“She’s at the abandoned stone quarry north of Tai Lam Chung Reservoir,” Tiger said. “Now let me out of here.”
Krakouer aimed and put a bullet between Tiger’s eyes. The shot blew the back of his head off. A mess of blood and brains sprayed across the floor. The women screamed. He holstered his piece and returned topside. The stolen Nissan refused to start. The engine block was shot full of holes. Krakouer cursed and set off on foot.
54
Matthew Burke sat with one elbow propped on his desk and his forehead cradled in his hand. The other hand held the phone to his ear. An early morning cable had forced him out of the house without breakfast. He had three ops unfolding at the same time; his phone rang incessantly, and the D/O was demanding hourly updates. Through the glass wall of his office, he could see a clock hanging over the cubicles. It told him he had missed lunch as well. His stomach let him know about this appalling interruption in the regular schedule with a series of temper tantrums. He considered sending Dana to the vending machine in the hall for a dry turkey sandwich wrapped in cellophane. It was a sign of just how hungry he was that week-old turkey sounded appetizing.
“That is unfortunate,” Burke said into the receiver. “Yes… Yes… I understand… It’s not a perfect world.”
The man on the other end hung up.
“Always nice talking to you,” Burke said to the dead line and put the receiver on the cradle. He snapped his fingers at Dana.
She also had a phone to her ear. She wore her blonde hair up today, and her breasts strained the material of her white blouse. “Hang on,” she said into the phone. She took the receiver away from her ear. “What’s up?”
Burke started to relay his request for a turkey sandwich from the machine, but the secure line on his phone lit up. The digital readout showed Noble’s latest burner number. He snatched the receiver up. “Tell me what I want to hear.”
“Disco is making a comeback.”
“That’s funny,” Burke said. “You should take that act on the road. Have you got the girl?”
“No, but I’ve got Eric Tsang’s little brother and a boat load of cargo all wrapped in a shiny bow. Some of the cargo is going to need medical treatment. I’m sure the Hong Kong police would like to get the credit for this one. Have you got anyone you trust?”
“I’ve got a guy inside the HK police department. He’ll make sure the right people get assigned to the case,” Burke said.
“Send them to Stonecutters Island,” Noble said. “Search the red and gray freighter on the east dock.”
Burke scribbled the directions on a yellow legal pad. “That’s good work. And don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but where are we on the girl?”
“I am on my way to pick her up right now.”
Something in his voice made the small hairs on the back of Burke’s neck stand on end. “You okay?”
“A double ought shotgun pellet bounced off a bulkhead and now it’s stuck in my back,” Noble told him. “The pain is setting in.”
The news left a sinking feeling in Burke’s gut. The boys who made it into SOG were tough, the best in the business, but pain would eventually sabotage even the toughest operator. The Green Berets were often called Silent Professionals. They went about their job without all the gung-ho grandstanding of other Special Forces units. They didn’t complain, and they didn’t expect any thanks at the end of the day. The fact that Noble had even bothered to mention it meant the pain was getting to him.
“How bad?” Burke asked. “Can you finish the job?”
“Don’t worry about me. There is something you need to know; Bati is the illegitimate love child of Bakonawa Ramos and Lady Shiva.”
Burke sat up straight in his chair. “When were you going to read me in on this?”
“I’m reading you in on it now,” Noble said. “But if this goes sideways, I want you to know where to start digging.”
Burke let out a low whistle. “If that got out, it would end his career.”
“That’s the tip of the proverbial iceberg,” Noble said. “His personal bodyguard, guy by the name of Krakouer, has tried to kill me twice. When this is over, we need to have a long chat with our friend, Mr. Ramos. Can you keep him from leaving the country?”
“Easier said than done. He has diplomatic immunity.” Burke leaned back in his chair and stacked his feet on the desk. “I’ll dig into Ramos. Your first priority is Bati. That girl has to be running out of insulin soon if she hasn’t already.”
“Agreed,” Noble said. “What about that other thing I asked you to look up?”
Burke tabbed through open files on his computer screen until he found the right one. “Samantha Gunn. Age twenty-four. Born in San Diego, California. Father is a US citizen. Mother is from Hong Kong. Ms. Gunn has dual citizenship. She was on the women’s rowing team in college, and according to her social media, she likes to ice skate. She graduated Yale. Moved to Manila. Works at the shelter run by Bati Ramos. No red flags. I don’t suppose you are going to tell me why you wanted info on the BFF?”
“Later,” Noble said and hung up.
Burke put the phone down. These waters kept getting murkier. Ramos had been feeding the company dirt on human-trafficking rings for nearly a decade. He had been their white knight. Finding out he had a dark past was bad enough; finding out he had sent a hitter to eliminate one of Burke’s operators was unforgivable. If it was true, Ramos would pay, diplomatic immunity be damned.
His stomach issued another long, agonizing plea for food. He got up with the intention of going down the hall and purchasing one of those god-awful shrink-wrapped turkey sandwiches, maybe even two, but didn’t make it to the door of his office before the phone rang.
55
Noble dropped the cell phone into one of the cup holders. The movement made his shoulder ache. Sitting with his back against the seat made it worse, so he drove like an eighty-year-old man, hunched over the steering wheel with pain etched in the lines of his face. He had endured worse, but the years and the mileage were catching up. He must have looked a mess, because Sam sat in the passenger seat watching him like he might flat line at any moment.
“I’ll be all right as soon as we get this shotgun pellet out of my back,” he told her.
“Shouldn’t we get you to a hospital?”
He shook his head. “Hospital staff is required to call the police when they get a patient with a GSW. They would ask questions we can’t answer. Not yet anyway.”
“Where are we going?” Sam asked. “We’ve been around this block four times already.”
Noble pointed at a medical clinic on the corner. It was closed for the night and would have all the supplies he needed. He had been circling the neighborhood, piecing together a plan while talking to Burke on the phone. He checked his wristwatch. It was almost two in the morning. Most of the residents in this neighborhood were in bed, trying to catch a few hours’ sleep before another day of work. The only people roaming the streets at this time of night were drunks staggering home. Noble had spotted a pair of them on his second lap around the clinic. Other than that, the block was deserted. He parked at the curb across the street and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Are we robbing a medical clinic?”
Noble nodded. “The list of supplies we need is relatively simple, but they have a security system.”
“Can’t you override it?”
“I was asleep that day in spy class.”
She gave him a flat stare.
“We’ll go in, get what we need, and get out before the cops show up,” he said. “Average response time in Kowloon is seven minutes, unless there happens to be a cruiser in the area. That gives us four minutes to grab what we need and then collapse back on the vehicle, understood?”
Sam gathered her hair up in a ponytail, nodding. “What’s on my shopping list?”
“Sterile bandages, as much gauze as you can carry, and hydrogen peroxide.”
“And how are we going to get insid
e?”
Noble put his shoes and socks back on and then popped the trunk. The back hood unlatched with a soft thump. Sam met him at the rear of the vehicle. He raised the bullet-scarred trunk and hauled out the small tire iron that came standard with all mid-size sedans. It was less than useless for changing tires, but great for breaking windows.
He crossed the street with Sam close at his heels. She walked with her fists clenched like a boxer climbing into the ring.
One swing was all it took. The picture window rained down with a musical jingle on the linoleum floor. An alarm bell rang from deep inside the clinic. Noble used the tire iron to knock the jagged shards out of the frame. He swung one leg then the other over the waist-high sill.
Enough light filtered in from the street to navigate the small reception area. There were a half-dozen plastic chairs and an end table piled with old magazines. The door to the examination rooms was locked, but there was a pass through window for the secretary. Noble helped Sam climb through, and she opened the door from the inside.
Beyond the reception area, the only light came from red emergency exit signs. The alarm bell went on wailing. Noble rummaged through drawers for a pair of tongs, surgical tape, and a scalpel. With any luck he wouldn’t need the scalpel but better safe than sorry. He collected everything he needed and stepped back into the hall that connected the examination rooms. Sam emerged a moment later from a door farther down with an armload of bandages and two bottles of hydrogen peroxide. The smash-and-grab had lasted less than three minutes.
They hurried back out to the rental car and dumped the supplies in the back seat. Noble climbed behind the wheel. They were six blocks away before the first police cruiser arrived at the clinic.
...
“Ouch! Christ! What are you doing back there?” Noble complained.
Sam paused long enough to slap the uninjured side of his back with an open palm. “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain!”
They had parked on the side of the highway. Working under the light of the interior dome, Sam was attempting to dig the shotgun pellet from his shoulder with surgical tongs. Noble sat with his back to her, looking out the driver’s side window. He had both hands clenched together in his lap. Perspiration beaded on his bare skin. He could have taken painkillers, but they would slow him down, mentally and physically. For the next few hours, he needed to be sharp, so he let Sam poke around under his skin without the benefit of drugs.
Every nerve ending in his body went bright red at her slap. He drew a sharp breath. His arms and legs trembled. He mopped sweat from his face with one hand. “Just like my mother.”
“I thought you were supposed to be all stoic despite the pain.”
“In the movies maybe. In real life, getting a bullet pulled out hurts like hell.”
“Well,” she said while she worked. “I think I’ve got it.”
The pain amped up to ten. It was everything Noble could do to keep from screaming. He clamped his teeth together and clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. He bottled up all that hurt and turned it to anger. When the time came, he would pour it out on Eric Tsang and his hired guns.
“I got it,” Sam said.
She had removed a metal ball slightly bigger than a child’s BB from his back. Hard to believe something so small could cause so much pain. But the smallest things usually hurt the worst. Like going home every day to an empty house. Sam held the blood-covered pellet up in victory. It slipped from the tongs and got lost between the seats.
“Sorry,” she said. “Did you want that for a souvenir?”
“Disinfect the wound, and slap on a bandage,” Noble told her.
She twisted the cap off the hydrogen peroxide and poured half of the bottle over the hole in his back. Noble pounded the door panel with his fist. Sam ripped open a bandage, placed it over the wound, and affixed it with medical tape. When she finished, Noble draped himself over the steering wheel, closed his eyes, and waited for the burning to subside.
Sam scooped the cell phone out of the cup holder. “You’ve been shot. You’ve lost blood, and you don’t look so good. Maybe it’s time to call the police?”
Noble opened his eyes to glare at her.
“We could tell them to send a swat team.”
He snatched the phone out of her hand. “We aren’t calling the cops.”
“Is it so important that you be the one to save Bati?”
“Yes!” Noble gripped the wheel with his left hand and spoke through clenched teeth. “My mother needs another round of chemotherapy. Are you going to pay for it?”
She laid a hand on his forearm. “Okay. Calm down.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “I need that money, understand?”
“And what happens if you get killed?” Sam asked.
“Burke will make sure she is taken care of.”
She took his hand in both of hers and brought it to her lips. “I was thinking a little closer to home. What happens to Bati? What happens to me?”
The pain and fatigue was catching up with him. He wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep for a very long time. “You want to call the police, go ahead. By the time they fart around trying to negotiate for her release, Bati will be dead. Like it or not; we’re the best chance she has. Now, are you in or out?”
“You know I’m in.”
He moved his arm through a few slow rotations and winced. It hurt like hell, but he could still fight. He took his shirt from the floorboard—damn if it didn’t smell like coffee—and Sam helped thread his wounded arm through the sleeve. He used his phone to pull up Hong Kong on Google earth and zoomed in on the quarry. The satellite photos were recent enough to show the dig, but Noble wouldn’t know how accurate it was until he laid eyes on the site. He panned around and found an old logging road that ran north of the quarry. He could use it to approach from the back. He started the car and put it in drive.
The race was on. They had wasted time breaking into the clinic and pulling out the shotgun pellet. Krakouer would have used that same time to locate another vehicle. He could be in back of them or in front. Noble would have to be ready for anything.
56
Eric Tsang stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of his high-rise office, a tumbler of fifty-year-old Glenn Fiddich in one hand, gazing across Victoria Harbor at the lights of Hong Kong. The hour hand on his gold Rolex was inching toward three o’clock. He should be sleeping, but the glittering jewel of the city beckoned to him. He loosened his tie, opened the top button on his shirt, and kicked off his shoes. He was waiting for the phone to ring. It wouldn’t be long now. Ramos might be a criminal and a career conman, but he loved his daughter. As a father, Eric knew no price was too high for the safe return of daddy’s little girl.
With his closest competitor out of business, Tsang could expand into the Philippines and from there into the Middle East. He would pipeline American girls into Saudi Arabia and Asian girls into Tampa, Florida. Arabs liked white meat, and Americans liked dark. Eric would make everyone happy. Business was good.
He gulped the last finger of Glenn Fiddich. It burned down his throat and into his stomach. On his way to the wet bar for a second, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He put down the glass tumbler and brought out the cell. Instead of Ramos’s number, it was Lieutenant Chung of the Hong Kong police department.
Fear tickled the base of his skull. He put the phone to his ear. “It’s late, Lieutenant. It must be important.”
“I’m sorry about the hour, Mr. Tsang,” Chung said. There was a brief pause. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”
“I’m listening.”
“We found your brother shot dead in a cargo ship on Stonecutters Island less than an hour ago.”
A sharp pang of hurt and guilt formed in Eric’s chest. He never should have left him in charge of the shipment. Tiger was careless. Eric sat down on the leather sofa and put his head in his hand. How would he explain this to their mother?
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“Are you sure it’s Tiger?”
“They have a positive ID,” Chung said. “Uniforms found four dead bodies and a hold full of kidnapped girls. I wanted you to hear it from me first, before…”
“Before what?”
“He’s your brother. By morning, investigators will be crawling all over your personal life.”
“What do I pay you for?” Eric said.
“I’m not in charge of the case,” Chung said. “Even if I was, I can’t cover up a boat load of dead bodies and sex slaves.”
Eric closed his eyes, leaned back in the sofa, and took a deep breath. “Who is in charge?”
“Captain Wong.”
Eric rubbed his chin and exhaled. Captain Wong had been trying to dig up dirt on Eric for years. He was a crusader and refused to be bought off. What had happened on the ship? Was it the police? Ramos? Another Triad gang? Eric felt the first hint of panic clawing at his sense of calm.
“Is the boat in your name?” Chung asked.
“A shell company,” Tsang told him.
“I’d distance yourself from that company as quickly as possible.”
“I don’t need legal advice. I’ve got lawyers for that.”
“Perhaps you should be talking to them,” Chung said.
Eric pressed the disconnect button. This was a complete disaster. Chung was right. He needed to be talking to his lawyers, working on damage control, but he needed to make another phone call first.
Worse than the prospect of having to tell his mother that her youngest son was dead, was the prospect that Tiger might have talked before he took a bullet.
Eric dialed Henries and waited entirely too long for the mercenary to pick up.
“Mr. Tsang. Bit late isn’t it?”
“Your location is compromised,” Eric told him. “Kill the girl. Get rid of the body. Make sure there is no evidence.”
Noble Man Page 20