Whatever the Cost

1

‘Destroyers?’ Jeb Richards asked in disbelief. ‘DEVGRU? A whole fucking Ranger battalion?’

As Secretary of Homeland Security, Richards had overall responsibility for America’s domestic safety, and was unable to understand why the kidnapping of three — only three, for crying out loud! — US citizens was resulting in such a large scale commitment of American military forces.

‘Hey,’ warned Vice President Glen Swain, ‘watch your language Jeb, okay?’

Richards merely nodded his head in answer to the rebuke and continued his tirade to the rest of the National Security Council, who sat around the huge table wedged into Conference Room One, deep within the White House Situation Room.

‘What if we’re hit at home by something else?’ he said. ‘We’ve got Islamic terrorists coming out of our ass, this whole shit sandwich with Korea, things happening everywhere which could seriously — and I mean seriously — affect our national security, and we’re wasting millions of dollars on recon, surveillance, intelligence and military staging on finding a damn Chinese boat?’

Ellen Abrams eyed Richards directly across the table. She supposed she should have expected such a response from Jeb; a violently conservative Senator from the Texan heartlands, he believed that money not spent directly on domestic security was money wasted. Unless it was being spent on operations abroad which had direct benefits to domestic security, which he could just about tolerate.

In a way, this vehemence is what made him such a good Secretary of Homeland Security; he fought like a tiger for what he believed in, and America was safer place because of it.

However, such a blinkered approach could sometimes cause problems when it came time to look at the bigger picture; and then it was up to Ellen Abrams to remind him how it worked.

‘I understand your feelings on the matter Jeb,’ she began steadily, her gaze level with Richards’. ‘However, there are some niceties here that perhaps you haven’t considered. Like our relations with the Chinese government, who we’ve pledged to help as part of the Mutual Defense Treaty. It’s a long-term game, remember. We help them here, they help us with something later.

‘And then there’s the fact that three of the crew are Americans, and our citizens expect us to do something. If we don’t respond, what kind of message does that send to our people? To put it in your own terms — from a domestic security point of view — imagine if we do nothing, and three of our people end up being tortured and killed. How would that play out on the streets of American cities? Demonstrations, riots, who knows? And what forces would we need to commit to sorting that out?’

All eyes around the table watched as Abrams calmly attacked Richards’ arguments, gutting him with a smile. It was a skill which had taken her from a Boston lawyer’s office to a United States Senator from Massachusetts, to the 45th President of the United States of America, the first woman in history to ever hold that position.

She was a fighter, but a smooth one.

‘And then there’s our reputation to think of,’ she continued, still with the voice of reason. ‘If we give in to demands, or are seen to not act when the security and safety of our citizens is directly threatened, then when message does that send other criminal groups, other terrorists? Think about that, Jeb. Do we want that message being broadcast? I don’t think it will make domestic security easier, do you?’

There was a pause, and all eyes turned to Richards, whose own were facing down towards the briefing papers on the table in front of him.

‘Jeb?’ Abrams asked again. ‘I asked you a question. Do you?’

Richards looked up at last and met the president’s eyes. ‘No ma’am,’ he said, beaten.

‘Good. Then we will proceed as planned. Pete?’

Abrams handed the ball back to Pete Olsen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who had been halfway through his briefing when Richards had started complaining.

‘Thank you ma’am,’ Olsen said. ‘As I was saying, we have one DEVGRU squadron now located at Subic Bay, under Commander Ike Treyborne, where they’ll be making preparations to re-take the cargo ship when its found.’ Olsen continued detailing military dispositions and strategies until everyone around the table had a clear picture of what was being done.

‘Thanks Pete,’ Clark Mason said, turning then to address the table. As US Secretary of State, Mason was the third most important person at the briefing, just under Abrams and Swain.

‘Although Jeb was perhaps a bit offhand in his manner,’ he began reasonably, ‘and we are all agreed that we have to respond to this situation in the way we are, we shouldn’t forget other pressing issues. Korea, or example. I understand that there has been a spike in terrorist communications warning of a new attack on the south? Cat?’

Catalina dos Santos was the Director of National Intelligence — like the president, the first female to hold the position — and was the immediate replacement for the notorious — and still missing — US traitor, Charles Hansard. It was a tough role to take on after the scandal left by her predecessor, but the general consensus was that dos Santos was doing a pretty good job so far.

As she started to give a breakdown on what was known about the situation in South Korea, Jeb Richards looked across the table and nodded his head imperceptibly towards Mason in a gesture of thanks.

Even though Mason had been subtle, Richards recognized the fact that the Secretary of State had supported him.

So, Clark Mason thought that it might be dangerous to concentrate too much on the hijacking incident too. Interesting.

As the meeting wore on, Richards considered the fact that he might have an ally in Clark Mason. And there weren’t too many better allies to have than the Sec State, a man of enormous power and influence, backed up by huge personal wealth.

And — seeing the potential opportunities — Richards wasted no time in starting to make his plans.

The cold hard stare was enough to seriously unsettle Major Ho Sang-ok; he had used it enough times himself, and knew what it meant.

It meant his career — if not his life — was over.

‘My dear friend,’ Lieutenant General U Chun-su began gently, ‘would you be so kind as to update me on the current situation?’

Ho cleared his throat. ‘As you know, demands have been made by the pirates directly to the Tsing Tao Shipping Line, in the order of a fifty million US dollar ransom. The Chinese government has vetoed the paying of this ransom, and President Abrams was also clear that there would not be a payout. The intelligence services and military of both China and the US have been working overtime to locate the vessel, presumably with the intention of retaking it by force.’

‘The cargo?’ U asked, eyes narrowed.

‘We believe that the most likely scenario is that the pirates will sell the cargo off to cover their costs and raise some capital. We’ve got agents in the area right now, trying to find out any information about who’s selling what to whom.’

‘My friend, this does not fill me with confidence. What is the status of our own cargo?’ The façade slipped suddenly, and U’s hand crashed down onto his desktop. ‘Do you have any fucking idea where our cargo is, you fucking incompetent? Do you realize what’s riding on this?’

Ho kept his gaze level, standing rigidly to attention. ‘No, sir. We do not have any information about the location of our cargo. Captains Jang and O are no longer in communication with us, and we have to assume that they were killed or captured while defending the ship.’

U looked down at his desk, reorganizing the scattered papers, regaining control of his emotions. ‘President Kim is not happy, as you might well expect. Someone’s head will roll for this, Major Ho, and — I assure you — it won’t be mine. Do we understand each other?’

Ho nodded his head. ‘Yes sir.’

‘Good. Now what do we know about these pirates?’

‘Our intelligence in that region is limited, but we have identified a group calling itself Liang Kebangkitan as the most likely hijackers.’

‘And what do we know about these people?’

‘Not a lot, I’m afraid sir. Apparently it’s led by a man called Arief Suprapto, a career criminal. But nobody knows where they’re based, or how to contact them.’

‘This doesn’t sound promising, Ho.’

Ho smiled for the first time during the meeting; he was about to play his only trump card, the only thing which — if it came off — might save him.

‘We have learnt that the pirates source their weapons through a well-known local arms broker based in Jakarta, Wong Xiang. We think that he might be able to help us locate their lair, and the hijacked ship.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘My men tell me he’s at home in the city, sir. They’re getting ready to move in. Special agents from the Third Bureau’s Singapore field office.’

A smile also broke out on the face of Lieutenant General U Chun-su. The Third Bureau’s special agents were possibly the most highly trained killers in the world.

‘Very good, Ho,’ he conceded, before his smile turned to a scowl. ‘But you’d better hope that our cargo is still on board that fucking ship, or I’ll be sending those agents to see you right away afterwards. And they won’t be after information my friend,’ U teased with a gleam in his eye, ‘they’ll be after your fucking heart.’

2

Vietopia was located in an early twentieth century Dutch colonial storefront on Jalan Cikini Raya in central Jakarta. Cars were parked haphazardly right out front, and a second floor balcony ran the length of the block.

Cole observed the building from the shadows which covered the other side of the street, his first look at the place a simple walk-by.

He had researched Vietnamese restaurants in the city on the internet back in Cambodia, ensconcing himself in an internet café in Phnom Penh for a couple of hours before flying out to Jakarta on a fake passport. He was glad he’d kept his false documents and papers, credit cards and cash from his previous life, and was again forced to admit that he’d only been hibernating these past months; he had always known that he would have to reemerge at some stage.

Vietopia was the only such place in the city, and although information was scant, there were some pictures he memorized, as well as online maps of the area. He had been trained to quickly pick up on key areas on maps — public transport locations, points of interest, major streets and travel routes — and was able to build a mental picture of the city with incredible speed. He knew from experience that sometimes his life could depend on it.

He had also managed to worm his way into the secure computer files of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He knew — like Charles Hansard before her — that Catalina dos Santos, as DNI, would have access to the combined intelligence of the CIA, DIA, DEA, Secret Service, ATF and NSA. Her office was a clearing house for the intelligence services; and what was more, Cole knew how to break into her system.

He had been pleased to see that security hadn’t measurably improved from when he’d hacked into Hansard’s system on a previous occasion. In fact, it turned out to be an easy job for a man of Cole’s skills; skills which had been taught to him by the top experts at the National Security Agency, and had actually — and ironically, as it turned out — been insisted on by Hansard himself, who had believed that cyber hacking was a vital skill for an independent operative.

He had scoured the system for information on both Liang Kebangkitan and Wong Xiang, but it was woefully thin on the ground. The only thing he learnt about the pirate group was that it supposedly favored northern Sumatra, and was led by a charismatic lifelong pirate named Arief Suprapto, who apparently believed that he was the reincarnation of the famous fifteenth century pirate king Liang Dao Ming.

There was a little more in the files about Wong Xiang, including a set of black and white surveillance photos from an ultimately aborted attempt to arrest him on arms smuggling charges in the late 1990s. He would undoubtedly look different now, but the ATF had kindly supplied a few computer-enhanced images of how he might possibly look after aging twenty years.

Wong’s file described he had been an officer in the army of the PRC, before absconding with an entire tank regiment, which he subsequently sold to African warlords to make his first fortune. He had subsequently been arrested and tortured by the Chinese, but had somehow managed to escape before being executed.

The incident seemed to have tempered his ambitions somewhat, and he continued in the trade as a broker instead of supplying direct, playing the middleman being a much safer line of work — and only slightly less lucrative, once he’d bumped up his percentage.

Cole noted that there was no information in the files on his current whereabouts, or what groups he was involved with, nor any other up-to-date intelligence on the man. He had fallen through the net, and was now ignored by agencies with much bigger fish to fry.

Still, Cole now had a picture of the man and — whilst undoubtedly inaccurate — it would still enable him to make a rough identification if he was to enter the restaurant.

Cole was aware that he was on the clock, but his experience back in Siem Reap had been a harsh reminder to him of the all-important ‘seven Ps’, as he’d been taught by his British colleagues in the elite Special Boat Service, the UK equivalent of the Navy SEALs — proper planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance.

He hadn’t planned his last operation, and his performance had indeed turned out to be piss poor. Alright, he’d got the information he’d needed, but he’d almost been killed doing it; not to mention aiding in the wholesale destruction of a thousand year old world heritage site.

And so he wasn’t going to take any chances here — he would play it by the book, perform proper recon and make sure his kidnapping of Wong Xiang went without a hitch.

It was only a few hours later when Cole — situated on the roof of an old tenement block directly facing the Dutch colonial storefronts, staring through a recently purchased pair of high-powered Zeiss binoculars — saw Wong Xiang for the first time.

The age-enhanced computer images from the ATF were surprisingly accurate, as it turned out, and Cole had no trouble recognizing the man.

Wong had arrived on foot with another man, a shifty-looking, swarthy Indonesian dressed in bright blue shorts, pink t-shirt and sandals.

Wong himself was tall and lean, and was dressed in a tropical-weight suit, white shirt open at the neck. He looked poised and confident — the kind of confidence which came from money, and also undoubtedly from the gun he carried in the shoulder holster slung underneath his left arm.

Before returning to the restaurant, Cole had hired a car which he had then parked directly outside the Vietopia. This would give him the option of following Wong on foot if he decided to walk, or by vehicle if he took a cab.

He would shadow Wong’s movements for a while, get to know the man’s routines — even hopefully discover where the man lived — so that he could decide on the best place to take him.

A part of him wanted to follow Wong inside the restaurant, but he didn’t want to show himself too soon; after all these years, Wong probably had a sixth sense about close surveillance. Cole was exceptional at tradecraft, but he was uncomfortably aware that he was alone, which made spotting him an easier job. And he knew that in such a situation, patience was a virtue.

As Wong and his loudly-dressed companion were greeted by the staff and escorted to a table inside, movement out on the street caught Cole’s attention.

Four Asian men were approaching the restaurant, jackets on despite the heat. Cole immediately remembered why Wong was wearing his jacket — to disguise the gun under his armpit. The guns weren’t so obvious on these men, but Cole nevertheless knew they must be there.

It was the way they moved — smoothly, assuredly, the masters of their bodies and their minds. They were professional men, on a mission; Cole could see it on their faces, in their eyes.

Cole’s blood ran cold as he recognized the men for exactly what they were; for they were like Cole himself, and it took one to know one.

The four men approaching the Vietopia were trained killers, and Cole remembered another military truism — plans rarely survived contact with the enemy.

Rolling off his shooting blanket and gathering his things, Cole prepared to move.

‘What the fuck was that?’ shouted Jeb Richards.

The rest of the room was silent, having just watched the horrific beheading of Brad Butler with a mix of shock and utter helplessness.

The group consisted of James Dorrell, Jeb Richards, and John Eckhart. They were in Eckhart’s office in the far corner of the West Wing, getting a first look at this horrific video before Eckhart briefed Abrams in the Oval Office.

‘Wait,’ Dorrell said. ‘There’s more.’

It had been one of CIA’s technicians who had first come across the video circulating on various extreme websites, and Dorrell knew that action had to be taken immediately, before it went viral and was appearing across the mainstream media. His contact at Al Jazeera was agreeing to give him twelve hours before broadcasting the tape, but that was all.

The three men watched as the menacing hooded figure, drenched in blood and holding Butler’s severed head as the corpse lay in a deep scarlet river, began to talk calmly to the camera. The words were Arabic, and had been digitally altered to disguise the voice and thwart electronic recognition systems, but the calmness of the voice — straight after carrying out such an horrific, bloodthirsty act — was disturbing beyond all measure.

‘What does it mean?’ Eckhart asked, and Dorrell passed around translated transcripts of the speech.

‘Let the death of this infidel,’ Richards read from the transcript, his voice dull with shock, ‘this disgusting pawn of the Western disbelievers, be a warning to America and any nation that sides with the Great Satan in the ongoing battle of good against evil.’ Richards choked on the last words, disbelief on his face; he screwed up the paper and threw it across the room. ‘Son of a bitch!’ he shouted, hurling the ball of paper across the room. ‘Son of a fucking bitch! Who the fuck do these rag-heads think they are? They can just kill a man, hack off his fucking head, and then threaten us? They —’

‘Calm down Jeb, please,’ Eckhart urged, hands up. ‘We need to keep cool heads on this one. There’s more.’ Eckhart pulled up his own transcript and started to read. ‘Arabian Islamic Jihad takes responsibility for the merciful killing of this vile pawn of American propaganda, and hear this, my people — the day will soon be here when the Great Satan is brought to its knees, and a glorious Islamic caliphate will triumph once and for all.’

Dorrell nodded. ‘Yup.’ He sighed. ‘That’s what it says.’

‘Have Butler’s family been notified?’ Eckhart asked. ‘The last thing we need is them to hear it on Fox News.’

‘His wife and kids are being brought in as we speak,’ Dorrell confirmed.

‘Okay, so just who in the name of holy fuck are Arabian Islamic Jihad?’ Richards asked. ‘Have we heard anything about them before? Do we know anything about them?’

Dorrell shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not much on the radar, no,’ he admitted. ‘But you know those rumours of a well-funded al-Qaeda off-shoot, responsible for those attacks in Muscat, Riyadh and Dubai?’

Richards and Eckhart nodded their heads in unison. The attacks on Western interests in the Arabian Peninsula had been spectacularly violent — a car bomb at a football game, a casino machine-gunned, and a five-star hotel levelled by a dozen suicide bombers — and no group had yet claimed responsibility.

‘Some of my boys think that they’re related, they think this AIJ organisation is just getting started, but the signs are that they’re planning something major, those attacks in the Gulf are just the prelude.’

‘Should we be worried?’ Eckhart said.

‘Well John, you know Islamic terrorism’s been dying down over the past few years, and a lot of that’s been due to a weakening in the leadership of key groups, especially al-Qaeda. But that doesn’t mean extreme beliefs aren’t there anymore, and it’s left a power vacuum that needs to be filled. Now,’ Dorrell stated, hands spread wide, ‘what we have are rumours about a new group we need to watch out for, one with a lot of money behind it — maybe from rich oil families, maybe from somewhere else — and this video, the first concrete evidence we have of Arabian Islamic Jihad’s existence. But now we have a name, we should be able to find out more. Once we’ve left here I’m on my way to brief Bud in on the situation and ask for his help identifying AIJ message traffic.’ Bud Shaw was the Director of the National Security Agency, America’s incredibly powerful electronic surveillance organization.

‘Good,’ Eckhart said. ‘Good. When I brief Ellen, I’ll keep it simple. When this gets out, the public will freak out, but I guess that’s her problem.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t envy her.’

‘Hey,’ Richards complained, ‘nobody asked her to apply for the job. She knew what it meant when she put her name forward.’

‘Do we know the provenance of the recording?’ Eckhart asked, ignoring Richards’ barbed comments. ‘Can we trace it?’

‘I’ve got my people working on it, and that’s another thing I’m going to ask Bud to help with,’ Dorrell answered.

Eckhart nodded. ‘Okay, that’s good enough for me for the time being.’ He sipped from his cup of coffee, then looked back at the two men. ‘Do we have anything else?’

‘Other than the Fu Yu Shan? Just the rumours about an attack on South Korea,’ Dorrell said.

‘Details?’ Eckhart asked.

‘Not yet, but I’ll keep you posted.’

‘Damn rag-heads,’ Richards grumbled. ‘Korea’s welcome to ‘em if you ask me. In fact, they can keep ‘em. If they’re blowing shit up over there, that’s less work for me here. Am I right?’

Dorrell and Eckhart exchanged glances.

Unpalatable though Richard’s words were, neither man was able to argue with them.

3

Park Hae-sung pushed through the door of the Vietopia and immediately saw his target ahead, seated at a table with a ridiculous-looking man in a pink t-shirt.

Park was not a patient man at the best of times, and believed that direct action should be used wherever possible. A sixth degree black belt in the Korean martial art of taekwondo and a fifth degree in hapkido, much of Park’s outlook on life was determined by the theories of the martial arts.

Whereas taekwondo was a hard, aggressive art, characterized by a spectacular variety of powerful kicking attacks, hapkido was considered a ‘softer’ method, more defensive in nature and using the opponent’s energies against them using many of the same principles of Japanese aikido.

Park was a taekwondo man through and through.

Like now, for example. As leader of the four-man special operations team which had just been called into action from their home base in Singapore, Park had been charged with determining the location of a pirate hideout by getting information from a man called Wong Xiang.

And while it was true that a subtle approach might entail less danger, he had not joined the Third Bureau of the RGB to avoid danger; he had put himself through the hell of selection and training so that he could throw himself into the thick of the action, and be rewarded for it. Major Ho expected results, and he would get them.

With two of his men left outside to guard the street, Park nodded to his partner, Chae Hyoon-seok, and approached the arms broker with his 9mm handgun already raised.

Cole was down on the street in under a minute, a Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger he’d bought earlier in the city palmed by his side. He wished he’d brought some weapons with him from Cambodia, but he’d been unwilling to travel with them; since the hijacking of the Fu Yu Shan, airports throughout Indonesia were undergoing thorough security checks in a bid to find any cargo which might be being shipped around the area.

The dagger would have to do.

He saw the two men left outside, eyeballing him as he crossed the street. Cole made a show of ignoring them, fumbling in his pocket for the keys to his rental.

The trouble was, he had no idea who these people were. If they were Chinese, they could well be from the PLA special forces, which made them US allies under the Mutual Defense Treaty; and if they made Wong Xiang talk, then wouldn’t that be a good thing?

And yet for some reason that Cole couldn’t quite articulate, he had a bad feeling about these guys; something about them was off, and Cole had learnt over the years to listen to his instincts. If his gut was telling him something, it was probably his subconscious taking in millions of pieces of information, sorting and deciphering them in fractions of a second and making a decision based on evidence that his conscious mind simply had yet to process.

He knew that the two men would be able to spot a fellow operative, and so stumbled slightly, throwing his balance off intentionally; not so much as to appear drunk, but just enough to disarm the men slightly, disguise his true ability.

But it was no good — the men were too well-trained, too sharp to be deceived, and Cole watched as they started to draw their venerable yet highly reliable Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistols, eyes locked onto him.

At the same time, Cole broke into a sprint towards the two men; Chinese agents or not, they were about to shoot him in cold blood, and Cole could now feel justified in any action he might take against them.

He raced between the cars and chopped the callused edge of his hand down onto the forearm of the first man, making him drop the gun which was still only half-way out; at the same time, he slashed across at the second man, aiming for the throat.

But the agent moved with seemingly superhuman speed, dropping his gun — near useless now at this distance — and stopping Cole’s arm with a vice-like grip around his wrist, stiletto blade just an inch from his throat.

Cole felt a blow to the side of his head from the first man, a powerful shot from someone who knew what he was doing, and he felt his knees buckle beneath him, even as the second man twisted the knife from his grasp.

The first man aimed a fast roundhouse kick at his head, but Cole managed to slip underneath, taking hold of the man’s groin and violently twisting his testicles, shooting out a low side-kick to the second man’s knee.

The man with the mangled groin stifled a scream but fell to the sidewalk, and the second jammed a foot into Cole’s leg to stop the kick, jabbing the pointed blade of Cole’s dagger towards his face.

Cole slipped his head to one side, aiming his hardened fingertips in a dagger thrust of his own. The blow caught the man just next to the solar plexus, his jacket putting Cole’s aim off slightly, but it was enough to stun him momentarily.

Not knowing what was going on inside the restaurant, Cole knew he had to end this encounter quickly; but the men were damned good, and wouldn’t make it easy for him.

He turned to kick the first man, but to Cole’s surprise, he was already back on his feet, launching a vicious spinning kick of his own towards Cole’s head.

Cole knew the blow would be aimed at his temple; a killing technique, and one of the trademarks of the martial art of taekwondo. Cole wondered for a brief instant if the men could be Korean — and if so, what the hell their interest in this could be — and then ducked inside the kick, catching the kicking leg under one arm and scooping up the man’s body with the other, kicking out the supporting leg from underneath him.

Manhandling the expert martial artist, Cole threw him directly into his colleague, both men crashing to the concrete.

Knowing he would have just moments before the men were back on top of him, Cole turned to the restaurant and ran.

Park could hear something happening outside, but knew his men could take care of it. All four of them were not only experts in unarmed combat, but were also crack shots and superb knife fighters. Whatever problem they were having wouldn’t be a problem for long.

Wong Xiang had seen Park by this time, looking up from his menu to see the two North Korean agents stalking towards him, staff members already backing away to one side, fearful of what was happening.

Wong took in the sight of the pistols in the men’s hands and immediately went for his own.

Park fired once, a shot which took the man in the pink t-shirt right between the eyes.

Between the sound of the shot and the time when the man’s body finally toppled backwards to the floor, the whole restaurant erupted into chaos; the staff were running for the kitchen, customers were either rooted to the spot in fear or else throwing themselves to the floor or backing away to the front door.

‘Stop!’ Park called out in broken English. ‘Everybody down on the floor!’ he ordered. ‘Now!’

His gun never left Wong’s head, and Chae rushed forward to disarm the man, pocketing his expensive SIG-Sauer 10mm. Chae’s own gun now at the man’s head, he forced the broker to stand.

‘Whatever you’re being paid,’ Wong said evenly, ‘I’ll be able to beat it. Trust me.’

Park smiled; not a friendly gesture, it was the smile of a predator about to consume its prey. ‘Not everyone is motivated by money, Mr. Wong.’

‘Come on,’ Wong persisted, ‘everyone wants something. What do —’

Park saw then that Wong was just playing for time; first he saw the man’s eyes flicker behind him, then he saw Chae turn to look in the same direction, gun immediately leaving Wong’s head and aiming over Park’s own shoulder.

Park’s head turned just in time to see a Caucasian man running towards him at high-speed.

Cole’s tackle took Park right off his feet, and Cole kept the man going backwards until he crashed Park’s body into Chae’s, knocking both men to the floor.

As soon as the men hit the ground, Cole grabbed hold of Wong’s forearm and pulled him towards the rear of the restaurant, his cupped open hand slapping Chae’s rising head over the ear as they went.

But then a hand reached out and gripped Cole’s leg, tripping him. Cole went down, but as he fell, he managed to grab a fork from the next table. As soon as he hit the floor, he was already sitting back up, and jammed the fork deep into the hand which was holding his leg.

He felt, rather than saw, a fist hurtling towards him from the side, and managed to get back to his feet to avoid the blow, picking up a chair in the same movement and turning, letting the chair come crashing down over Chae’s head.

He pirouetted and kicked Park across the jaw just as he was standing, but the man’s resilience was astounding; he staggered backwards but took the blow and immediately responded by kicking the edge of the nearest table, driving it across the tiled floor until the opposite end struck Cole hard in the gut, doubling him over.

Park followed up with a hard roundhouse kick which whistled over the table top, but Cole rode backwards out of the way, intercepting the kick with his hand and jamming the leg down onto the tabletop. At the same time Cole’s hand snaked out to the next table, picked up a meat skewer from a customer’s plate, and jammed it down through Park’s extended leg.

The two men from outside were racing into the restaurant now, guns out, and Cole dived to one side as they opened fire, scrabbling with Wong across the littered floor to the double swing doors of the kitchens.

‘Who are you?’ Wong demanded as Cole ushered him through the cramped, steaming kitchen, staff members cowering on the floor; all except for one of the chefs, who launched himself towards Cole and Wong, a meat cleaver in his hands.

Cole sidestepped the attack and knocked the chef out with a clean punch to the point of the chin.

Hearing noise from behind, Cole stooped to pick up the cleaver and rotated, hurling it towards the doorway.

Cole was pleased to see the cleaver hit its mark, sharpened edge hitting the first man from outside right in the chest. The agent dropped to his knees, the life instantly draining from his eyes.

Cole pushed Wong towards the rear service doors — he wanted to question the arms broker, but he would have to be alive if Cole was ever going to be able to do that — just as the second agent from outside clambered over the body of his dead colleague, Browning up and aimed.

Cole sprang forward, one hand grabbing the man’s gun arm while the other struck out towards his throat with the web of skin between thumb and forefinger. The agent pulled his chin down in response to the blow, but Cole used the distraction to grab his jacket lapel, dropping suddenly backwards, foot to the agent’s stomach, throwing him straight overhead in a flying somersault.

The man landed squarely on the hot plates, the scalding heat burning the man’s skin instantly, and he screamed as his body recoiled off the grill unit; but his body fell again, and the man had to sacrifice his arm, protecting his body as he rolled off, writhing in agony on the kitchen floor next to the unconscious chef.

Cole saw Wong reach the rear doors, and grabbed a handful of plates as the swing doors to the kitchen moved again, Park and Chae rushing inside, Park visibly limping from the skewer in his thigh.

Before they could shoot, Cole started hurling plates towards them one after the other in rapid succession, smashing into the walls, the doors, and the two agents themselves.

The men were forced to raise their arms instinctively to protect themselves, and in his brief moment of opportunity, Cole turned and raced for the fire exit, out in the open air and slamming the heavy door closed to the sounds of dozens of 9mm rounds which peppered the other side of the steel exit right behind him.

4

Cole saw Wong fleeing down the alleyway ahead of him and sprinted after the arms broker, catching up with him at the end of the block.

‘Xiang!’ Cole said, taking hold of his arm. ‘Where are you going? Those men are going to kill you, do you understand? I’m here to protect you!’ Cole hoped he could build trust with the man, capitalize on the situation so that he would be more likely to get information out of him later. If they survived.

Wong looked at Cole suspiciously. ‘But who the hell are you?’ he asked in confusion, events having erupted so fast he still hadn’t had time to mentally sort himself out.

Just then, the steel door crashed open at the other end of the alleyway, and Cole pulled Wong into the street with him. ‘Later!’ he said as they raced together out into the light traffic of Cikini 1.

Cole waved his hand for a taxi, and no sooner had he done so than a bright orange three-wheeled Bajaj — Indonesia’s version of the auto rickshaw — pulled up next to them, the driver smiling with a mouthful of golden teeth. ‘Where to?’ he asked in English, in deference to Cole’s appearance.

‘Anywhere!’ Cole said, jumping into the back with Wong as he eyed the Korean agents hightailing it down the alleyway after them. ‘Just move!’

‘No problem!’ the driver said jovially. ‘I —‘

The next words caught in his throat as a 9mm bullet entered the side of his head, skull and brains showering the windscreen.

‘Get down!’ Cole ordered Wong, who was already curling himself into the Bajaj’s cramped foot well. Stepping over the driver, Cole slammed his foot down hard on the gas pedal and pulled the wheel around sharply, making the three-wheeler perform a tight U-turn in the middle of the road, the little vehicle teetering violently to one side as it did so, threatening to turn over completely.

But it regained its traction and Cole leaned over the dead body in the driver’s seat, saw the men approaching, and accelerated off into the oncoming traffic.

Park looked on in disgust as the American escaped with their target.

Who the hell was he? The throbbing in Park’s leg told him that whoever he was, the man was good. Park had removed the skewer, and luckily it hadn’t done any real damage; it had passed through the meat of his leg, and the wound was now merely uncomfortable. But it would be nice to kill the man who had done it.

But what were they going to do now? The target was getting away and the Third Bureau didn’t tolerate failure.

Indecision, however, was a foreign concept to Park, and he immediately turned towards the street and aimed his gun at a passing car, forcing it to a halt.

Park was pleased to see Chae responding immediately, opening the door and reaching inside to pull the driver out onto the street, slipping in behind the wheel and gunning the engine. Park made for the passenger door, and saw that Song Soo-chul, the man who’d been stationed at the front of Vietopia with his now dead colleague, was about to climb in the back.

‘No!’ said Park, noticing a passing motorbike. He fired a single shot from his Browning which hit the rider in the chest, knocking him from the bike, and pointed towards the fast two-wheeler which skittered on its side to a stop in front of them. ‘Follow him on that!’

And just seconds later, they were on their way, following Wong and his American guardian angel into the oncoming traffic, ignoring the chaos they were leaving behind.

Cole saw in the Bajaj’s small wing mirrors that he was now being pursued by a car and a bike. Each had advantages and drawbacks; the car would provide a stable platform for shooting but was less maneuverable in traffic, while the bike would be more likely to catch up to them but would be difficult to shoot from. Combined, however, the agents had both firepower and maneuverability. Cole knew that the bike would try and cut them off, and the car would approach to perform the executions.

Watching the two vehicles in his mirrors as he weaved the dented Bajaj in and out of the oncoming traffic, Cole opened a door and — waiting until the time was right — kicked the driver’s dead body out into the street, wrenching the sagging door closed behind it.

Song saw the body hit the ground and roll towards him and instantly veered left, cutting across an approaching sedan and straight back in, avoiding hitting the dead man. He knew what the American’s plan had been — make the bike hit the corpse, which would have sent Song flying off.

But it hadn’t worked, and Song accelerated again towards the orange three-wheeled rickshaw.

Behind Song, Chae leaned on the horn to clear the traffic ahead of them, Park hanging his body out of the side window, handgun aimed down the street on the off-chance he could squeeze a few shots off at the Bajaj. He saw Song skillfully avoid the driver’s body, and smiled as Chae took the direct route and ran straight over it, the car rocked by a heavy thumping as it passed underneath the wheels but kept on course.

Chae was playing a game of chicken with the oncoming traffic, and he was winning; other drivers veered out of their way, crashing into cars and nearby storefronts, and Park considered that perhaps it was partially down to the gun he was pointing towards them.

He pulled himself back into the car as he saw the Bajaj, and then the motorbike, take a right turn at the end of Cikini 1, merging with traffic going north on Jalan RP Suroso.

‘They’re turning right,’ he told Chae, who merely nodded in acknowledgment, his own mind locked onto the targets ahead of them.

Cole fought to control the Bajaj as he ducked in and out of the steady thrum of traffic headed north, the little engine struggling to cope with the demands he was placing on it.

Behind him, he could see the car struggling to keep up, but the bike was moving ever closer, able to weave through the other vehicles even more easily than the three-wheeled Bajaj.

He jerked the wheel left at the last second, careening on two wheels onto Gondangdia 2, a narrow road leading west. Cole pushed his foot down harder and took off at speed past the Menteng Regency apartment building, a group of tourists stopping to stare at the crazy Bajaj driver, mouths agape.

Cole could see that his maneuver had paid off; the bike hadn’t been left enough time to turn, and had gone sailing right past. But Cole knew it wouldn’t take the rider long to correct the error; he would either turn around quickly, or else carry on to the next parallel road and then cut across to intercept them further up.

And Cole knew that the car would certainly have enough time to respond, and would soon be after them.

With Wong Xiang still cowering on the floor in the back of the Bajaj, Cole whipped down the street and took a right turn at the end onto Gondangdia 3, which ran parallel to a set of train tracks.

Cole knew from his earlier research that the tracks led to Gondangdia Station, and an idea began to formulate in his mind.

Cole heard the supersonic crack of a 9mm round followed an instant later by the sound of a ricochet, and saw in his wing mirrors the agent he stabbed through the leg, gun in hand. He was leaning out of the car, which was accelerating fast towards him.

More shots followed, and Cole kept his head down as the bullets ricocheted off the metal skin of the Bajaj. And then he heard the screaming of an engine at high revs and looked right to see the motorcycle racing towards him down another side-street, gun in the rider’s hand. He saw a flash from the barrel, and buried his head under the wheel, the bullets tearing through the Bajaj’s canvas upper.

Cole immediately punched the accelerator down even further and turned left at the end of the road onto Cut Meutia, the motorcycle right next to him now, the rider pointing his handgun through the open window.

Cole wrenched the wheel across and knocked the bike off to the side, keeping the momentum going and coming off the road; suspension shaking, he mounted a grassed central reservation, ploughed through a barrier and crossed over onto Jalan GSSY Samratulangi, heading north.

The bike was out of action for the time being, but the car followed him, bullets flying out across the highway as he gunned the tiny engine and headed for the train station which was now just ahead.

Time to see if his plan would work.

5

‘We’ve got him!’ Chae said confidently. Traffic was clogging up outside the station, and soon even a Bajaj wouldn’t be able to get through.

Park grinned and leaned further out of the window, gun arm steady, waiting for the kill shot. He’d take the American out, and would then move in to grab Wong Xiang. It was even providential that it would happen outside the station; they could get Wong away from the area nice and quickly by just taking the train. By the time anyone thought to follow them, they’d be long gone.

But then Park saw the little Bajaj turning, cutting sharply across traffic, across pedestrians, across the sidewalk; and then the American and Wong Xiang were gone completely, the little vehicle having been driven inside the train station itself.

‘Are you crazy?’ Wong called from the rear, people’s screams reverberating off walls and ceilings having told him they were now driving indoors. ‘You’re fucking crazy! Let me out!’

Cole ignored him as he piloted the Bajaj past stalls and ticket desks, in and out of startled onlookers, looking for the escalator.

He saw it moments later and drove the three-wheeler straight towards it. He revved it hard and the front end shot up and mounted the steps, the escalator’s motors pulling the lightweight vehicle right onto it.

Screams came from all quarters, but again Cole ignored them, keeping the revs high to ensure that the Bajaj didn’t fall down backwards to the foyer.

And then they were at the top, the little vehicle’s front tire bit down, then the rears, and it catapulted forward onto the platform, waiting commuters jumping out of the way and running for their lives.

‘Son of a bitch!’ Park spat as Chae mounted the curb and they both got out at a run. What was the American thinking? What did he hope to achieve?

A security guard, alerted by the screaming and running crowds, stood in the foyer. A look of confusion and panic was on his face, but a gun was in his hands and Park shot him on the run, passing him and mounting the escalators.

But then he heard the high whine of an engine behind him and moved to the side as Song mounted the moving staircase on his bike, accelerating up past Park and Chae onto the platforms above, in hot pursuit of the wild Bajaj.

Cole gunned the little auto rickshaw along the platform, people jumping out of the way left, right and center. A security guard drew a gun, but Cole veered close and clipped him with a wing mirror, knocking him to the ground.

Behind him, Cole could hear the sound of the bike accelerating up the escalator and found himself being impressed; if Cole was determined to win, then so were his pursuers.

Cole drove parallel to a stationary train, which began to move away from the platform, passengers wide-eyed as they watched him from their windows.

He saw the biker in his mirrors, raising his gun and firing, and again Cole hunkered down, hoping that the thin metal of the Bajaj would protect him.

And then the train left the station completely and Cole veered across the platform and accelerated towards the edge.

The orange three-wheeler left the platform with a less than graceful leap, plummeting hard to the tracks below; but the Bajaj got traction and pulled away after the train, puttering over the railway line.

They were only doing thirty miles an hour, the Bajaj all but incapable of doing any more, but in the damaged, semi-open three-wheeled rickshaw, it felt much faster.

As Cole turned to see the bike perform a superb jump off the platform onto the train tracks, he knew that the motorcycle was fast, and would be on them soon.

But at least he had narrowed his pursuers down to just one, the other two left behind to watch uselessly from the platform as their lone comrade continued the chase.

Song accelerated down the railway line towards his prey. He would have to kill the American for sure; the skill would be in capturing Wong Xiang safely.

As the bike bounced up and down on the metal pilings, Song was forced to pocket his Browning; there was no way he could control the bike with only one hand. But he was catching the Bajaj rapidly now, and would soon be in a better position to attack.

Song was there within half a minute, revving the bike hard and taking the bone-shattering impacts of the rutted sleepers as they passed under his narrow tires. He pulled alongside, close now; he knew that the driver would be reluctant to ram him again, as the sideways movement might put the Bajaj off the track completely.

Holding tight with his hands to the handlebars, Song balanced on his far leg and shot his near-side boot through the open cockpit, connecting with the American’s face, rocking him back.

Song grinned as he swiftly retrieved his leg, checked the track ahead — saw it curving in a gentle bend — and then lashed out again, steel toe-caps whipping across the driver’s jaw.

While the American was distracted, Wong too scared to offer any assistance, Song put both feet firmly back down and reached out for the Bajaj, hoping to pull himself inside to use his knife on the driver.

But then — what the hell? — the American reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling it further in and then kicking the inside of his own door.

Song realized the man had been overreacting to his blows, luring Song in closer; and as the door hit him hard, he knew what was going to happen.

His hands came away from the door, the impact of the driver’s kick sending the bike skittering sideways over the tracks, and he was fighting to control it round the bend when he heard it; the sound of a train, approaching at speed.

Song looked ahead, saw that he was on the opposite track now, the flat grey metal façade of a locomotive speeding towards him at over one hundred miles per hour.

Cole pulled the door shut as the train crashed into the biker head-on, sending both the motorcycle and its rider flying back the other way along the tracks before it crushed them underneath a thousand tons of fast-moving metal.

The passage of air as the train whipped past the Bajaj was almost enough to jettison the rickshaw from the tracks; but as soon as it started, it was over, and Cole was past the rear of the train now, heading towards freedom.

It was just minutes later that he heard it — another train, this time coming from the rear; within moments, it would be bearing down right on top of them, crushing the Bajaj beneath it just like the bike before it.

‘They’re on the train!’ Wong called out to him.

Cole looked in his mirrors again, and saw that Wong was right — literally; the remaining two agents were on the roof of the train, riding it towards them. Far from being left behind at the station, they must have simply jumped aboard the next train and followed them, knowing they would be able to catch up.

Cole looked across the elevated tracks, saw the traffic on the road beneath, and yanked the wheel over. ‘Hold on!’ he yelled to Wong.

Moments later the little rickshaw smashed through the side barrier and went flying through the air, Cole’s stomach lurching up into his throat as they seemed to sail out across the streets below.

But then the Bajaj crashed onto the street, weight crunching down hard onto the tires, the suspension, rocking the vehicle and its occupants with its savage impact.

Cole looked up at the tracks and his jaw dropped open.

The two agents had hurled themselves from the top of the train in an insane final bid to catch their prey.

Park grabbed hold of the limbs of the tree, using them to break his fall, branches lacerating his skin as he tumbled down, his momentum eventually slowing before landing in a parachute roll on the grass below.

He was satisfied when the bloodied but otherwise undamaged form of Chae landed by his side. It might have appeared suicidal, but Park had seen the section of trees planted on the corner of Medan Merdeka Timur and Medan Merdeka Selantan, and aimed his highly-trained body towards them, knowing that at that height, the branches would break his fall sufficiently for him to survive.

He saw that the Bajaj had also miraculously survived the fall from the railway bridge, landing heavily on Selantan. As he and Chae pushed through the trees towards the road, he watched the rickshaw travel a few tentative feet before giving up the ghost completely; the engine blew and the axle snapped in half, depositing the body of the car right onto the hot tarmac.

The American grabbed Wong instantly and took off at a run, leaping a barrier across the road and heading for more trees beyond.

With all parties now on foot, Park could feel victory right around the corner, and he and Chae set off in hot pursuit, guns out and ready.

Cole and Wong broke through the tree line and were immediately taken aback at the sight which loomed before them; a marble-clad obelisk topped by a flame covered in gold foil, the National Monument rose over four hundred feet into the brilliant blue sky above the teeming city of Jakarta, a symbol of the fight for Indonesian independence.

Cole and Wong raced forwards to try and lose themselves in the crowds of tourists, and were soon in amongst people, trying to blend in, to hide and regroup.

Cole saw the gun rising towards him almost too late, the black barrel emerging from a crowd to his left, the muzzle flashing as a shot was fired.

But Cole was already moving, pivoting to the side before snaking back in at an angle, both hands seizing the barrel and turning it upwards, forcing Park’s wrist back on itself until the gun was ripped from the man’s grasp.

Cole quickly aimed it back at Park, but the man’s leg lashed out and kicked the weapon out of Cole’s grasp. Cole responded instantly by launching a solid rear hand punch to the man’s face. He thought he could feel the eye socket fracture, but Park barely seemed to notice, whipping a round kick into Cole’s thigh before looping another towards his head.

Park had obviously hoped his first kick would topple Cole and allow the second to be the coup de grace; but Cole had spent the last eighteen months in the rings of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, where leg kicks were the bread and butter of the vicious combat sports practiced there.

He therefore stood his ground and intercepted Park’s second kick, hooking his hand around it and spinning the man further around, launching a strong front thrust kick of his own into the agent’s back which sent him sprawling into the frightened crowds.

Cole could hear police sirens in the streets beyond the square, and police whistles much closer; but he ignored these for now and turned to find Wong.

Seconds later he spotted the man, being marched away by the other agent, a pistol held to his back.

Cole sprinted ahead but the agent must have heard him and turned, pistol aimed at Cole’s chest. Cole was glad when Wong slammed his hands down hard onto Chae’s arms, the gun discharging harmlessly into the floor; and then Cole was there, kicking the gun out of his hands and grabbing the man’s head, pulling it down onto a powerful knee strike.

But Chae anticipated this and put up his hands to block the blow. Cole in turn snapped the man’s head down and slipped his arm around his neck in a guillotine choke, sinking his forearm tight into Chae’s throat, arching his back to lift the agent off his feet, cutting off his air supply completely.

Cole felt Chae’s hands pummel at him uselessly from his bent-over position, waited for him to adjust his weight as Cole knew he would, and then wrenched up violently, severing the man’s spinal cord in one devastatingly final motion.

Cole turned to face Park, but a group of policemen had surrounded him, taking him out of the picture for now.

His head snapped back to Wong, but the arms broker was no longer there.

Seeing his chance, the man had simply vanished.

6

Wong Xiang breathed hard as he rode the elevator to the National Monument’s viewing platform.

Who the hell were these people? The white guy had been protecting him, but why? It was obvious that the Asians weren’t so friendly, but Wong knew one thing for sure — he was better off without any of them.

At first, the viewing platform had seemed like a good idea; it was far away from all the trouble on the ground. But what if he’d been seen riding it up? Wouldn’t he be followed? But it looked like the police were on the scene back in the square, so maybe they’d all been arrested; maybe even killed each other.

But Wong didn’t believe it; none of the men back in the square looked like the type to let themselves get arrested, and he knew that at least one of them would survive and come for him.

So what were his options? If he waited at the top, someone would find him sooner or later. But if he simply rode the car back down, it was equally likely that there would be someone waiting for him there.

The emergency stairs? If someone followed him up, he could run down while they were taking the elevator. Unless they were coming up the stairs the other way, of course.

He pulled his cellphone out, realizing that he could call some friends to come to the rescue; well-armed bad-asses that would sort out these guys no problem. Except that by the time they got here, he could already be dead. He looked down at his phone. There was no signal in the elevator car anyway.

There was only one option left.

He looked up at the roof and sighed.

Cole raced up the stairs two at a time, determined to intercept Wong Xiang at the top.

He knew he might soon have company — the last thing he’d seen of Park was a blur of movement from the crowd behind him as he went for the surrounding police officers. Gunshots were ringing out by the time Cole had hit the stairwell, and he hoped that it was the policemen who’d been firing; from what he’d seen of Park already, however, he had to accept that the policemen could all be dead.

Cole burst out of the stairwell into the viewing platform, knocking an overweight security guard to one side as he raced to the elevator.

Yes. He’d made it in time; the elevator had just arrived, the door opening to reveal a group of tourists. And yet they didn’t pour out of the car with the excitement they would have ordinarily displayed; instead, their eyes were all staring upwards, and Cole poked his head through and looked up too.

The access hatch was open.

And Wong was gone.

Although it was still warm at four hundred feet, the wind whipped at Wong, threatening to rip him off the top of the enormous structure.

It had been crazy, but what else could he do? He was being chased by the most relentless people he had ever met, and he still didn’t know why. He’d be able to buy some time up here, stay here until things quietened down.

He checked his cellphone again, hoping to place that call to his friends. They’d be able to secure the square, escort him back down. Hell, he was in tight with half the local government.

But there was still no signal.

He threw the phone on the floor in disgust. What fucking use was it?

A noise to one side caught his attention and he turned, horrified to see the American hauling himself up onto the roof.

‘Damn,’ he said in resignation, ‘you one persistent motherfucker, you know? What the hell do you want?’

Cole approached, hands raised in placation. ‘I’m not here to hurt you,’ he began. ‘I was sent here to protect you. I’m a friend.’

‘Friend? Friend of who? Who sent you?’ Wong was backing away, but Cole noticed his body language relaxing slightly. The fact was, Cole had demonstrated his desire — and his ability — to protect the man, and had therefore built some measure of trust. Would it be enough?

But then the roof access hatch next to Cole burst open and an enraged Park launched himself towards him, unarmed but deadly. Cole was unhappy to see that he’d been right about him taking out the police officers back in the square.

Cole absorbed the man’s energy and turned him over by grabbing the arms and dropping his bodyweight, using a throw common to both judo and aikido.

Park rolled across the rooftop and regained his feet instantly, rising up into a fighting stance.

Definitely taekwondo, Cole thought as the two men circled each other, Wong forgotten for the moment. At the top of the four hundred foot National Monument, the city of Jakarta spread out far and wide below them and no barriers to protect them, Wong wasn’t going anywhere.

Cole himself had trained in the martial arts since boyhood; first in boxing and wrestling, and then in the oriental martial arts of karate and judo. He’d carried on his training in the military, becoming an expert in the Israeli defense system of krav maga and the grappling art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, as well as excelling at the host of specialist unarmed and close quarter combatives courses he had been sent on while training as a covert operative. And then there was the ancient art of Kalaripayattu and the death strikes of marma adi he had been taught while imprisoned in Pakistan, the supposed mother of all martial arts.

It was a rare occasion when Cole faced somebody as adept as he was, but Cole could see that Park was such a man; his body honed to perfection, his mind razor-sharp.

The two men continued to circle each other, searching their opposite number for an opening of any kind, any opportunity they could capitalize on. In each man’s mind’s eye, a hundred scenarios were thought through and discarded in fractions of a second; moves and counter-moves, actions and reactions.

But taekwondo was an aggressive, attacking art, and Cole could tell from the slight tension in the man’s muscles, the tightness of his jaw, that he wanted to attack; it was in his nature, and Cole knew that if he was patient, the man’s attack would be launched as surely as night following day.

The stand-off seemed to last an eternity, but finally — inevitably — Park’s face contorted into a seething rage and he let out a piercing kihap shout to attune his energies as he leapt at Cole with a powerful jumping front kick.

Anticipating the surge, Cole sidestepping and scooped his forearm in and up, hitting the leg from underneath and turning Park over in the air.

Miraculously, the man performed a full somersault and landed on his feet; but Cole seized his own opportunity and skipped in, punching out at Park’s face with his thumb, pushed in tightly and extended from his fist. The thumb found its mark, jabbing deep into Park’s left eye, half-blinding him instantly.

Enraged, Park instinctively reached out and took hold of Cole, hands clenching around his neck and jerking forwards violently with his head.

The dense bone of Park’s skull crashed into Cole’s face; he felt the cartilage in his nose give way, and Park reared back to do the same again, his grip still tight around Cole’s neck.

As his battered face rushed towards Park’s head, the bunched-up fingertips of Cole’s right hand ripped suddenly upwards, catching Park in the soft tissue between his throat and his chin.

Park’s grip released instantly as he staggered back, gasping for breath, and Cole rushed forwards, throwing a straight right to Park’s temple.

But Park recovered more quickly than Cole thought possible and deflected Cole’s punch, hands securing tight around his wrist and throwing him across the rooftop in a perfect hapkido wrist throw.

Cole rolled across the roof and collided with Wong, the impact knocking the arms dealer back towards the edge of the roof.

‘Aniyo!’ Cole heard Park shout; Korean for No!, which confirmed his suspicions about the man. But Cole had no time to fully process this information, as both he and Park raced to the roof edge to save their only source of vital information.

Both men’s hands leapt out to grab hold of Wong — his arm, his leg, his shirt, anything! — but it was too late and, his eyes wide with terror, shock and simple disbelief, Wong Xiang fell from the rooftop of the National Monument, four hundred feet to the concrete square below; and Cole and Park watched in dejected horror as the body erupted over the sidewalk, shattered completely, whatever information he could tell them about Liang Kebangkitan lost forever.

For an instant Cole wondered whether there was any point in fighting on; their target was lost, why not just agree to move on? But he knew deep down that this could never happen, that Park’s warrior honor would demand closure; and then he felt the air parting and moved back from the edge of the building just in time, Park’s boot flying an inch from his face.

Cole trotted back to control the center of the roof, keeping Park’s back to the edge, using his footwork to keep to the safety zone.

Park attacked again with a side kick to Cole’s knee, and Cole stepped off to one side and threw a powerful shot into the man’s liver, doubling him up and then lashing out with a Thai leg kick of his own, smashing his hardened shin bone into the side of Park’s knee., shattering the patella and tearing the ligaments.

Pain creased Park’s face and he stumbled, struggling to stand; but his guard was still up, and his eyes were still focused.

Cole threw a hard front kick, but Park intercepted it with his elbow, jamming the point down onto the small bones of Cole’s foot. As Cole sagged forward, Park unleashed a front kick of his own; powerful enough, even with his knee destroyed, to propel Cole back across the rooftop, his feet touching the edge.

Like Wong, he teetered, trying to get his balance, and then went, toppling backwards over the edge.

Unlike Wong, Cole managed to twist his body in mid-air, turning to catch hold of the precipice with his vice-like fingertips. The wind pulled at him, threatening to rip him off the side and send him plummeting to the concrete hundreds of feet below him, and for a second Cole was overwhelmed by a powerful sense of vertigo as he saw the great Indonesian city spread out like a grey urban blanket beneath him.

But then his equilibrium recovered and he tried to pull himself up. He saw the black boots of his opponent come stamping down towards his hands and instead of hauling himself up onto the rooftop he swung one leg up and around above him, sweeping Park’s supporting leg out from underneath him like a scythe.

He pulled himself back over the parapet in one smooth movement, jumping on top of Park, legs either side of his chest trapping the man tightly as he rained down blows on the agent’s head and body.

When Park went to cover up his face, Cole reacted to the opportunity and pulled one of the Korean’s arms out and up, securing it to his own chest with his hands as he swung one leg over Park’s face, moving his body until it made a right angle with Park’s, his elbow trapped across Cole’s hips.

And then in the same smooth fluid movement, Cole pulled back on the arm while raising his hips violently upwards, breaking Park’s arm at the elbow with the juji gatame armlock of both judo and jiu-jitsu.

Park stifled a scream and turned in towards Cole, unleashing the fist of his other arm in a frenzied attack as he struggled back to his feet. Cole pushed him away and they were separated again, both men now breathing hard despite their conditioning.

Cole knew the end was near — Park was at the limit and only had one good attack left in him.

It came sooner than Cole expected, a violent roar that emanated from deep within the center of the Korean’s powerful body. And then — even with a broken knee and arm — Park ran towards Cole — two steps, three, four — then braced his legs and to Cole’s amazement launched himself off his damaged leg, attacking Cole with twimyo yeop chagi, the immensely powerful flying side kick of taekwondo which had been used once upon a time to knock armored warriors from their mounts.

Cole knew that if it caught him in the chest or head he would have no chance — the power of the kick would send him sailing out into the void with no hope of grabbing the roof.

But Cole was able to read the passage of the kick as it sliced through the air and grabbed it with both hands, right around Park’s lower leg; and, keeping his center of gravity low, Cole pivoted violently, using Park’s own momentum to turn him in midair, swinging his body around like an Olympic hammer thrower until the point of …

Release.

Cole let go of Park’s leg and watched as the Korean’s body went spiraling off the side of the building, eyes finally wide in panic as he realized that there would be no second chance.

And then he was gone.

Cole saw the body hit the square below, not too far from Wong’s, the Korean’s halo of bright red blood mixing with the arms broker’s, and he sighed.

Damn.

What was he going to do now that he’d lost his only lead?

He sat down on the roof, exhausted from the combat, the adrenalin.

Across the dusty marble roof, he saw something.

It was a cellphone, and hope leapt in Cole’s heart as he raced over to it.

Yes, he thought happily.

Maybe there was still a chance after all.