Warriors (49 page)

Hawke said, “Boots on the ground, First Knight. LZ Liberator all clear.”

“LZ clear, roger that. I have you in visual contact, boss. Better duck, here comes the cavalry, over.”

He and Stoke would lead the two eight-man squads, code-named Lone Eagle and First Knight. Usually, in HR ops like this one, they would divide and conquer. Tonight was different. There was no way of anticipating the degree or concentration of resistance they would encounter.

Hawke, who trusted his instincts in these situations, had early on told Fitz and Chief Rainwater he believed they stood a better chance of survival if they stayed together as a cohesive unit. In the face of unknowable opposition, he wanted to present the enemy with a unified force, one with enormous combined firepower.

Two minutes later, Stoke was standing beside him, cutting away the remains of his chute.

“Boss, you know what they say about the best-laid plans?”

Hawke looked over at him. This wasn’t going to be good news.

“Yeah?”

“Froggy’s comms guy, Elvis Peete, he just got a radio flash from CIA Langley. Seems a Chinese army military medium-range transport, an IL-76MD, just lifted off from Ching Li air base on the mainland. She’d boarded heavy artillery and at least a hundred spec-ops paratroops, the best they got, badass storm troopers. CIA is certain the destination is Xinbu Island. Flown in specifically to protect this new leader, General Moon, and his fleet of Centurions. En route now.”

“Christ. Flying time from mainland to Xinbu?”

“Langley operations estimate the IL-76 will arrive here over target at 0400 hours. Enemy boots on the ground at 0430. Our guys up against a hundred heavily armed storm troops? Goatfuck, boss, really bad odds.”

Stoke looked at his wristwatch.

“We got less than sixty minutes before they show up.”

“Radio the sub. Get the skipper. Tell him to advance the offshore exfil up one half hour to 0415. Say I want those two SEAL delivery subs off the beach at 0400. Got it? Not a second later.”

“Copy.”

Stoke made the call, listened, and looked at Hawke. “Skipper says he’ll make it happen.”

Hawke had other things on his mind already.

He said, “Look down there. What do you see?”

He indicated the vast enemy compound spread out below them.

“Looks quiet,” Stoke said, his Zeiss binocs sweeping from right to left while they waited for the rest. From this elevated vantage point he could see the entirety of the installation below.

No reply. The man was thinking. Finally, he said, “They have to know we’re coming, Stoke. That’s why Moon called for the paratroops. But if they’re watching for us on their radar, because of the HALO jump, what they don’t know is that we’re already here. Right?”

“Or . . .”

“What?” Hawke said, silently counting off his men as their boots hit the ground.

“Or, somehow, they do know, boss. Whole thing’s a trap. They want us trapped inside their perimeter when all those mainland airborne troops arrive. That’s what Chief Rainwater thinks. And . . . oh never mind. Just idle bullshit, boss.”

“What does he think, Stoke? Tell me.”

“Well, I don’t want to say anything. But.”

“But what?”

“The chief is conjuring up the Chinese updated version of Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn.”

“Seriously?” Hawke said.

Hawke cocked his head and looked at him through narrowed eyes. Stoke knew what was next. Hawke’s really bad Gary Cooper imitation.

“I ain’t no Custer,” Hawke said, dead serious.

Stoke laughed. “Hell no, suh, no, you ain’t!”

“How’s Brock?” Hawke said. “Seemed spooked right before the jump.”

“Told me out on the ramp something about his pucker factor. Said it was spiking a little bit, that’s all.”

“Pucker factor? What the hell is—?”

“Don’t even ask, boss, trust me.”

“I do. Assemble the troops, let’s move out. Now.”

C
H A P T E R
  6 8

T
en minutes later, Hawke’s men were rapidly moving down the rocky shale mountainside in single file. The footing was dicey, a lot of slipping and sliding, but they were moving double time because of the newly adjusted time parameters.

Hawke had started the mental countdown clock in his head. They now had less than fifty minutes to fight their way inside the perimeter and locate the target building. Then they had to locate Chase. If the hostage was still alive, extract him. Get the auto-destruct codes and fight their way to the heavily protected Centurion sub base and wreak such havoc as they were capable of with Chase’s help.

Finally, fight their way to the end of the rocky point where the SDVs would be waiting offshore. And escape to the sub before the overwhelming force of crack paratroops had a chance to stop them.

Nearing the bottom, they entered the good protective cover at the foot of the mountain.

They’d identified the area in the sat photos, large clusters of boulders the size of automobiles with a clear view across the strip of open land to the camp’s stockade fence line beyond. Stoke handed Hawke his high-powered Zeiss binoculars.

A hundred yards inside the fence was a tall steel watchtower, fifty feet high and four sided at the top with a large high-powered searchlight on each corner of the rooftop. Tripod-mounted heavy machine guns were placed on all four sides.

From the aerial views, the tower had looked like some kind of shed on the ground, because all you could see was the roof. Now it was a serious obstacle that must be dealt with. Hawke silently signaled for Fitz to move up. Fitz and his trusty RPG, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

“Can you take that tower out from this distance?” Hawke asked him.

“Is Dublin a city in Ireland?” Fitz replied.

“On my signal,” Hawke said. “Wait for it.”

CONCERTINA WIRE TOPPED THE EIGHT-FOOT-HIGH
fence.

Inside that fence, running the length of it, Hawke knew, was a two-lane asphalt track that encircled the entire compound. Studying the sat feed on board USS
Florida,
he and Stoke had spent hours timing the perimeter guards’ rotation schedule, over and over, until they knew they could count on it. They’d been watching a real-time feed from one of the U.S. military satellites now whirling by above them.

The rotation worked like this.

Two armored troop carriers, each with twin tripod-mounted machine guns in the rear, and carrying eight heavily armed guards, traveled around the perimeter in opposite directions. Every four hours, the two squads were relieved, new men took their places, and the cycle started all over again. The trucks traveled at exactly twenty miles per hour.

It took nearly half an hour to complete the twisting circuit, which looped out around the sub base located on a thrusting rocky point to the seaward side of the military base.

Stoke was on recon, watching the patrol vehicles now patrolling the six-mile-long circuit through high-powered Zeiss glasses.

“On my mark . . .” he said.

The armored vehicles passed each other wordlessly, the officers saluting each other. A moment later, both trucks had disappeared around a curve. Stoke was monitoring the sweep second hand on his Rolex. He knew precisely long it would take for the two vehicles to pass each other on the opposite side of Xinbu Base.

At that precise moment, when the guard trucks were as far from the invaders’ insertion point as possible . . .

The minutes stretched out.

“Mark!” Stoke said, and Hawke tapped Fitz on the top of his helmet.

With a huge
WHOOSH,
the RPG fired. It left a trail of dense white smoke as it streaked toward the target.

Fitz never missed.

Where the tower had been, a blinding ball of yellow, orange, and red. A huge fireball created by the explosion fifty feet in the air. The sound reverberated off the mountainside and lit up the ground around it. Then came a rolling blast wave even Hawke could feel on his face.

“Go, go, go!” he shouted.

Rainwater had already packed C-4 explosives on a twelve-foot-wide section of stockade fence. He pulled out his iPhone and triggered the second blast in as many minutes.

NOW THE EIGHTEEN-MAN HOSTAGE RESCUE
team began to race across open ground to the insertion point in the fence. It had not been chosen randomly. It was at the farthest point from any physical structure within the perimeter.

It was also the farthest point from the guard barracks and the hulking marble monstrosity that was the Te-Wu Academy for young assassins. Not to mention home to its headmaster and new leader of the People’s Republic of China. Hawke’s old enemy. A man whose daughter had once tried to assassinate him. A man who had recently ordered not only Hawke’s own death, but that of his beloved son. A man responsible for the death of a lovely young woman beloved by his son: Sabrina Churchill.

General Sun-Yat Moon.

C
H A P T E R
  6 9

T
he auditorium went quiet as the general crossed the stage and made his way to the podium. The walls of the academy’s Great Hall were hung with battle flags and portraits of China’s great military heroes. A huge monitor behind General Moon carried a heroic image of the general’s face with the scrolling words
CHINA SHALL RULE!
superimposed over it in countless languages.

Moon was impeccably dressed in his customary snow white uniform. He wore mirror-polished knee-high riding boots. Every ribbon, cross, and battle decoration he owned was pinned to the snowy white breast of his brass-buttoned jacket.

Moon gazed out at his flock. The eager faces of the young assassins, the proud faces of their teachers, instructors, and trainers. He smiled. This was a far cry from his own graduate ceremony at Oxford: all the raucous youth, the dour faces of the dons, the ancient architecture, the palpable weight of British history, the old-world feel of it all.

He smiled at his private thought: that was the old world.

This is the new world.

This is my new world.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” the general said, leaning into the microphone in his breathy, soft-spoken way.

“Or should I say, good morning. I confess I am filled with mixed emotions. I have served Te-Wu Academy as headmaster for nearly twenty years. I arrived on this island with only one thing. A vision. A vision to create the world’s very first school for what I shall call ‘the dark arts’ of interrogation and political elimination.

“I recruited the best teachers on the planet, men and women who had served our nation with distinction around the world. And then I began recruiting the first class. Graduates of that class still serve our nation, bringing honor and glory upon us as well as themselves . . . I mentioned mixed emotions. Let me explain, please.

“This is probably the very last time I will address a graduating class . . . No, no, please be quiet and let me continue . . . Address this class and also all the faculty and instructors here with us tonight. Because of my new government and party responsibilities, sadly, I will be leaving you. Leaving my beloved academy to fill a slightly more exalted post in Beijing.”

They laughed, and he paused for a moment to let the laughter die down.

“I will assume the official mantle of the presidency one week from today. And so I have decided that this class, your class, will be graduating from the Te-Wu not in June, as is traditional, but a bit early this year. As a matter of fact, it will be tonight. This very night will be your final examination, as it were. I have assembled all fifty of you here for a very special graduation assignment.

“And so I ask you. And I want to hear your answer. Are you, each of you, ready tonight to meet your final challenge? Shall you serve?”

“We shall serve!” the audience roared in unison, getting to their feet, repeatedly thrusting their right fists into the air and stamping their feet. “And China shall rule!”

“Shall you serve?” he exhorted them.

“We shall serve!” they replied.

“So China shall rule?”

“China shall rule!” they shouted to the rafters, stomping their heavy boots even harder.

Moon smiled and spread his arms wide, as if offering a papal benediction. As they continued to chant, the fluttering image of the Chinese flag on the massive monitor behind the general faded away.

“I want you to take a very close look at this man.”

Moon used the remote to bring up a new image. It was an old color portrait of a handsome English naval officer in dress uniform. Jet-black hair, piercing blue eyes, strong jaw. Boyish good looks, late twenties. Some of the females in the class sighed audibly, as if the officer were some kind of British royalty or rock star.

“His name is Alexander Hawke. Remember that face. British, former Royal Navy officer, now a counterterrorist operative with British Intelligence, MI6. This is the face of the enemy. This is the face of the man who dishonored my daughter Jet. The man who had her sister killed aboard my own houseboat in Hong Kong many years ago.”

The audience was too shocked at this personal revelation to react.

Moon leaned forward and snarled into the microphone.

“But tonight I will exact my revenge. Or rather, you will exact it for me.”

Shouts and cheers erupted then that filled the entire Great Hall.

“Shall you serve?” Moon cried out.

“We shall serve! We will serve! We will serve!”

He waited for them to quiet down and then he said, “Hawke is here. On this our island. Now.”

The audience expelled a collective gasp.

“Hawke, along with a group of battle-hardened commandos, has breached our perimeter. Our academy, our military installations, our very home is under attack. Your assignment is obvious. The death of all invaders. If you are successful, you will all graduate with honors and the rank of full colonel in the Te-Wu. On this very stage. Tonight. But. If you should fail . . . it shall be deemed an act of treason. You will all hang. At dawn.”

Numb, shocked silence.

“As that electrifying American Benjamin Franklin so eloquently put it, ‘You must all hang together, or assuredly you shall hang separately.’ ”