The soldiers approached him from either side to loosen the tight metal bracelets from his wrists, and his mind instantly clarified, everything at once perfectly clear, so clear.
Despite the pain that clogged every inch of his naked body, the perfect clarity of the moment suddenly overtook everything, delivering him at once from the pain and the agony.
He saw the cell in perfect focus, the position of the armed guard ahead of him, the angle of the gun, the distance between his crumpled body and the men on either side of him, even the presence of the two more armed soldiers who stood sentry outside his cell.
And in that moment of perfect clarity, he acted; an animal operating on pure, unbridled instinct.
Yanking inwards on his chains, he pulled the two soldiers together, hands snaking up between them, grasping their heads and smashing them together with a heavy, sickening crack.
And already he was moving again, before the man with the gun had a chance to react; before he’d even had a chance to breath.
The heavy chain shot out, still attached to Cole’s wrist, and then he snapped it taut and the metal links jerked powerfully across the guard’s head, knocking him out instantly.
Cole was on his feet before the guard hit the floor, weak legs nevertheless imbued with the pure energy of adrenalin, and he jumped over the soldier’s unconscious, slumping body, racing for the doorway.
The two men were turning into the empty space, guns rising towards him as if in slow motion, as if they were in a swimming pool and had to drag the guns through the heavy resistance of the water.
Cole was there before they could fire, before they could call out for help, the hardened fingertips of one hand firing out into the first soldier’s unprotected throat; and as the man’s eyes bulged wide, his hands dropping the gun and going to his neck in a pitiful attempt to rescue the damaged tissue, the broken cartilage, Cole pivoted to the other side and chopped the edge of his callused hand across the side of the second soldier’s neck, the force of the blow snapping the vertebrae and severing the spinal cord in one ferocious movement. The man fell to the floor, paralyzed, with no knowledge of what had happened to him.
Cole looked around the cell, breathing hard. Five men down all around him, taken out in as many seconds.
He paused; perhaps he wasn’t as injured as he’d suspected? But he knew that it was just the hormonal supercharging of adrenalin that was making his body perform, and knew just as well that when it emptied from his system, he would be left a useless, quivering wreck.
And so he carried right on going, determined to keep up the pace, keep the adrenalin driving through his body, letting it perform its magic.
He knelt down by the first two men, struck them on the sides of their heads with the metal bracelets to make sure they were definitely out of it, and retrieved the key for the cuffs, unlocking them and letting the chains fall to the floor.
He went to the bodies, stripped one of them and put on the clothes, careful not to look at the damage to his penis; he could worry about that later.
He took two pistols, a radio, one of the automatic rifles; pulled one of the soldier’s hats down low over his head and exited the cell, looking cautiously up and down the corridor.
Empty.
He quickly returned to the cell, turned the other radios off, and gagged the men; and then, taking the keys, he left the cell once and for all, locking it behind him.
Keep on going, he ordered himself as he rushed down the corridor. Keep on going.
Pushing forwards is your only chance.
The man in front of President Abrams on the video screen wasn’t the one she had been expecting.
As First Vice Premier, she had thought it would be Liang Huanjia who she would be dealing with, given the deaths of Tsang, Fang and Hua.
But instead it was — and aide quickly informed her — the Second Vice Premier, Chang Wubei.
‘Mr. Chang,’ Abrams said kindly, ‘I hope you are not finding things too hard after your terrible ordeal.’
Chang smiled. ‘Not at all, Madam President. On the contrary, we are all in good health, and owe a debt of gratitude to you and the United States.’
‘And will it be you with whom I will be dealing?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Chang said. ‘I am afraid Mr. Liang has… how shall I put it? He has… lost the confidence of the Politburo, and it was decided that I should take over until things return to some sense of normality.’
‘Okay,’ Abrams said, assessing the man before her and liking what she saw. Charismatic, urbane, and confident; he would be a good man to deal with. ‘Tell me everything you can about Wu and the regime there,’ she said, ‘anything you know about his plans, and the workings inside the Zhongnonhai. Anything you can tell us that will help us avoid a catastrophe in Japan.’
Chang nodded his head, eager to help. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I will tell you everything.’
‘Good,’ Abrams said. ‘Let’s start with—’
A buzzer sounded next to her, and her head snapped round. ‘Excuse me one moment,’ she said to Chang, answering the emergency call. A voice on the other end spoke, and her eyes opened in amazement.
‘Really?’ she said, excited. ‘Can you patch them through?… Excellent.’
She nodded her head, turned back to look at Chang. ‘Mr. Chang,’ she said, ‘you’re not going to believe what’s just happened.’
6
Cole poked his head slowly around the corner of the corridor, saw that it too was empty, and headed down the hall towards the elevator banks at the end.
Two men turned into the corridor from a connecting hallway then, and Cole fired towards them as he ran, taking them both down before they could react.
But his shots hadn’t been suppressed, and now anyone on this subbasement level would know that something was going on, and would be rushing to investigate.
A door opened to his left and he span and fired as he saw the target, kicking the door open and bursting inside before whatever other occupants who might be inside could react; there were two more soldiers reaching for their guns, but Cole beat them to it, hitting them both in center mass.
He pulled back into the corridor, stalking steadily towards the turn-off where he’d shot the first two soldiers; he could hear booted feet running down the hall, coming his way.
He couldn’t be sure, but he could have also sworn he could hear gunfire echoing from above him. Why would that be happening?
He shook his head, recognizing that it was probably just his tired, edgy mind playing tricks on him.
But then he heard noises coming down the stairwell too, saw the elevator lights ahead of him come on as a car started to descend to this level.
He was about to be surrounded.
He gathered himself, checked his rifle, swapped the magazine for a fresh one, and pulled back along the corridor.
He would wait here for them, let them channel themselves towards him down one single entryway, and then he would fire his weapons until he had nothing left to fire with; and then he would charge them with his bare hands.
He pulled the corpses out of the office, stacking the bodies to act as a makeshift barricade, and stockpiled the weapons next to him.
He prepared himself as the boots reached the bottom of the stairwell, the elevator car pinged its arrival, the first soldiers from the adjacent hallway finally reached the turn into the corridor.