Jim let go of the socks at the precise point in his underhand swing to impart a high, looping trajectory. The sock-bombs separated a bit from each other during the three second flight, but both landed just inside the door to the armory.
Loaded with one pound of C4 in each sock, they hit the smooth concrete floor with an inaudible thud and continued to slide across the polished floor until each came to rest against a stack of drab-green metal lockers… the kind used to transport air-to-surface unguided rockets.
Time seemed to advance in extremely slow motion as Jim watched the socks sail across the open hangar. He was aware of intense enemy gunfire, some aimed in his direction. In his peripheral vision he saw bright flashes from the muzzles of rifles being fired, and he saw Magnum’s body convulse as a bullet plowed through his left shoulder.
Then, as the two U.S.-Government-issue socks came to rest, there was the expected explosion followed immediately by a second, much larger blast. A heavy wall of hot air slammed into Jim, knocking him to the floor.
Looking up, he saw that more than half of the enemy troops were down and not moving. It was a massive explosion, much larger than could be accounted for by just the two pounds of plastic explosive.
The C4 had set off a sympathetic explosion of other ordinance in the armory… just as he had hoped. Better lucky than good, Jim thought.
Dropping the rifle from his shoulder, Jim rolled into a prone position and joined the firefight. The Chinese commandos, along with the SGIT soldiers, had never let up. Now that the odds were more even, the battle slowly began to turn in the direction of Captain Wu’s force aided by the small SGIT team.
Each man was well trained and disciplined, and they remained focused on aiming and shooting rather than reacting to the near misses peppering around them.
One by one, the bad guys were falling—mostly wounded, but many dead. Still, the half dozen survivors fought on tenaciously and showed no sign of giving up.
The armored helicopter easily survived the armory explosion and protected Colonel Ming, who was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. The pilot pushed the engines almost to the point of failure as they were warming up to their required operating temperature.
Realizing that Ming would escape—perhaps for good—if the helicopter got airborne, Captain Wu seized his last opportunity. Eying a control panel on the far wall of the hangar, beyond the nose of the gunship, Wu reasoned it housed the electrical controls that manipulated the overhead retractable roof section.
The section was nearing fully open. The pilot did not wait for the elevator to lift the aircraft to ground level and began to pull up on the collective lever while maintaining maximum power. The helicopter slowly lifted from the concrete floor, a near-gale of wind blasting out from underneath the rotors while it began to ascend toward the opening. In another two or three seconds, Wu estimated, the opening would be sufficiently wide to allow the gunship, with Colonel Ming aboard, to escape.
Aiming with great concentration, Wu fired single shots at the control panel. He did not have ammunition to waste. The first bullet struck the metal box, but nothing happened; the overhead door was still opening. Wu fired again… nothing… again he fired, and this time there was a small cluster of sparks as the bullet pierced the metal electrical box.
The overhead door ground to a halt, just short of being fully opened. But the pilot kept ascending toward the shaft of daylight. For a moment, the men thought they had lost, that Ming would escape. But just as it looked like the helicopter would slip out the opening into clear skies, a rotor blade nicked the retractable door, and in an instant the entire rotor assembly exploded into chunks of metal, hurled throughout the hangar at phenomenal velocity.
Metal bounced off the concrete walls as well as the floor of the hangar, tiny pieces and large chunks alike. One twelve-inch-long piece cut through two of Wu’s commandos, killing them instantly. The large shard bounced back off the floor, narrowly missing Corporal Zhao.
Captain Wu was not so lucky; a ragged piece of rotor blade about the size of a baseball ricocheted off the hangar ceiling and slammed into Wu’s left leg. The torn metal had razor-sharp edges and it sliced into his flesh, severing the femoral artery in three places. Captain Wu began bleeding profusely. He groaned in agony and clenched his teeth, holding back a cry of pain.
“Bull! Do what you can for Wu—I’ll cover you!” Jim screamed, trying to be heard above the mayhem.
Bull handed the AA12 to Boss Man and dropped to his knees next to Wu. Quickly assessing the true danger, Bull removed a tourniquet from his first aid bag. He was in the process of applying the constriction wrap when a burst of rifle fire found its mark.
One bullet sliced through Bull’s forearm, breaking the bone; another entered Captain Wu’s shoulder. Since he was lying on his back, the bullet traveled deep into his torso inflicting lethal damage through his chest.
“I’m hit!” Bull yelled.
Jim turned and saw what had happened. He also saw fuel leaking out of the downed helicopter and feared that it would burst into flames any second, incinerating the entire hangar and all within it.
“Magnum, Ghost—time to get the hell out of here!”
In an instant Magnum was beside his commander. “Help Bull, he’s been hit!”
Ghost continued to lay down a withering barrage of covering fire, pausing only to drop the empty drum magazine and slam in a new one.
Jim shouldered his rifle and the AA12 and then reached down to drag Captain Wu out of the hangar. Corporal Zhao had already retreated to the corridor.
In a weak voice, Captain Wu asked, “Where is Zhao?”
“He’s gone. Your corporal is lacking in loyalty.” Jim made no attempt to hide his dislike for Zhao.
Wu closed his eyes and shook his head. “No… you must stop him.”
Jim didn’t understand. “Why?”
Captain Wu’s face contorted as a bolt of pain shot through his body. He swallowed before struggling to continue, his voice becoming weaker. “My orders… he’s not regular soldier.”
“Tell me later. I’m getting you out of here!”
“No—“ Wu dug his fingers into Jim’s shirt, pulling him closer.
“Zhao will retrieve the data. His orders… he must recover the data…”
“But you said you were sent here to destroy everything.”
The Captain nodded slightly, his eyes closed. “Yes. But Zhao has other orders… not under my command… after he transmitted the data, we were to destroy everything.”
“We don’t have time for this now. The hangar is going to blow.”
“Leave me. You must leave the complex.”
“We will, but not without you.”
Wu resisted. “No, you don’t understand. My orders were to leave nothing behind.” Wu was fading quickly, his breathing was labored and every word seemed to visibly weaken him.
Jim listened carefully. He suspected what Wu was trying to convey. It was the same order Jim was following earlier when he had set to laying explosive charges and incendiaries to destroy the records of the hideous experiments conducted in the facility.
“How much time do we have?” Jim screamed the question, but Wu didn’t answer.
“Captain!” Jim was now in Wu’s face, yelling loudly. “How much time do we have?”
Wu slowly opened his eyes, but only part way. Jim could see he was dying, and suspected he only had a few seconds of life remaining before his battered body quit functioning from loss of blood.
Wu moved his lips, but at first there was no sound. Then, a very faint whisper. Jim leaned close to hear.
“Ten… hundred…” the words were soft, feeble. With every shallow breath a trickle of bright red blood dribbled past the corners of Captain Wu’s mouth.
He looked at his watch—0951. Nine minutes until the complex was scheduled to be destroyed.
“Where are the explosives? Can we disarm them?”
Wu shook his head—it was barely perceptible.
“Where are the charges?” Jim demanded, this time shaking Wu.
Again he shook his head. Slowly, in a faint whisper he said only one word. “Missiles…”
Jim’s mind was turning over the possibilities. He did not expect an aerial assault, instead assuming demolition charges had been placed at key locations throughout the main buildings.
He looked at Wu. His face was ashen, and his breaths were so shallow and slow that he wasn’t even certain the Captain was still alive.
Leaning close, Jim shouted his one burning question. “Warheads! What is the payload?”
No response.
Jim shook Captain Wu and shouted the question again.
Wu’s lips quivered, but nothing came out and his eyes remained closed.
Knowing time had about run out, Jim tried again. “What is the warhead?” he yelled.
This time his lips moved more visibly, and a faint rasp emerged. “Tactical…” and then his head fell to the side. Captain Wu had died.