Whatever the Cost

1

The stench of fetid vegetation hit Mark Cole’s nostrils hard, steam rising from the jungle around him as he approached his battered 4x4.

It was just another day in the hill country of northern Thailand, a hundred degrees with seventy-five percent humidity, the air so close and thick you had to almost push your way through it. But Cole had long since become accustomed to it, and it no longer bothered him.

In fact, nothing bothered Cole anymore. He merely existed, and for the time being, that was enough for him; perhaps even too much.

He swatted away the flies and mosquitoes, knowing it would be better by the coast. It would be a long drive, but it was time to work, and he had long since outstayed his welcome in the shacks and bars of the forested interior. He now sought employment in the busy bars and nightclubs of the coastal resorts, and had recently been hired to work security at a Go-Go bar in Pattaya.

He had no interest in the girls, and he had no interest in the money; all he wanted was the action that came with the job, the relentless stream of drunken revelers arguing with the girls, refusing to pay, threatening the bar staff, fighting among themselves. It was a perfect environment for Cole, and offered him what he wanted the most, the only thing he now craved.

Pain.

The journey took six hours in the rusty Hi-Lux pickup, and when he drove into town he could see that it was going to be a busy night. It was barely into the afternoon, and already he could see groups of foreigners — Americans here, Brits there, Australians and Germans too — falling over themselves, skin burnt from too much sun, judgment ruined by too much alcohol, loud and boisterous, keen to sample the delights of the orient they had heard so much about, whether that meant a cocktail watching the glorious sunset, or a session with one of the Go-Go girls in an upstairs back room.

Cole saw it all, and yet saw none of it. Nothing moved him now; he was an automaton, and could see no way out for himself, no way of recovering his humanity.

Ever since his family had been killed in front of him, the brains of his wife, his son, his daughter, sprayed and splattered across his face as they were shot in the head at point-blank range.

He had killed those responsible, of course; but it had done nothing to fill the void, that vast, horrific void which filled his soul and ate away at him piece by piece, until there was nothing much left at all; just the man stood in front of the Climax Club on Walking Street, waiting for the action to start.

It didn’t take long.

Only ten minutes into his shift, Cole was called inside, and he could see immediately what was happening — a crowd of men was trying to pull one of the dancers off the stage.

Another bouncer called Steve, a huge Maori who packed a punch but moved too slowly, had already been knocked out cold by one of the party goers. Other customers backed away, others moved in to join the fun; barmen tried to help and the other girls started to jump onto the trouble-makers, clawing and biting.

Cole wasted no time, and waded right into the melée.

‘Hey!’ he called out, instantly seeing the first man turn to him, fist cocked. A part of him instinctively wanted to react, to destroy the arm as it came towards him, but he ignored that side of him with a powerful force of will, taking the shot instead.

It was a hard punch, connecting with Cole’s cheekbone, and left him momentarily dazed, his head swimming. His eyes refocused, and he saw another fist hurtling towards him.

This one caught him on the ear, disrupting his balance even more, and then he felt another fist smack into his forehead and he was down on the floor.

He covered up, but soon felt the impact of fists and feet on his bettered body as the gang set to work on him, targeting his face, his head, his back, his kidneys.

Yes, Cole thought, go on!

He felt booted feet stamping on his legs, fists hammering away at his head, a sandaled foot burying itself in his ribcage. He felt things starting to break, saw blood running into his eyes.

Yes, he thought to himself through the glorious pain, that’s it! Do it! I deserve it!

He deserved it because it was his fault that his family had died; if he had been less selfish, if he had never married, if he had never had children, it would never have happened. If he had given up his work after getting married, after having children, it would never have happened. But no — he was too arrogant, too confident in his own abilities, he never thought for one second his family could be hurt.

But they had been.

As the blows continued to rain down on him, he saw their faces.

Sarah his wife, so beautiful, so confident, so happy.

Ben, his six year old son, such a wonderful boy.

Amy, his four year old daughter, a beautiful, wonderful little girl who had looked just like her mother.

He saw their faces blown apart, blood exploding outwards. Blood everywhere, over everything.

The blood that ran down Cole’s face now was their blood.

Innocent blood.

Yes, Cole knew as the pain wracked his beaten body, I deserve this.

After travelling to the secretive mountains of Burma to find and kill the man responsible for ordering his family’s death — Charles Hansard, the Director of US National Intelligence and Cole’s own boss — Cole had escaped across the border to Thailand, where he’d stayed ever since.

A part of him had known that it went against all operational protocol, that he was bound to be discovered so near the border; but the other part wanted to be caught, wanted to be punished. And yet he couldn’t simply turn himself in, just as he couldn’t simply end it all by putting a bullet through his own head. Such an act wasn’t in his nature, no matter how hard he wanted it to be.

And so instead, he put himself into situations where he could receive his punishment. He had fought in Muay Thai rings throughout the north, battered from one side of the ropes to the other, the crowds amazed by the punishment he could take. He had even fought in bare-knuckle contests across the border in Cambodia and Laos, letting his opponents beat him half to death every time.

But when he got tired of that, he started working as a bouncer in dozens of towns and villages, from Chiang Mai to Sukhothai. He never lasted long though, as his employers soon realized what he was trying to do — commit suicide with the assistance of their customers. And so he was forced to keep on moving, often staying in remote villages for weeks on end, but eventually heading for the big cities for his next dose of masochistic violence.

And now, blood from his wounds leaking onto the dirt-stained, sticky floor of the Climax Club, his consciousness just about to black out entirely, he wondered if this was finally it.

The end.

It was the sound of the knife flicking open that caused Cole to finally react, his instincts too finely honed after his years of training, unable to override them anymore despite himself.

His mind clear in an instant, he seized the wrist of the man with the knife as it plunged towards his chest, digging into a pressure point with his thumb. The attacker collapsed for a brief instant from the pain, and Cole sent the callused fingertips of his other hand straight into the man’s throat, killing him instantly.

He tried to stop himself, but his body had already taken over; before he knew what was happening, he had lashed out with his foot from his position prone on the floor, shattering another man’s kneecap. And then he was on his feet, taking out another of the gang with a vicious uppercut that caught the man just under the jaw.

In the next instant, Cole pivoted to his right and knocked someone else out cold with a left hook, and then turned again as someone tried to tackle him. He dropped his weight and smothered the attack, raising his knee up sharply into the man’s face — one, twice, three times, blood and teeth spraying across the floor just before the man’s unconscious body followed them.

Another man grabbed him from behind, and Cole jerked his head backwards to break the man’s nose, arm slipping backwards around his waist and then hauling him over his hip in a powerful judo throw, driving him into the hard ground and following up with a stamp onto the man’s forehead.

The customers, staff and dancers who hadn’t fled were now backing away, looking at him with a mix of disbelief and horror.

Cole turned his head from side to side — targets down, scan, assess — as he surveyed the carnage.

Six men were down and out, at least one of them dead.

And it had all happened in under twelve seconds.

Cole knew he should wait, knew he should accept his arrest by the police and his imprisonment, his punishment; and yet his sense of self-preservation, his natural survival instinct trained and nurtured over the years until it was as keen as a knife’s razor edge, simply wouldn’t let him.

It never would.

Cole turned on his heel and ran from the club into the bustling, humid, sweat-hot streets of Pattaya, his mind screaming at him to stop even as his legs spurred him on.

Damn it! his mind screamed at him as he ran.

Why can’t I die?

2

Cole slowly sipped at his ice cold beer as he surveyed the bar.

He was in a tourist trap right off the Khao San Road in downtown Bangkok, a popular bar for foreigners; not yet packed at this hour but with enough people so that he wouldn’t stick out. The ceiling fans offered a cooling respite from the heat and humidity outside, but the smells of the street still wafted in. There were the wonderful aromas of street food — fried rice, grilled and stir-fried meats, spiced noodles and fish sauce — as well as the ever-present fumes of diesel and gasoline and the unavoidable stench of human sweat. Bland Euro pop blaring too loud through a poor-quality sound system completed the atmosphere.

It was unlikely he would be tracked to Bangkok, Cole knew. Thai law enforcement wasn’t amongst the world’s best, and they would probably just sweep the incident at the Climax Club under the carpet as they generally did with crimes committed within the country’s money-generating sex industry. But even if they were being keener that usual, the Thai capital was so awash with foreigners of every description that he would never be found here.

He knew the city well too, having spent many a weekend of R&R here when he’d been with the US Navy SEALs; it was a favorite haunt of American forces stationed in Asia, offering any number of opportunities for military pleasure seekers with some time on their hands.

Even so, his professional instincts caused to him to continually scan his surroundings, even after his sixth beer of the afternoon. Was anyone paying him undue attention? Did any of the customers seem like they didn’t belong? Were there people out in the street beyond who passed the window more than once, or who paid a little bit too much attention to what was going on inside?

But there was nothing, and so Cole was left alone with just his thoughts and a bottle of Chang.

Was this how he was going to live for the rest of his days? He’d been torturing himself for well over a year now, and he started to wonder if it would ever end. Could he let it end?

There was a television mounted on the wall above the bar, and something caught his attention; his head snapped round, bottle paused at his lips.

It was CNN. A picture of a large container vessel; the caption read Chinese cargo ship hijacked!

His years in the SEALS made a story like that unmissable; he had been trained to re-take hijacked ships, and it was still in his blood, even after all this time.

‘Could you turn it up please?’ Cole asked the barman in English. He’d picked up the Thai language over the past few months, but didn’t want to draw attention to himself; as a foreigner, it was safer to speak English like all the other tourists. ‘And another bottle of Chang.’

The barman nodded, turned up the TV and slid another beer over to him. Cole slipped some coins onto the bar, his attention riveted to the screen. He’d been out of it for so long, this was the first time he’d seen the news in months.

Cole looked around briefly, seeing only a handful of people interested in the news story; most were laughing and drinking, oblivious to anything else around them.

Cole turned back to the CNN report.

Even with the television volume turned up, it was a struggle to hear over the Euro pop which still blared out incessantly from the tinny speakers around the bar; but with concentration, he managed to make out most of what was being said.

‘The Fu Yu Shan was hijacked last night off the Sumatran coast while sailing down the notorious Strait of Malacca,’ the anchor spoke over the picture, which now turned into a satellite image of the area, charting the ship’s course from northern China, down the coast through the South China Sea, and around Singapore and the Malaysian peninsula.

‘This area has a reputation for piracy, and although recent efforts by the combined naval forces of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and India have helped to curb such attacks, they do still occur with alarming frequency. However, this is the first hijack of such a large vessel in a very long time. Anything over three hundred tons has to be fitted with a tracking device known as an Automatic Identification System, and this has deterred many pirate groups from targeting the bigger ships. It seems that somehow the AIS has been disabled on the Fu Yu Sham however, which experts believe mean that it was a professional attack, by an experienced criminal gang.

‘There haven’t been any ransom demands as yet, but the Chinese government is outraged by the incident, and has agreed to do everything in its power to help the Tsing Tao Shipping Line resolve the situation. It is believed that the ship alone is worth in excess of forty million dollars, and the cargo some thirty million more, and that is to say nothing of the human cost.

‘Our own government is taking a special interest in this also, as it transpires that three of the crew members are US citizens. President Abrams had this to say earlier today —’

The satellite imagery of the Strait of Malacca faded away to be replaced by footage taken inside the White House Briefing Room. Cole’s blood turned cold at the sight of the place; it was there that he had saved Ellen Abrams, jumping across the backs of journalists as he shot the president’s personal bodyguard through the eyeball just as the man was about to empty his own pistol into the back of the president’s head.

It seemed like a lifetime ago, but Abrams looked just the same, and the room was exactly as it was that fateful day; even the journalists crammed into the small space looked like the same ones who had been there during the incident.

Cole swallowed a big gulp of Chang and concentrated on what Abrams was about to say.

‘First of all I would like to express how deeply shocked and angered I am — how the American people are — that such an outrageous act has taken place. Piracy is a despicable act of the worst sort of criminality, and we will not stand for it. I have already spoken to President Tsang Feng of the People’s Republic of China to express our solidarity in this matter — not only due to our Mutual Defense Treaty, but also as three of our own citizens have been taken hostage with the ship.

‘Acts of piracy are the same as acts of terrorism, and the stance of the government of the United States is to take the fight to the people who commit such acts. As such, I would like to give a warning to the people behind this attack — release the hostages and the ship now, and you will not be hurt. If you do not, then you will suffer the consequences.’

Questions started to be fired out, but the camera cut back to the studio for analysis; Abrams’ statement must have been broadcast already, and this was just a replay.

‘We have with us in the studio Dan Baker,’ the news anchor said, gesturing with an open palm to a well-dressed man sitting opposite on a comfortable-looking couch, ‘former US intelligence agent and current head of Washington think-tank The Neptune Group.’ The anchor turned to the man, eyebrows raised. ‘So tell us, Dan. What sort of leads do we have? Do cases like this get cleared up quickly? How easy is it to find a pirate hideout?’

‘Well, you have to read between the lines, the information that’s been released so far is sketchy at best. There’ve been no names released, either Chinese or American, no details about what the ship was carrying. The fact is, there have been no demands, and we don’t even know if it has been hijacked. In a way, we hope it has.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘All we know so far is that the ship has disappeared.’

‘You think it might have been sunk?’

‘It’s a possibility, but both governments are saying hijack, which makes me think that maybe there have been demands, we’re just not being told about them. So analyzing such a situation when nobody’s sharing any information can be really tricky. But to answer your question, the odds are not in our favor. It doesn’t seem that we have any leads, and in any case, it is notoriously hard to find a ship once it’s been taken in these waters.’

‘Really? A one hundred and fifty metre, twenty-thousand ton cargo ship is so easy to hide?’

‘You have to remember that there are literally thousands of little islands in this area, many uninhabited, most unexplored. Some of them have river access deep inland. And ships which travel the Strait are typically smaller than ocean-going vessels, perfectly capable of navigating such waterways. And once they’re hidden in a cove somewhere, camouflaged or sheltered, it’s not impossible to take one of these ships and make sure it’s never found, even with surveillance drones flying straight overhead.’

‘That sure doesn’t sound too positive.’

Baker shook his head. ‘It’s not. Pirates in the Strait of Malacca have been doing this for seven hundred years, don’t forget.’

‘Any likely candidates?’

‘Well, from what we can tell, it would appear that the main pirate group in that area goes by the name of Liang Kebangkitan, which means something like the “revivers of Liang”, a reference to a famous pirate king of the fourteenth century. However, we don’t know where they’re based, or anything about the group’s leadership. It’s suspected it has some links to terrorist groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah, but we have nothing else on it.’

The conversation continued, but Cole was no longer listening.

Liang Kebangkitan.

He’d heard the name before, when he’d been living in a village just north of Surin. He’d been staying at the home of a small-time arms dealer appropriately named Boom Suparat, who’d rented him a room and been willing to ask no questions.

Boom had traded handguns and rifles from his house, and when customers had asked where he sourced his weapons, Cole remembered that the man had mentioned a place in Cambodia. He also remembered that Boom had been especially proud that his Cambodian dealer also provided weapons to several notorious criminal and terrorist groups.

Liang Kebangkitan was one of them.

Four hours later, Cole was sat overlooking the rail lines of the Bangkok Mass Transport System from a table at the Skytrain Jazz Club.

He’d wanted some fresh air, but had also wanted to keep on drinking. It was better than psychotherapy; or cheaper, at any rate. He was onto whisky now, nursing a glass of Bell’s Special Reserve at his table for one.

As rooftop bars went, this was decidedly low-key; the walls of the winding staircase were covered in graffiti, and the whole thing was like a Bohemian speakeasy. And contrary to its name, it seemed to offer no jazz whatsoever; instead, there was more Euro pop.

Cole’s eyes took in one of the city’s Skytrains as it shot past on the elevated tracks in front of him; there was nothing like that in the northern towns and villages of Thailand, that was for sure. After spending so much time in the backwoods, the sight was like something from an alien world.

And yet it was a familiar world, one that beckoned to him with a welcoming finger.

Come back to us, it seemed to be saying. Come back to us.

Slowly, Cole’s mind drifted back to the same subject that had been consuming him all evening.

What should I do?

The fact was, Cole was tired. He was tired of punishing himself, tired of wasting his days in pain and misery, tired of the life he had made for himself. The incident in Pattaya had affected him, shown him for what he truly was, illustrated for him his essential nature, a nature he was trying hard to deny, but no longer could.

The adrenalin spike when he had fought back was like an old friend, the return of something infinitely familiar to him, infinitely appealing.

He was a predator; a hunter.

He was not a prey animal, and never could be.

Watching a lion chasing a gazelle, he never sided with the gazelle; he always wanted the lion to take down its prey. Always.

He was a predator, and whereas some people with that drive turned to crime, he had turned to the military; he had been trained and honed over the years, and his hunter’s instincts had been refined.

He was a predator, but he wasn’t a wolf attacking sheep; he was the guard dog who protected the sheep from the wolves.

It was all he knew how to do, all he could do, all he wanted to do.

He saw the hijack situation for what it was; an opportunity, a shot at redemption.

He had a lead, something he could use to get him into the game. Why shouldn’t he use it?

The CNN television report came back to him then, and he understood that it was a TV news report that had thrown him into his last official mission. He had watched it at his home in the Caribbean; his wife cooking in the kitchen, Ben and Amy with him in the living room. It had shown a terrorist attack on the day of the Mutual Defense Treaty signing — originally to be between the US and Russia, but which ultimately included China too — an act which had drawn him into the worst weeks and months of his life.

A single tear appeared in his eye as he saw that scene back in the living room of his Cayman Brac beach house. Ben, Amy and Sarah; happy for probably the last time before their violent deaths just one week later.

He wiped the tear away and downed the last of his Bell’s, staring down into the thick-bottomed glass.

You remember what happened last time.

But it was different now, he told himself — he had no family, nobody he cared about who could be hurt by what he did.

And didn’t he have a responsibility to his fellow countrymen, to help them if he could? There were three Americans who were right now being held captive somewhere; men with wives and children of their own, perhaps. Certainly men with someone who cared for them, someone who would miss them if they never returned home.

Yes.

He had a responsibility.

He remembered the oath of office he had sworn, back when he had been known as Mark Kowalski, back when he had been little more than a kid.

I, Mark Antoni Kowalski, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

And he had discharged those duties to the best of his abilities — in SEAL Team Two, SEAL Team Six, in the covert squad known as the Systems Research Group, and then — after being rescued from prison in Pakistan and being declared Killed In Action — as Mark Cole, a contract operator for the US government codenamed ‘the Asset’.

He had killed dozens — perhaps even hundreds — of ‘enemies, foreign and domestic’ for his country; hadn’t he killed enough? Hadn’t he done enough?

And yet, at the end of the day, what was there left for him to do?

He was a guard dog.

And although he’d been out of action for more than a year, he could admit now that he had always known — deep down — that it was not the end of his calling in life, just a brief hiatus.

He was what he was, and he’d never had any real choice at all.

3

Zhang Peng sat facing the President of the People’s Republic of China, Tsang Feng.

Zhang was the CEO of the Tsing Tao Shipping Line, a multi-billion dollar company which built some of the nation’s finest ships, which were then leased out at huge daily rates to commercial shipping companies who operated them worldwide.

So although another company, Fung Chow Merchant Marine Services, were currently operating the Fu Yu Shan and therefore responsible for her cargo, Zhang still had overall responsibility for the ship and her crew.

And it was therefore Zhang who had received the demands from the pirates who had recently hijacked the Fu Yu Shan.

‘So tell me,’ came another voice, off to one side of Zhang and Tsang, ‘what is it that these pirates want?’

The voice belonged to Kang Xing, the aged Defense Minister of the People’s Republic and Tsang’s right-hand man. From his corner seat, he regarded the CEO through dark, hooded eyes.

Zhang cleared his throat. ‘They say that they will release the ship and crew unharmed for fifty million US dollars.’

‘Fifty million?’ Tsang asked in amazement. ‘The gall of these people! I have heard the ship is only worth forty!’

‘You forget the men, sir,’ Zhang said gently. ‘And don’t forget, three of them are American citizens.’

Tsang grunted. ‘They must be living in dreamland if they think they can treat us in this way. We will have to teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget. They —’

‘Sir,’ Zhang interrupted nervously, ‘Lloyds Insurance classify the Strait of Malacca as a warzone, and make an extra charge. Now, most companies don’t pay it and take the risk, but Tsing Tao is all paid up.’ He smiled. ‘We can claim on our insurance, pay the money, and everything will settle right down.’

Tsang Feng’s face turned cold. Hard. ‘You must be under enormous stress,’ he said at last, the words coming out slowly. ‘I will pretend I did not hear you say that. Pay off these pirates? These simple criminals? Give fifty million dollars to the scum of the earth, with the consent of the Chinese government?’ He shook his head. ‘Not if you want to keep control of the company, Zhang my friend.’ He waggled a finger in Zhang’s direction. ‘And I tell you this — if you try and pay them off yourself, you’ll find yourself with a lifetime prison sentence for treason. Do I make myself clear?’

Zhang nodded his head, wondering what other options there were; nobody ever rescued a hijacked ship once it was hidden. But instead of arguing, he simply nodded his head and accepted the situation.

‘Yes sir,’ he confirmed confidently. ‘We do not make deals with pirates.’

President Tsang smiled for the first time. ‘Exactly,’ he said, his eyes gleaming. ‘I’m glad we understand each other.’

In the corner of the room, Kang continued to watch the men carefully through his dark, hooded eyes — eyes which saw everything, yet revealed nothing. And inside, unknown to either Tsang or Zhang, he allowed himself to smile.

Everything was going exactly as he had predicted.

‘I’ve just spoken to President Tsang,’ Ellen Abrams, President of the United States of America, announced to her National Security Advisor John Eckhart.

Abrams sighed to herself, taking a sip of coffee from her China cup. It was only yesterday that the rise of the European right looked like America’s number one priority; now it had been swamped by international interest in this hijacking.

And that was if she ignored the mounting pressures of the re-election campaign; November was only a few months away, and she found her attention being constantly drawn away from key matters by her party strategists. It was a drain on her already sapped resources, but she accepted it as an unfortunate part of political life.

‘They’ve heard from the pirates?’ Eckhart asked.

Abrams nodded. ‘Yes, they’re asking for fifty million dollars for the return of the ship and crew.’

‘Cargo?’ Eckhart asked.

‘Cargo wasn’t mentioned specifically, but it’s a safe bet it can be written off. The pirates will sell it off as quickly as they can; it’s money in their pockets.’

‘We’ll get copies of the manifests to our people over there. We don’t have huge resources in Indonesia, but we might be able to rely on their government too. If any of the items show up, it might help us narrow down the search.’

‘Good idea,’ Abrams confirmed. ‘Do it right after this meeting.’

‘No problem.’ Eckhart took a sip of his own coffee, then looked back across the huge desk, made from the timbers of the British frigate HMS Resolute a century and a half ago. It dominated the Oval Office just as it had during the terms of the several presidents who had selected it before Abrams. ‘What’s China’s stance on paying them?’

‘The same as ours,’ Abrams said. ‘We don’t negotiate with terrorists, and we don’t negotiate with pirates. Feng has warned Zhang not to pay them off.’ Concern furrowed Abrams’ brow. ‘How soon can we find that ship?’

‘We’re doing all we can. The NRO has redirected all our satellites onto the area, and we’re flying surveillance drones over every little island in a thousand mile radius. But that’s a big area, and it’s going to take some time, especially if it’s tucked away under a precipice, or if it’s been camouflaged in some way.’

‘What sort of assets do we have on the ground?’

‘We’ve got the local CIA station in Jakarta looking into things, they’ve already started putting some money about to try and get some information. We’ve also got some specialists from the Special Activities Division arriving in Sumatra as we speak.’

‘Military options?’

‘Well, Pete will explain it better than I can at the NSC meeting later,’ Eckhart admitted. Major General Peter Olson was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military adviser to the National Security Council. ‘But I do know that we’re rerouting two destroyers from a training exercise in the Indian Ocean, and that DEVGRU are on the move from Dam Neck to Subic Bay in case we need them.’

Abrams nodded. DEVGRU was the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, also known as SEAL Team Six; based out of Dam Neck, Virginia, it was America’s most elite special operations unit and had responsibility for maritime counterterrorist operations across the world. SEAL Team Four was already stationed at the US naval base at Subic Bay in the Philippines, and it made perfect sense for SEAL Team Six to use the facility to prepare themselves.

‘A Ranger battalion on exercise in Kenya is also heading into theatre to help support DEVGRU if a rescue attempt is authorized.’

‘Okay,’ Abrams said, hands bracing on her desk, ‘that should do it for now. Get your people moving, and we’ll see each other again at the NSC meeting in,’ — Abrams paused, checking her watch — ‘just over two hours. Let’s hope we get some good news in the meantime.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Eckhart replied with a grim smile. ‘Let’s hope and pray.’

Lieutenant Commander Jake Navarone stretched out his athletic frame in the canvas bucket seat, cramped after several hours spent aboard the C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.

Navarone was one of the three troop commanders who made up Red Squadron, one of DEVGRU’s highly-trained assault teams. The whole of Red Squadron, codenamed the Red Indians, was on its way to Subic Bay in the Phillipines on the orders of Rear Admiral Scott Murphy, DEVGRU’s commanding officer; although Navarone knew that the operation would be ultimately coordinated by Lieutenant General Miley Cooper, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.

DEVGRU was, along with Delta Force, the tip of the US military’s spear. Known as Special Mission Groups, their operations were highly classified and were assigned by JSOC under conditions of absolute secrecy.

Murphy had briefed Red Squadron’s leader, Commander Ike Treyborne, on the mission; and Treyborne had in turn briefed his three troop commanders.

Their first port of call was Subic Bay, where they would acclimatize to the heat and humidity and begin rehearsing the skills necessary for re-taking a hijacked vessel. They’d been granted permission to use some of the Navy ships being worked on in the docks, and JSOC was doing its best to borrow a real container ship to practice on too.

Navarone found himself looking forward to the job, if it ever came; more often than not, an alert turned into a lot of training, rehearsing, and waiting for a green light which never came. Which wasn’t to say that he was unused to action; on the contrary, Navarone had led over sixty commando missions during his time in the SEALs, and been decorated for heroism on numerous occasions. He’d even been shot a couple of times in the line of duty, which resulted in scars he carried with him as permanent reminders that within an instant, even the best laid plans could turn into a total goat-fuck.

But for all the missions he’d been on over the years, he’d never actually taken part in rescuing a vessel at sea — one of the reasons for the creation of the US Navy SEALs in the first place. He therefore found himself getting more than usually excited about the prospect of engaging with the SEAL’s primary mission of maritime counterterrorism. Or at least maritime counter-piracy, which was pretty much the same thing, he told himself.

He looked around the compartment at his fellow SEALs, men forged by the toughest selection and training in existence to be the best of the best. He trusted each and every one of them with his life, and they trusted him with theirs.

He looked across to Ike Treyborne, who was sitting just across from him, and smiled.

Red Squadron’s commander knew the reason for the smile and returned it.

Everyone was looking forward to this one.

4

‘Hello, Boom.’

The old man turned to Cole, his eyes narrowing. It was clear that he never expected to see his morose erstwhile lodger again.

‘Why you back here?’ he asked in broken English. ‘You lose something?’

Cole couldn’t blame the man for being suspicious; he was a black-market gun dealer, and paranoia kept him safe. The only reason he had spoken freely around Cole before was because he didn’t realize the quiet man living under his roof could understand Thai.

‘It’s good to see you too,’ Cole said, trying a smile before realizing that this would make Boom even more suspicious; Cole had never smiled when he’d lived there.

The house itself hadn’t changed; it was as ramshackle as before, and Cole had often wondered what Boom did with the money he made from dealing guns. He had a wife and seven children, but Cole thought it had more to do with gambling addiction. He remembered that Boom would sometimes leave for days at a time. On occasion he would return with a new supply of small-arms, and yet on others he would return with nothing more than a scowl and a cross temper.

‘What you want?’ Boom asked. ‘I busy man, remember? Got plenty work to do, yes?’

Cole nodded. ‘I understand that you’re a busy man, Boom. That’s why I’m here. It’s about your work.’

A broad grin spread across Boom’s dark, wrinkled face. ‘Ah! I understand now. You get in trouble, right? Now you want protection!’ He gestured towards the house. ‘Come! If you have money, I have protection!’

Cole followed Boom through the sagging porch, saw the stairs which led up to the spare room he’d rented, stepped over children playing in the hallway and squeezed past Boom’s young wife who was cooking in the small kitchen, pots and pans all around her, the smell of spiced noodles in the air.

She looked surprised to see him, but turned back to her cooking a moment later without a word; Cole was sure she was used to seeing strange people in her house all the time, and knew better than to ask questions.

Boom led Cole out of the back door, through a small, untidy garden where more children played, to a small wooden shack. He gestured for Cole to enter, then followed him inside, shutting the door behind them.

In an instant, a gun appeared at Cole’s head, just as Cole had known it would. Boom pressed the barrel into Cole’s temple, grinding it.

‘What the fuck you come here for, eh? Who sent you? You working with police? That it? Eh?’

‘Boom, calm down,’ Cole said evenly as he instinctively took in the angles, assessed the timing of his moves if he felt the need to take Boom out. He could tell that it wouldn’t come to that though; Boom was just going through his normal routine. ‘You know me. I lived here for weeks and never brought anyone here. You were right the first time; I need protection, and you’re the only one I know who can help me.’

Boom paused, the gun still aimed at Cole’s head. Then he grunted and lowered the pistol. ‘Okay. Okay. You right, you okay guy. Quiet. I like this. After seven kids, quiet is good.’

Cole pretended to breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Okay, thank you. Now, what have you got?’

The arms store hidden blow the shed and accessed by a trapdoor and a steel ladder, was impressive. It was a small room, but filled to overflowing with everything from Makarov pistols to Chinese AK-47s, with a few RPGs and sticks of TNT thrown in for good measure.

‘Explosives?’ Cole asked in surprise.

‘Hey,’ Boom said defensively, ‘some people have bigger problems than others, yes?’

Cole smiled. The fact was, he liked Boom; he was funny, friendly, and decidedly good-natured, and he’d given Cole a place to stay when he’d needed it. He liked to talk too, and Cole hoped that he would be able to find out details about the man’s Cambodian source without having to be heavy-handed about it.

The next half hour was filled with discussions about what Cole needed, how much he wanted to pay, and what Boom had in stock that was suitable. The discussion was interesting, and Boom certainly knew his subject.

After a rapport had been built, and Cole was handling a Czech CZ-75 pistol he was thinking about buying, he decided to start making a few subtle enquiries.

‘I can’t believe how much you’ve got stored here,’ Cole said in wonder. ‘Where do you get it from?’

Boom smiled at him; a wide, beaming smile which revealed a mouth bereft of half its teeth. He took the gun back from Cole, placing it on a nearby table. ‘I have guy in Cambodia, right? Plenty years of war and terrorists and freedom fighters and all that make for plenty guns, okay? Place full of them. And the guy I buy from, he the best! Guaranteed! He even sells his stuff to the big groups, you know, terrorist groups in southern Thailand, tribespeople in Burma, you name it.’

‘Pirates in Indonesia?’ Cole asked, realizing too late that he’d been too obvious, too eager to get an answer. The months in the jungle had dulled his people skills; he would never have made a mistake like that in the past.

The look on Boom’s face changed in an instant, and Cole could tell that the old gun dealer realized that his first paranoid fears might be true; Cole had been sent by someone — maybe the police, maybe someone else — to get information.

Boom’s gun appeared again as if from nowhere, but Cole was anticipating it already and gripped the man’s wrist with one hand as his other snaked out to grab the man’s throat, fingers tightening around Boom’s windpipe like a vice.

Boom’s eyes bulged as he struggled to breath, disbelief and indignation all across his reddening, sweating face as his gun dropped to the floor beneath him.

‘I’m sorry about this, Boom. Really I am. But now you haven’t left me any choice. Tell me where I can find your source, or I’ll kill you.’ Cole gripped tighter to emphasize his point. He meant what he said; he was more than prepared to kill the man. He liked Boom, yes; but at the end of the day, he was a gun-runner who sold arms to anyone who had the money, and his death wouldn’t be the worst on Cole’s conscience.

After trying to resist Cole crushing his windpipe for a few agonizing seconds, until he started to black out completely, Boom sagged and blinked his eyes in defeat.

Cole released his hold on the man, letting him breathe. He pushed Boom down, picking up the man’s loaded pistol from the floor in the same smooth action. His people skills were off, but his body seemed to remember how to move just fine.

Cole pointed the Beretta at Boom’s head. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘now talk.’

5

It was far from ideal, but Cole had had to take Boom in the car with him for the four hour drive to Siem Reap.

If he had left Boom back in his village, the arms dealer would undoubtedly have warned his Cambodian colleague of Cole’s impending visit. The only other option was to kill him, which he hadn’t wanted to do if he could avoid it.

Besides which, after he’d been persuaded to start talking, Boom had made it quite clear that the arms market where his colleague traded was very hard for an outsider to find, hidden in a jungle clearing near the Angkor Wat temple complex.

Cole had therefore decided to take Boom with him, to act as a guide. And in the end, Boom appeared glad to be there, especially after he’d decided that Cole was trying to find out where the Indonesian pirates were hiding the Fu Yu Shan. ‘Oh, very good!’ he’d said with great excitement, ‘it will be big adventure, right? You and me like Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson! We solve the case! Like Batman and Robin, then we kick ass! Right?’

Cole hadn’t wanted to talk about what he was doing, but Boom was convinced he was right anyway — and on the long drive down Route 214, across the Thai border before continuing south on National Highway 68 and — as the huge red sun had rapidly descended past the horizon to leave a land of dark shadows in its wake — south-east on NH6, Cole had done nothing to dissuade him.

Boom told him that the arms market was held after sundown on an almost daily basis, and was tolerated by the local government due to large bribes and — when they failed to work — violent threats. The only time the market was cancelled was on religious festivals, or if the central government was taking an interest — which it did, if only periodically. Luckily for the gun-runners, they were warned well in advance of any raids.

People came to the Angkor Wat gun market from all over Southeast Asia — often dealers themselves, from smaller concerns — and the military wares they had on display rivalled anything seen at an American or Middle East small arms expo.

Boom also explained that the dozens of temporary stalls that made up the physical market were only half the story; they were the shop front for Cambodian arms dealers, so that they could forge and cement relationships that could then generate real money — more advanced military equipment, and even vehicles. Sales of fighter planes had even been made as a result of friendships made at the market, deals worth millions of dollars; or so legend had it.

Cole would have ordinarily liked to spend some considerable time on reconnaissance, building up a picture of the area, planning the operation carefully and rehearsing his every action. But unfortunately, as he was all too aware, the clock was ticking. He needed to get information about Liang Kebangkitan, and he needed to get it as fast as possible.

And with the good-natured Boom in the car with him, it seemed almost natural to throw caution to the wind. And so after driving through the colorful Colonial town of Siem Reap, the took a left at the Royal Gardens before the river and headed back north on Charles De Gaulle.

The ancient temples of Angkor Wat were only three miles away now, and the decidedly more modern small arms market would be right next door.

Although Cole had spent a lot of time in this part of the world over the years, he had never been to this northern part of Cambodia. Angkor might have been the country’s premier tourist attraction, but he had never been here as a tourist.

And on reflection, this time was no different.

As he drove north along the illuminated streets, Cole saw a pagoda to one side of the road; next to it was a small shrine filled with human skulls, piled chest high, one on top of the other.

‘Wat Thmei,’ Boom told him. ‘Memorial for Khmer killing fields.’

Cole nodded his head in understanding. The history of Cambodia was a sad one, filled with repression and genocidal violence.

A troubled nation since its sacking by Thailand in the fifteenth century, more recent damage came with the violent protests against French colonial rule during the 1960s and ‘70s, which eventually led to civil war and the rise to power of the Khmer Rouge in 1975.

What followed under the psychotic leadership of Pol Pot were the mass killings of over two million Cambodians. People were killed for the slightest reason — for not working hard enough, for being too clever, for being too weak; and many more died from starvation and illness. Most were buried in mass graves and quickly-dug trenches. Even now, skeletal remains were still being found all over the country.

The regime was as short as it was brutal, only lasting until 1979 when Vietnam moved in to run the country; an unsatisfactory state of affairs which lasted until 1993, when the King’s power was restored and an elected government was finally established.

But the remnants of its violent past remained, the nation awash with weapons from less happy times.

Through the inky dark of night, Cole could make out moonlight reflecting off the wide moat of the Angkor Wat complex ahead of him, ancient walls on the other side hinting at the exotic architectural marvels beyond. He saw signs telling him to follow the road west to the main entrance, but Boom shook his head.

‘We go right at moat,’ he said confidently.

Cole did as he was told, sweeping away from the light evening traffic, the shadowy green waters of the moat now to his left. Not far ahead, the road turned with the moat at a right angle, and Cole followed it so that he was again driving north, slowly now.

The eastern entrance was right up ahead, but again Boom shook his head. ‘Take road right,’ he ordered, ‘away from temple.’

Again Cole did as instructed, following the road east as it passed through the thick vegetation of the looming jungle.

‘Keep going,’ Boom urged. They passed a turnoff to the right, and then they were the only cars left on the narrow, dark road.

‘We’re looking for a road on left, after we pass river,’ Boom informed him.

Moments later, the car passed over the Siem Reap River which flowed beneath the bumpy road, and Boom was craning his head out of the car, straining to find the turnoff, tall trees blocking out the light from the moon and stars.

Cole was looking hard too, but could see nothing.

‘Turn here!’ Boom shouted suddenly. ‘Left! Left!’

Cole was caught by surprise; there seemed to be no road here at all. But still he followed Boom’s directions, and turned the wheel, edging slowly into the dense black jungle, the huge hood of the 4x4 pushing past rubber plants and banana trees.

‘Boom,’ Cole said as he maneuvered the big car carefully through the undergrowth, ‘if this is what you call a road, then I’d hate to see a dirt track round here.’

‘Hey Mr. Holmes,’ Boom shot back, ‘dealers come down here with trucks, yeah? Great big damn trucks!’

Fine, Cole thought. Fine. If this is it, then this is it.

And eventually, the jungle did open out into some semblance of a road — not paved, of course, but still better than the first few painful minutes.

Then suddenly, right up ahead, Cole could see more vehicles, lots of them; it was a veritable parking lot of battered jeeps, trucks and 4x4s hidden in the jungle just minutes away from Cambodia’s most popular tourist attractions.

‘This is it,’ Boom said. ‘We park car here, yes? Then you walk the rest.’

‘And you?’

‘I will point out the man, right? But I no want be seen with you, in case something bad happen, yeah? I just speak to some of the other dealers, maybe buy myself some guns, okay? If you make mistake, maybe you destroy my business, got it?’

Cole sat in the damp heat of the car, no relieving breeze in the dark, thick jungle, thinking. If he let Boom go, would he warn the dealer? Boom was all-too aware that Cole knew where he lived; if the dealer was warned, and Cole survived, Boom would have to know that Cole would come for him.

‘You wondering if you can trust me, yeah?’ Boom asked. ‘What other choice you have? You no idea what this man even look like! And I like this game, I help you find pirates, remember? Like Holmes and Watson?’

Cole nodded his head. ‘Okay then,’ he said as he rolled the car to a stop behind a big army truck, reversing back in so he could escape quickly if he had to. He could see that Boom already had his head down, so nobody would see that he’d arrived in Cole’s 4x4.

‘You’re going to start giving me a complex,’ Cole said. ‘Make me think I’m not popular.’

‘Man,’ Boom said from the foot well, ‘asking questions round here gonna make you about as popular as Pol Pot, you know?’

Cole pulled a canvas hold-all over from the backseats and unzipped it, examined the contents and gave Boom a grim smile. The old Thai gun dealer was right, of course; which was exactly why Cole had brought along a little insurance policy from the man’s garden shed.

Just in case.

6

After Cole had pushed past the shadowy parking lot into the well-lit market beyond, he watched Boom enter the crowd from another direction, drifting through the myriad stalls.

The sight was about as bizarre as anything Cole had ever seen — a full market, not too dissimilar in size to Siem Riep’s famous Old Market back in town; only that instead of spices and silks, there were AK-47s and rocket launchers. Other stalls sold skewered meats, noodles and Khmer palm wine; music blared from portable speakers, the sounds of Asian pop mixed with local Kantrum folk music from a pinpeat orchestra of cymbals, xylophones and flutes. The overall impression was of a bacchanalian street party, a feast for the senses after the dense darkness of the jungle.

There seemed to be a busy trade too, hundreds of buyers and sellers swarming the narrow alleyways between the stalls, lit by bare bulbs powered by huge generators chugging away in the background, barely heard above the babble of loud bartering.

And all around was the ominous presence of the jungle, thick vegetation pressing in on the clearing from all sides, always threatening to overwhelm it all and reclaim this small piece of land for itself.

Cole watched as Boom strolled casually along one of the alleyways, shaking hands as he went, a big smile on his beaming face.

Could Cole trust him? It was a risk, but a necessary one. Boom was a gun dealer himself, but seemed excited at the prospect of helping Cole catch an internationally wanted gang of pirates. He’d probably use the story to entertain his own customers.

Cole followed at a respectable distance, not wanting anyone to see that he was watching Boom, waiting for the signal. He wasn’t the only Westerner at the market, but there were few enough for people to notice him if he wasn’t careful.

He slowed at a stall selling grenades, feigning interest in some of the products on display as he saw Boom stop at one of the larger stands, embracing a man, nodding his head as the man spoke — once, twice, three times.

It was him.

It was Khat Narong — Boom’s contact at the market and the man who allegedly dealt with Liang Kebangkitan.

Khat was younger than Cole would have imagined, although in the strange light from the dangling bulbs it was hard to tell. He was slim, short, and dark-skinned, his face baby smooth, hair slicked back under a camouflage baseball cap. He wore an open black shirt, camo shorts and tennis shoes. He looked like an average street seller from Bangkok, not a man making hundreds of thousands in arms sales. But appearances could be deceptive, as Cole well knew.

He knew where Khat was now, and so turned to speak to the man shoving grenades towards him, the enthusiastic seller asking in Khmer how many Cole wanted to buy.

‘Just looking,’ he said in English, hands out. ‘Just looking.’

The man stopped barking at him in Khmer and switched to English himself. ‘This no place to be just fucking looking!’ he screamed. ‘You waste my fucking time!’ He moved as if to swing a punch at Cole, but Cole could tell it was bluster and moved backwards easily. ‘That’s right!’ the man shouted again. ‘You best back away! Now go on, fuck off!’

Cole did as he was told, and turned to look across the crowds towards Khat’s stall. He noticed that Boom was gone; probably didn’t want to be in the area when Cole turned up. Which was fair enough, Cole considered, checking the pistol in his waistband.

It could get messy.

Cole’s plan was simple — he was going to kidnap the man right in front of everyone.

When he had been held captive in that hellhole in Pakistan, he had met an Indian prisoner who had taught him the secret marma adi pressure point strikes of the ancient Indian art of Kalaripayattu, said to be the forerunner of the later martial arts of both China and Japan.

It was Cole’s skill in this art which had made him so valuable to Charles Hansard and his assassination program. Through subtle attacks to specific parts of the human body, he was able to cause a wide range of conditions in his victim — from shock, to unconsciousness, to death, to a death which could be delayed for several hours and or even days. It was a seemingly mystical power, but one which was based on thousands of years of observation and practice within the holistic Indian health system of Ayurvedic medicine.

As a ‘contract laborer’ for the US government, Cole could therefore assassinate enemies of the state just by getting close enough to press or squeeze their pressure points, often without the victim even noticing. And by the time the person died, he would be long gone, the death blamed on natural causes such as stroke or heart attack.

It was hard to use such skills in the heat of a fight, as the art required absolute precision to be effective; but when used on an unsuspecting victim, it was the assassin’s art par excellence.

Not that Cole wanted to kill Khat; not yet, anyway.

Instead, he was going to shake the man’s hand whilst pressing into the forearm with the fingertips of his other hand; a simple yet effective attack which would render Khat immediately unconscious. Cole would then apply first aid, make a scene of it being a heart attack, and load him in the Toyota for an emergency hospital visit.

It would require confidence to pull off, but Cole knew that the scene would cause a panic — and when ignorance was mutual, confidence was King.

He edged towards the stall as Khat’s last customer moved away, smiling disarmingly towards the dealer as he approached.

Here we go, Cole thought as he extended his hand in greeting.

It went wrong almost instantly.

Cole could see Khat’s gold fillings as he smiled widely at him; yet it wasn’t a friendly smile at all, it was the smile of a spider welcoming the fly into its trap.

And suddenly Cole realized how stupid he had been, going into such a place with no surveillance, no reconnaissance, no detailed planning; trusting a man he barely knew.

The gun which came up to press against the back of his head was held by Boom, Cole knew that without having to look. And then Khat’s associates broke away from the stall, drawing their own weapons and forming a semi-circle around Cole.

At the head of the circle was Khat; still smiling, shirt-front open, relaxed and casual.

‘You come behind my tent and we talk, yeah?’ he called over to Cole.

Damn it.

He’d been out of the game too long, grown soft; not physically, but mentally. There was no way he would have ever trusted Boom a few years ago, no way he would have approached a foreign gun market so eagerly, with such little preparation. But he had been punishing himself for so long — making things hard for himself, intentionally putting himself in harm’s way, putting himself in dangerous situations with no thought for his physical safety — that it had become a habit.

And unfortunately, a habit like that could kill him before he ever got a chance to change it.

He looked around at Khat’s six colleagues; most carried pistols, one aimed a Soviet-era Kalashnikov, all looked like they wouldn’t hesitate for a second before they blew him away. Activity around the rest of the market seemed to have come to a complete halt; all eyes were on the group outside Khat’s tent. Even the pounding music stopped after a time, and Cole felt a deep unease. It wasn’t fear, not yet; but it was close.

‘You don’t come to my home and threaten me,’ he heard Boom whisper from behind, right in his ear. ‘Who the fuck you think you are, eh?’ Boom spat on the floor by Cole’s feet. ‘Now do as the man says and move.’

Cole knew that Boom was right. He had no choice; he had to move.

And in a movement so fast it left no time for anyone to react, Cole slipped his head to one side, out of the way of Boom’s gun, and fired an elbow back into the man’s body. Cole heard the crack of ribs, but ignored it as he pulled Boom’s arm over his shoulder, his own hand slipping over Boom’s where it gripped the Beretta, depressing the trigger.

He fired once, taking out the man with the AK with a shot to the chest, before swinging Boom by the arm until he ended up in front of Cole as a human shield. In the same move, Cole stripped off Boom’s hand from the gun and took full control of it himself.

Firing the Beretta, Cole took Boom’s ear in his mouth, teeth clenching down tight to secure him as Cole’s other hand slipped into his own waistband and withdrew another pistol, firing it simultaneously with the first.

He felt Boom’s body shaking, and knew his traitorous friend was being hit, doing a good job of acting as Cole’s shield; but in less than six seconds since his first move, all of Khat’s men were down and out, neat bullet holes in their chests and heads.

The crowd in shock, Khat rooted to the spot with disbelief, Cole opened his bloody mouth and dropped Boom’s bleeding, bullet-riddled body to the floor and accelerated towards his target, planting a powerful thrusting front kick right into Khat’s chest.

The gun dealer went sailing back into his tent, all the air knocked from him, and Cole followed instantly, guns raised and ready.

The small covered tent at the back of the stall was filled with crates of guns, explosives and ammunition, and Cole saw Khat groping around on the floor, struggling to get his breath back. Two men unloading crates stopped what they were doing, looked at Khat, looked at Cole, and went for their guns. Cole shot them before they had a chance to aim, then quickly raced around the tent, stuffing items into a canvas bag. He slung it over his shoulder, along with a shotgun and an AK-47, then saw Khat grabbing for a gun out of one of the crates. Cole smashed the butt of the Kalashnikov into the man’s head, knocking him unconscious.

Cole reached down and hauled the gun dealer onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, glad that Khat weighed so little. He knew that there would be a commotion outside, people wanting to help Khat but scared to enter the covered tent.

Cole made some last-minute preparations, then slipped out of the rear of the tent into another aisle of stalls. He got some odd looks as he carried Khat on his shoulders, bedecked with guns, but he knew he had time before anyone realized what was going on.

He also knew that he couldn’t go back to the other side now, towards his car; too many people had seen him over that way, too many people would try and stop him. And so he raced away from the back of Khat’s tent, through the aisles of the maze-like market, towards the dark, forbidding jungle; one hand securing Khat to his shoulders, the other holding his AK as an effective visual deterrent.

A moment later, a huge explosion rocked the market, and Cole could see dozens — perhaps hundreds — of people diving for cover, hands over their heads. Cole didn’t even bother to look — he knew it was Khat’s tent which had blown up, having set the timers on his plastic explosives for thirty seconds.

Even from so far away, he could feel the heat on his back; and then he could hear the sound of thousands of rounds of ammunition firing at all angles, the heat from the explosives having cooked them off. As he ran awkwardly towards the edge of the clearing, he hoped he wouldn’t be shot by one of the uncontrolled stray rounds.

He had almost reached the jungle when he heard the shouts, only now audible above the roaring explosions and the cooked-off ammunition.

There was a mixture of Khmer, Thai and Vietnamese, but the raised voices all seemed to be shouting the same thing.

Over there! He’s escaping! Catch him!

Kill him!

7

The room was stark and bare, empty except for the form of a hooded man, kneeling on the dirt floor with his hands tied behind his back.

He was wearing a torn shirt and what looked like the trousers from a suit, almost as if he had been wrenched from his daily life and normal routine and been dragged kicking and screaming to this dank, evil cell.

Perhaps he had.

Another form entered the room then, tall and slim. This form, too, was hooded, but this hood was far more menacing than the simple rice sack placed over the man’s head; it was pure white with the end pointed, eye-holes cut out from the cloth, black nothingness beyond them. Eyes steeped in shadow; soulless, merciless.

The figure was cloaked in the robes of an Islamic cleric, and a hand shot out quickly from the robe, yanking the hood from the prostrate man. He looked up, and some people would have recognized him as Brad Butler, a war correspondent with CNN.

The same hand dropped the hood to the floor and took hold of the man’s hair, pulling back sharply to expose the throat, even as the other hand withdrew a long, curved, ivory-handled knife.

Butler’s screams stopped just as soon as they’d started as the figure started sawing — back and forth, back and forth — until the man’s head came off entirely, blood spraying in a bright crimson shower over the robes, the hood.

And hidden within the hood, those black pools that should have been eyes still betrayed no shred of emotion at all.

Within the hour, Abd Al-Aziz Quraishi was back in his office within the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Interior in downtown Riyadh, his bloodstained robes now replaced by a clean set, ready for the day ahead.

A minor and distant member of the House of Saud, Quraishi was Assistant Minister for Security Affairs, a role which suited his needs to absolute perfection.

Although he was a devout Muslim — and indeed believed that not many people across the whole of Islamic history could rival his religious zeal — he was also much more widely educated than most fundamentalist radicals.

As such, he very much believed in Sun Tzu’s advice in The Art of War, written five thousand years before — know your enemy.

It was a mistake many of his brethren had made over the years — their strict upbringing, their blinkered approach, their ignorance of the world outside their narrow perceptions, had made them fail in their jihad time and time again.

But not Quraishi; he knew his enemies all too well. He had been born into one of them, the horrifically corrupt House of Saud; and he had travelled to the United States to learn more about the other, the Great Satan itself.

After joining the Saudi Royal Guard Regiment while still in his teens, Quraishi had volunteered to go to America for officer training at West Point.

And so he had willingly entered the belly of the beast, examining his foe from within; learning American military tactics firsthand, but more importantly, developing an understanding of her people.

And what he had found disgusted him. Yes, they were pleasant enough, but it was all on the surface; deep down there was simply nothing there, years of capitalism and secularity and greed and corruption eating away at the moral fiber of the nation until there was nothing left but blind automatons, slaves to the marketers and advertisers who sold the bland and mundane products of the companies who really ran the country.

His years in America had been insane, like living in a Disneyland populated entirely by spoiled children. Every day there had made him nauseous, but he had put on a façade of acceptance, shown himself willing to adapt to American ways, pretend to be impressed with American customs. He knew it would be expected of him, and would bear fruit in the future, when he could use the relationships he would develop there.

Know your enemy.

He had known it was also expected of him by the House of Saud itself, which prided itself on its relations with America. After all, she was the main consumer of its oil, Saudi Arabia’s multi-trillion dollar industry, and — as was continuously stressed to him by the more senior members of the royal family — good relations with the US were of paramount importance to the regime’s survival.

Not that Quraishi wanted the regime to survive.

On the contrary, he was fundamentally committed to the wholesale destruction of the corrupt, West-loving House of Saud.

And he knew that with the fall of the Great Satan would also come the fall of the hated monarchy which ruled his beloved country; the country which contained both Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in the entire world, now defiled by the presence of the US military.

He ignored the fact that he was a part of that same monarchy; it was blood only, and not soul.

His soul was committed to Allah, and Allah alone.

And unlike many of his freedom-fighting contemporaries, he was intelligent enough to see that he could use his position, his connections, to further his cause, may Allah forgive him.

He had used his intelligence, his knowledge of Western and Saudi governments, his worldwide connections, to create a new group, an organization of such blessed purity that it made all others pale in comparison.

Harakat al-jihad al-Islami al-jazirat al-‘arabiyah.

Arabian Islamic Jihad.

The beheading of Brad Butler had been filmed, and would be posted on the usual websites when the time was right. When the power of his organization was ready to unleash havoc on an unsuspecting world.

His disguised appearance was absolutely necessary; he was far too well known in Saudi Arabia to show his real face, or use his real voice. Vehemently opposed to the Saudi royal family, there was no way that his followers would agree to suborn themselves to someone from that same royal line, tainted as it was with western corruption. There weren’t many who would accept that Quraishi accepted the façade of his position, his public life, only to enhance the probability of success for his real calling in life as The Lion, feared head of the AIJ.

Quraishi was still smiling as he remembered slicing through the neck of that Western tool of propaganda, the CNN journalist Brad Butler, when an assistant knocked at his office door and brought in his cup of jasmine tea.

Quraishi thanked him, then quickly ushered him out when he heard the buzzing of his secure telephone.

‘Yes?’ he answered when the man had left the office.

The message was good, and the smile remained on Quraishi’s face as his contact talked. An agent of Jemaah Islamiyah, a freedom fighting group within the Indonesian archipelago with whom he had developed a good relationship over the years, the man on the phone updated Quraishi on their recent operation; stage one in The Lion’s master plan.

Yes, Quraishi considered as he sipped quietly at his tea, all the pieces were coming together nicely.

8

Trying to move through jungle was an arduous physical prospect at the best of times; carrying an unconscious body on his back, an equipment satchel and assault rifle slung over his shoulder, and cradling a shotgun in his arms, meant that for Cole, it was now even harder. Especially as he didn’t have a machete to hack his way through the thick undergrowth, and he had a mob of well-armed and dangerous gun dealers chasing him.

He tried to keep his pursuers at bay by throwing the odd hand grenade or firing a blast from the shotgun; one advantage he had was that they would want Khat back alive, whereas he could fire at them with no such considerations.

He’d chosen the shotgun for work in the jungle as it was a weapon perfectly suited to the environment; with a relatively short range and scattershot effect, it did the maximum amount of damage at the short, dangerous distances typical of jungle combat.

Even though it was night, the air remained thick and hot, and the tall trees blocked what little light came from the moon and the stars. It was both a curse and a blessing; it made it almost impossible to see where he was going, but it would also make him a much harder target for the people following.

Cole’s heart raced as he pulled himself over ancient tree stumps and tangled vines, the exertion terribly intense. But he had fought in the jungle before, and the sickening harshness of the environment could never overwhelm him. Such feelings were perfectly natural to Cole, who had known little else his entire life. First there had been selection, and then training, and then a lifetime of operational missions. And not one bit of it had ever been comfortable.

And in fact — despite the danger, the sharp hit of adrenalin, the pain in his straining muscles, his searing lungs, his wildly pumping heart — he felt at home, the chase through the ferocious jungle something that was comfortingly familiar to him after being so long adrift.

Yes, he thought happily as he turned into the dense blackness of the jungle behind him, illuminating it briefly with the muzzle flash of his shotgun, the sound of its strident bark almost deafening in the enclosed area as he unleashed another two shells at his unseen enemy.

Yes.

I’m home.

Cole’s heart stopped as his right foot slid down a bank, his balance gone, and he tumbled over in to the pitch black waters of the Siem Reap River.

He collected himself immediately, cursing himself for making such a mistake. But he could use the river to lose the people who relentlessly followed him; and so he moved the still-unconscious Khat into a lifeguard’s retrieval position, one of Cole’s arms secured around his chest as he side-stroked across the muddy river.

The shouts of men came from the far side only moments later, yells and panicked splashing as they too slipped and slid into the water. Cole wondered if they’d seen him, but the soil of the bank erupted around him just seconds later, the men emptying their assault rifles in his direction, and Cole’s question was answered with frightening certainty.

Cole thought them crazy; in the eerie jungle half-light there was no way they could guarantee missing Khat. But Cole realized that the thrill of the chase, of the hunt, was upon the men now; this particular group might not even have realized who they were chasing, or why; only that there was someone who had caused trouble back at the market, and who needed to be caught. Or killed.

But the time for thinking was later, and Cole pushed Khat onto the far bank, dropped the shotgun and swung the AK off his shoulder, finger pressing the trigger as soon as his grip was secured, spraying the far side of the narrow river with powerful 7.62mm rounds. The rifle on fully-automatic fire emptied its magazine in just five seconds.

Cole had heard a cry, a scream; but pressing his advantage, he ejected the magazine, hands operating in the dark to instantly insert another and spraying the riverside once more until the gun clicked empty.

He was rewarded with cries of pain, guttural shouts, pleas for help, and knew it was time to press on back into the jungle. The men on the far side were out, but their screams would soon attract others, and then this side of the river would be swarming with them.

He turned to pick up Khat’s body, and was horrified to see an empty space where he had left him. Cole looked harder into the green-black gloom, wondering if the body was just covered in shadow, but he could make out a depression in the mud where Khat had been only moments ago.

Damn.

But the man couldn’t have gone far; Cole had spent less than half a minute firing at his pursuers.

Straining his eyes, he managed to make out a small mound of crumpled weeds, a hole of crushed vegetation which led further into the jungle.

Leaving the empty Kalashnikov by the riverside, Cole picked up his shotgun and entered through the imposing green wall, determined to catch his quarry and make him talk.

Who the hell was this guy? Khat Narong simply couldn’t believe what had happened in the last half an hour.

First, one of his good Thai customers had come up to him and told him that a crazy foreigner was here asking questions about Liang Kebangkitan Apparently the man had come to Boom Suparat’s home and threatened him. Boom had led him here to the Angkor market — a crime Khat might ordinarily have killed him for — but had then been quick to tell Khat exactly what was going on.

Khat had told Boom to circle round and ambush the American from the rear, while six of his own men would fan out to surround him. And that’s exactly what had happened.

But what had followed was hard to understand. How had the man done that? Killed everyone so quickly, so efficiently? Six armed men — not including Boom, who had been killed by Khat’s own men — killed in just a few seconds.

Khat was a tough man; although he looked young, he was fifty-six years old and had lived through the civil war and the Khmer Rouge’s brutal extermination years, seen his mother and father shot in the head and thrown into a ditch by the roadside right in front of him. He’d served as a mercenary throughout Southeast Asia himself, then as an enforcer for a Chinese gang in the Phillipines, before realizing that there was more money to be made supplying arms rather than using them. He’d spent the last twenty years building up his business, and had been instrumental in setting up the Angkor market. Most of his big trade was done off-site and privately, but it was here that he felt most at home, the place where he could meet friends old and new. It was amazing how many lucrative deals had been secured through relationships he’d first developed here in the jungle.

Liang Kebangkitan was one of them, and Khat had cursed out loud when they’d hijacked that ship with three American crewmembers on board. Their name hadn’t been confirmed, but Khat knew it must be them; they were the only pirate group in that area capable of pulling off such a large-scale operation.

Khat had feared that the trail might lead to him; after all, he had supplied the gang with all of their weapons and equipment. Hell, even the fast Rigid Inflatable Boats they used had come from Khat.

But Khat had expected to be questioned only if Arief and his pirate gang were caught; he’d never thought that the Americans might use him to get to the gang in the first place.

But who was this American? He seemed to be working alone, which was strange in itself. And his swift recourse to lethal violence was not something which Khat had experienced from intelligence and law enforcement officers from that country before.

But, Khat reasoned as he pushed through the fierce, cloying vegetation of the jungle, whoever the man was, Khat was best off very far away from him.

In the grim twilight, Cole tracked the man; using his eyes when he could, stopping to feel the ground, the vegetation, when he couldn’t, using his fingers to get some physical sign of Khat’s progress through the jungle.

It was a strange situation — Cole was hunting Khat, and Khat’s friends and colleagues were hunting Cole.

Cole wondered if Khat would double back, towards his friends, but thought this might be dangerous for the man. As the incident at the riverside would have taught him, there were some men in the ‘rescue’ posse who were willing to shoot first and check who was dead later. Khat wouldn’t risk being shot by going back towards them.

Khat would therefore press on deeper into the jungle, which is what it looked like was happening; although in such a dense, claustrophobic atmosphere it was next to impossible to keep one’s sense of direction intact, especially at night. They could both be running in circles for all Cole knew.

Sounds were confusing in such an enclosed space, blocked by trees, shrubs, bushes and vines; but behind, Cole could hear shouts, the odd AK round being fired. A pistol shot here, a shotgun blast there.

And up ahead…

Cole could have sworn he’d just heard a splash.

Had he been right? Had they just circled round in the dark, and were now back by the river? Or was it something else?

Cautious, Cole edged forward, leading with the muzzle of his Chinese Hawk semi-automatic shotgun.

The tree line came upon him suddenly, but Cole didn’t slip this time; he just stopped and stared at the wide expanse of water in front of him. At the edge of the jungle, the moonlight was able to finally get past the trees, illuminating a perfectly straight line of water which Cole estimated as being a hundred or so meters across.

Cole knew something so straight couldn’t be natural, and realized that it must be a moat, carved out of the jungle hundreds — perhaps even thousands — of years ago to protect the ancient temples beyond.

Had they arrived at Angkor Wat? But Cole was sure that the Angkor Wat moat was even wider than this.

And then he realized — this must be Angkor Thom, an even larger complex hidden further north in the jungle. Less tourists made it this far, but the scale of the place was supposed to be even more impressive than its more famous neighbor.

These thoughts flickered through Cole’s brain in the blink of eye; no longer than it took him to scan the moat and opposite bank with the aid of the blessed moonlight and reacquire Khat.

He was there, a vague figure in the distance, climbing out of the moat on the far side. Cole was impressed; the man must have hauled ass through the jungle to get there this far ahead of him.

Cole considered his options quickly, and reacted while he still had time.

He fired the shotgun across the moat once, then again, and finally a third time. He heard a grunt of pain in between blasts, and saw the figure of Khat stumble on the other bank in the waning moonlight.

The spread of the shotgun shells’ pellets at a hundred meters could be probably be measured in yards rather than inches; and yet Cole didn’t want to kill Khat, only to slow him down.

Velocity at that distance would also be seriously reduced, and Cole knew that the pellets wouldn’t penetrate far into Khat’s body. But they would make it difficult to move, and would help Cole track him by leaving a tell-tale trail of blood.

The shotgun blasts would bring other people quickly to the moat though, and Cole knew he wouldn’t have much time left.

And so without a second thought, Cole leapt from the jungle into the still, green-black waters of the Angkor Thom moat.

Khat staggered through the trees, pulling himself over vines and undergrowth, pain shooting through his legs, into his back.

The bastard had shot at him from across the moat, hit him too; although with a shotgun spread at that distance, it would have been a miracle if some of the pellets hadn’t hit him.

Khat remembered selling a vast quantity of those guns to a Triad gang in Macau. For fun, they’d taken a line of what they’d called ‘prisoners’ — although Khat had had no idea where they’d come from, or how they’d offended the Triads — and then lined them up far away from the guns. Members of the gang had then fired towards them, checked for damage, and then made the line shuffle a few feet further forwards. When the prisoners finally died of their wounds, the Triads had been happy that they’d found the maximum lethal range of the weapons.

Khat seemed to remember it was about fifty yards.

He tried to forget the terrified screams that accompanied that data, however.

If it helped him make a sale, he’d found he could forget anything.

But right now, as pain raced through his battered body, he was unable to forget one terrifying fact — that he was a rat caught in a dangerous trap.

Cole could hear the shouts as the gun dealers reached the bank of the moat, knew that they’d be able to see him silhouetted by the moon.

He felt the slaps of water near him before he heard the shots themselves, high-velocity rounds fired towards him.

He dove instantly, at once completely immersed in the inky black of the ancient moat’s murky waters.

He swam swiftly down to three feet, knowing he would be completely safe at that depth, bullets and shotgun shells unable to penetrate any further and still do damage.

He didn’t know what the water would do to his own weapons, but was willing to lose them; better to reach the far bank unarmed than to be shot on the surface trying to keep them dry.

He swam through the slimy black water with long, powerful strokes, his body used to such tasks and able to perform them with ruthless efficiency, and soon reached the far bank.

He was glad to drag his body out of the water — if the men had thought to throw grenades into the moat, the shockwaves might well have killed him. But now he was on land, he was too far for someone to throw a grenade anyway. Unless the men had grenade launchers, on the other hand, which they might –

He saw the flash of light and heard a low, deep thump he recognized all too well as the sound of a Mk 19 40mm grenade launcher.

Damn.

In an instant, Cole turned and leapt into the thick jungle foliage just as the grenade landed, exploding in a violent arc of flame and shrapnel.

The leaves and dense shrubbery protected Cole from the shrapnel and the worst effects of the blast, but then he heard the roar of automatic small arms fire, the launch of grenades; and felt the passage of hot air as bullets whizzed past him, tearing away at leaves and chipping through tree trunks, concussive blasts from more grenades erupting all around him.

And then he could hear the high-pitched scream of a General Electric XM214 Minigun, the whine from its electric motor instantly recognizable as it spewed lethal 7.62mm rounds into the jungle foliage at up to 10,000 rounds a minute. The gun was supposed to be fitted to helicopters and light aircraft, and Cole wondered how the hell his pursuers had managed to haul one through the undergrowth.

But it was there now, and the power of the weapon tore the jungle apart around him.

Staggering, his head reeling from the pressure of the explosives, Cole fell through the damaged tree line, escape his only thought.

And even over the sound of the Minigun’s motor and its continuous supersonic chattering, Cole was sure he could hear the men on the far bank laughing.

9

Cole’s mouth dropped open as he burst out of a line of trees into a clearing, waterlogged shotgun still leading the way.

Through a thin line of trees, Cole had been confronted by an ancient wall, its archaic, sculpted stonework previously hidden in the darkness. The laterite walls, buttressed by earth, were at least twenty-five feet high, but Cole didn’t have a choice.

Desperate, Cole hauled himself up the city’s protective wall, digging hands and feet in deep, getting purchase as he climbed as quickly as he had ever done, the Minigun spraying the trees and the wall around him.

And then he was on a parapet at the top, rolling off quickly and letting himself down the other side, the wall now providing complete protection from the assault. He’d slipped down to his knees to catch his breath, and smelled the coppery scent of fresh blood.

Khat.

He looked hard at the ground around him until he picked up the man’s blood trail. It was difficult in the dark, but not impossible; he’d had plenty of practice over the years, and could recognize the shiny black spatters left across leaves and vines even at night.

He’d followed the trail across the path which separated the wall from the jungle, and re-entered the forbidding wall of dense vegetation, senses on high alert.

He knew that there was road access across the moat, from all four cardinal directions. The people chasing him wouldn’t even have to swim across; they could walk by the side of the moat until they got to a bridge, and cross quickly.

But Cole had decided not to dwell on that; his primary aim was to find Khat, and he could deal with everything else once that was out of the way and his captive was secured.

And now the blood trail had led him here — the main ceremonial square of Angkor Thom itself.

As the tree line gave way to open ground, Cole could see a central wall illuminated by the stars and the moon, now high in the sky overhead.

Blood glistened on the grass in front of him, and Cole stalked forward, towards the southern gate, the temples looming beyond.

In the dead of night, with no tourists and just his own soft breathing to break the still night air, it could have been thousands of years ago and a deep sense of unease swept over Cole. He wasn’t a superstitious person by any means, but as he entered the central Bayan area, he had the feeling that this was a special place, one that had existed for so long that it had been imbued with a power that couldn’t be understood by mortal man.

There in front of him was the vast stone expanse of the Bayan itself, the ancient state temple of King Jayavarman VII rising up before him in its ethereal, vine-covered, regal glory; the ages-old edifice erupting out of the jungle like some primeval force of nature, as if placed there by the gods.

Cole heard vehicles then, and knew that the men from the gun market were coming for him in force.

But over the sound of racing diesel engines, Cole could hear the soft whimpering of a man, and Cole looked down to follow the last of the blood trail, watching in the moonlight as it led to the crumbling stone steps underneath a rising, heavily sculpted monument. An enormous head sat atop the monument, the strange light playing off the green stone eyes, making it seem almost as if it was a giant come to life.

And on the steps lay the body of Khat Narong, chest rising and falling with great effort, the man’s breath hollow and rasping.

Cole raced forward, careful that Khat might be leading him into a trap. Yet when he got to the man, he could see it was no act — Cole’s shotgun pellets had lacerated the man’s legs and back, and he was bleeding profusely. Blood seeped out of the gun dealer’s mouth, and Cole wondered if perhaps some of the pellets had indeed penetrated further. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on the man, and it was possible that a vital organ might have been pierced. And the chase through the jungle had now left Khat near death.

Cole looked around, saw the uneven glare of headlights being driven at speed along bumpy roads. He only had minutes left now; maybe not even that.

From his belt, Cole withdrew a US Marine KA-BAR knife he had taken from Khat’s stall, crouching down to Khat and placing it between his legs.

‘Your friends will be here soon,’ Cole whispered in his ear, watching how Khat looked at him, hatred and fire in his weak, rheumy eyes. ‘They’ll be able to help you, get you medical assistance. You’ll live,’ Cole assured him, even as he nudged the knife closer to Khat’s testicles, the razor sharp blade parting the camouflage shorts, the tip resting by the scrotum.

‘I’m going to ask you a question,’ Cole said softly. ‘If you tell me the truth, I’ll let you go, and I’ll just disappear right back into the jungle and you won’t see me again.’ He let the tip of the blade pierce the wrinkled skin of the scrotal sack, and Khat flinched, panic replacing the fire in his eyes. ‘If I think you’re lying, then Mrs. Narong is going to have to find herself a new man, you understand? No more boom-boom time for you, my friend.’

Sweat poured from Khat’s head, and he nodded quickly, all resistance gone now. He was too weak, too tired, and far too terrified.

‘Good,’ Cole said, all too aware of the shouts coming from nearby, cars having arrived close by, men jumping out, holding guns and flashlights. It wouldn’t be long now.

‘Now tell me who your contact is with Liang Kebangkitan.’

Khat hesitated momentarily, a lifetime of discretion overriding his current terror, but a gentle nudge of the knife turned back his focus in an instant.

‘Wong Xiang,’ Khat whispered, breath caught in his throat.

‘Who is he?’

‘Chinese arms broker,’ Khat said nervously. ‘Acts as middleman between me and pirates, you know?’

‘Where is he based?’

‘You want his fucking address?’ Khat spat, before grimacing as the knife pulled away the skin between his legs. ‘Okay… Okay… I don’ know the address man, really… but he live in Jakarta, okay? He based in Jakarta.’

‘How do you contact him?’ Cole asked, his own pulse rising as the flashlights came ever closer.

There was resistance to the question, and Cole let the knife slip further, eyes burning into Khat’s.

‘I don’ contact him, man! He contact me, okay? But I met him before — two, maybe three times — at a place in east of city, Vietnamese restaurant, okay? Everyone know him there, yeah?’

Cole examined the man’s eyes in the short time he had, and could see no guile in them, no hint that Khat was misleading him; the knife between his legs truly terrified him, as Cole had known it would.

He could hear footsteps on the surrounding steps now, approaching from the other sides.

Cole withdrew the knife from between Khat’s legs, and the little Cambodian gun dealer didn’t even pause to sag with relief. Instead, he instantly screamed out in Khmer, calling to his friends, shouting for help.

Cole plunged the knife into Khat’s chest up to the hilt, the blade striking right through the breastbone and the heart, and the man’s words stopped immediately, head lolling to one side.

Cole sprang away from the steps a moment later as the crumbling stone was illuminated by a high-power torch, and then obliterated by the high-velocity rounds of an assault rifle.

The sound of Cole’s shotgun rang out then, and the shooter was blasted across the temple steps before he had a chance to react. The water hadn’t caused a fatal blockage at least.

Cole was about to make a run for the safety of the jungle when he had another idea; and instead of heading away from the man he had just shot, instead he raced across the steps, picking up the man’s assault rifle as he went.

He heard other men approaching, flashlights bouncing across the vine — encrusted stonework, and tucked himself into a shadowed corner, levering himself up the temple walls.

He scrambled quickly upwards, lost in shadow, until he was high enough to avoid completely the glare of the flashlights.

He stared down as a dozen armed men arrived on the steps next to the body of Khat and their friend, heard them cursing and shouting as they looked around the area for Cole.

Cole steadied himself in the arms of the Cambodian stone giant, aiming the Steyr AUG bullpup rifle he’d taken from the man just moments before.

And just when the confusion was at its peak — some people looking at Khat’s body, others at the second man’s, whilst still more shone their flashlights in big arcs from left to right, weapons tracking with them, looking for something — anything — to shoot, if only to unload their frustrations — Cole opened fire himself, filling the ancient stone enclosure with the staccato blasts of full-auto 5.56mm ammunition.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel, and Cole watched as men fell one after another, their confusion working against them, unable to see Cole from his position on the giant statue, and firing back at their own comrades instead.

By the time the smoke cleared, they’d killed more of their own people than Cole had.

There wasn’t time to assess the morality of his actions, nor any need — they’d been trying to kill him, and instead Cole had killed them. It was self-protection, plain and simple; survival of the fittest.

And he had just re-learnt the hard way with Boom Suparat not to trust anyone.

As he heard more people approaching, lights once more bouncing through the temple complex, Cole turned and climbed further over the domed pillars of the incredible structure, heading away from the south side.

He slipped down further away, keeping to the shadows as he got to ground level and stepped over the ancient paving, moving smoothly, unseen by the encroaching enemy.

Ahead, Cole could see the headlights of a truck, parked south so it faced the complex, illuminating it with full beam, engine ticking over at idle.

Cole saw that the hood was up, running engine exposed, clips attached and leading to the right, towards…

Cole saw the Minigun, its electric motors needing the power of the truck battery to get going, positioned on the back of a pick-up parked with its rear to the temple; the mounted Minigun had its barrels facing outwards, primed to destroy everything in its path.

Cole slipped through the shadows towards the truck, glad to see most of the men racing forwards towards the Bayan.

Controlling his heart, he crept forward inch by careful inch, keeping close to the ground, until he was close enough to reach out and touch it.

And then he sprang up, shot the driver through the side of the head, his skull exploding across the window; and then double-tapped the center mass of the man in the pick-up stood behind the Minigun, dropping him instantly; and then the two men checking the engine battery connections, only now looking up as Cole fired towards them.

And then he was inside the truck as his rifle clicked empty, kicking the dead driver out the other side and taking immediate control, foot down on the accelerator and hands wrenching the wheel around in a tight circle.

He could feel the tires struggling to get traction, felt the weak impact of rounds being fired at him from over at the Bayan; and then the tires got their grip and he accelerated towards the northern gate.

He looked in the rear-view mirror, saw men struggling to turn the pick-up truck around, get someone else on the Minigun, get it connected to the pick-up’s battery and aimed at the escaping truck.

But by the time they had got themselves organized, it was too late anyway; Cole was through the gateway and blasting north along the jungle road, the electric hum and ferocious power of the Minigun lost and useless behind him.

Even then, Cole didn’t allow himself to relax; he couldn’t.

For now he had a new mission.

Jakarta.

And a meeting with a man called Wong Xiang.