Stephen Coonts - Combat

They stood at the head of the stairs for a few moments until a full bird colonel in the uniform of a civilian police officer, blue tabs on his shoulder boards, appeared in the doorway. A much taller man in a captain’s uniform showed up right behind him.

“Good evening, I am Colonel Lian Shiquan, Beijing Police. I am here with a warrant for the arrest of the criminal Shi Shizong.”

Graves turned up the gain on his receiver. Even so it was hard to pick up the Taiwanese officer’s reply because his back was turned to the receiver. When it came, however, it was a complete surprise to Graves. The government had caved in even faster and more completely than he thought it would.

“Yes, sir,” Colonel Daping replied. “He is being held not too far from here, at a home on Grass Mountain. We have transportation standing by to take you there immediately.”

It was too far for Graves to see the expression on the Chinese colonel’s face, but he heard the surprise and the smug satisfaction in his voice. “I should think so. There are eight of us, plus myself and my adjutant, Captain Qying. Let’s proceed.”

Graves tossed the receiver on the passenger seat and headed past the hangars toward the back gate. He used his cell phone to call the safe house where McGarvey was staying.

“Switch,” he said as soon as McGarvey answered.

“Right.”

Graves hit star-four-one-one. “You’ve run out of time. I’m just leaving the airport. The Taiwanese are handing him over without an argument. They’re taking the PRC delegation up to Grass Mountain right now, so you’re going to have to hustle.”

“How many of them?”

“Ten PRC and I don’t know how many Taiwanese cops. But if you get caught in the middle of them, you’ll get yourself shot.”

“Thanks for your help, Peyton. We’ll take it from here,” McGarvey said. “Get back to the embassy and keep your head down, there’s no telling what might happen in the next twenty-four hours.”

“Good luck.”

It was after 8:00 P.M., but still light by the time they cleared the city and headed east on the Keelung Highway. Grass Mountain, off to their left, was tinged in brilliant pinks and salmons at the higher levels, but the sky toward the coast was dark and threatening. The highway was choked with traffic of all descriptions, from eighteen-wheelers to hand-drawn carts. There seemed to be tiny scraps of paper blowing everywhere.

“I think we’ve got a tail,” Tom Preston said from the front.

McGarvey crawled forward to the passenger seat, opened the window, and adjusted the door mirror. Preston switched lanes to get around an old canvas-covered flatbed, and a yellow Fiat followed.

“It was outside the apartment this afternoon,” McGarvey said. In the middle of an operation he had a photographic memory for people and things. Patterns and anomalies. The ability had saved his life on more than one occasion.

“Sorry, I missed it.” Preston had struck McGarvey as easygoing but very capable. He and Hanrahan, who were football fans, had argued heatedly, but good-naturedly, about the Pack versus the Vikes all afternoon. But he was apologetic now.

“I only saw him the one time,” McGarvey said, studying the image in the mirror. “Same driver, but he’s picked up a passenger.” He missed the look Preston gave him.

“They’re not our people,” Preston said. “I’m sure of at least that much.”

“Taiwanese police?”

“No. I know all of their tag series. That’s not one of them. Civilians. PRC supporters. Maybe spies. Either they knew about the safe house and were watching it, or someone from inside the consulate tipped them off. Whatever it is, we’re going to have to deal with it pretty soon because our turnoff is coming up.”

“What do you want to do, Mac?” Hanrahan asked from the back. “We’ve got the PRC delegation from the airport breathing down our necks, so we don’t have a hell of a lot of time.”

McGarvey took out his Walther PPK and checked the load. “No matter what happens, we’re not going to hurt any Taiwan national if we can help it. That means cops and soldiers as well as civilians.” He checked the mirror. The yellow Fiat was still behind them. He holstered his pistol and checked the two spare magazines.

“Here’s the turn,” Preston said.

“Head up toward the house: I’ll tell you where to pull over,” McGarvey said. It was an early evening like this when he’d come up here nine months ago. Visiting the spoils of war, he’d told his chief of staff in Washington. In reality he was picking up the pieces of a mission that had nearly cost him his life. After all was said and done he wanted to see the house where Lee had lived in order to get some measure of the man who’d almost brought the world to a nuclear showdown. Not terribly unlike the situation they were in again.

Lee’s eighteen-room house was perched on the side of the mountain a couple of hundred feet above its nearest neighbor. A maze of narrow roads led in all directions into narrow valleys and defiles, in which other mansions were built. But Lee’s compound was at the head of a very steep switchback that had been cut through the living rock. Except for the helicopter pad, there was only one way in or out. Had the Taiwanese police decided to bring the PRC delegation up by chopper, the mission would have been over before it had begun.

Within a few blocks of the highway the Grass Mountain road rose up sharply from the floor of the valley. The traffic, except for an occasional Mercedes or Jaguar, ended, and a thin fog began to envelop the twisting side streets and houses set back in the trees in an air of gloom and mystery. This was the Orient, and yet a lot of people with money built Western-style homes up here. It was a curious mixture, just like Taipei itself.

“Okay, Lee’s driveway is coming up around the next curve,” Preston said.

McGarvey had spent only a half hour up there, looking around the house and down across the valley toward the city from the balconies. The view had been nothing short of spectacular. But he tried to recall how steep the slope was just below the house on the side of the compound away from the road. Maybe negotiable, but he wasn’t sure. He’d not been on a life-or-death mission that time.

“As soon as we’re around the curve and out of sight of the Fiat, you’re going to slow down and let me off,” McGarvey said. “Then drive past Lee’s road, pull into the next driveway, turn around, and wait there.”

“What about the guys in the Fiat?” Preston asked.

“I’m going to try an end run. If they miss me, they’ll come past you, probably turn around, and wait to see what you’re going to do next.” McGarvey screwed the silencer on the end of the Walther’s barrel.

“You’ll need some help. I’m coming with you,” Hanrahan said, taking out his Beretta.

“I know one of the guys up at the house. If I show up alone, they might listen before they start shooting.”

“Goddammit, Mac, that’s not why I signed on—.”

“You signed on to take orders, Lieutenant,” McGarvey said harshly. “If I can grab Shizong and get him out of there, I’ll be moving fast. I’ll need someone to watch the back door. I don’t want to get caught between the PRC delegation coming up from the airport and the goons in the car behind us. Do you understand?”

Hanrahan wanted to argue, but he held himself in check. “Yes, sir.”

McGarvey softened. “If we do this right, nobody will get hurt.”

“Here we go, guys,” Preston said. They came around the sharp curve, passed Lee’s driveway, and Preston jammed on the brakes.

“If the group from the airport makes it up here, give me ten minutes and then get the hell out,” McGarvey said. He popped open the door, jumped out on the run, then ducked into the trees and brush beside the road as the van disappeared and the Fiat came charging around the curve.