“Hmm. Got it. It’s our only chance. So, what the hell happened on the bullet train Ryan? I’m lucky to be in one piece. Didn’t get shot till you got here.” Amanda whispers looking towards her wounded shoulder area.
“Almost got my head blown off. A pro using a silencer. Remember the kevlar beanie. It probably saved my life. I chased him, he bolted off the train before Beijing. Never found him, and I’m sure he’s still looking for me.”
“So you weren’t even on the train when I got off?”
“Roger that.”
“Where’d you go? Liza now interjects, asking Amanda.
“I befriended a Chinese family for a night, then bolted.”
They go over some other details and collectively agree to give Britt a burner phone in case they need to get in touch with her.
“We’ll call you if we need your help,” Ryan tells Britt.
"I'm your ticket out of China. I’ll report shots were fired, I was overpowered, and there was nothing I could do to stop you, which is true. I’ll say it again, we can safely exfiltrate you back to the U.S. But, assure us you’re not here to disrupt the summit.”
Ryan looks at Liza and Amanda. "You'd better not be sending us into a booby trap. If we take off out of this hotel and something happens to us—.”
"You wouldn't do that to us, would you Britt?" Amanda asks.
"No. Don’t forget your meds.”
“Already got ‘em.”
“If you find your brother, how are you going to I.D. him, anyway? You haven’t seen your real brother, like ever. We have the world’s most sophisticated facial recognition software, its like Facebook times a thousand.” This gets Amanda’s attention fast.
“So, how would you help us?”
“The CIA has a handheld satellite phone that can snap a photo, and in a second we can verify if Justin is really Justin by comparing to your parents, to you, etc.”
Ryan grabs Britt’s phone and puts it in the bag with the rest of his gear. “Interesting. We’ll call you on the burner phone if we need you. Sorry we didn’t get more bonding time.” Ryan starts to walk away, then turns back. "I’m sure your contact will come looking for you when you don't answer his texts. Prepare exfiltration plans for a party of four, but don’t expect to see us again anytime soon.”
He examines the bed frame and notices it’s bolted to the floor. He takes out another metal cuff and connects Britt's existing leg cuffs to one of the corner bedposts. As the three of them exit, Amanda turns back and makes eye contact with Britt.
“Good luck, Amanda.”
“We’re going need it.” The door closes softly behind her.
While she waits for her contact to free her, Britt wonders what Amanda and Ryan have up their sleeve. Amanda said they weren’t there to assassinate anyone, and despite their rocky history, Britt doesn’t think she’d lie to her about something like that. Killing someone wouldn’t get her brother back anyway. They probably have good intelligence on where Justin is being held and are planning a daring rescue effort, which is not of Britt’s concern. Her directive is to assure they do nothing to interfere with the meetings currently being held between the world’s most hated dictator and the Chinese president. The CIA has surveillance devices in place for the meetings, but it will not countenance any American involvement with any attempted or actual assassination of either leader.
Chapter 98
Fire & Rescue
Using the burner phone, Liza calls the fire department’s central dispatch number. In Chinese, she frantically gives the address of the apartment complex where flames are pouring from a rear third-floor unit and people are trapped. Within five minutes the lead paramedic’s vehicle screams up to the street in front of the main building, arriving first before an ambulance, or a fire truck. The female paramedic jumps out of the vehicle and trots to the set of doors at the front of the building to assess the situation. She meets Liza in the entryway between the outer and inner doors and asks if she is the one who called in the fire.
“Yes, I called, but there is no fire.”
The paramedic appears angry about the false alarm, then her expression turns to confusion as Liza draws her pistol from the pouch of her unzipped, lightweight jacket.
“If you follow my instructions, you won't get hurt. If you don’t, I’ll kill you. First, you’re going to report this as a false alarm, to call off the fire trucks. Then, we’re both going to walk out of here and get in the back of your ambulance.”
The young paramedic pales.
"Tell me you understand!" Liza says.
"I understand.”
"Good."
Then, with Liza’s pistol inches from her skull, she uses the belt mounted radio to call in the false alarm and reverse the fire engines. As they walk toward the paramedic’s vehicle, they see the ambulance behind it. Liza catches a glimpse of the unfamiliar driver, then sees Ryan already in the passenger seat.
"Open the doors and get in," Liza directs her hostage as they walk the short distance from the apartment building to the rear of the ambulance. Once inside, she orders her to shut the door.
Seconds later there are three taps on the doors. Liza opens one of them and Ryan, Amanda, and another paramedic are standing outside. All of them climb in and Ryan directs Amanda to lay on the gurney. As she gets settled, Liza explains in Chinese that Amanda has been wounded and they are going to remove the bullet.
The female paramedic begins to protest, "We do not remove bullets, we transport the patient to the hospital and—"
"I don't care what you usually do. You're going to remove the bullet right here if you and your coworker want to live,” Liza orders.
Liza hands her gun to Ryan and helps Amanda take her shirt off over her head. She has her turn on her left side to expose the area where the bullet entered at the rear of her right shoulder. A small amount of dried blood marks the exact point of entry.
"Get busy!" Liza barks.
The paramedics flip open one of the compartments next to the gurney and pull out a pair of tweezers, a tourniquet, a scalpel, plenty of gauze, a metal tray, a small bottle, and a long syringe.
The male attendant looks at Liza, "We need to give her a shot for the pain."
"What is it?"
He explains it's a synthetic drug similar to morphine. Liza translates for Amanda, who nods her head. A few minutes after he administers the injection, he uses the long, narrow tweezers to examine the entry wound area.
Ryan has seen this exercise too many times, but he’s also seen much worse—friends blown to pieces by IEDs, skin burned beyond recognition by incendiary mortars, guys dying while the medic tries to save them. He turns to look out the small window of the ambulance, under the guise of watching for anything suspicious.
"I've never done this before," the nervous male attendant tells Liza.
"Guess there’s a first time for everything."
Ryan turns back to face Amanda. "I need to tell you I'm sorry. This is my fault.”
Thanks to the shot, Amanda doesn’t feel any pain, but she knows his tweezer is working inside her shoulder.
“Ty, I know. I owed it to Britt. She claims she saved my life before, and maybe she did.”
"How so?" Liza asks.
"That's too long of a story.”
About a minute later the paramedic withdraws the tweezers from Amanda’s shoulder and drops what appears to be the bullet with a clatter on a metal tray. He and the female attendant dab an antibacterial ointment on the wound, then fashion a makeshift bandage with gauze and medical tape.
Liza first thanks the paramedics, then tells them to take off their uniforms. They hesitate, but Liza gives them a death stare and they get busy. She scrounges up a third uniform from another compartment and she, Ryan, and Amanda put them on. The paramedics don their ill-fitting discarded street clothes before they are bound in the back of the ambulance.
“Do either of you speak any English?” Liza asks in English. No response. She repeats the question
in Chinese. The man says he understands a few words, but can’t carry on a conversation. Liza tells Ryan and Amanda it’ll probably be okay to talk in English, especially since they plan to keep them hostage until the mission is complete.
Ryan turns to Amanda as they stand with Liza outside of the ambulance. “We have a big decision to make. We don’t have to tell the CIA what we’re doing, but we could take them up on extrication from China. We’ll either have succeeded or failed by then. Or Liza can disappear on her own and we can use our disguises to try to make it back to Shen Zhen. If we want Britt’s help, we’ll need to call her and suggest a meeting point. We’d dump the ambulance and have her transfer us to a safe vehicle for the exfiltration.
“You didn’t ask me,” Liza interjects, “but I’d use the agency. A million Chinese citizens will be looking for you. Besides, it sounds to me like the agency has a special interest in Telogurl here.”
Ryan holds up the burner phone and the battery. “Well, is it a yes?”
“Yeah, if you and Liza both think it’s the best way. I don’t care what they do to me if we get Justin back.”
“Justin?” Liza asks.
“Well, the cat’s outta the bag now. You may as well fill her in.” Ryan says.
“Justin’s my one-year-old brother. He was kidnapped, and we think he’s here.”
“That’s the mission? To find your brother and kidnap him back? Ryan you never told me this.”
“Oh well. That’s part of it. There’s another part too, but we can tell you that later.” Ryan says, then dials Britt’s number on the phone.
"Elizabeth Gardner here." Britt answers, relieved they called. She assured Solarez they would call, but she was not really as confident as she made it seem.
"Okay, we want to rendezvous and have you help get us out.”
"The offer still stands, but only if you aren’t tampering with the summit today. Do I have your word on that?"
"Yep. We’ll be a party of three, maybe four. I'll call you five minutes before our arrival. We’ll meet at the Guanzang office building on Chai Ling Boulevard, underground parking Level 2, the westernmost corner. We'll be in an ambulance."
"Creative transportation. Okay, we’ll have a large black SUV, diplomatic plates. We'll flash our lights twice as we approach."
"Okay, we'll be counting on it."
“How’s Amanda’s bullet wound?” Britt asks him.
“We got it handled, she’s doin’ great. Gotta run, thanks.” He ends the call abruptly and looks at the panicked paramedics in the back of the vehicle.
“Liza, tell them we aren’t going to hurt them. Amanda, we need to get our disguises on now.”
Within minutes Ryan drives off in the smaller paramedic SUV and Liza takes the wheel of the ambulance.
“I don’t think I could ever be a paramedic,” Amanda says to Liza. “I don’t like seeing people with bad injuries or people taking their last gasps, it gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
As they follow Ryan, Liza can't resist asking, "How long ago did you meet Ty?"
"He came to the rehab center I help run outside of DC and offered to devise this mission, with my input. It was just a few weeks ago. What about you? Where do you fit into all of this? He didn't tell me anything about you."
"I used to work for the CIA. I met Ty when he was special forces and I was embedded in Iraq. We handled missions together."
Amanda lets that sink in for a few seconds and decides not to pry into their relationship. "So, what are you doing now?"
"I work as a quality control rep for Michael Morse."
"Wait, you're a part-time undercover agent and full-time with a clothing line?”
Liza laughs. “Strange mix, I know. But when the price is right, it’s hard to resist.”
Chapter 99
Nabbed
4:00 a.m.
Ryan pulls his night vision goggles on over his black ski mask and kills the lights on the paramedic vehicle before getting out. Barely any signs of life can be seen along the two-lane street, though it bustles with activity during daylight hours. Leaning into the rear of the SUV under the raised rear door, he connects the payload under the drone with a J-hook.
The nearly silent drone rises into the night sky following the GPS coordinates. Within seconds the drone hovers above the high wall surrounding the compound, and, on Ryan’s command, drops the incendiary device into the leafy hedge near the interior base of the wall.
He directs the drone back toward him, landing it softly on the deserted sidewalk, then packs it back inside the duffel bag in the rear of the vehicle and returns to the driver's seat.
Ryan pulls the SUV into position on the opposite end of the compound, closer to where he has dropped the payload, and turns off the lights again. So far so good.
He texts Liza, and the full-size ambulance rolls up behind him, also without lights. Approaching the driver's side, he sees Liza behind the wheel and Amanda in the passenger seat, both still in the EMS uniforms, and Amanda wearing her Asian mask and wig with straight black hair. No matter how many times Ryan has used disguises created by his contact in the States, it still amazes him how realistic they are.
“Amanda, you could easily pass as a 22-year-old Asian, seriously. Liza, once we get into the compound and head to the back, you’ll operate the fire extinguisher and I'll take care of the security guards. Then follow my lead, I’m going to locate the kid and we’ll extricate him to the ambulance.”
“Amanda, you stay out front and monitor the street and the door. We’ll all be on the closed walkie-talkie system. Let's try them now." All three confirm their audio. "All right, I'm going to start the fire and we move out once we see flames from the back of the compound.”
Ryan presses several buttons on his small remote control, then puts it in his pocket and walks back to his vehicle as he buttons up the front of his paramedic uniform. About 30 seconds later, flames rise from the rear corner of the compound.
Tapping her fingernails on the top left and right of the steering wheel, Liza turns to Amanda. “How did you figure out your brother was being held here?”
Amanda starts to answer. “It’s not that…”
“It’s not…what?”
“Nothing. Look, Ryan is getting ready to pull out. We can explain later.”
The lights and siren have activated on the SUV, and their ambulance follows. Both vehicles make a left turn and travel half a block past several large residences, until they arrive at a U‑shaped driveway in front of the compound. Ryan exits the SUV, his Asian disguise in place and cartridge respirator over his mouth. He leaves the red emergency lights whirling, and Liza and Amanda follow suit. Liza will enter first to communicate with the guard.
She and Ryan both hold large fire extinguishers found in the rear of the ambulance, and they walk urgently toward the guard standing just inside the metal gates.
"What is the nature of this?” the guard asks Liza.
"You have a fire in the rear of the compound. We received the emergency call, open the gates."
He presses an unseen control, swinging the metal gates inward. Liza and Ryan rush through the gates and toward the front door, where another guard ushers them in. Liza’s gaze first takes in the large watercolor paintings along both walls, then she looks upward at the vaulted alcove just inside the door of the majestic residence. A long hallway stretches from the foyer to the rear of the compound.
"What's the best way to the gardens in the rear where the fire is?”
"Straight back this way. Follow me."
“If anyone is here, awaken them now and evacuate them to the front alcove," Liza directs the guard as they trot toward the rear of the compound.
The guard lifts a radio from his waist and begins barking directions to another guard. After about 50 yards the three of them arrive at a set of doors that the guard unlocks. Through the thick glass they can see the fire, probably 50 yards away, toward the rear of the long, open gardens.
“I’ll see i
f I can get it under control," Liza says. “Go back inside and make sure everyone has evacuated.”
Liza trots off toward the flames and the security guard reenters the compound. At that moment, Ryan hits him with a Taser charge. The man jerks involuntarily as if stricken by a seizure, then falls to the ground, his limbs twitching. Ryan jabs a hypodermic needle into his left buttock, grabs both of the man's wrists, and drags him off the paved path and around the corner of the building, out of sight.
Liza extinguishes the flames and runs back in his direction. They both re-enter the compound.
As they make their way back down the hall to the front of the home, one of the security guards approaches Amanda waiting outside. He is demanding something in rapid-fire Chinese, and she struggles to understand what he is asking. Very few of the words make sense to her, but she is sure it has something to do with why she is there. Unable to put together an appropriate response, Amanda pulls the Taser out of her pocket and fills the security guard with electric current until he jerks and falls to the ground. She has a syringe identical to Ryan’s in her other pocket, which she withdraws and sinks into the guard. She quickly surveys the area, to make sure no one saw what just happened. Seeing no one, she drags, then partly rolls his body closer to the driver’s side of the ambulance out of the light.
Back inside, Liza and Ryan come upon a 30-something-year-old man and a woman who appears to be his wife, both in their pajamas. The wife is holding a small boy, maybe a year or two old.
“There is a fire in the rear of the property, and we are trying to control it,” Liza tells them both.
The man, eyes wide with concern, asks, "Do we need to evacuate?"
“Not sure yet. Stay in this front room until we can fully assess the situation." Liza points toward a nearby door, and the man dutifully walks toward the room, followed by his wife who still carries the boy. As soon as the man enters the room, Liza brandishes her pistol and pulls the door shut behind her.
Targeting the Telomeres, A Thriller Page 29