Her gray suit jacket was gone, and her bloody spittle had turned to sleet on the front of her sleeveless tangerine blouse. Her bare arms were cranked behind the chair’s rattan back, her wrists locked in cuffs, and her ankles were roped to the bottoms of the chair’s pole legs. She was barefoot, her skirt was pushed up, and her blouse torn open. She no longer cared.
Ten feet in front of her sat a squat wooden table, arrayed with everything Hyo’s men had found—her Thales brochures, wallet, money, false passport, phony driving credentials, and ear comm. In the middle of the table sat the prize which, thanks to her stubborn resolve, still eluded Hyo’s desire: her cell phone.
She still hadn’t given him her access code, which was why she was due shortly for much more suffering. Next to that was a boilerplate confession—a single page typed in Korean.
“In exchange for your signature and four numbers,” Hyo had said, “you will have your life, Miss Stone.”
He’d said that only once, six hours before. Or maybe it was ten; she couldn’t be sure. Then he’d taken off his uniform coat, rolled up his sleeves, and begun with slaps until her nose and lips dripped blood and her ears rang like a rectory bell.
Then he’d summoned two of his men, who’d ripped open her blouse and squeezed her throat while they slapped her breasts and jammed their calloused fingers under her skirt. She’d said nothing, not even a curse.
After that, Hyo had returned with a woolen hood, and the world went black. They tipped her, in the chair, onto her back, and their knees crushed down into her collarbone as they sluiced ice water over her hood until she thought her lungs would explode. When her toes uncurled and stopped twitching, they tipped her back up, tore the hood off, and slapped her chest until she spewed up bile and water.
Still, she said nothing, and Hyo had stormed out trailing a wave of Asian epithets she didn’t recognize but could well understand.
An hour or so had passed since then. A single guard was left in the room, standing beside the arched stone entrance which led out into a darkened corridor through which they’d dragged her the previous dawn. It was night again and now the guard, a young Korean sergeant, stood with his back to her—a small-caliber pistol on his hip. He smoked pungent cigarettes, and only occasionally turned to make sure she was breathing.
For that hour, she’d done nothing more than try to keep her fluttering heart beating. Nothing else...except slowly, methodically, twist her left wrist. Hyo had made one mistake, removing her cuffs so she could climb down from the Gulfstream jet. And then, in the back of the PLA truck, an officer had cuffed only her right wrist to the bench slat.
The cargo bed was dark, the ride to the temple more than an hour, and during the entire time she’d gripped the arteries of her left elbow with her cuffed right hand, a tourniquet effect that swelled her left wrist. When the cuffs were replaced at the temple, the cinches were no longer the same.
In addition to that, Lily had a congenital imperfection. Her thumbs were double-jointed, with no bone spurs on her primary knuckles. She could bend them straight back to her wrists, or make them nearly disappear into her palms. She’d never had much use for that...until tonight.
So, she welcomed the jaw-clenching cold, which by now had shrunken her left wrist. And still, as she twisted it slowly to the right and left, she felt her flesh ripping and the Freon-cold cuff going slick with her blood. She gritted her teeth from the pain but kept on. It felt like her thumb was breaking. In her swooning head, she silently cursed an adage: Mind over matter, bitch. It only matters if you mind!
With one last grinding wrench, her left hand popped from the cuff. She curled one finger just in time to keep it from clanging. Then she took a long, ragged breath, slowly exhaled, dropped her head to her chest, and moaned. She twitched her trussed body as if she was having a convulsion.
The Korean sergeant turned to look at her. His eyes narrowed, but still he just smoked and watched. Her chair bucked as she quaked, and drool dripped from her slack lips. After what seemed like minutes, he tossed his cigarette to the stone floor, crushed it with his boot, and ambled over. If she died on his watch, he might well find himself in that chair.
Lily’s bruised eyes were half slitted, and she stared at the floor as she jerked in her chair and forced mewling sounds from her throat. Then she saw just the boot tips, stopping a few feet in front of her.
Closer, you bastard. Closer.
She bucked up hard one more time, then collapsed, and went still. The boots came closer. The Korean hissed something. Fingers crawled into her hair and gripped her mane hard, stinging her scalp, as he wrenched her head back.
Her green eyes snapped open, seemingly boring into his surprised brown ones. Her right arm swung up in a wicked arc, whipping the cuffs across the left side of his face with a strength that surprised them both. The cold steel sliced deeply into his cheekbone. To her delight, blood spurted out as he grunted and gripped his gushing wound, inspiring her to whip the metal up again from the left side—twisting in the chair to put all her strength and rage into it.
The cuffs rang off his skull like a prayer gong. He folded backward and slammed down on the cold stone floor as if he were a gavel being hammered by an angry judge.
Lily jolted upright from the chair, reached down under the seat, and yanked it straight up as the legs popped out from her ankle ropes. Then she spun to the left, gripped the chair back, and swung it up over her head as she twisted around to the writhing form of the guard on his back. She smashed him with it as if it were a sledgehammer. The legs splintered, and so did his bones. Just as she was taught, she pounded him again and again until he lay still.
Her body screamed at her to collapse or run. She told her body to shut the hell up as she fell to her knees and rifled the guard’s pockets until she found the handcuff key. She freed her right wrist and dropped the cuffs on his chest at the same moment she pulled his blood-spattered pistol from its holster.
She gripped the side of the table and hauled herself up at the same second she swiped up her cell, passport, and ear comm. She wanted to make a beeline for the doorway but had to be satisfied with staggering. She gripped the sill as a wave of bile stung her throat.
I told you to shut the hell up! she internally shrieked, forcing the puke back as she stuffed the cell and passport into the front of her skirt, jammed the comm in her ear, worked the pistol’s action to chamber a round, and sprang out into the corridor—barefoot and gasping for breath.
To the left, at the end of the corridor, moonlight gleamed through a leaden glass window. Her feet felt like concrete, and her legs were on fire, but she ran—seeing that the window was split down the middle with an iron turn-handle in the middle.
She was almost there when one of Hyo’s young officers popped into the corridor from the right. He was carrying some sort of ration box, probably for the guard she’d just killed. His eyes flew wide as he saw her. He froze but not for long. He dropped the box and scrambled for his pistol. But she launched herself at him like a rabid raccoon, hugged him in a death grip, shoved her pistol deep in his belly, and fired.
His head snapped up, and he tumbled back into the wall just below the window. Lily jammed the pistol into her skirt, stomped on his chest, and launched herself up, grabbing the turn handle and twisting. The window flew open, and she scrambled onto the still and looked down.
Blackness. Goddamn blackness. She had no idea how high up she was. Enormous pines whipped in the wind out front. But below her, nothing. She heard shouts from behind her.
Her body started begging again, pleading, screaming.
What did I tell you? she screeched back at it as she jumped.
Chapter Thirty
Zeta headquarters had a coded alert system that was similar to a hospital’s. It sounded like submarine sonar.
A single ping, ringing from the recessed intercom speakers at five-second intervals, meant that all p
ersonnel should return to their workstations. Two pings, at closer intervals, initiated an urgent communication to analysts and operators, wherever they were in the world—instructing them to scuttle their current tasks and prepare for action. Three steady pings, with only a second between trios, essentially meant “Get the crash cart.”
It sealed all the access doors, sent tactical operators to the team room to don their gear and weapons, and ordered both drivers and pilots to the motor pool bay.
So far this morning, it had only been two pings. But now Lincoln Shepard raced down the hallway as if his hair was on fire, clutching his laptop—a pair of Bluetooth earphones with a boom mike bouncing askew on his head—as his sneakers flapped against the floor. He’d been the one to call the alarm, choosing the middle of three toggles under his desk, and he had a damn good reason.
He burst through the board room door. Paul Kirby was already there, at the head of the conference table, and Karen was just taking a chair. Bishop, Diesel, and Spartan stood off to the left in a corner, arms folded, all wearing similar leather jackets and the bored expressions of combat vets always being told to “hurry up and wait.” Peter Conley rocked back in a leather chair, his flight boots resting on the arm of another. He was reading a copy of Mad Magazine and chuckling.
Linc slapped the laptop down on the table and covered his boom mike with a trembling fist.
“I got her!” he gushed breathlessly. “She’s out, and I have no idea how, but I got her!”
Kirby leaned forward in his chair. “You’ve got who, Mr. Shepard?”
“Lily, for God’s sake!” Linc slammed himself down in a chair, flipped open the laptop, and hammered away at the keyboard.
Conley put the magazine down, and the Tac team unfolded their arms. Karen covered her mouth with a hand, much like the image of Hillary Clinton when SEAL Team Six killed Osama bin Laden. Kirby was out of his chair, listing forward like a battleship in a rogue wave.
“Sloww. . . dowwn, Shepard,” he ordered. “Facts, not emotions.”
Shepard ignored him and pressed the mike to his mouth. “You still with me, Lily?”
No one could hear her feeble voice through Shepard’s earphones, but he listened and nodded furiously.
“Just hang in. We’re all here. Whatever you do, just keep going and don’t let those bastards get you.”
“Damn it, Shepard!” Kirby snapped. “Put her on hold and report!”
Shepard looked at Kirby and said, “Wait one,” into the mike, then pushed it away from his lips, and muted it again with his hand.
“The aircraft made a hard landing in Dalian, China,” he said. “The Koreans took her to some temple in Dalian Jinlon Forest and worked her over. I don’t know how she escaped, but she did, and she’s friggin’ running through the jungle somewhere, and they’re hot on her trail.” He looked around, his eyes glassy and crazed. “Where’s Diana?”
“Out of the office,” Kirby answered. “I’m in charge here now.” He snapped his fingers to get Shepard’s focus again. “Look at me, Shepard. Does she have her cell?”
“Yes, yes.” Shepard bobbed his chin.
“Do you have her on nav?”
“Yes!” Shepard jabbed a finger at his laptop screen. Bishop, Diesel, and Spartan rushed to the spot behind Shepard and loomed over his shoulders, looking at the screen. Karen jumped up and hurried around the table to join them. Peter Conley had his cell to his ear and was calling his aircraft mechanic at Logan.
“Jake, it’s Cougar. Spin up the APU, top up the bird and get clearance for takeoff in half an hour.”
Kirby shot a finger at Conley. “Belay that, Cougar.”
Conley pulled the cell from his ear. “You got a better alternative, sir?”
“It’s a fifteen-hour flight,” said Kirby. “You might get there in time to recover her remains.”
“Jesus,” Spartan muttered. She had a special affinity for Lily: two female peas in a testosterone pod.
“We can’t just leave her there,” Diesel protested.
“Right,” Bishop grunted. “If it was Cobra, I’d leave him, but not her.” He still had a bandage around his huge bicep where Neika had punctured his flesh, and his mood hadn’t improved since the incident. Conley glared at him.
“Settle down!” Kirby snapped. “All of you.” He moved away from the head of the table and paced back and forth in front of the huge videoconference screen, his arms folded and a finger tapping the nose bridge of his glasses. Then he marched around the table to Shepard and snapped his fingers again.
“Give me the comm.”
Shepard pulled off the headset and handed it up to Kirby, who wiped the sweaty headphones with his tie and put it on.
“Lily, this is Kirby. Do you copy?” He squinted behind his glasses as he tried to hear her; then he pushed the mike close to his flabby lips and squeezed the headphones more tightly to his ears. “Listen to me, Lily. How far are they behind you, and how many?” He closed his eyes, listened some more, and pulled in a breath through his nose.” All right. Understood. Now hear me. We didn’t put you through all that SERE training for nothing. You’ve escaped, and now it’s time to evade. Do you copy?” Another long pause. “Good. And yes, I appreciate the urgency. We are addressing this now, but you must not be recaptured. Am I clear?” Another pause. “Excellent. Now focus on the task at hand, nothing else.”
Kirby pulled off the headset and spoke to everyone in the room. “You may all stand down.” Six pairs of Zeta eyes bugged at him. He turned to Karen. “Open two secure phone lines.”
“Two?” she asked incredulously. “Where?”
“Just do it,” Kirby said. “And leave me alone.”
* * * *
The soles of Lily’s bare feet were shredded, but there was nothing she could do about that except endure each rending slice as she ran onward.
She was pounding through a large field of elephant grass, the five-foot-high emerald blades glistening in the moonlight. With every stride she stamped them down, and with every stride, they avenged each crush with long, ragged cuts.
In her pumping left fist she gripped her cell phone, and in her right she clutched the dead Korean’s pistol. Her passport had already fallen once from her skirt, and she’d had to scramble on the ground to find it. Now she gripped it in her teeth like a pirate’s knife, nearly biting through the cover with each new shock of pain.
Her right knee was swollen from the jump, but she’d rolled into a parachute landing fall and hadn’t broken anything. So many points of her body were screaming in neural shock that it was like a single, hellish chorus. She no longer bothered telling it to shut up.
Two hundred feet behind her, she had burst from the first swath of thick, sloping jungle. After her leap of faith, it had taken Hyo some minutes to marshal his forces, and for a good ten minutes she’d heard no one pursuing. But then the shouts had risen, and the flashlight beams sliced through the trees like searchlights during the London Blitz. Then finally, the gunshots.
They were wild for the most part, aimed through the blackness at the sounds she made. But that first patch of jungle had slowed her. She’d bounced off tree trunks and tripped over vines. She’d smashed into a thicket of thorns, then dove underneath, and crawled through. She’d splashed through a slim, shallow stream, which brought aching relief to her feet...but only for a minute.
Across the river and back into the trees, the first aimed shot had come too close—whacking into a bamboo trunk near her head and making a sound like a gong.
“Bloody communist buggers,” she’d spat as she spun on her pursuers, took a knee, aimed her pistol, listened, and fired three quick rounds in succession. Someone had screamed.
She threw herself flat as a flurry of gunshots whipped through the palms and sent slivers of bark spinning. And then she was up again, running, and she’d burst out into the elephant grass.
For a few precious minutes after that, Hyo and his gunmen had grown cautious and slowed their pursuit. But then they must have realized that all she had was a single pistol, and now she could hear them pounding down the jungle slope—stomping like horses through the stream.
Altogether, she’d fired four shots, but she had no idea how much the magazine held. Five? Eight? She didn’t dare stop to check, but she remembered the title of a book she’d read by a mercenary soldier: Save the Last Bullet for Yourself.
Yes. She would do it. She wasn’t going to be captured again. Colonel Hyo was an evil bastard, and he’d only just begun to torture her. She couldn’t last much longer. They had boots; she had none. They were well fed; she was starving and dehydrated. They were in China, a staunch ally, their playground. She was on another planet. No one was coming for her. It was impossible, and she knew it.
She should do it now, right now, just deprive them of their prize and die knowing that Zeta would wreak hell and havoc on their heads.
And then, for some reason as she sprinted through the tall knife-blade grass and gasped steam from her aching lungs, she’d yanked the saliva-soaked passport from her mouth and whispered, “Linc, Lord in heaven, where are you?” There was no way her ear comm could still be working, but...
“Holy shit, Lily! I’m here!”
It was like hearing the voice of God. Tears burst from her eyes and streamed down her face, the salt stinging her split, swollen lips. He asked her questions, and she babbled back whispers and heard his feet pounding through Zeta’s hallways in concert with hers. Then Kirby was on the comm telling her that, no matter what, she had to keep going and that he would fix it.
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