Tanner nodded and pointed to the next chamber. The heavy plastic made it difficult to see what waited beyond. The crept toward it, their SIGs pointed at the entrance. Using hand signals, Tanner counted down from three, then burst through the curtain.
Tanner went high and to the right, while Naomi went low and left. Another empty room greeted them. Unlike the first room, the tables weren’t empty, but full of chemical equipment — burners, flasks, flexible tubes, and stands. It reminded Tanner of a high school chemistry class. Another set of freezer curtains on the other side of the workspace led to still another room.
A thump from the far side of the lab alerted the pair. Tanner signaled Naomi to go left, while he went right. The moved through the tables, eyes scanning for trouble. There was a scuffling noise and someone in a lab coat stood and ran for the other exit. Tanner intercepted the figure, a gaunt Asian man with thinning hair and glasses. His eyes widened and he squawked in fear. He tried backpedaling, but his feet went out from under him and he landed on his back.
Tanner pointed his pistol at him.
“No shoot! No shoot!” the man cried out in accented English, his hands up in a gesture of surrender. Tanner noticed that under the lab coat, his clothes were same rough fabric of the prisoners downstairs.
“Who are you?” Tanner demanded.
“I am Lo Jun. No shoot!”
“What are you doing here?”
Jun’s words were rapid-fire from fear. “Triad force me to work here. My wife, my son, downstairs. Others downstairs.” He tapped his chest. “I teach Chemistry in China. I say wrong thing at wrong time, and decide to leave China with family. But I and family Triad prisoners, force me to work here, making drugs.”
“Any other workers here?”
“No. Lab shutting down. I am alone to make sure things are safe.”
“We’re looking for Dr. Mori. Do you know where she is?”
The chemist nodded. “Yes she was here, but not now. Koreans take her — five, six hours ago. Said they were moving her to new, safer place.”
Tanner looked at Naomi, then back down at the fearful chemist. “Did they say where?”
Lo Jun shook his head, then his eyes widened. “Wait! One say he hoped Dr. Mori like the smell of horses. That help?”
“How many guards are there on this floor?”
Lo Jun frowned. “Two outside.” He motioned toward the wall. “Three in there.”
Tanner felt the attack more than heard it. He dropped to one knee, Naomi half a second behind him as the wall exploded in a swarm of bullets. For the next few seconds there was nothing but the sound of breaking plastic and glass as the lab equipment was wrecked by a torrent of lead.
They waited until the gunfire died away, then rose, their pistols aimed at the ruined wall. Tanner saw movement in the next room and fired twice. Both slugs punched through the wall and into a 49 who was trying to reload his AK-47. The gunman dropped.
Naomi fired, her rounds flying through one of the large holes in the plastic walls and finding the chest of a second Triad thug. The man dropped his AR-15, took a step back, then collapsed.
Tanner spun and dropped to one knee as the third Triad gunman came storming through the freezer curtain, an Uzi in his hands. Tanner fired first, three .40 rounds slamming into the 49’s chest and neck, changing the man’s direction of movement and sending him stumbling into a table. He tried raising his Uzi, but Tanner fired again, the last shot striking the 49 in the right eye and blowing out the back of his head.
For several seconds there was silence, then Lo Jun asked in a quivering voice, “Who are you?”
“The good guys,” Tanner replied. He motioned to the shattered wall. “What’s over there?”
“Packing and storage rooms for the finished drugs. But not much there. Koreans take most when they take Dr. Mori.”
“Stay there.” Tanner moved into the next room, checked the bodies, then swept both it and the storage room beyond. He returned after a minute. “He’s right,” he said to Naomi. “Only a couple of Red Ice crates left in the storage area. Assuming the empty pallets were the same size, they could have taken upwards of five hundred kilos.”
“We have to get out of here.” Naomi motioned to Lo Jun. “What about him?”
“I stay,” the Chinese chemist said. “Family is here. I stay with them.”
“All right,” Tanner said. “Find a place to hide for now. There’s a police team coming in to seize the warehouse. When they get here, surrender and ask to speak to Agent Vessler. Tell her everything you can remember about the setup in here, about Dr. Mori, and the drugs. Okay?”
“I do that.”
“Don’t touch any guns.”
“I won’t. I am good chemist, bad soldier.”
Tanner and Naomi raced back to the entrance, where Stephen crouched behind the support pillar. “No luck?” Shah asked.
Naomi shook her head. “Missed her by a few hours.”
Tanner spoke into his radio. “Able to Bravo: We have a strikeout, repeat, strikeout. Retreat now.”
“Better hurry, Able. Striker is thirty seconds out. We’ll make sure the back door is open.”
Tanner holstered his pistol, slipped another buckshot round into his Commando’s grenade launcher and started running, Stephen and Naomi right behind him.
As they reached the top of the stairs the freight elevator doors opened and four 49s came charging out. Stephen fired first, followed by Naomi and Tanner. Three of the enforcers went down in bloody heaps, while the fourth quickly changed course and threw himself back into the elevator.
Tanner turned back to the stairs, but a storm of bullets slammed into the staircase, setting off enough sparks to remind Tanner of a Fourth of July fireworks show. A ricochet grazed his cheek, the hot metal burning his skin.
“That way’s out.” Naomi looked around. “So is the elevator, and there’s no place to hide up here.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Able to Bravo, we have a problem.”
Liam pulled back behind the dumpster. Bravo Team’s marksmanship had whittled down the Triad numbers, but the bullet-riddled dumpster was now only being held together only by rust. Not to mention the smell was no reason to hang out, either. “What now?”
“Stairs are covered and the only other way down is elevator.”
“We’re still playing Tango Tag.”
“Watchdog, does Cobra have any venom left?”
“Affirmative. Do you want them crying, blind or confused?”
“Crying and confused. Dump everything but the smoke on Bravo’s playmates. Bravo, once your playmates are busy, I want you to make a door for us and hold it.”
Liam frowned. “Doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
“No time for good ideas. Striker’s coming in and I don’t want to tangle with friendlies. Watchdog, when we’re clear of the building, drop the smoke between us and the warehouse and recall Cobra and Wasp.”
“Copy Able,” Danielle said. “Striker is coming down the street now. Dazed and crying in five, four, three, two…one!”
Explosions lit up the area over the Triad gunmen, some loud and bright, others releasing clouds of thick white smoke. Shouts and screams replaced gunfire as those who weren’t stunned by the flash-bangs were hit by CS gas.
Liam grinned. “Five, stay where you are and cover me. Once I’m inside, move to my current location and cover our exit.”
“Copy, Two,” Dante returned.