Razing Beijing

by Sidney Elston

  A WAVE OF RELIEF swept over Emily as Devinn turned away with the pocketknife he had been turning over in his hand—she reeled at the thought of having her flesh sliced open. As Devinn began searching the floor for something, a stray thought beckoned from the back of her mind...what was it that Stuart had told her? She found that relaxing her weight against her arms tied behind the seat back eased her discomfort, but then her triceps ached to distraction. There was nothing to be done for the throbbing pain in her lips, or for having hardly slept in nearly a week. What was it...something about Joanne Lewis, that they couldn’t prove Devinn was behind her assault because...because Joanne couldn’t identify her kidnapper. But if Lewis couldn’t identify who had kidnapped her, then Devinn must have...oh no.

  Devinn stood up from the floor. In one hand he held the knife, and the other a power cord with the two wire ends stripped of their plastic insulation. Emily’s eye followed the snaking cord to where it plugged into a floor socket beneath the computers.

  “He’s going to kill us, Thack,” she said flatly. “The reason Joanne Lewis survived is because she never saw his face.”

  Devinn glanced from one to the other.

  “Whatever he does to me, promise you won’t tell him anything. He’s only going to kill us.” Her voice choked off in a sob.

  “In the event you don’t talk, I couldn’t agree more,” Devinn said. “I warned you about trying my patience.”

  Devinn draped the cord over Emily’s thighs, his slow caution not to touch her with the exposed copper wire thrown in for dramatic effect. He then used both of his hands to rip open the front of her blouse—Emily shrieked.

  Thackeray’s eyes bulged. “I’m warning you, you sick FUCK!”

  Using the knife, Devinn proceeded to slit the center of Emily’s bra, which fell away, exposing her breasts. He slid her clothing behind smooth, bare shoulders. Emily was humiliated and terrified, breathing in heavy, wracking sobs.

  DEVINN DREW BACK to admire what he had long only imagined...he was fully aroused. He was further rewarded with a rush of anticipation as he reached for the electrical cord in Emily’s lap. He held the wires out threateningly for both of his captives to contemplate. The scene flashed him back to the bloody, untidy yield of his Ahmadi Rivergate work. This time, he would leave no stone unturned.

  “We don’t have to do this,” Devinn said. “All I need to know is the nature of your project, what it is that would drive you to burn the midnight oil. What could be simpler? You can start by explaining the timer ticking down on the computer screen over there.”

  Devinn moved the wires closer to Emily’s breast.

  “Okay!” Thackeray shouted. “I’ll tell you—just don’t hurt her.”

  “Thack, if you do that, more people will die.”

  “Really?” asked Devinn. “And why is that?”

  “She’s right.” Thackeray stopped struggling against his restraints. “If we don’t get this code written, they’re going to start killing people.”

  “That’s the purpose of the timer?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And who’s threatening to kill whom?”

  EMILY’S EYES FOCUSED on the wires in Devinn’s left hand. Thack’s trying to stall him, she thought.

  “We don’t exactly know,” Thackeray replied.

  Devinn narrowed his eyes.

  “I’m telling you the truth, asshole. Stuart’s being blackmailed—somebody tried to steal it, but they didn’t get all of it before this shutdown. That’s why we’re here using my terminals.”

  “What is ‘it’?”

  “It’s a directed-energy...you really don’t know?”

  “Tell me what it’s capable of.”

  “I guess they want something to counter our missile defense.”

  “ ‘They?’ ”

  “Are you deaf, fuckhead? I said we don’t know. But, I suppose I might have some idea.”

  “Give it the old college try.”

  “It’s the French. The French defense ministry. They want us to finish programming it. There. Now, leave her alone.”

  “That sounds unlikely. Whose lives are being threatened?”

  Thackeray hesitated. Emily sensed his wavering grapple at half-truths, but she feared her attempt to fortify his ruse might only backfire.

  “You said all you wanted was the nature of the project.”

  “Whose lives!”

  “Stuart’s daughter,” Thackeray said. “They threatened to harm Stuart’s daughter.”

  Devinn seemed to consider that while he lowered his hands. He looked from Thackeray to Emily. “I see...Stuart’s daughter.”

  “They kidnapped her, took her away.”

  To Emily’s horror, Devinn advanced toward her with the glistening wires protruding from his hands and said, “Nice try, but I don’t think so.”

  Thackeray launched himself at Devinn. For all his bull strength, lack of sleep and the chair he was bound to worked against him. Devinn seemed to have expected it, planting his foot against Thackeray’s chest and shoving him backward. Thackeray crashed on the floor in a writhing gnarl of anger.

  Emily cried out, her head turned away from the hands pressing forward to their selected targets, the dark areola of her nipple, and the delicate skin in front of her armpit...

  Emily felt the hot bolt of pain fan out through her musculature—her back arched into a spasm. Without control of her diaphragm she was unable to scream. The air escaped her lungs in a long, ragged sigh. Searing light retreated from her mind, drawing in darkness.

  The fluctuating glow from the computer screens became steady as Devinn retracted the wires. Emily’s head hung loosely. Her body sagged against her arms.

  Thackeray stared from the floor. “Emily!”

  “She’s taking a little nap, is all.” Devinn bent the leads safely apart and draped the wire over a desktop. “Lie to me again, I’ll light her up like Macy’s Christmas tree.”

  Thackeray clambered to his feet in a rage. Struggling and cursing, he kicked aside the chair separating the men. Devinn pulled the pistol from his waistband and pressed it hard beneath Thackeray’s bloody nostrils.

  AT ONE HUNDRED MILES PER HOUR, their pre-dawn cruise down Interstate 95 to the leafy Richmond suburb took Hildebrandt’s motorcade forty-eight minutes. All three drivers extinguished their headlights before parking several blocks from the residence. They found the two Richmond agents, who had responded to Gail Carter’s alert, crouching in a stand of birch trees twenty yards behind the house.

  “Hostage situation in progress,” one of the agents again asserted, his raised eyebrows suggesting a possible task for Hostage Rescue.

  “Armed suspect?” Hildebrandt asked.

  “We haven’t confirmed that but it stands to reason. He’s holding two bound individuals.” Both of whom generally fit the descriptions passed down to the agents, along with their contact information, late yesterday from the DC office.

  “Then let’s keep that option in mind,” Hildebrandt said after briefly considering the HRT. Quantico was minutes away by helicopter. The glance from Carter indicated she was inclined to agree with the call.

  “What else?”

  “Power meter and cable box on the side of the garage are history.” The agent wearing night vision goggles finished sizing up the situation for the new arrivals—as best he had been able to ascertain with maybe ten minutes of surveillance. One stubborn detail was that a positive identification of the suspect wasn’t in hand, so Hildebrandt sent an agent to find Devinn’s vehicle. The obvious approach was for the remaining five agents to position themselves around the house.

  Hildebrandt sourly noted that they did not have enough agents to pair-up. It had been his decision to post Brophy and others behind at the Hilton in the event Devinn made an appearance. “We need one person to cover each side of the house—you, you and Carter cover the front and both sides. Agent Miller here with the goggles and I will cover the rear. Shit, is this really all we can
muster?”

  “It’s four-thirty in the morning.” Special Agent Carter looked at him. “Maybe we should just call in HRT.”

  “You may be right, but we need to take up positions. Okay, standard rules of engagement, folks.” He very much wanted Devinn alive. “Check in from position. I’ll assign someone to approach and fix a listening device to a windowpane once we settle down.”

  “There’s at least one window open,” Agent Miller reported.

  “Let’s keep it quiet.” Not getting away this time, Hildebrandt thought.

  A few minutes later, Hildebrandt crouched beside Agent Miller. “That a generator I hear?”

  “Yeah, there’s an exhaust duct glowing atop the garage. I’m pretty sure it’s only juicing the guy’s computers. No other lights, not even appliance clocks visible inside.”

  “I sure hope you’re right. We don’t need the floodlights coming on any time soon.” The current lighting conditions actually gave them a slight upper hand, but also reminded Hildebrandt that with age came atrophy of membranes controlling the iris—hence his impatience with the time it was taking his eyes to adjust. A lifelong discipline of wearing ear protection at the shooting range, however, had preserved his hearing. He was actually able to hear the angry voices before the younger man kneeling beside him. “What’s going on?” the team leader asked. Awash in the shadowy glow of computers inside he saw definite motion.

  Miller slowly withdrew a deep breath, steadying his gaze through the optics. “My angle’s bad to worse...uh, this isn’t good. I only see two now. The suspect appears to be threatening the female hostage, he’s holding something...what the...?

  “What do you see?” Definite shouting inside now.

  “GUN! Suspect jamming a handgun into the face of a hostage!”

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Devinn retracted his pistol from beneath the man’s nostrils and wagged it toward the upended chair. Except for the labored rise and fall of his chest, Thackeray appeared unwilling to move. “Sit down.”

  “You killed her.”

  Devinn held the pistol steady on Thackeray’s face while he knelt and righted his chair. “If any one killed her, you did.” He cocked the hammer. “Down, boy.”

  Thackeray lowered himself into the chair still bound to his arms.

  Devinn pressed his thumb on top of the hammer and slowly uncocked it—his ability to control his own temper had limits. He knew he was also pushing his luck. He cast a quick glance at the nearest computer screen. “Read me the time.”

  “Four thirty-eight.”

  Devinn thought it improbable that the FBI was so gullible. Then again, had they really been all that difficult to evade so far? Good to have friends in high places, he thought as he glanced down at the slumped female torso, suspended by her arms, hair draped over her breasts. He had not thought there was enough current from the generator to do more than temporarily stun the woman. Had he applied it too close to her heart? Chang was no good to him dead, or for that matter unconscious. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not.

  Eyes and pistol trained on the troublemaker, Devinn reached down with his free hand to place his fingertips on the woman’s jugular. The implication of the abnormally rapid pulse never occurred to him.

  “You can relax,” Devinn said to Thackeray. Then he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  EMILY REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS with the certainty that she was going to die. When Devinn presented his hand, she could hardly believe it—she sunk her teeth into the fleshy base of his thumb until blood spurted onto her tongue. When he screamed she released her grip and flinched, but the expected blow didn’t follow.

  Emily opened her eyes to the improbable sound of Thackeray’s laughter. Devinn’s face was awash in pain as he examined his thumb, his pistol cupped in his hands. He directed his gaze at Thackeray.

  Now he’s going to kill us, thought Emily. Starting from her crouched posture would give her an edge. Taking a deep breath, she straightened and drove her knee up hard into Devinn’s groin—his body tensed and he screamed again. In the act of doubling over he drove his arms down onto her shoulder, pinning her next to him, pistol in hand. She was able to wriggle away. In doing so, the chair slipped from her back and fell to the floor.

  Emily had already begun a dash for the hallway when Thackeray’s shouted Run! was followed by the sound of colliding bodies. A muffled gunshot sent fragments of plaster spraying over her shoulders as she raced toward the front of the house. She stumbled and crashed to a halt, her chest heaving in fear, her face and body pressed against the front door. She could hear Devinn and Thackeray scuffling on the floor. But Thack can’t use his hands.

  The only thing she could do was run to a neighbor for help. Emily turned her back to the door and fumbled her hands...she was able to grip the knob, step forward and pull open the door. There was a brief and terrifying silence, followed by the shattering of glass. Suddenly she heard the sound of many voices shouting. She stared through tears in desperation to see something of the commotion at the other end of the hallway. “Thack!”

  Two muscular arms wrapped around her from behind. Before her mind absorbed what happened she was dragged, kicking her feet and shrieking, roughly backwards through the doorway. The deafening explosion and brilliant flash forced her eyes shut.

  HILDEBRANDT BEGAN A BRISK WALK while speaking into his collar mike, “Looks like a struggle underway. All points converge, say again, all points converge. Approach with caution—suspect armed and dangerous. Move it!” Hildebrandt withdrew his revolver. Beside him, Agent Miller held one steadying hand to the NVGs over his face while they headed toward the rear of the house. They heard the thwack of what sounded like shattering plaster.

  “Was that a shot fired?” somebody asked from the darkness to Hildebrandt’s right.

  “Not at us!” Miller confirmed for Hildebrandt. They broke into a full jog.

  “We got one female fleeing inside toward the front,” Miller’s jumbled voice reported. “White male hostage engaging hand-to-hand with suspect—gun, gun, gun!”

  What followed was difficult to discern. Shattering glass—that was to be expected as an agent or agents cleared the way to brandish their weapons. Shouting erupted from three directions—from inside, to Hildebrandt’s left, and to his right as agents emerged from the gloom. He was close enough to the house to see the blur inside of shadowed movement—

  The million-candlepower flash accompanied by a two hundred-decibel bang was unmistakable.

  “FUCK!” Hildebrandt cringed, eyes shut, gun at ready but forced to turn away in a defensive crouch. Other agents reacted predictably, shouting obscenities, most notably Agent Miller, who received the full amplified effect of the flash through the NVGs before collapsing to his knees. Tossing a flash-bang had not been part of the plan.

  “Who the fuck let that go?” Hildebrandt demanded. “Who let that go!” He opened his eyes to find that he was nearly blind. Through the image of the door and window frames burned into his retina he saw three kneeling FBI agents, shaking their heads clear and struggling to regain their senses.

  “Miller!”

  “I’ll survive!”

  “Agent Carter, cover me!”

  “Go!” she shouted, still shaking her head clear while raising her sidearm.

  Hildebrandt stood from his crouch and kicked open the back door. Barging in, gun level, he approached the victim sprawled on the floor. He kicked the knife away from the outstretched hand.

  The subject was bearded, Hildebrandt saw as the man started to groan. He didn’t seem to look like Devinn. There was no one else in the room. “Cover the front of the house!” Hildebrandt shouted. NOT again! “We need a report from the front of the house!”

  Two dazed agents entered the residence with their firearms defensively raised. They quickly assessed the situation and, pairing-up, made their way down the hallway.

  The ‘All clear!’ shouts rolled in.

  Special Agent Carter stepped insi
de from the yard and made her way to Hildebrandt. She caught his eye and shook her head.

  “Shit.”

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Peaches.”

  Carter lowered her voice. “I think it’s okay to safe the weapon now, Ed.” She gently patted his outstretched arm. “We put out an APB for Devinn’s car to the local police.”

  Hildebrandt nodded. He needed something to focus on...the guy on the floor was trying to sit up. Out of routine, Hildebrandt patted down the subject for signs of a concealed weapon. “Your name, please, sir?” he asked, confident of the answer.

  “Milton Thackeray. I live here.”

  “My name’s Hildebrandt. We spoke on the phone.”

  “What happened to Emily?”

  “She’s fine,” Agent Carter replied. “An agent’s with her now. They’re making their way around back.”

  Agent Miller stooped to retrieve the spent flash-bang canister from behind a stack of lumber. He stepped forward and presented it for Hildebrandt to inspect.

  “Who tossed it?” Hildebrandt asked, anger returning to his voice.

  “I was over there by the window,” another agent replied. “I think it was the suspect.”

  Hildebrandt studied the standard, FBI-issue canister. “The suspect?” He returned his attention to the owner of the house. “Did you get the identity of our friend?”

  “I think his name is Devinn. You let him get away?”

  Hildebrandt squinted to better see the man’s face. “You look like you’re injured.”

  Thackeray chuckled. “Nahh.”

  Gail Carter offered to call an ambulance.

  Hildebrandt helped the man to his feet and began untying his hands. He was unable to imagine how Devinn might have taken possession of a controlled FBI device. “I’d thank whoever it was that dropped us a line to keep an eye on you two,” he said. “We cut this one a little close.”

  Thackeray surveyed the various computer components scattered on the floor, remnants of his struggle with Devinn. He reached down for the remains of a smashed monitor. “Actually, I’m afraid you showed up a little too late.”