The Triad screamed, but his screams were lost in the gunfire and shouting in the club. Ding head-butted the man twice, breaking his nose the first time and knocking him senseless the second.
Ding stayed low behind the table, concealed from the Triads shooting up at the bar, and he dropped the magazine out of the butt of the Beretta, checking how many rounds he had. It was nearly full, fourteen bullets, plus one in the chamber.
Now Domingo Chavez had a gun.
Chief Petty Officer Meyer’s problems were compounding by the second, but he’d been in this line of work for too long to allow fear, confusion, or mission overload to take control of his faculties. He and his men would keep their heads in the game as long as they still had a pulse and still had a mission to accomplish.
Zha had been flexi-cuffed and dragged back into the hall, part of the way by his shirt and the rest of the way by his spiked hair. As soon as he was at the foot of the stairs up to the rear exit, Meyer’s team began collapsing back, covering for one another as they reloaded.
Two of the SEALs had taken rounds to their body armor, but it was Special Warfare Operator Kyle Weldon who caught the first serious injury. A 9-millimeter round hit him square in the kneecap, sending him face-planting in the hall. He dropped his HK PDW, but it remained attached to his body by the sling, and he quickly fought off the pain enough to spin around so that one of his mates could grab him by the pull straps on his body armor.
Seconds later his mate was himself shot. Petty Officer Humberto Reynosa took a ricocheted round through his left calf as he dragged Weldon, and he fell down in a heap next to his buddy. As Chief Petty Officer Michael Meyer provided cover up the hallway and out into the club, two more SEALs scrambled back to grab both operators and pull them closer to safety.
Meyer slipped in the blood as he backed up the stairs behind them. He then regained his footing and centered his laser-aiming device on a 14K gunman wielding a pistol-grip shotgun, who appeared at the mouth of the hall. The American fired a three-round burst into the man’s lower torso before the Triad managed to get a shot off.
SWO Joe Bannerman, nearest to the back door up the stairs and farthest from the fight, somehow managed to take a bullet in the back shoulder from a Triad who leapt out of the restroom with his gun spraying lead. The bullet pitched Bannerman forward, but he stayed on his feet and kept going, and Petty Officer Bryce Poteet blasted the Triad with a twelve-round spray of jacketed lead.
Ryan had done as instructed by Chavez and sought cover. He’d just crossed the alleyway and dived between several reeking garbage cans when headlights from the mouth of the alley approached. It was the black twelve-passenger van that dropped off the SEALs just a few minutes earlier; no doubt it had gotten the call to come back around and pick them up.
No sooner had the van slammed on its brakes at the exit to the club when the door flew open. Jack watched from between two plastic bins as a bearded American with a bloody right shoulder raced out into the alley and began scanning for targets in the opposite direction. A second man came out and scanned with his rifle high back toward Jack and beyond.
Moments later Jack saw FastByte22, or at least someone wearing the same clothes as FastByte22. He was hooded and his wrists were tied, and he was being shoved forward by an American operator.
Meyer was last out of the door. He spun toward the van in time to see Zha thrown into the open side door of the vehicle; then men jumped, limped, or were helped in after him.
Meyer kept his weapon trained down the staircase until the door closed, then followed his mates into the van.
As he made it into the vehicle, he spun around to check his “six” while still crawling across his prostrate colleagues.
The back door to the club burst open and two men in black leather jackets stepped out. One wielded a black pistol and the other a 12-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip.
CPO Meyer dumped a half-magazine into each man, sending them and their weapons tumbling into the alley as the door closed again behind them.
“Go!” Meyer shouted, and the van accelerated up the alley to the east.
As soon as the van moved past him, Jack emerged from between the garbage cans and rushed toward the back door, desperate to check on Chavez. “Ding? Ding?” he said into his headset.
When he was still twenty-five feet from the door, a white SUV turned into the alley from the west on squealing tires. It raced closer, accelerated after the panel van holding Zha and the Americans.
Jack had no doubt this SUV would be full of 14K reinforcements. He made it to the shotgun lying by the dead Triad, picked it up off the ground, and then stepped into the center of the alleyway. He raised the weapon and fired a single shell into the street just in front of the approaching vehicle. Buckshot ricocheted off the asphalt and shredded both of the front tires, sending the SUV veering off to the left and crashing through the glass windows of an all-night market.
Jack heard a noise close on his right, turned, and saw Adam Yao running toward him. He continued on past Jack to the back door of Club Stylish. As he ran he said, “There will be more where they came from. We have to go through the club to get out of here. Throw down the gun and follow me. Keep that mask on!”
Jack did as he was told and followed Adam.
Yao opened the door and immediately saw blood streaked down the stairs. In Mandarin he shouted, “Is everybody okay?”
He made it just a few steps down before being confronted by a man pointing a pistol in his face. Instantly the gunman realized he was looking at two unarmed men in civilian dress, not geared-up shooters. “Where did they go?” he demanded.
Adam replied, “West. I think they are going to the Cross-Harbour Tunnel!”
The Triad lowered the weapon and ran past them up the stairs.
Down in the strip club, Adam and Jack were met by a scene of carnage. A total of sixteen bodies lay on the floor. Some moved in the throes of agony, and others lay still.
Seven 14K Triads lay dead or dying, with three more less gravely wounded. Six club patrons were dead or injured as well.
Adam and Jack found Chavez, who himself was heading toward the stairs up the hallway. When he saw them he held up a small handheld computer. Jack recognized it as belonging to Zha Shu Hai. Ding had picked it up off the ground where FastByte had been bound by the SEALs.
Ding slid it into the inside pocket of his sport coat.
Adam said, “We need to keep moving. Go out the front like everyone else.”
The CIA officer led the way, and Ding and Jack followed him.
Ryan could not believe the inside of the nightclub. Every table and every chair was flipped on its side or upside down, broken glass was everywhere, and blood seeping out of bodies or smeared on the tile floor shimmered in the spinning light from the disco ball that, somehow, managed to stay intact and operational.
The shrill wail of sirens got louder and louder out on Jaffe Road.
Yao said, “It’s going to fill up with police around here quickly. They always move in when the fighting is done over here in the Triad neighborhoods.”
As they headed up the stairs, Jack said, “Whoever those guys were, I can’t believe they pulled it off.”
Just then the sound of gunfire erupted once again. This time it came from the east.
Ding looked at Jack. Softly he said, “They haven’t pulled it off yet. Go back down and grab a gun off of one of those bodies.”
Jack nodded, turned, and rushed down the stairs.
Yao asked Chavez, “What are we going to do?”