China Crisis

“We may be too late.”

Cho’s remark was punctuated by the harsh rattle of a machine gun. A stream of slugs curved down from the pursuing chopper as it dropped lower to line up with the 4x4. Loy Hung watched, almost fascinated, as the line of slugs slapped the dry earth, moving closer to the speeding vehicle. Then the solid thump of the slugs hitting the ground changed to metallic sounds as they rose and peppered the rear of the 4x4. A startled cry rose from one of the team sitting in the rear as ragged slugs, deformed by the thin metal, drilled into yielding flesh. The man slumped across the rear floor of the vehicle, clutching his bloody side where the ragged chunk of metal had torn into his body. The 4x4 veered from side to side as the driver tried to escape the hovering bulk of the helicopter. The problem was the lack of escape routes. The foothills offered little in the way of substantial cover.

The helicopter dropped even lower, aligning itself alongside the 4x4. Turning his head, Hung saw the black muzzle of the 7.62 mm door-mounted machine gun swing around. He tried to shout a warning, but his words were lost in the harsh rattle of the machine gun. The heavy stream of slugs tore into and through the bodywork of the 4x4. Window glass shattered, shards hitting exposed flesh, Hung himself felt a sudden burn of pain across his cheek, then felt the warm stream of blood. The lurching 4x4 hit a rough stretch of ground, and the wheel was being wrenched from the slack hands of the driver. Only now did Hung realize the man had taken a number of the 7.62 mm rounds down one side of his body. He was slumped back in his seat, sightless eyes ignoring the hazards ahead. More machine-gun fire sounded, bullets clanging against the sides of the vehicle as it ran out of control. It made a sharp right turn, careering over a steep ridge, and bounced its way down a long, rocky slope, finally coming to a jarring stop at the bottom of a gully.

T HE GULLY was too narrow to allow the helicopter access. All it could do was hover while Kang screamed into his handset for his ground troops to locate the stricken vehicle. It would take them almost thirty minutes to reach the base of the gully, where they found the 4x4 and three dead occupants.

Loy Hung, Dar Tan and Sammy Cho were gone.

And so, too, was the circuit board.

I T WAS near dark, freezing cold with food or water, and Sammy Cho was wounded. He had taken a couple of bullets in his right side.

But at least they had their weapons and the circuit board.

Loy Hung hoped that was enough. They were alone in the foothills, being pursued by Major Kang and his squad, which was as bad as it could get. At least, Hung thought, the major was denied the use of his helicopter until dawn. The machine was of little use in the dark, so Kang was having to depend on his ground troops.

It gave Hung and his men something of a chance to stay ahead. Not much, but at least a little advantage.

“Loy, we have to stop,” Dar Tan called. “Sammy’s wounds are bleeding again.”

They crouched in the semidarkness, able to see only what the thin moonlight allowed. While Hung kept watch, Tan did what he could for Cho. Tan had managed to rescue the first-aid bag from the 4x4 when they had been forced to abandon it. The bag held only basic first-aid items, certainly not advanced enough to deal with two bullet wounds. Tan had used some of the sterile pads to cover the holes, then bound them in place with some of the bandage from a roll. For his part Sammy Cho made no sound, offered no complaints and managed to keep up with his partners.

That had been three hours ago. Now Cho was showing signs of slowing down. He kept stumbling and when Tan had a look at his bandage he saw it was oozing blood heavily. When Cho fell to his knees this last time, he couldn’t get up.

“You should leave me. I can hold them off for you.”

“So you can be a hero?” Tan smiled at his friend. “You’d love that. So all the girls can flock around you while you tell the story?”

While he spoke to distract Cho, his fingers loosened the sodden bandage. Peeling back the inner dressing, he saw that the bullet wounds had swollen around the entry points. They were still bleeding, too. Tan feared they had become infected. His problem was that he had little idea what he really needed to do. The bullets needed extracting and the wounds cleaning and sealing. For once in his life Tan felt utterly helpless.

“That bad?” Cho asked. “Must be to stop you talking, Dar.”

“Sammy, I wish I could do more for you. But this is something I can’t deal with.”

Hung knelt beside them. “Can you keep moving? I think we’re not far from the village now. If we get there we only have to wait for Mei Anna and her friends. They’ll surely have someone experienced to deal with your wounds.”

“Well, I don’t have many other choices, do I?”

Tan dressed the wounds and replaced the bloody bandage with a fresh one. They stayed for a little while longer, giving Cho more rest.

Hung took a look around, checking the direction they had come. If it had been daylight, he might have been able to spot Kang’s men. The semidark, layering the terrain with deep shadows, made it impossible to identify anything. He decided they would just have to keep moving, hoping the encroaching night would slow Kang as much as it had them. He preferred that way of thinking rather than imagining everything was running smoothly for their pursuers.

Their luck seemed to be holding. Despite the fact they had to move slowly, they spotted the village just after midnight. The temperature had dropped even further. The wind coming down from the higher slopes of the hills dragged at their clothing, pushing them around, and with the ground underfoot being unsafe, it made travel difficult.

“Will Kang know about this place?” Tan asked.

“He might, but what else can we do?” Hung said. “If we stay in the open, we might freeze. Out here we’re too exposed. If we can get under cover, we’ll be out of the wind and at least have a place to defend.”

“When you say it like that,” Tan remarked, the trace of irony in his voice not lost on Hung.

“I didn’t expect it to turn out like this, Dar. This wasn’t the plan.”

“I’m not blaming you. We all knew what we were letting ourselves get into when we joined the group. I don’t regret it. I just hope we have the chance to make something out of this. It would be a shame if we lost everything after getting this far.”

They reached the village a short time later, making their way past the razed buildings until they reached the one remaining that would still provide some shelter. This semiderelict house still had a couple of rooms and a door they could close against the bite of the wind. Pushing open the door they got the semiconscious Cho inside. Hung secured the door, then crossed to the single window slot that allowed him to look back the way they had come.

Tan had Cho propped up in a corner. He found some discarded, dusty blankets and covered the man as best he could. Then he joined Hung at the window.

“It’s the best we can do. Pity we can’t risk a fire to get a little heat in here.”

Hung squatted with his back to the wall, hugging the backpack that contained the circuit board to his body.

“The only thing we can do now is wait.”

CHAPTER THREE

Townsend Ranch, South Texas

Oliver Townsend, former Major Oliver Townsend, U.S. Army, retired from active service for the past three years, was the driving force behind the covert organization Shadow. Depending on your stand, Shadow was either an inspired business enterprise or an illegal operation.

As far as Townsend was concerned, his operation was pure genius. In a world dominated by global enterprises, many of them partly funded and under the protective umbrella of federal government, Shadow might have been small. It did, however, cater to a specific need—that of providing military ordnance and technology to the specific requirements of its clientele. In essence Townsend did his business with those customers who, by whatever misdeed, were considered untouchable by the legitimate suppliers. There was a great deal of hypocrisy in that. It was a well-documented fact that overseas regimes once favored by government could fall into the black hole of becoming non gratis due to political expediency, power change or not adhering to nonspecified rules. The delicate balance in the political game was easily tipped. Today’s friend was tomorrow’s enemy. It was a simple equation that highlighted the power struggles and the watch-your-back mentality.

Townsend had been a spectator to much of this during his military career, his final two years spent at the Pentagon, and he had realized that there was much to be made from the infinitely complex machinations of the strategy game. He had acquired a great deal of insight, background knowledge and, importantly, contacts, a number of whom were instrumental in backing his enterprise and working behind the scenes. They were powerful men, their influence running deep in financial, industrial and political circles, and Townsend was well versed in the way they operated behind closed doors.

With his backers on board, Townsend began to formulate the operation that would both fund his retirement and occupy his time. He saw an opportunity and he reached out and took it. There was a certain irony in his decision. His retirement had been forced on him through one of the manpower cut-back initiatives the military machine had devised. Men of his age were being offered early retirement because they no longer fitted into the scheme. The Pentagon wanted younger blood, officers who would slot neatly into the new technological era. Townsend made little fuss. He saw the writing on the wall and figured he might as well go quietly, taking with him all the information he had gathered and channeling it into his own personal data pool.

Within twelve months of the parting of the ways Townsend had his organization up and running. With his backing secured, Townsend recruited his team of specialists and his newly formed Shadow was already doing business. His first clients had been based in Asia. He had taken on the contract and supplied them with the ordnance they needed. The deal was conducted efficiently, the funds placed in a Swiss account Townsend’s moneyman had set up, and the client suggesting Townsend get in touch with a number of other groups who needed similar deals processing. Shadow’s efficiency was noticed, and over the next year Townsend saw his turnover increase substantially. The people he was dealing with had an urgent need for what he could supply, plus there was the added advantage they paid well and needed anonymity.

Now Shadow was not only operating from a strong business base but had expanded into another area entirely. Townsend was being asked to supply not just ordnance, but technology centered around advanced weaponry and electronics. He had done some research and found that industrial espionage, as it was designated, had a higher premium comeback. One deal in this sector would net him more than his entire income since he had started the enterprise. He discussed this with his people and the consensus was it had extreme possibilities.

Shadow had its contacts within military and government research communities, and once Townsend started to look further he realized that obtaining sensitive material was not outside his scope. He used his knowledge of how the military-industrial setup worked to his advantage. As well as employing monetary enticements, Townsend got his people to look into the backgrounds of people in top-secret areas. It wasn’t long before there was a stack of files on a number of key players, containing details of gambling debts, infidelities both financial and sexual, anything that could be used as a lever was employed.

Townsend learned something about himself during this stage. He found he had no conscience or moral restraint when it came to blackmail, coercion or downright threats. It was a part of his makeup he hadn’t been aware of before. Now it had surfaced he found he liked that side of his character. He was enjoying his new career, the money, the power and the sensation that he was defying the odds each time he went into a new venture. The illicit thrill engendered by the whole risky game was as much of a high as the money. The expansion of his organization, moving into something far beyond selling a few crates of automatic weapons, really hit the right spot for him.

The call from an intermediary asking for a meet in Paris with his main client had intrigued Townsend. The initial conversation hinted that any possible arranged deal would be worth an extremely high fee. This part of the conversation interested Townsend even more. His trip to Paris was to be paid for, as was his accommodation in a five-star hotel in the city. Townsend agreed to the meeting. A return ticket and hotel reservation were delivered by courier two hours later. The flight was due to leave that afternoon. By the evening of the next day Townsend was sitting in his hotel suite awaiting the call that would summon him to his meeting with his yet-to-be-identified client.

He had no idea just what he was going to be asked to provide. The hinted-at amount of his fee, being so astronomical, suggested something extremely high-tech and of great importance.

What was he going to be asked to do? Steal the latest U.S. Air Force fighter plane? Hijack a Navy submarine? He leaned back in the comfortable armchair, toying with the glass of fine French brandy, and let his imagination run wild. He hoped that when he did get the request it wouldn’t be a disappointment.

He was picked up an hour later and driven in a comfortable limousine to the outskirts of Paris and a château on the edge of the Seine. The house was more than four hundred years old, beautifully maintained and very private.

Townsend was met at the massive front entrance by an unsmiling Chinese in an expensive suit and immaculate shirt and tie. He was led inside the château, across the marble entrance hall, and shown into a pleasant, sunny room that looked out onto smooth lawns that led to the river. The door closed quietly behind him and Townsend found himself in the presence of a powerful-looking Chinese in his forties.

“Please take a seat. Do I call you Major, or is it now Mr. Townsend?”

“I left the rank behind when I left military service,” Townsend said.