by David Archer
With 70 horsepower and 116 foot-pounds of torque, the bikes moved out smoothly and quickly. Neil, who had only ridden a motorcycle a few times when he was younger, let out a squeal of delight as he gave it power to catch up to Noah and Marco. They were so quiet that even with the helmets on, they could talk to one another as they rode.
Noah had programmed in the coordinates of the estate to the GPS on his iPhone, and it was talking to him through the Bluetooth earpiece. It took almost 15 minutes to reach Shek O Road, but then only another ten minutes until they found the section of Hong Kong Trail that led to the estate’s driveway. Noah rode past the trail for a short distance, then turned off the road into the forest. It only took a couple of minutes to find a good spot to hide the motorcycles, and then they opened the saddlebags.
With the night vision goggles strapped onto their heads, the darkness in the forest became a bright green world, and the built-in infrared caused even the smallest rodent to show up vividly. With the handguns tucked into their belts and the machine guns hanging on their straps, they began walking toward the estate.
Because the forest was so thick and the terrain was so rough, it took almost an hour to reach a point where they could actually see the house. Moving as quietly as they could, they got to within 500 feet undetected, though they had seen three different soldiers who were apparently on guard duty. Two of them had been lounging in the woods against trees, smoking cigarettes and paying little attention to anything around them. Team Camelot had passed completely undetected within thirty feet of one of them.
The third one was standing watch close to the house, and seemed to be a bit more attentive. Rather than simply staring into the darkness, he was keeping his eyes moving, using his peripheral vision to try to see as much as he possibly could.
Using hand signals, Noah told the others that they were going to move laterally. He turned off to the left and they followed, slowly working their way completely around the house while staying within the forest. It took the better part of an hour to get around to the other side of the estate, and they had seen one guard on duty on each side of the house itself.
Suddenly, Noah held up a hand to halt them. Using two fingers on his left hand, he pointed at his goggles and then at the house, telling the other two to look closely.
There was a light on in a second-floor room, and the flickering indicated that a television might be playing. They froze where they were and watched for several minutes, and it paid off. The flickering suddenly stopped as the television was turned off, and they caught a glimpse of Sarah, with her short blonde hair, as she walked across the room past the window.
“That’s her,” Neil whispered. “That was Sarah, she’s alive.”
“Yes,” Noah said. “She’s alive.”
Marco shrugged his shoulders. “She’s alive,” he said just as softly, “watching TV in what looks like a pretty nice little room. Do you reckon they already broke her? Kinda looks like she’s being pampered just a bit, doesn’t it?”
Noah shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I know Sarah, and I know her type of person. If she had broken and given up, she wouldn’t be watching television. I suspect they’ve been trying the friendly approach. Sometimes they put you in a halfway-comfortable position, and they bring in somebody they think can charm you into cooperation. This looks like that kind of setting, to me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Neil whispered furiously. “We know she’s there, let’s go get her!”
Noah shook his head. “There’s only three of us, against we don’t know how many of them. We’ll be back tomorrow night, after we’ve gotten some rest and a little more intel, and worked out a plan to get her out of here safely.”
Neil shook his head. “Damn, this sucks! How do we know she’ll still be here tomorrow night?”
“Did you see how relaxed the guards were? They’re not anticipating any kind of rescue attempt, they don’t expect anyone on our end to even know she’s alive. As far as they are concerned, they have her and they’ve got all the time in the world. There’s no reason to move her anywhere else, so they’ll keep her here. Until they’re done with her, anyway, and I’m pretty sure they’re not.”
They continued their circuit around the house, and then made their way back to the motorcycles. They repacked their gear into the saddlebags, pushed the bikes out onto the road and turned them on. Thirty minutes later they were back at the resort, and trying to figure out how to carry the weapons and goggles up into their room.
“Hey, check this out,” Marco said. He stuck a hand down between the saddlebag and the frame, and suddenly the saddlebag lifted off. “I noticed that the lids have a handle on them. Wouldn’t be no point in that if they don’t come off, right? There’s a little spring hook down inside there, you just push it and then lift.”
Noah and Neil did as he instructed, and then the three of them walked into the resort carrying their saddlebags and helmets. Fortunately, there were enough motorcycles on the road around Hong Kong that no one paid them a lot of attention as they stepped into the elevator. Noah managed to punch the button for the fourth floor, and the doors closed.
When they opened again, the three of them made their way down the hall to their room. Noah had to set one of the saddlebags down to get the keycard out of his pocket, but then the door was open and they carried everything inside. When the door closed behind them, Noah took out his iPhone and tapped the icon that would call the headquarters number.
“Brigadoon Investments, how can I direct your call?”
“I like to speak to Mrs. Peabody, please,” Noah said.
“Just one moment, please.” He was put on hold and listened to the generic music for a moment, and then Allison came on the line.
“This is Mrs. Peabody,” she said, sounding like a much older lady. “Can I help you?”
“Is that a buzzing noise I hear?” Noah asked. That was the code to tell Allison to call him back on the encrypted lines. The system used 2,048-bit encryption, and the iPhone was equipped to unscramble it. All Allison had to do was use another encrypted phone that was kept in her office. He was fully aware that the call would probably be monitored by the Chinese government, but he was counting on the encryption being strong enough to keep them from hearing anything they could use or cracking it long enough for him to accomplish what he was out to do. The way he understood it, all a monitoring station would hear would be noises that sounded like computerized data transmission. It just wouldn’t make any sense if they tried to decode it as data, and if they started running decryption algorithms on it, it should take weeks or months to break the actual code itself. Noah didn’t plan on being in China more than another thirty-six hours, at most.
“Oh, yes, it sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Let me try calling you back, okay?”
Noah ended the call and simply sat on the bed and waited. A moment later, the phone rang and he answered.
“Camelot,” he said.
“Report, Camelot,” Allison said. “We are secure.”
“The three of us went out for a surveillance run tonight, and I can confirm that Sarah is present at the estate. I’m planning to go back tomorrow night and get her out, but I’d like to know anything else you can find for me about that location. Considering what it’s used for, it surely has to have shown up in our intelligence files at some point.”
“I’ll call Alex, see if he can find anything on it. How did the situation look to you?”
“The estate is fairly large, probably about sixty-five or seventy acres, and most of it is densely wooded. With night vision gear, we were able to see and bypass the patrols in the forest, but there are also guards at the house itself. According to Mr. Lom, the total cadre of the place is probably about 30 to 35 people, all of them Chinese Army. Two dozen of them serve as the guards, but I’m sure the rest are capable soldiers, as well.”
“They would be if it was one of our operations,” Allison said. “Safer to assume they know how to behave l
ike soldiers than not. What time is it there?”
“Almost midnight, here. We’re going to hit the beds and get some sleep, then get up in the morning and try to plan this out.”
“All right, good. You get some rest, and I’ll rattle the trees. I’ll call you again in six hours, to let you know what I find out.”
The phone was dead. Noah dug out his charger and plugged it in, then stripped quickly to his underwear and crawled into one of the three queen-size beds. Neil was already asleep, lying atop the covers on his bed, and Marco was sitting on the third one taking off his boots and socks. By the time he peeled off his shirt, Noah was sound asleep.
Noah awoke three minutes before his phone rang and snatched it up on the first. He saw the icon indicating the encrypted line, and said, “Camelot.”
“It’s me,” Allison said. “Okay, according to Alex Kuiper, the Tung Li Estate is considered to be one of the weakest safe houses in China. You’re right about the Army, but it turns out CIA has been inside the place on three separate occasions. I’m going to email you a simple layout of the inside, but he warned me that it’s three years old. There may have been a few changes, so take that into consideration.”
“No problem,” Noah said. “What else?”
“There isn’t much else. The place is almost completely hidden from any vantage point, so you have to get into the forest in order to even get a good look at it. Have you talked to Peter McDermott yet?”
“Yes, he picked us up at the airport and brought us to the hotel. He supplied us with some electric motorcycles that we used to get out to the place, along with weapons and night vision gear. He also offered to lend us some backup, a squad or so of former special forces that work for him. I’m planning to take him up on that.”
“Good. I want Sarah back, but I don’t want to lose you in the process. McDermott’s no fool, he’ll know to put them under your command.”
“That’s going to be the plan, then,” Noah said. “We’ll go in tonight, probably around ten. It’ll be plenty dark enough, and we should be able to hit them hard and fast.”
“All right. I’ll be in the office, that’s tomorrow for me. I want your report as soon as you’ve got her and gotten safely away from that place.”
“You’ll get it,” he said, and then the line went dead. Noah looked around at the other two men, saw that they were still sleeping and pulled the covers back up over himself. He had learned long ago to always take the opportunity to rest whenever it was available.
TWENTY
Sarah hadn’t expected to be able to sleep, but between her depression and the knowledge that whatever was coming was inevitable, she had finally drifted off around two in the morning. Her sleep was fitful, as she dreamed over and over about being tied down to a table while an ugly man cut pieces of her away.
Suddenly, the dream seemed even more vivid, as hands grabbed her arms and legs, but then her eyes came open and she realized that she wasn’t dreaming anymore. Three soldiers had hold of her, and she was being carried out of her room.
“Hey! Hey, put me down, I can freaking walk!” Her protests did no good, as the men continued carrying her along, taking her down the stairs to the main floor, then further down into the basement. She was carried into the same room Chung had removed her from and thrown onto the mat.
The soldiers filed out and the door was shut behind them. She sat up on the mat, tucked her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them. Her heart was racing, partly from the nightmare and partly from the shock of being dragged physically out of bed, and it was all she could do to force herself to relax.
The room had only one dim light, and she hadn’t noticed whether the sun was up yet. There was no way to know if it was morning or still nighttime, but she decided it didn’t matter. The point of dragging her there that way was probably to disorient her, and she wasn’t going to give Xiao the satisfaction of realizing that it worked.
She lay down on the mat and curled up, putting an arm under her head for a pillow, and tried to go back to sleep, but it wouldn’t come. She tried counting seconds to estimate how long she was there, but she kept losing track. After what seemed like a couple of hours, she sat up again and just leaned back against the wall.
She been sitting there for quite some time, trying to imagine what she would be doing if she were back home, when she heard the bolts slide back on the door and it opened. Xiao stood there looking at her, and then he stepped into the room.
“I thought perhaps you could think better down here,” he said, “with fewer distractions. Have you considered the wisdom of cooperation?”
“Screw you,” Sarah said. “I told you, I’m not going to give you anything.”
“Oh, but you certainly will. Your friend Mr. Chung had tried to prevent you from suffering my particular ministrations, but when he was unable to get the answers we want, our superiors decided it was time to let me take over. You see, little Sarah, I have never failed to extract information from the subject. There were some few who held out longer than I expected, but none have ever been able to withstand my talents for long. You simply do not have the pain tolerance capability that you would need, so I do not expect it to be long before you willingly tell me anything I want to know.”
Sarah looked up at him, and tried desperately to force herself to stop trembling. For the first time, she admitted to herself that she was terrified, but she was determined not to let this monster see it.
“I guess we’ll see,” she said, and she mentally cursed herself when she heard her voice crack. Oh, give yourself a break, she thought. After all, they didn’t train you in how to resist torture. They probably never figured a driver would ever be in this position. “Of course, you didn’t think I could manage to kill one of your guards with my bare hands, steal his gun and take out a couple more of them, either, did you? I’ll guarantee you, I have a lot more surprises in store for you than that.”
“Yes, we shall see,” Xiao said. He turned and stepped out the door, motioning to someone who was out of sight. Two soldiers came in and took hold of her by the arms, lifted her to her feet and walked her out the door. They turned her to the right and followed Xiao down the hallway to another room. He opened the door, and they marched her inside.
Sarah had heard of torture chambers before, but she had never imagined she would ever see one. There was a table in its center, very much like the one in her dream, and it only took a couple of moments for the soldiers to lift her onto it and begin strapping her down. She tried to fight, but they were simply too strong.
Her wrists were strapped down at her sides, her ankles to the end of the table, and then another strap went around her waist while one more went around her forehead. She could manage to wiggle just the tiniest bit, but other than that she was completely immobile. Xiao stepped up beside the table and looked down at her, and it almost looked like he had an expression of pity on his face.
“I will give you one more chance,” he said. “Tell me everything you know about Camelot, and I will release you from these restraints.”
“Go to hell,” Sarah said through clenched teeth. “I’m not telling you shit!”
“If there is one, I most certainly will.” He leaned over her, looking closely into her eyes, then straightened again and turned away for a moment. When he faced her again, he was holding what looked like a scalpel in his hand, and Sarah’s nightmare came back in full force. Her eyes flew wide open and her mouth opened for a scream, but her sheer terror kept her from even making a sound.
Xiao reached toward her with the blade and she closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to begin, but all she felt was a tugging sensation. The cotton nightgown she had put on after regaining consciousness the night before was all she was wearing, but it was the work of only a few seconds with the scalpel for him to slice it down the center. He had to pull it up a bit through the strap around her belly, but then he pulled it back down to complete the cut. Two more quick slices at her shoulders, and he was
able to pull it completely out from under her.
Sarah lay naked, except for the straps. Xiao looked her over appraisingly, then reached toward her once more. His fingers probed her belly, the way a doctor might do when searching for a mass, and then he suddenly pressed two fingers into her lower abdomen as hard as he could.
Sarah’s eyes flew open, and she felt as if he had stabbed her. The pressure of those two fingers at that point on her abdomen felt like—it felt for all the world like when she had ruptured her appendix as a child. The pain was unbearable, and she couldn’t keep herself from screaming. It went on and on, and he kept twisting the fingers, digging in deeper and deeper, until she began to sob and retch.
Suddenly it stopped, though the pain went on for several minutes more. Sarah was crying harder than she could ever remember having cried, and it took everything within her to try to get it under control. Even so, she was still trembling with suppressed sobs several minutes later.
“Tell me everything you know about Camelot,” Xiao said. Sarah looked at him briefly, then closed her eyes and tried once more to slow her breathing.
She waited, knowing that more pain was coming, but all she felt was his fingers gently stroking her. There was nothing sensual in his touch, even when he let his fingers slide down and over her breast, and they continued down her belly, across the strap and then down the outside of her thigh to her knee.
Then suddenly she was on fire, as he dug his thumb into the tendons just above her kneecap. Somehow, he had struck a nerve so perfectly that it was telling her brain that her lower leg was being ripped away, and the sensation was so intense that she felt a massive wave of nausea. She began to retch again, and he yanked his hand back, but the pain continued. It took almost two minutes for it to subside to the point that she could breathe again, and a part of her mind began trying to tell her that she simply couldn’t take anymore.
