He heard shouts from down the alley, in the direction of the main street. There. He sheathed the knife and loped off in that direction, gun at the ready. Shapes ahead. Do or die time.
Eighty miles to the south, the USS Boca Raton held station in heavy seas in the Gulf of Thailand. Monsoon waves splashed over the rounded, matte black upper surface. The submersible covert operations craft rode with its conning tower just two meters over the sea to avoid detection. Despite the Boca Raton's huge size, Thai defense radars slid off its smooth surface, disappeared into its radar-absorbent materials.
A Thai Royal Navy ship patrolled these waters. An Indian-built Kolkata class destroyer. The captain of the Boca Raton would rather be thirty meters under, but his orders were to stay in continuous uplink, except in the case of imminent detection or harassment by the Thai Royal Navy.
The Kolkata could only find them by dumb luck, the captain knew. Despite its hundred and thirty-meter length, the Boca Raton presented a radar cross section the size of a rowboat, and a sonar signature even smaller when still. The high seas and surface sounds of crashing waves made the ship effectively invisible. Still, dumb luck had killed plenty of men. His crew was on constant alert.
Atop the conning tower, a directional maser powered through the monsoon rain and clouds, bouncing a narrow beam of data off a constellation of low-earth orbit satellites, hopping from one to the next as they hurtled through the sky at eight kilometers a second. Unless something should fly directly into that narrow beam, the uplink was undetectable.
Two decks below the bridge, in a cramped control center covered in displays, Garrett Nichols analyzed data Cataranes had produced from the walk down Sukchai Market. Next to him, Jane Kim sifted through databases and the web, looking for additional information on two of the students at the party, the anarchist Baroma Nantakarn and the loose-lipped Chuan Suttikul. Another console showed a deep net trawl for data on the monk who'd followed Lane and Cataranes. Bruce Williams was off duty, back at his bunk.
"Combat! Combat!" Jane called out.
Nichols jerked his head up in time to see most of the data feeds from Cataranes cut out. He moved his eyes to the feeds from Lane. Most were down. GPS from both phones remained up. They were in an alley between the Buddha's Kiss and the main street.
"What the hell?" he said.
Jane rewound, played the last few seconds. Two assailants. Three. Four. Combat. Fuck.
"Get the fireteam there, stat!" he ordered.
• • • •
Sam ran down the alley, Kade across one shoulder, her phone in the other hand. The blasted thing claimed to be transmitting, but there was no sound from the speakers. She had no idea if her support team were hearing what she was saying, no idea if they had any data from her at all.
The alley mouth was just two blocks away. Wait. Figures there. Three, four of them, backlit by light from the street. Were those rifles? She ducked into a side alley. Were they her backup? Or more assassins?
She still had the knife she'd taken from the thug. She looked around for a place to hide Kade. There, a dumpster.
"Blackbird! Blackbird! We're from the nest! Here to get you home."
Voices speaking good English. The right code name.
"Today's word is golden calf. I repeat, golden calf!"
The right daily password. She relaxed fractionally.
"Coming out!" Sam yelled.
There were four of them, all local contractors vetted by the CIA, dressed as businessmen, dark pants and dark shirts, with conservative dark blazers over them. The automatic rifles and bandoliers of ammo gave them away. She knew that underneath the blazers they wore armor, packed more ammo and more weapons. They were mercenaries, not regular forces, but at this point she just didn't care. Thank god for well-armed support teams.
"I've got a man down," she said.
Two of them came forward, took Kade's unconscious form from her, ran back towards the main street.
"I'm Lee," the point man said. "Our car's at the alley mouth. We can take him. What's the sitrep?"
"Ambush five blocks back," Sam reported. "Three Thai muscle, taser rifles, trying to take us alive. I think he was the target, I was a surprise. There was a fourth guy, not muscle, headed off…" She paused to get her bearings. "…east. In a hood. The muscle had implanted explosives, detonated after I disabled them. All KIA."
"You get samples?"
Sam looked down at the splatter of blood on her hands and clothes. More blood was dripping into her eyes. "Not intentionally."
"You hit?"
"Minor," she said. "But I'm going with him."
Lee nodded. "Roger that. We'll get samples and sanitize the site."
"Fuck the sanitize," Sam replied. "That was a fucking explosion. Bangkok Metro cops will be here soon. Get in, get out, don't get caught." There could be no contact with the local authorities.
Lee nodded. "I'll confirm with command." He jerked his head towards Soi Samahan. "Car's back that way, sooner you're in it, sooner they can roll." He gave Sam a smart salute.
Sam returned the salute, ran for the alley mouth. There was a four-seater Toyota there. The two on her team were standing by the front, their guns gone from sight, eyes scanning the perimeter, hands inside jackets. The back door was open, Kade slumped inside. Sam dove in the back, slapped the interior roof of the car.
"Let's go!"
Wats froze, flattening himself against the wall of the alley, deep in the gloom. He held still, let the chameleonware blend him into the wall, shield his IR emissions as it dumped his body heat into its onboard heat store. They were shouting in English, good accents, passwords of some sort. Four newcomers and Cataranes. The newcomers wore business garb and automatic rifles. He recognized them, American made, all ceramic and composites, x-ray invisible and non-magnetic, perfect for sneaking across a border. At a guess they were loaded with graphene-tipped rounds, harder than diamond, able to punch through any conventional body armor.
Two of them carried Kade away, carefully, like a patient rather than a sack. That was a good sign.
The other two new arrivals jogged his way as Cataranes headed out of the alley. Wats froze, held his breath. They passed right by him without noticing. Short hair. Bulky builds. Military bearing. These were CIA or Special Forces. Maybe local mercenaries. Something along those lines. They matched the description of the men who'd lounged most of last night in the lobby of the Prince Market Hotel.
Wats waited for the two military types to recede into the distance. He counted to sixty, then crept silently forward to the mouth of the alley. Gone. Kade, Cataranes, the other two – they were gone. This whole night had gone belly up. What the fuck had happened here? Who was trying to kidnap Kade?
One thing was certain. Getting the kid out was going to be a royal bitch now.
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