by Tony Bulmer
The general blinked, his mouth hanging wide.
“And so it is, that I will bestow upon you General a similar gift, in the hope it will offer your weak character the strength to overcome your very many failings.” Zhàn Tao gave a curt flick of his head. The men from the lift stepped forward, taking hold of General Faz Huq. They manhandled him to the very edge of the roof. It was a long way down—so far that the giant boulders at the base of the building looked like tiny pebbles, caressed, by the soft, glittering waves of the Persian Gulf.
The general felt nausea rising within him once more. Hot air powered up the side of the mirrored building, seizing him in its vertiginous grip. He vomited, an explosive and uncontrolled outpouring that blew back in the hot wind, covering his chest and the front of the silk robe in warm, foul-smelling spew. He was going to die. They would murder him right here and now, there was no question. The general closed his eyes and mouthed a silent prayer.
Zhàn Tao held out a white-gloved hand; his caddy wordlessly handed him a toe-weighted blade putter. Tao caressed it in his hands, feeling the balance momentarily. Then, after inhaling a deep, calm breath of inspiration; he set about his task with the vigor and enthusiasm of a professional athlete. Tao made his strokes hard and fast, striking the general repeatedly about the head, neck and shoulders. After several long minutes Tao felt his breath grow short, whereupon he handed the bloodied putter back to the Caddy. A ripple of applause sounded out from the assembled guests. Zhàn Tao gave a curt nod of acknowledgement; then stood, as his female assistants mopped perspiration from his brow. He thanked them; then addressed the prone and bloodied general. “The Crusader-Zionist-Hindu conspiracy against the Islamic world is drawing into its final desperate chapters my dear General. If you had ensured the successful completion of the task I assigned you, your immortality would already be assured. Unfortunately, you failed me. I warn you, do not fail me again. If you do, a dark irredeemable misfortune will befall you and all you hold dear.”
The general’s swollen and bloodied face did not move for several long moments, then finally, a bubble of blood formed at one corner of his mouth and a slow hiss escaped from his battered lips, Yessssss Excellency.
03
Shanghai, China.
The chaos of the stampede was ugly to behold. The quiet, dignified, parameters of society overtaken by a primal surge of fear and the spiraling need for self-preservation. How could it have come to this, and so quickly—the great and the good—leaders of the world’s foremost nations, crushing and clawing in such an unseemly melee? Karyn wasn’t surprised. She knew that underneath the shallow veneer of respectability, humans were brutal, primal creatures, capable of returning at a moments notice, to the horror of their ancient past. She knew this because death and fear were her stock in trade, as vital to her daily business as an understanding of how the human animal might be manipulated and destroyed.
Crouching down beneath the bleachers seating, Karyn surveyed the scene. Burning wreckage lay all around, littering the ground. Smoke and flames rose up like ancient spirits between the tortured bodies of the dead and the dying. The hallowed mausoleum of Deng Tao had been cruelly and irrevocably violated. The sacred hour of mourning brutally snatched away. A shocked world looked on, helpless before the callous aftermath of yet another terrorist outrage.
Secretary of State Truman Whitaker lay on his back, blinking his eyes. His perfectly coiffed hair had been dislodged from the top of his head and was hanging askance, at an angle no hairdresser could have foreseen. Karyn grimaced. The secretary of state was a toupée man. She had long suspected it, but now the ugly truth was confirmed. As she lay on top of the secretary, to protect him from further attack, she took hold of the rogue toupee and carefully folded it back into place. The secretary stared at her wild-eyed, like a cornered animal.
“I have to get the hell out of here,” rasped Truman Whitaker, struggling to raise himself from the filthy ground. But Karyn adjusted her weight, pressing him hard against the floor.
“Stay down,” she hissed. “This thing isn’t over ’til it’s over.”
“What the hell are you talking about Kane? Terrorist bombers are trying to kill me. We have to get out of here. It is your job to protect me, damn it.”
Karyn barred her forearm across Whitaker’s neck, forcing him back to the ground. “Keep your head down, unless you want to get it shot off,” she snapped. “And for the record Mr. Secretary, I am working off the clock right now, so be nice, and do as I tell you, or you might put yourself in harms way.”
“What about my detail—the guys from the Secret Service? They will protect me and do as I ask too, damn you. Release me Kane. I am getting out of here right now.” Whitaker’s tone was nasty and insistent. He writhed and struggled beneath her, trying to throw her off so he could flee into the stampeding crowd.
Karyn peripheralized the remains of the Secret Service detail. They had been standing front and center when the blast hit; there wasn’t much left of them. Karyn scowled. “We got men down all over the place, you selfish little prick. Would you shut up for just one second, or I swear I will take you out myself.”
“You can’t speak to me like that. I am the Secretary of State of the United States of America, now get the hell off me, or by the time I have finished with your so-called career, you will be shoveling snow in bear-shit Alaska. Do you hear me?”
Karyn heard him all right. She moved her elbow in a fast, fluid movement that caught the secretary of state hard on the corner of the jaw. His eyes rolled back almost instantaneously and his mouth lolled open. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. Nor would it be pleasant when he woke up. He would have a nasty headache and a bruise to match, the price for staying alive. She had never liked the guy from the get go. He was one of those self-righteous congressional obstructionists who blocked every veteran’s rights bill that came his way. Karyn hated guys like Secretary of State Whitaker—the kind of behind the lines warmonger who was always quick to sign off on a conflict, but slow to pay dues to the brave men and women who had done proud service for their country. Karyn scowled. Looking down at him now, with his crooked wig and his slobbering jowls. She almost felt like popping him again for posterity, to make up for all those whining two-faced speeches he had given to those parasites in the news media. Karyn crunched her knuckles and took a look around, analyzing every aspect of the encroaching chaos. Right now, Secretary of State Whitaker was the least of her worries. Lauren Whitaker had gone missing. Karyn scanned the crowd, through narrow eyes. Finally, she made a connection, almost two hundred yards out. The secretary of state’s wife was staggering, through the panic-stricken mob. Disorientated by the blast, her clothes blackened and torn, she moved as though she were a sleepwalker, journeying through some horrible nightmare. Barely audible above the commotion Karyn heard Lauren Whitaker’s cries—she was calling out for her husband.
Torn by her duty to protect the secretary of state and the impulse to rescue his wife, Karyn knew she had to get help and fast. The United States Secret Service worked protection on all leading government figures, and now that the forward team had been taken out, Karyn knew she would have to work point, until the cavalry arrived. Speaking into her wrist communicator, she gave the back up crew a bugle call. “Blacktop one, this is Blowtorch, what is your status?”
Dead static played back across the airwaves. Karyn cursed. The Chinese had a RCIED jammer running—a high-power, multi-frequency command neutralizer, designed to block the detonation of remote controlled IED’s. They were trying to interrupt the detonation of secondary explosions, by throwing down an electromagnetic dead zone. Karyn cursed again. Those idiots in the Ministry of State Security were moving late to the scene and causing untold chaos for the rescue services.
Karyn flipped channels to the microwave uplink, “Blacktop one, this is, Blowtorch are you reading?”
The response came back audible, but with a high level of distortion. “Confirmed Blowtorch, what is your status?”
“All players down, repeat all players down. You guys better be inbound, because Foghorn two has gone absent without leave.”
There was a long pause. “What is the status on asset one Blowtorch?”
“Down, but not out.
“Penetrating injuries?”
“Negative, asset one unharmed. But I hear anymore whining, that situation could change at any minute.”
A grim chuckle came back, mixed with choking static. “Hold tight Blowtorch, we got C-F City unfolding out here—the entire Chinese army and police too…”
The transmission was interrupted by gunshots, a rapid salvo on full-auto, then another.
Karyn pulled her SIG and made ready. Shielding the secretary of state with her body, she raised her pistol towards the approaching commotion. As the gunfire grew closer, the crowds swarmed, like prey animals, trapped in the land of the predator. High velocity rounds cut the air, the whistle and zip of assault rifle bullets scything through the crowd. Karyn popped a breath mint. And spun it against the side of her mouth with her tongue. What in the hell was happening? Who were the creeps with the machine guns and what were they hoping to achieve? She frowned. The bullets were coming harder now, all of them heading her way. It didn’t matter a damn. She had been out gunned before, taken more bullets than she cared to remember. If the enemy figured they were going to have things easy by coming heavy, they were dead wrong. Behind her sunglasses, Karyn’s eyes burned with the power of molten amber—it had been a while since she had killed anyone. But now once more, she felt the power of destiny spinning up from the abyss. She made ready, letting the chaos of the world slip from her mind; felt the smooth all-encompassing focus of the dark task at hand rising up to meet her. Death might come, but never defeat. She held her weapon high and ready, her finger softly caressing the trigger, as she visualized the army of forty caliber hollow points hanging ready in her grip.
04
Frank Campanella, was in a tight spot and he knew it. The Kane woman was CIA, working for the National Clandestine Division more than likely. He found the thought appalling. Those spooks at NCD had their dirty little fingers in everything these days, poking and prying, and asking the kind of nasty objectionable little questions that even an IRS auditor would baulk at. Moving sideways, Campanella slid along the cold marble wall like a spider. The fear was rising high in his craw now, his stomach acid nipping hard at his peptic ulcer. He paused, loosened his tie, felt the cold sweat drenching through his clothes.
What if she knew? What if she—
A coincidence. That’s what it was.
No, more than a coincidence—
Campanella swallowed down the sick taste that had risen into his mouth. He tried to consol himself that the plan would soon come to fruition, and such a clever plan it was. He allowed himself a crafty smile. The Kane woman knew nothing, nothing at all, and even if she did know something—had suspicions even—it was of little importance. The device was on its way. There was nothing she, the CIA, or anyone else could do to stop it now. It was way too late for that.
But, she had been asking about Zhàn Tao—
Cringing into the dark sepulchral corridor that led through the mausoleum, Campanella let his thoughts race forward. The way that the Kane woman had looked at him, it was as though she were reading his mind; unrolling every dirty little secret he had stored away, then laying them out for the world to see. He reached into his jacket for the amber pill bottle and pulled it out. He fumbled with the cap; it was one of those tricky push and screw childproof caps that refused to open. When the top finally snapped off, he felt the stress and desperation stabbing violently through his body. Perhaps he was having a heart attack, perhaps—
As he rolled the pills out onto his hand and swallowed them down, he almost wept with relief. He was close, so close and now this had to happen. Who could have predicted such an eventuality? Zhàn Tao had made it all sound so simple, so preordained. He had cited the fortunetellers of Suànmìng, said they had predicted a monumental alignment of the fates, an event that happened only once in a thousand years. What could go wrong? But now the Kane woman had arrived. The CIA knew, they had to know, or they never would have sent such a creature. Campanella threw another hand full of pills into his mouth and dry swallowed them down. They didn’t go far, his arid throat arrested their progress. He choked. He heaved, almost vomited, and then sank to his knees clutching at his throat, his eyes popping wide with panic. He had planned everything so carefully—it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
The sharp sound of gunfire cut through the air. Campanella turned fearfully to see if the Kane woman was following, but in the crazed melee outside the tomb, he could see no sign of her. Campanella swallowed, felt the bitter, dry metallic taste of pure fear rising in his mouth. He had been foolish, so foolish to think that his plans would have gone unnoticed—everything figured out to the finest detail, right down to his escape through the labyrinthine tomb of Deng Tao. He had planed his route very carefully. He had keys to the gated corridors—he had walked the forested route through the Gardens of Eternal Sanctity a hundred times or more, right down the side of the mountain to where his young chauffeur Tomur would be waiting. The Uyghur boy was most reliable, and delectably handsome too, not like those dirty little boys on the Huaihai Zhong Road. Those filthy little street hustlers were riddled with disease, and spoke nothing but the silken lies of deceit; how treacherous they were—speaking of love—yet loving only the whorish world of hard commerce. How could an honest man, an educated romantic, make a life in such a world? Living only for the next sordid encounter. The cumulative degradation was almost too much to bear. When he got the money, everything would change; he would tour the world with Tomur, he would—
Screams. Gunfire.
Campanella stared fearfully towards the end of the dark corridor, cringing back into the shadows. He saw desperate figures running past in silhouette. But there was something more, a horrific smell that he had first encountered during his service in South East Asia—the stench of burning flesh. Campanella breathed in the horrible, apocalyptic taste and almost choked. He had known he would face a test, but he never guessed the horror would be of this magnitude. Even worse, he was trapped—cruelly separated from a future that was justly his. He sank down tearfully clutching the key to the gate that led into the Gardens of Eternal Sanctity. The Kane woman had ruined everything. Her appearance had thrown the fates out of alignment, and now the very future itself was cursed beyond hope of redemption. He wished that the ground would open up and consume him without trace. He paused, choking in the grief of his own self-pity. For a wild moment he considered swallowing down every last one of his pills, but he feared they would not complete the intended task—if only he had a gun—but that was no use either; even if he had one, he knew he would not have the courage to use it. Campanella bowed his head and held himself tightly, in fearful desperation.
He did not hear the footsteps coming down the corridor until they were almost upon him, but when he did, he started violently, his tear-streaked eyes struggling to focus on the ragged figure reaching out towards him.
“Mr. Ambassador, so it is you.” The blackened hand reached out and touched his shoulder. Campanella cringed reflexively then caught himself. He had to be brave. He had to summon up the strength to survive, or one misplaced word might seal his fate before a vengeful world.
“Mrs. Whitaker. Lauren. You are injured—but where is your husband?”
Lauren Whitaker gave the ambassador a shell-shocked stare, “I don’t know where he is,” she said slowly. “There was an explosion, then fire. My clothes burned and I hit my head. What can all this mean Mr. Ambassador? Who would ever think of performing such an—atrocity?”
Campanella felt a wave of euphoria run through him. The fates were with him after all. He rose slowly, unsteadily to his feet and said, “Have no fear Lauren. Follow me. I have a plan.”
05
Secretary of State Truman Whitaker opened his eyes. He looke
d confused, but only for the briefest of moments. He drew a bleary focus on Karyn and let out a frightened whimper, “You hit me—you damn well hit me. Wait until the President hears about this. I will have you court marshaled Kane.”
Karyn gave a derisive snort. Court marshaled. He said it like such a thing would be possible. The poor sap had no idea what he was dealing with, no idea at all. The Deep Five, section of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service worked beyond laws and constitutional protocols. Answering only to the Director of Central Intelligence and the needs of the United States of America. Deep Five was immune to the jostlings of the political class and Secretary of State Truman Whitaker was no exception.
Karyn gave Whitaker a hard look. She guided her breath mint across the inside of her cheek with her tongue and said, “I am glad you are compos-mentis you sniveling little creep, because your wife needs my help.”
Truman Whitaker’s face creased with fear, “What do you mean Kane? You cannot leave me. You are here to protect me.” He reached up with tremulous fingers and caught hold of Karyn’s arm. Feeling the hardness of her muscles, his mouth sagged open with shock.
“I don’t like you Whitaker. You jerk-off politicians are all the same—gutless, selfish, little weasels. Karyn frowned. “No, don’t say a word. You haven’t asked me once about that pretty little wife of yours, have you? Now, I reckon that makes you some kind of cold-assed son of a bitch.”
Bullets split the air, ripping through the bleachers seating. Matchwood splinters cut past with explosive force. Sitting astride Secretary of State Whitaker, Karyn didn’t flinch. Frowning down at her charge she said, “It’s just you and me buddy. If something happened to you right now, who would know?”
Whitaker covered his face in his hands. “Make it stop—I beg you Kane. Whatever you want—just get me out of here.”
“What’s the matter Whitaker, you scared of bullets?” Karyn lazily indicated the fleeing crowds with the barrel of her pistol, “You see those folks out there, running for their lives. Your wife is out there Whitaker.”