“Davidson better be on it,” Lopez said as he drove.
A loud thunk shook the SUV. “If you mean on the roof, then I think he is,” Rebecca said.
They broke out of the jungle into a clearing, with the Disciples coming straight at them. Somehow, riding on the roof, bouncing like a rubber ball, Davidson still managed to take out the lead vehicle’s tire. The car careened as the driver lost control. The second vehicle, unable to slow in time, slammed into the rear of the first car.
Two vehicles down with one shot.
Brandt was having a bit of a bromance with Davidson at the moment. If he weren’t straight and married, Brandt would have been the first one in line to lay a lip-lock on the kid. As they turned sharply to the left, Brandt and Prenner added their weapons to the fray, firing at the last remaining pursuit vehicle.
Somehow, through it all, Davidson managed to climb in the side window.
“Sorry,” he said.
“For what?” Rebecca asked.
“Not taking out the third car,” he responded, completely straight faced.
“Yeah, you’re such a slacker,” Lopez said, gunning the engine.
“Take a sharp right, “ Bunny said. The five minutes must have been up. Lopez complied, streaking them through the green foliage. “There is going to be a slight decline…”
Slight? They were going practically straight downhill. “You do have topography, right?” Brandt asked as they hurled down the mountainside.
They would be lucky if they didn’t pitch over end over end.
Then they were at the bottom of the mountain, to find an actual paved road. Brandt looked through the back window. The pursuit car was still at the top of the hill. Either they were too smart, or they valued their life too much to follow Lopez’s performance.
“Well, that was invigorating,” Lopez said, putting the pedal to the metal, racing them off to the Bangkok airport.
CHAPTER 3
══════════════════
Rebecca sat in the back of the SUV as it made its way through the clogged streets of Bangkok. The storm had finally let up. However, evidence of its passing was everywhere. The streets were still slick with rain, and the water flowed down the drains like tiny waterfalls.
The denizens took it all in stride, though. These were a people used to monsoons and such. A little storm didn’t stop them from living their lives. The streets were lined with small stalls selling everything imaginable. From sweet meats to handcrafted baskets, you could get anything you wanted. Mothers swatted at sons who played behind them. The children had a stick and a ball—although it appeared they used the stick to hit their siblings more than the ball.
Boys.
Then there was a woman weaving a scarf right in front of them. While the city burst with life, there was also a pall, a sense of desperation. Just glancing down any of the dark alleys confirmed the city’s underbelly.
Rebecca looked to her phone. She’d just spoken with Bunny at length about the Disciples’ connection to Bangkok. The question was, did Brandt want to hear about it?
Lopez stopped at an intersection. “To the airport, right?”
“Well…” Rebecca said, before Brandt could give the order.
“No wells,” Brandt said, shaking his head. “We’ve got Levont. We’re not going to any church, synagogue or temple. No museum or art gallery. We are getting out of Thailand. Period.”
Brandt was so cute when he was laying down the law. Rebecca shrugged. “I just thought you might want to break up a human trafficking ring. My bad.”
Her husband turned around in his seat. “What are you talking about?”
“Bunny, why don’t you do the honors?”
“Actually, it was Stark and his mom who figured this out.”
“Figured what out?” Davidson asked.
* * *
“First off, they followed the money, so to speak,” Bunny answered, and patted Stark on the shoulder. “The Disciples have such an elaborate organization—how are they paying for it? The Knot had ancient wealth, but the Disciples don’t seem to be funded that way.”
Stark took over. “We think they make their money a much more modern way, in human trafficking. It is lucrative, if you don’t mind the whole business of buying and selling other people, but given their morals, it doesn’t feel like a stretch.”
“So Bangkok was already on our radar,” Bunny stated. “Since it is the Asian hub of modern-day slavery.”
“Then we monitored communications in and out of the temple during the rescue operation, and voilà, the calls traced back to a downtown Bangkok building,” Stark finished.
“You have an address for the Disciples?” Brandt pressed.
“Yes, in fact, we do,” Bunny stated. “Whether it is their central operation or just an outpost, this is the best intel we’ve had on them… ever.”
Silence came from the other end. Then Lopez asked, “Well?”
“Take the left,” Brandt said. “But we are stashing Levont and Rebecca before we head out.”
* * *
“You are going to do what?” Rebecca asked. His wife held up her hand to stop him from interrupting. “What? It’s okay for me to get nearly blasted off a mountain, impaled on a tree, but I can’t do a simple recon at an office building?”
Brandt sighed. This is not how he wanted the conversation to go. He took in a deep breath. “The temple was different. We needed you to interpret symbols if we found any. And there is nothing ever simple about Bangkok.”
He knew from experience. They all knew from experience. He wanted to get out of this city as quickly as possible, but he couldn’t ignore their best chance to discover something tangible about the Disciples. Still that didn’t mean it was okay to put Rebecca in harm’s way.
“Rebecca…”
“Don’t Rebecca me,” she shot back. “And don’t give me that, ‘I’m not ready for combat,’ or that ‘I endanger the team because you have to protect me’ crap. I will refer you to… oh, Turkey, Jordan, or I don’t know, Israel.”
“She does have a point,” Lopez interjected.
No, the real problem was that she didn’t answer to the chain of command, and, therefore, could argue like this. He turned to Levont.
“I am not going to have to argue with you, too?”
“Whatever Lopez gave me made it all good. Stay? Go? Either way, I am good.”
“Bunny, do we have a plan of attack?” Brandt asked, realizing that arguing with Rebecca was going nowhere.
“It looks like they own and operate the entire building.”
“So we just look for the Disciples of Moshe placard and follow the signs to their liar?” Lopez asked with a snort.
“No, we were thinking to go in as repairmen and head to the basement, where their servers are stored,” Bunny snapped back.
“Same diff,” Lopez retorted.
“You will send the specifics?” Brandt asked to stop the snipe-fest going on.
“Absolutely.”
“Happy now?” he asked Rebecca.
She shrugged “Pretty much.”
* * *
Rebecca remembered that she really should think through what she wished for as Brandt’s elbow dug into her ribs. They were crammed in a maintenance cart being rolled up to the Disciples building.
“Not a word,” Brandt whispered as he elbowed her again.
After the scene she had made? No way, no how could she complain about the cramped quarters. Then he wrapped his arms around her, and the cart didn’t seem all that cramped. She could hear Prenner speaking in fluent Thai to the guards. Good thing most of his career had been in Asia. Lopez had been sent off to secure their next vehicle and Davidson was somewhere high up in an adjoining building to secure their exit.
Hopefully, this should be straightforward, though. Go down into the computer room, download all of the Disciples’ financials, and get the heck out of Dodge before someone noticed them.
Whic
h all sounded great in theory. She was certain that was not how it was going to go down, though. Not with their track record.
The wheels clattered underneath them as they were wheeled across the lobby to the elevators. A chime indicated their car had arrived. After a thunk over the threshold, they were in the elevator. However, they still did not get out of the cart. Stark was pretty sure they had cameras in the elevators. While he could have tried to hack his way in to take over the feed, they all decided that was too risky. Stealth was their friend. Better to just stay hidden until they were in the server room.
They landed in the basement and Prenner rolled them out into the hallway. The wheels bumped over the grooves in the concrete. Gone were the smooth tiles of the lobby. This was an old-school basement. No refinements.
Prenner stopped them and used the keycard the guard had given him. Only once they were inside the server room and the door closed did the point man open the compartment so that they could unfold themselves from the cart.
Rebecca stretched out the kink in her neck as Prenner went over to the main server and plugged in the flash drive. She tuned out Stark’s technical directions to him. Instead, she looked around the room.
It was dank, illuminated only by the flashing lights of the servers. Pipes ran overhead, and the whole room felt damp.
“Not exactly a cold room,” Rebecca noted.
“Get used it,” Brandt said. “It’s Bangkok.”
Still, you would think someone storing expensive servers would have thought this through a little bit better. The vents were rusted, with paint peeling back from the brick walls.
“I’m in,” Prenner stated. “Download started.”
Good. It would only be a few more minutes, and then they would be out again. Barely a pit stop to gather more info than they’d had on the Disciples’ organization in months. Then the lock on the door clunked shut and a hiss filled he room. Rebecca coughed as the air turned bitter.
“Well, at least we know we’re in a Disciple building,” Brandt noted as he went over to the door and started popping the hinges. Rapidly, he got the door open, only to be shot at. “Double confirmation,” he said as he put his shirt over his mouth. “How much longer?” he asked Prenner.
“Three more minutes.”
Brandt looked to Rebecca. They weren’t going to last three minutes. Not as their eyes stung and their lungs complained. Then she had an idea.
“Prenner, cover the server,” she instructed.
The man looked at her funny, but did as he was told.
“Brandt, put a light to the fire sprinkler.” Yes, the building was so old and so poorly equipped that they didn’t have halogen fire suppression in their server room. “The water will knock the gas out of the air.”
“Like smog on a rainy day,” Brandt agreed, and flicked on his lighter, holding it next to the sensor. Within moments, water sputtered, then rained down upon them. The other computers sparked and shorted out, but the gas suddenly wasn’t as pungent or thick. Seconds later, the air tasted as clean and pure as it had before. With maybe just a tinge of mold, but hey, it was Bangkok.
“Good call,” Brandt said. “Extraction plan, Bunny.”
“Lopez said he has a ‘flying apparatus’ ready, so the roof.”
“He does realize that we are in the basement, right?”
“Yes, but the Thai police are surrounding the building, so walking or shooting your way out the front door isn’t going to work.”
“Can’t Stark’s mom take care of that?” Brandt asked.
* * *
Bunny looked over to Stark’s mom, who shook her head. “It’s Thailand, Brandt. Even if we could contact the higher-ups, that doesn’t mean the police on the street aren’t taking bribes.
Prenner’s voice came over the speakers. “She’s right. If we get into any of those police cars, we will never be seen again.”
“Alright, it looks like the roof it is,” Brandt agreed.
Even after all this time, Special Forces’ ability to just change on a dime amazed Bunny. They could shrug off just about anything. Knowing her, she’d still be throwing a tantrum because she couldn’t go out the front door.
“The fire alarm has triggered an evac, so you’ll have plenty of cover,” Stark added.
“Can you shut down the power?” Brandt asked.
“Of course, but that will show our hand,” Stark said.
“Yeah, I think our cover is pretty blown, and I’d rather have them at a disadvantage if I’ve got to run up ten stories.”
“Done,” Stark said.
Onscreen, the building went dark.
“And did you say Lopez had a ‘flying apparatus’?” Brandt asked.
Yeah, Bunny was hoping he didn’t ask about that. “Yes, he didn’t specify much more.”
“Much more?”
“He said, and I quote, ‘It will be Legen—wait for it—dary.’”
“Oh God,” Rebecca groaned in her ear.
“So your guess is as good as mine.”
* * *
Brandt didn’t like having to guess what their escape vehicle might be like. But Lopez hadn’t let them down, so he wasn’t going to sweat it. He was sure it was some kind of prototype helicopter. Maybe a chopper-turned-boat or something.
“Done,” Prenner said, pulling out the jump drive. He hurried over to the door. “Shock and awe?” the point man asked.
Brandt nodded and turned to Rebecca, who was already putting her earplugs in.
“I know, and don’t open my eyes until you tell me,” she said. An old pro at this already. They really should give her an honorary rank.
Prenner cracked open the door and tossed out both a flashbang and a smoke grenade. Bullets zipped into the room, but hit the wall. Prenner was just too fast.
Once the explosions died down, Prenner opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, firing away. Brandt followed, lending his gun to the fray. Rebecca held onto his belt, trailing behind.
The sprinklers were knocking the smoke down, much as they did the knockout gas, but it was enough to disorient the gunmen. By the time they got to the end of the hallway, three attackers were down, and the rest had fled the area. These clearly were not hardcore Disciples. The Disciples always stood and fought. These men must have been hired guns who were not all that fond of giving up their lives so lightly.
All the better.
They made it to the stairwell to find it empty.
“I thought there was an evacuation?” Brandt said, concerned that he’d misheard.
“Mom locked the west stairwell doors to give you free passage,” Stark said.
Brandt was beginning to like Stark’s mom more and more.
“Thanks.”
They took to the stairs, double-timing it. The sooner they got to the roof, the better. He moved Rebecca to between himself and Prenner. Although the gunmen had scattered, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t regroup and follow. Which, as the basement level door opened, was exactly what they had done.
“Stay to the wall,” Brandt instructed Rebecca, then put his rifle over the guard rail and fired. That should keep them a bay for a few minutes.
They only had eight more floors to climb. Make that seven, as they passed the third floor landing. Prenner was a climber, that was for sure. He could see why Svengurd was smitten.
Rebecca, bless her heart, was keeping up. She was flushed and practically panting, but not complaining a bit. They had passed by the fourth floor landing when the sound of a door being broken open came from above them. Those were no evacuees.
Especially not as a grenade came tumbling down the steps. Prenner shot it, exploding the small bomb before it could get much closer. Another grenade came at them, faster this time. Prenner turned his rifle and hit the thing like a baseball, knocking it into the open space of the stairwell, where if fell several flights, exploding at the level of their pursuers.
How convenient.
The men above must have realized that grena
des weren’t a whole lot of use. That’s when the firefight started.
Brandt groaned. This was going to be a stair-by-stair fight, gutting it out for every step until they could take the landing above them.
“May I take radical action?” Prenner asked, above the shout of gunshots.
“If it gets us out of this, yes,” Brandt agreed.
Prenner took a wad of C-4, balled it up, stuck a detonator in it, and then reared back like a major league pitcher and threw the thing up the stairs to the landing above. The guy must have played baseball, because it landed and stuck to the wall right in the strike zone. The point man put his finger over the red button and pushed it.
The wall exploded above them, knocking the enemy down. One fell over the railing, screaming all the way down until he hit the floor, silencing him completely.
If that didn’t say to the enemy “don’t fuck with us,” nothing else would. The door on the level above opened and footsteps ran from the landing. Glad the hired guns got the message loud and clear.
They made their way up to the next floor. Brandt jerked open the door to find the gunmen fleeing. He didn’t take the shot. They were probably just ordinary guys looking for security work at an office building. They hadn’t signed on for the religious war the Disciples had started.
* * *
Rebecca’s lungs screamed their complaint, but she didn’t slow. They were so close to being out of here. They were on the ninth floor, and they just had one more floor to go. Then the building groaned in a way that a building should never groan. It felt pained, as if the building was injured.
“Oh shit,” Stark said in her ear.
“Oh shit, what?” Brandt demanded.
Bunny jumped in, “It looks like they have a self-destruct fail-safe. They just blew the four corners of the building’s foundation.”
Rebecca put her hand on the railing as the building listed to the right. She would have gone over it if it hadn’t been for Brandt’s hold on her. Then they were going down.
“Climb!” Brandt yelled.
The walls swayed in front of them as the guardrail snapped in half. They raced up the stairwell while it was still a stairwell.
“Lopez better be there,” Brandt rumbled.
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