17
Karl Radford stood in the South Wing of the SRO’s Operations Center in Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia, transfixed by what he saw up on the mammoth video monitor, which covered a full walclass="underline" black-clad men with weapons; the interior of Fat’s villa; Fat frolicking with the naked girls; the bug blacking out.
They’re blown, Radford thought. And the goddamn chopper that brought Jin to the island has blown, too. “Recycle to our bird, please,” Radford said.
The image changed to an overhead view of Matsu Shan from an infrared satellite camera 22,000 miles in space, linked to the SRO’s Guild System of linked computer nodes for enhancement and display on the giant screen. He saw lights, scores of heat sources — men moving around on the ground, vehicles — and the L-shaped villa. But even in extreme close-up it was impossible to tell which men were which — the SEALs or Fat’s private army. Radford didn’t fail to notice that there were far more bodies moving around than he’d counted earlier. And on the helo pad, fading traces of heat left by Jin’s chopper, which had departed well ahead of the KH-12’s lift over the horizon into camera range.
“Karl.” The familiar voice of the president’s national security advisor boomed into the room from the opcenter’s comm-net uplink to the Florida Keys.
“I’m here, Paul,” he said into a wireless mini-mike on his lapel, the kind used by news readers in TV studios.
“Can we get them out?”
Radford hesitated a beat. He ran the tip of his tongue over dry lips. “No, I’m afraid not. They’ll have to fight their way out — if it comes to it.”
“Think it will?”
“Well, as you just saw, Fat and his men have been alerted. There is, I’d say, a fifty-fifty chance Scott and his people can extract without a fight.” Radford knew that estimate was too optimistic: more likely thirty-seventy. “We may have underestimated Fat’s strength.”
“What assets do we have in the area that could help out?” the national security advisor asked.
“Paul, if you mean special-ops, or helos, or—”
“I mean whatever we have — ships, planes, anything.”
“Nothing. We have no ships or aircraft within five hundred miles of Taiwan or the Formosa Straits. We didn’t want to give the Chinese any reason to suspect we were up to something.”
“Damn it. And that North Korean chopper has flown the coop as well?”
“Yes.”
“And this other guy that the JDIH is so sure is a Japanese, what about him?”
“We just don’t know. Scott reported finding only Fat and his men on the island. Jin and his guest must have concluded their business and departed before Scott and the SEALs landed. We’re back-hauling our satellite feeds to see if we can pinpoint the chopper’s flight path back to the Sugun.”
“In other words, we sent Scott, Jefferson, and those SEALs into a trap.”
“I wouldn’t say it was a trap. I’d say our timing was off a bit, but of course we were relying on information provided by the JDIH and—”
“Never mind the ass-covering, Karl. If Scott and the SEALs have to fight their way out, the Chinese will know it, right?”
“I’m not so sure. They may think it’s strictly a local issue, drug lords fighting over turf.”
After a long silence Friedman said, “Keep me updated, Karl. I want to know everything that happens.”
“Of course.”
“Fifty-fifty, you say?”
“If we’re lucky.”
The uplink went silent. If we’re lucky.
“General Radford?”
“Ah, Ms. Kida, I almost forgot you were there.”
“Have you had any direct contact with Commander Scott?”
“We’ve had nothing from him, just the video up-links. Have your people seen them?”
“We made copies for distribution. They’re undergoing analysis now.”
Radford knew that the Japanese had the lead in feature-recognition software. “Perhaps you’ll be able to identify someone on them we can’t,” he said.
“General, I heard you tell Mr. Friedman that the information I provided was faulty, the timing of the meeting—”
“No one is blaming you, Ms. Kida, least of all me. Oh, no, not at all. I take full responsibility for the planning and execution of the mission. You are blameless.”
“General—”
“Don’t worry, Ms. Kida, you are not in any way responsible.”
“General, if you—”
“I’ll keep you informed, Ms. Kida.”
“Sir, if you make contact with Commander Scott, please let me know.”
18
Scott heard three-round bursts from M4s, followed by screams, then silence. Someone shouted something in Chinese. Scott next heard the cracking of AK-47s and hot 7.62mm rounds slapping through foliage, spanging off tree trunks, piercing the toolshed’s thin sheet-metal sides.
Jefferson’s voice was on the line: “Contact! Contact!” At the same time, Scott saw a dark figure rushing toward him with an AK-47 pointed, ready to fire. Scott swung his M4 up and triggered a three-round burst. Frangible rounds tore through the man’s chest, knocked him down hard, and sent his weapon flying through the air. All over the island, birds and animals awoke, cawing and shrieking.
Scott grabbed Caserta, who was struggling with the folded-up MAV control pack, and dragged him to cover.
“You two okay?” Jefferson said over his shoulder, eyes glued to the immediate area around them at the base of the bluff.
“Okay,” Scott said, chest heaving. “Any of our guys down?”
“Nope. Just bad-asses.” He pointed to four black-clad figures sprawled on the sand in poses that left no doubt that they were dead.
“Any more live ones?”
“On both sides of us. But they don’t have a bead on us — yet.”
Gunfire coming in at them from the bluff was sporadic and uncontrolled. Scott saw muzzle flashes, like fireflies in the woods. A heavy machine gun burped out several rounds, then stopped. The narco-traffickers seemed confused, and their uneven lay-down of fire proved it. The searchlight’s loom swept across the beach, hunting for the SEALs. It swept over the pier, then the stacked fuel drums. Everywhere it fell, long, inky shadows slashed like knife blades across the rumpled sand.
“We have to take that thing out,” Scott said, ducking as the blinding beam swept overhead.
“Right, if we don’t,” Jefferson said, “we won’t get off the beach.” He hailed Ramos. The SEAL slithered over the sand to Jefferson’s side. He gripped an M4 equipped with an M203 grenade launcher.
“When I tell you to, put a flash-bang into those weeds over there by the pier,” Jefferson said. “It’ll get their attention, maybe they’ll put that damn light on it long enough for Van Kirk and Zipolski to shoot it out.”
Ramos fetched a 40mm grenade from his rucksack and loaded the weapon. Van Kirk and Zipolski would have only seconds to shoot out the searchlight when it paused — if it paused — before the commotion caused by the grenade’s concussion and brilliant flash of light wore off and the light moved on again. If they missed, Fat’s men would know where the shooting had come from and start pouring in lead.
But before Jefferson gave the order for Ramos to fire the grenade, a man with a Russian PK machine gun opened fire, spraying live rounds and green tracers helterskelter in their direction from a hidden position.
“Think that son of a bitch knows where we are?” Brodie said, face pressed into the sand. Sand tossed in the air by bullets grinding up the beach a yard outside their perimeter rained on their backs.