Jiuquan outskirts
‘Incoming,’ Beth called out in a bored tone. ‘Three vehicles. Too far away to make them out, but they aren’t trucks, for sure.’
Zeb scanned the horizon but all he could see was a thin, black line, the highway. Sand, rolling ground and the sky beyond it. He looked up but couldn’t detect the drone either.
‘It’s a neutral color that blends against the background,’ Meghan drawled in his earpiece. ‘You can see it only if it’s low. Beth’s flying it high.’
‘He’s trying to spot the drone?’ her sister asked, smirking.
‘Yeah.’
‘He’ll never learn.’
‘Old people … that’s how they become. Rigid, stuck in their views. Like Broker.’
‘Hey,’ the eldest operative called out in an injured tone. ‘I know better. I wouldn’t search the sky for our bird.’
‘BMWs!’ Beth snapped.
Mirth disappeared. Cold alertness took its place.
Washington DC
‘We can’t do anything, sir,’ said Mike Hoosier, the Director of National Intelligence. ‘We shouldn’t do anything that will make us look weak. What are the Taliban going to do? Blow up car and truck bombs outside our embassy? They can’t get close to it. The security cordon is tight. All they’ll do is damage the road—’
‘And kill civilians,’ Jill Dalton, the Vice-President, snapped at him. ‘Do we want their blood on our hands?’
‘What do you suggest we do?’
President Morgan drank his coffee as his visitors argued back and forth. He had summoned his Veep, the DNI, Catlyn Feder, Daniel Klouse, Lester McClellan, Secretary of Defense, and Clare to the meeting after hanging up with Farley.
‘We send a team to Afghanistan to try and retrace Pasha’s escape. We might get lucky and find his remains.’
‘After all this time?’ Hoosier snorted, ‘And in that terrain?’
‘It’ll show we are committed to the peace deal,’ Dalton snapped back fiercely. ‘And—’ she held up a finger to stop his outburst, ‘—most importantly, it will show we tried. That will buy us goodwill among the Taliban.’
The president hid a smile as he observed his veep, one of his most trusted advisors, holding her ground. I picked well, there, he mused. He had appointed her when the incumbent, Brian Thyssen, had died unexpectedly during his first term.
Dalton had been a state governor, where she had implemented radical reform and progressive policies despite stiff opposition from within her own party as well as the minority.
She had surprised him by initially turning down his offer.
‘Sir, I’d be a number two, to you,’ she had said with a smile. ‘Here, I’m the boss.’
‘I am not looking for someone for show, to stand in for me at events, to greet visiting leaders,’ he had responded, making his case. ‘I want an independent advisor, someone who’ll call me out if I make mistakes. I don’t want a yes-person.’
‘You want me because I’ll make you look good.’
‘I won’t deny that. But you’re not the only female governor out there. There are many smart female politicians I could go to if I wished. I want you because your values align with mine and you aren’t afraid to tangle with your own party if necessary.’
She had agreed, finally, a decision neither of them had regretted.
‘I’m with Jill,’ Klouse came to her defense. ‘We lose nothing—’
‘We lose face,’ Hoosier burst out. ‘The US has never negotiated with terrorists.’
‘Pshaw,’ Klouse said disparagingly. ‘That’s a good line for TV, but that’s not true. We have done deals with them when it has suited us. Besides, in this instance, there’s no negotiation. We aren’t giving up anything. Like Jill suggested, we’ll deploy a team and they’ll either find Pasha or they won’t. We report that back to Rahmani. The Taliban can’t accuse us of any tricks, because,’ he said, with a mirthless grin, ‘little happens in those mountains without their knowing.’
‘Those terrorists will attack them!’
Jiuquan outskirts
Zeb heard the BMWs before he saw them, since the highway curved around a rise and disappeared out of sight.
He spotted the flash of light, the reflection off a windscreen as the first vehicle came into view, a dark dot on the highway.
‘Flying their way,’ Beth said softly. ‘Engaging thermal imaging.’
That would give them an idea of how many people were in each vehicle.
‘Six in the first, five in the middle and six more behind.’
Those BMWs must be customized to accommodate so many people.
‘That middle one,’ Zeb asked, ‘what’s the formation?’
‘Driver and passenger in front. Single person on the middle seat. Two others at the back.’
‘Hsu’s the one in the center?’ Bear thought aloud.
‘No,’ Bwana disagreed. ‘He feels secure. The air force base is nearby. He’s got fifteen people around him … he’s in the rear seat, along with Rong.’
‘I’m going with that,’ Meghan threw in. ‘We can’t locate the deputy’s phone that precisely. He’s in the middle BMW for sure.’
‘Hsu and Rong in the back seat,’ Zeb said. ‘Any objections?’
There were none.
‘Coming into shooting distance,’ Bwana whispered.
‘Coast is clear,’ Beth called out. ‘I’ll jam all comms as soon as Zeb gives the command.’
‘Take them out.’
Washington DC
‘I’ve decided,’ President Morgan said, putting a stop to the wrangling among his cabinet. ‘We’ll send a team to Afghanistan. I’ll ask Rahmani to get the Taliban to resume the ceasefire until our people find something … or nothing.’
‘You think they’ll agree?’ Hoosier asked doubtfully.
‘Yeah. They want Pasha, remember?’
‘If we find nothing?’
‘Then they’ll break off the peace discussions. The bombings will resume. I’m aware of that. But it won’t be because we walked away. They did. It will be on the Taliban’s heads. Rahmani and I’ll make sure the Afghan people know that. We’ll organize a media campaign.’
‘What about our troop pullout, sir?’ McClellan asked.
‘That,’ President Morgan sighed heavily, ‘might have to be delayed.’
Jiuquan outskirts
The fifty-cal round left Meghan’s barrel at just under two thousand eight hundred feet per second. It traveled the two hundred yards to the leading BMW in less than half a second and tore out its tire.
Her second round smashed through the toughened glass of the front window. The vehicle veered to its left. She fired at the second vehicle and shot out its tires, turned back to the first and poured the armor-piercing rounds into its windows.
‘Bodies slumped in the front seat,’ Beth commented on their anti-jam, encrypted satellite comms channel, ‘of the first vehicle. Back seat, same.’
Zeb uncovered himself rapidly and grabbed his Glock. He got to his feet when Bwana tore holes into the third SUV.
The first vehicle’s doors opened and a suit scrambled out. He fell when Meghan shot him in the chest.
Zeb ran at a low crouch, well away from the older twin’s firing line.
‘JIAN HSU,’ Beth bellowed through the drone’s voice-modulating mic. ‘COME OUT.’
‘WHO ARE THEY?’ Rong screamed as the CPO slumped in front of them in a shower of blood. Their driver had tried to reverse their vehicle, but he had been shot before he could execute the maneuver.
‘I DON’T KNOW,’ Hsu yelled as he cowered beneath the window line.
His deputy snuck a peek out of the rear window and jerked down suddenly when another round crashed into their driver.
‘THEY’VE TAKEN OUT THE REAR VEHICLE.’
‘THEY’VE GOT SNIPERS ON BOTH SIDES,’ Hsu guessed. ‘Heavy caliber rifles.’
He curled himself lower as rounds crunched, someone screamed and the sounds of bodies falling came to him.
‘Our men, are they dead?’ he whisper-shouted.
‘Shi,’ Rong nodded rapidly as he trembled. ‘I heard Deng scream. Zhou got hit just now, and the other CPO isn’t moving. How do those snipers know where to shoot?’
‘Front windows.’
Hsu squirmed around and brought out his cell phone. He swore when he discovered it had no signal.
‘Mine, too,’ his deputy said fearfully. ‘They have blocked communication somehow.’ He shrank when more heavy reports came to them, the sounds of slugs going through the BMWs.
The MSS head licked his lips and tried to control his panicked breathing.
‘We’re near JSLC. The air force base will know we’re being attacked.’
‘They said their satellite was down.’
‘Is that the only one they have?’
‘I don’t know. Are we going to die here?’
Hsu tightened internally when his deputy asked the question outright. He was about to speak when he heard a loud voice.
‘JIAN HSU. COME OUT.’
He stiffened. They’re calling for me. In Mandarin.
He rubbed his jade ring rapidly as he tried to think furiously. Can we escape through the side door? No, they are shooting from there, too.
‘JIAN HSU, WE KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE. COME OUT.’
He jerked at the command and started hyperventilating. NO! He berated himself. He was the head of the MSS. He couldn’t panic in this manner. No one would dare to execute him. He summoned a reserve of courage and reached for the door.
‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’ Rong slapped his hand away. ‘YOU CAN’T GO OUT THERE!’
His deputy’s face was wet with sweat. His collar was sodden. He shivered as he spoke.
‘They want me as hostage,’ Hsu spoke with as much conviction as he could muster. ‘They can’t kill us. The whole of China will be after them.’
‘Them? Is it Carter and his people?’
Hsu didn’t want to answer that question. He didn’t want to even consider that it might be the Americans who had wreaked such damage. Acknowledging it would mean admitting his most hated enemy had outmaneuvered him.
‘I don’t know. I’ll have to go out.’
‘NO!’
‘JIAN HSU, IF YOU DON’T COME OUT, WE WILL COME TO YOU.’
‘We don’t have a choice, Jimmy,’ he said harshly. ‘They can kill us anytime.’
‘Let me go in your place.’
‘No.’ Hsu shook his head, touched that Rong was prepared for the ultimate sacrifice. ‘If I don’t return, once you get away … hunt these dogs down.’
He brushed away his deputy’s grasp, opened the door and clambered out.
Washington DC
‘The army can deploy a team,’ McClellan thought aloud. ‘I’ll call the Pentagon and get on it right away.’
‘What is it?’ President Morgan asked Catlyn Feder, catching a fleeting expression.
‘Sir, there’s one person who knows those mountains better than any American or Allied soldier. Heck, he knows it as well as the local people.’
‘Who?’
‘Zeb,’ Clare answered quietly.
Jiuquan outskirts
The stillness of the desert struck Hsu when he got out of the BMW and stood, shivering, on the highway.
His vehicles were wrecked. Several of his CPOs lay still, unmoving on the tarmac. The rear vehicle was angled crazily, shot as it was trying to get away. His own ride had been in the midst of a J-turn when the driver was killed. He looked into the distance when he sensed movement and felt scared when he saw a figure approaching across the rolling ground.
A man, dressed in khaki cargo pants, wearing a thick jacket.
Hsu squeezed his bladder tight to control himself when he recognized what was in the man’s hand.
A gun.
He looked around jerkily and saw no one else.
No. One man couldn’t have caused that much damage. The stranger had to have accomplices.
‘Do you know who I am?’ He spoke with as much authority in his voice as he could muster when the man was fifty feet away.
He’s Chinese. Is it Carter beneath a mask?
The man got closer and stopped twenty feet away. He checked Hsu out dispassionately, without bothering to glance at the dead men.
The MSS boss flinched when the man raised his hand to his face and peeled off his mask in a smooth move.
CARTER!
‘YOU CAN’T KILL ME LIKE THIS. MSS WILL HUNT YOU. MY COUNTRY WILL GO TO WAR WITH AMERICA.’
‘It won’t.’
Washington DC
‘Get him here. Right now,’ President Morgan declared.
‘Why do we need him here?’ McClellan asked. He knew about the Agency and its lead operatives.
‘Because,’ Clare explained patiently, ‘he can lay out for us just how feasible this mission is.’
‘And, because,’ the Commander-in-Chief said impatiently, ‘I want to talk to him. His team isn’t like other covert outfits. Clare, get him, please.’
She turned pale when it came to her where Zeb was. Her hand darted to her satellite phone in her bag as she turned away from the others to make the call.
Jiuquan outskirts
Zeb felt nothing as he sized up Hsu. He ignored the man’s threats, and when the MSS chief saw they had no effect on him, he resorted to pleading.
‘Wang Hua,’ Zeb said.
‘What? Who?’
‘The Commission of Transport worker. Your men tortured and killed him. You used him.’ Zeb raised his gun.
‘WAIT. I DIDN’T KNOW—’
‘You knew,’ Zeb said coldly, as he trained his Glock on Hsu’s forehead. ‘You know everything. Wang is one reason for this. Remember, you tried to kill President Morgan—’
‘WE CAN WORK SOMETHING OUT.’
‘There’s nothing,’ Zeb said through gritted teeth as his finger tightened on the trigger.
‘ABORT!’