Catalyst (Breakthrough Book 3)

by Michael C. Grumley

  “How far?!” Clay shouted into the phone, still pumping his other arm.

  “Twenty minutes. Maybe less.”

  “Dammit!” Clay hung up and dug in, lowering his head. He bolted ahead with everything he had.

  51

  Li Na Wei opened her eyes and watched as the dark room sharpened around her bed. Her eyesight was as good as it had ever been, and she glanced around from item to item, scarcely recognizable beyond the soft lime-green glow of her heart rate monitor. The old machine’s rhythmic beep matching itself to the beating of her heart.

  It was all she could hear, but something had awakened her. She scanned and listened…waiting. But there was nothing else.

  She hadn’t been able to sleep much since finding out about her father. It all felt so surreal. A loneliness she had never felt before wrapped in the disbelief that it was really happening. Yet each time she awoke, no matter how long she had slept, her situation felt increasingly real.

  This time, though, something was different. No pain. No chills. This time, it was a feeling. A sick, almost nauseous feeling crawling its way up her chest.

  It was the feeling of danger.

  She heard it before Dr. Lee, who had just bolted upright in his small cot. The storage room was almost bare, leaving plenty of room for the folding bed, where Lee had slept since Li Na regained consciousness. Now sitting alert on the flimsily-sheeted mattress, he listened carefully to make sure he wasn’t mistaken. That it wasn’t a dream.

  It wasn’t. The distant sound came again, louder. The sound of an approaching helicopter.

  “Li Na!” He jumped to his feet and ran through the open door, stumbling into a rolling bed parked against the wall. He pushed it hard out of the way, knocking it into the opposite wall and toppling two unused IV stands. Finally past, Lee raced toward the room at the far end of the hall.

  “Li Na!”

  The teenage girl was already out of her bed. She turned from the window when she heard the doctor shouting. She was still dressed in her thin, light-blue gown.

  Lee’s footsteps could be heard approaching. When he finally burst into her room, his eyes focused on Li Na’s shadowy figure just a few feet away and grabbed her arm. “Someone’s coming!”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps the people your father feared!”

  “Are you sure?”

  He paused, listening again. It was much closer. “Helicopters don’t come here.” He ran to the small cupboard and threw the doors open. Grabbing her clothes, he pushed them into her arms in a panic. “Get dressed. Quickly!”

  Li Na needed no convincing. The sickening feeling in her chest was still there, and growing stronger. She fumbled, separating her clothes and then slipping each foot into a pant leg.

  Lee ran back to the door and looked back the way he came. A blinding light swept over the small building, shining in through several windows as it passed overhead. The sound of the aircraft’s rotors outside became deafening.

  He darted across the hall, into the small kitchen, and raised the lid of a freezer resting against the far wall. Inside, at the bottom, was Wei’s strange metal case.

  Lee yanked it out and returned to the room. He again pushed the case into her arms, this time grabbing one hand. “Hurry!”

  He led her back down the hallway and into the storage room, throwing his cot out of the way. He yanked the small closet door open and pushed her inside, quickly closing it and pulling the cot back in place against the door.

  No sooner had the Harbin touched down that one of Xinzhen’s men, sitting closest to Qin, yanked the door open. The man then leapt from the helicopter with the blades still churning at full speed. His boots hit the hard ground and he tore into a run toward the building. The second man who followed was nearly as big and reached the wooden door just steps behind the first.

  It was locked.

  Neither bothered looking at Qin as he climbed out. Instead, the second man stepped back and promptly withdrew a large pistol from inside his coat. Without a word, he pointed it at the door and fired multiple rounds into the wooden door jam, shredding it. When the door still didn’t move, he fired twice more. This time, the left side of the heavy door slumped. With one last powerful kick, it swung inward, dropping wooden splinters everywhere.

  Inside, Lee ran from the storage room, barely reaching the front door before it burst open.

  The first of Xinzhen’s men stepped through the doorway and growled. “Where?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Where is she?!” he repeated.

  When Lee didn’t answer, the large man stepped forward and slammed him hard against the wall.

  “I-I don’t know,” Lee groaned, “who you’re talking about.”

  Behind them, Qin’s voice was icy. “Your patient.”

  Sputtering, the doctor shook his head. “I have several patients.”

  “Wei’s daughter. We know she’s here.”

  The large man’s hand gripped Lee around the throat.

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  Qin grinned at him, sardonically. “Oh, I think you do.” He turned and examined the short hallway. He motioned to the right. The second of Xinzhen’s men nodded and stormed down the narrow corridor.

  An elderly male patient appeared in one of the doorways with a walker. Xinzhen’s man stopped in front of him, glancing briefly into his room before placing a hand on the old man’s chest and shoving him back inside. The thug moved on, indifferent as the elderly patient toppled to the cold tile.

  When he reached the next room, the agent found a bald woman with weak sunken eyes and cheeks lying frail in her bed. Her tired eyes were clearly unable to comprehend what was happening.

  It was the next room where he stopped and looked back down the hall at the others.

  “This one’s empty.” He looked back inside. “But someone was here.”

  Qin immediately stormed toward the room, along with Xinzhen’s first agent who still kept the doctor’s throat gripped tightly in his huge hand.

  When Qin saw the bed and its blankets thrown off, he turned back to Lee. “Who was in here?”

  The man’s grip tightened when the doctor didn’t answer.

  “Where is she?!”

  From inside the small closet, Li Na tried to sense what was around her. When she heard the gunshots, she froze. Her father was right. She checked the doorknob for a lock, but found it smooth and featureless. She continued searching with her hands.

  There were shelves on both sides, filled with things she didn’t recognize. Some she did, like small cardboard boxes and sealed plastic bags with pieces of plastic inside. Some were softer. Probably bandages.

  She stepped back and stumbled into a large object on the floor, slamming it loudly against the wall. Tall, thin objects fell onto her as she scrambled to catch what she couldn’t see. One of the missed items struck her in the forehead.

  She cried out softly and rubbed her head. What was the doctor thinking? This was a terrible idea. There was nowhere to go. He must have thought he could convince them she wasn’t there.

  But if he couldn’t, this was the worst possible place to be.

  With a nervous hand, Li Na turned the knob and pushed, just enough to crack the door open.

  She could see part of the bed, positioned against the door. Against the other wall, a shelf held clear tubing, boxes of latex gloves, and linens. After a moment, she leaned out and nervously peered around the closet door.

  That’s when she heard the voices.

  Qin was eyeing the doctor with anger. He opened his mouth to speak again, but stopped when his eyes caught something behind them. The rest of the hallway was clean. Yet at the far end, two IV stands lay sprawled on the floor beneath a rolling bed that was turned at an odd angle. On the other side of the bed, a dim light reflected out through the room’s doorway.

  Qin’s eyes moved back to the doctor, who was now watching him nervously. Without a word, Qin stepped around t
he agent who still held Lee and walked silently down the hall. Unlike the first two rooms, the second two had patients who hadn’t woken up from the commotion.

  When Qin reached the rolling bed, he pushed it carefully out of his path. He stepped over the fallen equipment and drew his gun as he inched closer to the doorway. He glanced back at the other men only briefly before stepping inside.

  Qin scanned the room, noting the worn cot and small closet with an open door. Inside the closet were stacks of cleaning supplies with several haphazardly placed brooms and mops. On the floor, a plastic bucket lay on its side.

  Qin examined the rest of the room.

  What he was searching for was hiding less than a meter away, directly behind him.

  52

  Wil Borger didn’t take his eyes off the screen. He watched with annoyance as the latest satellite image slowly came in, overlaying the old picture. When the transfer finally finished, the lights he had been tracking were exactly where he was afraid they would be.

  “Crap!”

  He zoomed in as far as he could. Even in the dark, the outline of the small building was recognizable, along with the helicopter parked less than a hundred feet away.

  Borger grabbed his phone and dialed again. There was no answer. He turned to another screen and zoomed back in on Clay’s satellite phone. It was still moving.

  He was almost there.

  Qin stood silently in the room, listening to the final whirring outside from the helicopter’s rotors. He looked down at the small cot and studied the blankets. They were messy. The position of the rusted frame so near to the closet looked out of place. Intentional.

  He couldn’t hear Li Na’s breathing behind the door, not over the rotors or Xinzhen’s men continuing to shout at the doctor. But he knew she was still here in the room. He turned slowly with his raised gun and looked behind him. There was only one other place to hide.

  He reached out with his left hand and fingered the doorknob, pulling it decidedly away from the wall.

  The door’s shadow moved with it, revealing the terrified young face of Li Na Wei standing against the wall. Her dark hair was messy, with bangs stopping just short of her wide eyes.

  The resemblance to her father was unmistakable.

  “Well, well, well,” Qin breathed quietly. “You are alive after all.”

  He looked her up and down. Her clothes were as disheveled as her hair. “Where is it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Qin lowered the gun slightly, pointing it at the girl’s midsection, and raised his voice over the noise from outside.

  “Where is it?!”

  Li Na stared at him, and in an act of unexpected defiance, shook her head from side to side.

  Qin gazed at her coldly. He didn’t have time for this. He didn’t know where the American was, and on top of that, the fewer of Xinzhen’s men who knew, the better. He stepped away and peered through the door, back down the hall. “Bring him here.”

  Li Na remained still, listening to the scuffle outside. The doctor was abruptly thrown into the room where he stumbled to the far wall. He turned and looked at Li Na apologetically before reluctantly facing Qin.

  “Our young lady appears to have forgotten how to speak. And I have very little time, so I’ll ask you once and once only. Where…is…it?”

  Lee glanced at all three men, careful not to look in the direction of the closet. He knew it didn’t really matter where it was. They’d find it eventually. What mattered more was that Lee had monumentally failed both Li Na and her father.

  He failed to heed her father’s warning as quickly as he should have. He thought he had more time. To help her. To understand exactly how Wei had saved her. And to prepare her. But it was too late. The man before him had an unmistakable look in his eyes. He was going to kill them no matter what he said. Of that, the doctor was sure. Lee might buy Li Na a few minutes, but that was all. And it wouldn’t be enough to matter.

  There was nothing else he could do. He stared at Qin’s gun pointed squarely at his chest. His life was going to end there. That morning. In the tiny hospital that he had helped to build with his own hands.

  Lee was surprised when a wave of emotion suddenly passed over him, squelching the fear. It was the feeling of…satisfaction. The satisfaction that if it had to happen here, there was no place more appropriate. It was in this tiny hospital that with only the barest of resources, Lee had saved hundreds of lives. And with the money General Wei had donated for helping his daughter, it would go on to save hundreds more. Maybe thousands.

  In the end, his life wasn’t any more important than those he’d cared for. For those he had brought into the world and for those he had helped out. It was simply-

  The doctor’s last thought was cut short by an explosion from Qin’s gun. The bullet ripped into his chest and through one of his ventricles. He collapsed onto the floor and was dead within seconds.

  Li Na screamed, horrified. She watched helplessly as the life slowly faded from the doctor’s eyes. She stumbled backward against the wall, beginning to hyperventilate.

  With a sickening grin, Qin turned back around and faced her.

  “I’m going to ask you one…more…time.”

  A wave of terror welled up through her chest as Li Na tried desperately to speak through the shock. But she couldn’t. Her lips wouldn’t move. She tried to say something. Anything.

  Suddenly, the second of Xinzhen’s men, who was guarding the door, appeared to take a clumsy step forward before collapsing in front of them with nothing but a blur visible behind him. It was the blur of a rifle butt, now spinning in the air just as the larger of Xinzhen’s men drew his gun.

  He was fast. So fast that he managed to get off two rounds before a flash erupted from the end of the AK-47’s barrel now pointing into the room. Three bullets hit him in the chest, sending the agent into the wall and then to the floor, where the pistol rattled from his limp hand.

  The barrel of the rifle immediately swept across the room and stopped against the doorjamb, angled directly at Qin.

  In a flash, Qin pulled the teenage girl in front of him. He kept her between himself and the door before glancing back at Xinzhen’s men, lying still in front of him.

  His eyes darted back to the barrel of the AK. The American had arrived.

  53

  Out of breath and with his chest heaving, John Clay remained pressed against the doorjamb while peering over the top of the rifle, his aim locked in on Qin and Li Na. Even with his sweating hands and throbbing legs, the rifle remained motionless, waiting for the slightest movement from Qin.

  In response, Qin twisted and managed to slouch further behind the girl’s outline, leaving very little of his body exposed. His eyes peered around her with a hidden smirk.

  “Ah, the American.”

  Clay’s stonelike expression didn’t change. “In the flesh.”

  “And who exactly might you be?”

  “My name isn’t important. Let her go.”

  Qin paused, waiting to see if there was anyone else with the American. Hearing nothing, he relaxed slightly but kept Li Na close. “My name is Qin,” he said in nearly perfect English.

  “Good for you.”

  “And as you can see,” he said, gripping the girl’s arm tighter, “you’re too late.”

  Clay frowned. “Feels to me like I’m just in time.”

  “No.” Qin shook his head. “I have her now. You don’t.”

  Clay’s eyes glanced away, double-checking the room and the men on the floor. They returned to Qin in an instant. “You may have her, but there’s only one door.”

  Qin nodded, then slowly raised his gun and pressed it against Li Na’s soft cheek. “And there’s only one girl.”

  “Maybe you’re not as smart as you look,” Clay said, still hidden behind the rifle. “You obviously haven’t thought about what happens to you if you kill her.”

  Defiantly, Qin wrapped his arm around Li Na’s waist and forced her sideways
, shuffling them both to the middle of the room. Exposing Clay in the doorway.

  “The lapse in judgment is yours. I have a shield. You don’t.”

  “I don’t need a shield.”

  “Ah, there it is. The American bravado. Simple and shallow.” Qin moved slightly behind Li Na, brushing his collar open with his chin and revealing a small microphone. “This is Qin. Our target is here at the hospital. Move quickly.”

  Well, that was a problem. Clay thought to himself. He remained steadfast, calculating how much time it would take the others to arrive. Four, maybe five minutes. Which meant he had less than two to get out and put any distance between them.

  “When they take me, I’m going to take you first,” Clay responded calmly.

  Qin stared at him for a long moment and Clay noticed a slight change in his expression. Uncertainty.

  The American was bluffing. He wouldn’t sacrifice himself. Or would he? His mission was the girl. Which meant he’d kill her before letting Qin have her. It was exactly what Qin was prepared to do. Now he had to stall until the other soldiers arrived. But the American had the advantage: an exit. He could kill both Qin and the girl and still escape. It’s what Qin would do in his place. But the man wasn’t moving. How long would he wait before acting?

  Clay’s eyes shifted to Li Na Wei, petrified and sickened at the feel of Qin’s breath on the back of her neck. She stared helplessly back at Clay.

  “Do you speak English?”

  “A little.”

  “He is going to kill you,” Clay said. “No matter what you do.”

  “Shut up!” hissed Qin. “I just want the case. Give it to me and you’re free.”

  Li Na’s eyes turned, searching for Qin but unable to see him.

  “When he gets the case,” Clay continued, “he will kill everyone here to keep it. Beginning with you. Your only chance to escape lies in the next sixty seconds.”