Shadow Soldier (12 page)

“There.” He spotted the safe house and pointed it out to the pilot.

The front window was missing.

He leaned forward in his seat, his muscles tense, his chest as tight as if a camel had sat on him. He blinked to clear his eyes, willing the picture to go away, but saw more bad news instead as the pilot circled the house. Debris littered the backyard, the sight making his throat go dry and his palms sweat.

No wonder the Colonel hadn't been able to reach Spike. Judging from the wreckage below, the terrorists hadn't messed around this time. They'd blown up the middle of the house, the kitchen and living room where Nicola and Spike were most likely to have been.

Maybe his theory on them wanting to kidnap Nicola had been wrong. From this vantage point, it sure looked like they had gone for a direct kill. And if so, it wasn't likely they had left without making sure they had achieved their mission.

He was too late.

The thought squeezed the last of the air out of his lungs and he fought to breathe, to grab some oxygen
in hoarse gasps, refusing to consider the pictures that tried to invade his brain—Nicola's broken body in the wreckage below. And Spike…

He hung on as the pilot set the chopper down in the tall grass behind the house and was out and running toward the building before the motor was off.

The agents scrambled to provide him cover, but he ignored their shouts to stop and wait.

“Nicola! Spike!” He climbed through the rubble in the living room, not really expecting anyone to answer. Whoever had done this did a thorough job.

He heard the team of agents come in behind him.

“Weird pattern for a bomb,” one of them said as he took in the center of destruction.

“Rocket launcher through the front window.” Alex pointed and began to sift through the chunks of charred plaster and furniture. “Sixty-six millimeter LAW.”

“Right.” The man followed his example. “Let's recover the bodies,” he called out to the rest of the team.

Alex straightened and looked at him, as anger too strong to control welled up inside. His fist rose in the air. At the last second he turned and punched through a still-standing piece of drywall.

It didn't make him feel any better.

“Sorry. Didn't mean it like that.” The agent drew back. “I— Did you know the…”

He nodded before the man could say victims. “Let's just see what we can find.”

Within minutes the air was thick with dust from their work, the men coughing and spitting. Hard to see, too. He went through the mess methodically, one piece of broken furniture after the other, feeling more and more miserable with each second that ticked by. He shouldn't have left, although it might not have made a difference even if he'd been here. From the look of things, Nicola and Spike never stood a chance. The rocket launcher was probably shot from beyond the perimeter sensors. They had no warning. Alex worked like a madman while guilt and grief fought for the top spot inside him.

Twenty minutes passed before the call rang out from the corner by the back door.

“Man down.”

Alex climbed over a chunk of kitchen cabinets and half a sofa, barely noticing the jagged piece of broken wood that scraped against his leg.

Spike.

Alex swallowed. His friend lay upside down on the basement stairs, probably knocked there by the explosion, buried in rubble up to his waist. He was still, too still, his face covered in white dust. Alex wouldn't allow himself to think he looked dead.

“Help me.” He grabbed chunks of drywall and threw them to the side, then, once the task was
mostly accomplished, moved up to Spike's head and left the rest for the agent to finish.

He brushed the dust off Spike's face and made sure his nostrils were free, then bent and set his head on the man's chest.

Nothing. No, wait. Something there. A faint heartbeat, so tentative he might have just imagined it. But then there it was again. Alex drew a shaky breath. “Still alive.”

“Don't move him,” came the response, as if he had to be told. “I'm getting the stretcher.”

In another minute the team's medic was there.

“One, two, three.” Alex assisted him in putting Spike on the stretcher and helped the man take his friend to the chopper.

The medic checked Spike's pupils then grabbed the IV kit. “I can handle it. Go find the other one.”

Alex turned and ran for the house, hope filling him that there would be “another one” to find. If Spike had made it through the explosion somehow, then so could Nicola have. He hung on to that thought and refused to let go.

He tossed a broken side table out of the way and found the cage. It looked empty. Then he lifted it and heard the timid chirping from one of the nests. Miraculously, the Tweedles were fine. He ran the cage out to the chopper, surprised at how much the
Tweedles mattered. Despite their foul manners, the birds had grown on him.

The team searched for another hour, both inside and out, before they gave up. Nicola wasn't there. Even Alex had to accept that, when he found her necklace out front by the bushes. He ordered the team back to the helicopter. They had to get Spike to a hospital. The medic had stabilized him for now, but he clearly needed further treatment, more than they were able to provide.

“Better send over the cleanup crew,” he told the Colonel on their way back. “Spike's unconscious but seems mostly whole. Nicola's gone.” He took a deep breath. “I left a man at the house to keep it secure.”

A moment of silence on the other end, then, “I'll tell the senator. I've got every free man we have working on possible U.S. connections for the Sons of Peace. Maybe we'll have something by the time you get back.”

Alex looked down and unclenched his fists. He hoped they wouldn't be too late. He hoped she was still alive. He told himself it wouldn't have made sense for them to take her if she weren't.

But if she were still alive… He didn't want to think of the possibilities. If General Meng had taken her because he thought Barrington had betrayed him and he wanted to exact revenge on the senator, it
meant he would want Nicola to suffer. Perhaps the same way his daughter had suffered.

The Colonel's words echoed in Alex's head about how the General's daughter had been raped and beaten by soldiers before taking her own life. Fear shot through him, fear and rage.

“Can't you make this damned thing go faster?” he yelled at the pilot, ready to pull him out of his seat and take over.

“We are going as fast as it'll go, sir.”

Alex stared ahead, seeing nothing of the landscape they flew over. He had to get to Nicola in time.

 

N
ICOLA PACED THE FLOOR
and fought the dread settling into her bones. Tomorrow would be a big day, the General had said, scaring her with that crazed look in his eyes. She didn't know his plans, but chances were, unless a miracle occurred, the upcoming day would be her last.

They had either kidnapped her to be a hostage to exchange for something they needed, in which case they'd find out soon the United States never negotiated. Or—she took a deep breath—they'd kill her in some graphic way to send whatever message it was they wanted her father to get.

Tired and cold and banged up pretty bad, she had no idea what to do next. Alex would know. God, she would have given anything to have his strong arms
around her now. She didn't want to die without ever seeing him again.

She sank onto the floor in the corner. What were you supposed to do when you only had hours to live? She rested her head on her knees and prayed for a miracle.

“Nicola?” Alex whispered in her ear, and she jumped at the sound of his voice.

His name tumbled from her lips before she realized he couldn't hear her.

“If you're receiving this, I want you to know that I'm coming to get you.”

The earpiece fell silent.
Don't stop talking. Please don't go away.

“Hang in there,
querida,
” he said after a while. “And don't worry about anyone but yourself. We rescued Spike and the Tweedles. They'll be fine.”

He paused again.

“I'm sorry I left. I couldn't believe I allowed us to become personally involved. I didn't think I'd be the right person to protect you. I thought I'd be too distracted. Hell, I wasn't the right man for the job from the start. I couldn't see straight for wanting you.”

She wiped her eyes and wished she could talk to him, tell him where she was, tell him she didn't care about him leaving, only that he was back.

“You are going to get through this. You're as
tough as they come. Don't take any unnecessary chances. I'm going to find you and bring you home, then I'm going to cook you the biggest organic feast you've ever seen.”

She couldn't help a small smile at that.

“I have to go now to work on figuring out where you are. Then I'm coming to get you. Count on it.”

The earpiece went silent. She sat there for a while replaying in her head everything Alex had said, until the strength of his words filled her. She had no doubt he would come for her, but would he be too late? He only had until morning. Whatever the General was going to do to her, he had said it would be tomorrow. She would either have to get out of here and escape the General long enough for Alex to find her, or somehow let Alex know where she was so he could get here fast. If she could get to a phone, she could call the police.

But she could think of no way to break out of the room. Which meant she would have to think of a way to make them let her out. And hopefully soon. She hadn't gone to the bathroom since this morning. If they kept her locked in here much longer, she was going to embarrass herself.

Right. There's an idea. She got up and yelled through the window to the man who stood guard outside. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

He ignored her.

“Please?”

The man yelled something across the yard, too fast, and in a dialect she didn't understand.

“I need to use the bathroom. Could you please let me out?”

He didn't so much as turn around.

She asked again and again, until she realized she was wasting her breath. The soldier was probably ordered to ignore her.

Great. Maybe this was part of the torture. Punishment because she'd tried to run away. Or perhaps it was their way of humiliating her. She paced the room, refusing to let them defeat her spirit. There had to be a way out of this. Alex would know. What was she missing? She replayed in her mind everything she'd seen and heard so far. Unfortunately, none of it gave her a brilliant idea to aid her escape.

She heard the scraping of a key in the lock and moved toward the door. Yes! Her plan worked. Once she was out of the basement, who knew what kind of opportunity would present itself? This might be her last chance. She was determined to take it.

She tried to look crestfallen and exhausted instead of pleased as the door opened. The barrel of a rifle entered the room first, then came a soldier who barely looked eighteen. He set a banged-up metal bucket on the floor then closed the door behind him.

What?

She had expected him to escort her out, up into the house. But he was gone so fast she hadn't had the chance to do anything. By the time she'd realized what he was doing, it was too late.

The door opened again and a small white ball blurred into the room. She ignored it to grab for the door. Her fingers closed around the knob, but by the time she threw her full weight into the pull, it was too late, the lock had already clicked.

Damn. She had hoped to be led to a bathroom, hopefully one with a window. She kicked the door, then turned around to look at what the guard had tossed in.

A crumpled wad of toilet paper.

How civilized.

Nicola sat on the floor in the far corner, and considered her options. She didn't have any. In the past two hours since the bucket had been brought in and then taken away, she'd had plenty of time to think of a new strategy but little success in coming up with a viable one.

General Meng had said he would send her some food. Hopefully soon. Not because she was hungry—she couldn't even think about eating—but because any time the door opened, it meant she might get a chance to do something. The best she came up with so far was to pretend to be listless when they brought the food in. She would make them think they had broken her resistance. Then when they came for her plate, she would use whatever utensils they would have given her to attack.

She tried to envision herself poking someone's eyes out with chopsticks. The image didn't quite gel,
but she was desperate enough to give it a try if things came to that.

Boots scraped on the floor outside her door. Somebody was coming. She hung her head and sagged against the wall, watching from under hooded lids as a soldier came in and set a tray on the floor.

“Eat,” the man said in Chinese. She looked up, making sure her gaze was confused and that she looked scared and unsure of what he wanted.

He pushed the tray toward her with the barrel of his rifle, then went to stand inside the door instead of leaving.

Was he going to watch her eat? Why? Did they want to make sure she kept her strength? For what?

Unease settled into her stomach, but she got up and dragged herself over to the food. She would eat to ensure she had the energy to fight.

They didn't give her chopsticks. She lifted the bamboo lid off a meal of fried rice and chicken and ate with her hands, forcing the food down her constricted throat into her stomach that was shrunken with tension. She wished she had something to wash the food down with, but they hadn't given her tea, either, no doubt not trusting her with scalding water. Too bad.

That left her the tray and the bamboo plate. Couldn't think of any way to use them as effective weapons against the man's gun. Maybe she could try
the window again, after the soldier left. The guard outside couldn't possibly stay awake all night, could he? Maybe she could trick him somehow. She finished the meal, desperate for an idea. Before she could come up with anything, the young man took her tray. Instead of leaving, however, he passed it out the door and stayed with her.

Her panic rose, along with nausea. She shouldn't have forced the food down. Should have listened to her battered body's insistence that she was too nervous to eat.

She backed toward the corner, surprised when the floor swayed under her. Her head felt dizzy, her thoughts disoriented. She didn't think she was going to make it back to the wall. She sank to the floor and took a deep breath.

Then, with her last fully conscious thought, she figured it out. They had drugged her.

She was dimly aware of hands grabbing her, taking her clothes off. Somebody measured her then strapped something to her chest. Strapped it tight. She heard voices talking in Chinese. She recognized the General's voice but not the others, catching words at random as she slipped in and out of consciousness.

“…the U.S. will have to respond…”

“…bigger fiasco than they've ever seen before…”

“…first biological attack…”

“…our names…”

“…remembered in history…”

“…changed China…”

“…noble sacrifice…”

She had no idea how long she'd lain there before she began to come out of the drug-induced haze. The General squatted next to her, everyone else gone.

Her head was still swimming, her mouth dry, her thoughts disoriented. What had they done to her?

He patted her hand in a fatherly gesture. “I'm sorry about that, but it has been a necessary precaution. Couldn't allow you to thrash around while we were working, but now that it's secured, you're perfectly safe.”

She looked down at her clothes, a white T-shirt and long blue pants. A work uniform? Her gaze settled on the plastic box strapped to her chest, the size of a dinner plate and about two inches thick.

“What is it?”

The General smiled, the emotion on his face a strange mixture of dementia and pride. “A bomb.”

She was pretty sure she was going to lose consciousness again. Nicola held her breath, trying to keep the terror at bay. “Will it blow up if I move?”

“What would be point of that?”

What the hell was the point of strapping a bloody bomb to her? She wanted to scream but held herself
in control. She took a slow breath and watched her chest rise, expecting the worst. The bomb didn't seem to mind her breathing. She sat up inch by inch, careful to avoid any sudden movement.

“You fine now. We only had to be careful while we put it together.”

Right. Was that supposed to reassure her? “Why are you doing this?”

“For Chinese people, for what this country can give them.”

So she was to be their hostage. That meant there would be negotiations. They would take her someplace where her father could see her, see the bomb. That had to be the whole point for her kidnapping. At least once she was there a SWAT team would be called in for sure, and Alex. Hope, sweet hope.

“Come, Nicola.” The General stood and held his hand out to her. “Almost midnight. We better get on the road. Today we are the early crew.”

She ignored his hand as she rose. Soldiers surrounded them as soon as they stepped through the door. They led her to a white van parked in the courtyard. The sign on the side advertised a cleaning service.

She glanced at the men who surrounded her, a dozen of them at least, all armed to the teeth. Her best bet was to go along and wait for the SWAT team.

“Your government very good to—how do you say—minority-owned businesses. Chinese-American man owns cleaning company for Capitol Hill.” The General pushed her into the van. Seven soldiers followed. “He too American to ask for help, but not smart. Brags too much about big contract and his best security. Today his workers went to work. Tonight they don't come home.”

As soon as the door closed behind them, the soldiers pulled blue cleaning uniforms, similar to hers, over their black army fatigues. The General followed their example after handing her a blue top to match her pants. She held it for a second. Where was the man it belonged to? Had the General's men killed the original cleaning crew when they'd taken the van?

The General watched her. “Need help?”

She shook her head, then put on the garment with slow movements and sweating hands, not daring to take a full breath until she was done. The men settled in and fell silent. She watched through the small back window as the van sped through Chinatown, deserted in the middle of the night.

If they were to work on Capitol Hill, they must be in Washington. She would see her father, no doubt. She was pretty sure that had been the whole point to her kidnapping, to gain the attention of Senator Barrington.

What if she could reach the General somehow, if inside the fanatic there still existed a small remnant of the man she had once known? Maybe if she reminded him of those days when she had been a friend of his daughter's. “Where is Mei? I wrote to her, but she never responded.”

The General's face darkened. He waited a long time before he spoke. “She is with her ancestors.”

“She can't—” The stunned denial stumbled from her mouth as her brain struggled to process the news. Mei couldn't be dead. “How—”

The hatred that shot from the man's eyes made her draw back.

“She was betrayed.” He looked away from her.

She wanted to know more but was afraid to ask. Had Mei's death made the General become the unrecognizable shadow of the man he had once been? Had the United States had something to do with it? Had her father? Was this some sort of revenge?

She looked at the bomb strapped to her chest. Dear God, what were they planning to do with her?

She fought her panic. She couldn't afford to become hysterical, to be distracted by fear. She had to keep her mind clear, had to keep focused. If the slightest chance presented itself for her to prevent the horrible violence that was to come, she had to take it.

She studied the men in the van. Six sat stoically,
while one—the young man who had brought her the bucket—kept fidgeting with his seat. If she were to break the chain, it was good to know where the weakest link was.

The General opened a hidden compartment in the floor and they exchanged their rifles for handguns that looked as if they were made of plastic. He tucked his under his uniform and out of sight, the rest of the men doing the same. “Look like toy, but shoot well,” he said.

She didn't doubt him.

They pulled into the parking lot without trouble, and before they got out, the General handed them their ID tags. He gave Nicola hers then pulled a small remote from his pocket.

“You smart girl. You got bomb, I got this.”

She nodded, understanding his message: Don't do anything or I'll blow your head off. She went to the service entrance with them, trying not to think about the fact that she was a walking explosive weapon.

They ran their access cards through the reader, then walked by the Capitol Hill Police officer on duty one by one. He only looked up from the monitors in front of him for a second to nod to them.

“You know what you need to do,” the General said to his men once they were in the basement room that contained the cleaning supplies.

They each grabbed a cart and left.

“What now?” Nicola couldn't take her eyes off the man's right hand stuffed into his pocket, next to the remote.

“Now we wait.” He rubbed his temple with his left.

“For what?”

“Joint Senate hearing at eight.”

“And then?”

He smiled wickedly. “Then we, as you say in America, crash it.”

 

T
HE RINGING PHONE
woke Alex at two in the morning. His gaze slid from the clock to the towel-covered cage behind it on the nightstand. “Rodriguez.” He sat up on the bed where he had slept fully dressed and lifted the towel, setting off an instant barrage of chirping. He couldn't believe he was now toting around two finches—in obvious need of anger-management counseling.

“We've got an address—184 Ming Street in Chinatown,” Colonel Wilson said.

Alex was out of bed and throwing some food to the birds as he listened, then out the door, passing the soldier on guard at the army barracks where he had crashed the night before.

The Colonel went on. “Belongs to a prominent Chinese-American businessman who had some finan
cial links to the Sons of Peace in the past. I already sent a team. You can meet them there.”

“On my way.” He clicked off the phone as he reached his car. The guard opened the gate for him, and he peeled out of the base with the gas pedal touching the floor.

“Washington, D.C., 184 Ming Street,” he said into the GPS and glanced at the map on the display. He knew the route and doubled the speed limit as he raced through deserted streets. Traffic was nonexistent at this hour of the night.

He parked one street back then ran for it, not slowing down until he could see the house, the largest building in the neighborhood. He stepped into the shadow of a deep doorway and scanned the area. Businesses slept under their metal window protections splattered with Chinese graffiti. A couple of stray cats inspected one of the garbage cans that lined the uneven sidewalk. He pulled back at the sound of an approaching car, but it passed by without slowing down and quickly disappeared from sight. No sign of the SWAT team. He looked back to the house. A place that big could hold an awful lot of surprises.

He flipped his phone open. “I'm here. I'm going in.”

“I'll let the team know. They're only a few minutes behind you.” The Colonel clicked off.

Alex clipped the phone on his belt and pulled out
his brand-new SIG-Sauer 9mm. He held the gun next to his leg as he walked toward the gate then past it, until he came to the end of the property where the stone wall met the next house. He glanced around, tucking the gun into his waistband. He grabbed a protruding rock above his head, pulled up, then heaved himself over the wall.

A garden. Dark. The streetlights didn't reach this far. He surveyed his surroundings while he listened. No sound in the night air gave him any clues or aroused his suspicions.

He kept an eye on the bushes and moved toward what seemed to be a courtyard ahead. He ran around the wall in a crouch and tried the first door he came to. Open. He didn't like it. He crept forward inch by inch and found himself in a long hallway. Still no sound. His entrance didn't set off any alarms.

He'd walked through the first few rooms in eerie silence when the sound of feet on gravel drew his attention. He stepped to the window, his back flat to the wall, and peered outside just in time to see the SWAT team fan out in the yard. If he had waited for them, they would have given him a radio for communications. As it was, he would have to make sure they didn't take him out by accident.

He caught the slightest sound of a door opening and walked out of the room to check the hallway. The door stood open—nobody was there. Then a
shadow blocked the light as someone slipped through.

Alex stepped into plain sight and signaled to the man. The agent waited until his partner came in to cover his back, then walked over.

“Already checked all the rooms on the right of the hallway. They're empty. I'm going upstairs,” he told the man.

The guy nodded and repeated the information into his radio for the rest of his team before moving toward the rooms on the left.

Alex crept up the staircase. Nobody in the upstairs hallway. His sense of foreboding grew. If Nicola were still there, the place would have been guarded. Unless, of course, it was a trap.

He tried the first door. An empty room. The second. Same.