Beyond all Limits (18 page)

6

Two hours had passed since the incident with the teenage divers, and mercifully nothing else had happened to suggest discovery; Cole and his team had made good time along the Yongding, and Cole gave his navigation systems one final check.

They’d made it. They were at the rendezvous point.

Cole checked his watch, saw that it was just after three o’clock in the morning.

They had to keep going past the bridge slightly, and Cole put his hand on Collins’ arm, gesturing for him to slow, then cutting his hand to port.

Collins nodded and eased off the throttles, moving the small submarine towards the southern bank of the Yongding.

Cole peered through the inky green dark of the night-vision-enhanced river, searching for the turn-off. It was appearing on his instruments, but he wouldn’t be happy until he saw it himself.

And then there it was, appearing out of the gloom, and Cole squeezed Collins’ arm, the pilot turning the SDV into the narrow channel. Cole tapped twice on the inner chamber, advising his four other teammates that their journey was almost at an end, and watched as Collins maneuvered the craft into the small inlet.

The narrow inlet, barely a hundred yards long by twenty wide, served as a drainage basin before the enormous Huanggang Reservoir which lay to the south of the Yongding.

It was small, but deep; and because it didn’t go anywhere, a dam separating it from the internal waterway beyond, it had no marine traffic whatsoever, which made it ideal for Cole’s purposes.

As Collins centered the SDV in the middle of the inlet, Cole gave the signal to fill the ballast tanks. Disconnecting himself from the main air supply, he switched to his Draeger rebreather and left the SDV’s open cockpit, swimming quickly towards the rear.

He stopped at the side of the mini-sub, treading water as he removed a long metal panel from the fuselage, giving the thumbs-up signal to Navarone and Grayson inside, who shot the signal back, switched to their rebreathers, and started to maneuver themselves out of the SDV passenger compartment.

The SDV began to descend to the bottom of the inlet as the ballast tanks filled with water, and Cole swam over the top of the falling mini-sub, removing the panel from the other side.

Davis and Barrington were already eager and waiting, thumbs up, and eased themselves out into the dark waters, already breathing through their Draegers.

Cole looked back to the cockpit and saw Collins finally moving out of the sub, which had now come to rest on the bottom of the inlet, its impact throwing clouds of silt up through the already gloomy water.

Four meters down in a tiny, unused inlet, the SDV should be safe enough, Cole figured; and if it wasn’t, it was fitted with anti-tamper explosive devices which would detonate if somebody approached too closely. The US Navy was keen that – if the SDV had to be sacrificed – its technology wouldn’t find its way into enemy hands.

The explosive device was rigged to go off in three days anyway; Cole’s extraction plan didn’t call for the SDV to be used, but it was nice to know it was there just in case. In three days’ time though, that option would cease to exist.

Glad to get their limbs working again after the six hour underwater infiltration, the Force One operators kicked their way through the silt, heading back out to the Yongding New River and their early-morning rendezvous by the bridge.

Yuan Ziyang was sweating again, even more than before.

He’d timed his journey to perfection, arriving by the bridge by four o’clock exactly as demanded. Despite his earlier interruption, he’d made good time from Beijing and – not wishing to merely sit waiting on the bridge – he’d had to drive around some side roads a few times, taking his truck on a winding route between the S308 and the S40 Jingjintang Expressway to waste some time.

But now it was four o’clock, still no sign of the sun in the sky except for the very faintest haze right at the bottom of the horizon, and he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

So where were the six people he was supposed to be picking up?

He shuddered as he considered the options. What if they’d been captured? Would they have talked, told the authorities about him? Was he about to be ambushed by his own country’s military and law enforcement units?

Of course, they might just be late; but what was he supposed to do about that? Just drive up and down the bridge, backwards and forwards, until somebody reported him?

He wiped the sweat from his eyes, remembering what he’d been told by his American handler, wondering why the man’s words had not come back to him before, realizing he must be more tired than he’d thought.

Cross the bridge heading north
, the man had said,
check for cameras and vehicles, if the coast is clear turn the truck round and head back south to cross the bridge again. If there is no contact, leave the area for ten minutes and then try again. If there is still no contact, head on home.

Okay, Yuan told himself, just do this thing twice and you can go home. If the team doesn’t show, just go right on home.

A large part of him decided that perhaps he would be a lot happier if the team
didn’t
show. But would he still get his money?

Damn!

Yuan cursed himself for not checking with his handler. He should have insisted on payment whether the six people made it here or not; now his contact might refuse to pay him if the pick-up wasn’t fulfilled as planned.

Yuan drove across the semi-lit bridge, checking for the team; but there was absolutely nothing. He continued on to the other side, checking for cameras and other vehicles as instructed. Seeing none, he turned his truck around and headed back for the bridge, his emotions mixed; he wanted the money, but could do without the stress.

But, he decided, in his line of work you could often have stress without the money, but rarely – if ever – the money without stress.

He headed back out on to the Yongding bridge, slowing down, headlights on full, straining his eyes to see something;
anything
.

The banging on his truck door sent instant adrenal shockwaves through his system, almost causing his heart to give up entirely; he turned and looked out of his window, shocked to see the blackened face of a commando staring back at him, nodding his head, gesturing for him to continue.

He continued to watch through his wing mirror in amazement as the man then dropped to the roadside again, slipping in past the rear of the truck as it rolled by him, pulling himself on board.

It was then that Yuan realized that the other five people were probably already in the back of his truck, having climbed in without him even realizing.

Whoever they were, Yuan decided as he once more wiped the sweat from his soaking brow, they were
good
; and as he accelerated away from the bridge, towards the turn-off for the S30 highway which would take them north to Beijing, this gave him some small, but very welcome, measure of reassurance.

Cole smiled at the other members of his team as they stretched out in the back of the accelerating truck.

They had all stripped out of their wetsuits already, back at the bridge. They had packed them away along with their rebreathers and fins, and then dumped the weighted bags into the deepest part of the Yongding.

They were in full combat gear now, checking their weapons and equipment.

‘How was your boat trip?’ he asked them quietly, once everybody was finally settled. ‘Comfortable?’

‘Shit,’ Chad Davis whispered in his Virginian drawl as he cracked his enormous neck and shoulders, ‘Id’ve been more comfortable in a fucking mouse’s ass-crack.’ He snorted. ‘A mouse that’s getting dragged around the house by a fucking
cat
. If I never do that again, it’ll be too soon.’

Cole smiled; it was typical of Davis to mouth off about the conditions, it was his sense of humor, the way he dealt with the stress of operations. And he knew that the big commando could easily put up with a hell of a lot worse.

Jake Navarone, experienced in SDV infiltrations, nevertheless nodded in understanding. ‘There
were
a couple of times it could have been a bit smoother,’ he said. ‘What happened?’

The four blind passengers listened as Cole told them about their journey, everyone glad they’d avoided the fishing net, and then laughing quietly when he told them about the half-naked teenage divers.

‘Brave sons of bitches,’ Barrington said. ‘If the authorities caught them doin’ that kinda shit round here, they’d likely be pretty sorry about it.’

‘You’re right about that,’ Cole said, amazed by how unruffled the woman seemed by the journey. This was his first operation with Julie Barrington, and he could already see that he’d made a good choice. But you didn’t get to head up a unit of the Special Activities Division’s SOG by being a shrinking violet; she was obviously at the top of her game.

‘Hey, Country,’ Sal Grayson said to Chad Davis, using the Delta operator’s nickname, ‘we’re gonna be in this rig for a little while, how about a song?’

Cole knew that Davis and Grayson had worked together before, even before they’d been asked to join Force One. A key task of the Air Force’s Pararescueman was supporting covert ops by Delta and other high-risk units. Grayson had deployed with a Delta team two years before and had ended up performing a battlefield tracheotomy to Davis’s partner while under heavy fire. He’d saved the man, gained the Purple Heart, and the eternal gratitude of Chad Davis.

Cole also knew that Davis – a country boy through and through – was a pretty good singer, and often crooned old country ballads before an operation to help alleviate the stress everyone would typically be feeling.

‘Good idea,’ agreed Cole. ‘Let’s hear something.’ He knew he didn’t have to tell the man to keep the volume down; that was a given.

Davis smiled broadly. ‘I should start charging you sons of bitches,’ he said, ‘you know that?’

‘Don’t give us that crap, Country,’ Barrington responded. ‘We all know you’re gagging to get started.’

Davis eyed her mischievously. ‘So what if I am?’

‘Well, if you are, you best get started before we arrive in Beijing, that’s what,’ she said with a smile.

‘Okay,’ Davis sighed, holding up his big hands, ‘okay. You asked for it.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Now here’s a little number that reminds me of my childhood, growing up on the – ’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Grayson said with mock impatience, ‘get on with it, why don’cha?’

Davis raised his hand to swat at Grayson’s head, the Air Force combat medic flinching away in response. Everyone laughed, even Grayson.

‘
Almost Heaven, West Virginia,
’ Davis began, his voice soft, controlled, ‘
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River . . . ’

The words poured out, sung quietly, beautifully, and Cole wondered if even the late, great John Denver would have done a better job if he’d been there with them in the back of the truck. He doubted it; most people headed into the lion’s den would have been terrified, unable to keep the stress out of their voice; big Chad Davis sounded as if he was singing in church with his family on a Sunday morning.

But that was how the people he had picked for Force One were made, Cole understood.

They had to be, for the things they had to do.

7

In the end, the
Baijiu
didn’t help Captain Liu Yingchau sleep at all.

It was probably just as well; he had an early start, and it wouldn’t do to be late. He peered from the windows of his concrete apartment block, part of the decrepit tenement in which he had been stationed for the duration of his stay in Beijing, and checked the streets outside. Everything was quiet; the calm before the storm.

His apartment was small, but mercifully above the average worker’s assigned dormitory housing, which was just a shade over six square meters in total. It wasn’t luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but it was better than a lot of places Liu had been, and he was grateful for small mercies.

Timing was crucial this morning, he knew; he had to be in position as promised or he would risk damaging everything. But Liu knew he wouldn’t be late.

He was still wired on adrenalin, using the previous night to try and find out where General Wu was, and when he would be back. He had contacted everyone he knew, tried every trick in the book, but still didn’t have the answer. Would Wu be back in time?

He left his apartment, locking the door behind him and descending the concrete steps of his tenement to the muggy streets below. He could feel the humidity in the atmosphere, knew it would rain today, and rain hard. It
had
to; the air was already too hot, too heavy, not to – even at this early hour. Strange, Liu thought, that the weather forecast hadn’t mentioned rain. Still, that was state control for you; you were only told what the government wanted you to hear.

Liu walked past his motorcycle, watching the glowing disk of the sun as it finally reared its head over the roofs of the apartment buildings which surrounded him, and continued along onto another street.

Two more turns – careful to check if anyone was following him – and he was there, the vehicle parked as promised; a favor he would one day have to return.

He checked his cellphone, hoping for an answer about Wu, but there was nothing.

He wondered how to break the news to the people he would be meeting.

Davis was halfway through a moody rendition of
Hey Good Looking
when Cole stopped him with a raised hand, the driver’s voice coming through his earpiece intercom from the front cab.

‘Sir,’ the voice said in broken English, distorted in Cole’s ear but just about understandable, ‘I think there is a problem.’

Cole signaled the team, who immediately took up their weapons, moving to defensive positions within the rear compartment. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.

‘Roadblock up ahead,’ the driver said nervously. ‘And I think they will stop us. They got me before, stole TVs right out of back.’

The boxes in the back of the truck were gone now – offloaded to the fake CIA delivery site – but there was packaging and debris strewn around the floor, and the Force One members had used it to disguise themselves, blending into the scattered mess perfectly. It wouldn’t fool anyone who actually set foot in the back, but if someone were only to open the doors and look in – especially as the sun was still not yet fully up – then they were unlikely to be discovered.

But if they were, then they would open fire and run; hardly an ideal scenario, but one that had to be faced. Everyone’s safety catches were off, ready to go.

‘What shall I do?’ the driver’s nervous voice came back. ‘Shall I turn around? Or accelerate? Ram them?’

The man was getting more and more excitable, and Cole had to calm him down; the last thing they needed was for the truck to do something suspicious, and turning around so close to a roadblock might be almost as bad as ramming it.
Almost.

‘No,’ Cole said as calmly as he could. ‘Just keep going. Trust me.’

Trust him?

It was easy for
him
to say – whoever
he
was.

He
had five friends with guns to help back him up. What did Yuan Ziyang have? A revolver and a knife! He was going to end up as road kill.

‘Listen,’ the voice came through again, cool and professional, its tone demanding that Yuan do just that. ‘Don’t worry. Keep driving normally. Be confident. Do not turn around, and do not accelerate.’

‘What if they stop me?’ he asked, getting closer now, seeing them through his windshield; the same men he’d seen earlier that morning, who’d cheated him, robbed him. A part of him
wanted
them to stop him again, to see what the people in the back of the truck would do to them.

But the other part, the one that wanted to live, didn’t want to see that at all.

And so he did as the voice told him and just kept on driving, right towards the corrupt cops.

Would they recognize the van? Would they stop it? They’d stolen from him once, why not again?

And then he was next to them, and within the next few seconds he was past them, waved on with nothing more than a nod of the head and a sly, knowing grin from the man who’d taken his address.

They hadn’t been stopped! The voice had been right!

‘Yes!’ he called down the intercom. ‘We’re through! We’re through!’

Cole had to pull the earpiece out, the man’s shouts threatening to deafen him.

Cole was pleased, but not surprised; if this team had stolen TVs from the truck on the way to a delivery, they would know it would be empty on the way back. So why try and stop it?

But stranger things had happened, and Cole’s finger had been on the trigger of his M4, ready to depress at the first target that came into his sightline.

Gratefully, gladly, he relaxed the finger slightly, allowing it to switch the safety back on. But the carbine still rested in his arms, ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

They were getting close now, Cole noted as he stared at his GPS monitor.

And things were only going to get more difficult.

‘Take the S303 east,’ the voice said just twenty minutes after passing the roadblock.

‘What?’ Yuan said, confused. ‘I am taking you into Beijing, no?’

‘Not anymore. Take the S303 east.’

‘What is this?’

Yuan was unsure of what to do; the CIA had given him orders, but now the team was here, did that mean that
they
were in charge?

He considered things for a few moments, and made an obvious conclusion; if nothing else, the people in the back of his truck
were
the ones with the guns.

‘Yes sir,’ he confirmed, changing lanes. ‘No problem.’

‘Good choice,’ Cole told the man, continuing to guide him as they turned south into the Xitianyangcun district, just outside the South 6
th
Ring Road and the interior of Beijing proper.

Cole knew the driver would be confused, receiving orders which conflicted with those given to him by his CIA handlers, but his discomfort was of less interest to Cole than was getting into the Chinese capital safely and without being detected.

Cole had therefore arranged for another form of onward transport, and one which the CIA would know nothing about; for however good their own security was, leaks still happened, and Cole couldn’t take the chance of their mission being compromised.

Eventually, Cole gave the final direction, and the truck rolled to a gentle stop, the driver giving the all-clear.

The street was empty.

In an instant, Cole and his team were out of the back, into an abandoned junkyard; and then the other five members snaked quickly away through wrecked cars and broken washing machines.

Cole himself ran to the front, calling to the driver through the open window. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Now get out of here.’

He banged the side of the truck, and the driver did as he was told, maneuvering the vehicle back out of the junkyard towards the maze of residential streets beyond that would take him back to the S303 and the safety of his normal life.

The relief in his eyes was obvious.

And then Cole was running, heading after his team through the wrecked and twisted metal of the junkyard.

He emerged into a clearing a few moments later, watching as Grayson and Collins were already getting into their next mode of transportation, Navarone shaking hands with the driver, his old friend Liu Yingchau.

Davis and Barrington were apprehensively waiting their turn to get in, and Cole could understand why – their next journey was going to be enjoyed hidden within the filth and muck of a Beijing municipal garbage truck.

‘You’ve gotta be shitting me,’ Davis said as Cole approached. ‘Come back SDV, all is forgiven.’

Barrington laughed quietly. ‘Maybe next time
I’ll
make the travel arrangements?’ she suggested.

Cole just shrugged, and gestured for them to get inside.

They understood the reasons just fine, and he knew he didn’t have to explain it to them; there was no way in hell that any security force, no matter
how
zealous they were, would ever check inside the back of a garbage truck.

And as the smell from the rear of the vehicle hit Cole, he could well understand why.

He watched Davis and Barrington climb in, covering themselves with the filth and garbage, miniature breathing masks firmly in place; then saw Liu climb into the driver’s cab, Navarone now by his side; and then, trying to ignore the fetid stench and the horrific feel of the slimy rubbish, he followed them in.