Well, that was two facts confirmed, Bolan thought. He was pretty sure he knew where Liao was being held and he knew where to get a vehicle when they left. Now there was just the matter of figuring out everything else.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“And keep your tongue out… Say ‘ahhhh.’ Thank you.”
Liao was getting really tired of doctors poking and prodding him every time he sat down.
He was in a simple examining room, sitting on a bare wooden chair, while what looked like one of the prisoners who had been made a trustee looked him over using equipment that looked as if it had seen better days in the last century. He had received a new hospital gown, but this one was made of paper, not cloth, and was a marked step down from his previous one.
However, the tiny, stooped man examined him with swift professionalism, assuring Liao that he was a physician with more than twenty-five years experience before he’d been arrested and sent here.
After shining a light down Liao’s throat, he straightened and motioned for the man to close his mouth. “Well, you look to be in more or less good health, except your temperature is a bit high.”
“That’s because I’m ill,” Liao replied. “I have the beginning of a sepsis infection.”
“However did you get that?” the doctor asked.
“It’s a long story, but without my medicine, it’s probably only going to get worse.”
The doctor frowned and jotted some notes on his onionskin-paper chart. “And you have antibiotics for it?”
“I did…” Liao’s voice trailed off as he realized where it was. “It’s back in the car.”
“I see.” The doctor made a few more notes then looked up. “The warden is making some inquiries into your background, but if you do have sepsis, then I can’t let you out of—well, this room, actually. I’ll have to keep you under quarantine until we figure out what we’re going to do with you.”
“Isn’t there anything you can give me for it?” Liao asked.
The doctor shook his head. “Our supplies are carefully rationed by the government. If I treat you, then I have nothing left when my fellow prisoners fall ill. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes, Doctor, of course.”
“All right.” He flipped through his papers one more time and then turned toward the door. “As I said, you’ll be staying here for the time being. Please do not try to leave, as the door is guarded.”
“May I go to the bathroom?” Liao asked.
“I will see.” The doctor opened the door and stepped out. Liao peered out to see another room, this one containing actual medical equipment and supplies, including medicines in a glass-paned cabinet.
The doctor spoke with the guard for a few seconds then turned back to him. “The guard will escort you to the restroom. Again, do not try to leave, for the consequences would be severe.”
Liao frowned. “I’m sick and alone, dressed in a paper gown with no supplies and stuck in the middle of nowhere.”
The doctor cocked his head. “What’s your point?”
“Tell me, Doctor, if I were to escape, where in the hell would I go?”
Grinning at that, the doctor laid a finger beside his nose. “Exactly.” He nodded at Liao to come to the door. “Come on, let’s get you to that washroom and then maybe I can authorize something for you to eat.”
As he left the examining room, Liao looked around—without being too obvious about it—at the prison camp, trying to locate some sort of weakness to exploit. Where before he had been willing to die before returning to government custody, he wanted to stay alive—and free, somehow—to see his family again.
He noticed the fence and the sharp, barbed wire coiled atop it. He saw the sharp-eyed guards tracking him as the guard escorted him to the squatting toilet, where he gratefully relieved himself. While returning to his room, he saw the long line of exhausted-looking prisoners trudging up from the quarry to the mess hall. Each one looked exactly alike: shaved head, gray, dirt-smudged uniform, cloth shoes, staring down at the dusty road. Well, it could be worse, he thought, I could be a true prisoner here.
The guard escorted him back to the holding room without a word. After testing the door, which was securely locked and earned him a harsh reprimand from the guard, and then looking out the high, wire-covered window for a few minutes, Liao sat to conserve his strength.
A half hour later, the door rattled open and the doctor walked in carrying a tin bucket on which was a cloth-wrapped bundle. He handed it to Liao with a wink. “Can’t have any patients dying on me, now, can I?”
“Thank you, Doctor, your kindness is appreciated.”
Liao opened the cloth to find two hunks of coarse cornbread inside. The hot bucket had a cover, as well. When he opened it, the smell of vegetable soup made his mouth water; his stomach rumbled as he realized he was ravenously hungry. Resisting the urge to lift the bucket to his mouth and guzzle the hot liquid, he began dipping the cornbread into the soup and eating slowly, forcing himself to chew and swallow each bite before taking another.
He didn’t entertain any illusions that he could escape this place on his own. He certainly couldn’t do what Mr. Edwards could do. Merely firing that pistol once had almost scared the hell out of him. He couldn’t beat up anyone or shoot them. He’d done everything he could do at the moment—making sure he was somewhere that could be reached by the American.
Because the one thing he was sure of was that Mr. Edwards was coming for him. And Liao definitely wanted to be ready when he got here.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“There must be something we can do to help him,” Brognola said, his arms tightly crossed on his chest. “These guys must use the internet for more than just emailing their wives.”
“Yeah, but from what I can tell, the primary use is downloading amazingly shameful amounts of Asian pornography,” Kurtzman replied. “It’s just like at the other prison—not every system is wired to the internet, especially in these more rural areas.”
“Okay, Bear, then what can we do to assist Striker?” Price asked.
“Well, I can jam their communications once he begins his operation. That will at least slow their response, since they won’t be able to radio each other. But the electricity…” He spread his hands in the universal symbol for futility. “If I can’t access it, there isn’t much I can do with it.”
“So, he’s going to have to sneak into that base in full view of everybody?” Brognola asked.
“Not necessarily,” Tokaido answered. “Lights like that take a lot of power. I’d be amazed if they kept them on all night. The fuel bill would be outrageous.”
“But if they do, there’s nothing we can do about it, right?” Brognola asked.
“Not unless you wanted to set off a low-yield nuclear device a few miles above them—the EMP would probably fry the electronics in the base.” He shrugged. “However, that would include any vehicles in the area, meaning Striker and Liao would have to walk the remaining 125 miles to the airport. Also, that sort of thing would be kind of hard to miss.”
Brognola sighed and rubbed his temples. “Days like this make me wish I took something stronger than antacids. All right, do we have any sort of plan that’s based in reality?”
Kurtzman shrugged. “Like I said, once he starts the operation, the best we can do is jam their radio transmissions to impede communications. Other than that, the only thing we can really do is watch.”
“Maybe not.” Tokaido swung his chair around to face Price and Brognola. “Since we do have access to their communications, what if we sent them a fake message ordering them to conserve more power, perhaps giving them the excuse to shut the lights off early? It’s near the end of the month, and it looked like they brought in a lot of fuel from that off-site storage facility. It may be a long shot, but worth taking, I think.”
At an approving glance from Brognola, Price nodded. “Go for it. I don’t see anything to lose.”
Tokaido hacked into the sta
te comptroller’s files and pilfered the language from a previous exhortation to not waste precious resources of the state. He modified a few sentences here and there, and kept the same bureaucrat’s signature on it. “How’s this?”
Price leaned in to read over his shoulder. “Looks good to me,” she said. “I think you might have a career in middle management if you ever leave here.”
The young hacker shuddered. “What, are you trying to give me nightmares?”
“Send it,” Brognola ordered.
Tokaido hacked into the government official’s email account, backdated the email’s time stamp so that it looked as though it was issued during office hours and sent it. “Now all we can do is wait,” he said.
“When’s the next satellite that we have access to due over the target area?” Price asked.
“An NSA satellite will be flying by in about ten minutes,” Kurtzman replied. “But it won’t be overhead long—something about the Chinese getting antsy over what they perceive as ‘undue interest in certain areas,’ and if Striker has to delay his infiltration for whatever reason, we might miss it altogether.”
“What else is new?” Brognola groused. “We’ve been a day late and a dollar short on this op ever since it started—and no, I’m not talking about you guys,” he continued after catching a warning frown from Price. “I know there’s a certain amount of friction that goes with every op, but this one has just seemed…well, worse, somehow.”
“No, you’re right, Hal,” Kurtzman said while still keeping an eye on his screens. “Whether it’s faulty data or us getting rooked by the bad guys, there’s been a string of issues on this op that would be considered just bad luck in any other profession, but for us, one too many of them—or one that’s severe enough—can mean the death of our man in the field.”
“And that’s something we all take very seriously,” Price said.
Hal shook his head. “No, I wasn’t leading up to some corny, morale-boosting speech. I know everyone here knows the challenges and dangers all the guys face out in the field every day. And all of you will do everything you can to help them. Everyone who works here is willing to risk a lot—sometimes everything—to accomplish the mission. But when the mission itself seems to be resisting our efforts—I know that sounds crazy, but at the same time, I can’t help thinking that it’s…”
“Karma telling us to stay out of China?” Tokaido asked.
The joke broke the tension and everyone chuckled.
“Could be… I don’t know.” Brognola shook his head. “Maybe I’m just getting superstitious in my old age.”
“Well, I know what I’m getting you for Christmas this year—a big ol’ rabbit’s foot,” Tokaido said. “Wait a sec—the satellite is in place.”
He brought up the view of the central northern plain, with the huge hole of an even blacker, stygian pit in the darkness.
“Well, for whatever reason, the lights are off,” Price noted. “I hope Striker can make good use of it.”
“He always does, Barbara,” the big Fed said with a smile. “That is the one thing I am absolutely certain of.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
When the huge floodlights winked off, Bolan didn’t move for another two hours. He was acutely aware of the time passing, knowing that every minute gone was possibly bringing the MSS agent closer to finding Liao and him. As much as he wanted to keep moving, he knew that going after Liao too early exponentially increased the risk of getting caught.
Only after much of the general activity around the camp had died down did he prepare himself, and after the next time the guard tower finished its sentry rotation, he began his insertion.
Rising from his surveillance post, he crept to the corner of the fence nearest the medical building. Taking out the wire cutters he’d lifted from the storage room, he cut enough links to form a flap that he could push open enough to slip through. Inside the perimeter, he replaced the section of fence so that it looked as if it was still relatively unbroken. It wouldn’t pass a close inspection, but he only needed it to pass muster for the next thirty minutes, an hour at most.
He had just started working on the interior fence when he caught a familiar-sounding noise—something was running toward him. Glancing in the direction of the sound, he saw two bull mastiffs charging toward him along the corridor formed by the two fences.
That explains why there weren’t any guard patrols here, he thought as he rose and turned to face them. Once again, the use of guns was out, so he’d have to resort to more creative measures.
Both animals were sleek, brown-black death machines as they homed in on him. The only good thing was that neither dog was barking, their silent, fang-filled mouths open to rend and tear. While the Executioner never liked killing guard dogs, which were only doing what they were trained to do, in this case it was either them or him, and that was no choice at all.
The first dog reached him slightly ahead of the second. It leaped, teeth flashing, as Bolan launched his own counterattack the moment it left the ground. His combat boot whipped up in a powerful kick that slammed into the dog’s jaw. The blow smashed the mandible up into the palate with an audible click as the dog’s momentum was violently redirected into the air. Even so, absorbing all that force made Bolan hop back to avoid falling over. The guard dog flipped over onto its back and crashed to the ground, unmoving.
That defense worked well against one dog, however it left him unprepared for the second, which came in low and went for his leg still on the ground. It sank its teeth into his calf, hitting him with enough force to knock him over this time.
Sharp pain lanced through his leg, with the dog now growling as it hung on to him. Drawing his pistol, he swung it in a roundhouse shot to the side of the dog’s head, hitting it hard enough to stun the animal and loosen its grip on his calf muscle. Drawing back again, Bolan smashed the dog’s skull with the pistol, making the animal release him as it flopped over on the ground.
Panting from the exertion, Bolan sat up and examined his wound. The guard dog’s teeth had sunk deep into the triceps surae muscle and moving his foot even a little hurt like hell. Bolan pulled a T-shirt from his bag and tied it around the wound, yanking it so tight he nearly saw stars at the pain it caused. If he could have scrubbed the mission, he might have, but there was no choice now. If he could free Liao and if they could make it to a vehicle, they’d be all right.
Keeping the pistol out in case there were more dogs, he turned back to the interior fence and finished making his cuts. Pulling the section open, he crawled through and closed it behind him, then tucked his legs under him, gritted his teeth and tried to stand.
The pain in his leg was intense, but he stayed upright. Putting any weight on it generated a sharp flare of agony, but he ignored it and began to move as quickly as he could toward the medical building.
The wire-covered window in the back was too high up and too small to get through. Bolan might have tried to contact Liao through it, but he was worried about making too much noise in doing so. Instead he limped around the side of the building, careful to not make a sound. Leaning against the dusty gray concrete, he took a moment to catch his breath and then slowly peeked around the corner.
The glow of a cigarette lit the darkness, pinpointing the sentry outside the door. Again, Bolan was surprised by the carelessness on the guard’s part.
Normally one guard wouldn’t have been a problem. However, with his injury, the lone man became a more formidable obstacle. He looked up at the roof a few feet overhead, noting that it was an A-frame, and that the pitch was such that he was mostly concealed from the view of the guards in the tower.
No sooner had he thought of the plan than Bolan began putting it into action. Heading back to the rear of the building, he carefully set his weapons bag on the ground and removed the shoulder strap. The gaps in the window wire were large enough to thread the ends of the nylon through and tie them off to form a sling.
Taking a deep breath, he leaped up
and grabbed the windowsill with both hands. Slowly, carefully, he pulled himself up until his head was above the sill. Next, he drew his good leg up until he felt the boot slip into the strap. Praying it would hold, he straightened his leg, driving himself up. Halfway there, he felt the strap start to give and pushed off it while lunging up to grab the edge of the roof.
A high twang sounded as one of the wires snapped, but Bolan had gotten enough momentum to hoist himself onto the roof. He rolled over onto it as cautiously as he could. Although it appeared to be made of tin, it didn’t flex or groan as he moved.
Once he was fully on top of the roof, Bolan made it to the side that hid him from the sentry tower and waited to see if any noise he’d made had alerted the door guard. After a slow sixty-count had passed, Bolan assumed the guard hadn’t heard anything. In that time, he also realized how he could take out the guard with minimal risk to himself, assuming his primary plan didn’t work.
Reaching down, he untied the strap from the window and wrapped it around his hand. Then he crawled over the roof to the front of the building. Still careful to avoid being spotted by the guards in the tower, he slowly, inch-by-inch, stuck his head over the edge to get a bearing on where the man was standing. Acrid smoke tickled his nose, and Bolan didn’t make a sound as he waited for the man only a couple yards away from him to finish his cigarette.
When the smell of burning tobacco faded, Bolan knew it was time to move. Even more slowly, he adjusted his position until he had brought his legs around and under him. Tucking his good leg under his body, he raised himself to a crouch. Taking the strap, he uncurled it and held it between both hands as he waited for the right moment.
A minute passed. Then another. Stifling a yawn, the man stretched both arms above his head and took a step away from the building.
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