Jake Maroc - Shan Part 59

"Max probably doesn't know," Donovan said. "He's the consummate bureaucrat, Tony. You know that. Right now he's concentrating on getting me out of his hair any way he can."

"There's too much at stake," Jake said, "to take either of these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds at their word."

Donovan looked at him. "I see I have more bargaining to do." He nodded. "All right. Do you recall that Henry Wunderman had a deep-cover a.s.set code-named Apollo?"

"Yes," Jake said. He dared not glance at Simbal. He wanted to give Donovan no clue at all.

"Daniella knows he exists and his ident.i.ty."

"She told you this?" Jake said, damping down on his anxiety.

"She did."

"What's his name?"

"What good would it do you?"

"Tell me," Jake said, "and don't ask questions."

"Mikhail Carelin."

Dear G.o.d, Jake thought. Carelin's a dead man. "When did she find out?" he asked.

"We spoke before I left," Donovan said. "She had just gotten the intelligence."

"Jake, what do you think?" Simbal said.

Is Donovan telling the truth about everything? Jake asked himself, or is he taking his own advice and feeding us half truths as lies?

"If you believe me, Tony," Donovan said, "it means aligning yourself against Max Threnody. I don't know whether you're prepared for that."

"I want a chance to get to Daniella Vorkuta," Jake said. "Donovan's the only path." That is, he thought, unless Apollo can get to her before she kills him.

"Is it worth the risk?" Simbal wondered aloud.

"To get to the head of the KGB's First Chief Directorate," Jake said, "I'd mortgage heaven and h.e.l.l."

Simbal thought of Max Threnody, of what he had done to Monica, to the Cuban, to Simbal himself. That was all part of the game, in Max's book. Was this, too, just another ruse? Who was using him now, Max or Rodger?

"All right," Simbal said at last, making his decision. He called out softly and two of the Shan came and took Donovan. "You'll be intheir custody until this is all over, Rodger," he said. "In the meantime, don't do anything stupid and make us sorry we kept you alive."

The rain had come again, the storm backing around from the south and sitting athwart the mountains, banging on them like a gleeful child with a new set of drums.

From where Jake and Tony Simbal crouched in the heavy undergrowth, they could scent the opium cooking. Its stench permeated the heavy air, hanging like pollution over the clearing. Their Shan escort, hidden from view, was entirely silent around them.

"If we can get to General Kuo," Simbal said, "I think we'll have a chance."

"Of what?" Jake asked.

"Of getting out alive." Simbal stretched a cramped muscle in his thigh. "I don't know about you, friend, but I have no death wish."

"Is that what you think I have?"

"If the shoe fits." Simbal shrugged.

"Don't worry," Jake said.

Simbal shifted the AK-4y on his lap. He was checking its mechanism for the third time. It was important to do that: the combination of the atmosphere and the laxity of the Shan in cleaning their weapons could be lethal. "Jesus," he laughed, "what the f.u.c.k do I have to be worried about?"

Jake thought about that for a time. "What do you suggest," he said after a time.

"You and I will go in all right," Simbal said. "But not until my Shan have created a diversion at the other end of the compound. That will do two things. First, it will draw General Kuo out in the open where we have a chance of getting to him. Second, it will keep his men busy while we try to find Bennett and Curran."

"And Chen Ju," Jake said.

"And Chen Ju."

For a long time, Jake watched the encampment. At last he said, "I think you deserve to see the whole picture. What the scientists at Kam Sang have come up with is a way to make a mobile nuclear warhead that can be slipped into existing weaponry such as handheld rocket launchers. The project directors felt that what they had come up with was essentially useless since the radiation fallout resulting from the percussion would undoubtedly kill the initiating soldier as well as his target."

"Christ," Simbal breathed. It had all come rushing in on him.

"That's why the diqui have begun stockpiling Blackman T-93 antipersonnel rocket launchers! With the Kam Sang payloads those T-93S will have the power to destroy the world."

"What!" That was it: the missing piece! "Where did you hear that?" So this wasn't about drugs at all. Chen Ju had a far different objective in mind. Jake's eyes bored into Simbal.

"From a man named Run-Run Yi, the diqui's late New York boss."

"Late? What happened to him?"

"Edward Martin Bennett happened to him," Simbal said. He recounted the incident at the Trilliant.

"That's Chen Ju's strategy," Jake said, so appalled that he felt sick to his stomach. "Members of the diqui will be supplied with stockpiled Blackman T-93S loaded with the miniature nuclear ammunition. With the stolen information Bennett and Curran have provided them, a single man could infiltrate any major American city, hold it for ransom, destroy half its population."

"G.o.d in heaven," Simbal said. "Knowing the ant.i.terrorist directives, he could make himself virtually invisible. He'd be unfindable."

Jake nodded. His mind was whirling with what they had uncovered. The audacity of the man! "This is what Chen Ju is after." Much more than the destruction of the yuhn-hyun, he thought. "He will infiltrate city after city, making his demands. Members of the diqui are fanatics; death means nothing to them. Chen Ju wants nothing less than the entire world. It's the ultimate stage of terrorism."

"He's not going to sell this new technology to the highest bidder?" Simbal asked.

"I don't think so," Jake said.

Simbal agreed. "He's changed the objective of the diqui from merely transshipping opium to disseminating the ultimate terrorist army. With the technology from Kam Sang, Chen Ju can hold the entire United States for ransom if he wishes."

"And he does, make no mistake," Jake said grimly. "But I think you're wrong on one point. Chen Ju's strategy for his diqui did not change at all. I see that clearly now. This is not something one just jumps into. I think his little toy has grown up into this monstrous weapon."

"Jesus," Simbal whispered. "We've got to stop him."

"Let's get started."

Simbal went off to give orders to his Shan warriors. When he returned, he watched Jake's profile for a time. He thought he'd give a great deal to know what was going on inside that mind. "The clock'sticking down," he said eventually. "They're all there. The information's got to be changing hands." He glanced down at his AK-4y. His hands had told him. Everything in place.

Jake nodded. The Shan warriors had departed in absolute silence to take up their station.

Simbal glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch. "Time," he said.

Together they broke cover.

General Kuo first became aware of the attack through the bird call. The sentries were well trained. That was General Kuo's first rule. Sentries were imperative in his line of work. Wars had been lost because of lax sentries. There were no lax sentries in General Kuo's army. At least none who were still among the living.

The bird callone of his ideasgalvanized him. It had come from the north and he stepped out onto the veranda of his house and shouted orders. They were quick, precise, but unhurried. Precipitous action, General Kuo had been taught, most often led to defeat. He was, further, prepared for all eventualities. He possessed a cool mind in all matters, especially battle, which he loved.

He did not know the ident.i.ty of the enemy: Burmese, Chinese, Russian, American. Even a ragtag army of one of his compet.i.tors. It did not matter. His response was the same. Victory was a.s.sured. General Kuo felt no anxieties in these situations but rather an odd kind of elation that was akin to a superbly sharp knife piercing the flesh close to his heart. The thrill took his breath away.

Strapping on his U.S. Army-issue Colt .45, he stepped off the veranda. The northern perimeter of his encampment was where the mule trains departed for their trek down the Shan to market, loaded down with the processed opium. It was most often here that attacks against him were begun. The tears of the poppy were, after all, his life's blood. It was what they all desired, no matter their nationality.

Three of his men went trotting by and he shouted to them, sending them off to the northeast perimeter. No sense in taking chances. He did not want to be enfiladed. In defense, General Kuo believed, it was better to err on the side of conservatism.

He went quickly in the opposite direction, toward the factory. It was where they all were: Huaishan Han, Chen Ju and the two Americans. They liked to talk business surrounded by their wares, General Kuo had discovered. Like the cl.u.s.ters of sapphires and rubies he kept in his pocket, it gave them a physical sense of their own wealth. It was a way of gaining face. It could be no other way.

General Kuo twisted the Imperial jade ring on his finger. It was good luck to have the mystical stone, prized above all others by the G.o.ds, against one's flesh. It brought health and prosperity to the wearer.

This was in his mind when he turned the corner and felt the muzzle of a gun bite into the back of his neck. He began to turn his head but was dissuaded by a sharp jab to his kidneys.

"Don't do that," a voice in his ear said.

General Kuo winced and bit his lip so that he should not cry out and thus lose face to his unseen enemy.

He wondered briefly who it was who had the skill to infiltrate his camp so successfully but was distracted as the flap of his leather holster was unsnapped and his prized Colt .45 taken from him.

"I will kill you for this," he said, through lips compressed with pain. "I will have you strung up in the center of the compound and there watch the nocturnal animals tear you to pieces."

"Big talk," Tony Simbal said, keeping the pressure heavy at the back of the Chinese's neck. He risked a glance at the gun Jake had taken from the General. The standard stocks had been replaced by ones made of carved Imperial jade.

"Very impressive," he said to Jake in English. Then, to General Kuo, in dialect, "Send the men guarding the factory back to where the fighting is."

"But Oof!" Pain lanced through General Kuo's side, making his eyes water. He did as he was told.

When the men had left their position, Simbal said, "Get going."

"Where?" General Kuo asked. He was wondering how he could reverse his current position.

"Into the factory," Jake said.

For emphasis, Simbal jabbed him hard again with the muzzle of the AK-47 and the Chinese stumbled forward. For the first time General Kuo began to worry. These two men were not CIA and not KGB. They had infiltrated his camp. Therefore, they were not fools. When it came to foreign devils, General Kuo was used to dealing with fools and morons. This was a new experience for him and he did not like it. He was a creature of habit, a man who lived by strict rules that he himself had set down. He controlled a vast fiefdom of staggering worth. Any hint of anarchy was anathema to him.

"What do you want?" His tone had changed. It was softer, most reasonable. Perhaps, he thought, I can strike a bargain with these two. "There is a shipment set to depart tomorrow morning. Six hundred kilos of excellent quality Number Four. If this is why you have"

"Keep going," Simbal said, jabbing him again so that he lurched heavily against the corrugated tin wall of the factory.

General Kuo gritted his teeth and put his left hand against his heavy belt buckle. Felt the comforting configuration of the tiny .22 caliber pistol secreted there. His fingers twitched. Not yet, he thought. It would do him no good to get one man only to be shot by the second man. He needed an opportunity to shoot both of them at once. "What do you want with the factory?" he said. "This is not where the tears of the poppy is stored."

"It's where they all are," Jake said.

General Kuo felt a little thrill of fear shoot down his back. Buddha, he thought, they are not after the opium at all. His fingers closed over the b.u.t.t of the .22. Soon, he thought, as he led them around to the front door. Very soon now.

"Here is the entrance," he said. They went up the wooden steps. He quested with his senses, felt both of them close behind him. At the doorway they were crowding forward as he had expected. He could physically feel both of them now, knew where each stood.

He put his right hand on the door handle and pulled outward. As he did so, his left hand jerked the small pistol out of his waistband and he whirled. He was already pulling the trigger. It was point-blank range. There was no question of missing either of them.

Chen Ju was in the process of receiving from the two Americans the intelligence data which he so keenly desired when he heard the gunshots. He whirled, as did they all as the front door to the factory flew open.

Rain spattered inward, the wind howled. Then General Kuo came in and stared at them each in turn with eyes wide with surprise.

Annoyed at being interrupted at such a crucial moment, Chen Ju barked at him. "What is it?"

"What are you doing here," General Kuo said angrily, "when" And vomited up a river of blood. He took two exaggerated strides into the cavernous room and lurched against one of the zinc-topped trestle tables. His left arm struck outward, sliding across the stained surface. His white, grasping fingers knocked over a Bunsen burner. Then he looked down at the mess he had made of his uniform, said, "s.h.i.t." His knees buckled and he slid to the floor. His eyes stared at them accusingly but did not blink; they were already filming over.

Then the doorway was filled, not with rain and wind, but with the bulk of two men.

Jake and Tony Simbal came into the factory. Simbal leveled the AK-47 in the direction of the group of four men.

"Jesus f.u.c.kin' Christ," Edward Martin Bennett said.

"Long time no see," Simbal said, coming quickly into the room.

Jake, behind him, knelt beside General Kuo, felt for a pulse. "He's dead," he said and Simbal nodded.

Chen Ju, who was standing almost directly behind Peter Curran, kicked viciously at the American.

Curran, taken completely by surprise, stumbled toward Simbal, who immediately opened fire with the submachine gun. The boyish face was caught in midexpression. The body jerked, stood up straight, then under the force of the fusillade, was thrown backward as if by a high wind.

To one side came a crackling. Jake looked around, saw the Bunsen burner General Kuo had upended had been lit. Flames were spreading along the wooden floorboards. In a moment, they leapt upward along the line of freestanding wooden cabinets filled with gla.s.s bottles and metal containers.

"Let's get out of here!" Jake yelled at Simbal. "Some of these chemicals are highly flammable!*'

"I want these f.u.c.kers," Simbal said.

"Now!" Jake went past him, pushed Bennett toward the doorway. The old man with the one shoulder higher than the other looked at Jake with the expression of a sphinx.

"Shi Jake," he said in a reedy voice.

Jake took him up. He did not look like he could go anywhere fast. He had about him already the smell of the grave.

Smoke had engulfed the inside of the factory. It was a virulent gray, acidic, sparking, singeing the eyes, inflaming the back of the throat. There was a heavy roar off to one side and a crash. The chemical cabinets!

Jake rushed Huaishan Han outside, put him down. It was raining heavily and the wind had picked up. The roiling sky looked to be at treetop height. Jake saw Simbal and Bennett, turned, remembering the fourth man, undoubtedly the Naga. Chen Ju. He took two paces toward the factory and with a great, m.u.f.fled roar, the roof blew off. One wall collapsed entirely and now the flames licked upward, unmindful of the storm.

It was impossible to get near the place. The heat and the thick, acrid smoke penetrated the entire clearing.