Noble snapped off two rounds. He was aiming for Tiger’s lower back, hoping to put a bullet through his guts. The first tore through Tiger’s butt cheek. The second missed and rang off the metal bulkhead.
Tiger shouted in pain. He let go of his pistol and clamped both hands over his cheek. The 9mm Kahr bounced across the floor. Tiger went down face first. A dark red spot the size of a drink coaster soaked through his leather pants. It was a superficial wound. He would live.
Too bad, Noble thought. He deserved worse.
Two girls were injured. One lay dead. The rest huddled in their cages, terrified. Tiger whimpered and stretched out a trembling hand for the fallen gun.
“Don’t do it,” Noble told him. He centered his front sight on Tiger’s head and thumbed back the hammer.
Tiger’s bloody fingertips hovered inches from his weapon. One quick lunge and he’d have it. His lips peeled back from clenched teeth. He glowered at Noble. He wanted to go for the gun, but the will to live won out against his desire for revenge. He closed his eyes and put his head down. “My brother is going to kill you!”
“He’ll try.” Noble kicked the fallen pistol across the floor.
51
Bati could feel herself wearing down like a clockwork toy in need of winding. The earlier insulin shot had given her a boost but not enough. She was too far behind. She needed another injection soon to keep her from slipping into a diabetic coma. Her eyes kept slipping shut. Strange, half-formed thoughts wormed around inside her brain. Her limbs felt disconnected and foreign. It took a concentrated effort of will to move them. There was pressure behind her eyes and a buzzing inside her skull. She checked her thighs. The skin was sticky and dirt stained but still tan. No red streaks. Yet.
Each moment without insulin brought her closer to death. She could feel the grim specter hovering over her shoulder, waiting patiently for her broken body to surrender to the inevitable.
It must be some time in the early morning, one or two o’clock. An eerie silence had settled over the stone quarry. It felt like all the world was asleep. Only Bati and her captors remained. She had to escape. She told herself it was now or never.
The Frenchman, Rene, stood at the open door. Bati shifted in an effort to relieve the cramp forming in her lower back, and his compassionless eyes turned on her. They were like the eyes of a machine—cold and calculating, ruthlessly computing the situation and the most logical response. Humanity was not a factor. Bati feared to move again, even to relieve the pain, because she hated the feeling of his eyes on her.
The kidnapper with the severed finger lay slumped over a sack of crushed gravel. His face was sickly white. He hadn’t moved in hours. Blood soaked through the bandage and puddled on the floor.
Bati licked dry lips. “I think that man is dead.” The words squeezed out of a raw and swollen throat. The sound frightened her.
Rene ignored her.
“I think I killed that man,” Bati told him. “I bit his finger off. Now he is dead.”
Rene went to check on the unconscious kidnapper. He bent over and pressed two fingers into the carotid artery, turning his back on Bati in the process.
She struggled to her feet. A wave of dizziness hit and sent her reeling. Time slowed. She staggered across the bare concrete floor. “He’s not dead,” Rene was saying. “Just passed-” Bati lifted her foot and kicked him in the butt.
She would have kicked him harder if she had the strength, but her foot impacted with enough force to knock him off balance. He stumbled forward, tripped over the unconscious kidnapper, and sprawled face first.
Bati sprinted through the open door. Sharp gravel stabbed her bare feet. Her thighs burned with the effort of putting one foot in front of the other. It felt like running through knee-high water, like the nightmare where the harder she tried, the slower she went. She opened her mouth to scream. A horse whisper croaked out, “Help.”
Bati swallowed, filled her lungs with air, and managed to shout, “Help me! Somebody help me!”
She reached the front bumper of the rusting dump truck. She had already gone farther than she thought possible. The Frenchman sprang to his feet and started after her, breathing curses every step of the way. His threats drove her on, spurring her to greater efforts. Fear opened the door to reserves she never knew existed. She dug deep and ran as fast as her failing body would go. A bright spot of hope blossomed in her chest. If she could stay ahead of Rene, maybe she could make it up the gravel drive, out of the rock quarry and find someplace to hide, someplace they would never find her.
Henries stepped directly into her path. Before she could stop or even change directions, he brought his rifle up and cracked her forehead with the butt stock. Her head snapped back. Her feet shot out from under her. She came down flat on her back, and the lights went out.
52
Navigation equipment and tiny blinking LED lights filled the pilothouse. The computer screens were all blank save one; it had a series of readouts containing longitude and latitude. A forgotten thermos and a dog-eared copy of a women’s fitness magazine were on top of the computer banks. It was open to a glossy picture of a model in spandex shorts and a bikini top. Noble paused long enough to admire the model, then located a red emergency box affixed to the bulkhead behind the door. He took the flashlight from the box, stepped out on deck, and signaled Samantha.
Across the harbor, headlamps flashed. She pulled out, swung the car around, and drove toward the access road. Noble waited on deck near the boarding ramp. Ten minutes later, Sam pulled up. She barely got the car in park before leaping out and demanding, “Where is she? Where’s Bati?”
“She’s not here,” Noble said. “But I’ve got Tiger down in the hold. He’s going to tell us where to find her.”
Sam’s expression changed from disappointment to grim determination in the space of one long stride. She paused long enough to plant one foot on Tiger’s motorcycle and push. The Ducati tumbled off the pier, hit the water with a splash, and sank below the surface.
“Petty and vindictive,” Noble said as she reached the top of the gangplank. “I approve.”
One corner of her mouth twitched up in the ghost of a smile. Noble motioned her to follow him and turned toward the hatch, giving Sam a view of his back.
“Is that a bullet hole?” Sam said. “Have you been shot?”
“I got hit by a ricochet.”
It felt like someone had stabbed him with an icepick, but he could still move his arm. He took that as a good sign. If the buckshot had struck anything vital, he would already be woozy or unconscious. The metal bulkhead had reduced most of the velocity, and his shoulder blade must have stopped the rest. He hoped. “Is there a lot of blood?” he asked as he led the way downstairs.
“Not much. Does it hurt?” she asked.
“It will hurt worse once the adrenalin wears off.”
They reached the bottom of the steps and turned down the long hall to the engine room. Sam grabbed his hand and stopped him. “We have to get you to a doctor.”
“Later,” he told her. “First thing is to find out where Bati is being held. I’m going to question Tiger, and I need to know you are on board.”
Her lips pressed together in a hard line. “You mean torture?”
Noble took a breath. He didn’t want to lose his temper. She had done well so far, but she had been duped by the media into believing that wars could be polite and orderly affairs where no one got hurt. Since Korea, America had been trying to win the hearts and minds of the enemy. That sounded good to the folks back home watching on CNN; in real life, it got soldiers killed.
“You don’t get useable intel by turning up the air conditioning and forcing the bad guys to listen to Miley Cyrus.”
Sam crossed her arms over her breasts and hunched her shoulders up. “It doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it.”
“You think I enjoy it?” he asked heatedly. “Sometimes I lose sleep over it. That’s the price guys like me pay to keep people like you
safe.”
Her shoulders drooped. She uncrossed her arms. “I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to…”
He waved it away. “Forget it.”
They passed the engine turbine and the unconscious fat man. At the top of the stairs leading to the hold, Sam pulled a face and covered her mouth with one hand. “What is that smell?”
Noble paused on the top step. “This is a modern-day slaving ship. There are fifty or sixty women down there in cages, covered in their own filth. Think you can deal?”
Breathing through her mouth, Sam closed her eyes and nodded.
Before going topside, Noble had looked around for rope, cable, duct tape, or even a sturdy electrical cord to tie up Tiger. Unable to find anything useful, he decided to give the gangster a taste of his own medicine. He had located an empty cage, dragged it into the center of the aisle, and stuffed Tiger inside.
The kid lay on his side, rocking back and forth and whimpering. One hand clutched the bullet hole in his right butt cheek. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked like he had been crying. “Please,” Tiger begged as they appeared on the stairs. “Please, I’ll give you anything you want. Name your price.”
Noble wanted to laugh. He came down here ready to break fingers, but that wouldn’t be necessary. For some people the threat of pain was enough. Tiger was ready to spill his guts to save his own skin. Just as well. It made Noble’s job easy.
Sam stopped at the foot of the steps and placed both hands over her mouth. Her gaze moved along the row of cages filled with terrified and helpless women. Tears welled up in her eyes. Then she locked in on Tiger. The muscles stood out in her neck. She sprinted across the floor, kicked his cage, and beat on the chicken wire with her fists. “You monster! You sick perverted freak!”
Tiger curled up in an effort to stay away from the sides of the cage. Noble stood back and watched. Sam wailed on the chicken wire and threatened castration. Noble let her carry on long enough to rattle him, then threw an arm around her waist and hauled her back. “Let me handle this, okay?”
She stood there with her fists clenched and her body trembling. She stared daggers at the young Triad boss.
Noble hunkered down in front of the cage and rapped on the chicken wire with his knuckles.
Tiger uncovered his head and opened one eye. He had managed to smear blood from the bullet wound in his butt to his face and hair.
“Where is Bati?” Noble said.
“Who?”
“The girl your big brother had abducted from Manila.”
“She’s not here,” Tiger said.
“Yeah, I can see that, genius. Where in the hell is she?”
Wounded and afraid, Tiger had trouble processing the question. His face screwed up in confusion. “I’ll give you money. Anything you want, just don’t hurt me.”
Noble drew the .45 pistol and pointed it at Tiger’s foot. He spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “Where is Bati?”
Tiger stuttered a few times, but the words finally stumbled out. “An abandoned stone quarry north of the Tai Lam Chung Reservoir. All the way at the end of Hap Song Road.”
“Tell me about the mercenaries guarding her,” Noble said.
“There are five. Henries is the leader.” Tiger calmed down enough that he could speak without stuttering. “They are all ex-soldiers. Real hard cases.”
“What kind of hardware do these mercenaries have?”
“Rifles,” Tiger said. “Machineguns. Military hardware. All kinds of stuff.”
“Explosives?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“If you are lying to me, I’ll come back here.”
Tiger shook his head harder, flinging drops of sweat. “I’m not lying. I swear I don’t know.”
Samantha laid a hand on Noble’s shoulder. “Some of these girls need doctors.”
“They aren’t the only ones.” He stood up. “Are you familiar with Tai Lam Chung Reservoir?”
She inclined her head and then looked at the rows of cages. “What about them?”
“We’ll call the cops as soon as we are gone.”
Sam glowered at Tiger in his cage, like she wanted another go at him. A vein throbbed in her temple. “What about him?”
“He stays,” Noble said.
He retrieved the fallen AK47. The dead thug had shot off half the magazine in the firefight. Noble bared his teeth in frustration. He would be going up against five trained mercenaries with a half empty AK47, a half empty MAC-10, and his handgun. Not exactly an arsenal. “If ifs and buts were candies and nuts…” he said to himself.
Sam screwed up her face. “What?”
“It’s one of my mother’s sayings,” he told her. “If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas.”
Back on deck, Noble was busy thinking about emergency medical treatment for the hole in his back and how to liberate Bati from a team of mercenaries. He didn’t see the black sedan parked between rows of metal shipping containers. He and Sam were halfway down the gangplank when the headlamps snapped on.
53
The dark sedan was parked between shipping containers and the front end was pointed at the freighter. The harsh xenon headlights blinded Noble. Sam, directly behind him on the gangplank, raised a hand against the light. Noble resisted the urge to squint and block out the light; that is exactly what the driver wanted. Instead he took two long strides and leapt for the concrete dock.
He knew he was the target and wanted to put as much distance between him and Sam as possible. Bullets started flying before his feet even touched the ground. Lead slugs hissed through the air like angry hornets and pinged off the metal hull of the freighter.
Noble landed and brought the AK47 up to his shoulder. He jackhammered the front of the dark sedan with controlled bursts of 7.62mm ammo. The sudden, violent counterattack and the heavy crack of the AK47 drove Krakouer down between the seats. Between bursts, he yelled to Sam, “Car! Now!”
Their rental was parked to the right of the gangplank. To reach it, they would have to cross five meters of open ground. He didn’t know Sam was moving until he spotted her in his peripheral vision running for the passenger’s side door of the DNY. She tugged at the handle, realized it was locked, and dug in her pocket for the keys.
Noble put enough rounds through the engine block to disable the sedan before the AK47’s bolt locked back on an empty chamber.
Krakouer popped up like a murderous Jack-in-the-box. He thrust his gun out the driver’s side window and fired. Bullets snapped past Noble and drilled holes in the trunk of the DNY.
Noble dropped the AK47 and ran. The back windshield exploded. Sam jacked open the driver’s side door, and Noble threw himself inside. Sam was ducked down on the passenger’s side. She reached across, jammed the key in the ignition, and twisted. Noble threw the car in gear and stamped on the gas pedal. The back tires screamed, throwing up smoky white angels, then caught traction. The DNY shot forward. The front end veered wildly from side to side. Noble wrestled the steering wheel to stop them from flying off the pier and into the water.
He kept the pedal down all the way onto the bridge that would take them back to Kowloon. The back end fishtailed around the on-ramp, and then it was a straight shot across the harbor. He let the speedometer drop to 60mph and checked his rearview mirror. When he was certain they weren’t being followed, he dropped down to 40mph. He couldn’t risk getting pulled over. It would be hard to explain a car full of guns, bullet holes, and blood.
Sam ran both hands through her hair and took several deep breaths. “Was that Krakouer?”
“I thought it would take him longer to rearm himself,” Noble said.
Sam twisted around in the passenger seat to stare out the shattered rear window. “Why is Krakouer trying to kill us?”
“Because you were right,” Noble told her. “Ramos is tying up loose ends. My guess is he’s got more skeletons than Arlington National Cemetery, and he’ll kill anyone that gets
too close to the truth.”
...
Krakouer cursed. He had driven up and killed the lights in time to see the agents emerge on deck, or he would have picked a better spot for an ambush. Twice now Krakouer had the drop on the CIA’s man. Twice he’d gotten away. He was either better than Krakouer gave him credit for or unbelievably lucky. Either way the long-haired surfer boy wouldn’t walk away a third time.
Krakouer climbed out of the Nissan. He had spent an hour waiting on Ramos to arrange for a firearm and then stole the vehicle in his haste to reach the ship first. Bullet holes now riddled the hood. The windshield sagged like an elephant had sat on it. He slammed the door in frustration, and the starred windshield rained out of the frame.
All that work for nothing. It pissed Krakouer off.
Bati wasn’t here; that much was obvious. They would never have left her on board, but there might be something to point him in the right direction.
He stalked up the gangplank, still mad at himself for not at least winging his target. In the hold, he found Tiger Tsang locked in a cage along with a cargo load of sex slaves. Tiger had been shot in the butt. Blood soaked the seat of his leather pants. His eyes were screwed shut. He shivered despite the oppressive heat.
Krakouer raked his 9mm Sig Saur across the chicken wire.
Tiger’s eyes snapped open. Fear flooded his face and then recognition. “Hey. I know you. You were at my club.”
“A tiger in a cage,” Krakouer mused. “It’s poetic.”
“I’ll give you fifty-thousand dollars to let me out of here.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Krakouer said. “You tell me where your big brother is holding Bati Ramos, and I might not kill you.”
Noble Man Page 19
