His vision cleared. He saw the ax once again swinging towards him. He rolled to the side, and the blade clanged against the concrete floor. The blow sent a shower of sparks into the air.
Caine rolled to his feet as the albino wailed his strange battle cry and swung the ax again. Caine thrust with the shotgun, blocking the swing. His attacker pushed Caine forward. He felt his back slam into one of the plate glass windows that ran along the hall.
Dropping the ax, the albino grasped the shotgun in both hands. He pushed forward, digging the weapon into the flesh of Caine’s throat. Caine threw up a knee towards the man’s groin, but his attacker blocked the blow with a raised leg.
The albino grunted with exertion. Caine could see the long, slim muscles in his white forearms rippling with strength. His attacker forced the gun down. The cold metal bit into Caine’s throat, crushing his windpipe. He tried to shift the gun left or right, struggling to lift it even a fraction of an inch off his throat. He needed a second to catch his breath.
But his attacker was relentless. More cords of muscle seemed to burst from the pale skin of his neck and shoulders. No matter how hard Caine struggled, he could not force the gun back. Despite his slim frame, the albino seemed inhumanly strong for his size.
His vision began to blur and fade. Looking down, he noticed something strange about his attacker’s hands … he could see the man’s fingers wrapped around the barrel of the gun. He counted six fingers on each of the man’s hands.
Must be hallucinating, he though. Lack of oxygen …
From the corner of his eye, he could see through the thick glass window. He could make out the shattered remains of furniture far below them on the first floor. Prison guards swept through the large room, checking for survivors amidst the debris.
A sudden reflection moved across the glass. Caine saw a beam of splintered wood swing through the air. It smashed across the side of his attacker's face.
The albino’s head snapped sideways from the force of the blow. He did not release his grip, but Caine felt the pressure on his throat loosen. It was just enough … he sucked in a lungful of air, and his vision began to clear.
Caine twisted the barrel of the shotgun, pointing it over his left shoulder.
He slipped his right hand down to the trigger guard and pulled the trigger.
The gun fired. Caine clenched his teeth in pain as the deafening blast sounded a few inches from his ear.
At point-blank range, the rubber slug was powerful enough to shatter glass. The window exploded behind him. A barrage of glass shards fell forty feet to the ground, shattering on the floor below.
Caine dropped to the floor and pulled his attacker forward. As his back slammed into the ground, he kicked upwards, rolling the albino up and over the window frame.
The man screamed as he summersaulted over Caine and flew through the shattered window. He plummeted down to the cafeteria and slammed into a broken table. The table had been snapped in two, and jagged shards of wood lanced upwards. As they punched through the albino’s back, he coughed a fine spray of blood and his eyes fluttered closed.
The guards on the ground looked up at the shattered window in surprise. “Ni zai nali! Don’t move!” one of them shouted as they charged out of the room.
Caine staggered to his feet, gasping for breath. His eyes were still bloodshot from the tear gas, and his ears were ringing from the shotgun blast. The albino’s strangulation attempt had left a savage red bruise on his neck.
Standing before him was a young Caucasian man, panting with exertion. He was clenching a broken beam of wood in his hands. His eyes were wide, blue, and frightened.
“Jesus, dude, are you okay?” he asked.
Caine recognized him at once. He had seen Sean’s picture on the HRN website. But the eyes … he remembered seeing those eyes in a small, crumpled photograph, years ago.
“Sean,” he croaked. “You’re Sean Tyler.”
Sean looked him up and down. “You know me?” he said in an uncertain voice.
“I knew Jack. Your father," Caine said, his voice returning to normal.
“What the hell is going on? Who was that guy with the ax?”
“I don't know, but we have to move. You can’t stay here; people want you dead. Powerful people. Our only chance is to keep moving.”
A short, nervous-looking Chinese man ran up behind Sean. He looked back and forth between Sean and Caine. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.
Caine nodded towards the man. “Never mind that, who is he?”
“Alton. He’s with me.”
Caine shook his head. “No, I came for you. He’ll slow us down. The doors are all unlocked; the guards have their hands full. He can find his own way out.”
“I said he’s with me.” Sean’s voice took on a stubborn, hard edge. Caine recognized the tone. He had argued with Jack many times. He didn’t recall winning many of those arguments, either.
Caine looked down info the holding room below. The guards were gone. He knew they would be heading upstairs to intercept them. They could be in the corridor in seconds.
“Fine," he said. "Let’s go, we have to move.” He marched towards the shattered door of Sean’s room and turned right. Sean and Alton jogged behind him.
“You know, you still haven’t told us who you are.”
“That’s kind of a long story,” Caine said as he opened the door to another stairwell.
“Funny … my dad used to say exactly the same thing. Whenever I asked him a question he didn’t want to answer.” Sean followed Alton down into the dark stairwell. He paused and looked up at Caine. “Before, you said you knew my dad … past tense.”
Caine closed the door and drew his revolver from inside his jumpsuit. He pushed past Sean and Alton, taking the point position on the stairs. “There’s no time for that now. I’ll explain everything later.” He descended into the darkness of the stairwell.
Sean gave him a sullen look, then clanged down the metal stairs after him. “Yeah, right. He used to say that all the time too,” he muttered.
Caine guided Sean and Alton through the dark, winding corridor that led to the service garage. As they scrambled behind him, Alton grabbed Sean’s shoulder.
“Hey,” he whispered. “This is bad, we could get in big trouble. Maybe we should stay? How do you know we can trust this guy?”
Sean shrugged. “He didn’t try to cut me into pieces with an ax.”
Caine glared back at them. “You’re free to stay here if you want.”
Alton shook his head. “No, never mind, thank you.”
They came to the service door. Caine paused and turned to them. “Listen up. There’s a white van parked about ten yards straight ahead. There’s a woman inside the van; she’s a friend. When I open this door, you run to that van and get inside as fast as you can. If there are any guards, I’ll lay down cover fire. You keep running. Don’t stop, don’t hesitate, just run, got it?”
The two men nodded.
Caine took a breath, and put his hand on the door. “We go on three. One … two … three!”
Caine threw the door open and sprinted into the garage.
The huge, dark garage was the same as he had left it. Dark slicks of oil still stained the concrete floor. Dim fluorescent lights beamed down from overhead. But one thing was different.
The white van was gone.
Caine ducked behind a metal dumpster as a trio of guards jogged into the garage from the front entrance.
“Get down,” he hissed. “Over here!”
Sean and Alton didn’t listen. They kept sprinting straight ahead as he had ordered them. The guards saw them and immediately raised their pistols.
“Bei dong! Don’t move!”
Sean saw the guards advancing with their guns drawn. Like a deer in headlights, he froze. Alton stopped a few feet away, turning his head left and right. “Where is it? There’s no van!”
Caine popped out from behind the dumpster. “Back here, now!” he shout
ed. The men pivoted and sprinted towards the dumpster. Caine fired twice, sending two shots towards the guards. One shot missed and sparked against the concrete floor. The other struck the lead guard’s leg, and he stumbled to the ground.
The other two guards opened fire. Their bullets ricocheted off the dumpster as the two men dove for cover.
“There’s no van!” Sean shouted.
“I see that,” Caine snapped back. “It took longer than I thought to get out. I guess she had to leave.”
“So now what?”
Another hail of bullets slammed into the dumpster. Caine ducked around the corner and returned fire. He aimed for the ground near the fallen guard. His shots kicked up chips of concrete near the man’s feet. The other two guards stopped firing. They grabbed the arms of their wounded partner and began to drag him out of the garage.
Caine ducked back behind the dumpster. He had bought them a few seconds, but the men would be back once their comrade was out of the line of fire.
Caine flipped open the cylinder of the revolver. He had one shot left.
“I don’t know … Maybe we go back inside, try another way out. Or—”
The roar of an engine drowned out Caine's words. Brakes squealed as the battered white van lurched into the garage. It barreled towards the guards at full speed.
“Kan de chulai, look out!” The two guards standing opened fire on the van. Caine winced as their shots struck the windshield. The pane of glass shattered into a spider web of cracks, but the van continued charging towards them. They stopped firing and dove out of the way, leaving the wounded guard on the ground.
The van’s tires squealed in protest as the lumbering vehicle swerved around the fallen guard. Then it skidded to a stop, a few feet from the dumpster. Jia opened the side door and waved to them.
“Get in, move!” she shouted.
“You heard the lady, go, go!” Caine ordered. Sean and Alton charged for the van, piling in through the open rear door. Caine ran around to the passenger door and leapt in next to Jia.
She glared at him as she shifted the van into drive. “What happened in there? You were late!”
“Sorry. Resistance was heavier than I thought.”
The van charged out of the garage. “Head for the southwest corner of the fence. There’s a rear gate, it’s not as heavily—”
“I saw it,” she spat, cutting him off. “The garage was filled with guards. They were taking all the vehicles, chasing down the detainees that escaped. I had to leave in case they tried to take this van. I drove around in circles outside. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Caine put his hand on her arm and smiled. “You did great, Jia. Thank you for coming back.”
She bit her lip and gave him a nervous glance, but said nothing.
Caine looked ahead through the shattered windshield. “Gate’s coming up. Punch it!”
Jia stepped on the gas. Caine rolled down his window and took aim at the lone guard standing in a small booth next to the gate. The bouncing vehicle made accuracy almost impossible. Caine fired. The shot missed, but it had the desired effect. The man ducked down in the guard house, taking cover.
Caine sat back down in his seat and fastened his seatbelt.
“Brace yourselves!” he shouted back to Sean and Alton.
Jia closed her eyes and screamed. The van slammed into the gate at full speed.
The metal fence snapped and sparked as it tore free of its mounting. The engine whined and groaned as a section of the wire mesh caught in the front axle.
Caine grabbed the wheel from Jia’s hands and jerked it to the right. The van’s tires screeched as the vehicle skidded onto the Beijing city streets.
They heard a thud as the last chunk of metal and wire dropped from underneath the vehicle. The van shuddered, then charged ahead at full speed.
A bullet twanged off the rear of the vehicle. Caine looked up at the rearview mirror and saw the lone guard behind them. He had run out of the tiny booth and was firing at them with his revolver.
“Turn left up here. Then make a right in the first alley.”
Jia nodded. “You remember the streets here? You have a good memory.”
Caine looked back at Sean. The young man’s eyes were wide with fear, and his face was pale. But there was also a loose confidence in his expression … a firmness in his jaw, an uncompromising determination in his stare.
Caine realized that, like his father, Sean had saved his life. He had overcome his fear and attacked the albino assassin in the hallway.
“Forgetting things has never been a problem for me,” Caine said, turning back to face her. “Just the opposite, in fact.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ted Lapinski scanned the info on the page in front of him. He flipped to the next section of the report as he paced down the hall. The dark, tinted windows of the NSA headquarters rose up on either side of him. The building was a vast canyon of black glass and chrome. Skylights overhead allowed soft pools of sunlight to pierce the shadowy corridors.
“Are these figures correct?” he asked. “Your people can guarantee a forty percent resolution improvement in these lighting conditions?”
Avi Kramer, a younger man wearing a rumpled, ill-fitting suit, kept pace with Ted.
“At least forty percent," he said. "When you combine that with our social media algorithms, you’re looking at, what? A seventy, eighty percent increase in data density.”
Ted flipped the report closed. “Don’t sell past closed, Avi. I’ve already got social media taken care of. Your algorithms are last year’s model. But this image amplification software … this is the fucking Ferrari. I want it.”
Avi jogged forward again, turning around to face Ted. A wide grin stretched across his face, and his cheeks flushed with excitement. “That’s awesome man, I mean, fucking A! Hyvemind is right there on the edge, we’re ready to explode! And you’re gonna get in for a song.”
Ted laughed. “Yeah, we’ll see. Tell that to the DARPA guy who dumped twelve million into that app, what’s it called? Crawl Space? Fifteen years later, the only people interested in the ‘next social media revolution’ are a bunch of crappy local bands.”
“Ted! Ted, hold on a second!” a woman’s voice called out behind him. Ted looked over his shoulder and spotted Rebecca Freeling heading towards him. Sunlight from the massive skylights overhead sparkled in her fiery red hair. Her eyes seemed to hone in on him, picking him out of the crowd with laser-like intensity.
Ted shoved the report into Avi’s hands. “Here, Avi. Can you give us a minute?”
Avi grasped the mass of papers in his twitching hands and gave Ted a nervous smile. “Yeah, sure. But we’re good right? The funding—”
“Prepare a demonstration for next week. I want to run this up the flagpole before I commit.”
Ted heard the hum of Rebecca’s motorized chair and she pulled up next to him. “Ted, there you are.”
Ted smiled and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Rebecca, did we have an appointment this afternoon? Hope I didn’t double-book you.”
Rebecca shook her head. Avi appeared mesmerized by the highlights of copper and auburn exploding through her hair. Ted glanced over at him and laughed.
“Rebecca, meet Avi Kramer. Avi, Rebecca Freeling. Avi’s company does facial recognition algorithms, image enhancement technology, great stuff.”
Avi shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you Ms. Freeling. You know, if you like, I could demo our new—”
Ted scowled. “Avi, why are you still here? Rebecca, I’m late for a briefing … Roll with me?”
Rebecca rolled her eyes and maneuvered alongside him.
“Charming as always, Ted,” she muttered, as they left Avi behind in the corridor.
“I can’t stand these start-up guys," Ted muttered. "All they do is bitch about privacy and oversight and other bullshit. But then they come to us for money. We’re an intelligence agency, not Kickstarter. What do they think we’re going to do with their
tech?”
“That’s your cross to bear, Ted. I work in Human Intelligence. I’m a 'boots on the ground' kind of girl. Not that you’d know it from the DNI’s reaction to my drone report.”
“The drone missions are a CIA program, speaking of crosses to bear. But I have to say I agree with Blayne on this one.”
“That wouldn’t have anything to do with our reliance on NSA SIGINT for coordinating our strikes, would it? Or should I say, over-reliance?"
Ted smiled. "Well, you know what they say about opinions."
They came to a security check point in the hallway. Ted held up his ID badge and then dumped his cellphone and keys into a plastic bin. He stepped through the metal detector in the center of the hall. Rebecca rolled over to a uniformed security officer and allowed him to search her bag.
She followed Ted through the checkpoint, then stopped as they came to a silver metal door. Armed guards stood at attention on either side of the passageway. Ted typed in a series of letters and numbers into the keypad. A green light flashed over the door as it unlocked. Ted held the door open for her, and Rebecca moved forward into the vast, dark chamber that lay beyond.
Ted closed the door behind them. They were standing on a long, narrow catwalk. The walkway ran along the edge of an enormous server room, several stories below. The air was cool, dry, and artificial, and the hum of electronics seemed to vibrate all around them.
It took Rebecca a few seconds to adjust to the dim light. She looked down into the dark chasm of black towers and flashing blue lights. “God, this place always gives me the creeps," she said. "Feels like I’m on the Death Star.”
Ted slowed his pace and moved forward along the catwalk. “Really? I love this place. We draw more power in this room than the average small town in Maryland. The spinning servers down there actually generate enough friction to reduce our heating bill by forty percent in the winter.” He spread his arms and smiled. “See? Even the NSA is going green!”
“Ted, I know you have to get going, but I wanted to talk to you about the briefing yesterday. Specifically, about the prisoner exchange.”
Red Phoenix: A Thomas Caine Thriller (The Thomas Caine Series Book 2) Page 14
