18 Dragons

by Jack Hardin

  An operation never went by the book. It always deviated from the plan you were given, from the one you saw playing out in your mind, the one you had prepared for. They were well-trained for situations exactly like this, but that didn’t mean they had to like it.

  Virgil removed two woodland camo balaclavas from the duffle bag. He tossed one to Ellie. They donned them, and he reached back down and drew out two handguns. They were QSW-06s, the standard issue sidearm of the PLA and Chinese police forces. The guns were suppressed and utilized 5.8 X 21mm subsonic rounds fitted into a double-column, double-feed, twenty-round magazine. “Yes,” he said. Ellie fired off several more shots and laid the weapon down. Virgil handed her one of the handguns, and they quickly forced their backs through the bamboo to the opposite side of the ridge. They descended back down the steep, craggy slope of the hill they had ascended not eight hours before.

  It felt unnatural, leaving the rifle behind. But that was their mandate. Their director wanted the weapon to be discovered, along with everything else at the shoot site. The non-Western ordnance would serve to misguide investigators. Ellie and Virgil reentered the tree line and moved as swiftly as they could. The ground was still wet and slippery.

  And they had six kilometers to cover on foot and at least four armed men coming after them.

  Chapter Twelve

  The dirt road was narrow, and Zhang moved the Corolla closer to the shoulder as an approaching van slipped past him and continued down the road. His knuckles were white, his grip on the steering wheel tight—not of safety, but fear.

  This was the farthest assignment he had been given yet. Nearly two hundred kilometers from his fruit stand in Tongxiang City. He had only completed two assignments previous to this, both of them requiring that he drive less than fifty kilometers. The work was simple enough. He was nothing more than a taxi driver. He never knew who his passengers were, and he never asked. That would be against the rules.

  His grandmother was not sick, as he had told Sung Chen. In fact, he had no grandmother. Only a grandfather far away in Guangdong Province. His father’s passing last year had left him alone. And it was his father’s belief in progress and the strange ideas of liberty that had compelled Zhang to this line of work.

  Today he had only one job to do. Just one. A single piece to a very intricate puzzle. But for the plan to work, each piece had to work perfectly. His was certainly no exception.

  His cell was resting in a phone dock on his dashboard, the maps application displaying his circuitous route through the mountains. He slowed and gave it a cursory glance before driving a little farther and turning onto a dirt road that cut a solitary path through the overgrown forest. Up the road, he saw a small red sign nailed to the trunk of a dawn redwood. He slowed and squinted through the windshield. The wooden sign was painted with small white lettering that read in Mandarin, Nature Preserve.

  Zhang turned at the tree, where another, less-used path curved into the underbrush and stopped suddenly, terminating at a cluster of fruiting wolfberry. He turned off the car and, as instructed, turned off his cell phone and removed the battery and SIM card. He set them in the dash and waited.

  He hated waiting. It was the worst part. At least when you were moving, you felt as though you were in control somehow. But sitting there, idle? It grated on the nerves. Especially when he considered what would happen to him if he were caught. It suddenly felt stuffy inside the Corolla. He flung his door open and stepped into the woods. He ran trembling fingers through his hair. Zhang didn’t smoke, but it was times like these when he thought he might like to take it up. He paced around the car for several minutes before getting back in and continuing his wait.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rogue rocks and pebbles tumbled over the dirt and grass, picking up speed as they flew down the hill like tiny bombs before finally crashing into a tree or a boulder on the way down.

  Ellie and Virgil made slow progress down the slope, both of them thinking that a climbing rope would have served them well. They could have tied it to a tree trunk at the top of the hill and slithered backward to the valley floor below.

  But it was too late to dwell on that. Clutching their handguns, they continued to grab at whatever appeared solid: tree trunks, roots, mature plants, and rocks embedded deeply into the soil. Ellie’s foot had already slipped on a patch of scree, but she had been able to grab a cluster of nearby bamboo to prevent an all-out tumble. The ground was still slick from the rain the night before, and some areas of the muddy slope were no better than a greased water slide.

  They were moving south, and as soon as they reached the bottom, they would need to turn east: the direction the armed men were coming from. There was no way to circumvent this side of the mountain. Ellie knew her rifle shots had slowed them down, but by now they would have realized that the shooter had fled and would have quickened their pace.

  Virgil was just below her, and he hunched as close to the slope as he could; the weight of his large frame provided more for gravity to work with.

  They were twenty meters from the bottom when the mission ripped along the seam, and Ellie experienced the next ten seconds in slow motion. A rock supporting Virgil’s foot gave out, ripping out of the soil and tumbling away like a traitorous ally. He had just let go of his grip on a root and had been rising up when it happened. His foot flipped beneath his ankle, and Ellie saw him grimace, watched as he forced a scream to stay inside his throat. Virgil scrambled to find something to grab onto. But it was too late. He was no longer balanced, his sprained ankle no longer offering the support that he needed. He fell out, away from the slope, and began a precipitous fall that sent him tumbling into rocks, a small boulder, and finally, the trunk of a thick fir tree at the bottom.

  Ellie had already been going as fast as she could. She couldn’t go any faster. But her heart was racing in tandem with her mind as she scrambled to get to Virgil and assess his condition. She finally reached the bottom and hurried over to her teammate. His mouth was bloody, his face scratched to pieces like he had just encountered an angry bear.

  She brought her mouth to his ear. “Your neck?”

  He grimaced and lifted it, turned it side to side. Ellie brought her hand behind his head and lifted him up, propping him up against the tree. She looked up, listened, and scanned through the trees. The men who had evacuated the Range Rover could be upon them at any moment. Thankfully, Virgil was still clutching his gun. “I think…” Virgil said. “I think it’s just my ankle. Maybe a rib.” He tried sitting up and his face contorted. He froze. “Nope. I lied. Definitely a couple ribs.”

  They had no time for her to inquire further. In a situation such as this, they had no extra seconds to play doctor. The injured operative had to be forthright about his or her injuries; the able one had to believe them. Ellie took his right arm and heaved him up. He hobbled on his left foot, his right hovering over the ground. He tried putting weight on it but quickly pulled it back. He shook his head at Ellie.

  Wasting no time, she stabilized her footing and brought his weight onto her. They stayed as low as possible and made their way into the woods like a couple of children in a three-legged race.

  It took only a few steps for Ellie to concur that a couple of Virgil’s ribs were broken. With each step, he held his breath and his body tightened. But there was nothing to be done for it. She knew Virgil felt like someone was pounding his midsection with a hot poker. But they had to keep moving.

  They moved from cover to cover, pausing to listen and watch for movement. A twig snapped to their left, and they saw the branches of a bush shudder. With Virgil’s arm still laid across her shoulders, Ellie brought up her pistol and aimed. She fired a single suppressed round into the foliage. They heard a grunt, and a figure rose up before falling back to the earth. Ellie sent another round into the man’s body to ensure a kill, then she helped Virgil behind the cover of a redwood. She peered around the trunk and watched, listened. There was nothing. She looked to Virgil, who used two fin
gers to indicate toward the ground. She nodded, and Virgil descended and lay on his belly. With slow, silent movements, he inched forward, using one elbow and both knees as he advanced beneath the cover of ferns and young tallow trees.

  Crouching, Ellie slid in behind him, her eyes scanning and rescanning the forest around them. They had made it fifty meters when they heard a rustle on their eight o’clock. Ellie slowly lowered her herself into deeper cover and waited. The sound came again, more a scuffle this time.

  A dark-haired man appeared from behind a cluster of wild hydrangea fifteen meters away. He hadn’t seen them, but with his current trajectory, he would soon be upon them. Ellie waited until he had closed half the distance before raising up and squeezing off three rounds. The man fell backward, taking all three bullets in the chest. But just before his eyes closed for a final time, he managed to get off a single shot, the bullet flying high through the tops of the trees. The report would carry for miles and would alert his companions to this location.

  Virgil was already moving forward again, quickly enough for a man with broken ribs and a damaged ankle. They moved silently, working across the forest floor with skilled practice. Virgil suddenly stopped and turned to face Ellie. Pain was inscribed across his features. Using two fingers, he pointed to their nine o’clock. Then with his index finger, he drew out a squiggly line in the air.

  The river.

  It was less than half a mile from their location. It would take them off their planned route, but there was no way they were going to make it six more kilometers with Virgil in his condition. The authorities would have already been notified, and once off the ground, a helicopter in Tonglu could be over them in less than ten minutes.

  Ellie nodded her agreement, and they changed course.

  They soon reached a small clearing full of sunlight, disposed of any trees. A decrepit old shack sat in the center. It looked as though it hadn’t been functional in decades. They would have to skirt around the clearing.

  Ellie led the way, crouching as she kept her hearing tuned into their surroundings. Suddenly, a bullet tore into the tree beside her, sending bits of angry bark into her face. She ducked and slid around to the other side of the tree.

  Behind her, she heard Virgil give a faint grunt. He had turned onto his back and swiveled so his feet were the closest thing to her. She froze. His gun was trained right at her. Another bullet tore into the tree next to her, but she didn’t move, didn’t breathe. She look into Virgil’s eyes just as he squeezed off a round. The gun twitched in his hands, and she heard the bullet whiz just past her cheek. Behind her, she heard a muffled groan and the sound of a man’s body falling to the ground.

  At best, there were only two other men out there. But more could have already come down from the hillside. Ellie had to assume the men had coms. Even if they didn’t, the gunshots were enough to communicate their present location. Virgil raised one finger and used two to point to Ellie’s seven. She waited for Virgil’s signal, and when he blinked twice, she swung out and fired twice. Both rounds caught the man in the face, and he dropped where he stood, disappearing behind a cluster of ferns.

  They had to move faster. After pausing to listen for anyone else, Ellie crouched over and grabbed Virgil’s lower legs. She wrapped her hands around his thick calves and started walking backward toward the river, her eyes roving the woods.

  They made it in five minutes, with no further engagements, heaving great quiet breaths as they slipped into the river and adjusted to the frigid waters. They quickly submerged themselves up to the neck and let the river carry them. Ellie estimated they were moving at eight or nine kilometers an hour. It was ten meters from bank to bank and deep enough so Ellie could not touch the bottom. The water was murky from the runoff from the storm.

  They hadn’t been in the water for three minutes before they heard the rhythmic chop of a helicopter in the distance. Virgil heard it too and looked back to Ellie. They swam to the other bank and continued to swim beneath the cover of gutta-percha trees and the vines of low hanging willows. The river cut a serpentine path through the valley, and as they rode the gentle current, the sound of the helicopter grew louder behind them. They came to a felled tree. Its carcass was half-rotted in the water. They grabbed onto it and held on as the water rushed around them and the helicopter came nearer still. Finally, through the green leaves and the wispy vines that were their cover, they watched as the helicopter rode past, finally turning in a wide arc and heading back toward the west. With great effort, Virgil slipped over the log, and Ellie followed behind as they continued to put more distance between them and their pursuers.

  There would be more soon, they knew. Right now, those first to respond to the assassination had come from Tonglu. But soon, military search teams would be deployed from Hangzhou and Shanghai—all of them highly trained, all of them out for blood.

  The main roads in and out of the region would be closed or blockaded, minimizing any chance for an escape. Their window was closing fast.

  As they rounded the next corner, they saw a sampan up ahead, the traditional flat-bottom boat used by the Chinese for centuries. The boat was tied to an exposed tree root, and an old man stood in it, a fishing line in the water. He wore a conical straw hat and baggy linen pants. Ellie started to duck beneath the surface, but just as her head began to lower, she saw Virgil lift a hand out of the water and wave at the man as they floated by.

  The man’s eyes widened, and he tilted his head as he watched them pass. Not knowing what else to do, he gave a tenuous wave back. Ellie and Virgil were carried around the next bend, and when the old man disappeared from view, Virgil turned toward Ellie. She couldn’t see his face for the balaclava, but she knew that beneath it he was wearing a large grin.

  The next ten minutes saw them quickening their pace as they used their arms to swim. A second helicopter joined the search, flying low over the valley, but it kept its search closer to the assassination point. The American operatives had already put several kilometers between it and them and were quickly moving out of range.

  Five minutes later, after turning yet another bend in the river, Ellie looked up and a surge of relief washed over her. Up on the hillside, on an ancient, man-made ledge carved into the side of the mountain, sat an enormous stone statue of the Buddha. Ellie had come across it in her pre-op planning. She reviewed a mental map in her mind and then gently clapped the water to gain Virgil’s attention. He looked behind him, and Ellie pointed up. He turned his gaze toward the hillside and then back to Ellie. He gave her a thumbs up, and they moved to the other bank. Ellie came out of the water first, and after finding her footing, she leaned down, clasped Virgil’s hands, and helped him out of the water. He grunted from the pain, but there was no time to rest; this was not the time to slow down.

  Ellie took Virgil’s arm once again and wrapped it around her shoulders. She shouldered up under him, took his weight, and they hobbled back into the woods.

  Chapter Fourteen

  They were late. By over an hour now. Zhang felt himself getting more nervous by the moment. He had already gotten out of the car four times and paced. Now he leaned against the trunk with his arms crossed and debated whether he should just leave. It grated on the nerves, being out here alone, wondering if at any moment the authorities might suddenly show and arrest him.

  Zhang wasn’t nervous by nature, but he had already picked the skin off both his thumbs and chewed off all his nails. He went back to his open door and slipped back into the driver’s seat. He tapped his hands nervously on the steering wheel, wondering what to do next. He couldn’t remember the directive, how much time had to go by before he was free to leave. How could he have been so stupid? How could he not have remembered something as simple as that?

  He got out of the car again and started to pace. He froze. Standing not six feet in front of him was a figure in camo dressing and a matching balaclava. A gun was trained at his center mass.

  When the figure spoke, it was the voice of a fe
male. She spoke in English.

  “I may be lost,” she said. “Do you know the way to the Enchanted Hill?”

  Zhang had never had a gun pointed at him before. His insides suddenly felt like they were going to just slip out of him. He swallowed hard and tried to recall his verbal script. “You—you are quite far from there. I can...give you a ride there if you like.”

  Ellie replied with the predetermined question. “How much would you charge?”

  “Two hundred yuan.”

  The handgun came down, and she disappeared into the underbrush, leaving Zhang to wonder what he had said wrong. He heard nothing from the woods. No twigs snapping, no rustle of leaves. She had just disappeared again, like a ghost. He ran a nervous hand across his mouth and wondered what to do next.

  The keys were in his pocket. He drew them out, and they rattled in his hands. Should he leave? He didn’t know, and he had no one to ask. He returned the keys to his pocket and ran his fingers through his hair once again. He took in a deep breath and turned to steal a peek through the underbrush. But he didn’t need to. Standing before him now were two people, the lady again and a tall broad man. His arm was wrapped around her from behind, and he was standing on one foot.