Don Pendleton: Unconventional Warfare

“Able is compromised,” she said without preamble. “They’re going deep black to Charlie Mike but we need to get them a new safe house in a less populated area and arrange resupply.”

“When it rains, it pours,” Kurtzman said.

“What?”

“I got a message from James on the ground in Brazzaville, text based.”

“Why text?”

“He couldn’t get a signal out, so he put a communication in the system for the repeater relay. It’s twelve minutes old. They were compromised on initial insertion. They think their Congolese police counterpart might have set them up.”

Akira Tokaido leaned back in his chair and whistled. “Phoenix under fire, Able on the run—this mission is blown right out of the gate.”

Stony Man ®

Americas Ultra-Covert Intelligence Agency

www.mirabooks.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Beijing, People’s Republic of China

The Beijing Inn was a traditional structure nestled just beyond the more Westernized buildings of the international financial district. The architecture of the inn recalled China’s glorious past. Consisting of two stories under a peaked tile roof, the inn was divided into rooms of various sizes using internal support posts.

In a small room tucked away from the densely populated restaurant area sat Chao Bao, official of the clandestine Central Control of Information Division of the vast Ministry of State Security.

Bao sipped his tea, face inscrutable and emanating an air of timeless patience. While perhaps cliché to Caucasian sensibilities, his inner calm was authentic. At first glance he presented an unassuming figure. He looked younger than his forty-seven years, stood six inches over five feet and was built in a slight manner. His eyes were dark and unreflective, his hair thinning on top.

He could have been a tailor or perhaps an accountant.

On closer inspection a discerning eye would have noticed his build was not slight, but efficiently lean, supple as a leather whip. His knuckles were misshapen to chunks the size of dice by decades of martial-arts training.

He’d earned a reputation as a brutal interrogator of prisoners and as a virtual ghost on special-operations reconnaissance missions deep in enemy-controlled territory.

He was a practiced killer and as such, he was able to recognize that quality in others of his ilk. Even if he hadn’t already been intimately familiar with the personnel file of the man who now joined him in the quiet, shadowed alcove, he would have recognized a kindred spirit.

“Sifu,” Xi-Nan acknowledged.

“Valued friend.” Bao nodded. He gestured toward the empty padded bench across the low table from him in the private booth.

Despite being dressed in civilian clothes rather than a military uniform, General Xi-Nan was obviously a soldier. Tall for an ethnic Chinese at six feet, the commander of the Fifth Army was a fit man with a rigid posture ten years Chao Bao’s junior.

“Forgive my lagging manners,” Xi-Nan said. “But let us come to the point.”

His apology was perfunctory. He wasn’t sorry to drive straight to business without the culturally required period of idle talk. It was, in fact, the way he preferred to execute all his dealings, especially those involving the placid-faced man sitting across from him who seemed content sipping green tea from eggshell-porcelain cups.

Bao absolved him. “I understand your urgency. Please continue.”

“There is a complication with our African venture.”

“Somalia?”

“No, Congo,” Xi-Nan attested.

Bao lifted a single eyebrow and sipped his tea.

“Americans,” Xi-Nan further explained. “CIA or their NSA perhaps. They have compromised the periphery of our operation.”

“Then they must be stopped from gaining further insight.”

“Just so,” Xi-Nan agreed. “However I am afraid to use the Hayabusa on this. It would leave a paper trail.”

Hayabusa was the Mandarin word for “Falcon” and was used as the unofficial designation for the Chengdu Military Region Special Forces Unit.

Established in 1992, the unit specialized in target location and interdiction, airborne insertion, sabotage and rapid offensive strikes.

“A paper trail that could lead back to our personal Hong Kong bank accounts,” Bao finished the general’s thoughts.

“Exactly,” Xi-Nan agreed.

“You have a dossier for me?”

The corrupt general immediately slid a flash drive across the smooth teak table to the spymaster, who promptly pocketed the item.

“That is everything we know about the operations the Americans are calling the Niger Station,” he said.

Chao Bao smiled as he set down his empty teacup. The smile did not reach his eyes.

“Leave everything to me, old friend,” he said.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER Chao Bao arrived on the Beijing waterfront.

He lost himself among the twisting alleys and chaotic heavily populated fish markets until he found a dilapidated warehouse on an unassuming wharf. The building was nondescript and appeared abandoned with piles of rotting fishing nets and soggy old shipping pallets set on the oil-stained concrete loading dock.

Spray painted on the doors were the worn and peeling ideograms representing the Water Dragon Triad.

Bao entered the building and immediately three men armed with Type 64 Chinese submachine guns emerged from shadows. The street soldiers were flat-faced with black eyes that glittered with sinister light.

He countered their advance with a few simple words of identification and was allowed to pass unmolested into the inner sanctum of the triad gangster known only as Illustrious.

Bao stepped across the threshold and the door to the room was slammed shut behind him. The room was ornately furnished and uncomfortably warm, darkened to the point of gloominess.

Three brass braziers smoldered, providing a red-tinged light that served more to throw shadows than to illuminate. On a couch of red silk cushions, his face obscured by a demonic mask of black plaster, reclined Illustrious.

To his left, immobile as a statue, stood a massive bodyguard. Bao had once witnessed the giant execute a disobedient underling with a single well-placed punch to the back of the neck.

Bao stopped, brought his feet together and gave a respectful bow.

“Thank you for granting me an audience,” the intelligence officer said.

“How may Illustrious be of service?” the masked figure replied.

The mask was more than a petty affect designed to create an aura of mystery. The Communist Party ran the People’s Republic as a totalitarian police state and did not suffer organized crime lightly. There were many in Chao Bao’s own agency who would gladly see such a powerful underworld figure dead.