Avenger (8 page)

Sutherland forced the Range Rover through mountains of alleyway trash like a snowplow. The big vehicle managed to get through it, almost to the end of the narrow alley, but before they hit the wall, Sutherland turned sharply to the left, using the leading side bumper to breach the entrance to the factory, splintering the door.

Morgan, already out, hurled himself across the bonnet. Shooting the first guard, caught between the wall and the vehicle, he slid through the fractured door and powered up the stairs with Sutherland hot on his heels. The two agents were a few steps short of the first landing when the door opened and a hand appeared holding an automatic, firing blindly down the stairway. Sutherland braced himself against the rail and unleashed a barrage of rounds at the hand and into the confined space behind it. Under his covering fire, Morgan took the last few steps and shouldered his way into the room, firing at the two men inside. Sutherland joined him.

“Two down,” Morgan said, after verifying both guards were dead.

Sutherland moved quickly past and was ready to burst through the next door when they heard gunfire from the floor above. “Upstairs!” he yelled.

In the time it took them to head for the stairs, the door to the third-floor secure airlock burst open and a battered and bruised Elizabeth Reigns appeared, supporting a staggering Inspector Lam with one arm. She had an automatic in her right hand and was dragging the policeman clear of the room.

Sutherland momentarily lifted his ski-mask so that Reigns could see who he was. “You called for home delivery?” he said, with a broad smile.

“Thank God!” she exclaimed when she saw them. “There are more coming, guys, lots more. We’ve got to get out of here!”

“Cover me,” Morgan yelled to Sutherland. Reaching Reigns, he said, “I’ll take him now. You get down to the Range Rover and drive.”

Without another word, Sutherland raced up the stairs and covered the door. Morgan grabbed Lam and slung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, and Reigns sprinted down the stairs. The sounds of yelling and heavy footfalls above told them they had run out of time. It sounded like half-a-dozen men, if not more, were about to come barreling out of the third-floor airlock.

Reigns reached the downstairs entrance in a few bounds. Morgan watched as she checked that there weren’t any unexpected gunmen waiting for them outside, then clambered over the bonnet, jumped behind the wheel and reversed clear of the doorway. He was a few paces behind, Lam still across his shoulders. As he reached the street, he wrenched open the rear passenger door, threw Lam unceremoniously inside and slammed the door shut. Gunfire erupted in the stairway.

“Get going!” he said to Reigns. “Get out of the alley and wait! If you’re compromised, leave us.”

The engine howled as she stamped her foot to the floor and the Range Rover lurched toward the main road. In the background police sirens were wailing, getting louder. Morgan hurled himself back inside the factory. Braced against the wall, he let off almost an entire magazine over the top of Sutherland’s head, who was just a few steps short of the bottom and firing back up the stairs.

“Come on, Dave!” Morgan yelled over the waves of rounds now being fired at them. Wood splintered from the walls as ricochets bounced everywhere in the narrow funnel of the stairway.

“Fuck!” Sutherland cried as he jumped the last two steps. “Fuck! Fuck!”

Morgan grabbed him and threw him outside. “Are you hit?” he said as they ran.

Sutherland reached behind his shoulder. His bloodied hand told them both he was.

With years of training and experience under their belts, the two agents instinctively fell into a break-contact drill – one man firing while the other moved, alternating as each leapfrogged past the other until clear of the firefight.

“How bad is it?” Morgan yelled, running past Sutherland, who was behind a skip, firing back at the door.

“It’s OK. Just a fucking ricochet! It’s nothing.”

“Still want to retire?” Morgan slid in behind a pile of wooden crates, most of which had been pulverized when a retreating Reigns ran over them. Looking back, he saw their pursuers had reached the bottom of the stairs and were spilling out of the building, taking cover wherever they could across the dead end of the alleyway. Rounds were coming at the Intrepid agents from everywhere. Morgan and Sutherland were returning fire but they didn’t have anywhere near enough ammo for this to go on much longer.

“Dave, you go first,” Morgan yelled, changing magazines. “I’ll cover you till you’re clear of the alley. When you’re set, call me back.”

“Roger,” Sutherland replied. “Stand by to give ’em everything you’ve got, man!” With that, he was sprinting past Morgan, zigzagging and jumping over debris as he went. Morgan was firing as fast and as furiously as he could to cover his friend’s withdrawal.

“OK, Al,” he heard his partner cry. “Stay left. Run straight back to me and get around the corner!”

Morgan sprinted parallel to the endless stream of ammunition from Sutherland’s Sig, while behind him the rate of fire from their pursuers was ramping up, cracking and popping in his ears as he hurtled headlong for safety. The police sirens were nearby. They must have been closing in, searching for this alley among the hundreds of others. Morgan had no idea who had called them in but he hoped they’d arrive in time.

“Let me speak to them,” said Lam from the back seat when he heard the sirens. “They need to know what has happened.”

“We can’t wait, Victor,” Reigns replied. “As soon as my guys are clear, we’re getting out of here!”

Reigns saw three HKPD squad cars racing down the street and caught sight of both Intrepid agents racing from the end of the alley in her rear-view mirror. They were wearing police vests and she remembered something Sutherland had told her. Fumbling beneath the driver’s seat, she retrieved one of the same black, zip-front vests with POLICE emblazoned across the back and the HK Police crest on the front. Pulling it on, Reigns jumped from the driver’s seat, waving the squad cars toward her, then faced back to the alleyway, covering her colleagues.

“Come on! Come on!” she yelled.

“We’re good,” Sutherland replied. “Get back in!”

The two agents, firing and moving the last few yards, covered each other every step of the way. Reigns was behind the wheel as the first rounds started to reach the Range Rover. Somehow, the bleeding and broken Inspector Lam managed to fold the back seats down flat. He reached through to the button on the dashboard that activated the rear tailgate and pressed it. All Morgan and Sutherland had to do was leap in.

“Great work, Victor!” said Reigns.

Sutherland got to the vehicle first and dived in backward as the rear door was opening, still firing to cover Morgan. When he finally leaped in beside Sutherland, Reigns put her foot down and launched the vehicle forward with a screech of tires. The rear door was wide open but they were both inside, so Sutherland reached out to close it.

“Fuck! I reckon that’s about as close as I ever want to—”

It was as far as he got. His body was extended wide across the opening and the last wave of rounds from their pursuers struck Sutherland across the chest, neck and abdomen.

“What’s the closest fucking emergency room from here?” Morgan yelled over the screaming engine noise and constant blaring of horns.

“QE … Queen Elizabeth Hospital,” Lam replied, struggling to speak or even breathe due to his own smashed ribs and concussion. He turned to Reigns. “Near King’s Park.”

“Get us there,” cried Morgan. “Break out the trauma kit for me,” he said to Lam. “It’ll be under your feet. And take this. Call the hospital. Tell ’em we’re coming in. Then call your boss and explain what went down. We need full HKPD support at the hospital until we can get our people involved.”

Morgan tossed his phone to Lam and grabbed the trauma kit that was handed over in return. It was a small sports bag containing Israeli-made hemorrhage-control compression bandages, tourniquets, blood-clotting agents and morphine, along with other emergency items like clips, clamps, scissors and sutures. Sutherland lay cradled in Morgan’s lap. Blood was everywhere. It was gushing from his neck and oozed from the wounds beneath his trousers and vest. He was still and quiet, eyes open, but he was struggling, spitting blood.

Morgan had a hand clasped down hard over the neck wound, trying desperately to apply pressure, but the blood kept coming. With his teeth and spare hand he began tearing open a bandage pack.
Fuck!
Was he shaking? No. No, he had this. He was OK. Sutherland needed him to be OK. There was no time for anything fancy, and using the anti-clot or morphine would only complicate matters for the medics at the other end. All he could do was try to stem the flow of the bleeding and keep his friend alive until they handed him over to the experts. Morgan grappled with the first bandage, wrapping it as best he could around Sutherland’s neck. Then he set to work, getting him out of the vest. It was difficult – Reigns was driving as fast as she could to the hospital but the constant stop-start of the traffic and swaying of the car made everything ten times harder. Just as Morgan was getting the vest off, Sutherland starting coughing hard; blood and spit sprayed from his mouth and his eyes started rolling back. Morgan didn’t say a word. He knew Reigns was going as fast as was humanly possible – yelling at her to step on it wouldn’t make any difference.

Morgan saw the main damage was on Sutherland’s left side. He’d been struck exactly where the Velcro fastened along the vulnerable flank area of the vest. He guessed by the amount of blood down that side that the left lung had been badly damaged, most likely collapsed. He turned his friend on to that side, allowing gravity to do what it could to keep the blood from affecting the hopefully intact right lung. Then he checked Sutherland’s airway and breathing and set to work as best he could, sealing the wound and applying yet another bandage.
It’s taking too long
, he thought.
It’s taking too fucking long
.

Morgan went in search of other damage. “Fuck! This is impossible,” he hissed under his breath. The amount of blood combined with the confined space of the rear compartment and the constant irregular motion of the vehicle as Reigns raced across Kowloon to the hospital were frustrating all his attempts to save his friend’s life. In the midst of it all, he realized that Sutherland’s eyes were fixed on him, silently imploring him to succeed. Morgan smiled down at him.

“Don’t go getting all miserable on me, Dave,” he said quietly. “I’m just making everything look worse than it is, so you can tell everyone how much of a cluster I was next time we’re at the Red Lion.”

The slightest flicker of a smile came from Sutherland’s eyes. It wasn’t much but it was enough.

“Stay with me, mate,” said Morgan. “And don’t go getting any ideas while I do this next bit.”

Undoing Sutherland’s belt and pulling down his trousers, Morgan found two more wounds, one in the lower gut and one at the top of the left thigh. Reaching beneath Sutherland, he located an exit wound in the lower back but couldn’t find one in the leg. The best he could do was grab the few bandages left in the kit, tear them open with his teeth and keep padding the entry and exit wounds.

“How long?” he called to Reigns.

“Less than a mile.”

Sutherland’s eyes closed.

“I’m sorry, Victor. I know this goes against the grain for you as a police officer but this is the way it has to be for us. Dave knows that.”

“I understand,” Lam replied, struggling to speak. “I’ll take care of him now. You must take care of yourself, too, Mei-Zhen, and your colleague.”

Reigns smiled and squeezed his hand. Lam’s face was battered and bleeding, and he was straining to breathe against the pain of his broken ribs. Still, he was a fighter and she knew he would hold out until the medics arrived. They were on their way. Above all, she knew he would take care of Sutherland. Reigns reached around under Lam’s arm and helped Morgan prop him up against the wall outside the emergency reception area of the hospital. Then, as quickly as they dared, they carefully lifted Sutherland from the back of the Range Rover and laid him down next to Lam. Sutherland was a dead weight. He didn’t look good. He was covered in blood and bandages, his eyes hadn’t opened and he was completely unresponsive. Everything had happened so fast, Reigns wasn’t even sure if he actually had a pulse. Morgan was adamant that he did, so she wasn’t about to question it; this wasn’t the time. Sutherland and Lam were where they needed to be and she knew the medics would only be minutes or even seconds away. Reigns and Morgan had to disappear.

“We’ve got to go,” she said urgently in his ear. “We can’t be here.”

Morgan looked up. He was by Sutherland’s side, issuing final instructions to Lam and clearly conflicted by the prospect of leaving his badly wounded friend behind. Reluctantly, he acquiesced. He wished Lam well and, turning back to Sutherland, said, “See you soon, mate.”

Reigns was already at the wheel with the engine revving. Morgan jumped in beside her and the Range Rover vanished from view.

“OK,” he said. “Back to the hotel, grab our things and straight to the airport.”

“Airport? Why the airport? We have work to do here.”

“There’s work to be done but not by you and not by me,” he replied. He was reloading magazines and making sure the Sigs, his and Sutherland’s, were functional and fully loaded. “You’re compromised and I have to get you out and back to London as soon as I can. So, yeah, we’re heading to the airport. Hotel first.”

Without another word, Reigns tore through the gears, racing the vehicle around the twists, turns and ramps of the hospital grounds, speeding beneath the Gascoigne Road overpass and on to the narrow double lanes of Jordan Road.

“Here, keep that handy,” Morgan said, stowing Sutherland’s Sig, muzzle down, in the cup holder beside the gearshift along with a spare magazine. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“Really? You think they’ll come after us?”

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” he said. “They’ll be pretty pissed that you’ve escaped and I’d say they’ll be keen to get you back by any means possible. For as long as we’re on their turf they’ll have a shot. So, the sooner we get you the fuck out of Hong Kong, the better.”

The mounting wail of police sirens in stereo threatened to drown out their conversation. Morgan turned and Reigns checked the mirrors. They saw two HKPD BMW motorcycles with lights flashing approaching fast along Chatham Road from the south-west as they neared the interchange leading to Princess Margaret Road. The lead cop was waving them down.

“Fuck it!” Morgan exclaimed, thumping the dashboard. “We don’t need this.”

“What do we do now?” Reigns asked. “We should stop, right?”

“Yeah, we should,” he agreed, checking the navigation screen on the dash. “Head to that side road up ahead, it leads into Hong Kong Polytechnic. That way we can’t get blocked in.”

Reigns eased off the speed and drew the Range Rover expertly across the lanes of traffic and into the side road. Morgan took the Sig from the cup holder and handed it to her. She took it in her left hand, resting it in her lap well out of sight. Morgan positioned his loosely beneath the folds of his jacket. Behind them the cop eased off too and as the Range Rover pulled to a stop he coasted up alongside Reigns’ window and raised his helmet visor. His colleague pulled in behind them. Reigns kept the vehicle in gear with the clutch depressed, handbrake engaged and the engine idling steadily.

“Is everything all right, officer?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” the officer replied. “We have orders from Assistant Commissioner Kwong to escort you wherever you need to go.”

“That really won’t be necessary, officer,” said Morgan firmly. “But thank you and please thank the assistant commissioner.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I have my orders. Now, if you’ll—”

The first rounds caught them all off guard.

As the heavy burst peppered the side of the Range Rover and the police officer speaking to her, Reigns had no choice. She released the clutch, pushed the accelerator flat to the floor and disengaged the handbrake in one fluid motion, pushing the revs instantly to red. The vehicle roared away from a standing start just as the second officer began to engage the as-yet-unseen source of the incoming gunfire. Morgan instinctively clambered between the front seats to the back section of the Range Rover. When his Sig Sauer P226 exploded into action behind her, Reigns knew that Morgan had acquired the target.

“It’s a black Alfa Romeo sedan!” he yelled. “Can you see it?”

“Got it!” Reigns replied. In the driver’s side wing mirror she could make out a guy hanging from the Alfa, awkwardly clutching what looked like a Chinese-made QBZ-97 assault rifle. They were closing fast. The guy was changing mags and about to re-engage. Morgan was blasting away as best he could but the Sig was no match for sustained fire from an assault rifle.

“We need cover,” he said. “Get us out of here!”

Reigns tore the wheel to the left, heading down the side road toward the Polytechnic. The Alfa followed. A second later she realized it had been a mistake.

“Jesus!” she cried. “Gate! The road’s blocked.” Thinking fast, Reigns sized up her options. Morgan was still firing but it wouldn’t be long before they were blocked, totally outgunned, and others arrived to support the Alfa. It was directly behind them, closing fast and twenty feet from their rear bumper while the Range Rover was bearing down upon the heavy metal gates blocking access to the Polytechnic. With a quick final glance at the mirrors, Reigns made her decision.

“Brace yourself. Now!”

Morgan grabbed on to anything he could find.

She stamped on the brakes and the Range Rover responded, coming to a sudden but controlled dead stop in the center of the road. The driver of the Alfa Romeo had no time to counter the move and the sedan slammed into the rear of them. Morgan was thrown hard against the back of Reigns’ seat and groaned as the wind was forced from his lungs. She wasted no time. At the moment of collision, she threw the big car into a tight U-turn, tires squealing, and opened up the exposed flank of the unsuspecting stalled Alfa to a broadside. Morgan, tumbling around in the back, was thrown against the passenger-side rear door but dived back behind Reigns, opening up with everything he had on the driver of the Alfa.

Reigns stole a look over her shoulder. The Alfa Romeo wasn’t moving.

“Did you get him?” she asked.

“Yep,” said Morgan. “Let’s get clear, ditch this fucking car and find a taxi.”