“Bravo to Able. Okay to use an M406 on the truck doors?”
“Go ahead. The prisoners are behind crates and pallets.”
Liam slipped an HE round into his grenade launcher.
“Fire in the hole!”
He raised his Commando, sighted on the middle truck door and fired. The grenade slammed into the door at an angle, ripping it apart. Liam removed the spent round, loaded a CS round and raced for the still-smoking door.
The truck door disintegrating took the defenders inside by surprise. A group of 49s who had been working their way to the bottom of the stairs were in front of the door when it exploded, the pieces of steel and wood acting like a massive shotgun blast that left them as grisly corpses. The shooting stopped as the remaining gunmen tried to comprehend what had happened.
Tanner launched himself down the stairs, landing on the fourth step and grabbing the rail with one hand long enough to steady himself. He raised his Colt and directed quick bursts into distracted 49s. Naomi and Stephen ran past him. Naomi stopped half a dozen steps below Tanner and raised her submachine gun. As soon as she opened fire, Tanner started down the stairs and passed her. In the meantime, Stephen had reached the landing and added his fire to Naomi’s.
Tanner leapt the last three steps, landed on the ground floor with both feet, spun and pointed his Commando in the cages’ direction. No targets were in sight, but he didn’t relax. The prisoners were huddled in the furthest corner of their cages.
“Bravo to Able,” Liam said over the radio. “I’m at the door. Get a move on!”
Two Triad gunmen appeared twenty yards in front of Tanner. He fired multiple bursts, driving them back into cover. Naomi and Stephen ran past him, heading for the door.
Naomi stopped at the corner, spun around and pointed her Commando in Tanner’s direction. “Go!”
Tanner whirled and ran for the door. He raced past Naomi, past Stephen who was covering the next row over, and headed for the truck door. Liam was there, covering the outside. The sounds of shouts and gunfire could be heard from the far side of the warehouse.
“Striker to OUTCAST!” Vessler’s tone was urgent. “We’re making entry!”
“Copy! We’re extracting and using smoke!” Tanner hopped over the side of the loading dock, landing on the ground. He pointed his submachine gun back into the warehouse. “Three and Four, go! Five, head for the extraction point! Watchdog, drop the smoke!”
Naomi and Stephen followed Tanner out the truck door, leapt off the dock and ran for the fence. Liam followed them a few seconds later. Out of the night sky, smoke canisters fell, filling the area between the team and the far side of the warehouse with thick white smoke. Tanner ran after them.
Dante was already at the hole he and Liam had cut in the fence. Five minutes later, the team was through the fence and running into the darkness. Behind them, the gunfire at the warehouse had ceased.
Danielle was waiting for them outside of the vans. “DEA is securing the building right now.”
Tanner issued commands over his mic. “Dante, Stephen: get the drones into the vans. Nay, Liam: you’re driving. Dani, monitor the police bands.”
Two minutes later, both vans merged into the light nighttime traffic on the main road.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Norman Kwan sat in the living room of his home, an open bottle of scotch on the side table next to him. He’d loosened his tie, taken off his shoes and cradled a half-filled glass of the liquor. The room was mostly in darkness, and at this time of night the house was quiet. His wife was in New York on business, adding to the silence, while his grown children were off on their own.
He’d never wanted to be a spy, but the state had decided he would become a Reconnaissance General Bureau agent, so a spy he became — starting at the age of ten. Trained by the 225th Bureau in espionage, and drilled relentlessly in state dogma, he had been smuggled to Taiwan when he was eighteen, given the name of Norman Kwan, and enrolled in the National Taipei University of Business. He graduated with a master’s degree in international business and then spent several years working in a North Korean front company. There, he helped funnel money and goods into his homeland before being tapped for a major mission — infiltrating the United States.
In this capacity, he spent fifteen years building up his import-export company. He became a U.S. citizen, married a lovely American woman, had three children, and became a leading voice of business in the city. By then, he knew that his leaders, had lied to him about everything. If he could have, he would have told the Kims to take their “worker’s paradise” and stick it up their asses. He enjoyed his life here, where food wasn’t rationed, where he could say and read anything he wanted, and where the government didn’t watch his every move and word.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. He still had family in North Korea, brothers, sisters, parents, and several nephews and nieces, all one step away from being arrested and thrown into one of the prison camps the Kims and their toadies kept for those who disobeyed their whims. It didn’t matter if they were innocent; the state believed in family guilt, the actions of one tainting the entire family, and it would be three generations before any of the family saw the outside of the camps, assuming they survived long enough. Part of Kwan’s training took him to some of those camps and he had seen firsthand what happened to those who opposed the state.
So it was that when Pyongyang ordered him to run for an open seat on the Board of Supervisors for the City and County of San Francisco, he had no choice. He’d tried to run a lackluster race, but his opponent bungled his campaign so badly that Kwan still beat him handily. At the victory party, he’d received a message written in Korean congratulating him, with a picture of his brother as a reminder of the consequences of failure.
He won reelection several more times, and was elected President of the Board of Supervisors in the most recent election. He was now the second most powerful city official after the mayor. Pyongyang’s demands were constant and straightforward; the status of the military bases in the area, even the closed ones, federal anti-terrorist plans in the city, U.S. navy fleet movements through San Francisco, and any other information the People’s Republic thought could be important.
But it wasn’t just the spying. It was a stream of demands for various items that were taken for granted here but were extremely rare in North Korea. Hollywood film and porn DVDs, liquor, electronics such as MP3 players and large-screen TVs, and other luxuries were demanded of him. People in North Korea were starving and what were the Kims and the country’s elite doing? Living well, eating well, watching programs forbidden to most of his countrymen, and generally doing what they accused America and her allies of being — arrogant, self-centered, and petty.
Despite all the demands, Kwan felt comfortable enough in his dual roles as spy and politician. He gave his superiors what they demanded, most of which was public source or easy to buy. He didn’t know what plans they had for him, but for now he was content to follow orders.
He was so deep in thought that he didn’t detect Rhee’s presence until the major said in Korean, “You are a disgrace.”
Kwan’s head snapped up, fear and surprise quickly replaced by anger. “What are you doing here?” he hissed in English.
“I came for an update on the task I gave you.”
“You gave me twenty-four hours.”
“Things are moving faster than I expected. What have you found out?”
Kwan downed the rest of his glass’ contents and set it down next to the bottle. “I met with Casey briefly this afternoon. I asked him about reports there was a CIA hit team in the city and I demanded he tell me the truth.”