Rogue Warrior: Dictator's Ransom Part 8

I sketched out a sneak and peek with the others. We'd lure the dogs out, drug them, kill the detectors, then go over the fence. Survey the grounds, find the house, see what was inside. Depending on what we saw, we'd leave open the option of taking Yong Shin Jong out with us.

Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am.

Trace, of course, objected. To the plan, not the phrase-she had long ago given up trying to make me politically correct.

"They'll realize something is up as soon as the dogs fall asleep," she said. "And what makes you think they haven't figured out what the c.o.ke bottles were all about?"

"Not much vandalism in China," said Lo Po. "No kids throwing bottles. It's bound to be suspicious, especially if you do it again."

"Don't worry," I told them. "I never make love the same way twice."

Trace said something in Apache that I couldn't understand, which was probably just as well.

Their points were valid. Our first visit had alerted the compound to the fact that something was going on. But I didn't mind that. If anything, I was counting on it. I wanted them to be at full alert. My primary goal was to find out what the defenses were, so that I could defeat them. If, by luck-sometimes Murphy actually plays on my side of the field-their defenses were so weak that taking Yong Shin Jong was child's play, then I'd play along. But I wasn't counting on that.

Give me enough information, and I can break into anywhere, including Fort Knox. h.e.l.l, Fort Knox is easy. I've done it several times.

[ III ].

AS MUCH AS I liked Lo Po and the people he hired, I felt we were a little light on shooters; we'd need more muscle for a s.n.a.t.c.h operation. I wanted a couple of our people in place so I wouldn't have to struggle with the language barrier if things got tight.

We had two operators in j.a.pan, taking a well-deserved break from the operation in the Philippines that Doc had been checking on. One of them-Thomas "Mongoose" Yamya-spoke decent Mandarin, so it was natural that we enlist him. And we never sent Mongoose anywhere without Paul "Shotgun" Fox along as well. They were almost like a matched set, though they were as different as salt and pepper. They razzed each other so badly that there were plenty of times I debated whether it was OK to give either a loaded weapon.

Mongoose is Philippine-American; he looks vaguely Hispanic, vaguely Asian. He's on the short side at five-six, with a pretty average build. But that's his secret weapon. People are always underestimating him.

Like a fair number of Red Cell International's employees, Mongoose is a former SEAL, only recently separated from the service. He has a good story about being in an airplane en route to a mission to grab Bin Laden when the plane was called back by the secretary of defense.11 That was pretty much the point where Mongoose decided he'd had enough of the military life. Eight or nine months after he left the navy, he showed up on my doorstep. I wasted maybe three seconds before hiring him.

Shotgun is a different story. Not that I wasted too much time hiring him either. A six-foot-eight guy who weighs three hundred pounds, can run the forty-yard dash in 4.1 seconds, and bench-press close to seven hundred pounds is not somebody you p.i.s.s off, especially when his resume includes a stint in the Rangers. The man is a giant. And he is always eating-always. Mostly junk food. He's always got a Twinkie or a Doodle-Dad or some other little pie or something in his hand.

He is also the most good-natured summuva b.i.t.c.h going. I've never seen him frown, which is why he's an antidote to Mongoose. Together they cancel each other out.

Shotgun's as white as white gets and still remains a skin color. You may think from his nickname that he grew up somewhere rural and learned to handle weapons at a young age, maybe specializing in handling a shotgun while hunting. The truth is he didn't: Shotgun grew up in a white-bread suburb in Connecticut, and never came close to a weapon of any sort until he enlisted in the army two days after graduating high school. The nickname came from the fact that when he played center on the high school football team as a freshman, he only entered the game when the offense was using the shotgun formation. (By the time he was a senior, Shotgun was not only in on every play, offense and defense, but he was basically the entire line.) Wherever it came from, the nickname fits, because there's no one better at riding shotgun or watching someone's back. And though it's not his weapon of choice, he is pretty handy with a scattergun.

Lo Po picked the boys up at Beijing airport. Mongoose grouched about the flight, Shotgun laughing at how he crowded out the other person sitting next to him in coach. We had a decent meal-Doc cooked-then got changed into black clothes and saddled up around midnight, dividing ourselves between the two Geely Merries, Chinese-made Mercedes knockoffs that Lo Po had rented.

Our first stop was in a village about five miles south of us. There I procured two local chickens from a villager's coop, leaving about twice the number of yuan notes that the chickens would have fetched in the local market. I wrung their necks and stuffed them into a bag.

Lo Po's people back at the house were watching the feed from the video cameras we'd placed earlier. No one had gone into or out of the compound since we'd set up the cameras, and the place was dark.

Doc dropped me, Trace, and Cho Lim off down the road, then drove past the compound, proceeding to the housing development on the other side, where he and Shotgun would wait and watch our flank. Lo Po, who had Mongoose and one of his men with him, took a position off the road behind us, positioning his car for a quick getaway.

I led the way up the hill; Trace was the tailgunner, with Cho Lim in the middle. We each had a pair of Gen 3 night-vision goggles. For communications, we used a discreet-burst radio system whose only drawback was the fact that it had to be used in line-of-sight mode. And of course we were armed-MP5s, pistols, and Rogue Warrior Strider knives, both folders and straight blade.

Cho Lim had a pistol and knives, but no submachine gun. I trusted her, but not quite that much.

Under our tac vests we wore lightweight body armor Doc had brought with him. These were vests about the thickness of a wool sweater made of a Teflon-type material over a honeycombed carbon skeleton filled with inert gas. They wouldn't stop a rifle bullet at close range, but would slow down most anything else enough to limit injuries. The vests were intended to shield the body from shrapnel injuries, the sort of thing you get from IEDs12 when they go off in the neighborhood. There were no trauma plates inserted to mitigate possible internal hemorrhaging without our immediate knowledge. But their light weight meant they could be used on operations like this one where ordinarily the weight of a bulletproof vest made it impractical to wear any protection at all. These were so light that you really forgot you were wearing them, though in hot weather the fact that they didn't breathe made them extremely hot. Red Cell International had used them with some success in the Philippines, and we had the company working on a new version we hoped would provide even more protection.

Cho Lim's was so big it looked almost like a dress on her, coming down to the top of her thighs. The ruck strapped above it looked like a flat purse in comparison.

I'd expected that the dogs would be given free rein at night, but I was wrong; there was no sign of them as we approached the fence. What I did see were a pair of motion detectors, mounted on tree limbs about chest-high and arranged so their detection fields overlapped. The devices were similar to the sort of thing you'd find on a garage back in the States, actually detecting infrared radiation-heat-rather than motion.

I prepared the chickens, smearing the carca.s.ses with sedative-laced honey. Then over they went.

I followed, scrambling over the outer and then the inner fence. Pulling a small spray bottle from my vest, I soaped the eye of the sensor, neutralizing the detection mechanism.13 Then I jumped up and raced to the other.

Almost.

Murphy stuck his foot out about ten feet from my target. (Others may say I tripped over a large tree root, but I know Murphy's foot when I fall over it.) I sprawled face-first on the ground, eating a good bunch of dirt in the process. I could hear the dogs running toward me; I rolled back into the bushes, hoping they were hungry.

The dogs exploded down the raceway. They pounced on the first chicken, wrestling with it for a second. Neither would give way to the other, nor did there seem to be time to-they had the carca.s.s down to feathers and feet in maybe thirty seconds. Then it was on to the second. By the time the bikers appeared, all that remained were feathers.

Wham . . .

The bikers stopped. One of them took out a night-vision device and scanned the terrain near the fence, looking to see if anything was nearby. Of course, since he was looking for intruders, he searched only the outside of the fence line-a common error.

Being dumb animals, the Shar-Peis didn't make the same mistake. They sniffed the air and growled. But the doggie sedative was already starting to have an effect; they snapped at the air, then at each other. One of the bikers looked at them for a moment, then shook his head and gunned his bike away, starting a circuit of the estate's perimeter. The other guard yelled at the dogs in Chinese, then took off after his companion. The animals decided the h.e.l.l with the humans, and trotted drunkenly back in the direction they had come.

I crawled behind the second motion detector and sprayed it, then gave the all-clear. Trace and Cho Lim were over the fence in seconds.

We worked our way up the hill toward the main building, looking for other detection devices and b.o.o.by traps. After about fifty or sixty yards, the wood gave way to a rocky, level stretch of ground that surrounded the compound. The area was actually a large Chinese cup garden, a pseudo-natural garden complete with dirt and gravel paths that wound past plantings deliberately arranged to make miniature arrangements.

More interesting to me than the arrangements were the video cameras hidden in the foliage. Some of these were hard to spot, and it took me nearly fifteen minutes before I was sure that the cameras were focused only on the paths.

An eight-foot wall separated the main house from the rock garden. Cho Lim, silent as ever, followed as I picked my way across the rocks and through a grouping of ferns. Just as I reached a niche in the wall, she whirled and dropped to her knee.

I had to strain to see what she was staring at. Two eyes appeared in the vegetation, low to the ground. They were followed by a distinct meow.

Cho Lim ducked forward and scooped the cat out of the bush. She held it close to her face and whispered something, then stuffed it into her ruck.

"It promised to stay quiet, Mr. d.i.c.k," she said softly.

Trace shot me a look, but it was too late to do anything about it. The cat seemed docile enough; it stuck its head out of the side of the ruck, full of curiosity but silent.

I unfolded a telescoping spy scope and held it up over the wall. There was a garden and a pond on the other side; beyond it, a patio and the back of the house. A pair of video cameras covered the inside grounds.

One of them swiveled in the direction of the spy scope, paused a moment, then continued. The pattern was preprogrammed; it did a wide-area sweep back and forth, then stopped about halfway through, focusing on the east wall before swinging around to the north. The other camera followed a similar pattern from the other side.

Whoever had designed the system intended to provide a full view of the backyard. But the cameras were slightly out of synch, and they left part of the wall and the doorway uncovered for about thirty seconds every four and a half minutes-more than enough time for someone to get over the wall and to the house.

The problem was what to do when I got there. There was no way of telling if the doors and windows were alarmed. Even if they weren't, it was likely to take me more than thirty seconds to get past the locks.

But that was a problem I'd have to deal with once I got there. The alignment of the cameras left a narrow spot not far from the door where I could hide while waiting for them to sweep away. It looked as if I'd fit if I held my breath.

I had to go over a six-foot wall topped by shards of gla.s.s as sharp as razor spikes, drop down into some sticker bushes-worse than the gla.s.s-and then clear a small wire fence that I suspected was electrified to keep out animals. It should have taken me twenty-five seconds tops-and it would have, if I hadn't tripped after I cleared the electric critter fence.

Had I had time to think about it, I might have considered myself lucky-two more feet and I would have fallen head-first into the small pond at the center of the back patio. Instead, I pushed up, barely avoiding the fence before getting my balance and hurling myself toward the wall. I landed with a soft thud with about a half second to spare. Fortunately, the house was made of stone; if it had been wood I probably would have gone right through the wall.

Which would have been one way in.

I caught my breath. My MP5 was tied to my back in a custom-made rig. As small as the gun is, it would still be a bit clumsy to wield if it wasn't needed, so I left it there and checked my PK instead. The pistol sat at the front of my hip, ready to slide out of its holster if necessary.

"Get ready," warned Trace. "I'll count off the seconds."

"Ready."

"One second, two seconds . . ."

I slipped over to the window. The room inside was lit and appeared empty; it looked like a living room or a lounge, with Western-style chairs arranged in a semi-circle and a pair of pa.s.sages at the far wall.

Metal alarm tape circled the gla.s.s panels. It wouldn't be hard to defeat, but anything I did would be easily spotted. I've always been big on zipless penetrations.

"Twenty-eight, twenty-nine . . ."

I slipped back to my hiding place, working hard to control my breathing. No matter how much you work out-and I work out a great deal-there's a huge distance between exercise and a real operation. It couldn't have been more than a few feet between my hiding spot and the window, but I was as winded as if I'd run ten miles.

"Get ready," Trace warned.

The door was a four-panel French-style door. It appeared from the hinges and metal f.l.a.n.g.es at the base that only the middle two opened. The alarm was set by a magnetic contact, visible from the side panel. Defeating that was no big deal, even if there was a second one toward the bottom that I couldn't see. The door, of course, was locked when I tried it. You never know when you're going to hit the lottery.

"Twenty-five, twenty-six . . ."

I ducked back with about two seconds to spare. While I was waiting, I looked up at the video camera above me. It was housed in a metal case, not quite tamperproof but enough of a pain in the a.s.s to make it not worth fooling with. I got my burglar tools and small roll of tape out and ready.

"One second . . ." started Trace.

I slipped back to the door and used my burglar tools to undo the lock. I heard a good click at fifteen seconds; I eased the door out ever so slightly, being careful not to break the lock contact. I slipped a piece of plastic and tape over the latch, then put more tape over the edges of the door panel to keep it from opening until I got back.

That took me to twenty-eight seconds.

I got a st.i.tch in my side hustling back. There wasn't enough room to squat down or even twist to relieve it; the best I could do was try and work it out with my thumb while I waited. Ma.s.saging my muscle, I closed my eyes and forced the rest of my body to relax, lowering my breathing and pulse rate. By the time I reopened my eyes, I had only about another minute to wait. I turned my head toward the door, and noticed it was straining against the tape. Something inside, a fan or an air conditioner maybe, was pushing air against the panels, trying to spring the doors open.

"Trace?"

"Not yet," she hissed.

The doors moved back inward. Just as I started to take a breath in relief, they surged back out again.

Then the tape broke.

"One . . ."

I'd already jumped out to the door, putting my hand over it and just barely keeping it closed. I dropped to my knees and took out my "alarm extenders"-thin pieces of metal connected by a long wire, allowing the alarm circuit to remain unbroken even though the door was open.

". . . Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty."

On thirty-one, I had the door closed-and I was inside the house.

Cla.s.sical music was playing somewhere inside. A standing fan in the corner swung back and forth, sending its draft across the room. There were a dozen chairs arranged in a haphazard circle, as if they'd been used for a conference and then left there. A pair of sofas were pushed against the wall on the left; a long, empty table sat in the middle of the wall on the right. The wall opposite the doors was framed by a pair of archways, which led to separate halls into the rest of the house. Large Chinese paintings of winter scenes hung on the walls.

I bent down to brush the crumbs of dirt I'd tracked onto the floor from the tiles, dispersing it under the chairs. I'd just finished when I heard the sound of footsteps coming from one of the halls. I dropped to my haunches, hiding behind an upholstered chair and holding my breath as they continued toward me.

A shadow appeared in the right doorway.

If it was Yong Shin Jong, I could grab him and go-no need for an elaborate a.s.sault.

If it wasn't, and I showed myself, I might not live to mount an escape mission.

The only way to find out was to look. I leaned over slowly, peeking around the chair.

It wasn't Yong Shin Jong, unless he'd taken to wearing a red print dress.

And carrying a submachine gun.

[ IV ].

TAKE A BREATH, d.i.c.kie.

And lean back behind the chair.

THE WOMAN TOOK a few steps into the room, walking to my left. She pushed one and then another of the chairs, moving it slightly to adjust its position in the circle. She began working her way around the room counterclockwise. I was at five o'clock; she started at one and moved toward twelve.

I slipped my hand to my pistol. I'd shoot her before she shot me.

She was at nine, just about in view, when someone called to her from inside. She said something I couldn't understand; the male responded harshly, and she left the room.

I was just considering whether to follow when Lo Po reported that two Mercedes sedans had stopped in front of the property and were waiting for the gates to be opened. The chairs hadn't been left from a conference-one was about to take place.

"Trace-I'm coming out," I said over the radio. "Tell me when the cameras are on. Lo Po, can you bring the parabolic up?"

"On the way."

I moved to the doors, waiting for the "go" signal from Trace. Meanwhile, the male voice I'd heard earlier began barking again. Other voices answered, and within moments a whole troop of footsteps were echoing loudly down the hall.