Liberators: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse

57 BIG TREBLE

Their recon mission was a failure. They had been detected, perhaps by a ground sensor, so now Peter and Ray were on the run. After he had shot just four rounds, Ray’s FAMAS carbine jammed. He tried the traditional “slap/pull/squeeze” method of clearing the jam, but a glance in the ejection told him that the jam was a dreaded “double feed,” which could take a long time to clear. He didn’t have a lot of time.

“VBT!” he shouted to Peter, quoting one of Malorie’s favorite fake acronyms. Recognizing Ray’s predicament, Peter laid down covering fire for their withdrawal with pairs of semiautomatic shots from his Pindad SS2.

Ray safed the FAMAS and slung it across his back as he ran.

Nearing a boulder that would provide decent cover, he pulled his Inglis pistol from its stock/holster. He fired two quick shots toward his pursuers. Seeing that Peter was up and running, Ray fired three more times. Then he pulled the wooden shoulder stock from its harness, attached it to the butt of his pistol, and adjusted the gun’s tangent rear sight to two hundred meters. Shouldering the gun, he tried to engage the advancing Chinese squad as best he could, firing deliberately. Once he heard Peter firing again (following his own rush), Ray jumped up and started a rush, reloading as he ran.

This series of withdraw-by-fire and rushes went on for several minutes. Peter was briefly stunned when a bullet hit him near the top of his TBAS trauma plate. He realized later that he would probably be dead if it weren’t for his armor. Mainly because of their superior accuracy, the PLA squad stopped pursing them after they had taken four casualties. Peter shot and killed three PLA soldiers, and Ray badly wounded another.

After they broke contact, Ray and Peter kept running, heading for dense timber. They were in an area just a few miles from the ambush of the French Gazelle helicopter five years earlier.

They were certain that the Chinese would resume their pursuit once a larger unit arrived to back them up. What they hadn’t planned on were scent-tracking dogs.

When the heard the dogs, Ray shouted as he ran, “We’ve gotta think fast. They may have transponders on their dog collars, so even if the handlers can’t keep up with them, they can use those returns to vector attack helicopters in on us.”

“There’s another VBT for us,” Peter said.

If they got pinned down, he expected the Chinese to call for a gunship. It would be either a Z-9 (a clone of the Eurocopter Dauphin) or a Z-10, a more formidable attack helicopter similar in capability to the Augusta 129 or the Eurocopter Tiger.

After running for another minute, Peter said, “Hey! How about treble hook lines?”

“Could work!” Ray answered. “Let’s look for a narrow spot.”

They found the right spot a few hundred yards ahead where the trail crossed a swale that was hemmed in by trees and some large boulders. The dogs now sounded as if they were getting closer—perhaps only a mile behind them.

They stopped and grounded their weapons. Ray dug into his pack and pulled out his medical kit, which contained several battle dressings and a combat application tourniquet (CAT). Beneath that was a brown plastic clamshell soap box that was about the size of his hand. Inside it was a piece of cardboard with eight separate pieces of 120-pound test monofilament wrapped in notches that had been cut along the sides of the cardboard. Each nine-foot-long fishing line had a three-quarter-inch-wide treble hook tied at both ends.

To save time, Ray pulled out his tanto pocketknife and cut the cardboard in half. He said, “Four for you and four for me. Doggie chest height, naturally.”

They quickly unwound the snare lines and started to string them up across the trail.

Phil had taught them the technique. He’d learned it from a Special Forces NCO. The idea was to attach them to a strong synthetic line such as spiderwire fishing line. Typically one end was attached to the hook and the other to the ceiling rafters or doorframes with enough slack to allow the hooks to lie on the floor near the edges of the wall. They could place these in what Phil termed a “fatal funnel”—an interior ambush zone inside a building. According to Phil, using treble snares could delay, distract, and unnerve a SWAT-style raid party, allowing defenders to have a brief period of advantage wherein they could shoot the invaders. The attackers are slowed and stunned by pain, allowing the defenders to spring a trap and fire upon the attackers, all caught nicely inside a restrictive space. The same sorts of treble hook snares were also useful in wilderness areas on trails.

By the time that they were done emplacing all eight snare lines, the barking dogs sounded much closer, perhaps only a half mile away. “Crud, they’re gaining fast,” Ray muttered nervously.

Ray and Peter grabbed their rifles and resumed running. They had run about fifteen hundred yards when they heard a terrible commotion behind them. They stopped to listen. The many shrieks, howls, and barks from the dogs made it clear that the pack had gotten themselves into a big tangle. The howls went on and on, and both men felt bad to have been forced to harm the dogs the way they did.

Peter uncapped his canteen and took a long pull from it, and offered it to Ray, who also took a sip.

Handing the canteen back, Ray said, “Thanks. I think I have time to clear that jam now.”