Black Horn (33 page)

Guido looked down the hatch into the saloon and saw four men sitting around the
table, playing mah-jong and laughing and drinking. There was a bottle of almost
empty Black Label whisky on the table. He flicked off the safety of his FNP90.
Then he slowly started down the companionway. He had almost reached the bottom
before one of the men looked up and saw him.

It was
the last thing he saw. In a two-second burst, Guido sprayed bullets across the
table. Two of them died immediately. The other two scrabbled on the deck,
screaming in agony. As Guido changed a magazine, he heard Tony Cope's SMG open
up on the top deck. Guido switched to single shot, and put a bullet through the
heads of the two wounded men. Shouts came from his left. A bulkhead door opened
and a man came through, holding a pistol. A one-second burst and the man was
punched back through the door. Guido ran and jumped over the body and his eyes
took in the tableau: Lucy -- tied to the bed on her stomach and the naked man
scrambling off her body. The naked man hit the floor, rolled over and held up
his hands. Guido emptied the rest of the magazine into him.

The garbage truck came slowly around the tight corner. The driver hit the brakes as
soon as he saw the obstacle in front of him. It was a small tree, its branches
lying right across the road. The truck came to a halt and the driver said to
his assistant, "Pull that out of the way."

The other man cursed from under a rice wine hangover. He opened the cab and jumped
down. As he approached the tree, the driver heard a voice on his right. He
turned and saw the dark muzzle of a pistol pointing between his eyes. Behind it
was a blackened Caucasian face, under a black skullcap.

Twenty seconds later, the driver and his assistant were lying in he roadside ditch,
handcuffed together, both by their ankles and their wrists. The garbage truck
was trundling away down the road.

In Inspector Lau's office, the voices came through the speaker, again, very cryptically.
First, it was Do Huang talking to Maxie MacDonald. Wang identified the voices
for the Commissioner and his Inspector.

"We have possession of the vehicle."

"Timescale?"

"Between ten and twelve minutes."

"We're ready."

Then Guido's voice: "I'm coming ashore."

The sun had risen. Eric Laparte, with Maxie beside him, holding the first of the bombs,
was a hundred metres away to the east of the compound in a clump of bushes with
his mortar set up. Above them on the hill, Tom Sawyer was looking through
binoculars at the compound. All was quiet. Two men were squatting in front of
the villa, half-asleep in the early sunlight.

Tom
took the binoculars from his eyes, looked to his right and saw the garbage
truck approaching. He unclipped the small mobile phone from his belt, punched
the buttons and said, "About two minutes."

His
voice carried into Inspector Lau's office, into the suite at the Peninsula
Hotel, into Creasy's ear, and into the earplugs of the rest of the team.

Do
Huang reached the gates and hit the horn of the truck impatiently.

Tom
watched as the two men in front of the villa roused themselves and went to the
gate. A minute later, the garbage truck was passing through the gates and
moving down the road beside the villa. Tom spoke into the mobile phone:
"Mortar... about sixty seconds."

He
watched as the garbage truck pulled up in front of the service building. He
heard the sound of its horn again, and saw the two men carrying out black
garbage bags. The automated back of the truck lifted, and as Do Huang came out
of the cab, Creasy came out of the back.

The war
started.

Do
Huang shot the two men with the garbage bags, and then ducked behind the truck,
facing the service building. Creasy ran towards the villa. The two half-awake
guards at the front of the villa grabbed their submachine-guns and ran towards
the truck. Creasy lifted his SMG and, while still running, emptied his magazine
at them. They spun away into the dust.

Eric
waited until Do Huang had backed away from the garbage truck towards the villa.
The moment he was clear of the intervening space, Tom lifted his phone and
said: "Mortar."

Two
seconds later, Maxie dropped the first bomb down the mortar tube. Tom heard the
crumps of the detonations and then watched the result. He signalled: "Back
ten metres." Eric adjusted the mortar and then Maxie was dropping the
bombs down the barrel. Six mortars were in the air as the 14K fighters spilled
out of the service building. The bombs dropped among them at three-second
intervals, killing them instantly.

Tom
dropped the binoculars, picked up his SMG and ran down the hill. He came up
beside Frank, who had the barrel of the RPG7 over his shoulder. He watched as
the rocket took off slowly, gathered speed and smashed into the wall. Seconds
later, he heard an explosion on the other side of the compound, which had to be
Maxie's rocket, also breaching the wall. He saw the shape of The Owl beside him,
racing for the breach, and raced after him.

Creasy
reached the front of the villa. He could hear shouts from inside. He did not
try to open the door; he just lifted his submachine gun and blasted away at the
lock. Do Huang was behind him, facing out, his SMG held high and ready.

Creasy
went through the door in a crouch. There were two figures in the passageway on
his left. He fired a full magazine and, a second later, had replaced it. Beyond
the hallway was a large room with ornate furniture and, beyond that, another
passage. Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder. Do Huang was walking backwards,
guarding his back.

Creasy
shouted, "Do! Stay right there. Be careful on your trigger. It could be
one or more of ours coming through that door."

Then he
turned and ran down the passage. From outside the building he could hear the
stuttering of small-arms fire on both sides, and he knew that both teams were
inside the compound. Creasy had seen photographs of Tommy Mo and his top
people, and for the next three minutes, he hunted them down from bedroom to
bedroom. Some died in their beds, some died rushing out of their rooms, some
died with their hands in the air. Creasy had no mercy. At the end of the
corridor, he paused at a massive mahogany door. He heard running steps behind
him and Do's voice calling: "Maxie's guarding the door."

From
behind the heavy door, they could hear a voice screaming out in Chinese.

Do
said, "That's got to be him."

Creasy
said, "Back off. You fire at the lock and I'll go through in a roll. Come
right after me." They moved back about five metres and Do raised his SMG
and fired a magazine into the lock. The door was half-ajar. Creasy ran forward,
hit the door with his shoulder and rolled into the room.

Tommy
Mo was in the far corner, wearing a pair of white underpants and holding a
pistol with both hands. He managed to get off one shot, which winged Creasy.
Then Creasy was firing his SMG and sending death across the room.

In the
compound between the two buildings, the battle raged on. Eric Laparte lay dead,
cut down as he tried to storm the service building. Tom Sawyer had taken a
bullet in his left shoulder, but he leaned against the corner of the villa and
with his right hand sent a deadly fire as the 14K fighters poured out of the
building. Frank Miller was at the other corner, lobbing grenades.

They
began to pull out. Maxie ran across the compound and crouched beside Tom
Sawyer. "Can you walk?"

"Yes,"
he answered.

They
headed for the breach in the wall. From the front of the villa, Creasy and Do
emerged. They headed for the same breach. The Owl stood over the body of Eric
Laparte and knew immediately that he was dead. They also moved out, firing a
last burst at the service building. He stayed at the breach while the others
went past him, and watched as the last of the fighters gathered. He lobbed two
grenades, and then started running.

About
twenty 14K fighters had survived the assault. They gathered themselves and
their weapons and gave chase. As they came down the path towards the sea, they
saw their tormentors ahead, and they saw the elegant motor vessel waiting
offshore. They ran faster. From the hill on the right, a submachine-gun opened
up, and from the launch, a heavy machine-gun began to cut them down.

The
surviving fighters of the 14K forgot their oaths of initiation and dived into
the bushes and rocks, watching as the two black dinghies moved out from the
shore to the launch. They heard the roar of engines and saw the launch head
South-East, leaving nothing but the triangle of a white-topped wake.

They
listened to the last transmission between Creasy and Jens Jensen. The MY
Tempest had just crossed the twelve-mile territorial line on its way to Manila.

The
Commissioner turned to Inspector Lau and murmured, "So, he took
casualties."

"I'm
sure they expected to," Lau said. "But one dead and two wounded is
not bad."

The
Commissioner held up his hand and they both looked at the speaker and listened.

Creasy
was saying: "We definitely got our target and many others. Are Mrs Manners
and Rene copying this conversation?"

The
voices came through the speaker: "We are."

"OK.
Listen carefully. Our ETA in Manila is about twelve hundred hours tomorrow. We
need doctors and ambulances waiting, and three private rooms booked in the
American hospital. It would also be useful to have an official from the US
Embassy on hand, to help with any formalities. Mrs Manners call Jim Grainger.
I'm sure he can arrange that."

"Understood,"
Gloria said. "Don't worry about anything in Manila. I'll be waiting for
you."

Jens's
voice cut in: "Ten minutes ago, I phoned and booked us into the Manila
Hotel. The phone number is 48x738. We'll be in that hotel from three o'clock
this afternoon. If you need anything else, get a phone patch through your
VHF."

"Will
do."

The
speaker went dead and as Inspector Lau turned to the Commissioner, one of the
phones on his desk rang. He picked it up, listened for a moment and then passed
it to the Commissioner, saying, "It's the situation room."

"About
time," the Commissioner said. He put the phone to his ear and at the end
of three minutes said, "Have Sai Kung station fax me a preliminary report
within the hour, and I want a full report on my desk by the middle of the
afternoon. Send a full team, including forensics." He listened again and
then said, "You may be right. I'll wait for the full report." He put
the phone down and said to the Inspector, "A Marine Police launch noticed
smoke coming from the Ninepins area. They found a large burnt-out junk, and two
dead bodies with gunshot wounds floating nearby. There were other dead bodies
on board, but they don't yet know how many, because the wreck's still
smouldering and in danger of sinking. They're trying to beach it right now.
Meanwhile, the Sai Kung station reported heavy gunfire from the direction of
the 14K villa compound. The first radio reports are coming in now. There are
bodies everywhere. Apparently, your friends used mortar bombs and rockets to breach
the walls."

"Tommy
Mo?" Lau asked.

Both he
and the constable watched the Commissioner's face closely. They saw a slight
smile.

"Tommy
Mo is very dead. So is the entire top strata of the 14K and at least twenty of
their fighters. They found one dead gweilo. They are still searching the place.
The helicopter passed over the area fifteen minutes ago, and reported seeing a
string of dead bodies near the coast."

The
Commissioner stood up and stretched his tired frame. He looked first at
Inspector Lau and then at Constable Ho and said, "You both did well.
Obviously the 14K will now fracture into many pieces and be much easier to deal
with."

The
other men stood too, and Lau asked, "How will you handle it, Sir?"

"Handle
what?"

The
Inspector gestured out the window in the direction of the New Territories.

"Well,
what happened out at Sai Kung this morning and at the Ninepins."

Very
seriously, the Commissioner answered, "I think my report to the Governor
will show that we had a larger than normal, inter-Triad war."

"What
about the dead gweilo?" the constable asked.

"By
the time I've made two phone-calls from my office, there will not be a dead
gweilo. Just a bunch of dead Triads." He walked out of the office with a
jaunty step.

For the
first twenty-five miles, Tony Cope had driven the MY Tempest on full throttle.
Fortunately, the wind had only been Force One from the North-West, and the
vessel rode smoothly through negligible swell. The autopilot was on, and he sat
watching the radar screen. For the last fifteen minutes he had noted several
blips moving rapidly in the direction of the Ninepins, to their rear. They
would be Marine Police launches. Damon Broad was below in the fo'c'sle. In four
hours, he would take over the watch. Creasy came up the companionway.

"Are
you OK?" Tony asked.

"Yes,
I was lucky. I just lost a few millimetres off my waist."

"And
the others?"

"Maxie
got the bullet out of Tom Sawyer's shoulder. He should be all right. It's lucky
we had a full-scale medical kit on board."

"Those
were my orders," Tony Cope answered. "How's the lady?"

"Traumatized,"
Creasy answered. "She wouldn't let me near her. Guido's with her. He's
given her enough sedation to make her sleep, and he'll keep her asleep until we
reach Manila."

"Then
what?"

Creasy
stretched his tired body.

"Then
Mrs Gloria Manners takes over. I've no doubt she'll hire the best psychologists
and take a very personal interest."