Chapter 17
When I came to, I was lying on my side, my hands and legs bound tightly with plastic restraints. I was still in tremendous pain from the gunshot wound, but I was lucid enough to notice that the agony centered directly in the center of my back.
That was when paralysis first occurred to me. Oh fuck. I flexed my hands and saw them respond. I tried moving my legs.
Nothing.
I felt panic arrive in a wave of nausea and revulsion. I took in a breath to cry out in anguish, but midway through, I remembered what had happened before I lost consciousness.
Steady. My breath ragged and shallow, I forced myself to return to the world, to open my eyes and see what had happened.
"Welcome back, Mr. Cortez."
I instantly recognized the accent. I licked my lips, and forced myself not to think about the immobility of my legs. Through gritted teeth, I said, "Captain Fong."
With great effort, I pushed myself over to lie on my back. The horrific pain in my back engendered by that motion threatened to send me back to unconsciousness, but I remained mercilessly alert. "What happened?" I managed to croak out.
Fong said conversationally, but not without satisfaction, "You were shot by a soldier of Unit One."
I looked around the room. Douglas, Taleb, Brook, and Dietrich were seated on the floor, their backs against a wall and their hands bound together with plastic restraints. Fong, dressed in PLA urban combat fatigues, stood before us on the bridge of the ship. Several other Unit One commandos stood by, their Ak-2000 rifles at the ready, providing security.
Douglas, seeing my weakness, took up the responsibility of communicating. "Priest was a bloody traitor, sir. He told us to lay down our weapons after Brook reported the ambush below deck. Then Priest shot Grant."
Douglas turned to face Fong. "The PLA must have had something on him. And they must have turned him very recently because there have been much better opportunities for him to betray us."
Fong said nothing. Douglas continued, glancing at me. "And it all makes perfect sense now. The PLA guards added at the last minute. Priest was the one who said the additional guards meant we needed to bring more people. You, Ding. He organized this to get you to come."
Priest's cold-blooded calculation to maximize the effect of his betrayal raised anger in my mind that briefly rang louder than the cacophony of pain from the gunshot wound. "He'll pay for it."
Fong finally interjected, "Priest, or Captain Liu, his real name, has already paid for doing the right thing. He shot himself in the head right when my men arrived to arrest those two." Fong gestured vaguely to Douglas and Taleb.
"And, before you start calling him a traitor, know that Unit One cornered him into helping the People's Republic. Through some excellent work by our intelligence arm, we discovered Priest's real name. From there, finding a relative of his living in Shanghai was simple. Once we established contact, he required very little in the way of details about what we'd do to his sister if he didn't tell us your next target."
Douglas asked, "And the extra PLA reservist guards?"
Fong smiled. "Taiwanese intelligence is ever vigilant and naive. If they see men with uniforms from C units boarding a ship, well, they must be reservists. That little ploy also gave Priest a way to get the supreme commander of the Lafayette Initiative on the operation."
Fong sat down at one of the galley tables. "Now we all just need to discuss a few little details…"
I took a moment to look around the room in greater detail. Douglas, Taleb, Dietrich, and an extremely bloody Brook were seated on the floor against a bulkhead. Brook had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to his arms and chest, and his eyes were closed.
I said, “Brook?”
No response.
Douglas said quietly, “I think he’s dead, sir.”
Fong said, “We did what we could to save your man. He had lost too much blood, however.”
I spat weakly. “I’m sure you tried very hard.”
Looking more closely, though, Brook’s wounds appeared to be bandaged. That made me realize belatedly that the shot to my back also must have been treated.
Of course it has. You're their new number one prisoner. Their new McCormick.
McCormick.
I looked over the room again and didn't see the Knight or his Russian teammate.
Douglas read my mind. "The Chicoms haven't quite gotten us all yet."
Fong waved a hand. "Yes, I also wonder where Sergeant McCormick is hiding. The Russian as well. They're both on the ship, or at least they were as of twenty minutes ago. Your boat is still moored alongside, as well as all the clever little gadgets your Taiwanese friends have been funneling to you. Either McCormick and his Russian sidekick are swimming to Taiwan, or they're still on board somewhere."
Douglas let out a loud chuckle. "You Unit One boys are in for it now. McCormick's a goddamn Knight and Volodya's the cleverest bastard I ever met."
Fong looked at Douglas with irritation. "Those two are kidnappers. I'm sure you remember how they abducted my wife and children at gunpoint. In the West, they'd probably get their own TV show. Fortunately, we don't venerate such thugs in the People's Republic. We hunt them down."
Changing tone, Fong continued, "The helicopter should be here to bring you all back to the mainland in about twenty-five minutes. Then my men and I can tear this ship apart and smoke out Sergeant McCormick."
Suddenly, I heard Volodya's voice in my ear. The radio piece was still lodged deep in my ear canal, invisible to the Chinese. “Cough if you can hear me, Mr. Cortez.”
I coughed, and the jerking of my chest unleashed a new wave of pain in my back.
Volodya whispered, “The Chinese don't seem to know about the radio mikes planted in our ears. Douglas, Dietrich, and Taleb all confirmed they can hear us.”
I looked at Douglas, who briefly met my gaze and gave me a faint, almost imperceptible nod.
McCormick said, “We heard Fong tell you there's a helicopter en route. If we're going to have a chance of getting you all out, we have to stop that helo. We'll be working on that one. Sit tight, we haven't forgotten about you guys.”
We sat silently in the galley, listening over the radio as events unfolded elsewhere in the ship. McCormick and Volodya had evidently already come up with a plan for dealing with the Chinese helicopter, now only minutes away.
McCormick whispered to Volodya, “This hatch leads up to the deck.”
“How do you know?” the Russian asked.
“I don't, but we've been prowling around the lower decks for way too long. We’re somewhere in the middle of the ship. We've got to take a chance soon or we won't have time to set things up.”
Wordlessly, McCormick and Volodya opened the hatch and climbed to the deck. They found themselves in one of the narrow valleys formed by the stacks of shipping containers.
“You think there might be an antiaircraft missile launcher in one of these?” McCormick asked softly, gesturing to the containers.
“I'm sure there is, Sergeant,” Volodya answered. “But I'm also sure we don't know which container, and we don't have a way to open one even if we did know. My plan is the only chance we have.”
The two proceeded silently to the right edge of the ship. Once there, McCormick peeked around the corner to the pathway. He whispered, “They've unloaded a lot of gear from our boat. It's sitting on the deck now. Six of the Unit One-rs are poking through it. Another four are on lookout duty.”
“Think we can take them?” Volodya wanted to know.
“Maybe. We'd have to drop a lot of them very quickly.” McCormick paused for a moment, then looked up. “But we can easily get them all if we establish a crossfire… ”