Beyond all Limits (19 page)

8

Clark Mason was on his way home from the White House, Bruce Vinson’s arrogant words still infuriating him. He knew he should just forget about it, but he couldn’t.

As the armored limousine, driven and guarded by members of his Secret Service security detail, whisked him along Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, he thought back to his meeting with Vinson earlier that afternoon.

It was clear that the man was hiding something, and it was equally clear that he thought that Mason – despite his enormous wealth, power and influence – was no threat to him or his organization.

Well
, Mason thought angrily,
the sonofabitch is dead wrong about that.

He was going to take Vinson’s organization apart piece by piece, and then destroy him
and
his pet commando Mark Cole.

Mason had been sitting in on the latest NSC meeting back at the White House, upset but not entirely surprised when a briefing had been given by none other than Richard Stark and Norma Valente, the Paradigm Group’s best people on China, just as Vinson had said. What was even more distressing was that they
were
very good, and he’d been given nothing to complain about.

The upshot of the entire meeting was that the American government still had no real clue about what to do with General Wu and the People’s Republic of China. There was the usual mix of hawks and doves arguing about the action the United States should be taking, and the meeting had soon degenerated into a shouting match between the two factions.

Mason had noted with interest that President Abrams was reticent on the subject of military action, a course that she was normally only too willing to follow. This, to Mason, was tantamount to proof that an operation must already be underway. Of what sort, he had no idea; but something was happening, of that he could be sure.

Mason wondered whether to confront Abrams about it; after all, as the VP he had a right to know. As did the rest of the members of the NSC, the House of Congress, and three hundred and twenty million American citizens.

But he still had no real proof, and knew he better leave it until he could present his allegations as a
fait accompli
. He had his people in US Special Operations Command and JSOC looking into things for him now; if any official personnel or vehicles were being used outside of training or ongoing operations, he would soon know about it.

And so he was going to go back to his villa at One Observatory Circle and drown his sorrows with a bottle or two of Puligny Montrachet. His wife was out across country speaking at a charity event – save the poor, or some crap like that; he didn’t remember, and certainly didn’t care – and he was looking forward to having the place to himself.

His phone buzzed, and he picked it up, pleased to see Sarah Lansing’s name on the screen.

Lansing was his latest mistress, twenty-two years old and with the face and body of a supermodel, her ebony skin unbelievably smooth, almost flawless. She might even
be
a supermodel for all Mason knew; he was sure he must have asked her what she did for a living, and she would have told him, but he supposed he hadn’t really been interested in the answer.

‘Are you going to be all alone tonight?’ she asked sweetly.

‘Perhaps not,’ Mason answered. He’d planned on being alone, but on second thoughts, why not have some company? His Secret Service detail was discreet enough, and the Vice Presidential home had nowhere near the security or the public attention that the White House did. He supposed he’d better take advantage of it before he changed address. ‘Would you care to come over?’

‘I’d love to,’ Lansing said. ‘And I’ll bring something . . . special.’

‘What is it?’ Mason asked, enjoying the teasing.

‘Oh, you’ll just have to wait and see. But trust me, you’re going to love it.’

Knowing Lansing like her did, he was sure she wouldn’t disappoint him, and he already started to feel himself getting excited at the mere thought of her and what she would do to him.

‘I’ll send someone over to get you right away,’ he said breathlessly.

He put the phone down, more eager to get home than ever.

Despite the pocket air mask, the stench from the garbage was intense.

But it had served its purpose; the truck had been stopped twice on the way in, and neither time had the back been searched. One look at it, one whiff of it, was enough to convince the security forces not to venture any further.

And now the truck was rolling to a stop again, and the beep that came through to Cole’s mobile device told him that they’d made it; and it was time to go.

The sun was up now, but the signal from Liu meant that the coast must be clear, so Cole moved quickly through the noxious, slimy garbage, pulling himself mercifully out of the truck, checking the back alley around him for a moment, and then rolling back underneath the truck in one smooth action.

Once underneath the large vehicle, Cole took hold of the manhole cover in front of him and pulled hard. It moved instantly – Liu had been ordered to make sure it wasn’t welded or rusted tightly shut the day before – and he slid it across to one side, dropping down into the dark hole beyond.

He dropped five feet and landed in ankle-deep water, knees bending to take the impact. He immediately moved to one side and lit his high-powered torch, illuminating the cavern-like sewer tunnel around him as Grayson dropped down, followed by Barrington, Collins and Davis.

Davis stayed where he was, and Cole watched as Navarone levered himself down onto the giant’s shoulders, holding himself there as he pulled the manhole cover back into position above him. The task completed, Navarone dropped to the ground beside Davis, the sound of the truck rumbling off down the alleyway muted above them.

‘Well, it might be a sewer,’ Davis said as he breathed in the air, ‘but I’d take it over that garbage truck any day of the week.’

Cole smiled. ‘We got here in one piece didn’t we?’

Davis acknowledged that fact with a grunt, and then everyone stared to move as one, following Cole’s lead down the sewer tunnel, headed west.

After ten minutes of slow, arduous movement through the thick, sludgy water which at times rose above their knees, they came to a stop at a larger area with a raised concrete platform to one side, the tunnel breaking off in three different directions.

Cole held up his hand for the team to stop.

‘We’ll lay up here for now,’ he said. ‘Check comms, weapons and equipment. Then we go our separate ways.’

The team immediately started their checks, making sure everything was still operational after their long, tortuous journey.

Navarone moved up to Cole, gesturing with his head to move to one side.

Cole did as he was asked, Navarone’s mouth going to his ear. ‘Wu’s not here,’ he said.

‘What?’ Cole asked in surprise.

‘Liu tells me he made a speech from Taipei just last night. The Politburo are still in place, Liu’s got me an updated position, and he’s got a secure cell to confirm just before we launch, but he
can’t
confirm Wu will be there this afternoon.’

Cole nodded his head, thinking even as he went through his own weapons checks. Just because Wu was in Taiwan last night didn’t mean he would still be there now; he could still make the Dragon Boat races that afternoon.

But even if he didn’t, Cole was here now; if Wu wasn’t here today, he would just wait. It would make things a lot more difficult – the plan was to coordinate his assassination and the rescue of the Politburo on the same day – but not impossible.

Nothing was
ever
impossible.

It made things awkward, but there was no reason that Navarone’s part of the operation couldn’t go exactly as planned. If the PRC government ministers were rescued before Wu was killed, that would still be okay; it would be more problematic the other way around, as Wu’s death might cause fatal reprisals if the Politburo were still being held.

Cole had planned on extracting with the rest of team, but that too wasn’t an absolute necessity; if needed, he could make his own way home.

‘Continue as planned,’ Cole said. ‘I’ll know beforehand whether he’s going to be there and I’ll let you know via secure comms. But even if he’s not, it doesn’t affect you at all.’

‘Will you extract with us?’

Cole shook his head. ‘Not if I don’t get a shot at him, no. I’ll stay until the job’s finished. You go without me, I’ll get back by myself.’

Navarone nodded, accepting Cole’s statement with total faith.

‘Okay,’ he said, clapping Navarone’s shoulder and addressing the rest of the group, ‘let’s do a final comms check.’

Everyone tested their devices, confirming that all frequencies were working and that they were still secure. Synchronization of the team’s watches came next, and then Cole looked at each member of Force One in turn.

‘Okay. I’m not one for speeches, but we all know what’s at stake here. We know what to do, so let’s get on and do it. Good luck.’

And with that, Cole was gone, travelling down the easternmost tunnel to his final destination.

He knew his team wouldn’t let him down; but, Navarone’s words still on his mind, he could only hope that he would be able to fulfil his own part of the mission.

PART FOUR

1

Graham ‘Ace’ Anderson wasn’t a happy man.

As CIA Chief of Station Beijing, he had leant his support to the infiltration of the unknown covert ops team, organizing for one of his own agents – the truck driver Yuan Ziyang – to deliver the personnel into Beijing.

And now he was being told that the team leader had directed Yuan to some random junkyard outside of the city limits and told him to go take a hike. And just like that, the team had disappeared.

Where they were, or what they were up to, was anybody’s guess.

The thing that made Anderson so annoyed about the whole affair was his own lack of knowledge. He could count the things he did know on the fingers of one hand – an American covert ops team was infiltrating into Beijing; one of the agents would be assuming an identity that Anderson’s team had set up, in order to meet with General Wu; the other members of the team would be tackling another, unknown, target; and an exfiltration plan had been set up by his station for as many as thirty people.

He hadn’t been told, but it was obvious what was going on; the team would try and rescue the surviving members of the Politburo, while the single agent would attempt to find out what he could about Wu’s future plans. Anderson had considered the fact that the man might try and assassinate the general, but such a move would be suicidal; and as far as Anderson knew, it wasn’t the policy of the US government to endorse suicidal missions. Dangerous missions certainly, missions where the operators could be killed, absolutely; but out-and-out
suicidal?
Not really.

He appreciated the fact that he couldn’t be told everything even at the same time that he was angered by it. Compartmentalization was the cornerstone of secrecy, after all; and he understood why the team might want to do its own thing.

But where did that leave him and his own agency? Anything that the covert unit did would reflect on him in some way, and he was unsure of what the ramifications would be. The Chinese intelligence services knew who he was, it was no secret. He had been watched like a hawk since the first second he’d set foot in China, which was why he left much of the boot work to his subordinate agents. For this one, he’d made the necessary arrangements through a series of cut-outs; primarily so that things could get done without the government knowing about it, but secondarily so that things would be harder to trace if things went wrong.

But he was under no illusions – if General Wu realized that an American unit had been operating in Beijing, then he would be called in for immediate questioning, and his diplomatic status be damned. Wu obviously held little respect for international law – you only had to look at the situation with the USS
Ford
to see that. Anderson dreaded to think what would happen in the subterranean dungeons underneath the Zhongnonhai.

Of course, if it came to that, Anderson would attempt to make his own way out of the city; and if he was caught, then it would be the classic cyanide capsule, a version of which he had carried with him for the past thirty-seven years. And he certainly didn’t want
that
.

As a result, despite his misgivings about things, he wanted the team to succeed.

But how could he assist them if he didn’t even know where they were?

His secure telephone rang, and he snatched it off the desk, pressed it to his ear.

‘Talk to me,’ he said, then listened as one of his local agents reported. Dietrich Hoffmeyer was on his way up to his room in the Grand Hyatt Beijing.

Anderson exhaled slowly.

Okay; at least now he knew where one of the team members was. Hoffmeyer was the identity that the CIA had set up for the operator who would be working alone, and who was supposed to be meeting with General Wu that afternoon.

If
the man showed up; it was still unknown at the moment if he would even be in Beijing at all.

Anderson shook his head slowly; there were so many things that could go wrong.

He looked at the clock on his wall. Just before eight o’clock in the morning.

He started to go through his own escape plans in his mind, wondering quite seriously if it was too early to start drinking.

Cole dropped his leather bag onto the opulent king-size bed in his Club Suite, wandering over to the huge window with its view of Chang An Avenue below.

As he turned back to the room, he couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty; here he was in the lap of luxury, while his team mates were stuck down in the stinking sewers for the next few hours.

But as Dietrich Hoffmeyer, lead negotiator for TransNat Drilling, it was expected of him to stay in the finest accommodations. The company itself was real, a German-Dutch combine which was making a name for itself in offshore oil exploration and drilling operations. He was here to see General Wu ostensibly in order to offer to undercut the current company which Wu had agreed to use in the waters of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. His psychological profile hinted that the man was led by greed to a large extent, and Cole aimed to capitalize on this.

The real Hoffmeyer had been in the city for weeks, trapped in the paradise of the Beijing Grand Hyatt due to Wu’s directive that nobody be allowed to leave until things were ‘returned to normal’.

The meeting between General Wu and Dietrich Hoffmeyer had been made by the CIA entirely without Hoffmeyer’s knowledge. The ruse had been Cole’s suggestion; the oil business in the Senkakus was hardly public knowledge yet, and Wu would want to keep any negotiations to himself, for fear of his monetary greed coming to light just at the time he was trying to win over the Chinese people. They had to believe it was a patriotic, political act, and not one which benefitted him financially. But Wu
was
highly driven by wealth, and the offer of cheaper exploitation costs would certainly appeal to him.

During Cole’s planning, he had discovered the identities of foreigners working – and now trapped – in Beijing, and had quickly spotted Hoffmeyer and his company as being of interest. And so Cole had instructed the CIA to arrange a meeting between Wu and the sales negotiator. It didn’t matter where it was; any meeting would get Cole close enough to administer the death strikes.

It had been Wu’s idea to meet at the Dragon Boat festival, clearly wanting to get things moving quickly, and the CIA had agreed. There were both benefits and pitfalls to the location, but overall Cole had been pleased with it, and had planned the mission around the timings given.

But Cole had realized that things might not work out, and had a contingency plan of sorts; if the meeting was cancelled, he would still attend the Dragon Boat festival at Beihai Park. He had learned that Wu wanted to get out among his people, and Cole would try and get close to him as part of the crowd. And if
that
failed, then he would remain in Beijing and look for another chance.

The rescue of the Politburo members would go ahead anyway, to at least give the country some chance of reestablishing itself once Wu was finally gone.

To help the operation along, last night the real Hoffmeyer had been invited to a meeting at which the situation had been explained to him by the CIA. He had willingly agreed to go into their custody, allowing Cole to slip right into his identity; a good move by Hoffmeyer, as if he’d refused, he would have been kidnapped anyway.

Earlier that morning, Cole had maneuvered his way through the subterranean sewers until he’d reached a point where they linked up with the Beijing subway rail network. Within the sewer, a waterproof bag had been placed by the CIA with a washing kit, dry clothes, and a full set of identity papers for Dietrich Hoffmeyer, alongside a rudimentary but effective disguise.

He’d cleaned himself as best he could, then slipped into the clothes, identity and persona of Dietrich Hoffmeyer before leaving the sewers through an access hatch that led to the Beijing subway.

He had left his combat gear behind in the sewers, not willing to take the risk of getting stopped with it on the streets of Beijing, but had kept his personal secure communications gear so that he could continue to stay in contact with his team.

His weapons and equipment would still be there if he ever needed them – placed back inside the waterproof bag and hidden underneath the filthy water.

Cole stripped off the clothes he’d used to travel from the subway to his hotel, his body still dirty from the garbage truck and the sewers, and put them to one side.

A shower was the first thing he needed if he was going to make his meeting with General Wu later that day; well-paid international sales executives weren’t known for their lack of attention to personal hygiene, and he had to look the part.

And as Cole strode into the marble-shrouded, walk-in shower, turning the powerful, beautifully warm water onto his naked, aching body, he knew all too well to appreciate the glorious feeling while it lasted.

Things were only going to get worse from here.

‘I bet the commander’s enjoying a hot shower right now,’ Davis griped, stretching out his huge body on the equipment pack which he’d placed between him and the wet concrete of the sewer tunnel. ‘Yeah, or maybe a bubble bath with a glass of champagne.’

‘Maybe,’ Navarone agreed. ‘I know I would be.’

‘You’re damn straight,’ Davis said. ‘I’d be sending out for room service and a Thai massage.’

‘You’d probably get charged twice as much as a normal human being,’ Barrington said, looking at his massive frame.

‘Hey, I’m worth every cent, believe me,’ Davis replied with a grin.

Navarone smiled too, glad that everyone was relaxed. The truth was that they didn’t know where Mark Cole was headed; there was mention of a hotel, but that was all. They didn’t even know which one, and they had no idea what identity he was operating under, or what his plan was.

That was the way it had to be; if they were caught, they couldn’t tell the enemy what they didn’t even know.

But if Cole was in a hotel, then good for him; there would be a good reason, and the fact was that Cole’s own mission was even more dangerous than theirs. He had no weapons, and was going right into the very heart of the military regime, in the middle of the security iron circle. Navarone had no idea how he was going to do it. But if anyone could accomplish this incredible task, it would be Cole. Even before they’d met, Navarone had heard rumors of an elite government assassin known as the ‘Asset’, a man whose reputation and status were legendary. Navarone had now seen the man work first-hand, and could confirm that the rumors were no myth. He fully expected to see Cole at the extraction RV that night, mission completed.

Their own situation was not as pleasant as it could have been, Navarone admitted, but it was far from the worst possibilities. It might be stinking and dirty down there in the sewers, but at least they were alone and unmolested. Grayson and Collins were busy drilling into the sewer tunnel ceiling above them, using specialist tools which – although far from silent – would at least remain undetectable to anyone above. Despite the area being at the thinnest part between the tunnel and the palace complex above, there was still two meters of stone and rock separating them.

The team had moved from its laying up point where they’d separated from Cole, following their blueprints of the Beijing sewer network, with assistance from their GPS systems, until they’d reached their insertion point directly underneath the Forbidden City. With several hours to go, they had all the preparation time they needed.

Navarone sipped hot chocolate from his metal mug and looked at his MRE options; as well as rest, food was always welcome when there was a lull in the action. He had the usual butterflies in his stomach, the knot that pulled away at his gut, and although he wasn’t hungry, he knew he had to eat. Food equaled energy, and he was going to need some for the hours ahead.

He finally decided on the meatloaf – conservative and safe – and turned on his tiny propane cooker. MREs were often heated on operations by the ‘flameless ration heater’, but Navarone preferred the boil-in-the-bag method whenever he could get away with it. And in a deserted sewer, he reckoned he could get away with a flame or too. The psychological effect of an open fire – however small – was also something that Navarone believed should never be overlooked.

Two more bags sailed over to him, and Navarone caught them reactively – Davis’s and Barrington’s own MRE packets.

‘Put those on too, will you?’ Davis asked. ‘I’ll get hungry watching you stuff your face.’

Navarone nodded, smiling to himself. With lesser operators he would have to remind them to rest, to eat, to open their bowels while they had the chance. But not with these people; they were the best of the best, and if Navarone had any misgivings about their chances of success, it wasn’t in any way due to the guys he was working with.

Their five-person team had to work their way inside the Forbidden City – preferably undetected, despite the presence of a two-hundred man security force – and then rescue nearly
two dozen
people; people, Navarone reminded himself, who might not necessarily
want
to be rescued. But Cole had told him that he could use his discretion with those people, and that was exactly what Navarone intended to do. He was good at discretion.