Countdown: H Hour (14 page)

“We can do that,” Warrington agreed. “Simon, what’s that do to your load plan and egress plan?”

“As long as we can get them to the LCM, we can get them out. We’re only going to load it with two Elands, one infantry platoon, plus a squad for portage, Sergeant Balbahadur on pipes, and the mortar section. Should be plenty of redundant carrying capacity.”

The chief of the boat, no longer on guard duty, agreed but added, “There won’t be a lot of room for baggage.”

“I passed on that they’ll have to travel light. They’ll be bringing about half a ton of gold, and one bag per person, but that’s it.”

“Doable then,” the chief said.

“Thing is,” Cagle added, “we’ve had dealings, indirect dealings, with at least three of the adults before.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

She signed and she swore

that she never would deceive me

But the devil take the women

for they never can be easy.

—“Whiskey in the Jar,” Irish Traditional

Safe House Bravo, Muntinlupa, Manila,

Republic of the Philippines

In the end, Loo Fung had come through, as Lucas had known he would. What he’d come through with was a drug—a sleep drug—and instructions on dosage for a given effect and given delay. Once known as almorexant, the drug had been abandoned by its U.S. developer, GlaxoSmithKlein, because of its unfortunate, if merely occasional, side effects and the potentially huge legal liabilities that would have flowed from them. China, conversely, had figured,
Eh? What’s a little depression, hypotension, slowed heart rate, and blunted stress response if there’s a buck—or a yuan—to be made? And besides, the doctors can always take any patients with bad side effects off the medication before it gets
too
serious. Moreover, in our current state of lawless industrial feudalism masquerading as communism, we can buy off any inquiries and settle with the families of any victims for mere
fen
on the
yuan.

What almorexant did, basically, was block the receptors for orexin, a chemical naturally produced by the brain, in the hypothalamus, specifically, which kept both people and lower animals awake. Block the orexin?
Flump
, sleep. And the great thing about it, Loo Fung had explained, was that there would none of the other symptoms of knockout drugs, no blurry or swimming vision, no nausea, no dizziness, nothing.

Of course, it couldn’t be as simple as that for Maricel. Get everybody, including the guards, to start nodding off at the same time and it would likely, a) induce great suspicion and, hence, b) get her killed. Moreover, with the odd schedules the group she kept house for ran, she had to wait for a time when a) everybody was home, especially the big boss, Benson, and b) when everybody was involved in planning their own little things, rather than the entire group planning together.

It was a week and another day off before everything was just right and she could send Lucas the message:
Tonight.

It was a strain on Maricel to keep her stress and fear—and her anticipation and excitement, as well—from showing. Then again, she’d been acting for her entire postpubescent life and, as importantly, fooling men for all that time. That this was a little more life and death didn’t really change that.

She’d long since noticed a tendency for the rest of the crew to fuck off a bit without Mr. Benson riding herd on them. Thus, when for dinner on the big day she served everybody
tocino
and rice for a main course, then
halo-halo
for dessert, Benson’s dessert had a little something extra in it, but only a little. Two hours after dinner he began yawning. A half hour after that, he finally gave up and took himself off to bed. Maricel heard, “I really have a yen, to go back once again . . .”

His last words before leaving the square-columned living room were, “It’s my night, Maricel, but I’m just too tired. Tighten up one of the other boys.”

Oh, I will. Everyone except the ones on duty. Whatever else they might do, the boys take that
very
seriously.

Next down was Perez. Bringing two clean rum and cokes for Baker and Malone, both balanced in one dainty hand, with the other she handed Perez a San Miguel Red Horse with just that little something extra. Before he was half through with the beer, Perez likewise excused himself to bed.

“Goddamn; I’m tired.”

Since he was the only one at that moment who was sleepy, nobody gave it a second thought.

Two down, four to go
.

Malone and Baker were even easier, since, post-Perez, they decided to double team her—one at each end—on the living room ottoman, the dining room table, and one of the stools of the wet bar. For her part, Maricel put in her usual Academy Award quality performance and soon enough, all screwed out, the two sergeants left for sleep.

In a way, that’s bad
, she thought,
since people who fall asleep naturally might just wake up naturally. Note to self and Lucas, take out Baker and Malone first, after the guards.

Zimmerman, the interior guard at the moment, had wandered through the living room during the festivities. He’d seen it all before so paid them essentially no attention. Maricel thought him the nicest guy in a pretty pleasant bunch, really.
And he’s never once used me, though I made the offer. Nice too that, to avoid insulting me, he just framed it as loyalty to his wife, back home . . . wherever home is.

Next, after tugging her clothes back on and adjusting them, Maricel went to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. Taking two cups from a cabinet, and a two ounce vial from her purse, she put a quantity of almorexant, suspended in a liquid medium, in each of the cups, then swirled the liquid around before setting the cups down to dry. On a small tray she assembled some creamer, sugar, and a diet sweetener. Zimmerman stopped by once, on his rounds, to ask about the coffee.

“Few minutes, boss,” she said, looking up from her cell phone and the text message she was preparing for Lucas. Earlier she’d sent him an alert that tonight everyone would be there.

“I can’t wait,” Zimmerman replied, stifling a yawn. Slinging his submachine gun, he took one of the cups from Maricel’s tray and then, ignoring both creamer and sweetener, took the glass pot from under the still brewing coffee and poured it into the cup. A few drops fell from the coffeemaker’s basket to sizzle on the hot metal circle below, before Zimmerman replaced the pot, allowing the fresh coffee to flow freely.

Serendipity works
, thought Maricel, as soon as she heard the
flump
from Zimmerman’s falling body.
Five down; one to go.

She finished her message to Lucas—the last line being, “
remember they’re all armed
,” then dropped her phone into a pocket. After waiting a few minutes for the coffee to finish, she poured the other tainted cup full, set it on the tray, and walked out to where the last of the lot, Washington, the only black in the group, stood his shift.

Pity about Washington
, she thought.
He’s the only one well hung enough for me to actually
feel
something besides weight.

Tsk-tsking
, she helped ease a swaying Washington to the ground. Her size, from her mainly European, Euro-American, and African-American genetic heritage, was a big help there. Then she reached into her pocket, pulled out her cell, brought up the draft message, and sent it on.

Come and get it.

“Wake up,
tarantados
!” said Lucas. The gang chieftain sat beside the driver’s seat of a large van; one with surprisingly fresh paint. It was parked three blocks away from the Kanos’ place. They’d been sitting there since about twenty minutes after receiving Maricel’s first message.

There were seven in the van, including Lucas, though it had room to put in seats for fourteen. All seven were armed. Among the others were Rafael, driving, and Crisanto, the kidnap team leader. Crisanto was one of the very few, and highly prized, members of TCS with a substantial military background, in his case in the Philippine Marine Corps. Under different circumstances, he’d have been a prized accession for M Day, as well.

The seven were crowded toward the front. The back had been left seatless, to allow a flat place to pile the presumptively unconscious prisoners.

The van moved gently and quietly from its parking spot. This far from the center of town there was no traffic to speak of. In mere minutes—obeying the posted speed limits the whole way—it was in front of the safe house, with Lucas, Crisanto, and four more piling out to where Maricel waited.

“Remember,” she hissed, “two of them are
not
drugged. Be careful!”

“We know,” Lucas replied as he pushed past her. “Get in the van.”

“And don’t . . .” Whatever she had been about to say was lost. Nobody was listening. Indeed, nobody was even talking, snapping and pointing fingers substituting for vocal commands.

Crisanto pointed down at Washington and snapped his fingers. Immediately, two of his men bent over the prostrate black, flipped him to his belly, then taped his hands together at the wrists and his feet at the ankles. One pulled a sap from his belt and gave the bound prisoner a none-too-gentle rap on the head. It wouldn’t kill him . . . probably . . . but would ensure that he wouldn’t be calling out to anyone if the drug wore off. Washington’s submachine gun went by its sling over the kidnapper’s shoulder. The night vision goggles were left draped around the Kano’s neck. They could be recovered later.

Lucas, Crisanto, and two others pushed on into the house, padding gently on bare feet. Another snap and a point and those two were on Zimmerman. They both squatted to one side, grabbed the American’s clothing, and hoisted him over to his front. Short strips of duct tape were pulled from pockets and quickly and expertly applied. By that time, the first pair, those who had bound Washington, were in the house. Crisanto pointed decisively up the stairs. With brisk nods the kidnappers began to ascend.

Baker, who wasn’t precisely young anymore, grumbled as he stumbled across his darkened room to the doorway that led to the hallway bath. “Goddamned, bladder. If they’d told me I’d be pissing half a dozen times a night once I hit forty-five; I’d have arranged to die young.”

It was an emergency thing; Baker didn’t have time to put on his armor.

After flicking on the light to find the doorknob, a blinking Baker stepped out into the dusky tiled hall. Only to bump into a little tattooed, barefoot and brown guy, with a gun . . . who duly panicked, putting three rounds in rapid succession into Baker’s abdomen. He didn’t have to go to the bathroom after that though he did have to scream.

“What the F . . . !” Malone, the only member of Benson’s half team who was both unshot and undrugged, was out of bed, alert, if confused—and not a little frightened, within a fraction of a second of the last shot being fired. His rifle was handy enough, but at the probable ranges inside a house a large bore pistol, with its superior knock-down power, was better. He eased his pistol out of the shoulder holster resting on the night table beside the bed.

Malone squatted down and duck walked to his door as fast as worn and arthritic knees would carry him. Pistol aimed up at forty-five degrees in his right hand, his left began to turn the knob, slowly, gently, and quietly. He hadn’t quite finished the motion when the door thudded with a kick and flew open.

The muzzle of some kind of firearm—Malone guessed a pistol—flashed about eighteen inches above his head, generally horizontally. It was close enough to hurt, close enough to burn, but wasn’t aimed at the low spot he’d taken. Malone fired two rounds. The next muzzle flash went up toward the ceiling. He shifted himself and his aim to a dimly sensed presence farther back in the hallway, firing twice more. He couldn’t be sure, thereafter, whether the flop he’d heard was a body or a man trying desperately to find some cover.

Shouts and a scream told the American that there was more than one stranger in the house.
Oh, shit! Baker’s down. Shit, fuck, suck . . . we’re being raided. But
why?
And what about the guards? And where the fuck are Benson and Perez? And poor Maricel’s probably scared shitless.

It was that last, the thought of a helpless woman cowering under her bed, that sent Malone out—still squatting—into the darkened hallway.

Goddammit
! Crisanto mentally cursed, as soon as he heard the first shot.
Stupid, fucking, hot-rodding, undisciplined rabble. And Lucas thinks I can make something out of this shit!

Though his service with the Philippine Marines had been prematurely truncated by court-martial—a little matter of losing track of a truck carrying seventeen Singapore-built light machine guns and about half a million rounds of ammunition—Crisanto was still proud of his service, in both senses, and still measured all things by the standards—the tactical and disciplinary standards, if not the moral ones—of the Philippine Marines. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the weapons hadn’t been, most embarrassingly, the property of the Philippine Army, on loan to the Corps. But, as Crisanto had told his lawyer, “If they’d been Marine property, I’d never have sold them to the New People’s Army. But
Army
guns? What’s the big deal? It’s not like they were fucking Moros, after all.”

The lawyer hadn’t been impressed with that argument, nor had the judge been impressed with the arguments the lawyer
had
come up with. In the end, only lack of certain evidence had kept Crisanto from a very hard period of penal servitude. At least, that was the official reason. Unofficially, Crisanto had had to pay over everything he’d made on the deal to the judge. He’d still been discharged. At loose ends, thereafter, and broke, to boot, he’d wandered home, to his old neighborhood of Tondo, only to discover it was under new management. Since he’d needed a job, and TCS had needed some military expertise it just didn’t have, it had been a perfect match.

Or almost perfect; there was still the little problem of trying to instill some discipline into the human material.

Nerves or anger, or just too small a target, when Crisanto saw the very top of the Kano’s head rising over the edge of the top step, he fired . . . and missed. On the plus side, when the Kano fired back his three rounds impacted the wall, about five feet over Crisanto’s head sending plaster dust and shards to air and floor. It was a reasonable guess that neither of them ever got a good look at, let alone a sight picture on, the other.

Dumbass
! Dumbass!
DUMBASS
! Malone thought.
Seven rounds and one in the chamber. And I’ve fired seven and left the other magazines back in the room. And the last three were a complete waste. Dumbass, dipshit, cocksucker. I almost deserve what’s coming.

But deserve it or not, I’d rather avoid it.

Keeping the pistol horizontal, he duckwalked back to his room door and slithered inside. Only then, only when he was behind cover, did he stand and race for the other three magazines. He rotated his body to bring the pistol over the bed, then pressed the round magazine release. The empty mag fell without a sound audible from more than a few inches away. The fresh mag went in with an audible click, but he didn’t really care about that.