by Tony Bulmer
The secretary of state looked as though he was about to break out in tears, of self-pity. “What do you want me to do?” he choked. “I will do anything, anything at all, I promise. Just keep me safe, I beg you.”
Karyn nodded, scrutinizing him through narrow eyes. “Aside from growing a set of balls, there’s not much you can do Mr. Secretary.” Karyn reached down into the detritus of the stand seating and pulled out a half opened bottle of water. “You want a drink?”
Truman Whitaker made a spluttering noise.
Karyn pursed her lips disapprovingly. “We are surrounded by the Chinese Army, and just about every kind of secret police goon the Ministry of State Security can throw our way. In two short minutes they are going to get their heads out of their rears and swamp this place in gas; when they do we will be ready.”
“What kind of gas?”
“The brand that will eat your eyes out of your head and make you wish you could rip your chest open with your bare hands to stop the pain.” Karyn unscrewed the water bottle and poured it over Whitaker’s head.
“What the hell are you doing?” He spluttered.
“Mitigating the hurt, when the gas comes I want you protected,” She took of her coat off and threw it in Whitaker’s face. “Wrap your head in this; keep, the silk-lining tight over your face. When we move, you will stay close to me. If you panic, try to bolt out on me, or pull anything I consider to be a bullshit move, I will club you down to the ground in a second; maybe even shoot you too. We clear about that Mr. Secretary?”
Truman Whitaker looked glum. Not only did he not like the scenario, he was in no position to do anything about it. But Karyn could also see that behind the fear, Whitaker’s treacherous mind was already hard at work, figuring how he could cause her harm. That was just fine. Big men with small minds didn‘t scare her, far from it. If justice ran true and all was right and holy in the world, a man like Truman Whitaker would have been fighting the good fight, honoring his country and the millions of hardworking American citizens who had put him in his position of trust. Instead, the creep had sold out every last vestige of integrity he had in the pursuit of power for its own ends. Maybe he would be better off dead—but if that came about, it wouldn’t be by her hand—if the CIA started killing politicians because the were self-serving idiots, the great American public would have no one left to vote for. Karyn squinted through the bullet-ravaged slats in the bleachers seating and saw a chilling sight. Emerging through the flames and the gun smoke on the far side of the mausoleum’s grand, marble concourse came the unmistakable muzzle flashes of AK-47 assault rifles. As she watched, dark figures began emerging from the dense undergrowth. Karyn narrowed her eyes. These were no professional soldiers, they were paramilitary thugs and poorly trained ones at that. Drunk with power, and the euphoria of cold-blooded murder, the gunmen were hosing down everything they could see, with indiscriminate gunfire. The wild flames and hellish juddering recoil of their weapons indicated they were firing on full-auto. Where in the hell were the massed ranks of the Chinese Army, and the cops from the Ministry of State Security? Karyn spat a curse. If only she had an M4 assault rifle or an H&K G36, a weapon with that kind of power and range would take down every last one of those gunmen. As it was, she was out gunned and out of range.
As more bullets cut into the stand, the high velocity rounds scything ever closer to their position, Karyn had a dark feeling that the unfolding scene had been choreographed, by the hand of some unseen power. The thugs with the machine guns were in no hurry; they advanced through the chaos with slow, easy strides, picking their targets at will and letting loose with a deadly hail of gunfire. How often had such men terrorized the world, inflicting their twisted ideology of death on innocents going about their day? Karyn hated such men—mall killers, marketplace bombers, back shooting betrayers of hope and innocence, all of them ruthless murderers without conscience or pity. The thoughts of mindless horror, sucked Karyn back through the years, to her service in Afghanistan, where her team from the CIA National Clandestine Service had been charged with many deadly missions, hunting down men of violence. It had been an endless, thankless war, filled with unending horror, culminating in a covert beyond the rim operation into enemy occupied Pakistan. The mission was beyond the rim, because it extended outside the confining boundaries of United States Law and beyond international rules of engagement. Operation Ascension as the mission was known, was a precision strike at al Qaeda fanatics within the Pakistani Taliban, a high-stakes mission to avenge the Camp Chapman massacre, where ten of the CIA’s brightest operatives were murdered in a cowardly suicide attack.
Operation Ascension had been doomed from the start, a desperate long-shot play that went far beyond the normal lines of supply, into the dark beating heart of fanaticism. Northern Pakistan was brutal land of death and fear, where the crazed doctrines of the mountain warlords mixed with the twisted Salafist ideology of al Qaeda’s deadliest killers. As she contemplated this distant time, the memories flooded back—horrific, bloody, close-quarters scenes—bayonets, entrails. Filthy-clawing hands and brainwashed bearded faces pressing in on her. Only Karyn and USMC Sniper Reed Goodman had come through—everyone else dead—the mission aborted in shambolic failure.
As the poisonous memories arced through her, Karyn felt herself slipping into an altered state, a dreamlike place, where time and consequence had no meaning. Only one thing came through the haze—the years of special forces training, instilled in her by the most deadly and hardcore operators in the world—Karyn had trained with them all, from the Office of Naval Intelligence to the Special Activities Division at the Central Intelligence Agency. Her skills were honed to a deadly degree, but now, after long years in the field, that training had transmogrified into something more, something dark and deeply unsettling, as though the souls of her vanquished enemies had been somehow absorbed into her personal psyche.
Karyn’s finger eased against the trigger of her SIG 229.
She chose her targets one after the other. She let rip, a blaze of euphoria filling the moment.
Wild gunfire now.
Horrified screams, reverberating in the cold, dead space.
The 229, twelve shots gone, locked and open.
The screaming reached a crescendo.
Karyn reached out a fresh magazine from her DeSantis shoulder rig and slid it home, jacking a cartridge into the breech with practiced ease.
The guy with the AK47 was so close to their bleachers hiding place, you could smell the hate. Karyn rose up before him gave him a .40 caliber double-tap straight to the head. He went down hard and final—all of his friends dead too.
Then the gas came—the pop, pop, pop of shoulder held launchers sounding out across the scene of carnage.
A tight feeling at her booted ankle, Secretary of State Truman Whitaker holding on so hard, his greedy white fingers ate into the back patent leather.
Karyn looked down, said, “On your feet Mr. Secretary. We are getting out of here.”
06
Campanella rattled the key in the lock of the barred gateway, but he couldn’t make it fit. He felt a hot flash of panic burn through him. The pills were not working, as they should. He felt no calmer now than when he had first popped them. Again, he tried the key in the gate, his hand shaking so badly the fresh cut key bounced against the cold metal lock and slid away without engaging. His slick, jittering fingers fumbled the keys and they fell to the floor.
“Maybe you were using the wrong one?” said Lauren Whitaker. She bent down, her fingers closing around the keys. “Here, let me try.”
Campanella snatched the keys back. “No.” the word came shrill and emphatic.
She looked at him strangely then. She hardly new the ambassador, she had met him only a couple of times previously and he struck her as something of an eccentric. He had bright, greedy, bird-like eyes, constantly darting, always evasive. But the ambassador was a career diplomat from a quite different age, perhaps his bashfulness was a sign of def
erence, or perhaps he just wasn’t very good with women—she had heard her husband talking with his aides—they had called Ambassador Campanella a career bachelor. One of the younger, brasher attaches had referred to him as—That old fruit, but he did it in a hushed tone, when he thought no one of consequence was listening. Lauren Whitaker gave the old man a nervous smile, “I am sorry,” she said, examining his sweat bathed face almost shyly. “Are you feeling alright Mr. Ambassador? You look rather unwell.”
Campanella grasped the keys, with tremulous fingers. He stared at her with a pinprick gaze, almost looking like he was going to laugh. He was a strange man all right, some might even say creepy. But Lauren Whitaker said nothing, just flashed her eyelashes nervously and attempted a look of reassurance that came out tight and awkward. A sudden commotion turned her head—at the end of the darkened corridor, the sound of screams and gunfire growing ever closer. Campanella seemed immune to the chaotic disturbance. He just stared at her, his gaze wild and unsettling. After an awkward silence, he gave a curious grimace that might almost have been a smile and began sorting busily through the keys. He tried once again to open the gate. This time, the key sank into easily into the lock. Campanella let out a cry of triumph and threw his fragile body against the heavy metal bars. But there was no need to use such force, once the lock had been released, the gate yawned open with well-oiled smoothness.
Lauren Whitaker grasped the bars with uncertain fingers, an unspoken question hanging on her lips—where did he get the keys?
Campanella turned to her and snapped, “Hurry, we must go, before we are discovered.” He reached out with his bony fingers and grasped her by the wrist. His grip was wet and unpleasant.
Shouts behind them now, the sound of panicked feet running down the corridor towards them. Lauren Whitaker half turned, and said, “Wait, other people are coming. We must let them through the gate, or they will be trapped.”
Campanella pulled her savagely—so hard she almost fell to the floor. He moved quickly then, slamming the gate closed and dragging her onwards into the encroaching darkness. “Come,” he barked. “We have no time for magnanimous gestures, we must think of saving ourselves before it is too late.”
“But where are we going?”
“I know a way out. If you want to come through this, you will follow me.” Campanella’s voice was shrill and commanding, the kind of bossy bureaucratic tone that demanded attention.
But Lauren Whitaker was no blind follower. She had the kind of smarts that had landed her a premier league trophy husband and a luxury lifestyle that even the most creatively avaricious would scarcely be able to imagine. She pulled away from him. “You seem very sure of yourself Mr. Ambassador, almost like you had this planned…” She made a grab for the ring of keys, but Campanella pulled them out of her reach. He stepped towards her then and raised his had as though he were about to strike her across the face with the back of his hand. She paused for a beat, her eyes hooded with contempt. “Don’t even think about it, asshole,” she snapped, her voice cold and flat.
He stared at her, his birdlike eyes glistening with resentment. His lips quivering very slightly he stuttered, “I am sorry, Mrs. Whitaker, I—” his voice trailed off, weak and desperate. But she was already walking away from him, heading down the gloomy corridor into the very heart of the mausoleum.
“Wait,” he called after her. “Forgive me Mrs. Whitaker, this whole horrible nightmare is tearing at my nerves, I am not a well man—not well at all. Please, understand me when I say I have been driven quite beyond the limits of propriety.” He was pattering after her now, his tiny feet dancing ever faster across the cold, dead marble. As he drew alongside, he peered at her, his face white and anxious in the gloom. She looked at him with contempt and showed him her hand, in the hope it might arrest his progress. “Stay the hell away from me. I have nothing to say to you.” Campanella just stared at her, his wet, bird-like eyes crawling across her body. His mouth worked open, like he was going to say something, but no words came.
Lauren Whitaker gave a cold shudder and walked away from the strange little man, with ever more urgent steps. As she walked, the mausoleum opened up, into a grand master chamber that resembled the Pantheon in Rome. The room, if you could call it that, was breathtaking. A vast domed atrium, lined with Corinthian columns, decorative arches, and intricate gilded friezes. In the centre of the space, bathed in an eerie light from the ceiling, there stood a giant marble sarcophagus fit for a Roman emperor.
Lauren Whitaker caught her breath. She had never met Deng Tao, or his all-powerful brother Zhàn. But the media back home in the States was obsessed with their fabulous wealth and endless capacity for extravagance; now she could see why. Transfixed by the majesty of the architecture, she almost didn’t notice Campanella as he oozed alongside her. His breath came in short wheezing gasps from the exertion of keeping pace with her. He sounded like he needed a toot on an asthma inhaler. She sensed his questioning gaze, but she ignored him. Instead, she looked about the circular chamber and noticed with shock that there were nine exits, each one of them identical to the entrance. Which way should she go?
Campanella gave her an oily look, “Quite magnificent isn’t it? It may be a tomb now, but one day, many years from now, crowds will flock here to pay homage to great genius.”
“Genius?” said Lauren Whitaker, her voice incredulous, “Or a vulgar copy of a past founded on great tyranny?”
“There will always be those, who doubt—but the future does not belong to them. Come Mrs. Whitaker, we must find a place of safety. There is no telling the movements of those who attacked the funeral, they may be upon us at any moment.”
She turned then, looked at him doubtfully and said, “So which way is out?”
Campanella forced a smile; it made him look sick and unpleasant as the light from above bathed his face in unholy shadows. “It is indeed fortunate that we chanced upon each others company Mrs. Whitaker. I have an intimate knowledge of this great building—As the most senior foreign diplomat in Shanghai and a humble student of great architecture, The Tao Corporation had the foresight to bestow upon me an honorary curatorship—” Campanella raised the key fob and gave her a superior look. “ As you can see Mrs. Whitaker, it certainly pays to take an interest in the culture of great nations.”
“I’ve seen it all before, and done better too. Now, how do we get out of this joint? This place gives me the creeps.”
Campanella took a deep, injured breath. He gestured with an open hand towards the southwest corner of the great hall and said, “There are steps over there, they lead to a hidden service entrance and a pathway through the Gardens of Eternal Sanctity. I have never followed it all the way, but I would imagine that it connects with the roadway at some point. No doubt the authorities will be rushing up the mountain to our assistance, even as we speak.”
“You are certainly good friends with the Tao Corporation, aren’t you Campanella?”
He didn’t catch the irony in her voice. Instead, he puffed out his chest and said, “As a humble servant of our proud government, it is my duty to be a leader in such matters.”
But Lauren Whitaker was no longer listening. She was already heading towards the southwest door at a brisk pace. Campanella’s gaze oozed after her. How tall and attractive she was, if one was interested in that kind of thing, but her attitude and demeanor were quite something. Surely the wife of the secretary of state should have at least a tiny soupçon of glamour? Instead she was arrogant and unwholesome, in a rather slatternly way. But her family were extraordinarily wealthy—industrialists since the Roosevelt years. No wonder that preening buffoon Truman Whitaker had married her. Campanella let a sour smirk twist into the corner of his mouth. Yes, Mrs. Whitaker would be very useful indeed, a quite marvelous bargaining chip. How useful she would be for anything else, after those dirty little Uyghur perverts had finished with her was quite a different matter, those filthy provincial whoremongers were not very big on feminist back-chat. Campanel
la let the smile open wider. He trotted after the Secretary’s wife. Yes, the rough boys from the north would certainly pay her out for her intolerable insolence, and serve her right.
Campanella caught up quickly then led the way. Together, they descended down the thin concrete stairway leading to the service entrance. A yellow sign covered in black and red hanzai characters warned that death by electricity would strike down all who entered. Unconcerned by the stern warning, Campanella inserted one of the keys into the lock and pushed the door open. The automatic lights popped on, revealing a thin pipe-covered corridor, lined with a series of grey-vented doors. The thick vibrating hum of high-voltage filled the air.
Lauren Whitaker froze, her entire body feeling the static charge of the airless sub-basement. It felt wrong that the grand and opulent mausoleum of Deng Tao should funnel out into such a cramped and dreary place. She took a step back; her fingers reaching for the handle of the door though which she had entered this subterranean world. But there was no handle, just a polished steel panel and a flush fitting security lock. There was no going back. She had to follow the Ambassador now, or be trapped in this strip-light prison cell until the rescuers came. The thought made her shudder. What if the lights went out? What if she suffocated as the electric power plant ate through the last remaining breaths of humid basement air? She took a quick, nervous swallow—it was stupid of course, the rescuers would be here in minutes—the army, police, Secret Service. They would rescue her, protect her, cocoon her from further harm—it was their job after all wasn’t it? She was a VIP, an American citizen, and wife to one of the most powerful men in the world. Her brave protectors would surely at this very moment be hunting her down like a pack of faithful bloodhounds. Wouldn’t they?
