Stephen Coonts - Combat

He got the impression of two men, both of them intent on catching up with the van. He was sure that they had not seen him.

As soon as they were gone he jumped up, hurried across the road, and raced up the driveway, conscious that the mission clock was counting down in earnest now.

The road was steep and switched back several times. In a couple of minutes he reached the top, the road splitting left and right around a fountain in front of the low, rambling, steel-and-glass house. The fountain was operating, and there were lights on inside the house. Anyone watching from the outside would have to assume that nothing suspicious was going on up here. No one was trying to hide anything. Life as normal.

Holding his hands in plain sight out away from his sides, McGarvey headed to the right around the fountain. The hairs at the nape of his neck prickled. He couldn’t see anyone at the windows, but he got the distinct impression that he was being watched, and that guns were pointed at him.

A wooden footbridge arched gracefully over a winding pond that contained large golden carp. When McGarvey got to the other side the front door opened and Joseph Jiying stepped out. He wore jeans and an open-collar shirt. He was unarmed.

“Good evening, Mr. McGarvey. I’ve gotta say that you being up here is one big surprise.” Jiying had spent eight months working in Langley on an exchange program. McGarvey had gotten to know him and some of the others; all of them dedicated, and most of them pretty good intelligence officers.

“I’ve come for Peter Shizong.”

Jiying looked beyond McGarvey toward the empty driveway. “Did you come alone, on foot?”

“I have a van waiting on the road below. But we don’t have much time. There’s a PRC delegation along with a Taiwanese police escort on its way up here from the airport to arrest him.”

Jiying’s expression didn’t change except that his eyes narrowed slightly. “That’s news to me.”

“They didn’t want you to do something stupid, like try to take off or barricade yourselves up here.”

“My people would have warned me by now.”

“Maybe not if they were ordered by someone high enough to stay out of it.” McGarvey could see that Jiying didn’t want to believe what he was being told, and yet he could see the truth to it. “If I can get him out of here in time, the PRC won’t be able to take him.”

“They’d turn Taiwan upside down.”

“They probably would. And if you knew where he was, you’d be made to tell them. You know that.”

Jiying shook his head, more in anger and frustration than in denial. “There’s too much at stake, dammit. We’re winning. We’re finally starting to make points. We’re the good guys here—”

One of his men appeared at his elbow, looked pointedly at McGarvey, then told something to his boss. McGarvey did not understand the Chinese, but he caught the urgency. The expression on Jiying’s face changed to one of anger and resignation.

“There was no reason for you to come all this way in secret to lie to me, was there,” he said. “There are seven Taipei Special Services Police Humvees on the Keelung Highway.” He said something to his man that clearly upset him. He tried to argue, but Jiying barked a command at him, and he left.

“How close?”

“They just turned onto Grass Mountain Road. I hope the van is well hidden.”

“It’s just past the driveway. Is there another way down from here for me?”

“There’s a path on the other side of the house. It’s steep, but you should be able to make it.”

“There’s room in the van for all of us.”

Jiying shook his head again. “You’ll need time to make it down the hill and then get the hell out. We can delay the bastards all night if need be.”

McGarvey understood that it was the only way. “All we need is a couple of hours, Captain. After that give it up. Don’t get yourselves killed.”

A faint smile curled his lips. “Believe me I’ll do my best to make sure I die an old man in my own bed.”

The commando returned with a bemused Peter Shizong. Jiying said something to him in rapid-fire Mandarin. Shizong looked at McGarvey, asked Jiying a question, and when he was given the answer he nodded.

“It seems as if I am to go with you, sir,” he said.

“I have a warrant for your arrest on a charge of spying on the United States for the People’s Republic of China.”

“You’ve come all this way,” Shizong said with a hint of amusement. “Will you read me my Miranda rights?”

McGarvey had to smile. “If you wish, and if I can remember them from watching NYPD Blue .”

“Beijing has sent someone to arrest you,” Jiying said seriously. “And my government has agreed to hand you over. Tonight.”

Shizong suddenly understood the gravity of the situation. “I see.”

“You need to go right now, Peter,” Jiying said. He brought his heels together, placed his hands at his sides, and bowed formally.

Shizong did the same. When he rose he said something in Mandarin to Jiying, and then turned to McGarvey. “I have no idea how you mean to get me out of here in one piece, but then some really extraordinary things have happened to me in the last couple of months.”

Jiying hustled them to a broad veranda on the west side of the house, where the rock-strewn hill plunged steeply a couple hundred feet to a line of trees.

“The road is just below the trees,” Jiying told them.

It was finally starting to get dark. The city of Taipei was coming alive with a million pinpricks of light. What sounded like a fighter jet passed overhead to the south.

One of the commandos called something from inside the house. It sounded urgent.

“We’re out of time. Take it easy going down and good luck,” Jiying said.

McGarvey started down the hill first, and once they were out from under the veranda it was a little easier to pick out the path. At first he went slowly for Shizong’s sake, but within thirty feet he realized that the much younger man was in very good shape and as surefooted as a mountain climber, so he picked up the pace.

They reached the bottom in five minutes and made their way through the dense stand of trees. They came out about twenty yards beyond where the Fiat was parked at the side of the road, facing downhill. McGarvey could not see the van, but he suspected that Preston had pulled into the driveway another thirty or forty yards farther down the hill. The road up to Lee’s house was just beyond it.

“Is that our transportation?” Shizong whispered.

“No, they followed us up from Taipei. There’s two of them.”

“PRC supporters?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to kill them unless I have no other choice.”

“They wouldn’t return the favor, believe me,” Shizong said. “What are we going to do?”

“Wait until the delegation from the airport arrives. These guys might follow them up the hill.”

“They might not—” Shizong said when they spotted lights coming up the road around the curve. They could hear the Humvees’ exhausts hammering off the side of the hill, and after they had all turned up Lee’s driveway the night got relatively quiet again. But the Fiat did not move.

“Shit,” McGarvey said, half under his breath. He took out his pistol. “Wait here,” he told Shizong, and he stepped out on the road. Keeping his eye on the car for any sign of movement, and his pistol hidden behind his leg, he walked down to the Fiat. As he got closer he could see the two men inside, but they were not moving, and it wasn’t until he was on top of them that he saw why.

They were both alive and frantic with rage. Hanrahan and Preston had gotten the drop on them and had duct-taped them to their seats. They were covered head to toe except for their noses and eyes.