Flags of Sin (29 page)

And the
sounds of the battle in and around Tiananmen were mere blocks away, the
viciousness of it evident by the flashes on the clouds covering the night sky,
and from the plumes of smoke rising around the city, the violence by no means
appeared contained.

As they
watched the parking lot empty of men and vehicles, Acton began to worry the
mobile HQ may move again, and expressed his concern.

Spock
agreed. “Niner, better go get the car, bring it a little closer. We’ll tail
them if we have to.”

Niner
nodded and sprinted back from where they had come. By the time he returned, the
parking lot was nearly empty, with only two jeeps and four men outside.

“Ballsy
leaving your HQ undefended,” observed Niner.

“Or
desperate. Those guys left here in a hurry. I don’t think that was planned,”
replied Spock.

“Either
way, it’s an opportunity,” said Niner. “We could take out these guys no
problem, clear the HQ, and Bob’s your uncle, coup over.”

Spock
shook his head. “We’ve interfered enough by reporting the position. It’s up to
the Chinese to sort this out. If
we
get caught involved in this, it would
cause an international incident that could ultimately lead to war.”

Li
looked at them both, then chambered a round in his weapon.

“I
am
Chinese, and I’m going.”

And with
that he strode across the road, walking directly toward the parking lot, his
white dress shirt untucked and covered in the blood from his dead partner, and
the dirt and soot from hitting the deck countless times.

“We
can’t let him go alone!” cried Laura.

Spock
frowned, all eyes on him, as he weighed his options. Finally sighing, he
nodded. “But I want you two to stay here,” he said, pointing at Acton and
Laura.

Laura
shook her head.

“Your
chances at success are better with us. We’re trained, you know that.”

Spock
sighed again, apparently not liking the fact he was dealing with civilians who
were right, but still a liability, his training going against everything that
was about to take place.

“Fine.
Six of them, four of us here, Li’s not in on the plan so we’ll count him out.
Professor Acton, you take the target on the left, Palmer the second from the
left. Niner the next two, I’ll take the two on the right. We’re drunken
tourists, people, so let’s put on a show.”

Acton threw
his arm around Laura, Niner around Spock, and they strode around the corner they
had been hiding.

“I
shware, if she spoke Engrish, Ida married her,” yelled Niner, stumbling over
the curb. “But she di’nt undershtand a word I was shaying. But she was sooooooo
bewteeful!”

“That
she was,” agreed Spock as he half carried Niner across the street.

“Yer so
lucky, Jim. You gotta girl who loves you, and is hot to boot!”

“You got
that right,” laughed Acton, grinning at Laura who was shaking her head at
Niner.

“You’ll
find someone,” she said. “But even if she speaks English, I don’t think she’ll take
too kindly to you throwing up on her like you did that poor girl.”

They all
laughed as they climbed the curb beside the parking lot, Inspector Li having
heard them and had stopped to wait, apparently figuring out what was going on.

“We’re
drunken tourists, you’re leading us back to where we can get a cab,” whispered
Spock.

Li
nodded and pointed through the parking lot.

“Right
through here, then one block, we’ll be on the main road. You can get a cab to
your hotel there,” he said, a little too loudly, his days of roleplaying
apparently long behind him.

They
left the sidewalk and entered the parking lot, the six guards having taken
notice of them, all now standing, weapons at the ready, but aimed at the ground
for now.

“Oh,
Laura, if you weren’t engaged, I’d be all over you right now,” slurred Niner
who then stumbled to his knees and pretended to dry heave.

“Ready,”
whispered Spock without moving his lips.

Acton
reached behind his back, scratching it, as one of the soldiers approached,
yelling something in Chinese and waving with his hands, apparently suggesting,
or more likely insisting, they go around.

Spock’s
voice was a whisper. “On three, two, one, now.”

Acton
gripped the handgun tucked in his belt, pulled it out and took aim at the
target on the left as he stepped away from Laura to give her room. Before he
could squeeze the trigger Niner and Spock had taken out their four targets. He
quickly fired two rounds, and his target went down, just as Laura did the same.

Niner
and Spock rushed forward, confirming the kills and began dragging the bodies
out of sight. Acton grabbed his kill, pulling him toward the rapidly building
pile near the side of the mobile HQ. He felt kind of queasy looking down at the
man whose life he had just snuffed out, this, if memory served, being the first
time he had killed someone then dragged their body somewhere. He had killed
before, even with his bare hands, but after the kill, he had quickly
disassociated himself with the body, but now here he was struggling to pull the
dead weight of a human being out of sight so he could kill more of his
comrades.

Acton
looked back and saw Inspector Li still standing on the sidewalk, his mouth
agape, apparently stunned at the efficiency in which the six men had been
dispatched. Acton was still shocked at how slow he was on the draw, the two
Delta Force operatives having eliminated two targets before he had even the
chance of eliminating one. And if he knew them, they probably could have
eliminated the other two, and were probably prepared to do so, if he or Laura
had missed.

But they
hadn’t. Double tap to the chest, just as they had been trained. Don’t try to go
for the headshot, that was the movies. Two in the chest, he’d be down, and most
likely dead, the heart considered by some to be an important, if not vital,
organ. Headshots would kill, but the target was much smaller and much more
likely to move when you least expected it.

With the
bodies cleared, Spock began handing out flashlights that had been on the
soldiers’ belts, then pointed at the generator rumbling between the truck and
the trailer. “Cut the power on my mark,” he said to Niner, then motioned for
the rest to follow him to the door at the end of the HQ. Li had now joined
them, the shock at the speed of what had just unfolded seeming to have worn
off.

Niner
grabbed the handle and turned to Laura.

“Layout?”

“A long
hall down the left side to the end. Rooms are all on the right, five of them I
believe, but I can’t be certain. The last one is the sleeping quarters we were
held in.”

Spock
nodded.

“I go
first. It may be dark, so use the flashlights. People could come out the doors
in a hurry, trying to figure out what’s wrong. Don’t think, just shoot. We’re
not concerned with friendlies here. We clear the hallway first. If that’s
empty, we’ll each cover a door, Professor Palmer, you cover our sixes. When
Niner joins me, he and I will begin clearing the rooms, the rest of you provide
cover.”

They
nodded, and Acton flicked on his flashlight, readying his weapon.

“Give
him the signal,” said Spock.

Acton leaned
around the side of the truck and gave Niner a thumbs up.

Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing, China

Jimmy swung the car into the hospital complex, gunning it toward the
ramp at the front entrance. As they turned Jimmy cursed, immediately cutting
their speed as they rapidly approached over a dozen heavily armed PLA regulars.
They rolled to a stop in front of the entrance and were immediately surrounded.

“Everybody
stay calm,” said Dawson, his hands raised and a smile on his face. “Girls,
remember, you just tell them the truth, you’ve done nothing wrong, your Dad
asked us to take you to safety, you don’t know us, he doesn’t know us. You just
want to go home.”

The
doors were hauled open, the startled girls screaming, which actually seemed to
calm the troops a bit, their weapons turning their focus to the two white men
in the front seats.

Dawson
slowly climbed out, his hands raised. He was shoved to the ground by one of the
troops, and two Type 80s danced in his face. Shouting on the other side of the vehicle,
and Jimmy’s calm, reassuring voice, told him the same was happening to his
fellow soldier.

A blur
to his side and an excited shout had the weapons pointed at his head suddenly
swing to the back of the car, and at the terrified Chinese girl who burst from
the backseat. She was babbling in Chinese, a language Dawson had not even a
basic understanding of, pointing at the backseat then at Dawson. The weapons re-aimed
at Dawson’s head, and he wondered what the hell she was saying to them, when
she jumped in front of him, hugging him, shielding him from their weapons.

Dawson
wasn’t sure what was going on, but when several white coats came running out
the front entrance, then congregated at the backseat, he breathed a sigh of
relief that the Ambassador might finally get the medical attention he so
desperately needed. He wasn’t concerned about his wound, he already having
pulled the piece of shrapnel out and treating it with the med kit Professor
Palmer had handed over. He’d be out of commission for a few weeks, but would
live.

Juan was
pulled away by one of the soldiers, the weapons now regaining their clear shots
at Dawson, as she was carried inside the building, kicking and screaming,
shouting in Chinese, her friend, carried between two soldiers, her feet
stumbling, merely whimpered, the shock of the entire night apparently too much,
what little control she had had now gone, her young mind having decided this
was the end of her ordeal, and it was time to shutdown to protect itself.

A gurney
was rushed up and the Ambassador loaded onto it, then pushed inside. Dawson
heard Jimmy offer up his identification, identification that Dawson no longer
had, his having been confiscated by the police when he was arrested. Which
probably meant the moment he gave them his Virgil White, State Department
cover, he’d be tossed in a cold dark cell somewhere.

It’s
time to let Jimmy do the talking, and get us a phone call.

The
clapping of helicopter rotors triggered a bout of shouting, the soldiers
rushing away from the car and toward the edge of the elevated ramp. Dawson
ventured a glance and saw four attack helicopters hovering a few hundred yards
away, their cannons and weapons pods highlighted by the street lamps below. He
looked back at the hospital entrance and saw the two girls were nowhere to be
seen, and neither was the Ambassador, his charges now inside and hopefully safe
from whatever was about to happen.

He
glanced to his right, and down the ramp they had just come, then to his left.
The exit was blocked by a jeep, which would provide cover, but might also be a
primary target. Forward toward the hospital entrance would simply mean he’d be
running with the bullets, and they were a hell of a lot faster than his legs.

He
turned slightly toward the ramp they had just driven up and exchanged a glance
with Jimmy who had repositioned himself with apparently the same conclusion.
They traded barely perceptible nods, and Dawson’s eyes refocused on the
choppers, still hovering nearby. He tried to see into the cockpits, to sense what
they were thinking, to anticipate when they might open fire, but it was no use.
The chopper to the right dipped, and Dawson’s legs began to push him to his
feet, then he froze.

The
chopper banked away, followed by the other three, revealing their gold flags
emblazoned on their tail section, and leaving him and the soldiers sighing in
relief, firing on a hospital apparently not on the agenda of those attempting a
takeover of the most populous country in the world.

Which
meant the weapons once again returned their attention to him and Jimmy.

Out
of the frying pan and back into the fire.

Inside Bo Yang’s Mobile Headquarters, Beijing, China

A burst of weapons fire, muffled by the insulated walls of the
trailer they were in, had the room at a standstill. Bo Yang, standing in the
corner while his keyboard was replaced, looked at General Liang. Liang pointed
at one of the guards.

“Go find
out what that was!”

The
soldier left the room on the bounce and Bo returned his attention to the
screens occupying almost every square inch of wall space.

“Status?”
asked Liang, his voice almost hysterical, the usually in control soldier
apparently beginning to lose that veneer of the calm, professional that had
attracted Bo to him. Liang had been groomed for over a decade for this very
night, and Bo knew the man had invested his life in their cause, and, like Bo,
stood to be executed, after lengthy torture sessions, should they not succeed.

“We have
lost air superiority, sir,” replied a young officer manning one of the tactical
stations. “Our squadrons have either been eliminated or have bugged out.”

“Cowards!”
screamed Liang. “Miserable inept cowards!”

“And the
assault on Zhongnanhai?” asked Bo, returning to his seat as the technician
indicated his computer was working again.

“Our
Tiananmen units have encountered heavy resistance, and have not yet arrived.
Our units from here are on their way, but have not yet arrived. The 32
^nd
is just too large a force, sir.”

Liang
looked ready to tear the head off the poor bastard who had just delivered the
bleak assessment. Bo’s shoulders slumped as the lights flickered, then went
out.

What
now?