Empire of the Dragon Read online

  “The director is calling an emergency staff meeting, probably about you and the Captain.” He stood and stretched and then started to turn around. “We better get—”

  The nine-millimeter was pointed right at his chest.

  “I think you can skip the meeting, Major,” Jack said, as he raised his eyebrows at the stunned look on Mendenhall’s face.

  The three silenced shots struck Mendenhall in the chest, sending him flying over the chair he had just risen from. His head hit the corner of the desk, and after that he felt no more pain from the bullet strikes.

  Demi Blintnikov, a former Captain in the Siberian Group’s ‘Dirty Tricks’ department, was a man who had spent the past fifteen years learning everything there was to learn about Colonel Jack Collins, even going as far as having ten plastic surgeries to duplicate every scar, every blemish on his body. The Russian duplicate placed the silenced weapon into the back of his waistband and made sure the sportscoat covered it well.

  He looked down on a motionless Will Mendenhall. He knew from the Colonel’s dossier that the man he had just murdered was one of Collins’ protégés. He smiled at his first target as mentioned in the dossier that had been forwarded by Vassick. Now to face the other targets. Luckily, they would all be in one place. He smiled down on the second of his targets.

  “He should have taught you better, Major Mendenhall.”

  * * *

  Jack was greeted warmly by the sixteen members of the managerial staff as he entered the conference room on level seven. Director Compton stood and made his way to the front and took Jack by the hand.

  “Good to see you home, Colonel. We would take more time showing our appreciation, but things are developing rapidly in Mongolia. I know you want to be there, but we need you here for right now.”

  “Good to see you, Jack,” Alice Hamilton said as she placed her arms around him and hugged.

  Jack didn’t say anything, he accepted the greeting stoically just as his double would have. He winked as he held her at arm’s length and smiled.

  “Sit down and we’ll get started. Where’s Will?” she asked, returning to her normal spot beside Niles.

  “You caught him showering. I sent a man to get him.”

  Collins looked around in amazement as he moved to what he hoped was his seat. The odds were with him since there were only two empty chairs around the giant conference table. He tried to keep his head from swiveling as he took in the main conference room. The technology on display was something he had never seen before. Hologram maps and other mystical devices held sway over the most covert group in the world.

  “Welcome back, Colonel,” Niles said. The men and women around the table lightly tapped their palms in tribute. “Take your coat off, Jack, we will be a while.”

  Jack removed his sports-coat and then placed it on the back of his chair and sat, not exposing his back to the men and women waiting on him.

  Xavier Morales was the only one to notice the small bandage on the right forearm of the Colonel. His eyes went to Niles Compton, but he couldn’t get his attention. He made sure not to look the Colonel’s way again. He eased his hand down to his lap and opened the small device he used while circumnavigating the long hallways of the complex. He used it to keep a direct link to Europa when he wasn’t in the comp center. He bit his lower lip as he started typing Europa a message.

  ‘Status on Colonel Collins health and welfare implant. Non-verbal answer only.’

  Xavier looked up as Niles continued giving the Group the latest update on what was happening in Mongolia. Morales allowed his eyes to wander to Jack’s side of the table. He was watching the Director closely. He chanced a look down on the small cell-like device in his lap. The answer came fast.

  “Implant indicates nominal health status at this time. Elevated heart rate and body temperature, health studies have indicated that is considered normal after long flights.”

  Xavier started to punch letters at a lightening rate of speed.

  “Pull up records of blood type of Colonel Collins and compare to current status.” Morales swallowed as he waited.

  “Doctor Morales, hello, are you with us today?”

  Xavier nearly jumped from his wheelchair when Virginia’s voice broke through his speeding brain. His eyes went from Virginia first, and then for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why they went directly to the man under suspicion. Jack Collins was staring right at him.

  “Excuse me, I uh…uh…what was the question?”

  “Explain the armor movement by the Russians and how far are they from the field team’s last reported position,” Virginia said once again.

  “Europa and Boris and Natasha say they are currently within two miles of last readout.”

  Again, the chance look into his lap. He felt his heart skip and almost stop. The answer was there.

  “The subject that checked into the Complex at 0725 is not, I repeat, is not Colonel Collins.”

  The men and women around the table were awaiting Xavier to expand on his report, but watched instead as his head slowly turned to Jack Collins. Jack was smiling. He winked at the paraplegic computer genius.

  Xavier froze at the worst possible moment as Collins stood suddenly from his chair.

  Morales broke the trance he found himself in and rolled as fast as he could toward the director, who was amazed at the speed of the young computer whiz. He was about to say something when Xavier’s chair slammed into him, sending the director reeling into Alice Hamilton and they both fell to the floor.

  Collins shot twice, striking the wheelchair in its leather back. Xavier was thrown violently forward and onto the carpeted floor as both men and women around the table jumped to their feet. When they looked again, Jack Collins had aimed his silenced weapon at the group.

  Silenced shots started to ring out.

  * * *

  Altai Mountains,

  Eastern Mongolia

  Ryan felt overly exposed as they slowly made their way to the raised mound. It seemed as if all hell had broken loose in the desert surrounding the mountain. In the distance, Russian armor was burning and aircraft debris littered the sands. As Ryan came to a sliding stop on his belly, he spied even more Russian assault troops parachuting into the war zone. These hit the ground with the intent of charging the mountain under the cover of Russian armor. The naval aviator knew their time was short to the extreme.

  “Sergeant Tram, get on the far side of the knoll and set that Barrett up. If those assholes get close, explain to them in no uncertain terms they’re not welcome here.”

  Without saying a word, Tram belly-crawled to his new position and uncased the Barrett.

  “Professor Lee, we don’t have the time it would take to dig this big bitch out of this sand.”

  “I believe I can assist with that,” Lee said.

  “What are those things?” Major Pierce asked, as again he was using the circled fingers of both hands as binoculars.

  As Ryan chanced a look, he saw the Russian built assault helicopters striking near the mountain passes behind them. The MI-28 ‘Havoc’ was an air superiority chopper that could lay waste to any armored column they faced. Some reports said it made the Apache Longbow seem meek in comparison. The Russkies were chucking everything they had at the Chinese advance. Ryan looked at Pierce, who was lowering his fingers and staring wildly at things he had never seen before. There were sixteen of them making missile and cannon runs on someone very high on the mountain’s top.

  “I think we are about to be surrounded. Professor, you’re on!”

  As Ryan, Pierce and Birnbaum watched, Lee braved the fire around him and stood. He closed his eyes and started to relax his brain. He slowed his breathing just as he had been taught by his father, Master Li Zheng. He prayed to a long dead mother and praised his people in a silent thought. Then he started to swirl both fingers of both hands in a circular motion while they were still at his sides. He began circling his fingers faster, and then even faster. He raised his
head, eyes still closed to the heavens. Then his arms started to rise, slowly at first and then faster as the wind picked up to a briskness until Ryan felt the stinging grains of sand as they started to assault everyone.

  “Cover, cover, cover,” Ryan shouted as loud as he could.

  Soon, the small rise of the elevated mound was inundated by the swirling tornado of sand and rock. The storm picked up in intensity. Static electricity shocked Tram so hard he dropped the fifty-caliber weapon and covered his head. Birnbaum was struck by a tumbleweed that nearly decapitated him. Jason began to feel the earth around him move and was amazed at how Professor Lee could keep his feet during the assault of the elements. Even the sound of the raging battle less than two miles away was unable to penetrate the vortex of noise and the movement of sand and earth.

  Suddenly, it was over. Ryan raised his head, shedding a hundred pounds of sand as he did. When he opened his eyes, he saw Lee moving his way. The small man seemed unfazed by what had just happened.

  “Well?” Ryan said as he shook himself free of sand.

  “Oh, she looks beautiful!” Pierce said, just as twenty-millimeter rounds stitched a pattern of flying earth high into the air as one of the Russian assault choppers had viewed the disturbance on the ground and attacked that position. The pilot had peeled off from the assault on the Chinese column above them to strike at what he had seen.

  Just as Ryan pulled the crazed pilot to the ground, they heard the loud pop of something behind them. Under the cover of the piled sand that had just been created by Lee, Tram had targeted the assault of the Russian helicopter. As Ryan braved a look, he saw the engine compartment of the twin turbo-powered MI-28 start to smoke. Then another loud ‘pop’ sounded, and the canopy in front of the rear-seated pilot exploded inward, killing the Russian immediately. The ‘Havoc’ spun out of control and then slammed into the desert only a hundred feet away.

  When he turned back, he saw the result of Lee’s air bending. The ‘Slick Willy’ was totally uncovered. Its gleaming silver fuselage shone bright in the setting sun. Rays of the dying orb bounced off what looked like brand-new aluminum. The giant tail of the bomber was now sticking up so high it could have been used as a sign post directly leading to their location.

  “I wish we would have thought to bring a camouflaged tarp along,” Jason said as he scrambled into the large circular pit caused by the uncovering of the B-29. Again, he had to pull Major Pierce to the ground as he was saddened by the damage done to his beloved aircraft. The wingless giant looked forlorn in its sandy grave.

  “What did I do?” Pierce said, as he came to a stop just outside the old pilot’s compartment. The glass in the nose was mostly still intact but the main fuselage was bent as if a giant hand had swatted it out of the sky.

  “At the time I brought it down as gently as I could,” Lee said sadly.

  “What you did, Major, was bring your aircraft down with no wings. As a pilot myself, I would say that may be the single greatest accomplishment in aviation history.”

  Pierce looked from Ryan to the wingless ‘Slick Willy’. He smiled and then puffed out his chest in pride. A change seemed to come over him. He started to move toward the open crew hatch beneath the cockpit, but Jason stopped him.

  “Professor, did your people recover the crewmen killed in action when you found the Major?”

  Lee’s silence told Ryan what he needed to know.

  “Major Pierce, I need you to stay here.”

  “But…but…that’s my aircraft, it…it’s…my responsibility.”

  As Ryan looked from Pierce to the ghostly body of the ‘Slick Willy’, he shook his head no.

  “They’re my boys.”

  Ryan closed his eyes. He knew he didn’t have the right to keep Pierce out. He himself would never have allowed it. He nodded his head and Pierce scrambled forward, expertly lifting himself up and into the plane near the faded nose-art of the cartoon character ‘Slick Willy’ dropping bombs on a fleeing Tojo’s head. Ryan, Lee, and Birnbaum followed suit.

  The interior was blasted to bits and the men had a hard time moving past the dislodged wires and cables. Over the seventy-five years of its interment, sand had filtered into the bomber to create soft flooring in the old pressurized compartments of the Boeing plane. As they moved forward, they saw the first of the crewmen. Given the dryness of the desert, and the fact that air could not get to it, the body looked as if the young man had died only months before. The dried and leathery skin looked peacefully asleep. Pierce saw this and went to his knees in front of the splayed body in the old gray flight-suit. Ryan had to turn away as he had experienced the same remorse over lost friends. Pierce picked up the thin dry fingers of the young boy who never went home after the war. Ryan placed a hand on the shoulder of the grieving old pilot.

  “His name was Sergeant Jimmy Blackwell. He loved baseball and wanted to try and go pro after the war. His mama lives in Muncie, Indiana.” He pulled the dog-tags free of the boy’s chain and then, without looking, held them up for Ryan to take. “Take these to his mother, will ya Navy?”

  Ryan, Lee, and Birnbaum were shocked at the change in Pierce’s demeanor. Gone were the quirky little movements and the crazed look of the eyes. Jason, knowing the kid’s mother was long dead herself, accepted the tags and then nodded yes, he would most definitely do as asked. Pierce nodded his head and then patted the dried-out corpse of his old crewman on the shoulder and then with determination stood up.

  “This way, gentlemen.”

  As they moved toward the bomb-bay compartment, they began to see things not normally associated with a B-29. Electronic monitoring devices, long dead, lined both bulkheads as they progressed. Pierce pulled wiring from their boxes in an angry tirade as he was anxious to get to where he was determined to go. Finally, he stopped as more bodies appeared. A gloved hand sticking through the sand here. A broken form of a leg there. Pierce was no longer concerned with the dead as he went to his knees. Ryan at first thought that the Major was losing control of his senses again, when he suddenly started to dig. Ryan, Lee, and Birnbaum also went to their knees and started scraping the sands of seventy-five years away. Then they heard the hollow sound when Pierce struck steel. He dug more fiercely than before. Then there it was. The bomb-bay compartment door. Pierce, with the help of the three others, lifted for all he was worth.

  Every man got the chills when the door was thrown wide. The ‘Thin Man’ was there, and it looked menacing with its wires and its gauges exposed for the first time in close to a century. The bomb itself was elongated, very much different than either Fat Man or its cousin, Little Boy. It was at least ten feet longer and took up the entire bomb-bay compartment. The three men jumped when Pierce began to speak as if he were giving a lecture. They could tell he had been taught every aspect of the bomb from the people at White Sands proving grounds, who had instructed him in India. Ryan saw the intelligence of the pilot, as he had obviously been picked because he was the best there was at one time.

  “Gentlemen, we will be dropping the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare. The ‘Thin Man’. Fifteen thousand two hundred pounds in weight. Length, one hundred and seventy-two inches, with a diameter of ninety-three inches. Far larger that its brother apparatuses. Its payload is plutonium based. Gentlemen, this weapon has a blast yield of twenty-five kilotons. It has six contact fuses and a mercury-based altimeter trigger. In other words, people, it is designed to ruin your whole day.”

  They watched as Pierce smiled and looked down at them. “I remember everything about this damnable bomb.”

  “I can see you have the same attitude about these things as a friend of mine,” Ryan said, remembering Will Mendenhall’s hatred of anything nuclear. “He thinks they handed these damn things out like the album Frampton Comes Alive.” Ryan smiled at his small joke as he looked at Professor Lee. The small man raised his brows as if Jason had lost it just as Pierce had gained some of his sanity back. “You know, the old joke that it seemed the post office mailed ever
yone a copy of that Peter Frampton live album in the seventies, because everywhere you went someone was playing it?”

  Blank looks all around.

  “Forget it, barbarians.”

  “How do you suppose we get that big bastard out of there?” Birnbaum asked.

  “Any ideas, Professor?” Jason asked.

  “We must use the air to get it inside the mountain.

  Just then they heard the discharge of the Barrett as Tram was increasingly engaging targets.

  “Oh, Lord,” Birnbaum said, as he held out the satchel Sergeant Tram had given him. “I’ve got his ten magazines in here.”

  “Well, you better go get ’em to him,” Ryan said. “Sounds like some very bad company is right around the corner.

  * * *

  Tram sighted on the lone armored personnel carrier to advance within range of the Barrett. He shook his head in wonder at the bravery of the Russians, and also their stupidity and arrogance. Why commanders always had their heads sticking out of the small turret was beyond him. He sighted. He eased the trigger back as he held his breath, and then slowly exhaled half of what he had taken in. Through the electronic scope on one of the world’s most expensive personal weapons, which readouts gave him distance and wind velocity, of which he mostly ignored, he fired. The large round came free of the suppressor and the barrel recoiled without any kick as the cartridge was ejected.

  The fifty-caliber round flew to its target over a mile away. The only thing visible was the puff of red spray as the personnel carrier came to a sliding stop.

  “Nice bleedin’ shot, mate,” came the voice from behind him. “I believe you took that bugger’s head clean off.”