by Alex Ryan
Nick pulled his left arm in and watched his altimeter spin down. The others would be watching the glow from the light on the back of his helmet and waiting for his call. At fifteen thousand feet, he crossed his arm over to his chest, pulled his legs in slightly for bracing, and called, “Three . . . two . . . one . . .”
He clamped his jaw hard and pulled the silver ring on his left chest harness.
The chute deployed, and he felt the powerful tug of deceleration—jerking him hard in the crotch and tightening around his chest. He breathed a sigh of relief that his chute wasn’t fouled and reached instinctively for the risers. Without looking, he grasped the handles and took control. He tugged, slowing his descent, creating the sensation his body was rising. He pulled harder on the left riser, banking away from the lights of Zell am See and toward Grossglockner.
With his right hand, he snapped open the top of the hard plastic case on his chest and flipped up the screen on the navigation computer inside. The target was preloaded, and he immediately saw a green box and then his red glide slope information—left and below—the white lines that would lead him directly to the portico of the target building. He said a silent prayer that the data had been loaded correctly and he wouldn’t slam face first into the side of the mountain in the dark.
God, I hate this shit.
Nick tugged on both risers, but with more pressure on the right handle, and watched as the glide slope line slowly merged with the computer-generated lines. As long as he maintained this alignment, he would glide in and land in the center of the drop zone. He tilted his head up, looking over the nav screen into the dark, hoping to see lights from the target. Nothing yet. He looked back at the screen and the changing numbers on the left bottom. The top number gave his altitude—13,700 feet—and the lower number his ETA to the target, 2:12.
“Two minutes. Bravo team set?”
“Set,” the American sniper replied in his headset. “Three on the roof and another five on the portico. Call the first shot.”
“Stand by,” he answered.
Nick clicked his night-vision goggles into place, and the world came to life in eerie green and gray. The mountain looked closer than three thousand feet away. Through the NVGs, he could now clearly see the two-story compound—a miracle retreat built into the side of the mountain face. Satisfied with his approach, he no longer needed the glide slope. He clicked it off and collapsed the screen into the hard case on his chest.
“Target visual. One minute.”
“Got it,” someone said in his left ear—one of the Americans.
“In sight, Nick. I am number two behind you.” Zhang’s voice. The idea that it would be him on his six somehow was more comforting than one of the Ground Branch guys. Yes, they had trained just like him—were likely former SEALs or Army SOF in fact. But he had battle history with Zhang.
“Bravo—on my call. Light your targets now.”
“Check.”
“I has mines target,” came a thick Chinese accent. “Left center.”
“Check, Bravo two.”
The portico was rushing toward him now. He hated this part. The security patrols—five in all—were roving about just as Bravo had said. He could see the glow of their cigarettes as he closed in. He unsnapped the thigh band that held his SOPMOD M4 in place.
“Engage targets, Bravo,” he said.
He saw the flashes on the ridgeline, two thousand feet above the target house, and then came the chaos as the snipers engaged. Two figures collapsed on the roof in gray-green cinema. A third raised his rifle but then arched his back and fell from the roof onto the portico, nearly crushing a man beneath him.
“Security is engaging at the base of the gondola,” Lankford’s calm voice called in his left ear.
The remaining compound guards were scrambling for cover at the edge of the building, their rifles raised and scanning up the mountain face. Two were struggling to pull out NVGs from thigh cases dangling from their belts.
Nick pulled the risers hard, stalling his descent with near perfection, as he pedaled his feet and crossed over the concrete wall at the edge of the portico. He shifted his weight back, kicked his left foot forward as he landed, then dropped onto his right knee and pushed up on the fittings at his shoulders to open the quick release for his chute. He felt a tug, and then the chute was free. He raised his rifle in a quick, smooth arc as the chute blew away over his head. Two men were crouched beside a door, and one more was running on his left. Nick put his green dot from his infrared sight on the running man’s head just as his chute caught the man’s attention.
Nick squeezed the trigger twice, and the man’s head erupted in a geyser of black and gray—the universal color of blood and guts in the monochrome world of NVGs. The target pitched backward and crumpled to the ground. Without a pause, Nick was up, moving left and engaging another target. He fired on the run, the first round wide right and the second catching the target in the throat. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Zhang firing on the move beside him. As the Snow Leopard Commander drifted right, Nick continued left, leading their teams in a mirror image sweep of the portico. A muzzle flash ahead caught his attention, and he spied an enemy shooter kneeling, partially obstructed by a billowing parachute. Nick feinted right, then flanked hard left, and fired on the go, two rounds hitting the man center mass as a round from the right—possibly from Zhang’s rifle—blew the top of the guard’s head off.
In seconds, it was over. He was crouched beside four American operators and could see Zhang’s Snow Leopards lined up on the right side.
“Rooftop movement,” came the American sniper’s calm voice. There was a flash, but Nick couldn’t hear the distant crack of the sniper rifle through his helmet and the earpieces he wore in both ears. “Tango down,” the sniper reported. “You’re clear on the roof.”
Nick chopped his hand toward a pair of large metal double doors that led inside. The rest of the facing wall was outfitted with floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows—affording the occupants a spectacular view of the mountains or the occasional assault team storming the portico. Nothing he could do about that . . . or was there? Why funnel through the doors when they could blow out the glass and waltz in? Nick strafed the wall of glass with a prolonged burst from his M4, but the glass did not shatter.
“That’s ballistic glass,” Nick barked on the open channel, and Zhang repeated the comment in Chinese.
A beat later, the double doors flung open. Two guards sprinted out, rifles at the ready, but the joint team cut them down midstride before either man could squeeze off a round. A third guard poked his head out, but upon seeing his teammates’ fate, he pulled back just as a round from Zhang’s rifle blew a chunk out of the doorframe. The door hinges were apparently spring loaded, because Nick watched the doors draw closed under their own power.
Nick’s left earpiece crackled with Lankford’s voice. “On thermal we see multiple bodies retreating deeper into the structure, but others are fanning out to make a stand in a central room. Looks like four—no, five figures taking up defensive positions.” The CIA man dispatched tactical information with the same proficiency as a sportscaster calling the play-by-play of a football game on TV.
“Stay low,” Nick said, warning his teammates as he advanced on the entry doors. There was no way to know the ballistic rating and longevity of the glass, which made it an unreliable barrier. Like an exclamation point to this thought, machine gun fire erupted somewhere inside, spraying the ballistic windows and the inside of the heavy doors with bullets. The glass panel to Nick’s left fractured in a spider-web pattern but did not blow out. As he stepped over the fallen guards, he mentally noted that none of the hired security personnel they’d engaged so far appeared to be Chinese.
Upon reaching the double doors, Nick took a knee.
Only one way to do this properly.
“Grenade,” Nick said, looking at Zhang as he pulled a grenade from his kit. Zhang nodded and repeated the word in Chinese on the open channe
l. They both got low. Zhang pulled on the right door handle and eased it open; Nick rolled the grenade through the gap. A beat later, the grenade exploded and did its work. Nick pulled a second grenade, this time a flash bang—a nonlethal grenade meant to stun and disorient—and repeated the operation with Zhang. He waited for the flash and the loud crack, and then he was up and moving through the doors. He advanced in a tactical crouch, scanning over the barrel of his weapon. Gunshots echoed. He turned toward the muzzle flash, knelt, sighted on the prone target, and ended him with a double tap to the head. Instantly he was up and moving again, clearing the left corner behind him. Zhang moved in a mirror image and cleared the right corner.
Corners cleared, Nick surveyed the space. Two identical white leather sofas faced each other in the center of the room. Midcentury lounge chairs flanked the sofas, and silver floor lamps arced over the seating area. The expensive furniture was shredded by Nick’s grenade. The rear of the room was occupied by a long bar—bottles, glasses, mirrors all shattered. Nick checked the security guard he shot.
Deader than dead.
“Clear,” Nick said. “Looks like everyone else has pulled back to the rear of the building.”
“The only thermals I hold now are your men,” Lankford said. “I’m getting interference from the structure. It must extend into the mountain.”
Nick looked at Zhang. “We have them trapped now. Nowhere left to go.”
“My count is eight security dead. If Lankford’s intelligence is good, there should be only two or three guards left. Anyone else is a high-value target.”
“We take the HVTs alive,” Nick said over the open channel. “That’s an order.”
The American operators acknowledged, and then Zhang parroted the order in Chinese.
The last thing Nick wanted to do was shoot some American politician or German ambassador. They had no way of knowing who on Zhang’s list might be in attendance with Yao tonight, but the intelligence clearly suggested a gathering—a conclusion that was reinforced by the large security presence.
“In your experience, how accurate is CIA intelligence?” Zhang asked, cupping his hand over his boom mike to muffle the question.
Nick smirked. “About fifty percent.”
“It is the same with our operations,” Zhang said. “My point is simply that we have no idea what or who we will find inside. We need to show . . . what is the word . . .”
“Restraint?”
“Yes, Nick. That’s it. We need to show restraint. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “But we also need to breach while we still have initiative.”
“Agreed, let’s go,” Zhang said, and he motioned one of his men forward. He spoke to him in Chinese, and the man slung his rifle and approached a heavy metal door at the back of the room. The Snow Leopard pulled a breacher charge from the bag on his left thigh.
“My priority is Yao,” Zhang said to Nick, holding his eyes. “We need to interrogate him. And there may be other Chinese nationals involved who need to be held accountable.”
“Are you trying to say, ‘You take yours; we take ours’?”
Zhang responded with a single nod. Nick wondered what Lankford thought of the exchange, but he supposed he knew. They had prepped for this.
“I can live with that,” Nick said. It was the only way.
The Snow Leopard at the door came back and spoke in English this time.
“Charge is set,” he said. He held up a small device in his hand like an Apple TV remote.
Zhang nodded. “We set a heavy charge for this door,” he said. “Let’s pull back onto the portico.”
They all moved outside and pulled back a safe distance.
“Go,” Nick said.
He flipped up his NVGs and turned his head away.
The explosion was so violent, for an instant he wondered if the portico was about to tear loose from the mountain and send them plummeting to their deaths. But the foundation held, undamaged, and Nick donned his NVGs and led the assault team back inside. He moved swiftly through the first room, past the bar and through the door they’d just breached. The room on the other side appeared to be a formal dining room, with place settings for many set along the mahogany dining table.
“Clear,” Nick said, moving swiftly through the dining room. At the back of the room, there were two cased openings: one left, one right.
He glanced at Zhang. “You go right.”
Three CIA operators followed Nick through the cased opening into a long hallway with doors along the left side. “Clear these rooms,” Nick barked. He took a knee and held his sights down the hallway, advancing as his men cleared.
“Bedroom,” came the first report. “Clear.”
They repeated the operation, room by room. Nick expected gunfire but heard none.
“Zhang, what have you got?” Nick asked on the open mike.
“A large kitchen, food storage, laundry facility, mechanical room—all clear,” the Snow Leopard reported. “What about you?”
“Half a dozen bedrooms—more like luxury suites,” Nick said. “The beds have been slept in, but there’s nothing left behind except some dirty towels and rubbish in the trashcans.”
“My guys will sweep for DNA,” Lankford said in his ear. “Forget that shit. Find Yao.”
“Nick, I found something,” Zhang said. “Looks like an elevator.”
Nick motioned for the operators to follow him, and he looped back around. “Coming to you,” Nick said. When he reached Zhang, he found the Snow Leopard Commander standing in front of a metal door. Nick surveyed the frame. “Where’s the call button?”
“I don’t know,” Zhang said, dragging his gloved hand down the seam.
“Breach it, and then we can check the shaft. We can rope down if we need to.”
“Rather difficult approach,” Zhang said, his face a frown.
Nick shrugged. “Blow it and we’ll decide.”
Breacher charges were set and detonated. When the dust cleared, smoke billowed from the gaping hole where the door had been. Nick took point once again and led the team back. As he peered inside the shaft, a bullet whizzed past him, embedding in the wall beside his head. Nick dropped to a knee, sighting over his rifle and trying to see through the smoke. He didn’t need to call the contact, as the other five men on both sides of him were already pouring gunfire into the smoke. He unleashed a volley with the others and then barked, “Hold fire.”
All gunfire ceased instantly.
When the smoke finally cleared, what he saw inside was not an elevator shaft but rather another hallway. He chopped his left hand forward, and together the team moved down the hallway. They stepped over three dead shooters on the floor. A fourth was sitting up against the wall—blood painting the wall behind him and pink bubbles coming from his blue lips. Again, none of the shooters were Chinese, he noted wryly. All four looked Eastern European.
“Last stand?” Nick said, glancing at Zhang.
The Snow Leopard Commander nodded as he stepped over the fourth guard to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nick. “It would appear.”
At the end of the short hallway stood two doors—one right, one left.
“Only two rooms remain,” Zhang said.
“Fitting, don’t you think?” Nick replied.
“Yao must be sheltering in one of them.”
Nick nodded. He’d been going left all night, no point in changing now. “I’ll take the room on the left with my guys covering; you take the one on the right with yours.”
Zhang smirked at this suggestion and then simply said, “Agreed.”
“Whatever or whoever you find in that room belongs to us, got that Foley?” Lankford barked on the secure channel in his right ear. Nick could hear the unbridled frustration in the CIA man’s voice. So far, the op had been a total bust. The next ten seconds would prove whether they’d scored a clandestine treasure trove or wasted millions on a snipe hunt.
Rifles up, Nick converged on
the left door as Zhang moved right.
They paused, traded glances, then kicked open their doors simultaneously, the American operators behind Nick and the Chinese behind Zhang. Nick entered the room and scanned quickly for threats. There were none.
A distinguished and familiar-looking Chinese executive was seated at the head of a table. Yao was the only person in the room. His legs were crossed at the knee and his hands folded in his lap. Light glinted off the silver cufflinks at the wrists of his tailored shirt. And despite the small hole in the center of his forehead, he was smiling. A single rivulet of blood dribbled from the hole. It flowed inside the curve of his right eye socket, along the side of his nose, and down his cheek and dripped from his chin. Clutched in his lifeless hands were two white envelopes.
“Clear,” Nick hollered over his shoulder. “Securing the scene.”
“As am I,” came Zhang’s neutral voice in his ear. “Clear here as well.”
“I hope you picked the right fucking door, Nick,” Lankford said on the secure line.
Nick ignored him and looked around the room over his rifle. The room appeared to be a lab of some sort. There were three stainless-steel refrigerators in the back and then workbenches with Plexiglas hoods over them. To the left was a large desk with a twenty-inch flat-screen TV monitor and computer. There were several other computers at workstations along the wall, but unlike the one with the large flat screen, these computers were all smashed, the tops on the floor and the motherboards removed. To the rear of the room was a reinforced steel hatch—like the kind on a ship. Nick peered inside and stared down a tunnel carved into the mountain. The tunnel descended steeply and seemed to stretch into infinity. Whoever had been with Yao had escaped through here.
“Are there computers, Nick?” Lankford demanded in his right ear.
Nick saw no way he could possibly answer, so he coughed twice, the equivalent of a double click on a mike.