Red Dragons

by K W Frost

  ‘Sorry pal, I know you were only doing your job,’ Child said to Hardgrave as he checked his pulse. ‘I hope I get the chance to explain all this to you.’

  Returning to deal with Young, Child recalled Young’s idea for disposing of him. However, the last thing Child needed now was for someone to spot a body plummeting from the top of the Sky Tower onto the pavements below. Besides, Child had another option for keeping Young out of the way.

  Making a quick loop at the end of the abseil rope, Child tied it to Young’s belt around his waist. Two feet up the rope Child made a much bigger loop and tied a figure of eight knot, through which Child roughly pulled Young’s arms and upper torso. Grabbing the free end of the abseil rope Child effortlessly hoisted Young up off the ground. When Young was suspended ten metres up in the air, Child tied the rope off onto the handrail of the observation deck. Admiring his handiwork, Child looked up at Young hanging from his belt, with his upper body supported by the second loop to prevent his head from hanging down too low.

  Returning to check on Hardgrave, Child crouched down and checked his pulse. It was normal. He was going to be fine, if somewhat peeved, when he woke up.

  Child suddenly had an idea and removed Hardgrave’s suit jacket. It appeared to be larger than the size Child normally wore, but this had the advantage of concealing his waistband and shoulder holster.

  Pulling a compression bandage from the small first aid kit, Child spat on it to wet it and rubbed off his black face paint. By the time Child was satisfied that his face was clean enough, the bandage had turned a dark, smudgy colour. Next, he shrugged Hardgrave’s jacket on. Pulling it down, Child found it was the ideal length. Hardgrave was about the same height as Child but twenty kilograms heavier, so the jacket fitted over Child’s shoulders. Regretfully, Child left his compact bow next to Hardgrave. God willing, he would be able to come back and retrieve it sometime.

  Child hoped that his black trousers, turtleneck top and the new addition of Hardgrave’s formal jacket would look dressy enough for him to mingle freely with the dinner guests below.

  He would only need a few minutes, but he knew that there would only be one chance to succeed. The Asian assassins knew Child’s face by sight now, and they would not hesitate to raise an alarm if he was seen in the Sky Tower.

  Taking a deep, calming breath, Child walked confidently down the stairs and into the crowd of dinner guests.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Ritson looked over at Thomson, noticing the slight slump in his shoulders. He wondered if the pressure was getting him down, and the burden was too great to bear.

  ‘Come on, Thomson,’ urged Ritson, ‘there must be something we can do?’

  Thomson looked at Ritson and saw grim determination on his face. Ritson hadn’t given up on Child yet.

  Thomson knew that he had taken a big risk with Child’s life, by allowing him to embark on his mission. He now presumed that Child was either dead or captured. Either way, Thomson had to do something. He pulled himself together and regained some composure.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course… there’s a lot to be done,’ Thomson replied. He glanced around at the now silent room. All eyes were on him.

  ‘Right, Castile,’ Thomson said loudly, turning to a detective manning the camera relay. ‘Leave that now — it’s fixed and you won’t need to change it again. I want you to get down to Harrison at the bottom of the tower stairwell. You’re to tell him exactly what’s happened, and make sure that he knows that our team is now top priority for entry into the tower. Remain with him until they make entry, and then come back here. Got all that?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ replied Castile as he scrambled to his feet.

  Castile was a tall, thin man with a physique built for running. He had come third in the recent Auckland half-marathon. On Thomson’s command Castile legged it out of the situation room.

  ‘Sergeant Hikinui, you will get your wish. You are to go out to Whenuapai and get those attack helicopters in the air, as well as two gunships to aim their weapons at the leaders from the air.’

  ‘But Thomson’— interjected Smaille desperately.

  ‘And,’ continued Thomson, ignoring the interruption, ‘under no circumstances are they to fire — they are there to be a visual threat only. They might just cause some level of doubt in the killers’ minds.’

  Thomson turned to Smaille, ‘Does that answer your question, Smaille?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Thomson, it does,’ Smaille replied quietly.

  Focusing his steady gaze on Hikinui next, Thomson continued his commands.

  ‘The real assault will come from you and your team, Hikinui. You will abseil down from another helicopter in full assault weaponry. We have gone past the point of taking a subtle approach now — what we need is prevention. I want a wall of protection around those politicians, and focus on President Wheeler and Chairman Ming. We can assume they will be the main targets tonight.’

  Suddenly, another unfamiliar man burst into the situation room.

  Thomson paused, staring hard at the man standing in the doorway.

  ‘Who are you?’ Thomson asked.

  Smaille interjected yet again.

  ‘He’s one of ours,’ Smaille said quickly. ‘Chief Inspector Thomson, this is James Moody, our head of security.’

  Moody was not one to be easily impressed, but he instinctively recognised Thomson as the leader.

  ‘Sir, pleased to meet you,’ Moody nodded. ‘Of course I would’ve rather met under different circumstances, but here we are, I suppose.’

  ‘So would I, Moody,’ Thomson agreed. ‘Now, what do you want?’

  ‘Moody is our computer expert,’ Smaille explained, ‘and he’s been working on breaking the programs we captured at Blue Water Securities.’

  ‘Do you know about the transmitting problems?’ Thomson asked Moody.

  ‘Yes,’ Moody replied quickly.

  ‘What are our chances of clearing the virus?’

  ‘Virtually none, sir,’ Moody explained. ‘We’ll keep trying, of course, but I don’t fancy our chances right now.’

  ‘You’d better get back to it then,’ Smaille said.

  ‘No need to go back,’ countered Moody. ‘We brought the hardware with us and it’s being installed in an office downstairs as we speak. I’ll keep you posted if we have a breakthrough, but don’t count on it.’

  ‘Now, Smaille, anything else?’ Thomson asked.

  ‘Nothing that I can think of just now,’ Smaille said. ‘I’m going to have to inform Washington that we may be looking at our worst-case scenario tonight.’

  ‘How are you planning on doing that?’

  ‘With… yes, shit, I see what you mean. President Wheeler could die tonight and I wouldn’t be able to tell a soul.’

  Smaille slumped down into a nearby chair.

  ‘Any communications at all?’ Thomson asked one of the younger officers.

  ‘No, sir, we’ve tried everything,’ she replied.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve tried…’

  The young constable didn’t seem to mind Thomson questioning her abilities.

  ‘Cell phones, landline phones, Internet connections, emails — I’ve even tried sending texts, but nothing is working,’ she explained. ‘The whole system has shut down. At the moment we have people trying the CB bands, but things aren’t looking good there either, sir.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Thomson nodded at the young constable. ‘Anyone else got any other ideas?’

  After a few seconds of silence Gray piped up.

  ‘Well, yes, there may be a couple of things we could try…’

  Up until now Gray had remained completely silent, but he had been following all the activity and events carefully.

  ‘Well?’ asked Thomson.

  ‘This young lady,’ Gray said, gesturing towards the attractive young constable, ‘is definitely on the right track — I merely suggest that she includes ship-to-shore radio, VHF handsets, and perhaps the coastguard channels?’<
br />
  Thomson did not congratulate Gray on his bright idea. He swiftly turned to the young constable and made their next plans.

  ‘Do exactly that, and try everything you can,’ he commanded. ‘Any other ideas Mr Wardell?’

  ‘I was wondering what frequency your police handsets operated on, and if this could be changed? If so, you could set them to an unused channel that might not be blocked.’

  ‘Good thinking, that could work,’ exclaimed Teal, Thomson’s second in command.

  ‘Well, let’s get someone on to that then,’ Thomson said promptly.

  He looked over at Gray with a newfound level of respect.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Well, one other thing did occur to me… I wonder how wide spread this interference is? I mean, is this only happening here in the city centre or could it be happening throughout the entirety of Auckland? What if this is a national block in communication?’

  ‘Teal,’ stated Thomson, ‘I need you to arrange for two cars to head out now — one is to travel south and the other is to travel north. They are to attempt transmissions on a constant basis, and they need to keep moving until they strike gold!’

  ‘This will have other implications too,’ Gray offered.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘If there’s a national communication happening right now, how is the airport operating? Ambulance, fire, police, and all the other services that will be effected?’

  ‘Damn! Damn… I hadn’t thought of that,’ Thomson growled.

  The room burst into a myriad of questions about what this would mean for them.

  ‘Quiet!’ shouted Thomson.

  Silence settled over the room again, all eyes fixed on Thomson.

  ‘We deal with what we’ve got. I want everyone to concentrate on that tower.

  Nothing else. The others will have to cope as best as they can. In reality there’s little we can do. Now get back to your jobs.’

  Thomson turned to look at the live projection of the Sky Tower, muttering angrily to himself.

  ‘Damn, damn, damn…’

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Child paused as he entered the restaurant, allowing his eyes adjust to the harsher lighting. He expertly surveyed the scene before him.

  The leaders were grouped together in tables of six down on the lower level, closest to the full-length outer wall of clear glass. Child recognised the American President Wheeler, who was in deep conversation with the president of Tonga, Tule Tasasamoi, accompanied by Australian Prime Minister Frayward.

  Next to this table sat President Chu of China and the Sultan of Brunei, along with the Prime Minister Raymond DeCarnege from Canada.

  Having identified and located the most likely prime targets of a violent attack, Child continued his survey of the space. It seemed that the officials of each country had spilt themselves up into four main groups. The main ones on each side of the leaders of each country were the chief advisers or interpreters. These men were hard at work. Earnest talk, with the odd smile and laughter, these true political advisers were looking for an edge for their countries.

  Only a small group of three looked slightly out of place. This group talked earnestly to each other, each had a drink in one hand. It was their eyes that kept revolving around the room that gave away their security status. Even as Child spotted this group, he became aware of their attention on him. One of this group detached and started to walk casually over to where Child was standing.

  Child turned to the wet bar and calmly asked the bartender for an orange juice. He had just received it when the security man reached him. Turning to meet the man, Child instantly recognised him from the hastily-read dossiers he had surveyed prior to leaving the police headquarters. He was from the Australian secret service that looked after ministerial security.

  ‘Hello, Mr Walker, how are you enjoying proceedings?’

  Walker looked at Child, then turned back to look towards the heads of state. Leaning casually against the small bar, he observed everything about this newcomer.

  ‘You seem to have the advantage over me, Mr…?’ Walker suggested, leaving his question hanging.

  Child smiled easily, replying without pause.

  ‘Child, Simon Child.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ interrupted the barman, ‘would you care for a drink?’

  ‘Why not,’ replied Walker, ‘I’ll have a fruit juice, just as my friend Mr Child is having.’

  ‘Very observant Mr Walker, but please do call me Simon,’ Child insisted.

  ‘Very well, Simon, and you can call me Stan,’ Walker offered, his controlled exterior still not fully relaxed. ‘I didn’t catch you name on the guest list, Simon — which delegation do you belong to?’

  Walkers blue-green eyes stared intently into Child’s face as he asked the question.

  ‘My name won’t be any list, Stan,’ Child explained. ‘As you might be aware already, we experienced some problems with personnel tonight. I’m here in the place of Detective McGill, who was the internal backup for Inspector Jones. When Mr Young replaced Inspector Jones, I also replaced McGill. I have been checking the internal access and security of the building. Now that everything seems to be secure, I’ve come out to ensure everything is running smoothly out front.’

  ‘There haven’t been any problems with security, have there?’ Walker asked, his eyebrows rising high.

  ‘No, I believe Prime Minister DeCarnage and the others will be safe as houses…’

  ‘Well, let’s hope that you don’t have any termites in here, as they can bring down the whole house.’

  Walker leant against the bar again and surveyed the crowded room.

  ‘Simon, you know there’s something not quite right here,’ Walker muttered quietly. ‘It just doesn’t feel 100% right… and you know what else?’

  ‘No, Stan, what?’

  ‘There’s something not quite right about you either,’ Walker stated.

  Suddenly, a Chinese waiter appeared around the corner of the bar carrying a plate of entrées. Child casually turned away from the waiter to face the windows. He could not afford to be recognised now.

  ‘Are your gut instincts usually right, Stan?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Never failed me yet,’ Stan replied heartily, his good humour overlaying the seriousness of his observations. ‘It hasn’t felt right since we got up here — maybe it was the fact that I feel isolated and unprepared without my gun or cell phone to hand. I still don’t know how you convinced the Americans to come here. They’re usually very strong on carrying their hardware.

  ‘Diplomatic channels worked hard on preparing the groundwork for this meeting. Once there was understanding of the concepts, President Wheeler thought it was quite a novel idea. I think that he’s enjoying not having all those advisers telling him what to say.’

  Child watched the Chinese waiter disappear back around the corner before turning to face Walker again. Child decided to take a gamble. He needed some help, and here was a professional.

  ‘Those instincts of yours are right, Stan.’

  ‘What are you doing here, Mr Child? You don’t belong here,’ Walker countered in a hushed voice.

  ‘I don’t? Why not?’ Child responded, wondering what had given him away.

  Walker shook his head slowly.

  ‘I must be getting old…’ he muttered to Child. ‘I should’ve got it first time around. I’ve just worked out what first triggered my concern. It’s your clothes, Mr Child — everyone here is wearing tailored suits but yours is too long in the sleeves, the jacket is loose, and the trousers don’t match the jacket. You don’t belong here Mr Child, and I need to tell security.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, Stan,’ said Child, opening his jacket slightly to show Walker his shoulder holster and pistol. ‘I’m here to stop an assassination, not commit one.’

  Child’s cold voice and the intensity of his stare stopped Walker in his tracks.

  ‘Who… who’s the target?’ Walker stamm
ered.

  ‘Not Prime Minister Frayward. I’m reasonably certain of that. My best guess would be either President Wheeler or President Chu.’

  ‘But you’re not certain?’ Walker asked urgently.

  ‘No but I could do with your help.’

  Child quickly laid out the situation. Walker listened with growing horror and understanding. As he explained everything, Child began to formulate a new plan of attack in his mind. By the time had had finished, he had Walker’s full attention.

  ‘What’s the plan, Simon?’

  Child gave a grim smile as Walker used his first name again.

  ‘The next time that Chinese waiter delivers a round of entrées, tell him that Mr Young asked to speak to him out on the observation deck. I’ll take care of him from there,’ Child stated.

  ‘And what if he’s an innocent?’

  ‘Then I’ll apologise later,’ Childs said. ‘Also, what happened to your guns?’

  ‘They were taken from us on arrival, labeled and then placed in plastic bags. The bags were then locked in a safe, almost like a trolley, before being taken away. I haven’t seen them since.’

  ‘Damn, I’d hoped to get them back,’ Child muttered. ‘Were any of you searched?’

  ‘Not specifically, but we had to hand in our hardware voluntarily as well as passing through metal detectors and an X-ray machine.’

  Child wondered how Hardgrave had smuggled his plastic pistol through.

  ‘Look, Simon, I’ve got to warn the president and get him away from here,’ Walker insisted.’

  ‘No, I don’t want a panic,’ Child commanded. ‘That could set everything off. Besides, where would you go? All exits have been shut off or blocked. Give me a chance of getting to the assassins first. You can let the other bodyguards know what’s going on, but only those that you really know and trust. I don’t know all of the assassins here and there could be others, okay?’

  ‘Alright, I will, but I don’t like it,’ Walker said reluctantly.