Liam shifted the drone and tapped the camera’s zoom to focus on the faces. Vessler squinted at the screen. “I recognize the two on the left. And the guy on the right doing the talking is Meng-hau Cheng, the Triad’s senior enforcer.”
A car pulled up in front of the restaurant and four men got out. “That’s Hong.” Vessler pointed to one of the men getting out of the car.
Tanner clipped a tactical flashlight into place on his belt while eyeing the screen. “Good work, Liam. Bring back the Ghost. Let’s get moving.”
“Could you hold off for five minutes?” Vessler asked.
Tanner glanced at her. “Why?”
“Me and Choi will cover the front door, in case Hong gets away from you.”
“I don’t know—”
“We can also tie up the thugs guarding the door.”
“All right, you have five minutes.”
#
12:05pm
Sangwi (Senior Lieutenant) Kim Won-shik watched the Black Dao leaders quietly talk among themselves. An air of unease hung in the second-floor conference room, the triple blow of three Triad businesses being violently shut down had struck deep, shaking Hong and his lieutenants’ confidence.
Kim stood in a corner, watching the discussions with an impassive face. Inside, he had nothing but contempt for these men, parasites on the backs of the bloated American carcass. If he had his way, he would have just killed all of them. But he was a soldier and his orders were to observe and report.
He felt the phone in his pocket vibrate. He took it out, looked at the number and accepted the call. “Yes?”
“How is it going?” Rhee asked in Korean.
“Not well. They are scared.”
“They are weak.”
“They have suffered losses.”
“I know why. The enemy is trying to drive a wedge between us and the Triad, to force them into breaking our alliance.”
“What do we do?”
“It has already been taken care of. Check the news.”
A man hurried into the room, went to Meng-hau Cheng and whispered into his ear. The senior Red Pole’s shocked expression put Kim on alert. Cheng shot to his feet and hurried around the table to a television in the corner of the room. He turned it on in time to see an aerial shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. A huge black cloud of smoke rose from the road bed and a massive fire blanketed the entire width of the span. Underneath the video, a running banner in big yellow letters read, “Terrorists Attack San Francisco.”
“I see what you mean,” Kim said to his commander. He wanted to smile, but kept his expression neutral. “My orders?”
“Stay there. The Americans might decide to come after Hong to get to me. If you cannot keep him out of American hands, kill him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep me informed.”
“I will.” Kim disconnected the call and returned the phone to his coat pocket.
“Who was that?” Kim glanced up and saw Kuang Lieh glaring at him.
“My commander, asking for an update.”
“Did you do that?” Lieh snarled, pointing at the TV screen, which had switched to a shot of San Francisco Bay.
“The major thought it was time to show the Americans the weakness of their society.”
“Are you insane?” Lieh stood and took a step toward Kim. “The U.S. government will fall on us like a ton of bricks!”
“The Americans are stupid. They will concentrate all their law enforcement resources and efforts on the attacks instead of tracking down the Red Ice distribution network.”
“I don’t care—”
An explosion shook the building. While the rest of the men in the room stood still, Kim spun and ran toward the door. As he reached it, a series of sharp cracks came from outside. He spun back toward the Triad leaders. “Gunfire. We’re under attack!”
#
Tanner dropped through the hole made by the breeching charge, flexing his knees to absorb the shock of the ten-foot drop. He was in a hallway, stairs going down to his left, with a wall to his right. A haze of smoke and dust hung in the air and the only light was from the hole above.
An Asian male wearing only pants and an undershirt appeared out of a room in front of Tanner. His eyes widened as he saw the intruder, and he snap-fired the MAC-10 in his hand. The burst went high, shredding the wall above and behind Tanner. Before the 49 could adjust his aim, Tanner’s return burst knocked him down in a bloody heap.
Naomi dropped in next to him. “Cover the stairs,” Tanner told her. The lithe African-American nodded and dropped to one knee, the muzzle of her Commando pointed down the stairs.
There were four doors along the hall, and only one was open, the one with the dead Triad thug lying in front of it. Opening each door carefully, Tanner found the first two rooms empty but for a couple of cots and an old chair in each one. The third room, the one the dead 49 had stepped out of, was the same as the first two, except for some clothing and a tray of empty plates and cups.
He moved onto the last room. As his hand closed on the door knob and began turning, the door was suddenly and viciously shredded by a wave of bullets fired from the other side. Standing against the wall, the OUTCAST founder yanked his hand away from the door. The gunfire stopped, and he heard loud cursing in Chinese.
Tanner stepped away from the wall and slammed his boot into the half-destroyed door. Pieces of wood went flying as the door sprang open with violent force. He quartered the room with his Commando until he saw the occupant, a skinny Chinese man with tattoos up and down his arms, frantically trying to change magazines on a mini-Uzi. Tanner fired, the 5.56mm burst knocking the 49 into the wall. The now dead gunman slid down, leaving a bloody smear on the wall.
After making sure the rest of the room was clear, they jogged back toward the stairs. “Prime to Two,” Tanner said into his radio. “Status?”
#
“Prime to Two. Status?”
Liam grimaced as another volley of gunfire ripped into the roof’s overhang. He and Stephen were still stuck on the roof; their attempt to climb down the fire escape ladder had been spotted almost as soon as they started. Forced to climb up again, with bullets nipping at their heels, Liam and Stephen were trapped.
“Problem, Prime,” he returned. “Door guards reacted quicker than expected. They’ve got us pinned down up here.”
Liam heard shouts and more gunfire from below. “Striker to OUTCASTs!” Vessler’s tone was tense. “We have five suspects outside the front entrance. Bystanders are clear.”
“Use CS, Two,” Tanner directed. “Striker, Fastball, get clear.”
“Copy, Prime,” Liam said. “CS is on its way.”
Stephen had already taken a CS canister from his belt, pulled the pin and tossed it over the side. Liam followed with a CS canister of his own, and both slipped on their gas masks. In a matter of seconds, they could see the thick smoke of the tear gas billowing from the street below. The gunfire stopped.
The pair climbed down the fire escape ladder, their movements hidden from below by the gas irritant. They reached the second floor and moved toward the balcony doors. Stephen pressed a small square of C-4 with a timer between the door handles, set it for ten seconds, and activated it. Then Stephen took a flash-bang grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and nodded to Liam, who had his own primed flash-bang grenade in hand. “Two to Prime. Executing entry in Five … Four … Three … Two… .”
The doors disintegrated when the C-4 exploded. Three seconds later, two flash-bang grenades rocketed through the now open doorway.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Nob Hill, San Francisco
12:08pm
From the window of his suite, John Casey could see the smoke over the Golden Gate Bridge. Looking out another window would show him the activity over at the airport, while a third would overlook where the BART bombings had occurred. Nob Hill was a perfect place from which to survey the city and the disasters befalling it.
Feeling depre
ssed, he turned away. The presidential suite lived up to its name, a fitting place for a world leader to stay. If it was his choice, he would have booked a smaller suite, but his Secret Service protection team insisted on the suite, with which they were intimately familiar; the same security team that protected the president when he was in town also guarded the president’s special assistant.
The only thing out of place were the two tables set up at right angles in the center of the room, filled with computers, tablets, radios and other pieces of electronics Casey didn’t recognize. Danielle sat in an office chair, her eyes flicking back and forth between screens. Casey wanted to stand behind her and stare at the data she ogled, but decided it was better not to distract her.
“They’re executing entry.” Danielle ignored the other three people in the room. Milt Younger was the head of Casey’s security team. A former Green Beret, Younger took his job seriously. He didn’t like the OUTCAST team, whom Casey had introduced as “special consultants,” and was even less pleased at having one of them in the midst of his security cordon.
On the other hand, Jenifer DuPree was on her first protection assignment. A short-haired redhead, she kept her opinion about Danielle’s presence to herself, but Casey did notice she managed to place herself in a position to see what was happening on Danielle’s screens at all times.
“I still don’t like it,” a nasal-toned voice said.
Casey glanced at his aide. Morton Halverstaff III was from a blue-blooded New England family with strong political ties and a general support for left-of-center policies. Morton’s uncle was a retired U.S. Senator and his father a cabinet secretary. When the family had “suggested” that the newly minted Ivy League graduate needed a job as an assistant to the president, the POTUS had farmed the new generation of Halverstaffs off on Casey. “Maybe a glimpse into the reality of the world will benefit him,” the president had said.
Privately, Casey thought Halverstaff was an over-bred idiot whom he wouldn’t trust with anything more complex than a stapler. But he was stuck with him, so he kept him away from the team, knowing that their tolerance for stupidity was lower than his.
“You don’t have to like it.” Casey motioned to the television. “What’s the latest?”
“Ten confirmed dead and another fifteen injured at the bridge.” Halverstaff was slumped on the couch, his lean frame sprawled across most of it. “The BART and airport are still trying to get a handle on things.”
“I hate not knowing.”
Halverstaff sat up. “Maybe should I go down and see—”
Casey glared at his aide. “Stay right there.”
“But—”
“First rule of government, Morton; Stay out of the way of people doing their jobs. They’re focused on rescuing people, not photo ops or briefings. If they need us, they’ll call.”
Halverstaff flopped back into the couch. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t think for a second I like being up here instead of down there. Twenty years ago, I would be down there. But not today. Today, we sit and —”
“We’ve got trouble.” Danielle rose to her feet, her eyes on a screen to her left. She reached for her pistol sitting on the table next to her laptop, much to Younger’s annoyance.
Casey looked at her. “Who’s got trouble—OUTCAST?”
“No, we do. We have an elevator coming up filled with Asians and at least four more taking the fire stairs.” She squinted at her monitor. “They just knocked out the elevator and stairwell security cameras.”
Younger frowned, his hand slipping under his jacket. “Are you sure? They can’t get to this floor — wait, how did you access the hotel security system?”
“I hacked it from here,” Danielle replied distractedly. “And they overrode the card reader system. They’re coming.”
Younger pulled out his SIG Sauer P229 with one hand while grabbing for his radio with the other. “All stations, this is Younger. We have a security breach, coming from the elevators and the stairs. Subjects are heading up and are to be considered armed and hostile. We are evading with BLOODHOUND, over.”
Halverstaff reached for the hotel phone, picked up the receiver and crinkled his forehead. “No dial tone.”
Casey produced his cellular and tried placing a call out. “No signal.”
“They’ve cut the landlines and are using a frequency jammer for the cell-phones.” Danielle pulled a P-90 from a bag at her feet and held it up. “Anyone know how to use one of these?”
“I do.” DuPree took the compact submachine gun and hefted it a couple of times, getting used to the feel of it.
The outside doors opened and three agents who had been guarding the suite doors came in. “Any ID on the attackers?” one of them asked.
“North Korean Special Forces.” Danielle holstered her pistol while answering.
“Bull–”
“Enough.” Younger began issuing instructions. “Dupree: Send the panic signal to the local office and to hotel security. Griffith, Jackson: Escort Director Casey to the emergency exit. Hobbs: You and the rest of the team watch the hallway from your end.”
Danielle pulled out her MP5 from her bag along with several magazines. “Need a hand?”
Younger considered her for a few seconds. “Stay with the director. He may trust you, but I don’t know your skill level with that weapon, and I don’t have time to find out.”
#
Once the North Korean strike team reached the target floor, they stopped only long enough to wedge the elevator doors open with a pry bar. They then moved with purpose toward the presidential suite.
The rest of the Secret Service detail assigned to Casey was waiting for them. As soon as the North Koreans came into view, the agents opened fire with their P-90s and P229s. The North Koreans returned fire and the hallway became a death zone, filled with live fire that tore into walls, fixings and humans with equal vigor. The Secret Service agents were driven back toward the suite, giving ground slowly, some trading their lives for time. The last one went down in a bloody mess just short of the suit’s double doors.
While they looked like other suite doors, the ones to the presidential suite were constructed differently. Made from steel, they were designed to withstand most gunfire and minor explosions. The same with the hinges — reinforced, heavy-duty, designed to withstand tampering and applied force.
But Seonwoo had already accounted for this engineering fact.
The KS-23 shotguns fired 23mm rounds, the equivalent of a 6-gauge. Loaded with “Barricade” rounds, shells with solid steel projectiles, the two North Koreans armed with the weapons began blasting the hinges of the doors. Steel deformed and buckled under the assault. When the shotgunners pulled back to reload, other commandos moved in and placed small packs of Semtex into the holes and dents. The strike team moved down the hall far enough to avoid any backblast and detonated the charges. The explosions ripped through the already weakened hinges send the doors topping into the suite.
“Go, go, go!” Seonwoo shouted.
#
The emergency escape route consisted of a hidden door in the back of the suite’s master bedroom closet. The door led to a narrow, steel-lined shaft with a ladder bolted to the opposite wall. Known only to a few senior agents in the Secret Service, the exit was designed for cases like this – to be used as an escape route in the event of a direct attack on the suite’s occupants.
DuPree went down the ladder first, followed by Casey, then Halverstaff. As Danielle was about to get onto the ladder, there was a string of small explosions followed by the sound of steel hitting something solid echoing through the suite. Younger, who was standing by the exit door, shoved Danielle onto the ladder. “Get going!” he snapped. “We’ll give you time to get away!”
“But you—”
“No buts! Move it!” He closed the door behind her and she could hear the steel bolts sliding into place.
“What happened?” DuPree called up.
“Keep going!” Dan
ielle shouted.
#
The fight was short, but vicious. The suit’s doors fell in and the North Koreans charged, each man taking a different sector and cutting loose with their machine guns. The storm of bullets ripped into chairs and couches, shattered lamps and statues and tore through wood. Several of the suite’s windows turned opaque as the bulletproof glass was struck by the gunfire.
Secret Service Agent Dan Griffith was out in the open and died in the hail of fire before he could shoot back. Younger and Agent Winston Jackson fired back from the master bedroom’s doorway, Younger’s SIG and Jackson’s P-90 taking down two of the enemy soldiers. The enemy didn’t hesitate, but turned and fired as a group, shattering the bedroom’s door frame and the wall around it. Jackson was sent down in a spray of blood and gore, while Younger keeled over as both his legs were shredded and bullets slammed into his Kevlar vest, breaking several ribs. His gun skittered out of his reach on the floor. Before he could summon the strength to move toward it, the enemy was on him. A foot came down on his hand, pinning it to the floor. He tried to pull it free, but he felt himself weakening.
“Where is Mr. Casey?” a voice demanded.
“G-gone,” Younger managed to say. He was beginning to fade, the pain lessening along with his consciousness. “You’re too fucking late.”
Younger closed his eyes and died.
#
The escape shaft ended inside the closet on the fifteenth floor, in a room that was never rented when the POTUS was in town. Fortunately, it was vacant now, too. “Now what?” Halverstaff asked as he flopped onto the bed.
“We keep moving,” DuPree replied calmly, but Danielle could see the white knuckles as she gripped Danielle’s borrowed P-90 tightly.
“Surely they can’t find the escape shaft.”
“DuPree’s right,” Casey said, pulling out a SIG P229 from a kidney holster. “They may know about the escape shaft, we don’t know for sure. We need to keep moving until we’re completely out of danger. DuPree, you lead. Danielle, take rear guard.”
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