The Stefan Mendoza Trilogy Boxed Set, page 72
part #1 of Stefan Mendoza Trilogy Series
Suri joined me. I helped her into the armored vest and suit, staying busy to fight off the onset of the shakes. Woo-young helped Pitsamai with the drone launch, then joined Suri and me.
Du-ri leaned against the side of one of the SUVs. He was trying to come across relaxed, but the tension was obvious in his stiff movements. “They are en route. You must hurry.”
I helped Woo-young into his vest. “Suri and I can run scout on this. You catch up, okay?”
He nodded, annoyed.
I set his weapons and NVG out for him, slapped him on the back, and ran. Suri followed. As we exited the clearing, I spotted headlights: two smaller SUVs, each with a driver and passenger.
Our emergency drivers, come to pick up the SUVs.
Suri and I sprinted through the woods, laughing sometimes when the slope made it nearly impossible to control our progress or to dodge the trees. In a way, it was exhilarating.
At the final road, we hid in the woods as we’d done before. Suri lay next to me, laughing softly.
I caught myself starting to laugh, too. “What’s so funny?”
She shrugged, then laughed out loud. “Scary.”
“Yeah.”
My radio hissed, then text popped across the goggle display: Trouble.
An overhead view filled the screen. The drone had gone into a steep climb and was now several hundred feet up. Red triangles marked three SUVs crawling the spiderweb roadway off to the southwest. We were free to cross the road and move in on the gate; that was the good news.
The three heat signatures speeding in from the south was the bad news.
Agency helicopters.
I switched my radio to encrypted audio. “Du-ri, you copy? Those birds’re going to pass fairly close to your position.”
Du-ri came back almost immediately. “We will move soon. The vehicles are gone. Pitsamai is passing drone control over to Trang.”
“How far out is our bird?”
“Ten miles. Chun-kang will close once we know what the Agency is doing.”
We waited beneath the trees until Woo-young’s green square was almost on top of us. When he reached us, we activated the chameleon suits and crossed the road, well before the SUVs could turn onto our road. I did my best to take the same approach to the gate that we’d taken before, although I wasn’t as worried about mines now that we’d been through the area once.
Fifty feet out from the gate, I whispered, “Stop.”
We dropped to our bellies and watched. The road to our left was empty. The two guards in the shack stared into the night, bored.
The Agency helicopters split, one heading on an intercept course with the APCs, the other two heading right toward our position.
Woo-young hissed, “They know our position!”
“Not likely. They’re probably going for this gate and the security building.” Just like I’d suggested. That meant they had rocket launchers.
The two red triangles flew over Du-ri’s old position, and a few seconds later, I felt them rather than heard them—rotor wash beating down the trees. Popping sounds reached me about the same time as the sound of glass cracking, and the guards slumped, revealing dark spatters on the walls behind them.
The helicopters slid out from the trees and several forms hopped out, dropping onto the road and running for the gate. One of the helicopters sped over the gate, hanging close to the treetops as it moved toward the security building. The other gained altitude and drifted north.
On the drone’s video, the third helicopter rose up from the treetops ahead of the APC convoy. White light flashed out from the helicopter in streams, and more bright light enveloped the APCs.
Rockets.
One of the APCs sped out of the expanding cloud of light, trailing white flame, then drifted off the road and flipped over. A second exited the cloud slowly, then stopped.
But the third shot past. It flashed white-hot lines toward the helicopter, and a moment later, white flames blossomed from the heart of the aircraft.
The helicopter that had drifted north turned and accelerated toward the damaged one.
“Agency bird down,” I whispered. “APC approaching. Second bird en route. Du-ri, your call. Abort or go?” I was fine sending Woo-young and Suri back, but I was going in.
After a few seconds, Du-ri said, “Go.”
I shrank the drone video to a quarter of my display. Whoever had been dropped off was already through the gate. I sprinted to the opening, confirmed the guards were dead, then slapped Pitsimai’s transmitter onto one of the antennas and said, “Let’s go!”
We sprinted at first, trying to close the distance on the Agency team. That wasn’t happening. They were moving as fast as we were.
An explosion lit up the night. The helicopter had gotten the angle it wanted on the security building.
Machine gun fire responded.
They didn’t get the APCs!
I turned left and started up the steep incline of the hill, hissing toward Woo-young and Suri, “Up the hill, off the road!”
It was tough going, and I quickly felt it in my back. Cybernetic legs or not, sprinting up a steep incline was a major exertion on all parts of the body. My abs ached, and my breath came in short gasps. Floodlights flashed, and when I reached the top, I thought I saw the Agency team curving around the road a good quarter mile downhill. The guard towers opened up, but the tracers showed the limits of their effectiveness without the tac-net: They chewed up the ground several feet from the Agency team.
Another explosion came from the security building area. A quick check confirmed that the helicopter was down.
There were at least two APCs still operational!
I tagged the building that supposedly held Ichi—a medical facility—and hurried toward it. Guards jogged past not ten feet away, weapons jingling as they shouted. It sounded like they had the Agency team pinned down.
There was a side door on the medical facility. I got a running start and my kick pushed the bolt through the frame.
Someone screamed off to my left.
I staggered for a few steps, regained my footing, and skidded to a stop. I was in a hallway. To my left was an office with a wall—solid on the bottom, glass on the top. That was my screamer, what looked like a nurse, hands on her face, still staring at the door. What looked like examination or operating rooms were beyond that office. To my right, three more doors labeled with numbers.
Patients.
The first room had a sedated man in it with his leg lifted up in traction. The second was empty.
Ichi was in the third. She was already out of the bed, leaning against the frame for support. Yellow bruises lined her legs and arms, and some of her fingers were in splints. Where the gown had pulled away from her body, red welts and dark scabs told me all I needed to know: She had been tortured at some point.
I pulled my mask off and powered the chameleon suit down. “Ichi! Sh!”
Her eyes ran up and down my body, finally focusing on my face. “Stefan?”
“Sh! Yeah.” I held her to me and pulled IV needles from her arms. “You okay? Can you walk? ”
She nodded, but when I let go of her, she nearly fell. I pulled the stim from my thigh pouch and worked it into her mouth.
“Swallow.”
She had a hard time even with that.
I pushed her up onto the bed, found a water pitcher and poured her a drink. “Swallow. Now.”
She choked it down with some effort.
I radioed Du-ri. “I’ve got Ichi. Have the helicopter put down at LZ1.”
Du-ri responded immediately. “Valuable research was being conducted at this site. Ask your friend which building it was in. The helicopter will pick you up once you have it.”
Of course. The real intent of the mission all along. “Ichi? Ichi? The research building, can you get me there?”
“Yes.” She cupped my face with a shaky hand. “You saved me.”
“That’s what friends do.” They sure as hell don’t leave a kid to live on her own in a fucked-up world.
I helped her into the hall. Woo-young stood outside the office of the screamer, pulling his mask back on. The screaming had stopped; I didn’t ask how.
By the time we reached the door, Ichi was regaining balance. She pointed up the street, closer to where the Agency team had been pinned down. There was the first hint of gray: twilight. The sun would be rising soon. The machine gun fire had stopped, and as we stepped out, I felt the Agency helicopter flying overhead.
Had the sniper stayed onboard?
I pulled my mask over Ichi’s head and activated the chameleon effect, then I threw her over my shoulder. Suri was off to my right, hidden. She followed.
As we approached the building, I realized there were guards outside the front entry. Slumped to the ground, dead or unconscious.
I set Ichi down beside one and took my mask back. “What’s inside? Ichi?”
She blinked several times. “Labs. Left and right side. There is a vault. Far end of hallway. You want what is in there. There is a table in the room—the combination is taped underneath. I was close.”
The dead guards indicated that someone was probably already working on the vault door.
Suri turned her chameleon effect off and pulled her carbine out. “I will watch.”
Woo-young was closing, still hidden.
I pointed to LZ1. “You two keep this area clear. Our bird sets down right over there. That’s our only ticket out.”
Suri nodded. There was no hint of laughter now, just a sense of seriousness.
I activated the suit’s chameleon effect and headed in, staying close to the walls. It was dark except for the far end of the hall, where a small cone of bright light shone. I switched from ultraviolet to visible light. After the first labs, there was an exit to my right, the door closed still—a secondary escape option.
The door at the end of the hall was open enough that I could see Yulia squatting outside the open vault door, hastily stuffing storage devices and gear inside a big backpack. The bright light came from a flashlight on the floor. She wore a sleeveless black dress, as if she had been heading out to La Atalaya. There was a pistol on the floor, beside the backpack.
I could close on her quick enough to—
A door opened—soft, barely perceptible, followed by quiet steps.
I slipped inside the nearest lab and pulled my pistol out.
Bodies on the floor: men and women in lab coats. Bullet wounds.
Asset denial.
Matteo Piola glided past the doorway, pistol raised, followed by two of the bodyguards from that night at La Atalaya. When they went past, I realized Yulia hadn’t heard them. She was wrestling the backpack over her shoulders. I could probably kill Matteo and his bodyguards, but doing so would give my position away to Yulia, and I’d already seen how serious she was about getting whatever she’d taken from the vault. Plus, there were still bodyguards unaccounted for .
When Yulia squatted to grab her pistol, Matteo rushed into the vault room, pistol extended. “Don’t!” His accent was Italian, but it sounded like someone who had lived abroad for a long time.
Yulia slowly raised her hands, and her lips curved into a sultry smile. “I guess—”
Matteo shot her. Right between the eyes.
Before her body hit the floor, I was on the rearmost bodyguard, wrapping my left arm around his neck and squeezing, crushing his larynx.
His gasp brought the other one around.
I put two rounds into her throat, then put another into Matteo’s shoulder.
He grunted and fired as he fell, finishing off the guard I’d been choking.
I dropped the body, stuck my gun behind my back to conceal it, and bolted to the other side of the hall, just outside the vault room.
Matteo jerked his gun right and left. He was bleeding nicely and turning pale already in the flashlight beam.
I pulled the pistol around and put another round into his balls.
He dropped his weapon and howled. I put two more bullets into his gut. He fell back, gasping.
I opened his coat and yanked the wakizashi free, then thrust it into his bleeding belly and twisted.
His eyes bugged out, and he coughed up blood.
Still alive. I whispered, “Ichi sends her regards.”
I wiped the blade on his shirt, sheathed the weapon, and stuck the sheath inside the front of my suit, then carefully rolled Yulia over to take her backpack. I had no doubt she would have killed me to escape, but I would have done everything I could not to have killed her. Her dead eyes stared at the wall.
I pulled my carbine out of its wrap and darted out to the front, keying the radio as I went. “I’ve got the goods, Du-ri. Get that bird down here now.”
After a few seconds, Du-ri said, “Chun-kang will be there soon.”
The distinctive whup-whup-whup of rotors echoed from the southeast. I set the backpack down next to Ichi; she wrapped an arm around it and smiled. We would talk later about what she had gone through.
I brought my binoculars up. The guard towers were empty. There was sporadic gunfire from down the road, but it seemed to be dying off. I couldn’t get any sense of who had the upper hand, although I assumed superior gear and training would benefit the Agency team once the numbers became closer.
Unless the APCs were still active.
The helicopter came into view between the two western towers, moving fast, staying low.
Off to my left, the tenor of the engagement changed: heavy machine gun fire.
An APC!
I brought the drone video feed up and keyed my radio. One of the APCs was turning up the base of the hill, heading toward the road we were on. “Du-ri, we’ve got an APC inbound!”
“Yes.” He sounded far too calm. “Chun-kang knows what he is doing.”
The helicopter set down with a bounce about fifty feet away. Chun-kang rocked in the seat; it looked like he was laughing maniacally. Beside him, Trang seemed absorbed in piloting the drone.
I grabbed Ichi with my left arm and hunched down to stay below the rotors. Suri hauled the backpack up, while Woo-young spun around to cover our rear.
Machine gun fire became constant, and it grew loud enough that I could hear it even over the rotors. I helped Ichi into the passenger area, then turned to help Suri in. She held the backpack out.
And her arm came off just below the shoulder.
She looked down, frozen in place.
Then her head exploded.
Suqing hopped out of the back of the helicopter and brought his sniper rifle up to sight. Woo-young dropped to a knee in front of the helicopter and fired at the approaching APC.
I tossed the backpack into the helicopter and climbed in .
Just in time to see the APC machine gun tear Suqing and Woo-young apart.
The helicopter window spiderwebbed, and holes appeared in the back of Chun-kang’s chair as something punched through the frame between me and Ichi.
Close.
Chun-kang slumped.
I screamed, “Trang!”
She snapped out of it and got us into the air.
A white contrail came from a nearby building rooftop, and the APC erupted in flame. It backed up, lurched as if something had exploded inside, then fiery forms spilled out and fell to the ground.
Someone from the Agency team was still alive and had a rocket launcher!
We climbed, but it was too slow. Too damn slow!
Another contrail, and this time I saw where it came from. Trang banked hard to the left, and the rocket shot past.
“Get us moving,” I screamed.
She nodded, and the bank turned into what felt like far too casual forward movement. But she managed to put buildings between us and the person with the RPG.
An explosion behind us lit up the sky and knocked the helicopter around, but Trang kept it together. It was only as we limped toward our meeting place with Du-ri and Pitsamai that I realized Trang was wounded, too.
Badly.
I patted Ichi and hoped the backpack contents were worth all the dying and killing.
Chapter 11
Du-ri stared through the glass wall of Trang’s room. Her face was bandaged, as was her torso. IV and drain lines ran to bright, cheerful machines. She should have been dead; her toughness was impressive. I was even more impressed by the money being spent on trying to save her.
I glanced up and down the hallway outside her room. The hospital was bright and cool, the tiled floor polished. Detergent, alcohol, soap—the place smelled clean and refreshingly sterile after the hell of our trip back to Seoul. We’d hired a nurse in Ecuador to keep Trang alive—blood and saline drips, some painkillers—then we’d transferred her to urgent care in Honolulu until they’d stabilized her. Then we’d flown back to Seoul.
Twice, people had assured me that the facility she was in was the best in all of Asia. I could believe it.
Du-ri pursed his lips. “You believe it is my fault.”
“That you lost half your team?” I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Partly. I think part of that was you not understanding things fully. Part of it was hiding things from me.”
He considered me with his bare eyes. He’d given up his mirror shades and slick jacket over the last couple days. Maybe it was because one of those jackets was covered in Trang’s blood. Wearing just a tailored white shirt and gray slacks, he seemed more authentic. “Will you walk with me?”
“Lead on.”
We walked through the waiting area and out into the night. It was cold, but neither of us seemed to be in the mood to admit as much. Cars sped along the road, lights bright in the darkness. There was the occasional purr of a combustion engine and the sharp smell of exhaust.
