“Stay there. The Americans might decide to come after Hong to get to me. If you cannot keep him out of American hands, kill him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep me informed.”
“I will.” Kim disconnected the call and returned the phone to his coat pocket.
“Who was that?” Kim glanced up and saw Kuang Lieh glaring at him.
“My commander, asking for an update.”
“Did you do that?” Lieh snarled, pointing at the TV screen, which had switched to a shot of San Francisco Bay.
“The major thought it was time to show the Americans the weakness of their society.”
“Are you insane?” Lieh stood and took a step toward Kim. “The U.S. government will fall on us like a ton of bricks!”
“The Americans are stupid. They will concentrate all their law enforcement resources and efforts on the attacks instead of tracking down the Red Ice distribution network.”
“I don’t care—”
An explosion shook the building. While the rest of the men in the room stood still, Kim spun and ran toward the door. As he reached it, a series of sharp cracks came from outside. He spun back toward the Triad leaders. “Gunfire. We’re under attack!”
Tanner dropped through the hole made by the breeching charge, flexing his knees to absorb the shock of the ten-foot drop. He was in a hallway, stairs going down to his left, with a wall to his right. A haze of smoke and dust hung in the air and the only light was from the hole above.
An Asian male wearing only pants and an undershirt appeared out of a room in front of Tanner. His eyes widened as he saw the intruder, and he snap-fired the MAC-10 in his hand. The burst went high, shredding the wall above and behind Tanner. Before the 49 could adjust his aim, Tanner’s return burst knocked him down in a bloody heap.
Naomi dropped in next to him. “Cover the stairs,” Tanner told her. The lithe African-American nodded and dropped to one knee, the muzzle of her Commando pointed down the stairs.
There were four doors along the hall, and only one was open, the one with the dead Triad thug lying in front of it. Opening each door carefully, Tanner found the first two rooms empty but for a couple of cots and an old chair in each one. The third room, the one the dead 49 had stepped out of, was the same as the first two, except for some clothing and a tray of empty plates and cups.
He moved onto the last room. As his hand closed on the door knob and began turning, the door was suddenly and viciously shredded by a wave of bullets fired from the other side. Standing against the wall, the OUTCAST founder yanked his hand away from the door. The gunfire stopped, and he heard loud cursing in Chinese.
Tanner stepped away from the wall and slammed his boot into the half-destroyed door. Pieces of wood went flying as the door sprang open with violent force. He quartered the room with his Commando until he saw the occupant, a skinny Chinese man with tattoos up and down his arms, frantically trying to change magazines on a mini-Uzi. Tanner fired, the 5.56mm burst knocking the 49 into the wall. The now dead gunman slid down, leaving a bloody smear on the wall.
After making sure the rest of the room was clear, they jogged back toward the stairs. “Prime to Two,” Tanner said into his radio. “Status?”
“Prime to Two. Status?”
Liam grimaced as another volley of gunfire ripped into the roof’s overhang. He and Stephen were still stuck on the roof; their attempt to climb down the fire escape ladder had been spotted almost as soon as they started. Forced to climb up again, with bullets nipping at their heels, Liam and Stephen were trapped.
“Problem, Prime,” he returned. “Door guards reacted quicker than expected. They’ve got us pinned down up here.”
Liam heard shouts and more gunfire from below. “Striker to OUTCASTs!” Vessler’s tone was tense. “We have five suspects outside the front entrance. Bystanders are clear.”
“Use CS, Two,” Tanner directed. “Striker, Fastball, get clear.”
“Copy, Prime,” Liam said. “CS is on its way.”
Stephen had already taken a CS canister from his belt, pulled the pin and tossed it over the side. Liam followed with a CS canister of his own, and both slipped on their gas masks. In a matter of seconds, they could see the thick smoke of the tear gas billowing from the street below. The gunfire stopped.
The pair climbed down the fire escape ladder, their movements hidden from below by the gas irritant. They reached the second floor and moved toward the balcony doors. Stephen pressed a small square of C-4 with a timer between the door handles, set it for ten seconds, and activated it. Then Stephen took a flash-bang grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and nodded to Liam, who had his own primed flash-bang grenade in hand. “Two to Prime. Executing entry in Five … Four … Three … Two….”
The doors disintegrated when the C-4 exploded. Three seconds later, two flash-bang grenades rocketed through the now open doorway.
CHAPTER THIRTY
From the window of his suite, John Casey could see the smoke over the Golden Gate Bridge. Looking out another window would show him the activity over at the airport, while a third would overlook where the BART bombings had occurred. Nob Hill was a perfect place from which to survey the city and the disasters befalling it.
Feeling depressed, he turned away. The presidential suite lived up to its name, a fitting place for a world leader to stay. If it was his choice, he would have booked a smaller suite, but his Secret Service protection team insisted on the suite, with which they were intimately familiar; the same security team that protected the president when he was in town also guarded the president’s special assistant.
The only thing out of place were the two tables set up at right angles in the center of the room, filled with computers, tablets, radios and other pieces of electronics Casey didn’t recognize. Danielle sat in an office chair, her eyes flicking back and forth between screens. Casey wanted to stand behind her and stare at the data she ogled, but decided it was better not to distract her.
“They’re executing entry.” Danielle ignored the other three people in the room. Milt Younger was the head of Casey’s security team. A former Green Beret, Younger took his job seriously. He didn’t like the OUTCAST team, whom Casey had introduced as “special consultants,” and was even less pleased at having one of them in the midst of his security cordon.
On the other hand, Jenifer DuPree was on her first protection assignment. A short-haired redhead, she kept her opinion about Danielle’s presence to herself, but Casey did notice she managed to place herself in a position to see what was happening on Danielle’s screens at all times.
“I still don’t like it,” a nasal-toned voice said.
Casey glanced at his aide. Morton Halverstaff III was from a blue-blooded New England family with strong political ties and a general support for left-of-center policies. Morton’s uncle was a retired U.S. Senator and his father a cabinet secretary. When the family had “suggested” that the newly minted Ivy League graduate needed a job as an assistant to the president, the POTUS had farmed the new generation of Halverstaffs off on Casey. “Maybe a glimpse into the reality of the world will benefit him,” the president had said.
Privately, Casey thought Halverstaff was an over-bred idiot whom he wouldn’t trust with anything more complex than a stapler. But he was stuck with him, so he kept him away from the team, knowing that their tolerance for stupidity was lower than his.
“You don’t have to like it.” Casey motioned to the television. “What’s the latest?”