Now, the chopper raced away from the Chinese mainland, followed by several more behind it, and trailed further back by the RIBs as they crossed the choppy waters that separated Dragon Island from the rest of China.
Then the pilot communicated to them from the cockpit. “Two minutes!”
Scarlet checked her watch and made sure her HK subcompact was ready to go. She was also carrying her old SAS-issue combat knife and several grenades. This was going to be her last hurrah, she thought. She was getting too old for this lark. She needed to retire while she was still young enough to enjoy it.
Retirement, she had decided, was definitely wasted on the old. The only problem was she needed a lot more money that she had. For a moment her thoughts turned to all the gold and treasure she had seen in the vault of Poseidon in Kefalonia and now the enormous stash in Khan’s tomb, hidden from the world in the Mongolian mountains. Why, she asked herself, was she still so poor when she seemed to have such a natural talent for tracking down stupid amounts of gold? Then, the sound of the blades whirring fast above her brought her back to reality once again.
Her own personal stash of treasure would have to wait, for now at least. She had an old friend’s arse to pull out of the fire and she was looking forward to the challenge.
It didn’t take long for Hawke and Lea to devise a plan to rescue Han and neutralize Sheng’s island defenses. From the surveillance he had done on the roof of the boatshed, it was clear the island was not well protected, presumably because Sheng wasn’t expecting a full-scale military assault any time soon.
There were two outposts on the wall surrounding the northwest part of the island — the part facing the Chinese mainland — but only one seemed to be manned. In that one he had counted two or three men acting in the capacity of guards. Sheng’s paranoia seemed to run as far as a couple of general purpose machine guns but that was about it. It might not look like much but it was enough to cripple an advancing helicopter or rigid inflatable that wasn’t expecting it.
Taking Luk’s knife, Hawke climbed the wall of the outpost and when he was on the roof he gave Lea the signal. She moved forward and threw some stones at the door, and then ducked back down in the long grass.
A man opened the door and poked his head outside.
Hawke leaned over the edge of the roof and grabbed the man by his throat and lifted him a few inches off the ground until he passed out. Another man inside saw what was happening and began firing indiscriminately through the open doorway, but Hawke dropped down through the skylight behind him and struck him on the back of the head with the handle end of Luk’s knife.
“All done!” he shouted, picking up the man’s weapon.
“Less than a minute, Joe,” Lea said. “I’m impressed, but I hope you’re not so fast in bed tonight.”
“That’s rather presumptuous, Donovan.”
“Hey, all I meant was…”
She was stopped by the sound of two small jet engines whining from somewhere behind the complex.
“What the hell is that?”
“Sounds like Sheng’s private jet,” Hawke said. “They must have got the information out of Han quicker than we thought…”
Hawke and Lea climbed onto the roof of the outpost and looked over the complex wall to the eastern side of the island where the runway was located. There, on the tarmac, they saw the same shiny white jet they were brought to the island on, only this time Sheng was striding back out to it with Luk a few yards behind him.
“Any sign of Han?” Lea asked.
Hawke frowned. “Not at all, and that’s what worries me. If Han told… wait — look there!” He pointed into the western sky where several helicopters were now rapidly approaching the island.
“Scarlet Sloane, if I’m not very much mistaken,” Lea said.
“Yeah — that explains why Sheng’s making a break for it as well. We have to get closer to the action.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Scarlet Sloane was certainly back in her element as the chopper she was in dropped out of the sky and hovered just over the tree line on the far side of the island from Sheng’s palace. Immediately someone began firing on them with an assault rifle, but she fast-roped from the helicopter along with the rest of the unit in seconds and ran to some cover as the chopper flew the others across the island.
Her Heckler & Koch gripped tightly in her hands, she raced through the long grass, keeping low to avoid the tracer bullets which occasionally zipped over her head with a terrifying whistle. The sound of death, she thought. Behind her was Lexi Zhang and several of Lao’s men. She heard through her headset that Hart, Ryan, Sophie and Karlsson were landing on the other side of the island and were now moving forward toward the main complex from the southeast creating a pincer movement.
A series of bullets slammed into the tree trunk she was hiding behind and two more flew past her at head height before whistling into some palm tree leaves just behind her. “Just like my honeymoon!” she said, and wished she had a CornerShot to take out whatever bastard was pinning her down. That was her idea of accessorizing.
Without warning, Lexi spun out from behind her tree and fired three shots in rapid succession. A second later a man in black fell from one of the watchtowers and crunched into the foliage below.
“That’s fifteen love to me, Sloane.”
“If that’s the way you want to play it, then fine darling,” Scarlet said coolly. “I happen to be an ace at tennis.”
She flicked the H&K around her tree and fired a couple of rounds into the same watchtower. They struck the second man in the chest and sent him flying back into the compound behind the wall.
“Fifteen all, I think.”
They now swept forward through the jungle with the rest of the assault team, taking out the occasional target as they presented themselves. The thought of fish in a barrel flashed through her mind but then she stopped herself being so smug when she realized they weren’t even inside yet. Cockiness was a dangerous trait in wartime. She knew that from experience too.
Now, closer to the compound, Sheng’s men were fighting more fiercely in an attempt to slow down the assault and give their boss time to retreat. One of Lao’s men placed a simple charge on a service entrance but got killed running back for some cover before he could detonate it.
Lexi sprinted into the clearing and took the radio transmitter from him before being chased back into the jungle by at least two machine guns fired from somewhere high above her. Scarlet heard her screech with insane laughter for a second and then watched as she hit the button, blasting the heavy door off the front of the compound and sending a thick shower of wooden splinters and plaster out into the hot jungle air.
Scarlet sprinted forward now, with Lexi and the others right behind her. To the east she heard the sound of more machine gun fighting and two or three grenades. Clearly Hart and her unit were rattling some cages on the other side of the compound.
Scarlet’s orders were officially to neutralize Sheng and find and secure the device, but as she ran forward and kicked her way through a small door into an internal courtyard, she knew she was really searching for Hawke and Lea. The rest she could finish later. She knew what Eden would say about that, but he wasn't here.
She scanned the courtyard and saw another small door on the other side of an ornamental bridge. Lexi was running up some stairs to her left and telling her over the headset that she was going forward to the upper levels.