The doctor pressed his needle into the crux of Nick’s arm. He felt the icy cold drug entering his vein. He closed his eyes and tensed his muscles, bracing himself for the neurological onslaught of barbiturates and stimulants. “Nicholas J. Baron,” he said, forcing the words out, “Major, US Air Force, seven one three, two six, four zero two one.”
“Now you are just being ridiculous,” said Zheng, pushing his face close to Nick’s. His breath smelled of rotting garlic. “The name, rank, and serial number technique went out of fashion years ago.”
Nick coughed and opened his eyes. Zheng’s unpleasant visage began to deform. The room seemed to tilt one way and then the other, as if he were on the deck of a ship, riding out a storm. He heard three sharp beeps in his ear. A digital voice said, “Activation code accepted. Kharon Protocol initiated. Local control is online. Lighthouse control is online.” He gave Zheng a grim smile. Then he heard Walker’s voice again.
“Good work, Shadow One. You have the lead now. We have your back.”
CHAPTER 56
Quinn squeezed the last drop of water from a green ration pouch. He was sore, fatigued, and thirsty. He patted the pockets on his tactical harness; there were no more water pouches, and he had drained his CamelBak hours ago. This mission was never supposed to last this long.
The Chinese weren’t moving subtly in small groups anymore. They were after him in force now, and he knew that he needed to keep hydrating if he wanted to stay ahead of them, both physically and mentally. He knelt down beside a small brook and stared apprehensively at the water. The stream was barely a trickle, descending through a narrow valley in the rain forest. He shuddered to think what sort of amoebas and microscopic worms it carried in its flow. He pulled a pill bottle from his vest and shook it, examining the two small capsules inside. He hoped that whatever life forms this stream carried, they would be the sort that the bacteria in the pills liked to eat.
Doc Heldner had given him the capsules after she installed his implant. Called “Intestinal Fortitude” by Special Forces operators, each one contained more than a million helpful bacteria, bioengineered to consume any harmful organisms that untreated water could dish out. “Take two million of these and call me in the morning,” the doctor had said.
Funny.
“Oh well, you gotta die of something,” muttered Quinn. He swallowed the pills and then slipped an iodine tab into his CamelBak for good measure. If the dysentery got too bad, he could just run out in front of a Chinese machine gun.
As he reluctantly dipped the polyurethane bladder into the stream, a shrill squeak sounded in his ear. He jerked his head up, smacking it into a low-hanging branch. “Ow. I just can’t win,” he complained, rubbing his head. Then a burst of light static crackled in his ear. He realized the squeal had come from his communications implant.
Quinn sat down on the bank, gingerly touching the place behind his ear where Heldner had installed the device. He cringed at the idea that the unit might be malfunctioning. What if it accidentally went off?
“Shadow Two, come in.” Walker’s voice cut through the static like a searchlight through fog. “Shadow Two, respond.”
“Lighthouse,” Quinn replied, trying to contain his elation at hearing a voice from home, “this is Shadow Two. I have you Lima Charlie.”
“Loud and clear also, Shadow Two. What is your situation?”
“I am evading a large enemy force, trying to return to Shadow Catcher. The objective has been recaptured. Shadow One is down. I repeat, Shadow One is KIA.”
“Negative, Shadow Two. Your team lead is alive.”
A chill swept through Quinn’s body, but he didn’t dare to hope. “I saw him go down, Lighthouse. The shotgun they used was massive. It should have blown him apart.”
“It was probably a blunt trauma round, a nonlethal. He’s hurt and captured, but he’s alive.”
A dizzying mix of emotions assaulted Quinn’s weary mind: anger against the Chinese, joy that Nick was alive, but most of all, he felt ashamed that his foolish rebellion had broken up their team.
“We are monitoring Shadow One on another channel,” continued Walker. “They want Shadow Catcher. They are torturing him for its location, for yours as well.”
“Has he said anything?” asked Quinn.
“Negative. He’s holding for now. He already activated the Kharon Protocol on his comm device. If they get close, he can trigger the sequence . . . or we can.”
Quinn drew a slow breath. “You mean, if you don’t like where the conversation is leading, you can blow a big hole in the side of his head.”
“It’s what you both agreed to,” replied Walker. “Shadow One did the right thing by activating the contingency.” The colonel paused for a moment, leaving only cold static. “No one wants it to come to that,” he said finally. “We want you to get him out.”
Adrenaline surged, washing away Quinn’s fatigue. “What’s the plan?” he asked, dipping his CamelBak into the stream again.
“We need intelligence. We have Shadow One’s location. They are holding him at an isolated facility less than a kilometer southeast of your position. Previous intel lists the compound as a factory, but it is surrounded by a tall fence, and it has a runway and an aircraft fueling station. We think it’s a base of operations for a covert unit working directly for Zheng. We need you to get there and assess the potential for a rescue attempt. You need to move quickly. We haven’t reestablished communications with the Wraith yet, but we know that it’s getting low on fuel.”
“I’m on it,” replied Quinn, installing the full CamelBak in his tactical harness.
“Good, we can bounce a data burst through your comm unit into your MTG control. We’ll send you Shadow One’s coordinates. We think he is being held in the northwest corner of the building on the top floor, but our signal was corrupted earlier, so the spherical error is nearly one hundred feet.”
“Right. So for all you know, he could be in a storm cellar out in the woods next to the compound,” said Quinn as he typed a command into his MTG control box. “I’m ready for the data burst.”
“We’re sending it now. Good luck, Shadow Two. Lighthouse out.”
CHAPTER 57
The kidnapper wore all black—black gloves, black pants, and a black hooded sweatshirt. He always kept his face in shadow, shining the blinding light attached to the base of his pistol in Katy’s eyes. He spoke only in harsh whispers, ordering her to pull Luke out of the car and enter Amanda’s house, threatening to shoot them both if she did not comply.
Inside, Katy saw no sign of McBride or Amanda, although it was hard to see anything at all. The condo was dark, lit only by the waving beam of the kidnapper’s light. There was a stairwell to her right, just inside the door, but there were no lights coming from the top floor either. He ordered her to lay the baby on Amanda’s small sofa and then bound her hands behind her with zip-tie handcuffs.
Luke wailed at the top of his lungs.
Katy sat down next to her son. “Hush, baby. Mommy’s here. It’s okay.” She tried to force the edge out of her voice, to make her tone light and soothing, but she could barely keep her own crying in check. With her hands bound, she could not give him the mother’s touch that he needed. “It’s okay, sweetie. Mommy’s here,” she repeated.
“Keep your baby quiet, or I will shoot him,” said the man in black, his whispered tone strangely even given the horror of his words. “I don’t really need three hostages. I can get by with two.” He leaned casually against the granite bar separating Amanda’s tiny kitchen from her living room and then raised the weapon again, forcing Katy to avert her eyes from the powerful light.
“You’re sick,” said Katy through her tears. “There’s a special place in hell for men like you.”
The man checked his watch, as if bored by her accusation. “I don’t believe in heaven or hell, sweetheart. Life is all about the cash.
The rest doesn’t really matter.”
“Then you’re in for a big surprise.”
“Just shut the kid up.”
Katy glanced down at her crying son and then back up at the kidnapper. She realized that she had a bargaining chip, but she had to be careful. “You’re going to have to uncuff me so that I can hold him. It’s the only way that I can calm him down.”
The kidnapper hesitated for a moment, but Luke’s cries became even more insistent. He let out a frustrated sigh. “If I even think that you’re making a move, I’ll put a bullet in his head. Got me, soccer mom?”
Katy nodded, fighting back the tears evoked by his terrible words.
Every cell in her body wanted to recoil as he approached with wire cutters to clip her restraints, but she dared not move for fear that he would make good on his threat. As he drew closer, she found that he was shorter than she first thought. Then, just before he turned her around to clip the cuffs, she got a look at his face—not the whole face, but a faint glimpse into the shadow beneath the hood. His cheeks and chin seemed soft, not sharp or scarred as she’d expected of a heartless thug.
Katy took her son into her arms, and the man retreated to the bar, pausing halfway to peek through the vertical blinds that covered the sliding patio door. Katy took the gesture as a sign of nervousness. Maybe he had heard something. Maybe one of the neighbors had gotten suspicious and called the police.
Between the kidnapper’s willingness to uncuff her and his behavior at the back door, Katy wondered if his menace might be mostly talk. Surely he wasn’t demented enough to make good on his threats to harm her baby, especially if he thought this might turn into a standoff with the police. Once she had calmed Luke down, she looked up, shielding her eyes from the flashlight. “This really isn’t your cup of tea, is it?” she asked, forcing confidence into her voice.
The kidnapper stormed up to her and placed the barrel of his gun against her forehead. “You have no idea what I’m capable of, what I have done,” he hissed. “I guess you need a reminder.” He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her across the room to the entryway closet. Then he opened the door and shined his light inside.
Katy let out a terrified cry. Will McBride lay crumpled on the floor of the tiny enclosure, his shirt soaked through with blood. The LED flashlight cast his face in ghastly white. His mouth gaped open, and his empty eyes stared back at her. She turned away, trying desperately to control her tears.
“Do not forget what you saw,” whispered the killer, shutting the closet door and shoving her back toward the couch. “I will end your life or your son’s life without hesitation, so keep your mouth shut and do as you’re told.” He sat down on a stool at Amanda’s bar.
Katy cowered on the couch with her baby. “What have you done with Amanda?” she asked, suppressing her sobs.
“She’s fine. She’s resting upstairs.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The killer sighed. “I told you to shut up.” He removed a phone from a holster on his hip, raising the pistol again as he flipped up a fat antenna and dialed. “Keep the kid quiet. This is an important call . . . for all of us.”
CHAPTER 58
The rain started shortly after Quinn’s conversation with Walker. It began with a few fat drops, falling lazily through the forest canopy and splashing on the low vegetation. Then it grew into a vicious downpour. How, he wondered, could the seamless blanket of green above him stop so much light yet do nothing to shield him from the rain? He chuckled. He shouldn’t complain. Aside from a slight chill and the general feeling of being soggy, the deluge was a blessing.
This weather gave Quinn the advantage. The MTGs cut through moisture better than any other vision-enhancing device ever conceived. He was one man, moving under the guidance of heads-up GPS graphics and communicating with his headquarters through an internal comm device. The Chinese were moving in groups, unguided and searching with their naked eyes, trying to coordinate with one another using handheld radios or shouting over the noise of the pounding rain. Quinn could move faster now, with the sounds of scrub shifting and cracking under his boots completely masked by the storm. The Chinese had to slow down, listen harder, and group closer together. He looked up into the surreal stream of digitally enhanced raindrops falling from the canopy above. Right now, this storm was a gift from God.
Quinn’s heads-up display showed the target compound less than thirty meters ahead. He stopped, found some cover, and pulled up a topographical map in his goggles. The terrain rose sharply to the south, with a ridgeline that pressed in toward a concave notch in the fenced perimeter. Quinn zoomed in and switched to satellite. He nodded. He had found his observation point.
“Lighthouse, this is Shadow Two, come in,” said Quinn. He stood on a thick branch, two-thirds of the way up a tall oak. The elevated position brought a new threat. Though the forest hadn’t been shielding him from the rain, it had been shielding him from the wind. Now the storm’s gale threatened to blow him out of the tree. He dug his gloved fingers into the bark.
“We have you, Shadow Two. Go ahead.”
“I’m on the north side of the compound. The perimeter fence is at least ten feet tall with a double stack of concertina wire. There are no guard towers, but there are patrols covering the north and south sectors and a guard shack at the entrance to the east.” Quinn removed a small cloth from the pocket on his leg and wiped the outside of his goggles. “There are four buildings: the main structure, a hangar and fueling center at the south end of the tarmac, and another, lightweight structure in the northeast corner. Shadow One could be in any of them. Wait a second . . .” He had been watching three soldiers push a large cart from the main structure toward the northeast building. Halfway between the two buildings, the wind caught the tarp that covered it and blew it completely off. Quinn let go of the tree with one hand long enough to zoom in.
“Lighthouse, our boy is probably in the main structure. The northeast building appears to be a warehouse. They are moving something to it now. It looks like a missile.”
“What kind of missile?” asked Walker.
Quinn wiped his goggles again. “Hard to say. Gauging the relative size against the soldiers, it looks to be about fifteen feet long and about as big around as two Chinese guys put together.”
“Short-range surface-to-surface,” mused Walker. “Does it have any markings? Flags, numbers, anything?”
The soldiers had re-covered the tarp and now struggled to secure it over the missile again. Quinn gripped the tree tightly and scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. “That’s the weird thing,” he said. “I can see the guts.”
“Say again, Shadow Two.”
“The guts,” repeated Quinn. “It’s not just that there are no markings. I can see some of the electronics in the guidance area, and I can see parts of the rocket motor. The missile doesn’t have any skin at all.”
There was a long pause. “Copy that, Shadow Two,” Walker finally replied. “Now we need to focus on getting Baron out of there. Do you see any options?”
“The facility is well protected. I can’t make a daylight run, even in this rain. There are too many of them. If we could land Shadow Catcher on that runway, I could coordinate a snatch-and-grab, but I need my pilot, and he’s in there.”
Then Quinn realized what he was saying, what Walker might do if he thought Nick could not be saved. “But I can do it tonight,” he said, backpedaling. “I just need a little more time.”
“Lighthouse copies,” said Walker, his monotone showing no hint of his intentions. “Stand by and hold your position. We’ll be in touch.”
CHAPTER 59
The cut felt deep to Nick, but what did he know? With the cocktail of drugs in his system, he could be lying on a table, hallucinating the whole thing. It felt real. He could feel the blood trickling down his leg. “I’m going to need a bandage for that,” he said out lou
d.
“I have opened your femoral artery,” said Zheng in an informative tone. “You will slowly bleed to death without treatment. The longer you delay by refusing to give me the information I require, the more difficult it will be to save you.”
Nick tried opening his eyes, but the room tilted and rolled and drifted in and out of focus. He closed them again, intentionally eliminating the only negative stimulus that he could control. He couldn’t maintain his concentration on a single thought. He felt like his mind was in that uncontrollable state just prior to falling asleep. But sleep never came. There was too much pain.
“Hold on, Nick,” a motherly voice coached in his ear. “You’re doing great. We’re going to get through this together.”
He felt the blade slide down his arm, a long, shallow cut, the tactile equivalent of nails dragging down a chalkboard.
“There goes another artery. You are running out of time,” said Zheng. “Where is your stealth plane? Where did you send your underling, Mr. Quinn?”
“He won’t cut arteries, Nick,” the woman continued. “The cuts are painful but inconsequential. He can’t run the risk of killing you before he gets the information he needs. Hang on.”
“You cannot shut me out, Major Baron. Your armor is gone. Without it, you cannot stop the blade from penetrating.” To make his point, Zheng slowly sank his scalpel into Nick’s forearm and then withdrew it. Nick grunted against the sickening pain. “That one didn’t cut anything vital. It was just for fun.”
Suddenly Zheng rattled off a hail of Mandarin.
“I don’t understand your language, you commie half-wit,” said Nick. He expected a painful retaliation, but the defense minister did not respond. After a few moments of silence, he opened his eyes and strained to lift his head and look around. He could not find Zheng’s distorted frame amid the swirling confusion. Dr. Chao had disappeared as well. The two had left him alone with Ma.