Josh crouched low and cupped his hands around his head. “Remember to control the head. You control the head, the body will follow.”
She nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Josh sprang into action. He charged towards her and darted behind the chair. Rebecca felt his arm grab her shoulder and begin to pull her backwards. Her arm shot up, and her nails raked across Josh’s ear and neck. She clamped her hand on the back of his neck and flexed her elbow, knocking his hand loose from her shirt.
As her body tilted back, she snaked her other arm up and grabbed the side of his head. As the chair toppled over, she used her grip on his head to rotate his body away from her. The chair crashed to the ground, and she fell on top of him. He was face down on the floor, with her right arm looped under his neck.
Panting with exertion, she squeezed up with her arm and pushed down on the back of his head, forcing him into a tight chokehold.
Josh tapped the mat, and she released her hold. He rolled over onto his back and lay next to her on the mat. She could feel the hot breeze of his breath on her ear as he looked over at her.
“You did it! That was awesome!”
“Yeah, it was,” she said, exhaling a long breath. She turned to face him. Her skin was glowing, eyes bright and wide. She smiled. “I want to do it again.”
Josh paused for a moment, then blinked. “Uh, yeah, sure.” He stood up and held out his hand. This time she took it. He pulled her up, slung an arm under her legs, and lifted her into the chair.
“Okay, let’s try a frontal assault.”
“Music to my ears.”
Josh scratched the back of his neck. “Right. So, same deal, control the head, and—”
An electronic chirp rang out.
“Hold that thought,” she said. She rolled to the edge of the mats, grabbed her purse, and fished through the voluminous leather bag. Police had found the bag a few hundred yards from the restaurant. The attackers had ditched it in their haste to escape. All of which confirmed Rebecca’s suspicions. Her attackers had acted more like security contractors than thugs or muggers. They were not there to rob her.
The drugs, the van … she had planned similar operations herself. They were performing a kidnapping. An "extraordinary rendition" as it was known in her trade. They had tried to take her alive. Which meant someone wanted to talk to her.
Someone wanted to know what she knew.
She fished her phone out of the bag and answered the call. “Freeling … I’m fine, thanks. Just trying to lay low for a while. Do you have anything?”
Josh stood up and walked next to her. He offered her a bottle of water, and she nodded her thanks. He wiped his face with a towel.
“Got it,” she said into the phone. “Thank you, Michael I owe you one. And again, sorry about last night.
She hung up.
“Your date?” Josh asked. His voice had a sullen tone, and she gave him a sideways glance.
“Yeah, it was. He’s a defense attorney, and he put me in touch with a forensics lab he works with. Not affiliated with the agency. They did a DNA check on the blood sample you pulled from the alley.”
She held up the phone for him to see. “Meet waiter imposter and Hermes purse enthusiast Mr. Wallace Ganda.”
Josh took the phone and swiped though the records in the email. “Driver’s license, birth certificate, social security card. You’ve got this guy’s whole life in your phone.”
“He’s military. It’s all on record.”
Josh flipped to another screen. “Ex-military. Dishonorable discharge August 12th, 2013, United States Army. Court martial, records sealed, no civil charges filed.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he committed a crime, and the Army swept it under the rug. They got him off duty and shipped his ass back on the next flight out of Afghanistan.” He consulted the information on the screen. “He was serving in Kandahar with the 1st Cavalry Division. They dumped him back here, and that was the end of it. No one followed up with local law enforcement or pressed charges. Might be something like rape, or sexual assault. Something people don’t want to talk about.” Josh stared at the man’s picture, and his eyes narrowed. His mouth twisted into a snarl of contempt. “Whatever it was, this Ganda guy is the one I shot in the alley. I’m positive of it.”
Rebecca checked her messages, then slid the phone back in her purse. “He must be working with Lapinski. If there was any doubt before, this settles it. No way was that just a mugging.”
“Guy like this, even money says he’s working for a private military contractor. Blackwater, XE Services, or whatever they call themselves now. Or Delta Blue, ACS Defense, Vinnel Corporation. Hell, there’s some damn many of them these days, I can’t keep track.”
Rebecca gritted her teeth. “Bernatto liked to use contractors to do his dirty work. Looks like Lapinski learned from the best.” She wheeled herself back into the center of the mats. Josh followed a few steps behind her.
“Yeah, but a snatch and grab on a high-level CIA officer? That’s pretty ballsy. I know a guy, kind of like a recruiter. If the word got out that Ganda was working this job, I bet he’ll know something about it.”
“Will he talk to you?” Rebecca asked.
Josh looked down at her and smiled, but there was a smoldering, intense glare in his eyes. “I’ll ask real nice.”
Rebecca matched his stare. “Good. But first, I believe we were discussing a frontal assault?”
“Remember, if you control the head, the body will follow. Ready?”
She nodded. Josh charged towards her. He reached out with both hands, pushing her shoulders back in the chair.
She ignored her instinct to try and block his hands. Instead, she reached up and looped her left arm around the back of his neck. As he pulled away, she allowed him to drag her out of the chair. Her right forearm shot up and jammed into his neck as they tumbled to the ground.
Josh pulled back, but the harder he fought, the tighter her hold became. He tapped the matt; she released the hold. She draped her arm across his back. He looked down at her, panting for breath.
“That was good,” he said. “Better than good. You’re a natural.”
“Maybe now you won’t have to follow me around after hours.”
Josh looked into her eyes. “Look, if I was out of line, I’m sorry, I just—”
“I’m glad you were there,” she said. “I’m just giving you a hard time. I’m known to do that when I’m nervous.”
He paused for a moment. “Aw, the hell with it,” he muttered. He bent his head down and kissed her.
A shock ran through her body. She knew she wanted this, just as much as Josh did. But it had been so long. As their lips touched, a jumble of images rushed through her mind. The gunfight in Thailand, the explosion that scarred her legs. Endless hours spent in a sterile white operating room.
And Caine … his emerald-green eyes, the orange and yellow leaves outside her window. That autumn morning so many years ago. The last time she had seen him, before he had disappeared. Before everything changed. Then, when she found him at Bwang Kang prison, in Thailand … those mesmerizing eyes burning behind metal bars, staring back at her like a tiger in a cage.
She gently pushed Josh away.
“Josh, wait. I’m sorry, I …”
Josh began to get up. “Damn, I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought—”
She looked into his eyes, and the flood of jumbled memories and anxiety seemed to rush from her mind. They were replaced by a feeling of warm clarity, a pleasant tingling at the edge of her senses. It was a sensation she knew well. It felt like running. Like freedom.
She just had to push through.
She grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him back to her. Their lips met, and they devoured one another as her hands raked up to his neck.
They parted for breath. She gasped as she realized how strong her attraction was. How much she had denied her feelings over the past few months. Her injuries had stolen her abilit
y to walk, but not her capacity for pleasure. At least there was that. She felt a wave of phantom heat pulsing up and down her body, growing in intensity.
But did she want him? Or did she just want someone, anyone, to make her feel something again? Someone who made her feel whole, and desired. Not broken. Not helpless.
His teeth bit down on her lip, and she felt another flash of pleasure mixed with a sweet hint of pain. She knew one thing for certain … she wanted this. She didn’t care why.
She tore his damp shirt off over his head and tossed it aside. It landed on her wheelchair and hung from one of the handles like a faded flag.
“Rebecca, you sure about this?” he asked in between gasps. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yeah,” she exhaled into his ear. “I’m just getting some skin in the game.”
She pulled his mouth back to her lips. There were no more words.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The sudden lurch of the truck shook Caine awake. He heard the rattling of the vehicle as it bounced over broken, uneven pavement. Caine tensed and scanned the rear of the trailer. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness in the cargo trailer, but he saw nothing amiss. Wooden shipping pallets towered around them. The stacks creaked under the weight of hundreds of bags of rice. They shook and vibrated as the vehicle continued on its way.
Jia had flagged the truck drivers over to the side of the road. Some yuan notes convinced them to transport the group to Huagu, Alton Lung’s hometown. The fact that it was closer to Shanghai earned Sean’s approval. The group had wedged themselves in among the pallets. The drivers sealed them into the darkness, and they were on their way.
Caine was ambivalent. On the negative side, it kept him in the company of Jia and Alton longer. It also took them farther away from Hong Kong, his planned point of egress from the country. But he had to admit, it was the fastest way to put some distance between them and the bodies on the train. And after that incident, Chinese authorities would no doubt determine that Hong Kong was their destination anyway. Changing the plan was safer. So why was he still hesitating?
He knew the answer, although it bothered him to admit it. Sean Tyler. His promise to Jack, and his failure to keep it. This time, if his plans fell apart, if the package was not delivered safely …
Stop! The voice in his head slammed down like a wall of ice, exiling those dark thoughts to the outer recesses of his mind. You’re in the field now. This mission is no different than any other.
He knew that was a lie. But it kept him focused, kept him moving forward. In their situation, he knew that the worst mistake they could make was to slow down.
The truck lurched again, and the wall of the trailer vibrated behind him. Jia was asleep next to him, and her body slid into his. Her head dipped down and rested on his shoulder. She uttered a soft moan and exhaled. Her breath was a warm caress against the skin of his neck.
There was something about her. He could not put his finger on it, but her presence calmed him. He doubted she truly understood all the risks she was taking right now, on his behalf. But her serene determination was somehow reassuring.
He thought back to their walk through the beautiful hutong in Beijing. Her wide, luminous eyes staring at him through the flickering candlelight over dinner. She seemed to glow with her own inner warmth and beauty.
A part of him would regret leaving her behind. In his life, there had only been a handful of women he had allowed himself to grow close with. When he had been operational, it was the demands of the job that kept him detached. But after Afghanistan … a life spent hiding in the shadows had surrounded him with a wall of cold mistrust and suspicion. It had kept him alive. But it also kept him isolated. Alone.
Only a few people had ever penetrated that icy barrier. People like Rebecca, he thought. And look what happened to her.
Leaving Jia behind was the single best thing he could do for her. The longer she was with him, the more likely she was to be swept up in his curse.
After his betrayal, Caine's thoughts often turned to the work he had done with Bernatto, Jack, and others. The violence he had witnessed … the lives he had snuffed out. Now he had to live with that blood on his hands. Some of it was justified, perhaps. But some was the blood of innocents. Pawns on a board, pieces Bernatto sought to remove from play. All to preserve his power, or wealth, or whatever other agendas he pursued in secret.
Caine was not a superstitious man. But the stain left by all that blood, he knew, was a curse. And more often than not, it inflicted itself on those he cared about most.
He sighed and leaned his head against the rattling wall of the cargo trailer. Cursed or not, he had lived with the specter of violence and death for most of his life. He knew the secret to surviving its cold hand of vengeance, and how to protect his loved ones as well.
Brick by brick, he rebuilt the wall of ice in his mind. The secret, he had learned, was to let no warmth inside.
Next to him, Jia sighed and shifted, turning her body away from him as if to escape a chilling draft.
The truck dropped them off at a gas station on the outskirts of Huagu. Caine watched as it pulled away, leaving them standing in a cloud of diesel fumes and dust. A cold wind blew through the gas pumps of the station. Jia shivered, rubbing her arms for warmth.
In the distance, Caine could see factories and smokestacks rising above the barren, empty brown hills. Beyond that, the sloped concrete walls of a dam rose up, blocking the rest of the valley from view.
A muddy brown river cut through the skeletal industrial buildings and wound its way towards them. It passed behind the gas station, a sliver of slow-moving water in the distance. A thick, pinkish film of floating chemicals clung to the water's surface. The soil of the river bank was an ash-like gray. It turned black as it dipped down to meet the sludge-covered water.
“Where are we?” Jia asked. Her mouth twisted into a frown as she surveyed the dismal terrain surrounding them.
“It not always like this,” Alton said, as the wind kicked up another swirling cloud of dust around them. “Huagu means ‘valley of flowers.’ When I was a boy, these hills were covered with yellow flowers. Rapeseed, they called.”
“What happened?” Jia asked.
“After 2008 Olympics, Beijing pass stricter environmental laws. They want tourist dollars, and tourists don’t want to see dirty factories and red water in river. So factories move here, and other small towns outside the capital. Different laws here, different rules. We try to fight them, try to petition the capital to do something. But …”
Caine nodded. “Right. I saw how that worked out.”
Sean eyed their surroundings with a quick, jaded glance. “I’ve seen dozens of towns like this throughout the countryside,” he said. “This is what you get when people like David Fang call the shots. It’s no different here than anywhere else. Golden rule in action.”
“He who has the most gold, rules,” Caine replied.
A horn honked three times from down the road. Caine turned and saw a battered old pickup truck driving towards them. As the wind kicked up more debris, Jia began to cough. The vehicle’s headlights cut through the dusty haze in the air.
Alton smiled. “That’s my brother-in-law, Tiao. I texted him from train. He give us ride.”
The truck groaned to a stop. A tall, middle-aged man with a shaved head stepped out and nodded to Caine and the others. His skin was dark and ruddy, and Caine noticed a few dark red splotches on the man’s neck.
The man hugged Alton and slapped his back, causing the slim younger man to break out in a fit of coughing. He released Alton from his bear hug and regarded Caine and the others with a solemn glance. He grunted some words in Chinese, then got back in the car.
Alton turned to them. “He said pretty lady gets shotgun.”
Jia blushed. “No, it’s fine, I …”
Sean opened the door for her. “Go ahead … this wind is stirring up a lot of dust, and It’s only going to get wo
rse.”
The truck’s suspension groaned as Caine and Alton climbed into the pickup bed. The vehicle dipped lower to the ground as Sean scrambled in after them. Alton opened a rusted tool box and fished around. He pulled out a few old, sweat-stained bandanas.
He passed them out to Sean and Caine, then tied one around his face, covering his mouth and nose.
They tied their bandanas in the same manner and sat in silence as the truck chugged down the road. The service station diminished in the distance behind them. Soon it disappeared from view, lost in the hazy air.
Thirty minutes later, they drove through the center of Huagu. The town was a cluster of small, concrete buildings running along the banks of the river. The chemical foam on the river was thicker here. Slow-moving ribbons of crimson and black stained the water’s surface. A few patches of green grass sprouted up randomly along the banks. Weeping elm trees bent down to kiss the toxic sludge with white, decayed branches.
On the opposite side of the river, the ground sloped up. Acres of barbed wire fence surrounded a sprawling industrial complex perched above the town. Its metal sheds, and the maze of pipes and valves surrounding them, were spotted with rust and corrosion. An array of exhaust pipes spat thick plumes of gray smoke into the air.
Alton tapped Caine on the shoulder and pointed at the warning signs on the fence. “That Fang’s factory. One of many. Our government say he make medicine and chemicals for the military. They say his work save many lives. But here, he kills everything. He is like a jiangsi.”
“I don’t know what that word means,” Caine said, eying the plumes of toxic smoke.
“Like, how do you say? A vampire. He poison the earth, spreads death, and he becomes stronger. It’s as if he feed off qi, the life energy of the people he kills.”
Caine shook his head. “Men like that feed off money, and power, not ‘life energy.’”
Alton said nothing. He remained silent as they drove past the gated road that led up to the factory. He held his breath, as one would crossing the entrance of a graveyard.
Red Phoenix: A Thomas Caine Thriller (The Thomas Caine Series Book 2) Page 20
