Tom Clancy's Shadow of the Dragon

by Cameron, Marc

  She took a deep breath as she hustled down the sidewalk, letting the chilly air invigorate and settle her. She could do this. Her dad would be proud—and so would John Clark.

  The stout little guy in the leather jacket ducked in and out of the crowd, turning when she turned, stopping when she stopped. At one point, she turned suddenly, backtracking a few feet to go back into a pastry shop—as if she’d changed her mind. She bought a cookie to nibble on while she walked, and resumed the circuitous route to the hotel. Leather Jacket was still there, thirty yards back, leaning against a wall, conspicuously ignoring her.

  She knew he wouldn’t be alone, and began to scan the people across the street who were moving in the same direction. She saw the second man at the next intersection, approaching on her left from halfway down the block. Wool watch cap, dark glasses, and a gray ski jacket. She waited a beat before crossing the street. He slowed his pace, almost imperceptibly, so he didn’t catch up to her.

  As Lisanne suspected, Gray Coat fell in behind her, taking the eye from Leather Jacket, who turned to the right, surely trotting to make the block and parallel his teammate to catch up a few blocks ahead. If there was a third, he was better than these two, because she couldn’t spot him.

  It was time to call in reinforcements.

  Ryan picked up on the first ring. “Hey! We’ve—”

  “Flash, flash!” Lisanne said, indicating she didn’t have time for formalities. She gave her location first, using hotels, landmarks, and then street names. Chavez and the others had the ability to run a common operating picture on their phones, displaying icons that depicted team members’ positions on a moving map. Reception could be spotty in the mountains and buildings. “I’ve picked up a tail,” she said, giving a thumbnail description of the men she’d identified. “Team of two so far. Nothing hostile yet, but I don’t want to lead them back to your position.”

  “No trouble at the police station?” Ryan asked.

  “None. If they’d wanted to hold me, they could have done it then. Pretty sure they’re hoping they can follow me back to you.”

  “Copy that,” Ryan said. “Things heating up here. Can you—”

  Lisanne cut him off, bonking the radio for a split second by talking over him. “… The one behind me is picking up his pace,” she said. “They’re definitely crowding me. I expect they’ll make contact soon. Wouldn’t mind a little help here …”

  Fu Bohai was less than two kilometers from the lake when Qiu called. Headlights through falling snow looked like a video-game spaceship jumping to light speed. Fu’s driver, a young fellow named Gao, hunched over the wheel, concentrating to negotiate sweeping mountain roads.

  “She knows we are following,” Qiu said.

  Fu, seated in front, stared out the passenger window at the darkness. “Then detain her,” he said. “She will only lead you in circles.”

  “Yes, Boss,” Qiu said. Fu could envision him bracing at the other end of the call.

  “Find out what she is doing here—”

  “Boss,” Qiu said, his voice as sharp as the snap of his leather jacket. “I don’t speak Finnish.”

  Fu groaned, rubbing his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “I doubt very much that will be a problem. Find out if she is involved with the search for Medina Tohti. See how much she knows. Get the location of her friends … and then sink her body in the lake.”

  “And if she is not involved?”

  “Her fate remains the same,” Fu said, shrugging, though the man on the other end of the line could not see it. “The questions you ask will, by necessity, reveal the nature of our mission. If she is a professional, as I suspect she is, since she was alert for surveillance, then your interrogation may be messy. There will not be much left of her for you to release. As I said, sink her.”

  Ryan and Adara briefed Chavez over the net as they drove.

  “Got it,” Chavez said. “We’ll hold it down here. Watch your speed on the road. The weather’s turned to shit where we are. You won’t do her any good if you get yourself smeared over the Chinese countryside.”

  “Roger that,” Ryan said, chattering the van’s tires against the pavement as he took a sweeping curve.

  Adara grabbed a handful of seatbelt as he made the turn.

  “Sorry about that,” Ryan said.

  “I’m not,” Adara said. “Let’s see some of that fancy Jack Ryan, Jr., driving your Secret Service detail taught you. We won’t do Lisanne any good if we’re late, either.”

  Approaching headlights glowed through the darts of driving snow. Ryan let off the gas momentarily in case it happened to be a police car. A white Toyota sedan passed them, going toward the docks. Adara turned in her seat and looked out the rear window, watching the taillights fade away in the distance.

  “Time to haul ass,” she said. “You know what they say, faint heart never won fair maiden.”

  Hands at nine and three o’clock, Ryan took his eyes off the road long enough to shoot a quizzical glance at Adara.

  “Fair maiden?”

  “I’m not one to judge,” Adara said. “Just saying, it’s obvious.”

  “Whatever,” Ryan said, slowing just enough to keep control as he approached a turn and then accelerating through the sweep, using up the entire road, cutting corners when he could, shaving every second possible from the drive.

  Service was spotty at best, and nonexistent in most places. They were still unable to reach Lisanne.

  “Get me a location on the COP as soon as you get a signal,” Ryan said. The COP, or Common Operating Picture, gave the team the ability to see one another’s location—as long as they had cell or, with the right equipment, satellite service.

  “Working on it,” Adara said. The dash lights bathed her face in a green glow. “She knows what she’s doing, Jack. Clark never would have brought her on board if she didn’t.”

  “I know,” Ryan said. “But we shouldn’t have let her go alone. She’s too new.”

  “She’s a decorated Marine,” Adara said. “And an experienced cop.”

  “You’re right,” Ryan said. “It’s just …”

  “I know,” Adara said. “Me, too.” She gave a little fist pump and then held up her phone to display a pulsing blue dot. “Got her. We’re eight minutes out.”

  Ryan attempted to raise Lisanne on the net. No answer. “Try calling her through cell service instead of the radio,” he said.

  Adara tapped her cheek over the Molar Mic and then held up the phone again. “Trying now …” At length, she turned to Ryan. “No joy. She’s not picking up.”

  Ryan raised Chavez on the net, quickly bringing him up to speed. “I don’t know how you plan to convince Medina to come with us, but you’d better do it now. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be coming your way at a run.”

  56

  Domingo Chavez was a smart man—and he knew it. Sure, he started off a little slow, barely getting out of East L.A. to enlist in the Army. He’d gone on to become the first male in his immediate family to attend college, and then later, under the mentorship of John Clark and the man’s brainiac daughter, he’d finished graduate school. Fluent in three languages, he was conversant in two more. He could hold his own in forensic accounting, had enough flight time to land a small plane if he had to, or rig a communications radio with little more than a few household items and a foil wrapper from a stick of Juicy Fruit.

  He was good at a lot of things, but he was best at brute force. That was probably why he got along so well with his father-in-law.

  Unfortunately, force was off the table for the moment. He had to appeal to his kinder, gentler angels, to sweet-talk a woman who had aligned herself with a bunch of terrorists … freedom fighters … convince her to come with him of her own free will. Now there was another team out there, poaching the leads Adam Yao had come up with. They were surely the ones following Lisanne—and they also wanted to talk to Medina Tohti. Judging from the body count they’d left behind in Huludao and Albania, t
heir kinder, gentler angels had gone on terminal leave.

  Chavez had to get to her first. Doing that without getting shot was going to be tricky.

  The area in front of the cabin had been cleared of brush and trees, making a stealthy approach impossible. Chavez ruled out working their way around to the rear of the cabin. It had likely been cleared as well, and the time it took to check would be wasted.

  “We’ll ride in on the horses,” Yao said. “They’ll think we’re tourists who got lost on the trail.”

  “That could work,” Chavez said, though he didn’t relish climbing aboard the fuzzy little gray again. “If we try to creep up, they’d just shoot us for sure—”

  The harsh voice from brush behind them caused both men to roll onto their backs. Chavez let the binoculars fall against their strap and reached for his Beretta.

  He froze when he saw Medina Tohti and her Han friend, both with pistols aimed directly at them. Medina looked at Chavez’s gun hand and gave a tut-tut shake of her head. Her pistol remained rock-steady, finger on the trigger.

  “You are correct,” the Han man said in perfect English. “Had you tried to creep up to the cabin, we certainly would have shot you. But that raises a question. What is to keep us from shooting you now?”

  The Han man, whom Medina called Ma, obviously had some military or police experience. It took him only a few seconds to zip-tie both Chavez’s and Yao’s hands behind their backs, then pat them down for weapons. He was particularly interested in the Beretta, but said nothing. Satisfied for the moment, he dragged the men to their feet and gave a shrill whistle as he walked them none too gently out of the clearing.

  The two men who’d arrived earlier in the Great Wall pickup came out of the cabin, each assuming control of one of the prisoners, shoving them through the door.

  A woman sat at the back window, her eye to what looked like a Russian-made infrared scope.

  “No movement,” she said when the men came in.

  Though they were Uyghur, everyone spoke Mandarin, apparently in deference to Ma, who was clearly their leader.

  The young man beside Chavez held up the Beretta, which he had already cleared, along with the Bowers Group Bitty.

  “An assassin’s weapon, to be sure,” he said.

  The one next to Yao played with one of the Microtech knives, actuating the button so the dagger blade sprang out the opening in front. A few years older than Chavez’s guard, this one had several days of dark scruff on his face. “Assassins indeed,” he said.

  Ma took the Beretta and inserted the magazine, then tipped up the barrel to replace the round in the chamber before reattaching the Bitty suppressor. He aimed the pistol at the floor, giving a satisfied nod at its heft—before turning to point it directly at Adam Yao’s face, three feet away.

  The Uyghur guard stepped clear, obviously having seen Ma shoot someone in the head before.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Chavez said in English. “We’re friends.”

  The Han man stayed aimed in, but took an almost conciliatory tone.

  “Friends …” he said. “Well, my friends, if you have found me, then others surely will as well. Now, I need one of you to talk to me, but I do not need you both.” He took a deep breath, head canted in thought. “I will give one of you five seconds to tell me how you found me. I do not care which one.”

  Yao spoke, also in English.

  “Hala Tohti.”

  Medina gasped, springing forward.

  “What did you say?”

  “Please understand,” Yao said, looking at Ma. “We have no issue with you. We need to speak with Medina about her daughter.”

  Ma’s face darkened. The nail bed on his trigger finger whitened. “So you bring an assassin’s weapon.”

  Medina’s face went pale. “What do you know of Hala?”

  “There are men looking for you,” Chavez said. “Men who would use Hala to get to you—”

  “Is she—”

  “She is safe,” Chavez said. “My friend is protecting her.”

  Ma moved the pistol to Chavez, disgusted. “Your friend is holding the child prisoner?”

  “No,” Chavez said. “My friend got her away from danger. Away from the men who are after her.” He looked at Medina. “To get to you.”

  Medina blinked, shaking her head as if she were in pain. “I … She … Where is my daughter now?”

  “Safe,” Chavez said.

  Tendons knotted in Medina’s neck. Her jaw clenched. “Safe where?”

  “At this moment, she’s in Kyrgyzstan,” Chavez said. “On her way out—”

  “I want to speak to her,” Medina said.

  “We can try,” Chavez said. “But right now, they’re driving toward Bishkek. I’m not sure if they can get a signal.”

  Medina choked back a sob. “I must speak to her …”

  “Listen to me,” Yao said. “We have to hurry. There are very bad men here, in the park, the same men who would have used your daughter to get to you. We are on your side. I swear it. But the others have killed many people trying to locate you. Even now they are following one of my friends.”

  Ma seethed, the Beretta lower now, at his belt, but still pointed at Yao. “This friend, he will come to you for help, and lead these men straight to us.”

  “No,” Chavez said. “She is leading them away from you.”

  “How?” Ma asked. “How did you find us?”

  Yao told him about the ticket stubs from the tour boat, speaking quickly. “I will explain when we are on the road. But we must leave.”

  The female at the window shot a scornful look at the youngest Uyghur man. “Perhat,” she said. “You did not think to check your pockets before giving away your coat?”

  Perhat hung his head. “I—”

  “My friend is right,” Chavez said. “You are all in grave danger. We need to go. Now.”

  “Enough!” Medina sprang forward, shouldering Ma out of the way and pressing her pistol to Adam Yao’s chin. She turned to scowl at Chavez. “We are not going anywhere. You will let me speak to my daughter, or I kill your friend.”

  57

  Lisanne picked up her pace, attempting to put distance between herself and the two men. They’d fallen in beside each other now, not even trying to hide the fact that they were following her. Her first thought was to run inside a café, but when she turned to look through the window, she saw families inside with small children. She considered turning around and running back to the police station, but realized these men had likely come from there. That would be a dead end in the purest sense of the word.

  So she hustled forward at a fast walk, a hand wrapped around the little Beretta Bobcat in her pocket. She heard … felt static vibrate on her Molar Mic. Jack and Adara were en route. The lake was fifteen miles away. With any luck, they’d be here before Leather Jacket and Gray Coat attempted to make contact. Jack and Adara were likely trying to contact her now, just out of radio range—hence the static.

  She made a left toward a large hotel, looking left as she crossed the street. The men were less than fifty feet away and closing. Rounding the corner, out of sight of her pursuers for a few seconds, Lisanne broke into a run. She cut down a side street, behind the hotel, skirting two large trash bins, before settling among a small group of elderly Chinese tourists, strolling back to their hotel from dinner.

  Adara’s voice came across the net, vibrating her jaw via the Sonitus Molar Mic.

  “… read me?”

  “Five by five,” Lisanne said, breathless now. She made a quick right, thinking it would lead her to the front of the hotel. She’d misread the signs. The main hotel entry was at the far end. What she thought was the back had been the side. The Chinese tourists had gone in the back doors, and now Lisanne found herself on the other side, on a vacant street, with nothing but a line of dark woods beyond.

  Footfalls on the pavement behind her grew louder. She turned to see Gray Coat trotting toward her, open hands out to his sides, as if
to say, “What’s going on?” She turned to run, but saw Leather Jacket ahead of her. He’d continued straight when she made the turn, sprinting around the building to meet her head-on.

  “They have me trapped,” she said, searching frantically for a way out. “I could really use some help here.”

  Adara’s voice buzzed again, “inside” Lisanne’s head, on her jaw. “How many?”

  “Still two,” Lisanne said. “I’m between a hotel and the woods, can’t read the name. Southeast corner of town.”

  “We’ve got you on the COP,” Adara said. “Hang on. We’re two minutes out.”

  Two minutes … This would be over long before that.

  Lisanne sidestepped inside a concrete alcove as the men closed in. Recessed into the wall of the hotel, the alcove put her in a box, but it also put her back to the wall. A large rolling metal door told her it was a service entrance. She tried the smaller door to the right of the roll-up, but found it locked. Thought about pounding on it, then decided she might be better off handling this without witnesses.

  Gray Coat still had his hands open. “Miss!” he said. “Hey, Miss! We do not hurt you. Want to talk.”

  “You guys better hurry,” she said over the net, not caring if the men heard her or not.

  “Ninety seconds,” Adara said.

  Leather Jacket rushed her before she had time to respond.

  He slowed as he got closer, stepping from side to side, herding her backward, into the corner—which was where she’d planned to go as soon as she saw it. She would use the angles to her advantage, forcing both men to come at her head-on rather than flanking her. No man wants to be beaten by a woman, and these two seemed confused that she did not simply submit and let them take her into custody.

  “We are police,” Leather Jacket said, rolling his shoulders and puffing out his chest like a little bantam rooster. “You come with us, Miss.”