by Mike Ramon
Chapter Ten
Tianjin, People’s Republic of China
May 29 -- 06:21 UTC/2:21 pm local time
The rotors of the Changhe Z-11 whooped as the chopper swung over an industrial neighborhood. Lu Ping watched the landscape slide by six hundred feet below at a speed of 130 knots. In this moment of relative calm she reflected on how she had come to be where she was, head of the Recovery Team searching for the lost Dragon’s Breath.
At twenty-four she had been hired as a civilian contractor assigned to the Threat Assessment and Management Department, which itself was a division of the Ministry of State Security. She had been one of the youngest people there, and one of the only women, facts which combined to make her feel like an outsider, an intruder in the clubhouse. She couldn’t help but think that people attributed her placement to the fact that she was the daughter of the honored General Lu Feng. This feeling was quickly confirmed as her male colleagues, most at least a decade older than her, weren’t so much openly hostile to her as just utterly indifferent. At staff meetings she was not called upon to give her opinion, and when she offered an opinion regardless it was usually met with a moment of silence before the men moved on to other business.
But she had stuck with it, kept her head down, had done her job. Now, six years later, her hard work and perseverance had paid off. Three months before she had been just another analyst in the Threat Assessment and Management Department, and two days before she had been a low level analyst on the Recovery Team. Now, inexplicably, she was the leader of the Recovery Team, and she had been filled with an indelible fear over the last two days that had seemed to fill her up. What if she wasn’t up to the task? What if General Zhang had been mistaken to place such great trust in her? Failure now wouldn’t just result in a bad performance report, or a demotion. Failure would cost lives.
Lu Ping pushed these thoughts away, knowing that they only served to distract her from the task at hand. The pilot was easing off the speed as they approached the makeshift LZ, which was just a 40 x 40 foot clearing in a field of short, dry grass. She didn’t know much about helicopters, or the dimensions of a proper landing zone, but she thought the space that had been cleared for the landing looked too small, and she had a brief, gruesome vision of what would happen to the people surrounding the clearing if the pilot made a mistake while putting the machine down on the ground.
Her fear was unfounded, it seemed, as the pilot first hovered over the LZ, then eased to the ground more gently than Lu Ping would have thought possible. She looked toward the pilot, who offered her a smile, and then she was out of the chopper and moving, leaning down in the ubiquitous rotor crouch. Two men in uniform stepped forward to meet her. She recognized both men--the taller one was Captain Yu Bing, and the shorter man was Lieutenant Jin Wen. As they approached Lieutenant Jin started to salute; the salute froze in midair as he seemed to remember that Lu Ping was a civilian, and after a moment of indecision the man turned the hand gesture into a slicking back of his hair.
“Greetings, Madame Lu,” Captain Yu greeted formally, voice raised to be heard above the slowing rotors.
Lu Ping was had little patience for formalities.
“Give me the story,” she said.
“Intelligence sources led us to believe that Lotus was being kept somewhere here in Tianjin,” the Captain said.
Lu Ping nodded here head; Lotus was another codename for Dragons’ Breath, to be used especially while in the company of those who didn’t have the clearance to know or speak about the secret weapon.
“Yes, I know,” she said. “Have you found it?”
The Captain and the Lieutenant exchanged a look.
“No, we have not,” Captain Yu said, his voice lower now that the helicopter’s rotor was still. “We had teams fan out across the city in unmarked vehicles, and each vehicle was equipped with radiation scanners. One of the teams detected a spike in a neighborhood about one mile from here. Two teams joined the first one, and together they pinpointed the area from which the spike was coming.”
“Was it a house or a tenement building?” Lu Ping asked.
“No, ma’am. It was an old factory that has been out of use for eight months.”
“Who took part when you moved on the factory?”
“One the ground we had three tactical teams of the Special Operations Forces, as well as thirty officers from the Tianjin Police who were used mostly for traffic control. In the air we had two helicopters, one for command and control of the operation and the other for pursuit if necessary. We also had snipers posted on the roofs of various buildings surrounding our target. A medical team was stationed three blocks away to care for the wounded if the need arose.”
“I want to see this factory,” Lu Ping said. “You can fill me in on the rest on the drive over.”
The Captain and his Lieutenant led Lu Ping to a waiting military Humvee parked on the street at the edge of the field. Captain Yu and Lu Ping climbed into the back, and Lieutenant Jin sat up front. Lieutenant Jin made a hand motion to the driver, and they were off.
“Continue, Captain,” Lu Ping instructed.
“Yes, ma’am. We entered the building at eleven-hundred hours. We shot half a dozen canisters of CN gas through several windows on both floors of the factory. Tactical Team One entered through the front entrance while Tactical Team Two entered simultaneously through the rear of the building. Team Three was held in reserve. There was almost no resistance on the first floor of the factory. On that floor three suspects were found in one room; all were armed, but none of them drew their weapons. They were likely too disoriented from the gas. The suspects were subdued and restrained quickly.”
They passed through a police cordon, an officer waving the military vehicle through.
“What about the second floor?” Lu Ping asked.
“Our men faced stiff resistance from the suspects on the second floor. These men were better prepared than their comrades; they had gas masks, and they opened fire as the men from Team Two attempted to climb the stairs. A firefight followed, lasting approximately fifteen minutes. We incurred six casualties in all, one dead and five wounded. I ordered the men to retreat to the first floor. I was worried about damaging Lotus, but I weighed the risk and ordered the men to fire an X99-J round up onto the second floor. Effective resistance ended immediately.”
The vehicle came to a stop in front of the factory. Several windows on the first floor, and virtually all the windows on the second, had been blown out. Soldiers, what remained of the Tactical Teams, stood about, looking as if they didn’t quite know what they were supposed to be doing.
“What is an X99-J round?” Lu Ping asked, curious.
“It is a variant of the Russian TGB-7V,” the Captain said.
Lu Ping raised her eyebrows questioningly as she clutched the door handle, ready to exit the Humvee.
“Forgive me, ma’am. It is a thermobaric grenade, very powerful.”
“Thank you for the clarification, Captain.”
Lu Ping opened her door and climbed down out of the vehicle; Captain Yu and Lieutenant Jin followed after her. SOF soldiers watched the trio as they headed for the building.
“Is the air safe to breathe?” Lu Ping asked, hesitating at the entrance.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lieutenant Jin replied. “All the gases have dissipated by now.”
The three continued on.
“Please continue, Captain,” Lu Ping urged as they entered the dim interior of the factory.
“After the detonation of the grenade Team Two gained the second floor. Of the five suspects on that floor four were dead. One was obviously dead from a bullet wound to the head, one from the explosion of the grenade, and two from a combination of bullet wounds and shrapnel.”
Lu Ping had found the staircase leading up to the second floor; she started up with the two men following her.
“And what of the last man?” Lu Ping asked as she came out into a ruined hallway.
“The last suspect had severe shra
pnel wounds, as well as extensive burns,” Captain Yu said. “The medical team was rushed in. I had to pull two medics from working on our own men in an attempt to keep the suspect alive. They did their best, but the man succumbed to his injuries shortly thereafter.”
“And you say that you did not find Lotus.”
It wasn’t a question, only a statement, but Captain Yu replied anyway:
“Correct. Lotus was here recently, we are certain. Radiation readings confirm it.”
“I take it that the radiation is not a danger to us?”
“No, ma’am. The levels of radiation are low enough so as to pose little to no risk.”
“Which means that the containment vessel has not been breached,” Lu Ping said as she stared at rust-colored blood stains on the floor, and burn marks that covered the floor, walls and ceiling.
“Correct,” Captain Yu said.
“And we can’t interrogate any of the suspects because they’re all dead. Do we have a positive identification on any of them?”
“Not yet. None of the men had identification on them. We are running both fingerprint and facial-recognition analysis.”
Lu Ping tapped one finger against her chin, turning the situation over in her head. She had hoped that Dragon’s Breath would be found, and that she could end the whole mess right here in Tianjin, but failing that she had hoped to at least have a few living suspect to interrogate, with advanced techniques if necessary. Now she had nothing but radiation scans showing that the weapon had been in this factory recently, which wasn’t much in her estimation.
“What about the port?” she asked the Captain. “They might be trying to smuggle Lotus out on a ship.”
“A Marine battalion had been dispatched to the port, and they are working alongside units of the Water Police, Border Patrol troops and members of the Anti-Smuggling Bureau to inspect ships in port. They have radiation scanners to help identify vessels that may be carrying Lotus.”
“What if a ship tries to flee?”
“A Navy destroyer has been stationed three miles offshore to deter any attempt at such actions.”
Lu Ping turned away from the evidence of the recent carnage and headed back down the stairs. Again the men followed. Lu Ping led them out of the factory and back to the Humvee.
“Where to now, Madame Lu?” Captain Yu asked.
“Back to my helicopter. There’s nothing more for me here.”
“But the port--”
“On second thought, I don’t think Lotus will be found on any ship in the port. Scrutinize every ship in port if necessary, even if it takes you weeks. But I feel certain of one thing--Lotus will not be found on any ship.”
Lu Ping got into the Humvee (the front this time), and after exchanging a look both Captain Yu and Lieutenant Jin got in back. This time it was Lu Ping who made a hand gesture, mimicking the gesture she had seen Lieutenant Jin make earlier, and the driver shifted into gear and pulled away from the factory.