I thought for a few seconds, then said, “Are you sure?”
“Positive. The building is long, and they’re on the other side. We’re good.”
“Veep, Veep, is he still isolated?”
“Yes. Still waiting on his order.”
The information was coming in fast, forcing a decision on me. Twenty feet was enough time for the ABS to work. He’d be debilitated and running before he could get back to the table.
The easy thing would be to say just keep watching, building a pattern of life for a future interdiction, and that was probably smart. We didn’t need to push it here, but we might not get another opportunity like this. We could take him without gunfire and killing, which is what we’d need to do if we hit the bed-down location—provided we could find the bed-down. Watching him walk away now might be like Tom Cruise in Risky Business waving a finger at Rebecca De Mornay. Getting nothing.
But compromising my team would be exponentially worse. There was definitely a Chinese element here, and attempting an interdiction invited showing our hand. If it went well, we’d be heroes. If it went bad, a second hit would be very hard, because they would know we were on the hunt.
And that was the choice.
I said, “Okay, okay, I have control. We are in Omega. Koko, Koko, are you on the net?”
Jennifer said, “Yes, I’m here.”
As a female, she would present less of a threat. I knew she’d have a much better chance of closing on Jake than the knuckle-draggers of my team.
I said, “You put on the ABS, then disappear. Veep, you’re security. Blood, Knuckles, you got him in the bathroom. You bring him down and take him out. I’m going for the van. I’ll be out the side door for exfil. Acknowledge.”
Jennifer said, “Moving now.”
She heard Knuckles say, “We’re set. He comes in here, and we’ll get him out.”
She entered the room and saw the target at the counter. She went next to him and raised her hand for the bartender. With her other, she removed what looked like a tube of ChapStick. The bartender asked her what she wanted, and she turned to the target, saying, “What did you get?”
He faced her, and for the first time, she had a clear view of the person next to him. It was the man from the zoo. The one with the scar. His eyes widened in recognition and Jennifer sprang forward, slashing his face with the chemical from the tube. The bartender looked on in confusion, and the man turned back into the room, shouting something in Chinese.
Jennifer backpedaled to the far side of the bar, watching. The man shouted again, and then bent over, falling to his knees. He jumped up, grabbed his abdomen, let out a burst of flatulence, then began running toward the toilets.
She left the room, exiting the pub out the front door, walking fast to the side of the building, where she knew Pike was staging. She heard Veep come on the net, his voice incredulous. “Koko hit the wrong guy. I say again, Koko hit the wrong guy. He’s headed to the bathroom.”
Pike came back, saying, “What was that?”
“She hit the wrong guy. The target is running. The table is up.”
Knuckles said, “What do I do?”
Pike came back. “Just watch him for a second. See what he does. Veep, Veep, what am I looking at?”
“They’re leaving in a hurry. Throwing money on the table and about to run.”
Pike said, “Going to the bathroom?”
“No. They look like they want to get the hell out of here.”
“What happened?”
“No idea.”
Jennifer said, “This is Koko. The guy with him was the one from the zoo. He recognized me. It was game time. I had to commit.”
She heard back, “So I’m right. This is the anthill. Knuckles, status?”
Jennifer smiled. Instead of chastising her, he had come up with the sole reason why it mattered. Only Pike would find a silver lining from what she had just done.
“Nothing. He’s shitting his pants in the toilet. Want me to interdict?”
Jennifer rounded the side of the building, saw the van, then Pike waving her forward. She heard him on the net say, “No. Let him go. Wait, can you get that Copperhead on him without him knowing?”
“Yeah, I think so, if we act like we’re giving him medical attention.”
“Do so, then exfil to the van. Veep and I will shadow the exit of the main group.”
Knuckles said, “Roger that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much work put into a beacon emplacement.”
Jennifer reached the van and heard Veep say, “They’re leaving now.”
Pike leapt out, saying, “You really turned this operation into a shit sandwich.”
She said, “Pike, it was either that or a knife. He recognized me.”
Pike grinned and said, “I wasn’t being mean. I just meant you literally turned this operation into a pile of shit.”
He raced toward the front of the building to interdict the party just as Brett and Knuckles exited the side door. She got into the driver’s seat while they spilled into the back.
Knuckles said, “Boy, you really turned this operation into a pile of shit.”
Brett laughed, and Jennifer said, “Old joke. Where’s Veep?”
“He linked up with Pike. What do you mean, ‘old joke’? That was classic.”
She put the van in drive, turned around, and spit out, “Pike’s already used it. So let it go. I don’t want to hear about it ever again.”
Brett said, “Whoa. Calm down. You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
She shook her head while they snickered, knowing the team would be telling jokes like this for a decade, then heard Pike come back, calm as the water on a lake, belying the damage.
“They’re in line for the Sky Train. I can’t do anything. They’re gone.”
Chapter 60
Chen Ju-Long pushed Jake into the cable car, saying nothing. He waited until the door had closed and the car began rising into the air before saying, “What the hell was that?”
Jake said, “I have no idea! I didn’t do that. You’re the one who panicked.”
Chen glanced at Zhi.
The car rose over the rainforest, going higher and higher, and Zhi pulled off her ceramic nail sleeve. She waved the finger in the air, then lightly touched his cheek, a razor against meat, drawing blood.
He recoiled into one of the other men and said, “I have no idea! That wasn’t me!”
Chen said, “You’d better hope the data in this hard drive is worth your life.”
He became obsequious, saying, “It is, it is. At least I think it is. I didn’t create it! All I did was steal it.”
Chen leaned back, watching the jungle fall away, and said, “How did they find us? Who have you contacted?”
Jake said, “Nobody! I don’t know anybody here. I have no idea how they found us. In fact, I’m not sure they even did. You raced out of the place because your partner had a bowel movement.”
Zhi snapped to him, putting the nail against his carotid artery. “He shouted that the woman there was the one that killed our men at the zoo. The ones sent to protect you and your information. You’re lucky to be alive.”