Ballistic

by Don Pendleton

  “He left his memories,” Bolan said.

  “And his clothes,” Maia replied. “He was definitely in a hurry.”

  So are we, Bolan thought and said, “We should get out of here.”

  Tucking their weapons under still-damp slickers, they retreated from the condominium, walked toward the service elevator.

  “Stairs,” Bolan directed, as they reached it. “Just in case.”

  Twelve flights to reach the street, but it was all downhill. They had the staircase to themselves, no one else coming or going as they made it down to street level. The last steel fire door had a little window in it, double panes of safety glass making a sandwich out of wire mesh in between. Bolan peered through the window, left and right, then risked a look outside.

  “All clear,” he said, and led the way.

  A moment later they were in the alley, hustling past a line of garbage bins to their waiting vehicle. As Maia settled in the shotgun seat she asked him, “So? What now?”

  “Jin’s gone somewhere to hide out,” Bolan said. “We need to find one of his people who can put us on the trail and squeeze him till he cracks.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta

  Maia suggested that Jin’s lawyer was their next best bet for pinning down the triad vanguard’s whereabouts. In fact, he used a firm—Meng, Shangguan and Firdasari—the last-named partner being Indonesian and the other two Chinese—known for representing gangland clients and an ever-growing list of multinational concerns.

  “If Jin was taken into custody,” she said, “Syamsir Firdasari would be representing him on any criminal indictments. The others work primarily with contracts and investments, the financial side.”

  “So, one-stop shopping,” Bolan said, as he drove west.

  “Full service,” she assured him. “We will find their office on Jilan Wiyaya 1.”

  Bolan stayed on course and started counting off the blocks until they reached their destination.

  “I’ll take whoever’s in the office,” Bolan said, “but say we start with Firdasari. Have you researched him at all?”

  “Only enough to locate him at need,” Maia replied.

  “I guess we’ll have to test his dedication to attorney-client privilege,” Bolan suggested.

  “Indonesia does not honor all your rules from the United States,” Maia explained. “There is no rule protecting anyone from self-incrimination and no guarantee of confidentiality for legal documents.”

  As if it matters, Bolan thought. He didn’t plan on serving a subpoena at the law firm, wouldn’t fawn and beg them for the information he required. The Executioner was all for civil liberties in theory, but he had no patience for the human predators who violated every law, then tried to hide behind the same laws, shirking punishment. Likewise, while Bolan never criticized a lawyer for defending scumbags in the courtroom, those who helped their clients prey on innocents behind the scenes were fair game in his neverending war.

  “Let’s wait and see how it plays out,” he said, as the Toyota plowed into another rolling sheet of rain.

  “No matter what they tell us,” Maia said, “their next move will be warning Jin.”

  “It would be,” Bolan said, “if they had any other moves.”

  Same story as their other interviews. When bargaining with killers and the people who supported them, Bolan had no compunction about lying, building up false hopes that they could walk away unscathed by ratting out their bosses, friends, associates—even blood relatives. Whatever made the critical intelligence available, he’d use those tools to maximum advantage.

  And the end result would always be the same.

  Bolan couldn’t trust a squealer not to turn around and rat him out, after his target of the moment was betrayed. It was a fact of human nature, as immutable as drawing breath. But when the breathing stopped, so did betrayal.

  Dead canaries didn’t sing.

  And no dead mouthpiece ever squawked.

  Beijing Capital International Airport

  FANN LIEU SHIFTED in his stiff, uncomfortable plastic chair, watching the monitor that streamed departure times for flights out of Terminal 3E. His Air China flight to Jakarta should have been boarding by now, but it was delayed by unspecified “maintenance procedures.” A restless flier at the best of times, Fann hoped that didn’t mean one of the aircraft’s wings had fallen off.

  Or should he wish for that? If circumstances stalled his takeoff long enough, perhaps the Deputy Assistant Minister for State Security would change his mind, recall Fann from this mission which—at least, in Fann’s view—was preposterous.

  He was a friend of Maia Lee’s. So what? It had been six or seven months since they had seen each other in passing in a hallway at the ministry. They’d barely said hello to each other at the time and, as for socializing, they hadn’t been out to lunch or dinner in at least five years. Even on that occasion, they were joined by other former classmates from the University of International Relations where they’d trained for duties at the ministry, a kind of class reunion without bunting or the need to rent a meeting hall.

  Now Chou Hua Tian supposed that Fann could locate Maia in a teeming city of Jakarta’s size and somehow ensure that she “came to her senses,” as Chou spelled it out. The whole thing had a fishy smell about it, Fann surmised. Even supplied with Maia’s cell phone number and a coded phrase that Chou presumed would lure her to meet with Fann in person, how could Fann persuade an agent Chou described as traitorous to change her ways, returning to the fold? Why would she change? And what awaited her if she agreed?

  Despite his total lack of operational experience, Fann knew the reputation of his ministry where turncoats were concerned. Reform through labor would have been a pleasure cruise compared to the reprisals meted out to double agents and defectors. Maia would be lucky, Fann supposed, merely to face a firing squad at dawn. Of course, that wouldn’t be the half of it. Before her trial, if such it could be called, interrogation would be necessary to discover how and why she had gone wrong.

  Fann felt his small lunch curdle in his stomach at the thought of what Maia would suffer during that interrogation. He would happily have spared her from it, even knowing that she had betrayed her homeland and the ministry, but if he tried to shield her, then the ax would fall on him. And justly so, according to the state, since Fann would have become a traitor in his own right.

  No.

  He would fly south as ordered, do as he was told upon arrival in Jakarta, and then see what happened next. If he was very lucky, Maia would have lost her phone or might decline to answer when he called. And if they spoke, she might refuse to meet him. Let him wait in vain until he was recalled, and if that meant a dead end where advancement was concerned, Fann thought that he could live with it.

  Indeed, the job could have been worse. Chou could have ordered him to kill Maia on sight, though sending Fann on such an errand when the ministry had trained soldiers available would be the height of foolishness. Whatever Chou might be, he didn’t strike Fann as a fool.

  A disembodied voice announced the boarding for Fann’s flight. He was among the first to board, since he was seated at the rear, where he could watch his fellow passengers line up to use the lavatories. If Fann applied his mind to it, perhaps he could sleep through most of the six-and-a-half-hour flight to Jakarta, landing refreshed and with his wits about him.

  He would need them on the ground, for all the good that it would do.

  Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta

  THE FIRM OF MENG, Shangguan and Firdasari seemed to be thriving. Its suite of offices occupied half of the fifth floor in a fairly new building on Jilan Wiyaya 1, with views of a park to the southwest. The lobby was designed and decorated to impress new clients, and perhaps to reassure established ones. Each click of Maia’s heels on marble fl
ooring reinforced a sense of affluent success.

  At least her shoes weren’t squishing from the rain outside. Beside her, Cooper’s soles squeaked a little, still moist from the sidewalk, and she might have found it humorous in other circumstances. Then again, who ever went to see expensive lawyers for a laugh?

  The firm’s receptionist was young, female, attractive, wearing a silk blouse in a dramatic shade of red that matched her lipstick. She watched Cooper and Maia cross the spacious lobby; Maia half imagined that she could see wheels turning in the younger woman’s head. Dark eyes assessed an interracial couple with serious faces, no obvious romantic connection. Playing the odds, she started off in English.

  “Welcome to Meng, Shangguan and Firdasari,” she said to both of them at once, eyes giving each approximately equal time. “How may I help you?”

  Five empty chairs behind them. No one waiting for a consultation.

  Put another way: no witnesses.

  “We need to see one of the partners,” Maia answered. “Preferably Mr. Firdasari.”

  As efficient as she was attractive, the receptionist answered, “He normally sees clients by appointment only.”

  “This is an emergency,” Cooper told her.

  “I see.” She was unflappable. “I’ll check and see if Mr. Firdasari is available. Your names, please?”

  “Sauer,” Cooper replied, drawing his pistol, standing with its muzzle resting on the desk. “SIG-Sauer.”

  And she wasn’t quite unflappable, Maia discovered to her pleasure, as the other woman’s hand froze halfway to the telephone. Recovering some of her poise, she said, “We don’t keep any money on the premises.”

  “It’s not a holdup,” Maia told her. “Is he in or not?”

  Eyes flicked back and forth between them rapidly. “I’ll have to check and—”

  “No,” Maia said, curtly interrupting the excuse and easing her raincoat back an inch to show the submachine gun slung beneath it. “There’s no private elevator here. The partners pass your desk coming and going. Is he in?”

  “Yes! Yes, he is.”

  “And what about the others?” Cooper inquired.

  “Both out,” the frightened woman said.

  “Out where?” Maia asked.

  “Mr. Meng should be in court,” the receptionist said. “Mr. Shangguan’s on holiday. New Zealand.”

  “Anybody else around?” Cooper asked.

  “We have three associates. One is in court with Mr. Meng, the other two are at lunch.”

  “No time to waste, then,” Maia said. “Take us to Mr. Firdasari’s office.”

  Trembling slightly, trying not to show it, the receptionist rose from her chair and led them toward the nearest of three tall mahogany doors.

  Banten Province, Java, Indonesia

  THE COMPOUND STOOD nine miles southwest of Serang, in the midst of a tropical rain forest. There was no dry season here, although the rain lessened a bit in the latter weeks of October. Still far from that respite, the fickle sky drenched Jin Au-Yo’s motorcade while simultaneously beaming sunshine down upon its vehicles. Outside the air-conditioned cars, steam rose from jungle foliage even as the rain came down.

  The procession included five SUVs, two leading Jin’s Humvee, and two more trailing it. Altogether, they carried twenty-six men and a fair assortment of weapons to join the troops already waiting at the triad vanguard’s rural stronghold. Jin didn’t enjoy retreating under fire, but he had long since learned that it was better to withdraw at times, survive and fight to win another day, than to present himself before his adversaries as a human sacrifice.

  Dead men were worthless in this world, regardless of the wealth and power they accumulated while alive.

  Two guards were waiting at the compound’s gate, both dressed in hooded ponchos to protect them from the rain. Regardless of those garments, both turned dripping faces to the motorcade as it approached, with automatic weapons poking out from underneath their rubberized capes. The lead car slowed, its brake lights winking, and the others coasted in behind it while the riflemen approached on foot. Another moment, recognition made, and one of them fell back to roll the gate aside, while his companion stood and watched the cars edge past him, covering the road behind them.

  Nothing left to chance.

  Inside the compound’s fence, squatting on thirty acres, stood a group of mobile homes that had been trucked in nine months earlier, mounted on cinder blocks and wired for power from the camp’s own generator. A latrine stood off to one side of the tiny settlement, downhill from the mobile homes and the space set aside for tents when—as in the present case—Jin summoned reinforcements to the site. A satellite dish angled skyward from the roof of Jin’s personal trailer, granting access to television, wireless internet links and sat phones. One mobile home served as a field kitchen and mess hall, though with forty troops in residence, some of the men would have to eat outside or scatter to their tents for cover from the rain.

  The compound, Jin believed, would serve his purpose amply in the present circumstances. Though he wasn’t far removed from the excitement in Jakarta, it was still another province and he saw no reason why his enemies—the cursed agent Maia Lee and her American companion—should come looking for him here. Aside from those who had accompanied Jin in flight from the capital, only a handful of acquaintances knew that the jungle camp existed, much less that he was in residence this day. Jin’s soldiers in the city would continue hunting in his absence, keep him posted on their progress and alert him instantly if they secured their prey.

  And if his enemies should find him in the forest somehow, well, perhaps so much the better. It was easier to deal with adversaries in a setting where police were few and far between. No nosy neighbors peering from behind their blinds and summoning authorities over a little wailing in the night.

  The trap would soon be set, and no one who set foot inside it would emerge unscathed.

  Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta

  THE BRIGHT BRASS nameplate on the lawyer’s desk identified him as Syamsir Firdasari. He was startled by the unannounced appearance of three visitors, and his surprise turned into irritation as he turned to his receptionist.

  “What are they doing here?” he challenged her.

  “Mr. Firdasari, they are here to see you on an urgent matter.”

  Firdasari saw their guns then, and his face went blank for just a beat, before he managed to compose himself. “If you intend to rob us—”

  “You don’t keep any money on the premises,” Maia said, finishing it for him.

  The secretary edged back toward the exit. “If you have no further need of me—”

  “Stay where you are,” Maia directed, and the younger woman froze.

  “We’re after information,” Bolan said. “Concerning Jin Au-Yo.”

  The lawyer frowned at that, put on a puzzled face. “I don’t believe I know the—”

  Bolan’s pistol coughed at Firdasari and a crystal paperweight exploded on the lawyer’s desk, spraying his face and stylish suit with jagged shards. The mouthpiece yelped and flapped his hands, smearing the blood from several tiny cuts across his cheeks and forehead.

  “Wait!” he cried. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Don’t lie,” Bolan advised him. “We already know you represent Jin and your firm is on retainer from the Flying Ax Triad.”

  Cringing, the lawyer moaned, “Our files are confidential.”

  “And I likely couldn’t read them anyway,” Bolan said. “Listen up. Jin’s not at home. We want directions to the place—or places—where he runs to hide from heat. You must know how to get in touch with him in an emergency.”

  “No, no!” said Firdasari. “He calls me. I don’t—”

  “Wrong answer,” Bolan interrupted, leveling his pistol.

  “Wait! Per
haps I’ve seen the place you’re looking for, but there is no address.”

  “Explain,” Bolan commanded.

  “I was flown in once, by helicopter,” Firdasari said. “It is a fortress in the countryside. You have no hope of entering.”

  “That’s not your problem,” Bolan said. “We want directions to this fortress.”

  “As I said, I only saw it from the air.”

  “Start with directions. Which way from Jakarta?” Bolan asked.

  “West, to Banten Province.”

  Bolan shot a glance toward Maia and she nodded. “It’s the farthest western part of Java. You would say it’s next door to Jakarta.”

  “All right,” Bolan said. “If you flew in by chopper, you saw the landscape. You can rough out a map.”

  “I’m not much of an artist.”

  “Get started,” Bolan said, waving his pistol toward a pen and legal pad that lay near Firdasari’s elbow.

  “Yes, of course,” the frightened lawyer said. “But you must understand—”

  To Maia’s left, the prim receptionist exploded. Shouting, she leaped across her boss’s desk, snatching a silver letter opener, and plunging it into the lawyer’s throat. Maia, not quick enough to stop her, fired a 3-round burst into the woman’s back that pitched her forward. Riding Firdasari to the floor, both of them drenched in spouting blood, the dying woman jerked and shuddered in a ghastly parody of sex.

  Bolan was instantly beside them, dragging off the woman’s body, shaking the lawyer, but his wound was fatal. Even if it hadn’t been, the letter opener had ripped into his larynx, making any further speech impossible. In seconds he was dead.

  Rising, Bolan asked Maia, “Could you make out what she said?”

  “‘You filthy traitor.’ She belonged to Jin Au-Yo.”

  Bolan masked disappointment with activity. “We’re out of here,” he said, leading the way. “At least we have a pointer now.”