Gunmetal Gray

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The powerboats were old and covered with rust and peeling paint, but each vessel had two huge and well-maintained engines, and the boats were each large enough to carry eight men. Half of the men waded ashore, their weapons pointed right at Fan and Court, and then one of the boats pulled up to the rotting wooden dock, while the other vessels just trolled in the river, the gunmen on board training their Kalashnikovs on the pair of new captives.

One of the men seemed to be in charge, simply because he began ordering the others around. He was of average size and build, and he appeared to be no older than twenty-five or so. He had a folded-stock AK-47 hanging off his shoulder and a simple assault vest on his chest, and he wore a red bandana that held back his long dark hair. His arms were covered in tats, like the others, and also like the others, his skin was burnt orange and leathery.

His sunglasses and his wristwatch looked expensive to Court, but his gun and his gear looked third-rate.

Red Bandana looked carefully at Fan Jiang, even stepping up to him, pinching his face in his hand, and moving his head around, examining the Chinese man as if he were looking at a horse at auction. He appeared to be making sure he had the right guy. With a nod to the armed men around him he reached into one of the magazine pouches in his vest, then pulled out a plastic Ziploc bag. He opened it up and retrieved a mobile phone. While he dialed a number he waved his free hand and shouted orders at the men standing around the two captives, and they all began moving.

Court’s wrists were pulled behind his back and tied with a length of thick hemp, and the man who did it was clearly an expert at the task. Even though Court knew he couldn’t undo his hands, Court was glad he was being bound, because he figured he was just the booby prize for these guys; Fan was the real catch.

Being tied up meant Court was going for a ride, and he found that much preferable to getting shot and left in the jungle for the bugs.

Court didn’t imagine for a second this had been some sort of opportunistic kidnapping by river bandits who just happened by, so Court was glad that whoever was running the show on the other end of the phone didn’t order them to just shoot the big American and be done with it.

Court asked them who they were and what they wanted, and although none of them seemed to speak any English, after a nod from Red Bandana, a large man wearing an assault vest adorned with a huge Rambo combat knife in a sheath came over and smacked Court in the side of the head with the butt of his rifle.

Court understood this language. Loosely translated, it meant No more questions.

Fan Jiang and Court Gentry were placed into the powerboat at the dock, and several gunmen climbed in with them. The prisoners were pushed down onto a bench in the middle of the boat, shoulder to shoulder, and while the commander continued his phone call on the bank, Fan leaned over and spoke into Court’s ear.

He said, “They are Thai.”

“How do you know?”

“I did some research on different organizations in Southeast Asia when I was in Hong Kong. The tattoos mean they are from a Thai Chao.”

“What’s that?”

“It just means they are an underworld group, from Bangkok. There are lots of different organizations, but the biggest and most dangerous is called Chamroon Syndicate. They are all over. Even in Hong Kong.”

“Why didn’t you work for them in Hong Kong?”

Fan just looked down at the deck of the boat. Softly, he said, “Because they are animals. Vicious animals. Very bad.”

“Terrific,” Court muttered.

Soon Red Bandana boarded the same boat and sat down behind the man at the helm, and then the big outboard engines roared to life.

Five minutes later all three boats raced single file south on the river as the morning sun glared orange off the water. Court and Fan were seated among eight men, most of whom sat on the gunwales on the port and starboard sides and held their rifles out, as if there were real threats here on this river.

Court imagined there probably were, but he didn’t think he could possibly be in deeper trouble than right here, in the middle of this boat.

Court looked at Red Bandana now. He sat on the bench facing inboard; he had a cigarette in one hand and the mobile phone in the other, and his elbows were back on the port-side gunwale behind him. He leaned back, relaxed and happy after making this catch so early in his day.

He hung up the phone a minute later and slid it back in the plastic bag, but instead of putting it back in his vest, he just tucked the phone under his leg on the bench. Court figured the phone was left out because Red Bandana was expecting another call.

Court eyed the man on his right, just past Fan. He was taller than the others, and his big Rambo knife stuck straight up from its sheath on the front of his assault vest. His rifle faced outboard, but he looked Court’s way through cheap aviator sunglasses.

Scanning around the boat a little more, Court saw a space between two men sitting on the gunwale. It was on the starboard side, across from Red Bandana. The men looked out at the riverbank, with about three feet between them.

Court took everything in again: the cell phone in the plastic bag sticking out from under the right leg of the man ahead and on his left. The knife on the man’s chest rig on Court’s right. And the clear space over the side of the boat ahead and on Court’s right.

Court gazed out of the boat now, across the brown water. On the starboard side the riverbank was only about fifty feet away. On the port side, however, it was a good forty or fifty yards to the shore. Court imagined there were some rocks or other obstacles in the river ahead that caused the pilot to hug the western bank.

One more quick scan around him and Court made his decision.

He leaned over to Fan and whispered, “Do everything they say; don’t put yourself in danger. Sooner or later, probably sooner, they’ll sit you down in front of a computer to do some work for them. When that happens, figure out a way to let America know where you are.”

Fan shook his head now. “I’m not letting America know anything. The Taiwanese will save me. I just have to tell them where I am.”

“Kid… you aren’t getting saved by Taiwan. They don’t even know you are on the run.”

Fan turned to Court. “Yes, they do. They promised me a new life. A house. A job.”

Court was confused. “When was this?”

“Right before they helped me get out of the mainland.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“That’s how I got away. Song told me to go to the Lo Wu border crossing and wait. I did this, and a man stepped up to me. He was from Taiwan. He gave me papers to cross into Hong Kong. He said I would be met on the other side and taken to Taipei, but when I crossed over, there was no one there. I realized I was followed over the border, so I ran.”

None of this made a bit of sense to Court. If Taiwanese intelligence had spirited Fan out of the mainland, why wasn’t Court told about it? Taipei had a good working relationship with CIA; there was no way CIA would not know of Taiwan’s involvement in Fan’s escape from the mainland.

Court said, “The papers you mentioned… they had your picture? They were already prepared?”

“Yes.”

“So, Song must have contacted Taiwan on your behalf before he was killed? He was a double agent?”

Fan cocked his head a little, thinking about it. “No. Song was no Taiwan agent. The man at the border crossing said they had intercepted the phone call between Song and me and prepared everything. Then they just waited for me to arrive.”

Bullshit, thought Court. If Song told Fan to go to that particular border crossing and wait, then Song set up Fan’s escape with Taiwanese intelligence. Court saw no way that the CIA could be unaware of this, but he didn’t know why the hell Taiwan helped Fan get out of the mainland only to leave him high and dry in Hong Kong. Something very wrong must have happened with the operation.

Slowly it dawned on him. Court had been told that the CIA got involved with this when they found out Fan was being hunted by Fitzroy, thereby creating a perfect opportunity to send in one of Fitzroy’s old hit men in order to nab Fan.

But that story was a lie. No, this whole thing was some kind of a busted op — something involving Taiwan and the United States, perhaps — and CIA had sent Court in to help salvage it.

Court leaned back to Fan. “Wo Shing Wo… how did you get hooked up with them?”

“Desperation. I was walking the streets of Hong Kong for a day, afraid to even go to a hotel with the papers I had been given. I slept in an alley. Finally I went to an Internet café and called a number I found for the National Security Bureau, Taiwan’s intelligence agency, but it was just some operator. I was put on hold. I got scared and left the café, but just after I left I saw men with guns race in.”

Court mumbled, “Colonel Dai’s men were already in Hong Kong looking for you.”

“I went to another café and began looking for protection in Hong Kong. I knew I could work for some group, help them out, but it needed to be someone who wasn’t afraid of mainland security.”

Court had to admit Fan’s plan had been solid and effective. He had surrounded himself with guns and a defensive infrastructure, and that got him out of Hong Kong and kept him from getting assassinated by Colonel Dai’s men. But now, looking around at the wild river bandits surrounding them on the boat, Court thought Fan’s run of relative fortune might have run out.

He said, “I’ll find out what’s going on. Don’t do anything stupid, but find a way to reach out to us, and I’ll come back for you. I promise.”

Fan looked away and shook his head. “What are you talking about? You are in the same situation as me. You can’t get away from these men.”

“Yeah… you’re probably right.”

Court leaned over on the bench and looked down at the deck for several seconds, his head almost between his knees. He was the picture of compliance; not one of the eight men around him expected any movement out of him whatsoever.

While he looked like a man dejected, he was in fact already hard at work on his play. He slowly, quietly sucked in deep lungfuls of air, then blew them out through his mouth, careful to make no sound with either the inhalations or the exhalations.

In and out, he breathed so deep it hurt his chest, hurt the raw scar from his month-old gunshot wound to his ribs. Over and over.

The entire time he’d been perfectly still, but now he looked up and around slowly, calmly, still hiding his deep breaths. The positioning of all the important elements on the boat were exactly the same, and the rugged jungle terrain on the far bank looked identical here to the way it had during the entire time he’d been on the speedboat.

One more massive breath — he felt he’d stretched his lungs to capacity over the past minute — and one more long, slow exhalation.

And then he did it.

His right foot slid out in front of him. He swiveled his hips to his right, his butt left the seat, and he spun around, ninety degrees, and took one squatted step backwards across the tiny deck; his bound hands reached out behind him and he grabbed the hilt of the big knife on the man’s chest rig before the man even turned his head towards the movement.

Court launched forward in the direction of Red Bandana, drawing the knife from the sheath behind his back as he moved, and as he flew across the width of the speedboat, he sucked in the biggest lungful of air he’d taken in his entire life. He landed on his knees next to Red Bandana, still sucking in, but as part of the movement of propelling himself forward, his head came down, and he held in his air and bit into the plastic bag holding the cell phone, right next to Red Bandana’s leg.

The leader of the group shouted out, but he only pulled his leg away in an automatic reaction to the movement.

By now most everyone on board was shouting; some had begun swiveling their weapons inward to the blurring motion in their midst, and a small man at the stern launched himself up and started moving past Fan and towards the big American.

Court thrust his body up, going from his knees to his feet, and then he launched himself into a backflip off the boat, right through the open space between two men sitting on the starboard-side gunwale.

As he flew through the air he caught a last glimpse of Fan Jiang, still sitting on the bench, his eyes wide with astonishment.

Court crashed through the surface of the muddy river and disappeared below.

The men on the boat were standing now, rifles swinging in all directions. The man at the helm realized his captive had gone overboard, so he reduced the throttle and turned hard to starboard, in the direction the man had leapt.

The other powerboats approached the area, Red Bandana stood and screamed, and men on all three watercraft began firing their rifles at the place where the big American disappeared.

Below the brown surface the first thing Court did, before he began cutting with the knife, was to reverse his direction. Everyone had seen him backflip off the boat towards the nearest shore, and it made more sense he would head that way because of both its proximity and the fact that he and Fan had been heading west when they’d been caught, so by swimming back under the wake of the speedboat and kicking back to the east, he knew he’d cause most everyone on the boats to look in the wrong direction.

Once he’d put twenty or thirty yards between himself and the spot in the river where he went under, he continued swimming, but slower now, while he carefully turned the sharp knife around with the fingers of his bound hands. He knew dropping the knife would probably mean he’d either get shot or drown, because without the use of his hands there was no way he’d be able to swim far enough away from the boats before surfacing to where he would not be seen.

He began cutting, concentrating on working as efficiently as possible, and also on keeping his teeth clenched on the plastic bag in his mouth.

Court could hold his breath for three and a half minutes without any trouble, but not when he was exerting himself like this. He figured he’d have to surface in less than a minute and a half, so he kept kicking while he worked, knowing every single yard he traveled would reduce the risk he’d be spotted when he finally did come up for air.

At the one-minute mark he still had a lot of cutting to do, but he kept sawing, kept kicking, kept holding his breath. His lungs screamed and he felt the muscles in his legs and hands hurt from the lack of fresh oxygen, but he just kicked harder, sawed faster, told himself his body could shake off the effects of another thirty seconds of oxygen deprivation so much better than it could shake off the effects of an AK-47 burst to the back of his head.

When he’d finally cut all the rope away, he slid the knife into his waistband at the small of his back, then took the bag with the phone in it out of his mouth and shoved it down the front of his pants, and now he began exhaling as he swam furiously, his mind dulling, his sense of direction beginning to fail him.

He surfaced slowly and silently forty yards away from where he went under, but the speedboats had moved closer to the western shoreline, so he was even farther from the men looking for him. He took in a quick three-second breath and then slipped back under the brown surface, feeling the ecstasy of oxygen in his exhausted body.

He made it another minute before surfacing once more, and soon he was eighty yards from the boats and in the thick river grasses. By the time he looked back around, the speedboats were turning back to the south and continuing on their voyage.

They had their main prize, so they’d press on.

Court couldn’t see Fan Jiang but he knew he was still with the river pirates, and he knew the young man must have felt like he’d been abandoned by the man who told him he’d keep him safe.

And Fan Jiang was absolutely right about that.

Court crawled up into the jungle, waterlogged and exhausted, his muscles and his mind spent.

He pulled the knife out of his pants and stabbed it into the ground next to him before he took out the phone. After turning it on and figuring out how to use the old simple device, he tapped in Suzanne Brewer’s phone number.

He sucked a few tired breaths, then looked down at the tiny screen.

No Signal.

He sighed, then dropped the back of his head into the mud. “Well, that fucking figures.”

Court rolled over onto his knees, grabbed the knife, then half crawled and half staggered into the woods.

Ninety minutes later he’d found a clearing at the edge of a sweet potato farm from where he could see a well-traveled highway in the distance. He sat down behind a large palm tree at the edge of the clearing, pulled out the phone, and tried it again.

It took forty seconds before he heard the phone ring on the other end.

He breathed a fresh sigh of relief when the call was answered on the second ring.

“Brewer.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“One second.” Court sat there a moment, either while Suzanne Brewer tried to figure out how to proceed with the challenge-response protocol, or while she recovered from being called “Mom” by an agent roughly her age. “Hi… son. So nice to hear from you. I was just watching your favorite documentary about Venus.”

This was his challenge code, delivered oddly, but effectively. Court just replied, “The one about Vesuvius is even better.” His response was delivered in the same cryptic form as the challenge because of the open line.

“Right,” Brewer said, confirming his response. “What’s this number you’re calling from? Are you in…”

Court said, “Yep. ’Fraid so. I borrowed it from a friend.”

“I see. Are you somewhere safe?”

“Actually, I was hoping you could tell me where I am.”

Brewer’s voice displayed incredulity. “You don’t know where you are?”

“Long night. You know how it is.”

“Right. I can do that, wait just a second.”

Court’s reply dripped with sarcasm. “Nothing but time on my end, Mom.”

Suzanne Brewer had been lying on her back on her sofa in her office when the call came through, and it had been some struggle to get back up onto her knee scooter and over to her desk to grab it.

She saw from her computer that the call was coming from a Cambodian cell phone carrier, and her agent was telling her he didn’t know where the hell he was, which was confusing to her, but she knew what she had to do.

She pressed a button on her desk that went to the operations center.

A tired voice came over the phone seconds later. “OpsCom.”

“I need you to geolocate the origin of the call I’m on right now. How long to do that?”

“Landline or cell phone?”

“Cell. Out of Cambodia.”

“Forty seconds for the tower, another minute to a minute and a half for the GPS coordinates.”

“Go.”

“On it.”

Suzanne hung up from Operations/Communications, then went back to the line from Cambodia. She said, “I’m working on getting you fixed up.” Violator would know that by “fix” she meant they were ascertaining his location. “What else can you tell me about… about your vacation?”

“I’m hoping you can help me catch a ride right now, to get me out of here. I was traveling with a friend, but we got separated, so it’s just me.”

“Who was the friend?”

“The one you told me not to meet up with on my own.”

Brewer kept her voice flat, knowing this was an open line. “Well, we can talk more about that later. I’m just glad you are safe, son.” That wasn’t true; Violator would know it, but Brewer didn’t care. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, considering how hard we partied last night.”

Brewer closed her eyes in frustration. “I’m disappointed in you, son.”

“I know, Mom. I’m your wild child.”

“Your friends from Hong Kong? Did they come with you?”

“No, but I’m sure they are wondering what’s happened to me.”

Just then an instant message popped up on her computer screen. She opened it and saw it was from Ops/Com. A satellite map of Cambodia was attached, and she clicked on it, enlarged it, and enlarged it again. A small red star showed her the position of the cell phone in Violator’s hand, down to an exactitude of less than five feet.

“How the hell did you get there?”

“I’ve got stories for the slide show when I get home.” And then he said, “And I also have some serious questions for you and Dad. I’m looking forward to a long conversation the next time we talk.”

Brewer blew out a sigh, still looking at the blip in a clearing by a field alongside a winding brown river in the wilds of Cambodia. She knew what Violator was telling her, and she knew it wasn’t good. “Let me get to work here, try to find some way out of there for you.”

Violator replied, “I know where my friend is going. I’m heading there next.”

Brewer shook her head, but she let on none of her disapproval. She just said, “One thing at a time, son. I’ll send someone to pick you up, not sure when it will be so just sit tight.”

“It’s that or start working on a dugout canoe.”

“I’ll get you home, Tom.”

Tom? Court would realize that he needed to remember the name she just gave him.

He started to say something else, but Brewer hung up. She wasn’t one to chat. She had to work on his extraction, and she had to figure out just what to tell him about CIA’s involvement in the operation to extract Fan Jiang from China.