Danielle held up a gadget. “The radio doesn’t seem to be affected. I can call the team and let them know what’s happening.”
Casey shook his head. “They’re in the middle of an active mission.”
“Director,” Danielle urged. “I’m ninety percent sure that these are North Korean special forces operators, which means Rhee’s people. Do you really want them running loose in a hotel full of innocent, unarmed guests?”
Casey’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and then he nodded. “Go ahead, inform them. But their mission comes first.”
Danielle nodded while transmitting. “Base to OUTCAST Prime: We have a Condition Omega.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Chinatown
12:08pm
When the balcony doors blew in, they sent glass fragments across the room, slashing several of the men around the table. Kim threw up a hand to shield his face from the flying shards. Ignoring the stinging pain from multiple cuts, Kim started to draw his Baek Du San pistol as two grenades came hurtling in. Recognizing the grenade type, he aborted the draw. Instead, he dropped to the floor, curled into a tight ball, closed his eyes tight, crossed his arms in front of his face and stuck his index fingers into the opposite ears.
The two sets of flashes and loud explosions rocked him like a physical blow. He counted to three, then uncurled rolled to his knees. More on instinct that thought, he pulled his pistol and fired rounds in the direction of the balcony doors.
Lights danced across his eyes and his ears rang hard. Although his vision was blurry, he could see that the others in the room were stumbling around, unprepared for the stunning blow of the flash-bangs.
If there is no other way to keep him out of American hands, kill him.
With Major Rhee’s order echoing through his mind, Kim spun toward Hong, his pistol pointing at the Triad leader. Before he could pull the trigger, something hard slammed into his shoulder, sending him reeling back against the door. Pain shot through him, clearing his head. A second shot missed his skull by a few inches, burying itself in the door behind him.
Kim spun back toward the window and saw Cheng aiming a pistol at him. Kim fired quickly, three of his 9mm rounds finding Cheng and sending him back against the table. A masked figure darted into the room from the balcony, weapon raised. Kim and the intruder spotted each other and fired at the same time. Cheng stumbled into the line of fire and the Triad enforcer staggered as two sets of rounds struck him in the chest and back. As the Red Pole’s bloody body dropped to the floor, the door behind Kim popped open and the door guards came charging in, pistols drawn. Kim shoved his way past them and darted out the door as a burst of gunfire slammed into the 49s.
More gunfire from the third floor told Kim the enemy was also upstairs. Ignoring his pain, he pulled out a grenade from his pocket, yanked the pin and tossed it into the room he just left. The explosion was mild compared to the flash-bang, but it made his head ring again.
Despite the throbbing pain, Kim forced himself to head for the stairs. As he reached the top of the stairwell going down, three canisters fell from the floor above, landing a few feet from him and spewing a cloud of thick white smoke. As he caught a whiff of CS gas, Kim forced himself to run down the stairs, stopping at the bottom only long enough to replace his pistol’s magazine with a fresh one. He ignored his bleeding shoulder and the stares from the shocked kitchen staff.
Three armed Triad enforcers came charging into the kitchen. At the sight of weapons, the kitchen staff fled.
“Upstairs!” Kim yelled. “The Mountain Lord is under attack!” The three 49s raced past him and up the steps. Kim raced for the kitchen door.
#
Liam’s experience and reactions saved him.
As soon as he saw the oval sphere fly into the room, he shouted, “Grenade!” He planted his foot and threw himself backwards out the door. Stephen, who was about to follow him in, flattened himself against the brick facing next to the door. Liam mirrored him on the other side of the doorway.
The grenade exploded inside the room, the fragments ripping through anything in their path — flesh, wood, paneling and glass. The detonation blew out what little glass was left in the windows, sending it into the street.
Liam reversed direction and barreled into the room. He saw five bloody bodies lying motionless and two that were moving. One was an old man, blood-drenched and weakly trying to use a chair to pull himself up. The second person was William Hong, who was climbing to his feet, bloody, but otherwise looking relatively unharmed.
Liam launched himself across the table, slamming into the Triad leader and sending them both to the ground. Still stunned by the explosions, Hong tried to lash out, but Liam was faster, stronger and in full control of his senses. The former SEAL easily blocked the weak strike and rolled the crime lord onto his stomach. He pulled two riot cuffs from his belt and secured Hong’s arms.
Stephen followed Liam in but went around the table and checked the other bodies. Most of the others were dead. The old man, unarmed but still alive, glared at him. “Y-you will… pay for this-this…outrage!” he choked out.
Stephen recognized the speaker as Kuang Lieh, one of the senior Triad leaders. “You will pay before me,” Stephen said in fluent Arabic, then in heavily accented English, “Turn over.”
The old man spat bloody mucous onto the floor. “So you can shoot me in the back?”
“Have it your way.” Stephen let the Colt dangle from the sling and grabbed Lieh by the lapels. He hauled him to his feet, spun him around, and shoved him face down on the table. Two sets of riot cuffs were quickly used to bind Lieh’s arms, then he dumped the bound Triad leader into a chair.
Liam hauled Hong to his feet, but before he could say anything, Danielle’s voice came across the radio.
“Base to Prime. We have a Condition Omega.”
#
Tanner and Naomi had reached the second floor. They were sweeping the hall when Danielle’s transmission alerted them to new problems.
“What’s happening, Six?” Tanner demanded.
“An attack team penetrated the hotel’s security system. We’re off the floor but the Secret Service detail is dead. The panic signal was sent, but no telling when they get here. We can’t stay here but Casey insists your mission comes first.”
“Two here,” Liam said. “We have the objective. We just need to get him the hell out of here.”
The sounds of people rumbling up the stairs alerted Tanner. He spun as the first Triad gunman came into view. The 49 stumbled as the CS hit him and Tanner fired a long burst that nailed him from groin to shoulder. As he fell backwards, Naomi stepped forward and fired down the stairs, a dozen 5.56mm rounds tearing into the other two men on the steps. All three tumbled in a tangled heap.
“Prime to Five!” Tanner said. “Bring the vehicle now!”
“On my way!”
They heard yelling from below. “More trouble!” Naomi said.
“Two, get the objective out here now! Three, Flash-bangs down the stairs!”
Naomi nodded, took a flash-bang from her harness, pulled the pin and tossed it down the stairwell. Tanner followed Naomi’s grenade with his own flash-bang just as Liam and Stephen came through the door to Tanner’s right, dragging Hong between them. The explosions below were followed by screams.
The CS gas began to dissipate. “Three, Four, stay with Hong. Two, rear guard.”
Tanner descended first, his Colt Commando leading the way down the stairs. Six steps down, he saw armed men in suits below them, stunned by the flash-bangs. One 49 at the base of the stairs managed to clear his head enough to see the oncoming danger. He raised his Ruger .357, but Tanner nailed him with a six-round burst that ripped him from left shoulder to right hip. As he dropped, Tanner cut down a couple more still-stunned and blind 49s near the stairs with four-round bursts.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the OUTCAST operators stepped over the fallen and moved quickly through the kitchen, Tanne
r leading the way.
#
The shoulder wound hurt like hell, but the pain focused Kim’s perception. He had managed to get out via the restaurant’s front doors with a small cluster of customers who decided to flee. The CS had made his eyes water and caused him to cough a few times, be he got clear of it quickly. Inside a doorway a hundred feet up the street from the restaurant, he pulled the phone out of his pocket, despite the white-hot pain in his shoulder. He opened the outgoing call log and placed a new call to the most recently used number.
“Yes?”
“The Americans attacked the restaurant,” Kim said through gritted teeth. “I do not know if Hong is still alive.”
“Where are you?”
“Outside. The Americans came in through the windows and the roof, used tear gas and grenades. I cannot get back inside and I am wounded.”
Kim could hear the steel in Rhee’s tone, cold and sharp. “Make sure Hong is dead. Nothing else matters.”
“Understood, sir.”
#
The OUTCAST team rammed through the kitchen doors into a service hallway. To their left was a server station, along with three servers huddled in the alcove. All three blanched at the sight of the armed and gas-masked team, but Tanner put his finger up to his gas mask in the universal sign of quiet. The servers nodded, their eyes wide with fear.
OUTCAST moved out into the dining room. A number of customers were on the floor or behind a makeshift barrier in an attempt to stay out of any gunfire.
“Prime to Striker. We have Hong. Status?”
“Stalemate,” Vessler yelled. “Two or three hoods inside the front door are keeping us from entering. CS gas has almost dissipated. A few customers ran as soon as the shooting started upstairs.”
“Copy. Five, where are you?”
“On Washington,” Stephen returned. “Twenty seconds out.”
Tanner peered across the dining room. “Everyone stay down, you’ll live longer!” he shouted, the gas mask muffling his voice.” Two, you’re with me on point! Three, rear guard!”
Liam moved past Naomi, Stephen and Hong while Naomi dropped back. They fast-walked toward the glass doors separating the dining room from the lobby. Three gunmen stood inside the small lobby, uncertain what to do next. One of them saw the approaching intruders and shouted a warning to the others.
Liam and Tanner fired through the glass doors, shattering them and ripping into two of the 49s. As they fell, the third Triad gunner fired, but he shot high and wide, shattering a decorative lantern above and behind the team. Before he could adjust, Tanner and Liam killed him with a paired burst of 5.56mm rounds.
“Striker, hold your position.” Tanner stepped through the shattered doors. “There’s too many witnesses for you to greet us as friends. But stay low, because we’re sending a few bullets your way.”
“Copy.”
Tanner led the others out onto the sidewalk. The team’s van skidded onto the street and screeched to a stop a few feet away from them. Most of the CS gas had dissipated, though a few stray wisps still hung around.
Tanner spotted Vessler crouching behind a car ahead and to his left. He whispered into his radio, “Striker, down!” then fired several bursts in Vessler’s direction, ripping up the car’s trunk, hood and bursting the rear driver’s side tire. He heard shouts and screams and turned to see dozens of bystanders watching the action, many videoing it with their smartphones.
“Move it!’ Tanner bellowed. Naomi and Stephen hauled the now-struggling Hong toward the cargo door Dante had slid open.
Then Choi’s voice made their blood run cold. “Shooter!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Chinatown
12:15pm
Choi’s shout from Tanner’s right made the OUTCAST leader spin in that direction. He spotted the shooter, an Asian male with a bloody shoulder pointing a pistol at the van. Choi rose from between two cars.
“Freeze!” the DEA agent yelled.
The wounded Asian spun toward Choi and both men fired at the same time. Choi staggered and dropped. The attacker lurched when Choi’s rounds struck him. As the DEA agent fell, Both Tanner and Liam opened fire, the twin 5.56mm streams of lead ripping apart the gunman’s torso. The assailant took another step, his face twisted into a hateful stare before he collapsed onto his chest and went still.
“Danny!” Vessler cried.
Tanner spun and fired another burst at the car Vessler was behind. “Stay where you are until we’re clear!” he said over the radio. “This is being recorded by those people over there. Need to maintain plausible deniability.”
“Fuck that. That’s my partner!”
Tanner turned to the van to find the rest of them already onboard. He jumped in and told Dante to go. The van accelerated down the street while he pulled the door shut.
As they reached the intersection, Dante leaned on the van’s horn. Ahead of him, cars slammed on their brakes and sped out of the intersection, allowing the van to shoot across the street without incident.
Liam pinned Hong to the floor while Stephen administered a tranquilizer patch to the Triad leader’s neck. After a minute the bound man stopped struggling as the drug took effect.
“Liam, Nay,” Tanner said, unzipping the jumpsuit. “Get changed and switch weapons. Dante, drop the three of us off at the hotel, then you and Stephen head for the safehouse. We’ll pick up Casey and Danielle and meet you there.”
#
“Why can’t we take the elevator?” Halverstaff moaned as the four stepped out into the hallway.
“Because if the enemy is smart, they’ll have blocked them off or turned them into kill boxes,” DuPree said.
“But we’re fifteen floors up.”
Then I suggest you save your breath for the climb down.”
“Which stairwell?” Danielle asked.
“East is closest,” Casey said.
“And probably guarded,” DuPree added.
Can’t be too many guards in the stairwell. Worse comes to worst, we can duck into a lower floor and change staircases.”
They jogged down the hall, DuPree leading, then Casey, with Halverstaff and Danielle bringing up the rear. They reached the fire door and DuPree used the small window in the door to check the landing. “Looks clear, but once we’re out there, keep moving unless I say stop. Danielle, keep an eye up above us. I’ll worry about what’s below. Stay as close to the wall as possible. Let’s move.”
DuPree opened the door quietly and started down the stairs, the P-90 to her shoulder and sweeping the next landing and set of stairs. Casey was next, his pistol sweeping high, then low. Halverstaff, who was unarmed except for a folding multi-tool sheathed to his belt, scurried after them. Danielle stepped out onto the landing and gently closed the door behind her before catching up to the others, her MP5 pointing up the stairwell.
They made it without incident to the fourteenth floor and then heard a shout from above. Gunfire rained down at them, bullets sending sparks flying as they struck the railing. Danielle judged the shooter to be four floors above them, and fired a pair of short bursts upwards. She heard a grunted curse and the gunfire stopped.
Dupree was already on the landing between the fourteenth and thirteenth floors. Casey was behind her, his pistol aimed up. Halverstaff was a few feet behind his boss, his expression bordering on panic. Danielle took the stairs three at a time, thankful for Tanner’s insistence that the team stay in shape.
#
In a fit of rage, Seonwoo placed four shots into the already dead bodyguard who had told him Casey was gone. For some reason’s the corpse’s expression of satisfaction annoyed him. “Are you sure he isn’t here?”
“Yes, sir.” Ryeon replied. The battle for the suite had been short and vicious, costing Seonwoo two of his henchmen, but they had killed the three foes they had found, all bodyguards. The suite was wrecked, inundated with bullets holes and buckshot from the KS-23s.
Yoon entered the bedroom. “Maybe he was never he
re.”
Seonwoo shook his head emphatically. “No, too many bodyguards here. He was here, but there must be a secret escape route or hidden room. We must—”
“Dragon Five to Dragon leader!” a voice on the radio called out. The man guarding one of the hotel’s two fire stairwells relayed his message. “Target is in the east stairwell, four floors below me!”
Seonwoo’s smile was unpleasant. “Yoon! Take two men, use the elevator and get below them, then go up the stairs.” Yoon nodded and left at a run, shouting out the names of the men he wanted with him.
Seonwoo turned to Ryeon. “Contact Cho in the west staircase, then both of you join Jee in the east stairwell and drive them down to the eighth floor. I’ll be on the eighth waiting for them. Go now!”
Ryeon ran out. Seonwoo reloaded his pistol and his Uzi, then turned and walked out of the bedroom. He couldn’t get the dead bodyguard’s expression out of his mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Nob Hill
12:21pm
The van roared into the Trans-Continental Marsh Hotel’s driveway at forty miles an hour. It slid to a stop in front of the hotel’s main doors, causing several people to stare at the vehicle in puzzlement as the side door slid open. The puzzlement turned to fear as three people wearing full combat gear came storming out of the van cargo hold, shouting “Out of the way!” By the time they reached the doors, the van was roaring out of the driveway.
Once inside, Tanner called out, “Homeland Security. I need everyone to evacuate in a quick and orderly manner, right now!”
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