Chapter Thirty-Eight
The whoosh of the rotors outside was deafening. Whatever the helicopter was, it was coming in low and fast, towards the farmhouse. Rebecca wheeled into the main room of the house. Behind her, Josh and DuBose led Lapinksi out of the makeshift interrogation room.
Keyes was already outside and had taken a position behind one of the stone columns in the room. A dark shadow moved across the windows as the helicopter made another low pass. Ganda and Matheson lay face down on the floor, their wrists zip-tied behind their backs.
“Lapinski, on the floor!” Josh barked. Lapinski fell to the ground next to his men. Dubose grabbed a pair of H&K UMP submachine guns from a table in the corner. He tossed one to Josh, who caught it and slung it around his shoulder.
"Sit-rep?” Josh shouted. He grabbed Rebecca’s chair and wheeled her behind a stone island in the center of the kitchen. Old dishes and pots covered the counter above the island. A wood block filled with kitchen knives stood next to a half-eaten plate of salami.
“Didn’t get a good look at them, sir,” Keyes replied, “but this is their third pass. I’d say they’re trying to confirm their target is on site.”
Lian was already hidden in the kitchen, hugging her knees to her face. “The bad men are coming back, aren’t they?” she chirped.
Rebecca shook her head. "Honey, listen, we’re not going to let anything happen to you. Stay close to me, okay?”
Josh jogged back to his men and took position behind another stone column. “What are they packing?”
Keyes shot him a nervous glance. “No idea, but based on the rotor noise, I’d say it’s a light chopper. Maybe an AH-6. Something that class could be carrying anything from twin 50 cals to Stinger missiles.” He hugged his UMP to his chest and peered around the edge of the column.
The whoosh of the aircraft’s rotors began to build in volume once again.
“They’re coming around,” Keyes shouted.
Suddenly, a burst of gunfire tore through the interior of the house. The front windows exploded into showers of sparkling glass and wood fragments. Chips of stone and other debris whizzed through the air. The rattle of heavy machine gun fire drowned out Lian's scream of terror.
The line of death cut the air, passing over the kitchen island. Rebecca grabbed Lian, pivoting her chair to shield the crying child with her body. She clutched the girl to her chest as the dishes on top of the counter burst into ceramic fragments.
The gunfire ceased, and the roar of the aircraft receded into the distance.
“Twin 50s, for sure!” Keyes shouted as the dust of the first barrage settled through the room.
“You get the gold star,” Josh muttered.
Outside, the rotor noise began to grow louder again. They were coming back for another pass.
“DuBose,” Josh called out. “The truck in the barn, the Cougar … you said it was a civilian model … I assume that means no weapons?”
“Negative, but it looked like its armor was intact. Keys are in the visor.”
The helicopter swooped over the house again, even lower this time. The wood beams in the ceiling shook and rattled as it buzzed overhead.
Josh nodded. “Then that’s our play.” He looked back at Rebecca. “Director, they’re making another run on us. Stay down!”
Gunfire ripped through the house again, tearing the furniture to shreds. Sparks ricocheted off the heavy stone columns. Rebecca hugged Lian tighter as the child burst into another fit of screaming.
The gunfire stopped. Once again, the sound of the rotors diminished as the helicopter veered off.
“It’s okay,” Rebecca whispered. “It’s going to be okay.” She wasn’t sure who she was trying to sooth … the child, or herself.
Josh gestured to DuBose. “You, me, one of the prisoners, we make a run for the barn. We get in the Cougar, drive it around back, and get the others. Then we haul ass out of here.
DuBose nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
Josh turned to Keyes. “You need to keep eyes on these two shit bags,” he said. He nodded towards where Ganda and Lapinski lay on the floor. “And watch out for the director and the kid, got it?”
“I can handle it. Better move your ass!”
The helicopter was swooping back around. The sound of its engine grew louder and louder.
DuBose grabbed Matheson and hefted him up from the floor. “These men outside, they’re here for you assholes. You slow me down, I drop you in the dirt, understand?
The young man nodded, his face pale.
Josh took up a position next to the door. The noise of the helicopter grew louder. It was almost upon them.
“Okay, let’s do this. On my mark. Three … two … one … Mark!”
Josh kicked open the door and charged out into the front yard, Dubose following close behind.
Rebecca heard the muted bursts of the men’s UMP submachine guns firing in the distance.
The noise of the helicopter suddenly changed. It was veering off again, changing course.
It’s following Josh, Rebecca realized. She felt a cold, empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t just sit hiding, doing nothing.
She set Lian down on the ground. “Lian, I want you to stay here for a minute. Can you do that for me?”
The child burst into tears. “Please, don’t leave me!”
“I’ll be right back, and then we’re going to get you out of here. We’re going to help you find your mama, okay?”
The child nodded, but tears continued to stream down her face. Rebecca hugged her one more time. Then she wheeled behind one of the stone columns, next to where Lapinski and Ganda lay on the ground.
Keyes gave her a sharp look. “Ma’am, you should really—”
“Didn’t Josh tell you I hate being called ma’am?” Rebecca shot back.
Outside, the roar of the chopper’s machine guns filled the air.
“It’s strafing the barn,” Keyes shouted. “They’re going after Galloway and DuBose.”
Rebecca turned towards the prisoners. The men were squirming on the floor, struggling to get a look out the front windows.
“Ted,” she hissed. “This is your last chance. Help me now or I swear I will leave you here to die. Who is David Fang? Who is he really?”
The helicopter changed course again. It was swooping back towards the farmhouse. The rotors grew louder and louder, and the few intact windows in the house rattled in their frames.
“I don’t know David Fang,” Ted whimpered. He turned and look back towards her with fear in his eyes. “But the man you showed me, the man in the pictures … he was in the files Sun Wai Tong accessed. They’re old CIA case files. He was younger then, but I swear it’s the same man!”
“Who is he?” Rebecca shouted.
“His name is Dan-zu Huang! Operation Canary … look up Operation Canary!”
Gunfire exploded through the room once again as the helicopter made another attack run. Ted screamed and rolled toward the side of the room.
A stray shot struck the microwave in the kitchen. The appliance exploded, sending a shower of bright sparks raining down on Lian. The little girl screamed and leapt to her feet. She ran into the living room as fast as her tiny legs could carry her.
“Lian, get down!” Rebecca shouted.
The girl skidded to a stop and ducked behind the sofa. Rebecca could see the chopper outside, moving low across the field. It spun around and began to move back towards the farmhouse, making a horizontal attack run.
“Keyes!” Rebecca called out.
“I got her,” the man shouted. He darted from his position behind the column and charged towards Lian. Grabbing her in his arms, he stood up and raced towards another column on the other side of the room.
The chopper opened fire. Keyes’ body jerked and flew through the air. He fell forward, dropping Lian to the ground. The little girl bawled as she hit the ground. She stood up, shaking, her eyes wide and terrified.
�
�Lian, no!”
Rebecca flicked the switch on her chair. The motorized wheels hummed as she sped across the floor towards the girl. She scooped her up in her arms and rolled behind the column as the chopper once again opened fire.
Bullets ricocheted off the stone pillar. The chopper swooped away again.
Suddenly, she felt an arm loop across her throat. It pulled tight, yanking her backwards. She clawed at the thick cord of muscle cutting into her windpipe, but she couldn’t pry it back.
“You fucking bitch!” a man’s voice hissed in her ear. “You’re going to get us all killed!”
That voice … she felt dizzy. She remembered the attack in the alley. The dark maw of the van opening to swallow her, the sickly sweet smell of flowers …
It was Ganda!
He was pulling her back, away from the crying Lian. Back towards the kitchen.
“You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” he muttered. He dragged her past Keyes’ body, her chair leaving tracks through the slick pool of blood on the ground. His arms were still tied together, but he had managed to slip his hands in front of him. He increased the pressure of the forearm chokehold he had her trapped in.
There was no one to help her. She was alone. This time, Josh could not come to her rescue.
“Maybe,” he whispered into her ear. “Maybe if I kill you now, they let me live. Worth a shot, right?”
Rebecca’s hand flailed at the side of her chair. “You’re not walking out of here,” she gasped.
Ganda pulled harder. His arm dug into her throat as he dragged her towards the kitchen. She coughed and spit as she gasped for breath. “You’re going to die here today,” she wheezed.
She looked down and saw light glint off steel blades. The kitchen knives … the gunfire had knocked them off the island. They lay scattered across the floor, among the shattered glass and broken crockery.
“You don’t know that,” he shouted. “You don’t know anything!”
Her grasping fingers found the controls for her chair. She flicked one of the switches, and the motor whined to life.
“I know one thing, asshole,” she rasped.
“Yeah,” he shouted, digging his forearm deeper into her throat. “What’s that?”
“Control the head, and the body will follow.”
“What the—”
The motor on her chair screamed in reverse, cutting him off. She flew backwards and the momentum lifted Ganda up off his feet. His back slammed into the kitchen island, knocking the wind out of him.
He slumped forward. Rebecca thought back to the gym, and her night with Josh. She moved without thought, acting on instinct and muscle memory. Her arm shot up, and her nails raked across Ganda’s ears and face.
As he screamed in pain, she shot her free arm up and under his loosened hold. She clamped her hand on the back of his neck as she pulled her head free of his hold.
She let her chair topple over backwards and used her grip on his head to spin his body away from her. The chair clattered to the ground, and she fell on top of him.
Ganda struggled to turn over, but with his hands still tied in front of him, it was difficult to get the leverage he needed. Rebecca’s hand shot out to her side. Her fingers wrapped around the wooden hilt of a kitchen knife. She raised the blade over her head.
Ganda bucked his hips, and his body spun around beneath her. His eyes opened wide, and he screamed as the blade plunged towards him.
Then it was over. A red stain spread across his shirt. The handle of the knife protruded from his chest. A wet, gurgling sigh escaped his lips as his head lolled to the side.
Rebecca thought back to the alley. To the fear and helplessness she had felt that night. She wanted to stab him again. She longed to plunge the blade into his heart, over and over.
But she looked up and saw Lian staring at her. The child was standing in the center of the room, in front of the shattered windows.
She was shaking.
“Lian, I’m sorry you had to see that. Are you okay?”
“You killed the bad man,” the little girl said, her voice quaking.
“Yeah. I guess I did.”
Before she could say anything else, a rush of wind filled the room. The torn, shredded curtains whipped through the air, and a cloud of dust and debris filled the room.
The helicopter lowered into view, only a few feet from the front of the house. She could see the pilot behind the domed canopy. He worked the levers and pedals, keeping the chopper level. It hovered just above the ground. The long, black barrels of the aircraft’s twin machine guns pointed straight at them.
Lian turned around and stared at the helicopter. Her hair and clothes billowed in the prop wash.
“Lian, get down!” Rebecca screamed. The child didn’t move. She froze, like a deer in headlights.
Rebecca heard another sound raising above the roar of the chopper’s rotors … splintering wood, and the rumbling growl of a high-powered engine.
The pilot’s hands seemed to move in slow motion as he reached for the switch that triggered the guns.
Rebecca pulled herself forward across the floor, struggling to reach the child.
“Lian, no!”
The rumbling of the other engine grew louder. Another shape flew into view before them. A large, armored SUV moved to intercept the low-hovering chopper. It tore across the field, bouncing over the rough, uneven ground.
It was Josh, she realized. He had made it to the Cougar.
It charged past the windows in front of the farmhouse. It was only a few feet away, and picking up speed. The engine grew even louder. The armored truck made a beeline for the helicopter.
CRASH!!
The Cougar slammed into the side of the chopper at full speed. The impact knocked the aircraft sideways before the pilot could trigger the guns. The screech of crumpling metal filled the house. The helicopter tilted and crashed to the ground, and the Cougar flipped up into the air.
Rebecca made it to Lian and threw her body over the girl. Fragments of the downed helicopter’s rotors sliced through the room. The flying metal sheared a huge chunk of stone loose from one of the columns. It fell to the floor, missing Rebecca’s head by inches.
Silence descended over them.
She ran a hand through Lian’s hair. “You okay, honey?” The girl nodded and looked up at her.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” she said.
Rebecca laughed. “I am now. But please don’t call me ma’am.”
The girl nodded. “Okay.”
Rebecca tried to look over her shoulder. The muscles in her neck screamed in agony from Ganda’s chokehold. “What about you, Ted? Still with us?” she called out.
There was no response.
She rotated her body around and scanned the patch of floor where Lapinski had been lying.
It was empty. There was sign of him.
He was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jia’s Shanghai safe house was a small, barren apartment. No art decorated the white walls, no pictures of family or friends sat next to her futon mattress. Caine had lived in many places like this himself. Empty, sterile rooms that could be abandoned in a heartbeat. A temporary dwelling for a temporary life.
The faint patter of running water drifted from the bathroom down the hall. Jia had stood watch while Caine had taken the first shower. The thin drizzle of hot water was barely able to wash the dust and filth from his skin, but it was better than nothing. Now it was Jia’s turn.
Caine parted the curtains and peered out a tall, thin window. The apartment sat on the second floor of a crumbling old building; the window looked out over a long, narrow alley. Known as a longtang, the labyrinth of narrow streets below was Shanghai’s version of a hutong. The narrow stretch of pavement passed through the ground floor of a nearby residential building. The cramped tunnel was decorated at either end by intricate stone carvings that depicted creatures from Chinese mythology … celestial dragons, guardian lions,
and the ever-present vermillion bird. The Red Phoenix, he thought.
Caine watched a row of children on bicycles speed down the narrow lane between the buildings. He remembered how happy Jia had seemed in the Beijing hutong. Her face seemed to light up when they entered the beautiful, ancient neighborhood. At least there was one thing about Jia he could now be certain of … he was sure she had picked the location of this safe house herself.
Caine closed the curtain and sat down on the futon mattress in the center of the tiny room. Reaching into his pants pocket, he pulled out the USB drive. As he turned it over in his fingers, his mind raced. What was on the tiny sliver of metal that was so important? What had Sean and his friend uncovered?
The appearance of Fang’s men near the apartment couldn’t be a coincidence. They had been waiting. Which meant they needed something. Was it this stick of memory he held in his hands?
After they had stolen a car, Caine made a quick circle around the area before heading to the safe house. Sean was nowhere to be found, and he had not contacted him. Fang had him now. Caine was certain of it.
He closed his eyes. Once again, he had failed. He should never have listened to Sean. They should have left China immediately instead of going on this fool’s errand.
He felt a quiet buzz in his pocket. His phone. He pulled it out and checked the screen.
Rebecca.
He answered the call. “It’s me.”
“Tom, thank God! I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.” There was a rushed hint of adrenaline in her voice mixed with impatience. He glanced at the phone’s screen and saw several missed calls and texts.
“Sorry. I was in the middle of nowhere for a while. Once I got to Shanghai, things …”
“Got complicated?” she asked, finishing his sentence.
He smiled. “Yeah. Occupational hazard.”
“Tom, we linked the man who attacked me to Lapinski. We caught him on-site with a team of private security contractors. They were hiding out in Virginia, up in the mountains. Six-man team, all ex-military. As far as I can tell, they were here to watch over a six-year-old girl. I texted you a picture."
Red Phoenix: A Thomas Caine Thriller (The Thomas Caine Series Book 2) Page 29