Fear and Anger (The 47 Echo Series) (17 page)

Chapter Twenty

Going Sideways

The car, Feng told him, would take two days to complete. That was fine, though – the train wouldn’t leave for at least another eight days.

In the fall of 2018, Nick spent four months in jail awaiting trial for five counts of murder in the first degree. His first cellmate was a huge, overmuscled White Supremacist named Colin Bluth, but that roommate situation hadn’t lasted long. On the first day in the cell, Bluth tried to assert his dominance over what he thought was a little Chinese kid, and Nick broke his nose, jaw, right elbow, left kneecap, and most of his ribs. While the guards initially put Nick in a cell block with mostly supremacists for their own amusement, the warden realized he was going to have to deal with a lot of paperwork if Nick kept kicking the shit out of every cellmate he had, so he was quietly transferred to a room with a black gangbanger and armed robber named Antonio Wade.

Wade was a pretty good guy for a criminal, and he and Nick got along fine. Before he’d gotten caught, Wade managed to stay on the run from police for eight and a half months, and he often told Nick stories about how he’d done it. What stuck with Nick now – two and a half years later on the other side of the world – was Antonio Wade in a friend’s apartment three blocks from the police station.

“I couldn’t even leave to go get smokes, I was so paranoid,” Wade told him, grinning as he remembered. “I stayed in that one apartment for two months. No TV, no internet, and a busted damn radio.”

“How did you pass the time?” Nick asked.

“Same way I pass the time in here, man. Sleep a lot. Try to get my hands on something to read. Count the hours, do some sit-ups. Break everything up into half-hour blocks, because those are less intimidating than whole hours. You find a way to spend a couple of blocks without leaving the room, then you find a way to waste another couple. When the alternative is getting caught, you don’t even mind the boredom after a while.”

Staying in the tiny room with Hansen in the back of the auto garage didn’t bother Nick much. Boredom, downtime – that stuff was crushing to him these day. But when the alternative was getting caught... well, he’d deal. He’d catch up on sleep, do sit-ups, smoke cigarettes. Eight days definitely wasn’t four months, and it certainly wasn’t however long he was to have been on death row before the Convict Conscript Act passed.

It wasn’t that easy, though. It never was for Nick.

After he and Feng got back from torching the truck, they’d easily cut the padlocks off the front door and left enough evidence around to make it look like someone else had stolen the truck. Feng lived above the garage, and he invited Nick upstairs for something to eat before they went to check in on Hansen and bring him some food.

Hansen was still on the couch, laying on his right side to keep pressure off his left leg. But as soon as Nick walked in, he could see the young pilot was in bad shape. He’d only left Hansen for about eight hours, but his condition had slid off the tracks since then. Nick first noticed the cushions near the young pilot’s head – they were soaked with sweat.

“Hansen? How are you feeling?” Nick asked, crouching down next to the couch.

“Fuck you, Chink,” Hansen growled, his words slurred.

Nick ignored the slurred slur and placed the back of his left hand on Hansen’s forehead. The young pilot immediately threw a wild left-handed punch at Nick’s head, but Nick was expecting it, and blocked it easily with his right hand. The punch was weak, and the pilot’s hand was clammy.

“His temperature is through the roof,” Nick said to Feng. “Grab me that medical kit over there, will you?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Feng asked as he set the kit down by Nick, not wanting to get too close to the flailing white guy on the couch.

“My guess – infection. That’s where the fever is coming from. I have some antibiotics in here somewhere...” Nick rummaged around in the kit and came up with a pill bottle. “There we go. Not a whole ton left.”

He opened the bottle, and he could see there were only a few pills. Nick’s own fault – he’d taken them for a bullet graze after a blood transfusion the week before. He and his sniper Daniel had both been on them, per the orders of their recently deceased medic. There wouldn’t be enough for a ten-day course, which Nick remembered was standard for antibiotics. Still, something was better than nothing.

Forcing Hansen’s mouth open wasn’t hard, and Nick tossed one of the horse pills inside and grabbed a bottle of water. He made Hansen take a few gulps.
Just like giving meds to the family dog
.

“You want some more painkillers, Hansen?” Nick said, holding up the bottle of Hydrocodone.

Hansen responded with a middle finger, but took the bottle and tried to open it anyway. He couldn’t get the top off, but Nick let him struggle with it as he pulled Feng to the side and spoke to him in a low voice.

“You have a doctor you can trust?” Nick asked.

“I have a guy
I
trust, personally. But if we show him two wanted American fugitives? No, I don’t trust him with that.”

“Anything. Medic, nurse, veterinarian?”

Feng shook his head. Nick wanted to tell him, again, about how shoddily this resistance cell was organized, but that could wait for another time. He’d need to do something about Hansen, and do it soon. He didn’t know if the antibiotics he had were strong enough, and even if they were, he knew he didn’t have anywhere near enough of them to keep Hansen alive until the train was a viable escape option. He didn’t even know if the antibiotics
would
keep Hansen alive.

“I need to get some sort of medical attention for him. Work with me, here,” Nick said.

“Let me ask around. Yuan might know someone. But we might have to deal with the fact that a doctor simply won’t happen. So what else can I do to help?”

“Those computers – can you get past the GFOC with them?”

Feng raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry. American expression. Great Firewall of China. The government censorship system?”

“Yeah. I can get most anything off the Web.”

“Good. Get me a connection, and I’ll see what else we can do for him. I’ll do some research.”

Feng nodded, and crossed over to the table with the computers. He brought one of them up, unlocked it, and motioned Nick over.

“I have to go open up the shop,” Feng said. “Can you keep him quiet? The room’s isolated, but it’s not soundproof, and I know the PLA will be poking around about their missing truck today.”

“Yeah, Feng. Thanks.”

The information Nick found wasn’t promising. The first thing the internet suggested was that he change the bandage and clean the area, which he did. He noticed that the gash on Hansen’s leg was swollen, with red lines spreading out from the initial wound. Another bad sign, and definitely an infection, according to the Internet. That combined with a fever all added up to “seek medical attention immediately” at every site Nick visited. One site agreed with him that antibiotics were key, but they should have been started days before when Hansen got the initial injury. Apart from bandaging his leg and spraying it with antiseptic, Hansen hadn’t taken any action to address the leg wound, not even changing the bandage. From all the data Nick got on the Web, he knew the infection was in very bad shape. All he could do now was keep it clean, keep Hansen on the antibiotics, and hope it didn’t get any worse until they could get him to a doctor.

The lethargy and weakness was definitely a bad sign, though, as was the general disgusting condition of the wound. Hansen had already been fighting the infection for days, and he was losing. Fortunately, Hansen was passed out for the moment. Nick did some research into natural antibiotics, but didn’t get far with that – his findings told him that most non-prescription items with antibiotic properties would do as much good for Hansen’s infection as shouting at it.

Feng returned almost ten hours later. He looked exhausted, but Nick knew he hadn’t slept. Neither had Nick, but he had the advantage of stimulants.

“How’s your friend?” Feng asked.

“Not good,” Nick said. “We really need to get him to a doctor.”

“Yuan is coming by soon. We’ll ask him.”

Yuan was not at all helpful. He met Nick and Feng out in the garage. When he’d heard Hansen was sick, he refused to go into the back room with him, as if the infection could spread to him. As he walked out into the garage, Nick noticed a BYD F3 compact car half-assembled in one corner – his ride, he guessed.

“Shoot him in the head.”

That was Yuan’s suggestion.

“Then we dump his body in the water and hope it doesn’t get traced back to us,” Yuan continued.

Before Nick could speak – and it was obvious to everyone in the garage that he was about to lay into the older man – Feng stepped in.

“Nick was thinking more along the lines of a doctor, or medicine,” he said, placing a hand on Nick’s arm as if that would keep him from pouncing on the older man.

“Too much risk,” Yuan said, shaking his head. “He’s obviously an American. That will bring up questions. Even if we dropped him at the hospital, he could lead the authorities right to us.”

“We’re not shooting him,” Nick said, his eyes staring into Yuan’s, hard and unblinking.

“Fine. I’ll do it,” Yuan said, sighing and taking a pistol out of his jacket.

“You so much as breathe in his direction, I will end you,” Nick growled, stepping toe to toe with the older man and blocking his path.

“You have to understand my position here –” Yuan started, scowling.

“I don’t have to understand shit. Now back up and put that gun away, unless you think I won’t kick the shit out of a senior citizen.”

Yuan stood his ground for a moment, but folded the second Nick leaned in closer toward him.

“Fine. Fine. You deal with him, then,” the old man said, shoving the pistol back into his coat and making a show of walking to the other side of the garage.

“Feng, how soon can you have that car ready?”

“Another day. Tomorrow evening. You can’t leave until dark anyway,” Feng said. “But I can make sure it’s done by sundown.”

“Good. Get it ready, and I’ll just drive us out of here tomorrow night. I’ll take my chances on the road – I can get to the Kazakh border faster than the train, anyway.”

Feng nodded.

“Don’t let Yuan get under your skin,” he said quietly. “He’s under a lot of pressure.”

“I know all about pressure,” Nick said, his heartbeat still pumping in his ears. “Still, get him out of here before I crack his spine like kindling.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Forbidden Zone

Despite his crew’s assurances to the contrary, Christopher couldn’t help feeling that he’d completely fucked the mission.

Sure, they
might
have damaged the ELR’s power supply. Yes, they
might
get the squawk again and be able to track the vehicle once more. But “might” was far from equaling mission success. In fact, “might” sounded a lot like “won’t” in his mind.

If the other Razor had even slowed down, 47 Echo certainly didn’t know about it. All they knew is that the squawk had gone silent again, and they were back in the same boat as an hour before. Worse, probably, as the people in the ELR could probably guess that someone was after them now.

“Anything?” Christopher asked Anthony as he walked by the young comm tech’s station. He’d been pacing back and forth in the moving Razor for the better part of ten minutes.

“Sorry, Chief. Nothing,” Anthony said.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Carson said, holding up a hand to stop Chris from making another orbit of the Razor’s cabin.

“What’ve you got, Carson?”

“Chatter. NoKo army frequencies. Stuff we broke the encryption on months ago,” Carson told him. “Some about the explosion, but I’m getting other stuff.”

Christopher stood for a moment, just looking at the Ranger.

“And?”

“Sorry, Gunny. Still getting used to the way y’all do things around here. I usually need permission to talk,” Carson said, grinning. “Anyway, stuff from listening posts. One that’s a request – in English – to bounce a message to NoKo SF in Pyongyang.”

“You intercept the message?” Christopher asked.

“Yeah, but it’s encrypted. Email, I think,” Carson said.

“Let me take a look at that,” Mary piped up, crossing the Razor and taking a look at Carson’s screen.

“Think you can do anything with it?” Christopher asked.

“I’d be surprised if I couldn’t,” she said.

Christopher felt the cell phone Neal gave him buzz in his front pocket. He pulled it out and swiped across the screen. Luckily, the text message popped up on its own, because Christopher couldn’t remember the last time he’d used that particular phone – his late teens, he thought.

Identity of three other conspirators confirmed
, the message read.
Convict Trevor Washington, Army Kilo, Armed Robbery and Murder 1. Convict Lawrence Hardy, Army India, Identity Theft and Computer Crimes. Convict Reed Campbell, Army Kilo, Murder 1. Pictures to follow
.

Christopher looked up from the phone and saw Mary was still working on decrypting the intercepted email. As his point person on the fugitives, she needed to see this information, but he preferred not to interrupt her when she was in the zone, and she definitely was right then. Of any of his people, she could handle multitasking the best, but he needed to know what the message said.

“Pete,” he said, “Hop on down here.”

Peter dropped out of his turret and landed, catlike, on the deck next to Christopher. He stood and stretched.

“What’s up, Chief?”

“Check this out,” Christopher said, handing his SIC the iPhone as the pictures came through.

“Three more, eh? Black guy, black guy, white guy. We know anything more about them?”

“Not yet. But at least we know how many there are, minimum.”

“And we got ‘em outnumbered on bodies, anyway.”