by Rob Jones
“All right, all right! Stop!”
“You’re going to give me something?”
Rat was breathing heavily, fighting hard not to show weakness in front of his enemy, but the agony of a smashed kneecap was too much to bear. In his struggle to hide his pain from Hawke, he started to hyperventilate and his face turned red. He opened his eyes and looked up at Scarlet with a terrifying mix of fear and real, burning hatred in his eyes. “Yes, just please get her away from me.”
“No,” Hawke said bluntly. “Not until I hear the quality of your information.”
“What do you want to know?”
“We’ll start with the location of my friend, Lexi Zhang.”
Rat visibly deflated and closed his eyes. His breathing had calmed now, and he’d had time to assess the situation. He might be a ruthless, trained assassin but today his greed and stupidity at the racecourse had gotten him into a lot of trouble. Now his life was reduced to a fight for his survival, and everyone in the room knew it.
“They’ll kill me,” he said at last.
“So will we,” Scarlet said.
Dearlove moved forward from the corner. “This has to stop now.”
Reaper put his hand out and stopped her from going any further. “Let them work. They won’t kill him, but we need the information.”
She gave the Frenchman a doubtful look and then nodded her assent. “But I’m keeping a close eye on this. If it goes much further it has to stop or I’m calling into my superior. What’s going on in here is torture.”
“Where is Lexi Zhang?” Hawke interrupted bluntly. He knew Samantha Dearlove better than to accept she cared about the torture of a man like Rat. Her concerns were entirely for her career advancement and that ranked considerably lower on his scale of concerns than the kidnap and potential execution of a member of his team. “I want to know right now or things are going to get ugly.”
Rat was working hard to stay in control. Recalling his training. Thinking carefully about how his boss back at the Ministry, the much-feared Zhou Yang, would deal with him when he found out he’d given up the location of the traitor Dragonfly to save his own worthless skin.
“Is it Beijing?” Hawke asked.
“Yes, but they’re not keeping her in the Ministry itself,” he said, glumly accepting his fate. “She’s in a government facility used by the Zodiacs. There is no way you can get to her. That is why she is there. It is one of the most secure sites in China.”
Reaper, Devlin and Dearlove shared a look of hope. Hawke was getting somewhere after all.
“Tell me more about this facility. I want to know exactly where they’re holding her and how I get there.”
Rat managed a laugh. “You’re crazy! I already told you it’s one of the most secure government sites in the entire country. You’d have more luck trying to break into Fort Knox.”
Scarlet swung the wrench again, and Rat spilled all the information they wanted in a hurry. “She’s in the basement of a building called the Torture House.”
“Of course she is.”
“It’s on East Chang’an Avenue near Tiananmen Square.”
“Turns out you can be a very helpful rat when you have to be,” Scarlet said with a smirk.
“Now you trade me for her?”
“Never mind trading you for a hostage, buddy,” Hawke said, staring at him without so much as blinking an eye. “You’re going back to the UK on an RAF transport plane. You’ll fly into Brize Norton and then disappear.”
Rat was deflated. “You will regret this.”
“I think not, pal,” Hawke said. “But you’re going to regret hurting my friend.”
He swung a powerful uppercut into the man’s face and knocked him out for the second time in the hour.
Dearlove gasped. “Was that strictly necessary, Hawke?”
“Not at all,” the Englishman said with a grin. “But it sure was fun. Now, we need to get to this building he’s just described and work out a way to get into the basement levels.”
“And how hard can that be?” Devlin said.
“Exactement,” said Reaper. “We will be in and out with Lexi like this.” He snapped his fingers to indicate the lightning nature of their raid.
“Either that or breaking into one of the most heavily guarded government sites on earth is a suicide mission,” Scarlet said, lighting a cigarette. “And we’ll all be dead within twenty-four hours.”
Hawke laughed. “Always the optimist, Cairo.”
“You know me. And we’re one Zodiac down now, as well. Only three more to go.”
“Let’s go get our friend.”
*
Two thousand kilometres north, Lexi Zhang awoke to the sound of a door slamming. She was certain it was day, but the world was black. Her breath was warm on her face and when the confusion cleared she realized she had a bag over her head.
Footsteps clipped on the stone. A man sighed. She heard a lighter fire up and then smelled smoke.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Xiaoli.” The words were delivered in quiet, calm Mandarin.
Zhou.
Shit.
She kept her voice level. “I’ll never talk.”
“I think we both know you will.”
She said nothing.
“Not only will you tell me everything I want to know about your treachery, and any other details I desire to know, but you will also beg me to make your death a quick and painless one.”
“Screw you, Zhou.”
“When did you first cross to the other side?”
“Who killed my parents?”
Another deep exhalation and the smell of smoke. “The Zodiacs.”
“Which one?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because whoever did it is going to die very painfully.”
He sighed. “I understand you’re angry, but you don’t seem to grasp the situation. You are a prisoner now. Chained up in a location quite unknown to you. Soon you will be tortured until I am satisfied you have been squeezed dry of all information, and then you will be slowly killed. There is no possibility of you exacting revenge against my men.”
“Which one!”
“When did you first defect?”
“I will never talk.”
She heard him tap on the door. The hinges creaked and then she heard Zhou speaking with some men.
“Good news, Xiaoli. Pig is here.”
She said nothing.
“He thinks you are very beautiful. He particularly admires your hands. He says he finds your nails very tantalizing. So much so, he wants to pull them out and keep them for himself.”
She felt her skin crawl. “You bastard, Zhou.”
“Tell me what I want to know or I will let him go and get his toolbox and take a pair of pliers to you.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“We’ll leave you now. Give you some time to think. When we return, you will talk or I will give him carte blanche to do as he pleases with you.” She heard them walk to the door. “And then you will talk, believe me.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
After watching the police load Camacho and Kim into a cruiser and drive into the night, Lea and Ryan climbed into the back of an ambulance and gave the paramedics a weary smile.
One was an older man with red cheeks and thinning hair. He climbed into the back alongside her and immediately made Ryan comfortable and started up a morphine drip. The other was a young man, with a neatly clipped beard and tanned skin like polished bronze. He turned the key in the ignition and the engine growled to life under the hood.
Lea expected him to pull away and make his way to the closest hospital in Pretoria, but instead the rear doors opened and a tall man with a moustache got in. He was wearing a dark suit and the seat groaned when he sat down on it. He slammed the rear doors and buckled his seatbelt. “I’m Officer Paton,” he said blandly. “I’m here to escort you back to the hospital until we can ascertain why you’ve been blowing up houses in my city.”
“There’s really no need,” she said. “We’re the good guys, and Ryan’s not going anywhere with a gunshot wound like this.”
The paramedic smiled at her, but from Paton there was nothing but another empty smile. “Orders from above. Sorry.”
The ambulance pulled out of Kruger’s property, weaving in and out of the various fire trucks that had arrived to extinguish the blaze. Looking at Ryan, she saw he was in less pain now. Morphine was dripping into his system via a canula in his right forearm, and a silly smile was slowly spreading on his unshaven face.
“You doing okay, now?” she asked, passing a hand over his shaved head.
“I’m fine, but I think they wrecked my favorite Megadeth t-shirt.”
“Tosspot.”
“I’m serious. These are collectors’ items now!”
She smiled and checked her phone. “My phone says it’s a left.”
The driver disagreed. “This way is faster.”
“No, it’s not,” Paton said, leaning toward the front. “We should be in Equestria now.”
“We’re meeting Fluttershy?” Ryan said with a chuckle.
“How much morphine are you giving him?” Lea asked.
The paramedic was too busy checking Ryan to reply.
Paton kept his eyes fixed on the driver. “Turn around.”
“Relax. This way is faster.”
Paton reached for his phone. “I said turnaround.”
“And I said relax.” The driver half-turned and pulled a silenced gun from the side pocket. Lea gasped as Paton tried to knock the weapon from the man’s hands but he was too slow. The driver fired and killed the paramedic, then he turned the weapon on Paton. He buried three rounds in the detective, bursting his chest open and spraying blood all over the back of the ambulance.
Holy crap! We’re being kidnapped!
Lea tried the door. No dice – it was an emergency vehicle and the door locks were activated as a matter of protocol. Worse, the driver now slammed shut the plastic partition between the front and rear of the ambulance, turned back around in his seat and stamped his foot on the throttle. The heavy vehicle surged forward and pushed her back in her seat. She screamed as Paton’s corpse slumped over on her and she pushed it down into the footwell in the center of the ambulance beside the dead paramedic.
She looked at them both with pity and said a quick prayer. When they had gotten inside the ambulance she had doubted Paton was a policeman. She had thought maybe he was one of Kruger’s men. Now she knew the answer – he was a detective all right and the young guy behind the wheel with the nice Ladies Man smile was the one in Kruger’s pocket.
“Just relax,” the driver said.
Ryan looked at Lea and she stared back at him wide eyed. The doors were locked and there were no windows. They were trapped. She leaned back into the seat and raised her legs, slamming her boots into the plastic partition as hard as she could. It didn’t budge, but the driver did.
He turned again and raised the silenced gun. “I said relax,” he said with a snarl and pulled the hammer back. “Or die.”
“Who the hell are you?” she said.
“Definitely not Fluttershy,” said Ryan with a sideways glance. “I don’t think he even knows any of the My Little Ponies.”
Lea said, “And neither should you, you freak.”
The driver had laid his gun down and was steering the ambulance south through Garsfontein. He signalled and joined a highway. Under the more powerful LED luminaires she now saw the right side of the man’s face in the mirror for the first time. A line of thick scar tissue ran in a semi-circle from the right jaw line, through his right cheek across both his lips and around to his nose. It was one of the most disfigured faces she had ever seen, and despite what had happened she felt strangely sorry for him, as she might for anyone who had undergone whatever had happened to him.
“I asked who you were, please.”
“I’m no one, Miss Donovan.”
“Then where are you taking us, No One?”
“All will become clear soon enough, in the meantime just try and enjoy the ride.”
He turned again and she saw a sign indicating they were on Moonlight Road. The city was fading away and bushland was opening up on both sides of the car. Long lines of confetti bushes flashed past in the arc lights.
Further out, where the lights ended and the South African night took over she saw the occasional marula tree dotted here and there in the scrub. An hour passed. The landscape grew monotonous but then she felt the revs drop away and she and Ryan exchanged a silent glance. Scarface was slowing down.
He indicated to the left and pulled off onto a smaller road, and ultimately onto an unsealed track. Red dust billowed out behind the ambulance as they drove over the rough surface. The man slowed again and rounded a bend to reveal a large clearing and just beyond it an airstrip. Idling at the end of the runway Lea recognized a Raytheon 400XP private jet. “Jesus Christ, Ryan. Take a look.”
He saw the jet just as the driver was steering them over toward a parked pick-up truck. “Rainbow Dash doesn’t need a stupid jet. She has wings.”
“You’re starting to worry me now.”
“Only just starting to?” he said with a smile. “Thanks for the compliment.”
Lea looked at the Raytheon again and sighed. “Hope you brought your toothbrush, Ry.”
“We’re here.” The driver braked and brought the ambulance to a stop beside a Toyota pickup. Killed the engine and turned the gun on them again. “We’re going to get out now, and you’re going to be good, or I will shoot you. I have the authority to do it.”
“From Dirk Kruger?”
He climbed out and opened the rear doors. “Out.”
They obeyed and he was smart enough to keep a sensible distance between either of them and his gun. He gestured to the right. “Over there, to the plane.”
Scarface force-marched them over to the jet. Somewhere in the east, the horizon was starting to pale and a weak pink light was starting to grow in strength behind a line of paperbark thorns and sagewoods. As they approached the airstair a man appeared from the control tower and walked over to them.
“My name is Venter,” he said warmly. “Please, let me welcome you aboard.” He gestured at the airstair. “Mr Blankov is looking forward to meeting you.”
“And who, might I ask, is Mr Blankov?” Lea asked.
“You’ll find out. Now get in the plane.”
The muzzle of Venter’s gun glinted in the dull glow of the jet’s portside navigation light. Lea helped a dizzy and confused Ryan up the airstair and into the tiny cabin of the private plane. When Venter was inside, he closed the door and stepped into the cockpit leaving the two of them alone with Scarface. He shut the cockpit door and the aircraft started its take off roll.
“How are you feeling, Ry?”
They both felt the aircraft surge forward as the pilot activated the throttles.
“Like a troop of gorillas crapped in my head. You?”
Lea winced at the imagery. “Not like that, but not great. You think Jack and Kim are okay?”
He shrugged.
The jet’s nose pitched up as the powerful engines propelled them up out of the veld and into the dark African sky. Their stomachs floated up inside their bodies and their ears started to pop.
Lea sighed. “I just feel like we really let the team down.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ryan said, swallowing to relieve the pressure. “How were we to know Kruger’s private residence was rigged to blow? Holy shit, who the hell has his own house wired to explode in case it comes under armed assault?”
Lea weighed it up and smiled. Sometimes he knew just how to bring her back to the surface. “I guess so. I think you’re going to have a helluva scar on your back.”
He shrugged. “Meat and potatoes to a hero like me.”
“Get outta here, ya fool.”
“Talking of scars…”
She narrowed her eyes
. “What are you talking about?”
He gestured at Scarface at the front of the cabin. He was casually fitting a gas mask to his head. He pulled the straps to tighten the seal around his face and then leaned back in his seat.
Lea looked from Scarface to Ryan. “What the hell?”
Ryan visibly slumped in his seat. “Oh crap.”
A thick orange gas started to seep from the air-conditioning ventilation system above their seats. Lea leaped from her seat and darted over to Scarface, but he’d known the moves to this game before it had even started.
Drawing a Vektor Z88 semi-automatic pistol from a leather holster he lifted it in the air and pointed it at her face. “Get back to your seat, ECHO, and enjoy the ride.”
Lea knew the game was over. If she charged him he would fire the gun and at this range there was no chance of missing. She would get plugged with a nine-mil lead slug and bleed out on the floor of this plane, and they would still take Ryan wherever they were going.
Defeated, she blew the man a kiss and walked back to Ryan, who was already knocked out colder than a snow cone and slumped down double in his seat. Her head started to feel woozy now, and she thought she might be sick. She grabbed hold of the top of the seat and looked over at Scarface. Her double vision meant there were now two of them. They were still holding their guns and pointing them at her.
The plane started to spin all around her, and then she fell down into her seat.
CHAPTER NINE
Ryan awoke to the sound of elephants trumpeting. He was lying on a soft leather couch with his face squashed into an expensive silk cushion, and when he lifted his head he felt drowsy and sick.
He felt his back. The wound had been dressed by someone when he was unconscious. That was something, he reassured himself, and pressed the heels of his hands gently into his aching eye sockets. He rubbed his face and tried to get his bearings. Shot in the raid on Kruger’s place. Morphine. Kidnapped. Gassed.
Why the fuck am I not just hacking for living?
He blew out a breath and opened his eyes. During the gassing on the plane he had presumed he would awaken in Kruger’s basement but instead he was on a plush leather sofa surrounded by scatter cushions. He crawled up to his elbows and saw Lea sleeping on another sofa, then he swung his legs around onto a thick red rug and took in his new surroundings.
