by Rob Jones
Hawke led the way, his head-mounted torchlight shining a beam down into the pitch-black darkness. The concrete-lined pipe offered no surprises, except for the occasional dead rat and was precisely as their planning had shown them it would be. He pushed on, crawling on his hands and knees with his team behind him.
“That’s not smelling so great,” Devlin said.
“Please stop whining,” Scarlet said.
They made their way along the pipe, lighting the total darkness with their flashlights as they drew nearer to the section beneath the notorious Zodiac Torture House.
“Can’t say we lead a boring life,” said Devlin.
“There,” Hawke said. “Up ahead I see the wall Alex described from the schematics.”
They reached the wall and the pipe opened out into a space large enough to stand in. The wall was made of breeze blocks and totally blocked them from going any further.
“This is Act Two for the C4,” Hawke said.
Devlin ran his hand over the wall. “Are we sure we know what’s behind it? For all we know the entire PLA could be waiting for us!”
Scarlet smiled at him. “Not scared, are you?”
“Just sayin’.”
She got right up in his face. “Hey Danny, what’s big, brown, seriously unpleasant and behind this wall?”
“I don’t think I want to know,” Devlin said.
Scarlet fixed two deadly serious eyes on the Irishman. “Humpty’s Dump.”
He burst out laughing. “Oh, man… you’ve got one fucking great sense of humor, Cairo Sloane.”
“Just ask her boyfriends,” Hawke mumbled. “The line of broken men stretches around the equator.”
Scarlet regarded him with contempt. “That kind of talk’s not pretty, Josiah. Especially considering you’re in that line.”
“Ouch,” Devlin said.
Reaper laughed and handed Hawke his bag. “This has to hurt, non?”
Hawke said nothing. He pulled another quantity of C4 from the bag and placed it on the wall’s weakest sections. “All right, get back down the tunnel.”
*
Pig pushed the nose of the pliers deep under the fingernail on Lexi’s left forefinger and squeezed down on the handles until the grip was solid and unbreakable. He had already torn out her thumbnail and she had passed out in agony. After a long wait for her to regain consciousness she had finally woken and he was keen to do more damage. He turned and nodded at Zhou. “Ready.”
“This is your last chance, Agent Dragonfly. You have already lost one nail. Why suffer more than you have to?”
“I had my last chance a long time ago.”
“I am impressed by your courage. I would expect nothing less from someone with your training and experience. However, you must realize there is a fine line between courage and stupidity.”
“Not such a fine line in your case.”
“When I give Pig the sign – a simple nod of my head – he will tear out another fingernail, the one he is now gripping with the pliers. As with your thumb, he will do it slowly. It will not break off, but he will instead extract the entire nail including the matrix. As you now know, this is more pain than most people can possibly imagine. After another extraction you will be screaming and pleading for mercy and yet there are eighteen more nails on your body. I want you to think very carefully before answering my next question.”
“You sure do talk a lot, Zhou.”
The man in the black suit kept his calm. He knew what she was doing and it wasn’t going to work on him. “I want to know how much information has been lost to the enemy. When did you defect to the other side? When did you step over into the ECHO camp?”
“You will never know.”
Zhou nodded at Pig without warning and the Zodiac assassin pulled the nail from her finger. Unlike the thumbnail, it did not come easy at first and he was forced to dig the pliers in harder, pushing the pointed ends beneath the nail.
Lexi screamed so hard she went hoarse. She had promised herself she would show no weakness, but when the pain came all over again, it came even harder than before. It felt like someone was pushing the nail in, not pulling it out. She’d had the same sensation when a dentist extracted a tooth in her childhood, only this was a thousand times worse. She had passed out early on with the thumbnail, but this time she was wide awake.
Eventually, whatever was causing the resistance gave way and Pig wrenched the nail from her finger. Blood spurted out behind it and sprayed up his shirt and face, but his only response was a low, sick laugh as he watched her struggle and squeal.
She felt her heart thumping and pain streaked from her pulsing, burning hand to her head.
Zhou stepped forward, hands in pockets and voice soft and calm.
“When did you cross over to the other side, Agent Dragonfly?”
The rage rose inside her like a tsunami. “Go… to…hell, Zhou!”
Zhou gave a weary sigh, glanced at his watch and indicated to Pig. “Move on to the next nail.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They moved out of range of the wall and Hawke detonated the explosives. In the enclosed space the explosion was much fiercer and quickly filled the tunnel with heat and smoke. For a moment, it seemed that it would never clear, but the draft blowing down the utility corridor behind them sucked the smoke away and they were good to go.
They moved forward, Devlin still laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Reaper asked.
“Sorry, still thinking about a talking egg taking a shit on that wall.”
To Hawke’s relief, the next section was also precisely as Alex had described from the schematics and they were able to step over the destroyed wall and climb up inside the access tunnel without any problem. As expected, they soon reached the final hurdle.
“I see the manhole up ahead,” Hawke said, wiping the sweat and grime from his face.
“Hopefully it should move out of place. We’re directly inside the compound now and blowing it will make more noise than a Chinese New Year.”
“No one’s blowing my manhole,” Devlin said with a chuckle.
Scarlet looked at him with sympathy. “Oh, Danny. Really?”
He shrugged. “I just throw ’em out there.”
Hawke carefully raised the heavy cast-iron manhole plate an inch or so and scanned to see if the coast was clear. “We’re good to go,” he said. “Bang smack in the middle of the courtyard just as we thought.”
Leaving their packs behind, they climbed up out of the sewage pipe in silence and after replacing the cover they crossed the courtyard in the darkness of the night and slammed their bodies up against a wall. In the safety of the shadows, Hawke spied the route they needed to take to get inside the Torture House.
Hawke heard the faint sound of men talking somewhere above. Looking into the courtyard he saw the shadows of the roof in the strong moonlight. He could clearly make out the shadows of two men up there. “Two guards on the roof,” he whispered. “At least.”
He scanned the courtyard and saw several guards’ rifles stacked in tidy tripods in the corner. “Looks like they’re ready for trouble.”
“I think they’re always ready for trouble in a place like this,” Devlin said.
When the two men were out of sight, they silently crossed the courtyard and reached the door they were looking for. It was beneath the corner of a classic Chinese gabled roof and shaded from the bright moonlight by a veranda.
Through the door now and inside to find a man behind a desk. He looked up with confusion, eyes wide. Hitting an alarm, he reached for a pistol on his desk but it was too late.
Hawke smashed a hefty punch into the man’s jaw, twisting his head around on his neck and knocking him over onto the floor. Kicking the man out of his way, he blinked in the bright light. Where was the door leading to the cells?
He saw it on the other side of the room, partially obscured by a large curtain, but another man entered the room and lunged at him. Hawke managed to land a h
aymaker on his temple, but the man rolled with the blow and fired one back at him, driving a tight, bony fist into the side of Hawke’s face.
His head was knocked to the side and his vision started to slip out of focus. Stars swam all over the room and through those stars he saw the man completing a three-sixty twist and bringing his fist around for another attack. He watched as the man rotated at his waist and fired the second punch, but the stars had gone and he ducked just in time to miss the impact.
Behind him, Reaper and Devlin were engaged in a heavy fist fight with a number of other soldiers who had entered the room from the courtyard. Scarlet was moving ahead and opening the door that led to the cells.
The Frenchman and Irish Ranger took out their opponents just as Hawke drove a heavy fist into the man’s stomach and blasted the wind out of him. As he bent double in pain Hawke brought his knee up into his face and smashed his nose into a pulp. Working fast now, he grabbed the man’s hair in his fist and yanked his head back before powering a final punch into his face and knocking him clean out.
Reaper slammed the door shut and Devlin slid the bolt.
Ahead, Scarlet yelled out to them. “This is it! I see the steps.”
They ran down a dark stone staircase until they reached a small space that looked like a dungeon. Three doors on either side and only one of them lit from the inside.
“That’s it.” Hawke charged forward and tried the door.
Locked.
He shoulder barged it. It shook in its frame but stayed put. A second one and more progress.
Now he heard screaming from inside the room.
Lexi’s voice.
The third charge broke the door down to reveal the horrifying sight of Lexi Zhang tied to a bed, but no sign of anyone else.
“Lexi!”
“Joe! Am I glad to see you!”
“Are you okay?”
“Just about.”
He stared down at the blood pouring from her left hand and saw at once that she was missing several fingernails. “Who did this to you?”
“Pig, under the orders of Zhou.”
“Where the hell are they?”
“They left me here when they heard the alarm.”
Hawke hurriedly untied her, staring in horror at the damage to her fingers. He ripped away a section of his shirt and wrapped it around the bloody mess. “You’ll be okay, Lex. We’ll make sure of it.”
“And now let’s get out of here,” Scarlet said.
They raced up the steps and reached the corridor, but this time it was teeming with soldiers.
Devlin said, “Looks like we’re in deep shit.”
“You think?” said Scarlet.
“If you think getting out of the Torture House is hard,” Lexi said, still breathing hard from the torture and gripping the cloth around her hand. “Imagine how hard it will be to get out of China.”
“Thanks for that, Lex,” Hawke said. “You always know how to cheer me up.”
The soldiers streamed down the staircase and raced down the long corridor toward them.
Scarlet cracked her knuckles. “This is it, ladies.”
“Just the five of us versus fifty PLA soldiers,” said Reaper with his famous shrug.
“They don’t stand a frigging chance!” Devlin said.
Hawke shook his head. “Where to start?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Driven by a fierce loyalty, the wall of muscle and bone that was Vincent Reno stormed forward into the swarm. Charging into the enemy ranks, he lashed out with one hand curled into a heavy, deadly fist and the other gripping a dagger drawn from his belt. Spinning, kicking, crushing and then hurling those who dared to attack him out of his way, the man they called Reaper proved once more his indispensable position in the team.
Scarlet was next into the fray, body-slamming a soldier away from the Frenchman and taking him out with a razor-sharp scissor kick. Armed with a combat knife in each hand, she slashed at the enemy and forced them back. Vermillion arcs of blood sprayed through the air around the two ECHO team members as they fought their way through the men. Nothing could stop them from rescuing their old friend, not even here in the heart of the Chinese homeland.
Armed with handguns, Hawke and Devlin fired on the soldiers further along the corridor, taking out two of them before the third and final man freed his gun from the holster and took cover behind a stairwell wall. Supercharged with adrenaline from the unexpected assault, Lexi lifted the gun Hawke had given her into the aim and unloaded the magazine in a ferocious fusillade directed at some of the crowd closing in around Reaper and Scarlet. Men screamed as their chests bursts open and sprayed blood up the walls behind them. Others scattered for cover.
Working as one now, the Frenchman and former SAS officer took advantage of the few soldiers brave enough to continue engaging them under Lexi’s fire. Reaper fought hard, with the power of a pro MMA wrestler and the speed of a ninja. Ducking and diving, dodging and blocking and then returning fire with a barrage of rib-cracking power punches and crippling elbow strikes. He grunted and he sweated, but he never flinched and he never slowed. Fighting Reaper was like fighting a mountain.
Hawke and Devlin worked their way up the corridor with a Buddy System, or bounding overwatch tactic. The Englishman went first, charging down the corridor as Devlin backed him up with suppressive fire. Hawke slammed into a shallow doorway and now provided the cover while Devlin sprinted forward, all the time closing in on the soldier defending the distant stairwell. Now Devlin took cover and fired on the man while Hawke took his turn in the offensive forward position. Reaching the stairwell, Hawke reloaded his gun and prepared to spin into the void and take out the soldier.
Behind them, Lexi tossed her empty gun aside. It clattered to the tiled floor as she leaped into the brawl with Reaper and Scarlet. Filled with hate and loathing at how she had been treated in this place she relished the chance to take some back for herself, to prove to herself that she wasn’t a spent force and that they had failed to break her. The first soldier was a man who was trying to attack Scarlet from behind.
She grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, smacking the heel of her hand into the dead-center of his surprised face and crushing his nose to pulp. She finished the job by swinging her elbow around full-force and smashing it into his mouth, knocking his front teeth out and nearly making him swallow his tongue.
He staggered back, raising his hands to feel the damage she had inflicted on him and she delivered a devastating Wushu butterfly kick, instantly knocking him out.
The second man lunged at her but slipped on his comrade’s blood. Flailing in the air for a few seconds, Lexi drew on her terrifying knowledge of martial arts and put him down hard with a merciless Krav Maga eye-strike. Illegal in professional competitions, ramming rigid fingers into your enemy’s eyes was a certain method of taking him out of the fight.
As he doubled over and screamed in pain, Lexi ended their date by landing a couple of hard slaps around his face before driving a spinning crescent kick into his head. Out cold before he hit the floor, she kicked him in the balls for good measure and then turned back to the fight.
Reaper was gripping two wriggling men by the backs of their heads. He brought their skulls together with a toe-curling cracking sound and they slumped to the floor at his boots. Scarlet was running the blade of her knife across the chest of another. Blood burst out through his fatigues and he yelled out in terror. More soldiers now came from every angle, running down the stairs behind them and emerging from a fire exit beside it.
“Something tells me they don’t want to let you go, Lexi,” Scarlet said.
Lexi winked. “I have that effect on people.”
Up ahead, Hawke spun around into the void and emptied his magazine into the soldier defending the stairwell. The bullets tore into his chest and blasted out the other side, ricocheting off the steel banister rail and burying themselves in the green and white painted plaster walls.
Devlin joined him
at the stairs, gun raised into the aim and ready to fire. “All done?”
Hawke nodded and raised the palm mic to his mouth. “Northern stairwell cleared. We’re good to go.”
Scarlet’s voice crackled back in his ear. “Having some trouble back here, darling.”
Hawke shared a look with Devlin. “Must have sent in reinforcements. Stay here and make sure the stairs stay clear, I’ll go and sort it out.”
He sprinted down the corridor and was shocked by what he saw. The lobby was now a warzone with Scarlet, Reaper and Lexi fighting at least twenty PLA soldiers. Tasked with defending the inner sanctum of the Chinese State, the men and women in uniform were fighting as fiercely as they could, but his ECHO friends were more than a match for them. By the time he had reached them the action was over.
“Turns out you didn’t need me after all,” he said.
Scarlet shrugged. “What can I say?”
“Where now?” Lexi said. “I hate this place.”
Hawke glanced at the bloody rag wrapped around her left hand. “To the courtyard. We have a little surprise waiting there.”
They headed back to Devlin and reached the small courtyard where they had broken into the Torture House compound. To Lexi’s confusion, Hawke then leaped down through a manhole cover. Working quickly and efficiently and exactly according to plan, he picked up their backpacks one by one and passed them up to the rest of the team.
Lexi nervously scanned the courtyard for any sign of the soldiers. “What the hell’s going on? They’re sealing the perimeter! We don’t stand a chance.” As she spoke, a series of search lights switched on and lit the night as the soldiers started to scan the perimeter for any sign of the invaders.
Hawke lifted himself out of the hole. “Right, everyone open their packs and let’s get out of here.”
With confusion still etched deep on her face, Lexi followed the others and unzipped the chunky backpack Hawke had passed her from the sewer pipe. She opened it up and was astonished by what she saw.
