for a bigger occasion like this. We’re not thinking strategically enough.”
“Maybe you can lend us your expertise,” Alan said. “Tell me: is this one of those occasions? Or is this a time to save cruise missiles?”
“I don’t appreciate your tone,” the Defense Secretary said.
“He’s simply being factual, Tom,” Max said. “You can’t fault him for that. It’s his job.”
The large Defense Secretary eyed the Director of Homeland Security. “His tone… Oh, never mind. Our boys are dying tonight, that’s what matters.”
“Yes,” Max said. “Sadly, that’s true.” He turned to David Sims. “Mr. President, from the images out of Toronto and the major’s reports, this sounds like a full-blown disaster. We’re in danger of losing these men, everything, in the entire pocket. That’s too many losses piled on top of all our other fatalities.”
Biting her lower lip in worry, Anna watched David. She wondered which President had shown up for the meeting: the forceful man of old or the beaten commander in chief. So far, that had yet to be determined.
President Sims was slow in answering the director. Anguish filled his features. “This…it’s troubling,” he said.
“Agreed, Mr. President,” Max said. To Anna, the Director of Homeland Security felt forceful. He seemed confident and in charge. “The GD arsenal is too modern,” Max said, “too abundant against our under-armed soldiers. Because of that my recommendation remains the same, sir.”
“You mean nuclear weapons, don’t you?” the President asked.
“I don’t see any way around the situation, sir,” Max said. “The GD tanks have run an old-fashioned blitzkrieg against us. They trapped too many of our key formations in Toronto. We need them if we’re going to hold onto the rest of the Golden Horseshoe and the Southern Ontario peninsula. If the GD takes Detroit…”
“That can’t happen,” the President said. “The war might be over if they reach Detroit.”
“Yes, our newest Behemoth Manufacturing Plant is there. After Denver—”
“I know, I know,” the President said, impatiently.
Finally
, Anna thought.
He can’t let Max walk all over him. I should have warned him. I made a mistake in not telling David.
“This is an unpleasant fact, sir,” Max said. He cleared his throat, bringing up his right hand, making a fist and holding it before his mouth. He lowered the hand and said, “I hate to bring it up.”
No, you don’t
, Anna thought.
“The GD Expeditionary Force is taking the time to digest this big lump of American soldiers and equipment,” Max said. “There are over one hundred fifty thousand fighting soldiers in the Toronto Pocket, sir. They’re of the best quality, too. That means their loss will cost more than double in terms of other troops. Once those one hundred fifty thousand are gone, sir, the GD advance will resume. By the pictures we’re seeing, I doubt the men can hold the city more than a few days longer.”