by Alex Ryan
Lankford put a hand on his shoulder. “She’s going to be okay, Nick. We’ll get her.”
Nick nodded his appreciation to the CIA man.
“One minute.”
Nick slid forward to the edge of the bench and keyed his mike.
“We’re team two, clearing to starboard,” Nick said, calling Zhang, who was in the lead helicopter. “Team one—that’s you, Commander Zhang—will clear to port.” Zhang repeated the order in his earpiece in Chinese. The men on Nick’s team all spoke English, but Zhang was translating this critical detail so there could be absolutely no confusion.
Nick then held up one finger and gestured to himself. The operator across from him held up two fingers, the next operator three fingers, all the way around to Lankford, who was six—their numbers in their stick. Lankford was no SEAL, but he was blooded in combat and an asset in a gun battle. This was a short-fuse op, and they needed numbers.
The operator across from Nick opened the helo cargo door. Nick gazed out the opening and looked below, noting the frothy wake of the ship they were trailing. Only seconds remained.
“Two shooters on the fantail—on radios—they’re engaging with rifles . . .” said Zhang’s voice.
The report was followed by the loud belch of fifty-caliber machine-gun fire as the lead helicopter strafed the enemy security force.
“The fantail is secured. We have movement aft from amidships. At least a dozen men.”
Nick felt his helicopter bank right, the pilot matching the arcing swath of green foam below. The hospital ship’s captain had just made an evasive turn starboard—a pointless attempt to foil the assault by the profoundly more maneuverable helos.
“Team one is onboard,” came the call from Zhang.
Nick felt the helicopter flare, slowing to match speed with the moving ship. Then the pilot yawed the nose left and banked to place the open door just a few feet above the fantail. Nick tapped the Snow Leopard across from him on the helmet, and the operator leapt onto the fantail deck, moving quickly to his right, the next man in line following a split second later. In seven seconds, all six of them were aboard and advancing along the starboard side of the fantail. The roar of rotor wash disappeared as the helicopter rose and banked hard away from the fantail. The bird would execute a two-hundred-seventy-degree circle and come along the starboard side of the ship to provide gun support.
Nick took a knee and surveyed the fantail over the sight of his rifle. The bodies of the aft deck security team lay in bloody heaps, having been cut to pieces by the fifty-caliber machine guns. The fantail of the hospital ship was set up as a helo pad, and Nick noted a commercial helicopter lashed down to deck eyes.
That has to be Feng’s helo, Nick told himself. Which means Dash is here.
Automatic gunfire erupted to his left.
“Heavy contact forward, port,” Zhang said in his headset.
“Contact forward, starboard,” another voice said, the accent thick but the English understandable.
Nick’s fire team took a knee. A high-velocity round whizzed past Nick’s head, pulling a trail of sparks as it ricocheted off of the rail beside him. Nick sighted in on a moving figure—sixty yards ahead and moving aft along the deck rails. He squeezed the trigger. A three-round burst crumpled the target, painting red modern art all over the deck. Another round hit the nonskid deck by his left thigh. A burning sting lit his leg up as a piece of shrapnel tore through his pants and clawed his flesh just above his knee. He raised his weapon and searched along the railing of the bridge tower. When he saw a muzzle flash slightly to the left, he sighted in and squeezed the trigger twice. The shooter dropped his rifle and stumbled to a knee but then managed to scurry to safety through a hatchway in the white metal wall of the bridge tower.
“Check the bridge tower,” he ordered. “Move forward—we need cover.”
Nick’s heart was shouting for him to find the nearest ladder and get belowdecks to rescue Dash, but the operator in him knew that would never happen if his team was cut to ribbons here. He signaled for team two to advance. As two pairs of Snow Leopards slid along the side rails, Nick and Lankford moved left, taking cover behind what he thought was a generator box. The deck-mounted structure measured approximately two meters wide by one meter tall and was positioned at the edge of the yellow paint circle marking the helo landing zone. Nick pulled in tight beside Lankford, who raised his rifle above the top edge of the rectangular metal box and fired. Nick peered over his rifle, scanning around the right side of the structure. Two of his Snow Leopards were hunched down behind a large yellow cart. Beyond them, he saw two of Feng’s guards running aft, spraying bursts of fire from their JS 9s everywhere. Nick placed his red holographic targeting dot on the forehead of the first man, squeezed the trigger, and watched the head explode in a puff of red. The other shooter ducked and took cover behind an angular structure rising from the deck.
“You think this is a generator box?” Lankford yelled over the gunfire.
“I think so,” Nick said, searching for more targets. A barrage of gunfire rained down on them from above, pinging off of the top of the metal box barely big enough to conceal them. Lankford popped up, fired a three-round burst, and then dropped back down.
“I hope you’re right,” the CIA man said.
“Why?” Nick asked without looking over. He saw another figure move across the deck passage that connected the forward area of the ship to theirs. He was about to fire when a muzzle flash made him pull back. A split second later, the metal box shrieked in protest as several enemy rounds carved out metal chunks where Nick’s face had been.
“Because,” Lankford said, returning fire, “given the position, it could be a fuel depot for the helicopters, in which case”—he paused and fired again before turning back to Nick—“you picked a really shitty spot for cover.”
“Then let’s shoot these bastards and get the hell out of here,” Nick said as he leaned around the box and fired.
“Resistance at inboard hatches,” Zhang announced.
Nick peered around the right corner again, found no targets, and then shifted left behind Lankford and peered around the left side. He spied two open doorways leading to the lower superstructure, and every few seconds, there was a burst of gunfire from each. Nick checked his watch. They’d been on the fantail now for nearly four minutes.
“Zhang,” he said into his mike, “we don’t have time for this shit. They’re pinning us topside on purpose. We have to get down there and rescue Dash. Right fucking now.”
A figure appeared in the doorway, and Nick lit up the opening with a barrage of gunfire. To his right, he heard the other two Snow Leopards engaging more targets forward on the starboard side. He had lost sight of the third pair behind him, but he heard occasional bursts of gunfire that told him they were still in the fight.
“We do not have control topside,” Zhang said in his headset. “If we sortie below, they will pursue and cut us down from behind. I will not put my team in a crossfire.”
Nick had drilled this scenario dozens of times, and Zhang was right. But this was his environment, and where there was a will, there was a way.
“Here’s the new plan. Team one stays topside, along with five and six from team two,” he said. “You secure the deck and then meet us amidships when possible. One, two, three, and four from team two will take the rear ladder wells and assault the medical spaces below.”
There was a long pause, punctuated only by gunfire in both directions. Zhang had put him in charge, but the Snow Leopards needed their leader to concur before they deviated from the plan as briefed. Nick waited. After an eternity, Zhang’s calm and even voice again filled his left ear, but this time rattling off instructions in Chinese before switching back to English at the end.
“Team two is now four man. Proceed belowdecks,” Zhang said.
“Roger that.”
“And Foley?”
“Yes.”
“Good luck.”
Nick looke
d at Lankford, who stared back at him and nodded. “I’m with you,” the CIA man said. “Let’s go get our girl.”
“Cover fire on my mark,” Nick called into his mike.
Lankford nodded.
“Three, two, one, mark.”
A beat later, the Snow Leopards lit up the deck with cover fire. Together, he and Lankford sprinted from the cover of their rectangular box, bullets ripping up the nonskid around them as they ran. At the raised ladder well—shaped almost like a white metal port-a-john—they flanked the closed door, weapons up. Nick spun the wheel to undog the latch, then flung open the hatch. Lankford fired a volley down the hole, and then Nick led them into the ladder well.
The staccato ping of bullets hitting the outside of the ladder well reverberated as they descended the narrow ladder-style rungs. Nick cleared ahead as Lankford protected their flank. At the landing, Nick moved left and took a knee, scanning down the long, gray-white passageway stretching toward an oval hatch. For the moment, the passageway was deserted, but that meant nothing. Feng’s security forces could be anywhere. Nick felt Lankford’s hand on his shoulder as the CIA man moved past him. He waited a moment, clearing their six, and then fell in behind Lankford, who was now leading the charge to the next decision point. They continued down the passageway to the oval hatch painted with the number twenty-four. Inboard of the hatch, there was a descending ladder.
“Which way?” Lankford asked.
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “My gut tells me we go amidships, to the middle decks.”
“Agreed.”
“Forward or down?”
Nick shook his head.
“Just pick.”
“Down,” Nick said. He grabbed the oval hatch, shut it, and dogged the latch. Then he pulled a spent magazine from a pouch on his kit and jammed it tightly between the handle and the latch. It would not stop someone truly determined, but it might slow them down.
“One, this is Three,” a voice said in Nick’s ear. “We are clear on level one, port side to a ladder. Advance or descend?”
“Advance and report. We need to locate the medical suite,” Nick said into his mike. “One is moving down to level two.”
Nick descended the ladder to the second deck. He cleared at the bottom, and Lankford leapfrogged to take the lead, repeating the procedure from before. Moments later, they were crouched on either side of another hatch labeled thirty-eight, except this hatch was shut. As before, a ladder well occupied the space inboard of the hatch, except this one provided access up and down. Nick made a quick glance up and down and mouthed the word “clear” to Lankford.
Lankford pointed at the hatch and then the descending ladder.
Nick was about to gesture down when he noticed a placard on the wall beside the closed hatch with Chinese hanzi.
“What’s that say?” he whispered, nodding at the placard.
Lankford glanced up. “It says ‘surgery ward.’”
Nick keyed his mike. “Three, One. Ready to rescue the package, level two. Starboard side. Hatch number thirty-seven.”
“Roger, One. What are your orders?”
“Descend to level two and support on the port side.”
“Roger, backtracking to the ladder at hatch thirty-eight. Stand by.”
“We going to wait for them?” Lankford asked.
Every fiber in his being wanted to say no, but the operator in Nick knew that it would be a mistake. He nodded and tightened his grip on his rifle. Gunfire from the firefight raging thirty feet above them echoed off of the ladder and metal hull in a surrealistic way.
“One, Three in position,” came the call from the other half of team two.
“We breach on my mark,” Nick said. “Clear the deck aft to front, beam to center. Kill anyone not Dr. Chen.”
“Copy all,” came the reply.
Nick looked over at Lankford, who gave an awkward thumbs-up. Nick grinned tightly and felt an unexpected surge of kinship for the CIA man.
Nick took a long, deep breath and then called into his mike: “Three, two, one—Go!”
CHAPTER 30
Dash wanted to scream, but the realization that she could not filled her with terror, amplifying the need to scream all the more. She could feel her arms and hands twitching, then her thighs. Her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably. She realized that she needed to take a long, deep breath, but no matter how loudly her brain ordered her chest to heave and her diaphragm to drop and suck in a long, cool breath of air, her body did not get the message and simply twitched uncontrollably instead. A moment later, the twitching stopped, and she felt her head grow dizzy as the unheeded call for oxygen became all-consuming.
“There it is,” a man said.
“A seven and a half tube, please.”
“On her chest.”
“Sorry, I see it. What’s her Pulse Ox?”
“Still ninety-four.”
“Okay, here we go.”
She felt a rubber-gloved hand on her forehead, tipping her head back. Then two gloved fingers probed her mouth, twisting and forcing her teeth apart. She ordered her jaw to clamp down, to bite off the invading fingers, but her jaw stayed slack. The fingers prodded, and next she felt cool metal on her tongue, followed by a sharp pain in her jaw as they readied her for intubation.
“I’ve got the cords.”
“Here is the tube.”
She should have been gagging, and although her brain gagged at the sensation of the metal rod down her throat, her body did nothing.
“Suction.”
Another tube scraped painfully down the back of her throat, and then the sound of saliva being suctioned filled her ears.
“Tube.”
Her throat burned with pain as the small tube was removed and the much larger endotracheal tube was pushed through her vocal cords and down into her trachea. Then the metal rod was gone, and the pain in her jaw eased. A moment later, a burst of cool air filled her lungs.
It took a few seconds, but then the horrible sensation of suffocating slowly dissipated, as did the dizziness and the feeling that she was fading away. As her wits returned, she suddenly found herself wishing she had actually blacked out. The horrible sensation of the tube forcing air into her lungs and then relaxing slowly—too slowly—as the air hissed out of her became overwhelmingly claustrophobic. She wanted to breathe faster. She needed to breathe faster, but the machine didn’t care. Above her, a hazy white cloud hovered. She tried to blink—to clear away the tears that blurred her vision—but she found it impossible to pull her lids down across her eyes. Her pulse quickened, and she could actually hear the swish swish of the blood coursing through the arteries at her temple.
“She’s a little tachycardic,” a woman’s voice said.
There was some shuffling around, and then she felt a squeezing band of pressure on her left bicep, which then slowly faded away.
“Her blood pressure is up too,” a man’s voice said casually. “Did you give her the Versed?”
“Yes—three milligrams. And the ketamine drip is running as well as some fentanyl.”
“Okay. Maybe she’s a little dry. Open up her saline.”
“Are we almost ready?” asked a voice she recognized.
A tidal wave of panic washed over her. It was the madman, Feng. The man who planned to harvest her organs and dump her mutilated corpse in the ocean. The fear was all-consuming, and to fight it, she told herself that any moment, Nick would burst through the door. The next sound she heard would be the sound of Nick snapping the madman’s neck. And then he would tell her she was safe, and he would hold her . . .
A blurry figure came into her line of sight, obstructing her teary view of the ceiling. With all her might, Dash willed her eyelids down, and after a moment, they obeyed, slowly drawing a dark line across her field of vision. Her tears, cooled by the air, rolled down onto her temples and then dripped into her hair. The machine gave a hiss, her lungs filled against her will, and it made her lose her concentration. Her lids slid bac
k up to half-mast, and her vision was filled with the clear view of Feng wearing a surgical mask and taunting her with his eyes.
“You may wonder what is going on, so let me explain. I’ve replaced all the medication vials with saline. The surgery team has been instructed not to shield you from the sensations that are coming. Your wits will not be dulled. Your pain receptors will not be numbed. You will feel each stroke of the knife as I cut your organs free. Only the succinylcholine will remain, to keep you paralyzed and still.”
Her stomach lurched, but nothing came up. Inside her head, she screamed—screamed for her life at the top of her lungs, but the only sound she heard was the chuckle of Xue Shi Feng and the hiss of the cruel and callous ventilator mechanically keeping her alive.
“The slush is ready. We can start anytime.”
My God, they’re going to do it. They’re going to slice me open while I’m awake. Please, God, no . . .
With all her might, she willed her heart to stop pumping the oxygenated blood to her brain. If she could just stop her heart—just die now—she would be spared the agony of being carved and ripped apart piece by piece.
She felt hands, multiple hands, on her. The thin sheet they had covered her with was pulled away, and cool air licked her bare skin. Although she couldn’t see it, she knew four pairs of eyes were ogling her sprawled and naked body. Something cold and wet spread across her belly, and she knew exactly what was happening.
“Prepping,” someone said.
They whisked the freezing liquid across her skin; she felt it drip down her sides as they splashed it across her sternum and breasts. Then she felt a burn as they swabbed between her legs. Her nose filled with a familiar smell.
Betadine. They’re prepping me with Betadine. Why bother if this ends with death?
But of course it wasn’t for her. It was for her organs. They didn’t want to contaminate their organ cultures. Rough hands now pressed surgical towels over her chest and abdomen, and again she felt violated by a hand between her legs. For a moment, she felt a tug of regret that Nick had never seen her naked, that they had never . . .
“What the hell was that?” someone said.
