Dragon Key Read online

  “Can you hear me, brother?” he asked softly in English. It was important for the American to think he’d been rescued by friends.

  The five Triad henchmen wouldn’t understand the conversation, and it didn’t matter if the doctor and nurse did. The Mantis had worked with them on numerous occasions on everything from treating wounded gangsters to adversarial interrogations, which this was. Expediency was the primary goal here, and hence, deception was the necessary medium along with the drug. If the American had not broken under the brutal beating, a more subtle approach was called for.

  The Mantis leaned closer to the American, placing his lips next to the man’s ear.

  “Can you hear me?” he asked in a soft whisper. “We’re going to help you. Are you in pain?”

  The American said nothing.

  The Mantis motioned for the doctor to administer the sodium pentothal. He leaned forward, pausing to adjust to the motion of the van over the roadway, and sank the end of the needle into the distended vein on the American’s arm.

  “Listen, brother,” the Mantis said in English. “We’re giving you a shot to relieve the pain. We have taken you from the prison and we’re on our way to a safe house and then the American embassy. Do you understand?”

  The American still said nothing, and the Mantis wondered if the man’s jaw might be broken. Still, he wasn’t ready to give up and wanted to get the man talking.

  “Does Sammo Han know you were taken?” he asked. He knew the Americans would be referring to Han Son Chu by his English name.

  “Sammo Han,” the American repeated.

  “Right,” the Mantis said. “Do we need to contact him about the plan?”

  “The plan...”

  “The escape plan,” the Mantis whispered. “Has it been compromised? We need to move soon.”

  “New plan,” the American said. His voice sounded a bit stronger now.

  The Mantis looked at the doctor, who smiled and nodded.

  “We want to proceed with the new plan,” the Mantis said. “What is it?”

  “Be at the central station at noon,” the American said. “Call Jimmy Tai Pang for the tickets.” He rolled off a set of digits that the Mantis took to be a phone number. His words had a rote sound to them, as if he’d committed the information to memory long ago and was now dragging it up to the surface. The drug had obviously lulled him into a state of compliance. “Call Jimmy Tai Pang for the tickets,” he repeated.

  The Mantis took a chance. He didn’t know how much longer the American’s garrulousness—and consciousness, for that matter—would last.

  “Right, I remember. Give me his cell phone number again,” he said, motioning for the nurse to give him a pen and paper. She handed him her mini notebook just as the American mumbled off the numbers.

  The Mantis scribbled them down and told him to repeat them one more time. This repetition matched the first. He tried to think what else he would need.

  The curtain separating the front of the van from the rear section tore open, and one of the idiots poked his head through.

  “Boss, there’s a helicopter close by.”

  The Mantis looked up angrily. The guy’s head disappeared in a flash and the curtain was pulled back into place.

  “Helicopter?” the American said. “PLA military or US?”

  US? Did this fool actually think the Americans could manage a rescue inside mainland China? The Mantis smiled at the absurdity and leaned close, keeping his voice soothing and calm.

  “That’s right,” he whispered. “It’s one of ours. It’ll take you to the American embassy soon. Now, what is Jimmy Tai Pang going to do for us?”

  “He’s got the tickets.”

  “Tickets? What tickets?”

  “For the train. Sammo’s wife...granddaughter...three of us... Reservations.”

  “Reservations to where?”

  “Qingdao.”

  So the plan was to escape Beijing by train with Han and his family.

  “Jimmy Tai Pang,” the Mantis said. “Do the others on your team know him by sight?”

  “No. Never saw him. Just dealt...with...me.” The American coughed, his breathing turning sonorous, as though he was tiptoeing on the edge of a deeply induced slumber.

  The Mantis asked one more question. “What about the dragon key?”

  “Key? What key?”

  “The flash drive,” the Mantis whispered. “From the general.”

  “Huh?” The American licked his swollen and discolored lips. His voice sounded cracked when he answered. “Don’t know...”

  “Where? Where is it hidden?”

  “Hid...? What?” His breathing slowed, thickened, catching in his throat.

  The Mantis shook him. “Where is it hidden?”

  “Don’t know,” the American said. “Only he... Don’t... Must go to...Shanghai.” The man drifted into silence. The Mantis slapped his cheeks, trying to rouse him to no avail.

  “He’s totally under the anesthetic now,” the doctor said.

  The Mantis nodded. He had enough information for the time being, and some leads to follow. He reached up and pulled the curtain back, glaring at the front-seat passenger who had dared to interrupt him.

  “How much longer till we arrive at the house?” the Mantis asked.

  “We’re almost there,” the man said. “Perhaps ten minutes.”

  The Mantis pulled the curtain back in place.

  He would have to call Master Chen soon and advise him of these developments.

  * * *

  FROM THEIR AERIAL PERCH, Bolan and Grimaldi watched the van’s progress as they headed toward the outskirts of the city. This was no major urban area, but rather clusters of smaller, older houses that were probably on the chopping block of some urban renewal program. The groups of boxlike structures were separated by tiny walkways and encompassing walls. It looked a few steps above a shantytown.

  If the van got too deep into the massive Beijing infrastructure, following them by air would be next to impossible. So would a vehicular tail, even if Huang and Herbie could manage to catch up. Bolan texted Huang again asking for a sitrep, but figured a reply would come later rather than sooner. Huang and Herbie still had to extricate themselves from the prison and ditch the honey-wagon for their other vehicle. The honey-wagon might make a tail less conspicuous, but the bad guys would certainly smell them coming.

  Bolan began searching the cabin for whatever equipment he could find. Best-case scenario, the bad guys would take Tressman to an isolated location that would be immediately accessible. Worst case, Grimaldi would have to set up an ambush by landing the chopper in anticipation of the van’s route. Bolan knew there wasn’t much chance of winning a firefight against the six killers he’d seen execute the PLA soldiers. Plus, with Tressman in the vehicle, he would inevitably be in the field of fire. If his captors didn’t kill him immediately, one of Bolan’s bullets might do the job for them.

  No time to play the what-if game, he thought. The glove box by the copilot’s seat contained a logbook, a pen and some paper with Chinese characters scribbled on it. Clipped underneath the console he found a box containing a flare gun and three flares. After removing the box, he told Grimaldi he was going to look farther in the cabin.

  “Let me know if you find any fortune cookies,” Grimaldi said. “We need a couple of good ones.”

  Bolan grinned in spite of the dour mood. He slipped off his earphones, unbuckled his seat belt and squeezed between the seats.

  The rear cabin was spacious. It could hold at least twenty-five to thirty passengers. It was also fairly Spartan. Not much in the way of extra materials. He did find a substantial coil of nylon rope, however. There were also a set of D-rings fastened to a metal loop on the side of the cabin. The rope seemed close to three hundre
d feet. Certainly long enough for a quick rappel to the ground.

  Bolan unclipped his Espada knife, pulled the closest seat belt to its full extension and then sliced the flat material off close to the base. Repeating this with the next seat belt, he finally had enough for a makeshift Swiss seat. He tied the knots as tightly as he could, then tugged on them. Satisfied it would support his weight, he worked the D-ring over the top strand and tested the flexibility of the nylon rope going through it.

  It should get me to the ground, he thought. Bolan went forward and put the headset back on.

  “I’ve got enough stuff to do about a three-hundred-foot rappel,” he said.

  Grimaldi grinned. “Give or take a few feet, I imagine?”

  Bolan laughed. There would be no way to determine exactness in this drop. But desperate times, as the saying went...

  “And that half-ass Swiss seat,” Grimaldi added. “It looks like something the ragman dragged out of a Dumpster.”

  “I’m sorry I’m not measuring up to your high sartorial standards.” Bolan’s cell phone vibrated with an incoming text. Huang had responded to the sitrep query.

  Leaving Song Jing now. Where you at? Before Bolan could reply, Grimaldi pointed downward. “The van’s slowing down.”

  Bolan used his night-vision binoculars to track the vehicle. The brake lights flashed suddenly and the van turned left onto a narrow roadway. It kept going until it got to an enormous cluster of little single-story houses, all of which sat back-to-back, separated by a series of high walls. From above, it looked like a maze. Each house was shaped like an L and opened into a tiny courtyard.

  “Looks like a regular gated community, don’t it?” Grimaldi said. “Sort of like a Chinese version of Brentwood.”

  “Complete with outdoor plumbing.”

  Bolan refocused the binoculars and watched the van turn left onto a smaller, narrower roadway that led into the maze of houses. It pulled down to an intersecting street and stopped next to a field of broken bricks and piles of trash. The doors of the van opened and a group of eight people got out. Two of them carried a limp form. They moved about thirty meters toward the group of houses on the left. The houses were separated by walkways that appeared to provide only three feet of space between each of the structures.

  The men opened a gate and carried the unconscious man inside, going into the house on the right side of the courtyard.

  Bolan turned to Grimaldi. “I’ve got to get down there. Think you can pick us up once I get Tressman?”

  Grimaldi scanned the area and shook his head. “Looks like some power lines over the houses. I could try to set it down on the main road, but there’s more lines going off that way.” He snorted. “That vacant lot where the van parked looks like our best bet. It’ll still be like trying to parallel park a school bus in a slot designed for a Volkswagen, but it’s about all that’s open.”

  “Guess I’ll get a chance to test this out,” Bolan said, tugging on his makeshift harness one more time as he picked up the coil of rope. “Drop me on top of that house across the street from where they went in.”

  Bolan went to the door, pulled it open and felt the rush of the cool night air. The syncopated whirling of the rotor blades drowned out every other sound. He searched for somewhere to tie off that would hold his weight. Bolan finally decided on the metal rung that held the passenger seat in place. He would lose about two or three feet of rope doing the tie-off, but it was the closest thing he could find to a cleat.

  He dropped the rope out the door and watched it uncoiling like a snake spiraling through the darkness. As far as he could tell, it stopped a bit short of the roof.

  “Bring her down about twenty feet,” Bolan said.

  “Roger that.”

  As the helicopter descended a bit more, Grimaldi said, “Just so you know, we’re getting low on gas. You’ll have to make this quick unless you want to walk back to our original rendezvous point.”

  Bolan nodded. Once he took off the headset he and Grimaldi would be incommunicado. He couldn’t expect Grimaldi to keep hanging around until he ran out of gas or tangled with some Chinese Mi-17s armed with miniguns.

  “Okay,” Bolan said. “Give me five minutes, ten max. If you don’t see my signal, go back to the field area and meet Huang. Text him to meet us there in your spare time.”

  “What spare time?” Grimaldi asked. “Flying this bucket of bolts is a two-handed, full-time job.”

  Bolan smiled. “I’ll rappel down, get Tressman and go to the LZ. I’ll fire a flare when I’m ready.” He looked down through the green-tinged viewfinder. It was time to move. He slipped on his thin leather gloves and started to remove the headset when Grimaldi’s voice stopped him.

  “Watch your six,” he said.

  Bolan nodded. “Watch for my flare. See you in five, hopefully.” And with that, he slipped off the headset and stepped to the edge of the open doorway.

  The Executioner tested the knots of the rope and moved out on the right-hand landing skid. Leaning backward, he went to an almost horizontal position to assure he wouldn’t flip back and strike his head on the thick metal skid as he shoved off. In the next moment he was zipping downward in the darkness, feeling the nylon cord slip through his fingers as it ran through the D-ring. He paused after he’d gone about two hundred feet and glanced down. The rope whirled and twisted below him due to the wash from the rotors. Bolan dropped about fifty feet more.

  Still difficult to judge if he had enough rope.

  Twenty feet...

  Twenty more, and stop.

  He held the nylon cord between his thumb and forefinger, against the middle of his back, and rechecked the distance one more time. The rope was a bit short of the roof. How much, he couldn’t really tell. His depth perception was thrown off by the night-vision goggles and his awkward, hovering position. Finding a frame of reference was next to impossible. But the clock was ticking and he had little choice but to keep going.

  Bolan released his grip on the line and dropped downward again, suddenly feeling the last of the rope snake through the gloved fingers of his right hand, his brake hand. The rope whipped around his right side and out through the D-ring. He tried to grab hold of the evasive line with his left but felt it slip through his grasp as he went into total free fall.

  A second later his body collided with the tiled roof and the Executioner felt the wind knocked out of him. The fall had been about fifteen feet, and he was already starting a fast roll down the sloping roof. He reached out, trying to grab something to stop his movement. His chest ached as he struggled to breathe.

  Bolan continued to slide. Turning on his side, he extended his left hand and reached for the Espada knife with his right. The dark edge of the roof seemed only a few feet away, and he wondered about the distance of the next drop. And what he’d be landing on. Suddenly his left side struck something hard.

  A small, round chimney.

  Bolan managed to curl his body around it, sucking in a few shallow breaths.

  Voices came from below, inside the house. It was time to move. He extended his body downward, hooking the instep of his left boot around the chimney and lowering his head to the edge of the roof. The drop to the ground looked to be about twelve to fifteen feet.

  Easy enough, he thought, and slipped his left foot loose. Bolan swiveled as he slid downward, gliding over the ripple of tiles. A split second later he landed on his feet on solid ground. Solid concrete to be more exact. He heard more voices shouting inside the house. Bolan ran down a narrow walkway, suddenly feeling something scurrying around his feet.

  Rats. Lots of them.

  He noticed something else, too. A pungent odor reminiscent of the honey-wagon. About eight feet in front of him he saw a small outhouse. He continued running and reached for the roof, pulling himself up and over the structure. Bolan dropped
onto a narrow pathway that ran between the houses on the other side. More rats scurried around his boots. On the other side of the wall he could hear more yelling, accompanied by the shrill cries of rodents.

  And I thought I’d have to do this alone. He smiled and pulled the Beretta 93R from his shoulder holster. After attaching the sound suppressor, he moved toward the main walkway.

  The Executioner paused at the juncture of the small alleyway and what might be considered the intersecting street. It was only about fifteen feet wide and composed of uneven cobblestones. He estimated that the target house was two doors down, across the street. At the moment, the street seemed relatively deserted. Two men walked perhaps fifty feet down the block.

  Not the optimal time or conditions for moving, but the clock was ticking.

  Bolan jammed the Beretta back into the holster, crossed the narrow expanse in three quick steps and pushed through the wooden gate in front of the house directly across from him. At this point hesitation would be suspicious. Bolan stepped inside a small courtyard.

  A large metal tub of water sat next to a pipe and faucet to his left. Two women, who were cooking with a small portable stove set into one of the walls, looked up in surprise. Bolan nodded to them and crossed the small courtyard in two steps, heading for the wall that separated this house from the target one. It appeared to be about seven feet high. As he reached up to grab the top of the wall he got a quick look at dozens of pieces of broken glass imbedded in the concrete. He was wearing gloves but didn’t want to risk a cut on the jagged shards. He looked around and spied a large rug hanging up nearby. The Executioner grabbed it and thrust it over the top of the wall as the two women yelled at him in shrill displeasure.

  Ignoring them, he vaulted over the wall, landing in an almost identical courtyard on the other side. This one was deserted, however.