She shook her head wearily. “I don’t think I’ve slept more than two hours at a time ever since this whole thing started. First there was the constant fear that they were watching us, waiting for any of us to slip up so they could come to get us… And then once my husband disappeared, I see him every time I close my eyes. I won’t feel truly safe until I am out of this country. And I won’t be able to truly sleep until I have my husband back…or at least know what happened to him.”
“The plan is to bring him out alive,” Bolan replied. “But you know I can’t promise anything.”
“I understand. But if there is anyone who can find him, I believe it’s you.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Bolan said, deliberately keeping it light. However he knew the odds were even higher against him now, since they knew why he was here. Although this part of the mission had been successful, it had just tripled the difficulty of actually locating and recovering Liao.
“We’re coming up on the airport now,” he said as they passed a sign stating Xijiao Airport 3 KM.
“Xijiao?” Baozhai asked. “Isn’t that a military air base?”
Bolan glanced at her. “How do you know that?”
“I was a model before I was a housewife. We did a shoot there several years ago. So, we are going to the air base?”
“Yes, they also handle charter flights there, oddly enough. We’re driving the right car for the plane I’m taking you to, and we should have no trouble clearing the gate…assuming my people have already smoothed the way.”
“All right…it’s not like I have a lot of choice in the matter, is it?”
“Just sit tight. In a few more minutes, you’ll be on a plane heading out of the country.”
“Won’t the authorities lock down all of the airports?”
“That’s what I’m thinking, which is why we’re getting you out right now. Also, my people are probably making sure that particular message doesn’t reach this base until you’re out of here.”
They turned off the main road and approached the fenced-in airfield. A manned checkpoint broke the seemingly endless line of razor-topped, chain-link fence.
“Remember, I do the talking. Just stay calm and quiet,” Bolan said as he tucked the Beretta under his left leg.
They pulled up to the guard post and Bolan rolled down his window. The armed guard—carrying a submachine gun much like the one Bolan had on his shoulder—walked over.
“May I help you, sir?” he said in accented English.
Bolan held out his smartphone. “Carter Edwards, US Embassy. I’m here to deliver a package.”
The guard took out a tablet and scanned the electronic ID showing on the phone screen. While he read what was coming up on his screen, Bolan dropped his left hand to his pistol, just in case.
“Yes, I have you down for this morning, but not arriving until 5:00 a.m.,” he said.
Bolan stayed calm and nodded with an air of exasperation. “I know, but they moved my schedule up, which is why I’m giving you something to do here in the middle of the night.”
The guard cracked a smile and handed Bolan’s phone back. “If you’ll wait here for just a moment, I’ll be right back.” He headed inside the booth, where he picked up a handset.
“What’s going on?” Baozhai asked. “Are we in trouble?”
Bolan subtly shook his head. “We’re doing fine. We’re not in trouble until he draws a weapon or reinforcements arrive. Most likely he’s just double-checking to make sure that everything is in order. All we can do right now is wait. Just sit back and relax. Looking worried or getting upset now is not going to help us.”
Baozhai took a deep breath, then let it out. “Okay… I’m all right.”
He turned to look at her. “For everything you’ve been through tonight, you’ve done a fine job. I don’t know many women—hell, I don’t know many men who would have done half as well in the same circumstances.”
“Thank you.” Her faint smile at his compliment disappeared and she nodded at the guard post. “He’s coming back.”
The guard returned to the gate and activated the crossbar. “Thank you for your patience, Mr. Edwards. You can go right in. Your party is at Hangar Eight.”
“Thank you, and have a good morning,” Bolan replied, receiving a nod from the guard. He hit the gas and they drove on.
“All right, assuming these are in order, we’re coming up on Hangar Eight right about…here,” he said.
Even if they hadn’t been able to read the posted signs, the sleek Gulfstream G-650 sitting outside the hangar would have been his first and only clue that they’d reached their destination. With a cruising speed of 0.86 Mach and a range of seven thousand nautical miles, the jet would easily get the Liao family to Hawaii, and then on to the mainland, where they would apply for political asylum once safe in Washington, DC.
Bolan parked the car a safe distance away. “All right, you wake your daughter and I’ll get your son on board.”
They got out of the car, with Bolan looking every direction just to make sure this wasn’t a trap. Except for the idling jet, the area was deserted.
He went to the back of the car and picked up the still-sleeping young boy. Carrying him in his arms, he headed toward the jet, which was dropping its stairs. A man roughly Bolan’s age appeared and walked down.
“Morning, Sarge.” Jack Grimaldi sniffed the air and grinned. “What is that? You switch colognes or something?”
“Or something,” Bolan replied.
“Anyway, you sure cut it close,” the ace pilot continued. “Eight more minutes and I was supposed to take off, passengers or no passengers.”
Now Bolan smiled. “And what are the odds that you would have developed some baffling mechanical trouble that would have been miraculously fixed just as I arrived?” Like him, Grimaldi had no trouble bending rules when he had to. He had pulled Bolan out of hot spots around the world more times than either man could count.
“About one hundred percent. I see you’ve brought our passengers.” Bolan quickly handled the introductions, and the Stony Man pilot looked at the three, but recovered quickly and nodded. “Welcome aboard, ma’am. I’m afraid there isn’t much in the way of five-star dining, but we’ve got sandwiches, coffee and juice and milk for the kids.”
“Is Charlie in the cockpit?” Bolan asked, referring to Stony Man’s other pilot, the quiet, calm Charlie Mott.
“He’s already running through our preflight,” Grimaldi replied, then lowered his voice. “Aren’t we supposed to be carrying five?”
“Complications arose. Let’s get them aboard and get you wheels-up. I’ll fill you in,” Bolan said as he turned to Baozhai.
“Both these men both work with me. You can trust them implicitly.”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Right this way, folks.” Grimaldi led them into the sumptuously furnished cabin, complete with soft leather seats, thick carpet and soundproofing that reduced the noise of the two powerful Rolls-Royce BR725 engines to a dull rumble. The interior normally sat eight but had been converted into a personal jet, complete with a bedroom. Bolan tucked Baozhai’s son under the covers, then slid the pocket door shut.
“Nice ride,” Bolan said.
“Yeah, you can thank our neighbors south of the border for this one—it was seized by the DA as part of freezing a cartel leader’s assets.”
“I wouldn’t have figured it for drug lord’s airplane,” Bolan said as he admired the cream-colored leather seats and plush matching carpet. “It’s far too tasteful.”
“I know, right. So, what’s the SNAFU?”
“Liao wasn’t where he was supposed to be.” Bolan quickly filled Grimaldi in on the situation. When he finished, the pilot whistled low.
“Damn. So you got the family and are bugging out with us, right?”
Bolan shook his head. “Still missing one.”
“Far be it from me to tell you how to run the show, Sarge, but you’ve
already pulled off enough heroics for a month, much less one night.”
“It doesn’t matter. I came here to find him and I’m still going to try to do that. Besides, they still have very little idea as to what I look like, and even less of an idea where I am at the moment. I figure I’ll give it twenty-four more hours, see if Stony Man can come up with something, then, if we still don’t have a location, I’ll head west. You, however, need to get the hell out of here ASAP.”
Grimaldi grinned. “Haven’t popped up on any law enforcement or military no-fly orders so far,” he said as the two men headed to the front of the cabin.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not headed this way right now, even with the Farm working overtime on an intercept,” Bolan said. “I’ll get out of your hair and let you get out of here.”
“One for the road before you go?” Grimaldi opened the refrigerator and took out a tray piled high with wrapped sandwiches.
“Yeah. It might be the only food I get until I leave the country.” Bolan selected two roast beef and one ham sandwich and set himself up with a travel cup of steaming coffee. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.” Grimaldi pitched his voice low, making sure it didn’t carry to their passengers. “You sure you don’t want us to stick around, wait for you to bring Liao back? It would be a hell of a lot easier than that secondary extraction plan. Our ‘mechanical problem’ could pop up anytime, you know.”
Bolan shook his head. “It’s just too risky. Like I said, they may not know exactly where I am, but the bad guys know I’m around, and it’s only a matter of time before they throw their net over the whole city. You need to get out while the getting’s good. We don’t need Chinese fighter jets chasing you out of here.”
“All right. You just be careful out there, Sarge, and bring him and yourself back in one piece, okay?”
“That’s the plan.” Bolan turned to Baozhai. She sat beside her daughter, who was strapped into the seat, her attention buried in her video game, not noticing as her mother stroked her hair. “The next time we meet, Mrs. Liao, I should have your husband with me.”
She nodded and tears welled in her eyes again. “Thank you…for everything.”
Bolan nodded then turned to head back to the ground. “See you back in the States, Jack.”
“You got it.”
Walking to the Mercedes-Benz, Bolan got in and sat behind the wheel. He took the lid off his coffee and set it in the cup holder to cool, then unwrapped a roast beef sandwich and took a big bite, watching the Gulfstream taxi onto the tarmac and head for the runway.
Bolan looked around, wondering if there was going to be some sort of ludicrous chase scene, with military jeeps or trucks pursuing the leaving jet like in the movies. But other than his car and the Gulfstream jet starting to gather speed at the end of the runway, the area was deserted.
He watched, sipping his coffee and eating the rest of the sandwiches, until the jet vanished into the early morning air. Balling up the plastic wrap, he tossed it into his armament bag as he started the car and left the airport.
“Three down, one to go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Yes, sir… Yes, I will notify the flight tower immediately.”
Akira Tokaido spoke calmly and pleasantly into his headset. Only the single bead of sweat on his forehead betrayed any hint of his nervousness.
Barbara Price stood next to Hal Brognola a few feet away, both remaining stone silent. Besides the young man’s voice, only the soft sounds of Aaron Kurtzman’s keyboard could be heard in the command center as he ensured that the cell phone hack remained solid.
After helping Bolan acquire a new ride and executing the usual erasure of any and all signs of his passage, the Stony Man team had turned to the daunting task of making sure that Xijiao air base remained open long enough for Grimaldi and Mott to take off.
Tokaido kept speaking in his usual voice, but to the person on the other end—one Deshi Fang, an agent with the Ministry of State Security—he sounded like any other Chinese military man, complete with proper inflection and accent.
The near-AI translation program had been dreamed up by Kurtzman a few years earlier, working with all three members of his cybernetics team: Huntington Wethers on the program’s framework, and Tokaido and Carmen Delahunt on creating it and integrating it with their already-existing systems and capabilities.
Intercepting a cell phone call was already difficult enough. Intercepting one and being able to reroute the call to a person who sounded like the one the caller had intended to reach was akin to juggling chainsaws while walking a tightrope coated in ground glass over Niagara Falls barefoot.
Kurtzman stared intently at his screen, not only making sure the rerouted signal stayed at full strength, but also kept at least two more channels open, in case the one they were using began to degrade.
“To repeat, all flights, both incoming and outbound, are to be delayed until otherwise notified by the ministry… By you personally, understood… Yes, sir, I will. Thank you and good night.”
Tokaido disconnected the call and leaned back in his chair, resting his head against the black leather. “Okay, that guy’s pacified for now. Damn, I wouldn’t want to be the real duty officer when Fang finds out a plane left this morning.”
“Well, ideally we won’t be scuttling someone’s career over this,” Kurtzman said as he began running the suite sweeper that would erase any electronic trace of the flight or Bolan’s presence at the air base. “Once I’ve wiped all of the data, we’ll simply go in and log the call as received and pass it on to the appropriate personnel. The gate guard and tower crew may remember an early morning departure, but there will be no record of it in their logs. What’s more, they’ll have a direct order from the MSS to ground all flights that morning until otherwise directed. Faced with that evidence, do you think any of them will break ranks to speak up about a mystery flight that may or may not have existed?”
“I would say that’s highly unlikely,” Price replied.
“Exactly,” Kurtzman said. “If you don’t mind, once this op is completed, I want to send the recording of this conversation over to Hunt and Carmen for analysis. It seemed to do fine, but we can always make it better.”
“Once we’re done, and after you scrub the copy of any identifying names and places,” Brognola said, frowning as he noticed Tokaido stifle a huge yawn. “How long you been in that chair, Akira? Eighteen, twenty hours?”
“Something like that… I’m all right, though—”
“Experience says otherwise,” Brognola interrupted. “I want you to sack out for four hours in the dark room. That’s an order.”
“But we still haven’t pinpointed Liao’s location,” the young hacker protested.
“And you’ve had your data-sifting programs searching for clues for the past day and a half,” Price added. “Unlike your stroke of genius with the daughter’s game, we don’t even have that clue to go on here. It’s time to let them do their work—and for you to take a break. Once we locate him, we’ll need you at your best to assist with getting Mack inside.”
“Listen to them, kid,” Kurtzman said as he stretched his hairy arms over his head. “I’ll hold down the fort until you get back, and then you can do the same for me, capisce?”
“All right, all right, I’ll go. See you in four.” It took two tries for Tokaido to pry himself from the chair and then slowly trudge out of the Computer Room.
Kurtzman watched him go. “I’d suggest watching your step when you leave. You might trip over him sleeping in the hall.”
Price and Brognola both cracked smiles at the idea, but they just as quickly sobered. “Akira does bring up a good point, Bear. Where are we on locating Liao?”
The computer genius combed his bushy beard with his fingers. “According to our files, he’s still supposed to be at Qincheng Prison. There’s been absolutely no trace of him in any prisoner transfer log or government holding facility. It’s like the man disappeared into thin air
.”
“Is it possible that they terminated him already?” Price asked.
“Possible, but not likely,” Brognola said. “Not until they’ve figured out exactly what he took and what he’s told us. They’ll want to make sure they know every single thing he’s done before they’ve finished with him. Most likely he’s being held in some extraordinary rendition site that’s so far off the grid they cart in their electricity.”
“Even so, wherever it is has to be connected to the rest of the country in some way,” Price stated. “The power grid is a good place to start.”
“Agreed, but it’s hard to do a search when I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Kurtzman noted.
Price tapped her lips as she considered the problem. “Everything we’ve seen about this man indicates that the Chinese do not want any knowledge of his existence leaking to the general public. They’ll need someplace to keep him isolated as they interrogate him…” She trailed off as a fragment of the conversation she’d had with Brognola a couple of days earlier resurfaced. “What if…”
She looked up to find both men staring at her.
“Go on,” Brognola urged.
“What if you’re right, Hal?” she said. “What if those transplant hospitals you’d mentioned are just fronts for organ trafficking? And what if they dumped Liao in one to keep him on ice and extract whatever information they need until—”
“Those damn butchers are ready to cut him open and sell his insides to the highest bidder! Of course.”
“Well, that’s great, except it still doesn’t get us any closer to locating the man,” Kurtzman observed.
“Yes, but we know the locations of those places, so that’s a start,” Price pointed out.
“You know, the easiest thing to do would be to just have Striker tail this Deshi Fang guy,” a weary voice said from the doorway, catching everyone’s attention.
“He was the one overseeing the team holding Liao’s family, so he’s obviously running the case,” Tokaido said, regarding them through drooping eyelids. “I’d be stunned if he didn’t go and visit the only asset he has left now, if only to check up on him, but most likely to interrogate him. Follow him and he’ll lead you right to Liao. And with that, now I’m going to sleep.” He turned and started shuffling out the door, only to bump into the jamb. Recovering, he continued on his way.
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