“I think I winged him.” Amanda Navistrova slowly collapsed onto the stairs, one shoulder sliding down the wall as she sat down. She dropped her bound hands between her knees, loosely gripping a compact pistol. “Let’s hear it for the Second Amendment,” she said with slurred speech.
Katy struggled to her feet. For several minutes she did not speak. She simply pressed her son to her chest and gently bounced him until his cries diminished into soft whimpers. Then she hobbled over and sat down next to her friend, exhausted. “You’ve been drugged,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Yep.” Amanda’s head bobbled in agreement. “The idiot must’ve underdosed me.”
“We should get you to a hospital. We need to call the police.”
This time Amanda shook her head wearily back and forth and then let it come to rest against the wall with an unsettling thud. “No police. No hospital. It’s too dangerous. We need to get to the base.” Her glassy eyes drifted over to the broken back door. “The killer is still out there.”
CHAPTER 62
Nick’s head felt like it had been split open. “Ugh,” he moaned, sitting up. When he tried to lift a hand to feel the bump on the back of his head, he found that he was handcuffed to the table again. The room no longer tilted or spun. His mind and vision quickly cleared, and with that clarity came pain. His neck, his chest, his legs, every part of him burned or ached, but the pain of his physical maladies paled in comparison to the ripping torment he felt inside.
“What happened to my family?”
“They are dead, Mr. Baron.” Zheng grinned, his twisted smirk made even more grotesque by the missing hair and the burns on the side of his face. His doctors had treated him with some sort of greasy salve, making the yellow blisters gleam under the harsh fluorescent lights. “Did I not warn you that you would suffer? All you had to do was give me the information I wanted.”
Nick screamed inside. He searched the room for objects that he could shove through Zheng’s eye. “You found our jet,” he said in an even tone. “You got what you wanted. They didn’t have to die.”
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten that you threatened to kill me,” countered Zheng.
“I released my hold. Your lackey could have called off the killer.”
Zheng sighed as if he were a teacher speaking to a particularly slow student. “I am not a vengeful man, Mr. Baron. But I cannot abide rampant disobedience.” He gestured at his burns. “Look at my face. There must be consequences. You really left me no choice.”
Nick’s grief began to overwhelm him, but he could not let it shut him down, not if he was going to do any good with the few extra moments of life he’d been given. Instead, he took control of the grief, focused it, refined it into another emotion that came all too easily. Hate. He told himself that he had a new mission, to get justice for his family, for Will McBride. In his heart, he knew the truth. There was no mission anymore, only revenge.
The soldiers at the door parted and Sung strode into the room, walking straight to Zheng. He gave Nick a furtive glance, catching his eye for just a moment. Nick thought he saw a flash of fear. Maybe this one understood that, one way or another, Nick was going to kill him.
Sung spoke to Zheng in a low voice. Zheng nodded. “Good,” he said in English. “We will all go out to meet them.” He snapped his fingers at the soldiers, and four of them stepped forward, two going to Novak and two to Nick. When they pulled the straps off Novak, he just lay there on the gurney, his face a lifeless etching of despair. The soldiers jabbed him with the butts of their rifles and forced him to his feet, half supporting him, half pushing him toward the door.
Another soldier with two thick chevrons on each shoulder stretched out a key on a retractable lanyard and fumbled with Nick’s left handcuff. He acted nervous, fearful of the American. He carried no rifle, but his holstered pistol was tantalizingly close. Nick considered his opportunity to strike. The soldier would have to uncuff both hands from the table before recuffing them together. As soon as he was free, he could take the gun and make a play for Sung and Zheng. He didn’t have to survive; he just had to get off two clean shots, one for each of their heads.
The young man with the key moved to the other handcuff. Nick’s arm twitched. The other soldiers in the room crowded closer, raising their weapons and separating him from Zheng.
“I know exactly what you are thinking, Mr. Baron,” said Zheng. “Don’t try it. Your efforts will be wasted.”
Soon the soldier had cuffed Nick’s two hands together and pulled him to his feet. The window had passed without an opportunity to strike. Justice would have to wait.
Zheng motioned to his men. “Bring his equipment. We may need it when his aircraft arrives.”
While two of the soldiers scooped up the prisoners’ gear, the others pushed them out into a well-lit hallway. “You now belong to me, Mr. Baron,” said Zheng. “Your family is dead. Your unit has surely abandoned you, certain that you dutifully activated your suicide device. Like Mr. Novak, you are now a ghost, the shadow of a warrior that once fought your country’s hidden battles, nothing more.”
Nick looked down at his body. His captors still hadn’t given him back his clothes. The Chinese doctors had made a passing effort to dress his wounds. The damage seemed superficial. He could not see any excessive bleeding or severed muscle tissue. He glanced up at Novak, stumbling down the hallway ahead of him, roughly propelled by his Chinese escorts, emaciated, broken. Novak looked like the shadow that Zheng described. Nick vowed that he would not live long enough to become one himself.
After a turn down another hallway and a trip down a broad flight of stairs, the soldiers pushed Nick and Novak through a set of glass doors, out onto a wide tarmac. Steady rain fell from dark clouds. The heavy drops sent tiny explosions of spray up from the pavement. After the cold interior of the building, the warm afternoon air mixed with the cool splash of the rain felt good against Nick’s bare skin. He felt his strength returning.
The tarmac was joined to a commercial-sized runway through a complex of paved taxiways, separated by green turf. Toward the middle of the wide paved area, a gaggle of soldiers stood around tables under a temporary pavilion. One end was still attached to a flatbed truck.
Zheng led the group toward the pavilion. “You should feel honored,” he said as Sung handed him an open umbrella. “Of all the many prisoners in China, you and Mr. Novak alone will enjoy my occasional visits, even after I take my place as defense minister, even after I become president. The two of you have made my vision possible, and I will not forget it.”
When they reached the cover of the pavilion, Nick watched the soldier who carried his tactical harness set it down on the bed of the truck. He noticed that the young man had grabbed Novak’s vest as well. “If we’re destined for a life in prison, then why don’t you just send us to our cells instead of dragging us around in the rain?”
Zheng shook out his umbrella and handed it back to Sung. “Ah, there are a couple of reasons. The first is arriving as we speak.” He stretched out his hand and gestured to a gate at the northwest corner of the tarmac. Two soldiers pulled back the chain-link sections so that another flatbed rig could drive through. A dark green tarp covered the large object that it carried on its bed.
Shadow Catcher.
The truck pulled through the gate, turned toward the runway, and then parked, still more than a hundred feet away.
“I could hack into its structure like a barbarian,” said Zheng, “but I would rather have you open it for me, give me a tour of its secrets, if you will.”
“Good luck with that.”
“We shall see. More important, though, I want to make sure that you understand the totality of your failure.”
“I get it. You got my stealth jet. Let’s get on with this.”
Zheng wagged a thick finger at Nick. “Oh no, Mr. Baron, you do not fully understand.” He held ou
t an open palm, and Sung handed him a hardened tablet computer with a fat communications antenna attached to the side. Zheng rotated the antenna up and tapped the touch screen. He paused a moment, satisfied with what he saw, and then barked a few orders in Mandarin at three of the soldiers. They responded with sharp salutes and then jogged over to a white pickup and started driving toward the runway.
“You see, Mr. Baron, not only have I captured your small stealth transport, I have also managed to capture your new attack plane, the Wraith.”
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “You’re out of your mind.”
Zheng chuckled. “I captured your loved ones. Did you think that I would stop there? No, I captured your partner Major Merigold’s woman as well.” He waved the tablet computer in the air triumphantly. “I have severed your command center’s communications with the plane. Only I can communicate with your pilot now. On my orders, he will descend through those clouds and land my prize on that runway. Or else I will kill his woman too.” He moved closer to Nick, grinning up at him with mock enthusiasm. The choking stench of rotting garlic filled his nostrils. “Exciting, isn’t it?”
Nick lurched forward. The soldiers on either side of him managed to grab his arms and jerk him back, but the movement surprised Zheng. He stumbled backward, almost falling on his rear. Sung grabbed his shoulders to steady him, but Zheng shook him off and marched back up to Nick. This time his eyes flared with malice. “You should know that my agent will kill her anyway, just like your family.”
Nick strained against the men who held him. “Who?” he demanded. “Who is your agent?”
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll give you his present alias,” said Zheng. “Let’s call him by his nickname, Hei Ying. He is a most valuable contact who was passed to me by my mentor.” He turned toward Novak. “Out of all of us here, only Mr. Novak knew him by his real name, a name that has long been forgotten.”
Life flashed into Novak’s dead eyes. He raised his head. “What?” he asked in a barely audible voice.
“Ah, Hong Mo, you are not entirely dead after all,” said Zheng. “Yes, my old friend. You are quite familiar with Hei Ying, but you knew him as—”
“Starek,” interrupted Nick. “Jozef Starek.”
Zheng jerked his head toward Nick. His face showed genuine surprise, but his features quickly smoothed back into a gloating smile. “Very good, Mr. Baron, your intelligence team has clearly done its work. I will have to advise Hei Ying that he has been most careless.”
“Novak mentioned that he’d seen Starek in one of your prisons,” said Nick darkly. “He couldn’t have been there as a prisoner. He oversaw the investigation of Novak’s incident and helped shut down operations in Taiwan. He was the mole.”
“Jozef?” asked Novak slowly.
“Don’t look so surprised,” said Zheng. “Who else do you think sabotaged your operations in Poland? Back then, he worked for the KGB. They handed Starek to my mentor when the CIA moved to Taiwan.” He patted Novak on the arm. “Poor Mr. Novak. I do sympathize with your sorrow. When I first heard of you, I took great interest in you as an asset simply because you were such a tragic figure: your most trusted friend betrayed you”—Zheng stepped directly in front of Novak—“and you lost your love, Anja.”
Novak squared his slumped shoulders. His voice grew stronger. “What did you do to her?”
“Me? Nothing, of course. I only came into this a little over a decade ago. In fact, she is alive and well. I only meant that the irony of your situation is truly delicious. After your untimely death, she married Starek.”
Novak strained against the soldiers holding him. He let out a scream of rage.
As Zheng turned away with a grotesque, gleeful smile, Nick saw a change in Novak’s emaciated form. He saw new energy. He saw a new will to live.
The tablet computer beeped. “Here he comes now, gentlemen,” said Zheng, checking the screen. He rattled out a few sentences in Mandarin, and all eyes turned toward the north end of the runway.
At first Nick saw nothing through the rain. Then a dark shape appeared, cutting through the feathery swirls of vapor below the clouds. There was no sound, only the ominous sight of a huge black beast gliding down into the green valley.
“Wulóng,” said Sung in an awed voice, “the real Black Dragon, the messenger of death.”
“No,” replied Zheng, “for us, it is the Golden Dragon, the messenger of our prosperity.”
Nick squinted at the black triangle. Something seemed amiss. Its angle looked too high for an aircraft on a glide path for landing. It was also coming in too hot. Then he saw a gray mist forming on its underbelly. A grim smile spread across his lips. “Minister Zheng, I think you should have listened to Colonel Sung.”
CHAPTER 63
Panic broke out among Zheng’s troops when the long black silhouette of a five-thousand-pound bomb dropped out of the Wraith’s weapons bay. Some shouted in rapid Mandarin. Others ran for the cover of the factory. Zheng stood frozen in utter shock.
Nick stared as well, trying to gauge the bomb’s speed and trajectory, trying to see where and when it was going to hit. He quickly guessed at a time to impact.
Seven . . .
Movement at the flatbed trailer holding Shadow Catcher caught his eye. A solitary individual rolled out from under the vehicle and popped up to one knee. Quinn.
The soldiers to Nick’s left and right gaped up at the sky, their hold on him loosened by the sight of the unthinkable.
Six . . .
Adrenaline pumped through Nick’s system, heightening his senses. He could hear the whisper of the bomb, every syllable shouted by the soldiers, the slap of their boots on the wet pavement. He sidestepped to his left, yanking his arm away from the man to his right. Then he grabbed the other soldier by the vest with both hands and threw him over his hip, slamming him to the ground. He turned toward Novak, knowing that the man behind him was reaching for his weapon, acting on faith that he would never get the chance to use it.
Five . . .
The commotion roused Zheng. He screamed orders at his men. Nick ignored him. He sprinted toward Novak. Water splashed up in a rooster tail behind him from the impacts of his bare feet.
Four . . .
Bewildered soldiers lifted their guns to stop the crazed American, but as each one reached for his trigger, he fell. Nick could hear the whistle of the bullets as they cut through the rain, the dull thud as each one struck its target with perfect precision.
Three . . .
The soldiers on either side of Novak released their grasp on his arms and lifted their rifles at the same time. One dropped from Quinn’s bullet before the stock of his weapon ever made it to his shoulder. The other continued to take aim, and Nick realized that Quinn did not have a clean shot around the prisoner. He bore down. He had to reach the man before he could fire, but he knew that to be impossible. Then his eyes met Novak’s.
Two . . .
Instead of the unfocused stare of a despondent prisoner, Nick found a look of recognition, determination. Novak clasped his bound hands together and brought them down hard on the rifle. Flame spouted from the barrel. The bullets flew wild, kicking up fountains of sparks and water from the pavement. Then Novak swung his hands up under the soldier’s chin, knocking him off his feet.
One . . .
Without breaking stride, Nick lowered his shoulder and thrust his body upward, catching Novak in the gut and lifting him off his feet. Together, they tumbled over the side of the truck.
Zero . . .
The impact was deafening. Nick hit the pavement on top of Novak behind the shelter of the heavy tires, trying to cover him with his body. He closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands, but the orange-red glow of the flash still penetrated his vision. Intense heat washed over him. The thirty-ton truck groaned and shuddered. For a moment, he feared that it might tip over and crush them. Then, wi
th the echo of the explosion still rolling across the valley, it was over.
As the echo died, Nick struggled up to a crouch. He looked down at his fist and unfolded his fingers. In his palm, he held the key that he’d ripped from the soldier’s vest when he threw him over his hip. He quickly unlocked his handcuffs and then did the same for Novak.
“Oh, the ringing,” complained Novak, blinking and shaking his head.
“It’ll stop soon,” said Nick. “Are you okay?”
Novak looked up at him with perfect clarity and gave a pained smile. “I’ll live,” he said.
“That you will, my friend,” said Nick, smiling back. He placed a hand on Novak’s chest. “Stay down.”
Nick cautiously peered over the bed of the truck. The shower had intensified into a downpour, as if the explosion had ruptured the clouds overhead. Through the sheets of rain, he saw that the bomb had struck an auxiliary building on the far side of the factory, reducing it to a blazing pile of twisted, melting steel, sizzling and popping in the rain. The blast had also collapsed the northeast corner of the factory itself, exposing cracked ivory walls and overturned desks. The rubble burned despite the rain. “You gotta love thermite,” said Nick under his breath.
The shock wave had fractured the fiberglass shelter, contorting it so that one leg jutted out to the side and the other threatened to buckle and bring it crashing down. None of the remaining soldiers had kept their feet. Some lay dead; others writhed on the ground in pain. Nick saw Sung, dragging an unconscious Zheng off the tarmac. He started after them, but then he heard Quinn shouting.
“Come on!”
He looked over his shoulder at the pararescueman, who had set about removing the tarp that covered Shadow Catcher. Quinn beckoned to him. “We’ve got to go!” he shouted.
Nick turned back toward the factory, squinting through the water pouring into his eyes. He caught a blurry vision of Sung pulling Zheng through the shattered frame of the glass doors. Then they disappeared.
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