the weapons he had secreted beneath.
“Y’all might as well eat,” Ruiz said, barely intelligible around a bite of food.
“How can you eat at a time like this?”
“The food is good. Eat.”
“You’re a goat, all right.”
“Just being practical. You’re going to need the energy.” Ruiz glanced around without moving his head. “Plus, you need to look like you’re eating rather than sitting round scoping the place.”
Walker picked at the pork with his chopsticks. He slid one piece into his mouth, aware that they only had three minutes. His increasingly heightened tension made it taste like clay, but to keep up appearances he chewed the piece of meat until it was macerated into a paste.
Finally it was time.
Yaya, dressed as a woman, got up at the same time as Surrey. They both made a beeline for the bathroom. Surrey was there first, but Yaya pushed her out of the way, entered the bathroom, and slammed the door behind him.
Surrey tried to open the door, but it was locked. She began to bang heartily on the hollow wooden door. “It was my turn!” She began shouting at the top of her lungs, “Get out!” Each protest was accompanied by a thump on the door.
The entire Chinese waitstaff came running, shocked and dismayed by the ugly American antics. One of them, a petite waitress, put her hand on Surrey’s arm and was shoved away for her efforts. Meanwhile, Surrey had added
By now, everyone was on their feet. One of the tables of real customers, a father, a mother, and two daughters couldn’t take it anymore. They left, but not before the father threw a scalding look at the interior of the restaurant as he dropped a pile of bills to pay for their meal.
Laws acted the part of the confused husband as he approached the door. But instead of speaking English, he spoke Arabic, which confused the waitstaff and seemed to enrage Surrey.
Surrey whirled on Laws and threw a punch toward him. The waitstaff shrieked at this. Laws ducked aside, backing away with his hands out.
“You better run, Arab lover,” Surrey growled.
The remaining customers took off without paying.
Ruiz and Walker approached the group surrounding the door. “Can I help?” Walker asked, turning on his boy- next-door charm for the Chinese to see.
Surrey gave him a smoldering look. “Sure, if you can get the towelhead out of the bathroom so I can cop a squat.”
Those Chinese who spoke enough English to understand the vulgarity whispered harshly to the others. Two male cooks who’d been standing at the door came into the front room. One held a cleaver that looked as if it had been used in the Boxer Rebellion to decapitate British soldiers.
It was time. If the ICE and FBI agents reacted according to plan, the restaurant staff had been segregated from the Triad members in the subbasement. Communications had already been cut. A cell-phone jammer was positioned outside, as was an FBI QRF, in the event the cavalry needed to be called in. Walker hoped it didn’t come to that. If it did, it meant that their mission had failed and one or all of them were dead.
The door to the bathroom opened wide. But instead of the burka-wearing Middle Eastern woman, Yaya stood there in full combat gear. He swept a Super 90 toward the waitstaff. MP5s and other gear hung from his shoulders and neck. Surrey pulled a Walther from her purse and pointed it at the waitstaff.
“Everyone outside,” Laws said in both English and Chinese.
The waitstaff’s eyes had gotten as large as soup bowls. They complied meekly, moving as a single multi- limbed mob out the front door.
The cook with the cleaver bolted. He only got as far as Ruiz, who caught him by the neck. He disarmed him and soon had him in a choke hold.
The other cook held up his hands, ducked, and hurried toward the front door.
Yaya passed MP5s to Laws and Surrey. Ruiz, having deposited the unconscious cook into one of the booths, grabbed his Super 90. From a bag, he passed around enough NVGs and MBITRs for the team and Surrey.
Walker had his 9mm in hand and was poised at the door to the kitchen.
Laws made a commo check. Everyone acknowledged, including the two ICE agents who were undercover delivering food and the FBI agent who’d been busily pretending to be a health inspector. What had begun as a hastily designed, multiagency mission the previous evening appeared to be coming off without a hitch. It had taken some doing for the FBI to relinquish operational control, which they’d initially insisted upon because of the presence of the threat on American soil. But a phone call from Senator Withers of the Sissy to the director of the FBI had ensured that cooperation would be forthcoming. All they asked was to be allowed to participate.
With the restaurant staff safely outside, Laws, Yaya, Walker, Ruiz, and Surrey moved into the kitchen.
Laws reached into the fortune-cookie box, broke one open, and read it over the MBITR. “‘You will soon be surrounded by good friends and laughter.’”
“In bed,” Ruiz added.
“What’s that?” Surrey asked.
“One of our departed brothers used to say that at the end of every fortune in a Chinese cookie you could add the words ‘in bed’ and they’d make perfect sense,” Laws explained.
“Then it sounds like we have an auspicious beginning,” Surrey said. “Can’t wait until I’m surrounded by good friends and laughter.”
“In bed,” Ruiz added.
“In bed,” Surrey corrected herself.
FBI agent Stephens waited in the basement along with the ICE agents. They wore black ballistic jackets with their agency affiliation in big white letters. Each of them held a 9mm. Although they had MBITRs, they weren’t assigned NVGs. They seemed eager to get to the subbasement, but they weren’t eager to walk into the mouth of a dragon, even if it was sleeping. That was something better done by SEAL Team 666.
It was believed that the subbasement had only one avenue of ingress and egress, the stairs down from the actual basement where the restaurant kept its stock of supplies. Under cover of the preceding night, a Special Warfare support team had used ground-penetrating radar, originally designed for demining operations, to try and detect any tunnels. They’d found none.
One of the strategies they’d discussed was to flood the subbasement with gas. Without knowing what sort of ventilation they had and without knowing who they had down there, the fear of accidentally asphyxiating innocents like the sweatshop seamstresses convinced everyone that this strategy wasn’t the right one.
In the end, they decided to conduct a frontal assault. The power would be cut and they’d move in quick. They synced watches, then donned the NVGs. Ten seconds later, the power was out and SEAL Team 666 and Surrey spun up the green universe. They had about fifteen seconds before the backup generator kicked in.
Yaya was the first one down the stairs, with the rest of the team stacked behind him. The stairway opened directly into a large rectangular room filled with furniture and people. As soon as his aiming laser touched a Triad member, he let free two-round bursts.
Now in the room, the rest of the team fanned out behind him.
Laws’s MP5 snapped, the sound like rapid-fire dog barks.
Walker tracked the action, but held fire, just as Surrey did.
Ruiz’s Super 90 roared once.
When the lights snapped back on, they pushed the NVGs back on their heads.
One Triad enforcer was trying to get to his feet. Surrey shot him in the leg. Walker shot him in the head. When she looked questioningly at him, he said, “We’re not here to arrest anyone.”
She turned back toward the room, her face even more serious than it was before.
Eight enforcers lay dead on the floor. Several sets of tables took up the middle of the room. Couches hugged the walls, where posters of fancy cars were taped. Toward the rear of the room was a kitchenette with a microwave and a full-sized refrigerator. A steel door was in the back wall.
“Damn,” Yaya said, straightening up. “I guess there goes the element of surprise.”
