Paul cut a diagonal across the face of the embankment to lessen the angle, fighting to keep Jack upright. Jack slipped a few times in the descent, but Paul’s sturdy grip kept the two of them on their feet.
Jack glanced up when he heard the chain-link fence rattle in front of them. He barely made out Lian’s figure dropping over the top of the fence and into the yard.
Paul and Jack had finally reached the bottom of the embankment when they heard brakes screeching hard above them.
“Let’s haul ass,” Jack said. The two of them picked up the pace to the sound of steel banging on steel, rattling the fence wire in front of them.
Three steps farther and they heard voices shouting in Korean above their heads. Paul instinctively turned a slight right, away from a direct line to the fencing, assuming the Koreans had guns and were taking aim—
Pistols cracked from on high, muffled by the sound of the rain. Extra-large splashes boiled up on either side of them — hail or bullets, Paul wasn’t sure. More gunfire erupted, but this time in front of them as Lian took aim at the SUV high up on the embankment behind the fencing.
“Come on!” she shouted at Paul and Jack, as they ran the last hundred feet toward the open fence in a three-legged gait. Lian provided more covering fire.
Jack and Paul hobbled through. Jack’s foot nearly stumbled on the big and rusted pipefitter’s wrench Lian had used to bust the chain.
Lian stood and watched the Koreans jump back into their SUV and rocket away, then ran in and shut the gate behind them and wrapped what was left of the chain around the gatepost. She pointed at the side entrance door to the steel garage.
Paul felt Jack’s weight give under his arm; he was definitely losing steam. Jack needed rest, badly, and a doctor. Ten yards away Paul spotted an electric golf cart parked next to a giant yellow forklift with huge front wheels — no doubt used to move and stack the junked cars.
They hobbled past the empty frame of an old Volkswagen Beetle before pushing through the doorway, and Lian slammed the door shut behind them.
“They’re gone,” Lian said, panting. She flicked on a flashlight she found on a workbench.
“What do you mean they’re gone?” Jack asked.
Lian flashed the light around the open garage, checking it out as she spoke. “They just drove away.”
“No way.” Jack fell into a folding metal chair, exhausted, cradling his forearm with his good hand. “They’re not leaving, they’re moving.”
Paul didn’t like the sound of Jack’s fading voice. In Lian’s flashlight, Jack’s skin looked ashen.
“What do we have here?” Lian approached a squatting shape under a heavy cloth in the middle of the neatly ordered garage. She yanked it off. “Wow.”
It was a vintage motorcycle with a sidecar, painted olive drab. Lian read the logo on the teardrop gas tank. “Royal Enfield.”
“That’s an Indian bike,” Jack said. “Guy must be a collector.”
Lian flashed her light over it again. “It has keys, too.”
“Moving where, Jack?” Paul asked.
“What?”
“Where are they moving to?” Paul repeated.
“They’ll try and find a way down here, and finish the job.”
Paul turned around and faced the door. “We passed a traffic tunnel that runs underneath the expressway. If they can find that road, they can get down here.”
“There’s a turnaround three kilometers north on the expressway,” Lian said. “The road out front of this building connects to it.”
“That gives us four minutes, tops,” Paul said.
Lian unscrewed the cap. “Plenty of petrol.”
“If they get down here, we’re all dead,” Paul said.
“At least we have guns,” Jack said.
“But we don’t know how many more of them there are, and they might be getting reinforcements,” Paul said.
Jack nodded toward the Royal Enfield. “Can you drive one of those?”
“I can,” Lian said. She slung a leg over the motorcycle, turned on the gas, switched the key, and kicked it over. The small engine fired up instantly. She smiled. “There’s room for all three of us.”
Jack stood and limped over to the chain that opened the rolling back door of the building. He kicked away the latch that locked the door in place and started pulling on the chain as Lian rolled the bike toward the rear exit. He spoke to Paul over his shoulder.
“You and Lian hit the road out front and head due west. It’s got to connect somewhere—”
“It does,” Lian said. “About eight kilometers up the road it curves around north, and in another twenty it reconnects with the expressway.” She looked at her watch. “We can’t make it all the way to Kuala Lumpur in time, but maybe we can get within working cell-phone distance and make a call.”
“That’s the plan then. I’ll stay here and hold them—” Jack collapsed in mid-sentence. Paul caught him.
“Help me get him in the sidecar,” Paul said.
Lian jumped off the bike and lifted Jack’s feet as Paul cradled him by the upper torso. They wrestled Jack’s heavy, limp frame into the sidecar and secured him.
“We need to get him to hospital now — and make that call.” Lian jumped onto the saddle and scooted forward. “Get on behind me and let’s go!”
Paul pointed at the motorcycle. “That’s a lawnmower engine. Jack and I have over five hundred pounds between us. Those guys in the car will catch us and run us down on that thing.”
“Paul—”
Paul checked the one mag he had in his Makarov. “You’ve got three minutes max now. Get going.”
“Paul?” Lian’s eyes finished the question.
Paul shoved his cell phone into Lian’s pocket. “Gerry Hendley’s direct number is on there. Call him the second you get a signal. Tell him to contact the CIO at the Hang Seng — or anybody else in charge. He’ll make it happen — and then get Jack to a hospital. Now go!”
Lian grabbed Paul’s jowly face and kissed him on the cheek, then gunned the engine and roared out of the garage.
Paul didn’t watch her go. He hobbled to the front door, running through the plan in his mind. He knew exactly what he needed to do.
He also knew there wasn’t enough time left to do it.
73
The North Korean driver made the hard right turn onto the narrow two-lane road and gunned the engine, pointing the front of the Sorento directly at the black hole of the traffic tunnel five hundred yards up ahead.
The four of them had already worked out a plan to assault the steel building. The driver would crash the SUV through the cyclone fence, then the four of them would egress and approach the building from four sides. Besides their pistols, they carried two shotguns, an assault rifle, and a dozen flash-bangs in the trunk — more than enough to get the job done.
The Sorento bounced on the uneven pavement as it rocketed toward the narrow one-way tunnel. The other tunnel for traffic in the opposite direction was clearly flooded, as was the other road. No matter, the driver thought. I need only one.
The SUV plowed full speed into the tunnel. In a hundred yards he’d be through, then he’d have to angle the vehicle right toward the fence. He gripped the wheel tighter and pressed the accelerator—
The driver froze for just a moment as he tried to make out the hulking shape turning the corner at the far end of the tunnel. He slammed the brakes.
Too late.
Paul stomped the big forklift’s throttle into the floorboard as soon as he made the turn into the tunnel. The turbo-charged Cummins diesel engine roared, launching the big high-capacity forklift straight into the narrow passage, its long steel forks high off the ground. Paul hoped he’d guessed the height right.