Conspiracy

104

The assault began with a rocket attack, quickly followed by an infiltration on an unguarded flank. Before the enemy realized it, their perimeter had been compromised and the guerillas were already streaking toward their objective.

It was a classic VC raid, except that the attackers were not Vietcong. And the rocket attack actually consisted of two flash-bang grenades detonated by remote control. They had the desired effect, however; the security officers rallied toward the explosion, guns drawn.

Charlie Dean followed Karr as he leapt over the four-foot wall around the compound and ran toward the small building identified as a power shed by the Art Room, which was watching them via an infrared camera in the small “Crow” unmanned aerial vehicle they had launched twenty minutes before. The shotgun Dean had in his hands seemed to gain weight with each step until it felt like a howitzer. Dean threw himself against the side of the building, breathing harder than he thought he should be.

Karr was already kneeling next to him, attaching a block of plastic explosive to the conduit where the power line came out of the building. Dean checked the gear in his tactical vest, patting himself down to make sure he hadn’t lost anything important in the dash. Two canisters of shotgun shells packed with disabling pellets and gas were tucked into each of the large front pockets; exchanging them with a blank magazine in the gun took about three seconds. The gun was based on a Pancor Jackhammer and looked like a cross between a cut-down Franchi SPAS-12 and an old-fashioned tommy gun. Its ammunition was designed to be nonfatal and meant for close-quarters combat; Dean had a Colt automatic in his belt as a backup weapon.

Karr had an MP5 machine gun. Like Dean’s pistol, they’d only use it if things got hairy.

Dean readjusted his night glasses, pushing them back up the bridge of his nose and tightening the clasp on the strap at the back of his head. Though they looked like oversized sun-glasses, they were more powerful than the Gen 3 night mon-ocles used by the American Army. Then he pulled on the respirator, so any stray tear gas wouldn’t disable him.

“Ready?” Karr asked, standing. The microphone in Karr’s mask gave his voice a hollow sound.

“Ready,” said Dean.

“We see two guards standing at the front of the building,” said Rockman. “That leaves three unaccounted for, somewhere inside.”

“Pot luck,” said Karr. “You got point, Charlie.” Dean pushed off from the shack and ran toward the back corner of the police building, about thirty yards away. Once again he threw himself against the wall, pushing the nose of his gun level as he triple-checked his position. He was between the corner of the building and one of the large windows on the first floor.

Karr slid in on the other side of the window. He already had two flash-bang grenades in his hands.

“Ten seconds,” said Karr. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Rockman?”

“Same as before.”

Dean leaned toward the end of the building, then peeked around the corner. A basement entrance sat six feet away.

“Five seconds,” said Karr. “Four, three, two—” Dean stood back upright. As Karr said, “One,” Dean swung the metal butt of the shotgun up toward the glass.

The sound of the glass shattering was drowned out by the explosion of the power shack.

“Clear,” said Karr, glancing in the window. “Go!” Dean grabbed the ledge of the window and jumped into the room. He stumbled as he landed, falling to his left. He rolled through the shards of broken glass, crushing it into tiny pieces with his shoulder, before jumping back to his feet. Huffing again, he raced to the open door of the room, reaching it a few seconds after Karr.

“Clear,” said Karr, and they ran into the hallway.

Using infrared images from the Crow, the Art Room had pinpointed a room on the first floor where they thought Qui was being held. Karr sent his foot crashing against the door.

The thin jamb gave way instantly. Karr tossed one of his grenades inside. As the room erupted with a flash, Dean followed inside.

The room was empty.

“Shit,” cursed Dean.

“Coming in the front!” warned Rockman.

Karr threw a grenade down the hallway as one of the guards began to shout. Dean leapt into the hallway behind the explosion and pumped two shells into the three figures at the far end. The men went down immediately, their bodies pelted by oversized plastic BBs and soaked in synthetic cayenne.

“Has to be downstairs,” said Karr, racing toward the back stairwell.

“Rockman?” said Dean, pausing to smash the emergency lights on the battery backup at the end of the hallway.

“She’s definitely not on the second floor. It’s unoccupied.”

“This way, Charlie,” said Karr, pulling open the door to the stairs. “And relax.”

“I am relaxed.”

“That why you’re still cursing?”

When she heard the first series of explosions, Qui Lai Chu began shaking uncontrollably. There was no furniture in the room where she was being held; she had nothing to hide behind or under except for the wooden chair where she’d been sitting. Trembling, she slipped off the chair, falling to her knees as she pulled the chair toward her.

The ground shook and the lights went out. Qui Lai Chu’s mind fled from the present to her childhood, to the early days when French was the only language she spoke. She was back in Hanoi, in the large house her father had built, cowering in the basement with her mother as Communist fanatics hurled grenades at the de cadent bourgeois imperialists. Qui didn’t understand what the slogans meant, but she did know that the grenades were aimed at her family and friends.

There were fresh explosions above her. Now she was back in Saigon, during the eerie days just before the capital fell, just before history’s overwhelming momentum crushed the last bits of the life her mother had built for the family here.

Before Qui’s mother, seeing that she would lose everything a second time, threw herself in front of a Communist truck, so she might meet her husband and ancestors.

“Stay away from the door!” shouted a voice.

Qui didn’t recognize it at first. It was amplified in an odd way, and she thought it was a hallucination from the past.

The front of the room exploded with light. Blinded, she pushed her face close to the ground.

“Got her, Charlie!” yelled someone nearby. “Go; let’s go!” a beam of light appeared in the stairwell as Dean reached the door. Dean waved at Karr to stay back, then waited a few seconds until the circle of light came closer. When it hit the wall opposite him, he lifted his shotgun and leapt past the stairs, firing two rounds upward at the light’s source. It was a flashlight, and as the bulb exploded, the man who was holding it toppled down the staircase.

Dean got back up and ran to a door at the side of the basement that led to the outside. The stench of cayenne pepper filled the small space; even though he had a respirator on, Dean began coughing as he pushed down on the crash bar.

The door didn’t give.

Karr, carry ing Qui over his shoulder, ducked next to Dean.

There were shouts above. Three or four bullets crashed against the sides of the stairwell. Karr lobbed a tear gas canister toward the first floor, then ran to Dean.

Dean pulled the pistol out of his belt and fired twice point-blank into the lock. He pounded against the door. The mangled metal gave slightly but didn’t break.

“Together,” said Karr, putting down Qui.

Automatic rifle fire sounded behind them. The stairwell magnified the sound of the AK-47, so that it seemed as if it were coming from inside Dean’s skull.

“Now,” said Dean.

They rammed their shoulders together. The lock gave way and Dean sprawled into the cement stairwell.

Karr tossed a grenade behind him and then rushed past carry ing Qui. Dean followed, stumbling up the wide concrete ramp that led to the yard at the side of the building.

Rockman was yelling at him. Dean couldn’t understand what it was, but he guessed it might be a warning. As soon as he saw something moving on his left, Dean lowered the shotgun and fired from his hip.

The pellets sailed wide right without hitting the figure.

But the shadow collapsed anyway, its own er flattening himself on the ground to avoid a second shot.

“To the wall, Charlie, let’s go!” yelled Karr.

“Two more, coming from the right side of the building,” warned Rockman.

Dean stopped and dropped to his knee, waiting for the men to appear. They stepped out from a line of tree trunks at about thirty feet. Dean fired two shots, both times hitting home.

By now his lungs felt as if they were going to explode. He ran as fast as he could for the wall. Just as he reached it, a thousand firecrackers began exploding in the courtyard — another of Karr’s diversions.

As Dean put his hand on the top of the wall, he heard an AK-47 firing somewhere nearby. He lost his balance in the haste, slipping all the way back to the ground. Chips flew from the wall.

I’m not going to die here, he thought. And he leapt to his feet and jumped headfirst over the wall.

The motorbike began to move.

“Hang on,” said the man who had carried Qui from the building.

Within a minute, they were on a highway, driving to the west. Qui felt as if she were riding on a thin stick and that any false move would send them over to the side.

Ten minutes later, they stopped. Qui’s eyes still stung from the odor of the pepper gas.

“Why?” she demanded. “Why did you do this to me?” The man laughed.

“Come on and get into the truck.”

“Are you kidnapping me?”

He laughed again. “We’re rescuing you. Come on. Get into the truck. We have a plane to catch.” He started to let the bike slide out from under him to the ground. Qui stepped away.

Dean drove up a few seconds later.

“Mr. Dean,” she said after he hopped off his own bike.

“Why did you do this to me?”

“What do you mean?” asked Dean.

“Why did you do this?”

“Rescue you?”

“I didn’t need to be rescued.”

“Hey, lady, are you serious?” said the other man.

“I am very serious. I could have handled this.”

“They would have put you in jail.”

“It’s all right, Tommy,” said Dean. “I’ll talk to her. Go get the truck ready.”

Karr walked away, chuckling to himself.

“I’m glad your friend is so amused,” Qui told Dean.

“Tommy thinks the world’s a sitcom. He’s always laughing at something.”

“You’ve given me a great many problems, Mr. Dean.”

“No.” Dean shook his head. “You’re going to come with us. We’ll be in America tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to go to America.” Qui felt her body begin to tremble once again. “Who asked you to rescue me? Who?

Why did you have to interfere?”

Dean persuaded qui to sit in the back of the truck while he talked over the situation with Karr.

“We can’t take her back if she doesn’t want to go,” Dean told Karr.

“Gotta do something, Charlie. And we only have about a half hour to meet that boat. Telach said he’d only wait two hours.”

Dean paced back and forth along the side of the van. Karr was right. But taking Qui away against her will didn’t seem right, either.

How did you save people who didn’t want to be saved? Or rather, who did want to be saved but didn’t want your solution?

Vietnam, all over again.

“All right, come on,” Dean said finally. “Hop in the truck.”

“We going to the docks?”

“No. Plan B.”