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Manila, Philippines
22 February
0400 Local Time
The apartment was quiet. At least, that’s what it looked like through the thermal scope attached to Kruger’s Knight Armament M110 suppressed sniper rifle chambered in 7.62x51mm. The lone guard in the living room near the entryway of the two-bedroom apartment was sitting in a chair reading a magazine. Their target was asleep alone in the bedroom.
Kruger looked up from his scope and picked up his night vision binoculars. Three floors above, he found Tuna and Axe preparing to rappel from the complex’s flat roof. They had gained entry through an adjacent building and jumped to the next building. Lyons had offered the use of his Gulfstream for a parachute insertion or a Philippine AH-6 Little Bird for a helicopter landing on the roof, but Kruger wanted the operation to be as quiet as possible. Their surveillance had shown the building to be crawling with armed operatives.
Odin’s intelligence gathering capabilities was impressive to Kruger. With just a name and vague location, Rage had been able to come up with a dossier and exact location of Fang. He was staying in an apartment building next to the Pasig River. Although he didn’t appear to be hiding. He seemed to move freely about the Philippines during both day and night, similar to the man they had captured in Hanoi. The only difference with Fang was that he was heavily guarded and often traveled Surveillance Detection Routes to ensure that he wasn’t being followed.
The dossier Odin’s intel sources had produced was impressive. Colonel Deng Fang’s service record showed numerous deployments to Somalia, the Philippines, and Taiwan. He had apparently been involved in everything from hunting and killing Somali pirates that were threatening Chinese ships, to clandestine operations in China’s attempt to annex the Philippines and Taiwan. He was endorsed directly by the ruling communist Politburo and seemed to be on a fast track.
But Fang’s record abruptly ended after a mission in the Philippines four years earlier. He had been discharged from the People’s Liberation Army and sent to Xinjiang. There were no further records in his service record. His career had seemingly ended there.
Odin’s intel did not stop with his service record, however. They were able to obtain the mission report from Fang’s last mission. His team of Chinese Special Forces had been on a mission within the Philippines to sabotage two frigates the Philippine Navy had just purchased for patrolling the South China Sea. During the mission, they came into contact with U.S. Special Forces and Philippine Special Forces who were engaging an Islamic terrorist cell.
A firefight ensued. Fang’s unit suffered heavy casualties, and Fang himself was severely burned by an explosion. They were able to escape, but their mission had failed and Fang had been held responsible.
“Dark Knight Zero One is ready,” Kruger heard through his earpiece as he watched Axe and Tuna step to the edge. They were dressed in black wearing Panoramic Night Vision Goggles attached to their tactical helmets and carrying FN SCAR Personal Defense Weapon Rifles chambered in 5.56 NATO rounds.
“Punisher copies, green light,” Kruger replied. He looked over at Rage who was scanning the building with his night vision binoculars acting as his spotter and then returned to his rifle scope. The apartment was still quiet.
Axe and Tuna stepped off the edge into a forward-facing rappelling position called the “Australian Rappel.” They started walking down the side of the building slowly, splitting windows between them as they moved slowly down the five-story building.
The two stopped just above Fang’s bedroom window and turned around to face the window beneath them. Kruger and Rage had watched Fang go to bed several hours earlier from their perch on the roof of the building across the street. Based on the photos in his dossier and their surveillance in the recent days, there was no doubt in Kruger’s mind that they had him.
“On my count,” Tuna said over the radio. He counted down from three. When he hit one, they simultaneously breached the window, rappelling in as they moved quickly to the sleeping Fang.
Kruger waited for the man in the living room to respond to the noise. He squeezed the trigger. The suppressed round zipped through the glass and struck the man in the chest, dropping him as he turned to investigate the noise.
“Tango in the living room down,” Kruger said in a low tone. “You’re clear.”
Fang made a futile attempt to put up a fight as he awoke from his deep sleep. Tuna quickly subdued him and injected him with ketamine to make him easier to transport. He put a harness on Fang and attached him to his own harness as he dragged him back to the window.
“Moving to exfil,” Axe announced.
“Punisher copies,” Kruger said.
The door to the apartment was suddenly flung open. Two men entered and stepped over the body of the guard Kruger had just shot. Kruger dropped the first with a headshot and then reset his aim to the second. The semi-automatic sniper rifle recoiled slightly as the next round hit the second man in the door in the sternum. “Two down in the living room,” Kruger said.
“Dark Knight Zero One copies,” Tuna replied.
Tuna helped Axe with Fang’s unconscious body. They rappelled the two stories down to the ground floor where Beast and Cuda had just shown up in the van. “All clear,” Tuna announced as they quickly moved Fang’s body into the van and sped off.
Kruger scanned the building for threats one more time and then got up from his prone position as he collapsed the bipod on his rifle. “Let’s go talk to this son of a bitch,” Kruger said to Rage.
“Let me talk to him,” Rage said.
“Why?”
“I will make him talk,” Rage replied casually.
“You think I can’t?”
Rage smiled as they picked up their equipment and headed toward the exit. “I know you can,” Rage replied. “But I think I know what buttons to push. You will not be disappointed. Trust me.”