Tiger by the Tail (48 page)

She had thought she could withstand it.

She had been wrong.

If she had had any idea of what was going to happen to her, she would have used the poisoned needles hidden in her slippers to kill the general. But those had been taken from her, along with every other stitch of clothing, the moment she had set foot on the yacht.

Cong had broken her after twenty hours of continuous torment, dosing her and himself with speed to keep them both awake. He would also snort lines of cocaine from time to time, alternating that with swigging glasses of chilled Dom Perignon champagne. When she passed out from the continuous abuse, he would dump ice-cold water on her to awaken her again.

Currently, she was suspended upside-down, with her bloody, swollen ankles chained to a rod that kept her legs spread-eagled. Cong had taken great pleasure in informing her that this technique was called “hip-splitting,” and after several hours in the device, she knew why. Her entire body from the waist down had been in unrelenting agony for hours until her legs had gone numb. During this time she had been repeatedly sodomized in both her vagina and her anus. Cong had poured hot pepper oil on her genitals, then rammed the end of a police baton into her. After that, he would insert ice cubes into her vagina and leave them there until they had melted, making her shake uncontrollably with the cold and pain.

Clamps had been attached to her nipples, and electric shocks had been administered as well. Cong also delighted in using a variety of whips, including a cat-o-nine-tails with small barbs woven into the leather. He had taken great joy in whipping the palms of her hands and soles of her feet until they were reduced to skinless, bloody pieces of meat.

As hard as she had tried not to, Soon Yi had told him everything she knew; the fact that she was an intelligence agent, that she had been tracking the computer boards, even everything she knew about the mercenaries he had hired. The information had flowed out of her in an endless babble as she offered up anything to try to stop him from hurting her any more. But the pain just kept coming, until she was nearly insensate.

He had finally wound down, and had spent the last thirty minutes walking around her. Occasionally he would slap her lightly with the scourge before sitting on a metal chair that was bolted to the floor in front of her. In the dark recesses of her mind, Soon Yi was terrified that he would begin whipping her face, then kill her.

Dimly, the part of her that was still an agent noted an empty champagne bottle on the floor, near her bloody hands. But she was too cowed to try to reach for it, not with him so close. If she failed, he would certainly kill her.

And would that be so bad now?
she asked herself. No one was coming to rescue her. No one even knew where she was at the moment. Cong had stripped her of every scrap of clothing, and the implant didn’t have a long enough range without the antenna in her dress.

No,
she thought just as strongly.
If I am to die, I will take him with me.
That thought was the only one that sustained her through the hours that had followed.

Suddenly Cong stood again, and Soon Yi tried not to react as he approached her. But when he was just a step away, the lights went out.

“What the fuck?” He muttered in the sudden darkness before stomping off toward the door.

It was now or never.

Stretching out her abused muscles, Soon Yi reached for the champagne bottle with her maimed hands. She felt the slick glass slip under her questing, bloody fingers, and bit back a sob as she tried to keep it from rolling away. Her hips, thighs, and chest felt like they were going to shatter under the pressure. Still she reached out with every remaining bit of strength she had, the cool glass bottle so close to her, yet still so far.

Just one more inch
. . .

* * *

With Mike in the lead, the four men swept through the lower deck of the ship like a bullet-spraying whirlwind. With their silenced weapons, body armor, and night vision giving them an almost unassailable tactical advantage, they mowed down a half-dozen of the general’s guards before they even knew what had hit them.

The only snag had come when one of the men had managed to shine a flashlight down the corridor, nearly blinding Mike and Adams. A quick three-round burst had taken him out and shattered the flashlight too. From that point on they had been careful to approach corners and doorways cautiously, in case someone else had gotten that bright idea.

Sporadic gunfire could be heard elsewhere in the ship, but the Kildar and his team were focused on their specific target. Turning down one more corridor, they leap-frogged toward the door at the end of the hallway. Cong’s personal bedroom.

The door was locked, but Mike fixed that by putting two three-round bursts through the lock. With Jace flattened on the wall to his right and Adams on the left, he slid the pocket door open and covered the right flank. Mike stepped into the room and moved right, with Jace taking the left side and Adams going up the middle.

The room was empty, except for another door beside the bed that was also closed. This one, however, was slightly ajar, and when Mike stood to one side and touched it, two shots rang out and bullet holes appeared in the teak wood.

“Son of a bitch is ruining my boat,” Mike muttered.

“Anyone comes in here and they die!” Cong shouted from inside. “I have an agent from the Ministry of Security in here as my hostage! She will die first if anyone comes inside!”

Jace translated that, adding, “He sounds unhinged, like he’s been up for a while. If he does have Soon Yi in there as a hostage, he’ll try to bargain his way out.”

“Fuck, I don’t have time for that. Keep him talking.” Mike went around the bed and up to the wall separating the two rooms.

Meanwhile, Jace took his position near the door. “All right, just calm down, and no one else has to get hurt. What do you want?”

“No one comes in or the bitch dies! I want my cigarette boat prepared, and all of my gems put aboard. Then, I will take this bitch and cast—”

That was as far as he had gotten before Mike put two bursts through the wall, aiming for where he thought the general was standing.

* * *

Soon Yi had just gotten her fingers around the bottle neck when Cong fired twice and scurried back to stand near her, shouting at the intruders in his bedroom as he did so.

By now her eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness, and she could sense exactly where he was standing. The chair was also nearby, and she rallied her battered, exhausted body for one more try.

As someone—she thought it might be Jace—shouted from outside, Cong began angily shouting back. Suddenly she heard the sound of cloth ripping, and six holes appeared in the far wall, the bullets making them flying high and smacking into the other wall of the torture room.

However, the shots had distracted Cong just long enough. As he twisted and returned fire, Soon put everything she had into smashing the champagne bottle against the leg of the metal chair. The glass shattered at the blow, leaving her with the neck and a jagged ring of sharp glass at the end. She had been terrified that the entire bottle would smash to pieces, but fortunately that hadn’t happened.

Shouting and shooting wildly, Cong hadn’t even heard the bottle break. Sucking in a deep breath, she curled her upper body up and stabbed at where she thought his crotch was, twisting as hard as she could with her mauled hand.

The high, piercing scream he let out told her she must have gotten pretty close.

* * *

When Cong had started returning fire, everyone in the outer room had ducked for cover. Then they all heard a loud shriek of someone in mortal agony.

“Go!” Mike said.

Jace shoved the door open and leaped inside, covering the right side of the room. Adams was right behind him, going left. Mike went up the middle, and Oleg held the doorway.

When he reached the corner, Jace shouted, “Clear!” and turned toward the center of the room. The stink had hit him right before he saw what had been done to Soon Yi. “Jesus Christ . . .”

“Get her down
now!
” Mike stood over the general, who was sobbing as he clutched both hands over his privates. “The general is cleared.”

Jace had slung his weapon and was unshackling Soon Yi from the restraints. “Sorry about this,” he said as he ran an arm around her back and supported her while releasing the last shackle. He took her to the bed outside and wrapped her in the silk comforter.

“Oleg, bring me a sheet from the other room. No sense in getting blood all over my floor,” Mike said.

The big man grabbed a burgundy silk sheet from the bed and stepped into the torture chamber. Moments later, he reappeared with Mike. Both of them were dragging the Chinese general, who was wrapped in the sheet, out onto the floor. Mike looked over at Jace and Soon Yi as they headed to the bedroom entrance. “Bring her, she will want to see this.”

Jace picked up the Chinese woman and followed them. She trembled in his embrace, and he didn’t blame her—right now, he guessed the last thing she wanted to be near was any man.

Cong had gotten his wits about him on the way to the aft deck, and was pleading in Cantonese to anyone who would listen. “What the fuck is he saying?” Mike asked.

“He says he can make us all rich beyond anything we could imagine if we just let him live. This boat, the gems, all of it is ours if we let him go in the smaller boat.”

Mike’s smile was a wolf’s-head grin. “Is that so? Oleg—” He motioned at the huge Keldara, who stepped over and picked the smaller man up by his neck. He walked to the stern of the yacht and held the general over the water, letting blood drops from his injured genitals drip down his legs and into the water.

Cong wheezed and grabbed at Oleg’s huge fingers, trying to pry them away from his throat. He might as well have tried to bend steel.

“Here is my answer. There’s nothing he can offer me that I have not already taken from him. His boat is mine. His guns are mine. His gems are mine.”

Mike got up and leaned out so that his face was only inches away from the other man’s. “I told you to enjoy this while you could, you son of a bitch, because you would be seeing me again. And now you have.”

He nodded at Oleg, who slowly tightened his grip around Cong’s throat. The Chinese man tried to scream, but the sound was choked off as the huge Keldara crushed his larynx and trachea. Cong’s face turned red, then purple as the oxygen was cut off to his lungs first, and then his brain. Oleg gave his crushed windpipe one final squeeze, then dropped him overboard, where the hungry sharks were already waiting.

The general didn’t make another sound as the sharks thrashed and fought over their prize.

EPILOGUE

Lieutenant Fang Gui sipped his coffee and set the cup back down on the table.

“So, let me get this straight. You tracked Cong to the middle of the jungle, where he betrayed you and left you as slave labor in Myanmar’s gem mines. You promptly escaped and followed his trail to the nuclear facility near—Chaunggyi, right?—and learned that a cabal of military generals were about to cause a nuclear accident to throw the country into turmoil and use that to launch a military coup?”

“Right so far,” Mike replied.

“Then, you found out that the weapons being used in this
coup d’etat
were in Mandalay, so you went there and took them back.
Then
you rounded up a group of out-of-work Gurkhas and managed to fly them and your men down to Yangon in time to stop a contingent of the same army from taking over City Hall?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but—”

“If it wasn’t for the intelligence we’ve been getting out of Myanmar over the past twenty-four hours, I would have said you were insane to even try to feed me this story.” Fang sighed and shook his head. “However, given what we have heard, I have little choice but to accept your version of events.”

Mike sipped his coffee. “It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not, that’s the way it went down.”

It was thirty-six hours later, and the two men were enjoying a late breakfast at Sky on 57, on the 57th floor of the Marina Bay Sands Singapore. They were the only ones on the terrace, since Mike had reserved the entire place for his meeting with the lieutenant. He figured the eight billion-dollar hotel, casino, and entertainment complex was a fitting place for his team to stay for a bit of R & R after everything that had gone down.

Vanel and Soon Yi were both getting the best medical care he could find in the country, although Yi’s injuries were far more extensive. Mike couldn’t help wondering if she would ever be herself again after what Cong—and he—had put her through. He had considered going to see her, but decided against it, figuring that paying for her care here for as long as it took would have to be apology enough for what had happened.

The rest of his people were enjoying the luxurious rooms, sightseeing, or, in Adams’ case, gambling and partying almost nonstop. Mike had approved that on the condition that the master chief not leave the complex. Adams had just grinned and said, “Leave the building? Hell, I’m not sure I’m going back with you when you leave the
country
!”

“That, however, does leave a few unanswered questions, Mr. Jenkins . . .” The police lieutenant’s voice brought Mike back to the present, and he looked over to find the other man steepling his fingers as he regarded him. “For example, there is the matter of the computer boards.”

“I’m afraid that in all the running around, I never got the chance to get them back from Cong. If they’re not still in the facility, then I have no idea where they are.” Unlike what he had told the police officer earlier, only some of this statement was true. Specifically, the part about not knowing where they were. The rest was pure bull—Mike had made sure that the Super Hercules crew had taken the boards back with them, and let Bob Pierson know that they were inbound. The U.S. government would have all the time in the world to look them over, and then, at some future date, they would be “recovered” and returned to the Chinese government.