by Naam, Ramez
Kade struggled and the soldier smacked him across the back of the head, bouncing Kade's face off the wet stones of the passage. Kade felt his nose crunch, blood fountaining from it. His vision went grey again. Stars spun around him. When his wits returned, he found that his legs were bound. The soldier yelled something into a radio, tossed Kade painfully over his shoulder, and started to jog.
• • • •
"We've got Target One!" Bruce Williams exclaimed. "Iverson is headed back to Banshee One. Team falling in around him."
"Excellent," Nichols said.
On screen 3 Becker smiled thinly.
"What about Blackbird?" Nichols asked.
"The rest of Team Two just got there. Man down is hurt but still breathing. No sign of Blackbird."
Nichols frowned. Where are you, Sam? Where are you? Don't make us hurt you.
And don't hurt too many of us.
Sam froze near the top of the roof. She could hear the team below, searching for her. The wet roof tiles seemed to be shielding her from IR for the moment. Vipada clung to the slick tiles for dear life next to her. She saw Sam look at her and flashed a forced smile. That a girl.
The courtyard was strewn with fallen monks. Dozens of them. At least fifty, sixty monks lay on the cold wet stones. Two distortions in the sky anchored two ropes that trailed down into the courtyard. There was a Navy SEAL guarding each.
There. Motion from near the monks' quarters. Four SEALs jogged into view. The one in the middle had someone over his shoulder. Long, lean, wearing boxers and a cast. Kade. They made the rope below the closer of the two choppers, and the SEAL carrying Kade attached his ascender to the rope and zipped back up.
I could let them take Kade… Sam thought.
No. That was the coward's way.
She scanned the men. At least four. Maybe more in the chopper. Armed. Augmented. American.
They did a job a lot like hers. Could she fight them?
Yes, if she had to.
She waited until four of them had ascended the line, then slid down the wet roof, jumped into the courtyard, rolled and came to her feet in a sprint.
The last SEAL had his gun over his shoulder, both hands on his ascender. He hit the button and zipped up, just as he saw her closing on him.
There were shouts behind her. The other fireteam had come out from the maze and were in the courtyard now, tens of yards back. Tranq rounds struck the ground at her feet.
The final SEAL reached the top of the rope on his ascender, climbed into the helicopter where they had Kade. Sam sprinted straight at the rope, slapped the ascender onto it onehanded as she ran by and jammed her thumb onto the ascend button. The device yanked her up by one arm, even as her momentum swung her out into a wide pendulum arc. She pulled a stun grenade from her stolen belt, felt its cold weight in her palm.
A SEAL reappeared above her, assault rifle pointed in her direction. Sam jerked with her whole body as he fired, perturbed the pendulum swing as his shots ripped though the space she'd just occupied, flung the grenade with all her might. The SEAL saw her throw, ducked back into the chopper for cover. The stun grenade arced fast and hard through the air, hit the edge of the doorway, exploded with a loud bang just outside the open door of the Banshee.
The ascender whined as it zipped her up towards the chopper above.
"Sir, we've got Blackbird. She's attacking Banshee One! She's on the rope, headed up."
"Call 'em back," Becker said from the screen. "Get her in Banshee One, seal it, subdue her en route to the Boca Raton."
Nichols nodded. "You heard that, Jane. Tell 'em to let her onboard, then keep her there."
"Roger that."
"And get Team Two up on Banshee Two. We've got what we came for."
48
NO PLAN SURVIVES…
The black Opal came over the final rise in time to see the SEALs disappearing into the stealthed helicopter.
There. He's in that one, Shu sent to Feng. And Cataranes is headed there too.
The woman was dashing towards the chopper Kade was in. Feng gunned the engine for the gates to the compound a hundred meters away. The Opal surged forward, burst through the ornate bronze and iron gate at one hundred and fifty kilometers an hour, spun and skidded to a halt under the pendulum arc of one of the ropes. A slim figure in white nun's robes was zipping up the rope under power.
The chopper canted forward, the quiet whup-whup of its blades grew slightly louder, and it began to move forward and up. The rope was swinging back at them, but the bottom of its arc was rising as the helicopter picked up altitude. The end of the rope was going to hit their position at ground level, at chest height, at head height, at three meters, four, rising…
Feng slammed open the door, jumped onto the hood of the car, then the roof, took two steps and leapt out and up into the air, more than three meters up and three meters out. He hung in mid-air for a split second, one arm extended, a man in mid-leap, legs akimbo, detached from the earth, soaring through the night sky at a slender line that was swinging back towards him, but rising ever higher as it did…
Feng snagged the very end of the rope with his black-gloved left hand as it hit the bottom of its arc. He roared in triumph. The Confucian Fist hung there for a moment, swinging beneath the chopper. Then he brought his gloved right hand up to join his left. He grinned up savagely at the chopper, a maniacal Asian man in a black chauffeur's suit, and began to climb hand over hand.
Sam reached the chopper, used the last of the momentum from the powered ascender to flip herself up and in through the wide door.
She ducked as something whistled through the air above her head. A SEAL kicked at her in the tight space and she dodged, spinning to the side. Another smashed at her with the butt of his rifle and she threw him into the man behind her.
One of the SEALs pounded a red control and the doors she'd come through slammed shut.
Oh, fuck.
"We've got her," Bruce Williams said. "Canary and Blackbird both on Banshee One, headed back our way. Banshee Two is twenty seconds from loaded."
"Combat! Combat!" Jane Kim yelled. "Two Royal Thai Air Force fighters inbound. They're hailing, demanding that the Banshees both set down."
"Lose 'em in the clouds," Becker said from screen 3. "Get our choppers back."
Shu reached out to the car, subsumed control of its electronic warfare capabilities, activated the high-gain directional antenna embedded in the roof. Through it, she felt around the edges of the choppers' electronic presence. Where was the way in? Every system had a hole. Every system. She just needed to find this one. The Americans were jamming local transmissions. Shu routed around that, flipped to a frequency far outside normal bands, connected with her higher self. Shu swam in a luminous storm of data. Her higher self dug deep into top-secret Chinese military and intelligence databases for more about the XH-83 Banshee. Where was that hole? Where was it?
Sam whirled in the tiny space. Kade was bound and gagged in the corner, his one eye wide. Two of the SEALs were down, apparently dazed by the grenade. The other four came at her.
Use their bodies against them, Nakamura had taught her. One can defeat many.
She let her Wing Chun take control of her. No drug clouded her mind. No rage from other minds confused her. She let her practice speak through her body.
She was a stalk of bamboo. She was a summer storm. She was a whirlwind.
She was made for this.
They came at her with fists and legs and knives and rifles used like clubs. Four of them.
Spin, dodge, strike.
Take the knife away.
Dodge, spin, sweep.
Get that one off his feet.
Spin, spin, block.
Lure that one in close.
Strike, spin, throw.
She sent one of them hurtling into another at point-blank range. Heads collided. They went down in a tangle of limbs.
Block, block, dodge.
The other two closed around her, backe
d her towards a corner.
Kick, feint, roll.
She came up free, behind them. They were fast. She was faster.
Kick, spin, strike.
One of them went down. Another came back up from the tangled pile.
Block, spin, throw.
She rammed one into another, made them her puppets. One was back up on his feet. All the rest were down, trying to get back up.
Spin, block…
An explosion sounded outside.
Fuck.
Someone was shooting at them. The chopper shook, banked hard to one side. Sam was thrown face first into the bulkhead. Her head collided with the hard wall. The SEAL fell atop her, got his arm around her neck in a headlock, squeezed to immobilize her.
Shit.
She reached back to crush his balls, hit his body armor instead, tried to kick at his knee but had no leverage on the floor. She got her fingers around his forearm. It was thicker than her calf. Fuck, he was strong. She couldn't pry him off. He squeezed harder, despite her grip. Another SEAL had a rifle aimed at her, was trying to get a clean shot. Fuck.
Her eyes landed on Kade. He was bound and gagged, staring at her with eyes wide.
The knife she'd knocked out of one of their hands was across the chopper. If she could just get her hands on it… Kade was there. She willed it at him, sent him her desire. His feet were on it. He kicked, pushed it towards her.
Sam pulled a hand away from the meaty arm around her neck, got one finger barely on the bottom of the knife's hilt, walked it back towards her. The headlock closed tighter. The one with the rifle almost had a clean shot on her. There. The knife was in her hand. She couldn't think, couldn't see, wasn't sure of her aim. She gripped the knife with both hands, pointed it towards his elbow, stabbed down hard. The SEAL behind her screamed in pain as the graphene tip came in between slabs of armor, severed tendons in his joint. His grip went limp.
Sam rolled free, only to take a vicious kick to her head, another to her gut. Two guns were coming around on her. She couldn't get them both in time.
The armored window of the fuselage door exploded in a shower of glass. Gunshots. Groans. A black-gloved hand appeared, a pistol in it, alive with muzzle flashes. Feng's feral grin followed it in.
"Missile launch! Missile launch!" Bruce Williams exclaimed. "Both RTAF fighters have launched! Close range. Banshees countering."
Becker's eyes bugged out. Nichols gripped the arms of his chair. On screen red dots streaked out from both Rudras. Indian Shiva3 missiles, active radar homing. No lock on the Banshees yet. Was the stealth as good as promised?
Both Banshees fired radar decoys. The missiles acquired locks on them instantly, swerved as the decoys put range between themselves and the choppers. An explosion lit up the night sky, then another.
"Two misses!" Williams called out.
"Get the Banshees into the clouds," Nichols ordered.
"Shots fired inside Banshee One," Jane Kim said.
Nichols looked at the screen showing the interior of Banshee One.
A Confucian Fist? Shu's driver?
Fucking A.
"If Blackbird gets control of that craft…" Becker said.
Nichols nodded. "Activate remote nav on Banshee One. Have the pilot engage the lockout. Controls to us."
Jane Kim nodded. "Roger that."
"Missile launch!" Williams said. "Two more darts in the air!"
Feng pushed through the shattered window, guns roaring, muzzle flashes lighting up the interior of the Banshee. He'd lost his chauffeur's hat, but the suit and gloves and shoes were still perfect.
His bullets punched one SEAL into the bulkhead, slammed another face down against the floor of the chopper. Sam kicked up at the stunned third man, took him in the head, saw his eyes roll into the back of his head.
Another explosion rocked the craft. The pilot banked them hard and fast, almost ninety degrees over. Sam braced herself as her world rotated. Feng stepped lightly onto the new floor. He moved like a dancer, unruffled by the chopper's acrobatics.
Only one SEAL stirred. The man whose elbow Sam had stabbed was crawling on the floor, trying to reach a fallen assault rifle with his left hand. He glanced over, saw Feng and Sam, and froze, his fingers inches from the rifle.
Feng held the man's eyes, shook his head. You don't want to do that.
The SEAL remained absolutely still. Sam turned her head at a noise from the cockpit. The SEAL lunged for the gun. Feng was there, suddenly, his foot slamming into the Navy man's head. The SEAL went limp. Feng shook his head again, picked up the rifle, slung it over his shoulder.
Sam slid into the copilot's seat, her knife pointed at the chopper pilot's face. They were flying in cloud. The pilot had his hands up – empty – in surrender.
"Take us back to the monastery," Sam said.
"I can't," he replied.
"The hell you can't." She gestured with the knife in her hand.
"C&C has the controls," the pilot protested.
"So override 'em. Take control back."
The pilot shook his head. "I punched in the lockout. No way to get the stick back."
Sam frowned. "Why the hell did you do that?"
The pilot shrugged, glanced back at the bodies behind him, at the Chinese man in the dapper suit and black gloves, at the knife in Sam's hands.
"Orders."
Sam shook her head. "That wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done."
She reversed the knife, slammed the hilt of it into his face. The man went limp.
Now… was there really no way to take back control of this thing? It had been a long time since basic flight.
First, swipe the pilot's thumb on the biometrics…
She was studying the controls when they started to move of their own accord. The chopper was turning.
"We have the stick," Jane Kim said. "Bringing them back home."
"RTAF fighters have lost the Banshees," Williams said. "Looks like they can't find us in the clouds. Good cloud cover most of the way home."
Nichols relaxed just a tiny bit. They were a long way from done, but it looked like they might just pull this off.
• • • •
Ahhhhh, Shu thought. There is the hole.
They'd opened it up for her themselves, just on the one helicopter, the one that Feng and Cataranes and Lane were on.
Shu studied the encrypted stream of commands and status data flowing back and forth, compared it to the data she'd gleaned from the Ministry of Defense database. Yes. Now that they'd opened this door for her, she could control this craft.
The directional antenna atop the Opal came alive at her mental command. There.
She reached out, and Banshee One began to turn.
Jane Kim frowned.
"Sir, Banshee One has stopped responding. I'm frozen out. It's starting to turn."
"Did the cockpit take control back?" Had the pilot not entered the lockout code? Had it not worked?
Kim tapped away at her console.
"No, sir. I think it's another signal. Banshee Two is flying a sweep, trying to triangulate… Looks like it's originating from near the target."
What the hell?
"Banshee One is turning back towards the monastery, sir. It's losing altitude. It'll be out of the clouds soon."
"Get Banshee Two there ahead of them. Track down that signal. I want to know where it's coming from, exactly. Get us out of the clouds and give us eyeballs if you need to."
What did we miss? Nichols wondered. What's going on out there?
"Roger that," Bruce Williams said. "Popping below clouds… now."
"Improving triangulation," Jane Kim reported.
Telemetry data superimposed itself on the enhanced camera feed.
"There!" Williams called out.
The screen zoomed. A black sedan. An Opal. Chinese plates. Su-Yong Shu.