Torching the Crimson Flag Read online

  To his right, Trey could see the river water. To his left was the thick underbrush, trees that covered the entire middle of the island. “Drop me off here before you turn that corner and have a visual of the target. I’ll get in position. To watch them as you drive by.”

  Bruce pulled over, and Trey got out, slipped on his backpack, and checked his weapons. Ready to go, he hit his palm on the back of the BMW, and the SUV drove off.

  “Eyes on target,” Tank announced, seeing the rig. It was parked at the northernmost point of the island loop road. The back doors of the trailer were facing them, and the cab was pointed straight ahead in the direction they were driving. Then he spotted a guy standing outside of the truck. He wasn’t smoking or stupid enough to show that he had a trackable smartphone. He had to be on watch. “Hostile outside.”

  “Copy that,” Trey responded.

  Tank and Bruce cruised past the semi-truck; nobody was in the cab. They relayed the information to Trey and drove around the corner, out of the view of the target.

  “We’ll park here,” Bruce said, bringing the BMW to a halt. The two men got out, geared up, checked their weapons, and faded into the tree line as they backtracked towards the truck.

  Trey was about to make a move. He had taken a moment to pause, listen to the sounds around him, and make sure he was prepared. Crouched and hidden by underbrush, he waited in the place where Bruce had dropped him off. Suddenly, to his right, he heard the sound of footsteps. Four armed men were moving down the road in formation towards the truck. He almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Stone double-tapped his comms, four times, paused, then repeated his signal.

  “Copy that,” Bruce acknowledged, a little surprised. He signaled Tank, knowing that his partner’s signal was nonstandard, and communicated to him. Lakota’s eyebrows shot up. Agent Locke signaled that they needed to move in on the truck.

  Trey froze in position and watched the men crouch-walk past him. Their eyes were focused straight ahead of them, most likely looking for the BMW.

  Back at LaunchPad, Justin and the team saw what was happening, but there was about a four-second delay from the live-action to the footage they were seeing. Hearing Trey’s communication, they decided to maintain radio silence.

  Agent Stone waited until the men had almost turned the corner, out of his line of sight. Then he pulled out his 9mm Sig Sauer P226 Tactical Operations Pistol. He reached into his pocket and screwed on a suppressor and stealthily moved out from where he was, staying in the tree line. The men in front of him hadn’t noticed, and Trey saw that they were wearing body armor. He knelt down, using a tree for cover, slowly stretched out his arms, and rehearsed a four-shot takedown.

  Bruce and Tank were in view of the truck.

  “When Trey gives the signal, you take out the hostile,” Locke hissed. “Go straight in. I’ll flank from the west.”

  Tank nodded and pulled out his HK416 A5. It was a gas-operated carbine weapon with a pistol grip. He understood why Trey had put him with Bruce. Vegas and Hemlock knew each other so well that their communication was almost intuitive. Agent Locke was like a translator in times like this.

  Trey rehearsed the shots one more time and then whispered, “Now!”

  He took down the hostile on the right with a headshot, the next guy with another headshot, and the third one as he was trying to turn towards Trey. At the same time, the report from Tank’s weapon told him that Lakota had taken two shots. Most likely, the sentry was down. The fourth guy whirled and fired down the street from the direction they’d come. Before he found Stone, Trey took him out. Bruce deftly glided around the target with his Glock 17 trained on the truck as he ran. Tank took a straight line towards the vehicle and raced in. But as he ran, his eye caught movement to his right!

  A concealed hostile was emerging from the tree line, raising his Beretta CX4 Storm. The pistol-caliber, polymer-framed carbine was blowback-operated, meaning that the expanding gas of the bullet as it heads down the barrel ejects the spent casing backward and activates the closed bolt to self-load the next round. The efficiency of the system ensures reliability, but more importantly, in this moment, it meant that the hostile didn’t have to worry about loading. His focus was entirely on his aim. Instinctively Tank knew that he didn’t have time to change his forward momentum to try and twist around to get a shot. The man had him in his sights. There wasn’t even time to evade. In a flash, Tank knew he was dead. As the thought blew through his mind, the hostile’s head exploded. Trey had his fifth kill in less than fifteen seconds.

  Tank refocused instantly and kept on track to the truck. As he did, he saw a figure appear at the driver’s side window. The guy must have been back in the sleeper section of the cab. Tank fired his weapon and the bullet pierced the glass, hitting the man. A quick follow-up shot finished him off.

  Bruce had circled the truck and was coming up around the back. He saw Trey moving in. Behind him were two more men, weapons raised. “Drop!” he screamed.

  Trey instantly hit the ground as the reports of two Benelli M4 Super 90s spat out their shotgun slugs. Before they could shoot again, Bruce’s Glock 17 rang out four times, dropping both hostiles. In one smooth motion, Stone was back on his feet and spinning around to see if there were more attackers from behind him.

  Tank reached the cab. He leaped onto the rig and smashed his fist through the shot-hole in the window, and unlocked the door. Then he jerked it open and climbed inside.

  With Stone covering their six, Bruce turned to look in the direction of the BMW and was glad he did! Two more men were just rounding the corner. He took the first one with a headshot, but the other fired a Glock 19 and nailed Locke squarely in the chest. Trey spun around, and as he did, he expertly pulled his HK UMP45 off his backstrap, dive-rolled to his right, and fired a three-round burst into the hostile in a grouping so tight the rounds landed nearly on top of each other. Whatever body armor the guy had on was no match. The first bullet lodged in the Kevlar, the second one punched deeper into the threading, and the third one tore right through, into the guy’s chest. He fell to the ground, and Stone finished him off with another three rounds to his head.

  “Clear!” Tank shouted, emerging from the cab.

  “Vegas!” yelled Trey, running over to Bruce.

  His friend was bent over and then collapsed onto one knee. He put up his right hand, “Back off! Give me a minute!!”

  “Cover the street! Both directions,” Trey barked at Tank as he arrived at Locke’s location.

  Lakota knelt by the front corner of the truck. He had a wide-angle view to his right, towards where the BMW was parked and could use the rig as cover when he peeked to his left, in the direction where Trey had come from.

  “You okay?” Stone asked.

  “The slug’s burning a hole in my skin,” Bruce answered, grimacing.

  Trey reached down and inside his friend’s shirt. He could feel the heat as his hand got closer to the lead. It had made its way through Bruce’s vest but hadn’t penetrated the skin of his chest. Grasping it in his fingers, Trey pulled it out and tossed it into the dirt. “Ouch!”

  Gunfire exploded into the air again, as Tank dropped a hostile to his right.

  “I get the feeling this is the right truck, this time,” Bruce said, trying to stand up. “Where are all these guys coming from?”

  “I think they were in those semis we passed when we first crossed the bridge.”

  Another shot rang out as Lakota took down another one.

  “Just stay where you are,” Trey ordered.

  “Forget that.”

  Stone could tell his friend wasn’t going to back down. “Alright then. You take Tank’s place. We’ll clear the trailer.”

  Locke wasn’t going to argue with that one. He forced himself to walk towards the front of the truck. When he reached Lakota, he said, “Go help Trey.”

  Tank immediately stood up and jogged around to the back of the truck.

  He and Stone looked at each and nod
ded, and Trey tapped his head with his fist, using the SEAL team signal to breach. Tank dropped to a knee and reached into his pack to pull out the breaching charges.

  Back at LaunchPad, Justin was staring intently at the screen. “Saara, back up the feed thirty seconds. Can you focus to the north? There’s a path going up the left rabbit ear. I think I just saw something.”

  Tuurig did as she was told. Sure enough, four figures were hurrying up the path.

  “LP to Blue Team.”

  “Hemlock, over.”

  “We have four figures moving up the trail to your north. They’re on the run.”

  Trey looked at Tank. “Set the breach and clear the trailer. I’ll pursue them.”

  Bruce was still recovering. He knew the vest had saved his life, but the bruising would probably take a couple of weeks to go away, and so would the pain. It had felt like someone took a baseball bat to his ribcage. He forced himself to stay in the moment. Wherever these guys were coming from, there were likely to be more.

  Trey took off, running. He found the trailhead and started to follow the four people on foot. On either side of the path were six-foot-high weeds, a scattering of trees, and some bushes. To the left was the Trent River. He went as fast as he dared, knowing someone could spring out of hiding at any moment.

  Tank covered his ears and depressed the trigger. As soon as the doors blew off, he climbed up inside. There was a couch to his left, a table to his right, and a giant massage-looking chair in front of him. Straight ahead, he saw flat screens and other tech equipment. He moved forward, a Glock 17 now in his hand. When he got to the desk where Chen had been sitting, he saw the escape hatch. A trapdoor. He touched his comms. “Trailer is clear. But this is the target. Whoever was in here escaped out of a door on the floor.”

  “Copy that,” Justin said. “Hemlock, you’re on the target.”

  Trey heard what they were saying, but couldn’t afford to go faster. He had to run and continuously check to his right and left with every few steps forward. Suddenly the sound of a motorboat engine springing to life filled the trees ahead of him! He raced forward now, throwing caution to the wind. Stone ran hard, and just as he was getting to the northern side of the rabbit ear, he could see four figures in the river water. Two men were standing on the swim platform of a Doral 360 SE powerboat, helping the others come on board. There was a third boatman up by the wheel. Trey couldn’t make out which of the group was Nathan. As he ran, he slipped his UMP back over his head and into his hands, holstering his pistol. It was a practiced move. Something he could do blindfolded and half-asleep.

  Tank was in full sprint, too. Faster than Stone, his feet were barely touching the ground. He slid his pack around to the front of his body as he ran and reached inside. Justin had put a camera into it, and as Lakota got the boat in sight, he knelt, zoomed in, and started shooting pictures.

  Trey could see one of the four clearly enough now to know that it wasn’t Nathan. He discharged four three-bursts and hit the guy he was looking at. The body pitched off the back of the boat and into the water as the twin engines sprang to life and the powerful craft surged forward. He stopped, took aim, and shot one of the guys that had been standing on the swim platform. Then he aimed for the other and fired off another round of shots, missing the target.

  “Come on!” screamed Stone in frustration. He raced forward again, watching helplessly as the express cruiser outpaced him down the Trent River and over to the adjoining Neuse River.

  “Tell me you’re tracking this!” he yelled at LaunchPad.

  “Copy that,” Leonard responded, calmly. “We’ve got them.”

  Trey turned to Tank. “Help me get these bodies out of the water.”

  The two agents dropped their packs on the riverbank and waded into the water. Waves from the boat’s wake were just reaching the shores and helped float the bodies in their direction. Stone grabbed the first dead hostile by the shirt and pulled him onto his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Tank did the same. They were able to get back to land and toss them forward onto the grass.

  Lakota snapped shots of the hands, fingerprints, and faces. It was a long shot, but he knew they might get something from it. “Should we take them with us?”

  Trey shook his head. “Cops can take care of ‘em. We need to get back to Bruce. Let’s go!”

  They grabbed their gear, and as they started running back down the trail, Trey said, “If it’s clear, go get the BMW, otherwise stay with Bruce. I’ll check the trailer for intel, and then we need to get out of here. I don’t know where all these hostiles are coming from, but we might be in trouble soon if there are more.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jennifer Wu was suddenly very nervous. In theory, she’d always understood what Trey did. Of course, he had never told her details, but Wu had interacted enough with LaunchPad over the past year to know that they were a highly skilled intelligence unit with their own top tier operators. But it was one thing to feed them intel surreptitiously from a great distance. It was another thing altogether to be directly personally involved in the drama of one of their missions. This was not what she’d signed up for. She didn’t like it one bit.

  She’d first met Trey in Geneva. The American consular officer, who was secretly also a CIA operator, was having a meeting with the Group Chairman of her bank. She’d been surprised because his Mandarin was as sophisticated as her English. At the time, she didn’t know that he was on an assignment to find out everything about her and relay the information to his bosses. In the end, the CIA Chief of Station in Hong Kong had decided not to use her because the Company had another option and didn’t feel she was high enough up HSBC’s food chain. Unofficially, Trey had maintained their friendship, and as the bank promoted her over the years, she became an increasingly valuable potential asset. Their bond was strained for a while once when her sister’s relationship with one of Trey’s close friends imploded spectacularly. But when Trey had finally called on her for help, she didn’t hesitate. Now, she was going to need help from him.

  Ritz Carlton Hong Kong’s rooftop bar is one of the swankiest in the world, with a magnificent view of the city. Nestled above the 117th floor, not only does it boast the highest elevation of any rooftop bar anywhere, but it is also highly posh, modern, elegant, and of course, fabulously expensive. Jennifer stepped through the door and was greeted warmly by the hostess.

  “I’m not sure if the person I’m meeting has already arrived?” Wu queried after having said her name.

  “Yes. Right this way, please,” the lady answered. They passed floor-to-ceiling windows that featured stunning night-time vistas across the shimmering water to Hong Kong Island. As they approached a dark corner on the northwest side, the hostess led the way to a Caucasian man sitting at a table. He stood as the ladies approached, and Jennifer guessed him to be in his early fifties. With his white dress shirt, open collar, loosened tie, and rolled-up sleeves, he looked like he’d spent a vigorous day in the office and was checking in for an after-work drink.

  “Hello, Ms. Wu. Lovely to see you.”

  Jennifer was a little surprised, returned his short bow, and sat down as he tucked in her chair and the hostess left. “How do you know my name?” she said, looking around and seeing that there were no other customers in hearing distance.

  “Only a small group of people in Hong Kong have the number you dialed. You’re the only female.”

  It made sense.

  “My name’s Chris Gun.”

  “Your last name is Gun?”

  “My grandfather was Korean. When he first moved to America, he pronounced his name Goon. He was endlessly teased in school, so when he went into the military, he changed the pronunciation to gun. It stuck.”

  A waitress came over and brought glasses of water with elegantly perched slices of lime on the rims.

  “I’ll have the house red,” Jennifer said.

  “Me too, please,” said Gun. He watched until the help was out of earshot and then turn
ed to Jennifer and asked, “So, why did you call?”

  “I got in trouble and didn’t know anyone else I could trust.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I research the financials of companies during my downtime.”

  “For our mutual friend?”

  She nodded. “His team.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was making some progress when I received a threatening phone call.”

  “Did you recognize the voice?”

  “No. It was electronic. At first, it was faint and hard to hear. Then it got louder, more enunciated, and repetitious.”

  The waitress arrived and professionally poured a sample for Jennifer to taste. When she had approved, she filled both glasses and bowed as she left.

  “What was the voice saying?”

  “Stop your research now, or you will be reported. We can make your life hell.”

  “Where were you?”

  “In my office.”

  Gun was surprised. “On your work computer?”

  “No. My personal laptop. The call came through my office landline, though.”

  “Did you call me from the same phone?”

  “No. A payphone.”

  Gun took a sip of wine. “Are you afraid for your life?”

  Wu shook her head.

  “So, what do you need from me?”

  “A safe place to work and a secure computer.”

  “You bring your laptop with you?”

  “I didn’t bring anything with me. Not even my mobile phone.”

  “I’ll need about ten hours to set it up for you. Always come alone. Never bring anything with you other than cash, in case you need it. No identification. Come after work tomorrow.”

  He pulled out a pen, flipped the coaster under his glass of water, and wrote down an address. “Memorize this, then dispose of the coaster. You’ll be given different addresses each time.”

  Boyd Carter hugged her uncle and then stepped off his boat onto Pier 5 of the Kewalo Basin Harbor. Established as a haven in 1913 and now owned by the Howard Hughes Foundation, it is a quaint ocean-side marina. Historically, the cove used to be a horrific place where ancient Hawaiians practiced human sacrifice. Just west of Ala Moana and Waikiki Beach, it was the perfect place to moor. There were dozens of deep-sea fishing boats, whale-watching cruises, diving expeditions, parasailing trips, and several other tourist-related businesses. She looked completely normal, disembarking with two big duffle bags, board shorts, flip flops, and a colorful aloha t-shirt; anyone who would have seen her would’ve just thought she was carrying dive gear, not enough weaponry and explosives to take over a small town.