“Anything for my friends.”
Especially friends that had helped him get ten million dollars out of China and invested in North America. Not to mention helping to get his daughter into Julliard.
Arthur made another call.
“I just ordered a Peking duck for myself. Want to join?” queried Chuck on the other end.
“Cancel it. Need you up on hotel’s helipad in fifteen minutes. Hell has struck. Can’t find Rayna, Henry or Tex but there’s a camera feed of a mini-war zone.”
“I wasn’t hungry anyway.”
Chapter Forty-Six
The fifty-year-old monk, caked in blood and lying face down on the ground, stirred. He had lived in the Hundred Hand Monastery ever since he was boy and never stepped foot outside its grounds. His whole life had been dedicated to studying the scriptures, praying, meditating, sweeping the dust away from the corridors and halls, washing dishes and tending the vegetable gardens.
The now sallow-faced man of faith was content with his simple life full of inner peace and tranquility. He had never eaten meat, he had never had an argument with his fellow monks and he never made an effort to speak with the monastery’s infrequent outside visitors.
His life was uneventful. Until…
Where am I? Why am I lying down?
Disoriented, he tried to sit up but his body would not respond. Then he noticed blood on his orange robe. That’s strange. Why am I bleeding? What is that sound?
Then he remembered. I was in the Great Hall and then I heard a huge explosion. And then I ran out to investigate. Another explosion just a few feet from me… And why is the light so bright?
He shut his eyes hard but, even with that, light blazed through his eyelids. It was painful… and wonderful.
Because closing his eyes had no effect, the monk opened his eyes again. He looked to his side to see a cell phone. Although no one at the monastery had one, he knew what it was because every single one of the temple’s infrequent visitors had one. He couldn’t understand why. Was there anybody so important that he or she couldn’t wait an hour or two before someone talked to them?
Then he mused on the possibilities. Maybe the cell phone is here because it is supposed to be here. I should try to make a call. He had never even held any kind of electronic device but remembered seeing the visitors use the phone. If they could, so could he.
Dazed, the monk reached to the phone but his arm refused to cooperate. He turned his head to look and discovered the reason: where his arm should be was a bleeding stump. He was in such shock he didn’t notice the pain that wracked his body.
He looked around to see where his arm was. He didn’t find it.
Then another oddity. The intensity of light that had been glaring so much began to wane… In fact, it was starting to get dark. This was particularly unusual because it was only mid-afternoon when the sun should be beating hard.
He turned his head to the celestial heavens to see if something had happened to the sun. No, it was still there but then he realized he was soaking wet—rain was whipping down on him. Funny how he didn’t feel the water droplets, either.
He took another look at the girl and now saw the water beating on her, too. He himself was insignificant but she? She was young and had a life ahead of her.
And then he realized why it was raining so hard.
Even the heavens are crying. With a cry that was barely a whisper, he closed his eyes for the last time.
Chapter Forty-Seven
This Deputy Minister Zhong must have a lot of pull, thought Chuck as he boarded the helicopter. Chuck, a former Navy SEAL, had ridden in some pretty fast choppers, including the Boeing CH-47 Chinook and the Seattle firm’s AH-64 Apache, but the Chinese-made Changhe Z-18 chopper used extensively by China’s military was not exactly chump change. Pretty all right.
The bird Chuck was riding in was almost a mini-hospital outfitted with a cardiac monitor, respirator, defibrillator, pulse oximeters, oxygen, suction units and a whole lot more, including a weapons arsenal that was enough to outfit a Special Ops team of six.
I like these guys. Chuck’s Chinese was non-existent so he was happy when Gee, the chopper’s pilot, greeted him with, “Hey, bro. Let’s roll.”
“You got it, man.” It took no time for the veteran Chuck to strap himself in.
Scant minutes later, the chopper was airborne and speeding toward its destination at a hundred-and-forty miles per hour.
In the distant horizon, Chuck and Gee saw ominous dark clouds. Each had the same thought. Oh, shit!
***
Almost an hour later, as they approached the Hundred Hands Monastery, the threat of a downpour was fulfilled. The slashing rain made visibility a nightmare, and dangerous for flying at top speed. Chuck was impressed by the pilot’s ability to handle the jerky bird.
Over the clatter of the blades, rotors screaming and rain hammering the windows, Chuck yelled, “You’re pretty good at this. A lot of bad weather flying?”
Gee replied somberly. “AirWar Strikes: Black Hawk Rising. I’m level 55.”
You got to be kidding. AirWar Strikes was one of the biggest selling video game franchises. To hit level 55 meant Gee must have played one hell of a lot of games. “Me?” bragged Chuck, pointing to himself. “Level 105.”
The two fist-bumped. Anything under two hundred was pretty good.
Thunder boomed and streaks of lightning crossed the darkened skyline. Chuck looked behind and saw blue running lights and flashing Xenon—the air ambulance that Deputy Minister Zhong ordered had arrived, too.
“I can’t see anymore. The instruments tell me that it’s somewhere below. I’ve got to land on instinct so it’s going to be slow,” yelled Gee.
“Time is one thing we don’t have, Gee,” called Chuck as he seized the microphone. “Big Bird to China Sky. Is that you behind us?”
“Yeah. Can you see?”
“Barely. But hey, hey, hidey no, this no my first rodeo.”
Chuck chortled at the funny mixture of pidgin English and American slang.
Craning his neck to look below, Chuck called out, “We haven’t been able to make any contact with our people or anyone else down there.”
“No worries. We got Doctors Steve and Harry, two of the best emergency physicians.”
A confident voice with much better English took over. “Gee, if you keep that up, Harry and I are gonna have to treat you for dinner.”
“That’s the plan, Steve. What do you think?”
“If it’s just gunshot wounds that aren’t too deep or haven’t hit any dangerous spots, we can handle that on the ground and stay until the weather improves. But, if things are complicated, we need to get back to the hospital right away.”
“You got it.” Chuck looked down out the window and saw the ground in sight—the pilot was landing just outside the monastery entrance. “Okay, kiddies, it’s show time. Go! Go!”
Chuck unbuckled himself. He grabbed an assault rifle and a few grenades, then jumped as the chopper moved gently down the last few feet toward the ground.
Using his cell phone as a GPS tracker, Chuck headed toward the copse. Pushing aside the bushes, he found Tex’s still body.
He glanced back and saw the AERT chopper landing and a six-person team jumping out.
“One of you here!” called Chuck. “The others into the monastery with me.”
The thirtyish lithe and athletic Steve carrying his portable medical kit bag rushed to the greenery where Chuck was. The physician dropped to his knees and put his hand to check for a pulse. “He’s gone,” he announced, shaking his head.
“We’ll deal with Tex later then. Let’s see what they’ve found inside. I’m Chuck.”
“I’m Steve. Glad to meet you.”
After a moment of silent respect, Chuck and Steve bolted to the monastery to join the rest of the emergency response team.
What confronted their senses as they entered was a scene of devastation—bodies, body parts, buildings in va
rious states of destruction all over. Blood, rubble, debris… While it was new to Steve, for Chuck it was an all-too-familiar sight. Somalia. Iraq. Afghanistan. Ethiopia. And that didn’t include the battles he saw as a member of Fidelitas.
Another grotesque, blood-soaked field of slaughter, proving yet again that mankind had hardly evolved from primitive savagery.
It was tough going. The rain had not let up. Being drenched was not the problem, but it made assessment and diagnosis a whole lot harder. With the skies darkening even more, visibility was becoming an issue. And, even though the weather was temperate, everyone felt a dark chill as they checked pulses, faces, bodies…
Half of the first dozen examined were alive. Dazed, unconscious, bleeding, bruised, broken bones, burned… but definitely to be counted among the living. The other six, not so fortunate. Three were dead due to gunshot wounds, the others from bleeding to death. The most gruesome sight was a prostrate monk with one arm missing. A trail of blood of almost twenty yards followed him—his arm was at the beginning of the trail.
As one of the paramedics called for more medical support, Chuck scanned the premises but the cell phone tracker was having problems—where the hell was Rayna?
He noticed an oddly shaped clump in the distance. If the unknown object was human, it would not have been monks from the monastery because there were no orange-colored robes. Chuck moved quickly toward it and saw that one human was draped over another. He raced the last few steps and his heart quickened. Was it?
Yes! Chuck saw Rayna’s face. As he gently lifted the body of a middle-aged man off Rayna, he recognized him too. “Over here! It’s Rayna and her father!”
The battle-hardened Chuck couldn’t hold back his joy when he found a pulse on Rayna’s wrist. “She’s alive!”
As Steve and Harry scampered to Chuck, the big black man explained, “This is who we came for. The girl is Rayna and the older man is her father, Henry.”
Both physicians dove into their medical kits to take out stethoscopes, ambubags, CPR masks, blood pressure kits and more. Chuck watched paramedics hold umbrellas to cover the physicians as Steve checked Rayna and Harry examined Henry.
Even though Rayna had a pulse, it was weak. Steve tore off Rayna’s blouse, then shouted, “We have to blitz now. There’s a flicker of a heartbeat but there’s a bullet lodged just below her heart.”
As paramedics raced to bring over a stretcher, Steve continued to examine Rayna, grimacing as he held the stethoscope to her chest. She was cold, sweating, breathing was shallow and irregular. “We need to get real lucky to have a chance,” said Steve. “Her blood loss is severe. Systolic blood pressure is low, heart beats at a hundred and thirty per minute, and her skin feels clammy. We need to get her to the hospital ASAP for emergency surgery.”
“She’ll pull through,” declared Chuck. “She’s ex-Special Forces.”
“Everyone dies, Chuck, even the tough guys.” Steve and the paramedics began preparing Rayna for transport.
“What about Henry?” asked Chuck.
“Can’t take a chance on transportation,” barked Harry. “He was shot in both lungs and they are filling up with blood. He’s deteriorating rapidly and won’t make it to the hospital. I’ve got to operate here!”
“Surgery? Here? Are you crazy?” thought Chuck.
As if reading his mind, Harry yelled, “It’s the only chance he’s got.”
“Have you done this before?”
“Not in these circumstances,” admitted Harry. “But removing bullets is one of the easiest surgeries to perform.”
Not exactly reassuring words, but there was no alternative. Henry would die before he got close to a hospital.
The paramedics carefully positioned Henry onto a stretcher, then gently and expertly carried him to the part of the covered entrance of the Prayer Hall that managed to survive the grenade attack.
“Damn. Damn.” As Harry removed Henry’s shirt, he began to sweat—there was a sucking sound coming from one of the chest wounds as Henry breathed. That meant the injury had penetrated the rib cage so air passed freely in and out of the chest cavity. That meant Henry wasn’t breathing properly.
“What?” yelled Chuck as he helped the paramedics lift Rayna onto the stretcher.
“He’s got a sucking chest wound so air is getting into his body but not getting out. His lungs are collapsing so his body is not getting enough oxygen. I’ve got to plug up the holes quickly.”
But first Harry had to get the bullets out. It was a good thing Henry was unconscious because this would hurt like hell if he wasn’t.
Chuck wasn’t going to have a firsthand look because he and Steve were with the paramedics who were carrying Rayna toward the entrance and the chopper.
BOOM! An unexploded grenade detonated when one of the paramedics stepped onto it. As if in slow motion, Chuck watched as pieces of the dead medic filled the air. As the other paramedic fell to the ground, the force of the explosions threw Rayna, still lying on the stretcher, into the air.
Chuck dove down with outstretched arms. With sheer luck and willpower, he managed to grab the front handles of the stretcher an inch before it hit terra firma.
Chuck looked to the sky and emptied his lungs with a long exhale. Twenty thousand plus hours of physical training paid off in this fraction of a second. Chuck steadied the stretcher so there was no hard impact when it touched the ground.
There was no time to celebrate or mourn. With one paramedic dead and the other woozy, Chuck and Steve lifted the stretcher and started carrying it out.
By now, the monastery was abuzz. In addition to the medical staff that came via the helicopters, a full swarm of security police and military had arrived, shouting orders, waving rifles and carrying more medical supplies.
Two minutes later, the unconscious Rayna was gently placed on board the AERT helicopter.
With engines and rotors whining, the helicopter frantically poured on the power and wheeled up to the sky. With turbulence rocking the ship, Gee held steady.
The pilot spotted a little hole in the dark clouds and navigated directly through it and then, a sight for the ages—clear open sky.
Turbulence ended, Steve could finally release his hold on Rayna and made a call.
“Operating room. How may I assist you?”
“Hey, Cindy, it’s Steve. Harry and I have got two patients coming via helipad. At least one of them, maybe both, will need to go directly to the OR. We’ll be on the rooftop in less than an hour.”
“We’ll be ready for you.”
Steve clicked off his cell. The copter banked into a tight turn, then streaked to its destination.
Chapter Forty-Eight
In the square in front of the Pyongyang train station, General Park and the Mandarin were both dressed in smart suits, silk ties and Raybans covering their eyes. They looked like all the other businessmen seeking anonymity hanging out there while they waited for women in their thirties and forties to approach and ask if they wanted to buy some flowers or needed temporary lodging with full amenities, code for, “Want to hire me for an hour or two?”
While Park would have been content to pay these “older women” to satisfy his carnal desires, the Mandarin wanted someone younger, in her teens or at most in her early twenties. In the end, Bora, the pimp or “love broker” as he liked to call himself, arranged for two women who met both men’s criteria to spend three hours in a completely private room.
“Why don’t you join us?” asked the Mandarin.
Bora eyed his customers suspiciously. “Why?”
“If they don’t perform the way you said they would, you are going to take their place.”
“I don’t swing that way.”
“Suit yourself.” The Mandarin motioned to the general and the two turned around to walk away.
“Wait!” called the young man. “I’ll guarantee they’ll perform.”
***
Bora led them to the back entrance of a business hotel a block awa
y. The Mandarin understood the need for caution. Smaller offenses than prostitution or pimping had sent perpetrators to isolated prison camps where they could expect starvation, rape and torture, assuming they lived. Making sure no one was watching, Bora used his private key and the five descended a darkened stairwell to the basement. He led them down the hall and opened the door to a numberless room.
It was a small space, big enough to hold two old twin beds, a small wooden table and a functional washroom, but little else.
“Make these men happy,” ordered Bora.
“How do you want it and who’s getting who?” queried Nari, the older woman.
“We’ll take turns with each of you,” stated the Mandarin. “But, before we start, I want to get you in the mood.”
He nodded at General Park who took out four little plastic bags of white powder.
This was the first time since the deal was being negotiated that either women gave a hint of interest in events to come. They both recognized the white powder contents as crystal meth. However…
“It doesn’t look like enough,” complained Nari. “I get more than that when I have tea with my girlfriends.”
“This is one hundred percent pure. Five milligrams is more than enough.”
“This is great. I don’t even have to pay!” shouted Yoon, the college student. She grabbed the pouch from Park and immediately snorted the entire contents.
“Whatever.” Her older partner took her bag and took a long, slow snort. “Can I have more? This isn’t enough to do anything.”
“Just wait. It’ll hit soon enough.” The general turned to Bora. “You want some, too?”
As if he needed to ask. Park didn’t bother to wait for a response but simply handed a bag to Bora. The young man whipped out a glass pipe and filled its bowl with the white powder. He flicked a lighter and put the flame under the bowl. Putting his nose over the bowl, he inhaled the gaseous smoke deeply.
The rush hit him within seconds. A tidal wave of euphoria swept over Bora. “Oh, man!” panted the now sweating young man.
The Mandarin's Vendetta (Rayna Tan Action Thriller Series Book 2) Page 16