Prime (16 page)

TWENTY-ONE

“King, this is Irish, over.”

In the front seat of the rented Ford Galaxy
minivan, King keyed his throat mic. “This is King. Send it.”

“We’re moving out now.”

King consulted his mental map of the area in
which his team would execute the raid—an image that had been burned into his
brain during the hours spent planning the op—and visualized Parker’s vehicle
concealed a hundred meters or so off the main road, about five miles southeast
of the objective. “Roger. Radio checks every half hour.
King
out.”

In his mind’s eye, he saw Parker and the two
snipers—‘Dark’ Meyers and ‘Race’ Banion—moving like dots across the terrain
map. Their job was to rendezvous with Shin Dae-jung and establish over-watch
positions around the compound. King would be leading the main assault force up
the single road that connected the compound with the main highway.

He’d felt a twinge of regret at assigning his
friend to lead the recon team. He and Parker had been working together for a
long time. They were like brothers, and it felt strange to be going into a
potentially hairy situation without Parker at his side, especially on a mission
like this, where they were practically flying by the seat of their pants. But
recon and over-watch was just as important to success as the assault, and there
wasn’t anyone he’d rather have watching his back. Besides, it was a foregone
conclusion that Parker would be his top NCO in the new team, and this was a
chance for his friend to show his abilities as a leader. King had no doubt that
Parker was up to the challenge.

He was less certain about his own ability to
take the reins of command, especially with the motley group crammed into the
Galaxy that now sped along the main highway out of Mandalay, traveling east
into the deepening dusk. Zelda Baker—who thanks to their ‘sparring match’ now
looked like a supermodel on her way to a domestic violence shelter—was at the
wheel, a logical choice given her familiarity with the country and its roads. King
sensed that she was secretly pleased by the invitation to join the new team,
but it was just as obvious that she didn’t yet trust him. She wasn’t happy to
have been handed over to him like a trophy of war.

Behind him, Tremblay chattered away easily,
bemoaning the fact that he had been unable to find replacement ammunition for
his recently acquired Desert Eagle pistols, and generally throwing out
observations about the scenery and one-liners that weren’t nearly as funny as
he seemed to believe.

King liked the solid Delta shooter and his
ability to shrug off the uncertain and ever-changing circumstances in which
they all now found themselves—that kind of adaptability was essential to
special ops, but he wondered if Tremblay was bottling up negative emotions deep
inside, hiding the grief at having lost two of his teammates behind a façade of
humor. He worried about what might happen if and when that bottle finally
overflowed.

Still, he preferred Tremblay’s near-constant
monologue to the implacable silence of the other three men in the van. He’d
served with Casey Bellows for over a year, so he was used to the man’s reserved
nature, but he couldn’t say the same for the other two: Travis “Silent Bob”
Roberts, Tremblay’s teammate from Alpha team, and Erik Somers.

Somers, in particular, concerned King. Although
King had personally witnessed Somers’s extraordinary strength and unwavering
dedication in the face of enemy fire, there was something unsettling about the
big man. It wasn’t just that he was quiet. Silent Bob was a regular chatterbox
next to Somers. There was
an intensity
to Somers.
There was some unspoken passion or rage, smoldering just below the surface,
like hot coals under a crust of ash, waiting for a stiff breeze to fan them
into a full-blown wildfire.

King had briefly considered assigning Somers
the callsign of “Terminator,” but he figured the big guy had probably had his
fill of comparisons to ‘Ahnold.’ Instead, he pulled a different iconic name
from the well of Hollywood inspiration; Somers was now ‘Eastwood,’ and given
his personality, that seemed even more apropos.

It didn’t surprise King at all that Somers
hadn’t been selected to a Delta unit. Operators tended to be extroverts by
nature, able to kick back over a brew with their teammates after a mission,
shedding the stress of combat as easily as dropping their gear. He couldn’t
imagine what ‘kicking back’ would look like to Erik Somers.

Parker had recommended Somers, and that
counted for a lot, but whether or not the big man found a place on King’s new
team would depend on how tonight’s mission went.

I
suppose that’s true for all of us
, he thought morosely.

They passed through a small town, and King
spied a billboard written in several languages, including English, indicating
the National Botanical Gardens lay just ahead.

“Almost there,” Zelda announced. “Shin says
it’s just a couple miles past Pyin Oo Lwin.”

Tremblay’s face appeared at her shoulder.
“What a coincidence; that’s the name of my favorite noodle dish at PF Chang’s.
Speaking of which, I’m famished. Is there a Mickey D’s hereabouts?”

Zelda purposefully ignored him, as did King.
“All right.
Let’s find a good place to park.”

A few minutes later, she pulled the van off
road and threaded it into the woods, where it wouldn’t be readily visible from
the highway. The trees shut out the last few rays of daylight, plunging them
into a world of shadows. They would be making their final approach to the
objective on the dirt road, but before they could begin that journey, they had to
deal with the gate guard.

King, Bellows and Silent Bob left the van
behind and hiked through the woods toward the guard shack. There was no sign of
the old man Shin had reported meeting the previous day, but the windows of the
small structure glowed with artificial light—probably from a television set.
Bellows crept to one of the windows, cautiously peered inside and then used
hand signals to relay what he had seen: one man, sitting near the wall, facing
east.

Silent Bob nodded, and then, with the
stealthy swiftness that had earned him his nickname, he swept through the door.
King, half a step behind, glimpsed movement in the dark interior room—the guard
reached for his rifle but Silent Bob’s suppressed MP5 coughed twice, and all
motion ceased.

King scanned the small room, noting the old
television set and a radio transmitter station that looked like little more
than an off-the-shelf citizen’s band radio. He decided that was a good sign;
the triad, or whoever was running this little operation, evidently didn’t think
it warranted more aggressive security measures. He keyed his mic. “Legend, this
is King. We have the gate. Move up now.”

Zelda, who had made her displeasure at the
callsign he’d chose for her abundantly clear, answered with a terse: “Roger,
out.”

King backed through the door and turned to
Bellows. “Casey. You’re staying here. Set up an observation post and watch the
door.”

Surprise and dismay flickered across his
teammate’s face, but Bellows was too much of a professional to protest. Deep
down, the man was probably relieved to be sitting on the bench for this raid.
They had all used up a lifetime’s worth of luck, but Casey Bellows had a pretty
wife and a newborn baby waiting for him back home. Every Delta shooter knew the
risks that came with the job, even those with families, but King believed there
were already too many kids without fathers in the world, and he didn’t want to
be responsible for one more.

Bellows assented with a nod and melted into
the woods behind the shack, while King and Silent Bob headed for road where
Zelda and others were waiting.

TWENTY-TWO

The compound glowed brightly over the hilltops, or at least appeared to
when viewed through night-vision goggles. It had been visible even from the
road where they had parked their rented vehicle, but Parker had nonetheless let
his Garman GPS guide him rather than relying on the distant source of
illumination. The most direct route to their goal—a straight line—would have
required them to climb hills and traverse the valleys in between, where the
forest cover was thickest and the uneven terrain in between could easily cause
injuries that would jeopardize the mission. Instead, they had programmed a more
circuitous route into the GPS, one that kept them mostly on the high ground, at
the expense of adding a couple of miles to the cross-country trek. The compound
was still about five hundred meters away, but according to the GPS, they had
reached the last waypoint marker, the place where they were to rendezvous with
the forward observer.

A strident hiss issued from the darkness.
Parker and the others immediately brought their weapons up, scanning the area
for the source of the noise, but even with their night-vision, there was
nothing to see.

“Take it easy, Irish.” The voice was pitched
just above a whisper, but Parker couldn’t fix its location. “We’re all on the
same side. Safe your
weapons,
and I’ll come out.”

Parker breathed a sigh of relief. It had to
be their contact, but he remained alert. “What’s the word?”

“Nighteyes.”

It was the callsign that King had assigned to
their advanced scout. Parker thumbed the safety on his MP5 and lowered the
weapon, nodding for the other men to do the same. As soon as they did,
something
rose
from the ground just a few steps from
where he stood. The figure was man-shaped, but camouflaged with dirt and tree
branches, so he was nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding terrain. The
only indication that there was a real person standing before him was a broad
smile that glowed like a Cheshire
Cat
grin in the
display of Parker’s night vision.

“Took you guys long enough,” the man said,
extending a hand. “I’m Nighteyes, but please, just call me Shin.”

Parker accepted the handclasp, and after a
quick round of introductions, unslung his field pack and passed it over. Shin
opened the pack and began sorting through its contents—a radio, a bottle of
water and a partially disassembled M21 sniper rifle.

“Now we’re talking,” Shin muttered as he
fitted the parts of the weapon together. In the dark, he had work by feel alone,
but his fingers knew exactly what to do, and in less than thirty seconds, he
was performing a dry-fire functions check. When he was done, he slid a magazine
into the well and advanced a round, after which, he turned back to Parker.
“Okay, here’s the good news. There’s virtually no security. No patrols, no
cameras or perimeter sensors… Hell, I don’t even think they have a night
watchman.”

“And the bad news?”

Shin shrugged. “This place is remote, and the
triads don’t exactly follow military procedures…but there should be some kind
of security here. The fact that there isn’t any has me worried.”

“You don’t believe in luck?”

“I don’t trust it.”

“Words to live by.”

Shin clipped the radio to his belt and fixed
the headset in place. He turned his head away and whispered into the lip mic.
“This is Nighteyes.
Radio check, over.”

Parker heard the man’s voice as clear as day
in his own earpiece, followed immediately by King’s voice. “This is King. Good
copy, Nighteyes.
Irish, you there?”

“Right next to him,” Parker answered. “We’re
about to move out.
Should be romeo-tango-golf in five mikes.”

“Waiting on you, Irish.
King out.”

Parker turned to the other men. “Dark, you’re
with me. Race, you and Nighteyes head to OP-Two. Call in when you’re set. You
heard the boss; the clock is ticking.”

TWENTY-THREE

Zelda felt like she’d been reborn.

King, in inviting her to join Delta—or
rather, as it had been explained to her, a new elite team within Delta—had done
something no man had ever done so quickly before: he had earned her respect.
One of the reasons she had joined the Army in the first place, was to be part
of something big, something important. She had been relentless in her pursuit
of that goal. She had certainly earned this advancement, but it still felt good
to finally, at long last, be appreciated for more than just her looks. Of
course, she wasn’t about to let the rest of the men in the van know how pleased
she was to be ‘one of the boys.’

That was only part of the reason for the
elation she now felt. Mostly, what had her feeling so energized—so alive—was
the fact that she was charging down an unfamiliar dirt road, bouncing over
potholes and ruts at nearly forty miles an hour and barely slowing for the
turns, all without headlights and in near total darkness. She was aided by
night vision technology, but she
was trusting
more in
her memory of the satellite photos the team’s new handler had provided.

It was a pure adrenaline rush, made all the
sweeter by the fact that, for the first time since meeting him, Stan Tremblay
had finally shut up. He actually looked like he was about to throw up, but
maybe that was just a trick of the night vision.

She didn’t actually mind Tremblay. In truth,
she had passed the point where his relentless sophomoric humor was irritating;
it was, strangely, almost charming, and while he still seemed unable to look at
her without cracking a shit-eating grin, she sensed that he, like King, was
beginning to see her as a teammate and a fellow soldier, first. She got the
same sense from the others, particularly Somers, the dark and brooding Ranger,
who she was given to understand, was very much an outsider like herself.

“This is good,” King announced from the
passenger seat. “Stop here.”

Zelda stamped the brake, stopping the minivan
in the middle of the road.

King half-turned so he
could see everyone.
“All
right, kids. The new boss is watching, so let’s make this look easy.”

The team had been outfitted with equipment
and weapons from the cache at the safe-house: PVS-14s; sound-suppressed Heckler
& Koch MP5s with M68 Aimpoint red-dot aiming sights and tactical body armor
vests with load carrying pouches for spare magazines, grenades and their radio
sets. They exited the vehicle in silence and made their way on foot up the
final hill, with King in the lead and Somers bringing up the rear.

King called a halt at the top of the rise and
radioed the sniper teams for a final visual report. Just as Shin had reported
all afternoon, the compound was quiet.

King brought them all forward for a final
brief. “We do this fast, quiet and by the numbers.”

There were four buildings in the compound.
Buildings Two and Four were two stories each. The helicopter, which had arrived
at midday, was still parked on the roof of Building Two, but most of the
activity Shin had observed occurred in and around Building Four. Based on his
description, Zelda felt certain that Building Four was a holding area for the
triad’s captives—future slave laborers, child soldiers or organ donors. It was
also where the team would probably face the stiffest opposition.

She couldn’t begin to guess what business
Chinese gangsters had with rogue Delta operators. ‘By the numbers’ meant Building
Four would be the last one they entered.

“There is one presumed non-hostile—”

Zelda recalled her brief glimpse of Sasha
Therion at the airport the previous day. She had no doubt that the CIA
cryptanalyst was a hostage.

“—so positive ID before you
pull
the trigger. The good news is
,
she’s the only one you need to worry about not killing.” He looked at each of
them in turn.
“Any questions?”

There were none.

“Irish, this is King. Give me a weather
report?”

Zelda heard the echo of his transmission a
millisecond later in her radio earpiece, followed by Parker’s voice.
“Nothing moving on the south side.
Nighteyes,
how’s the north look?”

“All clear.
Watch yourselves. It’s spooky quiet.”

King took a breath and then spoke again.
“Deep
Blue
, this is King. Give the word.”

A weird electronic voice burbled in Zelda’s
ears. “The word is ‘Go.’ Give ‘em hell, team!”

“Well, I guess it beats ‘break a leg,’”
Tremblay muttered.

King gave the signal to move out. They walked
in a straight line, staying about twenty feet apart. Tremblay took point,
followed in turn by Silent Bob and King. Zelda was next in the formation, and
Somers brought up there rear.

They reached the gate, where it took Tremblay
all of ten seconds to cut away a section of wire mesh big enough for even
Somers to slip through, and then they were moving again, dashing across the
open ground to the front of Building One. As soon as they were all lined up outside
the door, King gave another hand signal and they swept inside.

The reception area, like the rest of the
structure, was dark and deserted, but they methodically cleared each room just
to be sure.

The same would not be true of Building Two.

Although there were no windows, a thin strip
of light was visible beneath the front entrance of the two-story building. King
gave the order for everyone to switch off their night vision, and then he threw
the door open.

Tremblay rushed inside, sweeping the area to
the left with his weapon. Silent Bob went right and did the same, but there was
no one to shoot at. The brightly lit hallway beyond was as quiet as a cemetery,
but Zelda saw closed doors on either side.

King waved them all forward. “Juggernaut,
Bob—
take
the right. Legend, Eastwood—left side.
Leapfrog.”

Tremblay and Roberts hastened forward, and
moved through the first door in the same dynamic way they’d come in through the
front entrance. Zelda waited for the noise of battle, but heard only Tremblay’s
voice in her earpiece: “Clear.”

Now it was her turn. She advanced to the next
door and felt Somers tap her shoulder with the ready signal.

That was when it finally hit home for her.
She had done this more times than she could count in training, but she had
never been given the opportunity to test herself in combat. This was the real
deal; this was what she’d been waiting for.

And she was ready.

She gave the go signal, and in a single
smooth motion, she turned the doorknob, threw the door open and moved into the
room.

This room was not empty.

She processed what she saw in large chunks of
information. There were two people, right in front of her: a woman, sitting at
a table staring at the screen of a laptop computer, and a man right behind her,
mostly hidden from view. Zelda recognized them both; the woman was Sasha
Therion and the man was Kevin Rainer.

Zelda adjusted her aim, putting the targeting
dot on the narrow sliver of Rainer’s torso that was visible behind Sasha, but
in the instant it took her to do so, he moved, ducking out of view.

With no shot, Zelda took a step back, bumping
into the solid mass of Erik Somers who was entering the room right behind her,
still unaware of what she had found.

“Contact!” she shouted.

Before either of them could move another
step, Rainer’s arm extended past Sasha. There was something dark in his fist,
and there was just enough time for Zelda’s brain to recognize that it was a
gun, before Rainer pulled the trigger.